The following is a recounting of real-life events that occurred many years ago, told as accurately as my memory serves me. Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

Terri walked out.

"You gotta do something about this. She's driving me fucking nuts." Darren got up from where he was lying on his bed, threw back the last mouthful of the beer in his hand, and exchanged it for a new bottle from the ice-filled cooler in the middle of the floor.

"Huh? Who?" I asked. My eyes followed him across the room as he shuffled passed the foot of the spare bed I was lying on and reached out to swing closed the door to his barracks room.

This door was near-always open. From the moment he returned from work in the late afternoon, until just before he turned off his light to go to sleep, Darren's door was forever inviting in passers-by. Anyone who wanted a beer and a casual conversation knew to come here. I was almost a permanent fixture here myself, entering most evenings just after the door opened and leaving just before it closed. More partying took place here than in the actual "common room" designed for that purpose. The door was always open. The cooler was always full.

To close the door in the middle of the evening was simply unheard of. People passing outside would be so taken back as to stop and ponder why. The dull thud of the wood against the frame was like the ominous sound of thunder on the horizon. The metallic click of the lock was the tolling of a death knell on what had previously been a cheerful conversation. He did not need warn me the need for secrecy; whatever transpired next was to be held in the strictest confidence.

I watched intently as his sandals scuffed against the dingy, beer-stained tiles as he quietly made his way back to his bed. He returned to his previous position more by falling over than by sitting. He sighed heavily and drank deeply before fixing his gaze on mine once more. I suspected I knew what he was about to tell me, but I wanted it laid out. I needed him to tell me clearly, precisely, whatever it was that he knew. I wanted no room for doubt.

After a pause for effect, his free hand flailed wildly as he rasped as me again. "She's driving me fucking nuts."

"Who? Terri?" I asked, as if it weren't blatantly obvious.

"Yes, Terri! All fucking day at work. Every day. 'Oh, Darren... he doesn't even know I exist.... Oh, Darren, why doesn't he like me? Oh, Darren... he's so sweet... he's so cute...' Look, don't get me wrong, you're a nice guy, ok? But I don't need to hear about it all goddamn day at work. Will you just talk to the girl? If you want to hook up, hook up. If you don't, then set her straight and shut her up, please. She's driving me nuts."

Darren was a regular here in the summers, just like myself. He and I had been working on summer staff for years. This was Terri's first summer working here and she found herself working alongside Darren daily in the First Aid department. It was a harsh introduction to our summer environment: Darren was a notorious prankster, and in particular he liked to ride the new young officers a little. I often participated, but I was more known as being someone difficult to pull one over on. Few people even tried. In our years of working together in the summers, Darren and I had never before gone after each other, but I was never sure just how far our unspoken truce would last. I felt wary that this might all be a ruse, on one or both of myself and Terri, even as much as I wanted what he was saying to be true.

"You're pulling my leg. You're shitting me. You just want me to go and embarass myself." I shook my head at him.

"Jesus christ, Pat, she comes by every night and sits there looking at you like a deer in the headlights." Darren made a mocking wide-eyed expression with his tongue half hanging out of his mouth.

I thought back. He was right. She did. Each night she bounced down the hall giggling and bubbly, edged cautiously into Darren's room, and positioned herself somewhere near the edge of my peripheral vision where she would then go quiet for an hour or two before humbly slipping away again.

"Then why hasn't she said anything?" I asked, my voice raising slightly and almost back to a normal volume. I caught myself and glanced toward the door, wondering if someone outside might have stopped to listen in.

"'Cause she's too shy. She's as bad as you."

I sighed heavily. He was right. I was both shy and oblivious. My complete inability to assess how women felt about me usually resulted in rejection or missed opportunities. I was thrilled to think that a young woman like Terri might be smitten with me, but my tittilation swirled together with a certain worried confusion. I wasn't sure how I felt about her and I still worried it was all a big joke. I swung my legs off the bed and sat up, head down, staring at my shoes and picking at the label on my bottle. "Alright," I whispered after a long pause to think, "I'll figure something out. Maybe I'll talk to her at the party tonight." I looked up to meet his eyes.

"Good!" he nodded triumphantly, as he lept back to his feet. In an instant the door was open again, and a feeling of life returned once more to the room. Returning to his bed, he muttered one last aside before resuming his ear-to-ear grin and jovial spirit. "I already told her she should try to hook up with you at the party tonight, so she'll probably be throwing herself at you in a couple of hours. If she can figure out how."

I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but I knew I was in for an interesting evening. Just how interesting, I'd never imagined...

Myself, Darren, and my roommate Dillon entered the Officers' Mess together, dressed appropriately in flower-print shirts, ready to party it up at the annual Hawaiian theme-party. We arrived very shortly after the noted start time, but not quite late enough to be "fashionably late". This wasn't by design, it was simply a measure of when we finished dressing and happened to simultaneously finish a round of drinks. The other two were obviously tipsy. Darren was giggling at the slightest provocation, and Dillon was quiet and a little glassy-eyed. For the five beer in me, I should have been a little drunk myself, but the sweaty-palmed tension that raced in my mind was keeping it from dulling too quickly. No doubt the alcohol was affecting me, but I was still quite coherent.

When we emerged into the main bar, we were immediately greeted by none ofther than Terri herself, along with her roommate Sheila. They were on the social committee responsible for decorating for these events, and had been here for hours already, setting up for tonight's soiree. They'd been assigned door duty: greeting each new arrival with a kiss on each cheek, a name tag for their chest, and a fake Hawaiian lei around their neck.

I craned my neck around as though looking for someone else in the room, trying desperately to act casual, as Terri approached, lei in hands. She put my nametag sticker on my chest, and then read it aloud, as if seeing it for the first time.

"Hello.... Patrick!... I'm... Terri!" Her words slurred slightly, and she shifted her weight side to side as he covered her mouth with one hand and giggled.

I knew at once something was wrong, askew, and it wasn't something Darren had planned. How wrong, it would take the three of us another hour or so to fully comprehend. It seems Terri was not what one might term an "experienced drinker", having only tried alcohol for the first time a year or two earlier, having drank on only a dozen or so occassions, and having never before had more than three drinks in one sitting. This evening, while decorating the bar, she'd decided to fill herself with "liquid-courage", and prior to our arrival on the scene she had already pounded back six drinks in rapid succession. What six drinks does to an inexperienced young woman like Terri is practically a marvel of science: it reduced her brain capacity to that of a goldfish. She was unable to carry a conversation, hold more than a single thought in her head at one time, or form new memories. Beyond what had happened in the last 15 seconds or so, she had no idea. Yet surprisingly, given the combination of her shyness and our own drunken states, it took us a while to pick up on just how inebriated she actually was.

She staggered into me, almost knocking me down, kissed me on both cheeks delicately, and put the lei around my neck. Stepping back, she smiled broadly at me in a way that left me feeling a touch uneasy. I smiled back as best I could and nervously edged toward the guys and deeper into the room. We fetched ourselves drinks from the bar and split up to mingle amongst our coworkers. Back at the door, Terri and Sheila were busily kissing people and giggling.

As I stood, talking with someone, there was a lull in the entrants, and I looked away just in time to see Terri come looming at me. She halted just before me and stopped to smile.

"Hello.... Patrick!... I'm... Terri!" Her words slurred, she shifted her weight side to side, covered her mouth with one hand, giggling, and followed along on my nametag with the other index finger. She rushed forward to give me a kiss on each cheek and another lei around the neck before bounding off into the crowd again.

I caught Darren's eye from across the room and screwed up my face at him. He looked in the direction of Terri and back at me again. "She's loaded," he mouthed at me. I nodded vigorously. He ventured off in search of Dillon.

Some time later, the four of us had gathered on a small couch. Mouthing conversation to one another while Terri babbled at us non-sensically, myself, Darren, and Dillon came to the agreement that drunk as she was, if we didn't get Terri out of here, and soon, she was going to either do something to grossly embarass herself (and possibly us) in front of our superiors, or that she'd wake up in some less savory character's bed tomorrow wondering how she got there. But in between fondling my nametag, re-introducing herself, and kissing me on both cheeks approximately every one or two minutes (and sometimes the same to a random passer-by), she was steadfastedly refusing to leave, and insisting instead that I should buy her drinks. I ordered her some "RUM AND COKE!" said loudly, followed by "hold the rum" under my breath, and we insisted to her that it was indeed a double, and that if she was so drunk as to be unable to taste the sharpness of the rum in it, she obviously shouldn't be drinking any more. She couldn't focus well enough to argue that logic, so she went back to the introducing, kissing, and wreath-laying. I was building up quite a collection around my neck, and my cheeks never felt lacking for attention.

We took turns trying to convince her that there was an even bigger party going on back at the barracks, and that she should accompany us back there, in the hopes of getting her to leave while she could still walk, rather than having to carry her out later. But she continued to refuse, saying there were still too many people at the bar for there to be a serious party in the other building. When we couldn't convince her readily, determined to still make an evening of things for ourselves, we began working in rotating shifts: one of us would go mingle while the other two played babysitter and argued as best we could in Goldfish.

Eventually, we reduced it to one person arguing while two mingled. That's when everything went haywire.

As I sat on the couch with her, insisting once again that we should return to the barracks, Dillon and Darren disappeared into the throngs of people milling about. Terri, as if suddenly awaking from a deep stupor, bolted upright, happily exclaimed "OK!", and bounded from the room. Perhaps at long last she saw this as her opportunity to be alone with me. Taken back, I staggered to my feet and looked frantically about for my comrades. Making eye contact with Darren from across the room, I motioned toward the door with my head, and he nodded in response. I took this as an understanding he'd be right out, and rushed into the hallway to catch up with Terri. The bathrooms being in the same direction as the front door, Darren completely misunderstood me, and Terri was all mine.

I caught up to her just before the outer doors, and as we emerged into the night air, her legs turned to jello and she lapsed into a state of semi-consciousness. I caught her as she fell, threw her arm around my shoulders and propped her up. She was mumbling inaudibly, and unable to lift her feet. Putting an arm around her waist and lifting, I dragged her along like a ragdoll as I struggled toward the barracks a few hundred feet away, glancing back every 20 feet in the hopes of seeing Darren and Dillon emerging from the building behind me to help. But they weren't coming, and eventually I had dragged her over the doorstep of the building, past the Coke machine, and up the two flights of stairs. Her room was at the back end of the upstairs hall.

Heaving, panting, and slightly dizzy, I arrived at her room with her floundering carcass in tow, and propped her against the wall next to her door. I held her up in a half-hug, constantly catching her as she fell this way and that, and doing my damndest to "be a gentleman" and not catch her by any parts I shouldn't. I held her there a moment while I caught my breath, looking back down the hall repeatedly in expectation that the cavalry should arrive any moment. But with no sign of the others, I finally bit the bullet and accepted that I needed to look after this situation myself. I took a deep breath to steady myself. I was sobering up fast, but still regretted those last few drinks I'd ordered.

"Where is your room key?" I asked loudly.

"Mmmhmmph... " she mumbled between closed lips. She smiled at me, eyes closed.

"Where is your room key?" I demanded again.

"In my pocket," she grinned.

"Which pocket?" I inquired.

Just a smile and a half-giggle came back.

I glanced about, feeling guilty for what I was about to do, and wondering if anyone would happen along at just that wrong moment to find us there. I took a deep breath and stuffed my hands in each of the pockets of her shirt and skin-tight jean-shorts. Every pocket explored, I found some bills and change, but produced no keys. She offered neither assistance nor resistance, quietly smiling, hiccuping, and giggling at me as my hands writhed about her.

I propped her head up and tried to look her in the eyes.

"WHERE.... IS... YOUR... KEY?" I bellowed at her, in the hopes of shocking her once more from her stupor.

"Mmmhmmmph.." she smiled. It sounded almost intelligible, but was too low to make out.

"What?" I leaned in closer.

"Sheila has it," she told me.

I scoured my mind to think of where I might find Sheila, and what to do with Terri in the meantime. I stood there, holding Terri up, bracing myself against the far wall to avoid the stench of her alcohol-soaked breath, and trying to think.

She erupted violently. Her head flew forward and down. With surprisingly cat-like reflexes my legs flew apart and back, feet bracing against the baseboards, while my outstetched arms came up to grab her shoulders. She coughed and sputtered, spitting out the last of the sickly-pink load that now formed a vast puddle of vomit precisely where my feet had been a half-second earlier. I held her up and chuckled, amused with myself that I'd reacted so instinctively as to save my shoes and pants from her liquid onslaught. As her body relaxed, careful not to step in it and directing her around it, I took her once again, hip to hip, and began to walk her back down the hallway. I knew I'd have to store her in my own room until I could clean this up and find Sheila for the key.

"I don't have a boyfriend. Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked, gazing at me with glazed-over puppy dog eyes, and assaulting me at close range with her vomit-stench breath. Against my opposite hip, her hand writhed against me, and as I felt a slight dampness, I knew she'd vomitted on her hand and was now wiping it off on my shirt.

"Maybe that's something we should discuss another time," I replied, as I dragged her down the hall and down the stairs.

Coming down the front steps and through the swinging door of the foyer, my room was the first one on the left. My room door was wide open, and a very drunk and perplexed Darren and Dillon were standing inside, wondering to themselves where Terri and I had gone. As soon as they saw me, they grabbed her and helped me ease her onto my bed. We draped her face down and upside down on the bed, so that her head hung over the bottom corner of the mattress, near the foot. Darren grabbed a garbage can to put under her open mouth, while Dillon took up a position sitting on the bed next to her to make sure she didn't roll over and fall off. I took a deep breath and relaxed. The last drink I'd had at the bar hit me at the same time as exhaustion, and I swooned a little. I sized up my friends and decided they were easily as drunk as I, if not much worse.

"Ok..." I panted, "Sheila has her room key, and Terri puked upstairs. You two look after her. I'll find the key. I'll clean up the puke. Then we'll get her into her own bed, ok?" My drunken comrades nodded in agreement. Darren giggled and swaggered about the room. Dillon began flailing one hand along Terri's back, as if stroking a pet.

Chapter two of my evening's fun began.

"It's not vomit. It's just... pink lemonade..." I reassured myself as I rummaged through the upstairs janitorial closet. "Not vomit, just pink lemonade." I exited the closet with a roll of standard military low-absorbancy cheap-ass brown paper towel. "Just lemonade." I took long slow deep breaths and tried not to look directly at it as I strode boldly down the hall toward Terri's room. "Just lemonade."

I breathed in, I knelt, I began to wipe. I exhaled. I breathed in.

I bolted back down the hall toward the bathrooms as I felt the contents of my stomach rushing upwards into my throat. The blurry hallway danced before me. I wasn't going to make it. I spotted a small metal wastepaper basket up ahead outside someone's door. Some poor soul had forgotten to take in his garbage can. Dropping to my knees while running, I slid past the can, grabbing it in a bearhug with both arms as I sailed by, and began emptying my stomach into it. I spun and came to a stop against a wall. I urged and retched again.

I heard footsteps coming up the front stairs, behind me. Salvation, I hoped.

I lifted my teary eyes and looked back over my shoulder to see Cynthia. I despised Cynthia. Of all the people on staff there that year, she was, in fact, perhaps the one solitary person I seemed completely unable to like or get along with. We were always diplomatic enough in our dealings, but I believed we each held one another in the same contempt. My evening could not possibly get any worse, I thought to myself, than to now have to kneel here and face her judgement.

"Ewww!" she cried, "You puked in the hallway!" She pointed at the puddle outside Terri's door.

I shook my head in denial. "No," I gasped.

She spotted the paper towel roll on the hallway floor, and put two and two together. "You were trying to clean up someone else's puke, weren't you?" she asked, her voice softening.

I nodded agreement, still clutching the can tightly to my chest and trying at the same time to breath.

"You can't do that," she said in a suprisingly pleasant tone, "Oh, you've gone and made yourself sick. You can't clean up someone else's vomit if you've been drinking too. You worry about yourself, I'll look after cleaning that up." She marched off toward the ladies washroom to get herself some cleaning supplies.

I boggled. Cynthia was going to take mercy and help me. I made a note to myself to be sure to thank her tomorrow, and that I'd have to seriously reconsider how much I disliked the woman. Perhaps she was capable of being a nice person from time to time.

I steadied myself for the effort it would require to stand, and my mind turned now to wondering where I might find Sheila to get the room key. But before I could get to my feet, my problem solved itself when the fire door beside Terri's room swung open and a barefoot Sheila stepped through, planting one foot firmly in the lovely pink puddle her roommate had left her.

"EWWW!" she shouted, "I just stepped in your puke!" She stood now on the one dry foot, holding the wet leg outstretched before her and bracing herself against the walls.

I returned to my head-down position with the can and sputtered out denial between urges, "No. You... stepped... in... Terri's... puke..."

"EWWW!" she exclained, "I just stepped in Terri's puke!" I wasn't sure whether this was an indication of it being better or worse than when she thought she was stepping in mine.

"She's in my room," I panted, climbing to my feet and hoping I was finally empty. "I need your room key, so we can put her to bed. Don't worry about the puke, Cynthia is going to clean it up." I met her halfway as she hopped toward me, and wrapping an arm around her, guided her toward the bathroom.

"Ok, well, the key is downstairs in Kyle's room," she explained, as we stood side by side in front of a urinal, waiting for the timed flushes to rinse off her foot a few more times. Kyle, I thought, that lucky bastard downstairs is dozing peacefully, no doubt, and missing all this.

"Ok," I said, "let's go get it then."

"But I need a Coke first," she insisted, "that's why I was going to my room - to get change."

There was no way I was taking her back past that puddle again. "I'll buy you a Coke. We'll go down the front way." Arms wrapped around each other, we paraded up the hall and started down the front stairs toward the Coke machine in the foyer. But part way down the stairs were were hit with a cacophony of sound emerging from my room. Darren and Dillon could be heard arguing loudly, but what about was not discernable over the unmistakable tones of Terri's dry heaves.

"Oh my god!" said Sheila. "That's Terri, isn't it? She puking in your room!" She fell backwards into a sitting position on the lower flight of steps.

At long last, I snapped. "Oh no!" I said adamantly. "Oh no no no. This is NOT happening. You're not getting sick too. Terri is just fine. And you're going to be fine. And everyone is going to be JUST FINE. I'm going to get you your Coke. You're going to get me that key. I'm putting you to bed. I'm putting Terri to bed. I'll put Kyle to bed if I have to. I'm putting everyone to fucking bed. And I'm getting on with my night. And NO ONE... NO ONE else is getting sick, or passing out, or stepping in puke, or anything of the fuckin' sort. No one. Everything is going to be just fine. All according to plan. Yes!" I nodded firmly at the end.

Fumbling through my pockets, I realized I didn't have the required coins for the Coke machine. "Don't move," I glared at her, and stormed through the swinging door and into my open room to fumble through my drawers for change.

"There there baby, you be ok..." slobbered Dillon, still stroking Terri's back the way one pets a cat.

"Jesus, Dillon, will you shut the fuck up? She's not a goddamn child!" snapped Darren, staggering about the middle of the room, alternately giggling and frowning, not quite sure what to feel.

"There there baby, you be ok..."

"Fuck man, will you give that shit up?"

She urged.

"There there baby, you be ok..."

I couldn't find the right change. I began to worry what trouble Sheila might be getting into out in that stairwell. My head was beginning to hurt. I could barely think straight.

"Shut the fuck up! Stop it! Stop it! She's not a fucking child. Look at you. She's not a goddamn cat either."

She urged.

"There there baby, you be ok..."

"Give me some money. I need to get a coke for Sheila." I looked at Darren with my hand outstretched.

"There there baby, you be ok..."

She urged.

"Will you tell him to..."

"Shut up Dillon, she's not a fucking child," I spat out the side of my mouth. "Now give me the goddamn money." He handed me a few coins. "Thank you."

I strode from the room, confident things were finally falling into place. In the foyer, Sheila was sitting on the steps, head in hands but stable. I thrust some coins into the machine and popped out a Coke. Pressing it into Sheila's hand, I yanked her to the feet by one arm, and began dragged her quickly through the swinging door, past the argument still taking place in my room, and toward Kyle's. Arriving at his door, I motioned for her to open it. She swung the door open and turned on the overhead light. A semi-conscious Kyle pulled the covers up over his head to shield himself. She swaggered across the room and exchanged the Coke for a key from off his desk while I waited in the doorway. Crossing back, she offered it to me. I snatched it from her hand, looked her in the eyes, and motioned with my eyebrows toward Kyle's bed.

"I'm fine," she said, turning off the light and waiting to close the door behind me.

"Get in the bed." I didn't know why I felt so insistent, but I'd simply reached a point where, in my mind, anyone not lying on or in a bed was somehow volatile and bound to screw up my night even further.

"No!" she said, indignant, "I'm fine. Really. Go."

"Get in the bed." I spoke firmly, but did not raise my voice.

"No."

"Get in the bed."

"No."

"Please get in the bed."

"No."

"Look, just get in the fuckin' bed," I pleaded.

"No!" she insisted once more.

I resigned. "Fine, fuck ya." I turned and walked away. With my first footstep I heard the door close behind me. With the second I heard the latch of the lock throw across. With my third I heard the sound of her feet shuffling on the tile as she turned toward the bed in the dark. With the fourth I heard the distinctly recognizable sound of a limp human body hitting the floor. That is where she slept. I assume she had the Coke for breakfast. I didn't stop walking to find out.

I lay my shoulder into the doorframe of my room to discover The Great Debate still in full bloom.

"There there baby, you be ok..."

She urged.

"Dillon! Please! Shut the fuck up! Stop it! She... is... not... a... child!"

"Guys! I have the key. We're taking her to her room."

Silence. A brief moment of blessed silence.

Three drunken men fumbling to carry with one limp unconscious woman up two flights of stairs and down a hall takes considerably longer and poses considerably more risk of injury (to themselves, to her, and to various inanimate objects along the way) than one might readily summize. I think it took longer than I'd taken earlier dragging her along alone. But when we finally finished beating knees off steps, elbows off railings, toes off baseboards, and Terri's head off every doorframe in sight, I was pleased to find that Cynthia the Puke-Cleaning Fairie had worked her magic in my absence, and we had a clear path right to her room. We threw open the door and in one great heave tossed her on top of her bed. Darren grabbed a nearby towel off a rack to put next to her, but suddenly stopped and looked at me.

She'd landed face up.

"We can't leave her like that," he said simply.

With heavy sighs, the three of us gathered round for what should have been the simple task of rolling her over. To this day, it still eludes me how three grown men, huffing and puffing, panting and sweating, drunk or not, could be completely unable to roll over one woman. But the fact remains that after ten minutes of pushing, pulling and prodding, we were completely unable to manage what should have been a simple task.

Then suddenly a light shone in Darren's eyes, and he motioned us away from the bed. Leaning forward slightly at the waist, and bending at the knees, he drew in a deep breath, the way athletes do before a tremendous exertion.

"TERRI!" he cried with such volume I was sure he'd be heard all throughout the building, "RECOVERY POSITION... NOW!"

Then, by some strange miracle, our young, inebriated officer flopped over in her bed, assuming a perfect demonstration of the First Aid recovery position.

He tossed the towel on the end of the bed, slid the garbage can nearer with a foot, and turned for the exit, dusting off his hands as he went. "Gentlemen, our work here is done," he said, disappearing into the hallway amidst the slack-jawed looks of myself and Dillon.

I locked the door behind me as we left, and toyed with the key in my right hand while my left picked the puke-dampened shirt off my hip. I'd have to return her key tomorrow when she was awake again. She'd no doubt have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the evening, which would leave us great liberty to embellish whatever we wanted.

Payback is a bitch.