I wonder if

“What the fuck are we going to do?” Gordon asked.

It seemed our housing for Mardi Gras just fell through. Minutes before we – a group of seven in three different cars – were about to embark on the drive from Charlottesville, Virginia, to New Orleans. We were college seniors – Fourth Years as the folks at the University called ourselves – and this was a trip that was going to be our Fandango. A final hurrah together. Drinking. Wandering the streets and just doing what stupid, single and way too innocent college students do.

Now, however, we’d hit a snag before we’d even left.

“That fucker was supposed to get us a place to say,” Mark shouted. “And now we’re shit out of luck. How the hell are we going to New Orleans for Mardi without a place to say.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” was all that J.B. could or would muster.

I just sat back and smiled. I was going. Yeah, I’d have to convince at least one other person to keep the dream alive – since I did not have a car, and would not have a car for another three years – but I was going.

“What do you think Randy?” Josh asked me.

“We have a plan, and it’s hit a snag. We either pull up tents and keep driving forward, or we stay here and get shelled.”

I had no idea where that came from. Kind of like channeling John Belushi in “Animal House.” You just kind of said what was there and hoped for the best.

“I like it,” Josh said.

“Ok, so we’re still going?” Gordon said. “I mean, my sister has a friend at Tulane, maybe we can hook up with them?”

“See, things are already better,” I said. Ryan stared at me with a blank expression. He was scared of what we were all about to do. Be homeless in New Orleans for five days and five nights. Maybe six nights if we drove fast enough.

“Let’s get fired up!” Josh yelled. “Fuck Nate. He screwed us. But we can’t let him fuck us!”

“Yeah!” J.B. shouted.

“Fucking right!” Mark joined in.

“Oh well,” Gordon sighed.

“Yesssir,” Will chimed in finally.

“Let’s get on the road,” Matty said.

Then the phone rang. It was 1992. There were no cell phones. At least in the house of a bunch of broke-ass college students there weren’t. So the landline sang its song.

“Ring-a-ling-ding-ding….Ring-a-ling-ding…Ring-a-ling-ding…”

Finally, someone upstairs, Gardocki or Pollock, answered the phone.

You could hear some chatter, then walking on the hardwood floors upstairs.

“Hey! Randy! Phone’s for you,” Gardocki said.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Some chick. Said her name’s Katrina.”

Now, Katrina was a name that didn’t mean a thing to those in New Orleans in 1992. But it meant a whole hell of a lot to me in 1992. Katrina was a woman I’d met just a few weeks earlier. It was a cold, dark and snowy night in Oakton, Virginia. We were going to a party at one of my friend’s high school buddy’s house. When we got there, everyone was already drunk. It was cold, so we all started drinking too. A lot.

Soon, I was doing shots of Jim Beam with Miller Lite chasers. Soon, this girl was eyeing me. Big time. Her name was Katrina. She had long dark hair, in a very late-1980s do. She had on a sweater and jeans. They were tight and showed off an amazing body. And for some reason, she liked me.

We talked endlessly on the back porch. Drinking and talking. Talking and drinking. She leaned in and we kissed. It was magical. Before I knew it, I had her in my arms, kissing those kinds of kisses you don’t experience too often and when you do, you remember them.

Later, she was making out with another friend. It was weird watching it happen. Just minutes before she was with me. But while she was doing it, she was looking at me. Making it hot for some reason. This made me want her more.

Soon, everyone was gone except for the last few friends. Me and two compadres, Katrina and the guy who owned the place. Soon, it was just me and Katrina awake.

We made our way to the bathroom. I pulled off her sweater and couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Two large breasts with very large nipples. I grabbed them and kissed them. Probably too hard and too much. But damn, I was drunk, she was drunk and we were going at it like crazy.

She grabbed my dick and pulled it out of my pants. I was stunned. At this point, I’d had sex with one other person in the world. And it was a horrible experience. Now, I was living out a Penthouse Forum letter.

She didn’t need to do anything to get me ready. I got her naked and we fucked. I looked at myself in the mirror while doing it for a second. “Whoah, that was weird,” I remember thinking. Before I knew it, I was done.

“Did you come?” she asked. That certainly inspired confidence in what I’d just accomplished.

“Uh. Um, yes.” I said feebly.

“You didn’t have a condom, did you?”

“Uh. No.”

“I’m not on the pill.”

We kind of looked at each other while pulling ourselves together. My drunk was gone. Hers wasn’t. She had sobered me up.

We went back into the living room and laid down on the floor together. Fell asleep real fast under a sleeping bag.

The next morning, I woke up to the sun hitting the snow piles outside. It was way too early to be awake. Katrina was by my side. Her pants had fallen back down. I pulled them back up. She had on white, with stripes – all sorts of colors like Juicy Fruit – panties. I admired her for just a second before putting her jeans on the best I could and pulling the sleeping bag back over her. She woke for just a second, looked at me and smiled.

I was feeling better now about what happened and what might happen.

We went back to sleep.

Hours later, Matt woke us both up. Me with a kick to the side. Her with a slight tap to the head.

“Hey guys, I’m hungry. Let’s grub.”

We ambled outside into a car. It was cold. I was shivering. She was shivering. I put my coat on her, as she stumbled out without it.

We talked at lunch. About life. About school. About music. About movies. About everything. Except last night.

Soon, it dawned on me that she didn’t remember a thing. By the end of my day there, when we had to go back to Charlottesville, I knew it was so.

“Are we cool?” I asked her when I was getting in the car.

“Of course, silly,” she said, kissing my cheek and handing me an index card. On it was Katrina. (703) 565-5565. It had hearts and was in pink magic marker.

“Call me sometime. Maybe you can go to that formal with me next week?”

“Yeah, sure. Most definitely!” I said.

We snuck in a kiss and I watched her fade away as we drove down the road towards Route 29 and Charlottesville.

“You fucked her didn’t you?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, I did,” I said.

A couple days later, I called her. Nervously I dialed the digits and hoped for the best.

“Hello?” her voice, so soft, answered.

“Hey, it’s Randy,” I said.

“Oh, wow. How are you doing? I wasn’t sure you’d call me.”

“Of course I was going to call you. You’re an awesome chica.”

We then talked for about three hours. Time flew. I forgot I was supposed to be studying for an Economics test. I ended up getting a D on that test. But it was worth it, mostly.

Finally, as the conversation was coming to a close, I broached the subject.

“Are we good?”

“Why do you keep asking that?” she remarked.

“Because of what happened.”

“What do you mean, what happened?” she sounded confused.

“About us, you know, having sex.” There I said it. I felt relieved and scared.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Um… We had sex. In the bathroom.”

“Fuck,” she said. Not the word I would have liked to hear at that moment. “Did you have a condom?”

“Um…no.”

“Shit. I’ve got to go.”

I called her each of the next three nights. All three times, her roommate said she couldn’t come to the phone.

Finally, she called back on Day 4.

“Randy, we can’t see each other anymore,” she said. “I just can’t.”

I tried to find out why. But she was set. She also ended our conversation with these words: “I won’t call again. Unless I’m pregnant,” and she hung up the phone.

Now, here I was weeks later, staring at my roommate telling me she was on the line.

“Gardocki, tell her I’m not here. Tell her we already left for New Orleans and you’ll leave a message.”

I felt like shit. But, I could not face what might be on the other end of that line. Not now. I was taking the most selfish path I would ever take in my life. I wanted to go to New Orleans and have fun. Not start thinking about having a kid. Although, all I would think about during that trip was exactly that.

Six days later, I was back at home. Broke. Unshaven. And scared shitless.

I looked at that index card. Probably for at least 45 minutes. Then I dialed the number. Answering machine. I left a message.

“Katrina, hey, um…This is Randy. I just got your message that you called last week. I was in New Orleans and didn’t know you’d called. Call me back. OK?”

She never called back.

I never called again.

And to this day, I wonder if.

He or she would be nearly 20 now. In college.

And I wonder if.

And I’ll probably never know.