Deuces Wild

One sultry evening about a year ago, two Boston gentlemen asked two Wellesley alumnae to cite the “craziest thing you did together in college.” These gentlemen know who they are, so they’ll remain unnamed. Suffice to say, they’re post-college acquaintances of the Wellesley alums -- who happened to be me and my friend W.

W. and I looked at each other. We paused. “Do we tell them about the bottle of wine and the deserted orgo lab...and the TA and the safety shower?” This wasn’t what we were thinking. Wellesley doesn’t have TA’s. Our pause was far too virginal to be pregnant. Or, more accurately, it was an unplanned pregnancy.

“Well,” I started. “Junior year at the News office...” The gentlemen leaned in. “We stayed up really late...” Two miso spoons hovered in midair. “And caught the final Gore/Bush election results,” I said. “...or lack thereof,” W. concluded.

Two bowls of miso were finished without further interrogation. By the time our eel rolls arrived, Sox scores had been fully rehashed.

It’s not that W. and I were complete prudes in school. We did not need rescuing by a Julia Roberts “free spirit,” thank you. Truth was, W. and I didn’t become close buddies until after graduation, via a spontaneous email exchange. We were crazy enough in college, but we weren’t crazy together.

Like, once I stood on the roof of my dorm with my friend Joolie, while she smoked pot. Or it might have been a cigarette. Unfiltered.

That night at the News office was intense! NPR until 6 a.m.!

Fine. There wasn’t much typical teenage craziness for me in college. Maybe that is why, as a five-year reunion treat, I decided to join W. in nudie gambling at the Beau Rivage Casino.

The Beau Rivage is not in Massachusetts. Instead of reuniting with fellow alums for stuffed olives and acronym-dropping (“I just got my MBA from SUNY...”) in Wellesley, W. and I met here last week. W.’s five-year isn’t until ‘08, so I suppose this wasn’t technically a reunion at all. The mechanics aren’t important. Do you want the story or not?

On Monday morning, we packed Diet Cokes and my CD collection, and we Google Mapped for Natchez, Mississippi. There’s plenty of gambling in the Quarter, but the drive up Canal Street affords little time for singing Elton John’s Greatest Hits. Meandering through Louisiana, we perfected the falsetto on “Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.” Before we reached the Gulf, I mentally choreographed Kiki Dee’s portion of “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart.” Oh, honey, if I get restless...

Quick detour in Kentwood, Louisiana, birthplace of the former Mrs. Federline. I don’t know about W., but I crossed my fingers for a shrine. Candles surrounded by Mickey Mouse ears, copies of Crossroads, and upscale wigs. At the very least, a slew of Britney-named buildings. A wedding chapel? A taxidermist? No luck. Not even a “Home Of...” sign. “Britney wasn’t lying,” I told W. “They really are ’country people.’” We had to appease ourselves with the idea that maybe Britney cruised past this very same Suds ’n’ Duds. On her father’s lap, natch’rally.

We pulled over for a beach stroll on the Natchez outskirts. It began tamely enough. W. waded in to her ankles. I examined shells along the tidemark. “The water’s really warm,” W. exclaimed. “Wish we’d brought our bathing suits!”

If we’d been in a Porgy’s type movie, this is where the “bow chicka bow” music would’ve kicked in.

Nobody else was around. Not nearby, anyway. A few towels sprawled further down the shore. Some people-specks played way out in the water. “It’ll look like we’re wearing bikinis,” W. reasoned. “I’ll do it if you will.”

Redneck siblings’ famous last exchange.

We left our clothes in a heap on the sand. I watched the heap like a lighthouse. In Porgy’s, a couple of frat brothers would’ve snatched it up in seconds. (It’s a Wonderful Life...Porgy’s...same difference.) In reality, our biggest liability was W.’s camera, buried beneath my jeans. We also pondered the penalty for an indecent exposure arrest. Did Mississippi have mandatory Swimwear Education for booked Gulf offenders? We’d face that risk.

Lady Luck protected us on the beach -- which, of course, means that she abandoned us at the casino. We didn’t do much to entertain Luck’s ladylike sensibilities. Our sandy, wet underclothes remained in the car, as we hit up the slots. I bet a Mindy’s cheesecake that Damon Runyon didn’t gamble in wet undies, either.

We weren’t crazy enough to play any machine worth more than a dollar, so neither of us lost much money. I got a 50-cent voucher on double bonus poker, but I kept it as a souvenir. “We smell like trash,” W. noted at one point. “We are trash, baby!” I replied.

On the ride home, we got milkshakes from Sonic and switched to Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits. “You may be right,” I sang. “I may be craaaazy.” It’s a subjective matter, really. And, as Billy suggests, you’re bound to find lunacy if you go looking for it. Even five years late.