I was feeling just fine, so I got up and helped her. She had the thing screwed into the cork crooked, and it took a real effort to pull the stuck cork...out of the bottle. When it finally gave, we cheered and high-fived each other and carried the bottle back into the front room in triumph. No mere wine bottle was going to defeat us in our quest for amused inebriation.The television was just background noise as we finished eating and worked on emptying our bottle of wine. We started out trying to. "Okay, now go on over into the picnic area and start working," Maurice said. You can't go there alone, and if a guard goes, that will leave too few guards here, so . . . Bobby Joe, you come on over there with us. The rest of you go back to what you're doing here." Oh, God," I thought, as I stumbled off into the brush, trailed by Maurice and Bobby Joe. The very worst situation I could think of.Maurice and Bobby Joe watched me work for a while, and the first thing I knew they both had their dongs. That's the only trouble she's had at school. Two years ago when she started at this school, some girl made some comment about how her mom was in jail and Nina was the same thing. Nina put a fist in the girl's face. Fortunately a teacher saw it and knew that the girl had been goading Nina for a week. Nina got 'counseled'. But they don't mess with Nina, either. Boys neither. One of the football players decided that she needed his special attention. He got HERS. Missed two games with bruises to,. They'd gone fishing a number of times. Chad's eyes were too weak to tie the flies, so he did that for him. At those times he found himself lost in memories of how much he'd missed doing these things.He took a deep breath and shook off his memories. "Dad," he said, "thanks for letting me."He watched his father make his way slowly to his bedroom, and then Philip headed down to the pier and untied the small motorboat that he and his father had been on earlier that morning. He maneuvered the craft.