Monday night Kuniko had a few friends over for a taco party at our place. By the time I came home from work, almost everyone was there. The tequila bottles were out, and the beer was flowing.
This week is exam week at Kuniko’s school. That means that the teachers can leave early most of the time. That’s how they beat me home and got a headstart on the alcohol.
We all sat around the kotatsu and ate tacos. It was this group’s first experience with homemade tacos. We had all met up in Kobe to eat tacos at a restaurant there – it was fun to see their faces as they bit into some homemade ones. Kuniko had also gotten some cheese and crackers to eat, so along with the chips and salsa it was a serious meal.
We drank and drank, and then drank some more. The tequila went down surprisingly fast – we killed off one bottle and got through most of a second. We were also drinking wine and beer. Everybody had a really good time, and some people looked like they might be starting to fade out a little.
Everyone got organized and ready to head out to the station. Kuniko and I were bringing up the rear after locking the apartment, and as we walked down the stairs I noticed one of the teachers start to slip. Before I knew it she was tumbling down the bottom third of the staircase and she hit her head on the hard cement at the bottom. The other teachers that were already down there came to her rescue, and we all examined her on the ground. My blood was running cold – it was really scary. She was conscious, but she had bumped her head pretty good and had some scratches on her hands.
We decided it was best to get her back inside and rest up a little bit, so Kuniko took her inside while I walked the other teachers back to the station. When I got back Kuniko had her stretched out on the living room futon, with an ice pack on her head and under some blankets. She had a pretty good bump on her head.
She kept apologizing over and over, and drifting in and out of consciousness. I was sure that it was just all the alcohol she drank, rather than a brain injury, but to make sure we called her brother, and he drove over and took her to the hospital. The next day she was at work and said she had gotten a clean bill of health.
When her brother arrived I carried her from the living room to the front of the house where she put on her shoes, and then she had the strength to walk from there. I held her up as she went down the stairs, and if we weren’t there she would have fallen again – she was really shaky.
So in the end, everything worked out OK. Kuniko and I were so beat by the time we got back that we stashed all the dishes in the sink and left them overnight. We went right to bed with bellies full of tacos.
