The blood flooded from her skull, streaming down through her hair, her face, onto her shirt, and dripped off the hands of the friends who held her, scared that the metal beam would swing through again.
For many seconds, the hundreds of men of Harvard did not notice her, as they broke off peice after piece of the Yale goal-post, only feet away from the now completely unrecongnizable body and three friends who held on to her for fear that she would fall apart if they so much as moved.
I could not look further, and turned away to quell the nausea. I looked again, a last time, at the body and the friends. Now a circle of vultures had formed a about the still bleeding victim, horrified at the sight, but relishing it enough to stay and see the blood-letting continue.
I stumbled up the stairs, bumping into those on the way down. One made a jab at my face, hitting my glasses.
As our small group hurried to leave the scene of the crime, for which I was partly responsible, I passed blissfully unaware celebrators with whom I had raised glasses on high 10 minutes before.
"I'm really sorry you lost your coat," a friend said as I passed her.
"There's a girl down there who's going to die," I said, though probably incomprehensibly.
"Yes I understand," she said politely, "You could check the lost-and-found. Maybe they have it."
"She was hit by the crossbar. She's bleeding all..." I left her there.
We tumbled, half ran past the Crimson 'H' sweaters, the Vuarnaise sunglasses, the tweed jackets, the finished Bloody Marys. Every innocent, smiling, yammering face was evil, responsible for this idiocy, a part of this mass subjgation of reason, this mass return to the cradle for otherwise rational Blue and Crimson graduates.
To my right, I saw a Yale undergrad slip, laughing, from the top of the Yale Bowl. He tumbled, head-over-heels, down the step grass incline, plummeting ever closer to the brick barrier that was the mantle of one portal.
The passersby gasped and turned just in time to see the student saved, just three feet from destruction.
One portal down, five Yale students turned as obviously intersected man, who teetered stop the she ten foot brick wall that surrounds the stadium. He poured beer on one, a cup on another. We left him there. He may have killed himself for all I know.
As we exited the gate, I saw a woman, a Yale-alum, slumped against a tree, just as I had left her three hours earlier. She may have died as well I'll ask the group of cops who stood, ignoring her, 15 fee away.
The ambulance carrying the unconscious body of Margaret M. Cimino '87 whizzed by. In almost slow motion, two red shirted Harvard students ran after her through the parking lot. Their hands were stained with blood, and, as they ran, some dripped on the ground and the parked cars.
As we slowly made our way to the cars, spectators of both sides recounted tales of unsurpassed debauch, of unrivaled craziness, and bragged of unmatched coolness.
I kicked one of them in the shins.
In the parking lot, a yellow school bus carrying students slowly pulled out. Through an open window, a Yale fan yelled at a friend and me, "Next year you and me, one-on-one. You suck. You one of them. You Harvard. I'm gonna get you next year."
We just stared at him.