Don't Go Back to Rockville

My application was submitted.  It was just a waiting game.  I immersed myself in my final play at Highland.  We were doing The Miracle Worker.  I was playing Helen Keller’s father, Captain Arthur Keller.  It was a little cliché, but the shows went great and it truly felt like our best production.  It was certainly my best performance.  He was kind of an angry guy anyway so I didn’t have to temper myself too much.  I was also struggling to get my grades up enough to graduate.  I almost had to drop out of that play as well due to real danger of ineligibility.  Plus I was working every night after school as a grocery bagger. 

There was so much going on I was completely caught off guard one night when the phone rang.  I was in my room on a rare night that I wasn’t bagging groceries and my parents called out that it was for me. 

“Hey Bart,” said a chipper voice, “Ben Timm from Euphegenia College here.”

Who?  Oh yeah.  “Hey there,” I said. 

“I had to call and say congratulations,” he said. 

“Right on.”  I thought for a moment.  “For what?” 

“You’re ACT score man,” he said.  And while I don’t have a transcript I’m willing to bet he did in fact say man.  That was his way. 

“Really?” I asked.  “What was it?” 

“You don’t know yet?” he laughed. 

“No, I haven’t heard anything,” I answered.  I’d almost forgotten I’d even taken the stupid thing.

“You got a 24,” he said excitedly!  “You nailed it!  Congratulations!  You’re in!” 

Nobody was more shocked by how well I’d done than me.  I don’t know the current National Average, but I’d beaten most of the country in 1993.  I’d even beaten the school’s required score.  I’d actually scored above average on a test.  It was unimaginable!  There were honor students in my graduating class who took the ACT three times to get a 24.  And they spent a pretty penny preparing too!  My prayers (or my artwork) worked!  On top of that, I’d been accepted to the school. 

Whatever monologue I did for Lane must have been decent because I’d been accepted to the program and was even receiving a Theater Arts scholarship.  It wasn’t much.  The arts had no budget at that school (there were those who’d say they had no place either!)  In one phone call I’d gone from n’er-do-well who stood a real chance of working at Pick & Save the rest of his life to a college bound freshman with the world at his fingertips.  You could have said things were looking up for this promising young man.  You could have said it, anyway.       

    Somehow word got out that I, the rebel slacker extraordinaire had not only slam dunked the ACT, but had been excepted to a Christian college and offered a scholarship on top of financial aid.  Even Mr. StankHo (now I’m just getting ridiculous) the “guidance” counselor was shocked.  He’d sat me down in his office a few weeks prior and told me I was best suited to be a bus driver.  This is insulting to bus drivers (it is a noble profession.)  This tubby, pompous ass who was probably making $28,000 a year if he was lucky and could even collect his paycheck (many weeks the teachers were told they had to wait for their pay) was using said profession as an insult.  It was really an eye opening experience.  Our Principal choked then made some snide, brow-rise of surprise when he had to announce my scholarship during the graduation ceremony.  What a dick!  Shouldn’t an educator be celebratory when a troubled student finally does well?  Take note:  if you’re looking for support and encouragement, don’t look to Christian administration. 

A few months prior to graduation, I was sitting at the lunch table one day with my usual group of misfit toys.  One guy I’d grown particularly friendly with was a fellow percussionist in the school band named Artemis Shields.  He was a skinny black kid who worked in a grocery store like me, but those were our only similarities.  Artemis and I had an identical class schedule, and within a short time just realized we each thought the other was funny.  We cracked each other up.  He was funny without even trying.  I would laugh at everything he did.  Sometimes when he wasn’t doing anything but staring at someone.  I could read his mind.  He found everyone and everything to be stupid or incomprehensible, and his expressions would cause me to hyperventilate with laughter. 

I know it was tough for the handful of black kids in our school to fit in.  Most of them went out of their way not to fit in, but rather to stand out.  These were burgeoning days for hip hop culture.  There was this strange energy in pop culture as M.C. Hammer exploded onto the scene as the smiling rapper in baggy pants, doing cartoons and Taco Bell ads.  And lest we forget, this was the age of New Kids on the Block and Vanilla Ice.  Yet, it was gave rise to “gangsta rap” with groups like N.W.A., Ghetto Boys, and Ice-T scaring white folks all over the country.  Ice-T  may be a silly television star now, but back then he took it to a new limit with his rap/metal group Body Count and their single “Cop Killer.”  Popular fashion closely watched and mimicked what was happening in music and movies.  Labels like Cross Colors, FUBU, and Karl Kani were in every mall display you passed. 

Artemis was the one black student I knew who didn’t adhere to these trends.  And that’s not to say that only black kids were adopting the baggy denims and orange and green accessories.  I think what bonded Artemis and I was we both found white kids acting black to be nauseating.  We’d often go to the mall and make fun of these kids.  Well, the ones who didn’t look like they actually could kick the shit out of us.  After all, some of these white kids were going out of their way to earn street cred with real gangstas!  And our little Christian Keebler tree was not exempt.  My buddy Jay mentioned earlier got himself involved in gang culture.  He somehow became the wheel man for a couple class mates who decided they’d dip their toes into the drug trade.  The next day I remember them coming back to school, and Jay had that look on his face of someone whose life had taken a strange turn.   For Jay, it was having a Tech-9 fired at his car as they sped away from a drug buy gone sour. 

The black kid who had been involved was a friend of Artemis.  The other white kid was another friend of mine.  Together we shook our respective heads at the lot of them.  They had asked us both if we’d wanted to be involved and we’d both said hell no.  I think that too was a bonding for us.  Strangely enough, while we were relatively inseparable by day, except when he went to basketball practice and I went to rehearsal, we never hung out socially.  He wasn’t allowed.  Artemis had a very strict, no bullshit mother and she expected him to be at one of only three places at any given time; school, home, or church.  Church for the Shields family was, and I quote, Jesus’ Soul Saving Traveling Mission.  I couldn’t make that name up.  For the record, I don’t believe they actually ever travelled anywhere, which does make it a somewhat enigmatic name.   

Artemis wasn’t even allowed to go on band tours with the school band.  His mother would not allow it.  Partially due to her strict, albeit unreasonable religious beliefs but I think also because she relied on him quite a bit.  Artemis was the oldest of 8 kids.  His father worked nights at the Post Office so he slept during the day.  Plus I knew some of his younger siblings.  They were a handful to put it mildly.  Artemis minded his mother.  She was a good woman though misguided who meant the best.  I once called to speak with him when he was at work and ended up trapped in a two hour phone conversation with Mother Shields.  I may have spoken five whole sentences.  I do recall her expressing concern for her children, especially a couple of the middle ones.  His younger brother and sister both had a penchant for wild behavior.  By Senior year Artemis definitely needed a break from his family.  We were sitting at the lunch table and out of the blue he started quizzing me about this college I was going to.  I can’t tell you exactly how it happened, but by the time we put on caps and gowns, Artemis had been accepted to Euphegenia and I had my roommate.  

We walked across the stage and picked up our diplomas (and we both snuck a quick glance to make sure the diploma was actually signed.)  That night, Stacy slept over and before the sun was up we piled into the car.  Dad, my stepmother, Stacy, and I were taking a road trip as my graduation present.  I should explain that when I was 15, I watched the television movie Elvis & Me.  Clearly I’ve never been good at receiving intended messages, as while that movie was meant to show Elvis as a bad person and shitty husband, all I saw was an amazing performer and icon.  While I’d never taken much interest in Elvis before, I became obsessed with the King.  That was why when asked what I wanted to do for graduation, I immediately said “Memphis!”  We drove all the way to Memphis and camped beside the Mississippi, which made it more of an adventure.  Somewhere I have picture of Stacy and I standing on the banks of the Mississippi the night we arrived.  I was taken with the history and the ghosts that surround that river. 

I spent the rest of the summer at home, working at Pick & Save and preparing for the major transition coming in August.  Well, preparing is a lie.  I’m famous for procrastination.  I’ve elevated putting things off to an art form.  Even now as a grown man with a family, I don’t pack until the night before we’re set to leave.  Thank God I have a wife!  Back then, I didn’t know what to take, what I needed, etc.  And I couldn’t give less of a shit.  All I knew was I was getting out of Dodge.  I’ve always sort of adhered to a philosophy that everything I need to live would fit in a backpack.  When the time finally came to leave, I packed like a Tasmanian Devil.

I threw every article of clothing I owned in a suitcase.  I collected a handful of personal items in a small Rubbermaid container, which was a couple CD’s and tapes, a stereo, every loose pen and pencil found lying around, and a framed photo of Humphrey Bogart.  My parents informed me this wasn’t a hotel and that I actually had to take bedding, toothpaste, soap, etc.  Fortunately they had been collecting a few basics and put them together in another Rubbermaid for me.  Their “care package” included laundry soap, toiletries, coffee, a coffeemaker (can’t believe I almost forgot one of those), Cocoa Puffs, plastic dishes, and a few boxes of granola bars and other snacks.  My folks also told me that, even though part of my financial aid was a work study program meaning I’d be working on campus, they didn’t want me to worry about money.  They said they’d send me $100 a month for walking around money.  That may not seem like much, but to any college kid having $100 bucks is Trump money! 

I was ecstatic and extremely grateful for their promise.  Finally “Move In” Friday came and we packed up the parents’ Toyota Corolla for the two & a half hour drive.  They were only dropping me off, as far as I knew.  Freshmen were discouraged from bringing cars to school due to limited parking.  And if they did bring one, underclassmen were required to park in a lot so far away it was practically in Wisconsin.  Hell, it was practically Long Island.  From Wentling Hall, the men’s dorm you could walk to where ever you needed to go faster than you could get to your damn car!  It didn’t matter that I wasn’t going to have wheels because Artemis was bringing his car.  It was a maroon shitbox of indeterminate make and model.  The most identifiable characteristic I can remember about the thing is that it was rectangular.  And the holes in the floor offered additional ventilation as well as a high-definition view of the asphalt below.  What mattered is, it ran.  More or less.

I remember quite vividly pulling up to the dorm on a beautiful, sunny day.  It was hot as hell and the rooms didn’t have air conditioning.  Unless you had allergies, in which case you were allowed to have a window unit.  But I had also brought a box fan.  Artemis was already somewhere on campus when I got to our room.  I passed his mother in the hallway and quickly pawned her off on my folks.  I figured that would keep them occupied till Thanksgiving.  I remember walking into our room for the first time.  It was an off-white shoebox, bunk beds to the left and two desks side by side in a little alcove to the far right.  That would be changing soon.  Artemis wasn’t in the room, but as I was preoccupied throwing my clothes into my three wide drawers in the double dresser, I heard a slap on the wall behind me. 

“Hey yah,” Artemis called out, standing in the doorway!

“What’s up man?” I said, spinning around.  He had a grin from ear to ear.  I knew he was feeling an elation he’d never known.  His family had already piled into their van and was headed for the highway.  I never even met Mr. Shields.  I finished putting shit away and began to scour my orientation schedule to figure out what needed to be done first.  Artemis climbed into the top bunk.  First order of business was a nap.  He was officially a free man.   

I was not so fortunate.  My folks were staying all weekend.  There were parent orientations and mixers, as well as information sessions for parents and students to attend together.  I was appreciated all they’d done, and for driving me down, helping me unpack, etc. but I wanted them to get the fuck out!  I wanted to get out start tasting this new life.  They weren’t necessarily up my ass, in fact they were pretty good about letting me do my own thing, meet people, be off on my own, etc.  But my sense of misguided duty made me feel guilty if I wasn’t keeping them company. 

Finally Sunday morning came (yes, they stayed the whole weekend) and we said our goodbyes.  I wish I could tell you I had tears in my eyes, but I was way too excited.  They got in the car and I waved goodbye, telling them I’d see them in a little over a month.  I’d promised Mr. C I’d be back for the fall play.  Figured that would be a good occasion for my first trip back home, after I finally got the swing of things at school.  I came to notice that a lot of freshman started going home as early as the second week of school.  Some even went home every weekend because they lived close enough.  It seemed like a pattern that most of those people disappeared second semester.  You can’t get over homesickness if you don’t stay gone long enough to miss home in the first place. 

I'd Studied Your Cartoons, Radio, Music, TV, Movies, Magazines!

            Stacy had the ideal family life.  His parents never divorced and they all lived quite happily and comfortably in a small rented townhouse.  What I most admired though was his devout yet pragmatic faith.  He was the type of Christian that didn’t make my skin crawl.  His faith wasn’t based on emotion and constantly telling people (insincerely) he was praying for them or how excited he was about what God was doing, or that if something bad happened it was part of God’s master plan.  Stacy was more what I call an intellectual Christian.  Or perhaps “academic” is a better term.  Young, philosophical Christians who believe they balance their faith with some degree of logic.  Of course, turned on its head faith is completely illogical.  That’s the point of course, that faith is what you turn to after science and reason fail to comfort (and there’s no bourbon readily available.)  

Christian colleges are full of these types.  They are young Christian idealists who believe themselves better than the secular world but also above other Evangelicals who rely on the emotional side of faith.  They say they respect the elder generations, yet look down on them with contempt for their antiquated “old-time religion.”  Many of these types are running mega-churches.  The ones that more resemble arenas (dare I say coliseums?)  Sunday morning services looks more like a rock concert and a Broadway production rolled into one super sensory explosion.  The messages are very “up with people” and “out with the wallets please!”  At the time I appreciated his well-thought out enthusiasm for the “new” Christianity as much as his ability to converse at length about Tim Burton movies and pop music of the 80’s. 

Stacy and I would be in two more high school productions before he graduated.  The next fall we did this awful musical melodrama in which I had to split the villain role with this bloated turd named Jiminy Rollbendover (perhaps by now you’ve guessed I’m changing a few names!)  He was a sneering, greased-up rhinoceros with a pink stucco complexion.  But he could sing.  He’d never been in one play, but he was a member of the school’s exclusive choral group Highland Singers, our own highly-sanitized Glee.  He was also a senior, coupled with a good voice scored him a lead.  So he got two performances in the part while I only got one.  The other two nights I was just background, and I got to do a little warm-up comedy before the show.  

That fall we did another drama (thank God) Flowers for Algernon.  Stacy was cast as Charlie, the simpleton turned genius by way of experimental surgery.  I played the professor who dreamed up the procedure, and suffered from an acute God Complex after its initial success.  Once again the closest thing to a villain in the show.  It’s also one of the parts I most loved playing.  Well, that and the dog! 

Kelly graduated that spring.  We hung out as much as possible that summer along with most of our little gang from HCHS drama.  That fall he left Wisconsin and began attending Euphegenia Christian College in Northern Illinois.  Starting to understand the extraneous backstory now??? 

There was no email back then but we’d talk on the phone semi-regularly.  He came back to see the fall show, in which I was the lead.  Another melodrama, this one was a murder mystery spoof but thankfully not a musical.  I played a bumbling private detective in a hotel full of crackpots; all based on famous mystery characters.  I wore the beige overcoat and fedora through the whole show, and did a terrible Bogart impression.  The best thing I can say about that particular show, aside from having so much stage time, was I watched every Bogie movie I could get my hands on.  The man truly was the best.  He was barely moving his lips, let alone his shoulders, but he was so damn good at it. 

That winter Stacy called and told me I should come down to Euphegenia and hang out for a weekend.  For months he’d been telling me all these funny stories about his roommate, new friends he was making, the theater department, and his campus radio show.  That captured my imagination.  I have always been in love with radio.  At that time I had no idea who Howard Stern was, but didn’t need to.  I grew up outside Chicago.  This was a rock/talk radio Mecca!  We had WLS, Z95, and the down and dirty coolest talk station ever, WLUP . . . The Loop.  There was always a voice in my head saying “you could do this.”  So when Stacy told me he was doing a night time talk show on the college radio station, I couldn’t wrap my head around it.  You could just do your own show, on a real radio stations.  I was shaking to get down there and check it out. 

The weird thing is I don’t remember much of that first visit.  It didn’t have a very profound effect on me.  I know it was snowy out.  I remember Stacy’s dorm room which I noted was small but still the kind of room I’d be comfortable in.  Hell, they had bunk beds!  Who doesn’t love bunk beds, even at 19 years-old?!  Funny what you remember but it was also the first place I ever tasted Crystal Pepsi.  In the mid 90’s some genius at PepsiCo decided it would be a good idea to come out with a clear cola.  I believe they tried passing it off as healthier.  They licensed Van Halen’s Right Now which played over all the commercials, so I definitely wanted to try it (score one for the Mad Men!)  It was still loaded with sugar of course and didn’t taste anything like Pepsi, or any cola.  It was a bigger blunder than New Coke. 

Anyway, we also went out with a big group of students for pizza at Chicago landmark Gino’s East.  It’s a famous deep dish joint in Chicagoland famous for allowing customers to scribble their names (and other various and sundry messages) on the walls and any other surface in the place.  Sad that I remember pizza and trying shitty clear soda but couldn’t tell you much else we did that weekend.

The one thing that does stand out, beyond those momentous occasions was walking into my first radio studio.  Admittedly that’s being kind, but I didn’t know any better at the time.  Stacy and his roommate Tim led me to the studio which was a tiny closet with windows in the basement of Valhalla Hall, a three story building with student apartments on the top two levels, and classrooms and offices in the basement.  The frequency was so weak that it didn’t even cover the entire campus, and this was a small school!  But I didn’t know that either.  It didn’t matter.  I walked into the booth, which is a very appropriate description, with its Smithsonian quality equipment which smelled very much like my grandfather’s old television and radio repair shop.  There was the big console with nobs and dials and three boom microphones hanging from adjustable armatures.  There was nothing digital.  This looked like something out of M*A*S*H.  There were rows of what looked like 8-tracks, drops for station id’s and sound clips, etc.  It now makes me chuckle that we actually did station identification breaks, as if the 3 people listening at any given time weren’t sure! 

I listened to their show for a while in silence.  They were relatively boring, talking about school issues and then talking about the Big 10, of which as you can clearly guess Euphegenia was not part of.  It there was a Big 13,627 they might have had a shot at consideration.  But halfway through the show they introduced me and invited me to come sit behind a mic.  I wanted to open my mouth and be clever and witty and sound like a real polished radio man.  In stead they threw it to me and I let out the lamest, loudest Pauly Shore weasel call.  I buried the needles on the board.  They both had to pull their headphones back.  I was 17, what can I say? 

That is my first memory of Euphegenia College.  I left on Sunday and went back to Wisconsin and high school and daily life.  To be honest I had no plans for the following year.  I never gave it a moment of thought.  My only plan if you dare call it that, was that I was going to be an actor.  That’s it.  Didn’t know how, didn’t know what it would take.  It was just going to be, and that was that.  If I had to map it out then, I’d have said I’m graduating in June (hopefully) and I’ll start auditioning for shows in Milwaukee at one of the repertory theaters, and within a year I’d probably be doing shows in Chicago.  From there the last thing left would be head to Hollywood.  Although I might have just skipped Chicago and filled out that Hollywood application a little sooner, if I felt like it.  That was about it, as far as plans.

College was not even a blip on the radar.  I hated school.  I wanted out.  The way I was going, I’d be graduating by the skin of my teeth.  But when our second semester began, all my classmates were talking about this ACT test they were all preparing to take.  Apparently if you didn’t take it, you had no shot of going to college.  It was more important even than the SAT.  My folks had mentioned it to me too, and Dad basically just asked me to take it “just in case.”  If I didn’t do so well, then the college thing wouldn’t be something he’d push.  He wasn’t a college graduate so he didn’t have much room to say anything.  He’d knocked up my mom his Senior year so that threw a wrench in his university plans.  But I agreed to take the damned ACT anyway, even though you had to go in on a fucking Saturday morning to take it.  It got him to quit bringing up the ARMY.

There were books as thick as the yellow pages for preparing to take the ACT.  I’m sure there still are.  People I knew took classes to prep for it.  Their parents hired tutors to help them get ready.  I did . . . nothing.  I got up on a shitty cold and gray Saturday in Milwaukee and went to some school I’d never been to, found the classroom, and prepared to waste a few hours taking a test.  Part of the reason I hated school in general was I hated taking tests.  I was terrible at it.  Even tests for subjects I liked or was good at were difficult for me.  I asked myself numerous times what I was doing volunteering for this one.  I actually made one request of God right before the proctor told us to begin. 

“Lord, this is stupid.  I’m going to do my best on the reading comprehension and English portions of the test.  You guide my hand on the math and science because I’m just going to color in the first circle my eyes land on.  I might even make patterns with the dots.  I’m not even going to read the problems.” 

That’s a hell of a strategy, I know.  When it was finally over, I was pretty certain I’d just wasted a Saturday.  I turned it in and went on with life.  In the meantime, Stacy had been talking to me (and my parents) about actually applying to Euphegenia.  There was going to be some admissions open house weekend and I should just come hang out for the weekend and hear what they had to say.  Not considering the admissions portion, I just said yeah I’d like to come down and see my buddy. 

When the weekend came, I had an appointment to take a tour with an admissions counselor named Ben Timm (real first name Tim, as in Tim Timm, hence “Ben.”)  He was nice guy and a former actor himself, but looked like an emaciated game show host.  I also had an audition for the Director of the Drama department.  I had to prepare a monologue and submit to an interview.  To this day I have no idea what monologue I did for him that day.  I know I was going to do something from Shakespeare, which seemed like an obvious choice, but Stacy hipped me to the fact that this Director, Lane was way into Shakespeare.  This dude would chew me up if I chose something from the Bard.  If Lane K. Gabriel didn’t like it, I was toast.  So I quickly figured out a Plan B.  

I do recall being struck by how beautiful the small campus really was.  The last time I’d been there was in the winter and it was dark.  Now it was early spring and there were signs of life all around.  The whole place was wooded with a tranquil creek running peacefully throughout the campus.  It was easy to be romanced by the natural setting that framed the school.  It was also easy to be romanced by the notion of romancing some of the college girls walking around.  I’m certain now that was all part of an Admissions ploy.  Slowly I turned.  The notion of going to college didn’t seem so unpleasant after all.  Dorm life seemed fun.  Guys were up all night talking, playing music, and during the day there were pretty girls all over the place.  And no parents.  Best of all, it was a school but I could major in Theatre.  I could spend every day working on my plays, studying different styles, just overall improving my craft (ugh that term!) 

I remember meeting Lane, the Director and immediately felt at ease with him.  I didn’t know quite what to expect but Stacy had scared me a little.  He seemed like a very likeable guy.  The size of a leprechaun (well, when compared a Yeti such as myself) but all smiles from the minute he saw you.  His so-called Shakespearean obsession was apparent as soon as you laid eyes on him.  His balding pate gave way to thick auburn sides and collar length locks in the back.  And his well-sculpted beard made him very much resemble the old bard himself.  I remember him sitting in the back row of the theater watching my audition.  The interview was short.  He asked why I wanted to come to Euphegenia.  Why I wanted to act.  He laughed every time I said something meant to be funny.  He had a great laugh too.  He gave no notes; just thanked me in his lilting voice, and that was it.  No real feedback, no instruction as to what would come next.  Just thank you.  I remember feeling completely unsatisfied, not only in my performance, but in the fact that I had no idea how it had been received.  I was in limbo.  I left the theater and met up with Stacy and then back over to the admissions building.   

Tim Benjamin Timm (not actually his name, but the truth is actually worse) basically laid out for the three major hurdles that had to be cleared for me to begin there in the fall.  First off, I needed to pass the ACT with a good score.  The national average was 21.  Euphegenia required a minimum score of 22.  After the ACT, I had to be accepted.  Ben basically said if I got that 22, I had a really good shot.  The final and perhaps biggest hurdle was financing.  This was a private college.  I believe my freshman year Euphegenia was running between $6 – 8,000 per semester with room and board.  That was going to be the hard part.  My dad and stepmom didn’t have it, and my mom and stepdad were not thrilled that I was even considering a religious college.  I wasn’t counting on contributions from them.  They didn’t even believe it was a real college.  In retrospect, they might have been right in their suspicions. 

Andy Are You Goofin' on Elvis?

I returned from the Bahamas a week after the rest of the suckers had gone back to school.  I was darker than bourbon.  Of course at 15 I didn’t know that, but it sounded cool when I wrote it just then!  The first thing I did was skulk into the gym where Mr. C and a few others were working on props.  I remember it was dark except on stage as they were doing something with the lights.  When Mr. C saw me, he told me to meet him in his classroom a little later.  I waited in Mr. C’s classroom for a few minutes.  When he finally appeared he shut the door and brushed past me to the big chemistry lab counter he used as his desk.  I thought I must have done something again.  Maybe I was in real danger of flunking, again.  He was futzing with papers in his briefcase.

“I’m going to tell you something,” he finally said.  “You cannot repeat it to anyone.  Do you understand?”  That’s when he finally looked up at me.  And it was the Mr. C stare that I knew so well.  While he would never swear, his eyes said “don’t bullshit me!”  I of course nodded that I wouldn’t repeat anything. 

“Dave S is failing Chemistry,” he said matter-of-factly, as if I was another teacher sharing a cup of coffee in the lounge.  “He doesn’t know it yet, but as of next week he is ineligible to participate in any extracurricular activities.  That means he can’t be in the play.”

I could easily devote at least one whole chapter to the Dave he was referring to.  I knew the kid well.  We would actually come to spend a lot of time together the following year.  He was a funny guy.  But he was trouble.  He loved being an asshole.  Loved to be the rebel, especially in our conservative Christian school.  Don’t get me wrong, I fully admit so did I.  But it was how we went about our mischief that differentiated us.  I’d like to say I was like a white collar criminal while Dave was a smash-and-grab liquor store hold-up man.  Dave liked heavy metal, Marlboro Reds, and trying to corrupt as many good girls as he could catch in his hypnotic gaze.  But more than trouble, Dave was troubled. 

He was the first person I ever knew that lived in a trailer park.  Dave, his grossly-obese, abusive mother, his skinny meek father, and multiple siblings all shared a double-wide.  The term double never seemed so irrelevant.  It was a sad scene.  It was the symbol of all of his angst, anger, and rebellion. 

The funny thing was to just look at the kid you wouldn’t guess any of it.  He was a skinny blonde with glasses and cardigans that made him look smart, which not surprisingly he was.  Sadly like some comic book villain he was using his intellect for evil instead of good.  Hell, he’d only tried out for the play because of one of our core cast members, Ania.  They were dating, or going out, or whatever you want to call it.  It was a short relationship of course.  She wasn’t going to let him into her pants.  Not all the way, anyway.  Dave was smart enough to judge when a table was cold and would walk away quickly before he’d wasted too many chips.  Of course I’d already made out with Ania countless times, which in this school was practically third base.  She’d told me numerous times she was in love with me.  Even during our senior year, she slipped a cassette single of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You into my locker.  I didn’t like seeing them together, even if I didn’t want to date her myself. 

Here was Mr. C telling me that Davey-boy was about to get booted from the show.  But why was he telling me this? 

“Dave’s playing three smaller parts,” Mr. Campbell said.  “Only two of them have lines.  The show opens in two weeks.  Think you could pick them up and be ready in time for opening night?”

I whipped out my Oscar and polished it on my shirt before responding “Uh, hellooo!?!”

Ok no, obviously I didn’t answer him that way.  Never would.  But I showed ample amounts of confidence in my abilities and gratitude for this second-second chance.  I appreciated the chance to work tech and all, but as would be a theme later in my life, I was either onstage, and onstage a lot, or I wasn’t going to bother at all.  Ulitmately I took on four parts in that show.  The farmer, Mr. Jones, who opens the show and then another random farmer in a tavern.  I played a raven spy that delivers a monologue about news from other farms.  Finally I spent the entire second act as a dog.  I played one of the evil pig Napoleon’s canine enforcers who carry out his bloody orders against animals who question his authority.  That was fun.  I know how retarded this sounds even before I say it, but I really got into that part.  I didn’t want to seem like some dumb teenager pretending to be a dog.  I really told myself I was going to become a dog.  In fact, I was a wolf.  I was a werewolf.  I was a snarling bloodthirsty beast at the command of an anthropomorphic pig.  Yeah, I know.  I read it too. 

Even though being hunched over like an ape (more so than usual) was murder on my back, I loved every moment of that play.  I was on stage prominently, and aside from two brief monologues from two (thankfully upright) roles, I didn’t have to remember a single line in the second act.  The kid playing Napoleon cued us with orders to attack whenever we had to bark viciously.  The rest of the time I just paced around stage and curiously sniffed whatever female was closest and unprotected.  I mean, if you’re going to be a dog . . .!

That play was impactful on my life for another reason, aside from getting in touch with my inner Rottweiler.  As I mentioned, when I had to bow out my original part of Boxer was given to a new comer.  The aforementioned Stacy, who was a year older than me and while he’d attended the school all his life never bothered to audition for a play.  For some reason he’d felt compelled to do so this production.  We didn’t get to know each other much during the show.  I wasn’t much interested.  He did an acceptable job, I guessed, but that didn’t mean I liked him.  A month or two after Animal Farm closed I was sitting at home on a Saturday night when the phone rang.  This of course was back in the days before privacy lists, caller id, or cell phones (portable telephones existed but they were the size of a brick and the idea of any teenager having one was science fiction.)  The schools published a directory with everyone’s home address and phone number. 

“Bart?” a somewhat familiar voice asked when I answered.

“Yeah,” I said reluctantly.

“It’s Stacy, from school,” he said.  “From Animal Farm.” 

“Oh yeah,” I said, realization sinking in, but quickly giving way to confusion.  Why was he calling me? 

“Rusty and I are sitting around at my house,” he said.  Rusty was another junior at the time and he’d been in almost every play with me, including Animal Farm.  He was nice enough but we didn’t socialize.  I knew he was another honor student and I also knew he was a Trekkie.  The little affinity I had for Trek never compelled me to strike up a friendship beyond the stage. 

Where was this going?

“We were thinking of heading out to see City Slickers,” he said.  The first City Slickers movie had only been out a few weeks at this time.  The revival of Jack Palance was just beginning.  “We thought it would be fun if you came along.” 

“Um, yeah, sure,” I said.  I turned to see my dad and stepmom watching me fidget nervously with the phone chord.  Yes kids, in those days, phones were attached to a base, often hung on a wall.  “Hang on though.  Let me ask.  I have to see if I can get a ride.”

“We’ll come get you,” Kelly said.

I put my hand over the phone and quickly explained who it was and what he wanted.  Now, up to this point I didn’t really socialize with many guys.  My attention fell almost immediately to the ones in the skirts.  When I got to Highland I immediately found myself a girlfriend.  She was a senior.  That’s how I rolled.  And she had a car.  A big car.  A Monte Carlo with tinted windows and a T-top.  Again, how I rolled.  We were inseparable.  When she went away to college at the end of the summer I was devastated.  Of course we vowed we’d keep it together, even though she was headed to Oklahoma.  We actually did my entire sophomore year.  Much to the dismay of my folks. 

For one thing, I think they suspected what went on in that Monte Carlo when the movies ended and the ice cream was gone.  When she was around, I never hung out with dudes, unless they were dating her friends.  Once I discovered what girls could do to boys, I saw no point in hanging with my own.  They weren’t going to do that.   Although, in retrospect, I suspect a couple might have!  She and I didn’t actually have sex-sex for the first year we were together.  But we definitely worked our way there, regardless what we were told in youth group. 

After she and I inevitably split up, the long distance thing being impossible to sustain at that age, I never went out much socially.  For starters I was too young to drive.  But honestly I was in a funk and not interested.  I became a real homebody.  My average weekend went like this:  Friday night dinner with the folks.  Watch television or a video until they went to bed, and then furiously masturbate to USA Up All Night cheesecake movies.  Saturday morning I’d be up by 7 and off to the grocery or some other errand with the folks.  We’d usually go have lunch at a restaurant, if I was lucky we’d swing by Target, and then home for the rest of the evening where again I’d wait till they went to bed and more furious masturbation.  Said wanking always took place in my favorite pea soup green vinyl beanbag chair (I told you to remember it.)  That bean bag and I shared a lot of memories.  (For the record, I lost my virginity to said older girlfriend atop that trusty bean bag.  Just putting that on paper.)  Sunday was of course church day.  As Jimmy Buffett once said, there’s a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

They were thrilled at the idea of me going out with boys from school.  Fine upstanding spiritual young men at that.  Not like the reprobates I would occasionally hang out with when my girl was away at school.  For a while I’d made friends with a couple guys named Rick and Jay.  We’d smoke Winstons and sneak a couple beers when we could convince Jay to risk buying.  Jay was 3 years older than us, and looked in his twenties.  We immediately made him our friend because he drove his own car to school the first day our freshman year.  Jay was a good guy, but reminded me of Baby Huey.  Strong as an ox, but a little dense.  Jay was a terrible student hence being so much older than us.  Jay had revisited a few grade levels.  That said he was loyal to a fault, a talented artist, and a gifted mechanic.  I’ve recently learned that served him well as he’s become something of a phenomenal airplane mechanic.   

Rick got his license when we were sophomores and his old man helped him buy a souped up 1970 Chevelle SS.  It was a copper color with black racing stripes and it rumbled like a jet engine.  I’ve never really been a car guy, but driving around Milwaukee, a major gear-head town in Ricky’s Chevelle was fucking sweet!  We got a lot of looks from chicks (yeah that’s right, chicks) and thumbs up from every biker we met at a light.  We would cruise around with all the other muscle cars, chain smoking and listening to Andrew “Dice” Clay albums.  We could spout off every dirty nursery rhyme in-synch with the Dice-man.  Hickory dickory dock . . .!  If our parents only knew!

I played co-pilot on more than one drag race down Highway 100.  One winter’s night we were messing around, showing a couple preppies what the SS could do, when Ricky dropped the hammer on an icy overpass and the car launched forward.  Then sideways and we began to donut across the highway.  When we finally stopped spinning, the car pointing sideways, on a snow packed median looking out into the night sky.  Thank God because if it wasn’t there we’d have slid across the other lane, and very easily found ourselves plummeting towards terra firma.  I know car guys love to wax poetic about how sturdy these old cars were built, but a three story drop to asphalt?  You do the math.  We had to pay a guy in an F350 twenty bucks to hook a chain to the bumper and pull us out.  Some Good Samaritan, but I guess it served us right.   

    I not only got my parents’ blessing to go to a movie with Stacy and Rusty, the old man slipped me a twenty and I wasn’t even given a curfew.  I was apprehensive but figured what the hell?  I wanted to see the movie anyway.  I just didn’t know what to expect with these guys.  Was this a trap?  Was it an intervention where they’d sit me down and tell me I’d backslidden and needed to prepare my soul for the rapture?  They picked me up an hour later and we talked movies the whole way to the theater.  We shared a number of favorites.  Stacy and I were both big fans of Tim Burton’s recent Batman and all Steven Spielberg flicks. 

When the flick was over, we stopped at Taco Bell.  Stacy and I dominated the conversation.  Mostly movies, music and television, of course.  It turned out we were both David Letterman disciples.  We had a shared obsession with icons of the 50’s & 60’s like Elvis and James Dean.  We rambled on about trivial facts.  The stuff nobody else our age thought about, let alone discussed.  It was the most interesting conversation I’d ever had because we had similar opinions, but different viewpoints.  Which made sense, given our backgrounds couldn’t be more opposite.  It was like we were of the same tribe, but different ends of the camp.  It became apparent this guy and I would be friends.  The only time anything even remotely religious entered the conversation was when Stacy told us he’d been accepted to a private Baptist college in Illinois called Euphegenia. 

I Want The Sun to Shine On Me, I Want The Truth to Set Me Free

Previously I mentioned that there was only one production during my four years of High School that I wasn’t in.  There were almost two.  In the spring of my sophomore year Mr. C had a vision.  We were going to do Animal Farm.  And it was going to be like nothing that school had ever seen, let alone attempted.  He found a musical adaptation of the story, but rather than do it as a musical (having tried one before and learning we were horrific singers) we would speak the songs.  They would be chanted, in some cases droned to echo the sentiment of the oppressed proletariat.  And we would not be standing.  He devised this plan where we would have 2 x 4’s with handles tucked up baggy black sleeves.  We’d all walk hunched over, like gorillas, to give the illusion of being quadrupeds.  After all, four legs good, two legs bad. 

The cast would be clad in black.  Only our faces would differentiate us, using make-up and latex appliances to look like animals.  I sensed something different and exciting.  It was dark.  It was bleak.  It almost sounded like art.  I was in.  Plus early on I dreamt of playing animals and monsters.  I wanted to be Vincent on the CBS series Beauty and the Beast.  I worship at the altar of Ron Perlman.  Above all I was told I would have the best male part in the show, Boxer the stoic workhorse.  This was going to be good. 

Until, as it so often does, life had other plans.  My parents had been talking for a long time of going on a cruise.  In the early days of their marriage, my dad and stepmom went on many Caribbean cruises.  Even before I came to live with them they’d talked of taking me along.  That year, they finally booked us a cruise vacation over my Spring Break.  Not to be outdone my mother and stepdad decided to plan a trip with not only me, but my best friend from the old neighborhood to the Bahamas.  Long story short, without any input from me or communication with each other, obviously, the two trips were booked back to back.  The cruise was to happen on the week of my actual break, and the Bahamas the week after.  Literally the day after we got back.  I won’t even get into how hairy those logistics got, especially because I didn’t tell either side what I was doing with the other.  Listen, I know that’s ridiculous, but I learned early on that saying nothing meant a few more minutes of peace when it came to my parents. 

Anyway, two weeks in tropical latitudes probably sounds awesome.  And it is.  However, there was no way I could miss two weeks of rehearsals and still be in Animal Farm.  So I went to Mr. Campbell, hat in hand and explained the situation.  Tickets were bought, hotels were booked.  It was out of my hands.  As I suspected, he told me apologetically that I couldn’t be in the show.  No hard feelings, maybe in the fall, etc.  I could help out on set design and stage tech if I wanted.  Stage tech!  The words still taste like licking a 9 Volt battery.  The part, excuse me, my part went to someone else.  And I went off to get a tan.  Once again I acted like it was no big deal.  I was 15 with a visible moustache and I was going to the ocean for two weeks straight.  I’m a true Sun sign.  I believe the ocean is Mother to us all.  I feel a real connection to those latitudes.  But still, somebody else got my part!

His name was Stacy.  Stacy!  A guy with a chick’s name had my part!  This part called for dark, brooding martyrdom.  Stacy was tall and good looking, and worse outgoing, optimistic, and liked by almost everyone.  This immediately made me think he was a douche.  He was on the student council, the honors society, in advanced placement classes, and he was one of the recognized “spiritual leaders” of the student body.  He was the anti-me.  The Bizzaro me!  And he had my goddamned part! 

I tell you so much about this because Stacy would be the one individual more than anyone else responsible for my going to Euphegenia College.  We’re getting there, I swear!

The trips down island while on the surface little more than relaxing getaways in the sun had real impact on me.  It was on that ship I began to form an idea of who I was.  For one thing, I’ve always looked a little older than I am.  Now that I’m closer to 40 than 30, that isn’t what you’d call a blessing.  This morning I looked in the mirror and saw a new streak of gray that looked as though I’d smeared cake frosting in my hair.  When I was a teenager, it often paid-off.  Such was the case during my week at sea.  On the first day, I found myself sitting alone on one of the smaller decks, listening to a reggae trio called I-95, sipping a rum runner I’d been served without question and feelin’ irie! 

It was by comparison a smaller cruise ship, but big enough that I literally saw my parents no more than twice a day.  Once in the morning when I got up, and then again at dinner.  Otherwise, I figured out quickly I was on a solo vacation.  I was brown as a berry by Day 2 and with my black hair and Clark Gable ‘stache, I was passing for at least twenty at every bar.  It’s not like liquor laws are strongly enforced in the middle of the Atlantic anyway.  The only hiccup, it dawned on me suddenly, was paying for drinks on the ship.  They didn’t accept cash.  Every passenger had this little plastic card.  You charged them up at the beginning of the voyage and the card became your currency.  If you tapped it out, you strolled down to the purser’s office (not Gopher, sadly) and added more money.  The problem was you were required to sign with each purchase.  That meant a paper trail!  I know the inner workings of bar tabs are pretty well-known, but I was a 15 year-old yokel at the time.  It was all very complex and exciting.  I wanted to drink, and they wanted to serve me!  Lest anyone forget, in my parents’ Evangelical world drinking equated sin.  I couldn’t have my dad discover my bar history at the end of the voyage. 

Enter Steve & Lori, my best friends for five days.  They were a 20-something couple from Southern California on their honeymoon.  Steve was an electrician or carpenter, but his bleach-blonde chin length hair and constant bemused grin made him look like a surfer.  Tall, muscular, and tan, he could have easily passed as a member of Swayze’s Ex-Presidents gang in Point Break.  Lori was a sweet, petite California girl, but smart as a whip.  I think she was a teacher or social worker.  The three of us became regulars on that little corner deck.

That particular bar was more of a grab and go spot.  It was covered and not right by the pool.  There were a half dozen white metal tables and the band was bunched up in the corner.  It was perfect for me because it was secluded.  The band played this music I’d never heard before called “reggae.”  The lead singer and bass player was a Jamaican named Moses.  He looked more like a chubby Lawrence Fishburne than a calypso singer.  He was bearded, with short wooly hair rather than the expected dreadlocks, and he wore professorial glasses.  The guitar player J.B. was exactly what every white man pictures a Kingston ganja dealer looks like.  Ghastly thin, scraggly moustache and chin whiskers and long tendril like dreads running down his back.  The third member, a keyboardist named Desmond hailed from Haiti.  He was clean cut and resembled a young version of the Butler on the Fresh Prince.  Desmond never said more than three words.  But every day, when I appeared on deck Desmond would smile and nod, and Moses would call out to me from the microphone.

Yes, this was a ship full of white folks so the boys played mostly safe reggae and calypso on deck.  they whore tacky Aloha shirts and khaki pants.  I know none of this would have been their first choice, but the gig paid.  Life aboard a cruise ship was likely more comfortable than where they’d each come from.  As the week went on and they became comfortable with Steve, Lori, and me, they snuck in a few more interesting tunes and funny novelty songs.  That first day, they started playing an obscure Neal Diamond song in reggae style.  I didn’t know it because at the time my knowledge of the Diamond catalog was at best, limited.  But the Laird Hamilton clone to my right laughed and called out “Neal Diamond.” 

He laughed and Moses laughed, and then Steve (who at that moment I didn’t know from Adam) looked over at me and asked if I knew that one.  I admitted I did not, but that was it.  We began to talk over the next couple hours.  Suddenly Steve was buying me beers (only because up to that point beer was the only alcoholic beverage I knew.)   Inevitably the conversation drifted around to the prerequisite “where are you from, what do you do?”  I was hesitant at first to divulge that I was actually a kid on vacation with my parents.  I wasn’t sure how they’d react to learning they’d been contributing to the delinquency of a minor all afternoon.  But ultimately, I came clean, quietly as I could.  They stared at me for a moment, likely in disbelief and then Steve started grinning and let out this machine gun laugh.  It was totally guttural and California stoner.  He followed it with a Spiccoli-like “maaaarvelous!” 

After that, Steve and Lori adopted me as they’re little mascot.  We met every afternoon, same spot, same time to drink away the afternoons while sailing the big blue.  Steve poured me my very first rum & Coke.  On our second or third day of the trip, they came up to the bar with a backpack.  Inside were two bottles of rum they’d purchased ashore but not declared.  Steve was ordering Cokes all day long and mixing up his own cocktails under the table, passing a few my way as well.  I learned it was called a Cuba Libre, but I simply call it my medicine, still good for what ails me even today.

Steve and Lori were my daylight drinking buddies, but after dark, I made acquaintances with a few more nefarious characters.  Like all cruise ships, this one had a dance club.  However on bigger lines like Carnival or Royal Caribbean they’re big, well lit and centrally located discos, the one aboard our ship was as subterranean as you could get on a boat.  It was a dark, cramped room on the lowest level accessible to guests.  No one even showed up until midnight or later, but I made a habit of heading down early.  Once again, I became friendly with the staff.  I found I preferred the people of the night(life.)  The DJ looked like Randy Newman, crazy curls and thick glasses.  He was kind of a slob, but he was also really funny.  It hurt heart my heart to discover he called bingo in the showroom by day.  He often repeated the joke “four years of college and I’m doing this.  My parents are so proud.”   The blue hairs would chuckle, but there was truth and sadness in those words.  I would show up at the club early just to shoot the shit with him.  He was a frustrated comedian spinning records in a throwback disco.  I never asked why.  Even as a kid, I guess I had enough instinct to know better than to ask. 

I’ve come to the theory that if you meet a thirty-something or older American working on a cruise ship or expatriated to the Caribbean, there may well be a reason you don’t want to know.  The DJ was a funny guy, but there was just enough smuggler or pirate about him that anything was possible. 

And he was the cleanest cut of the friends I made in that bar.  The most colorful and mysterious character, the one who I still wonder about to this day, will be heretofore referred to as Zeke.  Zeke was somewhere around 30, had doe eyes and a gap in his teeth and reminded me very much of Cory Haim.  Now more so.  It was evident from the first time he walked into the club that Zeke lived to party.  At this point in my life, I’d never smoked pot, never would have even considered trying cocaine (still haven’t, for the record), and I’d never ever heard of a B-52.  But by the end of the week, I’d have firsthand experience with (at least witnessing) all three. 

Zeke always looked happy.  He wore unbuttoned white linen shirts and khakis every night, which by the way was only at night.  I never saw Zeke on deck or even in the ships halls during daylight hours.  But it was guaranteed around midnight he’d appear in the doorway of the disco.  And by night three, as soon as he walked in, he’d slide into one of those deep booth-like chairs on wheels often found in strip clubs (and apparently cruise ship discothèques) and hand me his white card. 

“A B-52,” he’d call out loudly in a nasally voice, “and whatever you want.” 

I somehow became his bar boy, but I didn’t care.  It was always the same.  A B-52 and whatever I wanted.  Which meant my drinks would never show up on my old man’s bill.  And Zeke didn’t give a shit what I ordered.  He seemed to care little about money period.  Too be honest I don’t think, even drinking Heinekens or rum the whole week, my drinks ever racked up half the expense his precious shots did.  Those suckers were not cheap.  But I confess, they were delicious, albeit a touch girly.  Kahlua, Bailey’s, and Grand Marnier, what’s not to love?  They were sweet and warm and spread their wings in your chest.  Still, it’s not something I’d ever feel secure enough to order in public.  But when off to sea, why not?

Zeke was on the cruise with his father who, incidentally had just gotten out of prison.  For what, again I did not ask.  I met his father once.  We went back to Zeke’s stateroom with another strange character called Ripper (not even making that up) so he could roll a spliff.  Rip had olive skin, wild curly black hair, wore sunglasses constantly, and claimed to play drums in a rock band in LA.  I’d eventually learn he was just a rich kid.  I saw the rest of his family.  I sat and watched as Zeke picked seeds and stems from the greenery.  His old man sat up in bed from a deep sleep when we arrived and immediately reached for a bottle of whiskey on the bedside table.  He looked like something out of Middle Earth.  The best way to describe him was a human frog.  Bald, round, with thin short limbs, floppy, liver-spotted man boobs, and faded green globs of jailhouse tattoos.  He just sat there swigging whiskey, chuckling at God knows what, occasionally speaking completely incoherent sentences.  Zeke would tell him to shut and go back to sleep and the old man would just cuss at him. 

Zeke said he’d picked up his father at the prison and they’d come straight to the ship, after a short stop at K-Mart to buy the old guy some cabana wear.  The cruise was a welcome home gift, and then Zeke was taking him back to his “farm” somewhere in central Florida.  What he grew on this farm, again, he never said.  But he let slip once or twice that he had a number of dogs and lots of guns.  The night before we docked in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Zeke regaled us all over a table full of empty B-52 glasses and beer bottles and other various shots (and traces of white powder, allegedly) of his many misadventures in Jamaica.  He spoke of some hidden bar way up in the mountains where all the locals knew him.  He wanted all of us to rent motor scooters and come with him the next day.  Even if I hadn’t been with my parents, an unguided excursion up some random mountain road into the wilds of Jamaica would not have been on my agenda.  I was curious to see if Zeke really could come out into the daylight (and if so, would he sparkle?)  I would get the opportunity eventually. 

At the end of the trip, we woke up back in Miami.  Waiting to disembark, I got bored and made one last trip to my little deck bar.  Moses was sipping coffee as it was his day off.  Steve and Lori were there too.  We hugged and said teary goodbyes.  This was long before Al Gore invented the internet so there were no emails to be exchanged.  And how weird would it be for a 15 year old to ask for their home phone number or address.  Still, I wish somehow I could have stayed in touch with those two.  They were good people.  Maybe somehow one of them will read this one day and say “hey, that was us!”  So if you’re names are Steve and Lori from southern California and you were on a Dolphin Cruise ship in the spring of 1991, hit me up!

As for Zeke, that goodbye was far less emotional but much more interesting.  I would love to know what ever became of him.  I would just prefer to find out from a distance.  As I was getting ready to go find my parents, Zeke and Ripper appeared in the sliding doorway of the bar.  It was the first time I ever saw him where he didn’t look happy.  In fact, sunlight didn’t suit him well.  He stumbled over to the bar and began demanding, what else, a B-52.  The bartender explained to him they were only serving water and iced tea.  The “bar” was closed, to prepare for the next wave of tourists later that day.  Zeke began to get loud and some of the other guys from the disco went over and tried talking him down off the ledge before security arrived.  Zeke was begging for alcohol, telling us if he didn’t get a drink soon he was going to have an unbearable migraine.  He then went on to explain that he’d received an early wake up call from the purser’s office.  Apparently he’d put down $2,500 in cash at the beginning of the cruise, and his bill was now way up in the thousands and he needed to settle up before leaving the ship.  They were holding his luggage until he did.  I started getting a little nervous, wondering if he had taken a quick accounting of his bar bills. 

I should have known he was no where near lucid enough for math.  He told us he’d had to call his wife (wife???) and told her to drive down to Miami, which was not exactly down the road a piece from wherever the hell their farm was (sounded like Bogotá) with the four grand he needed to get off the ship.  While I love to party, meeting Zeke and witnessing his experience on that cruise taught me to always keep a running tally in my head, no matter how drunk I am.  Well it also taught me to never run a tab.