We were like players in some Hollywood buddy movie cast after the apocalypse wiped out all the beautiful people. We were all in our early twenties, single and with absolutely no responsibilities. The goal was supposed to be assembling a set of skills that would lead us to a fruitful existence. Our actions did nothing to support that goal.

Others would come and go, but there were five of us at the heart of the operation:

There was Roy, the stout Republican that had no idea how strong he really was. He especially enjoyed lumbering up behind some unsuspecting guy and applying a series of moves he learned from some martial arts asshole he worked with. I’ll never forget his low-pitched giggle as I futilely struggled to breathe through five or six different choke-holds. Many a morning I awoke wondering if I would be able to walk after absorbing one of his beatings in the name of drunken comedy. And for some reason, women liked him. He was an ex-jock bastard that couldn’t quite cut it at the college level. And for some reason, I liked him too.

There was Steve (his actual name was Shaun Stevens, but everybody called him Steve), the Star Wars dork that was intelligent and extremely likeable, despite his penchant for plastic figurines. He never had any money, but he always had beer and he never seemed to owe anybody anything. I suspect he was taking the folks at the student loan office for a ride. Though he was easily the smartest of us all, he was perpetually on academic probation. He could forever be counted on in a pinch – whether it was in a fight or in a card game, but his best attribute was his asexuality. Sexually speaking, all humanity was safe in his presence. This included my girlfriend. Oddly, this attribute also served to attract women. I can recall more than one occasion in which a worldly coed would attempt to deflower our little buddy, for no other reward than to be the one who could say that she accomplished the chore. To this day, no one ever has.

There was Billy, the attractive guy. What this man lacked in intelligence, tact, wit, decency, respect for the opposite sex, respect for other people’s property, respect for his elders, motivation, physical strength, ability to grow facial hair and just general common sense – he made up for with pure testosterone. He had the fashion sense of a rich gay man and just enough money to pull it off. The years that I knew him were a vicious cycle: greet the incoming class of freshman girls, spend the early part of the year fucking as many of them as possible until word of his sluttiness got around, spend the rest of the year fucking a few more girls by convincing them that he’d reformed and then greeting the new class as the academic calendar turned over. Annually speaking, I think he spent more on condoms than I did on cigarettes. He belonged in the frat houses. He might have been happy there. I’m not really sure what compelled him to hang out with us…I think he relished being a stud fish in a pond of otherwise fat, borderline-alcoholic fish. Thinking back on the hundreds of nights of drunken debate, I have no idea why I never thought to ask.

There was Marc, the little chubby guy who spent most nights sitting around with us clinging to his religion like some dead relative that he wasn’t ready to let go of. He grew up in a strict family that put Jesus at the front of everything:

A week and a half with us and he didn’t have a chance:

One-by-one, his principals slipped into oblivion and he conformed to the model of drunken debauchery that was his surroundings. I really think he struggled during the transformation. When I last saw him, he had stopped attending classes and was managing a pizza shop. I’ll never know if he was truly happy with what he had allowed himself to become; but one particular night, as his teeth removed a shot glass from deep within the liquor-doused cleavage of an especially promiscuous lady, I couldn’t help but notice that his face beamed with every definition of bliss that I had ever known. And that was enough for me.

And then there was me. I knew I was part of the group, because I was always there. However, I saw myself as nothing more than the scribe. I’m sure if you asked the other guys about me they would have a story or two. One of them would cast me as the comedian. Another might depict me as the catalyst to trouble. As far as I was concerned, I might as well have been a tape recorder carefully placed on an out-of-the-way coffee table in order to preserve those many nights that we would fondly recall for the remainder of our days. Or maybe I was just a dick in an orange T-shirt.

If I was indeed a scribe, I am now a scribe with a medium. From time to time, when I don’t have important business to tend to – like reporting the latest strip-club legal docket, I’ll send off a story or two from The Iowa Papers. Hope you can dig it. If not, get bent.

Love,

JRM