Brilliant … But Bouncy

I Was a Toddler Without a Toy.

On our way home from Daytona, I was distressed. We had barely enough money for gas, and no one would buy me any beer.

Danny was driving as I whined all the way through Georgia. “I gotta get back to fuckin’ work,” he growled. “We’re not stoppin’.”

“Let’s just pick up a 12-pack,” I moaned, my hangover screaming for redemption.

Larry said, “We’ll get a fuckin’ case when we get home.”

“I can’t fuckin’ wait until we get home,” I moaned.

I spent hours contriving new ways we could get some beer without taking any time:

“There’s a liquor store at the next exit!”

“Let’s get a pizza!” (No one ate pizza without drinking beer.)

“We could say we got a flat tire and spend the night in that hotel!”

I was a toddler without a toy. I couldn’t think about anything else.

Danny finally snapped. “There’s a fuckin’ beer right there! Just drink that!”

Coincidentally, there was one can of Miller Lite in the car.

No one knew how long it had been there or from whence it came. It had definitely been there for more than 24 hours, in the closed car, in the blazing Florida sunshine. No doubt that one beer was rancid.

But like any good alcoholic, I considered Danny’s suggestion.

The beer had been rolling on the floor of the car for days, flitting under the seats, then rolling back into view. Even if the beer hadn’t been the single most puke-worthy beer ever, the rolling meant that the carbonation would cause the can to explode if I opened it.

And if I survived the beer explosion, what was left would be half a can of rancid foam – meaning, not just awful but virtually impossible to drink.

Still, I seriously considered this option.

The Crux: there was only one beer. And I knew that one beer would never, ever be enough.

At that point, the rancid, rolling beer was the only beer on the planet. It was certainly the only beer I was going to get during the full-day-long drive to Pittsburgh.

So I didn’t open it.

And I stopped asking for beer.

Instead, I thought back to my childhood. How did I survive long car rides in my youth?

I remembered singing with my family, reading books, playing a variety of games, having a great time riding in the car.

I desperately loved family games.

“Let’s play the alphabet game!” I suggested.

Danny and Larry – to shut me up – begrudgingly agreed. I taught them how to play.

“I packed my suitcase and in it I put …” Danny needed something with the letter A. “An apple.”

Larry went next: “I packed my suitcase and it in I put an apple and … a banana.” Letter B.

It wasn’t a great start, but by the eighth letter, we were making the game into a little song. Things rhymed. There was a real rhythm to the “suitcase” we were building. I’d never played the game this way before – and it was awesome! An extra challenge!

By the end, when someone sadly broke the game, we had a fabulous suitcase packed.

After the success of the game, beer was no longer necessary. We had a fun drive home without it.

Show Him Your Tits!

Danny, Larry and I camped in two tiny pup tents with no sleeping bags at an official Bike Week campground. During the day, Danny did his own thing. He’d wake up and disappear, and we did, too.

Larry spent much of Bike Week wandering around and looking at motorcycles while I compared myself to other biker chicks.

Unlike me, many biker chicks were dressed in whole-body costumes. Some were head-to-toe in leather and chains, complete with a studded collar. Some were pierced in places I didn’t even know could be pierced – and every last piercing was visible because of their lack of clothing. Some were tattooed on every inch of bare skin, making it hard to tell where their original skin might be, wearing only a thong and pasties to “cover” themselves. Others were literally chained to the old man, being dragged around like a dog. Still others had their own bikes: sparkly purple Sportsters or pastel pink dressers with shag-covered seats, the women wearing glittery chaps and a sleeveless leather vest.

Somehow in the midst of these women, who for all intents and purposes were dressed like prostitutes, a biker with a gray beard aimed his disposable camera at me. Then he just stood there staring at me and smiling.

Larry noticed. “Show him your tits!” he said.

“What?”

“He wants to see your tits!”

Dumbfounded, I lifted my shirt revealing two small breasts; I never wore a bra. The guy snapped a picture, gave me a thumbs-up, and walked away.

Another guy saw this exchange and rushed over with his camera, too.

I looked at Larry for verification. He nodded. I lifted my shirt again.

I have never been particularly proud of my body, nor did I ever consider my breasts interesting, so I found the “tit shot” phenomenon to be an amusing pastime. As I was wholly detached from my own emotions, I had no idea that it should concern or humiliate me. I mentally categorized these frequent shirt-lifts as representing freedom from social constructs.

The only part of Bike Week that bothered me was Florida’s ridiculous open container law. We weren’t allowed to drink beer while we walked around gazing at motorcycles.

So, after a few hours of hearing about the legendary Boot Hill Saloon, we went for a visit.

The Boot Hill Saloon was my favorite part of Bike Week. We went inside (air conditioned!) and Larry ordered a couple of Miller Lites. We never left. We drank and chatted with the other bikers. We explored the walls, which formed a giant collage of junk: old photos, magazine clippings, license plates, graffiti. We played pool and danced with a guy wearing a Budweiser box on his head.

For hours and hours and hours, the jukebox played CCR’s Lookin’ Out My Back Door. Sometimes people groaned, “Not this song again!” and walked out. It never occurred to me to leave. I decided that Lookin’ Out My Back Door was my new favorite song. I adored the guy wearing the beer box on his head. And I decided that I would never again drink somewhere without a pool table.

None of these resolutions lasted beyond Bike Week.

Missing daylight in Florida made me happy, so much so that Larry and I hung out at the same dark bar all day every day during the time we were in Florida.

And by the end of Bike Week, I could give a side-style tit shot while holding a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, smiling for the camera in the dark.

I’d become an expert.

Everyone Wore Chains and Leather.

Within days, I’d forgotten about jumping out the window. I was too drunk to care.

Bike Week is, essentially, a week-long party that takes over an entire town – in this case, Daytona, Florida – terrifying local residents and sending them indoors, or enticing them outdoors to drown in the deafening roar of engines that never stops.

Bike Week is an experience that would be best finished for bystanders in one day. But for those who partake in the multitude of activities offered to the throngs of bikers who attend, one day would be insufficient.

Motorcycles lined the streets, parked three- and four-deep along the curbs with a never-ending line of bikes cruising past.

Everyone wore chains and leather. Men had scraggly, ridiculous beards of all shapes and colors. Women wore virtually nothing – and, sometimes, nothing at all.

Shops on the main drag sold everything from food, jewelry, and official Bike Week gear to leather jackets, swimming pools and vintage motorcycles. The most popular thing to buy at Bike Week, by far, was a tattoo. Lines for the pop-up tents and vendors offering tattoos snaked into the streets, blurring the line between “queue” and “crowd.” Most of the people in the lines were already covered with ink – brightly colored birds and flowers on the women, skulls and knives etched into the men. Some of them were completely covered – meaning, I couldn’t tell where they might get another tattoo, since there was no skin left on their legs, arms, torsos, necks or faces.

At one point, I decided to get a tattoo: a black panther, which would go on my upper left arm. Something about my seventh grade book report on wild cats made me believe this was a fine choice. And Larry – who already had some small, rather lame tattoos, promised to fund this effort if I wanted to stand in the line.

I did. Larry went off to look at the bikes, and I got in line.

Figuring it would be awhile, I stood prepared and double-fisted, not wanting to go without beer for a moment. After the first beer, I had to use the facilities – but I held it … just long enough to finish the second beer. I had to find Larry to get another one and by the time I did, I had decided the tattoo line wasn’t worth it.

While the main draw was walking up and down the street looking at all the different motorcycles (with me proudly yelling “shovelhead!” and “panhead!” at Larry), Bike Week also had fine recreational activities like motorcycle races, bike shows, light shows, mud puddle jumps, beach rides, concerts, and parades.

My least favorite activity – which took place at every large biker event I ever attended – was the Weenie Bite Competition. Bikers would ride through a field with a “chick” on the back, standing up, both of them cruising slowly under a hot dog, hanging from a string. Chicks were supposed to bite off as much of the hot dog as they could, sometimes being smacked mercilessly in the face until the bike spun out and pulled away. There weren’t a lot of actual bites taken from that hot dog.

I wonder if they switched out that disgusting hot dog for every rider. Probably not.

“Do you want to do it?” Larry asked.

“Fuck no,” I said.

Larry laughed. “You’d be good at it!”

“I am not doing that,” I said. It looked not only difficult but humiliating.

And I never tried it, a fact of which I am extremely proud. I was plenty humiliated by other activities.

Everything Hurt.

Driving to Daytona took all day, even though we took the Camaro.

“Danny’s bike’s busted,” Larry said. Larry’s younger brother had a Sportster, but it was always broken.

Since I could barely sit upright, I could never have ridden all the way to Florida on the Harley, even for something called Bike Week.

I was happy to crawl – quite literally – into the back seat and sleep for the vast majority of the ride. There was a big hump in the middle of the backseat so it wasn’t exactly comfortable. But being awake after a serious suicide attempt was simply unfathomable. I slept as long as I possibly could.

We started early in the morning with Larry driving, then Danny drove, with switches made during stops for gas or restrooms.

No one asked me to drive.

Everything hurt. My head was pounding. My back ached like I’d been beaten with a baseball bat. My appendages screamed in pain – I couldn’t move my arms or legs without great effort, and even my fingers felt broken. My knees were scraped from crawling on cement. Even my nose was sore, having been hit repeatedly. And my eyes felt like they’d be permanently closed; I could barely squeeze them open to find my way to restrooms.

I was nauseous and dry-mouthed no matter how much Diet Coke I consumed. I never drank water if I had to pay for it, so I remained parched.

Still, it was astounding that I could move at all, let alone walk. But nobody was carrying me to any restrooms. There was not one ounce of sympathy for my plight.

Our only discussion – ever – went like this:

LARRY: “Do you remember what happened last night?”

ME: “Yeah.”

LARRY: “Good.”

That was it.

I moaned – once – as I rolled over the hump in the backseat and said, “My whole body hurts.”

Without hesitation Danny bellowed, “Guess ya shouldn’t’ve jumped out the fucking window!”

Apparently whining would not be tolerated.

Danny seemed angrier than Larry, who didn’t seem angry at all. I wondered if Danny’s bike was really broken, or if we were taking the car because of me.

Whenever we stopped, they both got out and shut their doors behind them, just leaving me in the back. The car was beastly hot at every stop. I had to pull myself forward and push the very heavy door open from the backseat – challenging on the best of days, but nearly impossible with my limited mobility.

They didn’t seem to care if I died back there and, serendipitously, I actually started to care if I lived.

In fact, I started to get excited for Bike Week. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I decided that if I was going to live, then going to Bike Week was just what I needed.

By the time we arrived in Florida, I was ready to party.

And I would be doing it with a few hundred thousand of my closest black-t-shirt-wearing, overly tattooed, boot-stompin’, heavily bearded and/or scantily clad friends.

What Do You Think Happened To Me?

As I lay flat on my back in the yard, I wondered why Larry didn’t come for me. I wondered for a long, long time.

Meanwhile, instead of walking the block-and-a-half around the slum building into our backyard, Larry walked five blocks to the gas station.

Yes, the gas station.

Because in Pitcairn, the gas station in the center of town is where the police hang out. So if anyone needs a police officer, Pitcairn residents know where to find one.

Larry thought I was dead.

And he had just beaten me senseless before I jumped. That could mean trouble for Larry.

So Larry – who has more street smarts in one little finger than I will ever have – went to get a police officer before checking on me.

And Larry walked to the gas station, because he knew he wasn’t sober enough, in the eyes of the law, to drive.

I didn’t know any of this; I just stayed flat on the ground in the dark.

After what seemed like an hour, I saw a flashlight beam. I couldn’t lift my head; I assumed Larry’d arrived.

The police officer walked toward me slowly, checking for signs of life. He shone the flashlight onto my face, startling when he realized I was not only alive, but bruised, beaten and bloody.

He exclaimed, “What happened to you?”

By then, I’d forgotten I’d been pummeled. “I jumped out the fucking window,” I snapped. “What do you think happened to me?”

“Are you all right?” He continued to shine the light directly into my eyes.

“No I’m not all right!” I growled. “I jumped out the fuckin’ window!” The flashlight was blinding, my face ached when I tried to squint, and every part of my body hurt when I squirmed even slightly.

The police officer didn’t quit. “Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

“I don’t need a fucking ambulance,” I said. “Just leave me alone.”

The police officer mercifully waved the flashlight from me and onto Larry, which is when I noticed Larry for the first time.

“Well she’s alive,” the officer said.

Larry surprisingly laughed. He was either so relieved that he was now giddy, or he thought it was funny that I was in this painful predicament.

The officer did not laugh. “What are you planning to do?”

“I guess I’m not gonna do anything,” Larry said.

“You wanna just leave her here? Or … you want me to write up a report?”

Larry stood over me, gazing down at my limp body in the dark. “Nah, she’s all right,” Larry said. “Thanks for coming, Officer.”

“Okay,” the police officer said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

Larry walked with the officer out of our yard.

He did not come back.

I waited for the help I so desperately needed but, by request, I’d been left alone. Again.

Eventually, I rolled my stunned and obliterated body over, lying on my face for awhile. Then I pushed myself onto all fours like a dog to crawl, one minuscule movement at a time. I crawled out of our backyard, crawled down the block, crawled back up the block, crawled onto our porch, pushed open the unlocked door, and crawled up the stairs into our apartment.

I passed out on the floor.

At sunrise Larry woke me: “Ya still comin’?”

My pulverized body felt steamrolled by a dump truck. My eyes wouldn’t open.

“Yeah,” I said.

I crawled down the stairs and into the car. We were going to Bike Week in Florida.

I Wanted the Insanity to Stop.

I wanted to die.

I was beyond drunk but I didn’t think, Maybe I can fly! Nor did I want to show Larry that I was really leaving him. Sure, my judgment was completely skewed by my alcoholic thinking, but it wasn’t the alcohol that caused me to jump.

I’d just been beaten to a pulp by my boyfriend and I quite rationally believed: Now I have nothing.

The thought, when it finally took hold, clarified the loneliness that had been brewing and stewing inside of me forever. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could not handle anything beyond this moment. I’d reached the end.

I did not want to be a part of this people-filled world where I didn’t fit. I wanted the insanity to stop, the stupidity to stop, the pain to stop. I just wanted to be done.

But as I flew through the night sky, for the milliseconds that I was allowed to fly, as the pitch-black silent night enveloped me and I plummeted to the ground below, I had only one coherent, uncomplicated thought.

The Thought was: “Uh-oh.”

Translation: This wasn’t smart.

Since I catapulted through the window as though I were an Olympic diver, I fell head-first.

As I fell, my head collided with a staircase railing that emerged from the apartment below ours. My head bounced off the railing, flipping my whole body onto the ground below.

I was thrown onto my back with a brutal thud. It knocked the wind – but not the life – out of me.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that railing probably saved my life. The staircase that I didn’t hit, and the sidewalk below that staircase, were both solid concrete. My head hit a sliver of wood instead, which then propelled me into the much softer, grassy backyard. I’d fallen fast and far and somehow completely avoided hitting anything fatal.

Since it was the middle of the night, I saw nothing. I heard nothing. Larry was nowhere. Our backyard was strategically placed so that we had to walk a block and a half around the slum building to get to the yard – so I’d never been in our backyard before.

But I knew where I was. I knew what had happened. I just couldn’t move. At all.

And I was completely, utterly alone.

Also, I was 100% alive – which was not what I’d wanted at all. I’d finally given suicide a real shot – no more aimlessly whacking at my wrists with a dull razor blade in a drunken stupor. I’d really, really tried to die.

But there I was, not dead on the ground, staring at the sky, watching the stars still sparkling up there as they’d always done.

I lay silently in the grass, unable to move.

After I hit the ground I knew, the way that only the innermost core of one’s being can know, that I must have some reason for being on this planet.

I just didn’t know the reason. And there was only one way to find out.

With all the energy I could muster, I screamed at the sky: “What do you want from me now, God?!”

The world was quiet, and the stars continued to sparkle. I did not hear the voice of God. I didn’t hear a train passing or even a barking dog in the distance. There was no sound.

So I yelled again: “What do you want from me now?!!”

Still, I did not receive a reply.

I lay motionless in the dark, and waited.

Why Struggle?

I walked into the kitchen, battered and furious, and strode straight to the window. I unlocked it, knowing there was no screen to hinder me, and pulled it up as high as it would go.

Plenty of room for a body to get through.

Larry and I lived on the second story but because the basement was above ground, the yard was actually three stories below.

“Get away from the fuckin’ window!” Larry yelled, appearing from nowhere. He grabbed me from behind, shackling my arms and lifting my whole body away from my planned escape route.

“Fuck you!” I screamed. “You fucking hit me! You tried to fucking kill me!” I wriggled and tried to break free from his grasp. Again.

This time, his strength was being used to save me.

Blood was dropping from my face onto our kitchen floor, causing my hair to stick to my face as I writhed. I couldn’t wipe it away; everything was an irritant. I bent forward in his arms, pushing at him with my back, trying to twist away.

“I didn’t try to kill you,” Larry said, his voice slightly kinder somehow. “Just fuckin’ stop this shit!”

“You tried to fucking kill me,” I repeated, though that wasn’t my main concern. “You hate me!”

“I don’t fuckin’ hate you,” Larry snorted, but I barely heard him as he pulled me further away from the open window, force-walking me across the kitchen like we were playing some kind of picnic game.

“You don’t fucking love me!” I wailed. “Let me GO!”

“Fuck no,” Larry said, sounding eerily calm and wise.

I squirmed harder, desperately trying to break free. He would not let go, and he was not being gentle. He held my arms motionless under his arms; my feet kicked aimlessly at nothing. “You need to fuckin’ calm down before I let you go.”

“I do NOT need to calm fucking down!” I yelled, still flailing. But my screaming was just a mask.

My rage scarcely contained the dangerously surfacing thoughts I’d carried with me since childhood: I am completely alone. Nobody loves me. No one will ever really love me.

I thought I’d buried those thoughts completely with the alcohol, but no. They were thumping rhythmically inside me like a heartbeat, louder than ever before.

I’d forgotten that Larry had just beaten me to a pulp. It didn’t occur to me that I was excessively drunk and wildly exhausted. I didn’t think about my past or my future. I became hyper-focused on this one recurring thought: Nobody will ever love me for who I am.

My aimless kicking stopped as I suddenly realized that I was fighting for no reason.

Why struggle? I didn’t even want to live.

I became suddenly quiet. Believing that I would be forever unloved and alone, I fell limp in his arms.

My feet touched the ground, and Larry finally loosened his grip. I stood up, silent.

“Okay,” he said. “Maybe we can talk now.”

Finally, Larry released me and stepped toward the living room.

As he did, I turned and ran full force toward the open kitchen window. Without hesitation, I dove through in one fluid motion, hurtling through the air toward the ground below.

I Was Going to Die.

I couldn’t even finish my thought, let alone my sentence. Larry woke up swinging, his fists hitting me square in the face over and over again. My poem flew from my hands, my head fell back, then bounced forward again like a ball on a spring.

I tried to speak, but there was no time. I tried to hide, but there was nowhere to go. The punches came fast and hard, Larry pounding me like a punching bag, chanting “you fuckin’ bitch” like it was his new mantra. WHAM!-“you fuckin’-bitch”-WHAM!-“you-fuckin’-bitch”-WHAM! Over and over and over.

I finally ducked under his fists long enough to throw myself down face-first on the bed. I covered my head with my arms and tried to roll into a fetal position, but I felt Larry’s full weight land on my back.

His hands wrapped around my neck. Larry started to choke the life out of me. I tried to crawl away, wriggling and flailing and trying to pull up onto my knees but Larry was heavier and much, much stronger than me. I couldn’t get away.

Larry squeezed harder and tighter, as though I needed more punishment to fully comprehend his message. “You-fuckin-cunt-fuckin-whore-you-fuckin-bitch-you-fuckin….” He started shaking me, my occluded mouth open, my head smacking into the mattress.

I couldn’t respond; I couldn’t even gasp for air. My neck felt like a pencil about to snap.

I tried bucking him off of me but succeeded only in sliding horizontally underneath him while Larry continued to suffocate me, my eyes wide and panicked, my face shoved back into the mattress.

I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it, so I gave up.

I stopped moving; my body went limp.

That’s when Larry let go, climbed off my back, and stood up.

I gasped, inhaled the mattress and coughed painfully as I rolled over. I looked up at him through swollen-shut eyes, my face bloody, my breath shaky, my throat thin, bruised and fragile.

Larry stood over me, wild-eyed and glaring. “What the fuck are you doing?” he spat.

It took a moment to remember what I’d done.

“I wanted to read you my poem,” I gag-whispered.

“I was fuckin’ sleeping!” Larry said, as though I hadn’t noticed.

I flashed back to one of our first nights together – the night our neighbor stopped by at 3 a.m.; Larry had instinctively grabbed a chain and wrapped it around his arm to greet our visitor. He awoke ready to fight.

The attempted murder was probably my fault for waking Larry.

Larry was so pumped full of adrenaline, he didn’t even flinch. He certainly didn’t ask to hear my poem.

Finally he seemed fully awake for the first time. “I’ve gotta get the fuck outta here,” he said. Larry pulled on his jeans and boots.

My head swam and pounded; I stared breathlessly as he started for the stairs leading to the front door. In spite of insane amounts of alcohol in my system, suddenly I felt sober and hysterically clear.

If Larry leaves, I thought, I will have no one. And then I’ll really have no reason to live.

Suddenly I felt like an uncaged animal.

“Fuck you!” I said. “You’re not fucking leaving! I’m leaving! And I’m not using the fucking door!”

“Fuck you!” Larry yelled back. But he paused, briefly, at the top of the stairs and watched as I stormed into the kitchen, where there was no door.

There was only a window.

I’ll Numb Myself Until It Hurts.

Being high didn’t make me any happier at home. While Larry slept, my nights alone were long and lonely. I just wanted someone to understand me, to sing along to the music I was playing, to dance with me when I felt like dancing, to cry with me when I felt like crying, and to read the poems that I scrawled all over anything that would accept my pen.

I was aching with self-pity, sure that there was some brilliant guy out there somewhere who would love me for who I really was. I knew Larry wasn’t the one. I had no idea that the person I was searching for was me.

So when the bars closed and I had to go home, wasted and longing to be loved, all I knew how to do was write about my feelings.

My poetry – which was, I’m sure, some of the worst ever written – came from the depths of my soul, pouring through the layers of drunkenness, crawling out of my demented brain and onto whatever was in front of me: an old magazine, a cigarette carton, a pile of coupons.

Here is a sample of my heartfelt work:

All of my poetry was carefully signed or initialed – for copyright reasons.

Most nights, I read the poetry out loud to myself – sometimes into the microphone which stood in the middle of our living room, attached to a small amp that announced to the entire neighborhood that I was still awake. Sometimes I hooked up my guitar and strummed away, making up lyrics to songs I would never remember in the morning.

And I drank and drank … whatever was in the fridge … until it was completely gone.

Almost every night, I somehow escaped unscathed – no police knocking at my door, no neighbors banging on the walls, no one complaining about whatever I was doing from the hours of 2 a.m. until sunrise.

But one night, I believed I had written a particularly good and meaningful poem. It was deep. It was profound.

My poem was so significant, in fact, that it required an actual audience. I needed to read this poem to Larry.

I reread it carefully, making sure it was perfect. Then I picked up the ash-covered pad of paper, leaving the pen on the table.

I trotted into the bedroom and gleefully leapt onto the bed where Larry was sleeping.

“Hey look what I …!” I started.

But I never finished that thought; I was no longer able to speak.

You Could’ve Had ME!

Work at The Pennysaver still felt like a game. And I still only worked three days a week.

After many months, the company announced that it would be switching locations from downtown Oakland to the much smaller suburb of Penn Hills.

Fortunately, Penn Hills was much closer to Pitcairn. And my new office wasn’t on the bus line, which meant I could drive myself to work in the Camaro. This left Larry literally in the cold (and rain) on the motorcycle, but he didn’t seem to mind.

I lost some of my work friends; Kim, Mike and Jemma chose not to move to Penn Hills with The Pennysaver. Brian, Jack and Glenn replaced them.

The new guys were about my age, and I liked them instantly. Glenn was a total nerd, which I found to be undeniably attractive. He had a dry sense of humor and listened to new age music; he intrigued me. Without saying it aloud, I imagined trading biker life for Glenn and his Honda CRX, which I thought was an especially cool little car.

And now that I was smoking pot, I’d stumbled upon a whole new world – namely Brian and Jack, who were both Deadheads and dealers. The first illegal drugs I ever bought came from Brian, who quickly learned to bring a little extra for the crew when he arrived at work.

We’d all arrive at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, ready for three days of eight- to fourteen-hour shifts. We’d munch on snacks and chat about everything, arguing over radio stations as we went. Our conversations ranged from mundane to philosophical, and I never felt bored.

And once I started smoking pot, I could hardly wait for lunchtime.

Jack would drive and Brian would roll the joints, and those of us who partook (everyone but Glenn) would drive to a park and get high. Then we’d eat our food and laugh like hyenas for the rest of lunchtime – followed by stifled giggles for hours, as though our boss didn’t know what we’d been doing on our break.

Through Jack and Brian, I was introduced to the “real” Grateful Dead – bootleg concert tapes, the travelers that called themselves Deadheads and followed the band around. I discovered that there was way more than just Casey Jones and Touch of Grey, and I heard a whole lot of live versions of songs I’d never heard previously. (Sugar Magnolia, Ripple and Uncle John’s Band are some of the best songs I’ve ever heard.)

During work, I found it harder to focus on the job when I was high, but I felt more sociable and included with “the guys” as a result of spending lunchtimes with my new buds.

Jack and Brian even invited me – and the rest of their colleagues – to a party at their house on the weekend. I went without Larry – who was playing with his band – and I discovered that Glenn was celebrating his new engagement to a girlfriend of three years.

It was now or never: I needed to profess my love for the nerd who needed only to know me better.

Drunk beyond wasted and nearly falling on Glenn, I blurted, “You could have had ME!” while spilling my beer on his shoes and trying to kiss him.

Glenn pulled himself back, his eyes widening as he sat stock-still, staring at me, wondering why anyone would purposefully choose a partner with even a single characteristic that I exhibited.

At work, Glenn never said a word about it; I pretended to forget it ever happened.