Memory - Verdi Cries

We all lived on the 8th floor. Even the girls were honorary residents. Buddy's statement about girls on the floor after hours was "as long as I don't see 'em, hear 'em or smell 'em, I don't care."

Jesse "Jay" Campbell - the earth mother. Jay was the first openly gay person I ever knew, and he was the momma to the entire floor. Jay had this wild mop of hair and a funky snaggle tooth right in front, and was always smiling. Every memory I have of Jay he is smiling. Jay once decided to go visit our friend Julie in the girl's dorm in full drag. Not only did he make it through the lobby without getting hassled, some guy in the lobby had a thing for heavy chicks and tried to pick him up!

Steven Fuller - Steve was short, blonde, slight, pale. Funny, a worrier, a helluvan artist, and always stressed to the gills over something. Steve was quick to laugh, quick to cry, quick to flip out, and ready to try anything. Steven introduced me to the Chickasaw Mud Puppies, which has to be the greatest band name ever.

Indy - I don't even remember Indy's real last name. It was John something, but we all just called him Indy. He wore the hat, the leather jacket, had the bullwhip, the whole nine yards. Indy faked multiple personality disorder not so much to get attention, but to escape it. It was his defense mechanism in the hick town he grew up in. If you're batshit fuckin' crazy, the jocks will leave a geek alone. And Indy took geek to a whole new level.

Susie Genobles - I swear she's a fucking siberain husky walking on two legs. Susie had this amazing long dark brown almost-black hair and these ice-blue, husky-blue eyes that would cut right into your soul. She was a solid chick, not some delicate little flower, but she was also terribly, terribly fragile inside. She was always afraid of letting people in because that meant that she would probably get hurt again. She was almost always right. Susie knew Jay from before college, so he brought her into our circle.

Rebecula - Rebecca Vignati - She went the other direction from Susie - slapping on an outer coating of bitch to keep people from seeing the really great person that she kept hidden inside. There was a lot more to Rebecca than she let on. It took me the better part of a decade to realize that. Rebeccas knew Susie from home.

Jay, Indy, Steven and I all got placed on the top floor of Richardson Hall at Winthrop, in Rock Hill. It says something about a town when the dorm is the tallest building in the city, and it was at the time. We were the core of the 8th floor freaks. We were artists, actors and writers. There were a few musicians thrown in for good measure, but the normal folk pretty much transferred off our floor pretty fuckin' fast. We'd drop acid, turn off all the lights on the floor and play hide n seek. We'd get shitty drunk and tripping on Robitussin and wander campus. I seem to very vaguely recall running down the hall one night with a nearly empty bottle of white zinfandel wearing nothing but my boxers and cowboy boots.

Don't visualize, it could cause scarring.

One of our favorite places to wander became the graveyard about a mile off campus. We'd roam out from campus after dark, hop the fence, and check out the lives of people we never knew. There was this phenomenal monument in the graveyard, no idea to what, but it was like a big gazebo, or small roman monument. Several marble steps, with columns and a domed roof. Maybe 12' in diameter. We'd wander round, shoot the shit, and the girls would sing. Neither Rebecca or Susie were really singers, but they knew all the words to Verdi Cries by 10,000 Maniacs, and Gypsy by Suzanne Vega, and their harmonies were as pure as their hearts. I can get back to those moments, ever so briefly, when I play those songs.

It's midnight in the late summer, I'm out with my best friends. We know where our place in the world is and what we're going to do about it. All is right with the world, with our relationships, and we could care less what the future holds. Death and old age are things other people think about, and arthritis and high blood pressure are an old man's worries. I'm still skinny, my hair is long and blonde, and I could care less what tomorrow brings, as long as Susie Genoble's head is in my lap while I play with her ths black hair.

Hold me like a baby that will not fall asleep,
curl me up inside you
and let me hear you through the heat.

Suzanne Vega - Gypsy