Friends- TM
Friends.
In general I don’t make friends easily. I surround myself with people who like the same things and its good enough. I have been lucky with finding good friends when I needed them.
I met Potter outside Walker hall on the first week of college freshman year. My roommate was nothing like me. His name was Bill and he was into rap music and John Wayne movies. He even had a 3 foot poster of the duke on his wall, pistol pointed, ready to conquer the west. The thing gave me nightmares of being shot to death and stuffed in a giant cowboy hat. Every night before I went to bed I had to remind myself that his real name was Marion and that he was made from corrugated cardboard. All I wanted to play my guitar and smoke cigarettes and study for tests but none of these could be done in my room with that thing pointing his gun at me. I was blue as could be the night I met Potter. My entire knowledge of college at that point had come from movies and I had wanted my roommate to be my best friend but that wasn’t going to happen.
I had been leaning against Walker, smoking a cigarette when Potter walked up and asked for a match. The minute I saw him I knew we would hit it off. He had on a t-shirt that said Joey Ramone for President of Earth. He smoked and talked about music and it turned out he was a physics major which meant we had classes in the same building. We started studying and eating lunch together and the next year we were roommates. We went to so many concerts and played so much music, experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything. It turned out okay for Bill too. He found a girlfriend, his very own Katherine Hepburn. They even moved in together the next year. Thank god because I never want to see that poster again and I think she made him get rid of it. Oh and Potter still chain smokes like a chimney. I quit before I graduated mostly because I couldn’t sing with a smoker’s voice. Becoming friends with Potter was rather easy but now he lives with his girlfriend in New Haven and I rarely see him. That part is hard.
I met Izzy when I moved to New York. Truthfully I took a dive after Xander and needed to plant my feet again. New York was where John Lennon lived in the Dakota. It was where Paul Simon played in the Garden and punk flowed in basements. I had images of boys beating buckets in the subway and beautiful women singing in lounges. It was ideal in my head and ideal for starting over. The city itself was full of surprises but my life was far from ideal. My nights were filled with heroin and meaningless sex. I had convinced myself that I was living like a rock star; expect that when the show was over, when I came down from the high I was lonely. I had no genuine friends in the city, no one who knew me for me, no one who cared one way or the other about me.
Then Izzy emailed me. A simple email saying she was Xander’s sister, that she lived in the city while attending Columbia and would love to grab lunch someday if I’d be interested. I figured I’d have nothing to lose but I didn’t realize what I might gain. She didn’t see a rock star when she met me, she just saw a kid. I needed that so much at the time and I think she might have saved me from being eaten alive by the city and by myself. We hit it off almost instantly, a bond sealed by soda pop nose bleeds and lots of giggling. Thanks to her I live in a real apartment now, sometimes remember to eat breakfast and hardly ever go to bed feeling lonely.
Sam Pennington
OC
676 Words
In general I don’t make friends easily. I surround myself with people who like the same things and its good enough. I have been lucky with finding good friends when I needed them.
I met Potter outside Walker hall on the first week of college freshman year. My roommate was nothing like me. His name was Bill and he was into rap music and John Wayne movies. He even had a 3 foot poster of the duke on his wall, pistol pointed, ready to conquer the west. The thing gave me nightmares of being shot to death and stuffed in a giant cowboy hat. Every night before I went to bed I had to remind myself that his real name was Marion and that he was made from corrugated cardboard. All I wanted to play my guitar and smoke cigarettes and study for tests but none of these could be done in my room with that thing pointing his gun at me. I was blue as could be the night I met Potter. My entire knowledge of college at that point had come from movies and I had wanted my roommate to be my best friend but that wasn’t going to happen.
I had been leaning against Walker, smoking a cigarette when Potter walked up and asked for a match. The minute I saw him I knew we would hit it off. He had on a t-shirt that said Joey Ramone for President of Earth. He smoked and talked about music and it turned out he was a physics major which meant we had classes in the same building. We started studying and eating lunch together and the next year we were roommates. We went to so many concerts and played so much music, experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything. It turned out okay for Bill too. He found a girlfriend, his very own Katherine Hepburn. They even moved in together the next year. Thank god because I never want to see that poster again and I think she made him get rid of it. Oh and Potter still chain smokes like a chimney. I quit before I graduated mostly because I couldn’t sing with a smoker’s voice. Becoming friends with Potter was rather easy but now he lives with his girlfriend in New Haven and I rarely see him. That part is hard.
I met Izzy when I moved to New York. Truthfully I took a dive after Xander and needed to plant my feet again. New York was where John Lennon lived in the Dakota. It was where Paul Simon played in the Garden and punk flowed in basements. I had images of boys beating buckets in the subway and beautiful women singing in lounges. It was ideal in my head and ideal for starting over. The city itself was full of surprises but my life was far from ideal. My nights were filled with heroin and meaningless sex. I had convinced myself that I was living like a rock star; expect that when the show was over, when I came down from the high I was lonely. I had no genuine friends in the city, no one who knew me for me, no one who cared one way or the other about me.
Then Izzy emailed me. A simple email saying she was Xander’s sister, that she lived in the city while attending Columbia and would love to grab lunch someday if I’d be interested. I figured I’d have nothing to lose but I didn’t realize what I might gain. She didn’t see a rock star when she met me, she just saw a kid. I needed that so much at the time and I think she might have saved me from being eaten alive by the city and by myself. We hit it off almost instantly, a bond sealed by soda pop nose bleeds and lots of giggling. Thanks to her I live in a real apartment now, sometimes remember to eat breakfast and hardly ever go to bed feeling lonely.
Sam Pennington
OC
676 Words