tethered to some girl who you should have saved for the I'm-drunk-and-desperate phone call at 3 am the night before Thanksgiving break.
*WARNING* Long Maudlin RC College Anecdote
*WARNING*Erin . . . The Abridged Version.
So, I was a big pothead back in the fall of '95, the semester before I took some time off. When you're a pothead, you tend to attract lots of people that just want to be around so you'll get them high. It comes with the territory. You become aware of it. You get used to it. You understand they're really not your friends even though they seem like they are.
Anyway, this chick, Erin, just showed up one night, tagging a long with a bunch of her girlfriends, a not-really-friend of a not-really-friend. We hung out, we laughed, we smoked. We smoked lots. She kept coming around with her little group of friends. Then one day I noticed Erin was showing up by herself. Not a lot, but every once in a while, and not just to smoke either. No, she just wanted to you know . . . hang out between classes.
In late October, I wrote my very first full-length screenplay. I wrote it in about 52 hours with no sleep, fuelled by nicotine, caffeine and the occasional bout of cannabis. It was an amazing frightening thing. Within that hellish/wonderful 52 hour span, there was a knock at my door. I yelled to who ever to come in. The door swung open and there stood Erin in a brown trench-coat. I looked towards her and the trench coat opened, revealing a fantasy in flesh: Non-existent skirt; shirt tied off at the midriff; frilly, cotton, thigh high stockings (it was the mid 90's); high heeled shoes and pigtails.
The circuits didn't connect. I was writing. I told her I was busy.
You could have fit a minivan into her mouth.
About three minutes after she left, I realized what I had done. She had come to seduce me and I chased her away.
Erin took it in stride, though it was a while before she sowed up again. I worked on the VHS production of my first screenplay for a Video Production class, and life in college trucked on. Erin stopped by, but seemed to understand that the fairer sex wasn't on my mind. I was in the midst of a creative awakening that I imagined was something indeed to behold.
By the time finals rolled around that December, I realized I had failed almost every class except for a lone "A" in Video Production. Yeah. It was time for a break.
About a week before X-Mas break, Erin started coming around again, not to smoke, but just to, you know, hang out. We hung out, we laughed and we smoked. Neither of us spoke of the pigtailed fantasy girl that showed up at my door one night while I was in the throes of creative ecstasy. Until, one night out of nowhere, she just popped out with it.
"I want you," she said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You really are dim, you know that?"
I told her that I was leaving school and might not ever be back. She told me that she didn't want to be my girlfriend. She just wanted to have fun.
"With you," she added.
And we had fun, perhaps the most fun I ever had with sex. It wasn't dirty, nasty, rough sex. Just the opposite. It was something else entirely. There was a lot of laughter I remember. Not in the spirit of humor, but in the spirit of fun. And yet also moments of intensity that I can't even begin to describe. For one incredible week, though winter was blasting it's way in, we kept it happy and hot and bright as long summer days.
Finally it came time to go, and I did. I went home, leaving a few things to sit in my dorm room, knowing I would have to come back for them in January. Erin called me on X-Mas and though I wasn't home at the time, left me a message at midnight on New Years.
In January, I went back to school for a few days to pick up my things and officially withdraw from school. On that last night, Erin and I made love again, and I remember moisture on her cheeks. It was just sweat, I told myself.
The next day, she helped me pack up my car. It was a quick job as I didn't have much. She held one small box of papers as I loaded everything else. Finally, I reached to take the box from her. She held onto it.
"I don't want you to go," she said.
What could I say except the only thing to say.
"I have to."
I took the box and kissed her goodbye.
Eight months later, I came back to school and Erin I hung out. We smoked. We laughed. Our one attempt at recapturing was a sexual bastardization of the fun we had experienced before. The magic was gone. We had been in our moment and our moment had past. But I've never forgotten it. Never.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY:
You'll be tethered to all of them, whether you want to or not.
