College Reunion

                     I cried like a baby the day Jim Henson died. I cried like a baby the day my
                          grandmother died. I cried like a man the day her package arrived. I wanted
                                         to cry like a baby.
                                                                  -Klunko the Amazingly Tragic Clown


  I wrote a play once called 'The Adventures of Cheeseman'. It was about my college roomate. He loved cheese more than any man alive. He'd always be pulling hunks of it out from out of his pockets. Wedges of brie and gouda and cheddar he had stolen earlier that day. He loved to shoplift.  Books, records, shoes, cheese- it made no difference. He was the first real alcoholic I ever met. He had morning shakes when he was 19. He was nuts and had the worst case of dry skin you've ever seen in your life. You'd have to shake piles of it off the phone whenever he was done using it. And he'd lie all the time-about anything. Sometimes he'd try and get you to lie along with him. That really bugged me. I had my own problems. He stole some drawings i made once. That really hurt me. After college i sold him a t-shirt I'd made which he stiffed me for. I showed up to his office with some peaches I had picked and he refused to see me-in fact he slipped out the back door and left me hanging,waiting for him for hours. I threw the peaches down a flight of stairs and screamed and cursed all the way home. The next day he granted me court and condescendingly reminded me that this was the 'real' world now and that we weren't in college anymore and that I needed to grow up. I couldn't comprehend his words. I told him he was a dick and that his new play sucked. His whole office stood and watched us fight. It was pretty stupid. I ran into him a few years later down around Washington Square Park. He saw me and turned. I yelled at him. I told him you can't just see someone and then just pretend they weren't there. He turned around and walked back towards me. I wadded up a napkin I had in my pocket and hit him in the face with it. He told me that that upset him. I told him I didnt blame him for being upset. I also reminded him about those drawings he had stolen from me. All in all it was a pretty shitty reunion.