One of the Guys

"It's like one of those relationships where you're being abused, hit, cursed out, the whole nine yards but at the end of the day you keep coming back, ya know?"

Briggs brushed his almost straight hair out of his eyes and looked vacantly past his friend Cary.

"Like, I dunno, it's like I KNOW I'm not really considered cool or worth much with them, but simply by BEIN' there I feel like I have a chance at like becoming a part of something great,  you know, like really belonging."

The young man took a moment to clear his nose and drink some of the expensive coffee that had been set in front of him.

"I remember my first night at Princeton.  LOST man, I was totally lost. One of the guys in my RA group had a sister who was at Rutgers, like 20 minutes away on NJ transit. Anyway, she gave him like 5 handles of vodka or something crazy like that, and we all were there just drinking crazy.  You know,  Guppy and Sam and Sarah, Bill and all them. I've talked about them right?"

Cary nodded.

"Anyway, that first night I knew didn't have a place there. I mean it's not like it was said or anything,  but they were all sophisticated drinkers or whatever and I had never drank before...But see, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. Like its not like I was crazy poor and they were really rich and--well, they WERE rich but the disparity between us wasn't about the MONEY. I mean my parents made good money, so like it was different..deeper...it was more disturbing. "

The young man took a bite out of his banana bread and chewed for a moment. Finally, he resumed his monologue.

"So we get fucked up and,  Bill, whose sister brought the booze, announces that we're all gonna smoke.  He takes out a joint from his pocket and everybody is looking at him all impressed and shit. I mean, no one would ADMIT it but it was clear that most of us had never smoked before. This was about the most illicit thing any of us had ever done. "

Briggs removed his glasses and began to clean them as he talked.

"Well, earlier that day, when my roommates and me met with our RA for the first time, I had had this whole thing where I had said that I would absolutely not tolerate drugs in our suite under any circumstance. It was like a big announcement or whatever, cuz I assumed living with two white boys,  one from Connecticut, the other from Vermont, that this was gonna be problem. I was pretty adamant, ya know?  So, yea, when Bill makes to light the joint,  my two other roommates are looking at me like 'What's Briggs gonna do.' Well no, their look was more smug. It was more like 'Is he about to be a bitch right now and make a scene?'"

Briggs placed his glasses back on his face and laughed sarcastically.

"Well, you wanna know what I did?  I let them smoke right then and there.  Coughing and wheezing and everything,  it was a nightmare.  I didn't take a hit, but I didn't say anything either.  Let them walk all over my space and do what they wanted because I thought that's how you were supposed to operate with them. Like if I did that I'd bridge the chasm between us or...yea..."

He was silent for a moment and became pensive.

"We got it bad man. See, we didn't know about masking that shit so we didn't open any windows or anything and the fire alarm went off. Public safety came and long story short we got probation,  had to pay fine and it was just ...ugh.  And on the FIRST NIGHT too! It was crazy."

Taking a last swig of the coffee, he sighed.

"They all thought it was funny or something, afterwards. Like we had done something amazingly hip.  I pretended I thought it was cool too, but I dunno, it never sat right with me. Actually, I was mortified and sorta disgusted, and my parents were really pissed. They couldn't understand it. I'd never been into that stuff in high school."

There was a long silence as Briggs fiddled with the handle of his coffee mug. Finally, his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor spoke.

"Why do you still hang out with them? It sounds like a nasty relationship," Cary commented. His voice had no judgement it it.


Briggs screwed up his face and shrugged.

"I dunno," he said simply. "I dunno. "