When I came back from Utah at nineteen, a college drop-out and a divorced man I stayed with my mother and her new husband for a couple of days and then moved in with a high school friend into one of these. We had been friends for years. We played chess at coffee houses, played this weird civil war battle game that we made up, payed Martian chess. He used to come hang out at my girl friend's house and drink homemade wine and chain smoke and play chess with us. We worked in the same restaurant for awhile. I was around for him the day after he tried to shoot his brains out. I was there when his older sister died. He was with me the night I passed out drunk in the snow and got picked up by the cops as well, because he wouldn't deny knowing me. He hated dishonesty. I was the liar of all time. He believed everything I told him. Therapy in Utah had taught me I did not have to lie. I was in the position of wanting to tell people the truth about myself or just letting it lie (There are some puns you can't resist. I couldn't help myself). His girlfriend and I hated each other. She blamed me for the failure of my marriage. She didn't like the way I talked, walked, breathed or combed my hair. We had a fight one night. He made peace rather awkwardly and painfully. And I stayed a few more weeks and then found another place on my own. When I left, I told him the truth, sorted out the whoopers from the reality for him, knowing full well that he would tell me to go get lost. He did. I figured it was easier for everyone this way. We never talked again. I heard he married the girl. Ah, the passions and the correctness of youth. I stopped fabricating my life and started living it instead. Getting over the self hatred took a little longer.
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