In 1978 I had a lot of friends and did a lot of partying. We went to see Animal House several times and thought it was the funniest movie ever made. Funnier than the Marx Brothers or Mel Brooks. We tried to act like the Delta house brothers in our real lives.

Terry was a bartender at the Commoner's Pub where we hung out. He was a good-looking guy who reminded me of Harry Belafonte, and he fit into a group of rowdy white guys just fine. When he got off shift at ten, that's when the fun started. We hopped in our jeeps, vans, and motorcycles, and headed somewhere downtown, or a field party that we knew about. One night I started a conga line in a busy intersection of the city, dancing serpentinely through a crosswalk. I had a toilet seat around my neck that I brought along, just for yucks. Some Hare Krishnas joined the line and the whole scene got chaotic. Cars honked and honked as we blocked traffic. Terry had his hands on my shoulders, laughing like crazy. He loved to laugh. A cop car came, flashed its lights, and we disappeared into the night. That's the kind of fun we liked to have. We weren't hooligans, we were just young and excited to be alive.

I often had a pizza dinner at The Commoner's Pub. I ate half of it there, and the other half would be breakfast the next day. I sat at the bar and ordered a small pepperoni from Terry. He had a dumb joke for me - it was expected of bartenders to spread the latest joke. I gave him a fake laugh. Then I told him something that had happened to me, something that was actually funny, and he snorted and bellowed! His hands grabbed my wrists and his head was nearly in my pizza from laughing.

"How do all these crazy things happen to you, Ricky?" He was the only person who called me Ricky. I was Rick to everyone else. I never gave it any thought.

"I don't know, they just do. Did I ever tell you about the audio convention I went to last summer?" That's what I do, I sell high-end audio.

"No! Don't tell me, my stomach already hurts from laughing! Seriously, save it. I gotta get back to work."

"Okay. You off at ten?"

"Yeah, will you ride me on your motorcycle?"

"Naw, I hate riding people. But we'll be waiting for you when you get off." I finished half my pizza and sat down with the guys at their tables. There was anywhere from five to ten of us on any given night. Most had gone to school together. The main subject of conversation was girls and where we could find them.

"Rick, I am seriously backed up. We gotta find us some women," said Flash Ellington. Flash and I ran track in high school, but he was the star, not me. Hence his nickname.

"Don't look at me, I suck at finding girls. I'm as desperate as you are."

"You got a fast bike, that doesn't help you any?" said Flash.

"I don't like passengers, it throws me off."

"Yeah, I'm sure if some fox wanted a ride, you wouldn't mind." I had two mugs of beer and then Terry was off shift. We decided to go see the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, they were playing downtown. I was busy telling Terry another story and we were the last of our crew in the pub's parking lot. Terry got into his car and it wouldn't start.

"Ricky, I don't want to miss the show. Just give me a ride on your bike. One of the guys can jump my car when we get back."

"Okay, I'll ride you down there, but somebody else will have to ride you back. I really don't like riders." Especially guys. There was always the awkwardness of riding a guy. With a girl, you certainly didn't mind their arms around you. But Terry was cool about it, he used the passenger rails to hold on. That's what a guy is supposed to do. I was afraid he might try and put his arms around me. Why did I think that?

As it turned out, Terry occasionally reached up to grab my shoulder, to get his balance. But then he put his hand back down. I was glad when the ride was over. I just don't like passengers.

Butterfield played a great show. I love the blues. But it was a fairly tame evening. Nothing uproarious happened, and that disappointed me.

The next night, we all went to the college town of Humboldt Hills. The frat boys were always willing to chug against me, and they always lost. We got a lot of free rounds of beer that way. It was always a kick to see the looks on their faces. I really did not seem like a serious chugger. I just looked like another skinny hippie. But there was a fine tradition of serious speed chuggers in my family, and I was determined to take my place among them. That night, Terry offered a quaalude to me. I knew what they were, but I stupidly took one anyway. Things had been a little boring lately. Nothing outrageous had happened, and I had hoped the lude would inspire me.

After demolishing the frat boys, we went to the Donut Diner. I spun around on a stool with two straws stuck in my nostrils. Nobody laughed and the waitress rolled her eyes at me. I was getting antsy and wanted some fun to happen. Terry grabbed me by the shoulders.

"You almost fell off, Ricky." I didn't think I had. I thought I was just fine. But when we got up to leave, I could barely walk. I had to lean on Terry to get to his car. The guys pulled my bike onto Flash Ellington's van and Terry drove me home. Along the way, my head fell onto his lap. I was aware of this, but couldn't right myself. As comatose as I seemed, I was still awake. Why didn't Terry push me back over to my side of the car, I wondered? The lude finally wore off some and I was able to get myself upright. I made up my mind that night, no more quaaludes.

At some point, a bunch of wild, horny guys who keep striking out will end up at a strip club, and that's what happened the next night. Our desperation sent us to Goldie's Show Bar once every few months. They had a dancer by the name of Brandy. She was built like Daisy Mae from the comic strips. That was not an exaggeration. And, she was a great dancer. Drove guys crazy. It rained dollar bills when she was on stage. I noticed something about Terry when we were there: he didn't tip. Tipping involved walking up to the stage with a dollar bill, which would prompt the dancer to bend over and reveal her secret treasures of the universe. We all did it and laughed about it in the process. But Terry did not. I noticed it every time we went to Goldie's. He was a great guy and a lot of fun. He loved my stories and always grabbed me as if the laughter would cause him to lose his balance. But never tipping - that made me start to wonder about him.

The following days after visiting a strip club were always uncomfortable to me. I had trouble looking women in the eye. If it weren't for that, I'd probably go more often, especially to see Brandy. God was at his best the day He turned her out. It always took me a while to get her out of my system. I blew the guys off for a few days, just to get some rest, then I was back at the pub for another pizza dinner. Terry and I traded some jokes, then he stopped smiling.

"Ricky, I got something I want to talk to you about some day. It's a little serious. But I'm excited about it, and I hope you will be, too. You have to have an open mind about it, that's the only thing. Do you think you can do that?"

"Well...sure, Terry." Oh, brother. Usually when people start acting the way Terry was acting, they want you to join their Amway business, or some other company with a pyramid scheme. That was one possibility. The other possibility was...damn, I hated thinking it. I was leaning toward the latter, and that was a real drag.

I was determined to have fun that night. It had been a long time coming. We went downtown to Sam's Place, which featured great local bands but no dance floor. I got drunk enough that I just started dancing in an aisle. I'm known as a good dancer - I think I'm better than John Travolta, actually. The waiters tried to stop me, but I just kept on dancing. It caught on like dominos and practically everybody in the place got up and started dancing. At closing time, a guy in a suit put his arm around my neck and shouted, "This dude is the coolest! Everybody follow us to my brownstone! I'm driving a red Mercedes convertible!"

The guy turned out to be a lawyer. When we got to his place, he opened up a massive liquor cabinet. We could help ourselves, he said. Terry would've been the perfect person in that situation - but he had to work late that night. So I announced that I was a famous bartender. I knew nothing about mixing drinks, but I got a big kick out of naming my made-up concoctions. Everyone was so drunk, it didn't matter.

The first drink I made was an Etruscan Nail. Then I came up with Ditz Spritz (made it for a blonde), Auric Gaze, Bronx Bomb, Sin Dripper, Michael Collins (added Bailey's Irish Cream), Vile Vial, The Tingler, and on and on. The only problem came when a woman really liked her Auric Gaze and wanted another. No way could I remember what I put in it. I told her that I was an artiste and never made the same drink in a single evening. I had too many extraordinary concoctions for the world to sample. She bought it and settled for a Threepenny Schnappra.

That was a wild party and a lot of things happened that night. I can't recall most of them, but I think Flash Ellington got some head in a room upstairs. Maybe he just made out. A lot of things get exaggerated in the telling. I had a two-day hangover from that one. When I made it back to The Commoner's Pub, Terry gave me a funny look while I ate my pizza.

"I hear somebody enjoyed himself just a little too much."

"I had fun, Terry. Sorry you missed it."

"Well, I still want to have a talk with you." Drat. I was hoping he would forget all about that.

"Okay, well...anytime."

"Don't worry, it's not a bad thing. I'm hoping you will think it's a good thing, Ricky."

"It's not Amway, is it, Terry? Because I'm really not into that kind of thing."

"Oh, is that what you were thinking? Oh no, it's not Amway. I don't have nothing to do with cleaning products, child. This is much better." That only left one thing. I hoped I was wrong.

We all ended up at a field party that night. I wasn’t big on field parties because they were mainly for high school kids. And there was usually the smell of pot everywhere. I hated pot, didn't like the odor or the way it made me feel. People just assumed I smoked pot because of the way I looked and dressed. They were always passing me joints at field parties.

"You don't seem like you're having fun," said Terry. He was getting the last few puffs out of a roach.

"High school girls are just loud attention seekers. They really turn me off."

"I can understand that. Do you want to get away from here?"

"Yeah, but I left my bike at the pub. Flash drove me here."

"I'll drive you back to get your bike."

"Cool, thanks."

"And we can have our little talk." Oh no, I had forgotten about that. Terry drove into the pub's parking lot and pulled his emergency brake really hard. "Well, here we are. But I have to know something first. Do you have an open mind?" He stretched out those last two words. If I had any doubts before, I knew now what Terry wanted to talk about. I'm sure he expected a yes or no answer, but I had plenty that I needed to say.

"Terry, people assume a lot about me. They assume that I am an easy going guy, and for the most part, I am. They assume that I am a hippie who believes in loving everyone and who smokes a lot of dope, but as you know, I hate dope. So I am not everything I appear to be. The truth is, I am open-minded about a lot of things, but there are many subjects in this world I am not open-minded about. Especially for myself, personally. It doesn't matter to me what people do with their own lives. In that sense, I am open-minded. But I'm finding more and more as I get older that I personally am not the type to experiment. Yes, I like having fun. But otherwise, I am just a normal guy who likes doing normal things the normal way. That wasn't said very well, but do you take my meaning? I am not as open-minded as you might hope I am."

"Yeah, I get your meaning." He was pouty at first, then, even though it was dark, I could see some anger in his face. I thanked him for the ride and got out of his car. He squealed his wheels leaving the parking lot. I got on my bike and rode home.

I felt like I had a hell of a problem on my hands. Terry was well liked in the group, but how would things be now? Would he be able to get over it and act like nothing had happened? By the look on his face when I left, I was guessing not. One thing for sure, I wouldn't be eating pizza at the bar anymore. It seemed like a big problem, but was it really? Jimmy Carter's economy sucked big time and almost 1,000 people killed themselves at Jonestown, on Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. In comparison, my problem was nothing.

So I ate my pizza with the guys at their table, and Terry started doing double-shifts that lasted until closing time. Gradually, he faded from the group. Then he left The Commoner's Pub and started tending bar downtown. All the guys knew something had happened between us, but they didn't talk about it. That's how things were handled in those days. People just didn't talk about stuff like that in the late seventies if they didn't have to. Even with the great social revolution that had happened in the decade prior, the world was still a conservative place when it came to that sort of thing. Hopefully, Terry found someone of his own ilk. I don't know why he ever thought it could be me.