After the vigil, many of the girls I was with started crying. I really didn’t know how to handle a group of emotional women, but there’s a time in every boy’s life when he has to learn. Denise, who was from Long Island, went home that weekend. When she returned, we started hanging out a lot—so much so that everyone on the floor joked that I was her second roommate.
No matter how many hours I worked at the admissions office or how much homework I had, I always spent ample time with Denise. She enjoyed most of my jokes, as we both had backgrounds in retail and I had a whole routine about my years at the Gap. For example, I was often the only one who would wear a headset. Most of my coworkers laughed at me for wearing one since I couldn’t communicate with anyone. When customers asked if we had a certain size in the back, though, instead of taking the time to go to the back, I would pretend to talk to someone on my headset—thus, way avoiding more work for myself. Denise would laugh hysterically every time I told this story.
After Denise’s weekend in Long Island, I started joining her and her friends for dinner every evening. The first time I went with Denise I met a girl named Vanessa. Vanessa and Denise were from the same town; they didn’t attend the same high school but had vaguely known each other before college. Vanessa was initially taken aback by me because the first time I met her I couldn’t stop burping loudly. Vanessa thought it was hilarious, though.
After many successful dinners with the girls, I asked if I could go out drinking with them. About three weeks into the semester, I went to my first college party, which eventually got out of hand and required a visit from the cops. It was the first time I consumed alcohol. One boy asked me if I had ever had Guinness before. Unfamiliar with any type of beer, I said, “Is that a blow job or something?”
The next weekend I was excited to go out with my new posse again. Most of the Geneseo undergraduates found out about the parties going on around town through fliers that were handed out in the dining hall. Most of my new friends would chuckle when I would beg to go out drinking with them because when we got to our destination, I would just wander off and start talking to strangers.
The “hot” party that was going on one Saturday was at the soccer house. When I got there, I noticed a boy in a hooded sweatshirt who was yelling at his friend for pouring beer on him. The girl that this boy was with was very attractive and very drunk—two excellent qualities boys love in a woman. I started talking to both of them, and after a few minutes, I found out that the boy’s name was Rich and that he was from a town in Long Island. I spoke to Rich about the usual—what our majors were and so forth—and I also asked if he had ever been to a strip club. Rich answered my question with an emphatic yes, and then I told him how a few nights before I went away to college my older cousin took me to a strip club that was later busted for prostitution. I felt comfortable around Rich, and then I told him, “Wish I had known about it.”
I also found out that Rich had a girlfriend from his high school and that the two had been dating for about six months. The soccer party was the first time I actually got really drunk, and that following Monday while I was in the cafeteria, I could overhear people pointing at me and saying, “Isn’t that the kid from the soccer party?” On Sunday, some of the people who lived on my floor told me, “So I heard you went to the soccer party.” I was so drunk that I tried going to the bathroom but couldn’t stand still. I just started jumping up and down, almost falling down in the process.
The following Monday I saw Rich on my way to writing class. At first, I didn’t know whether I should say hi or just ignore him. To my surprise, Rich was very friendly and said, “What’s going on, man?” I didn’t know it then, but Rich would always refer to me as the “drunken kid who always said hi.”
Until Thanksgiving vacation, I spent a lot of time with Denise, drinking in her room and going to the movies. Once when we were out seeing the movie K-Pax with Kevin Spacey, I was so tired that I fell asleep, started talking in my sleep, and even started grunting.
One of my favorite nights during my freshman year of college was the Friday before Thanksgiving. It was supposed to be “Girl’s Night Out,” but the girls felt so sympathetic toward me that they called the night “Girls Night Out and Lukey.” After we arrived at a local fraternity house, I noticed a girl from my writing class standing by herself. Shannon was an attractive brunette with long hair and an engaging smile. We had talked once in class about how I worked at Friendly’s and was disciplined by the manager for wearing my pants so low that it looked like I was mooning customers when I was scooping ice cream. Shannon pointed out who she came to the party with, a girl who lived on her floor named Diana. Diana had to be the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She
