Plunging Into The Pool

My phone rang. “Hello, this is Mark,” I answered. “Mark!  I can’t believe I tracked you down!”  The voice at the other end of the line sounded surprised, and also vaguely familiar to me. “You did!”  I said tentatively, but with some enthusiasm encouraged by the friendly tone of the voice. “You don’t know who this is, do you?” “No …,” I answered.  But now I was sure I knew who this person was.  I just couldn’t place the voice.  I didn’t mind the interruption; it was a quiet day at work, on a lazy August afternoon, and I couldn’t help feeling a little curious. “It’s me, John,” he said. “John… John,” I thought to myself furiously.  I know and have known a lot of men named John.  Which one was this? Fortunately, it seemed he was sympathetic to my predicament.  “From high school,” he volunteered. “Oh, John ,” I said, emphasizing his name, as if that actually meant anyth...

In high school, John and I were two of the guys who hung out in my friend Gary’s basement and smoked dope.  On weekends, we varied the scene by first smoking dope in Gary’s basement and then going to one of the high school parties someone was always having.  When we got to those parties we didn’t mingle or pick up girls.  We didn’t know how.  Instead, we lingered on the fringes and listened to music and giggled like stoners do. When we weren’t smoking dope or going to parties (which used to be the case more often back in 9th or 10th grade but was becoming more rare as time went by) we did guy stuff, like playing Dungeons & Dragons or playing cards or doing crazy things in Gary’s back yard.  But we also flirted (badly) with Gary’s sister, who was about 10 years older and, looking back on it, infinitely patient with us.  And we looked at “men’s” magazines – Playboy and Hustler and sleazier mags like Swank . But I wasn’t your typical st...