It was the middle of June and the end of an era, and as I put my pencil down and creased my blue book shut and shuffled past and between knees to the aisle to turn it in, a part of me felt it, that giddy sense, although I didn't know exactly what it was yet. In the moment it felt good. Like crossing the finish line, in whatever place, just happy to be finished with it. It tasted like a warm change of the seasons, and I smiled because I was happy. I felt accomplished, even if the last of it wasn't my best work. But it was enough, and that was good enough for me, and crossing the threshold of the door to the lecture hall I yelled a rebel "Woo!" as loud as my lungs dared.
It was my first step past formal education, and the strange gravity of the moment hadn't quite caught me. I just walked to my bike where it always was, but at a tad faster pace than usual. Light on the toes so my heels didn't touch. The joy was bubbling, rising like the head of beer from a freshly tapped keg pint. That end marked the beginning of a celebration. The last day of finals; it was a Friday and by the afternoon everyone was done and racing to get drunk. Party at the girls' house. Beer pong. Spliffs. Burgers on the grill. Friends by the dozen. Oh, and pot brownies. The usual. Just another sun-soaked Santa Cruz day that took forever to fade to twilight, and when it finally did, we were all too drunk to care and baked out of our gourds from those dang brown-highs. Mike passed out in the house. "The brownies... they've won," he slurred just before the lights went out. They always do because I don't remember much after that either. Something was different, but it all felt the same. Like the end to every other quarter, the start to every other summer. Except there'd be no returning back for classes in the fall. I'd always seen life as a set of steps, I think. After one comes the other, and with each step that thing I was stepping towards got a little bit closer. But when there's no more steps, and the landing's under my feet, the open door before me, I walk through, sure, but what the hell's inside? Adult life? Maybe, but what's that?
"Your an adult now," my father said to me before the ceremony. "You better start acting like one."
"Okay." Whatever that means. And I rushed down the steps from the parking lot to the Cowell quad to join the rest of my graduating class. If it wasn't for the silly hats, we'd have looked like a giant horde of extras for a Harry Potter sequel in those stupid robes. It was the middle of summer in California, sunny and seventy-three degrees, and they had us all in black ankle-length robes. "Probably some adult's idea," I thought to myself as we walked down in line to take our seats in the middle of the East Field. Even with nothing but shorts and a tank-top on underneath, my balls were sweating bullets while we sat waiting there. It was from the heat, and not of the moment, as there wasn't much gravity to the situation. At least not to me anyways. There were a few speeches grasping at significance and we all clapped politely, just wanting it to be over already. I could see Monster and BB, both wasted already, biting at the bit to bang the pots and pans they'd brought, and when the time finally came and I handed the slip of paper with my name on it to the lady at the foot of the stage, I blacked out. I just remember hearing "George Brian Absher the Third" and chuckling quickly at "the Third" before I walked up there and apparently shook someone's hand and he handed me a roll of paper. But I didn't remember it. It was "the third" then a tut to myself and flash, I was back in my seat, somehow next to Callan. I didn't even hear the pots for me. But those two girls were both beaming from the crowd, and I was giddy inside. So much so that I threw my hat prematurely before the final words. And well, sometimes that happens. With the ceremony done, it was to be another rager at the King Street house, one more blow-out, with everyone's parents this time and catered food. To drink, Pink Panty Droppers of course, and my mind didn't clear 'til the morning. I rolled over and the sun was beating from the window. The day felt new, and it felt like mine so I opened my laptop and wrote her a letter:
My Dearest Laura,
I woke up today and thought to myself, "Brian, you just finished college. You know who would appreciate that, and who you coincidentally haven't talk to in a coon's age? Forrest Whitaker." And then I chuckled giddily and rolled around my bunk for a moment thinking of all the people who might find my graduation noteworthy. In the whirlwind of names that ensued, I managed to hold onto yours and an inkling remembrance of our moments past. And so it is in that mindset, that I decided to cordially inquire,
"Hey, what's up? Tell me about your life, and descriptively so. I don't care the method, be it by post or by phone call. And you can call whenever as I haven't the slightest idea of what to do all day except bask in the ephemeral sunlight of my success, and maybe laugh a bit more. Evil laughs: MUHAHAHAHAHA. Waterfall laughs: AHHhahahaha... AHHHHHHhahahaha... And of course pirate laughs: har har har."
Then maybe someday - albeit it will probably be a someday not in the near future - we can meet up again, perhaps in Paris, take a seat outside at some corner cafe on la rue de such-and-such and talk about the good old days and our marked randomness at which point this letter and just maybe the ensuing conversation will come up. And then we might smoke a spliff, might take a chance. Who knows.
Sincerely yours,
Brian
