As it doesn’t appear in Merrimack Valley Magazine.
The following “excerpt” didn’t make the word count cut, from my next column about summering hardcore junior year of college, outside Provincetown, on Cape Cod. That issue hits newsstands any day now. In the meantime, enjoy.
“On nights that Sean, our 3rd roommate, would sleep in his bed—rather than “out” somewhere—and both Jake and I made it home, he and I would split my full mattress. The extra cot sucked.
Generally we were drunk and exhausted…so neither of us much cared. When Sean slept out, we grabbed his bed and would deny doing so. He was funny like that. A little less easy going than the two of us—though some might say we were the funny ones!
On this particular summer night after an especially grueling shift (or string of grueling late nights—I can’t recall which), Pizza-man and I decided to take a rare “night off” from heading to the bars. I can count on less than one hand how many times that happened all summer.
It was also a night that our roommate Sean was to be meeting with his visiting parents after work for dinner, before returning to the cottage. Rather than have to move from Sean’s bed whenever he eventually got home, I shoved over while reading a newspaper, and Jake also climbed in bed and started watching TV.
Soon after, thinking they were meeting him at the cottage, Sean’s parents walked through the front door—and directly into Jake and I lounging sober and shirtless, in bed together, only a few feet away—both Sean’s bed and the lumpy cot empty.
With a straight face, I looked at them and said: “I can explain.” Their faces were absolutely priceless as they apologized and sheepishly backed out of the room—something we laughed about all summer and to this day!
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