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When not writing, or at College, or at work, or noticing my continued
wasting away, I spent time with friends. Mostly Jeff, but as the
years had gone on I had gained Pat, the one who had replaced me at
the software start-up. 'Karl', 'Wayne', and 'Chet' were friends of
Jeff's whom I'd come to know and had been trying to get a Dungeons
& Dragons group formed around. 'Dan' and 'Shelia' were
husband and wife science fiction enthusiasts from Denver who not only
attended their group, but had been coming to our little city to help
found our science fiction club and be monthly attendees. While
trying to befriend some of the folks I worked with or went to College
with, nothing much ever came of that beyond a brief chat about
the weather during breaks.
In the case of the Dungeons &
Dragons group, we simply didn't have enough people to make it
fun, still we got together at my mother's mobile home off and on over
the previous year on Friday evenings to give it a go. It seemed to
me Pat and I had become the closest friends given our common computer
programming, music, and writing interests. As Nineteen Eighty-Six
progressed, he had successfully moved from the defunct software
start-up to other software firms in town and had his work
successfully published and was even toying with redefining floating
point arithmetic. We would often get together to trade recently
finished stories, debate the latest music group, and even philosophy.
By the end of the year, he had found himself a regular girlfriend
and was eying marriage and his first house.
Dan's and my friendship centered mostly on our music interests and
trading record albums to listen to between science fiction club
meetings. In fact, if not for the allure of his record collection, I
might not have even bothered with the local science fiction group as
it often seemed they would just get together each month to wonder
what they should do with the coming meetings and never settle on
anything, only to repeat the process all over again with the next
meeting. My favorite part of the group was when it ended and we
would go out and get a table at the nearby diner for an additional
two hours. For some reason, when no longer dwelling on what the
group should be doing at the next meeting, they livened up... Or
maybe it was just the food.
The club had permanently reserved the community room at a local bank
for our once a month Saturday night gatherings and I once again
arrived at the December meeting to simply trade albums with Dan. As
it turned out he was sitting apart from the group, I settled down
next to him and we chatted about what else we had in our libraries to
trade in the next month. It was then that I noticed the 'fresh faces'
at the meeting table, two new girls were here and had gotten the
group off the topic of what to do for the next years' meetings and
instead onto the topic of who these new girls were and what they did.
Once Dan and I had agreed upon the following month's record trade, I
scooted my chair up to the table to hear more about the new girls.
Both were teachers who had recently moved to town and were exploring
the various local social options. Of the two girls one was the shy
one, 'Daina', and the other the gregarious one, 'Rochelle'. Rochelle
was making the biggest splash while Daina mostly talked when asked
questions. It turned out Daina had the science fiction interests
more than Rochelle, but when Rochelle heard about the monthly
meetings she had encouraged Daina to get out of her apartment and
actually attend this night. Daina was about nine years older than me
whereas Rochelle was only a few. Soon the group got ready for the
post meeting dinner and the two girls joined us. This gave me a
better chance to talk with just the girls and I struck while I could:
''Have you ever played Dungeons & Dragons?''
Neither had but were willing to give it a try and we were at my home
the following month to learn about the game, and join in. We finally
had barely enough players to make the game fun but, as it turned out,
we now had more people than my mother was willing to let me have at
her place after a week or two. Given the need to find a new home for
the game, Daina offered her apartment and we spent the next several
Fridays there getting their characters ironed out and into the first
adventure. Ultimately the group still failed. After a long
day of work, Wayne routinely fell asleep and would start to snore,
Chet was finishing up his Senior year of High School and would soon
be away to a traditional College and Karl was Karl.
He kind of reminded me of my childhood friend who lived at the
defunct dairy farm, part charm and part mischief, but in the case of
Karl there was also a randomness to him and we never knew if he was
going to show up or not to each game, leaving us to wait for him
needlessly or wonder what to do about his character in the game when
he wasn't there.
But the girls kept on searching for new social activities in town and
found that a new 'writers group' was forming where a bunch of writing
enthusiasts would share their work with each other and cajole
themselves into getting published one day. As they learned I dabbled
in writing, the girls let me know of the group and we attended its
first meeting along with a few more of the science fiction clubbers.
Being at the same south end of town, with the writing group at the
organizer's home to the north end, the girls and I soon car pooled
and within a few years time one would become my best friend and the
other not.
As for me, though, the clock was winding down.
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