Old Friends

Illustration by Bob AulSend anonymous thanks, confessions or accusations —changing or deleting the names of the guilty and innocent—to “Hey, You!” c/o OC Weekly, P.O. Box 10788, Costa Mesa, CA 92627-0247, or e-mail us at le*****@oc******.com.

Are you following me? While I was an undergrad in New York, I left my car in a campus garage for weeks at a time. You apparently knew this: you made my beat-up Volvo your home away from home. When I left my dorm room for Christmas vacation during senior year, I discovered you'd been sleeping, eating, peeing and vomiting in my car for what must have been days—maybe even weeks. Bits of food were ground into the seats. Old newspapers had been your pillow. And that old adage about never shitting where you eat? Didn't seem to bother you. My car smelled like an outhouse. I couldn't clean the thing—couldn't even sell it. And drive it? Are you fucking kidding? Not even with the windows down! I had to pay the salvage guy $100 to haul it away. Now, a few years later, I walk out of my apartment—in Irvine, no less, 3,200 miles from NYC —to retrieve my briefcase from the trunk of my almost-new Saab. It's night. It's cold. And I'm in my pajamas, hoping no one will see me. Opening the trunk must have startled you from a deep slumber; as I slam the trunk shut, the passenger door bounces open and you stumble out. Without a look back, you stagger off into the dark. I am stunned. Do I chase you? Do I call the cops? I look inside the car to discover that it's you again: your signature vomit is sprayed across my back seat. So, how's life been treating you?

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