By the end of our first year, Ronnie and I are ready to move on from the dorm. We are still best friends but our paths have diverged. She is so into the Pelham program (Dryden’s Aeneid) that she wants to spend even more time with her fellows. They seem almost like a cult to me; you have to belong to the group to get their references, and you have to understand their references to be considered one of them. When Ronnie isn’t meeting with them it seems like she’s reading things for her next meeting with them.

I on the other hand am wasting my time and loving it. I chip away at required courses, academically, but my first years away from my parents’ home are all about being on my own, away from my parents. I try every drug I encounter (carefully, almost scientifically: reading up on its constituents and effects, blocking out the right time (night or daylight) and arranging for an escort if it is hallucinogenic) and most of the guys. I dabble in student activism but turn away from all the consensus-building (I never did well at working with others).

Maybe Ronnie and I shouldn’t have remained roommates after our first year, but there’s an inertia to strong friendships, a set of habits that sometimes links folks during periods of what would otherwise be estrangement. We get on each other’s nerves in our small apartment, and we seldom have a genuine connection. But we will survive our differences. In fact, I am so nocturnal and she is up with the birds, studying all day, living clean and forever brushing her teeth – except for the lack of storage space it’s almost like living alone.

Soon we’re managing to share the place four ways, most of the time. Both Ronnie and I settle into relationships. She has of course selected a fellow Pelhaman; Ian is slight, curly-haired, armpit-bearded, myopic, and apparently brilliant. He pronounces his name with a long “I.” My lover is Chaz. He writes code and wins at most games. He is big and surprisingly steady. He makes me laugh.

Ian and Ronnie tend to study when they’re in the apartment. Study or cook. They’re trying to read all three volumes of The Divine Comedy (Sayers’s version). They’re down for the night by 9 p.m., so Ronnie and I agreed to give them the bedroom. Chaz and I sleep in the living room, usually from about 3 a.m. to 10, and they try not to disturb us when they come through at dawn, to go to their seminar.

I’m starting to get into school. I did nothing but required courses last year, but now I’m spending time with Classics people, learning Greek of all things, and I’m with Chaz, and I’m not partying as hard. We still smoke weed. In fact, there’s a new dealer in town and we’re getting better stuff lately. I haven’t met the guy – even with all the advances it’s still the man’s job to score the hooch – but Chaz seems to like to buy from Pip.

The buds are beautiful. Pip obviously spends time grooming his product; everything is nicely packaged and details are provided, like provenance for art. Chaz tells me Pip is a tall, Afro-topped white guy, apparently enrolled but not very. Pip doesn’t use what he sells. He characterizes himself as a proud peddler, motivated by two ambitions: he wants a state-of-the-art sound system and a Porsche.

I always put aside what I’m doing when I smoke with Chaz. I get the most out of the experience if I’m not simultaneously reading, translating, or working a puzzle. Lately I’m into Vonnegut. I had to give up Heinlein after Stranger. Peter was right about that; early Heinlein was genuine and fun but later on he yelled too much.