1988 was a tumultuous year for me. By way of history I'd grown up with a tightly-knit group of crazed characters that had evolved into a mini-crime-syndicate. We'd all dated the same girls, hung out at the same parentless homes and in general fucked up our once-promising, affluent lives. Then I met my now-wife, who had two toddlers in tow. This changed everything.
More and more I'd spend time doing the family thing, drawing scorn from my old gang. I lived in a group home where the dynamics were tense but manageable. But soon enough a girl moved in. My now-wife took an immediate dislike to her. She was convinced that something was going on between we roommates, though it wasn't true. It might as well have been, and she broke off our relationship. I took up with the homewrecker, which ruined the group home dynamic. With us as a two-person voting bloc, it just couldn't work anymore.
We moved to another home with my then-best friend and his new wife. This didn't work out well either. Matt didn't like the girl and his bride liked me too much. That fiasco ended in an expensive and bitterly acrimonious lease-voiding. I moved back in with my parents, who were in the process of buying me a townhouse so I could begin the Responsible Adult phase of my life. Meanwhile the partying spiraled out of control. The girlfriend began hanging out with the gang, notable with Todd, a guy who always took up with my girlfriends dating back to 6th grade. He took a kind of personal satisfaction in it, why I don't know.
I began to see the gang for what they were: a bunch of self-absorbed, spoiled, losers. The GF moved in with Todd. I turned up on my now-wife's doorstep, emaciated and on death's door. We reconciled and have lived happily ever after. Gradually I lost touch with my lifelong friends. When we do meet there isn't much to talk about. In fact, Matt is living right across the creek from me and we never get together. The one time we did it proved awkward as hell. We've grown apart.
Several years ago I started writing on this site after six months of silent lurking. Bad Sam enjoyed a heyday of sorts with regular posts from MG, myself, Effenheimer, Ezy and Linz. We had a rotation going with creativity and sniping galore. Then one day Linz packed up her shit and stomped off in a snit. In retrospect that may have been the beginning of the end. Ezy met Amy and cleaned up his act. God knows where Eff went. (I suspect foul play.) MG wrote his screenplay. I wrote my book.
And that, my quasi-friends, is how it ended.