I had missed a final but when I went to see my academic councilor, he took the class completely off my transcript citing "the emotional stress of losing a professor." I didn't even have to say anything. I just turned up for my appointment and when he saw my transcript he took care of everything. That class plus not having gotten credit for my internship put me eight units shy of graduating. I got a job as a bartender at CJs and enrolled in summer classes.
Lynn stayed in town that summer. We got an apartment together, a sublet on a one bedroom. She'd been working with one of her professors on research and decided to stay on for the summer before moving west to start "my big girl job" as she called it. Her professor had gotten her the gig, she was going to be a researcher for a tech company. Neither of us had any idea what she'd actually be doing.
Ryan ended up moving to the east coast. After all his talk about getting out of consulting he had decided to stay when his group got transferred.
"So you're still going to be an analyst?" I asked him.
"Yeah. I don't know what I want but going east seems like a good change of pace. Plus if it sucks I can always quit and find something else."
He wasn't even pissed that I missed the party. From what I heard it was a smashing success that ran all night until it was shut down at ten the next morning. Ryan was so drunk that he didn't know if I was there or not and when the cops came to tell them to break it up, he was passed out in the bathtub. Since they couldn't find anyone who actually lived in the apartment the cops said forget it and didn't write up the noise complaint or the underage drinking.
John ended up joining the Peace Corps. He had to promise his parents that he would apply to law school the second he got back in the country, but they let him go. We had a going away thing for him over the summer. John, Georgia, Lynn, Jimmy and I sat around drinking beers at CJs one night after my shift was over. He didn't want it to be a big deal and outside those of us who where there that night, I'm not sure anyone else knew.
"So how'd you end up in the Peace Corps?" I asked him. None of us had heard anything about it until he announced that he was going.
"My parents wanted me to get a job as a paralegal this summer. They said it would look good on my transcript. It's the firm my dad was a partner at before he opened his consulting business, so I just had to meet with one of the partners as a formality.
I get in there for the 'interview' and this guy goes on and on about his law school days and about how lucky I was that I was about to start and how it was this great time in his life. Then he starts talking about how before law school he was in the Peace Corps. I could see that being a paralegal was going to be as about as interesting as internal hemorrhaging and I hadn't really thought about the Peace Corps before, so when I got out of there I drove over to school and picked up the application. It's my parents' fault really. If they'd let me get a normal summer job, I'd probably still be headed to law school next year."
"So two years of freedom then you're back to this shit, huh?" I asked him.
"Fuck no, I only told my parents that so they'd let me go. Once I'm out of the country I'm never coming back."
Georgia and Tim ended up moving to Berkeley together. Tim is still a fucking moron but he makes Georgia happy. She works in an art gallery and I have no idea what he does. He's probably a motivational speaker.
After summer school was over and Lynn was done with her research job we took her final week and went back to the coast. We packed up the apartment and I shipped my stuff to my dad's. Her company was paying for her to move and once the movers left, there was nothing left in the apartment. CJs didn't want to give me the time off.
"It's a busy time of year for us, with the students coming back and we're going to need every member of the team here, alright buddy?" My manager said when I told him. I just laughed and walked out.
We ended up going south this time, far from the cold foggy days I was used to. It was fun and even though at the end of the week we were essentially breaking up it didn't feel that way. When I dropped her off we were friends and she made me promise to come visit her once she was settled into her new place.
It was our last day on the coast. I was driving Lynn to the airport the next day before setting off for the east coast and we were just finishing up dinner at a fancy seafood place. She had insisted for months that I owed her dinner, ever since that day at the Seaside and I wanted to take her out to celebrate.
"So do you think you're fired from CJs?" She asked.
"I don't know. I'm not going back either way. It was just a summer thing."
"What are you going to do?"
"You're not going to believe it." I told her.
"You didn't call Ryan for a job?"
"I did."
"After all that shit you talked about not wanting to end up like him, he still found you a job?"
"What can I say, he's a better person than I am."
"What are you going to be doing?"
"I'm on their IT staff."
"IT? Do you know anything about computers?"
"My resume seems to think so."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
"So you're going to be a productive member of society after all." She said.
"I guess so."
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Chapter 23 | Suicide and Keg Stands Index |
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I want to say thank you to everyone who read, commented, and / or emailed. I've wanted to tell this story for a long time and I had a lot of fun living with these characters during the six months or so it took to write this. I can only hope you enjoyed reading it.
I'm currently working two projects. One is a short story that I'll post when it's finished and the second is my next novel which I'll begin serializing here when it's finished as well. I hope you'll come back for both of those projects.
If you check back in a week or so, I'll have a PDF version of Suicide and Keg Stands so you can download it if you prefer reading it that way, as opposed to on this site. You can download a PDF of the whole novella from the S&KS Index Page.
-Ben
Posted by Ben Corman at 9:29 AM