Author Information
Best Friends
by Jeph Johnson and DaddyO
Almost every name mentioned henceforth I've considered a "best friend" at some point in my life other than the two guitar players from Alcatrazz
The good news is I've had several "best friends"
The not so good news follows..
For a mama's boy before fourth grade no one else matters too much
But in fourth grade Ben and I formed a purple gang with Dan and pretended we were from the Planet Zooplop
We idolized the Minnesota football team because of our Viking heritage
Ben actually moved to the real Minnesota after grade school ended
I lost touch with Dan after sixth grade and we didn't reconnect until we both found Jesus as young adults
After sixth grade Phil and Jamie used to play sports with me
Jamie was more into football, Phil basketball
Phil eventually found that "the cool kids" in high school made better friends than a guy who just lived up the street and happened to have an eight foot basketball dunk hoop
Freshman and sophomore year I took a lot of pictures of the high school goddesses rather than engaging them in romantic conversations
I mainly hung out with Jamie
One weekend in November I went with his family to the Oregon coast and we chased girls with my camera
We soaked bread in vodka and fed it to the seagulls from the ledge of our hotel room's balcony
Yeah it was pretty fucked up
As a Junior I wrote a record review of the band Alcatrazz for the high school newspaper of which I was the sports editor
Jamie drank much too frequently but still had time to coax the junior high girls over to his house to raid his parent's liquor cabinet
Samantha was a slut; a smart valedictorian slut
She liked to drink too and put me in the friend zone before the term was even invented
I asked her to let me kiss her once after we waited in line to meet this band called Night Ranger
She was sixteen and her lips were soft
She fucked Phil and Jamie while inibriated, then a week or two later paraded naked around the table at a party
"Strip poker" was a good excuse to display her massive tits to me
I didn't kiss them, though she likely would have let me
She disappeared and twenty five years later I heard from her brother she died from breast cancer around the same time I heard from Sam's ex that Jamie died of alcoholism
Jamie had served a seven month sentence at a correctional facility in Montana, a state he had moved to because they allowed open containers
With Sam and Jamie more interested in sex and booze than I was, Senior year was the last time I'd be close to either of them
I slagged through the eternity of Senior year
Mike and Jeff didn't become my friends until a few weeks before graduation
That summer Mike and I looked for girls together while Van Halen changed singers and Jeff jonesed Mike's hash pipe
Jeff was one year younger but dropped out as a Junior so he could attend community college with me
Jeff and Mike were drug buddies but Jeff and I, having the same name, bonded over comedy, as well as the band Bow Wow Wow
We carpooled to community college and argued over whether or not Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai was the better guitarist because Vai had just replaced Malmsteen in Alcatrazz
Mike moved in with a woman twice his age then succumbed after a relapse
After dropping out of college I found a full-time job at Tower Records
This is when I reconnected with Dan who'd been in my grade school purple gang
We both found Jesus (yeah, even Jesus was my best friend for a time) and I immediately tore down the posters of the scantily clad rock star chicks from the walls of my apartment
Dan led a Bible study that both Jeff and I attended religiously
As a conservative Christian the only secular music I felt right listening to was country
I also started picketing abortion clinics with Dan around this time
This is also when I met Angie at a country bar and I taught her the two step
I got Angie's sister a job at Tower and she soon got pregnant
Only she didn't know she was pregnant
No one did
So one morning Angie called me to tell me she was an aunt
We broke up soon after because being an aunt is a full time job
Teresa, who I also met at the country bar, filled the void for two tears
She'd been married before and had two kids from two different fathers
Despite our romance and excursions to the country dance club, I remained a virgin for God
She was at the mercy of her parents as they housed her and her two kids and cohabitation out of wedlock would've really upset my friend Jesus
Still Teresa got a little fed up and left me because "I didn't love her right"
Ten years after Dan taught me about Jesus he was institutionalized after stabbing his pregnant wife
About this time is when I stopped believing in the spiritual and started believing in the unbelievable
Jeff had stopped believing before that but for some reason put his faith in Donald Trump in the 2016 election
I think it's because he likes his guns
Then I met Twilla who was technically the second person I had sex with
I was thirty six years old at this point in my life
Our whirlwind romance was accented by alcohol, the only three months in my life I experimented with the stuff
Drunk, I violently flipped over a table after Twilla displayed some inconsistency in our relationship
I didn't hear from her again until Facebook was invented and she'd became a divorced mother of two
Ken used to DJ so he'd come in to Tower and we bonded over music and sports
I met Tammy after hanging out with John at the karaoke bar
We fell in love
John was a better singer as well as a better drinker
John and Ken didn't know one another but I christened them co-best men at my wedding to Tammy
Ken and I spent Sundays touring the sports bars in an attempt to find the best sports bar for professional football
I soon discovered Ken was unable to bond with me over my love of sexuality, which I had finally discovered after getting married
That's right, my faith in the unbelievable manifested an older virgin than I was
John didn't believe in marriage and was even more cynical than I was
Whereas Ken felt nervous talking about sex, John fled after we couldn't chase ladies anymore
I suppose I was also cynical of traditional marriage so Tammy and I became swingers
Technically it was Tammy's idea, yet we didn't do it until five years into our marriage
Initially I didn't thrive in the swinger atmosphere until I discovered BDSM
It was here where I met Tanya and we nearly became kink superheroes
In an open marriage it's always a good idea to have a marriage counselor
Tammy asked me for a divorce in his office while I was preparing to deal with the trauma associated with my Mom's inoperable pancreatic cancer
Eventually I was just getting my mail at Tammy's while sleeping in Tanya's bed between hours long fuck sessions
She enjoyed my sexual chemistry but Tanya did not sign on to my neediness
She actually had sought me out as a lover who was in an open marriage and preoccupied with someone else to take the pressure off of her
After Tammy's wish to divorce, Tanya told me she wasn't able to submit to me anymore
I unsuccessfully tried to kill myself
I had never fathomed this before
Mom died the day I got out of the hospital
Tanya and I reconnected after renegotiating, and even lived together for a spell
Eventually she found a lover more suitable to her needs, even though he was single too
We only sparred verbally when angered but there was one fight where she nearly bit off the end of my finger
I had several lovers I called "babygirl" after Tanya but none more comely than Joy who recently turned twenty one and had a breathtaking supermodel smile
She had just moved out on her own to a place fifteen miles away from my place
She didn't even get a chance to unpack everything when I asked her to move in with me
It made sense logistically as we both saved time, gas and money
I planned to will the house and car I had inherited from my divorce from Tammy to her
I happily cohabitated with her for two and a half years but apparently for Joy the happiness lasted only one year
One day she left me after packing up her things
She had told me she was going to put them into "storage"
Technically she didn't lie, if you consider the storage unit was an apartment on the other side of town
I suppose I'm proud I didn't try to kill myself after that
Several people I probably should have considered "best friends" due to their sacrifice, came to my aid and comforted me in my king size bed while she moved three quarters of her stuff out
Joy's anger escalated so she left a fourth of her junk behind, never spoke to me again and chose instead to hook up with the dude who was supposed to help her move two days after moving into her new place
They had sex that day instead
I know because she posted a naked picture of the two of them, arms intertwined, on Tumblr with a Magnum condom wrapper strategically placed on the floor by her feet
All once best friends
I'm sure I'm forgetting someone
If so, consider it an honor
