Chapter 17

            The first Saturday of September, Andy and I were ready for our party. There weren’t big-screen televisions in those days, but Andy set up a bank of six televisions in the living room. There were three televisions in the kitchen, and of course the one in the bathroom. A bigger one now.  Saturday afternoon we watched the game and snacked. Some people smoked a little.

            After the game, Andy began cooking hamburgers and I broke open the keg of beer. The televisions were turned to the three different networks, but the television sound was turned down after the game; we played music. These were the days before MTV; common practice was to silence the TV and play music. The parties started this year with Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way.”  Perfect for Colorado.

            People not interested in football began showing up about 6 or 7 p.m. It would be 9 p.m. before everyone had eaten and the kitchen was cleaned up. It was at this time Andy or I would take a few select friends upstairs for a line of cocaine. There would be a slow, steady stream of people going upstairs and down. Sometimes Andy and I had to stay downstairs for a while, because people thought if they just hung out in the Little Room – this season it was painted a light blue – they’d get free coke.

            The truth is, if a person stayed at our party long enough, he or she would get a complimentary line or two. We were generous, but also we weren’t into freeloaders ruining our party. Many people who came brought food, beer, wine or spirits, and marijuana. I never made sales in the house. But, for example, let’s say Carpenter Jim wanted to buy a gram. I’d ask him to give me a ride, and I’d sell to him in the car. I kept a pocketful of gram bindles in my shirt. If we needed more, I’d go to the service station – by myself – and get it out of the safe. Andy always stayed with the party.

            That first party went on until 8 a.m. on Sunday. Andy was wired, and he would’ve let people stay all day. “The Broncos play at 1,” I heard him tell someone. I decided at that point a 5 a.m. curfew would be best. Get everyone out of the house before the good citizens of the world begin getting out of bed on Sunday. We made few good sales after 3 a.m.; it was mostly people wanting us to front them a gram. We never gave cocaine on credit. It was a cash business.

            So, the rules were established – loosely, for sure – now that we had a coke business. Marijuana for sale, too. Football and food to start the party, then start pouring the beer. Give out samples of cocaine from 7 to 9 p.m. Make sales of cocaine between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. or so, then start moving people out. Everyone had to be out of the house by 5 a.m.

            At our second party, I saw Amy Schneider’s brother, Matt, who was a freshman at the University of Colorado and had driven down from Boulder with a group of friends. I went up and shook his hand, and told him how surprised I was to see him. He was a tall, good-looking young man with blond hair, lighter than his sister’s color. He’d grown up since I’d last seem him.

            “How did you know to find me?” I said.

            “Are you kidding?” he said. “Everyone knows about this party.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “In Pueblo, the word is out you hold a party every Saturday night during football season at a house on Colorado Boulevard. I told some friends, and they said we should see if we could find it, and here we are. It wasn’t hard to find.” Our house was a block from the tourist district.

            The sensation I had was curious, like the ache a person gets in the gut before speaking in public. I invited them all in to watch the football game, and they seemed anxious to get a few hits off the joint that was going around. I was fine with that. It occurred to me hundreds of people had been to our house, but I never imagined it would be a topic of conversation among the frat boys in Boulder. It was a party that included an equal number of men and women; we had established that at the start.

            From that perspective, then, it was a good party. There was a chance, if you were a young, single man, to meet a young woman. Or, at least to smoke some weed, drink a beer and eat.

            What I considered, then, was that the party was getting a little more reputation than it needed. I’d lost Mandy but was offered more sex than ever, which gave me the feeling my romantic life was out of control, which it was. The cocaine business was more hectic, and crazy, than I would’ve liked. Now I worried the reputation of the party was going to draw unfavorable attention. I could see we had to get out. I admit I was a little paranoid at times.

            I was on the go all night that second weekend in September. Each time I arrived at the house, Andy sent me out the door with someone else. Matt Schneider bought an ounce of weed, and one of his friends purchased two grams of coke. Angel was there with many of her friends and they were drinking and spending freely on cocaine. Hippie Nick was helping out as host. The party was going strong at 5 a.m., but true to my word I began to tell people they had to go. It was 6 a.m. when I pushed the last stragglers out the door.

            Andy and I locked the front door, went upstairs to the Big Room, and I laid out some lines. Alicia June had left hours before. In the Big Room, we had a fine kitchen table we’d purchased at a garage sale, and about 10 mismatched chairs around it. A copy of the Mona Lisa was on the wall, the only artwork.

            Andy sniffed. “It was crazy tonight,” he said.

            “You have no idea,” I said. I had a paper bag full of money. I dumped it out on the table. There were $20s and $50s everywhere. Andy counted more than $5,000. I heard a banging on the door; Andy pulled out his derringer.

            I went downstairs and saw that it was Angel and Suzanne. “Can we come in?” they said together. They were high and happy.

            I opened the door a crack. “What’s up?”

            “We need one more gram, please?” Angel said.

            I sighed. I was in a mode of not wanting to break my imaginary rules. “Do you have the money?”

            “We could take it out in trade,” Suzanne said, and they both started laughing. I smiled.

            “Promises, promises,” I said, but I didn’t open the door any more than the small gap.

            “I have money,” Angel said. I let them in, gave them the gram, and sent them on their way. “Don’t come back again today,” I said. Angel waved her index finger in the air, mocking me as a teacher disciplining a child. They walked down the sidewalk arm in arm.

            Andy and I were up until 10 a.m., making sure there wasn’t any drug paraphernalia in the house. Andy went to our garage/office to put the money and the remaining coke in the safe. We unplugged the telephone and each took a Valium, 10 milligrams, and a beer. “How do these things get in circulation?” I said to Andy.

“I think these may actually come from doctors,” he said. “But I’m not sure. Maybe mobsters steal them from pharmaceutical companies.” The map was unreadable.

            The next Saturday, Matt Schneider and about 20 of his best friends were there, along with the regulars. Matt noted I was truly a football fan, and we talked about Vince the Ace’s great start. I also told Matt he was welcome, but not to bring too many people. This was counterintuitive as they spent quite a lot. Later I told him his friends were welcome. I also asked Matt not to tell Amy Schneider what I was up to. I knew he would anyway.

            Matt laughed and said, “Don’t tell Amy Schneider what I’m up to.”

            The last Saturday of September, Colorado was playing the University of Washington, a powerhouse that year, and the house was full. We were getting an early start as it was a noon game. Vince the Ace played a great game and Colorado won in the last minute. Mandy showed up at midnight, and spent the night with me. It occurred to me I was making a mistake by not pursuing this woman with the fine, thin body and wonderful brain. I think at this time I was not spending nearly enough time pondering anything.

            We made love before the sun came up, but though we rested I don’t think either of us slept. I worried about sending Mandy off to the Sunday afternoon symphony with a cocaine hangover, but in the world there’s such a thing as free will. Andy and I made $7,000. Saturday parties were starting to look like full-time jobs, but there were perks.

            If I complain because my life was unpredictable, I liked it, too. Friends would make tapes of the music we should play, so our music collection was extensive. Andy would listen to it all during the week, then decide what was going to be played for 10 hours or so at the party. Donna, who had taken a job as an English teacher at UCCS – she was a long-time friend of Lilly Ferrazi’s, too – had been coming to the party from the start. She began bringing special dishes, pasta, noodles, fish, appetizers.

            Hippie Nick always brought joints; he said he didn’t feel it should all be up to Andy and I. It appeared to me Nick was starting a relationship with Monica, and Carpenter Jim was obviously OK bringing Marcie to the party. I never knew if Andy told Alicia June of all the entanglements.

            People also brought wine and beer. In that last year, I don’t think I ever purchased beer – except of course the kegs from the Glass Cage – yet we had a refrigerator full of bottles of beer and wine. Sometimes we had no idea who brought what, but it would be a constant topic of conversation. Some people, myself included, drank a bottle or two of beer during the game, before we tapped the keg.

            “Who brought the Coors?” I’d say as I entered the living room. Someone would say, “Roger and Sally, two weeks ago.” “Thanks, Roger and Sally,” I’d say, and someone else would laugh because we all knew Roger and Sally weren’t there to hear. Yet another person would say, “Roger buys Budweiser. In cans.” “I think the professor drinks Coors,” someone else would add. The professor was an older man, a teacher.

            The first Saturday of October, about midnight, Vince Acocella and Herman Gates came to the party. Herman Gates was a middle linebacker, a great player who would eventually land in the NFL. I recognized them, took them upstairs to the Little Room, locked the door and filled their noses full of cocaine.

            The Little Room had a couch, several chairs and a low table. We hung the color photograph of the Glass Cage in the Little Room. The door could be locked for intimate discussions. Andy and I also locked the door to the downstairs, where our bedrooms were, and one could lock the bathroom doors from the inside. Otherwise, the house was open.

            “I’m a huge Colorado fan,” I said as we entered the room. “I’ll deadbolt this door so we can do a few lines in private.” Herman Gates and Vince Acocella nodded. “We call you Vince the Ace here.”

            They both laughed, and I generously laid out lines.

            “How did you find out about the party?” I said.

            “A guy named Matt Schneider told me,” Vince said. “He came up to me one day at class, said there was this great party with many ladies, and that every Saturday party starts with a football game. We decided to come see for ourselves.”

            “I’m glad you did. You’re welcome anytime.”

            They had of course played a game that afternoon. Vince was in jeans and a polo shirt. Herman looked nice in slacks and a dress shirt. We talked about things most people would consider mundane, but being a high school player I had to know. I asked how hard football practices were, and how complicated the offensive plays, and the difference between high school and college. They answered my questions, made some jokes, and I enjoyed the time. One thing Herman Gates said caught my attention. We were talking about high school and college football. Herman looked at me and said, “In college, everyone can hit.”

            I gave them each a gram, unbolted the door, and said there was beer downstairs. Interestingly, they seemed grateful for the hospitality, not at all like they were celebrities, although they were to me.

            I noticed later that Herman Gates was looking at the picture on the wall of the well-dressed black family. He was black. I went up and told him the story behind it, and at the same time wondered what had become of my friend Ayodele from Africa. I realized at that moment Herman Gates was the only black person at the party. “I hope the picture doesn’t offend you,” I said.

            Herman Gates was gracious. “There are a lot of interesting pictures and paintings on the wall,” he said. “This is an interesting crowd, here. It makes me curious.”

            I nodded.

            “If it were a black party, people would be dancing,” he continued. “I think black people and white people are only now learning to get along.”

            I asked him if he’d heard the album from Woodstock, and he indicated he hadn’t. “Black, Latin, white, all mixed together on a two-LP set. I think the next generation of musicians will think nothing of borrowing from each other, playing together. It will make for a great time in music.”

            “Maybe so,” Herman Gates said, and he nodded to me. Soon after, Vince Acocello and Herman Gates left. I suspect they left to do more cocaine. I always thought cocaine was misnamed. A better name for cocaine would be “more,” because you had to keep doing it to keep the party going in your head.

            Football wasn’t quite out of my system. I had thought for a couple years I would get in shape and try out for some small-college team as a walk-on. But seeing Vince and Herman, I realized how silly that was. Vince was six-five and could throw a football 50 yards. Herman was big too, and thick. His chest and shoulders were twice the size of mine. I knew I could never play football with guys like that. Anyway, when I started selling cocaine I didn’t work out much. The two don’t go together.

            I knew the reputation of the party was getting to be too much when Joe Walsh showed up two Saturdays later. Andy took him upstairs to the Little Room at a time when I was out of the house making a sale. I didn’t see him. When I got back, I heard all about it from everyone at the party, but Andy said he didn’t say much.

Later, he confided that Joe Walsh had left with my old girlfriend, Melody. It was funny, too, because I never ran into Melody again to ask her what happened. I wasn’t upset about it. In life, these things happen.

            Andy, Alicia June and Melody had been up in the Little Room with Joe Walsh. After they talked, Andy said he’d find a guitar, but Joe Walsh said he’d rather not play. Everyone talked about his appearance for weeks, which I thought was funny. Like they thought I didn’t know he was there.

            That was my life in those days. A big map, with thumbtacks all over, but I could never get a good read on how they were all connected. I wasn’t a good cartographer. We started every party after that, after the football game, with Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good (to Me so Far),” followed by “Rocky Mountain Way.” Everyone at the party would sing along to these two songs, and it got quite raucous. I believe everyone in Manitou Springs, except for me, claimed to have seen Joe Walsh at our party.

            Alicia June partied with Andy and I the first week of November. In the early morning hours, we snorted lines and cleaned up. We sat and talked about all the things that had happened. We counted money in the Little Room. I was having a whisky on ice. I found this helped me moderate my cocaine use and I drank it all the time. It was odd. I still sold marijuana, but rarely smoked it. With cocaine, I lost all interest in marijuana and it never returned. Cocaine gave me energy, and whisky took off the edge.

            We laughed a lot that night, walked round the house and looked at all the artwork on the walls and talked about the people we knew. I don’t remember what was said, really, just that it was a nice time for the three of us.

            Andy and I had $110,000 in the safe, and $2,000 each in our pockets. We would leave a note for Blond Bob on Monday. I remember making the joke that we’d have more money if we didn’t put so much cocaine up our noses. For some reason, we all found this hilariously funny.

Chapter 18

            The second weekend of November 1976 may have been the peak for the party. The party started out with a Colorado loss to Nebraska, but it was a good game. We played Joe Walsh’s two-song set. We ate some food; Donna made an amazingly good crab salad. Donna said it was fresh Dungeness crab she’d received from a relative visiting from Oregon. I left the house to make some sales. The Eagles had released “Hotel California,” and I played it over and over in other people’s cars. “They get it,” I said. Then, about midnight, four of the most beautiful women in the world walked into our little party.

            Alicia June May, who is beautiful herself, introduced herself and got them drinks. Andy, Alicia June and I escorted them to the Little Room and filled their noses with cocaine. They told us they were in Colorado to film some spots for the Colorado Tourism Department. They stayed at the party about two hours. Everyone was into it, like famous people dropped into our party all the time. Have a drink, what’s up? A tall blonde, Tracy Austin Texas, eventually agreed to go out to dinner with me in Denver. Some people will know that Tracy Austin Texas graced the covers of a half-dozen magazines in the 1970s, including Cosmo, Glamour and Vanity Fair.

            She had pretty, shoulder-length blonde hair, smooth skin and a perfectly symmetrical face. It is unfair that Vince Acocella could throw a football 50 yards, or that Herman Gates was such a gifted athlete with a six foot, five inch, 280 pound body, and that Tracy had a face that was worth a million dollars, but those are the facts. Some people are born beautiful, others beautifully made. The rest of us do the best we can.

            Some people are intimidated by people of such good looks, but the conversation started easily when they talked about Alicia June’s looks. They gave her make-up tips and told her she could model. After a while, Andy offered to take them hiking and told them about a few good spots. They seemed interested, but were of course booked up for the entire time they were in Colorado.

            They were told about the party by the bartender at the Broadmoor, and found it easily. They talked about the business of modeling and made jokes. They said the business was phony, but of course they liked the good pay. The cocaine was good and they laughed easily. One bought two packets of cocaine. I talked the most with Tracy and she said she appreciated the party. They needed to get out and let their hair down, she said. She smiled at me as we left the Little Room and I offered to take her to dinner.

            “That’s a nice offer,” she said. “I have one free night, Tuesday, and I’m in Denver. If you can make that work, it would be nice to see you again.”

            “Make it work?” I said. I was laughing and she smiled. “I’d cancel about any engagement to have the chance to take you out to dinner.” I felt confident because she’d seemed so nice about it. I’m sure she’s asked out all the time. Still, she laughed at my joke about canceling any engagement. “Make it work?” I repeated, and she laughed.

            “OK, then, I’ll plan to see you.” She gave me the number of her hotel.

            The following Tuesday, I dressed up in my slacks, sports jacket and tie, drove to the Denver Hilton, and picked her up. I wasn’t even sure if she’d really be there, but she was. In heels, she was a full inch taller than me, slender and wearing a black, pinstriped suit, opened slightly at the collar to show a hint of perfect breasts. She had her hair tied back, and wore a diamond round her fine, thin neck. We ate at the Garden, the most exclusive restaurant in Denver at the time. We were on the 23rd floor of the Amaco building, looking at the city lights. The Garden had fine china and silver, and thin, pretty glassware. The carpets were thick and patterned, with the restaurant featuring a Southwest/Native American theme.

            During dinner, Tracy talked about her travels. She wasn’t pretentious, but she’d been everywhere. New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago. I told her a little about the hikes I’d taken around Colorado. The truth is, Andy and I did know our way round the hiking trails in our part of the state, the North Cheyenne Canyon, Helen Hunt Falls, the Garden of the Gods. But Tracy Austin Texas was seeing the world. She made $30,000 a show. There wasn’t anything I could say that would impress her. I didn’t try. I just tried to make it a nice evening for her, for the both of us.

We did a few lines in my car, on the way back to the hotel, and had a drink at the Hilton bar. I walked her to her room and she gave me a peck on the lips. The next day, she was flying off to Madrid. She said we’d stay in touch, but of course that wasn’t the truth.

On the map in my mind, I put a thumbtack in Spain. “I’m off to Madrid,” she said, and I’ll never forget hearing her say it. It made my life feel small, but she didn’t say it to hurt me.

            Nothing eventful occurred the last two Saturdays of November in Manitou Springs. We had a party in December, and then football season was over for Colorado except for a bowl game. To follow every peak, I suppose, there is a bottom, a valley.

            Our friend Jamey, the paranoid-schizophrenic cocaine addict, got picked up for writing a threatening letter to the president. I felt a little guilty; cocaine probably wasn’t helping him. I felt bad for him and knew he was in for a bad time.

            I was delivering cocaine to Bonita’s, and sat in the lounge for a few minutes, when Marie came in. She was the pretty young woman with the boyfriend, 20 when I met her, and involved with her church. It was clear she wanted to do a line, so I gave her one. Then we talked and I asked her to dinner. I was surprised when she said yes. I had once been told getting her away from her boyfriend would be impossible.

            Dinner was nice. I was able to make her laugh. I noticed with interest she kept telling me how much she liked cocaine; she had done some with Tonya at the beauty shop, often pitching in to buy it. I hadn’t known that. I was surprised when she said she’d come by the house for a nightcap.

            After a drink, and some kissing, we went to my bedroom. We were naked, making out, when she suddenly froze. I told her it was ok, that I’d get up and take her home, but she started crying. She said she wanted to have casual sex, but just couldn’t do it. I tried to reassure her I wasn’t mad. It was just a weird little thing that went wrong.

            The battery in the Mustang died the next day and I had to buy a new one. I remembered it had been four years since I’d replaced it. I wondered how they could design a battery to last exactly four years. Odd, I thought, how so many things had gone wrong all at once.

            It was a cold December day in Colorado. Sunny but bitter cold. Andy and I had just picked up two ounces of cocaine from Blond Bob. We were in downtown Colorado Springs, but a few blocks from the main business district, walking toward Andy’s 1964 Ford Falcon. Two men in their 30s, wearing slacks and heavy coats, were behind us. They kept getting closer.

            One of them, kind of heavy with a pockmarked face, said “Hey, wait a second.”

            I turned around but kept walking backward, slowly. I had learned to run backward as a football player. “What?” I said.

            “We just want to talk,” the man said. “We know you’re good businessmen.”

            “We’re not interested,” I said, turning around.

            “Hear us out,” the other man said. He was slender, looked muscular even under the heavy clothing. They weren’t wearing hats, and both had red faces and bright red noses and ears from the cold. They caught up with us. The heavy one reached out, grabbed me, jerked me forward with his leg out in front of me, and threw me to the sidewalk. It was quick, one move, and I hit hard on the pavement and it hurt. The other one, the slender, better looking one, grabbed Andy by the coat. “Give us the cocaine,” he said.

            Andy had the cocaine under his jacket. The man hit Andy Fannuke hard in the chest. “Do you want more of that, on the face?” the man said.

            Andy handed him the paper bag with the two ounces. The man hit him squarely in the face anyway, knocking him backward to the ground. I stood back up, but Andy stayed on the ground. The heavyset man again grabbed my jacket; I don’t remember him grabbing me the second time but I know he was holding my jacket. He put his face close to mine and said, “Don’t even think about coming to look for us. This town is ours, now.”

            He pushed me to the ground, put his shoe on my neck, and suddenly I saw a blade. He had a knife. It occurred to me I wasn’t the tough guy I thought I was. An older fat man had just made easy work of me. He reached down, sliced along my jaw, quickly, one smooth stroke. Then he wiped the bloody knife off on my shirt. He and the other man turned and began to walk away. The big man was casual, as if he slit a throat every day.

            Andy, sitting on the ground, had the gun out of his boot. He could have shot each man in the back. I felt something warm and sure enough blood was running down my chin and throat. I held my hand over my jaw, but there wasn’t any pain. Not yet. I kept watching. Andy held the gun, and the men got farther and farther away, without looking back. I looked across the street and saw some people looking at us. Who knew who else might be looking out a window?

            In my mind, I considered a number of scenarios. Andy shoots both men, we get our cocaine and run off. No one can identify us and we get away with it. Or, Andy shoots both men, and we are identified and go to prison. Or, Andy shoots both men, we are identified but a good lawyer gets us off after a lengthy, expensive, well-publicized trial.

            Andy put the gun in his pocket. He grabs me, puts his cloth glove on my bloody chin and drags me to his car. We drive to the emergency room. By now, I’m hurting. The pain medicine I was given at the emergency room, two milligrams of IV morphine, begins to kick in. The doctor gives me a prescription for 60 Percocet pain pills. Andy drives straight to the garage. I adjust the rearview mirror and look at the large bandage on my face. I received 12 stitches.

            We enter the garage, and see that someone has been there before us. We go into the office. The stereo cabinet door is open. Someone drilled a hole in the safe next to the dial, put an explosive in, and blew the door off. Our $110,000 is gone.

            We went back downtown. I walked through the hallway behind the restaurant with a big dressing on my face and left a message in Blond Bob’s box saying “urgent.” Andy drives us home. Between us, we still haven’t spoken 10 words. I would never hear from Blond Bob again.

Chapter 19

2005

            In later years, my mother would reflect on how I arrived home, after three years, with only a suitcase. “How can you live three years and accumulate nothing more than one suitcase full of possessions,” she would say. In that suitcase were several pairs of jeans, a razor and toothbrush, some concert ticket stubs and a few photographs.

            Andy, I know, kept the electronics equipment and the collection of music, but I don’t know what happened to the beds, tables, chairs and artwork. Andy said he left more notes for Blond Bob, but never heard from him again. I don’t think it was Blond Bob who set us up. Bob knew about the gun in Andy’s boot. The two tough guys, in my opinion, did not, or they would’ve taken the gun or at least backed away from us.

            I’ve told a hundred stories over the years about the cut, and then scar, on my chin. It’s three inches long, on the left running to the tip of the chin horizontally. I told my parents I fell on a bottle. I told Amy Schneider I was in a minor car accident. I told my brother Michael I fell on a rock while hiking. I told my first wife I was cut in a bar fight. I told my second wife my first wife cut me by accident during a heated argument. I don’t know why I tell these lies. It’s like I have a relationship with the scar and she wants me to tell whoppers.

            My first day home in Pueblo, just 10 days before Christmas, I went to a bookstore and bought the entire series of James Bond books. The books, a person should know, are different from the movies. The books are less tongue-in-cheek.

            I took Percocet and sat in my room reading. My parents, treating me as if I were sick – I suppose because of the big bandage – left me alone. One night it came out that Michael, who would graduate from high school in the spring, was hoping to go to medical school. He had taken college-level calculus, chemistry, biology and microbiology. “You were a good student, too,” my father reminded me.

            Then it came out my father was selling the car dealership. He announced it to me over dinner one night. “Everyone else knows, so I thought I should tell you,” he said.

            “With these car dealerships now, you have to either get large or sell out. The bank would’ve loaned me the money to expand, but your mom and I decided against it. I’m getting a good price, and they’re going to hire me for 10 years as a consultant. Even if they don’t like me, I still get paid for being a consultant.”

            My father was 48 at the time, near the age I am now as I write this. I think he saw 10 years as getting him close to retirement age. It was obvious, at the time, he wasn’t counting on me to take over the dealership. That opportunity, if it ever existed, was gone.

            Amy Schneider called, and we met for lunch. She was going to graduate a year early with a degree in business. She was going to go to Europe in the spring, then work at her father’s bank until the next fall, when she would go to law school. I told her I was happy for her, thinking of Europe, Lilly and Donna, and van Goghs in Paris.

            The day before Christmas, my mother told me she had some presents I could give everyone. They were wrapped, and she told me what they were. My father and I only had one conversation about my absence the past three years.

            “I don’t know exactly what you’ve been up to,” he said, “but I’ve got an idea. Do you know Alex Nec?”

            I nodded that I did. I didn’t really know him, but I knew he was one of the major players in the car business in Denver. I met him once, when I was in high school. My father knew this. I’d seen him in television advertisements.

            “Alex Nec told me he saw you with the model Tracy Austin Texas at the Garden in Denver.”

            I nodded. “Son,” he said, “I can’t help but imagine you’re in way over your head. I hope you’ll be OK. Your mother and I love you, but we won’t be a party to whatever’s going on. You may owe people money, but we aren’t going to bail you out.”

            “I don’t owe anyone money,” I said. He said “Oh” and seemed relieved, and weirdly that was the end of it. There were a lot of stories circulating in the 1970s about people who had run up debts with drug dealers, and the parents had to bail them out under the threat of death or injury.

            It was my friend Andy Fannuke who bailed me out, and he didn’t waste any time. I knew he, too, was living at his parents’ home in Pueblo. But, we hadn’t talked. About a week after Christmas, he showed up at my house. He had a haircut. He was wearing a sweater he likely got for Christmas. He looked good, and was upbeat, while I was still depressed about the money. I was unhappy being at home.

            “The University of Colorado has a new program, in computers,” he said. “They’ve been developing computers for the space program. I’m going to go in January. Alicia June’s going to move to Boulder.”

            “You’re lucky,” I said. “Alicia June is a really great person.”

            “Yeah, I agree,” he said. “Look, we’ll share an apartment, you and I. We’ll take the same classes together, like in high school. It’ll be good. Bob Tejon went to electricians school. We’ll learn about this computer thing, take computer science. Bob Tejon got out. Now we’re out.”

            “After college,” I said, “you can do my work at whatever job I get. And maybe spank my wife a couple of times a week.”

            Andy shrugged and felt his hair. It wasn’t short, but a lot had been cut off. We sat in silence. My room didn’t look a lot different from when I was in high school. A Joe Namath Sports Illustrated cover and a Greg Allman poster were on the wall. It was the same furniture; the same shag carpet. The view out the window was the same suburban grass, winter brown. The only thing I’d added was the stack of novels by Ian Fleming. I suppose I thought if I read enough about spies, I’d figure out how to keep someone from blowing a safe.

            “You know, you did your own work in high school, so I don’t know why you’d think I’d carry you in college. And, I thought we’d worked through the thing with Lilly Ferrazi,” he said.

            “Yeah, we have,” I said. “Maybe I don’t want to be rescued.”

            “It was a huge loss,” Andy said. “I know we’re going to kick it around for years, think about it, wish we had the money back. But, already, I’ve put some perspective to it. What was our original goal?”

            I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

            “Our goal was to be different from everyone else. To not be stuck in some dead-end job. To not be stressed out like our fathers. We knew there was more out there than college, a job, children, old age. But now, we’re being shoved in the direction of a new thing. I mean it. These computers have more potential than anyone knows. We’ll find some niche, and this time we won’t worry about being arrested or robbed. We’ll find something, our own thing, and it’ll be cool. We’ve got nothing but time; we’re young guys.”

            “I was thinking of moving west,” I said, “maybe try again.”

            “That’s why I came over, John. I owe you everything. If I was some geek at the freshman dorm, do you think I would’ve ended up with a babe like Alicia June? We were at the pinnacle. Football players came to our party. I had $2,000 walk-around money. I met Joe Walsh. You had a date with a model.”

We both laughed and spent a few moments remembering. A model of heartbreaking beauty. Herman Gates’ brilliant speed. It’s the human condition to admire such gifts. I thought of a line from a Bob Dylan song, “The loser now will be later to win for the times they are achangin’.” Of course, the goal was never to be different from our parents; it was to make $100,000 each. I didn’t bring this up, but I knew Andy was

using stoner logic.

            Stoner logic is when a funny thought is turned into a two-hour movie in your head, where a simple good idea is a revelation. I knew Andy wasn’t stoned, though.

            “We should have put the money in a safe deposit box at the bank,” I said. He nodded.

            “There are a lot of details to look at,” Andy said. He looked at me, and I could see he was okay, while I wanted to try again.

“Why didn’t you shoot them, Andy,” I said. “They were right in front of us, their backs a great big target.”

“The goal was to make easy money, meet women, throw parties,” he said, smiling because he was throwing my words back at me. My only stated purpose in life at the time. “If I had shot those guys we would have gone to prison. You know that.”

I nodded, and knew it was over for me, too. I just needed Andy to tell me..

As I said at the start of the story, it all ended well. I went with Andy to

Boulder. I gave up drugs as easily as I’d started. I never smoked pot again, and if I drink two beers a week, that’s a lot for me. At the time, I’d never heard of drug treatment centers or the notion that people get high because they have low self-esteem.

            We disappeared into anonymity at college. It turns out I did get a lot of tutoring help from Andy, but I did my own work. My first wife MaryLou once told the Wall Street Journal I had the lowest grade point average among the computer science graduates in the class I graduated with. It’s the truth; Andy and I used to joke about it. I don’t know if I would’ve made it without Andy’s help. Still, it showed MaryLou had a mean streak. No need to tell the world about it. I’m getting ahead of myself.

            I need to go on the record about a number of things. Andy is the brains behind Bitey-Man. We wrote the game together but he was a masterful programmer at a time when there were few video games. Video games started in 1972. Magnavox put out a game that required a suitcase to hold all the components.

            The first part of my story, when it was released in book form as an advanced readers copy, was widely criticized. The smart people on television said I shouldn’t write a book in the first person. As people know, I consider myself more a salesman than a writer, or even a computer scientist. My story has been criticized as a pack of lies. I’m told no one could’ve got away with what I did. The police would’ve busted us. I’m told I couldn’t have done as many drugs as I said because I’d be an addict and couldn’t quit.

Let me tell you something. You know who takes drugs? People who want to. When they want to quit, they can. Andy and I disappeared into the world of college. We left the 1970s behind, fun as it was.

            Andy and I got our degrees in computer science, Andy married Alicia June, and we introduced the first version of Bitey-Man shortly thereafter.

            I often think of those years, 1973 to 1976, when I’m in an airport. All the people streaming past you. What separates them? Some have money, or obvious athletic ability, or beauty. You’ll never know who’s interesting, though, unless you talk to them. The trick, and I think my grandfather knew this, was not in the talking but in the listening.

            It was my grandfather’s charm that allowed him to befriend such disparate people as a truck farmer and a banker. People would assume he gave the truck farmer a good deal on his used pickup and charged the banker full price. My grandfather was a businessman. He made his expenses where he could. In his eyes, people were equal.

            The investment bankers who staked Bitey-Man in the early days of gaming listened. Andy could never have given them a vision of why gaming would catch on, but I knew. Bitey-Man was fun to play. Sometimes life is no more complicated than enjoying a day in the sun.

            I wasn’t smart like Andy, just a car salesman who missed his calling. Andy pulled me through my senior year of college. I think everyone in my class majoring in computer science was smarter than me. Still, I know how to have a good time. I know how to tell people what they want to hear. I can put it in words. I sold content as well as the shine. Just like my grandfather.

            Andy created Bitey-Man for a programming class. I helped him develop the story, so I think I can nominally call myself a writer. Fans of Bitey-Man know it’s more a spy game than a war game, although there is plenty of action. We fight aliens from other worlds, although they always look like humans. Like James Bond, we go to foreign locales on earth. In those days, we got our scenery from encyclopedias and travel books. The first game could have been better. It was the second version that became a classic, selling in the millions. People play it in a yearly “classics” tournament to this day.

            I still remember an afternoon in New York, high up in a skyscraper with a view of lower Manhattan. Denver is a fine city, but there’s not another place like New York, all those high-rises jammed onto an island. Andy and I talked to some tech investors, who led us to some investment bankers. I remember they were impressed the game was already written, and worked. They thought we wanted to borrow money to develop a game.

            Andy and I were Colorado boys. We weren’t unsophisticated. We’d been to Denver, we had college degrees. But in New York we were hanging out with the titans of Wall Street, men of the business world who had taken on life and won. They had money, and had traveled, and knew how to get a company listed on the stock exchange, set up a factory, market and sell things. I can tell you we were intimidated by every one of them.

            We had worked our way up to the New York guys, and when they told us to come to the office and show them the actual game we knew it was our chance. They gave us an appointment. I loaded Bitey-Man onto a computer, hooked to the television in their very office, and I was showing these six powerful older men how to play while even more powerful men were in an office deciding our fate. The six men sat in their shirts and ties, jackets off, laughing and shooting. It was a warm fall day and I remember having noticed that morning the women of New York were looking fine, getting a final airing of their summer clothes. You had to have a geek at the head of your company in the 1980s, but also to make a sale you had to be able to communicate. I could explain the game to them. I taught them to play. And I told them why it would work, why it would make money. Computer games were a new concept.

            Just as I was an outlaw for a while, I lived in the business world for a time. It was said in those days successful drug dealers could have been legitimate businessmen. Of course, that’s not true.

            When our Denver-based company was going public, I helped coordinate all the factions, bookkeeping, manufacturing, management, designers, bankers. I played a role in the hiring of our CEO, Joseph Nastor, whom we got from GE.

            With modern accounting, a true CEO, a listing on the Nasdaq, the goal became one of meeting quarterly earnings estimates. Talking to analysts and newspaper men. We were testing revised games. Planning releases and coordinating advertising campaigns to coincide with Christmas. We now have people coordinating product placement into games; I heard one of our people had a meeting with Pfizer, the drug manufacturer. The times have changed for Andy and I.

            I was in public relations for a while. It was dry stuff, earnings, profits, sales numbers. I found the members of the press a dry bunch in those days. I never imagined someday I’d be recognized wherever business news was discussed. At the time, they mostly reported on numbers. That’s what investors want, the price-to-earnings ratio. Later business news became a feature of network and cable television. Talking heads would smile and tell you the Dow Jones Industrial Average was taking a dive. Of course, it went up, too.

            I remember when I first saw MaryLou. We were outside a movie theater on a summer night and she was busty and blonde in an old, faded, short-sleeved blouse. My first thought was, she would’ve been pretty in any era of time. She smiled at me and I said hello, not having to think of a conversation starter. “Hi, I’m John.” She was pretty without makeup, and she was fun. I had the fever, for sure. When I was away from her, I wanted to be with her.

I knew, from the start, MaryLou wasn’t a person of substance or intellect. She hadn’t been to college and her interests were fashion, music, television and movies. We could talk easily. She never got upset about anything. And if I needed intellectuals or academics, I knew where to find a building full of them.

            We married after six months, and being interested in travel, we planned some trips.  I had started traveling before we married, though, and would stay at moderately priced hotels. I’d find the cost of the low-priced places, and the high end, and choose a place in the middle. MaryLou liked to stay in nice places and was always reminding me we didn’t have to live on a budget; I was a multimillionaire, she would remind me.

            I was OK with it, but was raised with middle-class values. Just because I had money didn’t mean I had to spend it.

            I liked art and history museums, she liked shopping. But that was OK, too. I liked it when she was happy. I was always comfortable being around her. Those early days I was in a whirlwind of happiness. I admit, however, she had an edge to her. I knew it before the last-in-his-class comment to the Wall Street Journal.

            The Beatles wrote a song that describes her perfectly, “Girl.” One part goes, “She’s the kind of girl you want so much, it makes you sorry. Still you don’t regret a single day.”

When the Wall Street Journal called, MaryLou was alone and told the story about how I was last in my class of computer engineers at the University of Colorado, which was true and the reporter was thrilled to learn it, recognizing it as a first-rate piece of gossip that at least looked like news.

I developed the Bitey-Man story based on Ian Fleming’s novels, and my own experiences and imagination. Andy gives me credit for both the story, and for selling the game, too. At Bradley and Wilson Venture Capital, I had everyone playing it and telling stories about the locations. It was a warm up for the bankers, and helped us develop version two.

MaryLou didn’t tell that part, though. She didn’t want me to think I was smart just because I had money. It was the oddest thing, once we got married she always reminded me I was rich because I was friends with Andy. It was the first time I realized she resented me because I had money. I lived in a middle-class suburb in a $300,00 home. She wanted a million-dollar home, but settled on one for $600,000. It turned out to be lucky for her, too. When we divorced she got the house. Let me tell you, a million-dollar home comes with a lot of upkeep.

By the way, Andy doesn’t mind so much that I’m telling my story because he comes off as a bit of a badass. No denying he carried the gun. He likes the reputation of being a tough guy when really he’s a conscientious father whose children don’t think he’s cool.

            After only a year of marriage, MaryLou began hanging out with another guy. I hate to point this out, but he was a very good-looking guy. She never felt the same about me after that. Now, I’ve had many romances, with busty women and blondes among them, so I was not naive. I know if a woman loves another man, there’s nothing you can do. It’s them against the world and any former lovers or ex-husbands hanging around are just in the way. I tried to get her back, but I knew it wasn’t happening. The truth is, of course, that it really hurt. I was broken hearted. I spent many nights awake looking at the ceiling.

            It was perhaps the first time people in the business press, now with happy talking television people, had a young entrepreneur with a successful corporation go through a divorce and they were on it. The TV people first, then the print people. First there were pictures of MaryLou and her guy traveling all over the globe on my dime while I was going to work each day. Then there was the divorce settlement. MaryLou did pretty well for herself, though the judge was easy on me as we’d only been married a little over a year.

            Then, I was well known as the jilted lover, and all sorts of rumors started flying. I guess since I was famous they figured they could write or say whatever they wanted. If you want fame, well, be careful. I forgot Bob Tejon’s saying not to draw attention to yourself out there in the world.

            They said I was a drug dealer, a hanger-on kept going by Andy Fannuke, and they ran a picture of me any time I was even close to another woman, like I was Prince Harry or something. It was awful. I was broken hearted and wanted a year to hide out and regain my confidence.

            My second wife was Athena, who had an MBA from Harvard. She was the opposite of MaryLou in body type and personality. She would criticize all my holding in Stonehinge Investments. She’d say, “You could get another 0.1 percent if you put it in a growth fund.”

            Just as I loved MaryLou’s curvy body and fun demeanor, I loved Athena, who was pretty with dark hair and a slender body. While MaryLou had just a bit of restraint, Athena was a man-eater and I loved it. She had a great sense of humor and a good mind.

She could memorize entire parts of a movie, watching it for the first time, and then all night she’d throw out lines and make you laugh.

            Athena may have been right, that sometimes I could’ve leveraged my money better, but I couldn’t switch investment companies every time I could find a little more money somewhere else. I trusted them at Stonehinge, and still think they do a good job.

            Athena left me, too, ironically after about a year of marriage. We dated two years before we got married. I loved her. She was good looking and I liked her big brain. She never let me forget she had an IQ of 170, but she was interesting to talk to and never forgot anything. I didn’t mind that she kept mentioning her IQ.

            She left me for a job with Xio Games in Boston. If I’d known she was leaving me for a gaming company, I could’ve given her Jamey’s alien spy dogs, which to my regret was never worked into Bitey-Man. Jamey was the paranoid schizophrenic cocaine addict. Well, it was better than being left for another man but not much. Man, that crew of  business writers hung me out to dry. They loved the story of Athena leaving me to become CEO of a gaming company. You would’ve thought I was the only man in the world who had been divorced twice.

            Fortunately for me, big-brained Athena turned out to be an average manager and Xio has bounced along while sales of Bitey-Man continue to be strong. Alicia June said I shouldn’t blame the press for the story; who could resist such an angle? Again, it hurt, that’s all. I was broken hearted over MaryLou, but I was upset about Athena, who had more in store for me.

            Bitey-Man stayed strong for a couple of reasons. We still hold tournaments for some of the old games, version two and 11 were popular with players. We’ve modernized, too. In a recent game, we have an artificial intelligence theme. A robot goes rogue and starts murdering people and our spies have to think like a machine to find it. This game started an entire new wave of Bitey-Man sales.

            It was about the time of my second divorce when I decided to write this book. I knew I was going to retire from the day-to-day business of BOOT Corp. I’m still on the board of directors, and have small power with my voting shares, but I don’t go to work anymore.

            Athena, as I said, could make good jokes and memorize long lines of dialog. Once we saw “Ferris Buhler’s Day Off” and the rest of the night she recalled lines from the movie and we laughed hysterically. That night she did a little dance for me from “Risky Business.” She wore a pair of my jockey shorts and one of my dress shirts, and did a little dance like the one Tom Cruise is famous for. Then we had great sex.

I tell this story for a reason. One trick Athena had was she could talk dirty in bed. She didn’t do all the things she talked about, but she could really get me going and she was an enthusiastic lover.

            My money, however, seemed to piss her off, too. She has an accounting degree and an MBA. She had worked hard but only made salary, while I owned part of a company and had enough money to last four generations. Money is not distributed equally throughout the economy. I think everyone knows that.

I suspect some of the anonymous sources of reporting on BOOT Corp came from Athena. Plus the internet is a rumor mill and sometimes I have to deny something that I can’t find any truth in.

The rumor I’m thinking about, which I think Athena started, is that I made girlfriends talk dirty when we made love. Members of the press were going crazy trying to find old girlfriends and asking about this. Obviously, it made me uncomfortable although I think I’ve been a gentleman. No one collaborated the story.

I don’t think I’m rich because I’m smarter than other people, or a good salesman, or even a risk taker. I’m more than willing to admit I’m rich because of my friendship with Andy. What? I’m not allowed to be lucky?

            In planning this book, I hired a private investigator to find Blond Bob McNally. Mark Shift was a police detective once, and he went to Thailand but lost all track of Blond Bob. In Colorado, he investigated the mafia. During the time Andy and I were dealing drugs, a man named Salvatore “Salley” Natali had broken off with the mob in Denver and controlled drugs in Colorado Springs. Blond Bob may have worked for him. The mafia in those days didn’t want drugs; they were in the old rackets, gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, protection. But drugs turned out to be highly lucrative, and in 1976 Carmine Bosso, now wanting the drug revenue, took over and ran Denver and probably all of Colorado. Mark Shift thinks the two men who robbed Andy and I were part of Bosso’s plan to take over the Denver mob. Bosso may have killed Salley Natali. Blond Bob ran. This is all speculation on the part of Mark Shift and the policemen in Denver and Colorado Springs that he interviewed.

I would never in those days have guessed we were so close to the mafia. We hardly knew the mafia existed. Still, it filled in some gaps on the map.

            The Mob Commission Case in 1986 pretty much ended the mafia. The FBI, with new laws, pretty much shut down organized crime.

            So, there were legitimate stories of me being a jilted lover, then rumors I made women talk dirty, and finally an endless number of mafia tie-ins that, quite frankly, have no basis in fact beyond what I have related here. And I hired the man who eventually put it all together; I’m the truth seeker.

            Of course, had I pondered history I might’ve known what was going to happen back in 1976. In the 1920s, when prohibition was mandated, it was cheap to make liquor, less than five bucks for grain and yeast to make a barrel of beer that eventually sold for $40. Bootleggers made money quickly. Joseph Kennedy among them.

Then, for 10 years before prohibition ended, there were territorial wars with bombs, shootings and stolen trucks full of booze. I was to see some of the mafia violence related to cocaine, but it would be the drug cartels who would be so scary to society later on.

I was a confident young man in those days, but I never said I could see the future. I once said I wouldn’t play the game too long, but I was wrong. I was in a window and it closed before I realized it.

One thing I share with Lucky Luciano and Al Capone is that we all three had scars on our faces of unknown origin.

So, there was drug dealing, college, the rise and maturity of Bitey-Man, two divorces and a book, discredited before it was even released. Not bad for a guy who describes himself as a salesman. I’m not big and fast like a college football player, and I’m not handsome like a model is pretty, but still I’ve had a decent run.

            My experience in the business world tends to make me cynical, though. I saw Big Business lobby Big Government, which helped Big Business and left the rest of us schlubs to collect the crumbs. I like to think of myself as a regular guy despite my good luck. I always vote out all incumbents, and I never answer a government survey honestly.

My brother became a doctor, and Andy and Alicia June have three children, two boys and a girl. I was lucky enough to be an honorary member of the family. I’ve enjoyed watching the children grow up. I’ve enjoyed following my brother’s career. My parents are comfortably retired, living in Steamboat Springs.

            Andy says I can’t stay married because I have trouble not living the fast life. I have more money than most third world countries, but it’s true I never stick to any one thing for long. Lately, travel has filled some need I have for chaos. I take the trains, stay at backpacker hotels and bed and breakfasts. I like the challenge of finding my way around in countries where I don’t know the language and people don’t know me. I no longer travel first class, like I did with MaryLou.

            I’ve been to Europe, all over. I’ve spent time in Northern Thailand, in the beautiful, rugged hills near Chiang Mai. I’ve slept on beaches in Panama. I’ve surfed in Hawaii and stayed in a condo near The Rocks, in Sydney, Australia. I spent a month in Dublin. I spent three weeks in Moscow.

            I read a story recently about large tobacco companies dumping cigarettes in Eastern and Central Europe, countries with minimal taxes, knowing they’d be smuggled into Western European nations. As I’m writing this, the tax on a pack of cigarettes is about 200 percent in the United Kingdom and 10 percent in Latvia. I’ve read about the Medellin cartel and the Afghan warlords. I’ve decided I don’t care what happened to Blond Bob after all. He was just connected to some other thumbtack. In the end, someone corrupt and violent runs each little drug scheme and even if I saw it all laid out before me, it wouldn’t change a thing. A map is just a guide, that’s all, not history and not the future.

            As people will know at the time of the publication of this memoir, I have resigned from BOOT Corp. Andy still works in research and development, but it’s a mature company now in the hands of the CEO, who knows how to please stockholders. I was in public relations for a while, as I said, but it was boring approving advertising campaigns and preparing annual reports, explaining it all to the business media and analysts. I don’t have a mind like Andy’s, so I’m not needed in research and development.

            As I take stock, I know Bitey-Man is violent. We had the first video vixen to be featured on a poster; sales jumped when People magazine did a story and it was at a time when we needed the cash flow. Suzi Gabes, the rock-solid black-Irish spy who always had a cigarette in her mouth (ready to shoot orange fire bombs), was my favorite woman character.

            It makes me ponder what else I might do to make money. Cut down trees? Drill oil in the arctic wilderness? Probably. I do smile sometimes upon reflection. I get a lot of blame for introducing one of the first violent games. There aren’t any young girls who will grow up to have the proportions of Suzi Gabes. Yet Andy is seen as benevolent, the kindly inventor.

            Since I left BOOT Corp, I’ve traveled to most of the locations seen in the various versions of Bitey-Man. I think of how much better version two of Bitey-Man would’ve been if Andy, Alicia June and I had actually gone to Paris and Tangier.

            I fear I will always live with the burden of wishing I’d done things better, more correct. We should’ve taken our drug money to a safety deposit box at a bank. I envision 50 years from now being blamed for giving young girls anorexia because of the video vixens in Bitey-Man. Yet I’m somehow uninterested in rehabilitating my reputation, any of it. Merely telling the facts of my life. Some people strive for self-improvement; I’m not burdened with this particular desire. Regret is OK, but self-improvement is boring.

            My father depended on Ford to make good cars, and now I depend on financial people to keep the BOOT stock price up. When you wear a suit to work and own a large chunk of stock, it’s easy to make an objective assessment of your working life, your so-called career. In the end, though, I’m a fake. The only contribution of mine one can find in the latest version of Bitey-Man is the orange-colored cigarette bombs.

            The closest Andy and I came to revolution was to believe in free music. For that reason, we didn’t do anything that would keep people from copying early versions of Bitey-Man. That’s changed now, of course. Mr. Nastor is a leading player in the movement to stop game piracy. It’s the only thing the company’s doing I truly disagree with, and yet the management team I helped put in place thinks I’m an eccentric when I bring it up.

            I am now about my father’s age in 1976. I think I was different from him – and Andy’s father, too – in that I never suffered through the stress. I didn’t have children, so maybe that made a difference, but Andy avoided a lot of the stress as well. Once you live the life of a drug dealer, out on the razor’s edge, meeting with a bunch of lawyers who want to take your company public isn’t that big a deal. Hiring a CEO is ho-hum.

            Like my father in the 1970s, now it’s me who’s looking to the future. What do I do with the remaining years? I still lift weights, but not to improve my looks. I’m just trying to keep my body going. I color my hair and bleach my teeth. It’s true, I’ve found, we romanticize our youth. We don’t want to grow old.

            I’m luckier than most in that my best friend was the genius Andy Fannuke, the skinny kid with coarse hair. When I was at the crossroads, no longer comfortable with my place on the map, he guided me to a new thing, a good thing. Allow me to travel back in time for one last remembrance.

            I’d been with Andy, taking a class in advanced algebra, and several of us went to an apartment to study. It was the typical student apartment those days in Boulder. A large number of look-alike apartments, two bedrooms, two baths and a kitchen. We walked in and this young man’s girlfriend was playing Peter Frampton’s new album, “Frampton Comes Alive.” The hit song was playing: “Baby I Love Your Way.”

            I knew at that moment our lawless era was over. “Andy,” I said, “listen to this. Rock and roll is dead.” He nodded. He knew exactly what I meant. We were dinosaurs, no different from the gunslingers of the 1870s.

            There was plenty of good music produced after 1976, but it wasn’t the hippie outlaw rock and roll that changed a generation. Cocaine swept the nation, ruining a hundred thousand people. But for me, the 1980s came early, and before it could do any more damage than a scar on my chin, I was out.

            On to a new thing, games, and that passed for me, too. That’s what you learn when you reach middle-age. There will always be a new thing, and then, eventually, it will pass you by.