Aging Like a Fine Stein

My friend Steve and I were texting last night when he abruptly changed the subject.

“Hey, did you ever visit me during college?”

“I did. You had two roommates.”

“Who? Do you remember when? Or what we did? I remember you visiting after college but not during.”

“We went to a party and played beer pong. Might have been in ’06, so I guess I was still in college. I’d have to check my journals for more details. Why so curious?”

“You let the dog out in the morning by accident and we had to chase it down before we left. And you yelled at a woman riding her bike on the drive home. That was after college for me.”

“You were working for an online dictionary company,” I told him. “I’ve yelled at a lot of strangers, man. Can’t say that one sticks out but I do vaguely recall it.”

Then he threw me a knuckleball.

“Do you own a stein?”

“No. Why?”

“Lol. Nothing. I’ll tell you next weekend.”

Steve and I recently began intermittently texting after a decade-plus hiatus. Our last memory together involved attempting to coin a nickname for a stuffed dog with a droopy face sporting a pumpkin costume. He claims he nicknamed it Stroke Puppy Pups whereas I distinctly recall the nickname as Bell’s Palsy Pups, insisting on crediting him for the better moniker.

We sat next to one another every day in high school homeroom—our last names almost alphabetically side by side—while silently watching other psychos whose surnames began with G or H torment our poor teacher Ms. Cokkinias. She took attendance for all four years by calling our names one by one, incapable of remembering anyone but the handful who regularly gave her endless shit. A tap dancer named Ben often screamed out “MARISOL!” instead of her first name, Mary Gail, while my grade school friend Brian would “accidentally” erase her lesson plans from the blackboard while she was busy kicking Megan and Jess out for the dozenth time. One kid named Chris sat nearby, wearing skin-colored blush to cover up his acne scars, and was one of many who called her Cock in the Ass. Five mornings per week were loaded with hysterically unnecessary loathing for a poorly named woman who looked like the potential prototype for a female leprechaun. 

Memories of Steve largely concern playing basketball in a dilapidated church parking lot, his questioning the accuracy of all of my journal entries featuring him (claiming he would never say the things I wrote down, often written when he was high and/or drinking), and when he would visit my old basement bedroom where we drank Pabst Blue Ribbon, listened to the eponymous third Velvet Underground album, and played Scrabble. I often won—there was one game where I spotted him fifty-six-and-a-half points to trade for the L in his possession to begin the game with a seven-letter word (winning the game by sixty-plus points)—which may be why he tries to distort our past. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I always beat him in Connect Four too, there was also the time I won sixty dollars’ worth of books from him, then working at an independent book chain, because he provided the incorrect name of the actor who played Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

After texting for a bit, I wanted to know why he asked if I owned a stein. He stopped replying so I had to remind him why he once told me—after I explained that I had to meet my new college roommates to prove that I wasn’t an asshole—“But you are an asshole. A complete asshole.”

“Should I send photos of penises until you tell me?”

I alerted Sue and a few friends of the phallic absurdity on the horizon, practically salivating at the chance to take screenshots of cocks beside chalices. Considering the stolen pilsner glass atop my dresser—taken from a Prague pub, it houses a pamphlet detailing one hundred and one ways to say thank you along with a baseball thrown to me by former Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Freddy Galvis—I decided it didn’t qualify as a stein. My mind (naturally) went dark: Did Steve once piss in the glass? My friend Connor once told me to piss in Steve’s beer (I abstained), so was he about to reveal the secret payback? Why does my mind routinely imagine old friends countering my most terrible impulses with even worse (and justifiable) ones of their own?

“It didn’t have to be this way,” I told Sue in advance of the upcoming unseemliness while staring at an incognito Google tab loaded with photos of footlong African American dongs.

While taking a screenshot of a carefully curated Nubian tallywacker beside an ornate pearl-colored stein, Steve replied.

“My friend thinks someone stole his stein back in college. I knew it couldn’t be you because you only visited post-college. But he wanted me to ask you even though he’s not sure which friend you even are.”

“In his defense, it sounds like something I would’ve done,” I replied before informing him of the beautiful study in contrast I was busy deleting.

Confirming I visited him in Boston from August 4th-6th, 2006, I unearthed a few gems scribbled in that year’s green notebook: “What should we do?” “Once you’re high the answer is always no.” We drank beer, listened to Lou Reed & co., and Steve got upset that his roommate, Matt, gave me too many big chances during a predictable Scrabble win. Plus, I drunkenly ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch and passed out on a couch following a party.

However, I got angry at myself for failing to record what I’d yelled at the female bicyclist the subsequent morning after letting the “mean-ass” dog out. There’s no way Steve’s THC-plagued memory would remember either.

Upon returning to reality, I purchased a jersey to don at the postponed get-together in honor of our mutual friend Travis—occurring a week from now—and pondered what other ridiculous accoutrement felt necessary for the rendezvous. Although I quit drinking alcohol in March, the temptation to buy some O’Doul’s to drink from a Christmas-themed Budweiser stein I discovered tucked away in my basement seemed like a good idea. Then again, wouldn’t that be too easy? Having irked Steve plenty in the past—him once accusing me of Only Child Syndrome when I demanded he get me ice cream or else I wouldn’t get him high—I devised the perfect plan.

If Sue had a retired vibrator available as a loaner, I decided to stuff it in my pants prior to insisting on hugging Steve next week. Making sure he felt it rub against him, I would dramatically remove the beast—stocked with fresh batteries—in front of those in attendance.

“I like to call it James Avery,” I’d announce, not caring if only one person got the joke.

And that’s why you never casually ask an old asshole friend if he owns a stein.