Here's something that's not generally known about me: I can do a mean impression of Ian McColloch, the frontman for Echo and the Bunnymen. They're the 80s band that had the hits "Lips Like Sugar," "The Killing Moon," and "Bring on the Dancing Horses." I can do his voice well. Scary well. Well enough to win cash prizes at karaoke contests. One night I won $500 for pulling off a first-rate rendition of "The Killing Moon" in a contest at the L.A Fair. I guess I can match the guy's range and inflections. It didn't take much practice, it just sort of happened. It also means to a lesser degree I can also do Jim Morrison, not that I'd want to. Sometimes the dead are better left dead.

But I didn't come to brags about what singer I could imitate, or how much money there's to be made in that racket, I wanted to talk about the people in your past who pushed you on and took risks with you, who leaned on you as you leaned on them. I have two in particular. They were my first roommates when I finished college, and together the three of us were known as Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Remember the Shel Silverstein poem of that name? In that staple of childhood literature, his trio of heroes had their adventures in a flying shoe, flying high into the sky, past the sun and into the great beyond. It was about fearless adventuring, taking risks in the face of the unknown, and teamwork. Maybe you were part of this kind of trio growing up. Maybe they were your anchor during your first foray into adult life.

We were the oddest of groups, a threesome that forged its friendships in the hallways of dorms during the second year of college, kept its tight ties when we each moved out to campus apartments and frat houses, and then closed ranks following graduation in the form of a three bedroom, two bath pad in Torrance. Stacy was the party girl - she had the nickname "human twinkie" attached to her a year after we met. I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out the meaning behind that nickname. Stacy knew all the right people and was our dorm's defacto social director. Any bash you wanted to throw, anything you wanted to do some boring evening, she was the one to talk to. Stacy had a boyfriend all through college but the two broke up 3 weeks before graduation over a trip he wanted to take to Europe with friends. Turns out he didn't want her going with them. What a waste - 4 years with a guy attached to her hip and just before graduation he cuts her loose, leaving her only 3 weeks to get the full hopping from person to person/anonymous meaningless sexual experiences of college.

Keith was a male model wannabe. I shouldn't sell him short by saying wannabe because he did end up doing some stuff for a Mervyn's ad on Hanes underwear. Keith was built: Six foot plus, ripped muscles, wavy blonde hair, and tanned skin that never lost its color. Keith was always fighting off women. He turned down a lot, and that snowballed into a reputation for being a closet homo. I knew it wasn't true as I'd accidentally walked in on Keith in action more than once. With a little coaxing I'm sure a few women on campus would have come forward to vouch for Keith's hetero ways.

Stacy's career after college was as a financial analyst for some faceless, boring company. This was what she had gone to school for. Keith's profession was much more seedy. He'd become a male stripper. Not an escort, but a Chippendale dancer. He began a few months after we'd all moved in together. Modeling gigs weren't happening and he thought he could do the Chippendale thing temporarily. There were ups and downs to it, he said, the biggest up being how much money he could make in this line of work. The guy cleared $80k his first year. The down of course was that he had to keep himself baby smooth at all times. This meant shaving everything. Everything. Each time I gave Keith crap about shaving his sack he'd always tell me that I didn't understand the demands of the job and the sacrifices he had to make. Here's a sacrifice I had to make: I couldn't share a bathroom with the dude. With everything he was shaving I didn't want to make the mistake of accidentally using his razor. And I sure didn't want to find any loose hairs laying about and start wondering about what part of his body they came from. So I shared a bathroom with Stacy. Normally sharing a bathroom with a woman is suicide, but we managed. I have her to thank for the mosturizers I use today.
___________________________________________________________________

For the first time since we'd gone our separate ways over a year ago, the opportunity came for the three of us to get together. We used to hang out all the time. We were a regular threesome at bars and house parties, we went to dinners together, and even stood in as support at weddings when one of us didn't have a date to drag along. Stacy was the one always pushing me to go on stage and belt out a Bunnymen tune, and we always egged Stacy on about shirking her duties as a wingwoman for not hooking Keith up with enough chicks. Stacy even punched another woman for me at a party once. Eh, the broad deserved it. And Stacy landed a nice cross. For the longest time we were a close-knit crew, and for me it felt surreal when I moved out and Stacy followed soon after. But I was excited for the chance for us to be together again. Just like old times.

Stacy left a message with the meeting place - the National in Torrance, just a few miles away from our old stomping grounds. Apparently it had to be there because of a game Keith needed to keep an eye on. He probably dropped some money on it. Making the time to meet them was no problem. All the heat between Rebecca and me had cooled, and we were seeing less and less of each other. She did give me the "I'd still like to be friends" line. It always amazes me how women just can't say goodbye, how they can't end anything for fear of being the bad guy. It's like that behavior is hardwired into females, it's so damn pervasive. By new years we'd end up together in a hotel room in Vegas, as it turned out, so not every ending has to be sad.

I pulled in to the National and found Keith leaving his keys with the valet. Who valets at a sports bar? The guy looked good; trim and fit, just as I'd remembered him, dressed in a tight black top that made his sculpted shoulders stand out. The waitresses were gonna love him.

I parked my car and chased after him. I flagged him down and we exchanged some pleasantries. When I asked if Stacy was going to be late, he replied, "c'mon dude, she's already here," pointing to a table on the floor where she sat, waving for our attention. I should have figured the social director would already be waiting. Some things never change.

Soon after we were seated, I found out that apparently some things do change. Stacy had moved back to the Santa Barabara area and had taken a job as a financial analyst for an auto insurance company. She'd also been dating a guy for about ten months and they were talking about moving in together.

"Does he know he's dating the human twinkie?" Keith asked.

"Of course, why do you think he's hung around for ten months?" Stacy replied, smacking Keith on the arm.

Keith was stuck in freeze-frame. Only one modeling job in the past year - some billboard stuff for Talbot - and no leads. He was also still stripping at the same Chippendale's club.

"Oh no Keith," both Stacy and I responded.

"It's okay guys, really. Things could be worse, I could be out on the street or something. The money is good, and I just have to stay in good spirits. It's not so bad. Something positive will happen."

"You still shave the juevos?" I asked.

"Dude, why you gotta be like that? You have to be clean shaven, you can't have hair when you're dancing under those lights, getting sweaty and stuff. The glands under male pubic hair -"

"Alright alright, I don't need to hear about it," I said, cutting him off. Then I steered the subject to something else. "Hey, what about doing something that cashes in on your major?"

"What, geography? What can I do with that besides become a teacher?"

"Why not?" asked Stacy.

"Yeah, could you see me in front of a class of eighth graders? Hi, I'm mister Kozlowski, your giant hulking bodybuilder of a teacher and today we'll be talking about the Pacific Northwest. Pfft." Keith made a puckered face.

"It's not so strange," I replied. "No stranger than peeling your banana boat."

"Dude, I told you to lay off." Keith took a big gulp of his soda. He wasn't drinking beer, he couldn't. He had a weight to maintain. Go over that weight and you're fired. Stop bodybuilding and let the muscles go soft, you're fired. Stop shaking your moneymaker for the bachelorette parties, you're fired. He put his soda down and continued. "It's not how you make it out to be with your jokes and put-downs. It's hard work. It takes a lot of discipline. It takes a lot of control. Women surround you and stuff dollar bills down your speedo, grab your crank, tongue kiss you with no warning and for no reason, and you've gotta show restaint."

"And what's wrong with this picture again?" I joked.

"You wouldn't understand. You'd have to come down and see it for yourself."

"Uh, that's okay, I'll take your word for it."

"Yeah. The married ones there for ladies' night are the worst. When they're drunk they don't take no for an answer." Keith sat there for a moment, silent. He looked depressed, like there was more he wasn't telling us. And that made us depressed.

We sat around talking a bit more, but as the conversations went on I noticed we had less common ground than in the good old days. We were drifting apart. Our ties had been cut, and as each of us moved more and more into our adult lives we were moving away more and more from each other. Stacy suggested we cruise down the road a ways to an old karaoke joint, but I wasn't into doing that anymore. Keith wanted someplace without the pulsing lights and throbbing music of his everyday gig, but Stacy wasn't interested in going anywhere quiet. And though I suggested going to the Standard where one of my friends was spinning records that night, they didn't feel like going anywhere we'd have to know someone in order to get in. Just two short years ago we weren't considering places unless they had that requirement. With no agreeable options we called it a night after 90 minutes. It was barely nine.

We walked out of the National, barely speaking, and any of the excited sensations I first felt when we traded phone calls about getting together had entirely vanished. I'd wondered what had happened in a year that turned us into such different people on different wavelengths. What had happened to Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too? Where had our lifelines to each other gone? Hadn't we been brothers in arms? What had happened to that memory of us that I had, frozen in time? As Stacy hugged me and said goodbye, I guessed that as we grew up and grew apart we lost control over each. What we had been, what we had meant to each other had reached its highest point in the distant past. And that's the saddest thing about Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too; when they had sailed past the sun and finally hit their zenith, there was only one place to go - crashing down.