After Lily had left, I walked down to the beach. The day was confused; it could not decide what to do with itself. White clouds sat lazily above the green ocean, posing a threat to those snotty houses that lay overconfident on the rugged face of the cliff. I went down to the water. The water was flat but as it came close, small ripples spoke the effects of a billion gallons of water on a spinning rock. No matter how desolate, we would continue spinning. Like Wall Street, it didn’t care if you were having a bad day.

I threw a rock into the water. As it sunk deep into the blue, I threw another. Even after the rock had left my hand, the effect of the first still was rippling quietly in the wavering water. The surface is just that. We act as if a cover is the book, but we forget the contents; the laughter and bad hair days, the moments of unappreciated gestures and parking tickets. It’s all there under the surface. What was under Lily’s surface, I wondered. Whoa-- I’m thinking about the Pacific Ocean; how does she apply? She is an ocean herself probably, complete with swaying tides, rolling curves, and a deep world under the surface. I shuddered. I hoped I wasn’t one of the prey.

Behind me was a strange man; he was strange in the vein of the fifth version of strange in Webster’s Dictionary: odd, unusual, irregular, not according to the common way. I picked up my shoes and walked in the sand. The way sand feels under naked toes is life. You can smile for no reason; it’s all right. I noticed that when I actually looked at this man’s sphere of influence there were rocks balanced in the most precarious positions. I watched at a child building with castles made of sand. His only care was the rising waters. I looked back at the old, bushy-haired man; he was cradling an oblong rock as if a newborn. Total silence was surrounded the man; he was a black hole of energy. He was able to create a vacuum in his sphere, allowing a ten pound piece of the earth’s crust to sit as if waiting for tea. It made me laugh, how ridiculous it all seemed. As I looked further down the beach, I saw there were many rocks sitting and waiting for their tea. What does one serve to a thirsty rock?

I walked up to him gently so as not to disturb his energy but I could see he felt me behind him. “How,” was all I could muster. It was a one-word question that wanted a small textbook accompanying it.

“It’s pretty easy, actually,” he said. His speech was slow and deliberate; it was obvious he was deep in concentration but he sounded much more articulate than he looked. Our judgments are made so quickly that we hardly take all the factors into account. He could see I needed more so he continued, all the while cupping a rock and staring intently into its blank, nonexistent eyes: “Everything in the world has a point of balance. They teach you in school that something is either symmetrical or asymmetrical. They never tell you that asymmetrical objects can still be balanced.” The way he said ‘you’ implied that either he hadn't been schooled in the United States or he was an alien. Either way he was a foreigner. What’s odd is that his accent was almost nonexistent.

“Would you show me how,” I asked, eagerly wanting to adopt his ideology.

“There is nothing to show you. All you have to do is accept the fact that everything can be balanced. They may require different forces, but everything can be balanced by human hands.” Pause. “Everything.”

It sounded so definitive. There was no argument or debate. It was very quiet in the world.

I looked for a rock. There were many small, nervous rocks lying about. I chose one. It looked nondescript enough. I found a space next to him.

I held the rock in both hands, looking at it. For a split second there was a union. Realization: I had no conception of myself. It was pleasant, like a breeze on a sweating back. I held the rock and felt for its balancing point. For five full minutes, nothing happened. Two new rocks were balancing next to me. Apparently this was not his first day. I was on the verge of giving up but then I remembered.

I was graduating college today. I wasn’t really sure what that meant except my mom would have something else of which to be proud. The pictures, the funny judge’s gown I could be sure of. Everything else was still too distant for me to concern myself. I could hear Lou, who had been sleeping in the next bed stir. And Joseph, who had been snoring in the bunk bed above Lou, slowly roused from the last night’s drinking. I said good morning to Lou quietly.

“Hey,” he said, coughing.

Above, Joseph groggily growled an “Arrrrggggghhh!”

Then as I was walking back into the bedroom, Joseph chuckled and asked, “Chris, do you remember what you said to that chick last night?”

“What chick,” I asked, still tasting the jungle juice in my mouth.

“That 18-year old Mormon who came with my friend’s roommate.” He was laughing now, remembering.

“Oh, god, that girl? I don’t even remember. She was telling me about how I was going to hell…” I said, trying to recall the conversation.

“Red pants and that white top,” Lou helped.

“Oh yeah, what, I told her she looked like the devil with those pants. Big deal. And then she started crying and wanted to go home, but her friends were having a good time and wanted to stay.”

“So she ended up getting drunk. Oh my god, that’s right. How funny! What happened to her anyway,” I asked. I was glad the shades were down.

“She had to pick up her own puke,” Lou recalled and we all laughed. It was cruel but she had brought it upon herself.

“Man, I remember that now.” Other memories flashed faintly in my head: dancing, drunken women and drugs. A typical college night, but today was no ordinary college day.

“Lou, Joseph, do you realize we’re graduating today?” I hadn’t realized it until just that moment. College graduation. I had a moment of congratulatory shoulder patting but then I realized no more drunken Tuesdays, no more 18 year-olds (well, maybe a few more), no more unadulterated fun. Up until then, it had been so irresponsible.

At the end of the graduation day, late that night we sat in our bare apartment on the kitchen counter and drank our last beers for the night. All that remained in apartment 115 of Flagstaff Village Apartments were three beds and toiletries. It was just like the first night we had spent there. It was empty and clean. The next people to live there would have no idea of what had happened. Lou and Joseph and I would take our memories with us but soon they would be forgotten or misplaced in the real world. Maturity and the decrepitude of responsibility loomed. We sat on the counter, wiped clean, and reminisced for awhile as the night wound down.

“Man, you remember that mai tai party and all those different ties people wore?” Lou was already laughing, remembering the night that we had spent 150 dollars on liquor. It turned out to be worth it as the apartment had been overrun with tie-wearing friends, all of whom seemed more drunk because of the ties.

“Shit, I hadn’t thought about that in awhile,” Joseph said, his brain working overtime trying to retrieve other memories.

“Or how about the Halloween party we played at and there was the cat woman there? Aaaarrrroooowwww,” I said in my best tiger growl.

“Man, that chick was hot. And we played so good that night, too.”

“No kidding, and they had that punch, what was that?”

“Vodka, beer and fruit juice. Wasn’t that disgusting?”

“Not as bad as when Lauren threw up all over the bathtub and we found her passed out face down in some of it,” Lou said.

“No shit, man, that was disgusting, but it was so worth it to see that mess, wasn’t it,” I said, and my roommates agreed, though not as whole-heartedly as I wanted.

“Uh yeah,” Joseph mocked, and we all laughed. My beer started foaming up and spilled onto the wood floor but they didn’t care. We were moving the next day.

“Oh,” Lou remembered, “what about when we were playing spin the bottle with those chicks?”

“Oh yeah, that was great! Hey Chris, remember that girl Stella? Yeah, and how we were watching you and Eve getting together?”

“No,” I replied, surprised, “I didn’t know that. You guys were watching us?” Then my ego spoke up. “Well, how was I? Was I performing up to my ability?”

“Yeah, up to your ability,” Lou said sarcastically, with Joseph laughing underneath the comment.

“Oh yeah? Well at least I didn’t get with that girl that we all begged you not to get down with!”

“Yeah, you did,” Joseph remarked, laughing.

“What?”

“What was her name? Oh yeah, Lorena, that girl with the lisp?”

Getting defensive, I responded, “She didn’t have a lisp, she had a tooth knocked out in that dorm accident just before we met her. I’ve told you guys that, man.” Lou and Joseph were already laughing. I wanted to laugh with them and my pride gave way eventually.

"Oh yeah, I think I remember but what happened again,” Lou got out in between laughs.

Annoyed at having to reprise the story, I dutifully recounted it. “Remember, she slipped in the shower on a faulty drain and her mouth hit the soap holder (laughter). I think she’s gonna end up getting a lot of money out of that.” It didn’t matter to Lou and Joseph. Their laughter echoed in the empty apartment. “Come on, at least she wasn’t a psycho like that girl from Araxaca you dated, Joseph.”

“What girl?” Joseph said, feigning ignorance. Then, realizing it was futile, he offered, “Gina?”

“Yeah, Gina.”

“Well, she didn’t start out psycho. She was really cool at first.” He knew that sounded ridiculous so he coughed up, “I guess I should I have known something was up when, like the third time we went out and she showed me a picture of her parents. She told me her father had been killed by her mother and then the next sentence from her mouth, I’m shitting you not, the next sentence was how she thought we reminded her of her parents. Can you believe that shit? If I hadn’t been lying naked next to her, I would have left right then. But the sex was so good,” he pleaded.

“I know what you mean, Joseph,” I said. “Ana was a lot of fun to be with too but she screwed me over.” I paused, thinking about her. “ It’s hard to hold it against her though, ya know?”

“No kidding,” Lou said, finishing his beer and grabbing another one from our empty fridge. “Remember that chick Angie?”

“Yeah, the girl with the perfect breasts,” Joseph said dreamily.

“That’s the one. Well, she was fun to get down with too, ya know?” Joseph and I nodded, remembering her as the girl who had come over to the apartment two nights a week at 9:45 after her intro to psychology class. We thought that maybe Lou had really liked her, but something happened. Lou tired to sum up. “Her fucking ex-boyfriend man, that guy was a fucking tool,” he said, gulping heavily from his new beer. Then, mocking her voice, “Lou, I don’t know, I like you but John keeps calling me and he wants to get back together with me. I don’t know, what should I do?” His imitation was not a flattering one. Joseph and I laughed but we both knew that that girl had gotten to Lou. She was beautiful and mental, quite the dangerous combination.

“Yeah,” I said, quietly philosophical. I had had the beautiful mental case a few times too and they had left sour tastes in my mouth. Fortunately, a stable of 18-year-olds had kept me busy the last couple of semesters.

Then Joseph, remembering his experience at Medieval Times as a child, said as if over the PA system at Dodger Stadium, “Drink Aleeeeeeeeeeeee!” Dutifully, Lou and I respond at the same tone while raising our glasses, smiling, “Wassssaaaaiiiiilllllll!”

“What about that other Halloween party the year before,” I asked, after finishing the cheers. Reminiscing was repetitive but entertaining.

“I know,” Joseph said. “I still can’t believe our landlord gave us fifty bucks for one of the kegs!”

“No shit,” Lou said. “Not like the last place you guys lived.” Joseph and I had been neighbors in a complex across the street before the three of us had become roommates. “That landlady was such a bitch. You guys should be glad you got out of there.”

“Still didn’t get our security deposit back, though,” I said.

“Yeah, but think about the shit we did there. Even the Halloween that year,” Joseph said.

“Oh my God, that’s right. Keg at our place and jungle juice at yours.”

“Would have been perfect if my mom hadn’t seen a picture of my roommate smoking a bong,” I said. Bottom line: if I hadn’t gotten three A’s and two B’s that semester, I would have been in debt from my newly accepted school loans.

“Oh well, at least it’s better than you smoking the bong, right?” Lou said. But he had never smoked the big M, so hejust didn’t understand.

“Lou, with drugs, you are guilty by association. Alcoholics can have nonalcoholic friends but if you’re friends with a druggy then you are a druggy too.”

“I’m not a druggy,” Lou said, oblivious.

“Yeah, but everyone thinks you are.”

“No they don’t.”

Joseph tried to help me out. “Uh, Lou, everyone thinks you are a pothead because we are.”

“What?”

“It’s okay man, just because you get down with an ugly chick doesn’t mean that we get down with ugly chicks. Does that make you feel better?” We laughed, but Lou was still confused.

“So, you’re saying that even though I don’t smoke marijuana like you guys,” he said, pointing at us with his forefinger while hugging his beer with his middle finger and thumb, “people think that I do. But, if I am an alcoholic, which we can say I am, and you’re not (pointing at me), people may not think you’re an alcoholic?”

“Not necessarily,” I told him.

“And,” Joseph said as if teaching his kindergarten class, “when you get down with the ugly chick, it doesn’t reflect badly upon us.”

“Yep,” I added.

“I see. Well, what if I get down with a hot chick? What then? Do you guys get partial credit for that too,” Lou asked.

“Well, that’s an exception because no one would believe you,” Joseph said. I laughed, and while Lou hopped off the counter and acted like he was grabbing another beer, he punched Joseph in the left arm, hard. One could hear the muscles of Joseph’s arm go into convulsions, even over my continued laughter.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Lou said, grabbing another beer from the fridge, smiling.

Joseph, still clutching his arm, looked over at me and with conspiratorial eyes asked if I wanted to partake one last time at 115. Lou joined us but didn’t inhale, just like our great president, and we coughed and chuckled into the wee hours of our last night…

Then, there was a sight I will never forget. An odd-shaped rock, expressly the rock I had picked up a few minutes ago was sitting. Waiting for tea, I imagined. I looked around but my bushy-haired teacher was gone, probably off to right another wrong in the world. My rock was balancing and by the laws of inertia, would not move until moved by something else. It’s waiting for tea, I thought again. It was dark. Oh shit. Somebody was waiting for me, I hoped. I made a beeline back to my car and left the moment behind.