Anne was the boss's wife, but didn't want to be treated any differently. Unless there was something she thought should be done differently, in which case she'd get her husband's okay to have it changed, and let you know afterwards.
Scott went by the nickname Zippy in college. As a party wound down, someone asked, "Zippy, tell us the nastiest girl you ever slept with." He said, "Yeeeesh, I wouldn't tell you guys the third nastiest I ever slept with."
Dan was born the day after me, had red hair like me, wore glasses like mine, was about the same height, same build, same sense of humor, same level of competitiveness, which led to him breaking my glasses six times.
Nancy has read one of her poems a little too often, and the rest of her poems not near enough for my liking. Always impeccably correct, but still, there's no mistaking the presence of the all grown up little girl.
Judy gave me a Hot Rod magazine once. I was baffled and set it aside for years. Cleaning house for a move I flipped through it. There she was, in a Stars & Stripes bikini, a finalist flanking the contest winner.
Kelly was the reason I went to California in the first place, and the reason I left. It was my own stupid fault and took until helping her pick her wedding dress for me to realize how misguided I was.
Brian drank for free using the kitty game. Hey everybody, let's all kick in $20, make a kitty for the bartender. Kitty's getting low, let's kick in. Last man standing tips big, eats at Denny's, and recovers his original $20.
Susan had one chance to make the right pitch to the right guy at the right time and she blew it by choosing a deception over an honesty. Though I'm not sure her employers would have agreed to the honesty.
Tom is just trying to make a living, stuck in a redneck town where he pretends to be dumber than he is in order to just get along. There's an artist in him that the money maker won't let out.
Tom doesn't have a baby face, but he does have one of those faces where you can tell exactly what he looked like as a child. The cigar would have been as apt a prop then as it is today.
George is an atheist who lit a candle in church for Mary every week for a year after she died. Sometimes he read poems, sometimes he told stories, sometimes he cried, sometimes he just said, "And this is for Mary."
Mark was into Lynrd Skynrd before anyone else was into any kind of music. A transplanted Alabama boy who wore Crimson Tide tee shirts and had Confederate flag stickers on his notebooks when I first met him in fourth grade.
Micheal still has the eyes of a mischievous eight year old who is whipsmart and knows he can get away with flaunting it because he's got an irresistibly winning smile to get him out of whatever trouble it might cause.
Bruce was the junior high teacher all the girls were in love with. It took most of them until the twenty year reunion to realize that they were the wrong sex to have had any chance at all with him.
Gary used to work as a wrecker driver, and has the photo album handy to prove it. Want to see the pictures of the car wrecks, brain pans, blood, guts, decapitation, and other assorted limb loss? He thinks you do.
Chris wandered into the room where we'd been playing the new game Trivial Pursuit a week steady, said, "What's this?" Sat down, rolled the dice, and never missed a question until he'd won. He got up, said, "Fun!" and left.
Spring was a waitress at the restaurant of changing names. The first to buy me a blank book for writing, she inscribed it: "The finest parchment and the loveliest silk are the only fitting place for the beauty you create."
Linda was the smartest girl in gradeschool and growth spurt gawkily athletic. Her face had a spritz of birthmarks, her hair was so thick it could only be worn short, she talked as fast as not too fast can be.
Tim was a natural performer whose body awareness allowed him to create, down to the slightest gesture, characters easy to suspend disbelief with. After his suicide the line into the funeral parlor stretched out into the street for disbelieving blocks.
Tom has done a lot of good, to be sure, and his charisma played no small part--but I always wonder how much more good he might have done if the seed of humility had ever taken root in him.
Charlie was overqualified for the job, but, just looking to pick up some vacation money until his full pension at his old job kicked in. His breath became toxic when he got stressed, it was my job to tell him.
Maureen spends her time making things happen (poems, fictions, historical plays, radio plays, documentary films), and thus she has no time at all to be one of those people who complain that nothing ever happens. A bumble bee of busyness.
John was the quiet but cute boy in gradeschool who became the successful high school entrepreneur which gave him the seed money to finally do what he wanted to do all along. Vision, dedication, success, all by his early twenties.
Don will always be, to me, the metallic tang scent of welding in his brother's garage as they built open wheel dirt track race cars, and the wild slide around the oval under the lights on a perfect summer night.
John was just gullible enough that he was fun to prank. When a salesman came to visit him, we told the guy John was "just through that door, but, be sure to really speak up, he's awfully hard of hearing."
Steve drove a tricked out metallic gold Trans Am with the hood-sized Firebird decal, leather seats, and moon roof t-tops. His license plate read "DRUNK 2". His idea of constructive criticism was, "This tastes like shit, fix it."
Dan had this curious way of holding his cigarette. Make the "OK" sign with your right hand. Picture a cigarette with filter between thumb and forefinger, lit end facing you. Turn your hand clockwise until the lit end is away.
Norm had a grant to teach Career Development, but the class was all about meditation and self-hypnosis. He said, "Mmmm, well, you know, I mean, you can't get a job if you don't know where your head's at, man."
Mike is pretty good at bullshitting his way through most conversations about art by remaining appropriately aloof and cryptic, but if you stick with it and suss things out you find everything he says was said by someone else first.
Dennis is a self-made man who believes that being offensive is the best defense against an attack on his credentials (which no one really ever makes). Force of personality makes right, don't confuse the issue with those silly facts.
Keith has a face for television, a voice for radio, the body of an olympic wrestler, a gift for forming the kind of surreal images that stick in the brain, and a style of delivery that crowds love to watch.