I also discovered that there were other pressures working on her. Heatherís parents offered to buy her a car if she would quit seeing me. I had always run a poor second to Heatherís father, and now he had seen and capitalized on the opportunity to knock me completely out of the picture. The triple whammy of a distant college, a car, and ample dating opportunities had done me in.

Although I canít blame Heatherís parents completely, they probably wonít mind sharing some of the glory of a job well done. They worked hard to see that Heather moved on to someone else and they were, ultimately, successful. Obviously, Heatherís feelings toward me must have changed in those few weeks away

I made a phone call and we officially ended our relationship. I figured that was the last Iíd see of Heather. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

My new motto became, "I thought it was human, but it turned out to be a woman." My attitude spiraled downward, and I couldnít seem to muster the incentive to move on; so I didnít. I let my bitterness over ride all good sense, and I began drowning myself in alcohol.

Not that I had never dabbled in drinking before, but this time I threw myself into it without any restraint whatsoever. Like most things, to really excel itís a good idea to have a mentor. My mentor was Terry and I was but a drunken disciple at his drunken feet.

I had met Terry when I first turned twenty one. He worked as a bartender at a place called Goldieís Bar and Grill that doubled as a video game parlour. Stuffed into its smoky confines were thirty or forty electronic games, ranging from Defender to Pole Position, or whatever game happened to be the latest craze. Terry was the grandmaster entertainer reigning over his alcoholic domain. His favorite outfit consisted of a Rolling Stones T-shirt with the gigantic lips emblazoned across his chest, Levis cut to four inches above the knee, and a pair of spotless white tennis shoes. His hair stood straight up on top, and in the back it was about eight inches long.

When I first entered his kingdom, more interested, at the time, in indulging my tastes for video games than for booze, Terry wore the serene expression of wisdom. When he asked for my ID his expression didnít change; In fact, the only time it changed is when he would let loose with a jovial belly laugh. As long as I knew him, his expression never changed; no matter how pissed-off I made him, or how stupid I was acting, he reacted with calm words and brotherly advice. If he was dealing with an angry drunk he had just cut off from the bar, or just chatting with an old friend, he always spoke with the same placid yet good-humored tone.

Pat Delford- the son of the Phoenix alternative school teacher that kicked me out of his pottery class, Paul Thompson, and Lee Allen- who were gaming associates, often accompanied me on my late night forays to Goldieís, where we would spend the wee hours of the morning pumping change into the games and indulging in a beer or two. At this point, drinking was only a social thing. The real point of going to Goldieís was to play video games, not to get fall-flat-on-your-face drunk.

Every time I would go to Goldieís Terry would call out to me. "How you doing, pal?"