I remember an afternoon freshman year, when I roomed with Dexter, Slater said to me, "When I die, I want all my friends to smoke me." We were smoking dope, listening to Bob Marley, recovering from our long day of classes, two of them. I think this was the same day he gleefully showed me a cloudy jar with some shark bits floating in it. And the same day he played me a minute or two of his burping audio tape - a recording of all the belches he was lucky enough to record for all prosperity. He also showed me his air guns, swearing me to silence about them; they, like drugs, were a dorm code violation. I want to think that all these events happened one sunny day, to make it into a video for my head. We were just hanging out in his room - two guys getting to know each other for the first time.

Two thirds of the pledges survived and became brothers. The older brothers said we were a slack class, that they went too easy on us, and I know that Slater, our Pledge President, heard more complaints from them than most of us. I can just see him now listening to some disgruntled brother who was just a bit too harsh in his criticism of us. Slater’s head would be leaning noticeably to one side, his eyes would seem to be focused on the brother’s chin, the muscles of his jaw would tense and flex underneath his skin festooned with his idiosyncratic razor stubble.

Slater usually bit down his anger if he couldn’t release it in some comic form of rage. Maybe he knew it would be humorous to others within earshot, but I don’t think humor was the primary motivation for releasing a good tirade. When he raged on you, it was more for your own instruction. I recall one time I said, after taking a long hit then coughing, that I should stop smoking dope. Id was there, laughing, as Slater let loose: "You smoke dope now, you’ll keep on smoking dope, because you like it, you like it." And, sure, I still smoke dope, occasionally, when I’m around people who can have just as much fun with it as we did during those years in college. Too many of my friends have just evolved into weekend alcoholics.

When Slater and I became brothers, we unknowingly ran against each other for the mostly honorary position of Guard. The day before the election, Dexter was the only new brother to give the secret ritual to Id, then the GM of Ceremonies, that entitled him to be elected for one of the two positions as Guard. Believing the older brothers that our class was slack, I gave the ritual toId before Slater.

During the brother’s meeting, my heart sank when I realized who I’d be running against. This began, I think, an unspoken and almost always friendly competition between Slater and me for the rest of college. Looking back now, becoming a Guard was my first and only victory. The last and one of the most memorable competitions was clearly Slater’s win. Slater was told by a young woman whom I had a semester long crush on, that her one regret about college was that she and Slater never got together. After she admitted this to Slater, Slater repeated it to me. Earlier that year, this quick-witted, smoke-obscured beauty had made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that I was only a pal.

Sophomore year was the year of the rooftop, Thomas Hall Tower’s roof. Slater was over a lot with Doorknob to mess up my and Eyore’s my already messy room. Together, we would decorate the Piss Boy - a plaster replica of the Belgium status of a young boy relieving his bladder. We’d regularly climb up through the hatch to the roof and hang out. I remember one time Slater came over with Teapot and they hung each other off over the sides of the Tower. I can’t recall if Eyore or I made them stop or if they just got bored.

Out of all the Tower stories, my favorite one that includes Slater is this: One sunny afternoon, Eyore, Doorknob, and Slater
decided to go up to the roof and throw paper wads at trees, cars, and occasionally a passerby. I came back from class to this scene. A bit of a moralist, I told them to quit it. Eyore retorted with all the sarcastic lean his voice was capable of: "Weee might get in ttrooubbble." Doorknob said, "See, this is when Mark gets lame like I was talking about earlier." Slater didn’t say anything, probably just flexed his jaw muscles which was enough of a statement that I was pissing him off.

Realizing I was outnumbered and an unwanted goody-goody, I did what’s still in my nature to do. I plotted. I went over to Jeter Hall where Coach was living and asked him to put on one of his famous voices and call my room and tell them he was the Chief of Campus Police and that he knew they were throwing paper wads off the roof and that he’d be coming over in 15 minutes. After Coach got off the phone, we laughed for ten minutes then decided to walk over to the tower. When we got there, all three of them were whiter and wetter than the paper wads they had been throwing earlier. I recall Eyore running up to me - two strides in that small room of ours - moving his arms as if he were going to hug me and said, "We’re... I’m... We’re in trouble. The police saw. You should leave, Mark, before they come."

I acted surprised then took my turn being childish with an "Told ya so." Coach and I turned to go to the dining hall. Slater soon followed us out the door, saying to Eyore and Doorknob, "I’ve got a lab, give’em my name if you want." Slater walked with us to the dining hall as far as the science building without saying anything. I began to regret my joke but not enough to admit to it.

Months later, I told Eyore and he told Slater. For the months between the joke and its disclosure, they had thought it was the Pikas downstairs from us who pretended to be the police. Slater was both angry and yet respectful of what I had done with Coach. I don’t recall Slater ever being a poor sport, even when he lost The Longest Penis Contest to Eyore held one weekend night in the brothers’ room.

Junior year, I was in England when Eyore and Slater tried to get a hold of me by phone to be the fourth roommate in the
Apartments. It’s funny how close I came to living in the infamous Apartment 500. I had already promised my room pick number to Prettyboy, Drinkman, and Prep-mess since Bitterboy, my junior roommate, was planning to live at The House Testosterone Built off campus.

What happened within Apartment 500’s walls is the stuff of mythology: motorcycles in the living room, a chair with seven
remote controls taped to it, walls with huge indentations that looked remarkably like human forms, several thousands of dollars of sporting equipment scattered everywhere, and the Piss Boy. Countless artifacts and trophies from nights on the town - Taco Hell, bowling, Stonewall - and later the trip to Jamaica filled ever imaginable nook. There was also the smell, a mix of smoke and beer.

Slater was the maddest hatter of that two semester whoop-ass tea party. For me, his crowning glory ithat senior year was not driving his motorcycle through the science building, but smoking a bowl in the sea of his fellow graduates after being handed his hard-earned diploma by Dean Mater. I’ve retold these two Slater stories to many and most have believed them.

After we graduated, Eyore and Slater traveled through Spain and France while I worked temporarily in London. I remember they began their trip by landing in London. Around 5 o’clock, they met me at my work, a "posh" ad agency near Covent Garden. So there we all were: Eyore and Slater with their overstuffed backpacks, me with my tie, the receptionist - a gorgeous blonde - curvy and inviting as an English backroad - with her quizzical glances at us.

Slater never looked so happy to see me. It really surprised me. Soon we found ourselves drinking at a pub in Covent Garden. Slater and I talked about Catch-22 which he said was one of his favorite books. After we were finished talking about the book, he said something like, "This is the kind of talk that’s good to have with you." Slater’s willingness to find a common subject in order to relate to other people was one of his most endearing qualities.

I worried that my new flat mates would be mad at me for putting up Slater and Eyore for a couple of days. However, after
meeting them, my flat mates were charmed. Slater and Eyore both had enough humor power to push the other one into the role of straight man. Other times, they were a tag-team of charmers. One would work the room while the other one rested.

Later, they called me from Paris to arrange to meet me in Florence, Italy. I remember saying to Slater over my office phone, whispering it so my office mates couldn’t hear: "Remember my flat mate, the Danish woman?" Slater knew what happened without hesitation and he did one of his hooting laughs. Eyore soon joined in the cacophony. They did this for what seemed like a minute as I held the phone away from my ear. The Brits in the office, just looked at me, shaking their heads as if to say, "Mad Yanks."

United in Florence, we trained down the boot of Italy. In our hotel in Rome, Slater and I once woke up to see through our
window two Italian young woman watching us through their window across the narrow street. I made my sheets into a toga, and I went for my camera. Slater got out of bed buck naked and sauntered over to the bathroom where Eyore was already taking a shower. I still have the photo of these Italian vixens clapping Italian style, their hands with pinched thumb and fingers in approval.

It was also in Rome that one drunken night, Slater, Eyore, and I went running through cobbled streets. For some strange
reason, Slater was singing, "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll eat some worms." Then he tried knocking Eyore and me into some ancient Roman fountain.

Inadvertently, that night, Slater ran into a low curb and hurt his foot. The next morning he couldn’t walk on it. Eyore and I
carried him over to an ambulance park outside our hotel and I took pictures of him waving bye to us as the medics gurneyed him into an ambulance. The Italian doctors said that Slater had the gout. I suppose Slater didn’t feel like arguing. He just took what they offered, crutches and drugs. Slater, the good sport, hobbled his way threw the rest of the sights of Rome. He wasn’t using them anymore by the time we docked in Corfu, Greece.

The last couple of days before we split up, Slater had grown tired of my mildly melancholic nature, and I had gotten a little annoyed with his baiting. At the Pink Palace, Slater hung out with a guy we had met on the boat from Italy to Corfu. Eyore was he-didn’t-know where with some-girls-he-didn’t-know, and I hung with a bunch of Australians who told me stories about their trip around the world.

Later that night, Slater, Eyore, and I drank some wine native to the island and waited for it’s alleged hallucinogenic powers to work on us. Slater said there was some fungus in it that would make us trip. We all pretended it was working on us and started to act weird. At sunrise, Eyore and Slater left Corfu for another island while I stayed in town until my plane for London. I don’t really remember seeing Slater again until New Years Eve 93-4. I’m glad Janine, my girlfriend then, my wife then, had a chance to meet him. If I saw him in between Greece and that New Year’s, it wasn’t for long. I don’t really recall it. Italy and Greece are the last clear memories I have of him.

In some ways, even as I write this, I’m still looking for Slater’s approval. Like the Fonz when I was in elementary school, Slater often seemed to me to be the yardstick of coolness, and if not coolness, then at least real visceral living. It’s easy to remember him this way, certainly romantic too, but now I can only think about what I would tell him if he were to suddenly, magically to appear. I’d tell him about the raccoon family that lived in the crawl space next to our apartment. I’d tell him about the mushroom article I’m writing, thinking he’d tell me a few mycological facts he knew. Theses things come right to mind.

I remember a poster-size photo of him and a high school pal pretending to be passed out on a deck, between them beer cans spelling: "Beach Week 86." Part of me would like to imagine Slater playing dead on us right now, hiding out with Jerry Garcia. He always seemed so invincible. Maybe that’s why this seems so unbelievable. My mind is playing games with the fact that he’s gone. The past is what I want. I almost want to reinvent the past, never to act like a weenie whenever he would bait me, to enjoy to the fullest the ridiculous sound effects he was so fond of making, to keep a written record of all the times he goosed me. I regret not keeping in touch. I’m thankful for friends who did. If Slater could read this, maybe he’d say, "It’s not me, but pass it on."