I once had a roommate who...

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I have only had three roommates over the years. I shared an apartment with my uncle for a few months after I got out of the Army, but it was his apartment and I was just getting reacquainted with civilian life. I lived on my own for the next five years, in a series of apartments in Los Angeles and then Houston. It never occurred to me to seek out a roommate until I was in college and financial considerations were more important.

In the summer of 1974, I moved into a house with Mark, a friend I had met through one of my buddies from VietNam. Mark was a gregarious, handsome young man a few years younger than I, with an infectiously bright personality. We got along great, for the most part, sharing similar likes and dislikes, so I thought we would do well as roommates. That misconception was due in no small part to my inexperience in living with others. Mark was probably as disenchanted as I was, after our differences began to manifest themselves.

I’ve always been the type to prefer to take care of things at the time of their occurrence, rather than stacking them up, to be dealt with later. Mark wanted to live the life of a slob, with periodic “GI parties” as he would call the occasions when he wanted to clean. Having spent three years in the Army, I had NO desire to EVER again have a “GI party”. I preferred to pick up after myself and clean as I went; Mark, on the other hand, was content to leave dishes, clothes, papers and other detritus laying where they fell or were deposited, until such time as he felt the need for another “party”. One of his favorite tricks was to light a cigarette--another bone of contention between us, as I didn’t smoke--and then leave it standing on the butt, on the coffee table, dining table, counters, wherever he happened to be at the moment. Very much a “man of the moment”, he frequently lit a cigarette, took several puffs from it, then stood it and left it where it was, the result being a piles of ash around standing butts, here, there and, at times, everywhere. It did no good to say anything, he would act contrite and, five minutes later, do it again!

Mark never bought any beer, either. It wasn?t that he didn?t drink it, he did! He just did not buy it. His reasoning was simple: he didn?t drink much. This was true, in it?s way, he would only drink a few sips, then leave the bottle laying where he had sat it down, usually next to one of his cigarettes, and go off to bed. This was due in part to the fact that he was working at the emergency room, he was a nurse, on the swing shift, and would get home late, around 11:00 p.m. He had classes early in the morning, so he wouldn?t stay up very long after arriving home in the evening?just long enough to open a beer, light a cigarette, have a few sips, several puffs and then, off to bed! Leaving behind, of course, a bottle, the cap, the cigarette and it?s ash, a match sometimes, a unique memorial to his having been there those few moments. Then the next morning, after he had slept to the last possible minute, he was out the door in a flash, not to be seen again until that evening, same time, same routine, same detritus. After several days of this, the house was cluttered with these remains; if I wanted to have company, I would have to clear away the debris. Needless to say, this did not promote amicable relations between us.

Matters weren?t helped by Mark?s social life. He was attractive, successful and outgoing, all qualities well-regarded by the opposite sex. Thus, there was a steady stream of young ladies accompanying him home, after work, resulting in TWO bottles of beer opened, but not drunk, and TWO cigarettes left standing to burn away to ash. This in itself was aggravating, leading as it did to double the trash left laying around, although Mark would often get home minutes before his lady friend of the evening, and scurry around, removing the evidence of any other woman, a dubious benefit to me in at least removing some of the mess.

However, this also lead to messes of another sort, as these young women inevitably learned of each other, with predictable and distressing results. I was put in the awkward position of having to explain to one woman or another, that this was the way Mark was, and I didn?t expect things to change any time soon. Too often I ended up holding someone whose heart was broken, providing a shoulder for tears shed for the wrong person.

I began to dislike Mark, an otherwise likeable guy. He was one of those men who could go to a party and every woman in the room would crowd around, jockeying for position. I had seen him make a date with one woman, while asking another for her phone number, with neither woman evidencing any rancor at this obvious duplicity. In another man, daggers would have been flying, fingernails scratching for eyes, hackles raised and fur flying. There are women who have this same magnetic attraction, but we are far more accustomed to seeing men cluster around a beautiful and sexy woman, than to see women gathered around a man.

The downside to this was the inevitable hurt feelings of those who only passed through his orbit. Being inside the orbit was no picnic either, as I was on the receiving end of much of the anger that should have been directed at Mark. This imbalance came to a head one night, when I consoled a distraught young woman, a pretty redhead whom I had liked and thought maybe would cause Mark to change his ways. He had been seeing her for several weeks, forsaking almost all others. For Mark, that was remarkable in itself! However, he reverted to type, and started avoiding her, leading her to our doorstep one night, in search of closure, if nothing else. After listening to her tale of woe, really the same story I had already heard a dozen times, I told her, ?That?s Mark!? She agreed he was a skunk and declared she would never give him another thought, and left. Mark came home a short while later, with another woman, but I was thoroughly disgusted with him, and had retired to my room with the music turned up loud to better ignore him and his shenanigans. Soon, I fell into unsuspecting sleep.

I woke up, with a heavy weight on top of me, Mark straddling my chest and pummeling my side, yelling at me about betraying him and telling stories about him! He was livid because ?Red? had returned, after the other woman had left, and confronted him, telling him I had told her everything about his evil ways! I admitted I had comforted her, told him how completely sick of having to do that I was, and told him I would be moving out at the end of the month. He went back to bed, with ?Red? as it turned out, and things were never the same between us. I was not interested in having a roommate again, although I reconsidered that idea, a year and a half later. At that moment, though, I was not interested in ?sharing? any more, having gotten more than I bargained for and not enjoying my largess at all.