The thirtieth reunion is supposed to be the big one. at least I've gotten it into my head that it is.  I suppose that's because my father went to his thirtieth back in 1979.  He wouldn't have gone unless he thought there were some importance attached to it. 

Dad had few kind words for his high-school days, and why should he?  He grew up in the Imperial Valley,  downwind of the Salton Sea where temperatures routinely top 110 degrees and surrounded by people without the good sense to move somewhere else.  Perhaps he considered the experience as a rite of passage and a time to reflect.  At the very least, he was amused to see the senior voted "Most Likely to Succeed" pumping gas at a local filling station.

Self-assessment is a cinch when someone else takes the brunt of life's little ironies.

I, on the other hand, did not spend my high-school years in such a hell on earth.  I spent them in Santa Barbara, which can only be considered hell in a "Hotel California" sort of way.  With beautiful beaches, a near-perfect climate, and a multitude of idle rich living in the hills surrounding the town, it was almost a forgone conclusion that Santa Barbara would have a soap opera named after it.

So in some small way, those of us who grew up there learned to think of ourselves as better than everyone else.  Don't blame us though.  It isn't our fault.  It's yours.  If more of you were better at hiding your envy when I mentioned my hometown, I might have learned to temper my arrogance.  It's not like where you grew up is that awful.  Where was that again?  Oxnard?  I suppose that isn't such a bad place, not that anyone would ever name a soap opera after it or anything.  Let's be serious.

Most of my friends haven't attended any of their reunions and never plan to.  I can understand their reasoning.  They have no desire to relive a period of their live when jocks, cheerleaders, and other subhumans ruled their world.  However, it could have been a lot worse.  If you clump a bunch of people together who are full of herd instinct and insecurity, then add hormones to the mix, some cliquishness and dysfunction are par for the course.  We should consider ourselves lucky our situations didn't deteriorate into Lord of the Flies with erections.

Also, no one takes the old social strata seriously anymore, not even the once popular kids.  The real world, even what passes for it in Santa Barbara, has thrown icewater of our preconceptions of society and for the most part, people have adjusted accordingly.  I have actually experienced nominees for homecoming queen treat me as an equal, and if I was feeling charitable, I have returned the courtesy.

I've attended all my reunions that end with a zero.  The tenth came when I was still young enough to want to impress my old classmates.  I was more or less a non-entity in high school.  I was in a bunch of school plays where I was cast in small supporting roles and wrote fluff pieces for the school newspaper during my senior year.

So in 1990, I showed up in a nice suit and spoke about my fledgling career as a computer programmer with sky's-the-limit enthusiasm.  I made it a point to only get moderately drunk.  Sure there were people who were more successful than me but that didn't matter.  I was had turned out OK.  I was somebody, sort of.

I reappeared after another decade had passed.  During that period, I had done a fair amount of traveling and showed up with my then wife I had met in Amsterdam in 1993.  I was also on the verge of becoming filthy rich, at least I thought so at the time.  I was working for a dot com and although the boom was beginning to falter, I shrugged it off as a minor hiccup in an era of unparalleled prosperity.

I felt I didn't need to impress anybody and it showed.  Those who remembered me as a nice enough if somewhat nerdy kid were now faced with a fat drunken slob who hadn't had a haircut in over a year and said "fuck" far more often than was absolutely necessary.  Looking back, it's amazing what lengths I was willing to go to show that I had nothing to prove.

In the next couple of years, I lost my wife, my job, and what little direction I had in life.  I still had a penchant for debauchery and threw myself into it with a single-mindedness I have never exhibited for any pursuit before or since.  After years of this nonsense, I settled into my current existence as a functional boozehound.  I wouldn't consider myself a success story but I manage to hold a job and my episodes of being a public embarrassment are kept to a minimum.

So it was with this modest sense of accomplishment that i showed up for my thirtieth reunion.  My girlfriend Paula came with me, which was a definite plus.  I saw my classmates as I'm sure they saw me, youth and potential bitch slapped by Father Time, and I needed a co-conspirator in my corner with whom I could talk smack.  Also, Paula has genuine social skills.  She is good at carrying on a conversation on some pleasant but mundane topic at length, a talent that has eluded me.   When cornered by good and decent people, my fight-or-flight instinct kicks in and I'll try to back them off by telling them how I found Jesus after dropping eight hits of acid and microwaving my cat.

With Paula pinch-hitting for me, I was allowed to sit back and take in my surroundings.  Or better still, get up and move among these people with whom I had little in common except for some distant memories and a grim slide into middle age.   We wore nametags with our senior pictures on them to help people recognize us.  Even with that hint hanging from my lapel, I had to remove my glasses while the person squinted at me, scratched his or her head, and ultimately took my word for it. 

Music I never liked played on a sound system at adult-friendly volume while a slideshow of images of "Mork and Mindy" and other cultural icons of our youth were projected on a screen above the dance floor.  People ate, drank, danced, and chatted with each other.  Most seemed to be having a good time.  We may not have happy to have gotten older but we were plenty happy to still be alive.

I headed off to the bathroom and snapped a photo of myself in the mirror.  The paunchy nearsighted me standing in front of the toilet stall didn't look much like the fresh-faced kid on my lapel.  I was OK with that.  I didn't think I would be but I was.

I left the bathroom to go find Paula and let the evening wind down.

"You let a killer go free and I bet you laughed when you watched him kill Cindy's sister," Brock said.

"I didn't laugh," I said, which was true.  I probably should have also said that I didn't see her get killed.  She was already dead.  Maybe he found her that way.

"I bet you laughed a lot.  I always knew you were a little punk and now you've gone too far.  You've had it.  Just wait until after school."

"I have to go straight home after school," I said.

"You're not even going to make it home, punk.  Count on it."

I expected Brock to slug me right then and there but he just walked away.  He left me alone during lunch and recess periods as well.  Whatever he had in store for me was going to wait until there were no teachers around to stop him.

The bell rang at the end of the day.  Brock, who sat in the back of the class, was the first out the door.  I left the same time as most of the students so I would be surrounded by as many kids as possible on the way out.  Outside the school, people started to disperse.  I decided to change from the usual path I took home.  I cut over several blocks from the way I normally went and doubled back a few times, always looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn't being followed.

It took almost an hour extra to get to the street I lived on but I felt it was worth it.  I thought I was home free until Brock stepped out from behind a hedge.  He was holding the Louisville Slugger his dad had bought him when he started playing Little League.

"You've had it, punk," he said.

He swung the bat, hitting me with a glancing blow to the shoulder that almost knocked me down.  It hurt like a lot where I'd been hit but I was too scared to stick around and cry.  As I turned around and ran, he was yelling about how the next swing was going to be aimed at my head.

I could hear Brock's feet pounding the sidewalk behind me.  He was a faster runner than I was and I was sure I'd never make it home before his bat smashed in the side of my skull.  Then the sound of Brock's footsteps stopped.  There was a muffled cry and then silence.

I turned around and saw the man from yesterday.  He had grabbed Brock from behind and looked like he had no intention of letting him go.  Brock's eyes were opened wide and tears ran out from the corners.  He probably wanted to scream but there was no chance of that with the man's huge hand covering his mouth.

"Go home," the man said.  "I'll take it from here."

I turned and ran the rest of the way home.  When I got there. my mother was demanding to know what had taken me so long.  I went upstairs to my room as she threatened to ground me until I reached voting age.

The next day, I was back at the police station.  Lieutenant Simpkins sat me down and put a photograph on the table in front of me.  It was Brock Dixon.  He was dead.  He had been set on fire and had almost his entire baseball bat shoved up his butt.  I couldn't tell which had happened first.  He demanded answers.  I shrugged.  There was another lineup, another meeting with the sketch artist (I described Brock's dad this time), and I was sent home. 

This happened couple of more times, whenever a burned body was found on the street, which went on for about a year before it stopped for good.  I didn't mind because I was grounded and had nothing better to do.  At some point, Lieutenant Simpkins had started calling me "Little Mister Know-Nothing" but he was wrong.  I knew enough not to tell on the only real friend I'd ever had.

We looked northward up the Strip and toward downtown.  The outer edges of what we could see were low-lying homes and businesses, indiscernible from anywhere else in the USA.  The gaudy glory straight in front of us, however, could be nowhere other than Las Vegas.

"I'm glad we came," I said to Paula.  "Thanks for suggesting this place.  Sorry I got all weirded out about being underdressed."

"You're funny," she said.  "You're such a rulebreaker but get squeamish and conformist about the oddest things."

Indeed, it was strange for me to be hesitant about showing up in a swanky joint wearing shorts.  Even after I relented and agreed to come, I was still nervous enough to hide my bare legs under the table when the waitress came by with our drinks.

I like my transgressions to be on my own terms, carefully crafted and if acted out, rehearsed beforehand in front of the mirror.  Most of the time though, I prefer to sit safely behind my keyboard, fighting the power by updating my Facebook status with nonsense like:

"David Jennings suggests using Protein Plus Body Wash because it energizes and moisturizes the skin like thousands of nanorapists penetrating your every pore."

I'm such a rebel.

The view from the cocktail lounge was impressive and in some small way, telling.  Directly in front of us was the Luxor.  Half the "x" in its name on the obelisk in front of the pyramid was burned out.  For a town that prides itself so much on image, leaving this blemish unattended hints that there might be problem with cash flow. 

News reports in past years had begun to say what was once considered unthinkable, that Las Vegas was losing money.  Around the same time the Luxor opened its doors in the 90s, some people got it into their heads that Sin City needed a makeover as a family-friendly destination.  As ideas go, this one ranks up there with New Coke and has been just as resolutely abandoned. 

These days, hot young blackjack dealers with plunging necklines work the tables nearest the doors of downtown casinos along Fremont Street.  Vaguely criminal-looking young men on the strip hand out fliers for gentlemen's clubs and escort services.  With "Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" as the quasi-official motto, whoring is practically mandatory.  The town had returned to its roots and renewed prosperity would surely follow.

Perhaps the Luxor's lighting glitch was evidence that the town had a ways to go before regaining its former glory.  Then again, maybe it burned out five minutes ago and I didn't know what I was talking about.  I sipped my martini, used my forearm to cover my knees, and silently congratulated myself for my powers of observation.

We paid our bill, took the elevator down to street level, and walked to the bus stop on the other side of the Strip opposite Mandalay Bay.  The sun was down but it was still above eighty degrees. It was a little cooler than it had been and any drop in temperature was welcome.

We were tired and our feet hurt from wandering around all afternoon.  More than just tired, we were fed up.  It's hard to say which was worse, the constant human traffic jams from clumsy drunks' difficulty navigating escalators and revolving doors, or the perfumed air wafting through every casino. 

Actually for Paula, who has allergies and a decent sense of smell, it was no contest.  The perfume was far worse.  I guess they needed to mask the stench of serious gamblers who have been up for days, eschewing basic hygiene and restroom breaks for festering armpits and a pair of depends.

I never got the gambling thing.  I prefer a vice where there is a guaranteed payoff, like drinking.

The bus arrived and we got in.  Soon after we took our seats, Paula leaned her head against the window and fell asleep.

It was a strange sort of public transit, both space age and Orwellian.  The driver was separated from the passenger compartment by a one-way glass panel that gave you the feeling the vehicle might be operating by remote control.  I counted no fewer than six plastic half domes housing security cameras along the ceiling of the bus.  In the Vegas of the 21st century, they would brook no "Fear and Loathing" shenanigans.

So be it.  As I said before, I'm no gambler.  If I'm going to misbehave, I want some reasonable assurance I can get away with it and on this bus, the odds were way too long.

I therefore decided to play it safe and content myself with committing thought crimes of hijinks that would never be.  I imagined what fun it would be to toss metallic sodium into the canals at the Venetian to make the water go kablooey.  Or better yet, leap up on the stage at the Flamingo and flash my junk at Marie Osmond as some sort of bizarre payback for her making me think she was cute on the "Donnie and Marie Show" when I was 14 years old.

Believe it or not, it was completely by accident when I ended up exposing myself to a group of British tourists who were getting on the bus.

It was an innocent wardrobe malfunction.  My shorts had ridden up considerably on that bus seat and when I went to cross my legs, my scrotum flopped out into plain view.  I didn't notice this until I looked down.

After frantically tucking my nads back in, I looked around at the Brits, hoping none of them had gotten an eyeful of my indiscretion.  There were no horrified stares in my direction, which was nice but didn't prove anything.  For the next mile or so until they got off the bus, I listened intently to their conversation trying to see if there was any reference, however veiled, to my naughty bits.  The results of that were inconclusive.  I guess I'll never know.

Someone would know however.  This isn't like the Muni buses back home where passengers can (and do) jack off to their heart's content without any fear from the law.  Somehow I knew that the security cameras on this vehicle were in perfect working order and someone would be watching.  

While  Paula peacefully slept and the bus crossed the no-man's land of dark shuttered storefronts between the Strip and downtown, I let my paranoia wash over me.  I thought about digitized images of my face and scrotum being filed into a potential-predator watchlist.  Better safe than sorry.  I should just be grateful no kids were on the bus.  If some little girl got on and then  pointed between my legs and screamed, that would be the end of my life as I know it.  The doors on the bus would lock.  We would be enveloped in a cloud of sleeping gas and I would wake up in a windowless jail cell.  Everyone else would awaken safely in their hotel rooms with free tickets to see Cher to compensate them for any inconvenience.

The bus pulled up at our stop and Paula and I got off. She was rubbing her eyes, still only half awake.  At some point, I would tell her about my little wardrobe malfunction and we would have a good laugh over it, but now was not the time. I just wasn't in the mood.

It was a few minutes before midnight on the eve of Memorial Day.  Those who had fought and died for their country were being honored, Vegas style.  High up on the enclosure covering Fremont Street, the names of the fallen scrolled by while the grim tally of the total number climbed into the tens of thousands with no end in sight.  Some people on the street stared up silently, paying respect to those who had made the ultimate sacrifice.  Most people continued to stumble around, drunk as ever.

I thought about what would happen, either by human error or act of terrorism, if they got plugged into the wrong database.  Instead of war dead, the names on a sex-offender registry were fed into the works.  I'd look up and wince at the sight of  "Dave 'Nutsack' Jennings" up there among them for all the world to see.  I convinced myself that such a thing could never happen.  The honor of a sacred American holiday would remain intact, and so would mine.

That is not to say there were no excesses.  I just showed some moderation in them, that's all. 

On Friday after work, I had a pint of Trumer Pils at the Argus before heading over to Oakland on BART.  When I met up with Paula, she was hobnobbing with hipsters at 23rd and Telegraph and taking photos of the local art scene.  I have a lot of anomosity toward people who are hipper and cooler than myself, which is to say pretty much everybody.  I spent the next hour or so in a cafe with a coffee and a book of Etgar Keret stories.  When Paula was done taking pictures, we went over to the Heart and Dagger where I proceeded to down two PBR tall boys and a shot of something that had a color not occurring in nature.

That may sound like a lot of alcohol to some but compared to some Friday nights, I was a regular Carrie Nation.

Saturday was about the same, though I got a later start.  There was a software release at work which required, among other things, that I phone into a conference call and not slur my words.  At about nine, I was cut loose and celebrated my bit of freedom by heading down to the Argus for a drink.

The plan was to keep it at two whiskeys because if I managed to show that level of restraint, I am therefore not an alcoholic and paradoxically allowed to drink as much as I want.  I would have managed to pull that off, at least I think I would, if it weren't for the execrable film showing on the TV above the bar.  The movie was "Virgin High," released in 1991, and the acting and dialogue were surpassed in their awfulness only by the hairdos I I never see another John Oatesque perm, it will be too soon.

I pulled out my iPhone and did an imdb lookup of the flick to see if there was any reason why I should not cut my losses and flee the bar right then and there.  And there he was, given second billing.  Burt Ward, who played Robin in the old Batman series from the sixties.  I don't remember him in a lot of roles after that show, probably because he was too short to be cast as an action hero and too bad an actor to be cast as anything else.  I couldn't leave.  I needed to see his valiant effort to jumpstart his career in the early nineties. 

He sucked.  I was on my fourth Jameson's when I realized that I was not a Burt Ward completist and did something considered unthinkable in some quarters.  I left the bar with half a drink undrunk.

Sunday just evaporated.  I had no hangover but no motivation to do much with the day either.  I spent most of it playing a computer game where where I was the builder of an empire.  I entertained myself by starting unjust wars and naming cities after various sexual atrocities.  By late afternoon, I regretted not getting out of the house but there was one thing I learned from the experience.  If I ever get the chance to rule the world, I probably won't do much to benefit humanity but atlases will be a lot more fun to look at.

A good wish would be an end to cancer.  Everyone who had it would be cured and no one would ever get it again.  That would not only lay to rest any doubts about my character but would be a wonderful thing for humanity.  I decided that if I ever got granted a second wish, this one would definitely be shortlisted.

Ultimately, I decided I would wish for every garden gnome on the planet to come to life.  Think of how much fun our boring world would be then.  Granted, it wouldn't make much difference in gnomeless places like Somalia but in Germany or the Netherlands, people would definitely take notice and I'd be the talk of the town.

The downside of all this is that word would get out that I could have put an end to cancer and didn't.  All those people who lost parents, spouses, and bald little leukemia children would be too consumed by grief to remember that this was my wish and not theirs.  They'd call be all kinds of names, including "murderer," and ask me how I can look in the mirror or sleep at night.  I wouldn't let them get me down though.  It's kind of hard to have a low opinion of yourself when there are countless thousands of living breathing garden gnomes who revere you as a god.

It's an odd reunion hanging out with those who shared a broken dream.  A lot of people became millionaires back in those heady times.  We didn't.  It was a disappointment but not a fatal blow.  We've all moved on but still meet up from time to time because there was more than just greed we shared.  We actually liked each other.

All in all, it was a pleasant evening and I managed to show some moderation in my drinking, which was good.  I'm crazier than my old colleagues and although they're admirably tolerant of my conversation topics, it's good to keep some inhibitions intact so I can rein myself in.  There was also the matter of some work that needed doing when I got home, so I had to have my wits about me.

I used to work late in the hope that it would one day make me rich.  Now I just do it to pay the rent.

We walked to Paula's car and took Mission Street all the way back to my neighborhood.  Towers of glass and steel gave way to smaller brick buildings containing residential hotels, pawn shops, and people sleeping in doorways.  When we stopped at the light at 6th and Mission, I heard the click of Paula locking all the doors.

We passed under 101 and into the Mission district. Along both sides of the street were taquerias, bars, discount retail outlets.  Hipsters and gang bangers were everywhere.  I was home.

I once thought I would be living somewhere else by now.  At one point, Amsterdam was the most likely place.  After the divorce, that wasn't going to happen but I thought there would be some change of scenery.  At least I got my passport renewed recently.  That has to count for something.

I did my work, ate some Chinese food with Paula, and watched some South Park before turning in.  That night, I dreamed I was in some hotel in Bulgaria.  I've never actually been to that country but the place just kind of felt like it.  I looked out the window and saw a plaza where there was an old building, a clock tower, and a parked car.

"Is this Sofia?" I asked.  That's the only Bulgarian city I know of so it seemed like a fair question.

"Why yes, it is.  You should check it out," came an answer from no one in particular.

I went outside to take a few pictures with my iPhone.  Statuary came to life all around me and started killing everything in their path.  I was pursued by an animated stone sea lion.  I took refuge in a bed on stilts, to high for it to reach.

Then I woke up.  It was about 3 am and Paula was fast asleep.  I went into another room and made sure I didn't screw up any of the work I did earlier.  I was relieved to see that everything was running fine.  There would be no complaints about me tomorrow morning, at least none about this.

I decided to ignore him as is the case with most unattractive people.  I turned away and breathed through my mouth.  Unfortunately, he wanted to talk to me.

He pointed at bourbon and soda and asked, "Do you think five dollars is a bit much for this?"

For some near-well swill like Jim Beam, the price seemed about right.  San Francisco's is not a cheap town.  Even if it did sound like highway robbery, I wasn't going to say so.  To do that would be cast aspersions on the character of both my bartender and my local.  Sorry Gramps, that's not how I roll.

"Five bucks sounds reasonable," I said.

He harrumphed and went on to tell me how he got thrown out of the 3300 Club.  It was poetry night and from what I gathered, the old man was unconcerned for people's feelings when he told them exactly what he thought of their verse.  Whether this was done by giving a scathing critique at the end of a poem's recital or cupping his hand on one side of his mouth and yelling "Horseshit!" in the middle of it, I cannot say.

There are reasons I steer clear of poetry gatherings.  Most of them are filled with people who put ideology and ego above talent and craft.  And to be honest, most poems don't float my boat.  Worst of all is that they mostly happen in coffee houses.  That means no liquor license.  That means you have do endure people's drivel sober.

For the 3300 Club, this is not the case.  It is a full-on bar so when you're forced to listen to some pear-shaped slattern hold back tears and bear her soul while reciting her poem "The Molested Snowflake," you can at least do so in the comfort of a boozy haze.

That sounds like a fair arrangement to most but evidently not for the old man sitting next to me.  He probably figures that at his age, he is no longer obligated to put up with people's shit.

And then it hit me.  Go forward thirty some-odd years and if I'm not dead, I'm going to wind up just like him.  I like to think I'll turn into a quirky and amusing old geezer like George Burns but I'll probably end up bitter alone, having either outlived or alienated anyone who ever cared about me.

The old man ordered a mint julep then complained that it should only cost three dollars during happy hour.  The bartender listened politely but didn't budge on price.  I spotted a friend down at the end of the bar and moved down to talk to him.  I didn't want to look at the old man anymore and don't have to, at least not until he's staring back at me in the mirror.