This time I shall detail my experiences in 1998, of moving to Lexington for the first time and living with Darron.
I had been working at a local bank branch in my hometown, and although I only made $8 an hour, I had no expenses since I lived with Granny Mabel, so I was able to save up a nice chunk of cash. With this money, I decided to move to Lexington and go to the University of Kentucky. (I’ll talk more later about UK.) It just so happened that Darron wanted to move up there with me and do the same thing, so we decided to be room-mates. I remember I was a bit worried that the apartment complex wouldn’t accept me because I had no credit, so I offered to pay six month’s rent in advance. That was over $3,000. They were more than happy to accept it.
I told Darron that my Dad had paid for our rent, figuring that he would be more likely to pay Dad back on time than me. This ended up as a catastrophic failure, since we were both out of work early on he frequently delayed or missed payments. I started to badger him, claiming that Dad was growing impatient for his money, until he grew suspicious as to why I cared so much, and began to get rather angry with Dad. I decided it wasn’t fair for Darron to hate Dad when I was the one who badgered him about the money, so I eventually admitted to Darron what I had done. He always paid on time after that. Obviously I should have just told him I put the money up from the beginning.
Anyway, the number one thing about Lexington that I remember was, of course, playing an excellent videogame. The game this time was Xenogears, which had just come out, and I purchased a brand new 32” Sony Trinitron television for it. I used a Student Credit Card that I got with very good terms, and they gave me six months “same as cash” at Best Buy. I planned to pay it off before that time expired. As it turned out, I never paid off that television at all. I still have it, sitting next to my computer desk here in my room. It was one of the best televisions available at the time, for its size anyway.
With this television I purchased a copy of Xenogears and began playing it religiously, when Darron wasn’t monopolizing the television that is. He was quite a demanding and belligerent fellow, and he would get angry at me when I asked to use my own fucking television, if he was in the middle of watching something on it. As a result, I eventually stopped asking him and took up playing the game late at night, when he was in bed. I remember being amazed by the intricate plot of Xenogears, especially the twists, and I began to care for the characters and get really involved in the game. I had never been exposed to the anime Evangelion, which Xenogears borrows heavily from (despite the writers’ insistence to the contrary), so every new event was stunningly unique to me. It was a great time. I have gone back and tried to play the game again, but found the text too slow and the controls rather clunky, so I didn’t enjoy it with the advantages I have been exposed to in more recent games.
The experience was marred, however, by the fact that Darron had acquired another serious girlfriend right before we moved. This was his second, after Carrie, and I had a strong feeling that this would be “the one” for him. Her name was Karen, and she hated my fucking guts.
I think the main reason was the typical one. I was Darron’s closest friend, and thus a competitor for his attention. But, I have to admit, I had many qualities which would cause most women to recoil from me. I was sloppy. Unkempt. Growing fat. I created large messes and wouldn’t clean the apartment or the bathroom. And one thing that really offended Karen – I made no secret of my preferences for adult entertainment. She was very headstrong and independent. So naturally this type of content was anathema to her.
I never picked up on her loathing for me, though. I assumed everything was fine. But later, Ned casually mentioned in a conversation how much Karen sat around bad-mouthing me. He explained that she actually detested me. I was completely shocked, and after that I developed a bit of scorn for Karen as well. I’m not entirely sure that it was my fault, though, because Karen always seemed like a bit of a gossip to me anyway, kinda like I was.
On top of this, Darron was a very difficult individual to spend a lot of time around. He is aggressive, outgoing, and has quite the temper. He would get angry at me over the smallest things. I remember one time he started shouting me down with obscenities because I left a couple of Kraft Cheese Wrappers on an End Table. (This despite the fact that the kitchen table was piled up with bills and mail and other correspondence, to where you couldn’t even see the surface.) Another time, when I expressed my anger at living with his girlfriend, he got up in my face and bit my nose.
Another thing I remember is that one day, Darron found a little ferret outside, by a dumpster or something. We took it in and gave it a home, putting ads in the paper for a “lost ferret” in the hope that somebody would claim it. Darron named it “Roxy” and developed quite an affinity for it. Let me tell you, though, ferrets fucking stink. We tried to give it a bath since it was filthy, but that just made it stink all the more. I admit it was cute, but still didn’t care much for it. Darron got tired of it after awhile, too. Finally somebody came to claim it … I think it was somebody besides the original owner who had a lot of other ferrets, but it might have been the original owner, I can’t quite remember.
About six months in to our time together, Darron and I got jobs as customer support for {The Company}, which I discussed in a previous entry. It was a really kickass job, especially after I got hired on by Operations Support. We renewed the lease for six months, but after the end of the second six, Darron came to me hesitantly and explained that our lease was almost up, and he thought it was a good idea if we parted ways. I completely understood why he wanted to do that and agreed without any resentment. Al had been actively courting me to be his room-mate for awhile, so after moving out from Darron, he and I became room-mates. He was probably the most agreeable room-mate I ever had, and I will detail that time in a later entry.