We sat on the porch inbibing intoxicants and eroding our livers once sip at a time. We talked and laughed and chained and listened to each other's stories. Sitting there in the brisk Stillwater night filling our lungs with nicotine and our heads with stories. We sang: the three of us. We sang McLean's opus to American rock and couldn't remember the words. Just the feelings of each verse. He was done that night and was flying out in the morning. He had no intentions to sleep and was already planning his breakfast in three hours. I wanted to join him but I was wiped. Exhausted. I couldn't stay up any longer. Tim always told me that you could do anything; that one could survive or endure anything as long as it was for a fixed length of time. As long as you knew that length of time beforehand and had adjusted your mind. It was an endurance game. And we're are capable of anything. And back then I believed him. I knew that I could endure anything, as long as I had a guaranteed time frame. But my mind could only keep up and push my body for so long. It couldn't maintain composure. It weakened and bent and eventually buckled. And I didn't survive or endure. The game had been harder on me than I had accounted for and I hadn't been able to do it. But such things don't matter in the present, unless you're adding up each pebble and grain of your personality. Only when you begin the bean counting do defeats matter. As long as you keep your hand from the till, your amour propre can be pristine architecture. Your esteem constructed with perfect masonry. A year later he returned with new stories. And the three of us again sat out and talked and laughed and filtered carcinogens through our respiratory systems. And again we sang. The three of us. And we still didn't know all of the words. Perhaps it was a metaphor.