With a sharp knock at the door, Clem looked up from his coffee and notes. What time was it? Too early for the usual drop-by friend traffic but then again, when was that? Afternoons? Evenings? This was a morning visitor, maybe the Pink Lady, his next-door neighbor who wore pink house robes to sweep the lawn with the broom. Clem hadn't exchanged more than a few pleasantries with any of the local citizenry in the five years he had lived in the house. They certainly never came knocking. Grasping the coffee mug, he shuffled to the door in his fuzzy slippers, bedecked in a dandy robe of some luscious satin material. He unbolted the front entrance and opened it, revealing Scott Laine.

"Dude."

"Hey, Clem, 'ya busy?"

"Not at all. Just studying a bit. Come on in," he opened the screen door, formalizing the invitation. Scott peeked in quickly before walking in, lugging a brown suitcase. Clem eyed it.

"Hey, Scott, is that your usual briefcase you haul around or is that a jumbo model?" Scott always walked around town since he had no car and no friends with cars. He bussed and walked, the leper's method of transit in this town of superhighways and well-spaced convenience stores. As a result, he always lugged an uncomfortably large bag through the searing desert, loaded with marijuana, paraphernalia and cassette tapes.

"Hey, that's a good eye you got, a real good eye, Clem," Scott replied brightly, "This is a larger briefcase than I usually carry. Hey! You want to smoke some hash?"

Clem really didn't know Scott very well and sometimes he didn't even like him. Scott sensed this so he was always greasing the palms of those who befriended him with libations. He invariably had killer dope with him at all times so Clem was willing to tolerate a breezy afternoon (or morning) passing the pipe. Clem led Scott to the dusty modular couch unit in the corner. In front of it lay a scarred coffee table piled high with brimming ashtrays and coffee cups with gray debris inside. Scott sniffed around.

"What's that smell?" he asked.

"What smell? I don't smell anything."

"Smells kind of like cat piss but I'm not so sure now."

Clem didn't say anything, the guilty cat hadn't lived there in years. Why didn't that odor ever go away? Why couldn't he ever smell it?

"Got any interesting music, Scott? What's in your bag today?" Clem sat down with a plop into the couch.

"What are you interested in? I've got the latest '1919' and a dub remix of that 'Bone Orchard' EP." Scott stepped carefully around a practice guitar amp with a Fender leaning against it. He rummaged through the bag, retrieving a pipe and a ziploc sack with what looked like a few grams of black hash. A quarter ounce maybe.

"Who is 'Bone Orchard?' Where are they from?" Clem asked distractedly. Currently the stereo was playing 'The Associations Greatest Hits.' He reached up and turned the volume down a notch. Scott quickly found the Bone Orchard tape and hurriedly passed it to Clem who likewise popped it into the tape deck.

A thick rush of dub reggae filled the room accompanied by the high end hiss of too many analog tape generations. "Don't you have Dolby?" Scott pleaded. Clem checked to see that it was indeed on. Scott may have pretended at being a drug connoisseur but his absolute wholly founded passion on this earth rested in the taping and trading of cassette tapes. He was a veritable musical library of strange, unknown music, especially the gloomy British stuff that seemed to pulsate across the flickering MTV screen. His was a world of import records and rare tapes. With an air of complete detachment he would describe the music, it's origin, the band gossip and any relevant histories or connections in the band members' resumes. He never seemed completely excited about the music but he certainly enjoyed collecting it and trading it.

Clem examined the cassette cover with its minutely detailed spidery handwriting. Enormous amounts of textual information had been inscribed on the outside and inside of the tape card in a psychedelic array of felt-tip markers. Clem never could follow the latest trends, he always had to watch them come and go and try to enjoy their nostalgia as they re-appeared in his memory.

Scott wasn't alone in this tape duplicating fantasy world. He had two friends that he hung around with, Scott and Emory. What a trio: Scott and Scott and Emory. That would drive Clem to change his name if he had to hang out with someone sharing the same moniker. Clem knew them as Scott Laine and Scott Dick, the latter being a particularly offensive cretin of a person. Scott and Scott were identical both in name and in their shared drugs and aggressive music listening. Scott Dick knew how to insult everyone, little by little. Clem's old roommates had banished Scott Dick from the house one night. He would still come by but would hang outside and talk to people through the screen kitchen window. One night he came over to sell some records to Clem during dinner. Clem watched him walk up to the kitchen window with a rare copy of 'Joeboy in Rotterdam'. Clem examined the material closely, agreed and walked out and picked up the records. Leaving Scott Dick standing on the pavement, Clem returned to dinner and a continued through-the-window conversation with Scott Dick about the vinyl quality.

And Emory. Emory was a genuinely nice person, a sweet individual who actually glowed with the love of the music they listened to and could speak ecstatically for hours about the experiences when he first heard a certain song and what feelings he had for that actual moment. Emory always had dope and he seemed capable of holding a job and living alone (not with his mother). But Emory had a rather dwarfish appearance. His arms were too short, all of his shirts and coats swallowed his arms past the fingertips. His head and hands were large in a cartoony way. When Clem was first introduced to Emory it was while smoking some dynamite weed mixed with Quaalude. No one mentioned the words 'deformity' or 'dwarfish' while blaring deathrock floated over the speakers. Clem was losing all spatial judgment and couldn't tell whether the trick with the foreshortened arms was just the lights in the room or in his head. And the more he tried to look at Emory's appendages, the more he kept meeting Emory's beaming face and another pipe load of reloaded dope.

They made a fascinatingly gross threesome. And here was Scott getting Clem high going on noon. Scott meant well but he lacked some social skills. They all lacked social skills, even Clem only he was made slightly uncomfortable when he compared his behavior to theirs and saw parallels.

"Coffee, Scott?"

"No thanks, don't drink the stuff. You can get addicted to that, you know." he said matter-of-factly while shaving the hash slivers onto a marble surface of his own. Clem, who was walking into the kitchen to refill his cup nodded resolutely.

"Yup, it's an innocent addiction, though." Clem turned on the stove to reheat the coffee and lit an unfiltered cigarette on the blue flame. The milk was almost out. He whitened his coffee and returned to the living room. Scott was patiently waiting to light up.

"Put that cigarette out."

"I can smoke two things at once." Clem put the burning camel onto an ashtray away from Scott on the upright piano nearby. Two months before, someone had played the piano with a cigarette and set it on its edging above the keys and it burned a nasty little caterpillar into the wood.

Scott gently prodded the hash pipe and gave it a light. He smoked deeply and richly, providing a steady flame to its core. He thrust it to Clem in a strongarm fashion with much force. As Clem put it to his mouth, Scott let out a piercing, hacking cough. It was painful, the kind of cough that brings tears to the eyes, "You O.K., Scott?"

More coughing. Clem put the pipe down but Scott picked it up and examined it. It was spent and could use a refill. Clem thought about his Sociology class that he was supposed to be reading for. Later. Clem popped the tape out of the cassette after stopping it.

"You don't like the music?" Scott asked quickly.

"No, it's O.K., it really is. I just wanted to see what else you have."

"What do you want to hear?"

This routine was familiar. Clem could feel the day slip away. There was too much music in the world and entirely too much music in Scott's briefcase. Especially this one.

"What else is in the bag, dude?"

"Some clothes and stuff. I been kicked out of my apartment."

"Really? Where did you live? Who kicked you out?"

"Over off Louisiana near Coal Street. This crazy guy. Everything was fine, we were living in this apartment and just this morning all of my stuff was out on the patio. It's probably being looked through right now."

"You mean you got kicked out of your apartment, you packed a bag and came here to get me high? While your stuff is being ripped off?" Clem was confused. Weren't they just smoking dope and listening to dub? Clem put the Association record back on.

"Who is this roommate? What are you going to do?"

"I-I don't know, Clem, I was hoping you could help me out."

Uh-oh. "Help you out? Do you want me to go in my van and help you move your stuff? "

"Could you? Jeez, that would be real load off of my mind, all of my tapes are out there." He passed the pipe, " My mother already has some of my stuff, a-and I'm getting another place with Emory but it won't be ready for another two weeks. Do you think I could stay here?" This last request dropping like a lead weight between the two of them.

Clem thought quickly. Move in. Ouch. His roommate Stewart had just moved in and didn't know Scott and the other roommate Carl was moving out. Scott could always have that room. But what kind of roommate could he be? He lit the pipe and inhaled, this time the hash hit hard. Clem lowered his eyes and exhaled slowly.

"I can't say yes right now, I have to talk-"

"Hey, no problem, man, I know you have to do that but can I store my stuff here even if I don't stay? Just for another day or so?" He took the pipe with a nod.

"Sure, for a day or so."

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