Unfinished Business

Esther pt 3 (Paul Is Dead)

College years were the worst.

I regretted them as soon as they started, and by the time they were over it felt as though I'd lost my whole life to them, instead of just four years.

I saw the decade turn, so many things that changed.

The summer of 1957 I left Hamburg for Ontario, and I grew to love the city as much as to hate the Journalism and Public Relations College. And the cold. The cold was brutal too.

I went in with no clear idea of anything. All I knew was that I liked to take pictures and write stories. I should've been a goddamned writer, an artist, should've followed Klaus and Astrid's plan of saving up for a trip to Paris.

But I was scared, so goddamned scared. I was horrified of a dead end future. I wanted stability, wanted safety, wanted routine. By God, how I regret that choice.

To be truly honest, I stayed in college for two simple reasons. Alda Hill and Billy Shears were their names.

Sweet Alda was my best friend, in retrospect my first love too, but I didn't figure that out until years later. Once again, too damn scared.

Billy nilly, my other best friend, my only company when Alda dear dropped out and went hitchhiking through Europe.

The three of us were odd ones out at College. The weird artsy kids, almost beatniks, except we were too scared.

Not really. *I* was too scared. Alda was above it all, could've smoked weed and recited poetry in a puffy petticoat. Billy openly wore his turtlenecks and odd jewelry and played any instrument that fell on his hands.

Meanwhile, I stayed home all weekend and ratted my hair and tightened my girdle. Being friends with the exis taught me nothing.

Summer of 1960, I went back home for vacation. My life changed when I heard five liverpudlian teddies play and sing the hits of the moment.

Coming from America they weren't as much a big deal to me as they were to the exis. But I did end up close and personal with a young Mr Harrison who got me upside down for a moment.

To think he almost convinced me I was straight...

The little rendevouz we had ended when they all got deported back to England, I went back to college, and almost managed to forget about them in the middle of the catastrophe that hit me that year.

Alda left and, despite her warning us beforehand and the goodbye party we hosted for her, it still felt like she was taking my heart with her.

I remember crying a whole night, my entire bed soaked with tears, almost drowning in them.

The next morning, Billy showed up and simply refused to leave.

My small apartment wasn't nearly big enough for the two of us, but he didn't seemed to care much for that.

For the rest of my College career, he kept me alive, and for that I was immensely thankful.

We got real close and personal with each other that whole year, got to know each others inside out.

Sometimes we'd drink or smoke, but mostly we just talked. We talked and talked and learnt so much we each could've written a book about the other.

William Campbell was his real name, and never had he ever left Ontario. He loved music, played brilliantly almost every instrument you gave him, was ambidextrous, and just generally wanted people to listen to him, to look at him, to know he existed. He wanted to be big and famous more than anything else in the world, but his parents denied him an arts career, wishing he'd become a police officer instead. So he tried, and failed, probably due to his continuous drug use. Journalism was a compromise on both parts, but just seemed to make them all miserable.