Brad

Brad was the first of us to embrace the seasonal Beast. He obviously fancied himself as something of a player, and plunged into the Dude movement with both feet, spending an inordinate amount of time with a spunky Dudette called Sallie. She had a boyfriend back in the states, but they were ‘seeing other people’; almost all of them, in the analysis. It took a while for Brad to charm her, but I was rooting for him in a vaguely disapproving sort of a way.

I inadvertently helped out one night by inviting them both back to FifePark for a nightcap, thereby providing them with an acceptably flimsy pretext to engage in intercourse. There were three of us in Brad’s room, which was undeniably a crowd.

Taking secret pleasure in the thought that it had once been Craig’s meticulously clean surface, I rolled a fat badboy and put my feet up. I outstayed my welcome somewhat by actually wanting to smoke the thing.

Brad took about three tokes and Sallie pretended to pass out, so I took the hint and left. I took my spliff with me. Frank and the randoms were asleep, so I played videogames for a while. Brad and Sallie were definitely, noisily awake for the next few hours.

Dylan and Frank came in to my room and complained, first thing next morning. They were both tired and grumpy. In some way, apparently, Brad’s insatiable penchant for fucking was all my fault.

I’d actually been less disturbed than they had, which is to say that I had managed to fall asleep to the vibrant tune of two horny Yanks pumping, and not that it didn’t deeply upset me in the psychological sense. That they were still at it when I got up in the middle of the night for a pee was the truly disturbing thing.

‘It must’ve been all those cow hormones,’ I said, as Frank stuck ‘Mustang Sally’ on at full volume.

‘That’ll teach them,’ he said.

‘How are you and Sallie?’ someone asked Brad, later that week.

‘Oh, you know,’ he said. ‘It’s a girl thing, you know.’

We got Dylan to translate. He took it to mean ‘not good’.

True to form, Brad was on some other girl’s case by the end of the week, and Sallie seemed to have taken it upon herself to ‘see’ as many people as possible, within the narrow confines of her lifetime.

Gowan.

Gowan has a certain charm, you’ve got to give him that. He’s got a bad history of one night stands on his record, including the Raisin Sunday affair in first year where he broke a ping pong table on which he was somewhat athletically screwing his academic sister. Poor Gowan never saw a deposit back in four straight years at St. Andrews.

After one of the early spring balls, Gowan satisfied an age-old desire of his which was, apparently, to make it with an Asian girl. On hearing this news, Mart very frankly declared that he didn’t find Asian girls attractive, and I struggled to decide whether it was more racially prejudiced to maintain a blanket dislike of Asian women or go out with the express intention of screwing one.

The case in question was moot because Gowan did not succeed in hooking up with a particularly attractive Asian girl, which is a choice that translates well across most cultural barriers. He spent some time making out with her in FifePark, and then escorted her home.

‘I’ve always wanted to pull a hot Asian,’ Gowan said, poking his head into the kitchen and giving us the thumbs up. I bit down the urge to wish him better luck next time. Dylan and I watched them leave, through the kitchen window.

‘It takes all sorts,’ I said, eventually.

‘Yeah, and so does Gowan,’ Dylan replied.