Bazozzi

Every now and then, I am reminded of a character I know in college. Bazozzi. I'm not sure what his first name was, or if he in fact had one, or if Bazozzi was even his real last name. I know very few things about him, aside from the fact that he was always entertaining.

I met Bazozzi one day in my on-campus townhouse. The roomies and I were passing the bong around, watching TV, when a young man wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a lampshade on his head simply walked in. He walked into the kitchen and began looking through our cabinets and in our refrigerator. Sue came out of her room and announced that she was going to the grocery store and did anyone want anything. This strange man said, "Yeah, let me give you a list. You know what? I'll just come with you."

Maybe it was because we were so stoned, or maybe we just didn't know how to react. But no one objected. We just sat, open-mouthed, while Bazozzi left to either go grocery shopping with or rape and mutilate Peg and Sue. Turns out it was the former.

When Bazozzi returned, he whipped up a Mexican casserole. He put foil over the top, turned to me and said, "Whenever you guys want to eat this, just put it in the oven for 20 minutes". I nodded dumbly. He then went into our bathroom and came out, announcing that he could fix either the light or the fan, but not both. We gave him a ladder and he went to work.

I found out later that Bazozzi had gone to Marist College, for one semester freshman year. Even more disturbing, I found out that he was the mysterious "Clark" that pranked all of the girls in my freshman down nearly daily. Bazozzi became a fixture of our college life. He was at every party. He slept on our couch sometimes. And we didn't know the first thing about him, except that he sometimes liked to wear our dresses.

One day I came home from class and found Bazozzi, just Bazozzi, in the townhouse. We had this conversation:

Bazozzi: (holding up a Vanity fair) Did you read the Madonna interview? It's really good.
Me: Bazozzi, do you have any interest in knowing any of our names?
Bazozzi: You know what? I'm really not good with names.