Face Off: 1999 / 2009

Today when I was en route to downtown to go to the opera I stopped at a store just outside of the town where I went to high school at. When I was walking back out to my car a guy got out of the car next to me and we both looked at each other and recognized each other from high school and starting chatting like we had just picked up where we left off back in 1999. But for the life of me I couldn't remember his name - but I remember his face even though faces in 1999 are slightly different from faces in 2009. I kind of just let him do all the talking - he showed me pictures of his two year old son. When he was thumbing through the photographs I noticed his fingernails were exceptionally long and it kind of grossed me out. He was kind of quiet in school, but popular - probably because he was, and still is, a redneck. He said it was nice to see me and that he had read about me some in the papers because they run stories on my "books and photography" and all that "stuff." Those were his quotes, not mine. Last summer someone at Panera Bread came running up to me (he was actually very hot) and said "Oh my god, are you Montgomery Maxton*!?" I said yes(!), shook his hand (hoping this would turn into a lay) while he said "I can't believe it, it's been so long since high school." We talked and, since I hadn't a clue who the fuck he was, I just let him do most of the talking - which was about his Christian ministering etc etc etc. While I was talking to him a guy showed up and starting cleaning the windows and he saw me and smiled and got excited because I knew him, his name was Darren and we hung out some all through school 2nd-12th. He had gotten fat and went totally bald, but kind. He was then as he was in high school: like that donkey from Winnie the Pooh but with a kick of Red Bull in him. The last I had saw of him was the summer after graduation when he was doing 3rd shift stocking at a grocery store and I went in there to buy milk and eggs.

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*he used the name I had in high school