When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college―that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"

―Howard Ikemoto

"Guess who showed up in my studio arts class today as models," I inquired, idly twisting a few of Clyde's chestnut locks between my fingers. We were sitting on the couch in our living room. Token was beside me, legs strewn atop the coffee table. We were waiting for Clyde's girlfriend to finish cooking dinner.

"Mmm," the brunette mused, most likely to figure out the answer to Jeopardy rather than my announcement. "The answer is clearly obvious. I don't know why this dumb fuck isn't getting it. It's Lady Godiva, god damn it! Who is Lady Godiva!"

"Were they nude?" Token asked, always one to pay attention because he was a good best friend.

I thought back to Kenny and Tweek and snickered at the thought of having to draw them naked. "No, thank God. Haven't seen them in a while, so, you know, rekindling over their naked bodies would've been kind of weird." I purposefully put in the part about not having seen them for quite some time just to pique his interest. And pique it did, indeed.

"We know them? That's interesting."

"Lady Godiva, you fucking idiot!" Clyde cried, throwing his hands up in anger at the television. I found it an amusing coincidence that Jeopardy fit in quite nicely to my own little guessing game.

"How long has it been? I hope it wasn't that couple from that dorm party." Strangely, I'd rather have actually kept Kenny and Tweek compared to the dorm party couple. They were some of the creepiest people I've ever met, and they didn't even go to our college. I wanted to know who the douche bag that invited them had been.

"Nope. Think back about four years."

"No way, dude," Token responded, skeptic. "You've got to be kidding me."

"I kid you not." Tossing my head around, I looked at him with a serious expression. "Tweek and Kenny."

Shaking his head, my friend grinned bitterly. "Kenny fucking McCormick. That bastard. Of course."

"That's what I said," I agreed ruefully. They were a pretty unforgettable duo, not that they went together. The two were complete opposites. "He's hitting up all the ladies. Making his mark on our school. We should haze him."

"What? He's not going there is he?" Actually, I hadn't thought of that before.

"I highly doubt it. But if he is, we're moving to Denver."

Unceremoniously, Clyde jolted out of his seat and abused the air with numerous blows from his fists. He threw a leg in there somewhere but it was lost when he started screaming something that had to with the show he was watching. A commercial aired, causing him to quickly return to his seat and ask, "The gay one?"

"We don't know a gay Kenny," I told him. "Sexual deviant of every kind, animal and human, yes." And then it occurred to me that he was referring to Tweek. "Is that kid gay? I figured he was just a late bloomer." Although the switch didn't make much sense, Token and Clyde understood that I was now on the same page as them.

Clyde shrugged his shoulders. "Definitely looked gay back in the day," he said. "Know what I mean?"

Token nodded his head. "I guess you can just tell when it comes to certain people."

"Like Butters. He came out of the womb sucking dick. He'll die with one in his mouth, too. I swear it. I'll even go to his open casket funeral just to see."

Now that kid was easily forgettable.

"Mmm." I mimicked Token's nod. "Now that you mention it, Tweek did look pretty buttfuckalicious today." My two friends laughed at my coinage and Clyde's girlfriend peered into the room to give me a look. I was being serious, though. Four years had done Tweek good, but he would stay soft-featured for the rest of his life.

That wasn't a bad thing, either. Soft could be desirable depending on who you were. It gave off a boyish innocence when it came to Tweek. But perhaps that was because he did have innocence. He looked like the virgin-for-life type of a kid, possibly with a case of I'm-supposed-to-be-religious-so-I-can't-have-my-parents-finding-a-wiener-in-my-bed.

Settling back against my side, Clyde crisscrossed his legs and let one knee rest on top of my thigh. "Well, I'll go ahead and say this much: If Kenny comes close to my girlfriend," the brunette glanced around threateningly before settling a determined stare my way, "it is your destiny to fend him off."

Of course he left his girlfriend under my care. He always did. She was technically my woman. She and I often joked about it, and now I was beginning to believe it.

Jeopardy came back on and Clyde gave the television his full attention.

They showed up again, this time after class. Kenny was waiting for me outside the door, and the moment I exited the classroom, he snagged my belt loop to drag me around some back routed journey through my school. He led me to places I didn't even know existed; I passed students I would never have thought were enrolled. Courses I never heard of were taking place.

This was basically everything that Kenny was and more. He was the type of guy who only ever taught you something new, and I was certainly broadening my horizons when I found out there was an Equestrian facility full of classes about horsemanship and veterinarian studies at my college. Classes like that made me feel inferior, like painting and drawing just weren't up to par with learning how to train a show horse. Damn animals were stealing my thunder.

With my pants still snagged, the blonde slipped out a door that led to the parking lot located in the back of the building. I followed him dutifully, curiosity being the only reason why I didn't ditch him and head to my next class. A rush of chilly autumn air swarmed us like we were the criminals and the weather was the swat team. I guessed we were armed criminals, too, because the swat team hurt. Something akin to gloom devoured my mood as I realized that the season would only get worse for it was changing into winter.

Tweek was curled in on himself, huddled near the door to escape the worst of the wind. His arms were crossed, head bowed, hair rustling like a wild lion's mane. He hadn't dressed for the occasion, I noticed. The dark jacket he wore was thin and his jeans had rolled hems. When he heard the commotion of the door, he inclined his head. The tip of his nose and the apples of his cheeks were rosy.

"You could've waited inside," Kenny teased, disentangling his finger from my clothing. "You always choose the situation that will effect you the worst. Did you know that?"

"Don't remind me," the petite blonde muttered. He dared a glance in my direction, looking everywhere but my eyes.

"Why am I out here?" I asked in the hopes of receiving an equally blunt answer. It irritated me whenever Kenny tried to beat around the bush, both in the past as well as the present. My eyes couldn't quite find a way to detach themselves from Tweek's person as I spoke.

My offer from yesterday was still lingering in my memory, and his wind-bitten features would've looked wonderful on paper, locked away forever. A photograph of sorts. The movement of his hair and the tightness of his body, how shy his expression was. Everything was adding up and I wanted to know why an easel wasn't set up outside for instances like these.

I did have a sketchbook, though. Not that many pages were left, although I was sure I could find some space for an old acquaintance, and my pencil kind of fucking sucked, but there wasn't much I could do about that one.

Just when Tweek was about to remove himself from the wall, body tensed in mid-turn, I pointed at him and strictly said, "Don't fucking move." He froze as though a bug the size of his dainty body was about ready to suck his innards out. If I had time, I'd draw in a human-sized spider for my own amusement.

Dropping down into a cross-legged sit on the pavement, I propped my sketchbook on my knee and hunkered over the blank sheet of paper. My hand began to rapidly scribble, marking the settlement of his features without very much detail to distinguish them. This wasn't going to be a masterpiece or anywhere near commemorative, but I still wanted to remember the moment. Maybe I could go in later and finish it from memory.

"W-What are you doing?" Tweek asked, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. "C-Craig?"

"Stop doing that," I ordered, eyes flickering briefly toward his mouth. He dropped his nervous act instantly.

Kenny rounded my side, peering over my shoulder to see what I was busying myself over. I imagined he was smirking for whatever reason insightful bastards like him smirked. His energy radiated against my back, much too close for comfort.

Tweek tried to gather an answer from a new perspective. "I-It's cold." I almost felt bad since it was pretty dank out, but he would have to deal with it until I got the proportions of his figure marked. "Craig, what are you doing?"

"I'm fucking drawing you, dude. Calm down for a second, alright?" But my temper had already flared, causing my hand to clench involuntarily. The action made a deep, dark line stretch across my paper, utterly ruining it. "Great. Beautiful. Fucking awesome." Ripping the sheet out, I crumpled it up. And then I tore its bunched up body into two. "Just forget about it."

"Still as feisty as usual, I see," Kenny remarked. His nonchalant tone was really starting to rub me the wrong way.

Kneeling down beside me, he picked up the identical pieces of trash. Maybe he'd burn them and set himself on fire.

One could only hope.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I asked for the final time, "What the fuck are you two doing here?"

"I'm so sorry," Tweek stumbled forward, vision teary from the rush of the wind. Seeing them so glassy and bright urged my inner artist to redo my demolished sketch. To keep myself from the temptation I threw my pencil into the parking lot. Another look at his face and I wanted to scrabble back out and get it.

He was closer now, near enough for me to consider the rare oddity of his eyes. They were green, a cystalesque color that wasn't even a color. It was a tint, just a pinch of emerald in a splash of white. If I could paint him, if I could create a hue similar to his eyes, that would be just lovely. Fuck the pencil. I needed a brush. When did this stupid blonde kid turn into something so neat? Because I distinctly remembered him being a complete weirdo four years ago.

"Don't worry about it." My voice trailed off as I began to think. How could I get him back to my apartment without sounding creepy? Or like I wanted to buttfuck his corpse after murdering him.

Crouching on his knees, Tweek held out his hesitant hands and motioned toward my sketchpad with the delicacy you'd give to a terrified child. Maybe he thought this was like my diary, or maybe he was the terrified one, still wary of my outburst just seconds ago.

I handed it over knowing that there were no secrets on any of the pages. It was back at my apartment that personal matters were confronted on canvas and paper. Not that I had much to deal with, but privacy was privacy and if I wanted to hide what occurred in my dreams from others, then I would do just so, and that's exactly what I did. Dreams were my source of inspiration, always plentiful.

Flipping through my sketchbook, Tweek's lips quirked upward, an action that was too smooth to be conscious. I could see from where I was seated in front of him what he was looking at. There were pages filled with little things like animals or nature, sometimes a hairstyle would come about—old ones like pompadours and marcelled hair—because I found them to be intriguing when drawn; and then there were other more detailed pieces of what I could remember from Stripe, Clyde when he was thinking with his forehead creased, Token, and aspects of others that I found interesting like mouths or bones or shoes.

There was variety and array in that sketchbook. I supposed I was proud of it, but I couldn't stop tracing over the subtle lines of Tweek's strange face. Wisps of his breath were visible in the air, a foggy substance that dispersed into invisibility. This was what I did when I wanted to remember something vital. I drew it with my eyes and put it on the canvas of my memory. It was a photographic technique that I'd always had and was probably the catalyst to my natural talent.

When I'd learned that I could actually see something in an object—a bug, a building, a person—my skill had begun to develop. And somehow I'd ended up skipping my class to come out into the cold so I could stare at this guy from my past as though I could roll him up and stick him on a piece of paper. His features were just so goddamn captivating, and there was so much emotion in his eyes that I wanted it to overwhelm me when I drew him—and I would. This odd human phenomenon wasn't escaping me.

"You should come to my place," I told him, ignoring the evident shock on his pleasantly featured face. My sketchbook was like nothing to him compared to my offer. His cheeks tinted, a color that would've long since appeared had it been from the cold. Blushing must've been his trademark. "Since I'm obviously not going to my next class, I've got plenty of time to start a drawing―" Watching his features crumple, I asked, "What?"

Clearing his throat, the blonde took his time by shuffling through a few more pages of my sketchbook. "Why do you want to draw me? You h-have a beautiful talent. Don't waste it on me. Your entire c-class already did that, so..."

I stared at him like he was stupid. "Have you see how weird you look?" Kenny started laughing somewhere behind me.

Tweek's eyes went imperceptibly wide, his expression guarded. He thought I was making fun of him. "Thanks for b-being honest, I guess. Uhm." He looked around for a distraction.

"I don't draw ugly people," I stated, just to clear the tension.

Kenny cracked up all over again and I turned around to stare at him. He was hunched over with an arm across his stomach, dabbing at his eyes with the other. "'You look weird,'" he repeated to humor himself all over again. "'I don't draw ugly people.' I've missed you Craig, I really have."

"Keep dicking around and you're not invited. I know you're dying to see my house."

While Kenny wasn't deterred, Tweek asked, astounded, "You have a house?"

Shaking my head I told him, "That was a fib. It's an apartment. Clyde, Token, and Clyde's woman live with me." He didn't necessarily look like he felt left out, but perhaps it was envy. I wondered if he still lived with his parents. "Oh, and Julibee, the woman's beagle thing. They're both on their period." Why I felt the need to inform them about that, I'd never know. Maybe I just didn't want to suffer alone.

Slapping my shoulder, Kenny said, "Lead the way then, Craigy-poo." I stood up, casting a short glance toward Tweek who looked terrified by the other blonde's eager agreement. Defeated, he closed my sketchbook and held it against his chest as the two started following me into the parking lot. I didn't even think to take it back from him.

"Escorting us there in your car?" Kenny crooned, patting my vehicle as he walked along its perimeter. There wasn't much to it, just a black automobile that was nothing more than alright. A penis was drawn on one of the windows, though, with a catch-line that read, honk if you want to suck it. Clyde had partied too hard one night and thought he'd be an even bigger douche bag than he already was. Vulgar art on my car was a result of that.

"Unless you want to walk," I offered, pitching my thumb toward Tweek. "We might need to carry this ice cube with us for a couple of blocks, though." The frozen blonde quickly declined my suggestion for both himself and Kenny who was smirking deviously. As I unlocked my car, he curled his finger toward Tweek, shoving him into shotgun when he was close enough to reach.

The stereo came on as my car bustled to life. Sounds from a time of rejuvenation and structure that would never occur, not ever again, pilfered through the speakers. "The Lovin' Spoonful," Kenny observed, leaning into the space between the two front seats. "Still an old man, I see."

Turning down the volume, I shifted my car into reverse, and peered around the blonde's mop of bedraggled locks to keep from backing into someone's unfortunate bumper. Contradicting his old man comment, I told him, "That was the first time people were actually alive." The oldies. The 50s and 60s. A golden age of extraordinary entertainment.

"So what timeline are you trying to fit into?" I noticed both blondes speculating me as I exited campus and started toward my apartment. I liked tailored suits and blazers, pressed trousers and shoes with leather wingtips, pointed toes and Cuban heels. My short shirt sleeves were always double cuffed and I had a thing for bow ties rather than any regular old tie. When someone classy sat down, when the hem of their sleek pants hiked, when their slender ankles showed and so simply all attention was brought to their footwear—that was perfection to me.

"I wear what I like." On lazy days I wore Clyde's cut-offs and sometimes I even put on Token's fancy pants, those stylish jeans that were just fabulous for a black man as keen as him. I owned leather jackets and cardigans and somewhere there was a pair of sweats. When I appeared not to understand his question, Kenny flicked my ear, and that seemed to explain everything. I had gauges, nothing wider than the lobe of my ear, but it definitely wasn't 50s or 60s material. "I like gauges."

"And this haircut," Kenny added, shuffling his fingers through my thick black locks. It was short and pliable enough to stick up where he'd pushed it from my face but with enough length to do spiffy stuff with it. The last time Clyde, Token, and I had participated in a best friend throwdown—a term used to describe the three of us getting belligerently drunk with each other—they'd given me a John Travolta pompadour. It looked sexy—not gunna lie.

"I do cool stuff with it," I explained, allowing him to mess with it some more as I turned into my apartment complex. Living ten minutes away from college had its advantages, most definitely. When we were feeling up to it, my two best friends and I would walk to school; it was nice just being able to hang out with them so simplistically.

Pulling away from Kenny's probing fingers, I ducked out of my car and waited for the other two to exit before I locked the doors. I started heading for the closest set of stairs where I was followed up two flights. Tweek ungracefully tripped on the last set, blushing bashfully when he was laughed at by Kenny. Heading past a few doors, we came up to an odd number on the right side. I opened it without contemplation or hesitation, knowing that Clyde's girlfriend was always home on Fridays.

After stepping inside, I called out to the woman, "I'm home, beautiful!" Julibee flung her pint sized body from the couch, white-tipped tail wagging like whiplash. "Make sure you're modest for our guests!" She tended to take after me and walk around naked.

I looked more closely at the dog.

That's not Julibee.

As I lowered to my knees, I met the beagle face to face. It had a wishbone pattern of white on its face like Julibee, floppy ears with dark patches like Julibee, and four white paws like Julibee. "You have a penis," I said to it, stunned by this sudden transformation as it licked my cheeks excitedly.

And then out from the hall shot a wet, soapy dog. Clyde's girlfriend could be heard clearly screaming from the bathroom, sloshing liquid beneath her vocalized cry. Julibee left soggy paw prints on the carpet and shook out her fur right next to me before fighting for my attention with her male counterpart. I wrapped my arms around both of them, receiving kisses in unison from the two, and all the while I was just too confused to do anything else but endure.

Stumbling out of the bathroom came Clyde's latest catch, a petite girl with identical chestnut tresses. I thought of her as my favorite lady he's ever had because they both had the same rosy cheeks and similar personalities. She could be treated like one of the guys and never feel any less womanly about herself. Supposedly her boobs were awesome, and if I really wanted to know so then all I'd have to do was stare at them in her water-saturated sports bra, but I couldn't bring myself to care—especially with Julibee and Julibob in my lap.

"Hi!" She greeted enthusiastically, pretending not to notice the two dogs as she shook Kenny and Tweek's hands, inviting them further into the room and shutting the door. She made the mistake of looking down at me, witnessing the same stony expression I gave to Clyde when he tried to tell me he'd paid the bills. "Isn't he cute?" She asked, her voice one of sweetness and please forgive me.

"No fucking way," I groaned, closing my eyes tiredly. She wanted to keep him. First the two blonde mutts showed up unexpectedly and now the masculine version of Julibee just as, if not more, sudden. "I swear to God if you tell me you found him on the street―"

"I didn't," the brunette chirped. You're so fucking lucky, I warned her telepathically. Had she said yes, I wouldn't have been able to let him go. But if she stole him from someone's house or generously adopted him from a friend then we could return him. "I bought him!"

My faith in her crumbled. Clyde needed to break up with her―now.

Not only was I soaking wet from being Julibee's towel and Julibob's person spit collector, but Tweek crouched down beside me and encompassed the dry beagle's big ears with his dainty hands.

"He's cute," he told me, smiling like it was the only thing he could do correctly. It was so straight and symmetrical that my eyes were examining his lips for an answer to this phenomenon because Tweek Tweak had just turned into that much more of an anomaly.