Steve Friedman - Lost on Treasure Island: A Memoir of Longing, Love, and Lousy Choices in New York City

The Queen of Mean married and had a little boy. Candy married and had a boy and a girl. Susan called off her engagement, married a different guy, and had a girl. Broken Hand Kitty married and had a boy, as well as a starring role on an Emmy awardwinning television show where she plays a tough cop who does the frowny mouth. Cleopatra/Samantha had her baby, right about the time the lease on her apartment ran out, so I let her and little Lydia stay at my place for a month, while she figured things out. I gave mother and child the bedroom and I slept on the couch, brought spinach pie home from my favorite diner every night; and after Samantha breast-fed her baby, I would hold Lydia and whisper stories about magic cheeseburgers and wise fat men until she fell asleep. Samantha figured things out, and recently finished her PhD in clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina. Lydia is five years old and Im her godfather.

Kelly never spoke to me again. Denny and I didnt renew our friendship. April the ophthalmologist sent me a birthday card after nearly a decade of silence between us and I sent her a card the following year; then we fell out of touch. Oksana divorced, and were fiends. Violet got engaged, and were not.

Allison married, had two girls, divorced, published a critically acclaimed book, and was one of ten Americans to win a $50,000 annual award for emerging writers. My little sister and the rock-climbing father of my nephew married, then divorced, and I-Dog turned into a fifth grader who quit saying nor nerk, and denies ever having said it. He reads a lot and plays chess and rides his mountain bike. He has a little sister, Iris, who is in first grade and who calls him big guy. After Elaine died, my father lost weight, then had quadruple bypass surgery, then watched too much television, then danced with a woman named Sharon at a wedding of a friends granddaughter, and he and Sharon married. I stopped lying to him. I cut back on lying to other people. I continued to see Psychic Rose.

The Ascot was named editor in chief of a magazine that has nothing to do with open-toed sandals. The Angry Belgian, who, like me, is still single, broke up with OC, graduated from Hunter, and somehow managed to get himself into dental school, and he even became a citizen.

The Man-Thing died a few months after Conde Nast executives forced him into retirement from GQ , just hours after he suffered a lunchtime stroke in his leather banquette at the Four Seasons. I attended the memorial service at Lincoln Center, and afterwards, I chatted up the Queen of Mean and David, now the editor in chief at Esquire . I apologized to Robbie, the Elle editor in chief I had offended during my hotheaded days, and I apologized to the Esquire editor who had assigned me the story on the cruise ship comedian and whom I had abandoned for a better offer. I pitched an idea to a Details editor on living a meaningful life and the nature of true love. I worked the room, and then I felt myself flush with shame as I realized what I was doingat a memorial serviceand then it occurred to me that no one would have approved more of my boldness and decisiveness and lust for life than the Man-Thing, the person who granted me life in New York City, and then I found a bathroom at Lincoln Center, and I locked myself in a stall, and I wept for Art.

The cruise ship comedian made it on to The Tonight Show . Soft-Talking Probably a Lesbian Stacy turned out to be a lesbian. Bridget checked in to rehab, then relapsed, then checked back into rehab, then relapsed again, then, two months ago as I write this, she stopped drinking. She showed me a picture of Milo the other night. He had been living with his father and stepmother for four years, since Bridgets first stint in rehab. Hes enrolled in a special program designed for autistic children. Hes tall and slim and he loves dinosaurs and basketball. I kept calling my mentor and I picked up a couple mentees myself. I told them things would get better. I told them to eat cheeseburgers and take naps. I told them not to worry so much, to be easier on themselves, that others needed them. (I did not tell them to hold themselves gently, like kittens.)

Fisherman Hank never came back to the meetings, and I dont know what happened to him. I like to think of him in a boat, gently rocking, carefully casting his line into the soft twilight sea. Fluffy died. Melissa wept. I never saw the Fat Man again. I look for him everywhere. I look for him every day.