Maturity in people is a variable, this stupid prof kept insisting. His circle of friends, at their oak round table, with it's collegian nick names carved by horny students' using switchblades, slugged their beers while trying to figure out what to say to the burly old pedant.
"So if someone age 20 acts his age all the time, he/she is some sort of deviant?" one of the smart ass exchange students said, practically auditioning for the role of himself in a sitcom if he wasn't just subsisting near his crappy state alma mater. He will die, tragically, before he gets the part.
"I was saying certain people range in maturity, and it can be observed. It can be evoked."
Not satisfied with Dr. Doomski's qualification, Skip, the neo-thug with the Brylcream-a-go-go coif, "Which certain types of people we driving at, Doc."
This time, Dr. Doomski tried to paliate his people with more beers all around, and a speech, with hand gesticulations and outbursts of emotion, like, "Jeesus' tits, people can be a danger to themselves and others when they are pathologically like Shirley Temple when they are age 75."
He began speaking directly to Skip, the strongest, most brutishly handsome of the gang. He told him a series of droning shaggy dog stories, each time concluding that that didn't really matter, but it was necessary that Skip 'follow the bouncing ball' as he listened to a stream of deliberate nonsense.
And without prompting from anyone, Skip seemed to lose his youth all together. His bone turned into chalk. He was weak and aching all over. He was arthritic, for fuck sake.
Skip's voice quavered. "I don't feel right, Doc," he said, meekly.
"That's because you're old,now, Skippy, you smug bastard."
"Will I get over it?" Skip inquired, this time more shook up, but still real meek."
"No one recovers from old age, stupid."
The circle of friends finished their beers. Prof was right.
This was in a small town. Just happens.
A dashing young Satan figure played his candy red electric guitar in the corner, on a stack of palettes, or skids, as they are called. The drum machine couldn't make a mistake. The beat was consistent, but Mikey Mumbawumba had a mastery of that guitar. To such a degree, he was able to strike cymbals with a steel rod tied to the end of his instrument, near the tuning pegs. Mikey's riffs caused people to go completely ape.
Skip was now wheelchair bound. But the music took his mind off being sick and old. He had the wisdom of the elderly, which has nothing to do with facts by rote or even social acumen. People that old can commune with lumber.
But he was no longer welcome in Dr. Doomski's clan.
The good people the good doctor communed with were finally believers in the existence of a genuinely important weird beard.
A sparse crowd of bobbing beauties danced some sort of variant of the twist. Their leering smiles would put a good person off. But these were hell raisers. Real ones. Can't say it's good to hang out here. They got into each others faces, and made animal noises. Mikey was smiling as he leaned into his guitar riff
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