February 26, 2002 | 10:57 AM

7I) ### Thurston Street

Friendship. It takes so long to build something and so little time to knock it down. We spend years climbing over each other�s walls, forging intimacies like deep canals through the stalagmited recesses of our psyches, and then we dynamite the caves. Kablam! And it�s over. Nice knowing you. Erase. Rewind. The end. Move on.

I hear Penny�s car in the driveway and I run down three flights of stairs to meet her. She is even thinner than I remember and her hair is short. Her car is filled with stuff and none of it is in boxes�scattered about the interior are dishes, a hairdryer, shoes, cutlery, cassettes, books. It�s as though she threw everything in at the last minute.

She gives me a decaffeinated hug. James is standing beside her.

James. I take a good look at him.

He is maybe 5�9�, slim build, wearing unfashionable jeans (think 1988), dirty blond hair, calm blue eyes. He�s attractive in that southern culture on the skids type of way. He shakes my hand and smiles. First thing out of his mouth is,

I just wanna thank y�all foa lettin� me stay here a couple a days. That�s real nice.

His mouth moves at a lazy pace. Do people from the South actually talk like this? Penny speaks with the speed of a New Yorker, so I am slightly taken aback at how... stereotypically Southern James is. He seems harmless enough. I can imagine him chewing on a piece of straw while fishin� in the crick.

I relax. This guy is definitely no Alex.

John and I help Penny and James carry all the stuff upstairs.

It is 8:30 on Saturday morning, which is just as good a time as any to get drunk. I had bought a thirty pack of Bud for the occasion, and the four of us get sloppy. We laugh and tell stories and catch each other up on recent events and Penny talks about the job interview she set up for a management position at a Cambridge bookstore. John and Penny and I discuss playing music together (Penny is a virtuoso jazz pianist.) James doesn�t say a whole lot but he smiles and is polite. I am disarmed by his gentility and against my will I find myself liking him.

After a bit Penny and James, exhausted from their cross-country jaunt retire to bed. John and I are left to sip our last beers. We agree that things seem to be going smoothly.

Later on that day we go to Bickford�s, and to my shock and delight James insists on picking up the check. I protest.

That really isn�t necessary.

I know it�s not necessary, but it�s what I wanna do.

I am charmed. I am charmed outta my socks by this James person. I tell Amy I think he is neat. She is pleased.

The following evening I make James, Penny, John, and Ronnie dinner�chicken breast, mashed potatoes, rolls, and asparagus. I fix up the kitchen table all fancy and put John Coltrane on the record player.

See. I think to myself. See, this is wonderful. Being surrounded by friends. People taking care of people. Helping each other. Eating together. S�wonderful. Just wonderful.

Penny and James do all the dishes.

The rest of the evening we spend out on the back porch staring at the skyline and sipping Sam Adams. James tells me that he wants to get a job lickety-split and a place to live to boot. He seems very much in love with Penny. He asks all kinds of questions about how to find an apartment in Boston and what restaurant would be the most lucrative to waiter in.

I am impressed with his drive and determination. And I remember when I was homeless that many people helped me. And I remember how Penny let me live in her teeny tiny rec-room paneled studio for a teeny tiny rent. And I remember when I found out the studio burned to the ground, I didn�t know if she was dead or not. And I thought I might have lost her forever. I think about all of these things while I talk to James, the charming Southerner.

And during the course of the conversation I find myself saying,

Listen, I know originally we agreed on three days, but if you are really gung-ho about finding a place to live and a job, I think it would be ok if you stay here for say, two weeks. That should give you enough time if you already have some money saved to make a down payment. I have to check it out with everyone else but as far as I�m concerned, it�s cool.

James� face lights up.

I�ll be outta your hair in a couple a weeks then. Thanks so much for all your hospitality. I can�t tell ya how much I �preciate it.

James is thrilled. Penny is thrilled. I am the good guy. I am helping people. Yea for me!

John and Ronnie begrudgingly agree�after all two weeks isn�t a very long time, and at some point they�ll probably want to have guests stay a fortnight. Of course, the timing is less than fabulous as we all just moved in together, and there�s something about those first few weeks of an apartment that are very important. The first weeks of any living situation are like a baby whose bones haven�t all formed completely; there�s a fragility, and things need to gel before all the joints can move properly. Adding an extra element into the mix could fuck everything up. When shit goes wrong, it usually goes very wrong right away.

But I brush these doubt aside. At this point it seems like the situation is under control. James is nice. He isn�t Alex.

No, he isn�t Alex.

He�s James.

And James is enough.

I wonder often what would have happened if James had never met Penny in a pool hall in Arkansas that day. Or if he had decided not to come to Boston on the road trip. Or if I had smiled and nodded during our talk and wished him luck in all his endeavors instead of extending him an invitation to stay for two weeks. I wonder if I would still know Penny. If she would still be my dear friend. If instead of looking her up on google last night, we would have been drinking a few beers, sharing a smoke, discussing our days. If she would be playing jazz piano and managing a bookstore in Cambridge, instead of passing the days as a customer service representative at a water cooler company in her Southern home town.

These thoughts plague me. They keep me up at night.

So much would be different.

But then again, in a roundabout way I have James to thank. Because if it hadn�t been for him, I would probably have never met Jenn. And I wouldn�t trade Jenn for anybody.

Stay tuned for Part the Twenty-Sixth...

In Diaryland terms, the length of this saga would offend even Proust, so why not be the Diaryland version of a Proust scholar and read it From the very beginning!