by Milton Johanides

Created on: February 21, 2011

It must have occurred to me early on that Ofwerki Sogdashi would be good for me, as though he possessed some secret, some law for retarded teenagers waiting to be unlocked.  We met at the tender age of fourteen, back in the autumn of 1973, young lads with little in common, but we soon became friends. He was a real prince, future heir of a remote African kingdom, and he often spoke of impossible family responsibility. I could clearly identify with that, but he had all the confidence and worldly know-how which I sadly lacked. When I saw Soggy coming towards me in the school quad, one foot hopping off the forbidden lawn in its centre, his young face already crumpled with experience like a war weary soldier, my spirits lifted and new hope surged in my breast. He burst through the ring-fenced traditions of that ancient institution like a poisoned spear.  He was a brash, carefree adventurer, who laughed when I introduced myself:

“Aristo Aristo-poul-os? Man, what manner of name is that?” 

His outrageous clothes, skin-tight tops and flared trousers, bawdy parody of the school uniform, made him look a little eccentric. He kept coming out with things like,

“Remember this before anything else, Aristo: hesitation is death!”

I had no concept of a time or occasion when such a truism might come in handy, but I duly noted it as though coming from the lips of a sage. He brought with him a law I had never encountered before and propounded it with a noisy arrogance that was frowned upon in the school. He had no abilities worth bragging about, academic or sporting, only a knack for always coming out on top in life. The secret of his success was a powerful self-delusion which reduced everything, all those rules and regulations which terrified me, the authority and discipline of a mysterious despotic regime, to mere snatchings of triviality. The ghostly corridors of our school, horrific to me, were ridiculous to him; the hallowed hall of assembly where discretion and propriety were always required became nothing more than a vessel for his proselytising. And his skills with the opposite sex were legendary. The horror of having to deal with the horny girls from the convent school down the road was for Soggy an afternoon’s work in easy cajolery.

Soggy took everything in his stride and turned a nightmare scenario into his own personal "Boys' Own" adventure. Before Soggy, school had been unbearable, a huddle of sadistic masters and monitors

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