Citius, Altius, Fortius.

The creature in the above image is a Bantha.  It is an easily domesticated beast of burden found on the planet Tatooine.  Banthas are known for producing blue milk and being led by the strongest female in their herd.  And if you could put a ladder up to its rear end and climb into its butthole, you'd have some idea of what it was like to spend time in the college apartment of my friends Chris and Dave.

I first experienced their apartment shortly after moving to Savannah.  I had just transferred to art school from an overcrowded state university in Orlando.  Chris and Dave have been friends of mine since seventh grade and I didn't know anyone else in town, so naturally I did my very best to make a general nuisance of myself by hanging around their place as much as possible.

Being great friends, they helped me with my classes anytime I needed it.  I was coming into art school with little in the way of an artistic background so I would stop by their apartment to ask questions about different techniques that my instructors had mentioned.  One day I wanted to repay them.  I stopped by with ingredients to make my famous lasagna.  After browning the beef, boiling the noodles, and constructing the dish in the pan, I went to put the lasagna into the apartment's tiny oven.

"You may want to move the oven rack down a couple," Chris said.  "The element kind of hangs."

I opened the oven door and peered in.  The element was attached to the top of the oven only near the front and had no support at all in the back.  It was hanging down at about a thirty degree angle.  I moved the rack and slid the lasagna into the oven.  Forty-five minutes later I set a half-black lasagna on the table.

"If you cover that side with your hand, that lasagna looks really good," Dave said as he closed one eye and held his open palm toward the dish.

Once I went over to visit and saw a plate of half-eaten spaghetti sitting on the kitchen table. A couple of days afterward I visited again with a question about crosshatching.  The spaghetti was in the same place, hard and dry now, the once-red sauce just a shade from black.  Days later I returned to find a fuzzy dark mass on the plate.  I frowned.  It frowned back.  Dave threw a pencil at it and it got up, scurried out the door and spent the rest of the night terrorizing Savannahians up and down Liberty Street.

In spite of the frequent geyser-like sewage backups and a roach infestation resembling what one might find on an 18th-century merchant ship, the apartment was somewhat quaint.  The lack of a centralized climate control system encouraged the propping open of windows.  This allowed the air of the city to flow through, bringing with it the fresh scent of the local paper mill.  Situated on the ground floor of a historic Savannah building allowed for a unique living experience, especially considering that the apartment had never been improved since the time of its original construction.

The apartment that Chris and Dave locked themselves into every night for three years had very little to brag about.  In fact, it only had three things to brag about.  But these things happen to be the three most important considerations in the real-estate business:

Location, location, location.

This apartment was located in a prime spot to watch Clint Eastwood film a pivotal scene for his film "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."  It was located near the center of the college's network of classroom buildings, allowing for quick travel to classes.

Most important, however, was the fact that Chris and Dave's apartment was located along the path of the 1996 Summer Olympic Torch Relay.

Months prior to the Games, the Olympic torch is lit using a flame borne of the sun itself. Seven women playing the role of Vestal Virgins use a mirror to concentrate the sun's rays, stealing the fire for the benefit of humans as in the days of antiquity.  From its origins in Greece the Olympic flame travels across the Earth's six inhabited continents, passed from runner to runner in a relay symbolic of the ties that bind all of humanity into one people.  Thanks to the location of the apartment we were to be eyewitnesses to the newest edition of this time-honored ritual.  It felt as though nothing could spoil the purity and excitement of the moment.

"Oh crap," Dave said as we took our place on the corner.  "Look."

He pointed down the block.  Standing in the front row of the crowd was a group of young men, one of whom held a well-used toilet plunger high into the air.  It was clear that they were waiting for something exciting to happen.

"Who is that?" I asked.

"Pinball Sex Machine," Chris said as he shook his head in despair.

Pinball Sex Machine was a local punk band that briefly roared through the Savannah club scene in the mid-nineties.  Being that they were next door neighbors of Chris and Dave, they too enjoyed the benefits of an excellent location.  As they filled the plunger with lighter fluid it appeared that they were about to make the most of their position.

A cheer from the crowd at nearby Troup Square told us that the Olympic flame was just minutes away.  As the Olympic torch bearer rounded the corner and jogged toward us, the members of Pinball Sex Machine set their plunger ablaze, the young man raising the foul-smelling pseudo-torch triumphantly into the sky.  The crowd took several steps away from the road as he joined the torch bearer stride for stride, the two of them running in silent tandem as the roadside observers looked on in a mix of pride, curiosity, and horror.  The spectacle ended quickly when the Olympic flame turned down Liberty Street and the imposing flame burned its way through the plunger and spilled onto Habersham.

The lighting of the Olympic cauldron was the main event of the evening.  Being the venue of the yachting events, Savannah was entitled to a maintain a flame of its own for the duration of the Games.  Chris, Dave and I made our way with the crowd to Forsyth Park where the cauldron would be lit and the opening of the Games celebrated.  Speeches from politicians and music from local artists blur together in my memory of the evening, few parts of the event meaningful enough to remember clearly .  After a short laser-light show the final torch bearer finally arrived at the stage and lit the huge flame to great applause.  The mass of people dispersed as the event concluded.  Dave disappeared somewhere in the sea of people and Chris and I headed north on Drayton Street.

We didn't walk long before we saw an older man in an Olympic torch bearer's track suit leaving one of the houses that looked out on the park.  We stopped at the gate of the home.

"Is that the Olympic torch?" I asked him.

In his hand he carried the long, slim staff we had watched come up Habersham Street a few hours before.  He lifted it so we could get a better look.

"It sure is," he said.  Then, before I could ask: "Would you like to hold it?"

Would I?

The torch was lighter than I imagined it could be.  A wooden handle in the middle made it perfectly balanced to stay in an upright position.  The top and bottom of the torch were circled in shafts of aluminum that spread out slightly at the top.

Chris and I took turns running up and down Drayton with the torch, then thanked the kind man for the opportunity that so many others wish they had.  As we walked back to the apartment, Chris slapped his forehead.

"I should have taken pictures!" he cried, a camera dangling from his wrist.

It didn't matter.  The electricity of the evening still permeated the air as we strolled through the dark Savannah downtown.  The night itself would be a memento, the feel and smell of the Olympic torch a memory more clear than any photograph, more bright than any flame.