High school friends reminisce one final time before they scatter to colleges near and far.

08:33 AM EDT on Monday, August 23, 2004

BY JENNIFER LEVITZ
Journal Staff Writer

WARWICK -- Coventry High School's graduating seniors left behind the 7:10 a.m. warning bell, that no-nonsense Italian teacher, and that mishap with the fog machine. They left behind nicknames such as Squeak and Smitty, and the snowy day when troublemakers pulled the fire alarm three times.

Now, as they go off to college, they're leaving behind the buddies who laugh the loudest at those stories.

"His class stole our lockers," said Kenny Gareau, 17, thumping his younger brother Tom on the head at Warwick Mall last Thursday afternoon. Tom had tagged along with Kenny and his friends, who were in the Carousel Food Court, looking back, amid the aroma of Panda Express and Sbarros and the sounds from the arcade.

Tom held the right side of his head: "I can't hear out of this ear!"

Journal photo / Bob Thayer A group of Coventry High School classmates hang out at Warwick Mall last week including Stephen Najarian, 18, right, and Tom Gareau, 15. Najarian is going to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn this fall.

"Fate was still like, getting us, we had a fire drill on class day," said Matthew Arnold, 18, over the din of Tom, who continued to talk about going deaf, though he was soon laughing and later said that when his brother Kenny left for college, he would replace Kenny's bed with a poker table.

"We were the jinxed class," Kenny said.

Kenny, Matthew, Nathaniel, and Stephen . . .

Friends from middle school, they're leaving Coventry for college in Boston, or Brooklyn, or Wilkes-Barre.

They're off to meet new friends, who don't know the old routine.

Stephen Najarian, 18, said his assigned roommate at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn had called over the summer to say he'd be bringing something to sweep the floor.

"He's from Ohio," Najarian said.

"Like, the middle of nowhere," he added.

"My roommate is from Illinois," said Nathaniel Green, who's 18, and going to Boston College.

"I have mine from Pennsylvania," said Kenny, who'll attend Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and rather than freshman, prefers to call himself a "first-year, pre-professional student, thank you."

Matthew will meet three new roommates on Sept. 5, when he moves into a suite in a dorm at Emerson College.

The buddies from Coventry wore sneakers and T-shirts with jeans or long jean shorts, teen uniforms embellished with personalities. Stephen had a New York Rangers cap on his head, a Rangers keychain on his belt. Kenny, the son of a National Guard colonel, had cropped hair. Matthew wore long sideburns and a tweed cap.

Their spending money had come from Stop & Shop, Coventry Lumber, or from building sets at Scary Acres, the Halloween corn maze at Confreda Farms.

In EB Games -- a candy store for computer-game whizzes -- the friends eyed monsters and elves and various creatures.

"We were obsessed with Crystal Chronicles," Matthew said, of one game. "Obsessed with it. Ordered it day one. We would play it for five hours straight."

"But we beat it," Kenny said.

Someone in the group recalled playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic for "like, 30 hours."

"The better games were back in the '80s, back when we grew up," Matthew said.

"Infinitely," Kenny said.

They moved on to Waldenbooks, where Matthew said he wants to read the complete works of Shakespeare.

He had just unwittingly stepped into an old trap.

"Macbeth," came an evil whisper.

Matthew recoiled like a vampire before a wooden cross.

Matthew's friends know that he is seriously superstitious, that he believes in the drama myth that you can't utter the name Macbeth in a theater because "whatever play is in progress will be doomed to failure with possible death for the actors."

Matthew claims that during a production at Coventry High, someone said "Macbeth," and while no one in the cast died, there were a "bunch of car accidents; one guy totaled his car."

Journal photo / Bob Thayer With the Warwick Mall carousel in the background, high school buddies, from left, Nathaniel Green, Tom Gareau, Matthew Arnold, and Ken Gareau, brother of Tom, spend some time together last week. All are entering different colleges in the fall, while Tom goes back to Coventry High.

He won't even say Macbeth in public. So when he heard it in Waldenbooks, he countered the utterance with a spell he learned from another thespian. "Thrice about the circle band, evil sink into the ground."

The four friends all had passions in high school, reasons to stay on campus until dinner. Kenny's was the tenor sax and he could usually be found in the band room. Stephen's was art, and he had shocked himself when he was accepted to Pratt Institute and earned a $9,000 scholarship that brought his tuition down to $27,000.

Matthew and Kenny had hosted a Monday afterschool radio show, in which they'd make fun of each other on air, and during downtime, talk about their problems -- and then after, go to China Star.

Matthew and Nathaniel Green were both in the drama club, which usually took top honors at the state drama festival. Last spring, Matthew was the hyena and Nate was the bear in Jungalbook, based on Rudyard Kipling's classic.

Rehearsals were a trip.

"Remember when we'd run around the seats and chase everyone?" Nathaniel asked Matthew.

Kenny said he'd dropped his brother off at band camp at Coventry High School earlier in the day and he'd been glad to have a reason to go in, to return some music to Smitty, his band director.

It will be strange, Kenny said, not being a "band geek" anymore.

Matthew had also taken his younger brother to band camp that morning and he, too, had felt moved by the old school, the place where Matthew had been nicknamed "Squeak," and then when he outgrew that, "Marty" after the comic Martin Short.

"I felt a twinge," he said.

Matthew said he had an idea for spring break: A trip to New York City to see the Monty Python musical. This sounded good to the group.

"I'm in!"

"I'm in!"

It was getting near dinnertime, time to leave Warwick Mall.

Kenny asked Matthew if he could come over. "Would your mom mind if I just randomly showed up for food?"

"She won't mind," Matthew said.