Sophomore Year — Winter Quarter 1966
He’s at his desk. His smile is genuine. “My favorite roommate.”
If there’s joy in my heart, I quash it. “Don’t let Bronko hear you say that.” I take my suitcase to the dresser to unpack.
“I drank my first beer in front of Mama this vacation.”
“And I’m betting the house is still standing.” Socks in the top drawer.
He goes to his dresser, opens a drawer, takes out a sweater. “See what Santa brought me?” And another sweater. “And this.”
“Ho ho ho.” I relent a little: “They’re very nice.”
“Well, it wasn’t Santa. Mama picked them out.”
“Naturally.”
He whisper/sighs. “Yeah. Well, I’ll see you later” and out he goes.
I hate it, but I won’t engage. How can I ever be anything but unresponsive no matter how I feel?
*****
It’s after midnight; he goes to the sleeping room.
I wait for six minutes before I go in. I climb into my bunk and lie there sensing him below me, awake, not moving.
“Goodnight, Dave.”
“Leave quietly tomorrow, I don’t register till the afternoon.”
*****
I’m in the living room of Big Brother John’s apartment. From the kitchen he brings two mugs with teabags steeping in them. “I’m worried about you.”
I try to laugh. “I’m busy. I’m harried. I’m scattered. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”
In his vapid school counselor voice: “Now you know, young man, occasionally you must take stock and see where your priorities lie.”
I put attention on dipping the teabag and John says, “So, fella, what’s going on with you and Jerry?”
Aha. Am I going to cry?
“Some days you’re close enough to crawl into bed together, some days it’s like you don’t know each other.” He leaves the bag in his cup as he sips.
I give him a weak “yuh-got-me” smile. “I guess it’s pretty much a pendulum.”
He sits forward in his chair. “I didn’t think he had much on the ball. At one rush meeting I might’ve used the word simple.”
“Whoa.”
“But you really liked him, so I tried to understand.” He’s looking right at me.
“Did you succeed?”
He gives me his warmest sweetest smile. “Love’s a bitch.”
*****
The pledge classes run out of Brooks Hall to greet their brotherhoods. And at the Alpha Chi Rho house for the pledge kegger, the Brotherhood gathers around the ping pong table in the basement for drinking games.
“Wales Tales, the Prince of Wales, the number is four.”
“Nay!”
“Who?”
“Two!”
“Nay!”
“Who?”
“Umm…”
“Drink! Drink! Drink!”
And singing:
A sailor told me ere he died,
I know not whether the bastard lied,
About a maid with twat so wide
That she could never be satisfied.
So he fashioned himself a great fucking wheel,
Attached to it a great prick of steel….
I watch Jerry and I can tell when he’s about to look at me and I look away and drum on the table and sing:
Two brass balls were filled with cream
And the whole fucking issue was run by steam.
Everyone lifts mugs and glasses and churns them in unison.
Around and around went the great fucking wheel,
Beer sloshing out of mugs, everyone heaves an arm toward the center of the table and then back.
In and out went the great prick of steel,
I feel him looking at me across the table.
Until at last the maid she cried,
[falsetto] Stop! Stop! I’m satisfied.
I look at him and he smiles. I nod my head toward the door. He understands. We leave.
But this was a case where the biter got bit,
Alas, there was no way of stopping it.
It tore the maid from twat to tit,
And the whole fucking issue blew up in shit.
And around and around went the great fucking wheel….
We go to the garage tv room. He sits on the sofa. I stand. We talk about the pledge class; it’s a warm-up and we both know it. He waits for me to dive in.
“Last term when you said you didn’t talk to me because you were afraid to say the wrong thing, what did you mean?”
He sits forward. He’s been waiting to say this. “I want to talk to you all the time. Every day there are things I want to say to you but then I think about it and I’m afraid you’ll take it the wrong way. So I end up not saying anything.”
I start to sit next to him, but I don’t want to freak him, so I sit on the farther arm of the sofa . “It scares me how important you are to me.”
He wants to talk, but he’s nervous. “I never realized people feel things so intensely or get so emotionally involved. This vacation I had lots of time to think. I worked night security at the mall. And I thought about you all the time. I started to write to you so many times, but I just couldn’t.”
“If you’re—if those times when we—”
“I like you, I want it to be the same as it was.”
If I say anything I’ll cry.
He’s looking at his hands clasped in front of him, elbows on his knees. His voice drops a little lower, a little softer. “And I can’t say I didn’t enjoy those times. When we were together.”
Can’t speak.
I’m not sure how long we sit like this. He’s looking at his clasped hands, thumbs rubbing against each other.
“When I was in fifth grade, we would visit one of Mama’s friends across town. They had a son who was eight or nine years older than me. He was an Eagle Scout. He preached sometimes at our church. Somehow, whenever we’d visit them, we would end up in his bedroom and he would…” He trails off, he stops.
“…play with my wang.” He’s looking at his hands but his attention is on me. I’m scared.
“He would drive over to visit and he’d say we were going bowling and then we’d end up in a motel and he’d take off all his clothes. He…kissed me. It was ugly. I would…”
I’m barely breathing.
“I’ve been beating off ever since.”
Does he want me to say something? I can’t.
He looks at me. “You’re not like that. I know you. You’re not like him.” Eyes back to his hands. “I’d hate you if you were.”
I’m completely floored. Trying to understand. What he’s saying. What it was that happened to him.
There’s a knock at the door and Stef appears. “The pledges are going to serenade the brotherhood. Do you two want to join us?” He looks hard at me.
*****
I put my attention on pledging activities. I put my foot on their shoulders as they do pushups and I hassle them when they’re running in the snow around the outside of the house. I call them Ass Wipe and Cum Stain.
I say yes when a senior drama major asks me to be in a play she wrote and which I haven’t read.
I apply to become a Freshmen Counselor for next year or a Resident Advisor in an upperclass dorm. I prefer Freshmen Counselor: they live in single rooms in freshmen dorms. No roommates.
I start going to role playing sessions at Dr. Porter’s house; he’s the college chaplain. Once a week he meets with ten of us to improvise situations meant to challenge our ethics and our standards or something. So once a week I pretend to be someone not me in a made-up situation so I can forget my life for a while and spend time with people I hardly know. This week I’m a man vehemently opposed to the Red Cross who is confronted by a wife who loves to contribute and a Red Cross worker who wants him to contribute. Dr. Porter seems disappointed that I don’t fall apart. He says that since I’m an actor, it’s easier for me to do this than it should be and that it allows me to avoid true conflict within myself. He mentions my “rapier wit.” He’s a strange little man who would creep me out if I had to be around him a lot.
February 3, 1966
Dreamed last night. Jerry and me. “Will you let me go after the next two years?” he asked. Yes, I would, I will. And in my dreams I knocked to hell everything I’ve been trying to convince myself of these past weeks. I kissed him. He touched me. I loved him.
I go to the Crowbar Party with Cathy Persons. Molly Doherty is there with junior Crow Teddy Chamberlain. As they dance, his mouth is in her hair, his eyes are closed and she is looking directly at me. I look back expressionless and then deliberately not again the rest of the night. The next day Cathy calls and we go for a walk in the snow. Ann Helm asks me to the Kappa Party and Nancy Jonas and I go to the IFC wrestling match one afternoon and then to the school basketball game in the evening. Stef says she reminds him of Carolyn. I kiss both Ann and Nancy—each more than once. The night of the all-sorority dance Cathy finds me in the Grill and asks me to go with her. Jerry is at the dance not with May—I think they’re finished—and he says, “I’m surprised to see formerly dateless you,” and I say, “I was waiting for Cathy to ask,” and she laughs and I try not to look at him the rest of the evening.
He would hate me if he thought I was like that guy.
*****
I’m going up the back stairs to the study room.
From behind, he puts his arms around my waist and leans the side of his face against my back and says, “Will you sign my petition for junior class president?” I want to sing with joy but it comes out a gasp. I lean back into him and he holds me a bit tighter and he laughs.
On the evening of February 25, my twentieth birthday, and as I am currently Allegheny College’s go-to emcee, I introduce the Shangri-Las to a packed Montgomery Field House. Lifting the mic from its stand, I wail “Mama” as the Shangri-Las do in their song I Can Never Go Home Anymore. The crowd roars and applauds and stomps and the Shangri-Las come on stage in matching blue jump suits and the lead singer takes the mic and says, “I’ll see you after the show.”
The crowd screams and applauds.
After the show, I don’t go backstage.
Jerry finds out that he’s been voted junior class president the same day that he is passed over for Freshmen Counselor. I’m accepted as Freshmen Counselor and as Resident Advisor for Highland Hall. I take the RA position because then I can have a roommate. I know I know.
It’s finals week and Carolyn writes to say she’ll be with friends in Vermont over the break.
Coming up the back stairs after my French exam, I hear Jerry and Bronko in the study room.
“How about Fort Lauderdale?” Bronko is saying. “Rag and his boys storm the Fort for spring break.”
Jerry says, “The only thing Caraggino will be storming spring break is the refrigerator at his house in Cleveland Heights.”
Bronko laughs and I come into the room.
“Speaking of Cleveland Heights,” I say, “have you thought about inviting your favorite roommate to spend spring break at your house?”
He bends over to tie tennis shoe laces that aren’t untied. “Cakes is going skiing.”
“Cakes?” I get my Chaucer text. “I meant Bronko,” and I go to the library.
After dinner I’m at my desk laying out the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I’m studied out. He comes in and goes to his desk. He’s shuffling papers.
“Are you serious about coming to Cleveland?”
I keep my attention on the puzzle. “I am.”
“Your last final is Thursday morning, right?”
“It is.”
“Mine’s tomorrow.”
“Alas.”
He comes to me and puts his fingers in my hair. He turns over a puzzle piece. And another. “How about we find a ride to Cleveland and I stay till after your Thursday final?”
I wish I wasn’t so gloriously happy.
*****
He’s in the upstairs bathroom and I’m in the kitchen with his Mama. She’s putting potatoes and carrots around the beef in a roasting pan. She won’t let me help. We’ve been talking about life in the fraternity house this year.
“Next year you’ll all move out into other living arrangements, won’t you?” she says.
“Everybody’s buzzing about it.”
Her attention now on chopping celery, she’s trying to be casual. “Have you decided where you’re rooming?”
Uh oh. Mine field ahead.
“I’m going to be a Resident Advisor, so I’ll live in one of the upperclass dorms.”
She puts an onion on the cutting board. “Singles?” Chop chop.
“No, they’re doubles. That’s one reason I wanted the RA position instead of freshmen counselor—those are singles.”
“Have you picked a roommate?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh.”
Jerry comes in.
Mama says, “Jerry, do you know where you’re rooming next year?”
He doesn’t look at me. “No.”
She does look at me. “Oh,” she says.
“Let’s go,” Jerry says, “we’re late.”
*****
We’re sitting in the living room. With the crewel work and the lace and the carpet—deep red with a pattern of faded black and gold curlicues—and the sheer-covered windows that let in only enough light to keep me from knocking into Gramps’s stuffed easy chair, it’s less living room and more ancient parlor. Gramma is telling me she won’t get the television in Jerry’s room fixed. “He spends so much time there anyway that he can come down here to watch television and then we can watch him.”
Jerry says nothing. Gramma knocks the will to speak out of anyone. I’ve said very little in the four days we’ve been here. It’s all about listening to the authority of Gramma. As she puts it—however sweetly—“If Gramma says do it, do it.”
We’re in his room later. He’s lying on the bed and I’m sitting next to him, my hands in my lap. “I understand a little more why you don’t like talking about things.”
He’s subdued. “Yeah?”
“Everything’s a big deal here. And even if you’d like to mention something in passing, everyone else has an anecdote to relate to it or a judgment to make about it.”
“Uh huh.”
I don’t want him to close himself away from me. “But I wish you’d talk to me.”
He’s still for a moment.
“Well….” My heart stops. “Here’s something I don’t want to hold in any longer.” I’m looking down at him and I’m trying not to touch him. This is going to be bleak. “Huna and I are rooming together next year.”
I inhale to keep myself from passing out. Or lashing out. “Ah, bon. Non. Pas bon.”
He does that uncomfortable laugh of his and I want to be in another room but I don’t move. “How long have you known?”
“I talked to Huna about it a month or so ago.”
“Hunh.”
“When things between you and me were especially grim.”
“Ah, yes.”
“And I thought it wouldn’t happen anyway because I thought I’d be a freshman counselor.”
“Right.”
“But now the way things have been going between us, I’m almost sorry that I talked to Huna.”
I’m waiting to hear that he’ll tell Huna he won’t be able to do it after all.
“But I can’t change it now. I can’t stab him in the back.”
I reach behind me and pull an invisible knife out of my back and hand it to him and I get up and go to the window. “Sorry. I’m just disappointed and sad.”
He sits up. “It won’t make that much difference. I’ll come visit you.” I can hear him thinking about that. “Once a week at least.”
“Like the needy fuck I am.”
“Any day you want.”
“And the altruistic candy striper you’ll become.”
“We can room together senior year.”
“Ah.”
“And it’s not that I like Huna more than I like you. I think more of you than any other guy.” I might scream. “But I do have good times with Huna. And he has a great stereo. We’re going to try to get an apartment and since you’re an RA, you’ll automatically have apartment privileges.”
I’m not listening to him. I’m thinking that he has known this for weeks and that he has said nothing. And as I’m thinking this, he’s saying that he and Huna have been joking about the good times they’re going to have. I will not be destroyed by this because I don’t believe it will happen. Something will come up. I’ll make something come up.
He goes quiet.
“If I had a diary,” he says, “I’d write in it tonight.”
The Crazy One in the Car is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely co-incidental.