THE CRAZY ONE IN THE CAR--episode 9

Going to college 1964-1968

Freshman Year — Winter Quarter 1965

At the house a few minutes ago, the pledge brothers elected me pledge class president. And, yes, I’m surprised. I don’t think they like me much. And I’m glad I don’t have time to worry it as we are all walking to the Montgomery Field House for the Alpha Chi Rho/Phi Delta Theta volleyball game.

In the lobby Rick Hentzinger comes toward me beaming and I turn to look behind me for the Phi Delt brothers he must be beaming at. 

“Dave!” he says, “Good to see you!” 

Wasn’t Fantasticks a great experience? 

You were a great stage manager. 

What courses are you taking? 

Will you be playing any sports for the Crows?

It’s a minute or so and the lobby is empty. Stef appears in the doorway to the gym. “The game’s starting.” He looks at me expressionless and goes back in.

“Well, I gotta go cheer for my team,” I say.

“Yeah. Hey, I would’ve liked to see you become a Phi Delt.”

It’s a day of surprises, isn’t it.

“Yeah. I’m just not the Phi Delt type.”

He gets that who-just-smacked-me look and says,“You jag off.”

“Yeah.” And I don’t wait for his response; I go to the bleachers on the Crow side of the gym and I cheer on my team.

The Phi Delts win.

*****

It’s mid-evening Saturday. The dining tables are clear and the cook has gone home. Not many people at the house. The lights are out in the living room. There’s a candle burning on the mantelpiece. From the stereo, Dylan singing. The Times They Are A-Changin.’ I think it’s Brother Morton on the sofa, arm around his pinmate Lucy.  

I find John in the study room at his desk. The only light in the room comes from his desk lamp. When he sees me in the doorway, he smiles slow, true, no infusion of false energy. “Hi.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” and I go to his desk. “For you, though, I wish you were out somewhere having a blast.”

His smile continues, maybe a flash of something sad in his eyes. “But then I would have missed you,” he says and in his clueless frat boy voice, “Well, yuh know, there just wasn’t much goin’ on tonight and I have to get this gawdawful history paper written. Whaddaya know about Destiny in Medieval Christian dogma?”

I sit on the floor and lean against the desk and I look up at him. “I’m an English major, I’m gonna teach high school English, I don’ know nuthin about Destiny in the Middle Ages.” 

I like looking up at him.

“Hasn’t Mr. Alton talked you into becoming a drama major yet?”

Quiet laugh. “He and Mrs. Bardt are doing their best.” I’ve got my knees bent and my arms wrapped around them. “Should I leave you to your writing?”

“You’re much more compelling than Destiny.” He smiles. “Medieval Destiny anyway.”

I lie back on the floor, my head close to his feet. He puts his head in the circle his arms make between the desk top and his chest and he looks down at me as if I were down a rabbit hole. We look at each other in silence. 

“Pledges vote for their Big Brother next week,” he says.

I don’t move, don’t blink. “Yeah.”

“Have you thought about it?”

“Uh huh.”

He smiles. Waits.

“I want you.”

The smile deepens. “Me too.”

Silence. If I lift up a bit and if he leans down a bit, we’ll kiss.

“What?” he says.

“I just imagined kissing you.”

“I’ve imagined kissing you,” he says. “I’ve never had that feeling about another male.” 

I’m lying on the floor looking at him and he’s looking back. He smiles with simple sincerity, with uncomplicated affection. Does he sense the confusion I’ve been feeling about all this? Is he trying to reassure me, to put my fears in perspective? To distinguish between affection and sexuality? Whatever it is, I am glad of it, grateful for him. He makes me believe there might be a way through it all.

*****

Next day, after spending the afternoon in rehearsal and heading to Baldwin to crash for a while before going to the house, I see ECBIV coming up Main Street. 

“Edward C!” 

Is it the slight lift of his chin, the tone of his voice as he says, “Hey!” that triggers my remorse? How long has it been since I’ve been to his room? Since we’ve talked? I begin to apologize—especially for not helping him with his classes—and he cuts me off with, “Not a problem.” Unflappable, unassailable ECBIV. “I was never good with babysitters anyway even when I was a baby.”

“I’m not babysitting you, but I did promise I’d help with—”

“I was at the Phi Psi House today. John Mickinac thinks you’re the best guy the Crows got.”

“Wow, that’s really—”

“He says he’s sorry the Phi Psis got to you too late.”

“You thinking about pledging Phi Psi? I’ll help get your grades—”

“I’m thinking about nothing past each day.”

“Well, okay, so let’s get a bridge game going or we can go for pizza; Mama Rose must be wondering what—”

“Gotta get to the radio station. I’m late for a meeting.” 

And he veers off to Cochran Hall. I want to call to him, I want to say I’m sorry or something, but he’s walking away quickly and deliberately. 

I go to my room, lie flat out on my bed, close my eyes. I’ll figure out a way to make it up to him. Wait! should I be in biology lab now? No, this is Monday. Oh crap, do I have to know my lines for tonight’s rehearsal? The bed jolts a bit and I open my eyes and Jerry’s sitting there looking down at me. He’s smiling.

I want to touch his cheek. “Am I in heaven? Did I die?”

“Get dressed. You’re coming with me.” 

And he’s up and standing in the doorway. 

“Where?”

“You’re coming with me to the track team meeting.”

“I am?”

“You are. Hurry up.”

And I do. He has with no effort at all opened a door I had assumed was locked, or at least was too difficult to try. Without him, I would let this pass—I had told myself I was too busy even to consider it. With him and his easeful surety, I walk the mile or so to Robertson Field hopeful and happy. 

About fifty guys are waiting in the locker room. I recognize a few freshmen and sophomore Crow Brother Gary Broadelsohn. Coach Johnson comes in and we all gather on benches. Coach welcomes returning upperclassmen and he says he’s glad to see so many freshmen. As he talks, I look at the track and field record board hanging on the wall behind him. 120 yard high hurdles, J. Scott, :15.9, 1959. College hurdles are three inches higher than high school hurdles. My high school hurdle record time is :15.3. Can three inches make that much difference?

“Practice officially starts the first day of spring quarter,” Johnson is saying, “but if you want to make the team, better start working out on your own now. Questions?” 

Jerry and I will run every day.

*****

It’s Sunday morning and before I go to lunch at South Hall, I’m vacuuming the carpet in the house library. Peter Katz, Crow president, appears in the doorway. He has a deep voice and a slow, even laconic, delivery to go with a tall thin body that seems to have given up its effort to reach taller and is always just about to give in to gravity. He’s wearing a loose camel-colored sport coat, a pale off-white shirt, a deep green tie, dress pants and wing tips. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without a sport coat. “David.” I turn off the vacuum cleaner. “Have you submitted your petition to run for sophomore class president?” His eyes never quite open all the way and his heavy lips never quite close.

“Pledge Strothman has already petitioned, so I thought that in the name of Brotherhood, I wouldn’t.”

Katz shifts his weight. “Commendable sentiment,” he says, “but I suggest you look at it this way: If two Alpha Chi Rho pledges run for president, the House has twice the chance of having a class officer from among us.”

What can I say to that? “Well, then, okay I will.” 

I look for the slightest twinkle in his eyes to betray an appreciation of his intellectual strategy but he reveals nothing. “Good,” he says and out he goes. 

He’ll make a great lawyer one day.

I put the vacuum cleaner in the hall closet and when I get to South Hall, Joan Calder, sitting alone at a table in the dining room, looks up from the book she’s reading. Her face wants to smile but it’s waiting for me to spark it. 

I carry my tray to her table. “May I?” 

She smiles her u-smile. “Please,” she says. And as if he were following me, Dan Corse appears and puts his tray down next to mine and says, “Are you taking this lovely girl out this evening?” 

Joan blushes. 

Before I can say anything John comes to the table wearing his waiter’s apron. “Do you have a date tonight?” he asks.

Did he and Dan plan this? 

“I’m staying in my room tonight. Lots of catching up to do.”

John looks at Joan. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Staying in my room,” and she shuts her eyes tight.

He looks at me and turns to take empty trays off the next table.

“I didn’t go to Mass this morning,” I say, thinking this wipes out any possibility of a date, “so I’m going downtown for five o’clock Mass.”

Joan’s eyes go bigger. “Me too,” she says.

“You’re Catholic?” John says and she raises her eyebrows and nods.

Dan laughs. “Well, fuck, Downs, Jesus wants you two RCs to get together this lovely Sunday evening.”

So Joan and I go to Mass down the hill. And afterward, she says, “We can’t get back to South in time for dinner.” So we go to a little cafe. When I get the check, she says she brought money, but I pay for it and she says, “All right, then, sometime before the end of the term I’m going to make you dinner.” 

Uh oh.

We walk back to South Hall and on my way from there to the house, I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have kissed her goodnight.

*****

Yesterday Stef was elected next year’s Crow president. And at today’s pledge meeting—the last of the quarter—we all stand when he comes into the living room and we applaud and cheer. “Stef! Stef! Stef!” I go to him and I hug him. I want to kiss him on his fat rosy cheek. But I don’t. He blushes and he smiles more animatedly than usual. “Thank you, everyone, thank you very much. Now let’s get down to the business of this meeting.” He grins. “On the piano bench are fourteen pledge paddles. Over spring break you will sand and stain and paint and varnish your paddles”—and he looks as mischievous as the Good Elf can look—“in preparation for next quarter’s ceremony when your Big Brothers will present the paddles to you by whacking your asses with them as many times as it takes to get a unanimous thumbs up from the Brotherhood.” 

A cheer goes up.

The next day as Jerry and I stretch out before our run, he says, “I might need help working on my paddle.”

“Here I am,” I say, “ready and willing and able to assist.”

“I was thinking we could sand and stain them at my house over spring break,” he says and my heart leaps. 

I say, “We can paint them and varnish them at my house.”

We look at each other. He begins a smile and his eyes dare me to reciprocate and I do.

“Let’s try for distance today,” he says and off he goes.

*****

March 13, 1965

I’m fairly positive I’m abnormal. I intend to remedy that some day.

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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.