Charade - Chapter Three

Glad to be rid of his parents, Michael wanted to celebrate by not doing anything. His computers and what clothes he had were stuffed in boxes and grocery bags. While his hard drive contained many entertainment options, they were not enough to encourage activity. Michael sat on his bed and simply stared at the boxes.

The morning with his parents had taken its toll to be sure, but the weirdness of his roommate did even more to dissuade him from opening any boxes. Cary’s ability to put his parents on an even playing field amused him to no end and he wished his sister could witness what Cary so effortlessly did. Michael was in awe and at the same time, freaked out.

Cary sat with Marine-quality posture at his desk and wrote a letter to some girlfriend probably just as strange who had also gone away to a fancy school. As though he sensed Michael’s thoughts, Cary suddenly stopped writing and regarded his roommate. "You know, I can finish this later. Do you want to take a walk? Maybe locate some classrooms? It may make some sense. Cut down on confusion Wednesday."

Michael looked at his boxes again. "Maybe in a little while. I guess I should, like, you know, um, get rid of this stack of shit."

"Okay. It’s probably better we wait longer anyway until it cools off some more. This heat is annoying especially when the breeze isn’t up." Cary nodded out the window, then motioned to Michael’s boxes. "If you need a hand, let me know. I’m not bad at taking empties to the dumpster."

Michael flopped backwards, sprawling out on his bed and crossing his hands in back of his head. "Whatever."

Michael could tell his use of whatever, which stood in for please, thank you and okay bothered Cary. But he seemed intent on not clarifying, wondering why he acted the way he did with certain people. What had turned him into nearly a mute around authority figures? Why did he view his new roommate as an authority on anything? Perhaps he worked so hard on ambiguity with his parents a point was reached where he did not talk much at all around them.

"There is plenty of time. I’ll go ahead and finish my letter. If you change your mind, let me know." Cary wiggled his pen around with his fingers.

As Michael jammed his iPod ear buds in, he replied, "whatever." There it went again. Right out of his mouth by reflex. Michael closed his eyes and decided to make a major effort at communicating with those who would be in his world for the next nine months. He would have to do things differently. He opened his eyes and glanced over to Cary. "Let’s go in about a half hour. Cool?"

Cary nodded, then looked down at the letter to Grace he had been struggling to write.

Grace:

Arrived at Aversham College today and started the process of settling in. The trip did not go as well as expected. There was a long delay early this morning at LaGuardia and this involved a ridiculous amount of time watching television news. Isn’t there anywhere to escape television? It was up so loud I could not concentrate on the Steinbeck book I bought that day we were in the Lower East Side (I am using the pen I bought at Altman’s that same day). But I made it anyway and beat my roommate who was driving, as it turns out, from Louisville, with his parents. His father is a manager at a car dealer there. Anyway, Michael seems all right, despite being a little quiet and into his gadgets. I’ve never seen someone text message so much. Remember Chin Park? Silent Chin? Well, this guy is going to give Silent Chin a run for his money (though wasn’t Chin our student body president?). I think I am exaggerating too much. When he does talk, he’s a funny guy and I think he’ll loosen up okay.

So far, after only being on campus for a mere six hours, I can report that it is in fair shape and does possess that certain academic soul my father always went on about. But more on this another time, maybe after a couple weeks of classes.

The dormitory will be a good place to live for me, but I don’t think I will get much studying done here. The fellows on my hall look to be nice enough, but also in the mood to continuously make noise. And a lot of it. That’s fine with me, because I will be spending a great deal of time in Francis Portage. Portage is our giant library that sits right in the middle of campus and is covered by thick vines of deep green ivy.

How is life at Hampshire? Is it what you had imagined so far? Do you like your living quarters?

Can’t wait to hear from you!

Cary

He sealed and addressed the envelope, left the room and deposited the envelope in the Norton mail chute. Upon his return, Michael got up off his bed and unplugged his ears. "Let’s go look around now. If that’s cool."

Cary held his keycard up. "Let’s go."

As they walked the path toward the main cluster of buildings forming the core of Aversham academia, Cary and Michael weren’t sure where to begin their narrative. Cary decided a direct approach made the most sense. "After earlier today, with your parents and all, I feel like you know much more about me than I do about you. So I’m not sure how to initiate the talk where we share each other’s background and…"

Michael chuckled uneasily. "…And find that common ground making it possible for us to, like, I don’t know, go on and make a buddy movie or something." They both laughed. "I was just thinking about this, sort of, when you were writing. Like, my strategy is always to shut the hell up when I’m around my parents. It’s such a cliché to dislike, you know, parents. But I think, for me, it’s because every time, when I used to…anyway, they always had some sarcastic or negative thing to say to me. It just wore me down, man."

"There’s a lot of that going around."

"So what I don’t want, I mean right off the bat, out of the gate or whatever, is for me to be all quiet and shit around you. That would be the usual thing to happen."

"Sure. Until you would reach some sort of understanding or acceptance of me or anyone else for that matter."

Michael put his hands in his pockets. "Not exactly. I mean, it’s kind of limited to people I sense are an authority." He twisted and gave Cary an exaggerated look. "And dude? You look like someone in authority. Even parental. Know what I’m saying?"

"Gee. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." Cary smiled. "Well, look. Maybe I’ll have to work on this or something, because, because you know that girl I talked to at the bookstore?"

"Oh yeah. That’s some…"

"She mistook me for the Hall Proctor. I am obviously not an authority. You’ll see." They stopped in the middle of Mullen Piazza, a large square paved in beautiful granite modeled on a half dozen European plazas. It formed the hub of Aversham. Off of which rambled the older North Campus with its paved cow paths leading to Mould Dorm Group and various departments of old world higher education. In the other direction, beyond the Union, South Campus rolled down a gentle hill and up the side of a wooded ridge out of which the newer schools of Aversham had been carved along with cool, more intimate student lodgings.

The hulking mass of Francis Portage Library did not impress Michael like it did Cary. They stood in Mullen Piazza, Cary looking at the front of the building for some time. While Michael soaked in the festival atmosphere of the square, Cary wondered who was responsible for messing up a fair rip-off of Strickland’s Providence Athenaeum. He noted a few ignominious architectural ‘flourishes’ added to the structure in the sixties to ‘improve accessibility.’ Michael watched a small group of co-eds work on an elaborate chalk drawing near the central fountain. "I wonder if admissions has some sort of requirement for girls."

Cary looked over at the group. "What do you mean?"

"Just about every girl I’ve seen has been hot and it’s kind of weird."

Cary shrugged. "Wealth. It gives everyone attached to it a sort of, um, a well-showered patina."

Michael nodded. "Ah, right. Advantages of, like, health and dental care and all. Proper diet."

"Maybe. I really don’t know. But it does seem that wealth translates into a disproportionate level of what society views as attractiveness."

Michael huffed. "Okay, professor."

"Sorry. I have a bad habit of saying stuff like that. I think it’s from spending too much time with my Dad." Cary went back to considering the concrete veneers added to the Greek Revival façade faced in Vermont granite.

Michael looked at what Cary was studying and screwed his face into a smirk. "Dude, relax, it’s a library. Check out the dude doing sick tricks on that deck over there." Michael waved a hand at a skater working the rails on the far side of the Piazza.

"Frank Lloyd Wright said, ‘architecture is the mother of all art,’ or something like that. Think about it." He rubbed his chin, then turned to Michael realizing he had just about gone over the edge of reason with his new acquaintance.

Michael considered this for a couple of beats. "That sounds like bullshit to me, but I’m no art critic."

"I get bent out of shape about this stuff -- the importance of architecture. From my perspective, why design a building we might live or work in," he nodded toward the library,
"that ignores our intelligence?"

Michael cut him off. "Right. Um, can we get going now?"

"Sure. Let’s go and find your computer classroom first, then we’ll come back this way and find my chemistry class."

As they walked through the arches of the Union, Michael thought about his bedroom. He pictured a huge room with lots of windows, like something from a movie -- big windows with lots of trees outside. Enough space in the room to have all his computers set up right by his bed, instead of most of it down in the basement. He thought about climbing out of those big windows and on to an enormous tree limb where he could sit and listen to music without anyone bothering him. He understood the point Cary made, but considered the notion of design as one of economics, rather than aesthetics.

Michael decided Aversham must have some mystical power. He felt like it was a magical place, clearly disconnected from the day-to-day of the rest of the world. A place where everyone was beautiful and talking about stuff like architecture and Darfur, like, all the time. After not saying anything to each other for a long time, Cary looked at Michael. "Have you thought about whether you’ll join a DC or not?"

Michael looked over and smirked. "DC?"

"Sorry. Dining Club."

"Dining Club?"

"They’re just called DC’s on campus. There’s a brochure that probably came to you last month or something."

"Must have missed that." Michael shrugged.

"You’ll get all sorts of flyers in the mail over the next few weeks. Invitations. Twelve dining clubs operate out of these huge rooms in the basement of the union. Aversham did away with fraternities in the late sixties when it went co-ed. The board set up eight clubs that act as social organizations."

"What, like that Skull & Bones thing?"

"Not really. It’s really not that serious of a thing. It’s a nice system for those looking for a group-like structure. There are twelve full-fledged clubs now that have dinners on Sunday night as well as throw elaborate parties and various functions, lectures even."

"Parties?"

"All sorts of things." Cary stepped to one side and let a group of people by on the path. "I’m not sure if it’s the right thing for me, but I’m keeping an open mind. My Dad wants me to look into Erie DC, but we’ll see. Time and all. Um, were you into a lot of activities in High School?"

Michael sighed. "Not really. I sort of started an Apple club my Junior year, which morphed into an online gaming blog called Dull Knives. I played guitar in a band for about a picosecond."
They continued down the sidewalk leading to the School of Computer Science (nicknamed Bits & Bytes), housed in Evans Hall, which tucked its poured cement and exposed steel trusses into thick woods on South Campus. Upon arrival, they went into the building and consulted his print out for the room number, then began climbing the stairs to the third floor. Michael thought about his first exposure to Aversham. A lengthy article in Linux Review covered the remarkable computer department of this small college in Southeastern Ohio. He immediately looked it up on-line and read the history.

Tobin Kripke made his inexhaustible millions amongst the blast furnaces of Ashtabula, Youngstown and Akron back in the late 19th Century. His farm outside the quiet town of West Aversham, where he summered in later years, became the first plot of land accumulated by the college forming the balance of acreage for North Campus. Kripke dealt in the dark, hot world of American industrialization, selling coking coal to the steel industry. So he wanted to use his fortune in the same image as Andrew Carnegie. He hated Carnegie for myriad reasons, yet felt compelled to imitate him when it came time to layout a legacy. Tobin’s ambition was to build a compact version of his alma mater, Brown, only do it in the rolling hills of Southeastern Ohio far from the skeptical eyes of Eastern potentates (and judgmental, Brown classmates). Over a century later, it had grown far beyond the original Kripke plan, emerging as a leader in cranking out computer programmers, art historians, vast armies of teachers, wealthy-if-not-destitute musicians, perpetual grad students, published writers moonlighting as retail cashiers and far too many advertising executives to count. As it said in the magazine article Michael had read, it could not be a surprise when some enterprising student emerged from the hot, blast furnace of the Stipe Visual Arts Building to come up with T-shirts that read ‘Aversham College, founded by a coke dealer, in 1894.’ These shirts have such cache with alumni that they are sold as official merchandise in the bookstore.