Life / My Generation
The Campus Revolution
1. First Love (uncut)
Matriculation at Dartmouth is a ceremonious affair wherein each entering freshman files up into the "Tower Room" of the Green's showpiece, Baker Library, for a brief but personal audience with the College president. The novitiates of '68 mounted the long stairway every bit as dutifully as our predecessors and entered a musty, book-filled anteroom, to wait our turn with the Great Man.
But we were in for a surprise. Two lanky young men approached each of us with leaflets. They both wore faded jeans and jean-jackets and blue "worker's shirts." One sported wire-rimmed glasses and a bushy mustache; the other was distinguished by a leather cap and a tiny, Leninesque beard. They both had intense, piercing eyes and hair that crept over their collars. We all took their leaflet, sat down quietly and read it, just as dutifully as we accepted everything else expected of us at this time. We didn't know anything; we were only freshmen.
The week to come - we did know with some nervous anticipation - was "Freshman Week" and would be full of tasks performed at the whim of upperclassmen: washing windows and beer-spattered fraternity-house floors, carrying books, running errands. . . . A good number of us had already started our sentences in the dining hall, where we slaved on the food and dish assembly lines in return for financial aid. So it was with a certain openness that I received this two-page leaflet entitled "The Student as Nigger."
It was produced by "Students for a Democratic Society," the vanguard of the growing tide of campus unrest across the nation. In uncompromising prose, the College (any college) and its president and deans and trustees, its allies and alumni and backers throughout the academic-military-financial-industrial complex were denounced for their overt and covert and insidious complicity in crimes against the struggling masses. We erstwhile innocent students would become unwitting victims and pawns were we not to awaken immediately to throw off the shackles that the ruling class was borrowing from the slave trade and about to lock around our limbs.
I was not inspired. Maybe I failed to make the desired connections in logic. At any rate I chose to forego the dire exhortations not to proceed, and proceeded - dutifully - into the chambers of the venerable John Sloan Dickey, the Third.
There sat the quintessential Dartmouth Man, in all his twilight glory: craggy, weathered features under a ruddy, bald pate, the tall and broad-shouldered frame of an athlete, the hardened gaze and wrinkles of the businessman, the little smile of the diplomat, the firm handshake of the alumni fundraiser. No small talk, when he had to do this eight hundred times, though. Just the smile, the handshake, and a hoarse, hearty, "Welcome to Dartmouth, son." The great white father, of the school started for red men speaks. Yes, we are now, as the song declared, "Sons of Dartmouth." And in the absence of women, the College would be "Ma."
President Dickey, for his part, appeared unfazed by the subversive element in his anteroom. I too, though in some way impressed by the bold intrusion of this political agitation in my new milieu, was not influenced to change my mind-set, to act or react in any conscious way. The whole new experience of being away from home, on my own for the first time to explore freedom with all its possibilities, overshadowed whatever doctrinaire rhetoric I could read in a flimsy leaflet. I had only just begun the full flight of my own liberation, and no extended metaphors about class warfare could convince me otherwise.
And so, despite the growing encroachment of events in the political world, I would spend the greater part of my college years, in the heyday of student activism, pursuing what for me were more enticing preoccupations: immersion in the world of football games and fraternity parties; exchange of ideas on all the planes of thought, whether academic, literary, social or cultural; romance full-blown, naked and splendorous; and exploration of the flip-side of the new politics, the drug and music subculture.
Drug use was sweeping the nation's campuses, and Dartmouth was no exception. I entered with no particular inclination to try any of the array of newly popular drugs - but it was only a matter of time before I was swayed. From the sounds of the pounding music and raucous laughter overhead on the second floor of the dorm, or from the next suite of rooms on the first floor, some people were having a great time, with that sweet-smelling smoke.
My suite was quieter, with a relatively studious atmosphere at the start of that fall term. In the rooms next to mine at the end of the hall were Allen, a shy, straight fellow from Vermont; Andy, an eccentric computer jock from New York who routinely spent all-night sessions in the bowels of the college computer room; and in the farthest corner, Jason, a burly, black-bearded recluse in Army fatigues. He was a Vietnam veteran, older than us kids, a man of the world. From the pungent fumes emanating from under the door of his eight-by-ten cubicle, it was obvious that Jason was, in the current parlance, a "head."
A couple of weeks into fall term, on a Saturday evening when the football team was away and not much was happening on campus, Danny and I were both bored and restless. Loud music pounded from all corners of the dorm. Danny was at his desk writing a letter home. I was sitting on the couch plunking at his guitar, trying to play along with Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence." Our door was half-open.
"Either of you guys toke?" came a deep friendly voice.
I looked up, startled, to see Jason standing in the doorway. He was holding an unlit joint in his hand.
"Uh . . ." I glanced at Danny. His eyes grew big and he shook his head. I answered, "No, actually. Never have." But I somehow knew I was ready now, and somehow Jason had sensed it.
"Well," he said, teasingly. "Are you interested?" He held up the hand-rolled number with the tapered twist at each end. Still, my feet were a bit cold.
Danny's too. When I didn't say anything he blurted out, "I dunno. I dunno. I was just writing this letter home, y'know, and my parents . . ."
Jason rolled his eyes, then looked at me. The record ended; the stereo shut itself off. I smiled. Jason walked in from the doorway.
"Can I try your guitar?"
"It's his," I said, motioning toward Danny.
"Sure, go ahead," said Danny. "It's not a very good one, I just - "
"No problem," said Jason. "In Nam you played what you could get." A grim sadness crossed his face like a cloud. He sat down on the couch beside me, took the guitar in one hand and pulled out a book of matches from his shirt pocket with the joint-hand. My heart sped up.
He lit the joint, puffed it going with serious eyes, then let it hang from his mouth, where it gave off a steady plume of rich smoke. He started to strum a few chords. I rushed to the door and shut it. The white towels flapped on their door-mounted rack. The bare fact was, marijuana was illegal, even on campus; and the campus police were rumored to have made a few busts.
Jason exhaled a billowing cloud of the stuff and said, "If you're really worried about it, take one of those towels and roll it up and stick it along that crack." He motioned to the long sliver of light under the door.
"Oh yeah. Good idea!" I rushed up again to do his bidding. Then I turned back and saw the glowing joint extended toward me. "Um . . . okay." I took and held it gingerly as it smoldered away. Danny looked at me from his desk with his big eyes and a nervous grin. I took a drag, and an extra large breath with it. "Aren't you supposed to 'hold it in,' or something?" - I tried to say while holding my breath . . . but it ended with a violent cough. The smoke had actually only made it to the back of my mouth and upper throat.
Jason laughed. "Yeah, dude, that's - ha! - that's what they say. No, here, you got to draw it deep" - he put his hand on his solar plexus - "down her and hold it in. Yeah. That's right. You'll get it."
Before the end of the joint we'd passed it around - even Danny gave it a try. Neither of us neophytes really got off that first time; the light buzz probably came more from the hyperventilating.
I guess it grows on you, though, or you finally get the hang of it, and then you take off: Before long I was grooving with the rest of them in the middle suite where the large double room with extra couch-space was crammed with smokers and thumped out the jungle rhythms of the new Santana album from the best stereo system on the floor.
The guys who roomed there were an odd couple of freshmen: John Demery, a classic Dartmouth animal in the early stages of its evolution, mutating rapidly under the influence of the drugs provided by his roommate. . . . Michael Chilton, an ex-preppy who'd already grown a dense, black beard and who argued for hours on the pay phone in the hall with his father in Massachusetts, shouting with enough volume to carry the distance without phone lines - or so we joked, eavesdropping from every room on the floor. Michael would be gone inside of two years, writing back to us from an attic dive in Haight-Ashbury where he lived on pinto beans for a while and actually found a job. He boasted that he could even smoke dope on the job with his boss. That was California for you. Then he was off to India, to pursue a spiritual path prefigured by his philosophy courses at Dartmouth. For now, our brave new world back in the dorm was full of smoke and music, and the excitement generated by ever-more powerful doses of the same. Heavy electric bands like Cream and Hendrix were rapidly raising the stakes in the rock-music scene. And someone's connections in Bissell were turning up ever more enticing treats such as Moroccan blond hash, or the tarry, black Nepalese "temple balls." A pipe full of hash circulating with Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" at full blast in that crowded, candle-lit, incense-fragrant room, and we were in freshman heaven.
So much for the subversive elements. I was still a pretty straight character, with "Ivy League" haircut and button-down, "Oxford" style shirts, aiming for traditional goals. To pad my future resume I broadened my socially respectable activity list from the standard curriculum to include volunteer high-school tutoring through the Dartmouth Christian Union, and membership on the college debate team. Both turned out differently than I expected.
I'd been full of altruistic intention in signing up as a tutor. We were driven out to a high school in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. I thought we'd be helping the poor, disadvantaged bottom of the heap in this underfunded rural backwater. Out-of-the-way it was; but word had got around about these hunks from Dartmouth coming in, and so the students who'd signed up for the private sessions after school were the brightest, best-looking senior girls. Not that anything came of it: it just turned out to be a rather pleasant, tingling, mutual tease. Talking about multiplication, angles and curves . . .
Debate was a more serious matter. Dartmouth had a prestigious, nationally-ranked team. Each member required a file-box stuffed with quotations, and a brain that could cross-reference it all moment-by-moment in the heat of verbal battle. This was where the real future lawyers trained. I lasted long enough to realize I couldn't, or wouldn't, turn my brain into what amounted to a computerized legal library; after three weeks I quit, without distinction or disgrace.
My courses were a mixed bag. You needed, out of thirty-six credits to graduate, a minimum of four in each of the social sciences, sciences and humanities. I looked to get science out of the way quickly, so had signed up for calculus right off the bat, along with a freshman seminar on "Evolution, Animal Behavior and Man." The latter qualified as a science credit but was co-taught by an English prof. We got to read popular books like The Naked Ape and The Year of the Gorilla. I was still up in the air about a third choice until an upperclassman, a film student who also fancied Chinese and called himself "Wu," convinced me not to pass up Peter Bien's Comparative Literature 47, "The Modern Novel." Though considered an upper-level course, it was not, Wu pointed out, closed to freshmen. But it was only offered every second year. This counselor, a wizened little elf of a junior, with wire-rimmed glasses and thinning hair, seemed to know what he was talking about, so I took his advice and thereby steered a fateful course for my academic life.
"He's tough," the elf had told me, "but brilliant."
So he was. This Professor Bien opened doors I'd never imagined, into hidden dimensions I'd never dreamed of. We began with three weeks on Joyce's Ulysses: a discovery for me of a tour de force that paralleled Homer's Odyssey with perfect irony in the setting of modern Dublin. Kafka, Proust, Lawrence, Dostoyevsky, Kazantzakis all became not only understandable, but revered, intimate friends. The work that most inspired me was Thomas Mann's chef-d'oeuvre, The Magic Mountain. I chose it for the subject of my final paper for the course - a paper crucial to my final grade, since thus far I was hovering around a C minus. But I procrastinated so long that I was forced to take my notes with me to work on over Thanksgiving break, at Steuart's house in New Haven. When the paper I cranked out that weekend earned me an A, I concluded that anything was possible for me in the study of literature.
Part of the blame for my deteriorating study habits may be held at the feet of a fledgling romance I began at mid-term at a Wellesley mixer. Was I first-time lucky, I wondered, in meeting Anne Pappas, the Greek girl I'd picked up there? It was hard to say, at first, and hard to determine over the long distance that kept us apart for the rest of the term. We tried to make up for lost time with long, frequent letters and with extended, intimate conversation by the commons room fireplace on her couple of weekend visits to Dartmouth.
Meanwhile I was able to tap this fresh experience for material to write about in the course on animal behavior. The social life at Dartmouth already provided a rich context for the subject, making up for the lack of women with quantities of beer and excesses of barbaric exhibitionism, commonly known as "raging." Packs of drunken idiots bellowed and swaggered their way from keg to keg every weekend night, and woe was the woman who crossed their merry path. I expounded upon the phenomenon of this notorious creature, "The Dartmouth Animal," in a paper for my seminar:
Every freshman girl entering a college within two hundred miles of Hanover is immediately instructed to beware of this dangerous predator. Their reputation is brought about by the competition among these Animals for the wildest sexual exploits. Every fall weekend sees hundreds of Dartmouth football enthusiasts spending from twenty to forty dollars on dates for the weekend. Even after taking into account the normal sex drive, the degree of trouble, expense, and time devoted to a date that in many cases is not even enjoyed indicates some measure of competition. It is almost expected that one should have a girl up for the weekend; if she is worthwhile, it is further expected that the man be as sexually aggressive as possible. Luckily for the girl, she has been taught to inhibit this anticipated aggression. I asked my date what she wanted to do after a concert. After replying, "anything you want to do," she added, "but since I'm at Dartmouth I'd better say 'just about anything.'"
The red-penciled comment after this remark asks, " - so what happened, just about?" I never did satisfy Professor Levin's curiosity on that point; perhaps now is the time to make amends. Professor Levin, are you listening?
Actually, Professor, I must have been leading you on. Anne and I did spend hours, after that concert, on the couch i front of the fireplace in the Bissell-Cohen lounge. But it was a pensive, not a passionate affair. All four feet were on the floor - as stipulated in the College rules. We were trying to figure out if this chance meeting in the dim hubbub of a Wellesley gymnasium on a random weekend in October had been the work of a greater destiny thrusting us together or if . . . we'd just shared a few dances, a weekend date, and so what? She was my first female companion in the all-male wilderness, and not likely to be the last.
We later kissed in wistful silence, in front of her rooming house, and said good night. Her ride was leaving first thing in the morning. They were meeting for breakfast in town on their way out. We promised to write, to keep in touch.
I couldn't sleep in, Sunday morning, but had to jump up to go to work at the dining hall at eight. The job in the dishroom, on the reeking dis-assembly line, was part of a financial aid package that also included an outright grant and a College loan. I'd refused to sign the loyalty oath required for the interest-free National Defense Student Loan, which stated, "I solemnly swear to defend the United States against all its enemies, foreign and domestic . . ." Besides being distasteful, such a pledge would certainly have prejudiced any claim I might have made for conscientious objector status, when draft time came. The college was good enough to honor my choice and supply a loan from its own coffers. At any rate, I wasn't doing so hot on my end of the bargain. On this particular Sunday morning I rushed into Thayer Hall, grabbed my white mock, and punched in - late again.
My superior, a junior who no doubt saw his work experience as a stepping-stone to some graduate program in business administration, glared at me, looked at his watch and said, "Gray, you'd better buy yourself a new alarm clock. This late stuff is getting to be a habit. What, are your keeping some piece in your bed?" He was good enough to smile, this green-smocked authority figure.
I laughed nervously. "No, not yet. I'm putting her off. Maybe next weekend."
"Oh, yeah?" he snorted. His thick eyebrows arched. "I dunno about you frosh, these days. You guys don't waste much time."
"Whaddya mean?" I countered - while hurrying past him, through the swinging door to the dishroom - "The term's almost over!"
When Thanksgiving weekend arrived, I needed to get to New Haven somehow, so hooked up a ride with my friend Bruce Jansen, one of four Hinsdale grads in the Freshman Class. Bruce was headed for his uncle's place in Stamford, Connecticut via New York City, where Bruce suggested we enjoy a night on the town. A guy in his dorm was driving there, he said, and afterward, if we caught the late train, I could stay overnight at his uncle's house on my way to New Haven. It sounded to me like an excellent plan.
Our driver had spent some time in the city before, and he knew a good section for bar-hopping. It was all an urban wilderness for Bruce and me so we followed his lead. The streets and bars were packed with college youth on the loose for the short holiday, all drinking like crazy since in New York the legal age was eighteen. They must have come in from all over the Northeast. And girls! It was exhilarating to be pressed up against their bouncing, jostling bodies in the heat and sweat and shouts and excited laughter of the crowded bars.
We hit one bar after another down the bustling avenue. We even stumbled into a strip joint and ogled up open-mouthed at the bare-bottomed, G-stringed and pastied dancers who bobbed and wove their way into our innocent hearts. Soon it became too painful to watch any longer, so we waddled out, bursting at the crotch, and went somewhere else for a cooling drink. By eleven-thirty we were reeling drunk, down to the last of our budgeted bills, and lost. Bruce and I had long since been separated from our driver and guide. We hailed a cab and tried to keep our throats stopped up on the bucking, pitching ride to the midnight train at Grand Central. It was close but we made it, with stomachs miraculously intact.
A brief but solid sleep in Stamford, and I rode on to New Haven to meet Steuart by mid-morning. He picked me up in an old, dirty-white Saab. It purred like the white cat that would awaken me the following morning by kneading its claws in my face, to the tune of the Beatles' "Revolution" from their White Album . . . ("It's not the institution . . . change your mind instead . . . you ain't gonna make it with Chairman Mao anyhow . . .") We drove to Steuart's beautiful old elm-shaded house, which he was in the process of remodeling. Plaster was everywhere from torn-apart interior walls. I was greeted warmly by Karen, the former model, still the slender, soft-spoken, raven-haired beauty my brother had married two years earlier.
The house's interior - what remained of it - showed my brother's characteristic bohemian leanings: his own abstract paintings hung on the otherwise stark, white walls; the living-room furniture consisted of a low glass table and a number of black cushions on a lush, white shag carpet. I could put the cushions together, Karen told me, to make a bed.
Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Karen's excellent enchilada pie and a red California wine. Both of my hosts were curious about my new life at Dartmouth, especially the social life.
"How do you survive up there without women?" Steuart wanted to know.
"That's just what I was wondering, too," added Karen, her black eyes dancing.
"Oh, you know . . . a lot of drinking and - well, there is the odd road trip, or mixer on campus with a girl's college. We manage somehow." I was fudging, but my big brother saw right through it.
"So do you have a girlfriend yet?"
"Well, uh . . . sort of." I reached for more black olives, chopped raw onion. I took a slug of wine.
"What do you mean, sort of? What's her name?"
"Anne Pappas. She goes to Wellesley."
"Wellesley?" Karen asked. "How'd you meet her?"
"Oh, they had a mixer there last month. We've been writing a bit, and I had her up for a weekend."
"Oh, yeah . . . where'd she stay - if you don't mind my asking. . . . I'm just curious, how you work these things up there," said Steuart.
"There's boarding houses. Rooms are pretty cheap, ten dollars a night."
"So you say a weekend, that's two nights? - expensive date . . ."
"No, just one, actually. She drove up with some other girls on Saturday for the Princeton game. . . ."
"So are you serious about her, or what?" Karen asked.
I sighed and pushed away my empty plate. "Oh, Karen, that was fantastic. No, no more, that's plenty." Another sigh. "Serious? I dunno. Our letters sound kind of serious, I guess. But it's not like, permanent or anything. We'll see what happens.
Before Christmas break I had Anne up one more time. We found ourselves back on the couch in the lounge, in front of the fires, keeping our balance and playing games with our own emotions. Anne seemed eager enough to hug and kiss there like that, but the instant I pressed us toward the horizontal, she'd resist - pulling away, primly smoothing her skirt, and pursing her thick lips.
"Okay, okay," I'd say. "I got carried away. Sorry."
And we'd start all over again. By the time I walked her to the Occam Inn for the night, I'd almost taken the plunge and invited her to Winter Carnival. The big social event of the year was still two months away, but it was never too early to secure a date for it - everyone had to have a date for Carnival. Yet I'd held off, still not confident that we were a close enough match to warrant such a commitment. It was a gamble, for a date two months away.
No sooner had Anne returned to Wellesley, and I was kicking myself for letting the chance slip through my fingers. Danny finally gave me the final push, saying that even he had a date for Carnival, a girl he'd known in high school back in Maine. Wellesley was close to Boston, he reminded me, and with all the competition from the college guys there . . . I'd better move fast. So I sent off a letter inviting Anne to Carnival, and hoped for the best.
To get home for Christmas I scoured the ride-exchange board mounted on the wall beside the mailboxes at Hopkins Center. A large schematic map of the United States was studded with pinned notes offering or seeking rides to various locations across the map. I found a ride offered by a senior named Curt who was driving to Chicago. I agreed to share expenses and driving.
Curt drove like a bat out of hell. he had a big Chrysler with a 440 engine, and we barreled down the snow-drifted highways like there was no tomorrow. To save time and tolls and to avoid traffic, we took the Canadian route, the Queen's Highway through Ontario to Windsor. There we would cross back over to Detroit. It was my first glimpse of Canada - the wide, endless fields, yellow-brown and patched with white; endless gray skies; no billboards, no trash, no traffic; few houses or people. The land itself was still preeminent; it had not yet been swallowed by civilization. The ride was long, and threatened to be boring but for Curt's fine collection of rock-music tapes on eight-track stereo.
Home at Christmas, I felt like a stranger. I'd flown the nest and could never really feel a home there again. Not completely, anyway. I still felt the nostalgic familiarity of the Christmas ornaments and figurines, my mother's wonderful cooking, chess with my father, poker with Randall. But our cordiality was slightly forced now. I was a guest.
Another factor loomed up larger than before: the obligations of parental responsibility, which for me, because of my independence, meant greater accountability. "Well, what happened?" my mother demanded, bringing up the question of grades. My father sat there in his niche at the breakfast booth beside her not saying anything; but I knew his concern was equally behind her question.
I knew this was coming. I was fortunate enough to have salvaged a B from the science seminar. As for the literature course, I'd slacked off on the heavy reading load to the point that I nearly flunked the final exam, which was full of objective questions like "Where does Bloom go immediately upon leaving the pub?" These questions were designed expressly to convict the lazy bullshitters like myself who might otherwise have coasted through the course on the strength of our courageous insights and flannel mouths. My final grade for the course was a C plus.
The math course had a similar result, if without the temporary glamour. I'd neglected the homework, couldn't quite follow the explanations of the prof in class, and was lucky to scrape by with another C plus. These mediocre grades were the lowest I'd ever received. They were humbling both to me an, I knew, to my parents who were footing the bill.
But, I had to answer somehow for my fall from academic grace: "Ah, well, you know. Everyone at Dartmouth can't get all A's."
"You always did before."
"I did not. I got lots of B's, too. and everybody at Dartmouth got A's and B's in high school." I had a point - they pondered a moment. I pressed my advantage. "Have you ever heard of a bell curve?"
"Yeah," said my father. "The grade distribution. A few get top grades, most fall in the middle, and some fail. It looks like you're heading for the bottom. Or trying to. What've you been doing up there, taking LSD?"
"No," I laughed emphatically. "But I will admit I haven't studied as hard as I could have. They told me when I got into honors Math that everybody would get an A or B."
"And you got a C. So that's practically failing. I guess you thought you wouldn't have to study."
"Well, no - it was a C plus, first of all - and remember, it's an honors course. I could've handled a regular math course no sweat."
"But I thought you tested out of the regular course," my mother said, blowing cigarette smoke in my face.
I waved it away, squinting. "I did! That's why - oh, what's the use, you don't understand." And I got up to leave.
The truth was, I was tired of all the years of working hard for good grades, and now that I was on my own, I thought I might enjoy a little freedom from the grindstone. I'd earned it. All that work in high school had been suffered for the sake of "getting into college," and now I was there. Beyond college, whatever career I imagined hovered in the distance as a more nebulous proposition - obscured by four long years of new and unknown experiences. . . .
"Wait a minute," said my father in his best bass voice. "Siddown. What about this C plus in, what's this CLIT 47? It sounds interesting, anyway." He gave a little snort at what he thought was his original joke.
My mother took offense, or at least made a show of it. Rolling her eyes and uttering a disgusted sigh, she chided him: "It says 'Modern Novel,' dummy. Can't you read?" Then she turned to me: "He's just trying to be funny."
I was ready with my answer. "I got an A on the big term paper for that one. It's a real tough upper-level course that I took because the professor was supposed to be so good. I knew I was taking a bit of a gamble as far as the grade went but thought it would be worth it. It was."
"Not if you're trying to get into law school," snapped my father, with incontrovertible logic. He'd learned well from his father, the Baltimore lawyer.
I somehow waffled my way past their objections, pleading for patience and some leeway for my intellectual growth...while I explored a bit, got some prerequisites out of the way, found my strengths. Not a word about dope - though I did garner some sympathy for my investment of time in courtship, an area every bit as essential as academic excellence for achieving true American manhood. So, though my parents were somewhat disappointed that I'd ended up in the backwoods at Dartmouth instead of in the social registers at Harvard or Yale, there was hope yet. Wellesley, huh? That's one of the Seven Sisters, isn't it?
When I called Curt to arrange a ride back after New Year's, he said his plans had changed. He was staying in the Chicago area an extra week and would start winter term a week late. Not wanting to start the new term off on a bad foot myself, I was left to get back on my own. It would be public transport, a plane to New York and then a bus north.
"You'll be going right through Mamaroneck," my mother pointed out to me. "Why don't you stop off and see some of your old friends? Who was that old girlfriend of yours? Jeannie, her name way, wasn't it. Remember her? Jeannie - "
"Washburn. I remember."
"Whatever happened to you two? You were so close, I thought. And she was so cute. Her father worked for Pepperidge Farms, didn't he?"
"Yeah, that's right. I don't know. I was only, what, eleven. Besides, we moved away, remember?"
It was true - I still had a soft spot in my heart for good old Jeannie Washburn. Playing spin-the-bottle, just her and me, in her back yard . . . walking across the street from school sometimes to her house for lunch, where we'd eat that fancy Pepperidge Farm bread, or cookies from the little white bags . . . I decided to follow up on my mom's suggestion. She, the old gambler, knew how to hedge a bet. This Anne creature, she'd ended up saying, she's Greek? Wellesley's an awfully long way from Dartmouth, isn't it?
I got off the bus in downtown Mamaroneck. Downtown was a place little known to me. I stood turning around in circles, trying to get my bearings. It had been seven years. The street names all sounded dimly familiar, and unfamiliar. Finally I plunked a dime in a pay-phone and called Jeannie's house.
"Hi, Mrs. Washburn? This is Willie Gray. Remember me, I used to live here about seven years ago. I used to play with Jeannie - "
"Oh, sure, yes, Willie Gray. Why, are you in town, now?"
"Yes, I'm just passing through on my way back up to Dartmouth. I wondered - I have a couple of hours before the next bus, and I wondered if Jeannie's home, if I could come by for a visit, to say hello."
"Well, certainly, that would be wonderful. I'm sure Jeannie would be glad to see you again. She's not home right now; she's out with a friend. But I expect her in before long. Why don't you come out? You can wait for her here. Do you remember how to get here?"
I got directions and hung up. My hand was shaking as I rattled the receiver home in its black cradle. I was seized with a sudden jealousy over this "friend" of Jeannie's - presuming it must be a he - and with my own fear worthy of a first date.
Shortly I found myself sitting on a swinging bench in the glassed-in verandah, eating Pepperidge Farm cookies with Mrs. Washburn. I choked on one when the front door tinkled open and then slammed shut. I hear, but could not see, this object of sporadically recurring dreams, and my hands became clammy. I stood up to wait. Footsteps crossed the living room. It was a ghost . . . no, the same Jeannie I remembered, only taller. And she'd filled out nicely. She smiled and I smiled back, resisting the urge to embrace her. I extended my hand. She shook it, politely, with slightly wrinkled brow. I recognized her characteristic nose, with its narrow nostrils . . .
"What a surprise! I've almost forgotten your name - it's Will - Willie - almost, I said. Is it ever good to see your again! Here, sit down. I was just out with a friend - a girlfriend of mine."
She parked herself in a padded brown chair; I settled back down on the swing, breathing easier already.
Mrs. Washburn said that I was just passing through on my way to Dartmouth and had a little time this afternoon for a visit. Then she excused herself and left us to get reacquainted.
"You look just the same as I remember you," I said, still smiling. "Only bigger - larger than life, you might say."
Jeannie, a tall girl, wasn't sure how to take that. "Um, well, the same goes for you, I guess. It's been, what, eight years?"
"Yeah, probly seven or eight. Let's see, sixty, sixty-one, I think we moved in sixty-one. I'd just started sixth grade in Mrs. Cohen's class."
"Oh yeah! I remember that. You were really upset about it, because for some reason you started out in another class, and got switched - "
"Yeah, before the year even started. I never did find out why. She wasn't all that bad, it turned out. But then I was gone, anyway."
"Right. To Atlanta, wasn't it?"
"Yup. . . . So what are you doing with your life - not married, with ten children, yet, obviously. Going to school somewhere?"
"Yes - in Albany. State teacher's college. It's all right. So you're at Dartmouth, huh? The smart kid."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. My grades aren't so hot, now that I've made it to college. Too many other interesting things to get involved in."
"Oh? Like what?"
"Aw, you know..."
So an hour or two passed, all too quickly. By the end of it we'd exchanged addresses and paid homage to our old spin-the-bottle days with a friendly hug and even a lightning kiss that I brushed onto Jeannie's cheek. She blushed quickly and squeezed my hand. And that was the end of that. It was with a mixture of sadness and emotional relief that I boarded my bus.
The bus rambled on through upstate New York. I switched at Saratoga Springs and headed east into Vermont. By the time we reached White River Junction the snow on the ground was three feet deep. The forests beside the highway were a fairyland of ice and snow. The temperature outside was thirty below. I steeled myself for the long haul through the New Hampshire winter, warming with the traditional remedy: to start thinking Carnival.
I don't know what sort of adolescent tripe I put in my first letter to Jeannie, which I composed in my head on the long bus ride. I do know that I'd abandoned my hopes that Anne would accept the invitation as my date for Carnival; and, throwing cautious diplomacy to the wind, I went ahead and invited my childhood sweetheart. If Anne turned out to accept, well, too bad for her. Jeannie really had a prior claim - seven years in waiting. I thought she might just go for it, seeing as how Dartmouth's Winter Carnival was a famous event. They'd even made a movie about it; and hadn't F. Scott Fitzgerald died from a case of pneumonia he'd contracted during Carnival? - or was it a case of drunken exposure? Whatever - Carnival was famous, and my boyhood sweetheart would surely be swayed by its fame, if not by my boyish charms. Maybe our love, I speculated, had been hibernating all these years in a dormant stage of metamorphosis, and was now nearing a re-emergence in some startling new, winged form. I couldn't wait to find out.
In the meantime I had a new batch of courses to bear: introductory anthropology, a French literature course (in French), and the next course in the honors math program - which my freshman advisor, a science prof, convinced me I could master with a little more work on my part. A little more than nothing sounded okay to me.
I also had to talk my way into a new job. I found a little pink slip waiting for me in my vacation mail, informing me that due to repeated lateness during fall term, my dishroom duty was terminated. Too bad, I thought: It had been kind of fun watching the other dish jerks methodically smashing every plate that passed them o the belt, or tossing garbage at each other's faces, or making vile "soups" with the swill of leftovers. Actually I was lucky. After an admonishing interview with the dining hall boss in his office, I was given a chance to redeem myself with a job in the kitchen. Every evening I would chop lettuce to go in a salad for two thousand. I thanked the benevolent tyrant and promised to be on time. Five p.m., sharp. Yessir. No, I won't oversleep, sir. (Ingratiating grin.)
The one bright spot in the beginning of term was the chance to take ski lessons in phys ed class, on the gentle white hills of the golf course. Half the freshman class signed up, so as to be able to join the legions of real downhill skiers storming the real ski slopes a half-hour's drive from campus. Short of a warm female body, this was the proven method of surviving winter term at Dartmouth.
First Love
Four weeks into Winter term, a cold Saturday night, the last day of January. Winter Carnival is still two weeks away; a freshman mixer is scheduled to give needy frosh their last good chance to score a date, without competition from the wily moves of upperclassmen. A light snow falls as you hustle across campus with your roommate, Danny, to Cleary Hall.
You've taken care to fortify yourselves with a few shots of Jim Beam from a bottle you've coaxed from Jason, the Vietnam vet. Danny's boyish optimism is infectious. In fact you feel particularly confident tonight: after all, with two invitations out already, the pressure for a Carnival date is off; you could maybe just have a good time, a one-night stand, say, if you really got lucky.
You've pretty much given up on Anne by this time; but you're still looking forward to a reunion with your old elementary-school flame, Jeannie. The trouble is, she hasn't yet told you whether she can come or not, in either of her recent letters. To be truthful, you're a little worried that this renewed relationship is merely a childish romantic phantasm of your own making. You have to wonder, as you and Danny plough the swirling dark - what if Jeannie's mature, rational self got the better of the flirting eleven-year-old? What if she balked at the long, costly trip from Albany; or if she got sick and couldn't make it? Well then, you could fall back - you still had an iron in the fire in the person of Anne, the rough-featured Greek girl from Wellesley whom you've been courting with inconclusive results since the mixer in early October. You take what you can get.
With Carnival so near, preparations for the big event have been long underway. A mood of excited anticipation is already running through the campus population. The theme for this year is "Fire and Ice." From the very start of winter term the Carnival Committee has been making elaborate plans for an ice sculpture in the middle of the Green, vibrant blue-and-red posters, concerts and art exhibits, a showing of the classic movie, Winter Carnival, a party at the lodge, and on and on. Yes, you are glad you've hedged your bets. To be without a date at Carnival would be an icy hell indeed. Your swirling thoughts condense as the throng outside Cleary comes into clearer view: you would be wise to keep a serious eye peeled tonight, just in case. . . .
"Wow, looks like a convention center," Danny is saying. "This should be a good one."
There are three buses just arriving, in convoy fashion. Impeccable timing for the scheduled start of the mixer, considering not only the snow on the roads but the fact that the buses have come from three different, widely scattered girl's junior colleges.
"Like a host of angels . . ." you marvel, invoking leftover Christmastime hyperbole.
"It all depends on your luck - "
" - or skill - "
" - or powers of discrimination."
"Jason calls them 'fresh meat.'"
You both laugh, joining the gauntlet of oglers three, four, five deep. The buses, now parked, begin to unload their precious cargo before your eager, anxious eyes. Every one of you nurses the same secret knowledge: You have to be quick to spot and be ready to move on the best prospects. The girls are nervously giggling to each other, or glancing at the predators lining their passage right and left into the waiting arms of the hall; some fearfully (or fearlessly) keeping their eyes straight ahead. You look them all over but it's hard to judge in the snow-blurred darkness, with their winter wraps and wind-whipped hair, who might be worthy of approaching for a dance, a night . . . a lifetime? Opportunities like this are few and fleeting and you have to make the most of them.
Inside the hall the competition is keen, the trading swift. The future stockbrokers of America exchange faces and bodies like inflated bonds, names like worthless scrip. You scout the hall, dance with a few, scout and dance some more - uninspired. Then you see a tall, nice-looking girl alone. She wears a jumper with a red-orange and yellow striped, skin-tight shirt that shows an appealing figure. Her long, honey-brown hair falls in a soft, natural way around a face that you find surprisingly pretty, for midway through a mixer. Maybe this is your lucky night, you think quickly; then you're at her side in a flash.
"Hi. Wanna dance?"
She looks at you and smiles. She's nearly as tall as you, and you stand taller than most of the competition, at six-one. That must be why, you think, she's still unclaimed.
She's a good dancer, with a firm yet graceful step. After the first she leans close to your ear to thank you. You sense her subtle perfume - or is it the natural musk of her body, the cool winter fragrance of her hair? She makes you feel dizzy. You reach out an arm to steady yourself, holding her around the waist. The band starts in on a slow one. The singer looks at you as you pull closer to your new partner. Has he seen what is happening? Are they playing this one for you? You dance close, dreamily, her full flesh palpable in your hands. You're practically trembling with the miracle of it all. Your lips are a whisper away from her ear. "What's your name? I'm enjoying this."
She turns her face to yours, a kiss away, and smiles a beautiful, genuine smile. Her round, brown, broad-set eyes sparkle. "Dorothy," she says.
"This must be Oz, then." Was that clever or dumb? Now you've said it, what the hell.
"That's what they all say. My friends call me Dot."
"Are there a lot of them?"
"Who? My friends?"
"Well . . . the ones who say 'This must be Oz.'"
She hesitates. "Not so many . . . especially now that I'm stuck in that convent in Vermont." She rests her cheek on your shoulder. What she said could have sounded sad; but she seems rather happy. Your heart races; your legs move together with hers, with firm, flowing grace.
Three more dances - two fast and one slow - and you and Dot are out the door and on your way, arm in arm, across campus to the dorm. Danny has seen you leave and has given you a nod and a wink. That means, you hope, that he'll be staying at the mixer till the end. You really should have worked your signals out clearly in advance.
You walk with Dot briskly through the light, still-falling snow. She tells you about her home town of Saddle River, New Jersey. She claims that it's quite pleasantly situated in rolling countryside - not in the middle of an oil refinery as most people (including you, you admit) guess from the tunnel vision of the New Jersey Turnpike. Countryside or not, she can't help saying "New Joisey."
Now she attends Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont. "It's not a great school," she says, "but it's okay. The classes are small; the tuition's reasonableÿ.ÿ.ÿ. but they have these really strict rules on male visitors. Each dorm has a house mother that acts like a guard. They lock it up tight at eleven o'clock!"
You groan with her and look at your watch. It's eleven now. You have an hour and a half more to spend together, before the buses disappear into the New Hampshire night.
"Yeah," you tell her as you enter the deserted Bissell Hall, "we have some pretty weird rules here, too. Like, if you have a girl in your room, sitting on your bed, all four feet have to be on the floor. Or the hall monitor can report you."
"Oh, but how would anyone know?" You like the clear, high sound of her voice, and the energetic tone. She's right with you.
"That's the other thing. You're supposed to keep the door open two inches."
"Oh, good grief. That's ridiculous."
You open the door to your room. "I think so, too." You close the door firmly behind her. She doesn't flinch, but gives the room a quick survey.
"So, where's your roommate?"
"Aah, he's still at the mixer. It looked to me as if he found someone to dance with for the whole evening."
"That's good," she says, looking into your eyes and smiling with half-parted lips.
Suddenly apprehensive, you wonder, What shall we do? but feel too shy to ask such an open-ended question aloud. Instead, you offer her a drink, and put a record on.
At first you sit on the bed facing each other, legs crossed Indian-style. You sip Jim Beam in plastic cups with cold water from the bathroom, telling stories of your high-school lives, comparing notes on your college courses and your respective dorm buddies. . . .
In fact, given her rapt attention and the lubricating action of Mr. Beam, you find yourself getting a little carried away; and amazingly, it all seems okay, though you take on at times a fantastic arrogance of moral purpose and at other times a smug air of self-righteousness - all shifting with the breeziness of drifting from one focus to another:
"Oh, yeah, I've tried everything: tutoring in the local high school, and that was funny because it was all these good-looking senior girls who were whizzes in math and who were obviously just interested in being with us Dartmouth guys one-on-one; and there's the Friends Meeting, where I've started building up contacts for my upcoming application with the draft board as a conscientious objector; and, I joined the debating club, which is tops in the country, because I did it in high school for awhile and did pretty well and after all, I am headed for a career as a lawyer, or who knows, a legislator. My interest is in the greatest good for the greatest number. I think that's Bentham - or maybe Locke. I could look it up - anyway, my mother always thought I could be President; or failing that, a dentist. But I hated the idea of getting my fingers wet in other people's mouths. As for the debating club, it looked like way too much work, compiling hundreds of file cards of obscure evidence and arguments. Anyway, there's all this other stuff going on here, that I'm getting into. Collecting good new music, of course. Here, I'll put on this one I got last week, the Chambers Brothers. Have you heard them? Strangely enough, the best new music always seems to come from these rooms with the funny smells. Know what I mean?"
Only a month ago have you and Danny been turned on by Jason, and it's still a touchy subject.
Dot laughs. "Yep. I've tried it, couple years ago in high school. It doesn't really do much for me."
"Maybe you don't know how to inhale it right." Now you wish you'd had the foresight to buy a joint or two from Jason for just this eventuality.
"No, it's not that. It just gives me a headache."
"Hm. That's too bad." You settle back to sipping the Jim Beam, by now lukewarm.
"Anyway, go on. What were you telling me about?"
"Oh, yeah, the music. Well of course there's been learning how to play the guitar, like the night before my geography exam last term, I thought I might loosen up the old mental muscles before cracking those boring course books that really were superfluous anyway if you went to half the lectures, which was about par for me. Skiing lessons, I'm taking now, tennis in phys ed last fall, ah, what else?"
She's already told you everything there is to tell about high school in Saddle River, and college at Green Mountain. She's so quiet now, looking at her cup.
You reach for the bottle. "Do you want more?"
"No, not right now." She looks almost sad. Are you doing all right with her? You sigh, shift a little closer, sock feet on folded legs nearly touching, and forge ahead:
"Yeah, there are often these late-night bull sessions with the gang in this wing of the dorm - also the other wings on the first floor . . . what else? The big weekends, there were football games every week in the fall, home games obligatory and away games an extra blast if you happened to hook up with an upperclassman with a car and space in the trunk cooler to put your contribution to the festivities in Boston or New York or New Haven - at Thanksgiving, I went there to visit my brother." You decide that it's best to omit, for now at least, your visit to Wellesley, or for that matter any mention of Anne. "Where else do you get to go, anywhere?"
"Well, the New York line's pretty close so some of the girls go there to the bar."
"Do you like to do that?"
"Sometimes."
What is it with this girl? Something is missing.
Her fingers are pulling at a loose thread in the bedspread. She asks, "Are you planning to join a fraternity, next year?"
"Well, I think so. I'm not sure which I might like. They're off limits to frosh, so we can concentrate on our studies, but that's just paper policy. In practice they invite us in for free beer our first moment on campus, in return, say, for a little renovation work traditional at the beginning of term: floor washing and waxing, dusting and mopping and vacuuming and scrubbing and giving the kitchen and bedrooms and pool rooms and tv rooms and downstairs bars and basements and backyard barbecues and general grounds and exteriors a good once-or-twice over, and if you puke out on the lawn after the first six or seven quick ones then hell, there's lots more where that came from, there's a whole 'nother keg just tapped, and when that's gone they'll be drinking all night over at Sigma Nu . . ."
You've nudged yourself close enough to her that by the third drink, you're leaning back side by side against the painted cinder-block wall, with legs outstretched, your warming hips touching. Simon and Garfunkel croon gently on the plastic stereo.
"This wall is cold," Dot says, and you put your arm around her shoulders. She slips an arm around your back, and then, no turning back, the two of you are kissing.
Before long the straps of her jumper hang down off her shoulders, and your hands are exploring the full territory of her striped shirt - first outside, and then under to the silken touch of pure belly skin, and nylon-taut breasts. Dot's arms, hands, fingers meanwhile roam eagerly over the terrain of your coursing body.
Now legs entwine and your bodies lay out prone, pressing together. Your urgent tongues grapple, wrestle, dance.
Suddenly Dot slides off the bed and stands up. Her hair is in a mess. Her jumper's all turned around and her rumpled shirt is half pulled up. One breast has popped out of its bra cup and its partner is on its way out.
Still on the bed, your arm outstretched and still holding her hand, you wonder what's the matter. Does she have to pee, is she calling it quits, what? Then her shirt is over her head, and before you can blink she's peeled off every stitch of her clothes, right down to the green knee-sox.
She stands naked before you, the goddess on earth. You are speechless, filled with joy and gratitude. This is The Graduate come true, you think. Like Dustin Hoffman as the innocent college graduate, you find yourself confronted for the first time with the body of Woman.
She reaches out for your hand and slowly pulls you up from the bed; then, reverently, she begins to undress you. You stand there for her, hands by your sides, mute and defenseless. When her work is done you find yourselves back on the bed: in the bed, caressing madly, tumbling and kicking at covers.
It's all so easy, so natural. But then a subversive thought gives you pause: if it's so easy for you, surely you're not the first guy to find his way to her naked treasure. Does that matter?
No; it's too good, as it is.
You give yourself to the moment, lose yourself in the miracle. Which is not to say forgetting your mother's caution about getting girls pregnant.
Suddenly you can't hold back any longer, and pressing your groin over hers, shout as the danger is released on her belly.
"I'm sorry," you gasp, collapsing on her chest.
"No, that's . . . that's okay," Dot says softly. "That's . . . what happens." She heaves a great sigh.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. I just wish I could have, we could have . . . gone all the way, together."
A poignant hesitation. Then, "Me too."
"But, we can't, I guess." With a boldness surpassing even the act itself, you add, "At least not yet."
"No."
You lay there quietly for a while, breathing deeply, your head over her heart, hearing its thumping die down in her breast. Her right nipple, under your gaze, has become soft and flat. You run a finger around it gently, turning it rosy red and hard again. Dot's breathing picks up and then she sits up, holding you close against her.
"What time is it getting to be?" She pulls away and waves the tousled hair out of her face. The alarm clock on the bookshelf overhead reads ten past midnight.
On the way back to Cleary Hall in the still-spinning snow, you survey the prospects ahead of you, and those behind, until the buses loom ahead, spewing diesel fumes with swift, white dissipation into the frosty air. You prepare to take the plunge.
Two birds already in hand? They are as nothing to this bird of paradise in the burning bush before you.
"Would you like to come back for Carnival?"
"Shewre," she agrees without a second thought. "I'd love to." But of course - why else has she come here tonight?
You speak briefly to her of details, exchange phone numbers and addresses. Then nothing but a long, deep kiss in the falling snow, and saying goodbye.
The busses rumble away into the night. With snowflakes swirling down around you, it seems you are rising past them into the air. From somewhere a voice calls your name. Sounds like Danny. It doesn't matter. You are encased in a buoyant cocoon now, and everything is changed. The rest of your life lies open before you, sweet and warm. It's happened . . . so easily. It was meant to be. You are in love.
"You what?" exploded Danny, aghast. He'd struck out at the mixer, and would have to resort to inviting Angela, the girl he knew back home in Maine, still a senior in high school. "What are you gonna do about Anne, and this - what's her name, this old girlfriend - "
"Jeannie."
"Yeah, Jeannie. Crimee, you've got enough for the rest of the suite by now. You could hire 'em out!
I laughed, then sighed. "Yeah, you're right. What am I gonna do?"
"You haven't heard from Anne yet?"
"No. I think she would have let me know by now, if she was coming. I haven't even heard from her since inviting her, and that was in November. . . . No, December. I wrote her the first - or was it the second week in December? Oh, well, I think she's holding out for something better. I don't think she's coming."
"So what about this childhood sweetheart?"
"Jeannie?"
"Yeah, Jeannie. You just invited her, fer cryin' out loud. What if she drives up all - "
"No. She'd let me know. I'd have to tell her it's off."
"If you could get in touch with her. Do you have a phone number?"
"Uh, no, but I could get it. No, the worst will be just telling her it's off - if it comes to that. I don't think she'd want to come this far, anyway, for a date with this crazy guy from elementary school. . . ."
I was right. I got a letter from Jeannie the next week, politely but diffidently saying thanks, but she couldn't get away the weekend of Carnival. Anne I never did hear from again. So the way was clear.
During that period of the final two weeks before Carnival, I thought of Dot constantly. My already shoddy study habits went right down the tubes. I spent hours writing letters to her. The highlight of every day was checking my mail box for the long, chatty letters she sent me. I felt we'd just scratched the surface of a relationship without bounds - perhaps, I dared to hope, that long-sought, mystical union known as the Lasting Relationship, theorized in those paper-and-steel bull sessions with Bruce and Steve in the desolation of the park. Carnival weekend drew closer with agonizing slowness, but closer nevertheless.
A week in advance, I nervously paid for a reservation at the Occam Inn, knowing the room would stay empty during Dot's upcoming visit. I wrote the twenty bucks off to protocol, and sent the receipt on to Green Mountain.
Finally came the day of Dot's arrival. I prepared for the imminent social marathon by sleeping in past French class. Then I was in no mood for a math class, either, so I sauntered into town for a late breakfast at the Village Green, then browsed the racks in the record store. I bought two albums I'd been wanting for some time: Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced? and the Chambers Brothers' The Time Has Come.
It was nearly lunchtime already. I marched on to the dining hall, more out of habit than hunger, and picked over lunch, not speaking to anyone, just kind of floating in a dream world. I sat there in my daze until it was time for anthro class. I walked across the Green and into the lecture hall with my bag of new records still in hand (no notebook) and sat down. A lazy droning filtered through the dust motes in the air. I gazed out the window until the class ended in a shuffling scrape of chairs, then walked back to the dorm to wait for the rest of the afternoon to pass.
Dot wasn't due in till eight. I put on the new music to pass the time until kitchen duty at five. Danny wasn't around. More and more I could feel Dot's presence with me - though to tell the truth, I'd forgotten the actual image of her face. After so brief an encounter, this lapse was understandable. Still, it was disturbing. I wasn't worried, though. I trusted my initial judgment, my inner certainty. This was a real case, it seemed tome, of love at first sight.
At supper I sat with the guys in 102, who were jawing away in a boisterous, festive mood. I figured I could use a break from my mooning. Dana, Warren, Barney, and the others threw jokes my way the instant I sat down. Anyone with a date coming up was fair game. Those without had the compensation of that jaded, collective humor, and the upcoming beer party in the suite. I walked back to the dorm and joined them, after pinning a note to my door telling Dot where I was.
I was pleasantly buzzed on the better part of a quart of Schlitz when a face appeared in Warren's doorway.
"Dot! Hi, you made it," I said, and jumped up on the assumption she'd not want to join this all-male company. Amid the jeers I said, "Aw, come on, guys, your dates'll be here soon, gimme a break. . . . Okay, okay, this is Dot. Dot, this is Larry . . . Dana . . . Jim . . ." and so on through a quick round of introductions, a ritual cup of beer for the lady, some polite small talk.
I was so glad to see Dot again, I wanted to hug her and kiss her immediately, in that mad passion that had possessed me in her absence. It was frustrating to have to watch her instead, from a social distance, saying where she was from, what school she went to, how long she was here for. i felt self-conscious about her flagrant Joisey twang. i noticed as she sat beside me, with her large wool coat unbuttoned, that she appeared more solidly built than I'd remembered - stocky legs under the wool jumper-skirt, broad hips, a full neck. . . but she looked fine enough. I felt safe, at any rate, from the usual barbs about "sweathogs."
Growing impatient, I looked at my watch.
"You guys aren't going to the flick, the old Winter Carnival?" I asked.
"Nah," Barney answered for them. "We're making our own. Here, you guys, let's roll a joint."
"Well, I don't know," Warren piped up. "If we get really ripped, I bet it would be a blast."
Larry, Jim and Brian sat against the wall, not saying much, watching Barney roll the joint. When he passed it around they sucked on it with great relish, as we all did, except Dot. I hadn't been aware before now that she didn't smoke. Would it be a source of conflict between us, I wondered? No, I figured, it was no big deal either way.
But after a couple of hits I began to feel Dot was withdrawing from the group, from me. Conversation had lapsed. Dot was looking down at her empty beer cup. Maybe she was uncomfortable in this drug crowd after all.
I stood up and said we had to go if we were going to catch the start of the movie. Warren said he might see us there later; he remained seated with the rest of them, all absently waving us on and focused on the new joint going around.
Dot had left her suitcase parked outside my door.
"Uh-oh," I said when I saw it. "That could be construed as prejudicial evidence by the hall monitor, if he saw it. Here, let's get it out of sight, quick." The door was locked. Danny must have gone to the movie, I figured. I put my key in and turned the knob, then reached for the suitcase. Dot had already picked it up - my hand met her thigh instead. I looked at her face and smiled. Maybe she didn't have the figure of a model, but she was all right for me. I loved her brown, sparkling eyes, her natural hair, her soft, broad lips. We kissed, embracing. She set the suitcase down on my toes. We laughed and went into the room; I explained how it really wouldn't matter if the hall monitor had seen the suitcase there, since he'd had a girl in his room overnight the last three weekends in a row. And if he could entertain Cheryl like that . . .
"Cheryl? Is she from Green Mountain?"
"Yeah, I think so. Yeah."
"She's the one I just got a ride with. She said she comes up all the time. Like every weekend or something."
"Wow, isn't that funny?"
"You know what she told me?"
"What?" I loved her conspiratorial tone, the way she held my hands in front of her.
"That the way they do it, is they book a room like a week and a half or two weeks ahead, send the receipt on to the dorm mother, and then - Myron, is it?"
"Byron."
"Yeah. Then Byron cancels the reservation, and gets his money back. Neat system, huh?"
System, was it? Was she implying we start using that system, say on a regular basis? Whew, boy . . .
"Yeah, that sounds all right. Perfect, in fact. And if he's doing it, I sure won't worry about it either."
"Except wouldn't it look suspicious to go in there every week doing that, wherever it is you go?"
Did I just hear Dot say, "every week?" My heart was racing.
"Oh, that old lady at the Occam Inn I'm sure wouldn't mind. She's got enough business from people who play it straight."
"So you've done business there before, have you?"
Of course I could have narrowed the truth to say, "Why naturally. I paid for your reservations at that particular establishment just last week. Didn't you look at the receipt I sent you?" Instead I thought it best to make a clean breast of it, and told her all about Anne, on our way to watching the vintage Winter Carnival.
The main event Saturday night was a party at the Eleazor Wheelock Lodge, tucked away on the edge of campus out by the golf course. This was arranged as a good alternative for all those not in fraternities. Tickets were bought in advance. The liquor flowed freely. the party was crowded, buzzing - mainly with freshmen, not yet ensconced on Fraternity Row, but practicing. The highlight of the night was to be a "hayride" out on the track around the edge of the golf course. It was snowing hard. Dot and I were reeling drunk, along with everyone else. The revelry was in full swing. We lurched out to take our turn with a half-dozen other tipsy couples, gave the red-faced driver our ride tickets as at any boardwalk carny ride, and hopped in the giant, horse-drawn sleigh. the driver thanked us with an unintelligible series of musings, chuckled to his pair of steaming steeds, almost lost his balance in the snow, and hopped aboard. He clucked and the horses clomped forward, shaking their bell-straps. The lights and music of the lodge faded in the snow-blurred darkness. The horses' hooves pounded with muffled thuds through thickening snow on the track. The sleigh swayed and floated onward. The chill night air was exhilarating. We all smiled, beamed at each other, leaned back and basked in the pristine glory of the moment, strangely silent in the silence of the night, the snowy wilderness. It was dream coach, carrying us into the wild, billowy unknown.
Suddenly we pitched sideways, and carried right over into the snow. the sleigh had veered off the track and spilled us all in a silent flurry of arms, legs, bodies, and flushed, astonished faces. Nobody said a word. it was as if this dreamy climax, the fluffy landing, were part of the program, the unknown script. Tumbled together in a heap, drunken driver included, we laughed a common, flustered laugh, and sat up and dusted ourselves off.
The horses stood by, watching us over their stolid shoulders. Sober, they'd remained upright. Their eyes admonished us for our folly.
When the band finally folded up for the night, Dot and I set out with mellow anticipation for "home." We walked the long walk back across campus, slowly, dreamily, arm in arm, Dot's head resting on my shoulder. My hand gripped her tightly. Even through her thick wool coat I could feel the softness and warmth of her body.
there was just one problem. I wasn't sure if Danny would still be up when we got back. We'd run into him with his date Angela earlier in the evening at the party. "Dan, this is Dot," I'd said. "Dot, my roommate, Danny." We played the game: "Willie, Dot, Angela. Angela, Willie, Dot." and so on. Danny had got into his nervous excited chattering. His black, curly head of hair bobbed like a car ornament's the kind with the head on springs. Angela stood by his side smiling in the raucous din, saying nothing. She indeed appeared the little angel, with her chiffon party dress, her platinum waves and her shiny, prim features. I couldn't help thinking at the time that they looked like little kids playing grownup. I, of course, was feeling my own blooming manliness, my scrawny chest swelling to the utmost in the company of my own, more womanly prize, who had held forth briefly on college life in Vermont and then had stood there looking up at me with her brown, cow-like eyes. Then we'd drifted away into the next dance.
Now I wondered if Danny would have escorted Angela to her quarters at the Occam Inn, returned, undressed and gone to bed; of if he'd be in the room still entertaining her at this late hour, so that we'd be forced to sit there with them for who knows how long, politely shooting the shit. . . . Maybe he'd be alone there but still awake; I wondered how Dot would undress with him there. . . . But the room was dark, and Danny was already in his bed, his head respectfully turned to the wall. We entered quietly, took off our coats, and sat on my bed. I poured us a little nightcap, from the trusty bottle of Jim Beam, with water from the bathroom tap. We talked in low tones for a while, then gave in to our pent-up passions.
Our first overnight together was not as blissful as we might have dreamed. Part of it was that nagging worry about how soundly Danny was sleeping. But Dot didn't seem to mind, and I gradually loosened up. Her body was still so new to me, yet also familiar. We enjoyed a relatively subdued sort of lovemaking this time. I dimly hoped that alcohol, widely acclaimed on campus as an aid to a more relaxed male sexual response, would do its trick. That theory came up a bust, no match for my still-overexcited condition. Dot thrust her way to a climax with my assistance, however, and so I felt redeemed despite the repeat performance of my classic adolescent faux-pas.
Saturday afternoon there was ample time to tour the campus ice-sculpture, chief of which was the Green's new centerpiece, a dinosaur-sized dragon. Fraternity Row was lined with sculptures on the lawn of every house, and a good number of the dorms scattered around campus had got into the act as well. Dot and I enjoyed all the walking around, arm in arm. Our different heights were well matched, we found, so that our arms meshed and we could walk easily in step. We took this arrangement to be symbolic of our overall compatibility.
It also felt good to be such a typical part of the Carnival scene, ambling along with the other couples just like ourselves over snow-trampled paths crisscrossing the Green. Everybody, but everybody, it seemed, had a date. I was glad I had one, too - and not three.
I'd been resourceful enough to arrange a job trade for Saturday night; so my salad-shift was covered by some hapless, dateless individual with nothing better to do. Dot and I had reservations for the special catered dinner at the Hanover Inn. We loitered over the photo exhibit, a survey of past Carnivals, in a deserted Hopkins Center before the supper hour. The formal meal proved to be forgettable, as was the company. Both Dot and I got good and soused, though, on the plentiful white wine. After supper we had tickets to the double folk-blues concert, featuring Laura Nyro and Richie Havens. At the end of it all, the long day, the full social calendar, we collapsed in bed together and fell into blissful, dreamless sleep, held in the lingering, subsided grasp of a last conscious few minutes' naked, affirming embrace.
Next morning we were able to wake in each other's arms like any man and wife - except that in the process the sexual act was, yet again, not fully consummated. In that sacred time, however, before Danny had awakened, as the snow-pearled dawn light was only just starting to filter into the room, Dot had taken me inside her where I was able to feel, for the first time, the exquisite pleasure of full enfoldment . . . for a few sweet moments. Bright as my young life seemed from the perspective of the moment, however, I knew that the long view had more to tell and I would take no chances yet to cast my future in human flesh. I withdrew this time as a matter of reluctant choice.
Dot looked distant then, privately unhappy. She forced a smile. I told myself I knew what the problem was.
"We've gotta be careful," I told her, panting on her chest.
"Yeah, I know . . . but - " She bit on her lower lip.
I slid off to lie beside her. I smoothed the hair around her ear. On a future occasion she would find words to tell me she didn't like the idea of the pill, for its reputed side effects. I would tell her, and she would agree, that condoms seemed too awkward and clumsy to use; they would just get in the way. We would talk our way around the riddle briefly, once or twice, and meanwhile try to get by. The theory of making love au naturel without risking pregnancy sounded good, but would become ever more difficult to practice.
"When will I see you again?"
"As soon as possible, I hope." There was a tense eagerness in her voice and in her expression, an unfulfilled desire that drew her to me almost painfully. We embraced warmly. I was too content, in the glow of the moment, to be able to sense fully the dark undercurrent, the inner dynamic of our relationship, the pattern begun that would carry right through to the end.
Cheryl's motor was running.
"Let's write to each other every day," I said. "Maybe we can arrange another weekend here soon."
"Yeah - or you could come visit me - but you can't stay overnight there." A big smile.
"No. We'll see what we can do."
With that inseparable mixture of sadness and happiness at parting, we young lovers kissed one more time, and turned away to take up the diverted courses of our respective lives.
During the following weeks I wrote Dot nearly every day. I was obsessed with thoughts and feelings of love. Danny watched in wonderment, shaking his curly head. He said I was infatuated. I gladly admitted it. It was my first experience of truly falling in love. The problem of incompletion was just a detail of sex; a temporary inconvenience.
Dot also wrote me almost daily. "In high school," she'd say, "my boyfriends seemed so shallow and temporary. Yes, even Todd, who I told you about and who was still 'interested' in me when I saw him over Christmas. Well, that was nothing, I now see, compared to how I feel now. It's unbelievable! I can believe it, though, when I think of you, of us together . . ." and so on.
Yes, I responded: now that we were both in college, it was easier to become more closely involved with someone: "especially with someone so special as you. It's hard to even call you by that general word, 'someone,' because you're so special!" Ah, the lovely turns of phrase we indulged in, the luscious tricks of the tongue. We were allowed in the hothouse ferment of our mutual isolation to create, as it were, the verbalized shape of our lives, our lives together, to give word-flesh to that erstwhile myth, the Lasting Relationship. There was nothing to hold us back - but the inconvenience of our temporary separation.
Both of us had in the meantime to face the nagging reality of coursework and grades. Two weeks passed and still no plans materialized for a rendezvous. Our love was left to grow on paper; I recalled often my mother's homily, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
On one occasion the meeting of hearts was truly magical. I was stuck for words - writing every day or so tends to exhaust the possibilities. So I simply wrote, in the center of an otherwise blank page, the basic words, "I love you," and mailed it off. It was a Wednesday, a partly cloudy, early afternoon.
On a whim that very evening, Jeff, my kitchen supervisor, a junior with a car and a girlfriend at Green Mountain, said, "Hey, how'd you like to spin over to Poultney tonight?"
"Tonight?" It's the middle of the week."
"Yeah. So what? You wanna go or don't ya?"
"Sure, sure! I mean - sure, but, I have a French paper due tomorrow. I haven't started it yet."
"What's it on?"
"Sartre. La Nausee."
"Oh, that's no problem. Existential nausea. The soul's a big ugly rock, a meaningless rock."
"But I haven't even read the book yet! And it's in French . . ."
"You can fake it. Just bullshit about the meaninglessness of life. Come on. You wanna see your babe or not?"
I did, so off we went after supper, barreling over the slick mountain roads with the help of a six-pack of tall-boys. When we got there, Jeff had to pry his darling from the bony grip of the crone who served as dorm matron. I was informed that Dot wasn't in, so Jeff and Glenda waited while I went to look for Dot at the Student Union Building. I found her there seated alone at a little round table eating a donut and writing - or rather, vacantly dawdling, pen to lip.
She looked up as I strolled her way. Her face lit up in astonishment. "Wow, what a surprise!" She stood up and we embraced. "I was just writing a letter to you, too, just now, or trying to. You can have it in person. It's not much, though. Short and sweet, you might say."
I looked down at the single sheet of stationery. In the center of an otherwise blank page were written simply the words, "I love you."
"Dot!" I exclaimed. "Did you get that letter I mailed to you today, already?"
"Today? No - I haven't even picked up my mail today. I was gonna drop this off there when I finished it. On Tuesday, I got one that you wrote late last week."
We marveled at the coincidence, to each other and with an excited reconstruction of events for Jeff and Glenda's benefit, all the way to the bar just over the New York line. There the four of us sat down to pitchers of beer and the metallic blare of a juke box, and watched girls from Green Mountain dance with the locals. We danced a couple of numbers ourselves but were mostly content to jaw in each other's ears. All too soon it was curfew time back at the convent gates, where Jeff and I bussed our honeys goodbye . . . and then took off into the night, roaring at a terrifying clip clear back across the state of Vermont, fueled by a final six-pack.
I shambled into the dorm and took up Monsieur Sartre, in his own tongue, around two a.m. The meaning of life . . . it seemed to remain elusive for Sartre, leaving only that big ugly rock, while my brain and body reeled with the more fluid meaning I'd subjected it to this particular night. At nine-thirty I shuffled into my French seminar under Madame Gaudin's disapproving eye. There were only seven other students in the class, so my half-hour lateness was rather conspicuous. I plopped down my three-page paper, in handwritten French, and mumbled, "Ma cloche n'a pas sonnee."
I squeaked by with a C plus on that French paper, thanks to my kitchen philosopher's sage advice on the subject of nausea. The academic term as a whole was something of a washout. Introductory anthropology I found so interesting that I spent the night before the final exam "learning to play the guitar": i.e., picking and strumming idly at Danny's instrument while he sat shaking his head in his by-now-familiar wonderment, busy at his won books. Final grade, C minus. As for the second honors math course, it was a disaster. Even if I'd done the homework I would have floundered. As it was, Andy the computer owl saved my skin by writing the couple of assigned computer programs for me. I overslept the final exam by an hour - a true excuse in this case - and showed up expecting the guillotine. The compassionate Mrs. Crampton allowed me to use a full two hours anyway - knowing perhaps that the result would be the same. I scraped by with a D for the course.
I was crashing to earth in my academic life, at the same time that my star of romance was ascending. No surprise - I had no heart at all for the books. I wasn't even smoking much pot, yet . . . just stoned on love all the time.
The final week of winter term, our all-male enclave at Dartmouth was invaded by a squadron of co-eds from Smith. This was the College's first experiment in coeducation, the first skirmish in its real revolution - the one with lasting and visible repercussions. Alumni all over the country were taking sides in the controversy. The old guard was aghast, their bastion of masculine mystique shaken to its very foundations. For us downy-cheeked yahoos on the front lines, it was a breath of fresh air. No matter that we'd all chosen this sexual exile. After six months of it, we were eager to welcome these warm fuzzy creatures from the other side of life to share our campus, our classrooms, our dorm, our rooms, our very beds! - for a week, two weeks, a term, a year, forever! A couple of hundred from Smith, for ten days, in our rooms we'd vacated by doubling up - that would do, for now. In two more years women would come to occupy all of Cohen Hall - and live in virtual seclusion while we paper conquistadors shied away, back to our books.
But for now, we welcomed them with open arms. Danny and I were able to keep our room. We had four female tenants as neighbors down the hall. On the Sunday morning halfway through their stay, two of these temporary princesses of the north appeared at our door, while we still lay in our beds. They'd knocked politely and Danny had groaned, "Yaa - who'ze it? C'mon in . . ."
They pushed the door open and stood there - clad in full regalia and hot for the slopes:
"Any chance you guys would want to go skiing?"
"Uh," stammered Danny from his bed, blinking and blinking - but the vision didn't vanish.
"Uh," I joined in from my side, leaning up to inspect these sweethearts more closely. Not bad, I thought . . . not great, either, but who's being picky. I still had Dot, but this, this was experience full in the face, right now, needing action, a quick response -
"Well, come on in, girls - "
They gave each other a glance and stepped two paces into the room, then stood their ground. The one on the left was actually kind of cute. Nice legs . . .
"Yeah," I volunteered, "actually I just learned to ski this winter, in phys. ed. Lots of fun."
They glanced at each other quickly again.
"Danny here's been skiing for years, in Maine. Right?"
"Oh, yeah." He sat up, a sheepish smile on his face, blushing. He looked out the window. "But I don't think I can make it today. I've got some studying to do."
"Ah, come on," I blustered. "There's a whole week left in the term. You couldn't have that much to do."
"Yeah, well . . ."
"Look. How many times do you get the chance - " I turned back to the girls. The cute one had started to giggle. the other was frowning impatiently. The covers had slipped down to my bare lap. "Okay," I decided. "We'll go. Just give us a chance to get dressed, get a bite to eat, and we're gone."
I started to get out of bed. The girls said fine, they'd wait in their room down the hall, and quickly retreated out the door.
"Whad'you go and say that for?" Danny complained. "I really gotta book today. You go ahead, anyway. You'll have fun." He gave me a mysterious grin.
Oh, the eternal hopes and foolish schemes of youth! Anything, we imagine, is possible. I thought I could just go out there on the mountain and - ski. Not that easy - not when the snow has been skimmed and compacted and has melted and refrozen into a solid, hummocky sheet of ice. Not when I've only learned the rudiments of how to change direction, while hurtling down the little beginners' hill at the golf course. But how could I say no?
The two women were expert skiers, of course. The "cute one" ended up spending most of her valuable time coaching me on real turns, several levels above what I'd attempted to date. It was too little instruction, too late. On each attempt, I'd start forward, then gather speed and accelerate until there was no stopping me unless the cleared slope turned or I did, and I couldn't. So I'd hit the deck and slide to a stop with the marginal friction of my body on the ice, frantically using poles and edges, knees and elbows and hips, to dig in for dear life. Thus I spent a long, grueling afternoon, coming to earth again and again. And yes, okay, I still had Dot.
Spring break I planned to stay on campus. My parents were busy settling into an apartment in Baltimore, where they'd returned for good. I didn't need to face another showdown with them over grades, just yet. The thing to do was to sign up for some easy courses in the spring to get that sagging average up. The most popular "gut" course (one you could pass on sheer guts) was introductory astronomy, "The Evolution of the Universe" - alias "Stars 2." I would round out the selection of basics with introductory courses in fields closer to my natural interests, government and philosophy. No more math, forever.
I also planned to play lacrosse for the freshman team. I'd been no star in high school, and hadn't played in two years. But with my experience in Baltimore, the game's hotbed, I was ahead of most of the other prospects, who were generally athletes from other sports trying out the unfamiliar webbed sticks for a lark. After a little training indoors at the end of winter term, the freshman squad was invited to play a few exhibition games in Maryland over spring break, against local high school teams. I thrilled at the chance to return in uniform to my old stomping grounds, against my old high school rivals. At the same time I knew full well what we'd be up against - tough, seasoned, expert competition. We, in contrast, were a ragtag collection of mediocre talent, spiced with the odd prep star, filled out with a bunch of football retreads.
The tour was fun, despite our repeated trouncings. I played with my characteristic brand of uncontrolled intensity, wearing the Dartmouth green-and-white while my proud parents looked on. Though my game was unenviable, the fact that I was playing at all earned me credits against my academic demise, in preparation for the coming head-to-head evaluation over the kitchen table at home. My love life, too, provided an inherent boost to the stature of the prodigal son. There was definite room for improvement, yes. This I conceded and promised to see about accomplishing.
The spring academic term came and went. I survived, garnering my customary C plus in Govy and Phil, and the promised A in Stars. The A, my first, was a plum both for me and for my expectant parents.
Once again I failed to be inspired to work to my fullest potential. A greater source of inspiration by far was the new Jimi Hendrix double album I discovered one day in Bruce Jansens's room in Massachusetts Hall, in a haze of good hash smoke. Entitled Electric Ladyland, it featured, along with the recognizable hit, "All Along the Watchtower," a whole series of new worlds of emotive imagination: "Voodoo Chile," "Gypsy Eyes," "Burning of the Midnight Lamp," "...And the Gods Made Love"...From that point on there was no turning back as a Hendrix devotee, as a worshiper of his unique brand of voodoo.
As for lacrosse season, for the freshman team it was a total washout. The coach, a Canadian, had entrusted me with the starting crease-attack spot - a role my brother-in-law had starred in at the University of Maryland. But Bill Pettit was twice my size, with power and skills I couldn't approach. I failed miserably trying to fill his imaginary shoes. our one legitimate star fed me innumerable passes in front of the goal that I either missed completely or shot wide of the net. Back in practice sessions, I'd shine again, running the gauntlet of the entire team, cradling the ball in my elusive, magic stick. In games the ball came loose. One game we lost 32-1. In the end I'd been demoted to the third midfield line. we lost every game.
Dot and I managed to get together two or three times that term. On our last date of the spring we went to see the James Cotton Blues Band in the Hopkins Center auditorium. It was great entertainment; you didn't have to be feeling blue to appreciate the blues. There was enough high-energy rhythm and humor, and strong, affirmative spirit to lift any mood. And it was all about love - with a gutsy, frankly sexual driving force. When the concert was over we walked the long walk back to the dorm one last time.
"When will I see you again?" was the foremost question for both of us, with a lonely summer ahead.
"It's not gonna be fun back in Saddle River without you," Dot said.
"Not even with all your old boyfriends, Todd and, uh, what's his name - "
"Lanny? Nah; I'll probably see them at parties and stuff, but it's nothing for you to worry about. What about you?"
"Oh, I don't have any old flames in Baltimore. I went to a Quaker school, remember?"
"Oh, yeah, right. But you'll probably get another job at a women's shoe store or something, and meet - "
"No, no, no," I said, pleading earnestly. "Look, I swore off women when I entered this monastery in the north woods. That's why I came here, to avoid such temptations. . . . "
And her hot tongue sealed my lips. We stood there under a streetlamp, almost crying out of happiness, and sadness at the time we'd be apart.
With summer I went back to Baltimore. My immediate task was to search the want ads for a job. I had to do my part to complete the financial package required for college expenses. The pickings were slim; it looked as if I would have to take anything I could get. Finally I saw the ad for me: College Students Wanted - Sales Work - Good Commissions. I went in for an interview, and was hired on the spot. It turned out to be a scheme for selling encyclopedias door-to-door. Only, this purpose was not up front. The lines we had to memorize in this charade began:
- Hi, Ma'am. I stopped by to see your husband. Could you get him for me?
When the woman balked, we were to say,
- Tell him ________ is here to see him.
So it went; for every obstacle we had a programmed response:
- Doing some work in the area; spose to talk to the men.
- Hi, sir. My name is _________ . I'm doing some work in the area; I'm supposed to ask you a few questions. Mind if I step in?
- It's about a program taking effect in the area later on in the year. It takes about a minute. Got a minute?
- That's what I'm supposed to explain to you. Mind if I step in?
. . . the old foot in the door. Accomplished with an official air, as if this "program" were of some public import, like civil defense planning, or neighborhood crime control . . . then the slow playing in of the ignorant fish.
For bait, our offer was couched in the most attractive terms: "free" books, placed in the homes of a few "qualified" families, in return for a simple letter of appreciation to be used for promotional purposes. Of course, to qualify, a family has to show genuine interest in having such a set; must, in fact, be interested enough to keep the set "updated with the yearbooks and so on" (the "so on" indicating, in due course, a costly reference service); and must demonstrate said interest by setting aside the mere cost of a daily newspaper . . . (for ten years, it turns out).
In other words, we get them in the end to spend $500. on a set of encyclopedias, for which we sales hoods pocket a commission of $90. I was lucky (or unjaded) enough to place an order my first night out. It didn't bother me too much that the "program" was a scam. I figured the people we approached had the responsibility to go along with it or not; and in the meantime I had a summer's wages to earn. My first sale kept me going for the next two weeks of drought, when I knocked on doors all over eastern Maryland delivering frustrating dead-end pitches, and watching doors slammed in my face. One irate householder said he'd get his shotgun out if I didn't vanish fast. I finally sold a second set, with the help of my supervisor who came to close the deal when the husband wavered at the last minute. Troy Trent had a waxed, handlebar mustache, a firm handshake and a penetrating gaze. He made those poor folks eat out of his hand by threatening to take the set elsewhere if they weren't willing to show a strong enough commitment to the program. The ninety dollars, he graciously assured me as we drove away, would still be mine.
I ended up averaging one sale a week for the summer, which netted me a reasonable wage at the time. The worst of it was the hundreds of failures it took to winnow out that one success per week. the best of it was being out in the world . . . seeing so many people in so many neighborhoods, from the tenements to the posh developments to the old towns ont he Eastern Shore . . . commuting to work downtown with my mother's car . . . going out with the crew for meal of crabcakes and iced coffee in the sultry summer afternoon, before the evening's work in our "territory" of the day . . . vacationing with the crew at the beach in North Carolina, where we surfed and drank Lowenbrau and played pinochle in our rented cabin. . . .
I was still a pretty straight character, all in all. I still had short hair, "Ivy League" style with a neat side-part, tapered edges, close-trimmed sideburns. I wore a coat and tie to work, without compunction, suffering only the discomfort caused by the hot and humid climate. Often those I interviewed asked me about college and my career, commenting that yes, I sounded like a future lawyer: I could sure talk good. Of course, all of us salespeople had to memorize our twenty-minute spiel before knocking on the first door.
In August I talked Troy into a few days off so I could go with my parents and younger sister on our traditional migration to the beach, our old haunt at Cape May, New Jersey. Since Dot lived a stone's throw away, I invited her, too, and she and my parents were able to become acquainted. They liked her natural manner, her good looks, her family status. (Her father sold bonds on Wall Street.) I was a bit disenchanted: I thought she'd put on some weight. I was not particularly proud to show off my bathing beauty with fat thighs and bulging midsection: disregarding, of course, the imperfection of my own scrawny chest.
Oh, well, I told myself. You can't expect perfection. We had a good time together, anyhow. After all, we'd been writing steadily all summer and had been missing one another terribly. Now Dot was excited about the prospect of a new car her parents had all but agreed to buy her. With her own transportation she could zip over to Hanover any time she liked. We both began looking forward to the freedom of the coming fall term.
While in Cape May, Dot and I were aware that something big was in progress to the north of us, in upstate New York. We'd vaguely talked about going, but that was a fantasy with no steam behind it. When the Woodstock festival made headlines in the New York Times, we were surprised; and then we'd wished we'd been bold enough to break free from the family vacation to join our more adventurous peers on this momentous pilgrimage. Up to four hundred thousand, the news reports said, and every top musical act was there. Nude bathing, gate-crashing, communal living, open drug use - anything and everything was possible. The Aquarian Age was indeed dawning. I wondered if Dot and I were being left behind, sunbathing with the middle-class masses while the flower children flourished and frolicked in the mud and rain at Yasgur's farm.
Only a couple of weeks before, a man had walked on the moon. The ultimate techno-trip had been accomplished, with all due media hype. Somehow, I was not moved. It was just another adjunct to The Johnny Carson Show, or a new cartoon. I remember hearing of a Florida woman who disbelieved it: if she couldn't get TV from New York, how could she get it from the moon? It was all a creation of the local studio, the magic screen in front of one's face. it was not actually happening out there in the world, in this world.
But Woodstock, that was a different story. It was, in the lexicon of the time, "a happening" - the happening that inspired a whole generation to try to emulate it, to capture its spirit, to wallow in its muddy implications and ride its rain-streaked, nostalgic spinoffs, at some level or other, to varying degrees and with inevitably diminishing intensity, for the rest of our days in this village we called Earth.
