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Text
Epilogue
Photographs and Memories
Jim Croce
Photographs and memories
Christmas cards you sent to me
All that I have are these
To remember you
Memories that come at night
Take me to another time
Back to a happier day
When I called you mine
Memories that come at night
Take me to another time
Back to a happier day
When I called you mine
But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when
Morning walks and bedroom talks
Oh how I loved you then
Summer skies and lullabies
Nights we couldn't say good-bye
And of all of the things that we knew
Not a dream survived
Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just can't be true
That's all I've left of you
At some point during the mid-‘90s I had this strong urge to visit the Bay Area. At the time several friends lived in the area - some from high school (Ross among others), some from college, along with a couple of relatives. But finances were tight, and Bart and I were struggling through a rough spot in our marriage. I didn’t think Bart would appreciate me taking the time away, so I didn’t pursue it.
Then, twelve and a half years after our last exchange, technology finally caught up with my curiosity and I found him. Sitting in the office in our home, I typed a few terms into the search engine and found him. Ross tinkered with HTML, setting up his own URL and website – a combination business/personal page for the world to see if anyone was curious. Boklab. I knew him instantly and dashed off an e-mail.
From: "Susan Kline" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: feeling sentimental
Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 19:51:33 –0400
Bok-X
Was surfin' this morning during Devon's (my 18 mo. old) nap - found your page. Nearly passed out when I peeked at your photo of the 1981 VW diesel hatchback. I remember the smell as though we went to Denny's just last night! Whatever happened to the Pinto you worked on?
I took a side trip to Skot-X's & Mark's band page. Too many memories for one sitting. I'm on sentimental journey overload.
I was in touch with D. Klebanow a couple of weeks ago. He was kind enough to bring me up to date on his shenanigans.
My mom says your folks have the house on the market. Where're they movin'?
If it doesn't weird you out, I'd love to know what else you're up to.
Susan
Much to my delight and amazement, he replied!
I was still SuzinX, and he was still bok.
From: Ross A. Jeynes <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 98 01:38:36 -0700
To: "Susan Kline" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: feeling sentimental
SuzinX,
I think you should drop the 'n', and just call him Devo! The Pinto was relegated to parts duty at the Carthage wrecking yard later that same summer. So sad; all that rust held together by liberally applied bondo certainly deserved a more respectful burial...like being driven off of Mt. Adams, or something.
M&D are having a new place built over near Bonham Rd. I'm not exactly sure where the site is, but I guess there are some new homes going up over close to the Rolling Stones apartments, behind where Kmart was?
So...like where do you live now?
-bok
I found out later that his dad forced the Pinto issue. His father never understood the project, and near as I can tell only tolerated the vehicle’s presence in the driveway. In the early summer of 1986, his dad’s patience wore thin, and he told Ross to get rid of the thing. It was one of those, “As long as you’re living under my roof…” ultimatums. Ross cut the roof off the car in an enthusiastic move to own a convertible, and in doing so, inspired others to do the same to their own junkers. A convertible Dart (Greg’s) and convertible Datsun (David’s) came to pass in the ensuing years. I’m told Ross slept with the license plate under his pillow the day he took the Pinto to its final resting place. For more than a year he put his heart and soul into that car. Working on it was a learning experience, it was therapy, it was escape. Heck it was even a conversation starter – who restores a Pinto? It truly was a wonderful project in its own way. And to have it dismissed out of hand must have been devastating.
Thrilled and yet, filled with trepidation, I replied to his question, giving him an update on the intervening twelve years, nothing of substance really. We subsequently exchanged a few notes, keeping the mood light. Where do you work, what’s been going on in your life? He told me about his latest girlfriend, sent me her URL. He chatted about going back to Cincinnati to visit his folks. I added his e-mail to my address book and some distribution lists, so he got family updates when I sent them out. It was a safe way to rebuild a lost friendship.
March 2, 2001
Bart and I leave in the morning for our long awaited family vacation to Florida. We’ve planned this for months. We’re staying at his mom’s time-share in Orlando, using frequent flyer miles for the plane tickets. We made arrangements to see Stephen Paul and his family, and also visit with my aunt and uncle in Sarasota. I made reservations at the RainForest Café in Downtown Disney, and for lunch at Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom. I checked all the on-line lowdowns for how to maneuver around Disney, I figured out Fast Pass, I nailed down that we take the Ferry over to the Magic Kingdom, and not the monorail. We bought our tickets ahead of time, so there’s no standing in lines – we just go on in. It’s going to be a great trip!
I’ve got a weird feeling something is going to go wrong. Are we going to be in a plane crash? Is one of us going to die? I sent out an e-mail to the principals of our will – executor, guardians and keeper of the trust fund. I let them know where we kept all our important papers, just in case. There’s something wrong…I just can’t put my finger on it.
The trip down was uneventful. I did my homework, and it paid off. Two adults with three toddlers, Bart and I maneuvered our gear and made the connections without incident. We arrived at the Orlando airport, retrieved our luggage, picked up our rented minivan with built-in carseats, and drove to the resort.
On Sunday, the fourth of March, I called home to wish Mom a happy birthday. There’s still this nagging feeling that something is desperately wrong. My period is late – very late (oh G-d, I had three under three, I do NOT need a fourth!) I sat on the bed in our condo unit, punching numbers into the keypad of the telephone (friggin’ calling cards – too many damn numbers!) I had to input the numbers several times before I finally got through – chatted and wished Mom a happy birthday. Here’s the phone number for where we’re staying.
Later in the week, Thursday, March 8th, this odd feeling still nagged at me – so once again, I sat on the bed in our room, telephone in front of me and punched in all those digits. The calling card numbers, the area code and phone number, and then I got the answering machine. Damn it! Oh well, “Just checking in to be sure all is well.” Click. I put on my swimsuit and joined Bart and the kids at the swimming pool.
It was a great trip – all the planning paid off, and the unseasonably cool weather that week was delightful. The kids loved the Magic Kingdom, thoroughly enjoyed the playground at the resort, they loved swimming in the pool, got along great at Stephen Paul’s house, we visited my aunt and uncle in Sarasota. We arrived home not rested, but we had a good time.
We parked the car in the garage and the kids played with their toys while Bart and I unloaded suitcases and other gear. I stopped long enough to call Mom and tell her we were home and safe. She asked, “Have you checked your phone messages yet?”
“No, we literally just walked in the door. Bart’s unloading the suitcases from the car now.”
“Well, people have been calling all week – Amy is really upset. You need to call her. I’ve talked with Anna and David, too. Ross died Sunday morning.”
My heart stopped for the briefest of moments. Damnit, THAT’S what that nagging feeling was…
“When are the services? Is Amy okay? Where’s Scott? Where are the Jeynes’? Does anybody know what happened?”
“Amy is at home. Scott and his parents have gone out to California. The services will be next week.”
“I’ll check my messages. Thank you for telling me. I’ll talk to you later.”
I ran upstairs to check our answering machine in the bedroom and listened to numerous pleas from Amy. I then ran downstairs to check e-mail on the office computer. Amongst all the spam, “Enlarge your penis” “Low mortgage rates” and “Barely legal” was just one message from David:
To: Suds Kline [et al.]
Subject: Info on Ross Jeynes
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 23:33:19 -0500
From: David Kleb
Hello all:
By now the word has hopefully reached you that Ross Jeynes passed away the weekend of March 3rd at his home in San Jose, California. Needless to say, the news has come as a terrible shock.
A funeral service will be held this Thursday, March 15th in Cincinnati at Vorhis Funeral Home, 11365 Springfield Pike in Springdale. A visitation begins at 10:00am and the funeral service begins at 11:30am.
Sorry Bart – I need to call Amy. Ross died.
After a phone call, Amy and I started corresponding via e-mail. Over the next few days, I expressed my concern for Amy. Left alone with her newborn son, her husband and in-laws traveled to California. There, they attended to the details of retrieving Ross’ body from the medical examiner’s office and making arrangements to ship the body back to Cincinnati. They searched for personal papers; a will, life insurance information, vehicle registrations and the like. They also looked for any personal writings in Ross’ chaotic method of record keeping - a smattering here, a file there.
Anna volunteered to host a soiree for Ross’ buddies from high school. Amy considered going. I was afraid for her. Over the years she heard stories and adventures involving these friends, but she had never been exposed to them en masse. The experience can be overwhelming.
I asked her about plans for the memorial service. We swapped anecdotes about her now-dead brother-in-law; the same conversations others might have at the funeral home.
* * *
I couldn’t sleep. I was possessed of a nervous energy like I hadn’t experienced in years. I talked with Bart. I called Mom. Despite telling Amy I wouldn’t be able to make it, I had to go to the funeral. I couldn’t NOT say goodbye. With all the pain and anguish we caused each other all those years previous, I had to do it right this time. With Bart’s blessing I loaded the kids in the back of our 1998 Chevy Malibu and drove the ten hours to Cincinnati. What I should have done fifteen and a half years previous, but was too proud, too inexperienced, and too frightened. This time, I cried as I drove by the exit for Wooster.
The funeral was on a Thursday morning. I know it was in March, and I know it wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day. I had to scare up something to wear – I even dressed like a girl and put on stockings! Dad stayed with the kids while Mom and I attended the service together. It was the same funeral home that hosted the services for his buddy Andy back in 1986. I missed that one. Busy ignoring my old life I didn’t take the time to say goodbye. I probably should have, who knows how life might have turned out. Then a few years later, I didn’t come home for another funeral. When Mike ploughed his car into a tree, I shrugged it off. Poor guy, he didn’t deserve that. We were never close despite running with the same crowd. Why did I need to say goodbye? Now Ross was gone too, and I couldn’t ignore this one. It would be tough, but I had to come home. So many memories...
Mom and I arrived not too early, certainly not late, but the line to greet his family was already long. His brother Scott prepared a funerary mix-tape for him. (I guess they’re CDs now- MP3’s, CDrW’s, DVD-A’s and all that. We’ve come a long way from those tapes Ross dubbed from his vinyl albums.) The music was conservative and low-key just like the service. I saw a lot of faces I hadn’t seen in fifteen years or more. Greg, Anna, Steve, Moj, I was struck by how odd it must be to have in one room so many men over six-foot-two who never played football or basketball. Instead they were code-jockeys who spent their lives hunched over, pounding keyboards, and staring at monitors. They all had terrible posture in high school. Girlfriends, wives, and confidence improved their posture over the years. I wonder if Ross still sported the rounded shoulder look, or if he too sat up taller in his seat and put his shoulders back?
And his parents’ friends! Faces and names I had completely forgotten. Did they know why I was there? I know his family knew. They may have forgotten the extent of our dedication to each other, sixteen years is a long time. But who else knew? David? Greg? Moj? Not many…we kept to ourselves back then.
The family opted for an open casket. It was good to see him even if he did look like hell. He and I were a pair – our thirties certainly caught up with us. Our faces puffy, we were both overweight and out of shape. He from years of hunching over a keyboard, pounding out computer code; me from weight gain of two pregnancies and years of sitting in front of computer terminals correcting library barcode and arcane bibliographic database errors.
Mom and I stood in line to greet his parents. Awkward at best, what do I say after sixteen years of absence other than, “I’m sorry,” and what can they say other than, “Thank you for coming.” A bit pointless isn’t it? But absolutely necessary for everyone to go through the drill. Mom found a place for us to sit, not up front, not way in back, but on the left, somewhere in the middle. Mom is a professional funeral attendee, a hazard of her work as a pediatric hospice nurse. We sat down and as we waited for the service to start, I looked around amazed by all the familiar faces. I nodded greetings, and whispered, “I’ll talk to you later.” Mom and I got the giggles at one point. When I was a little girl of nine or ten, my aunt and I got the giggles at one of my grandfathers’ funerals. Something was funny. There is always something funny at funerals, but you’re not supposed to laugh. I have a hard time with that. I want laughter at my funeral, lots of it. Tell bawdy jokes if you must, but laugh, please.
A woman sat on the pew next to me – someone I had never met. She wanted to know all about Ross. What had he done with his life, where did he go to school, what did he do for a living? Did he ever marry, did he have kids? I answered her questions to the best of my ability, I wasn’t sure of a lot of it. I had been away too many years. I asked how she knew Ross. Turns out she was his babysitter when he and his brother Scott were little. I found that touching – his former babysitter attended to his funeral. I don’t remember half the kids I cared for as a teen, I stayed with so many. Ross and Scott must have been a handful to be remembered all these years later!
Scott and his wife, Amy, delivered the eulogies. They kept their composure; spoke clearly so all the hearing aids could pick up every word. Scott brought up the P-I-N-T-O. I couldn’t believe it. Sixteen years later, and that old rusted Ford Pinto is still relevant? Two lines from Amy’s verbiage struck me, “It was because of Ross that I knew the music of Joe Jackson.” That one got a laugh. And she quoted him, “Taking a shower is like being born every morning.” She choked on that one, but recovered her composure quickly. Remarkable considering she was just four months post-partum and her hormones were a wreck. A cousin spoke, too. He talked about times as youngsters playing on the beaches of the Jersey Shore. Ross had shared those same memories with me years before. All the words were very appropriate and above board, and I hated it. Where was the adult Ross? Where was the man I barely knew?
While his cousin spoke, I lost myself in memories, only half listening to what was going on around me. Somehow, the service ended and we were dismissed. We all stood up to make our way to the door and I saw poor Sheila in tears. Looking so lost, she stood outside the funeral chapel by herself, not knowing a soul. Sheila was the friend who had the unfortunate lot in life to be “the girl he was with at the time of his death.” Not Ross’ wife, not his long-time companion, just a most recent girlfriend. She and Ross were still dreaming together, getting to know each other. Literally overnight, those dreams were gone. I felt terrible for her. Here she was, the one who found him, the one who had to call the authorities, the one who had to contend with family invading his space. She was mad at his mom for picking up his clothes, doing the laundry, and putting it all away in bureau drawers. Ross never had put away his own laundry, instead he lived out of the dryer and laundry basket. It worked.
Sheila made the effort to fly across country from San Jose to Cincinnati for the service and burial and was put up in a hotel. As fresh and as fun as it may have been between them, she wasn’t FAMILY. Ross and she were just getting to know each other and suddenly he was gone. The stories Scott, Amy, and his cousin told were not her stories. She didn’t know them. And no one in attendance asked for or cared about her stories. She had tales of motorcycle rides and small moments at home. She desperately missed his zest for life. She missed his smell…she needed a hug. I gave her one. She wanted, needed, time to say goodbye in her own way. That could only happen when she returned to California.
But first, Ross had to be escorted to the cemetery. I said goodbye to Mom, and reached for David. Mom left to help Dad take care of my three children. I hugged David, grabbed his forearm and said, “David, Don’t leave me. Don’t make me do this by myself. I need you. I’m drowning in memories here. You’ve got to help me.”
We walked to his car, a convertible Miata, blue with black ragtop. (He’s come a long way since that old Datsun hatchback I knew so intimately so long ago.) He unlocked the passenger door, and I climbed in and leaned over and unlocked the driver’s side. Then, with David driving and me in the passenger seat, we rode in the funeral procession. At last, some bit of familiarity, David’s in the driver’s seat. I can relax, and know I am safe.
This, I remembered; I relaxed as I leaned back in the passenger seat and relinquished control to David. In our own time, David drove us all over Hamilton County in an old Datsun hatchback. Later, I rode with Ross in one of several different family vehicles. Today I desperately wanted David to put the top down. But in the weak misty rain, David refused. It sounds so cliche that it rained the day of Ross’ funeral, but it really did. Just a passing light shower, enough to make drivers use the intermittent setting on their windshield wipers, the streets turned dark with the damp. But the sun came out later. Honestly, I think Ross would have approved of us putting the top down. He might have encouraged it even, what’s a little rain? Ross deserved a little frivolity amidst all the sadness. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should have arrived with Dad on the back of his Yamaha. Now THAT was appropriate. His parents would have hated it, but friends would have understood, maybe even cheered a little?
David and I reminisced on the drive over. We have been through so much together, this event just added to our catalog of togetherness. We laughed. I made him almost cry. We talked about funerals and what we wanted for our own. There are certain events in life in which clergy are required: births, weddings, and funerals. Births and weddings are easy to compensate without clergy, but if you’re not a service-attending individual, then you’re hard pressed to find a clergy-substitute for a funeral. David lacked clergy in his life, and expressed concern that a stranger might send him to the grave. We considered the possibilities, and in the end I annoyed David with some of my banter, I usually do at some point.
I was lost at the cemetery. Literally lost – I had no idea where we were. Twenty years ago my lab partner and I collected leaf and pond scum samples for high school biology class, but I didn’t remember landmarks or roads. David parked the car, and we got out. He wandered over to find Moj. I was then lost in the throng of well-wishers. Where did I fit in? Not with the California crowd. Not with the old high school friends bunch, not with the family, I didn’t think. Am I allowed to stand by the casket and say goodbye? Would it be appropriate or not? Unsure of my role, I stood on the hill back away from the casket, away from the family and old friends and watched the proceedings. I couldn’t hear any last words. The family turned to walk back up the hill. “Now what do I do?” I silently pined to myself, “Had it really been so long? Where did the time go? What happened? Why did we ever leave each other?”
I turned and hugged David good-bye, kissed his cheek, privately enjoying the rough of his beard, “I love you, David. Thank you. I’ll see you later.”
David handed me over to Moj, and left for work. I rode back from the cemetery with friends of Ross’ from San Jose. Moj did offer the ride and I’m grateful, but of all people who could have been in the car, three other former girlfriends were waiting – Sarah, Kris, and Sheila. I introduced myself, awkwardly, and made a lame joke about the four of us comparing notes. They were not amused. Kris asked if I was the one whose mother Ross was close to. Her inquiry surprised me. I didn’t remember that detail. “No, not particularly, I don’t think. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Oh.”
They asked how to get out of the cemetery and back to the house. I looked at their directions and wondered who had written them. It was a convoluted way to get to where we were going. So I started in, “No, you don’t want to go that way. You want to get on I-75 N to Galbraith Road. I can get you home from there.”
But the rental car was equipped with in-dash GPS and directions. Moj gently explained that the exercise was to test the GPS. So I closed my mouth, and listened instead. I had already put my foot in my mouth. They babbled about how cool Ross might have thought it was to use GPS to get back to his parents’ place. A computer to tell you where to drive?! I remembered Ross and I used the compass in the Oldsmobile and took random roads. At 1:30 in the dark, he drove while I navigated. Go west here, south at this intersection, we drove through then-rural Hamilton County (now all fancy subdivisions, big houses on small lots, suburban sprawl gone amuck) until we found a road we recognized and headed home. Where’s the adventure in GPS? Yes, it’s mildly interesting…but maybe just nervousness made them really pumped to think of how cool he would have thought GPS.
Back at the house (the one his parents had built, not the one full of memories), I was still lost and tongue-tied. I’m not good in large crowds. I might blossom in the intimacy of a small group, or the controlled formality of a discussion group. But free talking, no leadership, mingle on your own cocktail parties and receptions terrify me. I’d already made a fool of myself in front of his girlfriends. I didn’t want to repeat that. There were too many people, too many memories in one room. Friends from high school milled about with his parents friends. The group from California took root in the living room. And most never knew how close Ross and I ever became. Where could I be comfortable? I went upstairs and spent my time with his sister-in-law Amy and her friend helping them with her newborn son Henry. I preferred to talk about new life and diaper changes, not memories.
Memories. Good pleasant memories, painful “prefer-to-forget” memories and “oh that was so much fun!” memories. Ross was my focus once. A mutual friend gave me his address at college, and I took it upon myself to send him mail. I sent little girl stuff - coloring book pictures, stream-of-consciousness letters, fallen leaves - anything that fit in an envelope. He didn't know what to make of it, and what few friends he had at college were baffled as well. Oh sure, I was busy with family and David, and our other friends in high school. But Ross was safe. Away from home I told him anything and everything. I believed my ideas, thoughts, stories wouldn’t get back to anyone. I put my thoughts into words, put the words on paper, and never thought about them again. He read my words, and kept them. A year later our worlds converged and we re-read my letters. Finally, Ross gave me his words and we became one. If I sit still long enough, I can conjure Ross’ presence.
Ross’ and my friendship developed with letters and ended with letters. In the days before e-mail and laptops, before hotmail and URLs, these were old-fashioned pen to paper letters – sometimes pencil, sometimes magic marker, sometimes even crayon. Penmanship and spelling mattered. We bared our souls, our innermost thoughts to each other in our writing. It was a way to be totally and completely ourselves, and still share with another person. I wrote to Ross, he didn’t answer – not often anyway. I didn’t care so much. I was busy with David and other friends. I wrote again and Ross DID answer. Then, we had each other so didn’t need to write. Finally, it was my turn to leave, and we wrote again. In the end, he stopped writing, and then at long last, so did I. We hurt each other deeply. We chose different paths, and went our separate ways. To paraphrase a childhood nursery rhyme, “When it was good, it was very, very good. But when it went bad, it was horrid.”
Bills for several hundred dollars in phone calls was just one of a few mementos I took away - an old sweatshirt and a pair of pink high tops with painted pictures of Opus on them (I still have those – fifteen years and two pregnancies later, they no longer fit, but they sit in my closet, a testament to what, I’m not sure – I gave the sweatshirt to Goodwill ages ago). Convinced I could drop out of college, he and I could elope and live happily ever after – my parents did, why couldn’t we? I was just eighteen and he was all of twenty...
Ross,
Can you read this?
I still have that toolbox you gave me. Over the years the tools commingled with Bart’s. But he and I agree, I get my toolbox back if we ever go our separate ways.
Do you remember what you wrote when you gave it to me?
“If, when you are at college, things start to go badly and you think your whole world is going to fall apart… You can fix it.”
Guess what?
I couldn’t.
Susan
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Text
Back to School
In our last weeks in the Bay Area, Bart and I worked out a plan. Each committed to working our lives together, we decided I should return to UofR while Bart shopped his resume around. And so, after the holidays I packed up my gear and moved into yet another dorm room.
This one felt more like a cell. Sure, it had the convenience of a sink in the room, but other than that I found little redeeming value in my surroundings. Arriving in Rochester mid-winter after record-breaking heat and drought in California was one cruel joke. On-campus dorms were full, the only university-sponsored available housing was Helen Wood Hall – the dorm used for nursing students for the hospital. (Since turned into offices.) Adjacent to campus, it was a twenty minute walk or ten minute shuttle bus ride away from my academic and social world. I no longer had a car at my disposal. Once again my freedom of movement was curtailed. I was back to begging rides and sorting out shuttle schedules. No kitchen opportunities, I relied on the dining centers. I coped pretty well with much of this, as I mastered bus schedules and off-campus living skills while in San Francisco.
The difference in academic expectations was challenging. I took five classes at University of San Francisco – three credits each. Expectations of performance were much different at the University of Rochester – more stringent, requiring more effort, and a self-interest in the subject matter. Having decided to pursue a major in Religious Studies, I signed up for Biblical Beginnings; to satisfy my science requirement, I took an introductory geology course; on a lark, Introduction to Linguistics, and an independent study course I designed to somehow work my scholarship efforts into University credit – History of South Africa. Despite the introductory nature of these courses, I floundered.
And the social expectations! I plunged right back into more scholarship work. The expectations were high for me to revive the campaign and keep the interest strong. Jim was still on campus as one of the first “Take Five” students – a fifth year free of charge to study whatever he wished – he made overtures of friendship, pressuring me to re-join him with his Chapel Community. Perhaps we would make a fresh start.
Not soon after, I realized I was in over my head, had too many pots on the stove, I took on more than I could handle. I battled memories, felt out of control and did not cope well. Bart left a bottle of vodka with me after one of his weekend visits, and I took to drinking. Mixing vodka with fruit juice, gulping it down to try to sleep, it backfired and I stayed wide-awake, pacing my room - a single in the residence hall across from the Hospital. As dawn approached I finally slept. I slept through classes, and stopped caring – sort of. I knew I was crashing, it was a matter of when, and whether or not I would survive. I drank more thinking to poison myself. If I drink enough, I’ll die of alcohol poisoning. I mixed my fruit juice and vodka concoctions with sleeping pills from the local drugstore. That will help – I just won’t wake up.
I sat on the loft bed in my dorm room. No, I take that back, I didn’t sit. I lay curled under the covers with my knees pulled up to my chin and I rocked. I stared at the cinderblock wall, found a comforting internal rhythm and I rocked. Rocked back and forth. Too scared to move. Afraid to get out of bed, afraid of what would happen in the world if I didn’t get out of bed. Too scared to cry, I rocked. And rocked. And rocked. Back and forth. I hoped for someone, anyone, to notice how much I hurt. I tried drowning the hurt and succeeded only to drive myself toward wakefulness, the curse of insomnia. So I rocked, back and forth, back and forth. Bart will visit soon. But he was just here, he gave me my engagement ring when Craig and Jilda visited from Boston. He promised he would be back. Where was he? Back and forth, back and forth. What can I do? I can’t stay here. I can’t stay here any more. I cannot be here in Rochester. Back and forth, back and forth. I’ve got to make a plan. If I can’t stay here, where can I go? Back and forth, back and forth. I can’t call mom and dad. They won’t understand. When I flew home mid-semester my first year, I was told, “You must return”. They thought I cried wolf, and I can’t cry wolf again, to be ignored. Back and forth, back and forth. Who can help me? Lawrence! He lives in barn on a former commune near Ithaca. I’ll call him. Back and forth, back and forth. That means I have to get out of bed. Back and forth, back and forth. Finally sleep overtook me as the birds began chirping in the pre-dawn - I dozed.
In slumber, I stretched out to my full height. But when I woke mid-morning, I pulled my knees to my chest, my chin nestled between my knees, the fetal position, I rocked. Back and forth. I had made a plan, hadn’t I? I was going to call Lawrence. I can do that. I’ll call Lawrence. Stretch my legs, sit up and turn to climb down the ladder. Back and forth. Back and forth. I climbed down and picked up my address book. Where is Lawrence’s number? There. I found it. Standing in my room, the February chill raising goosebumps on my arms, I stood and swayed, back and forth. I reached for the phone and dialed, punching the numbers slowly and deliberately on the keypad. The phone rang on the other end. Once, twice, “Hello?”
My eyes are closed. There is nothing in this world other than this voice on the other end of the phone. “This is Susan Savage calling for Lawrence, is he available?”
“Yes, just a moment.”
I cradled the phone against my cheek, eyes still closed, swaying back and forth on the balls of my feet. Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Don’t fall over, don’t lose your balance. I’m so cold. So cold.
“Hello?”
“Lawrence! This is Susan. How are you?”
“Fine, what can I do for you?”
“I’m not well. I have to get away from here. Do you know anywhere I can just “be” for a few days?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t talk about it over the phone. I’m just ... really bad ... and can’t be here anymore. I need time and space to figure out what to do.”
“Hold on a minute, let me check a couple of things.”
Back and forth, back and forth. Heel–toe, heel-toe. I can’t stop rocking. It’s so cold. Hurry Lawrence, don’t leave me.
“There’s a room here you can stay. It’s nothing fancy.”
“I’ll take it. How do I get there?”
“There’s a bus, can you get to the bus station?”
“I’ll get someone to take me. I’ll be there tomorrow. Thank you Lawrence.”
<click>
Back and forth, back and forth. Eyes still closed, I clasped my arms around myself, my shoulders hunched in effort to stay warm. I have a plan. I have people who can help. I need to get to the bus station and buy a ticket. Once I’m on the bus, I’ll be okay. Heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe.
In my self-imposed darkness, options ran through my mind. Who has a car? Who can drive me to the bus station? Karen. She has a truck. She can take me to the bus station. I’ll call her. Heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe. What is her schedule? Heel-toe, heel toe. Later. I’m too cold now. But what do I do? Water. A shower. I can do that.
I shrugged into my bathrobe, picked up my shower bucket, grabbed my towel and walked to the communal showers down the hall. By now it was early afternoon, the sun low in the winter sky, hall-mates were long gone to campus for classes and work. I enjoyed relative privacy and unlimited hot water. Eyes closed, warm water running, caressing, I formulated plans. Call Karen, pack a suitcase, get money from the bank.
Several hours later, my plans were in motion. A bewildered, but agreeable Karen agreed to drive me to the bus station. The next day, on the left-hand side, halfway back I sat on a roughly upholstered seat and stared at the scenery as the bus wound through the Finger Lakes. Lawrence picked me up at the station in Ithaca and drove us back to the property where he was staying.
I spent four days with Lawrence on a former farm/commune near Ithaca. Mostly left to myself, the owners were working, saving their pennies toward opening their historic home as a retreat center. I slept, I meditated, I stared out at the hills and bare trees. I learned about yurts and had mundane conversations with Lawrence about duck eggs and omelettes. He never asked what was wrong. Bless him for that. I knew I could not return to the University of Rochester. It would kill me.
But if I couldn’t go there, where could I go? Bart and I were only just engaged. He didn’t have a job or a place to live. Neither did I. The only option was to return to parents. I was going to have to tell them about leaving the University anyway. I had no other choice but to ask if I could stay with them. How utterly humiliating. But better humiliated than dead.
Lawrence drove me back to the bus station. I couldn’t hide in Ithaca for the rest of my life. Rested, not nearly restored, I contemplated my next moves during the quiet ride back to Rochester. I would have to weasel out of a lot of responsibilities. It would take letters and meetings. But then I would be free. I would be done with the University. No more pain. Just take it one step at a time.
Over the next week I made lots of phone calls; calls to Bart, calls to my parents, calls to professors, meetings with academic advising. I also sorted through mountains of paperwork. I needed an official medical leave so Dad could get a tuition refund. I informed all my professors so my transcript wouldn’t be ruined. Told friends that I was leaving. I’d only just returned, and here I was leaving again. Would they understand? It didn’t matter. I would not stay on campus any longer than I absolutely had to.
I met with a counselor from University Mental Health Services and pleaded my case. She asked questions about my home life, my parents, my siblings. What did I do for fun? I wasn’t thinking coherently. I gave non-answers. I didn’t tell her about Jim. In the end she told me, “Smoke a joint and get laid. Life will be so much better if you just loosen up a little.” But she gave me my “section 8,” that magic piece of paper that meant Dad would get his tuition money back.
Bart drove from Philadelphia, picked me up in Rochester and drove us with all my stuff to Cincinnati. He still didn’t have a job. Unemployed, staying in his Mom’s townhouse, he slept in his pre-teen sister’s twin bed with his feet hanging off the end. He was just as glad to have something to do. He arrived in Rochester with the flu. Sick as a dog – high fever, chills, body ache. We stayed in Rochester together two days. He helped me box up my belongings, then insisted on packing the car and driving himself. Two hours into the drive, I forced him into the passenger seat and took over driving responsibilities.
We made it to Cincinnati, and Mom put Bart to bed. He couldn’t stay long, only a couple of days. We unpacked the car, and stored my things. Bart recuperated, then needed to head back to Philadelphia for a job interview. Mom made an appointment for me to see a doctor. I underwent a complete physical and was diagnosed with clinical depression. Regular sleep, a good diet, exercise – maybe medication, I don’t remember - and family therapy were prescribed. The next week Dad told me, “Get a job, or get out.” Sure, he coddled it in kinder language, but the message was clear. As long as I was living with Mom and Dad, I had to be engaged in some sort of useful activity.
Mom and Dad asked around and I signed on with the P&G temp agency. I filled out the paperwork, attended the training session and was assigned to a position. Within two hours of my first day on the job, they received notice that Dad worked for a competing corporation. I was escorted from the building. So much for employment. I did other assignments instead of working in the P&G buildings - taking Polaroids with the Nestle Quik Bunny at the local IGA, taste tests and market research surveys at the malls. Honestly, the only one I’m sure of is the Polaroids. It just added to my humiliation.
My parents brought me to a family therapist. I was angry. Very angry. They abandoned me two years before, ignored my pleas to come home and stay, and now suddenly they wanted to parent. As far I was concerned they lost their right to parent that sunny August day in 1985 when they left me on the steps of the student union. Bart visited again, and joined us for a session or two. He was shocked at the language I used against my parents. I was both ruthless and relentless. I accused my parents of all sorts of things. Some of it warranted, most of it not.
Even today I remain angry; angry for their selfishness, for their inability to understand that I really did hurt. They didn’t believe me when I said I was unhappy and wanted to come home. They left a giant whole in their parenting by not providing basic sexual health care information. My first visit with an obstetrician was by myself in a downtown public clinic, by a clinician who treated me as just another cunt in his day. They ignored the warnings of teachers who recognized mental illness. So many signs they ignored. And never apologized. Never tried to make up for their failures.
But now, all these years later, I recognize I have to accept responsibility. I didn’t make my needs known. I didn’t take the initiative and find my own creative solutions. I didn’t work around them, I just got angry when they didn’t provide.
I also now recognize their struggles. To lose a parent is devastating. My mother must have felt so alone, bereft in her own way. Making her way with a new job, sorting through the work of settling her mother’s estate, closing up her mother’s apartment. All of this generally on her own, because her husband traveled so much, being groomed for bigger and better executive positions. How could she possibly reach out to me any more than she did? I have notes from her almost daily – nothing of substance, just “Hi! I’m sick again. Your father is traveling. Here’s $20.” The repetition is telling. Mother was exhausted, in no position to hear my pleas.
Dad was busy in his own world as well. The stress of internal politics of his employer, the stress of small-town politics, his mother-in-law passed away, his wife riddled with grief and guilt and the challenge of a new career. And Dad has a resiliency that I lack. He doesn’t always remember that others don’t have the same abilities to cope with the new and different. If I cried, “It’s too hard” he truly believed that I just hadn’t tried hard enough. He has a creativity and ingenuity I did not inherit. For him, when the going gets tough, find another way. For me, when the going gets tough, sit down and cry until somebody helps.
* * *
Bart accepted a position with a small company south of Buffalo. No one else seemed interested in his resume. He moved his boxes of stuff – still packed from California - to Buffalo, and I negotiated terms with my parents to join him for what turned out to be four years of our own personal purgatory. Initially, my parents arranged for me to stay with my father’s cousin. I lived with these distant relatives, kind and gracious to take me in, for a few weeks while I found and started a job. Then, after diligent apartment hunting and interviewing possible roommate situations, I moved in with Bart. We were engaged, and on the wages I earned I couldn’t afford to support myself. Bart was renting a two bedroom apartment – I would have my own room (whether or not I slept there, I at least had my own space) and economically, it was the right decision. Within six months of leaving the University, I was living and working in Buffalo with Bart.
I tried to work out a plan with the University – I maintained inactive status for several semesters. But I became more interested in other activities; Bart and I planned our wedding, we got married, bought a house had a septic system installed and acquired a dog.
Shortly after I qualified for health insurance, I tried different anti-anxiety medications. I went for more therapy; learning anger management while practicing cognitive therapy. Bart supported my recovery as best he could. He and I existed.
Four years later, Bart’s employer went out of business, forcing Bart to find new employment. He had offers in New Jersey and Rochester. We returned to Rochester, bought our second home and I took a job back with the University of Rochester. Life had come full-circle, I was back where I started. This time, I was in control. This time I would do it my way. Working part-time, I attended classes and continued my degree where I had left off. Bart and I built our lives together. We were making it, finally.
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Escape, or Running Away
Bart supported me. We quietly told my story to a few key individuals. I explained what Jim had done, and how that made me feel. I had no interest in revenge. I did not want to press charges of sexual assault – on campus or otherwise. What would be the value to that? In the end it would be his word against mine, since he never penetrated me, there was no physical evidence, and besides, the Christian Eagle Scout had plenty of character witnesses. But stop badgering Bart and me. I deserve to heal.
I took refuge in Bart’s comfort. Our friendship deepened. We shared our stories. We made each other laugh – something I’d forgotten how to do. The whole debacle divided the suite. Jim was devastated, and incensed. He couldn’t get past the injustice and heartbreak I caused him. So caught up in his own grief, he couldn’t see the damage he had caused me. As happens in many break-ups, friends had to choose sides. Be friends with Susan and Bart, or be friends with Jim. The situation was awkward for everyone involved. And with every new wrinkle and repercussion and discussion, I clung harder and harder to Bart. He held steady and strong and didn’t flinch. He got me drunk and saved my life.
* * *
I dreamed of going to Green Knob my first semester away from home, but no family was willing to go. This time, I advertised the place to friends as a great nature retreat; 250 undeveloped acres surrounded by National Forest on the border of West Virginia and Virginia. Thus marketed, I convinced Bart, Craig and Jilda to spend Spring Break in West Virginia. Dad made the arrangements for us, mailing me the keys. I looked up the property in the USGS maps in the map library, and we worked out an itinerary that involved leaving rabbits with Bart’s family in Philadelphia while Craig and Jilda met with Jilda’s family in Hershey. We would meet up south of Harrisburg and drive further south together.
We made it there with only a couple of mishaps. A wrong turn, getting stuck in the mud on a washed out road, leaving the car at a four-foot drop where the creek had washed away the road. And finally walking around in the dark woods telling my friends, “I think this is the way we need to go.”
Once settled in, though, a peace came over me, awash in so many nurturing family memories. Sugaring the maples, hikes in the wilderness, swimming in the pond, fishing with stale bread as bait, the undivided attention of my family. We fired up the wood stove, Craig left to explore, Bart fell asleep in the meadow, Jilda studied her textbooks, I reveled in memories. Such solitude. “No phones, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe, it’s primitive as can be.” The respite was welcome and healing.
We passed a pleasant week together that ended all too soon. We had to return to Rochester and finish classes. Besides, we needed to bathe.
* * *
In April, those of us who worked toward establishing a scholarship for South African refugees were to be recognized by the University administration. A banquet was held in our honor, and awards were given for our efforts. Jim would be there, with Lawrence and a couple of others. It’s sad that I don’t remember anymore. But the fact is, I didn’t go. I lay on a mattress in Bart’s room, waking up slowly, listening to the hustle of the rest of the suite while Bart dozed next to me. I overheard a muffled conversation between Jim and Andy – Jim was readying for the event and Andy teased him good-naturedly. I briefly considered getting up and walking back across the parking lot to my own dorm room; showering and putting on dress clothes. But Bart felt warm and comfortable beside me, and had promised an afternoon breakfast of pancakes and sausage. Participating in the award ceremony would have meant interacting with Jim, something for which I just didn’t have the energy. I reached for Bart and fell back asleep.
Lawrence came to the suite after the luncheon, irritated that I had missed the event. I couldn’t explain myself. He was disappointed in me. I disappointed a lot of people.
* * *
Bart was my savior. But he was graduating. What would I do? What would we do? Would we say good-bye to each other, and go on with our lives? Or could we somehow stay together?
In which I scheme with Bart to escape to San Francisco, spend the summer in Cincinnati enduring three months’ absence from my latest love, and we join together on the West Coast.
January-March 1988
In which Bart drops out of Berkeley graduate school, David re-enters the picture via his own letters, offering tidbits of gossip and the like. Related to this story, but continues to be a story in its own right.
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Home for the Holidays
The plans to move to San Diego were scrapped earlier in the year. The job offer was rescinded, and thankfully the house never got to market. Dad was quickly re-appointed to City Council, and he resumed his position with the Drackett Company. Mom renegged on her two week notice at the hospital, and life returned to its previous rhythm.
Angry and disappointed in Jim, I invited my friend Ken to Cincinnati with me for Thanksgiving. In Ken, I picked up another lonely soul, and thought I was rescuing him from a miserable holiday weekend. Ken was excited to see another city, and wanted to know all about it. He was enthusiastic about seeing the country and wanted to know all about where I grew up. I drove the Pinto, and we dropped a freshman in Cleveland along our way.
All the anguish I’d suffered the previous spring had been for naught. My bedroom was still intact – never touched by any movers. The boxes I’d packed were moved to the attic and forgotten. I’d said good-bye to my life in Wyoming and moved on. And yet, that Thanksgiving weekend I was dumped right back into the thicket of drama, but couldn’t fully participate because of Ken’s presence. I needed to be a good hostess to Ken, and yet old friends wanted news and explanations. It was a delicate balance that was awkward at best. Ken and I argued, and I told my friends, “I’ll explain at Christmas.”
* * *
After Thanksgiving, the tension between Jim and me grew worse. He was busy with work and classes; I was busy with classwork. I avoided him as much as possible, although we still worked together on the scholarship. Instead I spent time with other friends; played gin-rummy with Bart, Scrabble with Craig and his girlfriend Jilda. I lunched with Lawrence, enjoying his company. I struggled to pass Botany, grabbing help from a classmate who walked me through the physics of transpiration. The semester ended, and I returned to Cincinnati for Christmas and winter break.
At the end of the term, when exams were over, I packed up the Pinto with a suitcase full of dirty clothes and my rabbit, Homer with all the food and bedding changes along with her litter box. I carried my passenger as far as Cleveland –delivering him to his own family on my way through Ohio. I arrived home late, after dark anyway, and unpacked the car.
That Christmas, 1986, we celebrated a rare convergence of immediate family. Tom and his wife Janet had spent the fall in New Haven, CT. Tom enrolled in one of Yale’s Master’s degree programs, but shortly after their arrival in August, they realized their mistake. Despite the prestige of the school name, the reality of living in New Haven on a grad student salary was not something they needed or wanted to do. So after the semester, salvaging what credits he could, Tom and Janet would drive back to Oregon and Oregon State University – Salem was home.
I presume Mom called Jack and pleaded, “Since Tom and Janet and Susan are going to be in Cincinnati for Christmas can you and Cheryl possibly make it so we can have all the family together?” Whether such a plea was made or not, Jack and Cheryl were in Cincinnati for a few days.
David stopped by the house Christmas Eve afternoon, and after a brief greeting with my parents, we retreated to what was my bedroom-not-my-bedroom and chatted. Whatever the topic, the discussion became heated and David knocked the rabbit off the bed to the floor. Angry, I suggested he leave and he did.
Later that evening, my brothers expressed interest in meeting my pet rabbit. Engrossed in a television program, I sent them up to my room to introduce themselves.
“Is the rabbit supposed to be stiff?” David’s cuff of the creature accidently killed it, and Jack and Tom buried it in the back yard. I never asked where.
That Christmas I gave wildly inappropriate gifts, children’s toys and games; useless stuff in the attempt to re-capture childhood. Nobody complained, but I’m sure the plastic went to the garbage or the GoodWill.
After Christmas Jack and Cheryl quickly returned to their jobs in Pennsylvania, and Tom and Janet continued their journey to Oregon. In the days following, I visited a few other friends – Julie, Erin, Valli – but spent New Year’s Eve alone in my parent’s house. I just could not handle another gathering in Moreno’s basement.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, perhaps as a consolation for the job and transfer debacle, Mom and Dad acquired a new car, a 1986 Mustang convertible GT, five speed standard transmission with cruise control, air conditioning factory installed sound system, with cassette deck. Dad arranged a business trip to Florida for early January. Mom and I packed our suitcases – my summer clothes were at “home” in Rochester, so I packed jeans, cotton sweaters and turtlenecks – and we took turns driving I-75 south to Florida through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. We picked Dad up in Tampa, and while he rode in the passenger seat, Dad had me drive his new car in heavy traffic across the Tampa Bay Bridge. I was terrified.
After a few days touring the Sarasota environs, Dad flew back to Cincinnati and Mom and I made the long drive back north. Once in Cincinnati, I did laundry, packed the rabbit cage and paraphernalia into the Pinto and drove back to Rochester, stopping in Cleveland to pick up my passenger.
* * *
Despite our break-up, and the obnoxious way he treated me, I still cared for Jim. He is human, and we did share many laughs and good times together. I learned quite a bit from him. I bought him a Christmas present, knowing he would enjoy it. While I no longer wanted intimacy, I took pleasure in making those around me happy. Jim mistook my gift as a sign of reconciliation. “Oh she’s giving me gifts, we must be back together.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. I gave him gifts of consolation, “I’m outta here, but you can have these to remember me.” That tired, “we can still be friends” attempt.
Chapter 1
Drunken Agony
In January the guys threw yet another party in their suite – another gathering with loud music (they hooked up as many speakers as they could to Bart’s stereo and pooled their CD and album collections for ‘good tunes’) and lots of alcohol. Someone bought a case or two of longnecks, and I threw caution to the wind and nursed a beer. Can’t stand the stuff, but valiantly tried to sip my way through a whole one. I labeled the bottle so I knew it was mine, and kept it close at hand. I sat and chatted with friends, talking about what classes we were taking for the spring term, which professors we had, and what we had done for our winter breaks.
I was able to impress friends with a great story of driving down I-75 in a brand new Mustang convertible. Through Kentucky and Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, Mom and I cruised in a man’s dream car. We visited an orange grove, spent a day at the beach, toured the Circus Museum. Nothing exciting in and of itself, but it’s fun to tell people, “Yea, I drove to Florida and back in a 1986 Mustang Convertible.”
I planted myself in a corner of the couch, Bart parked in an adjacent chair, and unbeknownst to me he kept re-filling my beer. I nursed that beer for the entire evening, thinking I’d had only one. Sad, but I never noticed Bart pouring beer from his bottle into mine. It started out as a joke. How long do you think we can get away with this? They (Bart, Craig, Stephen Paul, Chris, the “other” Jim, Keith and Andy) were all in on it. Elbows nudging, and eyes glancing, they passed the joke along, and I was oblivious. Finally, after who knows how much I had consumed, I announced I was drunk and needed fresh air. Who would take me for a walk? Bart volunteered.
Yes, I was drunk, and so was he, and what happens when two college students get drunk together? Osculation. We trekked across campus to check out the new library construction. We traipsed through an opening in the fence, climbed over cinderblocks, two-by-fours, piping, and bales of wire. We climbed the industrial stairwell that had been erected, going as high as we dared to get a view of the layout. My balance was challenged, and Bart steadied me. I turned and he started kissing. I welcomed the new feeling, gentle, cautious, and kind. After my head stopped spinning so quickly, Bart walked me back to the party. I was just minutes from passing out, so crashed in Bart’s bed in his loft.
That was a last beginning. Bart was kind. Over the weeks Bart cared for and protected me. He never forced himself on me, and when I panicked, he stopped and held me. When I got angry, he let me pound away at his chest, and hugged me all the tighter for my pain. I was very angry at Jim, told Bart my story, and found an ally. Our behavior confounded our friends and they questioned our closeness, “How could you do this to Jim?” “Do you see how cruel you are to Jim?” “Do you know how much Jim is hurting?”
Jim’s last written correspondence was a series of despondent essays about all the wrongs I committed toward him. How I ripped his heart out and didn’t show any remorse. I had mistreated him terribly, calling him “it” and not supporting him through his challenging academic term. Finally, he admits that perhaps, just perhaps, he committed an egregious error. That maybe he misjudged my behavior. Perhaps he was in the wrong. Jim acknowledged that it had taken a tremendous amount of strength for me to discard him. A strength I had not had at the beginning of our relationship. Sure, the sex had been a power trip for him, but he had never physically harmed me, so could it have really been so bad? He promised he would never again repeat such behavior, and then admonished me not to share his confessional words with anyone. They were for my eyes only. I shudder at those memories.
“I guess one reason I’m writing this is to convince myself that I’m not quite as evil as you think I am. I must have hurt you pretty bad for you to go and go out with Bart right off the bat without a “period of mourning” or anything like that. I know that you need someone with you or you get even more unhappy, but still. I hope sometime you sit down and think about all the things we did together. I told you everything about every bit of me, Susan, you know it all. I showed you all of my favorite places, got you to do all of my favorite activities, and had you meet all of my favorite people. I took you camping, skiing and biking. I took you to my church to meet my friends there. I helped you write a term paper in 5 hours and I helped you pass New Testament. I tried to encourage you to get out and do things on your own. I took you to the beach. I had you at my house 3 or 4 times. I took you to Boston to meet my closest friends. Do you remember any of that?”
<snip>
“I still can’t believe you don’t feel the way I do. Either I hurt you so much that you really do dislike me, or I was horribly mistaken about the depth of your feelings about me. Here I am still trying to decide whether I can ever look at another girl and not think about you, and you’re already spending the nights with another guy.
If what we did made you feel “used” then I am terribly, terribly sorry. I have vowed to never let that happen again in any future relationship of mine, and I mean it. Maybe it took you breaking up with me for me to do that.”
<snip>
“I really don’t think it is all my fault, we are both responsible. I know I made you miserable by “using” you, but I think you’ve gotten me back. You often insulted me in public, and you used to call me “it” instead of “he” Basically, you never gave two shits about any of the things I care about, and you made no attempt to hide it.”
<snip>
“Here’s my analysis of how she feels: She’s unhappy. I have been using her, I haven’t spent enough time with her and I don’t talk enough to suit her. She hates her classes, she hates where she’s living, she’s homesick. In general there is very little here that appeals to her. (There used to be one thing here that appealed to her, and that was me. But I don’t have that effect anymore.)”
<snip>
“When she started going out with me, she could hardly live without me. It must have taken a lot of strength and courage to go from that complete need, to breaking up with me and not looking back. On the other hand it would take more courage still to look back and see what I’m doing, how I’m feeling, and she hasn’t done that.
I know I’ve gotten bitterly sarcastic, but I certainly hope that if I ever give this to Susan that she doesn’t get upset by it. I know she’d be angered by the sentence, “New boyfriend means all problems solved!” I guess the feelings behind that last paragraph are ample demonstration of why we broke up: her simplicity, and my sarcasm and lack of respect toward her because of that simplicity. OH! But there are so many worse things to be than what she is. I’ll take her simplicity any day over the hateful, coy, condescending thoughts I see in so many people. I really did love her, I just didn’t respect her.
But I liked her as well as those things (love and respect); and I want to keep on liking her. Obviously she realized a while back that I didn’t respect her, and has reacted strongly against me. I can’t really blame her. The sex was just a manifestation of that lack of respect on my part. What I have done is horrible, but still I hope she forgives me, because now I want to be friends with her.”
* * *
Jim’s version of events is decidedly different from mine. He blames me for his melancholy. I blame him for not recognizing his own poor behavior toward me. I knew what I was doing was hurtful, and did it on purpose. He claims ignorance. He should have known better. We’ll never reconcile.
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Back to School
I was given permission to stay on the camp grounds for the last weekend. All the other counselors had other plans, either returning on the buses to NYC with the last group of campers, or were off to catch other transportation to places more exotic. But with my own vehicle, I just needed a place to sleep. So, I drove down the hill into town and did my laundry, and then spent one last night in my bunk before heading back up to Western New York.
Lawrence and his family welcomed me to their home in the Finger Lakes – Seneca Lake, just south of Geneva. On my way from Fishkill to Kashong, I drove through Ithaca. Unbeknownst to me when I planned my route, it was Cornell’s freshman arrival day. I left a summer spent in a platform tent with eleven-year-old girls who had never experienced complete darkness, much less heard roosters crowing and cows mooing or the birds chirping in the pre-dawn, and came through a small town overwhelmed with BMW’s, Station Wagons, Custom Vans, U-Hauls towed by minivans. The contrast was overwhelming, and I was pleased to spend a few days of respite in the quiet company of my friend and his family.
Dorms opened Labor Day weekend. I drove over on Tuesday after the holiday and checked into my room. I retrieved my stuff from storage, and moved into my super single. Back on the same special interest floor of the same dorm, instead of turning right when I got off the elevator, I turned left. My friend Karen lived in the room next door, Jen, the Kappa Kappa Delta, cheerful and perky in the other single, and a quiet deadhead in the smallest single. Our two freshmen in the double were Diane, an Air Force ROTC from a small town on Lake Ontario between Rochester and Niagara Falls, and her forgettable roommate.
Now a senior, Jim lived across the parking lot in the “Phase” dorms. He was living on the fourth floor with mostly the same group he lived with last year, Craig, Bart, and Keith. Lawrence, wanting more independence, moved in with a friend in a graduate student apartment. In his stead came Andy, another friend and former roommate of Jim’s. And the group found another Jim, a quiet senior psych major, also from Baltimore. (He bought himself a CD player and one Eagles CD that he played over and over and over again. All these years later, I still can’t listen to Hotel California.) They pooled their cumulative housing points to score one of the first choices in the housing lottery and garnered a six-single suite with a kitchenette and a view of the cemetery.
Jim and I renewed our relationship in earnest after our separation from the summer, although I was colder toward him. There was no mutuality to our intimacy. I struggle to call it love-making, as we didn’t celebrate love at all. Instead, Jim had a sexual appetite which he satisfied while I lay on the bed beneath him. One night, laying on the loft bed in my room, naked except for socks to keep my feet warm on the cold floor, Jim rutted above/on me, while I turned my head and stared at the closet doors. Tears spilled silently, and after Jim was “done” he asked me what was the matter. “Nothing.”
Why couldn’t he see what he was doing? Why didn’t he recognize what he was doing was wrong? He could be so kind, so caring, so supportive. And yet in our most intimate moments, he completely disregarded my feelings or needs. I began referring to him as “it”. The anger helped – it was what I needed to begin to heal. In a sick way, I had to be completely destroyed in order to regain my sense of self-worth, my confidence, and my identity. And yet, I stayed with that monster for months and was assaulted (never penetration. Never.) several times before I finally found the strength to tell him “No more.”
I continued working with the committee to establish the scholarship for refugees from South Africa. I took a more challenging course load – English, botany, more philosophy, and a religious history course. Jim worked hard for his own studies. Homework and job took up much of his time outside of class and laboratory. We had study dates, and he left me alone to read while he did his own labwork. I benefitted from his self-discipline. And yet, he became more and more controlling of the time we spent together, ignoring many of my concerns or desires.
I had trouble with my contact lenses. The air in the dorms was very dry, and I had been having trouble with my lenses since the weather turned cold the previous fall. The winds were constant, funneling down the hill to the dorms. I was forever taking my lenses out and moistening them, putting them back in. It was a major hassle, and I didn’t care for my glasses – heavy plastic frames that were the wrong shape for my face.
Jim and I sat in my suite working on homework. One of my lenses was irritating my eye once again, and Jim lost his patience. “Why do you bother with those things?” he harumphed. He got right in my face, grabbed his own glasses in his hand, and said forcefully, “Look, I can take them off, I can put them on. I can take them off, I can put them on.” He was tired of my vanity. So I stopped fussing with contact lenses, talked with my parents, made an appointment at the eye doctor and got new glasses. Problem solved.
* * *
With a car at my disposal, and a single dorm room, I decided to acquire a pet. The Lesters were gone, and I wanted a companion in my room. I drove out to the local pet store and brought back a small mini-lop and named her Homer. I litter trained her, and rabbit-proofed my room. That wasn’t difficult, I wasn’t a poster-girl, and didn’t have a stereo system to worry about. I bought a spray bottle for water aversion training, and Homer-bunny and I got along just fine.
* * *
Spending the previous school year and summer apart had been the longest David and I hadn’t at least seen each other in passing since perhaps second grade. We were always a part of each other’s lives, if only casually. Whatever his reason for visiting, I was blind to it. I was flattered he wanted to see me and excited to see him. I mailed him directions for how to drive from Ohio State, and he arrived late one Friday evening. He crashed on the floor of my room, and the following day we walked around campus, I introduced him to my friends and we worked on homework. David brought calculus homework he was struggling with and knowing I was useless with the subject, I asked Jim to take a look and give him some help. He did.
Jim, intellectual snob that he is, recognized that David’s learning style is different from students that Jim had experienced at the UofR. Jim spent the remainder of David’s visit announcing his low opinion of David loudly and frequently. “He didn’t know _____!” “He’s just now studying ______!”
I was horrified that Jim could be so unfeeling and mean. Yes, Jim treated me that way for months, but I didn’t recognize it. Instead I saw what he did to David, and I didn’t like it at all.
On Saturday night, Jim and his suitemates hosted a party. I took David over, and between the culture clash, the snobbery on Jim’s part, and David trying too hard, the evening did not go well. It was a confirmation that my two worlds could never collide again. David ignorantly insulted Karen with a joking comment, and pissed off both Craig and Jim with his physical antics. But I knew David, I knew he was harmless and well-meaning. Underneath the outrageous behavior was a caring, kind, young man who wanted to please and be liked. But they misinterpreted his enthusiasm and decried him a boor. I tried to defend him, David was my friend and confidante. Alas, he won no hearts that visit.
Insulting David and showing him nothing but disdain was just another item on the growing list of things bothering me about Jim. The demanding and unpleasant sex and his forceful style of “I’m going to do this,” were upsetting enough. His controlling nature was irritating now, instead of comforting as it had been. I continued referring to Jim as “it” more and more publicly. If he was going to treat me like dirt, I would return the favor, to the best of my ability.
Chapter 1
The End
It ended over a meal. It must have been dinner. Potato salad was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. He served, I picked, he got mad, and I threw my plate at him. He ducked, and the plate hit the wall. Then I attacked him with all the pent-up frustrations and anger that had festered for months. I was done. No longer would I tolerate being treated like a pet, a toy to be played with and tossed aside when he was bored.
For weeks previous, I referred to him as “it.” I belittled his accomplishments as much as I could. Hell, he treated me like garbage, why shouldn’t I return the favor? It wasn’t quite so nasty as that, or was it?
Back to what became known in the suite as the “potato salad incident.” Jim was “off board” his senior year, trying to save money by cooking for himself. Mostly he ate cheap chicken breasts he nuked in the microwave and served with cheap store brand barbecue sauce. One afternoon he prepared dinner for us; chicken, potato salad, something to drink. I welcomed the intimacy of a meal together as well as a change from the dining center fare. I was appreciative if not enthusiastic. While the chicken cooked, he served his potato salad. Potatoes, mustard, mayonnaise, curry powder (relatives of his had been missionaries in India, and he had grown up in a household where Indian spices were added to more American dishes) and onions. I enjoyed the spices, the potatoes were well cooked, but that onion…
I’m not an onion fan. Onion rings? I love those. Sliced onion (thick or thin, each has its advantages) then batter dipped, and fried in God only knows what kind of hot oil, drained on waxed paper so the oil pools in the bottom of the basket and then served still hot with ketchup. My mouth waters just thinking about them. But raw onion in potato salad? No thank you. Some people like it, and more power to them. But I don’t care for raw onion. There are as many recipes for potato salad as there are people in the world – hot potato salad, cold potato salad, potato salad with vinegar, potato salad with pickle relish, potato and pickled beet salad, etc. Whatever grabs your taste buds. But I just don’t care for raw diced onion in my potato salad. Not then, and not now. Former President Bush (elder) doesn’t like broccoli, I don’t have to eat raw onion. There I am, sitting at the table pleased that “my man” has prepared a meal for me. I don’t want to insult him, or criticize his efforts, but neither do I want to eat the onion. What a dilemma!
I carefully eat around the onion pieces. Just like a ten year old picks the mushrooms out of spaghetti sauce, I pick my bites around the onion and enjoy the rest of the salad. I thought I was doing rather well. I ate lots of bites of potato, complimenting him on his efforts, enjoying a culinary adventure. I was not raised eating much with curry flavorings – it added an interesting twist. Jim took offense, despite my efforts. Not only was he insulted, but he chose to tell me I must eat the onion he had prepared.
Everybody has a breaking point. A point at which he or she says, “No more.” Those who study torture probably know just how far they can push their victims before they snap. But knowing how somebody is going to snap is a different question. Will the victim collapse into tears, grovel for mercy and submit? Or will the victim fight back? I found an inner strength that had been missing for so long I didn’t know I had ever been strong.
Jim had assaulted me physically, abused me mentally and blackmailed me emotionally. He controlled every aspect of my life – what classes I took, what friends I had, what activities I participated in, when I studied, when I slept. And for months I tolerated it. At first I welcomed the control. I was devastated from leaving home, losing my grandmother, losing Ross, disappointing my parents, and the control Jim offered was a welcome haven. I didn’t have to think, I could just act, be, do. But I would not, could not tolerate Jim controlling the food that went into my mouth. I would not let him tell me that I must eat onions or garlic or sheep’s brains or calves tongue or snails or spaghetti sauce.
When Jim got up from his seat to walk around the table and to try and force-feed me like a child, I picked up my plate and threw it at him. I was done. He would no longer control me, or my life.
Trouble is, he didn’t understand that. In my mind, from that moment on, Jim was no longer my boyfriend. We were splitsville. I no longer needed him in order to survive. So long. See ya! We can stay friends, but don’t ever touch me again. I’ll still work on your committees, but don’t call me your girlfriend. It’s over between us. Jim thought I was just having a tantrum. His little plaything would get over her anger and all would be well. How wrong he was.
That’s how it ended. For me, anyway. That plate bounced off Jim and clanged against the wall, potato salad flew around the kitchen area, spattering on the wall before the bulk of my serving landed on the floor. I yelled a few obscenities and left the suite.
But it took Jim several more months to finally realize how wrong he had been. He apologized, but I don’t know if he ever learned his lesson. Can a rapist ever be cured? My husband doesn’t think so. My “couch guy” doesn’t think so. That makes me sad. Jim has since married – to a woman he impregnated while overseas. Did he rape her, too? Or is she stronger than I was, and put him in his place? I’ll never know.
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Packing Up
It was time to think about what to do for summer break. I presumed I would return to Cincinnati and find a job, maybe pick up more babysitting. It would be good to see the old gang. Instead I got other news over the phone. Mom and Dad were putting the house on the market and moving to California. They were to be in San Diego by July 1st. I would have to make other arrangements for the summer.
By this time, I was accustomed to the lipservice of support from home. The mail continued to arrive almost daily, full of, “Dad’s traveling,” “I did such and such to settle your grandmother’s estate,” “Here’s ten dollars for whatever,” “I’m sick again, an intestinal virus,” “I’m working another shift this week.” Clearly, Mom was overwhelmed with her own struggles, and Dad was just out of the picture. It’s not that they didn’t care, they just didn’t have time or energy for me and my petty concerns.
I availed myself of the University Career Center (or whatever they called it) and looked for summer internships, on-campus positions, anything that would pay me enough to live on and earn enough to save for the following semester. I found a brochure for the Fresh Air Fund camp in Fishkill, NY. I filled out the application and sent it off. Six years of Girl Scout camp ought to qualify me for some position with the camp. It would be a summer-long experiment in working with kids from inner-city housing projects. I’d get a place to sleep, food, and a paycheck every week. Not a lot, but certainly enough to give me some spending money once the summer was over. I’d have to budget, but it could be done. I was offered a position, and I accepted. Fishkill, New York would be my home for the summer of 1986.
During final exam period, between working on final papers, studying, and swapping summer addresses, I packed my dorm room into boxes and paid the $50 storage fee. I took home a suitcase full of paraphernalia, some summer addresses of friends, and not much else. Another ride across I-90 and down I-71 with Andy, and my life was once again, forever changed.
I stayed in Cincinnati for about three weeks. Long enough to catch up on sleep and laundry and visit with the few friends still in high school and those few who were home from college.
David and Victor drove down from Ohio State for Igor’s and Christopher’s graduation. Ohio State wouldn’t be out for another month. We congratulated Christopher and Igor heartily, posed for photos with our arms round each other and goofy grins on our faces. While the new graduates left for their own final fun as a class, Victor and Erin left together for their own fun, and David and I spent the rest of the afternoon swapping anecdotes and plans for summer break. He would be back in Cincinnati while I went to the Hudson Valley.
Scot-X was a part of Christopher and Igor’s class. I snapped his photo as he walked through the graduation arches; another desperate attempt to mend the broken relationship with Ross. I don’t remember seeing Ross at the ceremonies. Perhaps I saw him sitting with his parents across the lawn. If we spoke at all, it must have been awkward. More likely we were both aware the other was in attendance and so stayed away from each other.
* * *
During those few weeks, I was charged with sorting through my childhood bedroom. Pitch the garbage, winnow out the unimportant. Anything I really wanted to keep needed to be packed away. Those memories were going to San Diego without me.
The exercise was an organizational and emotional challenge. Certainly a distraction from the emotional turmoil of the previous school year. The task set before me, I felt no choice but to get the job done. So I sorted through my stuffed animals, weighing sentimental values against each other and giving away those that didn’t make the cut.
Pulling notebooks out of my closet, pitching dittos on Ohio history from seventh grade, and colored maps from studying the second World War with Mr. Miller. I filled file boxes and labeled them “Susan’s Stuff”. In them, neatly organized into class and year, spiral notebooks from ninth grade earth science with Mr. Schmid along side my leaf collection from tenth grade biology class, hand written “programs” written in BASIC with mimeographed copies of the history of programming. (Twenty years after we took the class from the high school basketball coach, I turned these over to Moj in misguided hopes they would be accepted as a peace offering.) Another spiral notebook with notes from Dr. Waksmundski’s eleventh grade economics class, and from senior year, notes from AP English – scribbles, more accurately – starts of essays, random thoughts, poetry exercises - a series of verses about classmates set to the tune of “Clementine”. All Boxed, covered and labelled for the movers.
I cleaned out and organized for the great move to California – I sorted winter clothing, packing it away and labelling it so Mom could ship it from San Diego when I wanted it. I sorted clothing, trendy ripped sweatshirts buried with embarrassment and taken to Good Will. Old shoes, penny loafers and saddle oxfords put into the trash. Bulkier items went into separate boxes, a piggy bank from my grandmother, an old cigar box from my other grandparents, unicorn suncatchers, a green girl scout pocketknife.
Some things I needed for camp – summer clothes, camping equipment – flashlights, sleeping bag, my backpack, laundry bag, and books for a course I would take the following fall – Classical and Scriptural backgrounds. I packed copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey, a bible, Ovid’s metamorphosis. In between teaching inner-city girls about the great outdoors, I needed to immerse myself in the ancient classics. All those things went into a beat up footlocker that had been in the attic for years.
While I was losing my childhood home, I got to keep the car. Dad gave me the Pinto for the summer and following school year. Dad arranged a business meeting in New York City, so we drove to Fishkill together – a footlocker full of summer clothes in the hatchback, camping gear, a pile of books to read for the coming fall semester, and Dad’s suitcase for his business trip. Once again, we drove across the Pennsylvania Turnpike, we spent the night with brother Jack in Allentown before finally driving to Camp ABC in Fishkill.
We arrived in the early afternoon, just after lunch. I checked in at the administration building and was told where to stow my gear. I asked where I could park the car, and got my orientation and welcoming kit. After a brief walk around the grounds, Dad drove me back down the mountain. We had dinner at McDonald’s or Burger King and I dropped him at the train station. We waited for the train to take him into Manhattan for business. When it arrived, I choked back tears, bit my lip, breathed deeply and tried to be brave. We hugged briefly – he admonished me to be careful, reminded me of the AAA card, and told me to call if I needed anything. I wouldn’t see him again until who knew when.
After he got on the train, I drove back up the mountain alone. I was once again terrified, but did not see any options. At least I got a car out of the deal this time. I would have freedom of movement which I lacked the previous months. That was something.
Chapter 1
Summer Camp
As part of orientation I met young women from all over the country. We were assigned to our camping groups and bunks. I was to be a “floater” – a substitute – working with whichever group of counselors needed the extra hands because of days off. I had learned to look like I had confidence. Smile and laugh and everyone thinks you’re okay. Hide insecurities and nervousness in friendly overtures. Sing camp songs and swap stories and you’ve made a friend. I was the perfect candidate to work with each group of counsellors – don’t get to know any of them well enough to get hurt. Keep my guard up while it looks like I have no guard.
I bunked with Martine, a sixteen-year-old boy crazy junior counselor from a project in the city, Ann, a competitive Vassar grad, and Maria a soft-spoken woman studying at the City College of Manhattan. I didn’t spend much time with them during the day, they had their hands full with 11-year-old girls, shuttling them from activity to activity. Instead I spent each day with a different group of counselors and campers.
On my own off days, I drove down to the laundromat in town and wrote letters while my wash spun around in the machines. To Cincinnati, I mailed out a dozen postcards – numbered 1-12 – with part of the message on each post card. Most were found – it was a fun exercise to keep the old gang in touch with each other. But they never found numbers 9 or 10. I’d sent those to Scott and Ross in hopes one of them might answer. Neither did.
I wrote other letters to Jim, telling him how much I missed him and about my bunkmates and the kids I was working with. I wrote to my parents, giving them updates on my status. I wrote to my friends from UofR and then with writer’s cramp, I addressed and stamped the envelopes and dropped them in a mailbox on my way back up the road to camp.
* * *
Jim sent me letters, too. I have them tucked away, and curiosity got the better of me during this project. I opened a few and started re-reading them. But instead of inspiring warm comfortable memories, Jim’s letters bring bile to my throat. I get nauseous and shaky. How could I have ever been so beaten down to be attracted to such a man? He sent me reading lists, recommendations of titles to improve my literacy. Oh sure, he sent cookies and other endearing remembrances – creative writing stories from his childhood. But he also sent exhaustingly detailed descriptions of what family members were up to, how his cat had escaped the house and killed a bird in the yard, and how he was planning a crab feast for his friends from high school. These weren’t love letters, these were documentaries.
A sample:
Postmark June 17, 1986 Baltimore, MD
Well I’m bored, so I decided to write another letter. If you haven’t gotten the first letter, then don’t open this one. You can tell the first letter because it’s not this one. The first letter makes no self-referential statement which says it is the first, because at the time I had no idea that I would be writing a second. I hope these letters reach you before you leave for Fishkill.
Speaking of which, tonight we had fish for dinner which my uncle caught while he was on his annual fishing trip in Northern Canada. It was quite delicious.
I tried to call Eric B---------- & Danner D----- but they both weren’t home.
I am still in the throes of The Idiot, which is quiet exciting and adventurous. As with other Dostoevsky, the novel consists of a pack of wild and seedy people who chase after women & spend other people’s money doing it, and one valiant upright and gloriously noble protagonist who vainly attempts to lead them all in the right direction. You gotta love it. Unfortunately I am looking forward to the next books I have picked to read so that I feel like giving up on Dost. And starting them. They include The Terrible Swift Sword by Bruce Catton, about the middle
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part of the Civil War, The Fourth Protocol a spy thriller by Frederick Forsyth, the Historian as Detective, a collection of essays by Historians, and a possible re-reading of Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts. Bruce Catton is a civil war historian and an incredibly good author. Kenneth Roberts writes historical novels about the United States. When I think about it, its incredible the # of good books I’ve read and how much I’ve remembered of them, and how they’ve affected my thinking. Here are a few of the very best, all of which I recommend that you read, or would make great gifts for your parents or friends (if they haven’t read them, that is):
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson
The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas
20,000 Leagues under the sea and
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
Contact by Carl Sagan
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts
Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain by Mark Twain
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Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Farhenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Sci Fi)
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton (About the end of the Civil War)
Freedom at Midnight by ? (About the liberation of India in 1947)
The Source by James Michener
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
(Also an incredibly good Humphrey Bogart movie)
Well, anyway you get the idea. Right now you’re probably struggling through the Odyssey. Have fun with that one in the mean time.
Love,
Jimmy
P.S. None of the books is especially “meaningful” or “deep”, their (sic) just funny, exciting, adventurous and well written. That’s all.
On my first weekend off, I drove from Fishkill to Baltimore. I looked at the map, plotted my route, and called Jim with an ETA. He said, “See you then, and tell me all about the Tappan Zee,” (a large bridge spanning the Hudson River just north of NYC.) The route I plotted crossed the Hudson at Bear Mountain. But as I drove, I saw signs for the Tappan Zee and lost confidence and followed them, crossing back over to the east side of the Hudson. Then I was lost in the middle of Harlem, and finally worked my way back across the George Washington Bridge. An hour or more behind schedule at this point I had to make an instant decision. While driving 65 mph in a small Ford Pinto on an eight-lane highway in Jersey with semis all around me, do I take the New Jersey Turnpike, or the Garden State Parkway? I chose the Garden State Parkway. Wrong highway.
A couple of hours later, I stopped at a toll plaza and asked one of the attendants where I was. I pulled over to a phone booth and called Jim. “I’m lost. How do I get from here to Baltimore?” He and his mother talked me through the possibilities, and I drove the rest of the way, frustrated, exhausted, and very annoyed.
He first truly assaulted me later that weekend. In the basement of his parents’ home, among the boxes and dust and cobwebs, we shared a romantic stolen kiss while away from his parents. His passion escalated and despite my pleas of “No” “Don’t” “Not here” “Stop” he put one hand on my breast, tugged at my shorts with the other and put his hand on my now exposed crotch. At that point I folded. I learned earlier in the year that Jim would continue until he was satisfied, so it was useless to protest. I acquiesced and allowed him his bidding. He satisfied his primal urges – ever without penetration. He scraped his penis against my dry and sore vulva, providing lubrication with his own saliva. I was confused, hurt, and angry. I spent the rest of my time in his family’s home publically cowed and supplicant, while privately angry and devastated. Would he ever learn?
* * *
I had weekends off, and spent the 4th of July weekend in NYC with some other counselors. I drove us to the station, and we caught the train into Grand Central. We visited Battery Park, and danced in the streets, celebrating both Independence Day and the Statue of Liberty’s 100th birthday. She was wrapped in scaffolding, but stood proud and tall. In the evening as we walked up the Avenue of the Americas back toward the train station, we looked out across 14th Street and could see three sets of fireworks going off – one set from a barge in the East River, another set from a barge in the Hudson, and another set being launched from the Bay near Liberty Island. A magnificent sight I’ll carry with me always.
Another weekend in August, I dragged three other counselors with me to meet Jim and his family at a campground in Cape May. Four of us folded into that Pinto with our gear in the hatchback. This time, when I crossed the Hudson, I was confident of my navigation. We needed to take the Garden State Parkway. We drove down on Friday night, set up our tents and gear, and enjoyed the beach on Saturday.
I met Jim’s sister, his aunt and uncle, and we all shared dinner at the campground. Then on Sunday afternoon, with thousands (millions?) of other motorists, I double-clutched my way back around NYC to get to camp. It was a long drive, and we were grateful for air conditioning.
Erin worked a boring desk job that summer. She had oodles of time to write, so she sent me gossip. Her letters are full of updates of what the gang was doing. She and Victor were madly in love. Julie was madly in love with a guy she met at Miami. When she wasn’t working, she was visiting him or he was visiting her. Valli was busy at her summer job as a lifeguard. Victor and Igor and another buddy were hired to gut a building, so were busy with sledgehammers. Beth and Boyd were going here there and everywhere. Her letters are fun to read, even all these years later. But never any news of Ross.
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Sorry, nobody home
Spring Break was nearing. What were my plans? I checked with my folks, “I’m sorry, we’re going to be out in California that week. Your father has business in San Diego.” Abandoned, I checked with old friends from high school, and got more negative responses. “No, our break is not ‘til later.” And, “I’m headed to Florida.”
People Express advertised cheap flights, so I pooled resources with Jim and we put together an itinerary; Cincinnati for a day, then to Boston and finally back to Rochester. No, my parents wouldn’t be home, but I knew how to get into the locked house. The house was under construction, the dogs were at the kennel, no friends were around, but it was comforting, if not surreal, to be there for a few hours.
Craig and Bart were the Strat-o-Matic champions, and planned their Spring Break to finish the finals and determine the championship. They drove to Philadelphia together and spent a few days with Bart’s family, then drove to Boston and stayed with Craig’s family for the remainder of the break.
When we got to Boston Jim introduced me to his brother and sister and friends. I was thrown in with people who were much older, and much more mature. College graduates, but younger than my brothers, they were employed, enjoying their jobs that were careers, and enjoying the accompanying financial freedom and responsibility. Despite exposure to my older brothers and their lifestyles, this was something with which I felt no grown-up experience. I was intimidated but tried hard to fit in. I wanted these people to like me.
Jim took me to the computer museum, and on a tour of the offices of his brother’s software company, where Jim had worked the previous summer. A software development company, they called themselves Software Leverage and worked on Ada compilers. They branched out and tried to grow the company, but had such a strong distaste for “sleazy marketing guys” the company never had more than about twelve employees at its largest.
Jim’s friend Mike threw a party, and served take-out Thai food. The soup was presented in Styrofoam cups with a wide mouth, mostly broth with a few vegetables and slices of unidentifiable protein floating about. I thought the garnish to be some type of onion or leek, so chose to eat them. (I eat the parsley off my plate in restaurants – also the orange wedges and tomato slices) Those seemingly benign garnishes were actually very hot peppers. Not something anyone wants to chew. After the tears were cleaned up, and a box of tissues found for my now runny nose, I spent the rest of the evening sitting on the couch nursing my burning mouth, unable to eat anything else much less converse.
Jim and I rode the University shuttle bus from Boston back to campus. A ten-hour ride across the Massachusetts Turnpike and New York State Thruway. After spending a week together, if we hadn’t been an item before we left for break, we were definitely together after that experience. Jim was seemingly kind, funny, intellectually challenging, and genuinely charmed by my naiveté, my inquisitiveness, and dependence on him.
In April, the snow finally melted and bulbs emerged from their winter sleep, the trees budded and bloomed. The skis were put away, and the bicycles were pulled out of storage. The canal paths beckoned. Jim wanted to ride, so he borrowed a bike for me use. The rest of the Spring term was spent working on school work, attending more church services, more meetings to create a scholarship for refugees from South Africa, parties, and lots of card playing, more foosball, and talks with other friends – Lawrence, Bart, Keith, Craig and Stephen Paul.
Chapter 1
New Love, or is it?
Jim and I were definitely a twosome by now. My dependence on him deepened. I clung to him for comfort and guidance. I enjoyed our closeness, as did he, although a tension was building between us. From our friends’ perspectives, we were a joyous couple, enthusiastic for each other and yet both comfortable independently. But behind closed doors, in the loft of his dorm room, I was learning about another side of him. We enjoyed learning each other’s bodies. Teaching each other lessons learned from earlier couplings. We giggled in our kisses, and joked in our teasing. But Jim became demanding, turning a deaf ear when I said I was uncomfortable.
Not particularly concerned about hygiene, Jim had been dubbed “Chaos” by his former roommate. Bedsheets remained unwashed for weeks on end. Dirty laundry strewn across the floor, books piled haphazardly on the desk. We lay on the bed in his dorm room. A loft bed, set up against the far wall from the door, in the tiny space between the built-in closet and the window. Much like a crib we were surrounded by walls on three sides, and on the fourth, just the half the mattress was exposed to be able climb down the three-step ladder. We lay in the dark after a particularly troubling session of lovemaking. He on his back, dozing in post-ejaculate slumber, me curled away from him knees tucked under my chin, staring at the one short wall that was the side of the closet.
Jim didn’t want penetration. He was a Christian man, saving himself for marriage. Obviously, he didn’t want pregnancy. Instead he encouraged all sorts of creative lovemaking techniques; anything but penetration. This particular evening he suggested mutual cunnilingus/fellatio, the classic “69” position. I wasn’t particularly enamored of the idea; he enjoyed a long bike ride along the canal earlier that day and hadn’t yet showered. But for him, because he asked me, I was willing to try. Almost immediately I realized my mistake, I didn’t find the experience pleasant by any means, and wanted to stop. This was too much, too soon. I sat up, stopping his pleasure, and told him, “No. I can’t do this. I’m not ready.”
My feet dangled over the side of the bed while I clasped my arms around my naked self. While I stared at the floor, occasionally glancing at the door, I trembled and rocked ever so slightly with fear and discomfort.
“What do you mean you’re not ready?”
“Jim, I’m just not in the mood tonight. It’s too much. I’m not ready for this. I need time to get to know you. I need time to get comfortable with the idea. Please, just don’t do this. I don’t want to. Not tonight.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. Whatever you want I suppose. Just don’t do that.”
“Well, come here then.” And he pushed me back down onto the bed. My head on the pillow, he towered over me and rutted like a dog on my lower abdomen. Holding himself above me, he pleasured himself using my abdomen for friction, and when he came, his semen squirted up between my breasts and spattered my chin. He collapsed to my side in exhaustion, reached down and grabbed his dirty underwear and wiped me clean, including my chin.
I was used.
He fell asleep, and I curled next to, but away from him there in the dark, scared out of my mind. This isn’t right. What he just did was wrong. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t mutual. It wasn’t pleasant. It was physical unromantic lust, a fucking rutting dog. Bastard. But what do I do? It wasn’t rape, he never penetrated me. Maybe it was just a fluke.
I couldn’t sleep, and finally got up, dressed, and tiptoed downstairs to my own room. Roz was with Mike in his room, so I had the double to myself. I lay on my bed and started to cry but stopped myself. I had to pull myself together. Tomorrow would be another day. Classes, homework, scholarship committee meetings, I needed to concentrate on my activities. Just forget what happened.
But I couldn’t forget, the experience weighed heavy on my mind. I’d read enough Dear Abby with my Lucky Charms in the mornings to realize that yes, pregnancy could happen even if “doing everything but”. I made up my mind that birth control was necessary. Perhaps, if Jim knew I wouldn’t get pregnant, we could work toward penetration.
I looked up Planned Parenthood in the phone book, called and asked which buses stopped at their doorstep. Armed with that information I then sorted through the various campus shuttle schedules and coordinating city bus schedules. I called back and asked if I needed an appointment. I didn’t. So, I chose an afternoon for the adventure, waiting ‘til after my next period.
I navigated the shuttle and bus system well enough, arriving at a decent hour of the afternoon with plenty of options for my return trip. I signed in at the desk, explaining my need for birth control pills, and was handed a clipboard full of forms to complete. I filled out the forms to the best of my ability, indicating that I was without insurance. A few minutes after that a counselor appeared to talk with me and explain the various options. I wasn’t ready for an IUD, a diaphragm seemed messy and just icky to my sensibilities. I wanted to be on the pill. The woman explained the dangers, it wasn’t 100% effective, there was still the concern about STDs, it had to be taken at the same time every day or it would lose its effectiveness. I nodded, replied with enough “uh-huh”s, and asked pertinent questions, she was satisfied. She then escorted me back to the changing room to disrobe for the exam.
I lay on the exam table, paper gown over my naked top and paper blanket draped over my lower body. The practitioner walked into the room and identified himself. Honestly, I don’t remember if the physician was male or female, young or old. I remember expressing that I suffered pain upon intercourse, and requested a pediatric speculum. The doctor dismissed my concern, telling me such was not available, and asked me to readjust my position on the table. I slid down the table for the doctor to put my legs in the stirrups and clenched my fists and bit the inside of my lip. He (she?) smeared lubricant over my genitalia and not-so-gently inserted the speculum. I gasped as tears came to my eyes. Oh, the pain. That pain echoed for the few minutes it took to lock open the instrument and swab for my first pap smear. That done, the speculum was removed and I was dismissed, “You can get dressed now.”
I sat up on the exam table and asked, “Is that it?”
“Yes.” The doctor replied while writing notes on the forms in my chart. She (he?) never looked up. “You might have some spotting in the next couple of days. That’s normal after a pap smear.”
I climbed off the table, retrieved my clothes, went to the bathroom. There I wiped away the excess lubricant with toilet paper, and finally finished getting dressed.
In the waiting room, I met again with the counselor who gave me my first pack of pills. She explained how to take them, pink ones and green ones. What might happen to my body while I was taking them, how long I had to take them before I could consider myself “safe”, and what to do if I missed to take one. She gave me a prescription for the next several months – enough to get me through the spring and summer – and wouldn’t let me leave without a collection of condoms and spermicidal foam. I forced myself to laugh with her when she apologized about the primary colors they were made in. Red, blue, green, yellow condoms – I had my choice!
The long ride back to campus provided a necessary opportunity to reflect and gather courage. I was proud of my effort, I had a concern that I successfully addressed on my own. But I desperately wanted someone to help me – a friend, a sister, a cousin, a parent, a boyfriend – someone to offer assurance that what I had done was right and good. I wondered about the pain. WHY did it hurt so much? But I had no one to ask, I was dismissed by the physician. I wondered about Jim, and whether he would notice or appreciate my efforts to improve our relationship. Finally, I wondered about school, and how I was going to get all the homework done for my classes. It was done. I endured my first gynecological exam and lived.
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1986
The beginning
After that first winter break, the guys of the 7th floor had a project. Per an agreement hammered out over several pitchers of beer in the campus bar the previous spring, Bart and Craig gave up their singles and moved into the double on the end. Jim and Lawrence suffered all fall sharing a room, Order battling Chaos, with a line of masking tape across the desk and floor. Bart and Craig planned their cohabitation more cooperatively. They purchased (and subsequently stored) a double loft of a design that provided sufficient room to store the stereos, speakers, and album collections, as well as Bart’s mini-lop rabbit, Dude and Craig’s newly acquired Dutch rabbit. (Not a particularly friendly sort. It didn’t help that one weekend when the group had a party, Lawrence got drunk and let fly with the floor fire extinguisher, sending Craig’s rabbit in its cage careening down the hallway. Despite L.J.’s profuse apologies, the rabbit was permanently damaged in the “friendly” department.)
Installing the loft turned into a long afternoon project involving several engineering and physics majors. The design was basic – put a ten foot one half inch long 4x4 into a ten-foot space. In theory, the resulting tension would support the weight of two mattresses, bedclothes, books and at night, two adult males. The challenge was wedging that too long board into the space. Armed with a two by four and a hammer, they took turns venting frustration by pounding on the 2x4 until the 4x4 was firmly wedged into place. The rest of the loft was installed, and the boys moved in.
Lawrence and Jim reveled in their newly acquired singles. Orderly Lawrence put up posters of water-skiing women wearing bikinis and life jackets and a summary of the U.S. presidents. Chaotic Jim inherited Bart’s room with the Right Guard residual. He left his walls bare, not at all concerned about interior decorating.
Classes started, and I was bound and determined to redeem myself. I had to dig out of academic probation and prove to my parents that I could and would deserve to be at the countries’ most expensive institution of higher learning, the UofR. With Jim’s help, I worked out a new, safer schedule. Introductory courses all – no special programs, just straight introductory courses. Psychology, Economics, Rationality and Religious Belief (the second part of the Ventures program) and Jim convinced me to take Introduction to the New Testament with him and Lawrence. It was a schedule I thought I could handle. I had friends in each course, people to help me study and keep up with the homework. I am a creature of peer pressure, and I chose my courses accordingly.
Together, Jim and Lawrence encouraged me to be politically active and I involved myself in their projects. The previous year their Chapel Community worked through a statement opposing apartheid. It wasn’t enough to say, “We do not believe in apartheid.” They demanded action to battle the injustices of institutionalized discrimination. So, as a group, we worked to get the University to establish a scholarship fund for refugee students from South Africa as a part of the international movement against apartheid. Certainly I had the experience to help, having produced those variety shows in high school, complete with publicity, etc. I attended meetings to coordinate efforts, delegate responsibilities, brainstorm publicity, and organize rallies. I took minutes at the meetings, and participated to the best of my ability. I was a natural.
One winter evening Jim and I sat together on the uncomfortable couch in my suite. He was incredulous that I arrived at college without reading or knowing the wonders of The Hobbit and took to reading it to me out loud. (He showed equal disdain when he learned I never took high school physics, either!) I thought it sweet in an odd sort of way, and tolerated his desire to read aloud.
Fortunately, Steve Bond stopped by and interrupted Jim to ask if he wanted to play Strat-o-Matic Hockey. Jim said, “No, I don’t think I’ll have the time.” I asked, “What is it? Can I play?” After some negotiation (Steve Bond had intended his league to be male-only, and for those who knew something about hockey) we agreed that Jim would be listed as the official player, and I would be allowed to substitute for him when he was unavailable. Hah! I knew Jim would never play. Chess? Sure. Strat-O-Matic hockey? Never. Despite the fact that I never watched hockey being played and had no idea which team was what and whose players were where, I was GOING to play! Academics? What are those? When the teams were distributed, I managed to score the Boston Bruins, with Terry Anderson as their star defenseman. Playing against the other teams in the league, I became a force to be reckoned with. Sure, I lost most of the time. But not before doing major damage to the other teams players.
(Strat-o-matic hockey, or baseball or basketball, or football, as we played it, was a board game played with dice. Each team consisted of a deck of players’ cards, and as the player, we acted as coaches. We arranged offensive and defensive lines, shorthanded lines, powerplay lines. The play of the game proceeded with various dice rolls, card turns, and statistical probabilities mapped out from the information given on the players’ cards. These days, the game is played on-line at the Strat-o-matic gaming site or on your own computer network with the information on CD-ROM.)
That winter I spent a lot of time on the seventh floor. Koch, Deyo and the men of 6124s were too stoned and drunk for my pleasure, so I spent my time with the more refined crowd upstairs. We played card and dice games in the evenings, Mexican (a complicated drinking game involving dice, a plastic cup, and a lot of bluffing) on a weekend night, and more often Hearts. On a good night we might have five or six of us playing. On a slow night I could usually scare up a gin-rummy game with Bart, and Craig was usually up for a Scrabble challenge.
Jim involved me to his activities. No cars, no music (only Bruce Springsteen or Elton John when he could borrow a buddy’s turntable or cassette deck) he preferred to read, play chess or card games for relaxation. He was earnest in his political activism, faithful to his chapel community and diligent and enthusiastic for physical activity. Skiing, biking, hiking, he was an outdoors sort.
The trip to Aspen invigorated their enthusiasm for skiing. He and Stephen Paul and Lawrence had skipped the first week of classes to go to Aspen. They lined up friends to take notes and pick up syllabuses (syllabi?) for their coursework while they skiied, drank beer, and relaxed in the hot tub at the resort.
Jim wanted to share his joy of the sport and arranged a trip to a regional slope. He was a dedicated skier. I’m not sure where he learned his skill, I just know he was strong, knowledgeable and fast. No fear. What’s a double black diamond slope in Western New York when you’ve skied Aspen and Tuckerman’s Ravine? The only skiing I had done previously was a Church Youth Group trip to a small hill in Ohio. (There’s a story in that trip – the bunny hill was serviced by a towrope. When I grasped the rope for the ride up the hill, I caught the fringe of my scarf on the rope, and as I slid up the hill, my scarf twisted around the rope. By the time I got to the top, I was firmly entangled and crashed through the safety gate. I was strung up literally hanging by my neck scarf until the ski patrol arrived with their basket. I enjoyed a ride down the slope in the basket and endured a physical exam by the physician/chaperone of the group. I didn’t die, and I didn’t break any bones, but I had lovely rope burn around my neck for a few days, and a great story to tell.)
Jim offered to pay for rentals, and promised to show me how to ski. He arranged the trip with Craig and Andrew – both were excellent skiers. Andrew was the driver – an older 2-door Mustang with black vinyl seats. We crammed ourselves into the car, winter coats, boots, poles and warmth equipment and skis on the roof. We arrived, and Craig and Andrew hit the slopes. Jim and I did really well for a couple of hours, Jim showing me how to snowplow to stop, how to ride the ski lift and get off at the top (the scariest part of the whole experience). Then the cold crept in and I got tired, so I relaxed in the lodge and warmed up while he and his friends did some real skiing.
At the end of the day, I wanted one more run on my skis. Jim and I rode the lift up and Jim did his best ski instructor imitation. He really was good. Able to ski with his skis next to mine, turning for both of us, parallel skiing. Do you remember that sled ride with Moj I had back in high school? On skis, I finally experienced the joy that skiing could bring if done properly. So smooth, so quiet, so fast…pure joy. I’ve never repeated that experience, despite lessons and opportunity.
Chapter 1
Final Endings
When the semester was still new, before classes began, I cheered the boys of the seventh floor as they installed the new loft, and received a note from Erin.
Postmark Michigan, January 8, 1986 and New York, January 10, 1986:
Hi Suds!
I tried calling you all Thurs. & Friday (the 2ns and 3rd) – NO LUCK. I thought you weren’t leaving ‘til the sixth. I was really upset when I called on Sunday and you were GONE!!
Did you say Goodbye to anyone? Iggie thought you were leaving on the 6th too. Did you see Julie??
Classes start Wed. I’m already lonely up here. I miss you & I miss Victor – more than I thought I would. We had a lot of fun together.
Well dearie I’ll write further into the semester with – hopefully – good news.
Love,
Soapy
In fact, I guess I did leave rather abruptly, without much explanation to anyone. It was time to go, and I went. That New Year’s party really upset me, Erin and Victor together, David with Ross’ ex-girlfriend Sarah, Julie absent, in love with a young man from Columbus, and no Ross. I was both confounded and devastated. With a few days to think and gather strength for the coming term, I wrote letters – I pulled out the address book and started writing. I sent letters to my grandmother’s sisters in Florida, to elderly cousins in West Virginia. I wrote to Erin, explaining my mysterious disappearance, and sent missives to Valli and Julie – roommates in Oxford, OH. I poured my heart out, expressing disappointments, confusion and curious comfort and fun I felt with Jim and the men of the seventh floor.
Julie replied, offering what suport she could from afar.
Postmark Cincinnati, OH, January 23, 1986
Dear Susan –
Your letter made me want to cry! I really do understand what you mean though. I love all of my college friends but sometimes they just don’t know and understand me quite like some of the Wyoming clan does. I’m sure things are especially hard for you because of your uncertainty about next year. Do you know any more about that yet? I’m interested so please let me know!
<snip>
Have you talked to Ross since your letter? How are other things? <snip> I’m always afraid of being momentarily foolish when one “new guy appears on the scene and then losing my “old” guy – who I really do care about – deep down. I wish feelings weren’t so complicated. Somehow, knowing what you’re going through with Ross – etc., I have the feeling you truly understand!
Valli is coming to get me for lunch so I’ve got to get it ready to mail. (as opposed to MALE!) – sorry – I know it was bad, but appropriate!
Take care & please write back.
Love you –
Jujube/Jul
I was grateful for the sympathy, finally somebody seemed to understand my turmoil. I cared deeply for Ross, and yet Jim’s proximity and immediacy were gratifying. How was I to navigate such awkward situations with no guidance?
I also traded messages with Erin – reaching out for help, guidance, sympathy wherever I thought I might garner a positive response. I used the writing process to sort and make sense of my feelings. Erin answered when her schedule allowed.
Postmark Michigan, February 11, 1986
Hi !
I’m glad you finally got time to write. I tried to call but you weren’t around. So have yu heard from Ross yet? Did you tell me that you 2 had a fight before you left?
So what’s the story with Jim? How does it feel to be living in a”single”Are you staying there next term? If you do, where are you living and with whom?
Such a short note with pointed questions. Ross’ silence was wearing on me, anxious for news that never came, I asked my familiars for their reports – where was Ross? What was he doing? Where and with whom was he spending his time? Why wouldn’t he call, write, or answer my phone calls?
And shortly after Erin responded, I got a note from Julie echoing the same sense of absence. Ross seemed to deliberately avoid any contact with mutual friends. How that hurt!
Postmark, Cincinnati, OH, February 16, 1986 (excerpted)
Dear Susan –
Hiya! (who’s that sound like?) Well- where do I start? Valli told me to read your last letter to her. I’m glad things worked out between you & Jim but one question...why isn’t Ross talking to you? That’s kinda strange isn’t it?
Then, just over a week later, Julie wrote again – about the loss of yet another classmate. Mom must have told me over the phone – I have no newspaper clippings, no mention of where or when services might have been held. In the weeks that followed, I got news of former classmates in drug re-hab and the death of yet another former classmate. We’d known each other as youngsters in elementary school – and the death toll was rising.
Postmark Cincinnati, OH, February 27, 1986 (excerpted)
Dear Susan –
Hey – isn’t that terrible about Andy Shepherd? I really couldn’t believe it and of course I heard it from my favorite person Nicki Butters!! At least you told me about Andy Tebbott.
<snip>
Sounds like things w/Jim are great but what’s the deal w/Ross?
Andy Shepherd’s death. I didn’t know how to feel about it. He and I never were close friends, and I’d forgotten that he and Ross and Scott were bandmates, spending hours rehearsing together. I didn’t put that together until years later. Ross must have been devastated. Certainly Scott felt a significant loss – mentioning Andy in his eulogy at Ross’ funeral.
Andy Tebbutt was a classmate killed in an automobile accident our senior year. I learned about his death watching the evening news. I was babysitting that Saturday night – the kids were in bed and I watched the news waiting for the parents to return home. His funeral was a mess – peers blubbering uncontrollably, teenagers acting as pall bearers. I wasn’t up for a repeat of that.
It seems that with Andy Shepherd’s death, Ross’ silence was assured. I can only assume Ross was busy with his own schoolwork, new/old friends and grieving with his brother. My presence in his life must have become awkward and doubtless was unwelcome.
And so it was that I left Ross, choosing to stay with my mentor Jim in Rochester. I missed Ross, and desperately wanted to hear from him. Having ceased all contact, I grieved for him, and hoped he would explain himself. I mailed more letters that went unanswered, trying to explain my decision. I called his home, and he refused my calls. He may even have told me, “Don’t call here again, Susan.”
The sun rose up each morning despite Ross’ silence. My self-esteem was non-existent, I felt bereft and empty. I leaned on new friends for support, hiding my fear and grief and burying it deep within my psyche. And I needed a haircut. In the fall, for my first haircut away from home, I made an appointment at the salon in the Student Union. I paid way too much for someone to not cut my hair the way I wanted it. Why couldn’t I just go back home and have Bev cut my hair? She had been cutting it for years!
In a desperate move of frustration, (crying got me nowhere, I needed action) I said, “Screw it” and walked the mile through the cemetery to the barbershop where the ROTC’s got their buzz cuts. The barber was more than a little nervous, but I reassured him, “Just cut it all off. Forget that I’m a girl and get out those clippers.” I rationalized, I was eighteen, physically healthy, hair grows back. “Just cut it!” Cut it he did. He used the trimmers to sheer my head almost bald. I was not quite a skin-head when he finished, but close.
I paid the man, took one last look in the mirror and walked out the door. I fought tears during the walk back through the cemetery, but what was to be done? My hair was gone, I could only wait for it to grow back.
Back in the dorm, Roz saw me. “WOW! Can I touch it?”
“Sure, I guess, if you really want. You know, it feels exactly like David’s hair always felt. Short and spiky.” It was kinda cool. My hair was now like my old boyfriends’! It will freeze in the winter! And it did, once the weather turned blisteringly cold.
An unfortunate result of that haircut was that I looked more like a boy than ever – or so I thought. Wearing jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, I was another androgynous soul skulking about campus. Much to my dismay, in passing, someone mistook me for one of the male gender, and so to over-compensate, I wore “girl clothes” for about a week. I pulled out the few skirts from my closet, I put on stockings, I wore feminine cashmere sweaters, and ruined my feet wearing high heels.
I had a new look, a new boyfriend, a new life. There was no looking back. Time to move on.
* * *
How did I ever get mixed up with Jim anyway? It really does go back to Ross. Ross took classes at CTC, worked at programming co-ops, took more coding courses, and I didn’t quite understand what it was all about. In and amongst our phone conversations, Ross talked about some programming difficulty or another, and I was clueless. Jim was already programming. Not quite light years ahead of Ross, but certainly he had a few more years experience under his belt. He spent his summers working for his brother at Software Leverage, helping write Ada compilers. His student-employment on campus was at one of the computing centers, working with the Vax cluster. I picked Jim’s brain, asking him about his work, inquiring about various programming languages, what the different applications were, why it mattered, what the logic was. I really did want to know, for my own interest as well as being able to better communicate with Ross.
While I grieved, Jim comforted me. He adored me, soothing away my sadness, making decisions and drawing me into his world more and more. Jim first offered his friendship during the fall. He and Stephen Paul were kind, and pulled me into their worlds. I attended Jim’s church services. Jim helped me with homework and encouraged me to study. Jim was more than willing to play the part of paternal confidante while I regressed to the role of helpless little girl. Within weeks, Ross was no longer a blip on my radar screen. Jim and my new activities took all my energy. An odd couple it seemed to many, our relationship was quite the soap opera amongst our friends. I was depressed, and he willingly took control, listened, tried to help, tutored me in my classes and encouraged my study habits.
Jim worked for a living – to help pay for tuition and books and such. I mentioned already that he worked at Taylor Hall, one of the campus computing centers. So on nights he worked, I spent time with friends on the floor. One night, while Deyo was stoned (when wasn’t he stoned? He and his buddy Glen brought a refrigerator box up to their room to have their own private smoking hut, and posted a calendar on which they marked each subsequent day they imbibed. After six weeks, the joke was decidedly stale. These boys had a problem.) I wanted to shave his head.
I mentioned Deyo’s predilection for porn. He was loud and in-your-face with his discussions about sex and what he liked. He enjoyed making conversations about preferred positions, preferred body-types and the like. He had no compunction about announcing his favorites, rather he was proud of his desire for women who were shaved. I hated it all – the conversations, the public display, the drugs. I wanted him to feel humiliated.
After some negotiation, he allowed that I could shave one of his legs. So, on threat of bodily harm if I drew blood (The threat was not an empty one. Had I drawn blood, he would have back-handed me into the wall without thinking.) I set up a basin of warm soapy water, a washcloth, towel and a safety razor. His fat fleshy feet sat in my lap and twitched when I hit a ticklish spot. I slowly and methodically shaved his calf and shin bald. The next morning (early afternoon?) he vaguely remembered agreeing to the stunt, and over the next few weeks complained often and loudly about how his skin itched while the hair grew back. No, it wasn’t the complete humiliation I was hoping for, but it helped.
* * *
A few weeks into the semester, with two rabbits and two 20-year-old males sharing a living space, Dude took a turn for the worse. Having no inclination or money to take the rabbit to the vet, Dude passed away. In the middle of winter with a foot of snow on the ground, there was no place to put the carcass. So with heavy heart, Bart did the only thing he knew. He solemnly put Dude’s body in a plastic grocery bag and sent her down the garbage chute.
The guys on the sixth floor got wind of this (No not the whooshing sound of the body as it fell down the chute) and with only mild sympathy for Bart’s loss, and my description of a cartoon book that had been around my house for years, 101 Uses for a dead cat by Simon Bond, they were inspired. In the bathroom of 6124’s a list was born, “101 Uses for a dead rabbit.” That list provided distraction, inspiration and entertainment for the remainder of the semester. Some uses were funny, others mildly amusing and some were downright sick.
* * *
As our floor was “Special Interest” housing, we were required to sponsor events for our members and dorm. Study Breaks were easiest and most common. Especially offering tutoring sessions before the various Freshman math midterms and finals. Since acquiring the Lesters in the fall, there had been talk about sponsoring Lizard Races. So, one Saturday afternoon, we set up a “Lizard Raceway” using a couple sets of two-by-fours. The actual race was uninteresting. The Lizards were released, and of course they did not stay in the course set out for them. Instead they chose to use their brief moments of freedom to dash about in their own terrified directions. Photos were taken and the Lesters were quickly recaptured and returned to their glass aquarium home. Yet another event in my new life away from home, away from Ross, away from all things familiar.
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Break
Taped to my Dorm Room door, the night before I left for home:
Susan,
Good Morning!
And see ya! I hope home for the holidays will be happy for you. Again remember, no matter what, “you gotta like it. You may not want to, but you got to!”
I’ll be thinkin’ about you.
Stephen Paul
And from Jim:
Susan – Thanks for everything! It’s been an incredible semester. You’ve really been the difference in my life. Have a good break and I’ll see you on the slopes!
Have a very merry Christmas and say hello to Cincinatti (sp?) for me. God Bless you!
Love,
Jimmy
I got another ride home with Andy – no girlfriend this trip. The semester ended badly – it’s not like I expected any stellar comeback in the last three weeks of classes. I was distracted even more by the decision I made, and Ross’ continuing refusal to speak with me. Having dropped the art course, I earned two D’s and a C. Not the most stellar of grade reports.
Once home, I caught up with my girlfriends – shopped with Julie, Valli and Erin and spent a quiet Christmas with my parents. Just like Thanksgiving, my brothers weren’t around. I went to Moreno’s for New Year’s – another party in their basement while their folks had fun upstairs. While we weren’t all legal yet, the alcohol wasn’t nearly so clandestine as it had been in previous years. I hoped to see Ross there, and if he wasn’t I’d at least have fun with other friends. But Ross wasn’t there, he had made other plans. So I sat by myself and watched all the people I’d grown up with. David was with Ross’ ex-girlfriend Sarah, Victor and Erin were together, Beth and Boyd were on again. Everyone in the room had been intimate with everyone else in the room. I could have run the factorial (There’s that 10! that we learned in GRAPES class!) to figure out just exactly how many pairings occurred amongst each other over the years. I felt sick to my stomach from the incestuousness of it all. I wished everyone a Happy New Year, and left to sleep in my own bed in my parent’s house - alone.
Jim sent me a letter in which he related his family’s Christmas adventures. Who got what, and how many Bruce Springsteen albums had been swapped. He was looking forward to seeing me again in Rochester.
* * *
The first week of January of 1986 my parents and I packed up the car and drove across the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Allentown, PA. We delivered some furniture and other items from my grandmother’s apartment. Jack worked for the regional theater company. He and his girlfriend rented a house in the downtown area near the theater. I spent the remaining weeks of my month-long winter break away from all things no longer familiar.
Just as in London and Paris some four years previous, Jack was assigned my tour guide. On our parent’s suggestion, he took me into Manhattan for an afternoon. We arrived in Grand Central Station, rode the subways, visited the Empire State Building, and walked around sundry tourist sites. I got enough flavor of the place to understand my classmates at the UofR. It wasn’t my hometown, but now when my friends talked about the Guggenheim, I had some inkling of what they were referring to.
Mom and Dad left and drove the Pennsylvania Turnpike back to Cincinnati, and I spent a few days just hanging out in Allentown. I lost myself in novels. How delightful it was to read again only for pleasure. Uninterrupted, I escaped for a few hours. What did I read? Maya Angelou’s I know why the caged bird sings – another uplifting story of survival. I lay on Jack’s/grandmother’s couch and read for an entire afternoon - the phone didn’t ring, the dog was companionable. It was a delightful respite – little did I know the prophetic nature of my chosen novel.
I called Bart from Cincinnati, tracking down his phone number through friends. He’d had his wisdom teeth removed, and my call rang just as he arrived home from the hospital. His little sister’s voice told me, “Yes, he’s here, but he can’t talk.” I asked to speak to her mother, and got the full story, leaving my name and phone number and asking a time that I could call back.
His family lived in Bucks County, PA between Philadelphia and Allentown. After I begged, he agreed to pick me up in Allentown with the understanding that we would stop to drop his sister off at Syracuse University. I agreed, and he drove all of us back to school – Bart, his rabbit, his sister, my Lesters and me.
So I managed a ride back to campus. Three of us and all our stuff crammed in his mom’s two-door ’78 Monte Carlo. Bart’s sister sat in the back seat, with about twelve inches of space to sit in…but was so hungover and tired I don’t think she noticed. She slept most of the way to Syracuse. I sat in the suicide seat, my feet along side the rabbit cage – the lizards were in the back with Bart’s sister. It was cramped, but I was grateful for the ride. As agreed, we stopped at Syracuse University to drop his sister off. Unbeknownst to her, her dorm wasn’t open yet. We spent an hour or so finding a friend’s house for her to camp out for a couple of days until the dorms did open. We finally got her settled, and then drove the last hour and a half back to UofR.
Bart parked and we unloaded the car. I thanked him for the ride and we shared an elevator up to the sixth floor, I got off, and he stayed to ride up one more floor to his own room. This was now my semi-permanent home away from what-used-to-be home. More home to me now than home would ever be again. The Lesters were installed, my bags unpacked, I made up my bed and fell asleep.
After breakfast (lunch?) the next day, I wandered over to 6124’s to exchange stories about our breaks. The suite was empty – not everyone was back. But down the hall, I heard a group conversation in Ken and Tony’s room. Mike had the stereo going in the room next door.
We chatted about our time at home. Swapped lies about how much fun we had – seeing childhood friends and re-living the glory days of high school. We all knew that somehow, in the previous five months of our first semester away from home, we indeed had grown up. Grown away from family, established our own identity. Solved problems in our own way, asserted our independence. We may not have said it in so many words, but we all knew the awkwardness we felt with our families, the struggle with old rules and new behaviors.
With false bravado we reported that our high-school true love relationships fizzled and were no more. We laughed about it, each privately grieving the passing of our innocence and naiveté. Publicly, we decided it was something to be celebrated - a rite of passage we had completed. Just like earning your driver’s license, participating in high-school graduation, and recovering from your first drunkenness, breaking up with your high school sweetheart is something that has to happen. Weddings, births, and funerals are the rites of our lives. For so many of us, the list includes relinquishing your first love.
* * *
I never saw Ross again. In May of 1986 I boxed up his letters and my emotions and stored them away. Ross finished his associate’s degree at CTC (Now Cincinnati State) and then attended Antioch with his new best buddy Moj and old pal Scott. A few co-ops later, he finished his Bachelor’s degree. In the years that followed I heard about Ross, never from him, just about him. “Ross graduated from Antioch.” “Ross is doing another co-op.” “Ross is in DC.” “Ross went out to California, he’s in San Jose.” I thought that would be a good match for him, San Jose, the Bay Area. There were other antics – he fell in love with motorcycles, enjoyed crazy camping trips, hosted wild parties, joined another garage band, suffered a car wreck from driving too fast.
Every once in a while, I dreamt about Ross. I wondered what he was up to. In 1990, I sent him a wedding invitation. Rather, I mailed an invitation to his parents’ home. I don’t know if he ever received it. At the time, I suffered the wild romantic fantasy that Ross would protest the wedding and we might live happily ever after. It didn’t happen.
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Silence
The next morning I made an appointment to meet with Academic Advising. I needed a clean transcript to send to St. Xavier. I applied and was admitted. Now I had a decision to make before finals. Would I return to UofR after break, or go through with my promise to transfer? I took full advantage of a mid-80s policy that freshmen could drop a course up until the 13th week of classes without penalty. I long since stopped singing, and needed to get that off my transcript. I had stopped attending choir practice as soon as I learned what piece we were to perform - some Russian choral piece. I might have liked it, but singing the English translation led to some awful screeches from the sopranos. I preferred to sing phonetically in Russian. I also dropped my painting course. I hated the painting I created, and had stopped attending that class on Friday afternoons. Three classes, just twelve credits were all that I could salvage from my first semester. English, I had long since stopped reading the texts in favor of a fun social life. Philosophy (Logic) while I was inspired to think about what was offered in class, I didn’t keep up with the work. And Calculus, which seemed something that had to be done whether I liked it or not. If you’re in school, you study math.
Ross stopped taking my phone calls. It became embarrassing to call his house, so I stopped. I wrote more letters to him, but he didn’t answer. He ceased all communication – cut me completely out of his life.
Since Ross wasn’t speaking to me, I didn’t have his input. I talked to anybody who would listen. Roz, Stephen Paul, Queeby, Ken. I didn’t know what to do. There were so many positive things about the UofR; the people were friendly and well-meaning, we’d had a lot of fun together - the games, the antics, the parties. If I felt like studying, I might have done all right. But my grades sucked, and I had no hope of salvaging the semester. I hadn’t done the reading, I didn’t go to class half the time. My folks were going to be royally pissed. I thought UofR was what I wanted, Dad paid a lot of money for me to go here. But then, I just didn’t know. I talked to Roz about it, Stephen Paul, Jim, Lawrence; I had no idea what to do. I wanted someone else to decide. Take charge and tell me what to do.
* * *
12/4/85 - Note on English Exam paper from my instructor:
“I don’t believe you’ve read Zukav.
You seem to be goofing off these last several weeks”
* * *
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO
The Clash
Combat Rock, 1982
darling you gotta let me know
should i stay or should i go?
if you say that you are mine
i'll be here 'til the end of time
so you got to let me know
should i stay or should i go?
always tease tease tease
you're happy when i'm on my knees
one day is fine, next is black
so if you want me off your back
well come on and let me know
should i stay or should i go?
should i stay or should i go now?
should i stay or should i go now?
if i go there will be trouble an' if i stay it will be double
so come on and let me know
this indecision's bugging me
if you don't want me, set me free
exactly who'm i'm supposed to be
don't you know which clothes even fit me?
come on and let me know me
should i cool it or should i blow?
should i stay or should i go now?
if i go there will be trouble
and if i stay it will be double
so you gotta let me know
should i stay or should i go?
Roz and I lay on her mattress in our dorm room. Weeks before, we had pulled the lower bunk off the bed frame and turned the mattress perpendicular to provide more lounging room. Late at night, she listened, argued, and helped me sort out the options. We talked about the positives and negatives of whether to stay or transfer. I agonized – Stephen Paul worshipped the ground I walked on, and that was quite flattering. Jim had made his intentions known – he would take care of me, should I wish him to. Our floormates had become great friends. If I returned home, my parents would be furious, and what about the logistical challenge of moving my things back to Cincinnati? But why wasn’t Ross talking? Why the silence? If I go home will it be for naught…has Ross made up his mind and moved on? I made a promise to him. If I keep my promise, will he keep his? I cried over his silence, and Roz comforted me. Her comfort turned sensual, and we shared an unbidden kiss. Through my tears she hugged and kissed me, stroking my short hair she offered me comfort. I calmed down and thanked her.
My tears were finally dry, my eyes swollen, my nose stopped up, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. Sleep beckoned and I dozed. Roz got up while I slept and spent the rest of the night across the hall with Mike. I made a decision. I would stay in Rochester, where there were those who had not yet abandoned me. People claimed to love me.
No postmark – left on my desk sometime in early December 1985.
Dear Susan
The decision is yours. If you really want to know what I think, I think you should leave. We talked for a long time but the reason I think you should go is because you made a decision and you should respect the decision you made and the person who made it.
If you decide to stay though, I’ll be glad. I know it’s a tough decision for you, maybe your toughest so far ever. Remember to keep smiling.
Roz
P.S. I’m glad you’re staying!
Without Ross’ input, I listened to my immediate surroundings. I still had the adoration of Stephen Paul and Jim. Roz and Ken were supportive friends – as were Queeby and Karen. And frankly, I was afraid to go home. I was afraid of being labeled a failure. I was afraid to face what I was sure would be Mom and Dad’s wrath and disappointment. I couldn’t articulate my fears then. I’m sure I had excuses, inane reasons for my behavior. But, I made a decision and now live with the consequences. I chose to stay at the UofR.
Decision made, my spirits soared. I was dizzy with excitement, and couldn’t concentrate on the academics at hand.
I penned the following as part of my final Philosophy exam on the 16th of December:
“Dashing through the snow,
In merry Rochester,
To learn what we don’t know,
From our famed Philosopher.
Students in their seats
With eyes all shining bright
Learning is a treat
When we’ve partied all last night!
Oh! Rochester, Rochester
Logic’s so much fun.
Ten a.m. we love it so
We’re sad to have it go OH!
Oh! Rochester, Rochester
Logic’s so much fun.
Ten a.m. we love it so
We’re sad we have to go!
It didn’t help. I earned a “D” on the final. No extra credit for creativity. I still had to write a final term paper for my English class - on Zukav. The book I hadn’t read because I was “goofing off.” I skimmed through the reading and with Jim’s help, cobbled together a few words to make the professor think I had at least picked up the book. We pulled off a C-.
My Calculus final was scheduled for the last Saturday before break. I couldn’t leave early like so many of the upperclassmen. And, I needed a passing grade in order to pass the course. In between studying for his own exams, Jim gave me a crash course in integrals and derivatives and vectors. It was enough to help me pass the exam, but I’m no calculus expert.
��M
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Inconclusion
After my unexpected and brief trip home, I returned to school filled with encouragement to finish out the semester, salvage what credits I could, and in my mind, get the hell back home to Ross where I belonged. I did what I could to buckle down and study. Gathering my allies – Jim and Stephen Paul, I tried.
Jim was Stephen Paul’s best friend. I’m stretching here, as my first memories are of him are dim. We sat in Taylor Hall, chairs side by side staring at the green cursor on the monitor. He explained the VAX cluster and taught me about the different computers and showed me the quickly growing world of e-mail. He showed how the statistics students ran various programs to do their homework. And we spent several hours laughing and enjoying one of the computer games on the VAX; he typed in commands such as "walk forward ten paces" or "Look left" "look right" "light torch" and the computer responded with such useful things like "you just walked into the wall - ouch!" and "You can't light the torch dummy, you don't have any matches.” We laughed, and while he was somewhat serious about the game, wanting to navigate the dungeon, I got frustrated with the absurdity, and borrowed the keyboard to type ridiculous commands to get quizzical responses. He was being a great pal.
I had to master enough calculus to pass the final exam. So Jim worked out a tutoring schedule and worked through enough problem sets that I could fake my way through a final. I didn’t understand it, still don’t, and don’t particularly care to, but I managed to complete my homework, and learn enough.
Sappy Song Lyric Interlude:
Don’t Let him Steal Your Heart Away
Phil Collins
You were lonely and you needed a friend
And he was there at the right time with the right smile
Just a shoulder to lean on
Someone to tell you it'll all work out alright
You can look at him the way you did me
And hold him close say you're never letting go
But any fool can see you're fooling yourself
But you ain't fooling me
So don't let him steal your heart away
No, don't let him steal your heart away
And don't pack my suitcase, I'll be back
And don't take my pictures off a' the wall
Oh, did you hear me?
Don't let him change a thing 'cos I'll be back
Jus tell him to pack his things and get out of your life
And just give me one more chance
I'll show you I'm right, I'm right
Cos I've been thinking and I know it was me leaving you lonely
But hoping you could be strong
But could you look at me straight
Tell me what else can I do but say I was wrong?
So don't let him steal your heart away
No, don't let him steal your heart away
Well he's gonna try to make it work for you
Make you think your whole life's been leading to this
But whatever you do
Think about me and don't be fooled by his kiss
And don't let him steal your heart away
Please, don't let him steal your heart away
* * *
Friday night November 15th. This was the talk of campus since the movie schedule came out. One group stood in line the week before to buy the 18 or so tickets needed for our floor. A different bunch arrived early to stake out good seats. What were we going to see? A triple feature of all three Star Wars movies. Back to back to back we would watch the triple feature. Episode IV started at 7 p.m. and it went on into the night from then.
After our early dinner, we returned to the floor to change into our comfies. I walked across campus with Stephen Paul and Craig and Bart and Lawrence. Jim met us there; his glasses broke earlier in the day, and he had a hurried trip to the nearest optical repair shop (as hurried as a trip on the scheduled campus shuttle system can make). With pillows and slippers and snacks we settled into our “reserved” seats – two rows on the lower level, on the right side, not too close, but not too far back either. One of the guys from the upstairs triple had a knack for origami. He folded x-wing fighters from a stack of old printouts from one of the computer labs. Before the features started, and during intermissions, he folded as many as his fingers would let him and handed them out. I got not just one, but two origami x-wings! (Still have them, too.)
A room full of congenial fans, we sat in the dark and escaped to Tatooine, hissed at Darth Vader, cheered Luke and Princess Leia. The girls drooled over the roguish Harrison Ford – hissing when he was cryogenically preserved. And those of us still awake and enthusiastic in the wee hours of the morning booed Jabba the Hut and cheered the Ewoks as they attacked the Emperor’s fighters. Good friends, good movies, good escapes.
* * *
After yet another distressing phone conversation with Ross, I received this:
Postmark 18 NOV 1985, Cincinnati, OH
Dear Susan,
Our relationship has caused both of us a great deal of discomfort lately. Our talk on the phone today really brought that out. The idea of being tied down bothers me sometimes, but the idea of break up bothers me more. I don’t think that I am alone in my feelings of wanting to see other people; in fact you said you would like to ask some guys out but feel you can’t. Your life at Roch is very mysterious to me, as is my life here to you. Let’s face it, we have grown apart and the only way to grow together is to be together, which is just not possible right now. Thanksgiving is going to be a bitch; there’s just not going to be enough time to be together. I can’t remember what time you said you would get in…Things have seemed really distant – I never feel comfortable when you first come home. Our greetings (your greetings) have not been very warm, compared to your tone of voice on the phone. If you don’t understand why I am writing this, think of when you came home for your break (the planned one). OK, I met you at the airport. You didn’t look at me, give me a hug, talk to me – until we got to the car. I just didn’t understand why you made no effort to say hello. And when you came home the second time (the unplanned one) OK, so you had been sitting in the basement for an hour. But you just sat there on the stairs. And I gave you a hug, but you still just sat there on the stairs with your arms crossed.
I really don’t mean to be bitching at you for things that probably had some very complex reasons behind them, but it raises the question in my mind, “What the hell do you mean, or even think you mean when you say you love me?” You seem so enthusiastic about seeing me on the phone, but not in person. What is really going through your mind? Do you really still care?
By the way, I think that hanging up on someone is about the most childish stunt you can pull. I talked to my mom about it and she was amazed. As she put it, “That’s really stupid.”
Back to the word love. I don’t like using words when I don’t know what they mean. That’s why I don’t say it. It’s a very weighty word – you seem to throw it around a lot, though. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if you rip up or burn this letter. But if you do, it’s just like hanging up – the problems won’t go away if you ignore them. I hate to sound so damned pompous, but you are mentally very young and very difficult to deal with sometimes.
Time out for some positive issues.
We’ve had a lot of fun together. The time we went canoeing, or took Valli up to Miami (how’s she doing, anyway?) or went swimming or went walking or went to see “The Gods must be Angry” (sic) or went to Denny’s or just drove around or the time you skipped your morning classes and woke me up and read your letters to me and then we went to Burger King. Or all the times I came to see you while you were sitting. Or all the time you were here when I had a shitty day at work. Or all the times we came up to my room. Or you woke me up or I woke you up. The week that our parents both split town (we had to keep that one quiet for weeks ahead of time), painting the basement, and getting fed up with it. What about when we went sailing right before you left? We saw a bunch of movies, but I only remember a few – St. Elmo’s, Pale Rider, Lost in America. What were the others? And times at Winton Woods.
We had some Awesome times. I wish it could be like that now. I feel like If you were here, it could. No, I don’t resent your being away at school. That’s life. I do resent the fact that you see other people 24 hours a day but don’t think I should.
You’ve grown up a lot since you’ve been away. I have, too. I think that you are beginning to see how life works – you can’t attack the world fresh out of high school. You’re beginning to know how much there is to know. But learn some more and you’ll find there’s even more.
I care about you Susan Savage. I really do. I don’t know what love means, so I won’t say it. I wish you were here. Even if you were, things would be a lot different from this summer, and it would take us (well at least me) a long time to adjust. I really care about you, and I don’t want to hurt you. You don’t believe me do you? Ok, look. I wouldn’t have written this letter if I didn’t give a shit. Not good enough? You know, someday……this may all seem very silly. Either because we got married or because we couldn’t stand each other. I wish I could really understand what you are thinking! What you say and what you write are sometimes 2 different things, with the written often being the most accurate.
Am I hard to talk to?
“Oh Yea, Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone”
– John Cougar
Corny and depressing, but true.
Will the real Susan Savage please stand up?
And Bok too.
“Knowledge is a deadly friend, if no one sets the rules” – Robert Fripp
The problem is that we are both young. BUT, I see that and I don’t know if you do. You don’t know what you want, it’s very obvious when talking to you. I don’t either. So we end up confusing each other because emotion and passion mix and confuse.
“The fate of all mankind, I fear, is in the hands of fools.” – R.F.
These lines are excerpts from a song called, “Confusion will be my epitaph.”
Appropriate?
I care and I will talk to you soon.
Love,
Ross
For the life of me, I don’t remember what prompted this letter. I must have done something or said something on the phone that was very hurtful. Maybe I told him about Stephen Paul and the crush he had on me. Maybe I mentioned one too many times what Jim and I had done together. For that I am sorry. I never meant to hurt Ross. His complaints have been echoed in other relationships. I do toss words about rather cavalierly. That’s a habit I have worked to change. I’ve not always been successful at it. I like hyperbole – it’s more dramatic.
Ross knew me so well - my greetings and how cold I seemed. Part of that coldness was old-fashioned embarrassment. I deeply cared what my parents thought of me. I wanted to please them, do the right thing, I wanted them to be proud of me and what I did. But I was equally embarrassed for them to see how much I cared for Ross. I couldn’t hug or touch Ross in front of my parents until I screwed up the courage to do so.
I was also frustrated with my voice, frustrated with not being able to touch, to see, to caress, to stomp my foot in anger. As I sit at a keyboard or with pen and paper, words tumble through my brain, and fingers spill them onto the keyboard or paper. But when speaking, my tongue never keeps up. I lose track of thoughts, logic gets lost, and on the phone intonation gets misinterpreted and cannot be retrieved. I was young, inexperienced, immature. Hanging the phone up on someone is childish. I’ve grown up since then, learning better how to converse, to hold my tongue. I’m not perfect and I still get frustrated. Today, instead of hanging up, I say, “I really can’t talk about this right now. I’m frustrated. We’ll have to come back to it.”
We did have great times; we were good together. And it was increasingly difficult to maintain those good times. Perhaps we set impossibly high standards for ourselves. This is someday, and you know, Ross’ letter doesn’t seem silly at all. No, I didn’t rip it up or burn the lot of them. I kept them tucked away for sixteen years – moved them, him, with me from Cincinnati to Buffalo and back to Rochester. When my husband read them after Ross’ death, he nodded, appreciating Ross’ tastes in music, laughed at Ross’ humor, and ultimately agreed with him. Indeed I can be very difficult to deal with.
We didn’t know what we wanted. We were both looking for direction and our passion certainly did confuse us. No, we didn’t get married. But neither did we stop caring about each other. Oh, we went our separate ways, but I never stopped caring. I have to believe, too, that at some level Ross never stopped caring about me.
I wish I could remember…
Postmark 19 NOV 1985, Cincinnati Ohio
11-18-85
Dear Susan,
My last letter reached no conclusion, so here is the conclusion from my last letter:
I am not ready to give up. There is too much positive to throw away. On the other hand, I don’t have one hell of a lot of time on my hands right now. And you don’t either. So I am pretty much on idle, though I will try harder to write, send tapes, etc. Lets face it Long Distance Sucks. (LDS). Being there is the only next best thing to being there! So I am saying basically: DON’T COUNT ME OUT YET! Your voice gets negativer and negativer the longer you’re away.
I think I am getting a cold. I hope I don’t have it when you come home. I work from early in the morning to late at night on my program. It’s funashell but tiring. Maybe one day I’ll finish it. How do you like Opus’ new nose? Big money goes around the world.
Well, as tigger would say, “BBFN”. [sic]
Love,
BOK
[enclosed were a weeks worth of Bloom County cartoons, clipped from the local newspaper and mounted on notebook paper)
My plane privileges were worn out. Two flights home had been expensive. I needed to find a ride to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving. I put the word out to friends – do you know anyone from Ohio? A friend of a friend put me in touch with a senior from across town in Cincinnati. He was leaving Wednesday morning before Turkey day to drive across I-90 and down I-71. I arranged a rendezvous with Dad at a gas station along I-275.
Slipped under my door sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving:
Good Morning Susan
This is to be opened after class in the Welles-Brown Room before your daily nap.
Susan,
I think it would be best if we did not see each other, for a while, at least. As lonely as I felt the time before when we didn’t see each other for a while, I feel worse when I do see you. Not during the actual time I see you of course but later when we’re apart. I guess being with you reminds me of what I hoped we maybe could have had together but don’t.
I thought I could handle the “just friends” routine. I have before, but never with someone I care so much about. It hurts too much to turn on and turn off my emotions so frequently.
I realize that it will hurt either way, If I keep seeing you or not. It’s just that the not seeing you part hurts more, but it must eventually stop. The seeing you part makes me feel great while I’m with you, but when I’m not… Hey, I like roller-coasters just as much as anyone else. It’s just that everyone is glad to get off and throw-up before they get back on again. Your roller-coaster doesn’t stop.
As I said, I thought I had learned that your actions toward me meant nothing more than friendship to you. I did for a while, and then I started kidding myself again. A few “wake up slaps” to the back of my neck snapped me out of that.
If you’re upset at losing a friend, I’m sorry, so am I. It’s just that right now that’s the way I think it’s going to have to be. “You (and me) gotta like it. God knows I don’t want to, but I’ve got to.”
If you want to talk to me about this, by all means do so. Maybe there’s another solution. I just don’t see how there could be.
Oh well, I’ve wasted too much time on all of this stuff already. Throaty old me has math to do. I’ll miss the dumb questions you asked. Maybe I’ll start asking some of my own.
Who knows.
“Eternally yours,” (That sounds awfully dumb, doesn’t it? Oh well…)
Stephen Paul
* * *
Postmark 20 NOV, 1985 Cincinnati, OH
11-20-85
Dear Susan,
Contained Herein is more important Opus-ule news. I like the old nose better, too. I got my hair cut today and I think it looks like someone put a bowl on my head and cut around the edges. Here’s my new revised, improved, up to date, nifty spiffy schedule.
Shaded area is work. I might get an English class if I can.
I’m tired. BBFT (ByeBye for Tonight)
See you soon!
Love,
Ross
* * *
According to my medical records from the University Health Service, on November 22nd I had a pretty serious lump on my head. I don’t know if I lost consciousness or not. I doubt it – I was probably too drunk to notice how much it hurt. But Stephen Paul recorded another quote, “I want you to feel my bump.”
It all came about because of a pre-Thanksgiving party held on the floor. My world was spinning figuratively, between Ross’ letters of despair and true love, the intriguing support and control that Jim offered, and the dedication and heartbreak Stephen Paul shared my heart was muddled. My academics were abysmal, and I felt guilty for wasting my parent’s money. So I joined in enthusiastically at this party, where everyone was drunk or stoned or both. Towards the end of the evening, in a silly stupor, I badgered JG into picking me up and twirling me like the cheerleaders of the Big Ten football teams. As the wing of the helicopter, my figuratively spinning world was reflected in reality; someone else controlled my movements while all I felt was the dizziness of it all. JG spun me around faster and faster in the hallway until my head thwacked a doorframe. My party was over, and the spinning stopped. Soon my heart would stop spinning as well.
Stephen Paul’s resolve to take a break from my friendship lasted all of fifteen minutes, maybe as long as twenty-four hours. But I had calculus homework due, and needed help. We played on the same intramural field hockey team (the Beerballs). We took meals with the same crowd of people. It was hard to avoid each other.
I arranged to have Chris feed the Lesters while I went home for Thanksgiving. He was on pet duty since he couldn’t afford to fly home for the holiday. Technically the dorms were closed, but he got special dispensation. Somebody needed to play zookeeper for the menagerie. On Thursday, he and the students from overseas were treated to a special turkey meal in the dining center. He also used the time to get extra hours at work (he needed the money) and catch up on homework and reading.
Early Wednesday morning, Andy met me at the door to the dorm. I put my suitcase in the trunk, and crawled in the back seat of the sedan. His girlfriend rode shotgun. I didn’t mind; it would be good to sleep and try to make the emotional transition from school to home.
I wish I remembered the rest of the weekend. I don’t recall a thing. It must have been quiet – Jack was in Allentown, Tom was on the West Coast, and since Mommer died, it was just Mom and Dad and me. There are no photos – which is unusual for Dad. I don’t remember going up to Jeynes’. I don’t remember anything much at all. No passionate fights, no tearful goodbyes, no “see you in a few weeks.” Gone.
And yet, Ross and I resolved to help each other. “We’ve made it this far; we can stick it out one more month, and have our time at Christmas. We can decide what we’re going to do then.” I knew what I had to do. As soon as I got back, I would see what I could do to transfer to St. Xavier.
On Sunday, Dad drove me back to that gas station on I-275 and I met up with Andy and his girlfriend for the ride back to Rochester. I sat in the back seat of that sedan, lost in my thoughts, preparing for the final push before the end of the semester. We arrived back in Rochester, late. I got my bags out of the car, took the elevators up to my floor and dragged my gear to my room. Resolution made, I was a girl with a purpose. I’ve got my work cut out for me; I am going home.
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A cry for help
Breaking Us in Two
Don't you feel like trying something new
Don't you feel like breaking out
Or breaking us in two
You don't do the things that I do
You want to do things I can't do
Always something breaking us in two
You and I could never live alone
But don't you feel like breaking out
Just one day on your own
Why does what I'm saying hurt you
I didn't say that we were through
Always something breaking us in two
They say two hearts should beat as one for us
We'll fight it out to see it through
I say that won't be too much fun for us
Though it's oh so nice to get advice
It's oh so hard to do
Could we be much closer if we tried
We could stay at home and stare
Into each other's eyes
Maybe we could last an hour
Maybe then we'd see right through
Always something breaking us in two
11-3-85
Sunday Night, After
Much work
Deer SoozinX!
Hi! Um BokX. Dew Yew no me?
You were funnyx on the phone ‘cause you don’t like what you’ve been doing to me or something like that. I wishes dat you was here. Looks like my trip to Chicago is going to go through. I hope so – I need a break. U2 is a really cool band. I talkxed to Steeeve tonight, and John Wall, though the P-i-n-t-o was never mentioned.
Why is it that all of a sudden my life turns so social after being so socially void for 10 weeks? I expect that I will meet a lot of cool people in Chicago. Ya’ know – I think Barry was the only person that I though was a DICK at the UofR. Everybody else was really cool. You have a nice place to be going to school. Random Random. Yes, this is all one paragraph. Weirdness factor on a downswing lately, possibly the result of some social activity. Dave and I are getting to be real good friends. Macintoshes are fuckin’ awesome and I want one for Christmas. So are compact disc players. Time for some Pink Floyd. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make out with Joni or Andrea. I’m an attatched man and going to be that way for a while. Though to be completely honest, I would like to meet more people. And I have had thoughts about “playing the field” as Liz would say. But that is something that I think about and talk to you first about. I hope you would do the same for me. I’m sure you would. Sometimes things look really bleak for us. Sometimes they look really good. Right now, I’m just confused as to what I want. I wish I knew what love meant. Sometimes I feel absolutely no emotion toward anyone. Positive or negative. And sometimes, I think I don’t have any emotions. And sometimes I like that. It means I’m not vulnerable. Yes I know this is a strange letter, jam-packed with interesting tid-bits. I was really weird the week after you left. I’ll tell you about it sometime. Sometimes I wish you weren’t so life-commitment oriented. I can’t think that far ahead. I think it’s really cool that we are going out now, and not going out with anyone else, but it’s not working that well. I mean, it doesn’t suck, but our phone conversations are not, as a rule, all that happy. I’ve got to start using the Nautilus pretty soon. Twilight. I can’t find my face.
But when we’re together, things seem pretty cool. Except for sometimes. My life is going in so many directions. I can’t wait to go to college again. I want to get away from home. Tiredness. Goin’ sleep.
Mon Morn.
Sorry this isn’t longer. I write more soon. Must go to class and mail this…
Love
Ross
P.S. I hope you are feeling well-er.
Something happened. I don’t recall exactly. Perhaps a phone conversation didn’t go well. Maybe when I called Ross was in the middle of something and couldn’t be bothered. Our timing was off – really off. I lost my temper. REALLY lost my temper. Slammed the phone down, my face ugly with rage. Some women are beautiful when they cry. I’m terribly unattractive, the skin of my chin dimples horribly, my nose runs, my face grimaces in a most unpleasant scowl.
“I need to see you, Ross. So screw it, dammit. I’m coming home.”
I slammed the door to my dorm room. I slammed the door to the hallway. Twice. The first time wasn’t satisfying enough – the door bounced back with attitude, so I slammed it again. That second one knocked the door out of the frame, though I didn’t know it at the time.
Stephen Paul was in 6124’s and heard the noise. He was on his way over to investigate when I intercepted him. I snarled, “Will you take me to the airport?” He looked at me, wide-eyed, as though I’d grown a second head. Having known me just a couple of months, he had never seen my temper really flare. I think he was afraid to refuse, “Um, Sure. I guess. What time?”
“I’ll let you know.”
I retreated to our suite, opened the yellow pages to “airline reservations” and dialed the phone. I called several airlines and asked for flight information. There was a flight that afternoon. I gave them my credit card number and bought a ticket. That arrangement made, I hung up the phone and started packing.
Within an hour, Stephen Paul drove me to the airport – he didn’t even park, just dropped me off at the front entrance. “Thanks, Steve. I owe you one.” I’ll see you soon, Ross. We can get this all straightened out.
I hurt so much inside, and no one is helping me. Ross, I need you to help me. Will you? Can I come home and be with you and you’ll take care of me? We’ll take care of each other and spend our lives together? I’ll go to college – I can do this. I just need you with me. Where are you going to college? What are your plans? I need a hug, I need your touch, I need you! Without you I will fall completely apart.
By the time I got on the airplane, I had calmed down. I was physically exhausted from my outburst, and terrified at what my parents would think - the money to buy the ticket, the missed classes, the homework and reading not done. What a waste of money. Nervous and scared, it was done. Nothing to change about it now. I’d have to live with the consequences.
The plane landed in Cincinnati. I got off the plane with my backpack, walked to the terminal and retrieved my suitcase, I called Ross’ house. No answer. Now what to do? I called home.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Can you come get me? I’m at the airport.”
Mom drove the 40 minutes across town to pick me up. As we drove home she was full of questions I didn’t want to answer. She was concerned for my well-being, but distracted because of her own schedule. My presence didn’t fit into her plans. I just wanted Ross.
Mom left for work early in the morning. Dad was out of town, again. I slept late, showered, dressed and poured my bowl of cereal, staring at the box as I ate. I got in the Pinto and drove to Ross’ house. Parked in the back, his car wasn’t there. Oh well, I’d surprise him. I walked in through the garage, up the basement steps, and … LOCKED! What the hell?
I knocked, I yelled. I decided no one was home. I cried. I waited. I had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but was actually only about an hour or so, Ross arrived home from his morning classes. He must have seen the car in the driveway, and so could not have been completely surprised to see me sitting on the stairs waiting for him. Even so, my presence was unexpected.
We hugged awkwardly on the stairs. I was angry, hurt, confused and devastated. Nothing was going right. My tears flowed freely, my nose stopped up, my face scrunched none-too-prettily as I bawled. Ross retrieved his key, unlocked the door and we climbed the stairs up to his room. He set his backpack down, and we hugged and talked and I calmed down. I needed not to talk, but to just be. No homework, no reading, no responsibility, no new people in my life, just Ross. Familiar, comfortable, loving, patient, Ross who could make me laugh in the midst of the most horrendous despair. I wanted to just be. And so we were for a few hours.
Eventually reality intruded. Hunger pangs needed to be calmed, parents had to be informed and consulted. Clearly, I was not adjusting well to life at Rochester. And yet, what were my options? Stay home? And do what? That was a lot of money my parents had paid, couldn’t I at least salvage the semester? I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t know how to stay. Reason won over passion, I was fed more platitudes, and I got on the plane and flew back to Rochester. I should have gotten a one-way ticket, what was I thinking?
Stephen Paul picked me up at the airport, and I went back to classes.
Postmark 14 Nov. 1985 Cincinnati, OH
Dear Soozin,
I hope that the remainder of your stay was pleasant at home. Driving up was interesting…I was very tired. I stopped at McDonald’s several times for some caffiene - is that how you spell it? (Coke). Seeing you before I left was really nice. I’m sorry, I still think I was obnoxious on Tuesday.
The university of Chicago is a really impressive place. I stayed with John Thursday night, then on Friday we walked around campus. The library is “fuckin’ awesome, man.” Supposedly, it’s the largest of any education institution in the world.
Steve and I have been getting along really well. He and his girlfriend, and John and his old girlfriend, and I went to a Blues club called the checkerboard lounge last night. Some of the best muzik I have ever heard. The place was really interesting – smack in the middle of Chicago’s South Side. A mean-ass neighborhood, at best. Makes over-the-rhine look like suburbia.
Chicago Pizza is really good. TONS of cheese. Takes 45 minutes to make ‘cause the cheese is so thick.
I felt like a fifth wheel last night, for a little bit.
Today I go record shopping, maybe to visit DePaul, and then to Sarah’s. Well, I’ll write again later. Till then, I hope you are feeling better about school. Query: Are you coming home next semester, or are you going to stick it out, or have you decided? C-U-Soon.
Love,
Ross
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touching
Depression and compassion
Postmark Oct 24 1985 Cincinnati, OH
Hi Suzin.
Boy, were you depressed on Sunday. Depressing Letter. And you sounded depressed last night (wed). I wish there was something I could do to help. Is there? WORK. This week is going so slow. I wish I had some time to go Pintoing. This weekend, however. I will 1) college search 2) do the apartment 3) work on a lot of homework.
After the weekend, things should be significantly easier. Well, I’ve got tons of work to do, so I must get started and mail this letter.
Talk to you soon.
Love,
Bok
P.S. I miss you. I love you.
(Forgot to say those elsewhere.)
I did terribly in my classes, I felt incredibly guilty about how much money my parents spent. This was one of the most expensive schools in the country, and we didn’t qualify for financial aid or scholarships – I never even filled out a Financial Aid Form. I started a job washing dishware in one of the research labs across campus. I lasted all of two hours. I didn’t bother showing up anymore. I never got a paycheck.
I had zero motivation to do my required reading or homework. Instead I spent my time skulking around looking for stereos to listen to music and socialize. I was awake all hours of the night, I slept through classes, and I missed Ross like crazy. I couldn’t stand to be alone. Stephen Paul and Jim and others flirted with me constantly, and to win companionship, no matter how temporary, I flirted back; sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes the flirt rang hollow. My moods changed quickly then. I missed Ross, and my floor-mates tried very hard to help me.
Jim stopped by my room on Sunday mornings, dragging me to Christian worship services. I met caring people there. Jim’s roommate Lawrence was really good to talk with, and we became close friends. Jim’s suitemates, Craig and Bart made me laugh, and Keith was just Keith – fun to tease.
Others echoed Ross’ concern about the depressing letter I sent. Mother wrote, “Thanks for the nice letter – I won’t say more or I’ll cry.” And she included some money in the envelope. I asked if we could gather the family to escape to Green Knob for Thanksgiving. When Jack was struggling at Wake Forest, Dad and I met him at Green Knob for a week to sugar the maples. It was a time for Dad and Jack to share hard physical labor, time to be away from distracting influences and meditate. I wanted similar. I called Jack in Allentown to chat. Jack was busy with Pennsylvania Stage Company, putting together the next stage show. Dad was still traveling for work, and Mom also had to work. No one had the time or the inclination to go to Green Knob that year. I reached out to my familiars, I wrote letters, I made phone calls. No one had time to help me. I was left to my own devices. I didn’t do very well on my own.
* * *
In 2002, I told my couch-guy, “I want a “do-over”.” At any point since August 27th, 1985 I want to change a decision and do it all over again, and see what might have happened. Should I have told Mom and Dad, “I’m not going, and you can’t make me!” Should I have insisted I come home for my grandmother’s funeral? And then stayed? Should I have refused to return to Rochester after October break? But parallel universes and time travel exist only in fiction – unless you want to discuss Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and even then, time travel isn’t particularly practical.
What do I think would happen in that do-over? Do I want a different story? A different ending? Is my present life so terrible? Do I think I would be happier? I don’t know. But like George saw in It’s a wonderful life, I wish an angel could show me how my life might have gone. As it is, I’ll never have the reassurance that the decisions I made were the right ones. I’ll always have the nagging feeling that I made a very wrong decision that ultimately resulted in disaster.
* * *
I continued my nocturnal lifestyle from summer. By this time it was just that – a lifestyle – some might call it a rut. I was rarely asleep before one or two a.m. I dragged myself out of bed in the morning to go to classes. Then I found a comfortable napping situation in the Welles-Brown Room during the afternoons. The couches were quite nap-worthy and I took refuge there many an afternoon. Thus refreshed, I would be once again awake until the wee hours of the morning.
It wasn’t hard to find companionship after midnight – whether I pretended to work on a paper that was due, or fought with Calculus, someone was always around to distract or encourage me. And between buying rolls of quarters for the washing machines, my sewing kit and the toolbox, there were a lot of visitors to my room. People had a reason to stop by. Another quote that Stephen Paul kept fits in here, “I like sleeping in my room. I’m never sure who I will wake up with.” That came from the comfort people felt even if I didn’t share it. Roz and I furnished our room with comfortable carpeting and pillows. Any given night, a group of us chatted ‘til all hours, and one by one people fell asleep – some stumbled back to their own rooms, but not always. I woke up in the morning (the clock radio blaring Starship’s, “We built this city.” That song received entirely too much airtime on Rochester radio in 1985) and found someone asleep on the floor who wasn’t there when I fell asleep.
One night, I decided to get drunk. I never was much of a drinker. I can’t stand the taste of beer, don’t like the fuzzy feeling I get in my head, don’t need the empty calories, hate the morning-after scum in my mouth. I’m still not much of a drinker, although a glass of wine or whiskey does go down smoothly on occasion. That night I guess I felt drunkenness was necessary, another way to escape the emotional upheaval. As I recall, Chris prepared some sort of flaming concoction on the desk in his room. It was a layered drink served in shot glasses, in which the final step was to light the top layer on fire. I did not care to drink flames...so the guys, Chris, Stephen Paul and Mike willingly and enthusiastically found an alternative. Perhaps it was peppermint schnapps? Cool and refreshing, like mouthwash. But packed a powerful punch when you drank enough of it.
I sat on someone's lap in Chris' room and tossed back several shots. And the handwriting tests began. As a geek test of my sobriety, the guys had me write a sentence every fifteen minutes or some such nonsense. (That endeavor ranks high on the geek scale.) I got the giggles, and then when the room was spinning and I had to pee, I wandered back to my room to sleep it off. Not a very satisfactory drunk. My handwriting didn’t even suffer too badly…
* * *
Two days before Halloween I had a terrible cold – probably the flu. I was achy, feverish. It hurt like hell to swallow anything. I felt miserable. I hiked up the hill to University Health Service but all they did was a lousy job of taking a throat culture and told me to rest. What a waste of time that was. I just wanted to be home. It didn’t help that I didn’t have a winter coat. It was silly really. I wore my jean jacket with a down vest over it. I layered – turtleneck, sweatshirt or sweater, jean jacket and vest. It was cold…but I refused to wear a winter coat.
The Student Association sponsored a band to play at a costume party at the student center (Wilson Commons, designed by world-renowned architect I.M.Pei) Stephen Paul and Jim persuaded me to go with them and the guys from Jim’s suite – Bart, Lawrence, Craig, Keith. I wrapped a box that Mom shipped with some of my things from home, using birthday wrapping paper and ribbon that I paid too much for at the campus bookstore. I put on a long sweater and some tights and voila! A Birthday present - instant costume. No make-up or mask required. After the costume contest at the party, I took off my box and danced with the guys of the 7th floor.
* * *
One early November evening we had a floor meeting, and after business was done floor residents wandered off to their other commitments – homework, rehearsals, social engagements. Those of us left in the common area chatted until time to retire. Eventually Chris and I were left sitting alone together.
Introspective, quiet, reserved, not one to seek the center of attention, Chris was an observer of human interaction. A physics major, he found elegance in mathematics, but loved the logic and ponderings of philosophy. And like Ross, he worked hard. They both had that same drive and self-discipline to complete the task set before them. For Ross it was writing computer programs, for Chris it was solving equations. They both loved language as well - the language of music and the beauty of the written word. He was from “NOT New York City” - Eastern Oregon, an area of the country I was somewhat familiar with having been driven through the area several times. And like Ross, Chris listened to excellent music. It was similar to the music Ross listened to with the same passion and the same appreciation for the finer details within an album. So much of him was familiar, and I desperately needed familiar.
Lost in my own turmoil of desperately missing Ross and home, awed by the power I held over Stephen Paul, and intrigued by the comfort and guidance offered me by Jim. My world was upside down and inside out. That night Chris offered me his hand. I took it. There, in the quiet of the night, while friends slept in the rooms around us, we held hands. We were silent together. We didn’t talk much, if at all. We didn’t need to. Occasionally a floor-mate walked off the elevator and saw us together. We nodded an acknowledgement, offered a greeting and said goodnight. And still we held hands.
I leaned my head back against the wall and drifted in and out of sleep. At one point I rested my head on Chris’ shoulder and dozed. And still we held hands. I woke, briefly rested, and holding only our hands together we were tender, erotic and sensual. We made love there in a way. Silently, sitting in the semi-darkness on the benches in front of the elevator. The cheerful rainbow mural around us was a stark contrast to our melancholy. Each lost in our own misery, we comforted each other. Fully clothed, sitting side-by-side our only physical contact was the gentle and comforting touch of our hands. The hours wore on, our eyes grew heavy and the time came for us to return to our respective beds. We may have kissed briefly, I don’t recall.
We never spoke of our encounter, but I cherish the memory. That night I learned the healing power of touch. I internalized that intimacy is a state of mind that goes far beyond physical attraction. As I hope Ross did, I wonder if Chris ever found peace and happiness.
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Reconstruction
Friendships
The UofR campus was populated with bright students from all over the country. Competition was fierce and encouraged by instructors. “Competition breeds success” was the theory of the time. Curving exam scores contributed to the whole atmosphere of competition. I’m not very good at it myself, but indeed the theory worked for many. A separate slang vocabulary developed. Students with the cutthroat mindset and in the mood for serious study escaped to “B-level” of the library (two stories underground, with no distracting windows or doors) and “throated out.” The room was quiet, the chairs just uncomfortable enough and few distractions. It was the perfect place for uninterrupted concentration on the subject at hand.
I preferred the Welles-Brown Room, a room on the main level of the library that was set aside for casual study. Ostensibly, it is a place for quiet reading. Outfitted like a larger eighteenth century manor house library with a fireplace and shelving along the interior walls. There is a concert piano in the room. It is often a place for recitals and poetry readings. With high ceilings, the tall windows facing the main quad let in the afternoon sun. The room was furnished with comfortable couches and easy chairs. It was overly warm with uneven heat from the radiators and the sunshine streaming in. The room was quiet with the sound of the heavy even breathing of sleeping students. I started to read for class, and my eyes drifted closed and my somnolent noises joined the chorus of snores around me. I napped in the name of reading most every afternoon that Fall. No wonder I was a night owl.
I studied (throated out – ha!) in the library with Stephen Paul. He and his buddy Jim tried to help me with Calculus. I just didn’t get it. What’s the big deal about finding the area under the curve? Supposedly I worked on math homework, or pretended to write a paper or something. More likely I wrote letters to Julie and Erin and Valli and Ross. One night Stephen Paul and I had to be back on the floor for a meeting, and Jim had to go to work at the Computing Center. We got to the library doors and discovered the pouring down rain. The skies had opened and the rains fell delightfully unencumbered. Jim disappeared into the bowels of the buildings to walk the tunnels to work. Stephen Paul and I were going back to the dorm, so we had to dash through the downpour. Neither he nor I had raincoat or umbrella. After about 100 yards we were soaked, so to hell with it. It’s warm, we’re already wet, let’s enjoy it. I sang, “If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh how glad I’d be” and danced through the puddles. I was wearing the Chuck T’s Ross and his mom had given me, and my feet got soaked right along with my jeans and sweatshirt. But I didn’t care…I enjoyed the moment.
Stephen Paul remembers that night better than I do. Years later when I asked him about it, he said it was the most fun he had ever had in a rainstorm. That was an “up” I shared with Stephen Paul. Ross got the “down” later after the floor meeting when I was cold, tired, and still didn’t have my homework done. It wasn’t fair to Ross, was it?
The next morning, on my way to classes I discovered all the worms out on the asphalt path between the dorm and the academic quad. I couldn’t take a step without squishing a worm or its remains. I hated that, and tried to walk alongside the path in order to avoid the squish. The drowned worms attracted the seagulls inland from the Lake Ontario shoreline. They flew in from the lake after a soaking rain and landed on the football practice field to gulp down floating protein. Nasty things, seagulls.
* * *
I was distracted. College is a place to study, learn and be educated, right? I wasn’t studying and I wasn’t learning in the classroom. I was learning not from professors, but from my peers. And the lessons weren’t always pleasant or friendly. Jim and Stephen Paul convinced me to drop out of that advanced calculus course. I got a seven on my first exam. Not seven out of ten mind you, a seven out of a hundred. Even with a generous curve that’s failing. They promised to help me catch up in the other math series.
Steve Deyo and Glen Koch lived in the center doubles. Peter Ragonese and John Witherspoon were their roommates. ‘Spoon was “legacy.” He had money, smarts, and political savvy. A real prep, he played sports in high school, took care of his health, was good looking with clear skin. He had everything going for him except an interesting personality…too bad he got paired up with Deyo and Koch. Pete was a local boy. He cobbled together scholarship money and loans to be able to afford the tuition and fees. He escaped to home a couple of nights already. I didn’t blame him. Wished I could have done the same, really.
Deyo and Koch were potheads. I don’t think they started out that way, but man, did they toke up. Koch was from a small burg southwest of Buffalo in the no man’s land between Buffalo and Erie, PA. For those who have driven that bleak distance across the Thruway, you know what I’m talking about. It’s beautiful farm country for the most part. Not much industry at all…but the farms are closing down as the farmers retire and no one else wants to do the work. I think there were twenty-five students in Glen’s high school graduating class. Small town boy comes to the big city, and gets paired with Deyo.
Deyo – what a character. Intelligent, but far more interested in dope than anything else. He got mean, too. He was one of those guys who was always just a nasty glance away from taking your head off. Some guys get mellow and happy when drunk or stoned. He turned nasty. He scared the hell out of me. Physically, he was large. He played football in high school. Not so tall, but thick. Big arms, he had a beer gut, and fat feet, but white pasty complexion and baby soft blonde curly hair. Such a contrast. He always talked about sex, drugs, and music. And not particularly intelligently. He liked his porn, and paraded it like a trophy. He liked his dope, and smoked it in the open, daring anyone to stop him or complain. He liked his music loud, raucous, and in your face, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. He sat in the hallway in front of the elevators, his stereo blasting shit music, stoned out of his mind.
He and Glen provided entertainment of sorts. They told dirty jokes, pulled practical jokes, administered mild vandalism…and for a while, they did study. I think they were going for Mechanical Engineering. They did have mentors on the floor; upperclassmen pushed them to attend classes, and tried to get them to do homework. Eventually though – both realized they were out of their league, and just smoked their way through the Spring term. Neither returned for their sophomore year.
* * *
Growing up, I attended the high school football game on Friday nights in the fall. Saturdays were dedicated to College ball, and the pros play on Sundays. It’s what you do. You go to the game, shout a cheer or two, sit and visit with your friends, flirt with the opposing teams’ fans, make trips to the snack bar, and hope your team wins. If they do, great. If they don’t, at least you had an excuse to hang out with your friends. The people I tried to befriend were from private prep schools or city schools that didn’t support football teams. Their experience was so foreign to me, as mine was to them. I was a living, breathing representative of what they watched on television. I wasn’t real.
Roz, my roommate, really was a good friend. She was good to talk with. She and I shared insecurities. She struggled as much as I did that term, though at the time I didn’t recognize it. I reached out for home and my old life. She reached over for Mike and the boys of 6124s. It seemed to me that the people around me had a quiet confidence I lacked. I thought I was the only one homesick, bewildered and desperate for familiar. Most of the freshmen on the floor were from stable homes, had rarely moved during childhood, and all struggled with our first months away from the comfort of the familiar. I was drowning in my own struggle and didn’t see anyone else’s private battles.
I’ll share part of a letter from Roz…I hope you’ll see what I mean…
Susan,
I’m sorry we didn’t talk last night. The reason I came in to go to bed instead of 6124’s was to talk to you. I don’t know if you were asleep or not when I came back, but I was only gone 4 minutes (I timed it) If you were pissed off at me I’m sorry.
I guess there’s something I should tell you that’s probably not openly obvious and that’s that I like you a lot. I really do. You are probably the most considerate person I have ever known. When I was having all that headache over not getting into my math class you went through the class selections and tried to find me another class. That made me feel so good. You probably don’t remember it as any big thing but it was the nicest thing anybody could have done, and nobody else but you did it.
You make me laugh. Today putting in the rug was great – it’s been a long time since I’ve laughed as hard as I did today.
I also don’t mean to laugh at your expense. I guess I have a little bit of the bad side of J.G. in me. J.G. said something mockingly at you at lunch yesterday. It was the kind of thing I would be jabbed by. The next time something like that happens I’ll say something. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything then. Sometimes insecurity takes over in me a bit and I get a screwed perspective.
Gaining acceptance by people like J.G. isn’t worth laughing with him at you or anybody else. Sometimes I forget that.
Also – when I make fun of you for keeping the windows open, etc. I’m doing just that making fun of you – I’m not serious. I cut down on that as well.
Also – about the football game. There’s something very girl-next-doorish & All American about cheerleaders football parties on Fridays and a whole lot of other Cincinnati things. I’ve always had this dream to live in Maine. One of the reasons is to get to live a life where high schools have cheer-leaders and non-alcoholic parties. To a certain extent, I don’t believe in cheerleading just because where I come from it’s something I’m not used to and see as a little sexist. But though it may be a slight bit of chauvinistic cheerleading is a part of American life that growing up in NYC didn’t offer – It may be a little romantic but in a way I wish my background was as all American as yours. If I rag on stuff about you a bit overboard realize that there may be a bit of jealousy factor present.
* * *
Foosball – the college bar game of the 1980s. We are a generation raised playing air hockey, bumper-pool and ping-pong in family rooms and basements. Once we got to college, in the Frat houses and the bars, the beer flowed and foosin’ was all the rage.
A group of regulars played a table in the basement of our dorm. (A Million Dollar table, for those enthusiasts who care about such things.) Bart and Craig were an unbeatable team (well almost) who had refined their skills in the fraternity house basements over the previous two years. Foos was serious endeavor, not to be taken lightly. For the most part, Rentz and Sturr played against Bart and Craig, but “Slice”, Dave and Chris filled in when a regular was unavailable.
The table was technically housed in the basement “rec room” across from the laundry facilities. Originally decorated and furnished in the 1970s, by 1985 the room was dark, dingy, and generally unpleasant to be in. They carried the table out into the large fluorescent bright hallway across from the elevators. Foosin’ could be a spectator sport, but there were certain rules. No loud noises at inopportune times. No touching of players or the table while the ball was in play, and absolutely NO messing with the foosball itself. I learned the rules of observing Foos the hard way – after stealing the ball, flirting with the players, and screaming at a wrong time.
Since the games were played on outside the laundry facilities, I had the opportunity to watch, taunt, and annoy the players any time I processed wash. Roz (my roommate) and I had distinct laundry styles. She took her wash down on a Friday afternoon, filled several washers, put the quarters and laundry soap in, and walked away. On Sunday afternoon, she returned to the laundry area to pick up her wash. Over the course of the weekend, her clothes had been transferred from the washers to the dryers (which were free) then pulled from the dryers and placed atop the folding area. Occasionally she was even lucky enough to have someone fold her wash for her. Her parents had signed her up for linen service, too. So she never had to wash sheets.
In my own insecurity and discomfort, I became a neatnik. If I could control nothing else in my life, I would keep my “stuff” neat and clean. When my laundry bag was full and my sheets were getting ripe, I dragged it down to the laundry room and start processing it. Laundry involves a lot of waiting. It was no fun to wait in the laundry room, so I rode up and down in the elevators, going back and forth to my room. Hence, I walked by the foosball table a lot.
Side note: The dorm elevators had names that year. They were “The Vaders.” Someone posted signs designating one Darth and one Ella. Over the course of the year, those elevators were subjected to serious vandalism. They ceased to stop level with the floor, so you might have to step up or down to get out of the elevator. And in the Spring semester, someone pulled the wires out of the button panel and re-wired the buttons. You might push 6, but end up on 8. Or push 9 and end up on 3. My sympathies go to the Otis repairman. He was outnumbered and outsmarted.
Stephen Paul had a serious crush on me by this time. I knew it, he knew I knew it, the whole floor knew it. He was and is a great friend, and we had a lot of fun together, but I just wasn’t interested. I was firmly attached to Ross, despite his insecurities. But that didn’t stop me from flirting or teasing. I walked off the elevator, knowing that a game was in progress and “BAM” someone scored against Stephen Paul (he played defense). The guys loved their foos, and thought it was great when I distracted a player. Thus goaded, I did my best.
* * *
Columbus Day is one of those muddled holidays – banks are closed, stores are open. Post Office is closed, but businesses run. In New York, schools close and the University suspended classes for the day. The break was scheduled on the school calendar, and Mom and Dad arranged for a flight home. I discovered the plane ticket receipts in the same box with Bok-X’s letters – I flew to Cincinnati on Friday, October 11th, and returned to Rochester on Tuesday, October 15th. I must have finagled a ride to the airport – maybe I shared a cab, more likely I begged a ride from one of the guys with a car.
I took the Lesters home with me. In my dorm room, I packed my suitcase and backpack – full of hope that I would catch up on all the reading that I had not yet done – and as I left the room, I carried the Lesters in their aquarium. At the airport, in those pre-9/11/01 days, I checked my suitcase at the check-in counter and lugged those lizards through security and onto the plane. I stowed them on the floor under the seat, and put my backpack up in the luggage bin. When I changed planes in Pittsburgh, I carried them through the airport. Nobody batted an eyelash.
While I remember carrying those lizards through the airport, I don’t remember ever getting rid of them. How odd our memories work. We truly do remember only the good things, and conveniently forget the bad.
After the plane landed in Cincinnati, I gathered my backpack, wrestled the Lesters from under the seat, and got off the plane. Surprise! Ross had arranged with my parents to meet me at the airport. I stood in the hallway in a panic. How was I supposed to react to this? On the one hand, I was delighted - I missed Ross so much, it was good to see him. But my clean compartmentalized world was mixed up again. Ross with my parents? That didn’t fit.
As we walked through the airport, at last I found the courage to reach over and touch and hug Ross. I was scared to demonstrate physical displays of affection for Ross in front of my parents. But now that it was done, I was glad to be home.
My father drove us the forty minute drive back to our safe little suburb. Mom asked questions about the flight and about my experiences in Rochester. In the back seat, sitting next to Ross, I surreptitiously held his hand, tightly, scared and nervous for his presence in front of my parents.
Mom had been having trouble with her car. Dad was traveling so much he didn’t have time to address the problem. So Mom had been stuck in the house without functioning transportation. She and I both struggle with that lack of mobility. I mentioned the problem to Ross, he asked Mom if he could take a look at it, and with her blessing he dove under the hood. Ross spent a large chunk of time in our driveway, happily working on Mom’s Volvo. He found a leak in one of the hoses, and after I was back in Rochester she took the car into the shop and had the hose replaced. Problem finally solved.
The rest of the details of the weekend I spent at home are lost to me now. I can only surmise they were comfortable hours spent with Ross and my parents. Comfortable hours aren’t particularly memorable, going the way of dreams upon wakening. Despite my protestations and misgivings, I returned to Rochester. “Chin-up” “You can do it” “Study hard” were the platitudes fed to me as I carried the Lesters onto the plane.
* * *
Post mark 21 OCT 1985 Cincinnati, Ohio
10-21-85
Dearest Susan
I hereby proclaimeth my undyingeth love (at least I don’t think it’s dying…let me check. OK, no, it’s not dying) for thou. Your handsome frog (who may turn into a prince someday, when all his zits go away) doth proclaimeth (yes, I mean me) that he misseth thou and grieveth very muchlyeth.
Enough Sillyness. HI! Well, not SO silly…I need a hug. WORK, WORK, WORK, it never fucking STOPS!
2
If you ever get a chance, you should read Peter Townshend’s Book “Horse’s Neck.” Interesting stuff. I finished it last night and this morning instead of doing CALCULUS. But that’s OK cause I got it done later this morning, And we didn’t have class today anyway and that is how I am able to be writing this letter right now! (It is 13:04:51 = 1:05 p.m.) And Recording TAPES for you. Stanley Jordan, sounds like 2 guitars. But it’s only
3
one! Well, That’s what the Album cover says. I think they’re NOT lying. GOOD album to study to, no words. Really Though, it’s only one guitar, listen close + try to tell……….
D’ya like my multi-color stationery? BRIGHT AND CHEERY! HAPPY JOYOUS CELEBRATION FUN POSITIVENESS! LAUGHTER AND GAYEITY!
4
OK Ross, calm down. I put Black shit on the windows in the back of the P-I-N-T-O and Pinto was his name-o.
OK, now let’s just see how completely crazy and bizarre we can be. I’m Crazy! I’m NUTS! I’m Whacky!
I bet I’m WHACKIER Than You!
5
Let’s have a WHACK-OFF and see!
Enough
Down to serious business. How is school going? I really hope you are working hard. I don’t mean to sound parental….
Remember Susan, you’re a special person, so be proud, like the marines.
Ol’ Stanley Flows.
I hope this letter is cheering you up…. You sounded real down last
6
(Sunday) night. I’m workin’ on it (On what?) on everything. From this letter to weirdness to discipline to….(flip over the record) Muscles to mindpower to imagination, to WORK. To COBOL, to stereos to guitar to clocks to stewed oysters to hand made trinkets to rice patties and lint. And Ear Wax.
I’ve run out of colors of paper. Time to say good bye.
I love you and miss you.
Talk to ya soon.
Love,
Ross
Rossco P. Coaltrain
I found another color paper.
I was just thinking that when you were home – that was really cool! I sure had a lot of fun that weekend, though we didn’t get to spend every waking (and sleeping) minute with each other. I’m not sure whether that was good or bad – probably good. We sure didn’t get into any arguments or have any much-too-deep-type conversations. Whatever. I just wanted to say it was really excellent. I love you.
--Ross
* * *
On a quiet afternoon sometime after October break, I wandered up to the seventh floor suite looking for Jim or Lawrence or someone with whom to pass the time. I dreaded being alone. I found Bart talking on the telephone. He looked sad as he hung up the receiver.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“That was my Dad. My Grampy died.”
“Oh, Bart. I’m sorry. When are the services?” My heart broke for him. Having just lost my grandmother, I could relate. Bart had a car on campus, freedom of movement. Did he want company for the drive home?
“No”
“Why not?”
“I was just home, and I don’t really need to go. I’ve got a lot of homework due.”
“But isn’t your family expecting you to be there? <pause> Well, my grandmother died in September, and I couldn’t go home for that, so I guess...” Why don’t you go home? I’d have given anything to go home for my grandmother’s funeral – I had no money and no transportation. You have a car – just get in it and drive! “I’m really sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
“No, I guess not.” He turned and walked into his room and put an album on his stereo. He turned the volume up. Loud.
I left him alone, returning to my own room, and stared out the window again, watching the construction. I just wanted to be home, somewhere familiar.
* * *
Postmark Oct 22 1985 Cincinnati, OH
No letter – just a tape.
Ross recorded a couple more Pat Metheny albums.
* * *
Stephen Paul remembers…
Jim and his roommate Lawrence were deeply involved with the Protestant Chapel Community (PCC) on campus. They were caring people who enjoyed helping others. While I had fun with the group and felt comfortable, I was also wary. This group was what Ross and friends had railed against for so much of my experience. Whatever the event was this particular evening; I chose to leave early and walked myself across campus to the dorm. (Jim had to work that evening at Taylor Hall.) So dressed in my fancies, a cream-colored wool skirt and lavender wool sweater with asymmetrical neckline (the look of the time) heels, hose, long necklace with the hoop and charms that was so popular, and too much make-up, I arrived on the floor to discover a group heading out to the local diner dive. “You want to come?”
Never one to refuse a social outing (academics? What are those?) I asked, “Dressed like this?”
“Sure!” they replied barely sober enough to drive.
Off I went to the local dive with Stephen Paul and Mike. Nick Tahou’s Hots is in a rough section of town. It is an original greasy spoon, with great basic food. The now famous “Garbage Plate” back then was a regional treasure. Your choice of red or white hot, hamburger or cheeseburger, or an egg plate was served with your choice of macaroni salad, potato salad, or cole slaw, and a special sauce was ladled over the whole plate. Three slices of white bread on the side. Drinks offered were Pepsi products, coffee, or tea. The meal was served not on china, not even diner china, but thick paper plates. You picked your plastic “silver” ware out of the bins to eat with, and paper napkins were at the tables.
The diner was lowbrow, with druggies and street people who had scraped enough money together to get some decent food. It was also highbrow with visiting dignitaries and show people on tour coming in for a taste of the local flavor. It was popular with the college crowd – UofR and RIT students flocked there after a drinking binge. Shift workers, businessmen, hookers, and the police, truly a cross-section of townspeople catered to Tahou’s. It’s still in business today. The original Nick died in 1996, but his son now operates the restaurant. It is an institution in Rochester, inspiring many copycats.
Nick, the owner, emerged from the back rooms to visit with his clientele in the late evenings. Whether talking with intoxicated college students, street people suffering the DT’s, or the police officers stopping in for a cup of coffee, he was always gracious and enthusiastic to meet his customers. He was always cordial, always polite, a wonderful statesman. He told everybody the same awful joke, “When we were young, my wife, she called me a Greek God. Now? She calls me a Goddamn Greek!”
There I was dressed to the nines in the greasy spoon with two barely sober buddies. I had no clue how or what to order, and so Stephen Paul and Mike talked me through the process. I had the giggles at the ridiculousness of the situation. A burger plate, I guess. Pepsi. No extra sauce, thank you. Oh, ummm, Macaroni Salad I guess. I don’t really like potato salad. The counter guy flirted with me – Mike and Steve still tell me about him saying, “I like it when she giggles.” So Mike kept tickling me. We got our plates and found a booth to sit and eat. Laughing and talking, it was much like an evening with David and the gang at Skyline or with Ross at Denny’s.
Later that school year, Stephen Paul took a bunch of friends in his Land Yacht (also called the S.S. Rentz) downtown to Tahou’s. In his enthusiasm for getting his plate, he hopped out of the car, locked the doors and went inside. He then discovered that he had locked his keys in the car with the engine running…frantic calls back to the dorm roused another suite mate, who broke into Steve’s dorm room and found the spare set of keys and drove down to rescue the crew from certain misery.
A couple of nights Stephen Paul got drunk and wandered over to my suite. He pounded on my door and whimpered, “Susan, why won’t you go out with me?” “Susan, we could be so good together, why won’t you give it a try?” Stephen Paul was such a good friend – he still is. He made me laugh. I enjoyed his company. But I was Ross’ girl.
* * *
Bart, Jim’s suitemate, a quiet stereo owner I had shared time listening to records with, kept a rabbit in his room. It was a mini-lop, the breed of rabbit whose ears flopped over instead of standing straight and tall, rendering an adorable “almost like a puppy” look. Bart named the rabbit (a female) “Dude” so that when he walked into his room he could say the phrase of the ‘80s and mean it. “Hey Dude!” The rabbit was a babe magnet, and that didn’t hurt in a school population that was seriously skewed toward the male gender.
Bart acquired the rabbit as a kitten (baby rabbits are called kittens, yes?) sometime during the fall – hey, it could have been when I acquired the Lesters - and trained her over the ensuing months. Bart got her litter trained. Rabbits do love to chew, and Dude did sufficient damage to the loft, chewing on the ladder rungs. She also chewed the stereo wires and the posters on Bart’s wall. But Bart discovered a training tool - Dude had an aversion to Right Guard spray deodorant. So, Bart sprayed all the stereo wires, the bottoms of his posters. Anywhere he didn’t want Dude to chew was sprayed with Right Guard. The resulting look of his room was quite disconcerting and rather humorous. Posters of the St.Pauly girls with their cleavage and scantily clad Farrah Fawcett on the walls, the lower edges of the posters chewed to pieces with the ragged edges then sprayed white with Right Guard.
Jim, Stephen Paul’s friend and confidante, was inducted into Tau Beta Pi, the honorary organization for excellence in engineering. Since none on the floor or in his suite had pledged a fraternity, this was a major event. Jim was now a “frat boy” and as such needed an initiation party. His roommate Lawrence organized the event, arranging for the purchase of a case or two of beer. Empty cases were procured as well, and on Jim’s arrival back to his room from the reception he discovered his half of the room (labeled Chaos, as Jim was not at all concerned about cleanliness) was filled with case upon case of beer. A party then ensued with lots of laughter and alcohol consumption. A year later, when Bart was inducted to that same honorary fraternity, the occasion was not marked in any way.
* * *
I watched construction for hours on end. On quiet afternoons while others were in class, studying at one of our libraries or working, I sat on the radiator in our room and watched the men work. I wrote letters to friends from back home – Victor, Igor, Julie, Erin, Valli and of course, Ross. I just didn’t feel at home or comfortable. I was in flux, anxious, unable to concentrate. So, I watched men tear out a road and build a new one. By this point in the semester, construction was finishing up. They laid asphalt.
The fumes permeated all the way to the sixth floor. Trucks rumbled in and poured steaming asphalt along a section, rollers followed behind and pressed the surface smooth. Working in small manageable sections, it was finished in just a few days. Men wielding hand rollers matched seams and ironed the edges where the asphalt met the granite curbs. They gave the pavement a slight crown so rain and snowmelt drained into the storm sewers. The new asphalt surface, dark and smooth, was perfect for skating or roller-blading. The next step will be to paint the stripes. They’re making it a one-way drive with angled parking.
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Proposal
Post Mark 30 SEP 1985, Cincinnati, OH
Dear Soozin –
When do you want to get married?
I didn’t mean to sound so negative on the phone; I just need to talk a bunch cuz on Friday (20th) you told me you were sick of me and then you want to get married?
Well I’m really not against the idea, but is there anything that says that you won’t feel that way again?
‘FUZION.
I took me a long time to sit down and write this letter because I don’t know what to say. The truth is I’m just scared of you now because you are so unpredictable or out-of-control or something like that.
I went to Kings Island last night with Greg Wild. Pretty good time. Beast, Racer, Whitewater Canyon, the old fashioned drivey-cars, etc. Roller Coasters are too fun!
I had a ½ a beer at the beginning of the evening, and then I acted like an asshole, then I felt ok. Drinking could be useful if I could do it and not act like an asshole, but I can’t, so I won’t. How’s the COLLEGE party life?
Did you know that you don’t finish letters? You always say, “Well, I want to say more, but I’m just going to mail this.” Think about what you’re going to say and send me a complete letter! Frustrating.
I’ve got massive homework to do this weekend and I’ll bet I’m not alone in that respect! I need to do some work.
Bye for now, See you pretty soon (2 ½ weeks)
Love,
Ross
I’m getting depressed. It’s now 12:40 Sat. nite. I just went out with Dave M., Greg, Dave K and Groteke. Dave K said he was sort of astounded at the voice you used in your letters to him. As he put it, “She sounded like nothing bad had happened in the last six months.”
Well, I sort of know what he means.
I am nothing but confused and anxious for you to get home at this point.
I miss you.
I miss talking to someone.
We went to skyline tonight and I had a 4-way and a cheese coney. Then we went to white castle. Some days I really put my stomach through hell.
Did I really want to be married? I think I really did. Partly, it was the model I had. My parents eloped while they were in college. Heck, my grandparents eloped. My other grandparents had a small family ceremony after my grandmother’s brother died. Ross was supposed to call me up, tell me to meet him at such and such a time and place, and whisk me away to some state where we could be married with no waiting period. I was eighteen. He was twenty. We were in love. Let’s do it – let’s get married. NOW, please! Before I lose my focus completely!
I’m not good at being on my own. I need a partner to function in this world; someone to inspire me, to support me, to learn with, share ideas and adventures, to comfort each other in times of sadness. As much as a challenge I’ve had to stay sane, by myself I would be dead long since. Throughout the years, David and I talked about my need for a partner. When I got married, he stopped talking to me; dropped out of my life completely disappearing for eight years. I missed him when he didn’t answer the wedding invitation I sent. Years later, when I asked about it, he talked about his own fears of weddings, his disheartening experiences with his divorced parents, his own fear of settling down.
I concentrated my efforts on getting out of Rochester and back in Cincinnati. I applied to Montessori schools to find out about education training. I wrote for information from St. Xavier University. I thought if I moved back home, Ross would be able to be there for me. At least I hoped so. I got an application and filled it out. I had nothing to lose, right? I mailed the completed forms back requesting an early decision as a possible transfer student.
Ross felt depressed and I seemed out-of–control? Definitely. Most definitely I was out-of-control. My grades sucked. Supposedly, the reason for college was to attend classes and learn new things; write what they ask of me, complete the homework they assign. But I wasn’t doing it. The experience was a complete waste of my parents’ money, and it was a LOT of money. I was terribly homesick; I missed Ross desperately, my mother was busy grieving for her mother, overall my parents were busy and seemingly not aware or concerned about my unhappiness. Friends from high school were scattered all over the country, suffering their own trials and tribulations. New friends were interesting and supportive, but they pulled me away from home and Ross.
I wonder if later on, Ross remembered the hours we spent on the phone – just listening to each other breathe. That really annoyed my suitemates. I even bought a cheap phone with a long phone cord so I could be on the phone in my own room, instead of sitting on the cold floor in the hallway. We listened to each other for hours; I missed his presence so much. I wanted to be near him, with him. I wanted Ross to help me.
Hindsight being 20/20, I’m now able to see that this was my first real foray into the rapid cycling of bipolar disease. I spent my manic moments, ups, with new friends, laughing and giggling and sharing flashes of inspiration and brilliance. Then I crashed, hard, into a down period. I desperately wanted, needed Ross to help me through my depressive times. I was mentally ill, and no one recognized it, except perhaps Ross; and he was powerless to help. Who would believe the tales he told about his crazy girlfriend in Rochester?
��8J
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Identity Crisis
Does anybody know who I am?
Half the UofR population was from South of Albany - Yonkers, Westchester, Manhattan, Long Island, Bronx. The whole world was on their islands (Chinatown, Little Italy, “The Village”, Wall Street, United Nations) including American popular culture (Letterman, Saturday Night Live, Broadway, Times Square). They had no need to know what lay west of the Hudson River. Their apathy toward geography was most disconcerting, and I had a huge complex about it.
For me, geography is a part of identity. Regional accents, regional foods, regional past-times all contribute to who you are as a person. Those who grow up transiently, living in one part of the world for a year, then moving on, learn to appreciate those regionalisms, and their very transience becomes part of their identity. “Worldians” my brother calls them, those who, for whatever reasons, moved frequently during their formative years. Part of getting to know another person includes learning their geography. I felt no one cared about my geography, and so didn’t care about me.
My parents were both born and raised in West Virginia. My childhood holidays were spent riding along old Route 52 along the Ohio River from Cincinnati to Charleston. As a pre-schooler my family lived for a time in Caracas, Venezuela. The summer of 1982, between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I bought a plane ticket to London. For over a year I saved babysitting money, gift money, “found monies” and put them in my passbook savings account. My brother Jack lived in Berlin for a time, and I had it in my head that I needed to see Europe. I bought a plane ticket and a railway pass. My parents arranged for Jack to pick me up in London, and he and I "did" Europe, in a way. He was producing/directing a play as part of the Fringe Festival in Edinborough, so off we went. We rode the train from London, and spent several days in Edinborough. Jack dropped me off at a tourist site, left to take care of business, then hours later returned to pick me up. We did this sort of thing in Edinborough, London, again in Paris, then on to Strasbourg, and to Jack’s girlfriend’s family’s cottage in West Germany and finally on to Berlin (years before the wall fell).
I had also been a part of numerous (too numerous!) road trips with my folks across the U.S. As a pre-teen, I rode down the West Virginia turnpike in the backseat of various automobiles to deliver Jack to Wake Forest University in North Carolina. We crossed Paint Creek no fewer than eleven times each trek. As a teenager, I rode trains from Chicago to Denver, Denver to Salt Lake, Salt Lake to Portland, OR. I rode in the back of a car on both the east and west side of the Cascade Mountains. I visited the lava fields of what is now Newberry National Volcanic Monument, saw Crater Lake before the snow melted for the summer, and attended plays at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. I rode the train from LA to Seattle, passing by the devastation of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens, and rode in the back of a car from Salem, OR back east through Idaho, to Yellowstone, then on to Mount Rushmore and through the Badlands. Mom drove right by Wall Drug without stopping, but Dad refused to miss the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.
��The summer before my sixteenth birthday, Dad flew to Toronto for work, and Mom and I drove up via Niagara Falls. We spent a couple of days at the company apartment in Toronto, and then took the train to Moncton, New Brunswick. In New Brunswick, we stayed at the Tidal Bore Inn and I witnessed the creek reverse its flow as the tidal bore rolled in from the Bay of Fundy. From there we rode the ferry to Prince Edward Island. During my Junior year of high school I spent a long weekend with friends in Chicago. Then in my Senior year I rode on a Greyhound bus from Cincinnati to Chicago and back. All the time I was growing up, my father traveled extensively for his job. When he was home, we pulled out the map, atlas, or almanac as the dinner table discussion required. I know my geography. But I had NEVER been to Boston or New York City.
I was so frustrated with this prevalent attitude, this oblivion toward anything west of the Hudson, that I was moved to try to educate my ignorant peers. I wanted someone to care about my geography, and hence, about me.
Ken was from Gallup, New Mexico. Like many of us on the floor, he went as far away from home as he could manage. He was from a close-knit family, his parents were traditional to the core, and Ken battled his budding homosexuality all through adolescence. He was anxious to get away and become himself. He needed distance in order to blossom. We laughed a lot together. We were both homesick, both asserting independence. He struggled to establish himself with the campus gay community - a real challenge in the mid-80s. Proverbial closet doors were still firmly shut, and HIV/AIDS was a nasty “gay disease” in the U.S. He and I laughed together about dating and how he would find someone without looking like a total moron. What does a gay person look like, anyway? He was also enthusiastic about the local queen scene, and got the girls on the floor to dress him up for Drag Queen nights at one of the local bars. Also like me, he was annoyed at the attitude of the students from New York. So, he willingly went along with my scheme.
A system of underground tunnels connects the campus buildings. During inclement weather, this was truly a blessing. One particular tunnel was given over to graffiti. Mostly, the fraternities and sororities painted it to advertise a particular Greek house, or party, or some other social function. But there were few rules and the tunnel was there to be painted by whoever wanted to paint. Enlisting Ken’s help, along with some other friends, I acquired the necessary paint, and painted a map of the United States. It was large – very large – we found a ladder, set it up and climbed up to spray the outline of Maine up near the top of the fifteen foot high wall. Then outlined the coastline south to Florida, brought the St. Lawrence Seaway West into the mitt of Michigan, adding in the Great Lakes. We highlighted the Mississippi from Louisiana on up north, and finally on the West Coast, drew the line from Puget Sound to LA. I noted landmarks as best I could – and included what states I could reasonably reproduce; Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada. Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maine. I put a large asterisk at the appropriate bump in my rendition of the Ohio River and sprayed, “Cincinnati, it is a place” across the Midwest. I signed the work with a smiley face and “Allny, Allny, Allny” as an homage to my identity with Ross.
Amazingly, that mural stayed up for a couple of weeks before some fraternity finally obliterated it. When walking through that tunnel, I overheard students questioning it, wondering why it had appeared. Asking, “What’s ALL NEW YORK?” I wanted to scream at them, “It’s NOT FUCKING NEW YORK YOU SELF-CENTERED BIGOTS! IT’S ALLNY, WITH YOUR TONGUE BETWEEN YOUR MOLARS.” But realized any attempt would be futile, and I’d only alienate myself even more. But, if any students were intrigued enough by my efforts to look beyond the Hudson River, I accomplished something. I find it appropriate that the closest friends I kept since leaving college were NOT from New York City. Instead, they hail from such diverse locales as Albany, Syracuse, Maryland, Eastern Pennsylvania, Eastern Oregon, South Central Massachusetts, even a Worldian, but only one native New Yorker.
Irony of ironies, David fell in love with New York City. He spent a summer as a bike messenger in Manhattan, and later lived there for several years pursuing a career in video production. He was enthusiastic about life in The City, and left only reluctantly. Ken and his partner live there now, Ken never wants to live anywhere else.
* * *
My wisdom teeth started coming in. My gums were sore and swollen. My mouth itched like crazy. The bottom teeth erupted first, irritating my gums even more. I called my dentist at home – the one who had fixed my two front teeth just over a month previous – and asked what to do. He checked my records, determined there were no problems with them, they weren’t impacted I had plenty of room for them. “But they itch like crazy!” “Gargle with hot salt water and hydrogen peroxide, and call me back if there are any problems.” So, while I was unlearning dumness, I still was constantly using my tongue to massage my gums. This led to another quote in Stephen Paul’s little black book, “My wisdom teeth came in and it itches, so I play with it.” It seemed everyone else in the dorm endured wisdom tooth impaction and pending extraction. Another rite of passage I missed. No tonsils out, no appendicitis, no braces, no broken bones, and no wisdom tooth extraction. I am still intact today. Even my twins were born without surgery.
* * *
Roadway construction continued; I couldn’t get over it. One crew finished the piping and wiring and such while other crews worked to replace the curbstones. I was fascinated. First shovels excavated the soil to the side of the new roadway, and then specialty cranes lowered the curbs into place. Using small loaders, the men wrestled the stones to level. I saw one crack, but they salvaged it using some sort of bonding agent.
After the curbs were set, HUGE dump trucks brought in load after load of gravel to fill in the roadway. Loaders moved the piles around, spreading the gravel as level as possible. Rollers, brought in on flatbeds, ironed the rocks flat smoothing the surface to the necessary grade.
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Visit
Ross visited Thursday, September 19th through Sunday the 22nd. His plane arrived late afternoon / early evening on Thursday. I’d spent the week previous planning for his arrival. Airport transportation and car rental were real challenges. It was so hard to adjust to not being able to go wherever whenever. Not having a car on campus was a real struggle. Ross and I drove all over southwestern Ohio together. I missed that freedom. I called listing after listing in the yellow pages. “What’s your rate for a three-day rental?” “Do you have any weekend specials?” “Is there an age limit?” “Are there any additional fees if you’re under 25?” “Yes, I have a credit card.” (Dad had co-signed for me in the weeks before I left for school.) I found only one agency that would rent to young people under the age of 21. I still believe it’s age discrimination – but how do you fight it? Once that was arranged, I begged Stephen Paul to drive me to the airport to meet him. He agreed and dropped me off at the door of the airport and drove back to campus.
At the door? Well, yes. Rochester is a small town. Sure, it’s the world headquarters of Kodak, Xerox and Bausch and Lomb, but that doesn’t automatically mean that Rochester is a bustling booming metropolis. It’s a city; a few tall buildings downtown, an urban transportation center, theater district and all that. But the small airport serves the community sufficiently and it was even smaller in 1985. And it’s fewer than three miles from campus. To get there by car, take the Elmwood Street bridge over the river, turn right onto Genesee Park Boulevard, and turn left onto Brooks Avenue. A mile or so later, cross over the highway and at the one traffic light, turn left into the airport parking lot. Aviators learn to align the airplane with Elmwood Avenue, fly over the dome of the campus library building (also referred to as the “nipple of knowledge”) cross the river and land on the runway. Airplane enthusiasts loved watching the various planes fly over campus.
Stephen Paul dropped me off at the airport door and I went in to meet Ross at the gate. I was tense and full of questions. My two worlds were colliding and I didn’t know how to behave. How would Ross fit into the world and persona I had created at the UofR? I learned that choo-in’ was unacceptable. It was hard to break that habit, but I was already working on it.
Even with all that pent-up tension, it was still good to see him. He walked through the doors with his backpack slung over his shoulder, and we hugged immediately. He’s real! Not just a voice on the other end of a telephone line. Not an unknown author of scribbled thoughts on paper that ended up in my mailbox. It’s Ross, it’s Bok, and he’s REAL, and he’s here to see ME. Oh I love you. I missed you. I hope this hug never ends - we fit together so well.
We broke our hug finally, and kissed, and the questions began, “Who drove you to the airport? How’re your folks? How’s Skot-X?” “Is that all your luggage? No need for a trip to the carousel? Let’s go get the rental car.”
Arms still around each other (I wasn’t about to let him go) we walked to the rental car counter. Ross filled out the paperwork, gave the woman his credit card, and she ran it through the reader. Everything was in order, so she gave him the keys and directions to find where the car was parked. Aaah. Sweet Freedom!
The car was a tiny thing, a Ford Escort, or a competitor’s equivalent with two doors, bucket seats and a tinny engine. But I didn’t care; it was transportation. Ross and I were together again! Nearly a month apart, and we both were going to have to adjust. Our expectations for the weekend were high – how could we possibly live up to them? There would inevitably be some disappointment.
It didn’t take long. I didn’t know how to navigate the short drive back to campus. I got frustrated and started bawling like a baby. Fortunately, the woman at the rental counter had handed us a map with the rest of the paperwork. We sorted out where we were and how to get to campus. Already I had broken down in tears – what a way to welcome the love of my life, “Hello, I love you. Now I’ll cry.”
Once on campus, we made it back to the dorm, figured out where to park and dared campus security to ticket the vehicle. I’d pay the fine if I had to. We approached the door and I had to dig for my ID card to get into the building. I slid my card through the reader, the buzzer sounded, Ross pulled the door open and held it for me, following me in to the building. I wonder now what his impressions were. What did he think of the college I chose?
I pushed the button to call the elevator and quietly, without conversation, we rode up to the sixth floor together. Who would be on the floor? Would 6124’s be busy? Roz was going to stay in Mike’s room. That was nice of her. The other girls in our suite didn’t seem to mind Ross staying.
I had planned as far as Ross’ arrival. Now that he was here with me, I had no idea what we were to do. Since I didn’t have a car, I had no idea where things were off campus. And driving in the dark, while it was a ritual at home, we were in unfamiliar territory. Here in Rochester my geography was befuddled. We had missed dining center hours, so as dark quickly approached I decided we could eat dinner at the student union. I’d walk him around campus, show him the sights of my small sad little world. He’d meet my floor-mates, and we could decide what to do for the next couple of days. It was a plan.
I wish I remembered more of Ross’ visit. I’m sure we spent time in my room. I know he met most of the people I had gotten to know. We also got off campus with the rental car. It was then that everything “clicked” and my world stopped spinning around me. I was back in familiar territory – in the passenger seat of a vehicle, with Ross in the driver seat, music on the radio. Life was good for a few minutes. Everything made sense again.
Pets were allowed in our dorm rooms. No dogs, no cats, but rodents in a cage (mice, gerbils, hamsters, chinchillas, rabbits) lizards, snakes, tarantulas and fish were all fair game, so long as your roommate/suitemates did not have allergies or objections. Ross may have been the one who instigated the acquisition of the Lesters. I bought a tank set-up for a couple of anoles, small green-brown lizards common to Florida and the southern U.S. They’re all over the Caribbean. Roz and I couldn’t tell them apart, so we named them both Lester, Lester the Lizards. I bought a heat lamp and some sticks and gravel for them to romp on, around and through. I took a piece of string and fashioned a leash for them so they could be exercised. I spent the remainder of freshman year begging for rides to the pet store to buy crickets and fly larvae for the things to eat. Later on in the year, we had lizard races in the hallway. It was an occasion for alcohol consumption. The lizards survived. Don’t know how – they must be hardy little things. They became famous. Oddly, I don’t remember their demise. To the best of my recollection, I never disposed of their carcasses and I didn’t sell them. The following year I got a rabbit, and then another rabbit. What did happen to those Lesters anyway?
Ross had to return home for classes and homework and plans of his own to concentrate on. We drove back to the airport and returned the rental car. I stayed with him as long as I could before he had to board the airplane. I was devastated. Why couldn’t he stay? Why couldn’t I go home with him? We’d see each other again in another month – over October break. I took a taxi back to the dorm, rode the elevator up to my room and waited for Ross’ phone call to let me know he was home safe.
W
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