Forty Years

He left instructions on how to imagine, how to see, which he gave to us through the lives of his fictional characters. Those are the lives that will touch us forever—lonely and often isolated like the rest of us, struggling to figure it out. – David Means, Denis Johnson’s Lasting Advice

PART 1-JUNE 1978

Friday Morning

Sarah Bradford blinked. Her eyes opened. She looked up.  A Pink Floyd poster was taped on the ceiling above. Sarah’s face scrunched up. Her grimace was showing Sarah’s crystalline knowledge of a major problem; she was not in her own bed. Sarah’s ceiling was unadorned by anything other than a standard dorm light fixture. This mattress she was laying on was in the middle of the floor resting upon the university’s standard speckled brown linoleum. Sarah’s room had bunk beds pushed neatly against the wall. If Sarah were in her bed she would be looking up at the bottom of her departed roommate’s mattress. Shit! Shit,Shit,Shit…

A state at waking exists between being hung over, and being normal. This mid-June morning, in this strange room, Sarah had found her way to that middle place. This unnamed state involves things like a dry-sticky mouth, a generalized but mild body ache and a clearly discernible disquiet in the belly that was not really what you would call queasy.  A glass of water, a piece of buttered toast and two Tylenol would remedy all of these issues.  Sarah had much larger issues to deal with, water, toast and Tylenol would have to wait.

Trumping Sarah’s current physical malaise, and her location disorientation, were two very critical facts. First, she was buck naked. Sarah saw her clothing hanging off a chair, next to a desk, across the room. Shit, I put them there last night. Second, probably more importantly, the naked man next to her was not her fiancé.  Fucking A. She tried to remember what had happened,  

As she propped herself up on her elbows, Sarah shook her long blond hair side to side.  What now? The nude male body next to her did not stir. Sarah finally saw his chest rise and then fall; good, at least he is not dead. 

Sarah on a sunny Friday in 1978 was obviously miles from peace of mind.  Just turned 21 she could see a world of trouble ahead, clearly and unavoidably.  

The radio was on playing softly as Sarah contemplated her next move. She listened to an a cappella version of After the Gold Rush. The deep voiced man announcing the track stated the song name, something she already knew. He identified the band, Prelude, this was something she didn’t know.  This was one of many things, some quite immense, unknown to Sarah this morning. What the fuck?

Almost Empty

Spring term’s conclusion, especially on the last few days of week two of finals, brings about some of the oddest things. Walking through the dorms you notice many rooms tightly closed up. With the shutting of those doors, close friends have been split apart and are gone, maybe gone forever.

On Thursday of the second week mostly out of state kids remain. Noon Friday is the drop-dead date to get out.  Technically finals end Thursday of week two. At a school on the quarters system this falls in mid-June. In reality most testing and paper due dates concluded Tuesday. You can hear the doors closing on the academic year as people headed out, gone to get to their summer jobs asap. 

In addition to out of state people waiting for a ride from families who come from far away, some folks have to stay to finish up big projects. Some folks simply did not want to go home; they lied to their parents claiming a second week Thursday final.

In these days between the end of academic work and transport, the remaining few faced a social order breakdown. Cliques were in disarray, the alpha male or the she wolf had gone home to the ‘burbs of a dying industrial city. Leaderless, the clique followers were like dogs whose territory was lost to them after a rain had washed away their urine marked boundaries. People were adrift in empty hours.

In 1978 you drank at eighteen.  For those with too much time on their hands during these vacant days, there were many bars that catered to the students. More than a few beer and burger joints sat just across the boulevard separating town from campus. People who did not usually hit those places on a regular term bar night, say because these dives were too noisy or too crowded, might well find their way there during finals week two, lacking anything better to do.  Good burger & beer specials were available, if you had any money left in your bank account.

If you looked for someone to celebrate (or commiserate) with, your choice was limited.  You might “bond” with someone you had been civil with during the term, but who was not really in your circle, not a bro’ and definitely not someone you dated. It might have to be somebody you only kind of, sort of, had a connection with.  Maybe you knew of them, and the word was that they were okay. Maybe you had sat next to them in class.   

Many rooms had just one person left spending the last days of the term alone. Stereos were packed up and gone.  Music came from a cheap off-brand radio your aunt gave for graduation.  The rectangular electrical music box sat at on the corner of your room’s deep welled window, one rabbit ear up. 

During the year most people had lofts, or waterbeds, or a combination of both. To set up a room like this you had to put your bed in basement storage. When you left, the university expected a reassembled standard issue bed. Getting your bed frame out of storage might take time due to the diminishing supply of student workers.  While you waited for your furniture to reappear, you might be sleeping on your now gone roommate’s mattress on the floor.  

These could be hollow hours but if circumstances broke right these last few days of the year could be fun.  The question was just how much fun?

Pot smoke was everywhere at term’s end.  Everyone smoked their weed to get rid of it before they went home.  You didn’t want Mom, who might voluntarily unpack your clothes, to find a baggie filled with Maryjane.  People, some stoned and some not, sat out on the lawns around the dorms on that last Thursday afternoon to feel the warm breezes of late spring early summer.  The uniform for these warm days was halter tops with no bras and short shorts for women.  Guys wore cut off blue jeans and t-shirts that said, “University of … “, and the name of some foreign school. The tee would have a brightly colored coat of arms and some deep meaningful thing written in Latin.

Sam Alone

On Wednesday afternoon a lanky six-foot one young man lay on his mattress. Sam Hurst was thinking about what came next. Sam’s end of the year had gone well academically but it was a disaster socially.  The relationship he had expected to return to when he got home had blown up in a series of about five letters and two phone calls.  The gist of the issue was that he did not want the same things Erin did.

Sam was pretty sure he loved Erin.  They had met early in high school and she was the first girl he had sex with.  The two broke up for part of junior year and Sam did date and sleep with a couple of other girls, but he and Erin just kept finding themselves together. There she was again and again at movies, at church hayrides, and in school clubs. Over the summer before senior year they got back together. All that year they were inseparable. Together they applied to the same schools.  He got in at State, his first choice.  She didn’t.  She got into Great Plains College, a smaller state school to the west.  Sam got accepted there too. In the end Sam’s choices were based on money, Sam’s National Merit awards and very favorable grants and loans took him to State. Erin got work study cash from Great Plains.

Erin swore she and Sam would keep the relationship alive despite the schools being two hours apart. They truly tried to keep the spark alive. Every other weekend for the first year of college one or the other, would take a bus ride.  Sitting on a Greyhound they travelled through every backwater town and whistle stop, to the other’s school.  For thirty-six hours they would drink, coo to each other and fuck like rabbits. Sophomore year the visits had slowed as each of them had become more involved in the social life of their respective campuses.  But still they called each other a couple of times a week, but only after 10 when the rates dropped.  They sent each other letters and cards all signed with notes of love and devotion. During junior year Sam kept up the calls and the letters. But Sam noticed Erin was sending fewer and fewer letters.  Sam still called but Erin never did. The responses were much vaguer and there were few responsive “I love yous,” from Erin.

In those late junior year letters and phone calls there were spats about when they could get together this summer, and things they could do.  Being the 1970s the talk was not of sex acts but rather of concerts to be seen or day trips to be taken.  In each missive the threads that bound them together pulled farther apart. When the phone calls came on these big old black Western Electric phones, the damage was already severe enough that a 20-minute weekend call could do nothing to save the romance.  A 10-minute weekend call to say, ‘Are you sure,” was totally useless. Shit, she was probably fucking someone else. The possibility that was a fact hurt Sam deeply.

Sam’s finals ended Tuesday.  He had finished up his course on the Intellectual History of the United States 1890 to Current with an exam mid-afternoon.  Sam filled in short answer questions about the Beats, Randolph Bourne and Elvis. He picked one of five figures listed and wrote a short one-page essay. Sam wrote about the lasting impact of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road on American intellectual culture. 

Sam’s roommate Bruno didn’t leave until Wednesday morning. So, right after Sam’s exam they went to the Forestry Department’s wood lot and smoked the last of Wayne’s pot. Sam thus ponied up for the pair’s beers that Tuesday night. Sam had worked all year cleaning various dorm kitchens, thus he had about $40 from his last university paycheck of the year. Sam cleaned a lot of grease traps for his money. He earned his money the nasty way.

With a crashed and burnt romance as background noise, with Wayne gone, and with no ride out until Friday, Sam was at loose ends on Wednesday afternoon. The dorm was an empty cavern.  There was no cable TV. At best you had two over the air channels ABC and NBC. The TV was an ancient black and white set.  You had no internet.  Sam couldn’t pull out a smart phone and play games or look up something that interested him.  He could play real solitaire.  He could read a book.  He could put a blanket down on the grass outside and catch some rays. He could drink beer. He would get high.

Sam walked campus from end to end, took forty minutes all told.  He returned a borrowed LP to a friend who lived all the way across the railroad tracks, south of the river. The tracks split the campus in half.  The river split the north end of campus in half. Coming back Sam spent some time feeding the ducks at the river.  He had a slice of toast in his pocket, secreted away at breakfast earlier.  Sitting by the river he was Sam God of Bread to a furiously paddling motley flock of ducks.  

While being busy as the Duck God, Sam still glanced at people coupled up on blankets by the river.  They were intertwined on the lawn like the strands of twine making up a rope, i.e., inseparable.  Each couple was making out furiously hoping to ensure their mate remembered them all through the summer, well at least until they got back in September.  Sam’s gut hurt when he watched this. A few letters and phone calls had ended his tolerance for lovebirds. He threw what remained of his duck ambrosia into the water and left hurriedly.

Wednesday night Sam smoked all but one last joint of his dope, He spent the night reading back issues of Rolling Stone. Reading, starring at pictures, did it matter which? There were lots of articles about Nixon and the peanut farmer who eventually replaced him. There was a long interview with Jerry Garcia. 

Sam woke up Thursday morning on his roommate’s mattress in the middle of the floor. Sam was already bored to death. The last refuge to the lost that Thursday night was a final evening at the bars.  Well drinks would be 25 cents until eight pm.   Draft Stroh’s would be a dime a beer. Even then Sam knew he should never drink alone. 

Sarah Alone

Sarah always headed down to breakfast by 7:30. A petite, long haired blond, Sarah was a business major. Her class load was heavily weighted with math, stats and marketing classes. In Sarah’s mind such courses were best understood in the early hours of the day. At 9 am she was mentally fresh. As a result, her breakfast had to be early. She followed this pattern even during finals week.

Sarah had only stayed to finish up one paper.  On a lark she had took an elective course. For some unexplained reason Sarah took a 300 level English course.  At term’s end she owed her prof 1000 words on Shakespeare’s relevance in the 1970s. The paper was due at noon Thursday of the second week of finals.  Sarah opted to compare King Lear to the fall of Richard Nixon back in August 1974.  Sure, it was a stretch, but the abandonment that Nixon clearly felt could be worked up against the old King Lear out on the heath.

Nixon and Lear; A Comparison of the Ancients in Exile, was turned in by 11 a.m. on Wednesday.  Sarah had budgeted far more time than she really needed, just in case she hit a bit of mental block or she couldn’t get the paper typed up quickly enough.  Sarah was like that, meticulous and plan oriented. 

Sarah had a roommate and a third friend that made up her social core at State. Sarah was used to conversation; talk was almost nonstop when Amy, her roommate and Shelly her wall-mate, were present.  She was used to laughing and heading out to a campus movie, just the three of them.  In the winter the young women would go skate at the hockey rink.  In the spring they would take a canoe from the campus livery and paddle the river.  When they were in their room they would joke, play Hall and Oates on the stereo. They would play backgammon.  Sarah was damn good at backgammon

Amy’s dad was off from work Tuesday having smashed his right hand’s little finger at the plant. Not having to take his shift, Mr. Norman drove the Chevy Van up late in the day. The three girls worked fast as they packed up the avocado bush, the bean bag chairs, and the multiple suitcases of clothing. After an hour or so the room was essentially stashed in the van. 

Mr. Norman bought a meal ticket and ate dinner with the three girls in the dorm.  The food was nondescript, but at least it wasn’t offensive.  Sarah knew by Wednesday night whatever meal that was served would be awful. After dinner and with a wave, Mr. Norman turned on the van whisking both Amy and Shelly off toward home.    

Sarah’s junior year was ending.  Unlike her friends, Sarah had found an earnest beau early on.  He was a junior when she was a freshman.  They met at a kegger held by the student business club. By the time of her fiancé’s graduation last year they were engaged.  Why was she still here when she had much stuff to do at home? Sarah had dress fittings to attend.  She had meetings scheduled to review the menu at banquet hall for her wedding reception coming up in August. 

Brad was not the first man Sarah had slept with, that was Ralph back in the fall of senior year at high school. However, Sarah had every intention that Brad would be the last person she would sleep with.  Her man was smart and witty. Brad played hockey and was in toned shape.  He was easy on the eyes. After graduation Brad had gotten on in the marketing department at a car company. His hire was a good job fit for him and he had already been promoted.  Sarah knew in her heart of hearts they would be a power couple. Pretty and handsome, they would produce great looking and very smart, babies.

But Sarah was sure babies would not happen for several years.  Sarah knew how to be smart.  She got on the pill before she bedded Ralph and stayed on it.  Her plan was to find a job, most likely with a clothing retailer, and work her ass off. Sarah did not come to university for an MRS degree.  Sarah had dreams. Her loins were girded for battle in the workplace.  Sarah had taken a couple of women’s studies courses, as they were called in those days.  She knew the score for a woman in business. Sarah planned to fight the glass ceiling; she knew had the smarts and the drive. Kids would have to wait until she had gotten beyond just a toehold in her career.

Wednesday, after turning the paper in, she had sold back her textbooks.  Later she had kicked around town looking at some clothes. Boring. Dinner on Wednesday was atrocious as she knew it would be. Sarah had only eaten the tater tots and a piece of Sarah Lee walnut cake. Sarah had sat in her room Wednesday night and read Jaws.  She read a book about a big fish that terrorized a seaport town. Bag that shit, she was not going to be a prisoner tomorrow night.

The Cute Meet

On Thursday morning Sarah, in accord with her normal practice, she headed down to breakfast as soon as it opened.  Her stomach grumbled. She was really hungry. Sarah had nothing since dinner on Wednesday except for a diet cola.  Still, what she was really hungry for was human companionship.  Without Amy and Shelly, Sarah was not really lost but more alone than she cared to be.

That morning all the cafeterias on Campus North closed for the year, except for one. A skeleton crew was working that one dorm’s food service.  The hours at the cafeteria were shortened.  If you ate breakfast, you had to hit the cafeteria between 7:30 to 8:30 am for scrambled eggs and toast.  Nobody ate the purported breakfast meats this late in the term.  You would drink a large glass of orange juice because from prior years’ experience everyone knew the quality of the juice would remain unchanged.

Instead of tables being packed with people, there would be a person here or a person there.  Back in those days you could smoke at the smoking tables.  For some, the morning meant black coffee, a Marlboro, some eggs and toast. This was Sam’s usual breakfast.  It was not Sarah’s usual breakfast. She never took to smoking although she tried a cigarette here and there when she was at the bars with Amy and Shelly.

Sarah was hungry and Sam was hungry. While they both lived in the same complex, the cafeteria that was open was located in neither of their dorms. Both of them made their way to this one open cafeteria. Hitting breakfast right as the food line started found Sarah and Sam relatively alone in the unfamiliar food hall. 

Sam grabbed his eggs and a piece of toast (he was thinking he would like to be Duck God again later in the day}.  He navigated to a six-topper table by the window that had an ash tray. Leaving his tray, he went and retrieved a cup of very hot black coffee. 

Sarah grabbed a muffin and a small bowl of cornflakes.  She filled up a tall glass with orange juice and took a half pint box of skim milk.  The tall glasses in the rack were funny.  They were kind of bulbous at the top. She guessed this was to make the glass easier to hold.

Snapping back from her thoughts on glassware design decisions made by the geniuses at Anchor Hocking Sarah scanned the room for anyone she knew.  Nobody.  There was one fairly innocuous long-haired thin guy sitting by the window just starting to dig into his eggs.  He had a folded-up newspaper, a pack of Marlboros, and a cup of coffee sitting next to his plate. Sam was Sarah’s best option for conversation at this hour. Besides he looked a little like Donald Sutherland in the movie Klute. 

Sarah cut a soft curve of a path toward Sam, just in case something alerted her, Danger Will Robison-like, of something ominous.  Seeing no born to kill tattoos on either of Sam’s arms she commenced the conversation.

Sarah: “Would I be safe if I sat here?”

Sam: “What is your definition of safe?”

Sam wondered who would ever in this life think him dangerous.  He laughed and waved for Sarah to sit down.  Sarah found Sam’s laugh friendly and she laughed too. Sam asked in quiet voice, “So you are one of us abandoned ones this year?” Sarah nodded yes. The follow up was have you ever been here at end of term before?  Sarah hadn’t and she let Sam know she hadn’t, pointing out she was stuck until Friday when her ride would be free to pick her up.  Sam quickly followed up with a question as to what Sarah thought of this place when it is so empty?” “Weird.”  Sarah tried to explain it was not frightening just lonely.  Sam agreed.

Together the two ran through a version of twenty questions seeking common connections. Sam probed why Sarah was here so late, besides the ride situation.  Sam knew it was usually guys who were the last to leave, Sarah was thus an anomaly.  She told him about the paper and rambled on about how reading Shakespeare was fun, but reading about Nixon was just awful.  

Next came the hometown questions. Sarah lived east and suburban.  Sam’s town was west and agricultural. He threw in an “Eh?”, to draw her into asking if he was Canadian.  Sam was a duelie, his Mom was Canadian born out near the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. His dad was from good old America. Together his parents had raised him together in the States. Sam had spent a great deal of time in Ontario growing up. She didn’t bite.

Sarah trying to figure out if she had any connection to Sam made the decision to be partially disclosing. “Well, I lived in Harrison Hall my first three years.  Did you live there?  I mean you do look familiar.”  Sam answered with a short and simple, “Nope”.  But Sam knew the game was on. He referenced how times were different with the 18-year-old drinking age and there might have been the chance they met at a TGIF event.

Sarah and Sam tried to find people they had in common in their lives. The only person who fit the bill was one girl Sam had two with classes back to back.  The first class was European history, The Onset of Christianity Through 1300.  The second course was a library science intro. The girl, a brunette from a suburb near Sarah, ribbed Sam endlessly about being a teacher’s pet in the history course. Sarah said she had a stats course with the girl.  Sarah queried about the teacher’s pet thing.

Sam told Sarah how the girl had made fun of him because of his mouthiness in the history course.  What?  “Panem and Circensis” he replied.  Sarah gave the lanky dude sipping his coffee and tamping down his cigarette pack a puzzled look. Panem et Circenses, that was weird.  Weirder yet was the fact he was wrapping up his toast in a napkin.

Sam explained that the history course was dry, very dry.  The instructor read from canned notes and on occasion showed a slide. One day the instructor was talking about how the Romans had become bogged down with costly idylls provided for the masses.  Sam, in response, had whispered from the back of the room sotto voce “Panem and circenses”. Like a heat seeking missile, the professor had turned her head around and asked tersely, “Who said that?”  The guy in the seat next to him pointed at Sam.  “What’s your name?” “Sam Hurst” he replied.  Okay so I am assuming you have some exposure to a classical education, so now would you like to translate that for the rest of the class?  “Bread and circuses”. From that moment on he was on the professor’s radar.  Sam knew he had to be well read before he came to class because if nobody else answered, there came the “Well Mr. Hurst what can you tell us about….” 

It was the seventies and the LP was still king.  So, Sam and Sarah talked about music.  She liked Steve Miller.  Sam did too.  Problem was he liked the Steve Miller of Your Saving Grace and she liked the Steve Miller of the Joker. These were not the same Steve Miller.  They were, but they weren’t. One Steve Miller was part of the mind-bending summer of love and the other was one who decided to cash in on top 40 radio.  Sarah also liked Fleetwood Mac, the Rhiannon Fleetwood Mac. He liked Fleetwood Mac the Peter Green Fleetwood Mac of Then Play On era. Sam decided not to ask her if she liked, or even had heard of the Clash. Sam had their first album, as an import. He played White Riot, over and over again in his room.

Finally, the talk came around to what each of them was going to do with this dead Thursday.  Neither had a real plan.  Sam suggested they meet up at about 10:30 at the used record store just down past the movie theatre.  Sarah figured it was a very public venue and Sam didn’t seem deranged, so why not.  

Sam said very softly to her, “Go get an order of toast and sneak it out.  I will make you a god if you do.” Sam was slipping his order of toast into his jean’s pockets. Sarah began to rethink whether she should show up at the record store.  Still, it was a very public place and it was daytime. What’s the harm?  If her mind Sam was mostly harmless. Sam had left before Sarah went and got some toast and secreted it away in her purse.

Lou Reed’s Perfect Day Moment

Sam got to the record store about 10:35. Sarah wasn’t there.  Sam was wearing cut off shorts and a T-Shirt he had gotten the summer before at a Grateful Dead show.  At 76 degrees outside, his outfit was just fine. The Dead tee was starting to fray; it was one of his favorites and he wore it too much. 

About 10 minutes after Sam got there, while he was looking at an Eric Dolphy double album Live in Amsterdam, Sarah arrived.  She had on thoroughly proper off-white almost cream painters pants.  She had a short-sleeved Oxford button down blouse and her light blond hair was pulled back into a pony tail.  Sarah had a camel colored big bag of a purse. Sam’s hair was just a little bit shorter than Sarah’s and it formed a bell shape around his head.  Sarah had a pair of Ray Bans on top of her head.  Sam, being a myopic bozo, was wearing his photo gray aviators.

Over the next twenty minutes the two of them rummaged bins all neatly arranged in alphabetical order. Sarah was firmly in the pop section.  Sam bounced between the jazz, folk, and punk bins. Sam asked the store owner to let him listen to the Dolphy album and he was assigned to a turntable and a set of headphones.  Sam liked what he heard.  Sam already loved Dexter Gordon and John Coltrane.  Dolphy was a good fit with his tastes.  $3.00 for a double LP wasn’t too bad.

Sarah had worked her way up and down the popular music bins.  As Sam approached the counter with the Dolphy discs in his hand, Sarah queued up behind him holding a copy of ELO’s El Dorado. Her disc was $1.75.  Sam thought with pity the ELO disc was overpriced. This once he showed discretion and he kept his inner jazz snob judgment of her purchase to himself. 

As they left the store Sarah said, “Jazz is just so boring”. Sam stopped himself from making the physical cringing motion he oh so wanted to make.  He offered, “You just have to find the right artist to be your gateway to the music.  I bet if you saw Pat Metheny preforming live you would be blown away.” Sam was not sure he wanted to spend the hours of a precious day of life with such a Philistine. But Sarah was attractive and maybe there were other areas they might be more closely aligned on.

Coming out into the sunlight on this warm spring day, Sarah pulled down the Ray Bans.  Sam’s glasses turned grey almost instantly.  Sam was hungry again, but the dorm that would be open for food; it would not be serving for 45 minutes.  Sam had a couple of dollars and some change in his pocket after the record purchase.  “Hey, if you will eat cheap and dirty, I will buy you a burger at McDonald’s or a couple of tacos at the Bell.  I mean they are about the same distance either way from here.” Sarah thought about it for maybe a second.  She had nothing else to do and nobody else was around to play with.  Off to Mickey D’s”. Clutching their brown record store bags emblazoned with a graphic of a disc with speed lines trailing after, they started their walk.

As they headed down the street, they talked about the stores that had changed since each of them had arrived, one of the old record stores was now a dance club.  The clothing stores had cheapened with t-shirt places replacing old style men’s wear shops. Sam missed those places that smelled of cedar and fresh shoe polish. 

Sarah’s tennis shoe got stuck in a crack in the sidewalk.  Sam jumped and grabbed both her arms from slightly behind so Sarah did not fall. ‘He was gentle.  But it was awkward, the bag with the double LP fell to the ground. Upon checking the fall hadn’t hurt the records. Still Sarah thought, he didn’t crush my arms.  He was watching me.’  All this cleared Sarah’s mind in a second or less.

Sam told her she would love jazz if she gave it a real try.  He urged Sarah to listen to the new jazz that was coming out on the ECM label.  Pat Metheny, Art Lande and Ralph Towner.  These guys were accessible but different.  Talking music, but not talking jazz, Sarah told Sam she and her roommate Amy had gone to see ELO when they played campus.  She really liked the songs from El Dorado. El Dorado was the album the band had been promoting at the time. Sam knew the album and remembered he liked a song called Boy Blue. He made a point of mentioning that to Sarah just to show he wasn’t a total jazz snob.

And then they were at Mickey D’s.  A couple of moments passed, and a couple of dollars were spent, and a couple of shakes and burgers were gone.  Sam found he was enjoying Sarah’s company.  She was cute.  She could tell a joke.  She could keep a conversation from dying on the vine.  Sarah was still thinking that Sam was mostly harmless, a nice diversion for a spring afternoon. Sam wondered if Sarah got high.  He was also wondering if she had grabbed some toast at breakfast.

In the 1970s if you were at university and you asked someone, “Do you smoke?”, everyone and that means everyone, knew you were talking about weed. Sam sitting in the booth at the kingdom of the orange fro’d clown and the Ham bugler decided to hold that question in reserve.  Instead he asked Sarah, “Did you get the toast?”  She smiled and nodded yes while pointing to her purse.  Standing up Sam in his deepest, deep bass voice said, “When then, let us go and make you a God.”  Sarah laughed.  She wondered what this was all about, but she decided to follow Sam. 

In 20 minutes of walking, and talking-there was no dead air. Sarah and Sam made it down to the point in the river where the ducks congregated without an awkward break in conversation. They seemed to all he outside world to be long term friends.  

Sarah looked at the dirty water, then the ducks and then at Sam. She laughed. “This is where you make me a god?” Sam smiled as he walked to the concrete embankment at the river’s edge.  “Well, here is where I make you a DUCK GOD, Sarah,” Together they retrieved their stashed toast.  They ripped the bread apart and threw it bit by bit into the river. First came one duck and then twenty.  The ducks jostled for a spot as near to Sarah and Sam as they could get. Quacking and splashing and with some aggressive wing flapping, the ducks consumed every bit of the manna the DUCK GODS provided.

Out of bread, but with the ducks still clamoring for more they sat down on a concrete bench just to watch the river flow. Sam decided, probably because he used to come down to this spot to toke on a doobie, to ask Sarah if she smoked dope.  Sarah’s answer was an unequivocal, “Nope”. She followed saying as far as she was concerned it was okay if Sam did, just not right then they were in a very public place.  At least part of Sarah’s comments wasn’t a lie.

Not wanting to let the moment hang awkward in the air of an otherwise fun day, Sarah said she preferred beer. Sam was all like no worries, let’s drop these discs off and meet at Tim Flannigan’s at about six. Flannigan’s was a student bar. Everyone called the place TF’s.  TF’s was a riff on a series of faux advertisements in the National Lampoon for a nonexistent charity.  The ads focused on the horrors of Terminal Flatulence and had spokespeople like Ernest Borgnine and Kate Smith.  In one ad the caption said people with TF could lead productive lives.  A phots in the ad showed a young Mexican boy named Pedro who was being held sideways and whose ass was being used as a flame flower.  It was juvenile and just wee bit extremely racist, but to the stoned college students of the day, Sam, included, it was damn funny.

Sam not wanting the day to end offered to meet Sarah at her dorm room, walk her to TFs, and afterward walk her back. Sarah thought, ‘What else do I have to do tonight?’ Besides Sam was interesting.  He was quick witted and focused. He lacked any major pool of sarcasm, something Brad had in spades.  Sarah was no slouch in that arena.  Her home had been an immersion course in sarcasm, with two acerbic sisters, and a father who hailed from New Jersey, the dinner table was a battle royal of wits every night. 

And Sam had a gentle almost hippy way about him. Sarah never really associated with people who had that vibe.  Business majors were just too intense.  Most business majors were all out at maximum even when relaxing.  They would go pound down beers at the business fraternity until their fingers could not be formed into a fist.

Sarah said yes. Safe as milk, this was a perfect day.  She too did not want it to end.

The Hook Up or Not

            

Sarah did not see Sam at dinner.  She figured he may have eaten at another dorm.  She would see if he showed up or blew her off because he had a better offer.  She put her tray away.  She went back to her room.  She took a quick shower, redressed and waited.  Sure, as could be there was a knock on her door right at 6 p.m.  When she opened the door, Sam was standing in the middle of the hall.  He had changed from cutoffs into jeans. He had a long sleeve flannel shirt rolled up above his elbows.

Sam looked at Sarah and said with a feigned imperial flourish, that being a hand resting upon his stomach, the other arm extended and a deep bow, “Shall we?” Laughter came first and the” We shall,” rolled off the lips of blond girl from the ‘burbs with the big smile.

Sam was at a disadvantage, knowledge wise.  Sarah, despite the engagement, did not disclose this fact to Sam during her time as record peruser and as Duck God.  At current no overt external manifestation of engagement was not present.  Sarah had taken off her engagement ring when she helped Amy and Shelly move their crates and boxes out on Tuesday.  

A few months back Sarah had picked up a hippy dippy sack from the local import store.  The sack looked like it should belong to a wizard.  The base color was late evening blue but there were golden stars and moons all over it.  The sack closed with a draw string. Not wanting to risk losing the expensive stone in her ring while helping with the move, she shoved the ring into the bag, and shoved the bag into her purse. After the packing was done Sarah did not put the ring back on.  It wasn’t that she was trying to hide the engagement, she just didn’t get around to it. Since the move the ring had been stored in Sarah’s purse in the bag the draw string knotted closed.  Sam had no idea Sarah had found the “one”.

Turned out this Thursday was Canadian Night at TFs.  Labatt and Molson beers were a dime cheaper than domestics. The two stranded students grabbed a booth. When the waitress came Sam was on his best behavior.  At that time in all the bars in town Danskin tops sans bras were de rigeur. Sam did not do a nipple check, he focused on the waitress’s face.  The waitress was cute, but not as cute as Sarah. Sam ordered two bottles of Blue and a basket of fried mushrooms.  He made sure he had Sarah’s agreement to eat at least a few of the flash fried fungi before he put the order in.  When he suggested Blue over Molson, Sarah agreed.  Sarah made it unequivocally clear she would probably order a Molson next.

The couple had no problems finding things to talk about.  They discussed the classes they had and the profs they loved or hated.  They talked about the concerts they had seen, there was very little overlap.  They talked about their hometowns and their roommates. Sarah’s roommate had been her best friend since 8th grade.  Sarah was clear that this was mostly a blessing but had some drawbacks.  Times came, here and there, when Sarah went home after two or three weeks and found out that Amy was feeding the hometown social circle the lowdown on Sarah’s activities. Sarah was clear that she really didn’t have any secrets but she was pissed because there were some things, she wanted to share first.  Like the term she aced her big pitch project and Amy went home first after the grade came out. She told everyone that Sarah had done well and that Sarah’s head had expanded and was, “So Biiiiiig!!!”

For his part, Sam detailed that he and his roommate had never met before the first day of freshman year.  They had been thrown in together into a room on the fourth floor of the freshman men’s dorm in what the students called Zone Central.  Four dorms, three all men and one all women. The dorms shared a huge cafeteria in the center.  In the winter the walk to the cafeteria sucked camel cock as far as Sam was concerned.  If was 400 feet from the nearest dorm door to the nearest cafeteria door and in the winter at -5 F, 400 feet really, really sucked.

Sitting back and drawing back on his bottle, Sam realized he had better pace himself.  Sarah was only half through her beer and the ‘shrooms were not in sight, not yet.  With so few people in the place, Sam thought the service would be faster.  However, with the end of term the cooks, like pretty much all the other students, lit out of the place as fast as they could.  They had jobs elsewhere and people to see.

Looking Sarah directly in the eye Sam began, “My roommate and I never really bonded until almost the end of freshman year.  We tolerated each other, we didn’t piss each other off, but we were not friends. Then I was reading a piece in the newspaper about what was happening that first weekend in May and I saw the Kentucky Derby was on in Louisville.  Have you ever been?”  Sarah shook her head no.  She really knew nothing about horses or horse racing.  She was a swimmer in high school and that was about the only sport she kept track of.  When the Olympics came on, she was glued to her bedroom TV set for all of the water sports events.

He continued, “I just decided I wanted to go. I grabbed a piece of cardboard and with a magic marker I borrowed from the dorm desk I created a big assed placard that said ‘Louisville and the horses.’  When Don read the placard and saw me pack my backpack, packing a pair of underwear, a clean t-shirt and my toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant, he asked if I minded some company.” Sam recounted how they had walked to the freeway onramp about a mile from the dorm on Friday afternoon and caught a five-hour ride almost right away. The ride with a trucker took them to the edge of Indianapolis. Given they were let off on the wrong side of town for southbound traffic, it took them about three more hours to get to Louisville, city of the Run for the Roses.

Sam described what to Sarah sounded like a scene from a Fellini film she has seen once, Satyricon. People walking about half dressed drinking beers, smoking jays and hooting and hollering. When Sarah found out that Sam and Don had paid a dollar each to some local to sleep in a couple of chaise lounges behind the guy’s house, and that they snuck into the Sunoco station two blocks away to pee and crap, she was just floored.

By this point the ‘shrooms had arrived, hot enough to burn the flesh off the roof of your mouth it you through a whole one in there.  Both of them had made that mistake and both of them now ordered more beer.

The guy in the flannel shirt sat and thought about whether he should tell Sarah about the infield scene.  What weirdness he saw on the infield far outstripped sleeping in a chaise lounge.  Sam had seen people so drunk that that could not stand up.  One guy decided to turn his jeans into cutoff’s because it was good and hot that weekend.  He was so drunk he stabbed himself in the leg with his jackknife and was bleeding profusely.  Sam offered up the anecdote and stated that he hoped the guy had gotten medical treatment.

Finally, he decided to describe the chants.  One part of the infield scene Sam would never forget were the guys who would see an attractive woman and start chanting “Show Us Your Tits.”  Up to this points Sam had not used an obscenity in front of Sarah.  Although he used the phrase Mutha Fucker like most people use periods in their sentences, Sam had stayed above this level today. He told her in simple almost clinical terms about the tits cheers.  

Sarah grew wide eyed.  “Well, did they?”  Sam was honest, and told Sarah a goodly number of the women flashed their teats.  With the mushrooms almost gone and Sarah nearing the end of her second beer she asked, “Well how did their tits look?  I mean were these ugly women?”  Sam shook his head no.  These were some pretty good-looking women, no doubt about it. With a half-smile he looked at Sarah and said, “If you go to the Derby, get a seat on the grandstand side.” Sarah told Sam she would make a mental note of that.  Sarah was pretty sure her breasts would hold up well against any others that might be bared at a horse race. 

Although there were only a trio of couples over on the dance floor, and the music was not as loud as usual, Sarah wanted to dance.  Both she and Sam were of slight frame.  He weighed maybe 150, maybe 160.  Sarah was 103 pounds; she knew this for a certainty. Sam like many of the young men of the 1970s was not a skilled dancer.  He quickly told Sarah two things.  “First, I look like Frankenstein on acid when I dance.  Second, I will need another beer in me before you can get me out on that dance floor.”  A third round of beers was ordered.  Sam stuck with Labatt.  Sarah stuck with Molson.

Sarah was impressed with Sam. He knew a great deal about a great many things.  They talked about Thomas Wolfe’s writing and the fact that Wolfe was buried a stone’s through from O’Henry in a North Carolina graveyard.  Sam ran through the current premiers of Canada and the provincial capitals.  He was very self-deprecating, but funny.  When Sam had about two fingers of brew left, she grabbed his hand and headed out to the dance floor. 

The duo danced to You Can Go Your Own Way and Walk This Way. True to his word Sam dance moves more resembled the early signs of a grand mal seizure than actual dance steps. When Stephen Bishop began to croon On and On Sarah and Sam took it as the cue to return to their booth.  Wiping the sweat from his brow Sam made it clear he needed more liquid refreshment.  A little negotiation occurred and they agree to split one more beer, a Molson. 

As they worked through that their last shared half beers, Sarah talked about her plans for summer.  She was going to go home and work for her uncle’s law office, doing some typing and filing.  She was clear in stating she would probably be doing more brewing of coffee and glad-handing of clients than anything else.  She had worked for uncle before.  The money was good and the hours were not that bad, just 25 a week.  She emphasized she planned to be around a pool a great many afternoons.  She had already stocked up her Bain de Soleil. Sam let his imagination run toward a vision of Sarah oiled up and in a bikini.

Right at this point, when Sarah was describing tanning at the pool, she interjected that she had a boyfriend to apply the suntan oil to her back. Sarah’s interjection was designed to quell the burning in her chest that the ring in the magician’s blue bag had been causing.  Sam didn’t seem fazed by this bit of information.

If Sarah could have seen inside Sam’s brain, she would have seen he had done the calculus that told him she probably had a boyfriend back home.  Girls as cute and fun as Sarah were rarely free agents.  Sam wasn’t really looking to get laid; his emotional guts were spinning like juices on puree inside a Waring blender. Erin had pushed that button with force. Sam didn’t need any drama, not today.

When the last drops of the beer were gone, Sam true to his promise offered to walk Sarah back to her dorm. She appreciated the gesture. The tab was settled up and they set out.  Sam paid. Walking a shorter path through some gardens that Sarah would never take alone, Sam asked if she minded if he took a couple of hits off a joint.  “No problem”, she said, “I told you I didn’t smoke but I am cool”.  Sam pulled out the slender joint and lit it up, inhaling very deeply.  

Sarah was lying.  Last summer when she was hanging with Amy and Shelly at the pool, they would occasionally sneak off and hit one of Amy’s brother’s joints.  Amy’s brother was a dealer and she always had a joint or two around he had “shared” with her.  During the school year, the trio would smoke before they went off to a concert. She was pretty acquainted with being high but it was not her norm during the school year.

Sarah was also thinking about what lay ahead for her.  Brad was someone and something she had known seemingly forever.  At twenty-one, two years is almost a tenth of your life. He was polished, he was smooth, he was good looking.  But he was also predictable.  Flowers came on the right days, anniversaries of their first date and the first time they had sex.  He came up with great reservations on Valentine’s Day. 

Sarah was business major.  She had a plan.  She had always had a plan.  What the fuck, for the first time in her life she saw a glimmer of doubt about the value of this plan.  A day alone, a day with a happy go lucky goof had touched a point somewhere deep inside her that caused a dark but dim shadow of doubt to arise.

The long-legged man next to her took his second off the joint and held the butt end out to Sarah and said simply, “You sure you don’t want some.?” Fuck it, thought Sarah. Sure, why not? These were the exact words she heard herself saying.  With that the good little girl took a long deep hit off Sam’s joint.

Sam’s shit was good shit.  Acapulco Gold weed was pretty potent stuff.  Sarah almost immediately knew she was higher than she had ever been. Sarah was dazed. After she had taken her hit Sam ground out the joint on a light post and put the roach in his hard pack of Marlboros.  He put the pack in his shirt pocket.

Sarah stopped for a second, her brain was racing and reeling and she was disoriented for just a moment.  Sam had not forced this on her, she really couldn’t blame him. Be that as it may, Sarah was just plain fucked up.  Right now, she did not want to be alone. Sarah didn’t know what else she might want, at least not then, but she was not having Sam walk her back to her room. She was too high to be alone. Sarah was determined that they were going somewhere different.  She needed to be with someone and Sam seemed as safe as milk.

Sam was thoroughly surprised when Sarah asked if they could go somewhere else.  They were maybe two minutes from her door.  But what the fuck he had no plans for the rest of the night. Left alone he might buy a quart of Bud and go back to his room and jerk off, more likely than not thinking about Sarah. Did she want to go to a bar?  “No.” Did she want to go see the late show at the movie?  “No.”  Did she want to sit on a bench by the river and just relax?  “No.”

Sarah had ridden the first wave of the high and was holding her own right now.  This state of stasis was a good thing.  All those thoughts she had earlier of doubt, of questioning, they were coming flooding back.  Sarah knew factually she was getting married in two months.  With the weed in her brain the intellectual construct seemed severely weakened on this point. Sarah still doing okay riding that wave of high had gotten just a little bit paranoid and thus didn’t want to be out in public with Sam holding that roach. The third what the fuck of the night crossed her mind and then she said, “Let’s go back to your room”.

If you were standing at the right angle you would have seen the surprise on Sam’s face. He had never planned to have company.  A mattress was in the middle of the floor with just a couple of sheets and the quilt his grandmother had given him before he left for college laying there.  There were two empty desks, two desk chairs and a couple of desk lamps.  Outside the few clothes still in his closet, the radio on the windowsill and candle next to it, there was nothing in his room of interest.  Still, if Sarah wanted to go to his room, why the fuck not.  Boyfriends are not a forever commitment. 

Only a moment passed after entering the room before Sam knew where this was going.  While he didn’t want to screw up his already scrambled emotions, sex was sex.  Sam had a dick and well if he got the chance to use it, he would.  They had barely entered the room before Sarah had her arms around neck and was kissing him forcefully. A dead-on plant of lips leads to lots of tongue.

Sarah, not hesitating, was the first to undress. She unbuttoned the delicate buttons on her pink oxford shirt/blouse. Then she took Sam‘s wrist and guided his hands up to help her with her bra.  She showed him how to unhook her bra in the front. Sarah knew she wasn’t thinking right, but she had absolutely no desire to stop.

Sam appreciated the fact that Sarah’s bra had a clasp at the front. Yeah, like any male of that era, he knew well struggling with the hooks on the back of a regular brassiere. When the clasp was undone, Sarah’s firm young small breasts and her erect nipples were there to entice him toward even more forward action. It was only a matter of a minute or two before they were naked and holding each other. 

Sam lit the candle and turned the radio on. The two of them floated to the mattress and drew up the quilt around them. In those days the overnight hours on FM were filled with extended stretches of music playing without commercial interruptions. The two of them lay down on the mattress in the middle of his room. Almost instantly their hands exploring each other‘s body to the fullest.

And their foreplay was gentle. Nipples were kissed and breasts caressed. Careful hands ran over both their genitals. It was stroking and kissing and murmuring. The foreplay was more like putting on your old favorite flannel shirt unbuttoned. It was soft and it was warm and it fit your body perfectly. And the sex was good, several times worth of good. Again, there is no hair pulling her screaming no pounding up against the wall. It was like slipping into a pair of warm cozy slippers. Their bodies fit in and around each other gently and warmly. After they were finished, they embraced with soft kisses.  The music on the radio was soothing and soft. Van Morrison was singing. And slowly, with only a candle lit next to the radio, they drifted off into sleep

PART II- JUNE 1978

Sarah-Friday

Within a few moments of waking, of realizing what had happened, of realizing this was a moment that she had actively and willing been a participant in, and of being totally overwhelmed with so many emotions she could not count them (although guilt was real big on the hit parade), Sarah knew there could be no face to face farewell with the man sleeping next to her.  Without a doubt she simply had to go, as soon as possible. Sarah softly and slowly moved the covers away from her body continuing to watch Sam’s not stirring body, save for the slow and regular rising and falling of chest showing he was alive.

Sarah knew how to make a quiet exit.  Last summer she and the girls had hit some clubs in the late hours when she was supposed to be asleep at home.  On those exits and entries from her parents’ home she had developed some stealth. Moving ever so quietly she pulled on her briefs and pants, buttoned her blouse. No times for non-essentials, she stuffed her socks and bra into her purse and grabbed her shoes. Sam’s door unlocked quietly. Out in the hall she wiggled her feet into her shoes. Standing alone in the hall Sarah though about the fact that this was the first time she had ever done the walk of shame.  But was it really a walk of shame? Nobody she knew would see her leaving.  Almost no people were left on campus, so who was there to judge her? Well, just herself.

Sarah glanced at her watch; it was 9:15. Her Dad would be there about 10:30.  He would only be starting out right about now. He Dad only came up to school after the peak of rush hour. By 9:15 morning traffic at home had faded from manic to just busy. Sarah took the stairs to the lobby. She was only a few minutes from her room. Her stuff was mostly packed so the time frame was not urgent.  If Dad had left early, she would be screwed for the fourth time in twelve hours. But in all her years of knowing her father, the early departure had never once been his first choice.  However, if he was actually at her room waiting, coming in without her bra on and wearing no socks would raise questions.  She slipped into the lobby washroom and remedied this quickly and quietly in a stall.

Coming back into the lobby Sarah thought for a moment how Sam would feel when he awoke to find out she was gone.  Sarah’s mind ran through a litany of things he might think and emotions he might feel.  Sarah was someone who never wanted to hurt people.  She tried to deflect problems. She tried to never overtly reject people.  Sarah grabbed a flier from an end table in the lobby lounge that listed what needed to be done by students before check out. Sarah flipped it over to the back blank side.  She wrote,

Sam,

Had a wonderful day yesterday.  You are a good guy and a lot of fun.  I have an early ride home and you seemed so soundly asleep I didn’t want to wake you.  Have a great summer.  Maybe, we can catch up in the fall.  Thanks for lunch yesterday and also for the beers at TF’s. Again, enjoy your summer.

Yours, 

Duck God II

Sarah folded the note, wrote Sam’s room number on the back, and handed it to the girl at the desk. Sarah pointed to mailboxes thus indicating what she wanted done.  Sarah walked almost silently back to her room. She hoped she was packed and gone before Sam awoke, or at the very minimum, she hoped he didn’t come looking for her before she got out of town. With her wedding upcoming there was no time for a farewell, especially not a sad farewell. And nothing should happen in front of her father who was paying for the wedding.

By 9:40 Sarah was back in her room, showered and changed.  Deodorant and perfume were applied and no scent of Sam remained. Sarah stuffed yesterday’s clothing into a laundry sack with some other laundry from the first couple days of the week.  Looking around her room she picked up the last few items, alarm clock, toiletries and the like and put them in a paper bag. She kept the copy of Jaws out. Sarah sat on her, now stripped of linens, bunk bed.  She tried to read.  Tried.

What the fuck, this was the phrase that kept her from moving forward in the paperback.  What the fuck, indeed.  Sarah ran through what she knew in her head to be the concrete facts of the situation.  Today was Friday, June 16th. She was getting married on Saturday, August 12th at the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin.  Virgin, yeah.  What the fuck; why had she just slept with a random stranger less than two months before she and Brad would be walking down the aisle? She accepted she had not been raped, she planted the first kiss and was the first to strip down. And the sex was good, but, and this was a big but, she hardly had any sense of who Sam was and no sense of why she fucked him.

Sarah kept thinking about the why of last night and the paperback just sat there, Sarah’s thumb held Jaws open to the page she had read before the events of yesterday. Did she not want to get married or was this a one off, sort of a mini-bachelorette party at which she was the only attendee? She was pretty sure Sam had not used protection; she remembered a question about whether she was on the pill. Hopefully, he didn’t have syphilis or herpes.  Sarah was pretty sure he didn’t. While she had learned about these diseases in health class she had never met, or even heard of someone she knew, having these diseases.

Sarah had not moved from her seat when at 10:25 her father’s head poked in her door and said, “You’re ready for pick up Pumpkin?” Her father’s voice at that moment was loving, kind and reassuring. When her father walked into the room, Sarah put everything from yesterday in a mental box and placed that cube in the back of her mind on a shelf not to be revisited for a long time. She mentally labeled the box, “IT WAS JUST A FLING’.

Sarah’s father, was an efficient man. Together they had everything out of the room and the keys turned in by 11 a.m.  By 11:05 they were on the interstate headed back home.  Sarah was hungry not having had breakfast, and she was totally distracted.  She flipped between radio stations incessantly until her father said in a mildly agitated matter, pick one and just let it play please.  Sarah didn’t have to plead very hard to get her Dad to pull off the freeway to grab a bite.  The place was a mom and pop operation and Sarah got a soup and side salad.  Dad got a Rueben.  Sarah’s hunger was dealt with, but her distraction, well that would be a long time in its lingering. She felt the warmth of the day as they got back onto the highway for home.

Sam-Friday

Sarah really need not have worried about whether Sam would show up and make things awkward that Friday morning.  The Gold and the brews and the multiple acts of sex had sent Sam into a deep, deep sleep.  When Sam’s Dad and brother roughly pushed his door open at 11:30, Sam was nude, barely covered by a sheet and still drooling into his pillow. Sam only awoke when his brother was almost shouting, “Aw Geez man, you knew we were coming to get you today.  Would please put some damn clothes on.  I do not now, or ever, want to see your naked ass.”  Sam’s father laughed and said, “Sleeping in the buff, Sam I didn’t take you for that type of man.”

Drawing the sheet around him, Sam tried to get the fog machines to turn off.  The haze in his brain was thick this fine June morning.  Clinging to the sheet he had wrapped around himself like a sarong, Sam got up and walked over the room’s closet where he had one small suitcase filled with clean clothing, a very large laundry bag filled with dirty clothing and a box with everything but the radio and the candle in it that he was taking home.  On closet floor he had a clean pair of socks, a clean pair of underwear and a mostly clean t-shirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. 

Sam grabbed these mostly clean garments and asked his Dad and brother to take his laundry bag, suitcase and box down to the car.  He told his brother to put the candle and radio in the box.  Sam would grab a quick shower, check on his bed frame, and then they could go.   Sam’s brother grabbed the box and the quilt on the floor and headed out.  

With the sheet wrapped around him and one of the paper-thin towels from the dorm clutched in his hand Sam headed for the shower.  His jeans and undies were pressed against his body by the elbow of the arm that held the towel.  Sam scanned the room once, twice, three times to see if there was any evidence of what had happened with Sarah last night. There wasn’t.  His brother would have nothing to rib him about.  

Sam wondered when Sarah had left as he walked to the communal shower.  Sam was wondering a great many things.  Stuff like why didn’t she wake me?  How can I get in touch with her? Would the university have contact information he could access?  Had he done something/anything wrong?  The fog from the weed and beer was slowly lifting in his brain.  This improved clarity of thought in some ways only made matters worse.  

What the fuck?  What the fuck was last night about?  As Sam began to soap up and shampoo, he for a second picked up Sarah’s scent.  His body was electrified.  But it was quickly washed off him and the distance between Sam and that beautiful woman grew by leaps and bounds.  What the fuck had last night been about, what did it mean?  This mantra kept playing over and over again in Sam’s head.

The shower was quick, Sam did not want to incur late fees.  He went back to the room, grabbed the linens and bunched them in his hand with the wet towel.  He walked down to the desk and threw them in the canvas laundry cart, making sure the dorm clerk checked the laundry return off for him.  Sam asked about where his bed frame and extra mattress were.  The clerk shrugged and said they just didn’t have enough staff to get all that stuff out. Chances were Sam would not be charged as long as his stuff was marked. At worst he would get hit with a $10 reassembly fee. 

Sam was pissed he might be charged as he started to go.  The clerk yelled out a hey.  Sam looked back at the clerk and got told to check his mailbox before he turned his room keys in.  Sam’s Dad and brother had cleared his room out and even had taken Sam’s pillow down to the car.  Noon was fast approaching.  Sam put the key in the mailbox and found Sarah’s note.  He read it once, twice, three times.

What you see in a moment, depends on where you are standing.  What Sam and Sarah saw regarding yesterday, and in the note, Sarah had left, were two completely different things. Sarah wrote the note in a way she hoped would say goodbye.  Sam misunderstood.  Coupled with all the fun and sex of Thursday he read the note to say make your play boy, I got to go early but make your play.  

Sam stuffed the note in his back pocket.  He walked up the stairs, looked around his room and checked to make sure the windows were closed. With his father and brother waiting in the hall Sam locked up the room.  He dropped off the keys to the clerk and then the three of them were off, back to Sam’s little town.