“So you’re in this class, too,” said Stu, hoping Jericho couldn’t read his disappointment. For one whole minute there, he had imagined himself saying hello to someone completely new.
“Probably in all of them.” Jericho extracted a sharpened pencil from his bag. “Memory loss, much? We have the same major.”
Stu tried to assess his friend as though he wasn’t someone he had known all his life. He thought Jericho looked like the sort of guy who studied Klingon (he was) or who spent hours creating elaborate D&D campaigns (he did). But like Stu, he lionized Chomsky and had memorized the transcript of Manufacturing Consent. Unlike Stu, he owned a unicycle and three hamsters. Since the dorms didn’t allow pets, Jericho’s mother had promised to email him every evening with an update on their well-being.
A pretty young woman came in and sat down at the desk in front of Jericho. Her long, strawberry blond hair hung straight down her back, and she wore wide-legged magenta pants over a pair of black combat boots. Under the fluorescent lights, Stu could see her zebra-print bra through her cream blouse.
Jericho half stood up then sat back down. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Jericho.”
“Sarah,” she said, looking startled as she turned around in her seat to find him staring at her.
Stu wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Jericho notice a woman before, but then there hadn’t been anyone quite so noticeable in their high school.
“Welcome,” said the professor. She was soft-spoken, with the slightest hint of an accent she explained was Israeli by way of Chicago. She passed out a syllabus and said that they were going to study the very origins of philosophy and critical thinking itself. “But first,” she said, eyes glinting, “we play trivia.”
Professor Levinson divided the class into teams and pitted them against one another. Stu, Jericho, Sarah, and Truscott of the red muttonchops became a group and soon dominated. Jericho, who’d spent the summer studying everything on the reading list, kept shooting his hand up, and Sarah seemed to know just as much. Truscott, who turned out to be British, managed to call out a few answers as well.
“I’m already failing the class,” said Stu, “and it’s only the first day.” He was joking, but his ignorance felt like evidence of just how far he was overreaching.
“Both my parents teach philosophy here,” said Sarah with a touch of apology. “I can’t help knowing this stuff.”
As Professor Levinson confirmed the right answers, she spent a few minutes explaining each one, sketching out in miniature the trajectory of Western thought. Her cheeks flushed and she spoke quickly as she bounced from one topic to the next. Stu wrote down what she said until he noticed he was the only one. He put down his pen.
At the end of the game, Stu’s team was declared the winner. He high-fived the others without sharing in their jubilation.
“Thus concludes the fun part of the course,” said Professor Levinson. She tossed their team a bag of Skittles that Truscott caught in one hand. “Just kidding. It’s all going to be fun. See you on Wednesday.” As the professor erased her name from the blackboard, Stu accepted a handful of Skittles from Truscott. Each one tasted as sweet and sickening as mediocrity.
* * *
At the end of the following week, Stu’s mother called and proposed an arrangement she had discussed with Jericho’s mother.
“Jericho needs to switch rooms, honey,” she said. “So we thought maybe he could move in with you?”
Jericho suffered from insomnia, and his roommate had complained to the resident advisor that Jericho stayed up all night reading and laughing. Stu knew the laugh, which was more of a bark—an exultant cry of excitement that was symptomatic of one of his more irritating moods.
“It’s better for both of you this way,” said Stu’s mother. “Now neither of you need to share with strangers.”
“Okay, Ma.” Stu’s assigned roommate was a quiet young man majoring in religion whom he’d barely seen.
Now Stu sat on his bed and strummed his guitar while Jericho arranged his figurines on the bookcase. He turned a miniature Luke Skywalker to face Stu and wiggled him slightly.
“I’m not going to go to the philosophy welcome party,” said Luke Skywalker in Jericho’s voice.
“Oh no?” said Stu. He watched as his new roommate expanded Luke’s posse with a wizard, a Stormtrooper, and the Incredible Hulk. When they were kids, Jericho had been the deviser of all games and chief explorer of imaginary lands. Stu would return from playdates at Jericho’s house with the disorienting sensation of having spent three hours inside his friend’s brain—an odd place filled with fantastical lore and the peculiar detritus of Jericho’s current obsessions. Stu wondered if it was still the wild place it had seemed then.
“No,” said Jericho. Having positioned one final winged superhero, he extracted his linguistics textbook from a pile on the floor and hunched on the bed to read it.
“You might meet some girls,” said Stu. Before they graduated from high school, they used to joke about Jericho’s virginity as his incurable condition. But Stu wasn’t sure Jericho would find it so funny anymore.
His friend grunted without looking up. “Lots of studying to do.”
“Sure,” said Stu. “It’s the first party, though. It might be good to make some other friends besides me.” He regretted how it sounded, but Jericho didn’t flinch. He had always regarded Stu’s high school drift into the orbit of the popular kids as nothing more than a naive lapse of judgment.
Jericho grunted. “Busy.” Then he cringed as Stu began rehearsing a song. “Can’t you see I’m concentrating?”
* * *
—
The house party was in full swing by the time Stu arrived. Motown was playing on the stereo, and the kitchen and living room were full of people. He squeezed past some guys he didn’t know and helped himself to a beer from a cooler in the kitchen. There was a sign posted on the wall that said ONLY CONSUME ALCOHOL IF YOU ARE 21+. Over the din, he could hear Truscott in the far corner talking to some girls about spending his summer on tour as a replacement guitarist for a band Stu was surprised to realize everyone had heard of.
“Good money for a summer gig, but I couldn’t stand those pricks,” Truscott was saying. “They wouldn’t know real art if it bit them in the arse.”
Stu moved into the hallway, where Professor Levinson was sitting on the landing of the central staircase, wearing jeans and an Emma Goldman T-shirt. In casual clothes, she was nearly indistinguishable from the older graduate students milling around.
She stood up as he approached. “You’re in my Presocratics class, aren’t you?”
He was both thrilled and alarmed that she’d addressed him. “Yeah, I’m Stu.”
“You can call me Rachel,” she said. She sipped from her plastic cup of red wine. “Outside of class, anyway.”
“I like your shirt,” said Stu, nodding at Emma Goldman. “Are you an anarchist?”
“I’m skeptical of power,” she said, shrugging. “And, you know, the system.” Her voice was gently ironic. “But I vote.”
“Hey, Chomsky votes, right?” said Stu.
“Right! Exactly.” Rachel finished most of her wine in a single gulp, then frowned a little at the tiny cup. “And are you a musician?”
Stu wondered if he was giving off some palpable creative vibe. “Guitarist. How’d you know?”
Her dark eyes were full of fun. “The pants are a giveaway.”
Stu peered down at his skinny black jeans. “Right. Ha. But I’m a songwriter, too,” he added. “Though I haven’t written much since I got here.” He hooked his thumb into his pocket. “Everything sounds trite when I try to play it in my dorm. Or maybe it’s because my roommate hates my singing.”
Rachel looked thoughtful. “You know, there’s an open mic at Birdy’s. You could sign up, get some audience feedback.”
�
�Oh yeah?” said Stu, vaguely embarrassed by the parental tone of her encouragement. “Maybe I’ll do that.”
“You should. Put things out there.” The front door opened as more people arrived, and Rachel shivered in the draft. “And how do you like Lansdowne so far?”
“It’s great,” he said, after a pause, struggling to sort out his impressions. “Really different…from high school.” As soon as the words came out, he regretted them. Everything he said was stupid.
Her eyes were sympathetic and a bit glassy. “It’s actually my first semester here, too. I’ve only been here a month.”
“You’re lying to the boy,” said a voice behind her. “It’s been five weeks.” A tall blond man with a chiselled jaw and the approximate physique of a Greek god ambled up and girded her shoulders with a possessive arm. Rachel only came up to his armpit. Next to him, she suddenly seemed ordinary, a mere human.
“Okay, five weeks,” she said with a laugh. “I was lucky I could bring someone with me. Stu, this is my husband, Owen. He’s Lansdowne’s Distinguished Visiting Writer this year.”
The Greek god shook his hand. “Owen Grant.”
Stu nodded, embarrassed into silence, unsure if he was expected to say hello or, like Owen, simply repeat his own name. Another professor approached and Stu slipped away and got himself another beer. He wanted to pound them back until he’d expunged the whole end of the conversation from his memory.
Several beers later, Stu wandered past the living room, where the general party din was lowered to the level of quiet discussion. Owen was holding forth from the arm of the couch, as a group of students listened, seemingly rapt. Stu lingered in the doorway, self-conscious until he realized no one was watching him. Then he made his way over to an empty spot beside the writer. He noticed his ethics professor, Gretchen Howe, sitting in the wingback chair opposite, dispensing advice to two young women. The heavy-framed turquoise eyeglasses by which he usually recognized her were pushed up atop her mass of caustic red hair. After a minute, Sarah plopped down in between him and Owen.
“Hi,” said Stu.
“Oh, hi.” Sarah bumped into his shoulder then slid over, out of the dip of the couch. “Oops. Having fun?”
“Yeah, not bad,” said Stu. “Though I don’t really know anyone.” But Sarah had already switched tracks, her focus trained on Owen.
“After all, wisdom is an aphrodisiac,” the writer was saying. He turned to include Sarah in his address, as well as the people looking over from the next room. “And the transmission of knowledge is an erotic act.” The book-lined walls felt close, almost stifling, while Owen seemed larger than life, magnified by the admiring gazes of Sarah and the other young women. “Even if it’s not physical, it can be incredibly intimate,” said the writer, capping the remark with a half-shrug. “Inconvenient but true.”
“Come now,” called Professor Howe from across the room. Her voice was sharp. “Let’s not get into all this here.”
Owen waved her off. It was obvious in that moment that he held sway in the room. “I’m sure you’ve felt it, too, Gretchen. What about when you were a student? I know I still feel it when I encounter work that challenges me.” He rested his hands on his knees. “That intense desire for someone else’s take on the world. And the hunger to possess it.”
“I think it’s true,” Stu spoke up. He remembered the way he’d felt when Rachel lectured, how her exhilaration about ideas seemed to light her up from within. “Learning can be kind of sexy.”
Owen turned and noticed Stu for the first time since he’d sat down. “Exactly! When learning is effective, there’s an erotic charge. It’s unmistakable.”
“For God’s sake, Owen. Stop saying ‘erotic’ in front of the students.” Professor Howe put down her cup and threw off her shawl. “I’m going to find Keelan. I’ve half a mind to shut this party down right now.”
A gentle smile crinkled the writer’s eyes. “Oh, Gretchen. There’s no orgy about to break out. We’re just having a conversation.”
Stu opened his mouth to chime in, but Sarah tugged on his sleeve. “Don’t get involved,” she said in a low voice. She stood up and pulled him out of the living room, letting the conversation continue without them. “My mom is on fire tonight. She’s going to root out every last person who dares to disagree with her.”
Stu glanced back. “That’s your mom?”
“Yeah, remember I told you? Both my parents are profs.” Sarah pointed across the foyer to an older man talking to Rachel. A silvering blond ponytail poked out below his tweed deerstalker. “My dad’s here, too. And that’s my brother, Elliot.” Stu followed her gaze to a dark-haired young man who was chatting up a girl in the dining room. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “He just dropped out of grad school,” she said, in the relishing tone of hot gossip. “And my parents still don’t know.”
“Holy…” said Stu. “So I guess you’re the one who’s following in their footsteps.” It occurred to him that she looked like an exact blend of them both: reddish-blond hair, bookish, vaguely bohemian.
“I’m more like a splinter than a chip off the old block. Or blocks,” said Sarah, her voice returning to normal as she led the way to the kitchen. She grabbed two beers out of the cooler and handed one to him. “Just taking some electives to keep them happy until Elliot breaks the news. They’re definitely going to freak out. Even though he’s the one who wants to go out into the world and, like, live the ideals of justice and benevolence they’ve been teaching.” She used the bottom of her shirt to protect her palm as she twisted off the bottle cap. “But I guess everyone’s family is a bunch of weirdos, right?”
Stu was about to respond that he wished his was weirder when Sarah said, “Be right back.” He watched as she went to join Owen, who had risen from the couch and was now standing by himself. They clinked beers, and Sarah tossed her hair over her shoulder as Owen spoke to her with a grave, attentive focus. Stu chugged his beer, hoping someone would come talk to him, but nobody did.
Once the dance music on the stereo was turned up, Stu picked up his jacket. As he slipped it back on in the foyer, he was surprised by Owen sidling up to him with a friendly nod.
“So how do you know my wife?” he said. “Shawn, was it?”
“Stu. I’m in her Presocratics class.”
“Ah. And what’s your story?”
“My story?” Stu thought about his conversation with Rachel. “I’m a songwriter.”
“Cool,” said Owen. “Do you have an album?”
Stu was taken aback. “No, not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Just taking some time to figure things out.” When Owen didn’t nod or otherwise acknowledge the statement, Stu added, “And, you know, learn some things.”
Owen put his hands in his pockets and leaned up against the wall next to a large framed painting of a goat playing a violin. “Where are you from?”
“Philadelphia.”
“That’s a long way away from here.”
“Only a few hundred miles.”
“Still,” said Owen.
Stu felt himself being sized up, though not unkindly. “How about you?” he asked. “Where are you from?”
Owen shook his head as though it didn’t matter. “And where are you hoping to end up?” He took a drink from a glass that appeared to contain straight whisky. “It doesn’t sound like anyone has drawn you a map.”
“I don’t think anyone has a map,” said Stu.
“Of course they do,” said Owen. “Most of the people at this party do.” He nodded at the students and professors locked in conversation or dancing to Justin Timberlake in the now almost impassable foyer and the living room beyond. “Their parents gave them one.”
“The music industry isn’t that straightforward—”
Owen continued as though he hadn’t heard him. “Listen, if you really want to m
ake art, you have to be all in. And nobody is going to give you anything. You have to take it for yourself.”
Stu stepped aside to let a couple of partygoers slip around him and out the front door. He wasn’t sure if he was being patronized or not, which made him uneasy. “Take what?”
“Whatever you need.” The writer waved his whisky. “Time. Freedom. The means of doing your creative work.”
“Just take it,” repeated Stu.
“That’s what I’m saying. Leave behind your expectations of a conventional life. Art is too important to come in second to marriage or kids. If you don’t feel that responsibility, you probably shouldn’t be making it.” Owen stepped back towards the party. “Oh, and if you don’t have a map, find someone who does.”
* * *
—
Jericho was still awake when he got back. “Did you see Sarah?” his roommate asked, bent over his desk, reading Nietzsche.
“Yes.” Stu studied Jericho’s face. It had always been hard to tell what he was thinking. His eyes were hawkish behind his glasses, and his jaw was grim. He was an Easter Island head with a pair of wire spectacles. “If you like her, why didn’t you come?”
Jericho turned the page without glancing up. “I don’t like parties.”
Stu kicked off his jeans and pulled on a pair of flannel pyjama pants. He’d stopped bothering to keep his half of the room tidy after his friend moved in. Jericho was the only person he had ever met who was a fastidious slob—who would press a shirt even as the legs of the ironing board crunched down on dried-up pens and empty Cheetos bags. “Do you think knowledge is erotic?”
“No.”
Stu slipped into bed. As his head hit the pillow, he could feel the room spinning when he closed his eyes. He was drunker than he’d thought. “Why not?”
“If it was, I’d definitely have had sex already.”
Songs for the End of the World Page 9
