by David Xavier
She broke into a smile and held herself still, her eyes big, waiting for my words. “What do you mean?”
“I was a sophomore when he was a junior. We went to a game and watched from the stands.” I nodded and said again, “He knew how to have fun.”
She waited a moment. “Well, tell me.”
“After halftime he jumped the field.”
“He did not!” her mouth dropped open.
I leaned back in the booth. “Leahy had the game won and sat the starters. There was no action going on, so Peter jumped the field when no one was looking and stood on the sidelines near the benches.”
“Oh, you boys.”
“He took a helmet from one of the starters and was going to hand it to me over the rail.”
“And?”
“And he got caught. It was a defensive end’s helmet. Bob O’Neil. Remember him?”
“He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
“Yep. Bob O’Neil saw him with his helmet cradled in his arm, about to hand it to me over the rail. Leahy would have still had him running laps if he had lost his helmet.”
“Well?”
“Well, Peter went running. He ran out into the field with this big defensive end on his heels. He did what college running backs had been trying to do all year.”
“What? Take his head off?”
“No,” I laughed at her response. “Dodge a tackle from Bob O’Neil.”
Elle covered her mouth, embarrassed to laugh about it, but her eyes were bright and merry.
Higgins brought out a quick pair of sandwiches and slid them on the table. He stood over us.
“On the house,” Higgins said.
“What for?”
“Just because.”
Before I could argue, he turned and went back behind the bar. Peter was with us then, a medallion of reputable standards pinned upon the wall forever, and I felt his presence as if he was sitting across from us. I shrugged.
“This is just a lunch then,” I said as a joke. “Don’t get the idea that it’s a date.”
Elle had already taken a bite of her sandwich.
“You didn’t even pick off the onions,” I said.
“I’m hungry,” she said with a full mouth.
“Usually girls pick off the onions and pickles.”
“What girls?”
“All girls. There’s not a sandwich on earth they just bite into like that without taking a peek underneath first.”
“I must not be like other girls.”
I sat back and looked at her. Under her notebook on the table was a book. I had dismissed it at first, thinking it was just a hard surface she was using to write on. I looked closer and saw it was Madame Bovary.
“Are you reading that?”
She put down her sandwich, nodding with enthusiasm. “I am. I know it’s old but it’s certainly not outdated. The rules of society hardly change over time.” She looked at me. “I must sound like a square.”
“No, I’ve just never seen anyone carrying around Flaubert.”
“Isn’t it grand,” she said. “All the problems we could possibly face in the world, someone somewhere has faced them all before and written down the answers for us to read about.”
She wasn’t like other girls, I thought.
We walked back under the starlight of a cold night, brisk and clean, still fevered with victorious car honks from double headlights and the shimmer of a dancing crowd in the commons.
Elle hurried inside the girl’s dorm, her feet carrying her quicker than she would have liked, bending backward to wave to me.
“Thank you for the sandwich, Sam.”
“I’ll read your article tomorrow.”
“If I get it in before the deadline. I have an hour.”
“Put in my line about boys being able to run behind our linemen. I’ll look for it.”
She rushed inside. I waited on the steps for Liv to come down. Girls were passing by wearing nice little dresses, their eyes darkened by shadow, sure in themselves to attract a dance partner. I stamped my feet to stay warm and was about to take to doing jumping jacks when Liv opened the door and appeared in a sweet breath of her perfume, her hair done up in a bun, and red lips that needed to be kissed.
“You weren’t here the whole time, were you?” She was wearing a gray coat perched wonderfully on shapely legs.
“You look marvelous.” I don’t know if I stuttered because my lips were frozen or if I was speaking without the words properly formed.
“Oh golly. I bet you thought that of all the girls who came down.”
I shook my head, still without words.
“Well don’t just stand there. I’ll freeze.” The last word went up in a humorous pitch and she made the innocent face of a child, bundling herself deeper in the coat.
“What did I tell you? I feel upstaged.” I tucked in the billowing ends of my shirt to make a tighter silhouette. I looked again at Liv and held my arms out.
“It’s no use.”
“You look just fine, Sam. You’re as handsome as can be.”
She pressed her lips gently to my cheek, a gift that I hoped left evidence. Then she took my arm and we walked across campus to the lights of the dance, pulled by the magnetic tune of a jazz band already in full swing, a beckoning finger of notes over the grass.
The commons was a large room with windows that reached the ceiling. People inside moved past the windows under a strobe of lights like fish in an aquarium. Two young boys held the double doors open for us and I was quick to lose any inhibitions in the musical air.
At the front of the room, a makeshift stage of tables had been pieced together, and four musicians stomped atop of them. A man with a stylish hat pulled low on his brow hammered away at a drum set, a man with a mustache dipped with his saxophone, a broad back played a piano behind him, and a handsome young man, probably a student, swung a trumpet back and forth under a fedora. The students on the floor were captured in swing, the boys circling the girls in spins under their arms.
Liv unbuttoned her gray coat and let it slide off her arms. I again found myself to be completely inept at language. She was wearing a flirty black dress with red piping. She twirled once, just for me, and gushed when I couldn’t say anything.
We went right to the floor. There were so many dancing bodies, so much movement, that the frost vanished from the windows and seemed to reappear as sweat upon our brows. Liv danced well, her feet gliding under her as if she was on ice, and I kept up with the beat, shifting back and forth between the twirls of smiles and arms that floated by.
“You dance so well,” Liv said to me, leaning close to be heard.
“I feel like my feet are on backwards. My knees are down by my ankles.”
“No, you’re good at it. I mean it.”
The band had an ability to take one song into another without the slightest hint of dead air, and our feet never stopped. When I was out of breath I took a fruit punch and leaned against the wall. I wiped the sweat from my brow and sank into a sit. Liv took a drink of my punch.
“How do you keep up the energy?” I asked.
She tipped the cup down and her words struggled around an ice cube.
“You just have to keep going. Don’t sit or you’ll be there all night.”
She leaned over me and gave me an ice-cold peck on the forehead.
“Let me catch my breath. Just for a song or two.”
“Look at the musicians on stage,” she pointed. “They don’t get a break.”
“I’ll be here for another song. My legs are like clubs.”
“Look at the trumpet player. He has more energy than all of us. Look at him go.”
“He needs a shave.”
“I like it. It’s carefree.”
“Just one more drink for me. I’m dancing in quicksand.”
“Is he a student here?”
“I think so.”
She shrugged with a little smile over her shoulder and dancewalked in t
iny steps back to the floor, her arms held straight by her sides and her palms level with the ground, her shoulders shimmying with the beat. Three other girls from her dorm shimmied without partners, and she joined them.
I watched from the wall as the faces swayed above me, the lights reappearing in blinks behind them and the music probing through them, searching for a light heart to shake with rhythm. I collected myself with another fruit punch and stepped outside for some air.
The cold of outside was a relief, the music dispersed in the night. I wandered into the grass away from the pockets of conversation. From a nearby stand of trees on the lawn, the branches of which drooped in gray nakedness, I watched the fish swim in the musical bowl.
A dark figure appeared from the darkness of the lawn, moving the glow of a cigarette from hip to face. I saw it was Myles and I saw the reflection of moonlight on the lens at his chest. He was looking all around and finally made his way to me.
“So you’re a dancer too?” He bowed with one hand in his pocket.
“Not much of one.”
“Did you finish that book I gave you?”
“I didn’t.”
“Gah. Why not?”
“I haven’t had time.”
“What did you read instead?”
“I said I didn’t have time.”
“What did you read instead?” he repeated it almost identically in tone.
“The Bostonians.”
“Ah-ha. I’ve read a few of Henry James. And how was it? Wait, let me guess. You didn’t finish?”
I nodded. “I’ve been trying to keep up with my studies.”
“Nerts to that lie.” Myles began to snap his fingers and bob up and down on his knees to the muffled music, taking a moment to burn the final ash from his cigarette. He motioned to the dance floor inside. “The Midwest’s finest.”
“The brilliant minds of America,” I said. “Dancing the moon into dawn.”
He looked at me. “You should write that down. Moon into dawn. I like that. It’s true, though. We are a privileged bunch here. Notre Dame academics can take anyone through life on merit alone.”
“I guess so.”
He tossed his cigarette butt. “To hell with all that, Sam. I didn’t mean it. I wanted to see your reaction.”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“Because it’s no use if a person doesn’t know how to use it.” He straightened up. “I was given a full ride scholarship here, did you know that?”
“No. Is that true?”
He nodded. “Intellectually I could be one of the top five minds here tonight. But you know what? I don’t have a blue moon clue what I’m going to do with my life. I’m on academic probation. They’ll take my scholarship away and give it to a less brilliant mind, but a mind who knows what they want to do.”
“So we have to figure it out,” I said. “I only know what I’ll do tomorrow.”
“Balls. You do not. You and I don’t know what we’ll do tonight, much less tomorrow. Notre Dame holds the world’s finest intellectual potential. They own us now, they bought us, and they want to see that potential blossom so they can take credit for it. And if it doesn’t, they toss us. But potential is all it is unless you’ve got life figure out on your own.”
He looked around, spinning all the way with his eyes still searching. “The campus is bubbling with potential. Brilliant minds who could rule the world one day. And I’d venture to say the majority of them will be stuck at ‘potential’ forever.”
A rustle of dead leaves and broken branches occurred behind me in the stand of trees, and Jude Miller came stumbling out, his shirt flapping over his belt and loose zipper, and him struggling to put it all in order.
“I’m Jude Miller.” He held out a searching hand to me, pinning his coat behind his waist with the other. He was wobbled from a hidden flask and his eyes did not match up and seemed to look far beyond me. The white cotton of his pockets were pulled out and hanging pouchlike at his sides. He took notice and tried to grope them properly back into his pants, but he fumbled with depth perception, his aim hopeless, and finally he was content to leave them hanging.
Myles gave me a sardonic grin and presented Jude Miller with a gesture. “The world’s finest, as I said.”
Jude Miller steadied himself. “Than’ God we’re close to th’ forest. Couldn’t hold it any longer.”
The three of us went inside and found our way to the refreshments. Myles paused to take a photo of the crowd and the band, bending to capture the light. The band was in a bebop rhythm. Good dancing music.
“What do you carry that camera around for?” I asked him.
“Just a hobby. It’s a fantastic idea, photographs are. I like the thought of holding small moments hostage forever. Proving that something existed.”
He scanned the crowd with a rubbery neck, snapping his fingers to the music. “Who are you here with anyway?”
I looked at the dance floor and lifted my finger to point, but Myles pushed it down. “No, hold on. This is a skill of mine. Let me guess.”
His head bobbed and weaved on his neck, and he pointed to a bookish dark-haired girl. “There she is. Right?”
“No.”
“Hold on, now. There, that one with the ponytail. Oh God, is it her?”
“No.” I laughed and sipped my punch.
Just then a bright face with charming lips and a blonde bun skipped out of the crowd toward us. Myles watched with growing disbelief as Liv came closer, his eyes widening with each of her steps.
“Who’s your friend?” she asked me.
With a big smile I put my hand on her back and introduced Myles. Jude was standing asleep against the wall.
“You have to be joking,” Myles said. He was still pointing.
Liv shook his finger and gave a friendly laugh. “Very nice to meet you.” She reached out and closed Myles’s mouth with a gentle hand.
“You know her?” Myles asked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He stammered a little. “She’s – she’s so – well look at her, Sam. She’s in the top rankings as far as looks go.”
“Why, thank you.” Liv gave a polite curtsey. “But, Sam is very handsome. Don’t you think?”
“Of course he is. But not this handsome.” His eyes crawled over her from head to toe and back again.
“You mean you’ve never had eyes for him?”
Myles blinked several times and laughed. “Am I that obvious? A gentleman never tells, dear.”
“But what do you do?”
He laughed again. “I tell everybody.” He mimed a three-step tap and displayed his hands palm up. “No, truly, I have only platonic feelings for Sam. A good friend of mine.”
I took another fruit punch while they talked. Liv flirted with Myles without risk the way only a girl can do when she feels completely unthreatened. I quickly discovered Myles earlier claims of conquest to be believable. He had a way of breaking down uncomfortable barriers by leaning in a manner that invited the other to come closer, as if seeking his approval, and he would reach out at various times to touch a hand or shoulder very intimately while keeping his interest strictly sociable on the surface.
The music stopped for a short break, and the murmur of conversation filled the gap. The musicians took their drinks on stage. Myles was pointing and Liv was looking with him down the length of his arm, their heads nearly touching. He was an expert.
“No, that one,” he said. “The trumpet player.”
“Yes, he never stops. Incredible energy,” Liv said. “He’s a student here?”
“He’s in my economics class. A very bright young man. Has all the answers.”
“Where did he learn to play like that?”
“He’s in the school marching band. Plays nights at a jazz club in town.”
“Did you hear that, Sam?” Liv turned to me. “At a jazz club. We should go one night.”
Behind us, Jude Miller lurched out of his standing sleep with a snort
and stumbled a few paces.
“Oh God,” Myles said, his back twisted to look around. “This boy. Let me take him outside for some air.”
“No, I aim to dance t’night,” Jude said. “I came here to dance and th’ ladies of the room wan’ me to dance.”
“No, no, no…” Myles was giggling. He peeked at us over Jude’s draped arm. “I don’t want him to ruin the dance floor.”
He took him under the arm and led him outside. Jude was half bowing with an overly gestured arm, telling everyone he passed how good they were to him. A few people gave him a friendly ovation as he exited, and as he turned to bow, Myles caught him from falling on his face.
“What a charming friend you have,” Liv said.
“I don’t know the drunk one too well,” I said. “Jude Miller. He introduces himself every time I see him.”
“I mean Myles. How very charming he is.”
“He is an original.”
“I think it’s swell that he can be who he is and not worry. I could see that right away in him. People are always hiding who they are, but he can just be himself.”
“I guess so.”
I knew there was a piece of Myles that he kept hidden. He had shown it to me before. The thoughtful boy on the rock with no direction, the cynical straight-A student on probation. His skin was a book to read, but his heart and mind were behind a key.
“I mean it,” she said. “It’s hard to be the way he is and not feel ashamed about it. I admire him.”
“You brought it out of him. You practically accused him.”
“Did I? I suppose I did. I told you I could see it right away. He wasn’t hurt by it. He laughed it off. Well, I think it’s grand of him. Don’t you like it?”
“Sure.”
We went to the chairs and tables at the far end of the room. I pulled a chair out for Liv and rifled through the coats to find hers. I wrapped it behind her and sat down. The band was picking up their instruments again, blowing out the tubes. The drummer brought the cymbals to increase in sound, climbing the ladder of anticipation, and the dancers filled the floor again.
“What do you think of that?” Liv asked me. “Of Myles, I mean.”
“Of what? He’s a nice kid.”
“I mean the way he is. I’m sure he can’t tell many people. I feel so guilty now that I pointed it out. It was only in play, though. I could tell he wouldn’t be angry.”
