had two moderately-close patrons, enough to win a gold medal and some cash at graduation). In the hard-to-get-into Francis workshop, they represented post-modernity, Dave Eggers, foot-noted text and wordplay, dominating about a third of the class until TUSK rallied the conservatives together. Week after week (once a week) they submitted poetry that subtly—oh so subtly—played off against each other. TUSK looked for support from Israeli Defense Forces paratrooper girl, who agreed politically with some of TUSK’s statements and wrote poems glorifying the 1948 Liberation. But that was monotonal and shouted down, and then TUSK switched to a scrawny Russian, improvising a little cross-support from two or three guys (probably most notably French ‘broccoli’), but Rainier/Ballhurst caught on. They fought back with an onslaught of densely written and archaic references, restoring the honor of Wallace Stevens, Raymond Carver, blue jeans, leather jackets, working class voices in opposition to Symbolists, Baudelaire, imagism, imagination and failed attempts at iambic pentameter.
They were, one might suppose, leading personalities in a department crammed full of them. Rainier, it turns out, is now a lawyer in Tokyo (this fact was just discovered); Ballhurst cannot be Googled and short of Facebook has disappeared from the face of the earth. Next to the Francis workshop, perhaps the McCullen seminar was the next source of quick jokes; it had two hipsters with chops, so one looked like an imitation of the other. Guy with feather in hat.
TUSK stood out already at Yale. He had his tall black girlfriend and for about three months, including the yearly Shulman lecture, he wore an academic gown. For being high-profile, he got to be addressed by people whose names he didn’t know. A couple zingers on the Chicken Leg email list got his personality noticed, but Chicken Leg itself had surprisingly little drama, being composed, after all, of people who aspired to become professionals—highly boring, highly competent Economics majors, future lawyers, a doctor or two, a psychiatrist. When Death’s Head needed temporary digs due to a restraining order, they picked Chicken Leg to hang out in as Paper Scroll was just close enough in prestige that the rivalry was bitter. Like Harvardites easily befriending Columbians, HYP would always be mortal enemies.
One girl from Farmingham was depressed and went out with a security guard. Very slutty girl was a fellow Chicken Legger. A short Jewish guy took up entrepreneurship, was very highly sexed, and seemed to find a strange balance between things. Finally there was girl who thought she could tame one notorious ‘player;’ she was just set aside like the rest, though she went out with another Chicken Legger and the two are now married.
"Why don’t you write a tell all, TUSK; make some cash off your friends?”
Against such a backdrop, the Relationship-That-Never-Happened continued apace. As mentioned, there was a year gap as TUSK went off to backpack and SEATTLE finished her undergraduate degree. Letters flurried between New Haven and Europe. Then TUSK returned to school, still with the travel bug, still with a heap of frequent flyer miles (a hundred thousand, to be precise). Posting daily on FlyerChat.com, TUSK got the AmEx mileage six-up deal, missed out on Health Delight pudding runs, did some transpacific things just for the status points. He went to Japan.
"You’re in Korea? You’re in Korea, SEATTLE? Fly over! See me.”
The flight was delayed. In those days, the airline then chartered a bus and put everyone in a hotel for the night, profuse with apologies. Today, the airline is just as likely to refuse a refund, try to fight you in AmEx customer service (and Lufthansa can therefore go to blazes). The old era of greeting people in the airline was long-gone, but now even peanuts are under attack.
"Okay, so we’ll meet up in Tokyo?”
The city passed by in a blaze of drunken nights, two hundred dollar bar tabs, crazy swirling strangers. A silly Korean-American man tried to take SEATTLE away from TUSK; he got nowhere.
"But how about Kyoto?”
And so it was off, Japan Rail Passes validated, on the bullet train to Kyoto, where raven-haired maidens did not stream down lily pads on the Kawabata, but the motorcycle-revving Yankees did stream down mechanically on the Kawasaki. Black-haired streaming, SEATTLE was quite beautiful against the blue Japanese sky.
"Oh god, I took us the wrong way.”
Disaster struck (as inevitably in travels) in the form of a bus incorrectly taken into the mountains. The two were stuck in rapidly approaching night somewhere deep in village territory. They found a shelter.
"Isn’t it just so charming how that traffic sign buzzes?”
It had a horn; it tinkled as the minutes passed in the cool mountain air.
"Ah SEATTLE, I’m so so sorry about this.”
"Don’t worry about it TUSK. These things happen.”
When they finally (finally) got back to the inn, they tumbled into the futons exhausted. Under a yellowed fluorescent light, SEATTLE let TUSK put his hand on her back. It rested there for about three minutes.
On Thursday of Week 4, the teacher was late. The conversation that ensued went something like this.
AJ-4: “So yesterday I went looking for [beauty or convenience store object] and couldn’t find it anywhere. I walked and I walked and I walked but there was none to be found anywhere in front of the campus. Finally I got all the way down to a little creek maybe a whole kilometer or two down the road, and a little tiny store had one; they were asking 10000 won. It only costs 5000 won back in Japan. Prices here are killing me.”
Recent arrival: “Oh god, sorry I’m late. Sorry guys.”
Already here girl: “Hey GOAT, what’s this I hear about some coffeeshop guy?”
GOAT: “Actually it’s the barista at the coffeeshop. I’ve been going there every morning to pick up a donut and coffee, and he was smiling at me every day. So finally I spoke to him and he was delighted I did so. We’re going to have a date on Sunday.”
Girls: “Really!” “Wow, so cool!” “Nice work!”
GOAT: “He’s pretty cute. Student here at [some] university, studying business or accounting. We’ll see how this works out.”
Girls: “Nice! Good luck!”
Recent arrival: “Hmm, teacher is late now isn’t she.”
Girl: “Teacher late!”
Farhome: “The teacher is late because she’s Korean. They don’t really have a sense of duty here, even though they’re as rich as us these days.”
A third of the class smiled, definitely including Brillopad and TUSK.
Girl: “What did you do yesterday Farhome?”
Farhome: “Oh I went shopping in Myeong-dong. It’s really convenient, they have a lot more Japanese speakers now that a couple years ago when I was here. The yen is so strong now the stores are making a special effort and you can get some of those new hand-mixed cosmetics for a lot cheaper. ‘Lush’ really set the pace on that one.”
Girl: Some tiresome shopping comment.
Farhome: “Yeah true. Hey you know what’s weird. I think TUSK understands everything that’s being said. He’s just sitting there quietly, but I think he pretty much understands what we’re saying. Kinda has a devious personality acting like a clown but fully aware of all that is going on.”
A third of class smiled, again including Brillopad and TUSK.
The accusation was made that TUSK was disingenuous; that he pretended to understand less than he really did, but what the girls didn’t know was that to get to this point, Week 4 Thursday 80% conversation comprehension entailed nothing less than 20 hours of cram Japanese study over the weekend and in spare evenings the previous week. So TUSK can’t be judged too harshly; it is the irony of things that right when he can participate in conversation, he has just become too tired to want to do so, and nothing less than 80% of the conversations overheard are almost exactly like this one, or if anything far less interesting, talk about shopping shopping shopping the occasional flicker of a possible date possible date possible date. Ahh maddening.
This was Thursday, the perfect segue into a user’s guide, ornithology, vexximology, floristry, whatever clever term can be appe
nded, to serve as perfect textual reference, a set-piece, a concession now that the boundaries have all been crossed and we need Week 4 to be the pivot point, the action week. If we bring forward a few details from Week 4; if we jump ahead slightly to some facts of Week 6, this is essential to this task; the conceit of having the world catch fire and Yale intrude into Keiwha is a truth of its own, brought out by the teacher, brought out by events, and here we are, the user’s guide.
BARBIEDOLL: Pride of place went to this top-most of top-mosts who not only perfected the entrance exam, perfected the 2/1 class speech, came from the perfect background, did perfectly well socially, had a boy come up to her at the very end of the program, and most perfectly of all, was definitely a particular personality type and so did not succumb to the flaw of being ‘perfectly boring.’ We cannot leave Miss Perfection (or Miss Virginia Prep-School Hipster-Ironist) without one final anecdote—she was a smoker; she even established a presence in the odd 5-7 girls (out of 180) who regularly hook out in the smoker’s courtyard, and once, TUSK on the third floor looking in, deliberately pauses there to stare at her as a joke, and BARBIEDOLL accepts this as such; she recognizes the humor involved whereas a lesser girl would have pretended to be creeped out or indeed been creeped out.
BARBIEDOLL faces a 3-5% chance of break-out, of becoming some great person in the
The Flowers of Keiwha Page 27
