The History of Great Things (6 page)

Y
ou're at college for all of three weeks before you meet the guy you decide is the one to give it up for. It's the fall of 1979, just pre-AIDS. Or, well, not pre-AIDS, pre–people knowing about AIDS. Christ, I hope you don't have AIDS.

—Mom, I think you would have known if I had AIDS.

—Well, I wouldn't have wanted to.

—I don't think I even know what that means.

—Okay, whatever, you don't have AIDS, it's fine.

The point is, no one is thinking thing one about condoms at this point. Or you're not. Getting pregnant and/or contracting herpes are the worst possible outcomes you personally can imagine, but after four or five spritzers you are not thinking about either of these things, much less a fatal disease that hasn't yet been discovered.

—Spritzers? You think I drank spritzers?

—No?

—Spritzers kind of make me sick just to think about.

—Okay, Scotch neat.

— . . .

—So let me get this right, you're worried about me getting your drink of choice right, but not so much about getting pregnant, herpes, or AIDS.

— . . .

Once you've had enough tequila shots, you start flirting with Steven, the guy down the hall you've got a crush on. These tequila shots also go a long way toward helping you forget that he's recently been dating one of your roommates, or at least move you in the direction of convincing yourself he's fair game at this point. He's cute, much cuter than the boys back home, longish wavy brown hair, twinkly eyes, like a Jewish Warren Beatty, and he's maybe a little bit funny: he asks you if heaven is missing an angel and you're about to say to him
Seriously?
but then he says
Just wondering, I mean, if an angel goes missing, would anyone even notice?
You giggle, but maybe that's only because you've had the necessary number of additional tequila shots for this to seem like it means something even though it's really just absurd. Either way. Tonight, your dreams of romance are elsewhere. You're going to get this out of the way. You're already too drunk to notice that his jeans are ironed with a crease in the front, because this could otherwise be a problem. (Any time a man's jeans are overthought is justifiable pause for consideration as far as you're concerned, which is the opposite of what makes sense to most people, but you will stand by this in perpetuity.) Time has a way of morphing when you drink, so that your seven-and-a-half-minute conversation (covering the half block from
What's your major
to
Where are you from
to
Do you know so-and-so
) becomes sufficient even though most of these questions
lead to conversational dead ends. (
English
to
marketing
nearly puts the kibosh on the whole operation right there. You have no idea what marketing even is.)

You overlook: That everyone you know sees you leaving the bar together. That you can see them whispering to each other.
Not cool
. That you hadn't planned for the steady and rapid loss of your buzz on the six-block walk back. That there's not much more to say on the way back to the dorm than there was after he'd said
marketing
. After a long block of silence, you say
So, marketing, what is that, exactly? I guess the easiest way to say it is that it's about how to sell things. It's not that interesting. So why are you majoring in it? I dunno, what else would I major in? Something that does interest you? I'm not really interested in anything.
This is a sentence you're sure you've never heard before. Where does the conversation go from here? Who isn't interested in something? What could that even mean? What goes on in the head of a person who isn't interested in something? Nothing? You may not know what matters to you, but at least you know what interests you. You can't form a sentence. He senses your confusion, probably because in your inebriated state, your face is a screwed-up caricature of a confused face that you might ordinarily try to conceal.
Okay, well, I'm interested in sports. . . .
Never have you been so relieved to hear someone say that they're interested in sports—the one subject among all existing subjects you might be the least interested in—if only because it relieves you of the surreal analysis going on in your head.
I guess I'm just not interested in anything that you could major in. You could major in journalism and be a sports writer. Uch, I hate writing. I don't even like reading.
And here again the conversation ends.

At no time does it occur to you to back out. Or, it does, it does occur to you to back out, but for some reason that doesn't
seem like an option. You already said yes, and you hadn't accounted for variations of mood or circumstance that might lead to a change of plan. So you also overlook that, when you get to his dorm room, he asks his roommate to come back in half an hour. At this point, not having done it yet, you don't know how long to expect—a half hour? three hours?—but you certainly get it now that in a half hour you're out of here, which leaves you with a now fully formed watermelon in your stomach of
maybe this wasn't the best idea
. Fortunately he's got a bottle of rum back in his room, which will help wash that right out. Never mind that rum is fully disgusting. Not the point. He motions to his unmade bed; it's a dorm room, there's a desk chair, but that's it.
Sit, sit
, he says, weirdly casual, like this is an actual home where you're going to pretend for a minute that you're not going to do what you're for sure going to do. He toasts
To new friends
, that's not good, even though you're no more interested in friendship than he is, but whatever, you raise your glass and knock back the rum. He takes off his shirt and pants, even though he hasn't kissed you yet. It's not one of the all-time great seductions. You may not know what to do, but you've seen a movie or two, which honestly you were planning to use as a rough guide, but you can't think of any movies where the guy starts by taking all his clothes right off. Are you supposed to take yours off now? Because that's not going to happen. Your idea of a perfect seduction is Katharine Hepburn in wool trousers with a glass of whiskey in one hand and Spencer Tracy kissing her in front of a fireplace just before he gets up to leave. Steven is now down to just his royal blue bikinis. He got past the dreaded creased jeans somehow, but this has to be a deal-breaker. He doesn't read, but that you can actually put aside; this, however, cannot be unseen. This has got to be a
rule, somewhere, that the late-in-the-game revelation of royal blue bikinis is an exit pass.

This can't be how this goes. He hasn't even kissed you yet. You've never done this before, and weren't expecting
From Here to Eternity
or anything, but maybe some small pretense of romance? You really should go. Right? You can do that. Change your mind. People are allowed to change their minds. How far is the rum? The rum is right there on the floor beside the bed with the cap off. How could anyone leave an open bottle on the floor? That is a booze loss waiting to happen. You grab the bottle and take a swig, put it back down, look around for the cap. He looks at you somewhat expectantly. You look at him expectantly back. He reaches over to help you take off your shirt, moves down to undo your belt, leans you back onto the bed, kisses you exactly once before he's got his hand all the way into your pants, pushing them down just far enough so he can stick it in. No mention of birth control of any kind has been made by either of you before he moves his dick in the direction of your pants. At no time do your hands move away from your sides. You wouldn't know where to put them even if you were inclined to put them on some part of him. You have definitely not had enough to drink, but you suspect that if you hadn't had whatever number of drinks you've had, you might be in for a fair amount of physical pain. To be sure, once it's in, it feels like nothing approaching good, though there's little in the way of sensation, leaving time to contemplate the pointlessness of this exercise. Your intention was to “get this over with.” Should you call it a success? That's a stretch. Steven makes some unattractive noises before his body goes limp on top of you, rolls himself off. Jesus, why would anyone want to do
this
more than once? You look up to see if you can reach the rum, have to stretch a bit,
almost knock it over, take one more swig before getting up to go.
Okay, I'm gonna go.
Better to at least pretend as though he hasn't already set a timer on this.
Okay.

Outside the room, Steven's roommate and a couple of other guys you recognize are sitting on the floor, laughing. They might be laughing because Steven just got some with you and you're now slinking away, or they might be laughing because someone made some joke about something else entirely, but the effect is the same. You plot ways to avoid running into any of these people ever again, which could be challenging.

When, a few weeks later, your period is three days late, you have cause to consider your options in the event that you might be pregnant. Your period's been late before, but this is the first time there's been any reason to worry about it. But there's no worry really. You are pro-choice. It's a bunch of cells. There is not even one fragment of a thought in your head that this could be the beginning of a baby, or that this is a medical procedure with any risks, however minor. You know about
Roe v. Wade
, although you don't know who was who pro or con, or why, and you honestly don't even care to be grateful for Roe or Wade or whoever it was who is totally doing you a solid right now. All you have to worry about is where to get the money for it. Otherwise, there's no more than a vague
I'll cross that bridge if I ever come to it
, and then your period comes, so the bridge is still at a safe distance. You might have three or four other pregnancy scares in the future, but those bridges aren't even built yet.

Still, you won't do sex again for a while.

T
he fall after you and Dad get married, he takes a year in Germany as a Fulbright scholar. You are twenty years old and have never traveled out of the country before and you are terribly thrilled. You ship a box of books and sewing supplies ahead of your arrival, as you'll need something to do. Your main objective is to be a perfect wife. You rent a small furnished studio apartment near the university; there's not much to it, but you will do your best on your tiny budget to make it homey: a couple of small plants, a fine linen tablecloth from the flea market for five marks (it has a small coffee stain, but you read Heloise and know just how to get that out with a little baking soda). During the year you will pick up more things along the way: a watercolor from a street artist (
It's so dear, Mother, and
just two marks!
you write home), patterned curtains you whip up from some fabric remnants she sends. On weekends you and Fred explore parks, wander through museums, attend concerts at the university, budget down to the penny for a bus tour of Europe. You purchase a harpsichord on layaway, which is beyond over budget, but a piano is out of the question financially (not to mention that you wouldn't be able to ship it home), and you will both make good use of it.

Early on, there's an audition for choristers for an upcoming recital. You ask Fred what he thinks about you auditioning and he says he thinks it's a marvelous idea, so you go in, and though you are not yet trained, they remark that they are stunned that you yourself are not a Fulbright scholar, and they offer you a few solo lines in the recital.

This, of course, is one of those life moments on which an entire future hinges, and you simultaneously know it and don't. It burrows down into you, this recognition, locks in there the way a butterfly screw opens up behind the wall, and you are sure that this is the thing that will truly give you to yourself. You practice for four solid hours a day. You have never been so excited or nervous in your life, not going to college or getting married or even flying on an airplane to Europe. The performance goes well; you get to take a small but special bow, during which five seconds the applause goes down into that place in you that makes you feel absolutely alive; it is one of the greatest things in your history of great things. You are swarmed afterward, and Fred lets you have your moment, but he's beaming almost as though it's his own. You cannot stop smiling, write home a handwritten, five-page, double-sided, exclamation-point-riddled letter about it.
All the faculty thinks I have a bright future as a soloist if I want it!

Two weeks later you take an overly long afternoon nap. You don't feel ill, but you don't feel well, and you have no name for this odd, uncomfortable unwellness, for a second you think you might be with child, but you have been cautious about that, marking your calendar diligently and counting the days, so that surely can't be it, and it passes, and you are terribly relieved when it does.

—This is quite accurate, so far.

—I do have the letters you sent to Grandma from then.

—Oh! I didn't know that. I'd like to read those. But, wait, I wouldn't have written to Mother about anything like that last thing.

—I know.

J
unior year, one Saturday night in your dorm room at GW, it seems like a good idea to drink a six-pack or two of beer because you have a paper due for rhetoric class, and halfway through the semester you still don't fully understand what the word “rhetoric” means, much less how to write a paper on it.
What
does
“rhetoric” mean?
you ask your roommate. Kimmie is practically a hippie compared to you, wears peasant blouses and patched dungarees, ends a lot of sentences with the word “man.”
Is that a rhetorical question?
she asks, laughing a bit more than is warranted, handing over a small ceramic pipe.
No
, you say,
it's not, I don't think I get it
.
It just basically means persuasion
, she says. You exhale a lungful of smoke, say
Huh.
I thought it was more, like, philosophical than that. It could be
, she says,
but in itself it just means how you get your point across.
You've now got a buzz on that prevents a real understanding of what “in itself” means here.
In itself
, you say out loud, and then it starts to ring around in your head, with added visuals, you picture same things in same things, books inside of books, pens inside of pens, pipes inside of pipes inside of pipes, infinite same things in infinite same things.
Whoa
, you say, a minute later or three hours later, one of those; neither of you has even a remotely accurate perception
of time right now, and if you can't understand the concept of rhetoric you definitely can't understand the concept of time.
In itself. What does that even mean?
Okay, look
, Kimmie says.
What is your topic? Rhetoric.
No, your paper topic. What are you going to write about? I don't know! Well what does it say on the syllabus? Syllabus? Yeah, the syllabus, that piece of paper they give you with due dates? I don't know if I still have that. It usually helps to have that. Syllabus. That's a weird word. Syllabus. Sillibus. Sllbs. That's a weird word, right?
In your rhetoric notebook, folded among the notes you took in class that you can't read because of your atrocious handwriting, you discover the document. Kimmie takes it, runs her finger down it to find Monday's due date.
Okay, easy-peasy
.
You get to pick your own topic. Basically all you have to do is make a statement about something that matters to you, and then argue a case that it's true. Something that matters to me? Yeah, something that matters to you. Uch
, you say out loud. You have no idea what matters to you, especially not after nine beers and three hits off Kimmie's pipe, which you now notice is shaped like a nude man with a tiny bowl acting as his erect penis.
Whoa.

Kimmie begs you to go out with her after your pre-buzz is fully on, one more hit before she goes, paired with another room-temperature beer that hasn't had time to chill in the mini-fridge.
You're not going to get any work done now
, she says.
It's ten o'clock already
. You say
I have to fry
. Kimmie falls over laughing.
You said you have to fry! No I didn't, I said “try”! Whatever, are you coming, or not? No, I have to figure out what matters to me.

Your roommate exits laughing; you weren't meaning to be funny. You honestly do not know what matters to you. Being drunk and stoned at the moment doesn't help, but stone-cold sober the question would be no less existential. You climb up to your bed, the top bunk, with your notebook and a pen. You
open the notebook to a blank page, write “What Matters to Me” across the top, with a number one below it on the left-hand side of the page. Nothing comes to mind, so you write a two below the one, then a three below that. You could just put the stupid pen down on the paper and scribble, maybe it would come to you that way, but it seems too important to just write any old thing down, “peace on earth” or whatever. Stuff like that matters to everyone, doesn't it? What matters to
you
? Right now you can't even remember what
interests
you. You write down “Matter,” next to the first number. Now you're on to something. Next to number two you write “What is matter?” Then you cross that out. “What is
the
matter?” That's not right either. What the fuck
does
matter to you? You care about things. You want the people in your life to be well and happy. You've always liked writing, but does that
matter
? Could that be a thing that matters? You know that whatever matters to your mom, you don't want to matter to you—heaven forbid. That made sense when you thought it a second ago. Oh yeah, right, because you'd be engaged right now if that were the case; forget that there are no viable candidates just yet, at least you have the good sense to know that if you can't even figure out what matters to you, even the best candidate would end in disaster. Then again, you don't want to do the opposite of what your mom did either, because she always told you she did the opposite of what
her
parents did. If you do the opposite of the opposite, is that the same as doing the same? You could just relax, maybe experiment a little. But that's not really your thing, not the experimenting, definitely not the relaxing. You want a boyfriend; you sometimes think a boyfriend would be not so much what mattered to you most, but the thing that would cease your cosmic loneliness long enough for you to
fig
ure out
what mattered to you most—because the truth is, boys do take up a lot of space in your head, even if it is usually just one at a time.

Another beer will probably help. You climb down off the bunk; your foot gets stuck between the bars toward the bottom. You fall backward—no big—you get up, grab a beer, but suddenly popping open a beer is physically demanding, your right hand doesn't have the strength to pop the tab and your left hand is made of mush, and the beer drops to the floor and spills all over the shaggy throw rug. You try to pick up the can to salvage some of it, but it falls right out of your mush hand as soon as you lift it, which is a bummer, because when you go to the fridge to get another, you discover that that was the last one, and you don't have it in you to go get money from the bank, which isn't open anyway. You go pee, come back with the crusty rinse cup from the sink, try to push the spilled beer out of the rug into the cup with the side of your hand; this results in nothing more than some slightly wet fuzz on the lip of the cup, and you wonder how one would wring out the rug while it's still on the floor. You put the cup upside down on top of the rug, pinch at the rug fibers with your fingers in the hopes of flipping the cup quickly with the liquid still in it, this method also unsuccessful. Somehow you climb back up to the top bunk (tomorrow you won't remember this part), look at what you wrote, scribble something on it, pass out, wake up with the notebook in front of you, not realizing you'd even passed out, scribble a few more words, pass out again, scribble some more.

You want to matter in the world. It matters to you to matter. Yes. You'll figure out how later, maybe. Sadly, though, in the morning, you won't remember this; just as well since it's not a suitable paper topic anyway.

Climbing down from the bunk the next morning, you find that your left wrist has swollen to the size of your face, and you are certain you can see it throbbing like something's in there trying to get out. At student health they ask a bunch of questions for which you don't have answers. Nothing new. They X-ray your hand; there's a small fracture. For about two seconds you think that this could be a consequence of having been drunk and stoned, before blaming it on getting the short straw on the top bunk.

—That is really interesting, Mom.

—I always thought I could have been a writer.

— . . .

—What?

—That's not exactly what I meant.

—What did you mean, then?

—It's just . . . plausible.

—You should give me more credit.

—You should give me what I already have.

—I don't have any idea what you're talking about.

—Let's just move on.

—You move on.