Chapter 39: Picking Up the Pace

The university experience is a blend of learning immense amounts of information, developing the critical faculty to ponder and analyze that information, and exposure to profound stupidity. To report more fully on my second year of college would include either boring stories about learning or repetitive stories about deep levels of stupidity. So let’s skip it. At the end of that year Cisco organized a shift from our four person suite in McTyeire to a six-person suite in Carmichael. We added Michael as Stoney’s roommate and Brian Wilmot from our freshman floor. It turns out he and Cisco were fraternity brothers and had remained friends. After the semester ended, Cisco drove me back to Chattanooga and I spent the summer with Mrs. W going over Einstein’s relativity theories from several different directions. What she’d explained to me the previous summer blossomed in many different vectors, but it wasn’t a problem-solving education, the way the previous summer had been. She’d give me things to read, then we’d talk about them. We didn’t have Clarence very often, but when we did, he was consistently annoying. He’d changed books from Carlos Castaneda to something equally idiotic called The Tao of Physics and wanted to talk to me about it as though he understood what he was talking about, which he didn’t. He clearly missed Stoney. Stoney and Michael dropped by several times during the summer, always on the way to somewhere else. They dropped by in June before driving north to Detroit so Stoney could introduce Michael to his family. If Mrs. W was at all surprised that Stoney was now gay, she didn’t show it. She had a kind of bemused look on her face as they clambered up to put their luggage in his bedroom. She liked Michael, and Michael liked her. Regarding my studies that summer in Chattanooga, my problem with Relativity was more a problem of sequence. By the time I came to understand Relativity pretty well I was already also reasonably far along in quantum mechanics. In quantum, I had subsumed the idea that the “what” and the “why” were unknowable and that the exquisitely perfect math of the wave-form was all we had. “Don’t worry about the physical reality—there may not be a physical reality. The equations work extremely well. Just use them!” one of my professors had said, and he seemed pretty smart in most other ways. Mrs. W didn’t like that. She was of a different generation. It’s called “physics” because it describes a physical reality. She never quoted the Einstein dice deal, but it was clear she didn’t like expressing physical realities in terms of probabilities. Everything was somewhere. That we couldn’t tell exactly where didn’t mean that it wasn’t somewhere. In July when Stoney and Michael were on their way to Martha’s Vineyard to do something with Michael’s family they stopped in and Clarence was there. He was so happy to see Stoney that it was almost pitiful. He was excited and bounding around like a dog who hasn’t seen its owner for six months. It would have been touching if Clarence weren’t such a pain in the ass. For the fall semester I showed up a little early to talk to Prof. Dannhausen, who was my advisor in my capacity as Physics major. He was pleased to see me. I understood Relativity and so wanted to leapfrog over to the graduate level courses. He quizzed me closely and called in a colleague before giving me permission, but he did. One more course I wouldn’t have to share with Toni and Rob. So that semester I took all Physics and Math, except for one Greek course. The only course I took that Toni and Robb could also take for was an advanced quantum mechanics course. That we only had one course together seemed to bitterly disappoint Toni. She denounced Rob for not paying better attention and the university for allowing me to take a graduate-level relativity course just because I was a man. Our rooming arrangements third year seemed straightforward at first but turned out to be workably baroque. We were in a dorm named Carmichael West, tall and Bauhaus-plain. There was another dorm that was also called Carmichael West, and I forget how we distinguished between them conversationally. A Carmichael West suite was occupied by six people of the same gender, at least theoretically. There were two doubles and two dingles, a kitchen/common area, and a spacious tiled bathroom. In our suite I had one single, Milton had the other. I was surprised, given his proclivities, that Cisco hadn’t wanted the other single, but he waved me off and said he had it all under control. Cisco brought Brian Wilmot, who’d been on our freshman dorm floor, in as his roommate. Stoney and Michael had the other double. Next door on our floor, in a stroke of luck that seemed impossibly broad, was a group of six women organized by Beatriz. I hadn’t realized this was going to happen until I hauled my steamer trunk of possessions up to the suite and she was standing there waiting for the down elevator. “Hello, Henry Baida! How good it is to see you again. I hope you will not mind the proximity,” she said. “What kind of proximity?” I asked. “Do you live near here?” “This is my suite,” she said, pointing right, “and this is yours,” she said, pointing left. We had adjacent suites on the same floor. “But proximity is likely to increase once Milton and Doris meet.” “Well, it’s good to see you again, Beatriz,” I said. I liked Beatriz. “How was your summer?” “Desparately loney and forlorn. Father Tom has left. Unforgivingly hot and humid. I think there were locusts. I could not find a job. Being back in college is much better.” “Good to see you.” The elevator rang and the doors opened. She waved shyly as the doors began to close, pressed a button, then as the doors began to close, she hopped off again. “Henry Baida, I am so happy to see you again,” she said. “I am happy to see you, Beatriz.” At this point the doors to the other elevator (there were two) opened to reveal Rob and Toni in mid-bicker. As they stepped off the elevator carrying boxes they froze mid-stride when they saw me standing there with Beatriz, my steamer trunk propped against my knee. “B.B., what is Henry doing here?” demanded Toni. “Hello, group-friend Toni,” said Beatriz. “This is your door,” she said, pointing to the right, “and that is Henry’s,” she said, pointing to the left. “Henry lives next door to us?” Toni demnded. “Yes,” Beatriz answered. “The chances against that are beyond astronomical,” said Toni. “Hello, Henry.” At this point Michael and Stoney showed up from our suite and pushed the down button. They both said hello to Toni. “Stoney, what are the odds that Henry and I would end up living next door to each other?” Toni asked, looking at Stoney, expecting him to know. “Oh, gosh. Henry actually knows statistics lots better than I do,” he said. “He won’t tell me,” she said. Actually I don’t know whether I would have or not. “So how many floors?” Michael asked. “Floors three through fourteen are occupied by students, but it doesn’t matter,” said Beatriz. “On both of the two east towers?” asked Michael, ignoring something I had heard. “Si.” “So eleven floors of six person suites in each tower?” asked Michael. “Twelve,” said Stoney. “Floors count funny.” Michael frowned, paused, and I could see him count on his fingers. “How strange,” Michael said. “So twelve times six times two for total residents?” “Yep,” said Stoney. “A gross.” “How many eligible students?” asked Michael. “4,500, assuming all eligible students are interested in rooming here, which they’re not,” said Beatriz. For the first time since I’d met her, Beatriz seemed impatient. “So assuming 4,500 students applying for 144 slots….” Michael began. “A flawed assumption in too many ways for me to politely fail to intrude,” said Beatriz, approaching exasperated. “Beatriz,” I interjected, “you said the numbers didn’t matter. Why was that?” “Thank you, Henry Baida. The numbers don’t matter in a way. Your wonderful friends Michael and Thomas were prepared to calculate the odds as though this were a random event, but it wasn’t random in any way. I wanted my friend Doris to live next door to Henry’s friend Milton, so I have made that happen. The odds against it are largee, although I would not characterize them as astronomical,” she said, glancing at Toni, “but as I understand probability, it applies to random events, and my actions took this out of the scope or randomness.” “Cool,” said Stoney. The bell rang and the elevator arrived so Stoney and Michael left. Michael gave us a thumbs up as the doors closed. “How did you arrange it?” asked Toni. “I have friends,” Beatriz answered. Toni shrugged. “See ya, Henry. See ya, B.B.” said Toni, and made of for her own suite. Beatriz smiled sweetly at me and pressed her hands together but didn’t say anything. She looked at me expectantly. “So you have a nickname?” I asked her. She frowned in concentration for a few seconds. “Why, yes, Henry Baida, I do. Why do you ask?” “Because Toni calls you ‘B.B.’” I said. “Ah, well. That is not my nickname. No one except Toni calls me that?” She looked up at me with her shy brown eyes. “Toni has her own rules?” she said. “So what is your nickname?” I asked. I was aware that we were spending a lot of time in the hall. I stood my trunk against the wall, as out of the way as it could be in front of the elevator doors. “Aunt Dora called me Little-Ship-Under-Full-Sail. It was Juliette Gordon Low’s great-graandmother’s nickname. She lived for four years among the Indians when she was a child and this was the name they gave her, Henry. Do you mind if I call you Henry?” “Of course not. We’re best friends.” At this she seemed to tear up. “You say the sweetest things, to me, Henry Baida.” “Henry,” I said. “Henry,” she said, and touched my arm. “So who is Juliette Low?” I asked. “She founded the Girl Scouts of America,” she answered. “And how did her great-grandmother come to be living with Indians for four years?” I asked. “This is an excellent question, Mr. Henry. I do not know the answer? But I would expect that her parents were mightily, exhaustively worried about her whereabouts the entire time. But on this point my book was completely silent. It did use the word ‘captured’ with respect to the Indian’s custody of Mrs. Low’s great-grandmother, so I imagine there were aspects of her interactions with Native Americans that were perhaps troublesome to her or her family. The book also mentioned that when Mrs. Low as a child went to visit her grandparents in Chicago that the Indians would meet on her grandparents’ front lawn. So apparently there were no hard feelings?” “When was this?” I asked. “Hard to say? She experienced the siege of Savannah, which would have been during Sherman’s March to the Sea at the end of the Civil War. So before the 1860’s?” she said. “And you’re saying that there were Indians in front yards in Chicago within a lifetime of the Civil War?” I asked. “Si.” “Okay,” I said. “Mrs. Low lived through the Siege of Savannah?” said Beatriz. “In the Revolutionary War?” I asked. “Can’tbe.” I took American History at City High. “No. In the Civil War?” “Beatriz, there was no siege of Savannah during the Civil War. Hardee set up for one but once Sherman’s troops took Ft. McAllister Hardee ran away. The South didn’t even put up a fight over Savannah.” There was a pause. “Mr. Henry, my Girl Scout Handbook relates these facts unambiguously.” “All right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to argue. There are just other versions of this story.” “This book, the Girl Scout Manual, is very important to me, Mr. Henry.” “Just Henry. No need for Mr. Henry,” I said. “Thank you. It seems very odd to address you without some expression of subservience or respect,” she said. “We’re friends Beatriz.” “Thank you so much … Henry… I don’t have much experience with friends.” “You’re friends with Toni.” “Group friends,” she said. “Our group therapist assigns us friends to work on the issues we reveal in group sessions. Toni and I have been assigned to each other. Toni has helped me in many ways. Dr. Rogers told her to encourage me to do things outside of what he refers to as my ‘comfort zone.’ And Toni has been very successful at this.” “What kinds of things are you doing?” I asked. “Going to football games,” she answered. “So you like football?” I asked. “No, not at all. But I have learned a lot about it, and going to the games gets me to be able to be around crowds. And gets me to go to different places. I don’t like to travel, and she makes me drive to Knoxville and Mississippi and Georgia. I am fretful as I do it, but her insistence has made me a more complete person. Plus she often finds me dates. One of them was … rewarding, although I can never see him again, and another was you. I am very glad I met you, Henry Baida, and I have Toni to thank for this.” “So are you supposed to be encouraging Toni to do something new?” I asked. “As a group friend, I mean.” “Yes, Mr. Henry, I am.” She sighed. “What are you encouraging her to do?” “Dr. Rogers wants me to encourage her to be more tolerant of other points of view.” “I see,” I said. There was a pause. Beatriz looked at the floor, then shrugged, then looked at me with an expression that mixed sadness and irritation. “I expect she’s not very cooperative about thaat,” I said. “Thank you, Henry Baida. Toni is exceedingly uncooperative. I feel that I am called upon to stretch myself as a group friend to do the things she insists that I do, and I feel that I am a better friend to her and a better person to myself for having done so. But I assumed that the friend gestalt, if I may call it that, would be in some ways reciprocal.” There was an awkward pause and Beatriz looked at me earnestly. “Yeah, well, Toni’s pretty focused on herself,” I said. Beatriz thought a minute. “I am not good at human interaction, Mr. Henry,” she said. I was about to say something but she continued. “Is this observation about Toni what people call understatement, which is you being wry, or you being honest, which is to say you’re admitting to me that you find Toni to be tiresome? Or another, simpler form of honesty in which you admit to being a person who observes but does not always understand what he is seeing and therefore occasionally creates narratives or theories about what he’s looking at but never pretends to know for sure and is always willing to change his mind and I’ll be darned I think I know you after all my dear, dear previously mysterious Henry Baida.” She was very happy as she said the last part. “You’re a fascinating woman, Beatriz,” I said. The elevator rang and Stoney and Michael reappeared with two men carrying a king-sized mattress that was hard for them to maneuver out of the elevator. Stoney smiled and Michael waved but no one said anything. The foursome disappeared into our suite with the mattress. “I am so glad you think so, my Henry. So do you have any comment on my description?” she asked. I had to think. “Well, I’m not particularly self-reflective. I just don’t think about myself all that much. I don’t think I’m as interesting as anybody else I know. To think about, I mean. But I think probably there are rules that govern the cosmos and our understanding of the rules will never be perfect. Even if we could figure them all out, though, I maybe the rules get disrupted from time to time or don’t apply uniformly in all parts of the universe. So you can never really understand what you’re looking at, and even if you do, it may change or break down as you’re looking at it, so you can never be sure and it’s hard to be confident that you have it all figured out, even when you have. I think you always have to be willing to look at new information, to tinker with your view of the world. To change your mind. No matter what you believe, no matter how sure you are, no matter what you’ve been taught or read, you may be completely wrong. Have you read Kuhn?” “Yes, of course. This is college, my Henry. Everybody’s read Kuhn.” “Well, I just read him a couple of months ago,” I said. “Oh, Henry Baida, I had no idea,” she began, appearing mortified, and her hand popped up to cover her mouth for the first time since she drove me home from Knoxville the preceding fall, “and certainly no intention of insulting you. Please, please forgive me.” “No forgiveness needed. If you want to be insulting you’ll just have to try harder.” The guys who had carried the king-sized bed into our suite returned to the elevator carrying most of the component parts of a university-issued dorm room single bed and pushed the down button. “You are very sweet to me, Henry Baida.” “I’m really not, we just get along,” I said. The two workmen looked at us speculatively. One of them lit a Kool with a wooden kitchen match he sparked off with his thumbnail. The elevator showed up and they got in, exchanging a glance. If Beatriz was aware they’d been there she didn’t show it. “Well, Mr. Henry, I have detained you long enough. I appreciate as always, the opportunity to interact with you.” She smiled sweetly and pushed the down button. When the elevator got there, she smiled again and waved as the doors closed. Sweet, as always, but crazy, as always. I dragged my steamer trunk into my dorm room, set it on the bed, and started unpacking. The workmen and Michael kept reappearing, bringing things and removing things until all of the university-issued furniture was gone and had been replaced. The room, designed as a double, had separate areas for each of its two intended occupants, not completely divided but somewhat separate. One of these areas had become a sleeping area, with a king-sized Ethan Allen sleigh bed and two nightstands with matching cut crystal lamps, and the other had been transformed into a sitting area, with two green leather couches, quarter-sawn mission-style coffee tables and end-tables, and bronze reading lamps. I returned to my own room and could hear something going on in the common room. I looked, and the workmen were removing the kitchen table and the couch. I ventured further back into the suite and found Brian and Cisco in the middle of a discussion. “Yo,” I said. “Yo,” they answered back. Cisco was lying on his bed in khakis, topsiders, and a green Alligator shirt, smoking a Marlboro. Brian was in green battle fatigues and black combat boots with a white sailor’s hat, which seemed a little out of place. “What are they doing?” I asked. “They think the furniture the school’s provided is shitty so they’re putting it all in storage and replacing it with this other stuff they’ve bought,” said Brian. “Hi, Henry.” “Hi, Brian. Long time no see. Have you seen the stuff they’ve bought as replacements?” I asked. “No, but the stuff in their room is pretty cool. So I think we’ll be good,” said Cisco. “This is odd,” I said. “Yeah Brian and I have been debating whether this is a gay thing or a money thing.” “And?” “Brian here comes from money and he’s come close to convincing me that this is a money, class and privilege deal,” said Stoney. “You went to Westminster,” I said. “Yeah, yeah. My dad’s a lawyer. We weren’t hungry. But Brian’s people own a sporting goods company up in New Jersey. And he says Stoney’s people own a big chunk of G.M. and Michael’s people own Manny Hanny, more or less.” “Manny Hanny?” I asked. “Manufacturer’s Hanover Bank,” Brian said. “Old money. Big money.” “Why aren’t they at Harvard?” I asked. “Both fathers are on the Board of Trust here,” said Brian. “As is Brian’s, by the way,” said Cisco. “That’s how he knows all this.” “And you’re in R.O.T.C.,” I said to Brian. “Call me a patriot,” he answered. “You’re a patriot. That’s not the right cover for fatigues,” I said. He took off his white sailor’s hat and looked at it. “Yeah, I know. But I don’t have a fatigue cap here. I can pick one up at the post, and carrying the crackerjack will let the C.O. know I didn’t just forget. Gotta run.” “Later, dude,” said Cisco. Brian left. Michael and Stoney’s redecoration efforts weren’t the only oddity of the semester’s rooming arrangements. As Beatriz had predicted, Milton was quickly smitten with her friend Doris. He followed her around as though she were magnetized and then shortly after classes began it was obvious that she had invited him into her bed. The impact of this development was immense, personality-wise. I don’t think I ever met her, but his descriptions of her were rhapsodic. In a matter of days he went from being tense and brooding to happy-go-lucky and light-hearted overnight and was genuinely enthralled with her. Then, one night Beatriz showed up in our suite, in Milton’s vacant room. She didn’t announce herself, but Cisco and I, arguing about whether Gerald Ford was or was not an idiot, simultaneously noticed that she was getting ready for bed in Milton’s room, wearing blue flannel pajamas and a white terrycloth bathrobe. Cisco looked first at her, then at me. “Hello, Beatriz,” I said. Cisco smiled at her and gave her a little hug. Girls all liked being hugged by Cisco. Cisco looked at me again. “So ….” I said. “Bunking here for the night?” I asked. She smiled sweetly and nodded. “I know this is unconventional, but please, my Henry, and Henry’s good and perhaps best friend Frank whom all the boys seem to call Cisco, Milton and Doris are very ‘into’ each other and have turned out the lights in our room? Doris and I are roommates? So when Milton and Doris are enjoying themselves, and I am glad they are, because in my opinion they are far better together than they are apart, but if you think about the actual way it works out you might come to understand that it is difficult for me, a shy person, to be in the same room where Doris and Milton are communicating intergenderally. And since Doris and Milton are … busy … next door in the room the university has assigned to Doris and me, I would prefer to … bunk…elsewhere tonight. And what with one thing and another, barring a fight that seems unlikely given the sounds coming from the room Doris and I are supposed to share, I am relatively confident that Milton’s room will remain unoccupied all night. So, unless anyone objects….” she said. “I can’t imagine anyone would,” said Cisco, smiling at her, looking into her eyes, and taking her hand. “Your company is always welcome. Our house is your house.” He smiled as though to communicate that he knew he was acting corny, then lightly bowed and kissed her hand, then stood and smiled. She seemed reluctant to let go of his hand, and blushed pretty floridly. “Mr. Cisco, I understand why the girls all refer to you as charming. Good night, Mr. Henry, and good night, Mr. Cisco.” She smiled and waved a fluttery wave at me but especially at Cisco and closed the door. I did not hear the bolt lock slide home. “How do you do that?” I asked. “No good answer. I can’t even take credit for it. They just like me.” He shrugged and lit a Marlboro. “Interesting to watch,” I said. “And it’s a lot of fun to be me. I’m lucky. Really, really lucky. You realize that Beatriz just moved in for good?” he asked. “Really?” “Think about Milton,” he said. “Okay.” “Perennial problem getting laid,” he said. “True.” “Now he has a blonde, blue-eyed Doris with big tits and no apparent limitations on pussy access.” “So you think Milt is apt to be next door most of the time?” “We might as well accept this now. I like Beatriz. She’ll need to tell us how bathroom rules will work.” And he was right. Beatriz moved into Milton’s room and became part of our happy family. Stoney and Michael loved her and had no trouble with having her around all the time. It also turned out that Mary Roberts, who’d always been interested in Brian, was also next door. Beatriz was very thorough. So the temptation of a pretty blue-eyed girl who wanted a full-time relationship proved to be very powerful and Brian disappeared as a suitemate, and Cisco had his double to himself. “You must have seen this coming,” Cisco said to me, when I realized he had a double-sized single. “No, no. And you did?” I aked. “Sometimes I can see a few moves into the future,” he said. “Do you play chess?” I asked. “Yes, but please don’t tell anyone. I also play duplicate bridge.” He thought to himself for a minute. “Because you won’t violate a confidence, I tell you things I should keep to myself,” he said. “Odd. Almost as though I had a need to confess. Which I don’t think I do. I’m Catholic, of course, but don’t see you as any kind of confessor.” “You know this conversation has gone off in a kind of strange direction,” I said. “Understood. You’re Catholic?” he asked. “No, no. Diffuse protestant. No clear path to denomination,” I answered. “Bud, you’re Catholic. I’ll take you to church on Sunday. Although that means I have to get up, which isn’t so cool. But dude. You’re the most Catholic guy I know.” “Odd, then, that I’m completely unaware of my Catholicism,” I said. “Look, Stoney didn’t know he was gay when I met him,” he answered. “I fail to see the connection.” “I’ll take you to church Sunday. Just go along,” he said. Okay, so our suite for that year was me in a single, Beatriz in the other single, Cisco in a double that turned out to be a single because Brian moved in with Mary Roberts, and Michael and Stoney were thoroughly involved. We were an unusual crowd, but we had a good time. There were good dinner parties, and Stoney was nice enough to invite me to all of them, and Beatriz was a wonderful roommate. Of course the university wouldn’t have been pleased had they known.