The Grey
Life, Chapter IV
I
met Shanai the day I moved into the dormitory, the first day of
school, 31 August 1991. That was a Friday, or maybe it was a
Saturday. Who can remember? After lunch my parents went back to the
hotel and I was left to unpack my things.
I
remember feeling so alone in that crisp, empty room, so abandoned. I
remember standing in the very center, looking at the bare walls,
ready to cry, thinking about the night before. My high school friends
and I got obnoxiously drunk and started a fight with three black
youths in a bar off Jerome Avenue. It was an especially wild night
for me, I think, because I was afraid of the newness. The last week
of the summer had been unpleasant. Each day there was one less face
when we met at the corner bar, and despite all the drunken promises
we knew it was for good. Now it was my turn. The loneliness seemed
complete, as if a great, iron door had closed forever upon a distant
and yet exceedingly familiar part of my life and I would never be
close to anyone again.
I
had already unpacked my shirts and pants when they walked in, smiling
sheepishly. These three were the first Hopkins students I met. The
one on the left was large and blonde, very German looking, with
serious potential for zits. The middle one, by contrast, was short,
thin - fragile almost - and dark haired. Her features were
tantalizingly Caribbean. And the girl on the right, well, you already
know her. She was petite in her own way, but there was a certain
unmistakable presence that entered the room with her. How thin she
was, even more fragile than the girl who stood next to her, and yet
there was evidence of a resilience in her eyes that hinted of a great
inner determination, and a pain so intense it could only have been a
weakness.
"Hi,
I'm Shanai," she said. "I live two doors down from you."
The
larger girl was named Lauren and the smaller girl Sarah. They had
little to say.
I
smiled back at Shanai. Physically, I would have preferred Sarah, but
Shanai had an air about her. It's odd sometimes, the way two people
can feel so close who have never met before. But at the time it was
only instinct. She was just one of several faces, presently one of
three who had been thoughtful enough to introduce themselves to me.
"Cool,"
I said as I looked up. "I'm David. Where are you all from?"
Lauren
was from New Jersey, I think. Sarah was from Baltimore.
I
nodded, trying to sound interested. My mind was grasping for a less
inane topic of conversation. "What about you?" I asked
Shanai.
"Well,"
she replied, shifting her weight gracefully between her feet, "I
was born in California, but I went to school in Connecticut. I
couldn't really deal with life out there. I was my parents, partly, I
guess, although - well, no, it was my parents." She shifted her
weight again as a puzzled expression passed briefly over her face,
like a dark cloud that blots the sun on an otherwise beautiful day.
And just as quickly it was gone. "Anyway, I went to boarding
school outside New Haven. You know where that is?"
"Yeah,
of course. I'm from the City."
"New
York," Lauren interjected. Her voice was big, big like her face
and full like her breasts. It struck me that perhaps in a past life
she had been a bear and never carried over completely into this
existence. "I'm right near the City. Where? Brooklyn?"
"No,
the Bronx."
Lauren
started to say something else, but Shanai cut in with a sly glance
out of the corner of her eye. "I have a lot of friends in New
York. An old boyfriend of mine lives in Manhattan." As I was to
find out, Shanai had a lot of old boyfriends.
"Cool,"
I said again, not exactly sure what else to say. "Well ..."
"Yeah,"
Lauren said, "I guess we better let you finish unpacking."
She was already moving towards the door, taking the floor in large,
swarthy steps. Sarah nodded a meek goodbye and scuttled after her new
friend.
"I
guess I'll see you guys around," I said, moving back to my
things.
"Yeah,"
Shanai replied softly. She slid through the doorway and was gone.
How
did I meet the guys upstairs? Now that I try to think back on it, I
really can't recall. Actually, that's not true. I do remember meeting
Angst that first day of school, too. But I don't know how, or through
whom. Why is it that the more important details slip my mind and the
more trivial remain? I do know that night, the first we were at
school, I ended up with Angst and two others on our way to 302 East
University for a party. I didn't know it then, but we were going to a
Kai party. How ironic. There were a couple of kegs and a lot of
people. I had fun. I remember losing Angst early on in the evening.
To tell you the truth, I don't think he liked me very much at first.
I know that I didn't meet Drusus until Angst introduced me to him a
couple of days later. He was so thrown off by the whole change of
environment that he shut himself in his room for a few days, emerging
only for meals. He's the only one who recognized my name and face
from the television besides Salvatore. No one heard from or saw Lee
until the next week. I think he was hanging out in another dorm with
some friends from home. So like I said that first night it was just
Angst and me and two others, and we didn't even stick together.
I
remember looking for her early on at the party, but Shanai and I
didn't meet up. If we had, maybe I wouldn't be telling you this
story. Or maybe I would be. Who knows? She went to a different party,
and there she met Antonius. He took her back to his apartment and
fucked her while she was tripping. After they broke up she told me he
took advantage of her. I didn't know what to think, so I asked him.
"Mind your own business," he said.
Those
first days at Hopkins I came to believe I would never meet anyone who
could look deeper than which football teams I liked, or what car my
father drove. As the first week went by I found myself panicking.
Around me I saw the cliques forming, and yet I was part of none. And
I knew that I wouldn't be consorting much longer with the people I
had been. They were private school fucks, inherently elitist, with
their own private school culture and private school way of speech to
which, coming from the New York City public school system, I was not
privy. And, to be perfectly honest, I never liked them much anyway.
Their values were skewed. I cannot remember the names nor the faces
of two of the four of them. The other two were to become my pledge
brothers at Kai.
In
those days when I was feeling trapped I liked to play piano or write
some poetry, although I was much better at the piano than the poetry.
Of course, I stopped doing both not long after arriving at Hopkins.
The poetry always had been a waste of time, but I regret quitting the
piano. I tried picking it up again after Sarah died, but it was
useless. There is something to losing yourself in the flow of the
music. Each time I would sit down at the bench and tentatively touch
the cool, pine boards, the chocolate, white keys. My thoughts would
clear and after a minute or two I would play. Some days I couldn't
concentrate as clearly as I should have, and I would leave the bench
sorely disappointed. But on other days (and this is what I did it
for) the music would flow perfectly unhindered, beautifully
channeled. It was a force like any other, like electricity that could
do work. For a while there was nothing except the strings and my
head, careening to the melodies. But, of course, there were no pianos
at my immediate disposal at the Johns Hopkins University. I was
sorely disappointed and unreleased. So it was that this lonely,
discouraged boy found himself in a hostile school populated mostly by
geeks and lofars with no friends and not even a piano with all its
keys working that he could play for free. I didn't like it at Johns
Hopkins.
One
warm, summer day in early September I left my room in such a state of
mind, hiding behind a new pair of heavily mirrored sunglasses. I had
decided to take a walk on the upper quad or maybe to the beach and
see who was about. It had become my habit to wander. Shanai, of
course, was never anywhere to be found, and the few times I knocked
on her door there was no answer. But I knew she must be somewhere and
that one day soon we would run into each other. Of course, I was
right.
I
was sliding down the hall towards the stairs, lost in my own somber
thoughts. Shanai's room was on the way, and as I passed I heard
voices inside. I was thrilled to hear that she was in, but a bit
intimidated that she had male company. But I couldn't bring myself to
walk away, either, so torn between loneliness and pride I stood
listening outside her door, one hand perched precariously over the
bar that would let me into the stairwell, the other reaching absently
for her doorknob.
"My
parents don't love me," someone said bitterly, someone I knew
except I couldn't place the voice. "They were too busy hating
each other. Oh, I think they might have once. But that was a long
time ago."
And,
for a brief moment, reminded of Grandmother and her house on the
lake, the hall behind me was filled with writhing figures moaning in
pain on the floor, coming out of the walls, dripping in haste from
the ceiling. Almost absently, I shook them off, and they were gone,
the silence returned. So I drew closer.
There
came another voice, a male's voice I did not recognize, strange and
lethargic and distant, as if he were speaking from someplace far
away. "My father used to tell me when I was a kid that if I ever
wanted to grow up to be as big and strong as him then I'd have to
beat him on the racetrack. He always took me to the racetrack with
him in the morning. He always beat me. After a while I stopped
wanting to run, but he made me. One day, I was so mad that I sprinted
past him. I don't think he was expecting it. Afterward, I fell on the
grass. My head was spinning and I couldn't breathe right. I had never
run so fast before. When I was finally able to sit up, he was gone.
The fucker made me walk home."
I
crept ever closer to the door, trying to be silent, but they stopped
speaking. That was when I noticed the music, The Doors' The Soft
Parade.
I
reached the cracked doorway and tried to peer beyond, but in the
process I stumbled and inadvertantly pushed the thing open. I guess
the hinges had been recently oiled because they didn't so much as
raise a whisper in protest.
Inside
it was dark and shadowy. The blinds were drawn tightly. The only
light came from a candle that burned somewhere ahead, but there was
so much junk scattered about that I couldn't see where it was.
Directly in front of the doorway was a plastic coatrack, spilling its
contents onto the floor. It was a formidable obstacle. There were
jackets of all kinds - a black overcoat, a stylish, dark green spring
vest, a curious sort of garmet made almost entirely of brightly
coloured beads, and others. There were hats, too. To the right
against a close dark wall was her desk and bookcase, a small
refrigerator, and a wardrobe. But the thing I noticed first about her
room, and that later I came to love, were all the curious trinkets,
dispersed as if left by the random currents of the tide like
seashells. Pottery, keys, papers, baskets overflowing with toy
figurines, several radios and walkmans, a strobe light, a witch's
book of spells, weary looking notebooks - anything and everything.
Behind the coatrack and hidden from my view were her bed and the
people.
I
don't know how long I stood there. For some reason, I hesitated to
make my presence known. Perhaps the tense atmosphere in the room
cannot be described. They had all been speaking so softly. I couldn't
help but feel that they were trying to prevent an explosion, and
wasn't the air laced sweetly with gasoline fumes? I could have turned
on my heels and left. I could have walked away to a better fate. But
I didn't know what was going to happen that day as I stood
uncertainly in the clear light of the doorway. I am now who I am
because of them. Knowing that, would I have left? It's hard to say.
It
didn't immediately occur to me that it was strange no one had noticed
my presence. When I fell against the door, the light from the
corridor spilled in, intruding upon their conclave. And yet no one
acknowledged me.
Eventually
someone did. "Hey," came a lethargic voice from somewhere
behind the coatrack. "Why's the door open?"
"I
don't know," came the reply. It was the male who had spoken
before.
I
decided it would be best to introduce myself, so I stepped between
the closet and the foot of the bed. My mouth was open, words of
introduction already forming on my tongue, but what my eyes revealed
to me was so strange, so unexpected, that the words fell away. All I
could do was stare.
There
were four people in the room. Shanai was sitting at the head of the
bed in a sea of darkly colored cushions. She was wearing black pants
and a dark green blouse embroidered with deep, yellow flowers. She
was staring at me strangely, as if she couldn't really see me but
knew I was there. As if she were trying to peer through a deep fog of
unutterable blindness.
Next
to her, sprawled loosely on the quilt that had been thrown without
care onto the bed and smoking a cigarette, was a tall, lanky boy with
long, straw colored hair that fell to the short of his back. He had
hard, hazel eyes that betrayed nothing of what was inside. Even his
cheekbones were challenging, as if all the contours of his body had
been drawn intending to be hard. Sitting there on the bed he reminded
me of a spider. He had long limbs, extremely thin but exceptionally
strong. His stance was loose but guarded. I knew then that there was
something mysteriously powerful staring at me from behind those hard,
hazel eyes. Was it godlike? It's still hard to say. He was dressed
loosely, comfortably, in clothes that could have been bought in any
Salvation Army store. His slacks were dirty brown corduroys, and he
was wearing a light green, cotton pullover with drawstrings around
the neck.
To
his left, sitting at the foot of the bed and nearest me, was a short,
black male. He was crisply dressed, in black slacks and a pressed,
cerulean, silk shirt. The top button hung open, and I could see that
a gold necklace hung loosely about his neck. That particular day he
looked restrained, nervous. He was staring at me wide eyed. This was
Canine, and although it may not be so obvious a name is crucial to
the individual. We've all got more than one, and at different times
in our lives. Certainly the young man I met that shallow evening was
not Emmanuel, the scrying Prophet who haunts us even now from beyond
the grave.
Sitting
on the floor and holding a cigarette that badly needed to be ashed
was Sarah. She hadn't even bothered to look up. She was staring at
ther feet, eyes strangely crossed as if trying to discern vague
patterns in the rug. Of course, she really was seeing patterns, but I
wasn't aware of that then.
"You're
David, right?" Shanai asked me hesitantly. There were tender
waves of uncertainty - of crisis tinged with gasoline - in the air.
No one moved. Canine was still staring at me warily, and Antonius'
ancient eyes hadn't moved away, either.
"Yeah,"
I replied with matching uncertainty. I suddenly wasn't so sure I
should have come in. "I live up the hall, remember?"
Shannai
nodded but didn't say anything. She turned to look at Antonius with
eyes that were more like wells.
"What's
your name again?" Antonius asked suddenly, taking a drag off his
cigarette. His voice was insistent.
"David."
"Oh,"
Antonius answered, searching my face. "David, huh?" His
eyes were cutting, perhaps never truly were there. But Antonius
seemed larger than life suddenly, so tall and imposing and spurting
the radiation of moral strength, whatever that meant to him. I was
supposed to feel uncomfortable beneathe that emerald gaze, but I had
long been inured to the strange powers of the human mind that others
sometimes attempt to wield against me. Antonius' game of chicken at
the edge of insanity did not frighten me. I could always outlast him.
"You look awfully familiar." I shrugged ambiguously.
Antonius chuckled. "Well, I'm Antonius. Why don't you find a
seat and stay a while?" It was the invitation I was looking for.
"Cigarette?"
I
shook my head and looked around. Shanai was still staring at
Antonius, who was now looking off into the corner. Canine, though,
had found something else to occupy his attention. After a moment, he
grated irritably, "Would you mind closing the fucking door?"
His voice was gritty, as if it were fighting its way through gravel.
I
got up, shut the door, and sat back down. The room was almost
completely dark now except for the meager light shed by a candle
perched precariously on a cluttered night table by the bed. The
semi-illuminated faces around me seemed ghostly. It was a black
candle, so in the shadows of the room it was difficult to see. The
flame appeared to be floating in the air as witness to the strange
ceremony that was unfolding, would be unfolding for some time to
come.
No
one said anything for a while. They all seemed to be somewhere very
far away, concentrating on the strangest objects. Antonius was
intimately involved with the corner, Shanai had a paper doll, Sarah
the rug, and Canine - well, he was looking around the room in a daze.
He looked so haunted, as if he were afraid the world were going to
come apart around hm. At the time I thought it was strange that he
should feel that way, but now I know how easy it is for our beliefs
to just come apart at the seams and leave us groping blindly.
"I'm
sorry, what's your name again?" I asked after a couple of
minutes. Antonius seemed startled by my voice. Shanai looked up, too,
but her eyes spoke of too much sadness to be startled. Sarah still
hadn't lifted her head from the floor.
Canine's
eyes landed on my face with a crash, suddenly very intense, very
afraid. "Why?" he snappend at me, defensive.
"I
don't know," I stammered, not exactly sure how to respond. "I
just wanted to know."
"Oh,"
he, relaxing his guard. "Well, if you really want to know, it's
Emmanuel, but people call me Canine."
I
nodded, struggling with the words that I wanted to speak. You see,
for my entire life I had been trying to get away from my parents, and
now that I was free of them at last I didn't know what to do. So I
said, "I kind of heard you guys talking outside. I couldn't help
it. The door was open. But you said something about your father -"
"I
really don't want to talk about that anymore," Shanai suddenly
said, taught. The wells of sadness were gone, replaced by incessant
anger. It was then that I recognized her voice for the familiar one.
"Yeah,"
Antonius agreed, shifting his weight and taking another drag off his
cigarette. "It's getting old. All our ideas, it seems, are
getting old." He paused, poised on the edge. Shanai and Canine
faded away, back into their own little worlds, but Antonius wasn't
finished. "Old," he repeated softly, and at last he fell
silent.
The
rest of the time - I don't know how long I spent there - we sat in a
strange but relaxed silence. I was secure in my thoughts, but the
melancholy flavor of the air managed to permeate my soul, and to tell
you the truth to this day I don't think it ever left me. I've been
that way ever since, as if I needed those four to condense the
essense of my thought patterns into some form I could understand. As
a young boy I had grown inured to such brooding, self-mocking acts of
penance as we would come to affect. If only I had known just where
our company would get to.
Sadness
of thought, riding the wave. I want to be buried inside the nave.
So
anyway, I sat there comfortably, in my own little shell, wondering
what the world had in store for me.
Sarah
did not say a word to me. She simply sat where she was unmoving,
staring engrossed at the floor. At one point, I thought I heard her
crying. No one else seemed to notice. The music was so loud, so
intense, that it shut us all in our own heads, but I could still hear
her. I glanced over once, and in the candlelight I thought I saw a
golden tear drip from her eye.
At
one point, Shanai got up in a rush, suddenly very excited, and
grabbed a notebook. She sat back down, a pen in her hand, and began
to scribble zealously across a page. I could only watch her,
fascinated. Her eyes were pivotal, moving. At once she was possessed
with an overbearing need I could not fathom. Of course, I hardly knew
her then, but even so I recognized what it is that brings a man to
the brink, to face whatever monsters or angels that howl or sing from
the depths of the abyss. What pain, what crazed pain infected her
slim muscles so that the pen was slipping in her hand. After a moment
I found that I was actually surprised. So, she was not so gentle
after all.
No
one else noticed, I don't think. No one paid her so much as a passing
glance as she wrote, no one except myself. I watched her in the
mysterious candlelight, writing voraciously, possessed, scribbling it
all down. I was half envious, half fascinated - envious of the
strained ease with which she got out her ideas (or so it seemed) and
fascinated by the strength and type of emotion that could give birth
to such an urgent need for self expression. When she finished she put
her pen away, calmly folded the paper, and put it into her pocket.
She looked up at me then, saw me looking back at her. For a moment,
we held each other's eyes, but I felt I might be losing something
important to her so I looked away.
Later
on I discovered that they had all been tripping in that room. That
explains a lot. I think you have to have tripped before to really
understand.
Damn
it, Shanai! After all these years I thought you were gone away, faded
like an old photograph. But your face is now clearer in my mind than
my own. How could you have been so strong and yet so weak? And why
didn't you tell me? But not a word through those lips, and I was
forced to hear after it was all over from the mouth of another, who
perhaps betrayed us both. It's not my fault you suffered.
So,
tell me, is there anything you regret, anything at all? Tell me now,
Shanai. Please, tell me now.
Ah,
yes, but no regrets, no regrets. I took me a lifetime to get over
you. Couldn't there have been some other way?
This site and all its
contents are the result of the tumultuous workings of the mind of one
Adam Wasserman.
All rights reserved.