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.