Scags at 18 Page 2

  I had forgotten about running. I had no idea who Mr. Schoors was but then remembered Alex. Everyone has a last name, I just didn’t know his.

  Then Prof. Keating dismissed me. “That’s all for now, Scags. See you around.” His eyes followed me out the door.

  Date: Saturday, 9/6/69

  Every day fills up with something new. Thank God is all I can say. Yesterday was one set of events and today was a completely different one. A far, far better set. Maybe I am now on the upswing. Because today was the day that I met my first friend and went to a poetry reading. Life here is so full of surprises.

  I woke up in such a bad mood. I hated that meeting with Prof. Keating. Come on, I wanted to go screaming back at him, this is the best you can do for me? This is my schedule for my first semester?

  I couldn’t calm down. I went for breakfast and listened to more kids telling each other how much they missed each other over the summer. I can’t escape being the new kid, can I?

  I walked towards the new arts building after breakfast. Well, I really followed some students headed in that direction. They walked fast and disappeared into the building before I had a chance to realize where I was.

  It isn’t every day that I make a new friend. In Skokie, that never happened. The friends you had were the friends you had. Who we grew up with, that was who we knew. For better or worse, I should add.

  When the students I followed went through the large main door, I couldn’t see where they had gone and panicked. I ran after them, burst open the door and bam—I did it again—I ran right into someone and knocked the door right into her.

  I had opened the door too fast as she was trying to open it from the other side. She had her hand held out and the door really hit it. She might have gotten really angry at me and walked away.

  Instead, she saw my red face and neck and arms and took pity on me.

  “You’re new,” she said. And then she laughed too. Just like Alex had laughed.

  “Yes,” I said, “It is becoming all too obvious that I don’t know my way around here. I keep getting lost and then knocking into someone.”

  She looked at me for a couple of seconds and then said, “My name is Eileen.”

  “Scags,” I said.

  She took my arm and turned me around and we walked out of the arts building.

  “I need a cup of coffee. Come with me.”

  That was all it took for us to become friends. My first official friend. Eileen is from Brooklyn, like Mr. Arthur, Julia’s father. I love it that she has a small connection to my other life. She too is a scholarship student, like me.

  “We’re the poor people here. Everyone else lives on a trust fund but not us. We live off our scholarships. Must mean we’re a lot smarter than they are. Right?”

  She said all of that with such a devilish look in her eyes. She is a singer. She writes her own songs. She has her whole life laid out. Study music here. Go back to New York and become a star. She has that look about her. I can see it. She will do exactly as she says. It was thrilling to listen to her talk about her plans.

  When she asked me what I wanted to study, I said, “Everything. I don’t know yet what it is I really want to do. I just want to be a student until I figure out my life. I’m good at being a student.”

  When we couldn’t drink any more coffee without exploding, we left the Commons and ended up at my now new favorite place—the orchard. Now it is our orchard and not just mine. We walked arm in arm along the same path I had been on yesterday in my blue lonely mood. What a difference having a friend makes.

  Eileen sang to me as we walked. I remember Odessa and Pops singing to me when I was a little kid. Eileen singing her new song to me was different. This is more of what I wanted when I was fantasizing about my new life. Having a friend who has new things to teach me.

  Eileen’s song isn’t finished yet. She told me she wanted it to be so much more than it is now. I like it, I kept telling her. She kept trying to find the right words to tell the story of a young girl, sitting on her fire escape, singing to her imaginary friend, Mr. Lucky. She asks him to help her find a boyfriend to take her away from her stifling life at home. All the words to the song aren’t written yet but the tune was mournful and hopeful at the same time. I could definitely feel what she wanted to say. I told her that. She almost cried she was so happy that I liked her song.

  I could have cried too. Not only was the song beautiful and her voice too, but I know that feeling—that longing. I remember lying in bed, wishing, no, really, bargaining with God to not just get me away from home but to help me find someone to really love me. I don’t want to write about this now.

  Now that I’m back here in my room, I want to put down my thoughts about Eileen. It’s clear that we’re not at all alike. She’s not as tall as me or the same age as me. She wears lots of makeup, or a lot in comparison to me who wears none.

  To be fair, I guess as a performer, she has to wear makeup. Her hair is black, and I mean dark shiny black. It fits her head like a helmet. It’s even thicker than mine. Out doors, not one hair on her head moved. My hair is red.

  She’s heavy too. I know that makes me sound like a terrible person, but I don’t mean to be mean but she could lose some weight. Maybe the size of a singer matters and she needs that larger body for the music, but I do think she would be happier to be slimmer. I don’t know, it’s in the way she carries herself that makes me think she isn’t that comfortable inside her own skin. She wore pretty clothes, in lots of colors that I can never wear due to my hair color. So, I guess, all in all, we aren’t the same physically but I don’t think that will make a difference at all when it comes to being friends.

  Because ultimately, it must be about who we are and what we share about our lives that makes a good friend. I admire Eileen for knowing that she will be a singer/songwriter. How wonderful. She is exactly how I would describe a performer—ready to react to anything that happens and to be able to express in her being how that makes her feel.

  My Aunt Money would call her dramatic. I think of her as having those performer qualities that include bigger than normal gestures and a louder than normal voice.

  When we were in the orchard, we ate a couple of apples and then she had to leave. She was off to a lesson. She’s lucky, not only does she know what she wants to do with her life, but her work has begun. When she left, I felt like my world got empty again.

  Then she came back into my world again without any warning. Around 6:30 she came bursting into my room. From the look on her face, I thought something had happened. No, silly me, it was about to happen.

  She came into my room and without saying much, took me by the hand and pulled me out the door. I had been at my desk, reading a letter from Goldie. In the envelope was a $20 bill. Goldie wrote she would send me one of those every month. I felt rich and lucky and then Eileen’s appearance proved I was correct.

  She dragged me out the door and down the stairs. I stuffed the letter and money into my pocket and kept up with Eileen wondering what the hurry was all about. Turns out we were racing to a poetry reading.

  I’d never been to one before. Following Eileen on the dark path back to the arts building, my ears rang with the news that life was now very different. I had a friend who rushed me off to a poetry reading at night. There was no one I had to ask permission of to leave the dorm or to race like that in the dark. It was truly unreal to me.

  I’d never heard of the poet, but now that I’ve heard him in person, I want to read everything he’s written. Why didn’t I know who Robert Lowell is?

  He walked onto the stage and the audience cheered. I didn’t know that poets got cheered like that.

  We sat in the front row because all the other seats were taken by the time we got to the theater. I could hear the pages of his book turn as he read.

  He stood close to me. I heard his voice and the way he c
leared his throat—we could have been alone in a room together. He performed for me alone. It was like the entire time he stood on the stage, he was leading me to a very specific point, intended just for me.

  He read a poem called “Skunk Hour.” When he came to this one line in the poem

  “My mind’s not right”

  I knew he read that poem just for me. At that moment, the words came soaring through the air like an arrow shot out to hit its truest mark and that was me. It hit me and I was stunned out of the old Scags and ushered into this new Scags. I could have dropped dead at that moment and my life was complete. I had no idea poetry could sting like that.

  I couldn’t tell Eileen or anyone what had happened to me. I would have had to explain too many other things. How necessary is it really to let people know about my past? Isn’t it enough that I am here now and quickly not being that old Scags but this newer one? The one now stung by that arrow sent for me to push me out of that old hole I sat in and into this new place where every day was like a huge fireworks display in my head.

  I wanted to spend time with Mr. Lowell alone. Now that wasn’t possible. There were so many people hanging around him once the reading was over. I learned, though, just as I think Eileen looks like a performer, Mr. Lowell is a poet to me. A poet should look like he can never find his car keys but that he’s really looking for something much more important. A poet’s eyes should be shifty. He has to be trying to see things no one else can see and we are just getting in his way. At least that is what Mr. Lowell looked like to me.

  When I asked Eileen why they all cheered when Mr. Lowell walked onto the stage, she told me that he was in Chicago last summer for the Democratic Convention. I could have seen him, I thought, but no, not me, I was too busy writing my college essays to go downtown for the convention protests. But he was there with all these other cool people. I didn’t know anything about it and I was right there.

  Eileen also told me that he had been a conscientious objector during the Second World War and gone to prison for it. That blew my mind. I mean I don’t think about war that much. Maybe I should. Would I go to prison to avoid a war because I believed it was wrong? These questions aren’t on any recent tests I’ve taken but they should have been.

  As Eileen and I walked around the campus together after the reading, I still felt stung by his poems. I was troubled by how he could balance writing such personal poetry and be so involved in the anti-war protests. He has been working for a presidential candidate as well, Eugene McCarthy. Turns out he’s a poet too. Do we really have poets running for president now? Since when?

  We stomped all over the campus together for what seemed like hours. Eileen talked about how she had gone to anti-war protests and written songs about it. I listened. There was nothing for me to say.

  Eileen had lots of things to say about why this war was wrong. I don’t know yet. I haven’t given it any thought and for the first time it has occurred to me that I should be thinking about things like this.

  “Always better to be silent when you know nothing about a topic,” Goldie says. Now, though, there are too many things I need to know that my silence won’t help me to learn.

  I asked Eileen what she thought about the war and she began to tell me things I never really had heard before. Pops turning on the news at home had meant only one thing to me— I was free to go to my room and study. It was as if while Pops watched the news, I could be released from needing to be worried about him. He focused on the bums in office and the bums on the sports fields. I went to my room to study so I could get a scholarship and get as far away as possible from all of that. While he worried about politics and sports, I worked my way here. I got away from him and Skokie. Then I arrived here and discovered how involved everyone is in what happens in the world. I’m glad I heard Mr. Lowell read but I have so much work to do now.

  Date: Sunday, 9/7/69

  I’m ready for classes to start tomorrow. My clothes are in order for the entire week. I’ve become friends with the library.

  This morning, I got to breakfast in the Commons late. Eileen appeared. She sat down at my table as if she always had breakfast with me. I ate my bowl of oatmeal and fruit. Eileen sat down to a breakfast of bagel with cream cheese, coffee cake, juice and coffee. I was too nervous to eat like that.

  She was going to practice for the whole day, of course. I like how when she says to me, “I need to hurry and get to the practice room,” how I feel so much a part of her life now.

  Eileen asked me what I was doing today. I told her I was going to the library to study it more closely.

  “Scags, you are great. I don’t know anyone who goes to a library to study it. I love you.”

  She just says things like that and I don’t ever know what to say back.

  I went into this long explanation about my existential need for libraries but I could see she lost interest quickly.

  Who needs to listen to me go on and on about the function of a library? I know in my heart of hearts that Eileen and I are different in many ways. Even though we are both here on scholarship, I am the one who is the student and she is the one who is the musician. There’s a huge difference between the two, believe me.

  Books breathe and live in libraries and wait for us to take them from the shelves and drink from them. Like little springs that bubble up out of the strangest places, they open up to reveal secret worlds. And each book has his or her own opinion about everything. They argue constantly about the meaning, the beauty and the sense of life. I wanted to share these thoughts with Eileen but she wanted to practice.

  I sound like I’m on a mission to change the way people think about libraries. I get carried away and go on and on about how libraries should be the center of our lives. No one has ever agreed with me.

  Eileen left and I went to introduce myself to the library. I spent hours there. By the time I left, the sun had set. During the day, the library looks as if it is feeding off the side of the mountain. At night, with the lights on, it glows like a hovering hive. When the lights go off, the whole building disappears, as if it doesn’t exist.

  Its architectural design is distinctly different from the rest of this place. The College qualifies as a movie set for “quaint and monied.” I admit I like that look. Eileen calls the campus look, “New England charming.” She thinks the library’s steel and glass exterior was someone’s bad idea stuck in a spot on the side of the mountain not many people see.

  The interior though makes one forget the exterior. The moment I entered, it sucked me in and delivered me into this extremely rich environment. Yes. It was designed for those who love libraries. No, that’s not giving it its due. This library was specifically conceived and created for people like me.

  I know how self-centered that sounds. But it was.

  First of all, you can’t believe the size of its collection. It’s immense. This is the Arts and Humanities Library. There is a small Science collection housed here but the larger one is in the Science building across campus. I saw a sign saying that the majority of the Social Sciences collection is in another building as well.

  Let me begin at the moment I walked through the doors. I walked into this dark area where the reference desk, sign out desks and reserve desk all were. Quiet reigned as it should in a library. As I walked in from the bright outdoors to the cool, dark and silent inside, the main floor made it clear already that a master of the library had put this all together. There are two more floors above this entryway. Each has windows on three sides. On each of those floors, he wall where the library sits parked into the side of the mountain is interesting too. They have a small cafe on each floor, restrooms and phone booths. I could live in the library.

  The reading rooms were furnished with an abundance of long wooden tables. Row upon row of dark tables filled the rooms. Beyond the tables and along the northern wall, armchairs nestled in little groups with ottomans and s
ide tables arranged to make those areas as comfortable as possible. All the available floor space was carpeted to cut down on the noise so you walked on these plush woven fabrics in various shades of green.

  I had to sit in every chair and run my hands along the tables feeling their smooth finish. Then I walked over to the windows and looked outside from each vantage point. No matter which way I looked, I saw trees. We were up in the trees like squirrels in our nests.

  I sat down at one of the long tables closest to a window facing west and watched the sky changing. It never stopped changing. The clouds came through quickly, always in a rush; their sizes and colors whirling through as if they had no time to stop.

  With the amount of sunlight that came through the window today, I saw how easy it will be to use my sun clock approach to studying here too. The long tables are perfect for laying out my books and papers and for also watching the the progress of the sun as the day goes by. I prefer that way to tell time to any other when I work in the library.

  My classes may begin now. I am ready for the long days of my “P” schedule as Eileen called it. My Pottery, Philosophy, Psychology, Poetry and Phys. Ed classes are about to start. I’ve set my alarm for 5:30.

  I’m glad I had all that time to wander through the entire library. If Sylvie were in our room now, I could share with her the secrets I learned. She’s quite popular already. So, she’s out with her friends. People come and go here with such ease. They have cars. Did I write here yet that my next door neighbor, Kit, has a Bentley and drives it to the Commons for breakfast?

  I’m ready for tomorrow and even though it is only 9:30, it never hurts to get a good night’s sleep. I have a team run in the morning before my classes start. Did I say I was excited? And nervous? I wish Mama and Pops were here to wish me well.

  Date: Monday, 9/8/69

  My first day of classes got off to a rocky start.