his entire life to work that centered around these things. When I looked ahead and imagined myself at a desk, computing the week’s accounts, I wanted to slam the book shut and never open it again. I’d already promised myself I would never take such a job, for any reason.
Over on his bed, Jack groaned and flipped the pages of his textbook in irritation. “Why can’t this guy write in English?” he complained.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“Chaucer,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a poem.”
“Chaucer?” I repeated. “Chaucer does write in English.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like it to me,” said Jack. “I don’t get any of it.”
I closed my business book and took Jack’s from him. “It’s Middle English,” I explained. “It just sounds funny. Here, I’ll read it to you.”
For the next hour we went line by line through the first part of the prologue to Canterbury Tales. Having already covered it in my class the week before, I was able to help Jack cut through the arcane language. It was tedious work, especially as Jack kept insisting that Chaucer was making up words that didn’t exist. But I kept on, feeling that it was my penance. I told myself that I owed it to Jack for what I’d been thinking of late. I’d let him down, and helping him with his translation seemed the least I could do.
When we reached the part where Chaucer begins to name the pilgrims, I stopped. “That’s enough for one night,” I told Jack, who gratefully took the book and set it on his desk.
“Is it all like that?” he asked.
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
Jack groaned as if in pain, then took his toothbrush and toothpaste from its place on the closet shelf. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “I’m just going to the bathroom.”
I undressed and got into bed, waiting for Jack to come back and thinking about what we’d just read. Like Chaucer’s pilgrims, we were on a journey together. There was Jack, the handsome Knight, fair of face and beloved by all. Myself I cast as the Yeoman, faithful servant to the Knight, always by his side ready to do his bidding. Andy, too, was along for the ride, as bawdy and uninhibited as the Wife of Bath. We made for strange companions, the three of us, yet it seemed that, for better or for worse, we had cast our lots together.
What, I wondered, would our tales be when we were finished?
CHAPTER 13
Jack’s renewed dedication to his studies lasted about a week, during which he managed a C+ on a speech about the origins of the Peace Corps and a 72 on an art history test in which he mistook Turner’s painting of Norham Castle at sunrise for Monet’s landscape portrait of Paris’ Parc Manceau. As his enthusiasm for his classes waned, he returned to Andy’s room more and more often. Apart from our shared classes, I had not seen much of Andy since interrupting his tryst with Tracy, but he continued to be friendly to me and in no way seemed offended by my decreased presence in his room.
I, however, was miserable because of him. To my annoyance, I’d discovered that I was fantasizing about him often. Even when I was with Jack, I would sometimes see Andy’s face, or recall the glimpses I’d had of his dick. He became a distraction to my studying, an ever-present figure in my thoughts who demanded attention at inconvenient times. I resented him for it, and I hated myself for allowing it. I should, I believed, be able to control my thoughts and feelings.
Objectively, I understand that my growing infatuation with Andy makes little sense. Love seldom does. Its unreasonableness is what makes it so dangerous. It’s what allows so many of us to make terrible decisions, decisions that can lay waste to lives (especially our own) and end with us sitting wounded and bleeding in the midst of ruin, wondering what happened. It also sometimes results in unimagined joy, although I suspect that’s more true of movies and novels than it is of real life.
I can’t, even now, fully explain what it was about Andy Kowalski that allowed the hooks of love to plant themselves in my heart. Partly it was his wildness, which I both admired and was jealous of. Partly it was his beauty, which was undeniable. And partly it was because he wasn’t Jack. I can see that all these years later, although at the time I didn’t allow the admission to enter my conscious thoughts.
Jack had been my best friend for nineteen years, my lover for four. Having taken place in secret, our relationship had therefore also been untested. Until our arrival at Penn, there had been no other possibilities for my romantic interest. Now, though, I was discovering that my feelings for Jack might not be exclusive to him, and that frightened me. Like so many people, I’d come to believe that love flowed only in one direction, its course as fixed as that of the Mississippi or any great river. That this river could have tributaries, that it could flood and overflow its banks, was a shock.
It was made worse by the knowledge that Andy was unavailable to me. His hunger for women had been made clear, and despite his invitation to join with him and Tracy, I could not imagine that he would have any interest in me as a solitary object of desire. This made my feelings for him all the more ridiculous, and deepened my misery. I retreated more and more into myself as a way to dampen my feelings, although admittedly it did little to stop me from weaving daydreams about being in Andy’s bed.
Jack didn’t notice. One of the advantages to self-absorption is that you’re able to completely ignore any cracks in the foundations of your relationships. Being on top of the pedestal precludes having to view the base, so that by the time the marble has started to crumble, it’s usually too late. Again, I’m being a bit harsh on Jack. He had no more experience of relationships or love than I did. Also, he had the disadvantage of never having lost. He had not learned to recognize the signs of impending trouble. Even if he had, he would expect someone else to divert the danger, leaving him safe. He had no reason to think that our relationship was beginning to shift in a perilous direction.
Halloween of 1969 fell, conveniently for those interested in celebrating it without the worry of having to attend class the following day, on a Friday. The campus was the scene of multiple parties, all of which began as soon as classes were out in the afternoon. I remember walking back to the dorm following my history class and passing through a crowd of ghosts and ghoulies, all of them in a festive mood. In particular, I recall a girl dressed all in green, with sequins sewn to her clothes like scales. A long tail extended from her backside, and she’d painted her face to match her costume. As I walked by, she exhaled a cloud of marijuana smoke into my face, exclaiming, “Happy Halloween from Puff, the magic dragon!”
That was only the beginning. The halls of Pinchot were filled with revelers. I walked past pirates and devils, hippies (probably uncostumed), and Gandalfs. On the second floor landing, I encountered two Richard Nixons sharing a joint. And in my own room I discovered Jack laying out some items he was pulling from a brown paper bag.
“What’s that stuff?” I asked him, eyeing the goods warily.
“Our costumes,” he said proudly. “We’re going to a party.”
“We are?”
He nodded. “Andy invited us. It’s at the house of some friend of his. Off campus.”
I didn’t want to go to a Halloween party. Correction—I did want to go to a Halloween party. Just not one that Andy would be at. I couldn’t tell Jack that, though, not after he’d gone to the trouble of actually buying us costumes.
“What are we going as?” I asked, resigned to spending a night dressed like who-knew-what.
Jack held up a cowboy hat. “Butch,” he said.
“Let me guess,” I said. “I’m…”
“Sundance,” he said, holding up a second hat.
He’d also found some vests, chaps, and cheap plastic spurs, all of which we put on. When we were done, we looked like the world’s worst cowboys. Jack handed me a toy pistol.
“Don’t forget this,”