by Greg Fields
We are betrayed by what is false within.
—George Meredith, Modern Love
Reg Coleman did not look well. Perhaps it was the ceaselessly bleak, slushy days of mid-January. Perhaps it was the resumption of classes with all their attendant demands after the lazy, well-fed holidays. Or perhaps Reg Coleman looked so ill because he had contracted some subtle disease that chews away one’s health almost imperceptibly from within. Perhaps it was any of these reasons, or perhaps it was none of them.
He reappeared on campus in January as a gaunt, muted specter, speaking infrequently, and then never venturing into conversation but only reacting when spoken to. His once-full frame had thinned: his friends saw bones on him—elbows, long and stringy forearms, and in the shower ribs and sharply pointed hips. His cheeks had fallen away to pockets. His roommate, Dan Rosselli, would watch him sleep, lying on his side, and imagine small pools of water collecting in sockets above his jaw line. His eyes had gone blank. Where before his friends had seen the flitting, dartlike depths of Coleman’s moods reflected there, they now saw cold, dead slate. It was like gazing into wet clay.
He no longer took care of himself. Reg Coleman went about campus in rumpled and wrinkled clothes that now appeared sizes too large. He combed his hair not at all and shaved infrequently. Rick Murdoch found him in the communal showers one morning leaning against the tile, the stream of water shooting into the side of his face then running down the length of his body. Reg did not move even when Murdoch entered the adjacent stall. He made no effort to wash himself, nor took the slightest notice of his friend. He just stood there, head and shoulders braced against the cold tile wall. Rick Murdoch thought it strange, took his shower, but told no one about it until much later.
Reg Coleman followed a routine, exerting himself only so far as was required by his responsibilities and going no further. Classes, meals and study; no deviations. Study, it should be noted, was by no means thorough. He would sit at his desk, in his room or at the library, and stare at a book, rarely turning any pages. In this way he might pass an entire evening, reading, if so it could be called, twenty-five or thirty pages in all, then going to bed at 10:00 or 10:30, ridiculously early in the eyes of his dormitory mates. He did not socialize. He went to no parties nor did he join his friends in the floor’s lobby when groups of them would sit around to pass the time. His friends noticed his absence. Reg had enjoyed their company before the holidays, or so it had seemed, and he had taken a drink or two with them as often as he could. His friends noticed his absence, but they did not discuss it beyond “Where’s Reg?”, “In his room”, and then an obligatory grunt of acknowledgement. To do otherwise, to dwell on it at all, would have been rude.
And so Coleman passed his days through January and into February. The weather did not brighten, nor did Coleman. He did not speak, he did not respond: he remained wooden, a lifeless puppet controlled by strings of destiny visible to no one.
One night in late January, Tom McIlweath put down his Latin book and walked next door. Dan Rosselli was out, crashing a fraternity party in search of women, so McIlweath knew Coleman would be alone. Of all Coleman’s friends, Tom McIlweath was most empathetic toward a soul he saw as isolated. McIlweath had observed it, had looked into those sullen eyes, and he had felt a pang. It shot through his ribs, up his sternum and caught in his throat. He had begun to fear for his friend.
McIlweath rapped lightly on the door, did not wait for a reply, and entered. “Hey, Reg. I thought you might want to take a break,” he said in a voice he recognized as too bright for its audience.
Coleman looked up slowly through eyes rimmed in red. An open book lay next to him on the bed where he reclined. He spoke slowly in a low voice. “I don’t think so, Tom. No. No, I don’t think so. I’d like to finish this,” and gestured with his book, The Collected Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe.
“That’s pretty grim stuff.”
“Yeah. I like it. I’m reading ’The Premature Burial.’ Great piece of work. I’ve started to develop an appreciation for Poe. I think I might have liked him if we’d ever had the chance to meet . A drugged-out, alcoholic pervert.”
“Sounds like a lot of guys walking around campus.”
Coleman did not smile. He continued to look quizzically at McIlweath, who had not moved from just inside the doorway. He stood where he had entered, hands in his pockets.
“You picked the wrong guy to take a break with,” said Coleman. “I’m not in the mood for company.” He turned back to his book.
McIlweath took a step further into the room. “Listen,” he said, “Murdoch has a bottle of wine in his closet. What do you say we find a couple of glasses and relax. I don’t want to study anymore tonight.”
“Isn’t that breaking training?” replied Coleman, almost in a sneer.
“Coach’ll never know. Come on, it’ll be good for us.”
Coleman hesitated, but then said, “Get some for yourself, Tom. I don’t want to drink.”
“I don’t want to drink alone, Reg.”
“Then go find someone else,” he snapped. “Go find Finnegan or O’Hanlon. Go find some of the animals around here who don’t give a damn about anything. There’s plenty of them to choose from. They’ll be happy to drink themselves blind with you.”
“I don’t want to get blind. I want to relax. And so should you, Reg. Jesus.”
“I’m as relaxed as I care to be. What difference does it make anyhow? And who the hell are you to tell me to relax? Look at yourself,” Coleman’s voice rose, “with your Dean’s List and your swimming and your God damn friendships. You’re on full scholarship, aren’t you? It must be so easy for you that you can spend your time in charity work like this. Go ahead and relax, Mac, but leave me the fuck alone.”
“What’s the problem, Reg?” McIlweath bit back. “Your father again, is that it? Whatever it is, it’s not me, so don’t make me your whipping boy. And if it is your father, then screw him. You’ve got nobody to answer to but yourself.”
“Maybe my father isn’t the problem, pal. Maybe the problem is me. Maybe there is no problem. Maybe, just maybe, you can’t see everything, Mac. You can’t know everything, despite what you think. God damn your ass, go find someone else to help. Go bestow your blessings on some other poor bastard.”
“Jesus, Reg, calm down. What’s bothering you is your business. But I’ll tell you again, I’m not the problem, so ease up.”
“Get out of here, Mac. You don’t know shit. I don’t want to talk to you. About anything. Just leave me alone.”
McIlweath turned to walk out. “Nice talking to you, Reg.” He closed the door behind him and returned to his own room. A few minutes later as he sat at his desk trying to read Catullus and wondering what had happened to his erstwhile friend, he heard through the cinderblock a muffled pounding.
“I saw him, you know. When I was home. He called me and asked me to meet him.” Glynnis Mear’s eyes had not yet adjusted totally to the dim wood interior of the bar. She lifted her glass of wine blindly and took a sip.
“He looked exactly the same. Nothing changed, not even his attitude. You’d think he’d have mellowed after what we had gone through, but he came on like the same old arrogant bastard he’d always been. He made it seem as if he was doing me some great favor by seeing me. He kept talking about the risk he was taking, meeting me in a public place, and how his wife would never understand if some acquaintance mentioned we were together.”
Lynda Hoelscher finished her beer. It had not been her first. She motioned to the server, and another was on its way. Lynda liked this bar. She appreciated its atmosphere. Very thick, very solid, low and dark. She came here often. Although it was a Thursday night, young people filled every corner of the open room and swallowed up the bar itself. She and Glynnis had been fortunate to get a table.
“Why did he want to see you, Lyn? What did he want?”
“What do you think? Like I said, he hadn’t changed. There’s an art, Glynnis, in making
the seediest impulses seem honorable. It’s a type of camouflage that men master more easily than women. To my credit, I had no delusions when he called me, although I admit I was surprised. He knew the damage he’d done.”
“Yet you saw him anyway.”
A wry smile curled the edges of Lynda’s mouth. “Yes, my naïve friend. I saw him anyway. Unlike Peter, I saw no need to camouflage my own base impulses. It had been a long time.”
She took a long draught of her beer. Glynnis could finally make out her eyes. They glimmered in the dim light, the fine layer of moisture covering the iris catching whatever color danced around the crowded room. Glynnis identified blues and greens in the reflection.
“He called me,” Lynda continued, “And said he wanted to meet me somewhere, just to see how I was doing. He sounded almost apologetic. ’I know I’m intruding,’ he said, ’but I want to make certain you’re all right. I still care about you, no matter what you think of me,’ and blah, blah, blah. A very effective act, I must say, although I didn’t buy it for a moment. He suggested I meet him at a bar we both knew across town, a bit like this one. You know, even after everything I went through, there’s still some magnetism between us. Nothing lofty, just basic animal magnetism. That’s what started things in the first place.”
Lynda paused again to take another swallow. Across the table, Glynnis sat transfixed. She had come to care deeply for her friend. After the holidays, she had perceived a subtle alteration in Lynda’s character. Lynda had put the last vestiges of vulnerability aside. She had become even more aggressive, even more self-possessed. She had always had a hardness about her, but now the shell had thickened. She drank more, nearly every night, and had become more profane. Her studies, never a high priority, had lapsed even further. Glynnis believed the story she was now telling lay at the root of this sad change. It was more than self-abuse; it was a dissipation, slow, gradual yet apparent to anyone who cared enough to look.
“Once I got there,” Lynda resumed, “we spent about thirty seconds talking about me and how I was doing, then he started in on how risky it was for him to be there, and what if someone saw us, and couldn’t we go someplace private, just to talk, you understand. He really was concerned about me, right? I didn’t even have a chance to finish my drink. I know what you’re thinking, too, Glyn, and maybe I was a fool to go with him. I knew what he wanted, but in some perverse way I wanted it, too. Like I said, animal magnetism.”
“I can’t say anything against what you did,” responded Glynnis. “There’s no way I’d ever judge you unless I had been in your position. Go on. Where did he take you?”
“Can you believe it? He took me to the same old motel. All the way there he kept assuring me it was just to talk, just so he could get to know me again, to see how I was doing, to convince himself that I was strong. ’It’s over, Lynda. I’d never do anything to hurt you, but this is the only place I know where we can be totally alone.’ I don’t think I said more than a dozen words on the drive out there. I let him go on with his line. Maybe he really convinced himself that his intentions were honorable, the poor idiot.
“We got to our room,” she continued, “and as soon as we got inside he took off his coat and tie. He knew what he wanted to do. He was trying to set it up. Peter sat down on the bed, and I think he took his shoes off, too. I don’t know how it all happened. I can’t remember what he said or how long it took him to get me undressed and into bed with him. You know what’s funny? I’m not even certain who made the first move. I can’t remember. All I know is that I insisted he take me right back to the bar afterward. I wanted to get home early so my parents wouldn’t be suspicious of anything. That was the only thing that was important to me then,” she laughed softly. “Nothing else. He was just a piece of meat, after all. But God, he was still good. He was better than ever.”
“Was that the only time you saw him, Lyn?”
“No. We got together five or six more nights. Same motel, same result. And each time I made him take me right home so I’d get in at an early hour. I didn’t care about him. I just cared about what he did to me, and that was fantastic. I’d been missing that. I’m empty again,” she said, gesturing with her glass. “You want another, what, Chardonnay?”
“I don’t think so.”
Lynda caught the server’s attention once more and pointed to her glass. A few seconds later she had another beer in front of her.
“How do you feel about that?” asked Glynnis. “That must have been awfully difficult, wasn’t it? I mean, seeing him just for sex. That must have brought back some hard memories.”
“Why should it? We were meeting on my terms. No emotional complications this time. We serviced each other, that was all. We couldn’t have done that before, at least I couldn’t. Now I can. I took advantage of him, only he didn’t know it. He thought he was performing some great humanitarian overture, helping me prop myself back up. The ass. The arrogant ass. As if I’d be lost without his attentions. Without knowing that he was still thinking about me and that I could still perform like a woman.” She paused to take a long drink. “He did nothing for me, except give me a few thrills.”
“I think it was important for you to know that, Lynda.”
“Maybe. I think maybe I’ve known that for a long while. It was important for me to take my pleasure at his expense, no strings attached. If he doesn’t see that, if he thinks there’s still some affection there, so much the better. He made a fool of himself. I’m glad I got the chance to be a part of it. And I could ruin his life now if I ever chose to. There’s immense power in that, and more than a little satisfaction.”
“You’re turning into a black widow,” Glynnis said through a cautious smile. Lynda’s tale had made her uneasy. It was all too cold-blooded, but this wasn’t the time to challenge her motives. She had been hurt beyond all measure. Lynda looked to Glynnis tonight for an ear, not a conscience.
“A black widow,” Lynda repeated, her own face showing a clever smile. “Kill your mate when you’re done with him. I like that. I think I’ll find a black sweater with an orange pattern in front. I’ll wear it every time I go out. It’s only fair to give a subtle warning, no?”
Two young men, college students obviously, had made their way unnoticed to the girls’ table, sliding over in ministeps, allowing the crowded bar to push them in the right direction. They stood now only two or three feet away from the edge of the table. To all observers, including the girls, they carried on their own conversation. In reality, though, they were timing an approach, sufficiently casual. When the conversation at the table paused, one of them at last turned toward the girls, leaned over and said, “Good evening, ladies. My friend and I were hoping we could buy you a drink. Your favorite beverage, no limitations.”
They were not unattractive by any means. Both dressed similarly, in tight sweaters that showed one with a small but firm build and the other, at least three inches taller than his companion, with a powerful, strong torso. Both wore slacks, not jeans, and both were very well groomed—short hair, styled, shaven, washed and scented. Lynda perceived the scent of cologne, although she could not tell exactly who wore it. Probably both.
They might be brothers, thought Lynda. She measured them in a glance. No doubt that they were students, upperclassmen, possibly even graduate students, and likely from the University of Pennsylvania. Penn bred this type. She had been on campus, and knew that they were coming out of the walls there, advertisements from Gentlemen’s Quarterly come to life.
“Yeah,” she replied. “You can buy us a drink. You sure you can afford it?”
The taller one responded as he turned sideways to flag down a server. “I spare no expense in the interests of friendship. What would you two like?”
Glynnis slid off her chair and grabbed her coat from the back of it. She wanted none of this; she had no stomach for it. She had seen all this too often in the short time here, variations of a single theme, a ritual never holy, never fresh. “I don’t mean to be rude.
I was about to leave anyhow.”
“You can stay for one, can’t you?” said the shorter of the two. “We don’t even know your name yet.”
“Come on, Glyn,” said Lynda. “There’s no need to go now. Things are just starting to get interesting.”
“’Fraid I have to. Take care of yourself, Lynda. See you back at the dorm.”
“You’re no fun anymore, Glynnis,” responded Lynda with a mock pout, although her voice betrayed no resentment. Now she might have her pick. Or maybe even take both. “See you back there eventually.”
The shorter one persisted, taking a small step toward Glynnis as she pulled on her coat. “Can I walk you back to campus? It’s dark and cold out there. No telling what you’ll run into.”
Glynnis smiled. Neither of these two young men struck her as unpleasant. Yet she remained totally disinterested in getting to know either of them. “No. Stay here with your friend, and make a new one. I really can take care of myself.”
“It’s no trouble. Really.”
Glynnis held firm. “No. Stay here where it’s warm.” As she pushed her way through what had become a dense mob, she heard Lynda in the background. “Sit down, gentlemen. It looks like just the three of us for now. The Black Widow would like a Heineken.”
Glynnis Mear returned through the four blocks between the bar and the campus without apprehension. This was a fairly reasonable part of town, the college part, where the only action centered around the student bars. Even on the darkest nights, nothing ever happened near campus. Glynnis instead felt apprehension for Lynda, not because of the two young men they had attracted—they were essentially harmless—but because of the vortex that had apparently claimed her.
Lynda Hoelscher was no longer a little girl, if she had ever been. How ironic, thought Glynnis, that one raised under such rigid strictures should become so scheming, so . . . dispassionate. Glynnis knew that Lynda had been forced out of her shell too soon and too violently, was in fact the victim of someone else’s dispassionate scheming. Womankind, the quality of being feminine, had been such a mystery to her. This man, Peter, had manipulated her innocence, invoking new layers to the already confused process. He had exploded for her the traditional myths of security, of emotional protection. He had triggered a release of her emotional and physical natures before they had had time to gel. He had engendered reactions she could never have understood, was totally unprepared to understand, because the context of her youth prohibited such understanding, thinking it sinful because it was all too human. And so, driven by that humanity and the monumental grief of the collapse of every surety she had embraced, Lynda ran away to recover, to formulate a new system of securities, of beliefs. To create a new context.