Mirrors of Narcissus

by Willard, Guy

  I went back into the room, shut the door behind me.

  I went to Scott’s bed and sat down. Blankly, I gazed at the wall, at my mirror. From where I was sitting, it was angled to reflect our half-curtained window…and beyond that, the women’s dorm across the way. I sat up. I thought I saw a slight rustle of the curtains in the girls’ window opposite, and a furtive movement. Was it the wind? Surely it was. It had to be. The curtains were still now. I waited for them to move again. I waited for a long time, but they remained still. Completely still.

  6

  I heard the plock plock plock sound before I saw him. He was hitting a tennis ball against the back wall of the student union cafeteria. Overweight, wearing a loose gray sweat suit, he looked ungainly; his weight seemed to flow around him almost gracefully as he ran back and forth.

  “Kruk! Take a break.”

  He turned around, wiped the sweat off his forehead and came over to me. “Where have you been, Guy?” He took off his glasses and ran the back of his sleeve over his face and replaced his glasses, blinking as if to get his focus back.

  “Looks like you’re serious about losing some weight,” I said, sitting down on a bench nearby.

  “Yeah. Besides, I have to get in shape for next term. You need at least three credit hours of phys-ed to graduate from here. I may as well get it over with this year.”

  As he sat down beside me on the bench, the smell of his sweat wafted over to me, a not unpleasant sensation.

  “You’re looking better already, Kruk.”

  “Thanks. You know, it’s not supposed to be true, but people do judge you by the way you look. And—I want to look my best, that’s all.”

  “Are you in love, boy?”

  “Get out of here.” He punched me—hard—on my upper arm. “What have you been up to, Guy? I haven’t seen you around the dorm very much lately.”

  “I know. I’ve been busy.” I’d been with Harry Golden for the past several days, had practically moved into his house. Without knowing the exact nature of my heartbreak, he had consoled me, and I had been glad of his presence. The sanctuary of his home had provided me with much-needed isolation, while our nightly sessions of lovemaking had progressively deepened my understanding of gay sex. And it had all helped me to forget. A little. But after a few days, I knew it was time to move on.

  Suddenly Kruk let out a sigh. “Looks like one thief replaced another, eh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Scott stole your girlfriend away from you, didn’t he? Anyway, that’s what all the guys in the dorm are saying.”

  “What else do they say?”

  “That he’s moved in with her.”

  I felt a pang. “Well, I hope they’re happier now.”

  “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.”

  “I told you once that I was really in love with someone else, didn’t I?”

  He looked surprised. “You mean you’re not upset?”

  “Why should I be? I’m happy for them, Kruk. I wish them the best.”

  “Wow. I can’t believe how easy you’re taking it, Guy. You almost convince me that you wished it’d happen.”

  “Let’s just say I’m only bowing to the inevitable.”

  “I guess you just don’t have any luck with your roommates, huh?”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Speaking of former roommates, have you heard about Jonesy?”

  “No. What about him?” I’d almost forgotten about Jonesy. He seemed like a faint echo now from out of my remote past, in the pre-Scott era, pre-heartbreak.

  “Frank saw him in the city. And guess what? He joined up. He’s in the Navy now.”

  “Jonesy in the Navy?” I had a flash of him dressed up in a sailor’s suit. Somehow it seemed a perfect picture. I imagined him in a foreign port, in some seedy hotel with an exotic-looking woman in bed with him, picked up in a bar. Fist fights, drunken brawls, broken bottles. My image of him had always been haloed with a sinister beauty; now I could all but see him with an unlit cigarette dangling negligently from his scornful lips, one eye blackened, and an anchor tattooed on his chest. It was like looking at a picture postcard found in a musty old trunk. “It’s the perfect place for him,” I said after a pause.

  “He was in a bar with some of his shipmates. His ship is in port for a short stay before they head out across the Pacific.”

  The free and easy life. Tropical islands. Brown-skinned native boy lying on the sand.

  “Listen, Kruk. I have a favor to ask of you. A big favor.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “I’m dropping out of school.”

  “What? But why?”

  “I’m just tired of everything. Nothing seems worth it anymore. It’s pointless. Maybe I just need a break from school. You know, school is all I’ve ever known, and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s more to life than just school.”

  He looked a little downcast.

  “Don’t tell any of the guys,” I said quickly. “I’d rather kind of slip out without anyone knowing about it. That’s the way it should be.”

  “What about your classes? The finals?”

  “I’m through with all of that.”

  “So where you going?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’ll just knock around for a while, try to get my head together.”

  He looked at me with some envy. I couldn’t imagine what was going through his head, but from the look in his eyes, he seemed to view me as a romantic hero of some kind.

  “Just like that?”

  “Yep.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a piece of paper—an old overdue notice from the library—and wrote down my home address on the back. “There’s some clothes in my room I’d like you to send home for me. Some stuff I couldn’t pack in the suitcase. And some books. Notebooks. It’s Sunday today so the post office is closed. And I don’t wanna stick around till tomorrow.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “I appreciate it, Kruk. You’re a real pal.”

  “Will you keep in touch, Guy?”

  I looked at him, and suddenly felt all his loneliness flow into me. I saw it all in a flash: the ugly fat boy, unloved, rejected…his whole life reeled in front of me, from the past all the way into his future as a computer technician. I knew that he’d probably tasted miseries I couldn’t begin to conceive of, but my own brand of hell was enough for me to bear right now.

  “Yeah, Kruk, I’ll write. I know your address here.”

  We shook hands, and I felt unexpected tears well up in my eyes. I turned away quickly to go before he should suspect them. As I walked off, I knew he was looking at my back, trying to impress the memory of this moment into his mind. For several long seconds there was no sound at all. Only after I’d turned the corner and disappeared from his sight did I hear the plock plock plock resume, this time more slowly, less vigorous than before.

  It was a warm day. All along the campus plaza people were sitting on the benches, eating early lunches or reading. A long-haired boy who, from the looks of his clothes, probably wasn’t a student, was playing a guitar and loudly singing a love song, but no one was paying any attention. It was still spring, but for me it felt like the first day of summer vacation.

  *