I could at whatever had spattered onto my sweater, my trousers, and my shoes. Then I leaned on the sink and looked into the mirror at the mouth that I couldn’tshut. I clamped my teeth together so tightly that my bruised jawbone began throbbing with pain. Why did I have to mention chapel? Chapel is a discipline, I informed my eyes—eyes that, to my astonishment, looked unbelievably fearful. Treat their chapel as part of the job that you have to do to get through this place as valedictorian—treat it the way you treat eviscerating the chickens. Caudwell was right, wherever you go there will always be something driving you nuts—your father, your roommates, your having to attend chapel forty times—so stop thinking about transferring to yet another school and just graduate first in your class!
But when I was ready to leave the bathroom for my American government class, I got a whiff of vomit again and, looking down, saw the minutest specks of it clinging to the edges of the soles of both my shoes. I took off the shoes and with soap and water and paper towels stood at the sink in my stocking feet, washing away the last of the vomit and the last of the smell. I even took my socks off and held them up to my nose. Two students came in to use the urinals just as I was smelling my socks. I said nothing, explained nothing, put my socks backon, pushed my feet into my shoes, tied the laces, and left. That’s how you cope with all your difficulties, Marcus—you leave. Has that never occurred to you before?
I went outside and found myself on a beautiful midwestern college campus on a big, gorgeous, sunlit day, another grand fall day, everything around me blissfully proclaiming, “Delight yourselves in the geyser of life! You are young and exuberant and the rapture is yours!” Enviously I looked at the other students walking the brick paths that crisscrossed the green quadrangle. Why couldn’t I share the pleasure they took in the splendors of a little college that answered all their needs? Why instead am I in conflict with everyone? It began at home with my father, and from there it has doggedly followed me here. First there’s Flusser, then there’s Elwyn, then there’s Caudwell. And whose fault is it, theirs or mine? How had I gotten myself in trouble so fast, I who’d never before been in trouble in my life? And why was I looking for more trouble by writing fawning letters to a girl who only a year before had attempted suicide by slitting a wrist?
I sat on a bench and opened my three-ring binder and on a blank piece of lined paper I started in yet again. “Please answer me when I write to you. I can’t bear your silence.” Yet the weather was too beautiful and the campus too beautiful to find Olivia’s silence unbearable. Everything was too beautiful, and I was too young, and my only job was to become valedictorian! I continued writing: “I feel on the verge of picking up and leaving here because of the chapel requirement. I would like to talk to you about this. Am I being foolish? You ask how did I get here in the first place? Why did I choose Winesburg? I’m ashamed to tell you. And now I just had a terrible interview with the dean of men, who is sticking his nose into my business in a way that I’m convinced he has no right to do. No, it was nothing about you, or us. It was about my moving into Neil Hall.” Then I yanked the page out of the notebook as furiously as if I were my own father and tore it in pieces that I stuffed into my pants pocket. Us! There was no us!
I was wearing pleated gray flannel trousers and a check sport shirt and a maroon V-neck pullover and white buckskin shoes. It was the same outfit I’d seen on the boy pictured on the cover of theWinesburg catalogue that I’d sent away for and received in the mail, along with the college application forms. In the photo, he was walking beside a girl wearing a two-piece sweater set and a long, full dark skirt and turned-down white cotton socks
But when I was ready to leave the bathroom for my American government class, I got a whiff of vomit again and, looking down, saw the minutest specks of it clinging to the edges of the soles of both my shoes. I took off the shoes and with soap and water and paper towels stood at the sink in my stocking feet, washing away the last of the vomit and the last of the smell. I even took my socks off and held them up to my nose. Two students came in to use the urinals just as I was smelling my socks. I said nothing, explained nothing, put my socks backon, pushed my feet into my shoes, tied the laces, and left. That’s how you cope with all your difficulties, Marcus—you leave. Has that never occurred to you before?
I went outside and found myself on a beautiful midwestern college campus on a big, gorgeous, sunlit day, another grand fall day, everything around me blissfully proclaiming, “Delight yourselves in the geyser of life! You are young and exuberant and the rapture is yours!” Enviously I looked at the other students walking the brick paths that crisscrossed the green quadrangle. Why couldn’t I share the pleasure they took in the splendors of a little college that answered all their needs? Why instead am I in conflict with everyone? It began at home with my father, and from there it has doggedly followed me here. First there’s Flusser, then there’s Elwyn, then there’s Caudwell. And whose fault is it, theirs or mine? How had I gotten myself in trouble so fast, I who’d never before been in trouble in my life? And why was I looking for more trouble by writing fawning letters to a girl who only a year before had attempted suicide by slitting a wrist?
I sat on a bench and opened my three-ring binder and on a blank piece of lined paper I started in yet again. “Please answer me when I write to you. I can’t bear your silence.” Yet the weather was too beautiful and the campus too beautiful to find Olivia’s silence unbearable. Everything was too beautiful, and I was too young, and my only job was to become valedictorian! I continued writing: “I feel on the verge of picking up and leaving here because of the chapel requirement. I would like to talk to you about this. Am I being foolish? You ask how did I get here in the first place? Why did I choose Winesburg? I’m ashamed to tell you. And now I just had a terrible interview with the dean of men, who is sticking his nose into my business in a way that I’m convinced he has no right to do. No, it was nothing about you, or us. It was about my moving into Neil Hall.” Then I yanked the page out of the notebook as furiously as if I were my own father and tore it in pieces that I stuffed into my pants pocket. Us! There was no us!
I was wearing pleated gray flannel trousers and a check sport shirt and a maroon V-neck pullover and white buckskin shoes. It was the same outfit I’d seen on the boy pictured on the cover of theWinesburg catalogue that I’d sent away for and received in the mail, along with the college application forms. In the photo, he was walking beside a girl wearing a two-piece sweater set and a long, full dark skirt and turned-down white cotton socks
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