Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

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Norman lit another joint and started typing again, but Dorothy had now stopped and was holding Norman ' s resume - C ' mon, finish it. You once told me you could do anything, she said, looking at him with cold eyes. If you could do anything, you could get this resume right and get yourself a job. Her look was defiant, victorius, not a look he knew in summertime, a definitely winter look. Norman looked away, remembering that time on the hill, when he told Janis he could do anything — Anything! I can write a novel. I ' m gonna write a novel! I ' m gonna publish a few short-stories, you ' ll see. And I can write poetry. I won ' t run away again. No more in the wilds of Utah, Montana . . . I ' m gonna write you a poem right now — and he did, one of his best, entitled Anything! I can do . . . Well, Norman? Dorothy had softened, but he hated it when she used that tone of voice. Is that part of your Fester book? Yes. That was all. Good, she resumed, Now you can do your resume. And she stiffly sat on the bed, taking out a textbook. Don ' t you wanna read it? asked Norman, pensively. Maybe later. I gotta finish this Art History. Norman turned away, feeling sorry for himself. There was a time when janis couldn ' t wait to read something he ' d written. I love this, she ' d say while she read, It ' s your own fantasy, yet it ' s somehow true, and it ' s funny, even ... And Norman would keep writing, all night long on dexedrine and then stumble into a morning class red-eyed and stubbled. All day he ' d rewrite the scenes, finding new dialogue at parties, in hallways, in class, and his writing talked to some people. It ' s a Chautauqua, something a traveling teacher of Indian myths would preach throughout the countryside, sometimes they were the only messengers to carry information to remote tribes, Limping Crowe would say. Norman! Dorothy ' s angry again. Okay, okay, meek lamb that he was, and he lined the print to the inescapable rule of the typewriter. CAREER OBJECTIVE he typed in block letters, underlined for dramatic effect. Then he stopped to think, and he freaked. For the first time in a long while he noticed his image in the mirror as he sat at the typewriter. What do I really want to do with my life? Who shall I be? What shall I write, ' freelance writer ' or ' bum in the park ' ? (Back to a time before Janis, before Fester, when questions had to be answered and you got off your ass and quit your factory job, running from city lights and confusion, running down highways and up moun¬ tains to camp like a hermit naked in the wilderness, living on peanut butter and visions of nirvana, and running away again, this time from solitude, and searching the highway for signs of the Lost Hobo of Rte. 30, last seen in Wyoming several years ago. Three cases reported a hitchhiker claiming to be the Savior and then vanishing before their eyes in their back seat, and all drivers now are wary of hitchhikers especially ragged freaky Christ-looking geeks. And you reached the city and found delight, lived on the street filled with love and wonder and no impulse or direction — just a lateral drift. 14

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Indulging in the scenery, digging up jobs when needed, floating ... A month later running away again, this time from obnoxious religions and abject poverty into the hills again, back across Amer ica to Slumberville, to a fall semester of meditation and a winter of hard luck and a spring with no sex life - and a dip in the freezing Atlantic, diving deep, feeling the suck and pull of the last long breath. I ' m gonna skip ' Career Objective ' for a while, and go on to ' Educa¬ tion, ' said Norman to Dorothy, who nodded her approval and smiled, looking a bit like Janis. Now I create the impressive facade, thought Norman, as he typed: Pufts University, Mudfill, Ass. B.A. in English, June 1976. Now what? Five courses in Creative Writing? (What ' s your specialty, asked the prospec¬ tive employer. Writing what comes to my head, answered the prospec¬ tive employee, smiling. Sorry, you aren ' t disciplined. We need people who have a definite idea as to what you want. We don ' t need artists, there are plenty around, roaming the streets.) Professor Braintree, of the English Department, once said to Norman, You can be whatever you like. Norman thought he meant in manners of dress and peculiarity of sex. You must, however, bring an eagerness to your education. If you nurse your knowledge, it will grow, grow ten¬ thousandfold! Norman agreed. He had brought with him to college a light-weight limited teen-age confusion, and he going to graduate with a beautiful branching tree rooted in that confusion. Norman remembered a conversation over pin-ball last week with Bad-News Drizzle. You have to coax the ball with your flippers, he cautioned Norman, and Norman thought of college education in that perspective: I had five courses, five important courses in the last four years, and they were just like the pin-balls in the last game. The first ball was a course in Philosophy. I was new to the machine, saw how flimsy the rules were, found out where the most points will be scored, and I watched the lights glow. I was fascinated. Then the ball hit a snag I didn ' t know about. The ball dropped straight down to my flippers, and I let it slip. Ha! Y ' mean when it was your turn to explain your theory to the class, you blew it! Bad-News blew smoke rings. Yep, mumbled Norman, mortified. The next ball I took careful aim. Psychology. Hit the slot for the mind! And the ball plunked around for a while, not scoring anything worth my quarter, the lights and blinkers began to bore me. I saw an easy shot, muffed it, thought bad about it, and instantly the ball was drawn to that magnetic snag and the ball, again, was lost. But I realized, this time, that a slight push to the machine would change the ball ' s course after hitting the snag. Bad-News took a long pull from his cigarette, unimpressed. 16