University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

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hillls Royal Yacht tobacco, his head surrounded by the vein-blue smoke clouds of his own making, in his right hand a copy of Ayn Rand,s Atlas Shrugged tthe book mark had not moved in two Weeksl, he glanced at his umbrella, which he kept unopened even in the rain, leaning against a corner of the room. In any discussion of Richard, it should be stated at the outset that he was uniquely offensive. At times, his gall was poetic. Conversation to him meant arguing in circles. A self-admitted scholar of Herodatus and Hegel, he was indeed a Midwest- ern marvel. It was not until he opened his mouth that you could tell he was a native of Des Moines, Iowa. Having thoroughly read the Playboy magazine delinitions of what a first yearman should wear, smoke, read, and think, Richard only regretted that the philosophy department failed to offer a course in Hugh Hefneris philosophical discourses. He found life absurd but failed to accept his own absurdity so that it might be meaningful. If only I could circle the square, he often thought. Eight young men within four walls. Of different backgrounds, different habits, different thoughts. The phenomenon of the bull session has been and always will be the great common ground, the great equalizer. The Thursday night before Mid-WinterIs weekend. In twenty-four hours traditional concepts of time and space would be frozen. But tonight let us have the calm before the storm. iiHey, H.T., who you got comin, to see youiw Phelps laughed. ITm going to see if I cant snake something. Hell, Mary Jane was going to be Hying up from home, but with the weather like this, I told her to wait for Easters. Wait till you see her, H.T. said. iiYeahf, Martin began, II bet sheis just a great honey. Really hot for you, huh, H.T. iiWhoIs your date, slob? H.T. triumphantly stated. iiSharon Lewis, from Hollinsf Martin smiled. Thatls the one you had down for Openings. After that weekend itis amazing that you would get her to come again? Richard said. Much talk about incoming dates. Private delusions of grandeur. Strategies, strate- gies. Things to remember: go to the ABC store, cash check, pick up shirts and suit, get cigarettes tnon-filter, she wont want to smoke any, let her buy her owm see if they let you make reservations at the White Spot, get a bottle of Listerine. IH.T., let me have a smoke, will youtw Phelps asked. H.T. went over and gave him a cigafette. Phelps lit up and suddenly started laughing. IiWhatis so funny, now? H.T. asked defensively. IiDonlt worry, H.T., Tm not laughing at youf, Phelps began. I was just thinkin, about this old woman I met on a bus up to D.C. my first year. You wouldnlt have believed it. She sat next to me and when I took out a cigarette, she asked me for one. Very polite about it. So I gave her one. Well, then I looked at her and she was smiling at me, mouth wide open, and the only tooth in her mouth was this long sharp tooth right in front. I lit a match for her, but she said no thank you, and just bit the Hlter off the cigarette and threw the tobacco part on the floor. And she was so damned happy just Chewin, on that filter all the way to Warrenton that I offered her another one. Then she started talking about how all cigarettes tasted the same to her and did I think she would get cancer. And when she closed her eyes to go to sleep she took out the two filters and put them in her lap. When she slept, that one tooth came over her lower lip and looked like it would draw blood from her chin, if she only had one. She didn,t sleep long because she a

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showers daily, drank ginger ale at fraternity parties and was usually in bed by eleven. He oozed friendliness and, although naturally quite envied, subtly forced people to like him in spite of themselves. Quietly quiet, the shortest man in the room, basking in self-confidence because he was so short, sitting in a desk chair from whose height his feet barely reached the floor, was Connecticut born and bred Grant Sayers. The sound of his voice was known to few since, at times, it was necessary in conversation not only to speak to him but to verbally request a verbal reply. He had once termed himself the worlds greatest listener. Phelps had once had a nightmare in which Grant had metamorphosed into a giant ear. He was as New Englandish as a Maine lobster, as obsequious as an appendix, and as intelligent as any mortal should be. He nev- er expressed either love or hate, or, for that matter, any of the emotional postures in between, toward anyone, but it was welleknown that he would go through the trials of Jason for you if you only asked. iiH.T.,, Liner tried to ease the pains of a black and blue ego by lighting another cigarette. He had carried to the University a megalomaniacis View of himself as high as a ten-gallon hat all the way from Sweetwater, Texas; but each semesteris grades contributed to the feeling that he was little better than a needle on a dead cactus. Like Sisyphus, he studied and studied and then . . . and then . . . His one moral accomplishment at the University in his two-and-one-half years was that it now took two beers instead of one before he passed out. His greatest pleasure was making puns, which was a pattern of behavior with him that had the same effect upon others that the consistency of a Hea,s bite does. Everyone in the room could recite backwards the names, ages, appearances, sexual appetites, and family trees of the girls he dated back home, he had spoken of them so often. Back home was generally believed to be the back of his head. For, you see, iiH.T.,, had had three dates - all blind dates e this year, and by each Friday at midnight he would be abandoned, a sad fellow on his knees worshipping the nearest receptacle. From Richmond was Cary Randolph. Cary was probably the only man in the world who could give you the impression of being well-dressed while taking a shower. Now in his fourth year, he had lifted his hefty body to the top of the ephemeral, transient hierarchy of University status. A TILKA, he carried the la- bel of a B.M.O.C. around the Grounds like it was a neon sign. Cary was the type of individual you took pride in knowing and having recognize you with his dolphin-like smile, even though you knew that his life at the University was a continual smile and greeting to those who knew him. He had a strange way of making people that knew who he was, but didnit know him personally, feel as guilty as Oedipus must have felt when he heard the news. He was sitting on the oval throw-rug on the Hoor, back against the door, glancing between the window and Rhettis tumbler of whiskey sours resting above the fireplace. When he wasnit greeting people, Cary,s life consisted of a patient and unassumed waiting v wait- ing for someone to oHer him something to drink. Unless someone offered a pota- tion of their own accord, he would never drink. It didn,t matter what was offered, though, for the taste Cary showed in his selection of clothes completely disintegrated in matters of drink. It was not a question of money or cheapness. It was a matter of principle, like the oath of the Hindu forest dweller to eat only what is offered to him, a principle which at times seemed to cut off his kidneys to spite his liver, but which, nonetheless, often led to great satisfaction. So far that night, he had been offered nothing, but like a comedy mask, the smile remained. The only first yearman in the room was Richard Gotts. Pacing pensively, skillfully smoking his authentic Minceris meerschaum pipe, sniHing the rich smell of Dun-

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was hungry, and then she reached into this shopping bag she had with her and pulled out a container like they give you when you take out stuff at a delicates- sen. She also had a little plastic spoon, and when she took the top off the contain- er, she started eating cole slaw. Hell, there must have been a pound of it. She saw me watching and offered me some. lCole slaw is very good for you, young man, and it also gives a nice shape to your legsf she said to me. I told her to for- get it, that I was happy just watching her. Well, and by now I was looking for an emergency escape window, she finished the cole slaw and started to 'chew on the container. I thought that by the time we got into D.C. she would have eaten the whole thing . . . I,Ve had nightmares about that woman ever since? IiPhelps, if there is anyone who can throw the bull more excessively than you, Yd have to hear him to believe itfl Martin chuckled. uOne look at Phelps and you can tell he does many things to excess? H.T. snickered. Bob Fletcher, always the great Habless defender of flab, added, IiWell, that mid- dle-aged bankeris body of his has gotten more lovin, than most of us dream of. Charlottesvillels version of King Faroukfl uI guess this Mid-VVinters we wont have to worry about Rhett Cleghornels ex- cessiveness. Do you have the strength to lift that whiskey sour, or are you just going to hold it all night? Martin Vanderslice asked Rhett. Rhett turned with a scornful look and said, Since I plan to be a member of the faculty here, it has been one of my major interests to learn of some of the traditional attitudes of the faculty. As a matter of fact, excessive drinking on party weekends deeply worried our saintly faculty of old. The once extant Virginia Temperance League imposed upon any University student seen and reported drunk in public a fine of one dollar for his first offense. Consequent offenses brought progressively larger assessments until a persistent violator might stand to lose as much as a hundred dollars on his fifth offense tCod forbid that there ever be such a reprobatel This scheme soon proved ridiculous since clandestine drinking continued nonetheless. So the administration, with the Temperance Leagues endorsement, decided to abandon the fine and simply make all University sponsored dances ipledgedl af- fairs. This meant that no one who had drunk anything alcoholic after noon could attend a dance that night. IVhen you entered the dance floor, you were in es- sence pledging not to have imbibed that afternoon. The dances L..;ually lasted until 6:00 A.M., after Which everyone migrated to a delightful breakfast at the Southern Railway Station. This limited consumption is far more preferable to todayIS horror shows with which I am sure you are thoroughly familiar, Vanderslicef IiTherels no doubt about it, Rhett, you should have been a pedagogue in an ear- lier era. For instance, I can just see you meting out to Coleman May, a young man whose case is an archetype of faculty ridiculousness. I found, while trying to avoid studying in the Library, that in the 1840s a young man, Coleman Chrisholm May, Esq. was brought before a committee of the faculty for certain of his habits. The dialogue as it read in the minutes went much as follows: ii IMr. May, we hear you have been drinking too muchf I WVell, professor, itoo much is a relative term. As a matter of fact, my doctor prescribed whiskey for my healthf I Have you found it beneficial, Mr. May? It Very much so, professor. A month ago I ordered a carton of whiskey delivered to my room on the West Range. It took the help of three husky slaves for me to carry that carton into my room, and now I can lift it all by myself