By the flannel shirts topped by baseball caps I perceived through the lead-paned window, locked in perpetual orbits about a star with her cornea of straw blond hair tied back in a bandanna, I could tell Cannon was having a party. I hopped down from my perch upon the stone fence out front, walked up the cobblestone path on past the high-school girls waiting in line, and I told the bouncer I was a member. I hadn't been to a party at my club in a year, but the scene hadn't changed any more than it had in the previous hundred years, except for the poser grunge. There were still the same old oil paintings of the guys posing with their lacrosse sticks--the eternal chaperones whose silent presence warded off the demons that might afflict any other club which had not once long ago been graced with their presence. Below the particular painting I found myself associating with was the redundant inscription; "Skip Brennington-- Lacrosse and Gentleman."

"Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage," faded into Perry's descending guitar and Tyler's crescendoing siren howl as ģI was tryin' just to get you-- now I'm dyin' to forget you; Do what you do down on me," was born out over the speaker mounted to the right of Skip. It assuaged my soul to hear some classic rock for a change, and Axl Rose invented the bandanna. Walnut walls and golden studs in red leather. Candle lamps and a painting of the last supper over the great winding stairway which led up towards an immense crystal chandelier and the officer's bedrooms. Hardwood floors surrounding Persian rugs. A billiards room with a billiards table, with a quote engraved above the mantelpiece: "'Til a man has lost at billiards and woman, he has not received an education.'" In here all the flannel shirts belonged to Ralph Lauren-- his solemn tribute to the death of the savior of the boomer's record industry. He shot heroin and then himself so the media elites christened him the voice of my generation. If ever you want power over a group of people, destroy their language and deny them their meaning. It's only a temporary domination, as power cannot exist without respect. Then I saw her, so I headed toward the taproom. You would've too.

Many of us owe our conception to Bacchus, and hence the tendency to worship the God that created us. But I was endowed with the strange temperament of temperance. I refrain from drinking not because my countenance or character excludes me from the institutions where alcohol plays host to the festivities, but rather, I have always taken pride in believing that I am well capable of enjoying reality as it is presented to me in a natural state of consciousness. For I believe that upon the solid, consistent rock of unaltered perceptions is where all Great Literature is understood as well as conceived. Plato, Einstein and Jesus are three of my favorite poets.

Like the infinite shadow cast across the fields from a leaning, weathered farmhouse caught in the final moments of a Carolina sunset, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Windy Meadow's jet black hair as she herself had dodged into the taproom, leading Tucker Stevenson by the hand. I had first been graced with a glimpse of her during an early rehearsal for the Triangle Club's spring show two years back, and had since admired her from afar. Now I myself am not a performer of any kind, but I used to frequent McCarter theater on my return trip from the physics building to hang out with Uncle Walt. He was seventy-three, alert as a hound, and had still planned on directing the Triangle show this year-- a task which he had performed and received much praise for over the past forty years. Two months ago, in September, Uncle Walt had shot himself in the head.

Windy had had that mysterious inexplicable effect upon me: a feeling that I have only ever witnessed once before during my fourteenth summer at a July 31st party back down in Chapel Hill when the most magical girl residing south of the Virginia line had placed her hand upon my shoulder-- Tammy was her name-- and whispered that she had had a dream about me. Nor shall I ever forget that autumn afternoon, when I was waiting for Uncle Walt in the balcony of the theater, and there stood Windy center stage during rehearsal, with her back to the imaginary audience. In a black Metallica t-shirt. Even before I had had the chance to perceive her face, I was immensely attracted to her, though not in a physical manner. How could this be, you might wonder, that although I was only presented with a mere apparition of Windy, lacking any perspective into her secret soul which a 2 AM conversation might afford-- how could it be anything more than a physical attraction? In my defense I can only say that it was-- she affected me in an intellectual way.

She was the brisk autumn wind which ripples the September amber waves of grain, a flirtation with the abyss. I see them speak of symmetry in all my physics classes, and I hear them mention beauty, truth and the mind of God when the physics bores them, but their hackneyed ploys to gain prestige have no affect upon me, for I have perceived what all their trumpeting is borne by-- not by the motion of the constituent elements: electrons recoiling, photons propagating, fields interacting, but by the conglomerate sum of all these which sometimes miraculously combine to form the silhouette of a Windy. Which is why I turn to Shakespeare rather than the tenured text-book writers for wisdom. But a cancer rages across all contemporary academies of higher learning where men and women content themselves with detailed knowledge of a single blade of grass. Utterly shunned from the academic institutions is the man who seeks to pay tribute to the magnificent field. Some walk the campuses as philosophers, some wander on as if they are artists, some pretend to be poets, but they are but resentnik politicians who use anything they have in the way of aesthetic gifts to obtain government grants and persecute Renaissance Men. The liberal goal is to replace all works of individual Greatness with a political void.

The bouncer at the taproom scabrously informed me that he himself was a bona fide member, and he didn't recognize me. He was one of the people who'd gotten in in fall bicker. I told him I'd lived in the club, and that I'd been the President up until September, which was all true, but he was too busy playing tough guy for some blond to believe it. But the fates were on my side, and JB, who was a member, saw me. He came over and informed the bouncer that I was O.K. He was a bit too affected for his own good, but he was all right, when you put it in the context. This is where people paid for their friends.

"How ya doin' big guy?" I asked him.

"Good. Good. I just broke up with my girlfriend."

"No way." You could tell he was pretty drunk. "How was Scotland?"

"She pulled some pretty wild @&%# on me. I mean everything was fine in Scotland, met her relatives at the stupid wedding-- then we came back and she told me that she needed her space. I mean talk about the wrong reference frame."

"Yeah, she's probably in it." The Wrong Reference Frame was this story I had written in high school which had circulated about my freshman dormitory. It was about how man was more then chemical reactions, and how he had a chance to signify something with his life via romantic love or something. The esteemed feminist Sycorax had kicked me out of her creative writing class last semester for turning it in. She had nothing to lose by eradicating romance.

People will tell you Cannon is an all male club, but don't let them fool you. If you were ever in the mood to see pretty girls, you circumambulated the rooms of Cannon. I didn't recognize anyone in the club, except for Skip, and I was going to split, except old John came up to me again. He was still complaining about his girlfriend.

"I really don't understand. Eighteen months and all of a sudden she gets all nervous."

"Girls have that tendency," I offered.

"No @&%#. Her roommate broke up with her boyfriend, too-- it's the momentum they get from all being on the rag together-- how are you and Joey doing?"

"Good."

"Yeah, she's a neat girl-- a very cute girl. A Southern girl." Right then I saw Windy Meadows walking by, oblivious to my presence though practically brushing me, and I whispered her name.

"Drake." She halted and immediately took my hand, acting as if she was extremely glad to see me, even though I'd only met her once. Here in Cannon it had been, and only long enough to exchange names before she'd been whirled off to donate her vital presence to some essential conversation concerning all that was yet to be. Girls such as Windy always walk up to you and take your hand, and they're always very glad to see you, but usually it's only after you've played on her boyfriend's soccer team or you've taken one her roommates to an SAE party and let her do the walk of shame. I didn't know Windy knew my name. I'd sent her these poems a couple months back. "I'm in love with you Drake." She kissed me on the cheek. "Even though you need a shave." I was taken aback by the completely unwarranted attention-- attention that was relayed almost entirely via the most memorable brown eyes.

"Don't I get one?" John asked.

She kissed him on the cheek too, and I said that it just devalued her kiss by fifty percent, and she kissed me again. It was still devalued by a third, but I refrained from worrying about it. She looked at John. "I'm in love with Drake." She looked at me. "Drake, what if I told you I loved you?"

"You'd get what's coming to you."

"What's that?" She squeezed my hand.

"It's hard to say for sure." I shrugged. "I'm a nun."

"I loved your poems-- "

Right then she saw some guy she knew and grabbed his arm. He gave her a big old friendly hug, lifting her off the ground, and they went right into conversation which came as a relief, after the way which he had lifted her. You could tell it was pretty intimate by the way she was standing right in his face. He had his hair slicked back, and I recognized him as the guy that had played a small role in Jurassic Park. I didn't see him in the movie, but people told me he was in it.

A dark, dreary cloud enveloped my spirit as I walked up onto to Nassau Street, by PJ's Pancakes and Woolworth, and down Witherspoon Street to the graveyard. I turned my collar to the cold and damp. The sole excitement present in the crisp, pristine November air was the blinking yellow traffic light, which like the countless unread poets and undiscovered sculptors throughout eternity yet performed his duty, on through the deep night, indifferent to the absence of an audience. My breath hung for a long time in the still air. A snow white Persian cat made it's way towards me, meowing. I picked her up and stroked her until she was pacified, and closed her green eyes, drifting off upon my lap. Once long ago I used to wonder about where time went and why we were here. Once long ago I believed education had something to do with answering these questions, but recently it had been determined by the experts that the truth does not exist.

I maintained my perch upon the cold tombstone for awhile, hoping for a simple ghost or something-- but none materialized. So I took off with the intentions of going home and retiring.

While strolling through Prospect Gardens I sighted a girl up ahead who resembled Joey-- my girlfriend back in Carolina. Not in the Princeton sense, where two consenting adults might accompany each-other home from parties whenever they happen to run into each other up on Prospect street, but in the classical sense, where I would pick her up and talk to her dad about tennis before taking her out to see some Quentin Tarentino flick. The reason I didn't think it was Joey was because Joey was in high school yet, back down in Chapel Hill. But from my perspective she completely resembled Joey-- walked exactly like her, and even had the same Adidas soccer shoes-- the ones I'd gotten for her over in Germany. So I quickened my pace to catch up as the reality of Joey's being five hundred miles away waned and the certainty that it was her there before me waxed. The crunching sound of me advancing upon the gravel in front of Prospect Gardens startled them, and they both abruptly turned upon me. And I saw it was Cinder. Cinder Caufield. Ryan, my roommate, referred to her as the queen of Cottage Club, and that she could easily be, having been modeled after a Venus, except she'd been blessed with a set of arms, and she was thinner, of course. I looked down, embarrassed, even though the couple knew not of my intentions, and then I suddenly recalled how Ryan had accused me of snubbing all of Cinder's roommates awhile back when he had gone out with her-- or asked her out. In reality of course I didn't snub her roommates, nor Cinder, for that matter. I just didn't enjoy talking to them all that much. One of them, Paloma, had been in my Shakespeare precept, and all that she could extract from Hamlet was that the patriarchy was oppressing women. She didn't get the joke, and she was the one telling it. For whenever she spoke up to criticize white male oppression, she was speaking from a fortified position in a mini skirt.

The party was over by the time I returned to Cannon Club, except for a few stragglers who were shooting billiards. I walked up the stairs to the third floor. The officer's door was unlocked. I was greeted by two messages upon my message board which had not been there before. Bleary eyed, I stared at them for awhile.

Drake--

Hi--it's Screw your roommate time, so I stopped by to say hi w/ my date, Charlie! Can't wait to see you.
WM

Drake--

I know I called, too, but what the hell. I thought I'd drop by. Though my initials are "WM", I didn't go to screw your roommate with a Guy named Charlie. Please call or drop by."

Windy Meadows '96
204 Laughlin Hall,
x 9876.

I walked in and there was a message on my machine. "Hi Drake, I'm taking my contacts out, and. . . and you left Cannon without saying bye. If you want to call, or come over, feel free to do so." All of it was beautifully stated in a matter of fact voice of polite accusation, motivated by a sincerely felt need to correct some grave injustice. Comfortably Numb was playing on my radio alarm which had a habit of turning itself on.

So I called her. My room was a mess, as usual, on account that I'm not a very organized person, on the superficial level. One of the more dismal aspects of physics, besides the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, is the second law of thermodynamics which states that entropy always increases. Even in the case that an increase of order occurs within a specific system, such as folding one's socks, a net decrease of order is introduced into the surrounding universe, so you see that less organized, laid-back people are in reality delaying the process by which all shall someday combine in the absolute chaos of nothingness. Slackers think this makes them noble, but most slackers I know aren't laid-back. It takes twice as much energy to find matching clothes in thrift stores.

"Hello, Windy?"

"Yes, hi--" She sounded bored. "You left without saying bye."

"Like you really cared."

"I did. I looked for you before you left. Did you have fun tonight?"

"A blast, dude. How about you?"

"Oh, I like Cannon. I mean I can hate it at times, but I like it. Who's the other WM?"

"That's Wendall Meadows. She's a freshman from Carolina. Her parents didn't have quite the sense of humor yours did."

"Lucky you, freshman babes from Carolina."

"First year student babes," I corrected. "How'd the show go tonight?"

"Same, it was--."

"I don't really care about the show. Do you want to take a walk?" I asked.

"I know you didn't care, so why'd you ask?"

"Do you want to take a walk?"

"Sure, where to?"

"The edge of the earth."

"Where do you want to meet?" She sounded pretty drunk.

"Just start walking to Cannon, I'll meet you halfway."

"I'll be the woman smoking two cigars."

I donned this funky cowboy hat I had, to match the cowboy boots I already had on, and I walked down the slate stairs and outside into the crisp night. I pulled the hat down low, over my eyes, practically. It took her about ten minutes to show up at the halfway point. She was wearing a gray sweater-- one of those soft, fuzzy wool ones, and she had her arms crossed. She always had her arms crossed. I mean that's how I'm forever sentenced to remember her walking, with her arms crossed. She was looking down, watching her step, as she came down the stone steps to where I was standing. When she arrived at the bottom, she looked up at me. The light from the gas lamps enhanced some aspect of her visage-- no single particular feature, but the soft light inspired a somber glow, as if the light was emanating from her. When she smiled I found myself in love.

"Nice hat."

"Thanks. Nice Lennon glasses." She was going for the intelligent look. We started walking down towards the Butler dormitories.

"Where are you taking me?"

"I didn't think it mattered."

"It might-- it might not."

We walked down past a sundial monument which some benefactor from the class of '39 had donated. It had caused much commotion among the campus journalists and politicians earlier in the year as the popular rumor that it represented a male appendage made its way to the front page of the most prestigious campus publications, and I think most were surprised to find the sky did not fall. An astute mechanical engineer pointed out that it would be hard to design a sundial which paid homage to the feminine anatomy, and last I heard he had been crucified in the Chapel, during a small ceremony with close friends and relatives present.

"How do you know how to say things like, 'you forgot to say good-bye'?"

"What?" She looked at me.

"With such conviction, to call me up and say that when in reality you're not the type of person to really give a hoot about good-byes. When you don't know me."

"Well you left without even say--"

"How do girls think of saying those things?" I was genuinely curious.

"What do you mean, girls."

"I mean girls, how do they think of saying things like that?"

"If I knew it was going to offend you I would have--"

"Oh, no no no. I'm not offended kid, I'm merely--"

"Making fun of me."

"No-- If anything, it's a deficiency on my part. I mean I wish that I could think of those things."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She said, in a child's voice, kind of dancing ahead. "Besides, I know you." The voice suddenly brought about a recollection of Bootsy-- a ten year old who I had given tennis lessons to a couple of summers back.

"That makes two of us."

"Where are we going?" she turned and grabbed my hand. On the other side of the street there were two back-to-front baseball capped guys taking leaks on the opposite sides of the road which goes up through the center of campus, by the tennis courts. I told one of them that it was illegal to piss on the left side of the road and that he would have to go join his friend-- Windy elbowed me.

"Where are you taking me?"

"On a wildlife excursion."

We walked past Spelman and a proctor scrutinized us from his car as he drove by.

"I know a lot about the stars, do you have any questions?" I was joking.

She stopped and pointed. "There's the big dipper, and there's the north star." She traced it out with her finger. "That's how the slaves found their freedom."

"Were you a boy scout?"

"No. I was a slave."

"Did you learn that in feminism 101?"

Five or six people had gotten out of a Volvo that had just pulled in front of McCarter Theater. I happened to be pointing out Orion's belt to Windy, about ten paces away. "How many stars are there darling?" The tallest guy in the group coached me.

"The universe must go on forever, like my love for you," a different one said.

"Oh, c'mon guys, you're crampin' my style." I told them. We were asking for it.

"Is your dad a thief?" one of them asked Windy.

"No, why?"

"Then who stole those stars in your eyes?"

One of the girls in the group asked me how she might find her way to Blaire Arch. I pointed out towards the golf course, and they were all ready to head out there, except Windy, the eternal shepherd, set them straight.

"Where're y'all from?" I asked.

"Dartmouth."

"That's a relief, do you guys have a social life up there?"

"Yes," one of the girls said. "But it sucks." She was cute. She had holes in her jeans, with red bandannas over the knees-- she'd wait 'til after law school to buy a new pair of trousers.

"At least you have one. I've been out 'til three in the morning and look what I ended up with." Windy socked me one in the stomach.

"Where's Blaire Arch?" a different one asked. They hadn't been paying attention.

"It's out there." I pointed over the golf course again.

"Don't listen to him," Windy said. "It's back that way."

They invited us to sit with them at the football game tomorrow. I told them I probably wasn't going, but I said I'd look them up if I ever got to Dartmouth, and they told me their names, but I doubt that I ever will. Look them up I mean. I wished them luck in all their future endeavors, and we headed out towards the golf course. Windy had negotiated a handful of Pringle potato chips from them. "Are you a golfer?"

"Yes," she looked at me, "I was recruited."

"For what?"

"Football." she said.

"I was recruited too. I'm the token idiot. They're not allowed to discriminate based on intelligence anymore, so here I am. There's one every year."

"I doubt that."

"Every year, seriously."

"I doubt you're it."

"Thanks for believing in me, kid." I saw a shooting star, but Windy had been looking down.

"No problem."

"If it keeps up I may start a religion."

She dropped my hand, took a step back and looked at me. "Why do you say those things?"

"Why not? What things?"

"Well I kind of know why you say those things, I mean I say them too, but why do you? Like about starting a religion--"

"It's a good job, I figure, if you can place a claim on all the unanswered questions."

"Is that what why you write pretty poems?"

"That's a professional secret."

"You're cryptic," she decided, kind of skipping on ahead. And it occurred to me that that was a good half of the mystic element she possessed-- no matter how old she became, there would always be something playful in her demeanor which was suggestive of a child.

"My mom told me to be cryptic. That way you get girls to call you from Cannon after they come home at two in the morning."

"What?!" She stopped dead in her tracks. "What did you just say?"

"Let's not wake up the neighborhood-- "

"Why do you think I called you?" She was keeping about ten feet behind me.

"Because you wanted to apologize for me not saying good-bye."

"Seriously, why do you think I called you?"

"I don't know, kid. You're a bit cryptic yourself."

"Well why do you think?" she had her arms crossed again.

"It doesn't matter what I think--"

"Seriously, why do you think?" She kind of tilted her head to one side, and bit her lip for a fragment of a second before smiling, "maybe you're right." She took my hand and started walking again, but then she dropped it. "Don't touch me," she said. "I can't believe you said that. Guys are so cocky."

"What do you mean guys?"

"You are, guys are cocky."

"C'mon, I was half kidding you."

"Half kidding? Let me wear that hat." She swooped in close enough to grab it, she put it on, and then dodged away again, anticipating retaliation.

"I got it for half price-- it was last year's style."

"I don't remember everyone wearing cowboy hats last year."

"That's what the hat man told me."

"So where are we going? I'm hungry."

"I tried to get the Pringle potato-chip people to follow us, but you wouldn't let me. Twice you wouldn't let me." A boy in a jacket and tie walked by us. It appeared as if he had just dropped his screw your roommate date off at the grad college-- it had been screw your roommate that night for the freshmen who lived up in Rocky. His roommate had screwed him with a graduate student. Windy asked me what was so funny.

"Poor kid."

"Who?"

"Us." She had put her hand in my back pocket.

"What are you talking about?"

"We have to grow up." Our rambling journey had brought us to the edge of the Golf Course, Springdale golf course, and there before us lay the largest pile of leaves I had ever witnessed, which represented a few days work by the golf-course grounds keepers. Joey's father helped maintain a golf course back in Chapel Hill, but I do not recall thinking of her that moment. The leaves shared the scent of the rock candy my mother used to make, and we shuffled through them, kicking them up in the air, and letting the wind blow them away. All of a sudden she seized hold of my heel, and putting her foot out in front of my other leg, she upset my balance, and toppled me over into the pile of leaves.

"Two points." She said, pinning my arms over my head.

"I've got you where I want you." I told her.

"Liberate yourself from my vice-like grip."

"I can't." I said.

"I know-- you've gotten so thin."

It was true-- ironically I had lost twenty pounds since I quit the wrestling team, whereas I had naturally expected to gain a few. I brought my arms up and rolled so that she lost her berth in spite of her best struggle. "Ow! Wait! Wait!" She pulled something out of her back pocket-- it was a small silver flask. "Cool-- want some?" She laughed.

"That depends-- what is it?"

"Here, try." It was brandy, and before I brought it away from my lips she'd attacked again, but I offered no resistance, and she pinned me again, and then informed me I was no fun, and she reclaimed the flask.

"My mother wanted to call me Brandy."

"Did your dad call you Windy?"

"No-- that's not my name. It was my Grandmother's name-- my mom's mom."

"What's you're real name?"

"Hickory-- I hate it. It's the only thing my dad ever gave me. It's about as cheesy as the girls he drives around in his asinine red Miata. Is that the big dipper again? Anyway, the Hickory I know is lame."

"Yeah, come on, there's something you've got to see-- hear I mean." I grabbed her hand and pulled her up.

"Where are you taking me?"

"All these questions. Why did you call me? Where do they keep the golf carts?"

"Cool-- we're on a green."

"Most girls would have thought it's a tennis court."

"How come you always lump me with most girls? I hate that."

"I'm not lumping you with most girls. Your perceptiveness sets you a breed apart."

"Shut up," she said. "You're being belligerent."

"You should learn to take compliments with grace."

"I ought to go back."

"You want to go back?"

"What if I did?"

"I'd take you back."

"O.K., take me back." She halted.

"Let's go." I turned, but she grabbed my hand.

"Just checking," she said. I put my arm around her and we lumbered along through a sand trap. I got to the rake on the other side of the trap, and I smoothed our footprints over. I told her I didn't want to leave any clues. We walked on a bit, and I practically killed myself when I tripped and fell over a bench. They paint the things green.

"Hey kid," I said. "This is the echo spot." We stopped and looked out over the pond at Forbes. It was still, except for the sound of water falling over the spillway.

"Yell something."

"Echo," I said.

"Yell it."

"No, you can't look like you're trying. That's another thing my mom told me."

"What's this thing you've got for your mother?"

"She's a good cook. Someday you might be one."

She pushed me, towards the pond. "You're going to get wet."

"Careful-- careful. She's actually a Professor of Sociology."

"All you men are the same." She turned and walked away, and I followed.

"I mean she's a good cook too, but she's very motivated and independent. They got to her."

"Did you get along with her?"

"Yes, she was my paragon." Windy was looking up at the sky. "She gave me this philosophy about maintaining one's sobriety."

"It's night, but it feels like it's getting warmer. How many girls have you brought out here?"

"Why?"

"I bet you bring girls out here all the time."

"No, girls hate me. I would, though, probably, if I could. But I'm a romantic and the liberals teach you to hate us."

"I can understand that."

"You're the second one. Third, but one of them was just a friend."

"Just a friend, huh?" She walked around the other side of me and took my hand. We walked on awhile, not saying anything, and we ended up under this one big pine tree.

"Where are you taking us?" she asked.

"I didn't know I was driving."

"I like driving." She got behind me and put her arms around me. "I was in an accident once." She pushed me out from under the tree and explained that she didn't want to be a Christmas present.

"Ryan really likes you. All he does is talk about you."

"Thanks for bringing him up."

"He's head over heels."

"He follows me around. Kari Brubaker yelled at me today-- she told me I was being a bitch. Told me to stop leading him on."

"Well it isn't nice to tease people."

She elbowed me. "Well I'm not! I mean he knows it too, or he should."

"I know, I know, you don't owe anybody anything. When it comes down to sex, feel free to discriminate. We're all bigots there."

"Thank you."

"We're all tiny little bicker clubs."

"He's not my type."

"No, he doesn't look like you either. What's your type?"

"I don't know." She had her head back, looking up at the sky.

"You sure know how to attract guys though. You know that? How do you do it? I mean it's your uncanny combination of looks, wit, intelligence, and modern-day know-how-- but those are just words. But what is it-- I want to know it."

"Thanks." She said, her voice completely monotone. The wind was blowing her long hair back, horizontally. It was very windy, for the night especially.

"You're very pretty, you really are." She didn't acknowledge it. "You don't enjoy being called pretty, do you?"

"Not really, I don't mind it." It was easy to see her mind was about a million miles away. I mean she was thinking pretty hard about something. I was going to ask, but I didn't.

"Mostly though, you're a little bit off the wall and it drives a certain type of guy crazy. Do you like the clubs?"

"I like Cannon. Sometimes I like it a lot."

"Well a lot of guys hit on you, don't they?"

"It depends. Sometimes a lot hit on me, sometimes none of them do."

"But you're in control. I mean if you feel like getting hit on, you pretty much do, don't you? I can see that. That black hair and all-- you're a vampire."

"It depends." I couldn't tell if she was being more modest or honest.

"How many guys hit on you tonight?"

"I didn't count."

"I need to know-- it would make me feel better to know that a lot of guys were hitting on you and I'm the one who ended up with you."

"Oh shut up! Like my worth depends on how many guys hit on me!" She shoved me, really hard this time. "You're going in the pond!"

"In some social circles it does."

"I hate men. You're all alike."

"Do you like guys? Do you like guys at all?"

"I just said I hated them. All men have guys in them."

"I heard, but do you like anyone?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Well there was this one guy tonight, but he's being a butthole-- he likes notes more than he like me. He's out of my league."

"Out of your league?" I laughed, stunned to think there was such a type.

"Yeah-- he likes Cinders. You know Cinder?"

"I know who she is."

"Well she's just so straight pretty. I mean she embodies pretty. She defines it-- especially when her hair used to be red-- she'd died it red. She's a real blond-- she was in my bathroom last semester. But it's all she has to do her whole life-- embody pretty, and if she learns to agree with the right men then she'll be totally intelligent too. It must be rough for her."

"You're cooler than she is."

"Thanks-- but I'm not. I can't be-- I can't just be. I have to be something. You know? Perform-- it's the difference between a cover girl and an actress, even though most cover girls are just actresses. I need situations to perform in and the community is dissipating. And even with acting-- you can fool everyone but yourself. River tried. All we are is faces and resumes. It's sad, but it's true. Character doesn't matter anymore in this postmodern world-- it only gets in the way for us. Even in movies nobody really acts anymore-- they just always play themselves. Like Juliet Lewis. You're lucky. You can just screw some woman 'til babies pop out and pick up and move to a new community. Men never needed a community. Women do."

"Whoah! I like communities, and character, and stuff. I mean I'm gonna live in one. And that's what I'm talking about. Like when you love somebody it ought to be forever, which is why I don't understand all of this experimenting crap they pass out condoms for, like we're supposed to try people on as if they were shoes. And at the same time they're assaulting the rational spirit by desecrating all the intellectual pillars which support the moral soul. It's tag-team liberalism. The feminist kicks in you the classroom and then she taps Warner Brothers and the NYT. They give us free love and in exchange we get to pay off their debts. But like there's no such thing as free love. And who wins? The characterless executive, the intellectually indifferent university President, and their vast troops of resentnik pawns. They set up feminist minefields to destroy all those who might threaten their nihilism. I mean I'm gonna live in a community. This generation's going to--"

"You can't." Windy said, staring off into the distance. "It's not your choice. There aren't any social structures to support it. MTV and People and Letterman are the new small town-- but it's a one way small town. Everyone knows their names, but nobody knows yours." She stopped and performed a few slow pirouettes. "This is it!" She grabbed both my hands, and then dropped them. "The same feeling when I was in plays in grade school-- when I was on the track team. There was a group of us-- the piggy sisters."

"The piggy sisters?"

"Yeah, and they hated us--" She smiled. "We always had our hair done up in pigtails. We'd even wear the same colored ribbons. I was in charge of calling everyone the night before and coordinating it-- but that's what acting was all about. Being with a group of friends. And we weren't doing it to get into Cannon, or Cap, or Ivy-- I mean the clubs pervade everything here. This society's sooo superficial. Everything's run on appearance. It's the death of the soul-- it's more than that. It's a superficial thing to say, but nobody gives a crap about anything other than money and looks. MTV's an insult. I'm tired of heroin addicts being called the voice of my generation. I'm not on heroin. Nobody's gonna stay married if the leaders don't."

"The President's married. Even though he cheats on his--"

"He's not our leader." She looked at me. "Who wants to be him? Hollywood's our leader. How's anyone supposed to stay married when Lingerie catalogs exist. If they want to stop drugs they ought to bust the people who make love to them. Poetry's dead."

"But it isn't. As long as there are people, there'll be poetry. You can't kill poetry without killing the human element which perpetually yearns for truth and beauty. I mean we've got to let this generation know they're still free. Somebody's got to exalt their souls with words. Reward them with the truth for reading words. 'Cause that's how you're introduced to your immortal soul-- by the written word. And it is the immortal by which we gain significance. And with the significance comes the will to do right, and thus morality. God resides in the printed word, and to destroy that is to destroy his sacred temple. Everything Uncle Walt ever said is making more and more sense."

"I miss Uncle Walt," she said taking my hand.

"I'm not going to just knock up some woman and take off. Don't you think that women would be happy staying home and raising the children and things if they could count on their husbands being faithful?"

"Shut up!" She whirled on me.

"What? I only mean that--"

I don't want to talk about it-- I can't believe all the @&%# I'm taking from you." She was walking about ten feet away again. "First you laugh at me for calling you from Cannon and-- men suck! Raising children?!"

"You'd be giving back all your parents gave to you."

"Gave to me? My dad took off when I was sixteen. He's the biggest jerk. He's got this girl who's like my age now, and he's such a jerk to her. And she follows him everywhere he goes. She ought to go to college."

"How's he a jerk?"

"I know he is-- he treated my mother like #&$%, and this girl isn't even the mother of his kids, yet, so I can only imagine. My mom's a fruit cake."

"It was tough on our parents-- with the . . ."

"Why do people even have kids? People have kids because they think they're supposed to. But they don't really want to. "

"I bet your mom-- "

"My mom never cared. I mean my fourteen-year-old sister can do anything. She got caught drinkin' beer, and the police told my mom, and Mom did absolutely nothing. I never had a curfew. She never cared."

"But I'm sure she like cares-- people don't always know--"

"And then you tell me that my worth is contingent upon how many guys hit on me tonight." She kinda laughed.

"I'm glad you called."

"I mean maybe I shouldn't have." She said it in a very snotty voice.

"C'mon, you know what I think of you."

"What?"

"Does it matter?"

"What?" She stepped in front of me and put her head back on my shoulder.

"Well you've got that je ne sais quoi."

"Thanks for the descriptive clich."

"Life's a clich, everyone has it. I love golf courses," I said, kind of spinning around with my arms out. "I've lived right next to one my whole life."

"Do you play?"

"A bit. You'd kill me though."

"I've never been out here." She stopped and looked around. We were on a fairway right in the middle of the course, and she had been right about it getting warmer. There was a South wind blowing-- you could feel her gentle, steady breath upon your face, soft and warm.

"It's the only place around here that you can get worthwhile memories." We stopped and stood there for awhile in the center of a fairway, and about all I remember is how she took a step forward and kissed me, and I held her close and we fell over backwards onto the dew covered fairway. She was really a very good kisser too-- only she practically pulled my hair out. She was extremely passionate -- that's all I'm going to say. She took her glasses off and set them aside. I could not remember the last kiss which had rendered me breathless. Eventually though, as eventually always prevails, all of entirety slowed down and we coasted to a stop, whereupon we just lay there, the stars yet receding. And I vividly recall the creeping hint of sadness which tinged my heart in that the early morning hour as we lay there-- a solitary wisp of cloud traversing the crystal clear night sky. The sharp sensation of the bursting spring blossom of a first kiss was already rapidly receding in the wake of that incessant pirate ship which claims all treasures as it's own-- time. It was pretty wet where I was so I stood up-- my knees were soaked. I helped her up. She was laughing about all the grass stains on the knees of her pants, and I retrieved her glasses and handed them to her.

"I'm a pretty bad boy."

"Why?" She asked, squeezing my hand.

"I think you know."

"No."

"I'm married."

"So you can't take a walk on a golf course with a friend?"

"Not an over-friendly one."

"Kiss me," she said.

I pecked her upon the lips and continued walking. She seized me. "Kiss me," she said.

"So who was this guy tonight who was an asshole?"

"What's it to you? Do you want me to arrange something? Kiss me."

"Don't bite me."

"I don't bite."

"You bit me already. Teeth marks wouldn't be such a hot idea tomorrow." I kissed her, only she didn't kiss me back-- I ended up kissing her Cheshire grin.

"Not like that." She threw her arms around me and kissed me, but I didn't kiss her back, and she walked away. "Fine, have it your way." She had crossed her arms again. "You're so distant. That's what I like about you. Like you were the Cannon club president, and you just quit. Like I bet nobody knows anything you think."

I caught up with her and put my arm around her. "You expect me to cheat on my girlfriend and you won't even tell me the name of some random chisel-chest."

"Oh! Like I'm the evil temptress or something." She pushed off on me.

"You are."

"Then why did you take me out on the golf course in the first place?"

"For a round of golf. I forgot how early it gets dark in December."

"Why'd you give me those poems?"

"It's a bad habit."

"They're beautiful. You have a beautiful mind." An hour earlier the comment would have filled me with eternal hope, but now it suffocated in the night's stolid vacuum.

"I must've given you the untrue ones."

"What's that supposed to mean? Kiss me. . ."

"Fine-- I'll just walk on behind you."

"I'm walking behind you."

"I'll stop hitting you on the butt." I hadn't been hitting her on the butt-- I just said it for the hell of it.

"What?!" She hit me.

"Nothing." She hit me in the ribs, hard. "What's your problem?" I asked, "All I said was I'd stop hitting you on the behind."

"Oh, I thought you said something else." She laughed.

"What could merit your beating me up?"

"I thought you said-- never mind."

"I'll try not to." She got behind me, and put her arms around me. Her legs kind of kept in stride with mine. We walked on by the pond and I thought I heard a fish or something splash in the water, only Windy laughed. She had picked up some stones and she was tossing them in, creating what might be called two dimensional symmetrical wave fronts, but such phrases, like the majority of physics, only serves to weigh down all that belongs to the night which is worth describing. God's world may be made from numbers, but His soul is made from words. The ripples spread out in concentric circles, distorting the immaculate reflection of the Princeton Inn College. I found myself wishing she hadn't shattered the smooth surface.

"It would've been fun to go to Princeton before it'd gone to hell." She said. "My dad says it's gone to hell. You think that's why Uncle Walt shot himself?"

"You wouldn't be allowed here, if it wasn't hell." She elbowed me. "I don't know why he did it. I know he hated a lot of things. But I thought he would've hung around to fight it all. It made no sense-- it's as if someone else--"

"Tell me about Joey, is she witty? Where'd you meet her?"

"Back home-- we both played tennis. She's good at soccer-- real good."

"Is she smart?"

"What's smart? She did well on her PSAT's."

"How old is she?" Windy laughed.

"Old enough."

"Is she witty?"

"What's witty?"

"Me. Where are you taking me now?" We were at Alexander road, down by Forbes.

"I had better get you home."

"I have roommates." She told me in a voice as ambiguous as the shadows cast by the lonely streetlight which gave birth to shifting figures in the slumbering Dinky as we walked on by.

"They're probably very worried."

"You don't have roommates."

"Ryan."

"Yeah, but isn't he sleeping at his creative writing teacher's house? Sycorax's?" She said. "What's she kick you out of class for?"

"I'd better get you home." And despite my ardent attempts not to, I found myself studying the mechanics of it beneath the streetlight-- I knew there was no better way to dissipate the magic than by counting the teeth. "You're typical. Everyone's typical."

"That's how we define the word."

"You're typical." She sighed, "everyone always turns out to be typical."

"I'm just your man on the street."

"Guess so."

"If only I could be a-typical like Windy. Then I'd have it all."

"You'd have more."

I didn't say anything for awhile, and a nervous feeling seeped into my conscience-- the type of nervousness that numbs the perceptions to the delights and mystery of the night, and transforms the mystique of darkness into a bottomless abyss. I suspect that seeking to fend this nervousness off is why men turn to drink and drugs, but I say you shall catch me doing neither. Let the void assault me, let her demon's plague me, let time age me, let them all cast and confine me in the dungeons of depression, but they cannot make me run from them. They are they, it is it, and I am I. And that is why the liberals feared me. We were back on campus. "What do you stand for? What do you like in this world?"

"Lots of things." She'd sensed the accusatory tone, and had given me the answer I deserved.

"But I mean what do you want from this world? Is there anything you really believe in?"

"Yes."

"I mean in a guy for instance, what do you like in a guy?"

"I like you-- are you digging for a string of complements?"

"No, not at all." I wasn't. "I'm not talking about that. I mean what do you believe in this world?"

"Lots of things." I was getting nowhere, but I didn't know where I wanted to go.

We walked on by Cannon pretty slowly, but there was no way I could invite her in. So I walked her home to Brown. I had to use the bathroom pretty badly, and she did too, so I told her I'd race her. There was a guy in a towel shaving to the tune of "It's so Easy," which was blaring out over the CD player he had in the men's room. "I see you standing/ you think you're soooo cool/ why don't you just &%#@ off. / You get nothing for nothing/ if that's what you do/ turn around bitch/ I've got a use for you/ besides, you ain't got nothing better to do/ and I'm bored/ so &%#@ing easy. . ." I met back up with Windy at her room.

"Are you going, or do you want to stay for awhile?"

I was very tired, but I went in anyways. I started saying something, but she put her finger on my lips. "Shhh." We sat on her couch.

"My room's so clean."

"In the dark it's all clean." I touched her knee and she leaned over and put her arms around me. It's neat when a girl just goes ahead and puts her arms around you. We had to whisper, on account of her three roommates.

"You keep patting me, like I was a cat or something."

"You are a cat. You've got that Cheshire grin."

"Do I?"

"You didn't know that?"

"No one's ever told me."

"Don't you look at it in the mirror when you shave?"

"You're funny, I like that." She grabbed my chin, the way your grandfather does when they're remarking how much you've grown.

"I can hardly wait for reunions, to reminisce about my funniness." We sat there for awhile, just holding each other. "And introduce my wife to all the girls I knew."

She broke the silence. "Isn't it too bad that we'll never be able to tell anyone the truth?"

"About what?"

"About anything. I mean you can never tell anyone the truth. Don't you think?"

"I'd say yes, but I'd be lying."

"I like your hands."

We started kissing again, and we rolled off of the couch and onto the floor. She said something about Karen and a baby. She said something about falling asleep. Then she undid the top button of my pants. We messed around some more, but it lost its momentum, and we lay there for awhile. Finally I stood up to go. We necked some more, and I buttoned my pants up. Levi's five-o-one's. "I've got to go. I've really got to go."

I put my shirt back on, and she handed me my jacket, unbuttoning the top button of my pants again. I kissed her and finished buttoning my shirt. She took a small step backwards. I buttoned my pants.

"Don't tell Ryan about this," she said, "he'd die."

"I was just headed over to Sycorax's."

She walked me to the door. "It was fun."

I ducked my head back in and kissed her. "Good night." She didn't have her shirt on. But a six year old at a beach.

"Go back to your life and your girlfriend."

And thus, to my utter amazement, I had scientifically determined that my sonnets and the Truth existed. I headed on over to President Shapiro's to wake him up and inform him of my startling breakthrough.

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