A Legacy Project

I shared a suite with Cliff. The Buell Hall room was divided into three sections: a central common area where the four of us each had a desk and bookshelves; off this area, two small bedrooms, each with two single beds joined at the head and our own closet space. It was January. The three of them–Moon, Mike, and Cliff–had already co-habited four months. I was greeted by Moon when I opened the door.

“You’re with Cliff,” he said. Then he smiled, raised a hand to his nose, and pinched it. Cliff’s mother had not raised an orderly son. His bed was a pile of sheets and blankets, and there was a sour odor of socks and sweat in the air. I laid my stuff on the bare mattress that was mine and shoved my guitar case under the bed. “He’s theater,” Moon said. “You get used to the smell.” 

Moon and Mike were business majors, both inheritors. Moon’s family was in industrial painting and, I gathered, had money. They painted Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge. It was a big job. Starting on the US side, by the time they reached Canada, they had to go back and start over. Moon was sure of himself. He drove a little green convertible sports car. His real name was Steve, but “Moon” had stuck because of the way he rolled his eyes back in his head when he smoked dope. Mike was rarely around. He took 18 credits a semester and worked 40 hours a week at a local ice cream chain. He was already in management and expected, given connections he had developed, to be the Friendly’s CEO by the time he was 25. Cliff, I learned, was in set design and rarely left the theater.

That first night, Moon informed me, he was hosting a bag-a-thon. He and a couple guys from Chicago planned to each bring a bag of pot and smoke the whole thing in one night. He asked if I smoked.

I said yes, but not like that.

“Around midnight,” he said, “we go out for pizza over on Michigan Ave. We used to go to the Burger King, but those Whoppers lose their taste after you’ve had three.”

“What about class?”

He said he usually skipped the first week.

“The whole week.”

“They don’t do anything but hand shit out.”

After Moon and his pals left that night and the smoke began to clear, I lay in bed listening to FM radio, waiting for Cliff. Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” played, then Stevie Wonder “Superstition,” then Argent, “Hold Your Head Up.” I’d transferred to a school where I didn’t know anyone. I was going to need to make some friends.