"FOURTEEN" PART EIGHT: PARADISE CITY

PARADISE CITY

     One Saturday morning late that summer, Craig was awakened to the strange news that he and his parents would be taking a spontaneous day trip to Madison, Wisconsin.

     “What’s in Madison?” Craig asked his mother.

     “My alma mater,” Exzine stated proudly while getting dressed and listening to the inspirational speeches and sermon of Operation P.U.S.H.  “I thought it would be a nice getaway from the city and a chance to look around my old stomping grounds.”

     “How long does it take to get there?”

     “I guess about three hours.”

     “I hope my batteries last that long,” Craig grumbled as he left the room.

     Craig spent the majority of the car ride to Wisconsin lost in a musical headphone trance. As he rode in the backseat, he couldn’t help but to lose himself in the memories of childhood road trips to Thelonius’ hometown of Owensboro, Kentucky. He remembered endless stretches of highway set to “Lyin’ Eyes,” the streaks of nighttime headlights on the interstate and stop-offs at Stuckey’s for three pack comic books and peanut rolls. Craig mused how uncomplicated it all had once been. When grades and lost love weren’t issues and he still had his parents’ unending devotion. The way Craig saw it, in those days he hadn’t really fucked anything up yet. Unlike now. And as he practically willed the lushness of “Synchronicity” to ease his soul, it just never quite happened. The car that used to be filled with conversations and road trip car games was now separated by headphones, airwave static and leather seats.

   Upon arriving in Madison, Craig was immediately struck by it’s greenness. Through even the August haze and humidity, trees and the sprawling green of Bascom Hill appeared to be almost plush or better yet, like the deepest, most luxurious water which begged to be dove into. As he stared at this sight, he also noticed a plethora of squirrels, more squirrels he had ever been accustomed to seeing, at least in one place.

     “Mom, what did you say the name of the football team was again?” Craig asked.

     “The Badgers,” Exzine answered.

     “When you went here, did you ever see a badger?”

     “No. I don’t think I have ever seen a badger.”

     “Why don’t they just re-name the team to…I don’t know…The Wisconsin Squirrels or something?”

     “I don’t know how threatening that would sound to another team, son,” Thelonious chimed in.  “The Squirrels?!” he concluded, laughing to himself.

     Craig couldn’t help but to laugh himself.

     From Bascom Hill, the Hughes family happened upon Chadbourne Hall, which Exzine proudly exclaimed, “I was one of the very first students to ever live in this dormitory!” to any and all who would bother listen or even gaze in their general direction. With embarrassment as his only companion, Craig shifted his attention away from his mother back to Bascom Hill and the bridge which connected this monstrosity to the Humanities building. He watched as students rode their bicycles over the hill, walked and greeted each other with a sense of freedom he had never experienced (or at least envisioned as he watched re-runs of “The Paper Chase”). Just to have the chance to wander around this “greenness” filled Craig with a certain inexplicable wistfulness and before his heart burst with the notion of never obtaining the source of this wistfulness, he turned back to his mother.

     “Mom,” he began, “is there another way around here than this hill? Like a shortcut?”

     “Absolutely not!” said Exzine with mock disbelief. “There’s no way around Bascom Hill. This hill connects the whole campus together in one way or another. There was a time I had almost all of my classes on the other side of this campus, “ she continued, pointing in the direction of the Psychology building but somehow extending its reach beyond even Union South. “And there was always at least one course, in which I had to walk all the way back over here and climb this hill. All roads lead here at some time or another.”

     The “Hughes finality” had struck again. There was no more to be said about the subject.

     After about an hour of wandering through Chadbourne Hall (seemingly floor by floor), the Hughes family traveled to the Memorial Union and it is here where Craig Hughes felt a sense of home that he hadn’t felt for quite some time. He couldn’t even begin to explain the security in his heart as he watched the students mingle and study, flirt and converse. He couldn’t explain the synchronicity of the sights and the sounds from  that lonely jukebox in Der Rathskeller warbling out the Moog sine waves of “Lucky Man” like a snake charm. Yet, everything he had seen could not, in any way, prepare him for State Street.

     “It’s like a movie set!” Craig wondrously exclaimed. “It’s not quite…I dunno…real!”

State Street. Much more inviting than Chicago’s version contained an almost psychedelic quality Craig immediately tuned into. Every sound was a note in the street’s theme song, every voice a singer and how Craig wanted to include his voice in this choir.

     “I just…can’t believe it,” Craig began, staring awestruck at his personal Mecca. “Look at all of these record stores!”

     “What did I just tell you about that?!” asked an irritated Exzine. “This is college! This is a place to gain an education. To study. To learn. Several things which you definitely chose not to do this past year, I might add! I’ll tell you one thing…if you get into college, and I wonder if you will with the grades you received, the one thing you will not be doing is spending all of your time wandering around records stores! And if I have to sit in the dorm with you and watch where you go, then that’s what I’ll do!

     “College is not about records stores and jukeboxes and this is not a movie set,” Thelonious continued as if Exzine handed him the baton in a track meet. “This is life! This is real! So, get in the real world!”

     As his parents’ words echoed through his mind, Craig Hughes tried to maintain his sense of peacefulness as he stood at the edge of State Street. His awareness of education’s importance to himself and his family was more apparent than his parents gave him credit for. During his high school years, Craig wouldn’t even try to protest or argue when his parents expressed displeasure at his so-called apathy, for it was of no use. Craig knew only too well that college didn’t contain endless drunken parties or mythical protest rallies for himself. But, he also knew that college was not exclusively about studying and books, despite what his parents said. It was the entire package. How a class, a person, a building, a bridge, a record store and everything in between all interconnected and what would life be like to be placed into this kind of a world. Madison felt good to him. It felt right. In fact, he mused that Madison almost felt like “Hyde Park magnified and intensified” and that thought comforted him. He knew, at that moment, standing on Lake Street watching two college girls embrace each other in laughter that this was the place for him. And if he were to ever have a goal in his life, it was to become a part of this life in Madison.

     While driving back to Chicago that evening, Craig ran through the sights that entranced him. From the gorgeous hidden valley of the Lakeshore dorms, the decadence of fraternity row (“I guess these folks think ‘Animal House’ is the real thing,” Exzine snorted), the vastness of most classrooms he visited, even Camp Randall was impressive and Craig hated sports. Yet, there was one seemingly insignificant experience during the day which he indeed held onto for the remainder of his life. After having lunch, the Hughes family entered into a sporting goods store on University Avenue. They browsed and Thelonious even tried on a pair of running shoes, but they exited, purchasing nothing. As they left the store, the sales clerk pleasantly offered, “Thank you!” With furrowed brow and confused glance backwards at the clerk, Craig thought to himself (with typical Chicago cynicism), “What the fuck’s wrong with that guy?! We didn’t even buy anything!” The clerk’s graciousness seemed so strange, so foreign, so “Andy Griffith” that Craig initially couldn’t take it seriously. In fact, he didn’t know what to make of it at all. As he re-played that one simple phrase, Craig realized just what it was that called to him: the clerk was genuine in his appreciation of their visit. It wasn’t canned or forced. That this guy, who probably wanted to be spending his Saturday afternoon at that great Union, playing songs on that jukebox, found it somewhere to be sweet. The more he thought of it, it was that strangeness of the clerk’s risk to just be sweet that made him love Madison more, and even more determined to return to this place in four years and add his note to that beautiful symphony.

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