"DECEMBER BOYS" PART ONE: OPENING & RHETT'S LAMENT

DECEMBER BOYS
PART ONE:

“It’s just you’re a really nice guy and we don’t want to see you get hurt.”

-Corey Flood

“I want to get hurt!”

-Lloyd Dobler

(“Say Anything…”)

     It was all so simple. It was just going to be a night for two friends to go out. A “Guys Night Out.” No debauchery or lewd activities were planned. Solely a night at the movies on campus. Who knew it would end up with feelings of loneliness to the point of almost paralyzing heartbreak?

     It was during times like these when Craig Hughes was more than thankful to have a single room. This was not to suggest that he was any less than thankful to the Gods of Student Housing for blessing his previous two years by living in the pastoral Lakeshore dormitories or for having a priceless roommate in Jon Dahl for both of those years. But even during the days which would be forever etched into the fondest of his memories, there were those times in which he would’ve preferred solitude. Especially during his more emotionally turbulent times, most notably his extended dance with Stephanie Deavitt. It was in fact a few more painful dance steps with Stephanie that led to this proposed evening out with Rhett Brazelton, a friend from WLHA student radio, who was also nursing a few recently received romantic wounds.

     Craig and Rhett had planned to meet at Memorial Union to take in a showing of “Say Anything…,” the latest guide to young romantic life with the formidable John Cusack as tour guide. Craig loved John Cusack. Not simply a fan of his acting but an admirer of the essence he presented across the screen in his roles.

     John Cusack had somewhat beady eyes, a mouth the size of a quarter and a voice that suggested that he had perpetual post-nasal drip. His on-screen attitude could easily had been interpreted as an overly sarcastic and arrogant privileged teen if it were not for the warmth of his humor and the unforced and yearning tenderness of his romantic roles. Craig remembered first seeing John Cusack in a early eighties romp entitled “Class,” in which there was but a taste of the sharpness of Cusack’s wit and ability to place a knife’s edge spin on language. Then, there was his appearance in Craig’s treasured “Sixteen Candles” and finally, in a performance Craig liked to link to the similarly firecracker film debuts of Eddie Murphy and Michael Keaton, John Cusack received his first starring role in “The Sure Thing.”       Cusack played Walter “Gib” Gibson, a college freshman in pursuit of sex yet finding true love on a Capraesque road trip with the uptight Daphne Zuniga as love interest. To Craig, John Cusack exploded from the screen with a romantic wistfulness combined with scorching comic timing. These gifts were combined brilliantly in an early scene in which Cusack breathlessly creates a dire scenario of his future unless Zuniga assists him with the English class they share. While Zuniga ignores him and repeatedly swims from one end of the campus pool to the other, Cusack keeps pace on land, all the while crafting a hilariously sordid tale of disappointed parents, a life in fast food service, unsuccessful drug deals which of course would lead to prison terms and a cruel world upon release that would find him a toothless old man nursing a container of paint thinner while conversing to the obligatory gutter. The bravado sequence climaxes with Cusack flailing himself into the swimming pool while Zuniga, not missing a beat, swims directly past him unimpressed or concerned. Craig had the speech memorized in full. “The Sure Thing” was one of several movies that spoke to his own sense of humor and romance and it would have been hard pressed to find an actor to serve as a more effective conduit than John Cusack.

     Over the years, John Cusack possessed an almost subversive quality to his roles. He was one of the few actors of his generation to avoid being lumped in with the cruelly named “Brat Pack” and that spoke to Craig’s growing and crucial sense of individuality. He was one of the very few actors that Craig would consistently seek out simply because he was in a film. If John Cusack was involved, Craig thought, there had to be something unique about the experience.

     Finally, John Cusack had style to burn. He was a person, Craig thought, who knew how to wear clothes well. Anything just looked good on the man and that quality was one Craig alternately admired and envied. Possibly the most characteristic, the most “Cusackian” piece of film wardrobe iconography had to be the trench coat of “Say Anything…” Somehow that coat was as much a part of the character of Lloyd Dobler as the graceful dialogue. Cusack’s peerless skill, honor and charisma in the role was an insight Craig was able to gain from something as simple as the film’s one-sheet poster. Having missed the movie in its first run (despite valiant attempts as Craig was unsuccessful at finding anyone who happened to own a car to take him to the multiplex cinemas and additionally, he was equally unsuccessful at negotiating Madison’s bus routes), he was especially anxious to see it on this night. To Rhett, it didn’t matter one way or the other. John Cusack was just like any other actor to him. He wasn’t the film buff that Craig was and even if he wanted to be, he deeply felt that this was an area in which he could not compete. What he wanted was a good night out with a friend. Take in a movie and have some laughs, which Craig was always good for. What Rhett also wanted was to forget. He wanted to forget about lecture halls, the semester’s academic pressures and even the looming Milton paper he had been putting off tackling or even thinking about for one full week. Most of all, Rhett just wanted to stop thinking about, if only for a couple of hours, Amethyst Lessing.

RHETT’S LAMENT

     To Rhett Brazelton, the Southeast dormitories of Sellery, Witte and Ogg (Rhett’s current residence) resembled housing projects. Their tall, rectangular designs bracketed Johnson Street along with University Square like the most non-descript of bookends. There was nothing collegiate to its appearance and especially on weekends, its’ clientele of students. He didn’t think that it was wise or natural to pack so many kids, not so long out of high school no less, into such small quarters. And the collective tension of college responsibilities and pressures with hormones was as wise to Rhett as mixing various narcotics. The Southeast dorms on campus long had a reputation for the antics that would definitely give a respectable Midwestern Liberal Arts based university the shameful tag of a “party school” in adult Men’s magazines. Overnight drunken parties which led to pulled fire alarms which then led to frigid nights outdoors waiting for the fire inspectors to proclaim the dormitories safe were commonplace. Tragically one semester, however, there was, Rhett remembered reading about in the Badger Herald, a fatal alcohol or drug induced fall from a ninth floor window. In his freshman year, Rhett didn’t think too much about his surroundings since he was engulfed in the complete newness of college. But, now halfway through his sophomore year, he itched for different living arrangements.

     Activities in Ogg Hall were especially rambunctious on this particular Friday night. It made Rhett nervous. What also made Rhett uncomfortable was the loss of his room key, which he was desperately trying to find so he could go and meet Craig at the Union. Oh how he hated his room. It was the size of a children’s shoebox made smaller by the friction between himself and his roommate, a member of the football team. They had not even spoken to each other since October for no apparent reason or cause. The three walls encapsulating his dorm room were useless in muffling sounds from neighboring phone conversations, pre-dawn laughter, the physical and emotional exploits of romantic entanglements, the crash of a drum beat crossed with the crash of a drunken student into their own children’s shoe box sized room and, if he had to hear “Red Red Wine” just one more goddamn time…

     Again, Rhett grumbled about the lack of space. It was simply inhuman, he reasoned to himself, to expect two people to live like this, packed like rats in too small of a cage scrambling for the same piece of cheese, or in this case, a set of keys wrapped around a homemade Fishbone keychain.

     Rhett made and re-made his army cot style bed three times, hoping his keys would drop out of a previously pocket shaped area of blanket or sheet. Or maybe they ended up inside of his pillowcase after he tossed his keys and backpack onto the bed after his Philosophy lecture that afternoon. No luck. Rhett then decided to fish through his backpack, which he had to admit, needed to be cleaned out-a task he hadn’t approached since Finals Week before the holiday break.

     First, Rhett checked the side and smaller pockets along the front of his pack in which he found a stale package of chewing gum, an ancient guitar shaped Hard Rock Café pin, musty Kleenex (unused) and a collection of ripped plastic from purchased cassettes. He next went into the main part of his back pack. He began with his new books for the semester, the most obvious items and most recently placed occupants of his pack. He brushed through his notebook and shook a smaller journal, which contained an inner pouch. Then, finally, in the furthermost region of his backpack, he ran his hand through another pouch and his fingers discovered something he hadn’t thought of and was quite surprised that he still possessed; an envelope filled with a semester’s worth of book receipts from University Book Store.

     To offer a small source of compensation from the monopoly of the campus’ main source of classroom texts and supplies, patrons of the University Book Store were able to take their saved receipts up to the office cashiers and cash them in to receive 10% of their complete purchase total back in cash. It was a practice long discouraged by the store’s managers to reveal and they relayed that message to their staff. Yet, the staff reasoned, if you don’t want customers to partake of the service, then don’t offer it. With that, it is needless to emphasize just how brilliantly the staff made every opportunity to inform customers of this service.

     Rhett Brazelton saved every single receipt from University Book Store for the better part of a year in order to cash in and buy a special Christmas gift for Amethyst Lessing. Sadly, Rhett and Amethyst parted ways by Thanksgiving. He wondered that perhaps he still had these receipts simply by forgetting about them during the whirlwind of Finals Week and holiday travel back to Minnesota. It was during the down time of Christmas break that the hurt of losing Amethyst filled his thoughts and clouded his mood. Rhett stared at the receipts for a few moments, running through his head the sorts of Christmas presents he may have bought for Amethyst had he the chance. He was lost in so deep of thoughts, the cacophony of Ogg Hall evaporated into a pool of emotional numbness. Only hearing the familiar jingle of a set of keys jarred him from his state. Absent mindedly, he placed the receipts back into the pouch of his backpack, zipped it tightly and tossed it back onto the floor in a frustrated motion. Upon completing his flourish, he heard the jingling sound again and at that moment, he realized his stupidity (and embarrassment at having to make Craig wait for him), reached inside the pocket of his sweatshirt and found the keys he had placed there quickly after not having to use them to unlock his dorm room since his uncommunicative roommate barreled out just as he was returning. With that nonsense over with, he grabbed his coat, locked his room and ran past the already vomit stained drinking fountain into the frigid early February night.

     Using the chime of the campus carillon as a pace meter, Rhett trotted and then ambled along to the Union. Winter was Rhett’s least favorite season. He didn’t really have a favorite time of year but winter brought him down. The thinness of the air constricted his breathing, his movements and at times, Rhett could swear that he could feel his joints and muscles tightening up with each step up and down Bascom Hill. Even at points of rest, talking to a friend by the dormant fountain in Library Mall, he spoke lower and slower, seeing his every breath leave his body in ghostly formations never to return. The days darkened much too early for his nature. The darkness of winter had seemed to take over his entire mood and it always began somewhere in mid to late fall. He loved the color of the leaves and as far as girls were concerned, he loved seeing their fall fashions as opposed to skimpier summer wear. But, once that first nip tasted the air, Rhett felt his body close up, much like a bear hibernating for the winter yet much less restful. In fact, during his most recent Finals Week, he remembered hearing a weather report from the television in Ogg’s Common Room just as he was racing towards his Statistics final. ”Your flesh will freeze in under thirty seconds!” the weatherman cheerfully proclaimed. Never had Rhett felt so disgusted with the weather and misguidedly, at the University for placing his very life in jeopardy because it would take at most 10 whopping minutes to get to his exam. If he survived, that is.

     This night on the way to the Union was not as treacherous, yet the cold was bitter to the skin. As he stood at the edge of Library Mall, waiting to cross over to the Union, Rhett felt that winter lasted for an extreme amount of time and maybe that’s why it bothered him so much. He ached for some warmth, some comfort to take the numbness from him. As he watched car after car pass in front of his eyes, he surveyed Sterling Hall to his left and the hell of Langdon street to his right, and before he knew it, a tear slowly drifted from his eyelash and merged with the slowly forming mucus that dripped from his frozen nose. Unfortunately, he also knew that he had to get it together before he saw Craig. That tear had nothing to do with the cold and he had shed too many of them. As he found some tissue to dab at his nostrils, he lamented again about how winter just lasted too damn long. As with anything, Rhett thought, too much of anything is not a good thing. Too many classes. Too many deadlines and not enough hours in the day.  And right now, he knew that he had been so very sad too often since Amethyst’s departure from his life. “But, I don’t know how to get out of it…,” he truthfully muttered to himself, as he watched his breath vaporize into the night. 
Copyright 2014 by Scott Collins All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.