DECEMBER BOYS
"THE DOOR INTO SUMMER"
If people’s perceptions of Craig Hughes as an introverted,
heart-on-sleeve, naval gazer were correct (and they typically were) then Rhett
Brazelton’s level of introspection was downright astral. Not careless, scatterbrained
or chemically enhanced by any means. But, whenever Rhett found himself deeper
and deeper in thought, he became mesmerized to the point of becoming absent. This
peculiar personality trait had been a part of Rhett since infancy, when people
from various sectors—family members and friends, teachers, complete
strangers—would remark at how tranquil the little one seemed to be, as his
bouts of crying were unusually rare and his eyes seemed to be peering into a
world unseen by anyone else other than himself. “He’s just taking it all in,” his
Mother, a university Botanist, would explain plainly and always full of
inquisitive delight.
Rhett found himself in that exact state of mind on an early warm spring
morning, shortly after his pilgrimage with Craig and Mariah Esposito’s weekend
visit. It was precisely the type of morning his Mother had actually warned him
about one beautiful summer day before he embarked upon his Freshman year in Madison
As if being yanked from the ether by a strongly pulled tether, Rhett returned
to the present and murmured a somnambulant, “Hmmm?”
“Rhett, in no way am I even beginning to condone this particular
behavior, especially as I am about to fork over an enormous amount of money to
fund your education, but the days will come for you when you simply say to
yourself, ‘No.’”
“What do you mean?” he asked, intrigued.
“You will one day find yourself waking up to face the day. You will
ready yourself and even make all of the necessary plans to meet the duties to
which you are obligated. And for some unknown reasons, you will say, ‘No’,” she
answered tiredly as she returned the cap of her red pen from end to ink point,
set it down upon the table and rose while stretching her athletic body. “So,
right now Rhett, I’m saying ‘No’ and am wondering if you would like to join me
for a walk or should I just leave you here to your thoughts and videos.”
“No. I’ll say ‘No’ too. Let’s go out.”
And off they went, Mother and son, to spend a warm afternoon “taking it
all in.”
Returning to the morning at hand, Rhett Brazelton indeed woke up at his
usual time, showered, purchased his morning orange juice from Pop’s Club, collected
his books and materials for his morning classes, as well as his headphones, for
the morning walk to Bascom Hall. But there was one notable difference. While
waiting for his turn to check out at the registers, Rhett spied a discarded
copy of that morning’s Chicago Tribune, which he instinctively picked up and
began to peruse. After skimming through the comics, his eyes sped back towards the
advice column and onto the daily horoscopes, a section he generally paid no
credence towards but with all things, as far as Rhett Brazelton was concerned,
he didn’t rule anything out. The prediction was swift yet carried the force of
a bolt of lightning as it stated…
“Today is a 9!
On this day, your heart will fall in love. It will be someone you have never
met before. Act quickly. Act wisely. For it will never pass this way again.
Have a wonderful day!”
Rhett scoffed at the prediction and yet
found himself reading it again and again, transfixing himself upon the words
and the suggestion that he absently stood in line and was eventually goaded
onwards by the rightfully impatient students behind him. After offering a
feeble apology, Rhett discarded the paper and headed off to class.
Rhett Brazelton strode up the massive monolith
of Bascom Hill, being succulently stroked by the breeze and sunlight, and still
buzzing with the horoscope he had previously read. After reaching his
destination, he walked inside Bascom Hall, trotted down the hallway and reached
his classroom, only to open up the door, see his classmates gathering
themselves for the day’s new material and without warning or provocation, Rhett
quietly said to himself, “No.” He then shut the door, exited Bascom Hall and
found himself a gorgeously shady grassy spot on Bascom Hill, left to his own
devices with his headphones and his thoughts. Rhett sat, letting the wind of spring
caress his spirit, as he stared into space, regarding everyone who walked past
him, again pondering the obvious spirituality and interconnectivity of all of
the people who had previously and will one day walk this hill. Soon, like a television
channel clouded with electronic snow, the image of all before him began to fade
into a cloud of colorful dots. And then, it happened…
Footsteps. Almost metronomic paced footsteps sent waves of sound from
the here and now directly into Rhett’s reverie. It was like listening to a
static filled radio station when suddenly a song from who knows where bursts
through, announcing itself, demanding to be heard. Rhett turned his head
towards his left, and emerging upwards from the direction of Science Hall, he
saw her and instantly, he was gone.
The first item Rhett noticed were the dusty, rusty colored boots, the
source of the metronomic beat, which almost needed a bass guitar and fat
handclap to make the effect even more complete. Trailing his gaze from the
ground upwards, his vision revealed the sight of a tallish, olive skinned girl
with wavy, shoulder length autumn brown hair walking with a not too fast, not
too slow, decidedly not a strut but definitely aggressive stride that
was commanding. This girl walked with a comparatively heightened sense of
purpose to her fellow Bascom Hill walkers yet seemingly no one on the entire
hill seemed to pay her any stitch of attention. That is, except for Rhett who
was happily dazed and confused, feeling a sudden and overwhelming sensation of
ardor that he could swear he could feel all the way into his eyebrows as he
turned his head to watch her sumptuously phase through his field of vision. The
girl continued to walk past, towards the Liz Waters and the Lakeshore dorms,
until she was completely out of view, and her eventual disappearance suddenly
returned Rhett to reality. He laughed to himself. Shrugging his shoulders and
re-adjusting his headphones which displaced themselves during his act of
obvious rubber-necking, Rhett Brazelton laughed to himself for this sort of
behavior was atypical as it was just not in his nature to stare or to, at
least, call attention to himself for staring—which he seriously hoped that he
hadn’t done. To no one in particular, which therefore meant to everyone around
him on Bascom Hill, Rhett exhibited a theatrical “Hey, what can I do?” motion
and took one last futile look over his shoulder with hopes that perhaps one
final glance at this stunning sight could be witnessed again. Seeing that she
was indeed completely out of view, Rhett stood, sighed and smiled to himself
and began to walk down Bascom Hill to points unknown, only armed with the full
intent of enjoying the day ahead, no matter where it took him.
The memory of the autumn brown haired, olive skinned girl with the
dusty, rusty boots and the commanding stride was never far from the forefront
of Rhett’s mind as he neared the end of his first year of college. With the
presence of the continuing warmth of spring slowly building upwards in the heat
of summer, the campus blossomed and bloomed into its tremendous final stages of
excitement before the students’ eventual departure until the Fall. From the
foliage of the trees, flowers and plant life to the increasing amount of people
spending time outdoors, life in Madison near the end of a school year was a
feast for the senses, especially amorous ones. For a brief spell, Rhett kept
his eyes sharply opened for another sighting of the girl, even going so far as
to return to Bascom Hill, headphones firmly attached to his ears and playing
the exact same music he listened to that day, as if to magically conjure her
reappearance. Unfortunately, she never arrived.
Rhett’s more logical reasoning chalked up this girl’s apparent
disappearance to just being “one of those things” that invariably occurs on a
campus this size and with a student body this immense. It is simply not
unreasonable to catch a full view of the most strikingly attractive girl on
campus and then never see her again. It was akin to being surprised by a
shooting star or better yet, waking from a glorious dream that you impossibly
try to physically grasp and keep forever. When presenting himself with the
concept of a dream, however, Rhett’s astral brain went into overdrive. What if
he had actually dreamt that entire morning on Bascom Hill? And if it was a
dream, then it would stand to reason that the sight of the girl immediately
after reading the romantic predictions of the horoscope was equally invented as
if it arrived from a wish. At the contemplation of this notion, Rhett
shuddered, feeling a quick icy wave race through his body. For if the day of
Bascom Hill, including what he was beginning to assume was nothing more than
his fantasy girl, was only a dream, then what was his real life? Where did his
mind or even all of him go to once he
went to bed each night? Feeling more unsettled than he wished at the sudden
thought of life as he knew it was somehow a product of his sub-consciousness,
Rhett waved away the dark fantasy and fully returned to bright reality.
When Rhett Brazelton began his life in Madison, not even one firm plan
concerning his academic future ever entered into his brain. All that he ever
initially wanted was just to have the opportunity to simply take everything in (again
and as always) and get a lay of the land. What surprised Rhett about himself,
at least regarding his education, was the seriousness with which he approached
his classes and all ensuing assignments. While always a good student, Rhett
admittedly never felt himself to have been truly academically challenged in
high school. During those years, he felt as if he had some mental muscles that
weren’t being put to use properly. Yet, by the time he received his first
college assignments, those very same mental muscles were indeed put to the
test. Where many of Rhett’s peers and classmates grumbled and stressed, Rhett
welcomed the often intense quality, quantity and frequency of the work,
especially relishing the times when his mind would arrange the hours of his
day, compartmentalizing his tasks as if his third eye could visualize a series
of boxes to be organized and placed onto their exact spaces upon a shelf.
During this same period at the start of his college experience and
growing stronger throughout the year, Rhett discovered just how perfectly in
tune he felt with the cycle of the school year. Despite the worldwide
celebrations announcing the arrival of every new year, there was just something
about the beginnings and endings of a school year that felt more natural to
him. His spirit was inexplicably in sync with that sequence, so much so, that
he wondered just how he would function after college in that seemingly so far
away and monolithic sounding “real world” without the September staples of
‘Welcome Week,” football Saturdays and midterm exams, for instance. For Rhett,
the less said about the interminable middle section of Winter, the better and
then, Summer was just…Summer, a
languid and healthy slice of sunkissed bliss that felt like it existed as its
own entity. As Rhett made more friends
with either older students or with people who hailed from Madison, more and
more, he heard stories about how perfect the city was in the summer. People’s
faces would begin to naturally glisten while their eyes would fall into a
dreamy haze as they all expressed variations of the same theme, “Madison is so
beautiful in the summer,” over and again.
And then, the pieces began to form together or rather, Rhett’s astral
brain with its mental boxes were beginning to find their exact spaces upon the
shelf.
It was near the end of Rhett’s Freshman Year when he began to entertain
the idea of becoming a Philosophy professor, a career where his sense of
academic diligence, love of the school year cycle and his more astral leanings
could all congeal beautifully. It didn’t matter whether his imagined teaching
profession took place in Madison or back home in Minnesota, even though he felt
to be very much at home on the UW-Madison campus. Rhett just imagined himself
on a Midwestern campus, complete with the four seasons (including the dreaded winter),
and endless streams of new students w hose youthful energy just may rub off
onto him when he is not so young anymore.
But to get himself started, it was time to begin taking some of the
necessary classes. After a lengthy discussion with his Mother, Rhett soon
registered for two summer courses in Philosophy, one of which explored the
teachings and writings of Sartre, while the second class was about the more
timeless and always timely fundamentals of ethics. As for lodging, Rhett’s
Mother pointed him in the direction of her brother, Rhett’s Uncle Denny, a
house painter whose business increased dramatically during the summer months.
After a surprisingly enthusiastic conversation, one that Rhett was initially
nervous about due to his scant contact with his Uncle, a deal was struck for
Rhett to reside in Denny’s house, rent free, for the Summer and as an added
bonus, Rhett could have access to driving Denny’s 20 year old Honda if he
wished as Denny would primarily be using his truck to cart around his painting
supplies over the next few months. The only stipulations were to keep the house
orderly if not fully clean, occasionally assist with the grocery shopping and
lawn care and finally, absolutely no guests were allowed without confirmed
permission. If these were to be the only bargaining chips in order to receive
free summer housing, accepting the terms was a no-brainer! Helping to keep a
tidy house and yard and do some minor grocery shopping was the least he could
do in exchange for his Uncle’s generosity. And the additional prospect of having
access to a car was indeed the proverbial icing on the cake (even though Rhett
loved going for walks—the longer, the better—it was great to have an option,
especially for those stormy summer days and nights).
Everything was falling into place. Classes were obtained as well as a
home to comfortably reside inside of after the cramped existence of dorm life.
With his Mother paying tuition, Rhett instinctively felt obligated to find
summer employment to not only alleviate any sense of financial burden but to
also support himself with his books, any supplies and to have some precious pocket
money, a task he accomplished through being hired for work part-time at Memorial
Library.
On the final day of the school year, Rhett Brazelton moved out of Ogg
Hall and into his Uncle Denny’s home, located near the Vilas Zoo, where the growls
of the lions could be heard during the night on occasion. To celebrate, the two
spent a rapturous night on the Memorial Union Terrace, where in addition to
becoming better acquainted with each other through lively conversation and
covertly imbibed alcoholic beverages, Rhett and his Uncle simply enjoyed the
time under the stars, with the breeze from the lake waters in the air and
surrounded by a sea of happy strangers all seduced by the tropical rhythms and
deep bass of the reggae band performing on the outdoor stage. As far as he was
concerned, as he took in the sights around him and replaying all the sublime
comments about Madison summers in his mind, the self-described “Summer Of Rhett”
had officially begun.
Copyright 2015 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.
Copyright 2015 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.
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