Part 10
This continues the account of the five days and nights that studly 18 year old Mikey spends together with Mike, the 24-year old uncle he idolizes, and Mike's fascinating and beautiful 22-year old fiancΓ©e Alice. The beginning of their story is told in "Cross-Country with My Uncle," and continued by "Alice, My Uncle, and Me," day 1 and day 2, and Day 3, parts 1 and 2, and "My Uncle's Bachelor Party," parts 1 and 2, wherein Jeff, Mike's old college roommate and lover, is introduced. This is part of Day 4.
Jeff and I arrived at Alice's house, and let ourselves in. We had anywhere up to three hours to kill before the wine dealer's delivery would arrive. I said to Jeff, "Hey, guy, pick up the story where you left off on campus, how you met Mike and how you guys like, got together."
Jeff said, "Sure, Mikey. But it's a kind of long story, so let's get comfortable," and he flopped onto the big king-sized bed, and rolled onto his stomach.
I sat down on the bed beside him, and I thought I'd pick up where I'd left off too. As Jeff resumed his narration, I idly stroked his big, broad shoulders.
Jeff started:
"Until I arrived, I didn't even know who my roommate would be. At Stanford, the coaches decide who's going to room with whom in the first year, and there had been somebody who had at the last minute not shown up, so all I got was a call from the coach's office the day before I left telling me that I had been switched from one room to another. When my taxi dropped me off at the dorm, I was issued my key, I went upstairs, and I saw a label on the door, "Mike Burlington, Jeff Jackson," and I walked in. Nobody was there, but Mike had already moved in. I only had a couple of suitcases of stuff to unpack, and it was a couple of hours until the first team meeting.
"So after I'd settled in, I kinda looked through Mike's stuff. He'd brought about half a dozen books with him, just a few inches on a bookshelf, and even today I remember what an impression these few volumes made on me. There was a handsome translation of Vitruvius, inscribed by his father; volume one of the Bury edition of The Rise and Fall; a small edition of The Prince; a Java manual; a well-thumbed cheap edition of the Phaedrus; Gensler's classic Symbolic Logic; and two things that deeply surprised me: Michel Foucault's The Use of Pleasure, and, in the original German, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. Not even 12 inches of books, but boy, did they impress me. I had to figger this Burlington guy, whoever he was, was not the typical freshman jock. He had to be someone pretty interesting. I mean, reading Goethe for pleasure in German. That is, if you can judge a kid by his books, which I'm sure you can't. All I'd brought with me was a small collection of 'graphic novels,' β comix if you will β and a German dictionary.
"He had brought about 30 CD's too. I wasn't surprised at The Cure, Blues Traveler, The White Album, a Stones catalog album, and a bunch of Indie groups I'd never heard of. And I was gratified to see Ten Strait Hits. I wasn't particularly surprised to see Mozart's Gran Partida and Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary, but what really pleased me β hell, it charmed me! I gave a little whoop to myself β was Widor's Symphonie gothique. It's not every 18-year old kid who has a taste for French organ music! During my stay in the Suisse-Romand I'd become addicted, but I knew it wasn't a widely shared teen craze, to say the least! But even so, there are ten Saint-Saens fan for every Widor fancier. So again, I figgered, hey this kid could be interesting."
(As Jeff was saying this, I was thinking, "Hey, I love Widor too! Even more than Cesar Franck and Louis Vierne." But I didn't want to interrupt Jeff's narrative.)
"I snooped in his closet too. He had an axe case and a trumpet case. As for me, I loved music, but I never played anything. There was a bunch of brand-new designer clothes, too, most of it with the tags still on them. And there was some fancy electronics gear. Hell, his fuckin' clock radio was one of those Bose things. So I figgered that this kid might be interesting, but he could well be a really stuck-up rich kid who'd just be a pain in the butt.
"Well, of course, I couldn't have been wronger if I'd tried. It was Mike's mom who'd bought all that designer stuff (and most of it he never wore, sticking with jeans and shorts most of the time); and Mike couldn't have been more sweet natured and generous of spirit. In fact, one thing that I had noticed was that this kid (whom I hadn't met yet) might be book-smart, but I sniggered to myself that he couldn't be too smart after all. At first glance, the room seemed symmetrical: each side of the room was identical, or almost. But because of the placement of the main stairs on the floor, however, the closet on the side he'd picked was easily two feet shorter than on other side. Of course, you and I both know that it was just Mike's way to pick the worse side for himself, leaving the better one for his as yet unknown roommate. He was the most considerate kid you could imagine, the most generous."