Jack
It was early Friday evening and I was going out to a little blues club near campus. I usually avoid crowds but I had it on good authority that Julian Monaco would be there. I gave myself a final once over in the mirror and headed out the door to my fifth story walk up. I was on the last flight of stairs when my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number.
"Hello?"
There was a long silence and I was about to hang up. "Hi, Jack. It's Vince."
I came to a stop in my building's lobby. "Hey. What's going on?"
Another pause. "Well, you remember when you told me to call you? And I thought..." he drifted off. Even over the phone I could tell he was pacing. "You know, it's Friday night, this probably isn't a good time. I'm sorry. Maybe another..."
"No, no." I cut him off. "I was just going to stay in and watch T.V. anyway. Do you want to meet somewhere to talk?"
"Um...yeah, I'd like that. Why don't you give me your address and I'll come over?"
I knew Vince was trying to be polite by not making me go out of my way. But he wasn't going to be comfortable opening up in someone else's space. Or a public space for that matter, given the subject material.
"You know, why don't I come to you?"
"No, you don't need to do that..." He was wavering.
"I'll tell you what. I haven't eaten yet, so if you feed me we'll call it even."
"Well, okay." he sounded relieved. "So long as it's not an inconvenience."
"Not at all." He gave me his address and I hung up with a final reassurance. Well, it looked like Project Julian was taking the back burner once again.
************
That first night Vince ended up talking for five hours straight. Even then he only stopped because he got hoarse. He had a lifetime's worth of internal conflict that he had never been able to voice before, and even I was surprised how much he really needed to get it out.
His father, not surprisingly, took up the bulk of our conversation. Vince's mother had died in a car accident when he was four, so his father was the only parent he had ever really known. After his mother's death his father could have taken the easy route and left his sons to the care of nannies and boarding schools, but instead he devoted himself to them completely - their education, their health, their emotional development, their moral values. Vince and his brothers became his primary concern, above all others.
From a very young age Vince's father was the central figure in his life, his hero, his role model, his estimation of what a man should be, and Vince's resulting dedication was nothing short of astounding. His single greatest goal in life was to make his father proud, but in his mind he had already failed. He was a liar and a cheat, and a liability to everything he believed in. That poor guy was going to crash and burn someday, and the more I thought about it the more it got to me. All the more so because there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it.
Vince was reluctant at first, but became comfortable with me quickly. I could tell he was surprised that I was such a good listener. Granted, I know that I don't exactly come off as the nurturing type. When he asked me about it I told him about the LGBT group where I volunteered. It was a campus organization but also took members from the neighboring state and community colleges, helping kids adjust to their new environment and providing a sympathetic ear to those coming from difficult backgrounds. A similar group of people had really helped me out when I started college (I didn't tell Vince that part), so I understood its value.
Recently an unorganized assortment of hecklers (I didn't call them protestors because that implies that they had values) had started showing up outside of the building where the group met. The school administration said they couldn't do anything about it, and, even though we were well aware it would make things worse, it was damned hard at times to keep things from coming to blows. In a reversal of roles, Vince spent the better part of a week letting me vent my frustration and anger to him. The hecklers still showed up on a fairly regular basis, but, surprisingly, having Vince actually made it a lot more manageable.
Before long I was spending several evenings a week at Vince's apartment, and not just as a counselor and tutor. Over the course of just a few weeks I was surprised to realize we had actually become really good friends.
It had started one Sunday afternoon when Vince was still floundering through the assigned cases for the next day, but I was getting fidgety to get home and watch the Pats game. Vince noticed and suggested that I stay and watch it at his place. We had ended up in front of the T.V. with a bowl of popcorn and a couple of Cokes. Vince cheered for the Jets, not because he actually liked them (I had seen him more than once in a Giants jersey), but just to irk me. To my embarrassment and Vince's amusement I didn't realize it until the third quarter. Being the mature adult I was I poured the leftover popcorn down the back of his shirt.
************
It was Friday night and I was at Vince's apartment for the third time that week. Vince needed all the study time he could get, so I was filling out internship applications for him while he poured over the day's notes. Several of the forms asked for his full name.
"Vince?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"What's your middle name?"
"Archibald."
"No, seriously."
"Archibald."
When I looked up at his face I saw that he was serious. I burst out laughing. "Vincent Archibald Tomlison. Oh my God, you poor bastard."
I already teased him mercilessly about being named after Vincent Price. A couple weeks ago I had even tricked him into watching
The Masque of the Red Death
. Ever since he has insisted on screening every movie I picked out. This was just too good.
He narrowed his eyes at me. "What's your middle name then?"
"I don't have one."
Vince shot me an incredulous look. "What do you mean you don't have one?"
"My full legal name is Jack Ulman. That's what it says on my birth certificate. You would not believe what it took to explain that to the bar examiners."
My birth had been a difficult one, and my mother had been too stoned on painkillers to remind my over-stressed father that my name was supposed to be John Anthony. "Jack" went on the birth certificate, and they never bothered to correct it.
"How can you not have a middle name?"
"How can
your
middle name be Archibald?"
"It's a family name."
