Late October afternoon. Sunlight slanted thru the towering library windows, catching equally towering dust motes in light. This part of the library always smelled like old carpet, books, paste, burnt dust, furniture polish, and the occasional unwashed grad student. It was my favorite place on campus to study; quiet, cozy, cruisey, forgiving of both drooling naps and random erections. The library and campus were strangely quiet that day, as if caught in a mass spell of daydreaming. My own attention was so not engaged by a macro econ text and my mind stopped and eyes wandered.
I could see the front desk from my study spot, and I saw him, waiting for something on hold to be found which was clearly not being found. He gave up on his hold, and leaned against a column. Letter jacket, worn all the time and a little frayed. Backpack that had migrated from HS. He was in my macro econ class, and his jockish bros all called him Griff. Prof called him "Griffin" or "Mr. Abernathy". He would sit at the back of class, with the collective hotness of his baseball bros, but he effortlessly got A's and his questions revealed mastery of the same material his jock buds struggled with. Varsity shortstop. Tall, rangy, athletic, scruff, shaggy dark hair down to the sun browned nape of his neck. A scattering of boyish freckles. Worn Levi's, filthy Adidas, black tee. Eyes the color of Coca Cola, and an Alabama accent like a hot breeze thru an old screen door.
There was a sly knowingness about him, a secret carnal knowledge that set him above the loutish date-rapey frat boys, the hipster wannabes, and the preppie scholars who all seemed to assume they would soon be running the world. In short, I was in lust, the spooky kind with a chill, that sense of falling in place, ice cube on the spine, the world gone still and yet blaring with noise.
