college town whose name you’d forget even if I told you. Nothing from my first two years there warrants comment. In the third I befriended the newlyweds who’d moved into the apartment under mine in the creaky Victorian house I roomed in. The husband, Perry, fresh out of grad school at Santa Barbara, was the school’s new philosophy professor; the wife, Sarah, was a soon-to-be psychotherapist. A nice couple in the throes of culture shock. Not only was there no good Thai food in town, but hubby and wife were woefully unaccustomed to brain-baking boredom. Geographic or romantic.
We spent evenings in our building’s lush back yard, drinking screwdrivers, grilling burgers and corn ears, rehashing this or that movie, book, or sitcom from childhood. I surprised myself, going on and on about Smurfs, Willy Wonka, Doogie Hauser. I hadn’t really spoken to anyone in two years. Occasionally husband and wife would give me heavy-lidded looks, but I couldn’t tell if it was sexual interest or sleepiness.
If you’re standing on an infinite plane, do you see a horizon? Or does the ground just seem to fold upward and enclose you?
