The Story
Tune In
Check in with the DSJ every Tuesday for installments of Jessica Miller's weekly fiction story "Tune In."
A summer night with a warm breeze.
Jee Soo has fine, dry hair that lifts and tangles with the barest breath of wind. There - she feels the air slip over her fingers and out of her grasp - it is rather the pencil she clutches all the more tightly. Breathing deeply, she begins. One stroke for the wind. Two strokes for a pair of people walking closely together, heads bent against the darkness. A dark night and a dark path - perhaps a bad beginning, but the drawing may yet turn out alright. She takes a breath once more and holds it; the students walk past. She lets it out.
One stroke.
From his glowing corner, Jem can see the black square of window against which Jee Soo’s shoulders rest. He really has no interest in either her or her drawing. He has a "corner office" at the Daily Grind, he is a senior, and he spends most of his time studying and working at this table in the far left of the room. He now considers the spot rightfully his. It is a good spot for both watching and ignoring. His iPod and laptop help with the latter; with the former, he needs no assistance. Undeniably, the Grind is never uninteresting.
Example One. He shifts his head slightly to the left, so that his gaze is directed at the chair below the platform, whereupon sits his good friend Holly. Pretty and red-haired with a small bright face, she is always a pleasure to look at. Tonight she is wearing a fuzzy pink shirt and performing a delicate maneuver with dividers and post-its. Her corduroy bag, also pink, proclaims itself the property of Eisley. She unselfconsciously sports a Styrofoam cup in a room full of aluminum mugs. In Jem’s opinion, her vanilla latte is refreshingly consumerist. She must feel him staring at her because she looks up, wide-eyed. Jem smiles and gives a slight nod. Holly’s mouth is still twisted in concentration, and her mind still on her pre-semester organization (a vitally important procedure), or she likely would return the greeting. But that’s ok - Jem is unfazed. Because behind her is
Example Two: Tall and muscular black man, no older than twenty. His ripped football jersey (Redskins, not Tribe) shows powerful arms shadowed with contour, but they seem somewhat disproportionate - not the natural strength of an everyday athlete but rather the crafted athleticism of a man who schedules daily sessions with the free weights at the rec. Yet there is an intuitive grace to his movements as he stands behind the counter mixing legal drinks. Jem supposes he would be equally successful behind a different sort of bar, in a much larger metropolis. One stroke of the man’s arm on faux marble lifts him easily over the countertop and effectively shocks his girlfriend into spilling latte over her post-it notes. No harm done, however, and a long kiss - during which Samson keeps his eyes open and looks around the room - erases the incident entirely.
Example Three walking through the door. There’s a long purple skirt made more fashionable with the addition of flip flops. A bright sash holding back a head-full of frizz reminds Jem of the chick in the third Austin Powers movie. She surveys the room coldly, pointing at this and that with her chin, and finally takes a seat...right...in the center. The very center. What a princess! Her bookbag she flings to the ground, but a second bag - a slight, rectangular case covered in red cloth - she sets gently on the table, as gently as if...as gently as...(Jem looks around the corner office)...as if it were a laptop with a custom-built sound system and five hundred dollars worth of synthesizing software. As an absent-minded afterthought, this princess lays her hand possessively on the case and takes another surreptitious survey of the room. It’s entirely unconscious, but Jem gazes at her with a grimace of disdain. She scans Samson and the red and flustered Holly, her eyes linger for a second on the amber-colored glow of a pot full of honey, and then she finds Jem watching her.
At this point, we pause to reflect. Some people, when they find they are being watched, will try a number of different evasive tactics in an attempt to ignore the situation or avoid having to react. Allowing one’s eyes to flicker over the studious observer without recognition is a tactic frequently met with success. Another such maneuver requires the effort of a smile or a genial nod, the pretension of assumed acquaintance, and the immediate engagement of one’s attention in a pressing distraction. Last but not least is the brief puzzled glance, accompanied perhaps by one raised eyebrow or a suggestive but nonchalant wink. Rare indeed is the subject who, upon discovering herself under scrutiny, can return a steady gaze - questionless, purposeless, unblinking. It is a moment when intensity meets with intensity, fully engaged in the moment and thoughtless of past and future implications.
Need I now say that this woman is one of these people?
Example Four is also quite interesting - a pair of lesbian lovers - but at this moment Jem remains caught in shared stare with Adrienne (that’s her name - the woman with the disco ‘fro). This ungracious lapse of couth on his part could be attributed to the fact that a pair of tinted contact lenses has made Adrienne’s eyes ice-purple. Or we could say that he’s fascinated by how angrily this woman - whom he’s never met, in fact he doesn’t even know her name yet - can glare at him, for no other reason than that he’s sitting there, watching her, maybe grimacing slightly. But to be entirely truthful, Jem’s staring at Adrienne for a very different reason. He doesn’t just see her. He sees into her. And he sees what she’s just done. Or tried to do, and would have done but for one phone call. Now, however, is not the time for questions like what, how, and why. Where is close at hand, and who â€" well, we’ll leave them staring at one another, by turns angry and alarmed, and direct our own intrigue to the front door.
Tony Jones has ambled in. He’ll share the center of attention with our lady in purple, but his style is one of panache instead of elegance. He is quite possibly the only person on the campus of William and Mary who is currently wearing a wifebeater. Wearing it right now, on a Friday night, on the first Friday night after the start of the semester.
Mister Jones has a practiced glide, a practiced air of confidence, and a fiddle in his hand which, incidentally, has not been practiced for several months. However - remember the panache? - that doesn’t give him a moment’s pause. He takes the second open table in the center, claiming his space with a lanky stretch since he has no books to spread impressively over the tabletop. Tony sports a 'tee,' but fortunately no sideburns â€" he’s a Tennessee boy. If Jem were paying any attention right now, he’d probably notice that Tony’s recklessly-oversized boots are so covered in mud that someone will have to scrape off the vinyl seats before the night is over. Jem cares about things like that. Tony appears to take a great deal of enjoyment from stretching out his legs, so we might surmise that his care is for his own comfort. But let’s not be too hasty here â€" he’s laid his fiddle out against his forearm, and begins to pluck a few notes. Could it be that he’s a tortured-genius-type, whose passion for music pushes all other concerns from his heart? Perhaps, if he were locked in the basement of Ewell, or crooning mournful notes under the Crim Dell bridge on a moonlit August evening...but here, in the middle of the Grind? The words solipsism and spectacle come to mind, but luckily we’ll leave the judging to Jem, and thus far he has not even begun to observe.
Now we have reached the moment in our story when a significant event occurs.
This event concerns the women arguing intimately in the corner. Remember â€" the ones Jem would have noticed, but for...well, you remember. Anyway, there’s a stocky blonde with her back to the wall, a tough girl (you know the type...nose pierced, stripe of purple in her hacked-up hair, camo pants that are consciously baggy). She breaks off her end of the discussion when she hears the first few strangled notes from Tony’s instrument, and all at once her face is seized with a shocking combination of horror and disgust. I mean, it’s really something to watch an intimidating girl get angry. At least her girlfriend thinks so, because her chair seems to zoom of its own accord straight to the teetering-edge of the platform. Carlotta Daniels clenches two fists that could have probably met Samson in an even match any day and raises her heft straight up in a surprisingly fluid motion. She mutters something to Benita. Jem can’t hear her growl from his place all the way across the room, but I’ll tell you that it was something along the lines of, “I’m tired of these little - (mumblemumble) - thinking they can just do whatever - (mumble) - with no regard for taste and…" At that point the force of her anger carries her beyond her words and over the platform.
Tony’s in a bit of trouble here. If I didn’t say it before, he’s a scrawny sort of fellow, a freshman at that. He’s probably not used to dealing with the dangerous effervescence of a tough girl who takes offense at insensitive musicality. But we’ll hope he’s a quick learner.
"Look you little punk â€" "
"C.D.!" Benita squeaks from her perilous perch.
Tony very nearly drops the fiddle.
"What do you think, you can just walk in here and start murdering a fine" - she grabs the instrument - "quality piece of work like this and you know - you know what? There are two problems here, there’s your music and my ears. Between the two, I can tell you that my ears are the more sensitive and I shouldn’t have to sit here in the middle of the Grind and subject them to your putrid...pompous...half-(!) attempts at music and...and..." And C.D. seems very nearly ready to break the fiddle in two.
Clearly, someone’s got to step in. Will it be Samson, standing guard at the counter? Holly, with her mouth wide open, staring at the scene? Benita, trembling in the corner? Tony himself, flaring in defense? Adrienne, icy-cool and five feet away?
Or will it perhaps be Jem, the perpetual Observer, with his natural skills of diplomacy that can only come from months â€" nay, years â€" of sitting silently by and learning from others’ mistakes?
The moment is ticking away, and even in the world of fiction, no pause is eternal.
Adrienne steps between them and takes the fiddle from C.D. She tosses it at Tony, tilts her head at both by turns, and makes a passing comment that Jem gleans from the shape of her lips. Take it to Ewell - Monday night - Seven.
Jem thinks at this point she might well have turned entirely around and strutted out. After all, it would be a smooth way to seal an equally smooth intervention. Probably what he would have done. But she can’t...she can’t bear to leave whatever’s in the red cloth case. She decides instead to strut to the counter (brushing her hand along the felt on the way) and order black tea. Personally, I don’t think she actually drinks tea. Maybe she’s just wasting her money for the sake of making a good impression. At any rate, Jem seems to find appearances saved and his aesthetic sense satisfied. Drink up, then.
At the center table the scene dissolves. C.D. inflicts a sigh on the world and finds Benita by her side, tugging her towards the door. Now that he's recovered, Tony looks as if he might, for a moment, have contemplated offering this woman his hand in a proper introduction. However, fate is quite in his favor, and she’s gone before he can loosen his grip on his bow. Jem grins. Well, wouldn’t you? Clearly, it’s shaping up to be an interesting semester. I wonder what will happen when these three characters find themselves thrown together again in three days time? Jem, for one, is tempted to follow them to Ewell on Monday night. Ah, but of course, his corner office is his window to the world, and were he to leave it, this vast drama of human life â€" held like a wheel whose hub is a little campus coffeeshop â€" might cease for a moment to spin. And then, would it truly exist, with no one to observe it?
Jessica Miller is a staff columnist for the DSJ. Check back in next Tuesday for more of "Tune In."