Passing of Ships

                            
                                                  Passing of Ships.

        Kelvin stood under the school cafeteria portico and watched streams of rain cascading off the shingles.  It was the last day of college and everyone was scuttling around like ants, emptying their dorm lockers and stuffing all their sticky belongings into the interior of their cars.  It was a wet and gray morning.  Stained panties, ratty aluminum folding chairs, splintered furniture, and empty pizza boxes, were all piled into huge green dumpsters, signaling an end to the academic year. Kelvin was already packed and ready to go.  He lingered a bit, savoring his anxiety to leave.  By the end of next semester, he would have had his Bachelors degree in Art, and his heart sank at the thought of it.  Financial support by his parents will be at an end and he will be force to face the real world...and find a job.  Fat chance, he told himself, making a living as an artist, an occupation that his pragmatic parents considered nothing but a hobby, and certainly not a profession.

        There was no a rush to get into his old VW bus for the drive home.  Might not even make it, what with that engine blowing up twice on him.  Another reason for his procrastination was his father's butcher shop waiting for him to help out between semesters.  His father didn’t want Kelvin to be a butcher.  Like all emigrant parents,  they wanted him to be in the professions or, better still, a surgeon. His father felt that his son would have had a head start in that department.  There was little difference between a surgeon and a butcher: one sliced up people parts and the other sliced up animal parts.  One happens to be alive, and the other happens to be dead, quipped his father. 

        Kevin had time for a cup of coffee, a pastry and perhaps a minute to say goodbye to fellow students that haven’t left.  While he was standing facing the main quadrangle of the college, a girl came dashing through the rain toward him with a duffle bag filled with what he surmised as folded clothes and dorm room flotsam.  He recognized her.

        “Wow, it’s really coming down!” she shouted, as she swung the bag off her shoulders and ducked under the overhang. “Is the cafeteria still open?”

        “I think so,” said Kelvin.  She stomped her army boots on the landing making her earrings, the size of small hub caps, sway back and forth.  Her hair was long, black, and wet, and she shook it like a wet dog spraying the water all around her.  Then she whipped it behind her in one smooth motion.  Army surplus fatigues under a wet yellow poncho draped her stocky frame.  If her intention was to stand out in an art school where everyone dressed like homeless refugees, she certainly succeeded.  When he first saw her on campus, he didn’t know how to go about ingratiating himself.  There was never a time where they were in the same place, at the same moment and within touching distant of each other,,,until now.  Knowing she was popular with the student leaders, he automatically dismissed himself.  She was out of his league.  Her friends nick-named her “bullet head” because she seemed always to be dashing headlong into any activities that might require some form of risk.  It was the sixties and she, with other unsavory students, were in the forefront protesting the Vietnam War.  They would go during weekends and walk picket lines or bang ashcan lids in front of city hall.   Like her or not, she was exotic and attractive and unreachable…to Kelvin, anyway. 

       
        “Say, I’ve seen you around…in Mr. Leader’s Art History class, I think it was,” she said, breathlessly, as she scuffled her hair and picked up her wet duffle bag.  Kelvin acknowledged with a nod.  “Boy, was that class the shits.  You going in?” She pointed toward the door.  Again, Kelvin nodded and mentally hit himself.  They walked in together, Kelvin got his doughnut and coffee with cream and sugar, and she just had her coffee black.  The coffee was lukewarm and sour. They found a table next to the windows.  The cafeteria smelled of Lysol, but it was warm with few students present, none known to Kelvin. The kitchen workers, anxious to leave, were hustling in the back, clanging pots and pans, putting away utensils, closing up for the semester. These last two customers were not welcome.  

         “There was just too many in that class.  That's why I dropped out three weeks in.” she said, as she sipped her coffee.  She began wiping off spots of spilled coffee on the table with her sleeve.  “How’s the doughnut?  How can you eat that mushy shit?  Looks stale as hell.  You're gonna get indigestion and wrinkles if you keep eating crap like that." There was a moment of silence, "You don't talk much, do you?”

        “Nothing to talk about...uh, and the doughnut's okay, you get use to the food around here," Kelvin was suddenly struck by this tremendous god awful urge to make an impression on this women sitting in front of him.  He looked sideways at the steamy windows and tried not to think.  When silence began to lengthen between the two, he realized that she was waiting for him to continue.  "Yea, I remember seeing you in Mr. Leader's class, sitting way in the back of the lecture hall.  I m-m-missed you when you didn’t s-s-show up for the rest of the semester,” he blurted out.  How cool was that?  He, again, mentally smacked himself in the head. 

       “Really?” she said, and leaned slightly backwards. “Sorry about that.  I have a problems with teachers I don't feel comfortable with.  That's why I dropped out.  I do remember you, though.  Only because you were the only one that seemed so serious.  You were the only dude still awake when Mr. Leader finished with his lectures. I really admired that."  She went on about her other reasons why the short tenure in the art history class and how all the female students were paying attention to the lectures while all the males were either asleep or dying of boredom...with the exception of him.  She continued with her judgment of the students and Mr. Leader's outline of the course, and of Mr. Leader himself.  "I thought he was a fairy because he was so effeminate.  Not that I'm homophobic or anything like that," she added quickly. "I have nothing against homosexuals, just him."  After a pause, she asked, "Say, you're not one of those, are you?" 

       "What the hell?  What makes you think I'm a pansy?" he snapped back and was immediately sorry he was so abrupt.

       She was silent for a moment and then said,   Hi!  My name is Fiona, and you are?”

        “Uh…I’m Kelvin.”

        Suddenly, her eyes widen and she burst out laughing.  Kelvin was startled and bewildered.  He blushed and stared into his coffee cup.  He couldn't think of what to say.  Why is she laughing?  Why can’t I make clever conversation when I need to?  I hope she doesn't think I'm a kid or, worst still, see right through me.  What’s wrong with me? he asked himself.  It took some time for her laughter to subside.  Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “Oh, I’m so, so sorry.  I didn’t mean to laugh but…but you look so like a Kelvin.  You do," and she burst out laughing again.  Snot appeared on her upper lip and Kelvin quickly tore napkins out of the holder and handed it to her.  “Thanks,” she said, without a hint of embarrassment, and immediately wiped her nose and eyes. “Sorry, sorry, again.  Let’s start over.  I’m Fiona and I’m really glad to meet someone like you.  I meet so many guys who think they're so clever and so full of bullshit that it’s half way nice to meet someone, someone so completely sincere and innocent.  You should be in the Marines.  They need people like you.”

       “I'm not that sincere and I’m not that innocent” said Kelvin, peevishly, thinking his masculinity  was being in question. 

       
        “Oh, yes you are.  And I don't mean it in a bad way.  I know you.  I think I’ve known you all my life,” she said, and lifts her coffee cup to examine the bottom for leaks. “My brother’s like you.  Sweet and shy, who never thinks evil of anybody.  And that was his problem.  Everybody took advantage of him, especially the draft board.  And I think you’re just like him."  Satisfied that there were no cracks in the cup, she puts it down.  "I’ve noticed you and I've asked around."  She lowered her voice and spoke coyly, "I heard what the guys say about you.  You do remind me of my brother."  Her eyes narrowed.  "It's too bad you'll never meet.  You wouldn't believe how much you two are alike.  I mean, even the way you carry your taciturn self. You're both so ingenuous." And with a wave of her hand, she dismissed his weak hearted arguments that he wasn't a person to be taken advantage of.  But he was already euphoric from that moment she said, in her off handed manner, that she noticed him.  Him! Of all the students, she had noticed him around the campus.

        There they sat; she, giving a synopsis of her life, her accomplishments, and her opposition to the Viet Nam war, while he interjected between her diatribes, snippets of his life: meat cutting, the safety measures on knife sharpening, and personal hygiene when handling food.  To the relief of Kelvin, she dominated the conversation.  He found his life uninteresting and, in comparison to hers, not worth a paragraph.  But he listened.  To Kelvin, she was the most beautiful thing in the whole wide universe, and here she was, actually sitting opposite him, talking to him.   He was thrilled.  Every movement of Fiona, every gesture, her raspy voice, the tiny space between her front teeth, he devoured while she prattled on.  He was slowly dying by inches.  He had the urge to slide his hand across the table and touch hers ever so slightly.  The horrifying thought that she might pull back and reject his touch, stopped him.  She might make some hurried excuse and leave, and then what?  He couldn't take the chance. He was never a chance taker.  Maybe that was his problem.

       
       So the morning slipped by, two of them drinking coffee; him getting refills for them both, she stretching, making sounds of contentment.  Both, feeling their youth.  There weren't the usual awkward moments when a period of silence settled between the two.  They sat there like a young, old married couple, safe and warm, comfortably sipping the hot black liquid, looking out the windows as the cold rain pelted down. He would utter some non-descript; she would laugh loudly, and then give a dissertation of the non-descript.  Both seemed to know that this was a rare mini-episode in their lives to be savored. The kitchen help, mostly Hispanics, were beginning to wipe down the steam tables and emptying the coffee makers.  They would stare at the privileged couple with resentment.  They couldn't close early while the two were still sitting there.  The cafeteria was now empty except for them.  Finally as if by mutual consent, they both looked at the wall clock  above the steam table counter and began making efforts to leave.  

       "Say, can I give you a lift?  I don't care where you're going, I can take you there," he said, trying to stay calm. 

       She thought for a moment, "Geeze, my sister's picking me up at the bus stop in about..." and she looks back at the wall clock..."ten minutes? Yicks, where did the time go?  Damn it, I better hurry!"   

       Kelvin was crestfallen, and said hopefully, "Hey, I'll be seeing you next semester. What courses are you taking?"

       "Oh, I'm not going to be here.  My dad, you see.  We're moving to Virginia.  He does government work," she said.  Kelvin's head was spinning.  It was too much to take in, and it was  happening so quick.  She suddenly brighten up and said, "I know.  Give me your address and I could write to you.  I'll let you know where I'll be when we get settled.  We'll be pen pals.." and they both began searching for paper and pen in their pockets.  He quickly scribbled numbers on a scrap of paper with a very chewed up pencil as she looked on over his shoulder. 

       He hands her the paper with his address and said solemnly, "Now, write to me when you get there.  I'll be here waiting."  He had no idea why he said he'd be waiting.  It sounded kind of pathetic. Thank God she didn't seem to notice and, cheerfully, took the paper and stuffed it in her breast pocket. With a slight grunt, she swung her duffle bag over her shoulder, turned, waved, and headed toward the door.  He wanted to say something, anything before she disappeared entirely.  He watched her leave.

       Kelvin stood there for several minutes when he realized he had to be brave for once in his life.  "Fuck this," he shouted.  Covering his head, he rushed out after her.  The quadrangle was empty.  Fiona was nowhere in sight.  How can she disappear so quickly? he wondered.  He remembered her mentioning the bus stop.  It was right outside the front entrance of the quadrangle which was fifty yards opposite of where he was standing.  The rain was coming down in torrents.  He ran through the puddles and out through the entrance where he caught sight of the bus stop and, to his utter disappointment, it was empty.  Her sister had already picked her up. She was gone. 

       Maybe it was for the best.  He hadn't a clue what he would say to her if she was there. He would have been standing there, drenched, saying something mawkish and stupid and he would feel like a fool. Anyway, he would write.  He was a much better writer than a talker.  Yes, a much better writer.  He turned to walk to his car when, in the corner of his eye, he spotted a tiny, white ball floating in the gutter next to the bus stand.  He hesitated.  It was just some litter, a crushed soda can, maybe.  Instinctively, he walked back to where the litter was.  His heart sank as he bent down and picked up the soggy scrap of paper that was crushed into a ball.  He could still make out his address in the ink stains.