I don’t know how the rest of you guys spent your time in graduate school, but I met some of the most . . . interesting people that one could ever hope to<\/strike> meet. One of them was my friend Jason Gleckman. People come and go, and sometimes you find yourself living, due to financial arrangements, suicide, burned-down dwellings, or whatever, with people whom otherwise you’d not have the pleasure to know. One semester (before he met Pat and started biffing like a rodent), Jason lived with a couple of guys whom the rest of us didn’t know very well. But they liked their beer and football, and they didn’t mind Jason’s rather odd ways, so it was all working out fine, I guess. Until one rainy night.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt really was a torrential storm, and having been improvident enough to let themselves run out of food in the fridge, Jason and his roomies scratched together enough cash to order two-for-one pizza from Little Caesar’s. Their place was a bit off of the beaten path, and there was thunder and lightning and rain coming down in sheets. The deal was, the pizza came within, I don’t know, an hour or something, or you didn’t have to pay for it. They received a phone call from the delivery driver after about 40 minutes, asking for directions. Then he called back in another 10 minutes from a little closer. Finally, after another half hour, he showed up, soaked to the bone.\n<\/p>\n
\nJason went to the door to get the pizza, but one of his roomies, without taking his eye off of the television, said: “I’m not paying for that. It’s over an hour. I’m sure it’s cold, and the box is completely soaked.” The pizza delivery dude, a burly guy, blinked in disbelief, while Jason tried to say that he’d go get his checkbook and was rudely thrust out of the way. Before the guy managed to build up a head of steam to go with his threats, Jason’s roomie deftly grabbed his rifle from behind the La-Z-Boy and pumped a shot into the poor schmuck’s shoulder. “Holy shit!,” he observed. “You shot me!”\n<\/p>\n
\nJason compressed the guy while his roomie called 9-1-1, still watching TV, and soon the ambulance and the police arrived. Despite the rain, he walked to my place, about 4 miles away, and spent the night. He moved out of that gig soon thereafter. As far as I know, his former roomie was never prosecuted.\n<\/p>\n
\n******\n<\/p>\n
\nI had met Jason through Pavel, now a well-known literary theorist. He’d gone through a series of disastrous relationships with a series of women, including Allison the Coke Whore, which put him in a deep financial hole out of which (as you shall see) he was “literally” digging himself. His latest amour, Elke, liked to dance, so he indulged her by taking her to the local clubs. One night, he took her out, went to get a drink, and found her hanging around with a guy named Alphonso. He didn’t mind, till, as they were leaving, Alphonso came around and she decided to stay. He didn’t drive, so he walked home, fuming. The next day he jealously questioned her about it, and she admitted to having had Alphonso back to her place. They quarrelled. She hung up. She started seeing Alphonso.\n<\/p>\n
\nPavel was broke, and working for a local construction company to get through the summer, before his TA salary would kick back in. He called me the next Friday, and asked me to take him out drinking. So, I did. As the evening wore on (fortunately I knew the bartender, and he winked off about half of the drinks on my tab), his discussion of Elke got more and more lurid. We were well potted, and I really just wanted to leave the car in the parking lot and stagger home, but he insisted that I drive him somewhere. I said, “Geez, Pavel, what’s the deal? What do you need to show me that’s so important?” “Dan,” he said, “with all due respect, shut the fuck up. C’mon.”\n<\/p>\n
\nWe drove a little ways out of town, and he told me to turn in to a parking lot, that snaked around behind a large apartment complex. He told me to stop. He sat on the hood of my car, and patted it, to indicate I should come sit next to him. He bummed a cigarette.\n<\/p>\n
\n“So, why are we here?” I asked.
\n
\n“I want to show you something.”
\n
\n“What?”
\n
\nTaking a big drag and letting it out: “See that light?”
\n
\n“What light?”
\n
\n“The red one. Over there. Fourth floor.”
\n
\n“Yeah?”
\n
\n“That’s her fuck light.”
\n
\n“What?”
\n
\n“That’s Elke’s fuck light. She’s up there fucking Alphonso.”
\n
\n“Is that what you wanted to show me?”
\n
\n“Yeah.”
\n
\n“Can we go, now?”
\n
\n“Just let me finish the cigarette.”\n<\/p>\n
\nI drove him home.\n<\/p>\n
\nPavel didn’t really get on with the other guys in the construction gang. He was the lanky, cerebral outsider attending the University. They were grizzled good ol’ boys. He wasn’t invited into the mobile home erected at the site to cool off in the summer swelter. He ate his sandwiches by the side of the ditch. He was hot, sweaty and lonely, and drinking himself to sleep every night on a twelver of Milwaukee’s Best, curled up in a curtain that he’d taken down off of the window, in lieu of sheets or a blanket. Fortunately the floor in his room was carpeted. Today, however, he was working in dreadful heat, digging with sheer ferocity, not having lunch at all.\n<\/p>\n
\nOne of the fellas came up and asked him what was going on. “My.” he said. “Girl. Left. Me. For. Alphonso.”
\n
\n“What are you talkin’ about, Pavel?”
\n
\n“She. Left. Me. For. A. Guy. Named. Alphonso!”
\n
\n“Huh? A black guy?!”
\n
\n“Yeah. Named Alphonso!”
\n
\n“Shit, man!” Guy picked up a shovel.\n<\/p>\n
\nNow, as Pavel retailed the story, both of them were digging with ferocity. Soon the other guys came out. Listening to his tale, they got more dug that hour than usually they would have in an entire day.\n<\/p>\n
\nPavel got to eat in the trailer, after that. They were decent folk, after all.\n<\/p>\n
\n****\n<\/p>\n
\nIf you like this kind of fare, let me know. I’ve got many more of this kind of true story.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t know how the rest of you guys spent your time in graduate school, but I met some of the most . . . interesting people that one could ever hope to meet. One of them was my friend Jason Gleckman. People come and go, and sometimes you find yourself living, due to financial arrangements, suicide, burned-down dwellings, or whatever, with people whom otherwise you’d not have the pleasure<\/p>\n