Читать книгу Experimental College - Glynda Shaw - Страница 3

I'd been standing next to my bed looking toward Duncan's side of the room as he spoke. Now I felt my knees sag. I sat involuntarily onto my bed. It wasn't as if there hadn't been clues, lots of them in fact but to have it stated so clear-cut like that, still managed to astonish. "I have transvestite tendencies," I told him, for some reason feeling I needed to match his own declaration.

"You dress in womens' clothing?" Duncan asked.

"For a period of time," I said.

"Yes," he responded.

"So" I inquired, "do you have no relationships with females at all?"

"Oh," he replied "I suppose I could be bisexual but I feel I'd just as soon not bother with women."

"Oh."

I'd have to say that women or at least girls had been pretty much paramount in my mind since I'd been thirteen or so.

"Did you ever have a girlfriend?" I asked.

"There was a girl I knew when I was about fifteen," he said. "We'd lay together naked and you know, touch each other and she wanted it to go further but I knew it never could."

By now the shakiness had pretty much gone out of my legs and the subject at hand was drawing me in from a more or less sociological standpoint

A number of things suddenly occurred to me. "With gay men," I began, not quite sure how to talk about this stuff, "is it true that one guy is more feminine and the other's more masculine so they kind of I don't know, complement one another?"

"Sometimes I'm dominant and very masculine," Duncan said "and sometimes I'm very passive and very feminine. It just depends on the situation and a lot on who I'm with." Duncan took a moment to inhale on his cigarette. He smoked more or less constantly. "I've been out in drag before," he continued. "But that's not really the same thing as wanting to be a girl or even feeling female. It's a kick in the balls to all conventional men, even gay men, an attack on their macho trip. You're saying here I am. I'm dressed like a woman. I walk and talk and do everything like a woman but under it all I'm a man and maybe more man than you!"

"I've never heard it put quite that way," I said. "I've been putting on girls' clothes since I was about nine and I think it makes me feel gentler or something but I never saw it as a striking out at anybody, though I know a lot of people would likely be offended by it."

"Well," Duncan said "you're not doing drag you're just cross-dressing. I have a friend, a gay friend who wears items of women's apparel quite often. He says yes, these are things a woman might wear but they belong to me and they're my clothes, just like if a woman wears a pair of jeans or work boots or something. I know a woman who bought herself a tuxedo because she said it's a well-made suit and she likes wearing something that's of such value and a lot sturdier than any female outfit you can find."

"Yeah," I said, "I had a school bus driver when I was in junior high. She was black and rumor had it that she dressed up in a tuxedo to go to dances."

"Sure," Duncan replied, "why not?"

"Do you mind if I ask where you got the clothes to wear when you went out in drag?"

"A friend," Duncan said, "down in Portland. He had all the stuff."

"Huh, I've tried on stuff my sisters had or sometimes my mom, maybe one of my aunts. I've never thought about wearing women's things that belonged to a man."

"It's really just like borrowing a costume from the school drama department," Duncan told me.

"Or renting from a costume shop. It's not what he wears everyday and we were just going for the look, not the way either of us lives all the time." He hesitated then, "It sounds like maybe there's more emotion attached to what you do. Maybe the things are more comfortable for you or they help you express a part of you that you can't bring out wearing mens' clothes?"

"Maybe so," I replied, feeling a bit uncomfortable with any analysis at the moment.

"Well," He said "There's no-one to stop you wearing your womens' clothes and feeling the soft textures and being whatever you want to be. I need to go to the library for a while but I'll see you later."

I stood up. "Thanks," I said "for telling me all that."

"And thank you," Duncan said. We shook hands, I think for the first time.

I sat for quite a while there on the edge of the bed, digesting what I'd just heard. No big deal, I told myself. My roommate's gay. I'd sort of figured that anyhow. Sunday night He and Tommy hadn't exactly been back-slapping. My little sister had even asked me once "What if you get in the dorm and you get a roommate who's really a faggot?"

"I'd tell him to behave himself" I'd said, "otherwise I wouldn't let him stay in my room."

After a while I realized it was sort of a big thing, but I'd get through this, right? At the end of the summer I'll know more about gay people than most of my friends do, so if an argument arises over homosexuality, I'll have the inside story and will clinch the discussion. I'd thought a lot about going into politics at some point and social issues were a big deal.

I went to the phone, dialed my friend Jim's number. The phone rang nine times. Nobody answered. I dialed Jim's sister Val's number. Twelve rings. No pick up. I dialed my friend Sue's.

"Hello." It was Sue's voice.

"Oh, hi," I said. "How are things?"

"Things," she said "I wouldn't know. I'm okay though, I guess. How's with you."

"Kind of a strange summer," I said "at least, starting strange."

"Really? Hard classes?"

"No," I lowered my voice, terrified suddenly of being overheard standing out here in the cluster right by the door. "My roommate is gay."

"You mean he sings a lot and has a cheerful disposition?"

"You know what I mean."

Sue laughed. "Yes, sure, well is he okay otherwise?"

"Oh he's alright I suppose," I said "but it's a situation I've really never been in before."

"Does he," Sue pitched her voice low, "bring feathers into the room?"

"Not that I've noticed," I said.

"Well," Sue decided "No feathers. Probably not too big a problem, right?"

The door opened. "Hi Dave." I heard Duncan's cheerful, somewhat musical voice.

"Hi Duncan," I said.

"Is that," Sue asked, "the gay roommate?"

"Yeah" I affirmed. Then, "I just wanted to see how you were doing. I should get some studying done I guess."

"Guess you'd better," Sue intoned. "Good-bye."

I managed to sit still through perhaps 45 minutes of my taped psychology text, listening to my player through the earphones as my roommate came and went, sporadically doing his own studies. As bedtime approached I got out my journal and my braille writer, leafing through the last few pages. I'd not been keeping it up much lately with the between quarters break.

I settled down to expounding a means of making quick approximations of square roots using mental short division and a geometric model. Basically if you want the square root of 27 say, you start with a number whose root you know such as 25 and divide the difference between 27 and 25 by twice the square root of the known number. approximate square root therefore is 5.2; while the actual is 5.196152.

"What are you writing if you don't mind me asking?" Duncan inquired.

"Just updating my journal," I said.

"I really admire people who keep journals," Duncan said. "I've always wanted to keep one."

"Why don't you then?" I asked absently, a bit nettled by the interruption to my flow of concentration.

"I just don't have the discipline I'm afraid," Duncan said.

More admiration poured over my evening push-ups. This time I'd left my shirt and pants on.

"Keeping fit," Duncan remarked.

I didn't comment. I slid into bed, turning my face to the wall but sleep took a long time in claiming me. I was soon aroused from sleep by the most amazing dream!

I was in the shower. and was wearing panties. How silly, I thought, forgetting to undress properly before showering.

"I hope I'm not bothering you," Duncan's voice from outside the shower stall, not a dorm shower, more like the glass enclosed one at home.

"You aren't bothering me," I said, my voice sounding unfamiliar, in my own ears, higher-pitched.

Suddenly the shower forgotten I was out of the stall, not even bothering to turn off the spray. I was on my knees on the little mat Mother always kept in front of the toilet. Duncan sat there on the closed lid in front of me. I was unzipping him frantically with fingers that didn't work the way they should. Eventually I worked him loose and my mouth gaped to receive him.

I woke shaking and jetted almost immediately into an hastily-constructed fold of the top sheet. It took even longer to get back to sleep.

The next day I largely spent daydreaming through classes, reviving and reliving the strange night dream.

I'd wondered before, fairly often actually, how it would be with another guy. Who hasn't? I guess if I thought about it all that seriously though which I hadn't; I'd have imagined myself in the role of the male partner just like I would if I were thinking about being with a girl. This of course assumes the old male-female dichotomy and even at twenty I knew better but I still believed that a lot of gay people more or less parodied straight relationships and sex roles. When in bed, which part would Duncan generally play? I ask myself. If he was being very submissive and very feminine what would that mean? Would he enhance that illusion somehow?

That afternoon when I was in our room by myself I crept over to Duncan's dresser, built in under the bed and probed carefully through his top drawer. Undershirts and jockey-shorts, folded perhaps more neatly than mine but otherwise exactly what I wore. Maybe he usually played the boy?

Now I imagined Duncan with no clothes on or perhaps just a pair of these shorts. So I'd be the girl. That came unbidden and with jarring suddenness into my mind and I was now imagining what that girl would do, could do, should do.

I didn't get hard right away but butterflies swarmed in my stomach while the skin of my breasts tingled and my buttocks pulled together as something throbbed seemingly inside of me. I gasped. I actually did. I felt my knees go jello-y where I was standing.

"I'm a girl?" I said aloud, just trying it out to see how it felt. That did make me hard. I thought about doing something with that but didn't want to get walked in on--just now. I read a few minutes in a novel I'd received in the mail between quarters from the library for the blind but I couldn't concentrate. Deciding I needed some air, I went out on our shared balcony, standing over by the rail.

We were on the west side of the building and heat was radiating off the brick and concrete. I leaned against the rail, looking downward, though I couldn't see anything.

"Hello there," said a voice at my elbow.

"Hi," I said. Peter's gentle Danish accent made him easy to recognize among my other cluster mates. "So" Peter said. "How's this quarter shaping up for you?"

"Okay I guess," I told him.

"Yust guessing?" he asked.

"Well, things are kind of confusing right now."

"You mean like finding your way around, things like that?"

"More like all the people I'm meeting" I told him.

"Yah," Peter said. "Lots of different people around. Summer term seems to be like that."

"I imagine so." I said, this being my first summer in the dorms.

After a while cooking odors wafting from the kitchen far below overwhelmed us.

"Vell," Peter said. "Ve better go down. Get in line, yah?"

"Yah," i said, smiling.

I collected my tray, replete with spaghetti (chewy), and meatballs (soggy), green beans, dressed cucumber slices and a vanilla ice cream slice. When I had one of the food line helpers assist me in finding a place to sit, they usually tried to stick me by any other blind resident currently available. Lacking this, someone hearing impaired, wheelchair-bound or a member of any other disability group. Peter deposited us at a so-far empty table. I brought my tray in for what must've been a four-point landing.

"So" Peter said "you study engineering?"

"Yes," I agreed and not without a certain lift of the chin.

"I also," he said.

"Oh really," I smiled thinking I knew there must have been some reason I liked this guy! "Which department?"

"Chemical engineering," Peter told me. "And you?"

My answer wasn't so direct. "I'm doing a degree between astronautics and bioengineering," I told him. "I'm taking the core courses in the department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, in fact I hope to complete that degree, but I'm adding courses from physiology and biophysics, electronics, probably chemistry."

"That sounds fascinating," he said. "So would you design the monitors on astronauts so we may know the health of each person in space?"

"I'm more interested in what happens inside the spaceship," I said. "Supplying oxygen and water, doing temperature control, thing like that."

"I see," Peter said thoughtfully. "So you will use air filtration and heat transfer, those kinds of things to make your air--correct?"

"Well," I said "I am thinking more about using something like hydrogen peroxide to provide oxygen and lithium hydroxide to remove carbon-dioxide. I'd probably look at a liquid gas like ammonia to cool air and condense out water."

"Yes," Peter agreed. "Vat I wonder though, is why do you not study in the chemical engineering department, as it seems chemical processes are what you vould vant?"

"I need to know about the space environment too," I told him. "Also I need to know about spacecraft design, as well as how the human body functions in weightlessness. So I decided to start with astronautics and human physiology. For graduate work I might go in any one of several directions."

"Directions?" Peter said. "Oh yes, degree options?"

"Yes," I said.

We went on like this for a while, enjoying our rather tepid meal and sharing the comradery of members of the same college if not the same department. A hand descended upon my shoulder.

"Ellen," said Ellen.

"Hi," I said through half a mouthful.

"You still coming to our cluster Friday?"

"Sure," I said. "If I'm still invited."

"And have you been assigned a new roommate here?" she inquired.

Peter's laugh was loud, rich and spontaneous. "Yah," he chortled. "That vas a good v'un!"

"Well," Ellen responded "Is the current roommate coming with you Friday?"

"He said he doesn't think so," I told her, "but I'll ask him again."

"Do that."

"She is a good vun," Peter remarked.

"She's nice," I said, then not entirely knowing why, just curious I think, I asked "What does she look like?"

"Oh," Peter gave a lecherous little chuckle. "She is yust about right. Blonde hair and blue eyes and a body shaped vell. She has a big smile and looks to be happy. She could be even a Danish girl. Yes, how will you say it, you could do much vorse."

Peter had an evening lab class over in Benson Hall so I went back up to the cluster by myself and was unlocking the door, thinking about one of the cold beers that I hoped were still in the little shared fridge, when

"Dave!" Duncan's voice, from the room. "Your mom's here!" (Great.) It wasn't as if mom and I didn't get along at all but she could use up time.

"Good evening," my mother said from my desk chair. her cigarette preceding the greeting.

"Hi Mom."

"You settling in okay Honey?" she asked.

"Yeah," I told her, meaning it--sort of. "We're having a party Friday evening."

"Something the faculty is putting on?" Mom inquired as if expecting nothing else but an affirmative.

"Something the dorm's having," I lied.

"Whew." Mom exhaled. "Your roommate seems a nice, neat young man."

"Yeah," I said probably sounding vague. "We get along okay."

"Well that's wonderful. Here" Mom said. I heard rattling noises as she set a package next to me on my desk. "I made a batch of fudge," she said. "You remember how you used to like that when you were little?" Actually fudge had always seemed a bit too sweet when I was little, making my teeth hurt, but in the dorms any extra food was welcome.

"Great," I said. "Thanks a lot."

"Of course," she said. "Now don't forget to share some with Donald."

"Duncan?" I said.

"Oh yes," Mom corrected herself. "Duncan."

We chatted for a few more minutes then she remarked I put some of your things from home in your drawers there underneath your bunk. Couldn't you get someone to do a better job of folding than you seem to manage?"

Minded to protest the intrusion thus specified I refrained as Mom was prone to crying fits when challenged.

"Maybe," I said.

"I should think so," she replied as if this too was a foregone conclusion.

"Has your Father called lately?" she asked.

"No," I said. "But it's just the first week of the quarter."

"Yes, the first week," Mom said. "After we moved you in last weekend, he went back to the trailer."

"Oh."

About thirty minutes of small-talk later, Mom dumped the Right-Guard cap she'd appropriated as an ashtray into my waste basket. Gathering up purse, cigarettes and garment bag she told me not to bother walking her out. Of course I did, though.

For a while I'd been grounded in the world of the normal. The world of Moms and folded laundry from home.

On returning to my room however It didn't take long to slip fully back into the world of the present and the outre. That girl of whom I've spoken and had tried emulating earlier, came out to present herself over my half-hearted protests. Pay attention to me! she said.

How would it feel to be treated like a girl? I wondered, perhaps not entirely knowing beforehand what such treatment might entail.

At other times in my life I'd have set such thoughts aside with but a cursory glance or perhaps a scowl of disgust, but this evening I must try at least to get my toes wet if only for a brief time.

Now I must remark on the evening in question. As I've said it had been an hot afternoon and the sultry evening hung somewhat oppressively over us. It was permeated by the scent of garden flowers coming through the windows from the campus, and that of decades-old polishing wax redolent from within the building. I was what my mother would call sticky hot. I longed to plunge myself into a stream or ambient pool. There were swimming pools available of course but the trek necessary to get to the Inter-mural Athletics building overrode the anticipation of being in that humid, chlorinated water. I opted instead for a tepid shower, emerging from the bathroom clad only in a towel and made as if to get dressed. In mid-reach to my top drawer I hesitated.

I had Ellen's gift in my desk. I'd examined them cursorily but had done no more because frankly I was somewhat afraid that she'd want them back or ask me what I'd done with them so they'd remained folded in the neat square at the front, left corner of my second desk drawer down where I kept my cassette tapes.

I pulled out the drawer.

Spreading the panties out I found they were rather worn but definitely serviceable. They were the sort of nylon material my sisters generally wore. The waistband was a thin elastic filament running through a seam at the top. They were a bikini style with a figure, perhaps a bird or flower? embroidered on the left front. I wished I'd asked Ellen what color they were. Well as she had said herself, I was still "exploring."

I dropped the towel and stepped into the panties. They were snug, and felt warm against my skin. Everything felt warm against my skin tonight. I pulled on some cutoffs and one of my button-up shirts. Feeling mysterious and quite naughty, I turned some music on low and laid back on my bed with my arms under my head, sort of wishing that I'd been walked in on while dressing, but no such luck. I'd worn panties many times before but this time it was different. For one thing they weren't something borrowed from one of my sisters or Mom. They were mine!

The phone rang in the hall. Nobody else seemed intent on getting it so I caught the receiver on the fourth ring. "Hi," I said, Cluster by the North elevator, Third floor. Dave speaking."

"Dave?"

"Yeah. Hi. What can I do you out of."

"This is Gary- Gary Campbell?"

Gary and I had been down at State School together back when I was in sixth and seventh grades. Now he was the other CBE (Conspicuous Blind Engineer) at the university.

"Congratulations," I said.

"Yeah," Gary responded. "How's it going?"

"Okay. I'm on my way to bed pretty soon. though. Anything special?"

"Yeah," Gary said. "There's a guy named Lee whose also in Double- E. He's a grad student. We're thinking about starting a group to look at technical issues for blind students. We wondered if you'd like to join us."

I thought about it. I normally didn't spend a lot of time with blind groups but there certainly was a lot of stuff needing solutions, for those of us both blind and technical. "I guess so," I

said. "Where and when?"

"We're getting together for lunch at the Hub tomorrow," Gary said. "Would noon work for you?"

"How bout twelve fifteen," I said "I have to come down from upper campus and got class till twelve.

"Okay. See ya' then."

"Yeah, later."

Duncan had disappeared shortly after announcing my mother and didn't get back in till about ten. I seldom went to bed before midnight myself--just didn't always admit it. I busied myself with class notes, waiting for undressing sounds to issue from his side of the room, then the groan of Duncan's mattress before I began taking my clothes off. I'd thought of undressing slowly, playing the temptress, but I didn't know how long it would be before he would switch off the light. I hung my pants over my desk chair, added my shirt, skinned my undershirt over my head and stood there in just my bikinis.

There was no comment from Duncan and as there was relatively little involved in getting ready for bed I found myself climbing inexorably in, much sooner than I'd planned. there seeming to be nothing else to delay me I pulled up the sheet, not a little let down. I considered for a couple of minutes, keeping quiet, listening for any sound Duncan might make then "Duncan, are there some papers on the corner of my desk over toward you?"

"Yes," he said. "There are some braille papers I guess they must be, right at the corner."

"Thanks," I said. "I need them for class tomorrow so I'd better put them in my pack." (His lamp must still be on or at least sufficient moonlight light from the window.) I slithered out of bed, walked to the aforementioned corner of my desk which took me much closer to Duncan's side of the room and his bed. Holding the papers, I turned in the direction which would present me full frontal toward him.

"Oh yes," Duncan said, laying a little extra stress on the yes syllable but not much. I stood there a moment longer. Nothing more was said so "Goodnight." I offered.

"Sweet dreams."

I got back into bed.

More dreams.

***

"Today," Dr. Mitchell began, "We'll talk about group identity and how group cohesion arises from the extent to which the individual values membership in a given group, organization, society." Mitchell went on to describe fraternity initiations, sports tryouts, military boot camp.

A unit of marine recruits" he said, "not only find training physically difficult but their sergeant subjects them to a systematic harassment deliberately calculated to cause each member of the unit to intensely hate said sergeant and in sharing this hatred the group of recruits is welded into a solid unit that little if anything can sever, or so the theory goes. Hardship is piled upon hardship and the trained Marine private emerges with an intense loyalty not only to his comrades, his platoon mates; but to the Corps generally."

Someone slid into the vacant seat next to me. "I'm John," the someone said. "Have I missed much?"

Obviously me telling John what he had missed would cause both of us now to miss what was currently being said, so I whispered "I'll share my notes with you after class."

"Okay. Thanks."

I tend not to take many notes in social science classes, finding that just listening to the monologue generally gives me enough to compare later with the text but I made a show now of writing with my braille slate so John would surmise I had previous notes to share and therefore stop bugging me.

"If a person spends a significant amount of his income," Mitchell was now saying "to buy a car, he'll tend to see that vehicle as the best car on the road because he's given up a good deal of money to buy it and if he were to entertain a negative view of the car then he'd have to deal with the likelihood that he'd made a poor decision." There was a question from the audience concerning poor performance of said car and how that would affect the buyer's view of his own decision-making ability.

"In the case that the buyer could blame someone else," Mitchell responded. "A salesman, for instance, or a mechanic. His anxiety over having made a poor decision could be alleviated, possibly, because of the fairly poor reputation used car salesmen as well as some mechanics enjoy!" General laughter.

"A University student," Mitchell continued "who undertakes a highly difficult major, one difficult for him or her; will tend to think more highly of the degree if earned eventually; than will someone who has just breezed through college. Again, the effort is proportional to the satisfaction of having achieved the goal. Now returning to the example of the poorly operating car and the blamable used car salesman; we can make an analogy with the successful graduate. If someone takes a degree in say, Aeronautical engineering and enters the job market to find that Boeing is fallen on hard times, would we expect our graduate to blame his choice of a major for lack of job success or would Boeing, perhaps the entire aircraft industry absorb the blame?" So it went for another forty minutes.

"Okay," John said as we began to shuffle toward the exit. "Do you want to go somewhere to review your notes or do you want to call me?"

"I've got to head to the Hub," I said. "I've got a meeting. Can I tell you as we walk down there or do you have some other place to go?"

"No," John said. "That'll work." We proceeded from the quadrangle to the general demarcation between upper and lower campus with me holding John's arm while he scribbled and I recalled the initial points of the lecture.

"You're in McMahon," John said as we neared the throng toward which we'd been tending.

"Yeah," I admitted.

"Me too. Thanks a lot."

"No problem."

I hung around the Drumheller entrance to the Hub; the composite eatery, gamery, social center of the campus. I'd never spent much time here. As an engineering student I preferred one of the departmental lounges but with E.-EDs (electrical engineers) one could never tell! I'd been waiting maybe three minutes when I heard two male voices in conversation accompanied by an occasional cane-tap.

"I think this may be our person here," A voice I didn't recognize hazarded.

"Dave?" A voice I did, queried.

"Hi Gare."

"Dave, meet Lee Wilkins," Gary said.

"Hi Dave." A somewhat damp hand gripped mine. "So," Lee said "shall we go in and grab

some lunch?"

I got two Husky burgers and a Coke and made my way gingerly, trying to manage drink, food and cane while keeping up more or less with our little group. We got outside again and settled around a metal mesh patio table.

"So," Lee said again, "You and Gary know each other obviously, how long?"

"Since seventh grade," Gary said, "but we hadn't met in what about the last eight years? We started talking again about a year ago."

"So you've recently known Dave again, about as long as the two of us have been dialoguing."

"I guess," Gary said.

"Well," Lee said now, "Gary and I are electrical guys, We've got transistors and diodes and all kinds of circuitry. (little laugh.) You're in what, mechanical?"

"Aero and Astro" I corrected, "looking at a BS in bioastronautics."

"Cool," Lee commended. "Gary and I've examining strategies for programming and calculating, that kind of thing, maybe some electronic guidance aids for folks without sight. Does any of that sound like something you might use or want to work on?"

I thought about it. "Well," I said, "as kind of an extra credit project for strength of materials I've designed and built an improved collapsible cane. Here it is," I passed it around so they could examine the sliding joints which locked when the cane was dropped to open out.

"That's pretty keen, Dave," Lee said. "This would fit in with the whole guidance and mobility thing. Are there other projects you have, other things that were maybe suggested by your studies?"

"My main interest is in life support issues," I said. Matter and energy flows, air freshening and water generation processes. The more I get into that though, the more I know I need to have monitoring and control systems."

"I would imagine so," Lee said, "that not really being my specialty but you'd certainly need sensors. Maybe you could collaborate with us on something like skin sensors or transducers to convert reflected infrared light say to something a person could hear or feel? Even if it's not exactly what you want to do ultimately, learning the electronic processing and actuation functions for what you could call the end effectors, would be useful whether you're building a sensor box to help you walk around or something to say, keep CO2 levels within bounds."

"That is an interesting idea," I said because it was and he wasn't talking to me like I was in kindergarten which is an occupational hazard for blind people. "I could come up with a list of processes," I said, "things that I'd anticipate needing to monitor in one of the life support flow charts I've drawn then maybe you guys could give me input on what kinds of circuitry we'd need and we could see if any of that resonates with what you're doing."

"That'd be a good approach," Gary said. "Samewise we could show you some of the stuff we've already developed and other things in the planning stage. Then we could see if you'd like to help us test some of these or possibly use them in one or more of your projects."

We went on like that for perhaps another half hour. "Well Dave," Lee said, slurping from his beverage. "Do you want to throw in with us or do you think we're entirely loony?"

"Both actually," I grinned.

"Works for me," Gary said. "You don't come out of the Braille Jail without being a little crazy. What's your excuse, Lee?"

I showed up early for the second session of news writing class which met for two hours three times a week and awarded a magnanimous four credits. The room was empty. I sat down, acutely conscious as I did so, that I still had on Ellen's underwear. Again my mind raced. I must resolve this thing somehow. I rose again, got myself a stock of copy paper, rolled a sheet into my typewriter.--I'd need it.