banging away on his archaic typewriter and disturbing us all, he informed me that a laptop could ‘have no character’, and thus whatever he wrote would ‘have no soul’. I said I doubted anybody would notice, given that as far as I could see he had no character and no soul, and they would just attribute it to that. He had laughed in a way that implied I loved him really. I really didn’t.
I coughed and broke his daydream – probably of being well adjusted – and he acknowledged me with a glance over his shoulder.
‘Oh, you’re back, are you?’ he said, with a trace of irritation – he wasn’t nearly as nice to me if Joleen wasn’t in the room.
‘Yep, and I’ve just had a shower, so can you leave, please, while I get ready?’
‘Going anywhere nice? Another frat party, is it? You’re such a joiner,’ he said, without a hint of interest. I had only been to two fraternity parties in the four months since I had arrived – pathetic affairs full of seventeen-year-old girls not used to drinking, and a house full of frat boys all lashed on keg beer, and a makeshift jacuzzi out front for concealed groping. The University of Illinois, my home for that year, had the largest Greek system in the States, meaning it had the most fraternities and sororities. It’s a quaint little system, whereby you get to buy your friends for four years because you’re too damn scared to make them on your own, but it’s all dressed up as tradition and fun. It’s a system that reeks of the ‘American Dream’, rotting. One girl in my dorm, a gorgeous looking, athletic, popular, intelligent freshman named Joanna discussed the ins and outs of trying to get into one of the sororities, over bagels one day in the canteen. Joanna had a shortlist of three. The one she most wanted to get into, Pi Kappa whatever, was her favourite, the top of her list, but she was a little nervous. She didn’t think she would get in, the reason being she was Jewish, and Pi Krappy whatever didn’t usually take Jewish girls. I practically threw my lunch up all over her. She was desperate to get into some mock Tudor shit-hole of a house with a bunch of tight arsed wasps who wouldn’t like her anyway because she was Jewish. I told her you would never get it in Britain. We make our own friends when we get to college I explained, trying hard not to sound like her rabbi. We go down to the pub and have a legal drink at a sensible age, and make friends that way, half cut. We don’t discuss how much our parents earn. What about the class system in England she had said? I told her I had a lecture to go to, and she was too bright a girl to be doing something so stupid as join a sorority.
I wasn’t going to a fraternity party, therefore, that evening, but to the pub, Henry’s, where all the ‘foreigners’ went – Aussies, Brits, Kiwis, Paddies – for the birthday of one of the guys from university back home. You see I hadn’t braved this new world on my own – there were at least fifteen students from my university with me, and that’s not even counting all those from the other British universities. What with not actually having to pass any courses, it was more like a multicultural holiday camp with racial tension and inadequate air conditioning, than work. It was Jon’s birthday, and we all congregated in the pub, which we did most nights anyway. It wasn’t like all the other bars – the ‘sports bars’ – with their neon lights and blonde-haired waitresses, and TV screens and dozens of pool tables. It was dirtier, dingier – all the bar staff looked slightly tortured and, if not unattractive, they all had tattoos at least. The tables were made of old battered wood and engraved with fifty years’ worth of drunken etchings by students missing lectures. It reminded us of home. On these occasions, we would drink until the birthday boy or girl threw up. This was generally about ten p.m., as they had invariably been in the pub all day. I don’t know why I told Dale this, but I did.
‘No actually, Dale, I am not going to a fraternity party, I’m just not in that date-rape mood tonight. And besides, I’m always scared I’ll spot you hiding in the bushes, weeping in loneliness and wanking over bikini-clad freshers – and that’s just the boys.’
Dale swore at me under his breath.
‘I am actually going to the pub.’ I continued to stand and stare expectantly at him, waiting for him to leave, nodding towards the door, holding up my towel, wet hair dripping all over the floor, as I needed him to go before I could put the towel covering my body on my head.
‘I don’t see why I have to leave. I won’t look; I’m working.’ Dale stared down at the letters on his typewriter, supposedly in concentration.
‘Oh Dale, just get out, will you – I shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells to get a little fucking privacy in my own room. Joleen’s not even here,’ and with that, Joleen walked in and practically had a seizure at the sight of me in my towel, standing in front of Dale, begging him for something, even if the something was his speedy exit.
She turned on me straight away. ‘What the fuck are you doing – can’t you put some fucking clothes on?’ She spat the words at me, which she pretty much did whenever she talked anyway.
Joleen’s sudden appearance in the room meant Dale’s attitude towards me changed completely.
‘Nicola, can’t I stay for a little while? I yearn to kiss your milky white shoulders.’ He looked at me, looked at Joleen, and then back at me again, a smile playing on his lips.
‘They are not milky white. Get out.’
And for once, Joleen agreed with me.
‘Yeah, Dale, leave while she gets dressed for God’s sake, she’s just a prick tease.’
Dale grabbed his Marlboros from the desk and pushed past me, his proximity immediately making me want to get straight back in the shower.
‘Thank you, Jesus, at last!’ I muttered as he left.
‘What was that? What did you say?’ He spun around and, for a moment, he was a froth of anger and spite, but almost instantly he recovered himself, and forced a smile. ‘Oh Nicola, remember, you’ll never meet an American who loves you like I do. They don’t get how ironic you are – they’re all assholes. They think you’re just some uptight Brit who wouldn’t know her ass from her elbow in bed, but I know you’d go like a greyhound.’
And with that, Dale stalked off down the hall to sit in his room for the rest of the evening, watching sci-fi shit on TV.
I pushed my way into the pub, past the moronic doorman who maintained every time I went in there and showed him my ID, that I had ‘forged it wrong’, and got my dates mixed up. There was no fourteenth month he said, every time. And every time I calmly explained to him that I was British, and we write our days and months the other way round, the right way round. The aisles were narrow, and crowded, and it took me ten minutes to get to the big seats at the back where my friends were sitting. Jon had been there most of the day, and was looking a little worse for wear. In American terms, anybody who goes to the pub at lunchtime is a drunk, pure and simple, even if you only drink lemonade all day. Jon was at the finding it hard to speak and control his limbs stage. The boys were all playing ‘My Penis Is’, their favourite game. I pushed in beside Jake, grabbed a glass and filled it from the pitcher in the middle of the table. ‘My Penis Is’ was a game that Martin had brought with him from home. They sat around, started with the letter A, and then described their penis, but they had to ‘drink as they think’. So Martin would start and say ‘My penis is aromatic,’ at which point the boys would cheer, and it would be someone else’s turn.
‘My penis is astronomical’ the next
