the Kind of Thing
I Wrote in College

They say you’re always supposed to write something. No matter what that something might be, no matter how badly you think you’re blocked, no matter what’s gone wrong and what you think might fix it, you’re always supposed to write something. What the hell do you think I’m doing now?

I’m writing. That’s what I’m doing. This is the way I wrote back in college.

Almost. I was usually drunk then. I don’t drink anymore. I had a drinking problem in college. I drank too much. I drank by myself. During those times I wrote, mostly about being drunk or about writing or about being in college. Maybe that’s why I’m blocked—because I no longer drink and I’m no longer in college. Maybe that’s why I’m writing about writing.

I need a drink. What I need is a story, but I’d settle for a drink. I’ve needed a story for ten weeks. I’ve needed a drink for two and a half years. I’d settle for a story. Until then, I’ll write about college.

I was hot shit in college. I was going to write the next great American novel. We all were, but I really was. I read all the books about writers, and I wrote papers about them and got good grades. I wrote stories about writing and I got them published in the student literary journal. I was a writer. A young writer with promise. I was a writer’s writer. I wrote the kinds of things that writers read and I read the kinds of things that writers wrote and someday I hoped that writers would read what I had written. They still don’t, but at the time I thought they might.

I played tennis. Not on the team or anything; I had a regular game with some older professors. Usually we played doubles but one of the Professors, Prof. Rabb, had a department meeting during the last Thursday of every month, so when that happened we played Canadian. I’d satisfied my science requirement in Prof. Rabb’s Geology class during Freshman year, and I’d had the other two, Jensen and Fitzgerald, in composition classes during the first and second semesters of my Sophomore year, respectively.

I was pretty good at tennis back then, good enough so that I didn’t think too much about drinking before I played. I didn’t really think too much about drinking before I did anything. Or, I guess, I thought a lot about it.

I didn’t think a lot about not thinking a lot about drinking.

It was on a Thursday afternoon during the October of my senior year when things went a little too far. Prof. Rabb was at a department meeting. I’d been doing some “writing” beforehand.

Now, I said I’d had a drinking problem in college. Nobody knew this, and that’s why I’m sure. I’m certain I had one later, positive about that, but I’m sure I did then. I’m sure because nobody knew, and you know you have a drinking problem when no one knows you have a drinking problem, and no one did. Especially not my professors, many of whom I’d written drunken essays and exams for, composed drunken short stories about being drunk, many of whom I’d bid good morning only minutes after my daily protein shake of grape juice and vodka.

It was cold on that Thursday, the kind of cold that comes in October where the sun still shines and warms your darker clothes but your hands and feet snap like wet celery (I never would have used a simile like that back in college—I would have thought it beneath me). We started hitting the ball around to warm up some. Jensen and Fitzgerald were wearing sweatsuits because they were older and couldn’t handle the cold so well. I was wearing my usual tennis shorts and warm up jacket. I was pretty tanked, that kept me warm, but I could still hit the ball ok.

I was good at doing things while I was drunk back then, and not just because I’d had practice. I knew I was drinking and I knew I was drunk and I knew no one could tell. I knew. Don’t think I didn’t.

When everybody was warm we started playing, me on one side and Jensen and Fitzgerald on the other. Jensen had played in college and Fitzgerald was in a men’s league, but they both knew I could lick them so they played together. Usually, I played with Fitzgerald and Raab played with Jensen, but, like I said, Raab couldn’t come that day. Since I was playing alone, I took the first service.

Jensen played the deuce side and Fitzgerald played add. He liked to crowd me. My first serve was wide, in the alley, and I paced back behind the baseline and took a long swig from my water bottle. There was gin in it.

The second serve was in play. I rushed the net and put one right at Fitzgerald’s feet. Fitzgerald sort of scuffled out of the way and Jensen made a go for it, but his glasses fell off and he stepped on them, square on both lenses, just smashed them into sand. He still got to the ball, though, and I was a little slow from the booze and from watching Jensen smash his glasses so the ball hit me in the shoulder. I wasn’t expecting it to come back.

Jensen swore and knelt down to pick up the glasses, but he couldn’t see too well without them, didn’t know how badly they were smashed, and he jammed his finger into the broken pieces and cut it pretty good. Not deep, or anything, but the slivers of that prescription glass are sharp and Jensen’s vision was pretty lousy—he had thick glasses. It bled a lot for a finger. We didn’t know this at the time, but he got a piece of the bifocal part of the lens curled up into the tip of his finger and it got infected. I gave him my towel to wrap around it. Fitzgerald came over to help, but Jensen waved him off. He swore again and kicked the pile of broken glass and twisted frames into the brush that lined the sides of the court.

“That was my goddamned point,” he said. “Now somebody help me over to the side so that I may at least listen to young Samuel here recover and defeat my rather distinguished colleague.”

Jensen always called me Samuel. I liked him a lot, probably more than any other professor. Probably more than most people.

Fitzgerald and I ended up playing three sets. I took the first one, and Fitzgerald took the next two. I started hitting a lot of shots out in the third set and tripping over my feet. My water bottle was getting empty. I don’t remember all of it. Jensen called lines, even though he couldn’t see, and that helped.

Afterward, we all shook hands.

“Hey, Merl, can you get home alright?” Fitzgerald asked.
“Sure I can. Samuel will drive me, won’t you Samuel?”
I blanched. The cold was starting to numb my fingers.
“I haven’t got a car, sir.”
“You can take mine, then bring it back, and my wife will drive me in tomorrow. I can’t drive until I get another pair anyhow.”

What could I do? Nobody knew. I don’t remember much about that drive—the cold and the tennis and the booze had done a number on me. I do know that Jensen was very nice to me later, so I must have driven ok.

They didn’t know. They couldn’t have. None of them had a clue. Jensen’s wife picked up his car the next morning, and when I gave her the keys she said it had been nice to meet me the night before, and thank you for driving her husband home, so I must have met her or come inside or something when I dropped Jensen off, and I must have made an alright impression. She didn’t know.

The fact is you’ll never know if I’m drinking now, right now while I write these words, or if I fixed myself a drink before I wrote them, or fixed one and set it next to my keyboard, just in case. Maybe that’s why I’m blocked. Maybe I’m not blocked. Maybe this is the story I set out to write all along. Maybe. In the end, you’ve no idea what I set out to write, you’ve no idea what I’ve been drinking, and you’ve no idea what Jensen’s wife thought. You never will. That’s for damned sure.

You’ve no idea, but I have. Haven’t I?