A Golden Opportunity

Return to Sender

When Victor returned to his dorm, he was not surprised to find Reggie in the back of their shared wardrobe, his feet poking out from under the hanging coats and the beam of a flashlight shining through the fabrics. He must have an assignment due soon, or else he wouldn't be in such a panicked state so late on a Friday afternoon. Even Reginald liked to keep a regular socializing schedule on the weekends, whether that meant the two of them went to a fraternity, went out to the bars with their fake IDs, or simply bothered their neighbors on the floor. By this time on any normal Friday Reginald would have already been drunk, though it would seem that he was particularly stressed by something due on Monday, perhaps a book report on a novel he had not yet begun.
Victor pulled back the coats to find his roommate sitting against the back of the wardrobe, his glasses fogged and a flashlight stuck between his teeth for proper lighting. His sweater was missing and his button down shirt was only half done, his hair tussled and his eyes frantic. Victor bit his tongue, for a moment wondering why God would curse him so, and for a moment they just stared at each other, one perplexed, one struggling.
"You're in the wardrobe," Victor began obviously.
"I have ten pages on this book due Monday," Reggie admitted once he spit the flashlight into his palm, which was played well to Victor's assumptions of the situation. Reggie must have been playing too much basketball and not reading nearly enough to keep pace with the professor's expectations. It was no surprise, though it did give Victor some relief to his roommate so stressed with homework. It was not often that the English major was sweating, being that he enjoyed most of his work and was known to read books way ahead of time, simply for the inability to control himself.
"How far along are you?" Victor wondered, trying to study how thick the pages were, cover to cover.
"Um...about half." Reggie sighed heavily, because they could both see that the book was nearly as large as a cement block. Half way meant about nothing when considering how much farther he had to go.
"Good luck," Victor sniggered. He dropped his backpack by his desk, the thing clunking with the weight of all the papers Professor Holmes had collected for him, though he did not feel like sorting through them tonight. It had been a long day already, and already he could feel his head painfully clouded with the mere idea of equations. To look at them again would about split his skull in half.
"Want to smoke?" Victor wondered, kneeling underneath his bed and feeling around for his secret shoebox, tucked somewhere between his trunk and his laundry basket.
"Perhaps it would make this book more digestible," Reggie agreed, snapping the novel shut overtop of another one of his strange bookmarks, this time a thin plastic comb that must have been the first thing in sight when he had begun. Victor double checked that the door was locked before he opened the shoe box on the floor, revealing small bags of marijuana and sheets of rolling paper. It was an act that would get the most distinguished boy kicked out of school if administration were to find out, though it was also so common a habit that they'd have to kick the whole school out, should of course they go through every room in a meticulous search. Victor and Reginald had been introduced by their neighbors freshman year, and ever since had found the act of smoking a very relaxing thing to do at the end of a long week. Reggie liked it because he claimed he could hear colors, and Victor liked it because it ate the stress away. He didn't have to focus on much when his mind was swimming in the clouds, and when he was nearly failing his classes and had his father sternly behind him, insisting he be top of the class, well it was nicer to merely sit back and enjoy the moment of it all.
"How was your time with the cripple? Certainly he had something good to say, you were there nearly all afternoon."
"Be kinder with him, Reggie. Call him a professor," Victor insisted.
"Wow, it went that well, huh?" Reggie grinned, coming up behind Victor to watch as he packed the marijuana into the papers, tapping it carefully into a line before beginning to roll it on the hardwood floor. Reggie was particular on how the blunts were formed, and he liked to critique whenever possible.
"He was helpful, almost too helpful. I have passages to read from the books, and he wants me to do the test over again with what I've learned."
"And you learned all of it then?"
"All of it from the first couple of chapters, yes. Which is real helpful, because our second test is coming up soon and I haven't got a clue what's going on."
"Maybe you should ask him for more help?"
"It's already scheduled. I'll be going in weekly, and we'll discuss the homework." Victor raised the blunt to his tongue, licking along the edge and sticking it firmly in place. Reggie snatched it before Victor could even appreciate his handiwork, and before long the boy had gotten the window open and lit a match underneath his chin.
"That's a lot more work than you usually put in," Reginald reminded him, blowing a cloud of smoke proudly into the night sky, for the admiration of the passing cars on the road outside. Victor and Reggie had already ensured that a face wasn't visible from the road, nor was a cloud of smoke. On one of their first nights in their new dorm Reggie had sat in the window and smoked while Victor stared excessively hard from the main sidewalk. He couldn't tell for sure who was in the window, nor could he see any signs of malicious activity. To anyone driving by they looked like to college boys enjoying the time of evening, which was all the better for their reputations and their longevity at the university.
"He motivates me," Victor admitted, tucking the shoebox back underneath his bed and stepping towards the window to snatch the blunt from his roommate's hands. "Besides, he's different than the other professor I had. He's tough, but he's willing to help. He's tough because he believes in me...while the other one wanted to see me fail. Set me up for it." Victor held the blunt to his lips, sucking in a firm breath and letting the drug fill his lungs. He breathed heavily, released it from his lips, and finally let his mouth open for an exhale. The smoke was smelly and cloudy as it escaped his mouth, puffing a steady stream into the evening air.
Reggie leaned against the windowsill, his feet hooking behind him as he watched the lights of the traffic moving quickly across the road. It was not a major vein of the city, though enough houses were on either end to make the evening traffic more prominent than any of the country back roads. It was entertaining at least to have something to watch, allowing their eyes to follow at the same pace as their brains. Better to focus on something quick and forget it just as fast than to wallow in things beyond their control.
"Maybe he can teach me basketball, huh?" Reggie chuckled. He took another puff, staring pensively through the darkness. "I was there this morning, and I kept track of how many I made and how many I missed."
"What's the ratio?"
"About as good as your first exam," the boy sighed regretfully. Victor merely chuckled, elbowing Reggie to the far side of the windowsill to make room for himself. He drew up his roommate's desk chair and settled comfortably, leaning forward so as to set his chin on the ledge next to Reggie's curled arms. It was a peaceful night, a quiet night.
"I guess we're just a couple of failures, huh?" Victor sighed, accepting the blunt once more.
"It's not like we don't try," Reggie agreed.
"And we have time to get better. You said it yourself, nothing's set in stone until the winter. We have until then to prepare."
"It's not as easy as it sounds," Reggie complained. "It never is."
"Well, perhaps you need to find yourself an equivalent to Professor Holmes. Perhaps the basketball coach?"
"As if he'd spend his precious time with me."
"The assistant?"
"I don't even know if we have one."
"The ball boy?"
"That's more like it, though I'll probably be going against him for a spot on the team. Me and all the freshmen, and all the lousy upperclassmen who haven't made it all of their years." Reggie sighed mournfully, as if he was so upset about a fate he had chosen specifically for himself.
Victor turned his head, studying his roommate for a moment, appreciating how open his shirt was, how smooth his collar bone was, how pale his skin was where his clothes usually protected it from the sun. When Victor smoked he often couldn't help himself, finding it hard not to stare at the boy which caught his eye nearly every waking moment. His impulse control was lessened, his desire heightened. He just wished it was similar from where Reginald was standing. He wished the boy would be more entranced by him, and not so occupied with the cars that kept chugging along on the road.