ANGELS IN THE SNOW (Part One)

Travis and Guy were housemates. Guy was a charming fellow and the darling of the faculty. Rumor has it that when asked a question during his thesis defense, he had no answer. So, he smiled at the four professors on his committee, and said, “I don’t have the answer to that one, but would you like to hear this one?” W.S. said, “If I had tried that trick, I probably would be banished to scholar’s purgatory forever. But---it’s a ‘Guy Thing.”’ Guy had a beautiful girlfriend who was also a graduate student.

Travis was the third Travis in his familial line, and he drove a red Corvette. His fiancé had a public relations job with the Campbell Soup Company, and spent much of her time in Alaska developing a healthy eating program involving soup. “How hard can it be to get people to eat soup in Alaska?” I asked W.S. “It stays dark a long time there in the winter,” he said. “Maybe they get confused and want to eat soup for breakfast.”

There was a third fellow who shared the rent, but I only met him once. They called him “Snarky.” I don’t know if that was his real name, or derived from Snark, but he was a strange little man who spent most of his time in a laboratory growing disgusting things in Petri dishes. When I met him, he said, “I’ll bet you don’t know how to make perfect scrambled eggs.” “I’ll bet I don’t care,” I responded.

However, he ignored me and said, “You crack the eggs and put them into a bowl. Then you put a drop of water into the bowl before beating the eggs. Then you put them into a pan. Pull them gently away from the side of the pan. You don’t scramble them in the pan.” “What happens if I skip the water, skip the bowl, crack the eggs right into the pan and scramble them, and they don’t know I’ve done it?” I asked. “They won’t be perfect,” he smirked. “Then I will just eat them before they start criticizing me,” I said. It was at this point, I realized that Snarky was dead serious about his eggs, because he just snorted and walked away.

When W.S. joined me, I asked, “What’s with Snarky?” “All I know is that he pays his rent on time and stays out of the way when Travis and Guy throw a party, and that’s good enough for them. There was always room for one more guest at a Travis and Guy party, and the festivities usually lasted until they ran out of beer or the neighbors called the police---whichever came first.

The semester was over; winter break had begun, so it was time for a party. Rocky and Velma picked us up because they wanted to see our apartment. When Rocky heard that we lived at the Princess Garden Apartments, he said, “Are you living in an apartment or a fairy tale?” “Neither,” said W.S. “We are living in a Marshall Fields gift box.” “What do you mean?” asked Velma. “I was trying to hang a picture before you got here, and the hammer went right through the wall,” he said. “These walls are like cardboard.”

“No,” I added. “They’re not like cardboard. They are cardboard.” “But,” said W.S. “we found out that the gift boxes from Marshall Field match the walls. So whenever there’s a hole in the wall, we just glue a piece of box over the hole and you can’t tell the difference.”

Rocky and Velma spent the next few minutes trying in vain to find the sections of wall we had patched with parts of gift boxes, but the little specks in the pattern made Velma nauseous, so we decided to leave for the party, which was already in full swing when we arrived.  Everyone was there. Music was blaring, the bathtub was filled with ice and beer cans, and all of Travis and Guy’s furniture was sitting on the front lawn. “Had to make room for all of the people,” Travis explained. “What if it rains?” I asked. “It won’t rain,” said Travis. “It’s too cold for rain.” He was right.

As we entered the apartment, it began to snow. (To be continued---).

Esther Blumenfeld, CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006.