He was so excited to leave he could barely sit through his going away party. All the people swirling around him, family, friends, they seemed so small, so inconsequential. Not that he didn’t love them, but…Berkeley. Shit. That was fucking huge. Next to that, his home town, his whole life seemed miniscule. No one from his rinky-dink high school had ever been admitted , and he’d become something of a local celebrity when word got around. Everyone kept asking him questions about how excited he was, what he was going to study, how much this all meant to him.
He could tell that an image had formed in the town’s collective unconscious, so crystalline and real that it had already been written into the as-yet unwritten volume of town lore. The image was of him, Stephen Roswell, returning to Lakewood, four years from now, with a degree in one hand and a beautiful Berkeley grad on the other. They’d marry, settle down, and produce genius children for the town to prod at. This image in his head, Stanley gave an audible snort. He was never coming back. And the only question that concerned him was whether to take the 5 or the PCH up the coast tomorrow.
* * *
The next day he kissed his parents goodbye and took off. He chose PCH. His town was situated squarely between Los Angeles and San Diego, so he was prepared for a long drive. The winding road would along the cliffs of California, and the sun was making the water clear and beautiful. All that day and the first half of the next he drove through boring flat lands, spectacular cliff scenes, and winding mountains roads that snaked back on themselves, slowing his pace to a crawl.
When he got off the 580 and cruised through the streets of Berkeley, he felt like he was being pulled along on some invisible string. He felt like a fish who’d been hooked.
He parked at an on-campus lot on the north side of Bancroft, and got out, closing the door with almost post-coital gentleness. He inhaled; the air here was clearer, thinner. He walked towards the center of campus, leaving all the earthly possessions he wanted or needed in a dingy lot. His step was brisk, his eyes wandering over the near-empty campus. Summer session had ended and fall classes wouldn’t start for another two weeks, so the only other people around were the odd stragglers, the homeless, and the young professors who cared enough about their courses to start planning early.
Stephen soaked it all in, and in minutes found himself standing at the edge of Strawberry Creek. The water ran lazily by him, tiny dark fish darting around just above the bed. He sat down, let his felt dangle over the edge, tracing lines in the water. Leaving his feet ankle deep, Stephen lay back on the grass and took another deep breath. 20 yards away, he heard two girls discussing Proust and laughing. They were beautiful. Stephen smiled. His orientation and dorm assignment weren’t for another two days, but he couldn’t have cared less. After 18 years, he was home.
Labels: Bizerkeley, Stories
