Most people, I imagine, do not have too much to say about Postmodern architecture before 8:30 in the morning. Nothing could be of less interest to most people than I came across than to discuss Classical Antiquity before they even had a chance to unpeel that thin yellow layers from the external films of their outer eyelids. What kind of a man would engage thirty some semi-strangers with his critical analysis of the Materialist philosophers and of Pythagoras of Samos whose perception of numbers and early math somehow helped explain the underlying structure of the universe? Such thoughtless engagement could only be perceived as cruel and unusual punishment for these poor university undergrads who were doing their best to keep awake after last night’s floor of cheap alcohol and menthol cigarettes.
But what was I suppose to do. I was not the one who scheduled this 8am seminar. Just like my students, I had to go through the motions. I had to pretend that I had no better place to be at such an hour.
While I was talking away and drawing logical diagrams on the blackboard, the majority of them were sipping away at their Starbucks lattes and their caramel frappuccinos. Most of them looked alike to me. They were mostly female, mostly blond, mostly young and mostly southern. I know for a fact that non of these girls have ever backpacked through the jungles of Brazil, non of them ever climbed mount Kilimanjaro nor did any of them ever experience the city of Barcelona.
These small towns outside of Norman did not offer people too much in terms of worldly imagination. People around these parts just lived their lives in the most descent ways that they could. There was no need for far away mountaintops, there was no need for all of those false adjectives and nouns that were offered by New York based television stations.
In the third seat behind that fairly large student sat Jenna Parker. Just like the rest of them, she had hair of gold. Just like the rest of them, she came some small town right outside of Wichita Falls or Oklahoma City. She was always surrounded Stacey and Madison. Neither of them could I stand for more than a minute. But Jenna was ok. The three of them were best friends for ever (or at least so they thought). They always played with one another’s hair. They wore pink shirts and sweaters that Kappa Kappa Gamma.
Last week, after we made love for the second time that night, Jenna explained to me that Kappa Kappa Gamma was amongst the oldest sororities in America. Founded on some university campus right around Illinois sometime around 1870, the Kappa sorority was amongst the oldest and largest sororities in the world.
I did not care much for her history lesson. I simply flipped her around.
She rolled me a joint and I promised to give them all an A for the semester. That is, I agreed to give Jenna and Stacey an A. Madison would have to settled for a B-, I could not stand anything and everything that she stood for.
After the semester was over, Jenna went back to Justin, her old high school sweetheart. Justin was an All American and I was not. Justin was one of them and I was foreign.
Jenna did not care about mount Kilimanjaro nor did she care about Pythagoras of Samos. Jenna was young and her breasts stood firm and substantial.
As the summer session came around, she and Justin went back to Wichita Falls. I flew back to New York City to meet up with the guys.
It was there on the bar down at Harry’s on Sullivan Street that Katie came around.
Can I buy you a drink?
But she did not need one. She was keeping away from the yellow stuff for a few weeks just to clean out her system, at least that was what the doctor told her to do.
I bought myself another round.
Katie did not like for me to be on top, she wanted to be in charge. As she climbed up and down , from side to side and all around, I ignored her grunts and closed my eyes. As she pulled her nails across my flesh, I thought about that first time that we met, down at the Blue Bonnet Bar on Norman’s Main Street. It was a cold Saturday night in Oklahoma and Jenna was wearing a pink jacket that wore ΚΚΓ across it side.
So what do you do Mr? She asked.
A few weeks later, Jenna and her friends registered for my class.
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