IN THE MAGAZINE

Illustrations by Milano Chow

COLLEGE TOWN - PART 1

By Mary Gaitskill

This story was written in 1982. It is an early version of a story called “Family,” that was written for my first collection, titled Bad Behavior, but got cut; it is also an early version of a story called “Orchid” that was published in my second collection, titled Because They Wanted To. When I say it was an early version, I mean that “College Town” features characters that I kept coming back to, seeing them at different stages of their lives. By the time “Orchid” got written, it was 1996, and one of the characters, Patrick, had become a pharmacologist, a failed actor, and a very lonely man haunted by his crazy sister. But in “College Town,” he was still beautiful, strangely pure, and surrounded by people questing for experience, including his sister, Dolores. 

“College Town” was never published until now. I never tried to publish it because I thought it was too light, too silly. The only reason it is being published now is that when I moved last month I discovered it in a box of old papers along with a bunch of other old unpublished stories. When I read most of them, it was obvious why they were never published; they were awful. But when I read “College Town,” I felt a twinge of regret—it seemed to me that it was in some ways actually better than “Orchid,” the story that was published, its lightness and quickness truer to life. It was great good luck that Amie from Vice called right then, and I fired it out to her.


Janet did not look good in a scarf. Her face was fleshy, her nose had a bulby tip, and her forehead was low. Her skin was coarse and heavy for a woman under thirty, and the tension in her face was such that a quick glance gave the impression that she was grinding her teeth, although she was not. She was attractive anyway because of her expressive, thick-lashed eyes and full mouth. When her hair was worn long, it was thick enough to draw attention from the fleshiness of her face so that her eyes and mouth were more striking. Thus, it was not a good idea to pull her hair back with a scarf.

Janet knew this. She hated wearing the scarf, but she’d recently pulled huge chunks of her hair out, and her head looked so weird that a scarf was necessary. She couldn’t remember now why it had ever been satisfying to pull her hair out, or even how it had felt, although you’d think it would hurt. She’d actually kept the torn hair in a little box until the sight of it sickened her one day. When she was in public, she was sometimes torn between the fear that the scarf had slipped and part of her head was showing, and the urge to take it off and see what people did. Although of course she knew they’d only stare when they thought she wasn’t looking.

She sat in the Oasis Café, before the picture window, next to a box of over-watered, crowded plants. She came to the Oasis every morning, sat down, and waited like a brute for coffee. She’d never had trouble getting it before. Now when Janet raised her hand, the waitress looked at her and looked away.

Janet knew the waitress. Her name was Teresa. She was a young, ungainly woman whose stomach seemed to be leading her around. She had a funny way of holding her forearms out in front of her at the waist, elbows bent, large hands dangling like flippers. Janet knew that she had a snotty boyfriend, that she’d just graduated from the School of Public Health, and that she wanted to open an abortion clinic. She barely knew Janet, and had no reason to dislike her.

Janet glared at Teresa. It didn’t work. She got two antidepressants from her bag and put them on the table so the waitress could see she needed something to swallow medicine with. Teresa sailed by imperiously, a full pot of coffee in her, non-acknowledging Janet’s “Excuse me” with an aggressive “whap” of her hip against the table—causing Janet’s antidepressants to roll off onto the floor. As Janet bent to pick them up, Teresa ran back and yelled, “Are you ready?”

Janet jerked up too quickly, dropped the pills, then had to reach for them again. She laughed nervously as she emerged from under the table a second time. “Are you ready to order?” asked Teresa.

“Hello,” said Janet.

Teresa stood there silently, one large hand dangling.

“I’d like a black coffee with—”

“What?” snapped Teresa.

“I said I’d like a black coffee with an apricot roll.”

“We don’t have any more rolls.”

“All right. Just coffee.”




When Teresa poured the coffee, she spilled some on Janet’s mulberry-colored gloves and didn’t say she was sorry. A few minutes later, Janet saw her traveling across the floor with a little plate of apricot rolls for another table, dangling hand wagging. Everyone else in the restaurant continued to smoke cigarettes, eat, and talk as if nothing had happened. Janet began to feel depressed.

Teresa’s friend Lindsay walked into the restaurant. Teresa cried, “Linnnnn!” as if she hadn’t seen Lindsay for months; they kissed and touched each other’s arms. Teresa had incredibly thick, dark arm-hair. She remembered a girl from high school who, because of her thick body hair, shaved her arms. It had looked awful. Teresa and Lindsay walked to the counter with their arms around each other. They stood there giggling and whispering. Lindsay was a small, pretty girl who wanted to be a writer. She wore a black leather jacket and large black sunglasses. She came to the Oasis almost every day. She could sit there all day talking about how depressed she was to the various friends and acquaintances who would occupy the empty place beside her as the day went on. Janet despised Lindsay for wearing ridiculous sunglasses and for letting her father support her. This, although Janet’s father had supported her until he went bankrupt.

Teresa and Lindsay turned to lean against the counter and stared at Janet. They looked right at her, whispering and giggling. Janet tried to think about how one of them was ugly and the other stupid. It didn’t help. Under their eyes she felt swollen and ugly at her little table in the sun. At least they were young and had boyfriends to get depressed about. She was an overweight 29-year-old in stretch pants and a scarf that hid her debased head, mentally ill and unable to have orgasms, not even with herself, sitting in a college town with nothing to do but run around the Phys. Ed. Building. She felt like the kind of retarded person that’s smart enough to know she’s retarded. Teresa and Lindsay looked and giggled; Janet swelled until she felt like a giantess barely able to hold the delicate little cup and utensils in her horrible fingers.

She no longer wanted to run around the track after her coffee. She drove back home, got in bed, and lay there while the sun gamboled over her body like a happy dog. She thought, This wouldn’t be happening to me if Allan hadn’t dumped me. She turned her head and her eyeballs took a rolling tour of the room. It had bright yellow wallpaper and plants in it. Baby pictures of her and her brother Daniel hung on the walls, Daniel looking dark and tiny and very solemn for a three-year-old. She had lots of pretty things; lacy lamp-shades, linen dust covers, vases, and literature on the bookshelves. It would’ve been nice if someone else had lived in it.

When her father came to visit her in the mental hospital, right after Allan had dumped her, she’d said, “Daddy, I want you to beat me.” He’d turned away and licked his lips like a nervous dog. Janet didn’t see why he should balk at that; he’d been beating her mother for years, although it was true that it had never been a physical beating.


TO BE CONTINUED
COLLEGE TOWN | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

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Comments

	Jere Dangerous, on Aug 15, 2008 wrote: This was a good story, very realistic in my opinion. This kind of people are everywhere, actually this could be about my ex-girlfriends roommate.