IN THE MAGAZINE

Illustrations by Milano Chow

COLLEGE TOWN - PART 4

By Mary Gaitskill

The bar was full of familiar, attractive people; plates of cheese sat on several tables, and plants hung above all heads. Janet had been coming here almost every night. No waitresses were mean to her here. Lily was disappointingly calm, though, and only half-interested in talking about how awful men were.

“I know we had to break up eventually,” she said. “I just wish it wasn’t about something as stupid as this. It just got to the point that I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. I mean the way his friends act toward me.”

She wasn’t showing anger at all. Her voice was flat, her expression blank. Janet wondered if Lily looked that way because it was her nature or if the outside world had been so painful for her that she couldn’t stand to be in it fully. She looked at Lily’s long, slender fingers against the iced glass of her drink and felt touched by her vulnerability. Why should people dislike her? “It’s really shitty,” said Janet.

“I don’t know why it’s happening.”

Her passivity made Janet feel a little contemptuous. She ordered another drink. “It’s a small town. People like to gossip and you’re a natural subject because you’re different.”

“How am I different?”

Janet sighed and looked at the ceiling, both hands on her drink. The question stirred memories of answering a professor’s questions and loving the sound of her intelligent voice. “Because on one hand you seem completely unaware of people, completely self-contained and happy to be that way. And then you’ll suddenly be so open and needy. I think the abrupt contrast worries people. And they can be aggressive with you because you’re actually gentle. Even if you don’t talk that way.”

Lily didn’t answer but Janet thought she looked pleased with the explanation.

“I’m sort of glad you’re dumping Daniel. I know he’s my brother and everything, but it’s about time somebody dumped him. He’s been picking up and putting down girls for years. It’s sickening.”

Lily shrugged. “He’s told me all about what a heartbreaker he is. I guess it means I’m supposed to be the one to bring him down.”

“You should. It would do him good.”

“I don’t see how it would do him good.”

“Because it would teach him something about life. He’s never been hurt before in that way. He thinks everything’s so easy and that he’s never been hurt because he’s so smart.”

“Being hurt doesn’t teach anybody anything,” said Lily. “It doesn’t help. It just feels bad.” She nipped up a piece of cheese and munched. “Although there is the Jesus stuff,” she said through her cheese. “Suffering and redemption, suffering and purity.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” said Janet.

“What are you talking about?”

Janet sighed abruptly; her eyes went ceilingward. “Morally, in the Christian sense, strength isn’t necessarily a good thing. You’re supposed to turn the other cheek, be sacrificed, you know? But I think that kind of meekness is weak, and when you think about it, weakness is really… evil in a way. It’s like being connected with the ugly things in the world. You’re the clubfooted straggler endangering the herd. You make people depressed and sentimental.”

“Did you vote for Reagan? That’s his whole thing, he’s for strength. People despised Carter for being weak.”

“No. No, no. I didn’t vote for anybody, I’m not talking about anything political. I don’t mean you should despise people for being weak, if it’s a kind of weakness they can’t help. But when they’re weak on purpose, it’s another thing. When they don’t even try. When they let people hurt them and don’t fight back. It’s gross. It’s letting down the whole human race.”

“Oh. I think I see what you mean.” Lily looked out the window for a minute.

“It’s funny. When Reagan won, I was secretly relieved. Even though I hate him. Secretly, some part of me must feel like he’s right. Even though I think Carter is the better one.” She turned to face Janet. “Tell me again why you think I should dump Daniel.”

“Well, to… to make him see that he could be weak and damaged like anybody else.”

Lily smiled. “That would just make Daniel stronger.”

“Think so?”

“Some people are like that. Daniel is like that. The more he was hurt, the stronger he’d get. It’s like Ann Landers says: ‘The same heat that melts butter tempers steel.’”

“If it’s that way, maybe you really should dump him.”

Lily made a face. “The thing is, I don’t want to hurt his feelings.” She played with the wheat crackers on their plate. “I wonder how many other people feel that way about Reagan? Even if they hated him?”




Janet had begun to work on her history papers so she could graduate. There was only three weeks left to get them done, and she hadn’t even started her research, so she had to get up very early in the morning. She went to the Oasis before many people had a chance to get there and start gossiping. She smoked and drank coffee and read about socialism in England. It was wonderful to be constructive. No wonder Lily clung to it so. Janet wondered if it would change her appearance the way masturbating had. After Lily and Daniel broke up, she masturbated for the first time in six months. People kept telling her how relaxed she looked all of a sudden. Lily said her “energy” had changed. Maybe doing her history papers would have an even greater effect.

At night she went to the bar and saw Sasha and her friends. Sasha looked fat and tragic, her eyes bitterly flat and smeared with kohl. Janet told her about the papers. “Good girl!” said Sasha. “I never did my papers. Is it true that Lily and Daniel broke up?”

“For a few days now. I think they might get back together, though. They’re being very seductive at breakfast.”

Janet was surprised when Sasha didn’t say anything nasty. She just started telling about how she’d gotten kicked out of her best friend’s apartment after a fight, and how she had to stay with George Hammond as a result. “Of course, he’ll probably kick me out as soon as he gets tired of me. He loves me most when I start talking about moving to Chicago.”

Lindsay walked in wearing her little black leather jacket. Her large, heavy brown eyes looked smug and almost crossed under her tortoiseshell glasses, and her little nose was in the air. “Sasha!” she cried, advancing toward them. “Hi, you look great.”

“Being an outcast is very becoming. I hear you’re going to New York.”

“Yeah, I’m going to become a disc jockey. I know people there who can get me connected. At least I hope they can. Hi Janet.”

“Oh, you’ll do great. You’re the kind of person who’s successful.”

“I can just hear her on the radio in New York,” said Sasha after Lindsay had left. “Have you heard her show? It’s called No Feelings and she reads her poetry on it. All this stuff about splinters of night reaming her eyes. She’s retarded. She’ll probably get a great job in New York. Every pretentious asshole I know went to New York and got a job in film or publishing.”

“I’m an asshole and I don’t have a job in film or publishing.”

“That’s because you’re not pretentious. You wouldn’t even be an asshole except you can’t get out of Ann Arbor. And who am I to talk? I’ve been trying to get out for years.”

“I’m going to get out soon,” said Janet.


Janet rolled her car windows down as she drove home, so she could feel the spring air and look at the little residential houses. She drove her car up onto the lawn and almost over the tulips. She heard herself thunder across the porch like an ogre.

She knew that Lily and Daniel had gotten back together as soon as she walked in the door. She heard their voices coming out of the kitchen in low, intimate sounds, and when she put her head around the corner, she saw them sitting in their papers. On the table were little dishes with pieces of toast on them and an open package of butter with a knife still in it.

She turned and padded away. She went upstairs and threw her books and papers on the floor. She got into the bed and lay there, swollen and drunk. She reviewed the situation: Her hair was growing out so well it was almost okay to take the scarf off. She was working on her papers. She was masturbating and having orgasms. Lily was right. Ann Landers was right. She was one of those people who just got stronger and stronger, no matter what you did. Her strength was like the steel structure of a bombed-out building, stripped but imperious and stern. She couldn’t feel anything inside herself now but flat metallic strength.


COLLEGE TOWN | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

See all articles by this contributor

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.