Black Chalk

Coming to Oxford was the número uno bravest thing Chad had ever done. And he had come for adventure, so he didn’t see how spending time with his fellow Americans would benefit him. Because adventure wasn’t a vain search for some decent frickin food in the city. Adventure wasn’t a sweatshirt with your university name emblazoned proud and blue across the chest. And the truly adventurous surely had access to more than three adjectives when describing the architectural splendour that surrounded them. Cute, cool, awesome.

Around these Americans Chad knew he would never escape that part of himself from which he longed to break free. The shyness, the gulping and blushing and smiling at people when the more honest reply would be bullshit.

Although sometimes Chad wondered if his shyness was actually a secret defence mechanism, an evolved shield. Perhaps biting your tongue was the only thing that kept the worst parts of you hidden from the world. But what if shyness was simply a curse and in the world beyond his sealed lips a whole better life awaited him, the real Chad?

And so he resolved to act, to do something entirely un-Chad-like. He had pushed himself into adventure and now he needed to push himself just one more time. He would force himself to make friends with one British student at Pitt. Because any friendship was a path and paths always led elsewhere. To more paths and new places. Maybe even a better kind of life. And then, if he could only find a new world, Chad would skip down its lanes. Wherever they took him.

II(ii) Chad reasoned that freshmen would be the most open to new friendships. He should strike early on in the game before impenetrable circles and cabals began to form. This was a lesson learned from the errors Chad had made in his first year at Susan Leonard. A semi-lonely freshman, a barely social sophomore. He had hand-delivered the application to spend his junior year abroad on the day they began accepting submissions.

And so at the end of that first week in England, Chad spent two hours standing in the front quad of Pitt College. Two hours, and every minute becoming more forlorn, his temporary resolve dwindling by the second.

Yes, throughout those two hours a steady trail of freshmen did indeed appear. But they arrived not alone, not companionless as they had been imagined. Instead they came accompanied by coteries of parents. Proud, harbouring parents. Besuited parents. Parents swarming their beloved children and buzzing with manifest pride.

Over and over Chad watched the same routine unfolding. The freshman’s first entrance through Pitt’s front gate in the painfully assembled clothing that best summated his or her desired image. The ageing father’s insistence upon carrying the heaviest loads. The mother’s hand fluttering proudly upon her décolletage, resting only to stroke the stone or locket of her finest necklace. Then later the return from the freshman’s room, their child’s new home having been located and inspected and the luggage all unloaded. And finally the farewell. The freshman awaiting the moment when the final thin twine of umbilical cord would at last and forever be cut.

The arriving families would pause here and there as they made their first turns around the perfect lawn. Shoulders were squeezed. Fingers pointed out the Gothic glories of the college buildings, the gargoyles and the diamonds of lead that latticed the windows, the uneven staircases spiralling up from the squat arched doorways. Dark stone passageways that promised more of Pitt’s pleasures beyond front quad. The gardens and their ancient tree with tired limbs held up on crutches. Back quad with its wilder lawn, its meadow airs. The thunk of mallets striking croquet balls. The shadow of the sandstone wall washing over the grass toward students sprawled around their books and drinks.

Pitt College had been founded in 1620, the very same year that the Mayflower had dropped anchor in Plymouth Harbor. Chad would spend eight months in the city and the marvel of it all would never rub smooth.

But what was he to do? He couldn’t approach an entire family. One human being at a time he found difficult enough.

And then just as Chad had accepted the abject failure of his plan, his ideal target had arrived. Alone. Male. Heavy bags. Yes yes yes.

Chad forced his legs to start moving before his mind could round on the plan.

Part one was simple, a greeting. And then Chad would ready himself for part two of the plan, to listen out for a name, to actually retain it – a vital stage of meeting people and a hurdle he usually failed to clear, his nerves like so much white noise. And then, part three, Chad would offer to help with the bags.

‘Hi, I’m Chad,’ said Chad.

The ideal target put down his bags. And then he looked up at Chad, his lips tight against his teeth, and said, ‘Who on earth names their son after a Third World fucking country?’

III