The Riot Party
by TRELAWNEY
Smashwords edition
Copyright 2011 Trelawney
Smashwords Edition, License Notes: "This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author."
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
"the best truth that I have been able to think"
PROLOGUE
BREAKFAST IN LA, proclaimed the headline of the Daily Student, in all its obscene, mocking glory.
Yesterday morning, continued the story, a student was shot on the way to breakfast, and died in the arms of a friend. The incident occurred a few blocks from the Auditorium, the university’s flagship residential project downtown. The assailants have not been located, but a vehicle containing at least four black men was seen to accelerate rapidly towards South Central shortly after. This seems to have been the only casualty of the riots among the university community. Your Investigative Reporter contacted the L.A.P.D., who confirmed they will treat it as a homicide, but say they are totally busy at the moment.
"I just don’t understand how someone could write that," said the Director of Residential Life. "Could we say it wasn’t the real student newspaper? It looks a bit crude."
The jagged edges of the headline suggested a dot-matrix printer. The rest seemed the product of an actual typewriter, the columns cut and pasted below, then photocopied onto several folded foolscap sheets.
"It was quite widely distributed," said the Assistant Dean. "I gather the regular print shop was closed. Look, I agree it’s tasteless. But surely a student being shot is more important?"
"We don’t have any control of students getting themselves shot," said the Director. "But we’re supposed to be supervising their newspaper. And this student journalist actually lives in that building? What was she thinking?"
"I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t get on. Why don’t you ask her?"
"You expect me to speak to a student? I can’t see the board renewing the project after this. We could survive a student being shot, but not students laughing at students being shot. And what are your esteemed resident advisers doing about it?"
"Looking for new jobs."
They both pondered morosely.
"Well," said the Director, finally, "at least that only leaves one person I have to fire."
Reddening, the Assistant Dean fiddled with his bow tie and stared at the newspaper folded on the desk.
PART I - ROLL-CALL
***
"Do you think you could hit the homeless guy with this bottle?"
They looked over the low wall at the edge of the roof, ten stories up. Although the sun had yet to rise, the floodlights around the empty parking lots made it easy to see him down below, beside his shopping cart. There was no smog as yet, no mist in the air, and no morning chorus.
"Down there?" said Greg. "It’s difficult. You’ll have to get the angle right."
"Well, if there’s a roof, someone’s going to jump off it. Or throw something from it. Or something else like that. That’s what they say..."
Tugging a blazer pocket laden with change off the ledge, Greg turned round.
"Who says that?"
"Some Russian, I think?"
"Was it in the film?"
At this suggestion Jonathan visibly turned up his nose, tilting his head back and flaring his nostrils. After five hours watching robotic dancing in a confined space he had a headache and felt slightly dizzy. His t-shirt was drenched in sweat, clinging to his body and making him shiver in the dawn air. Drawing his jacket tighter, he raised the lapels. But its worn cashmere did not help much, despite the stylish leather elbow patches.
"You’ll be asking me to throw myself down, next," he said.
"Yes! Go on then," said Darjeeling, the third member of the group, named after the only tea he condescended to drink. He peered down with difficulty through the small, orange lenses of a pair of white, plastic spectacles. "I’ve never met anyone who’s jumped off a building."
"There may be a reason for that," said Jonathan.
"But start with bottle. Would it fall faster if we finish the Red Label first?"
"It would hit a bit harder," said Greg, "but I guess the guy’d be more grateful to get it."
"Don’t be silly, it would break."
"Then he could lick it up."
"What, from the sidewalk, mixed with the public urine?" said Jonathan. "That would be sick. What a waste. Here, I’ll drink it."
"You’re such a fag," said Darjeeling. "Why don’t you run around the ledge, all around the roof, right now? Isn’t that what you really want to do?"
"No," said Jonathan.
"OK, watch me," said Darjeeling. Jumping onto the ledge he did a sort of pirouette, and then stepped down, panting slightly at the unaccustomed exertion.
Greg was unperturbed by the sudden escalation of the conversation. He looked back over the ledge.
"Look, I can time you. One minute to run all around the edge!"
"Oh, shut up," said Greg.
"You would need a bear, too," said Jonathan.
"A beer?" asked Darjeeling.
"No, a bear to dance with on the ledge."
"Oh, I have some bear spray," said Darjeeling.
"There aren’t any bears downtown," said Greg.
"No, I have bear spray," repeated Darjeeling, affecting puzzlement.
"Maybe the homeless guy is hibernating," said Greg. He pointed to the shadowy figure slumping against the eight-foot, chain-link fence that defended the parking spaces from furtive, desperate defecation. The homeless man was sitting on refuse sacks full of his possessions, with one arm linked through the handle of the rusty shopping cart packed with yet more bags. He was a feature of the block as prominent as the Auditorium itself. Known as The Owner, it was rumored he had signed over the deeds to the building in a contested divorce, or for a phantom oil well in MacArthur Park, or simply on one last cut of the deck.
"Quite beautiful, how he stays there, in a loyal way, if you think about it," said Jonathan, nodding sagely again. "And I will have the last few drops, if I may."
"Sure you don’t want a clove?" asked Darjeeling, producing a thin brown cigarette from a silver-effect holder. Jonathan waved him away.
"Fags don’t smoke, I guess." Darjeeling applied a matching lighter to the cigarette and inhaled deeply. He sat on the ledge, staring glumly at his moccasins dangling over the street.
Jonathan finished the Red Label in two gulps. "We’ll have to get them some more tomorrow," he added, gasping.
"So, you want to help us recycle that bottle?" Darjeeling looked round, tapping some ash into the void.
"I don’t think that’s a good idea," said Jonathan, but handing it over anyway.
"Here we go again!" said Darjeeling. He stood up on the parapet, swinging the bottle back and forth, judging its weight. "One, and two, and three…" he twisted as though he were throwing a discus, and then released the bottle by the neck. It swung upwards, arched lethargically, fell and shattered on the sidewalk. The homeless man stirred slightly and looked up. But he didn’t move away.
"You were about six yards off, I think," said Greg. "I can’t really tell."
"Get down," said Darjeeling. A helicopter roared past over their heads, shattering the peace. Then it vanished behind a tower, suddenly as it had come.
"This is a strange place," mused Jonathan, as they crouched there together.
"This is a boring place," said Greg. "We should get women."
"Yes! A good raping!" said Darjeeling.
"Not the first thing that comes to my mind," replied Jonathan.
All was quiet again. It was not usually that easy to get on the roof. The lift needed a special key to go up to the top level. Since it was an actual mechanical key, the computer scientists could not hack it. But there was also a stairway that had always been padlocked, until the previous afternoon, when Teresa had raised a "fire safety issue", and the lock had been removed.
So, despite having lived there the previous semester, it was the first time they had been on the roof at night. To the north the downtown skyscrapers stretched granite-faced, amidst floodlights, hoardings and still-burning office lights, like a desktop pot stuffed with multi-colored pencils and highlighters. The buildings shone brightly, but were empty inside. Around these lay unfinished stumps and anonymous office blocks. To the east, once elegant structures rotted away, not much bigger than their own, choked by slogans in a sinuous Spanish. One whitewashed wall proclaimed in brown over fifteen stories, Coast Savings and Loan. South and west, cheap, brick warehouses lay close to the ground. Curious wooden shacks sprouted on the edges of parking lots, as though a JCB had just missed them and would return later. The palm trees were frondless. Pickups bravely left along the roads were equipped with strong suspension, central locking, and fluffy dice.
"Were you really trying to hit that guy?" asked Jonathan.
"Don’t know," replied Darjeeling. "If it happened, it would have happened." He fell silent, and yawned, stretching his arms behind his back. "But you handed me the bottle. Aiding attempted assault with an offensive weapon. How many new things have you said ‘yes’ to now?"
"Would make it, uh, nine," said Jonathan, reflecting that after the first it had gradually got easier. He started to shiver again. He wished them good morning, heading towards the stairs to get ready for class. He had to teach at eight.
***
"So you actually agreed to the screening of this film in the Auditorium?"
Teresa had gone red. She sat opposite her two bosses, the Director of Residential Life and the Assistant Dean, her knees pressed tightly together, in the administration suite on campus.
"I didn’t totally agree. The flyer said it was a foreign art film, from the 1930s."
"It’s a famous Nazi propaganda film," remarked the Director. "It was even advertised in the Daily Student. Look here," he jabbed his finger at an inside page of last week’s campus newspaper, turning it towards her on the table. "There’s the title, Triumph of the Will. Didn’t it ring a bell?"
"I’m not that familiar with Nazi propaganda films," said Teresa.
"Well, that sounds reasonable enough," said the Assistant Dean, stroking his beard.
"And it doesn’t actually say that. The title is in a foreign language," said Teresa, encouraged.
"On the other hand, Triumph des Willens is German, and quite similar to the English," said the Assistant Dean. "English is a Germanic language."
"Well, if you’re so clever why didn’t you stop it," retorted the Director. "You live there too, don’t you?"
"I didn’t see the notice until afterwards," said the Assistant Dean, not entirely honestly. "Anyway, Teresa is the one paid to do things. I just advise. Who set the notice on fire?" he added, to change the subject.
"I don’t know," replied Teresa. "The Nazis, I suppose."
"Why would the Nazis set their own notices on fire?" asked the Assistant Dean, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "Surely it would be the anti-Nazis?"
"Who cares who it was, fascists, anti-fascists, Jews, Koreans...?" shouted the Director. "Look, do you know how much it costs to rent that parking lot opposite the building, so your little storm troopers can park their BMWs?"
"I don’t know," said Teresa, puzzled. "Quite a lot I guess. But we’ve never screened Star Wars."
"Quite a lot is right. And do you know what we had to pay the city to re-route the tram so it goes past the building and down to the campus? Even though your students all seem to prefer driving from that same, newly fenced, parking lot?"
"They are our students," reminded the Assistant Dean. "And I think perhaps we’ve covered the main points now. Tell me, Teresa, how are we getting on with the open door policy?"
"Right," said Teresa. "We started the all-dorms open-door initiative last month. Hopefully the students will get to know one another better. So they’re not hiding away all the time. We took the automatic closing things off the doors."
"But didn’t we just say you had a fire there last month?" said the Director.
"Not really a fire, just one of the noticeboards. It’s right below the smoke detector."
"So you think it’s a good idea to take the fire protection off the doors?"
"Oh, I see what you’re getting at. I didn’t think of it like that. Well, we checked the fire exits were all OK. You think we should put them back on?"
"Well, I am truly sorry," said the Director. "But yes, I think you should. We don’t need any more scandals there, OK? I don’t want to see anything else in the paper. The LA Times picks stuff up from there. And we need some sort of initiative to put the project back on the map. Otherwise the administration will close the place. And without the Auditorium we’ll need one less Residential Life Manager, won’t we?"
"I understand," said Teresa.
"And what sort of events do you have planned? The non-Nazi ones?"
"Well, we have a gaming evening soon."
"A gaming evening? You mean like Scrabble? Really! And we need more cultural variety there. I met your team of resident advisers, and they don’t have variety."
"There’s Kurt, he’s European."
"I mean ethnic variety. Where’s he from in Europe?"
"He’s German. So I guess, Germany? Or maybe Austria."
The Director hit the table with his fist. "Well that’s a surprise, isn’t it? Next term, I want a proper roster, you understand? Something that celebrates Los Angeles."
"Leave it up to me," said Teresa. "An initiative, and a new roster. I’ll try to think of something."
"Thank you, Teresa. I have no doubt it’ll be good, OK?"
Teresa nodded and exited quickly. She headed to the campus parking structure, then reconsidered and made for the tram stop. It would look better if she travelled back with the students. Her car would probably be safer if she left it on campus, anyway.
***
After arriving on campus at about seven, and having peacefully finished a coffee and muffin in the central cafeteria, Jonathan ventured to the basement classroom where, as part of his scholarship, he was leading undergraduate discussion groups. It was about the third week of the spring semester, and his second time teaching the course. He had never been able to establish what the staff of the US Embassy in London, handing over his visa, had found so amusing about traveling to Los Angeles to teach Saint Augustine to freshmen. Nevertheless, Jonathan judged his classes a success if no-one walked out. Being almost entirely nocturnal, he was not so much an early riser as an early sleeper. He always liked to teach at eight in the morning, and go to bed shortly afterwards. This had the advantage of minimizing student enrolment, but brought an increased risk of classroom coffee spills. A senior professor had advised him always to carry a roll of tissue for this eventuality. So Jonathan bore within his briefcase the most absorbent type of kitchen roll he could find that was not embossed with an awkward floral pattern. The class was one third small Asian girls claiming to be business majors, many of whom never spoke, yet stared at him unerringly. But he had not followed a more junior colleague’s advice, and also brought Vaseline.
He usually found the girls quite difficult to tell apart, other than on racial grounds, particularly when they were so inconsiderate as to change their clothes, which seemed to happen quite often. He had done a roll-call the previous week, but dared not do it again in case they realized he didn’t yet recognize anyone. This morning one vaguely familiar Caucasian student was dressed in an ankle-length, low-cut dress with lace frills, as though she were taking the medieval theme rather too seriously. Her hair fell in black ringlets. She said there was a Renaissance Fayre on campus later in the day. Jonathan felt himself reddening as this slight but milky white cleavage rose and fell, conspicuous between the light brown Asians and radioactive orange sorority girls. He considered making light conversation about the authenticity of underwired bras in medieval England, or indeed of her braces. But these lines of approach both seemed to pose difficulties.
In the front row sat two extremely stocky and muscular black men, with gold chains around their necks, in t-shirts and shorts, although the air-conditioning in the windowless basement made it colder than outside even at this time of the morning. They stared him down, but smiled at his jokes at the right times. The other men in the class were uniformly spotty, lanky and short-haired.
Four of the students were eating: one nibbling a muffin; one chewing noisily on an apple smuggled out from breakfast in one of the dorms; one breaking a bread roll. The fourth had actually brought in a bacon cheeseburger with tomato slices and barbeque sauce, which he was holding under the textbook and biting into whenever Jonathan turned to the board. A likely coffee spill was teetering on the arm of a chair at 11 o’clock, where the student appeared to be nodding off.
Jonathan’s mission was to elicit good discussion about Ancient and Medieval History, and Philosophy. Since the students knew nothing about Ancient and Medieval History, nor Philosophy, this was not at all easy. He had spent the previous class giving background information about the Roman Empire. Somewhat to his surprise, several girls had been inspired to volunteer comments on the Roman taste for dormice, though their main concern was the health implications of eating them deep-fried. He wanted to move on to the New Testament as soon as possible, since with luck someone would talk about Jesus and he could be quiet. But the class always progressed much faster on the schedule than in practice.
"By the way, what town in Italy did you say the Romans came from?" asked a spotty boy at the back of the room, without warning.
Jonathan considered his reply carefully, in case the students had planned this and were waiting to see how he would react. Or was it possible the Romans actually originated from some town further downstream, and, unbeknownst to him, but common knowledge among the surfers of Southern California, had ridden a mighty bore to that place on the Tiber?
"I think that was Rome," he said warily, pausing for a volley of laughter. But there was none; a few students making notes, most staring blankly, and the boy who asked the question nodding calmly, pleased at having been noticed by the instructor.
As the students filed out, Jonathan was still pondering this exchange. The girl in the long dress came over.
"Hi, I’m Sarah," she said, introducing herself in the open, American way.
"I’m Jonathan."
"I know who you are! You know that essay you wanted us to write about Augustine, and his attitudes to women? Well, I looked at his book, and there’s not much there about women."
"You read his book? You mean the Confessions? He wrote lots of books. Why don’t you see how he treats the women in his life – I think he mentions his mother, and his wife."
"Oh, OK," said Sarah, retreating.
"Generally," he stopped her, "it’s good to see what people do, not just what they say."
"I guess so," she said. "And by the way, what is his thing with Hippos? We were thinking in the dorm."
"Augustine was bishop of Hippo. It’s a town in Africa."
"Oh, right," she said, and left, white breasts and all. He fancied she was a little deflated by his apparent lack of interest in her outfit.
Jonathan picked up his papers, which were spread purely for effect, since he always spoke from the top of his head. Was there really a town in Africa called Hippo? He had no idea. Yawning, he went up the stairs and crossed the campus to take the tram back to bed at the Auditorium.
***
Teresa stepped up onto the same tram. Early classes were finishing, and more students than the Director might have imagined had boarded. The driver was playing slow soul music, with a deep and rich bass. She sat on the bench seats at the front, next to Wendy, a Chinese girl she recognized from the kitchen alcove in the basement. There were a couple of hotplates there, which Wendy used to prepare her noodles. She was the only one who used the hotplates. The other residents who occasionally felt the urge to cook for themselves had bought microwaves for their rooms. Teresa was thinking of taking out the hotplates, actually, as a recent inspection had suggested fire retardant cladding should be installed in the vicinity, which would involve some expense.
"I just love the smell of your cooking," said Teresa. "I wish I could cook with you, but I really don’t have the time."
"It is just noodles," said Wendy. "I chop up a fresh tomato when I can afford it."
The cooking alcove was just across from the main dining room, where the other students, on mandatory meal plans, gorged on all-you-can eat buffets.
"Why don’t you just get someone to activate your meal card?" said a short, wide, black woman, panting up the steps at the front. "Hey, Teresa, how you doing? Give us a hug..."
Teresa froze in alarm for a moment. "Hello, Odette," she said, then angled her torso slightly, in mute invitation. Odette gave her as full an embrace as was possible to someone sitting on a bus, pressing first her left cheek and breast against Teresa’s left cheek and breast, then the same with the right. She sat down, squeezing into a space by the two of them, just behind the driver, grinning as though rather pleased with herself. She seemed to feel no need to give a similar hug to Wendy.
"Don’t you have your sorority car?" she asked. "Is it bust?"
"No, it’s fine, Odette," said Teresa. "I like to take the tram when it’s just up from the campus, it saves my gas."
"So, are you going to pay?" asked the driver, turning round. He was also black, and also quite large. Teresa noticed a sign posted in the window above the rear-view mirror "Tips are an essential part of a driver’s income", then realized he was speaking to her.
"Oh, sorry," she said, searching for a quarter in her bag, and not finding one. Wendy handed her a ticket, which Teresa took and dropped in the fare slot.
"Isn’t it supposed to be free for residents?" said Teresa, as the driver closed the door and pulled away.
"That was last year," said Odette. "Now we need ticket books. But I don’t take it much too. How can they call it a tram when it’s a 1950s school bus?"
"They bought it temporarily when the first students moved in, four years ago, I guess 1988. But it’s still going. It’s quite stylish. A bit retro."
"Style! Uh-huh. My Ford is in the garage. I got Jose to tow it to this cheap dealer and this little Korean comes out the front, waving and shrieking ‘Get shit off lot!’ Then we towed it to some Hispanic grease monkey, hey, isn’t that a strange expression? Girlfriend, why don’t you invite me to your sorority? I can do the cooking and the cleaning," she said, pronouncing cooking and cleaning in what might have been a Midwestern accent.
"I’ve a different status now, so I’m not there much," said Teresa, shortly. "You don’t have to do cooking and cleaning either, they can do that themselves. They do have a lady to help them, actually."
"You mean you got you a black mammy to look after you? Hey Dave, aren’t I good at that cooking and cleaning?" she turned to the driver.
"She sure is, Miss Teresa," said Dave, stopped at a light. "Why, she done cooked and cleaned my house from the top right down to the bottom, and my wife, she’s been ashamed to set foot in the place ever since."
"So won’t you give me a lift in your Golf, Miss Teresa," asked Odette, rolling her eyes and pursing her lips beseechingly.
"Of course," said Teresa, shortly.
"Do you like my hair short, I’m thinking of getting it long and dyed blonde."
"It’s fine as it is."
"I gonna get me some hair extensions. Then I’ll fit in more. So are you going to get Wendy here a meal card? She’s so thin and hungry looking."
"I can’t afford a meal card," said Wendy. "My grant hasn’t come through, and I do not know how much I will get." Her board and tuition were supposed to be paid by a charity set up to support Chinese students following the Beijing massacre (although she had never been to Beijing), but they had not yet actually sent the school any money. Until then, someone had decided to put her in a spare bed in the Auditorium.
"Well, now you’re friends with Teresa, she just has to initial something with her Waterman’s and she can get you a card, can’t you Teresa?" Odette patted Teresa on the leg encouragingly.
"I don’t know about that," said Teresa. "I’ll look into it. It’s certainly strange to put you there without any food except dry noodles."
"Do they have that little sachet you can tear open for flavor?" asked Odette. "I like them. But why don’t you just pick up some food from the buffet when no-one’s looking?"
"I don’t want to get thrown out," said Wendy.
"You gotta look after this poor girl, Teresa! She gonna starve herself in front of our eyes! Get her some meal points!"
"I said I’d look into it," said Teresa.
The tram passed white-painted mansion houses, their gardens and lawns disfigured by cheap concrete apartments for students and the mentally ill.
"Is your sorority one of those big houses down there? You want to get off for some frozen yogurt with me?" Odette waved at a store at the end of the street, where a gaggle of young women had stopped for their morning cup.
"You want to entertain the locals at the same time?" Teresa flicked her head in the direction of a small collection of recovery and delivery vehicles parked across from the store, in which the workmen sat goggle-eyed, slurping coffee and munching donuts.
"Oh, look at that poor lady," said Wendy, as a middle-aged homeless woman emerged from behind a Carl’s Junior sign, wiping blood from her thighs with a fistful of free newspapers.
"God, that is so disgusting," said Odette. "I can’t believe I just saw that. It’s put me off barbeque sauce for life."
"You’d certainly think they could stop them coming so close to campus," said Teresa.
"You can’t stop them!" said the driver, pulling away, and enjoying their discomfort. "They keep getting closer and closer. It’s like attack of the zombies. Thriller! I got that CD here. Man, I hate waiting here under this freeway bridge, I always pray, Lord, not now the big one, not now!"
Teresa stood up as they approached the Auditorium stop. "Well, it’s been nice talking to you," she said.
She waited in the stairwell as they came to a halt and descended first, striding across the road. Odette eyed her up and down as she walked away.
"Humph," she said to Wendy. "So sweet. But she shouldn’t have worn those white pants today."
***
Teresa made her way up to her office in the Auditorium. In the highest of the oak-paneled function rooms, it lay just below the residential floors, and was partially divided into two by a dark wooden partition set with stained glass. Her desk was in the section away from the door, and stood at right angles to the window. She said hello to Greg, already manning the photocopier in the outside office, and told him to switch off the ghastly marching music. Settling down, she stared across the parking lot, with its nice silver fence, drumming her fingers on a sheet of blotting paper in a leather holder.
She opened her personal organizer. Her uncle, a priest back in Cork, had once advised her, in his quietly lilting voice, to place a Bible on a lectern in her bedroom, and read a verse first thing every morning. And always to carry a pocket version, for comfort in times of stress. She had followed this advice, but used a Dayrunner in place of a Bible. Whenever she was nervous she flipped backwards and forwards through the organizer, searching for appointments she could schedule more efficiently. It seemed to her that leadership was essentially a question of time management. After some thought, she made an entry on her to-do list.
"Could you call that English guy, Jonathan?" She raised her voice so Greg could hear.
"Call him?" replied Greg. "I don’t think he has a phone."
"What do you mean, he doesn’t have a phone? Get them to fix the phone. Go up and see if he’s there, I want to talk to him."
Greg took the lift to the seventh floor and woke Jonathan, who had returned on the same tram and gone straight to bed. He came down ten minutes later in a dressing gown, yawning, his hair uncombed. Teresa examined him disapprovingly, then decided to proceed.
"Hi, it’s really great to see you, Jonathan. We’ve not chatted for ages!"
"I don’t think we’ve ever chatted," said Jonathan. Greg retreated.
"I’m going to improve the publicity for the project. We need more column inches, you know? I heard Prince Charles is really interested in architecture. It was in Newsweek."
She brandished a copy, the relevant article having thoughtfully been circled by the Assistant Dean.
"So can you see if you could get him to visit? We got Stephen Hawking last year."
"Stephen Hawking was here?" asked Jonathan, in disbelief.
"Well, you’re here aren’t you? Why shouldn’t he have been here? He really liked the building, apparently. But didn’t say much. So, can you get Prince Charles, do you think?"
"Well, he hasn’t rung recently," mused Jonathan. Greg, listening outside, stifled a chuckle.
"I really think he would be interested in seeing our project. It is the construction, well not the construction, the renovation of something really, like, interesting here downtown."
"Oh? What’ll I say’s so interesting about it?"
Teresa tried to remember what the Assistant Dean had told them a few months before.
"You know. We have this elegant fin de whatever hotel, classical façade, nicely refurbished, with antique furniture and everything, super theater, dome and roof. It is an ideal residential environment for upperclassmen and graduate students. It creates a stimulating and challenging intellectual, uh, environment for the university, and helps to renovate the downtown area."
"Lights, camera, action!" added Greg.
"Thank you Greg," said Teresa. "That is right for once. We get links between the business communities and the business school, and between the law courts and the law school. Students show leadership in the downtown area, even in charities with the homeless and Mexicans, I mean, Latinos."
"I’ve never seen a homeless Latino," said Jonathan. "But how will this interest Prince Charles? Wouldn’t he be more interested in the real LA?"
"What do you mean, the real LA? I’m real, and I’m in LA. And so are you. You aren’t being very supportive, Jonathan. Who’s to say it’s not historically significant if we say it is, especially when it is too. By the way, would you like to be a resident adviser next semester? I might have a vacancy coming up."
"Would I have to advise people, then?"
"Uh, that is a possibility, yes. But it’s nothing to worry about. We’ll pay your rent."
"You already pay my rent. What, you mean as well as my scholarship?"
"Yes, it would be good to have someone like you on the team."
"Someone like me?" asked Jonathan, rubbing his eyes and yawning again.
"Yes, someone from Oxford, it shows the connection to the European colleges the project is, like, copying."
"Cambridge, actually. Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll be here next year. I’ll think about it."
"OK. Now don’t forget Prince Charles, will you?"
"No. I’ll, uh, be right on to him."
"Thanks Jonathan. I knew I could count on you."
Vaguely aware he was being dismissed, Jonathan left, raising his eyebrows to Greg on the way out.
Teresa flipped a page in her Dayrunner and literally ticked the box beside the entry she had made minutes earlier. She noticed that the flap for her business cards was still empty. They had offered her some free cards at the University Bookstore, but she had not known what job title to use. If things went alright, she might well be promoted, and quite fancied being Assistant Director of Residential Life Management and Associated Services. It would be difficult to go higher than that without doing a Ph.D., which would be a drag.
Now, diversity among the advisers. She tapped the second bullet point with the nib of her fountain pen. Jonathan would be good to mention, being from Cambridge, but he wasn’t diverse enough, being white. Though he did have grimy teeth. Who was diverse and from Los Angeles? Or at least American?
She looked down the Auditorium roster. There were the three Indian-looking engineers who never spoke to anyone. Were they from the US? For Latinos, there was that weird psychologist. But he was Brazilian. Did they count as Latino? There was Max, but he was drug dealer. It was hopeless. Of course, there was Odette. She was not exactly a wallflower, though never went to anything either. Maybe she could be developed.
"Could you put on another pot of coffee, Greg?" she asked, resolving to ask the advisers for some recommendations.
***
Darjeeling came down to the basement for dinner the next evening, sitting by Jonathan and Greg. They were chatting to a surfer-dude, Casey, who would flick his long blonde hair back over his bronzed shoulders whenever he began to speak. It was apparently a formal night, since a young but bald violinist was imitating Stephane Grappelli on the stage, accompanied by a ghetto blaster producing an insistent snare drum with a tooth-edging high hat. After a brief discussion of the new velvet drapes installed around the room to dull the noise, they began to review their careers. Darjeeling was surprised to find that their guest considering the vagaries of the surfing life not as setbacks, but opportunities.
"And then," said Casey, "I got a job washing dishes at a family restaurant in the Ozarks. I like to smell the mountain air."
"But what sort of worthless failure of a thirty year old would do a job suitable for a schoolboy, saving up to buy his first car!" said Darjeeling, voicing the opinion he had so often heard from his father. From a wealthy Persian family, that had emigrated to New Jersey via Switzerland a decade before the revolution, Darjeeling père had married an Italian American, and had sent his son to high school near Geneva, apparently so the fees could be paid directly from a Swiss bank account without risking a tax bill. Though Darjeeling had often wondered whether their accountant could not easily have found some way to send him to Eton, or at least a nice prep school in New York State.
"Don’t ask me," said Casey, "and in fact I enjoyed serving those meals, when I got promoted to serving person, that is. Many of customers were day trippers, parents and two kids, out for the weekend."
"Yes, but what about yourself? Didn’t you want a proper job?" asked Jonathan.
"What do you mean by ‘a proper job’? There’re whole sections of the economy that totally subsist on part-time or seasonal working. What about the people who teach skiing in Colorado, in the off season? Or the people who bring them food? They migrate from the snows to the surf, shacking up here and there, drifting from job to job. It’s natural. Do you know how to surf?"
"Possibly, but I’ve never tried," said Darjeeling. He prided himself on witty repartee. At the university he was sometimes considered brilliant; and despite knowing he was actually only quite smart, was happy to cultivate the mystique. With a pasty, rounded face, double-chinned before its time, and rather large stomach, he dimly felt that he did not compare well to the surfer, in the physical sense. Usually he wore a crumpled jacket, but this evening he had gone for a bulky, long-sleeved sweater, since his shirts were all un-ironed. This also helped to conceal his lack of upper-body definition. He started to polish his glasses on the table cloth.
"He’s right," added Greg. "Musicians, they always drift from job to job. Like in the construction industry. But in the military, you can make great friends. Friends for life, I mean. That’s more important than a career."
"But where are these friends of yours?" said Jonathan. "I never see them."
"Well, if my car breaks down anywhere, I know I can call on my buddies. They are, you know, always faithful."
"Your friends are people you can call on if your car breaks down? That’s interesting," said Jonathan. "But I don’t have a car."
"Well if I had a car," said Darjeeling, "I would have the triple-A."
"You’re right," conceded Greg, ignoring Darjeeling. "I haven’t spoken to any of them since I left the marines. But in principle, they are my buddies. Which is more than you get as a stockbroker."
"Like when we meet people here," continued Casey, "we see people from all paths of life, and they are living, and like learning together. We don’t have an elevator or a rocket pad on the roof they go into the wider world from. So, what did you do?"
Teresa stepped up onto the little dais at the front of the restaurant. She wore a short black dress with a purple bow in her hair. It did not really match her complexion, which was pale and slightly freckled.
"People!" she said. "Quieten down. We have some announcements. Tonight we have the gaming evening. Don’t forget! At the weekend we have the conference on the history of one of the minorities of Los Angeles. It is the Gay and Lesbian minorities this week. There will be parties, and beer for those of you with I.D. I hope you are all going to turn up. Now, we want to install some school spirit. Do you all want a bit of school spirit! Take it away, June!"
"Haaaaaay!" cried June, a short girl with long blonde hair. "Now, you all want to hear my spell-out?"
The room fell quiet in expectation.
"Well here you are then!" She started shouting, spelling out the name of the school, ending with a strange jump and scream, while waving her hands in the air.
"Well, I was a financier," said Darjeeling, ignoring the commotion, though having to raise his voice to be heard. "I was pretty good. I loved those computer accounts. Handling other people’s money. But I gave it up. My dad’s paying for some pre-med courses. That’s why I’m back in school. Though we’re still discussing living expenses."
The other resident advisers followed June with their spell-outs, each trying to scream even louder.
"You could say I got fired," continued Darjeeling, starting to shout. "Well, I had differences of opinion with a lot of my employers, you know. I saw a guy I worked with a week ago. He said, ‘How’s the biz, old boy?’ He didn’t even know I quit. If they don’t even know you’ve gone you may as well not be there!"
"But basically, you were fired, weren’t you, and blacklisted around town, and San Francisco too. Isn’t that right?" laughed Greg.
"Could you guys shut up?" said Teresa, annoyed. "We’re trying to do spell-outs here."
"Why don’t you shut up yourself?" said Darjeeling, selecting his eponymous tea from a small wooden tea bag holder. "You’re disturbing my dinner. We’re having a deep philosophical discussion on the meaning of careers. Well, I guess you could say that," he added, turning back to Greg. "But I didn’t do much work there anyway. What’s the point, if they’re paying you?"
"Now, then, OK!" shouted June, and the RAs moved into an even stranger, synchronized chanting routine, wiggling their rears and jiggling their hands. The violinist tried to provide a harmonic line, though clearly unprepared.
"Climb on our shoulders," said Teresa, trying to grasp June by the thighs.
"Get off me! I’m not doing that," said June, pushing her away.
A small Indian professor at the end of the table stared at the display in bemusement. "Is this some kind of dance troupe?" he whispered politely, turning to Jonathan.
"But didn’t they stop paying you?" continued Casey, still curious.
"Well, they did eventually, but it took them six months, and that was when I had formally handed in my notice. But sure, when I was working there they were paying me, quite a lot. It was a big company…"
A trumpeter came running in from the elevator, brandishing his weapon.
"Oh my God," exclaimed Darjeeling, "he’s not going to play that down here, is he?"
The six RAs stood at the front of the dais, pumping their right arms and making curious "V" signs as the trumpeter straightened his back, took a deep breath and blared away in the enclosed space.
"I think I need a cinnamon tart," shouted Darjeeling. The Latina from the till, carrying a large tray of pastries, approached their table.
"Hello?" she shouted back. "You guys, eat up the pastries. Here’s a nice one for you, Jonathan. We got to get rid of them. There’ll be more for this evening. I don’t want a load of sticky tarts going stale on me!"
The RAs started to sing something, to trumpet and violin.
"I’ll sure take a huge tart with cinnamon," said Casey.
"Hey, by the way, then, what are you doing now?" asked Darjeeling.
With blue eyes twinkling over his piano-white teeth biting down on the pastries, Casey replied, "I manage a supermarket."
"How do you have time to manage a supermarket if you’re studying?" asked Darjeeling.
"Well, now I just work checkouts mainly. In the evening."
"So why did you stop managing?"
"Well, I felt I needed some time on my own, you know, to do my studying. And checkouts are therapeutic, isn’t that right?"
The checkout girl nodded. "That’s right. But they can be tricky sometimes you know, the new ones."
"Glad you said that!" affirmed Casey. "There’s nothing like a cash till to space you out, with customers standing there and all. That’s why I really want to be a manager, or something instead."
The RAs trooped out, to very scattered applause.
"Are we going out to Joe’s place again, after?" asked Greg, bored with the conversation.
"So what’s with this Joe’s that I don’t know about," smirked Casey.
"Oh, it’s just Joe’s, that’s all. So are you going to eat all that tart?" said Darjeeling.
Teresa was touring the tables. "Why do you always have to mess it up?" she said, approaching Darjeeling. "If you don’t want to show school spirit, at least you can let us show some. Well, are you guys all coming to the gaming evening? First floor lounge. Quality gaming on all tables. All the best people will be there. Tonight was formal night for dinner, actually," she added, frowning again at Darjeeling, but taking no notice of Casey.
"All the best tart eaters hopefully!" added the checkout girl. "I’m catering!"
"Hey, and no decaf this time," added Greg. "Last time we ran out of coffee after an hour and only the decaf was left. I was almost asleep by nine."
"All the best losers will be there you mean," added Darjeeling, "but sure we’ll come, I guess. Any other women turning up? I can’t believe you’re wearing that bow with that dress."
"Well, if you’re there, how can’t there not be any girls there?" said Teresa. She passed to the next table.
"You know, what sort of chick spends her time organizing Scrabble evenings?" Greg shook his head in mock sorrow. "She could be taken down a peg or two, if you ask me."
"Can you guys pipe down, I want to hear the violinist!" came a voice from another table. Teresa produced a disposable flash camera and started taking photographs of the violinist, the ghetto blaster, and the Assistant Dean, who opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out playfully.
The guys finished the tarts and went out for cigarettes.
***
Odette had spent the evening making phone calls from her room, and was starting to feel a bit hungry. She remembered she had seen a notice in the elevator announcing the gaming evening. Entering the elevator to check the location, she stepped out again and took the stairs to lose some weight. Exiting the stairwell on the first floor, she saw "Gaming Evening Here" printed on a piece of paper with perforated edges, the work of a dot-matrix machine with fading ink, attached with tape to the door of a function room she had not previously visited.
Inside, a few dozen residents hung out in small groups, absorbed in various gaming activities. The room was oak paneled, but had clearly seen better days. Heavy drapes fell over the windows; the carpet had once been luxurious, and still looked fine in the corners of the room, but was worn and threaded in the center. Dusty photographs of depression-era Los Angeles hung in grimy frames. A green, felt notice board titled "And where we all come from!" was attached to the wall with new bronze screws. It bore seven postcards, three balanced precariously behind the rest, perhaps due to a shortage of drawing pins.
"Hail Odette!" beckoned the Assistant Dean, stroking his beard with the other hand. "A bit late, but no fear, join our roleplaying group will you? I see you as the illustrious illusionist of Inglewood!"
"I fear not, my good friend!" smiled Odette, picking her way over a large map on the floor, where hundreds of tiny cardboard counters and figurines, units of long dead armies, fought imaginary skirmishes. Unbrowned youths, some pasty and thin, others red and flabby, knelt in dedication over the counters, taking care lest they exhale abruptly, all the while dicing, calculating percentages, and exclaiming incomprehensibly, their rears protruding into the air.
"There is no God but Allah," ventured Odette. One diceman looked up from his crouching position, glared, and returned to his study of something resembling a loose-leaf binder of logarithmic tables.
"It is an unexpected pleasure, good to see you!" exclaimed the Assistant Dean again. "I am your Gaming Master for this evening. And what can we offer for your gaming pleasure? So roleplaying is not to your taste? Then perhaps a little board game, here in the corner; like snakes and ladders, but with underground tunnels!" He gestured towards several students giggling around a desk covered with a board game, alongside a tray of pastries filled with strawberry and lemon jam.
"Or perhaps the traditional appeals to you? Cards? And in the corner, chess?"
The room was divided in two parts by a large central bar, where soft drinks bottles and coffee thermoses were placed. On one end a small plastic roulette wheel spun, little chips teetering beside it on a green cloth roughly marked with a chalk grid. "Always the red, never the black!" said Darjeeling before each turn, sitting on a high stool, his counters following his advice. Greg spun the little wheel with mock seriousness, announcing "Les jeux sont faits" in a passable French accent. Next to them several young women were playing cards around a coffee table. Teresa had persuaded them to stop playing Hearts and turn to her preferred game, which she called the real Hearts, though to Greg it closely resembled a game he had formerly played called Spades, but using the Hearts as the Spades. Wendy had picked it up fast, but June was less interested. She tossed her hair from one shoulder to the other, looking at Greg and Darjeeling casually, before turning back to play a card. She tried to slide closer to them along the sofa, but Greg absent-mindedly shifted his stool further away. June was not at all sure how she had managed to end up in a card game without any men present.
At the other end of the bar a lanky couple peered down at a tiny magnetic travel backgammon set. Beside them several of the half-dozen resident faculty were discussing important socio-political issues, two with small children playing around them.
"Odette, pull up a chair!" cried Max, a Latino with a protruding jaw. He and four other students crowded around a tired card table, apparently designed for gin or bridge, one of them gathering the cards from a baize torn by key scratches and marked by cigarette burns.
"How long have you been playing?" enquired Odette.
"There’s only one card game, and it never stops," replied Max. "We broke for the afternoon though."
"You didn’t even bother to shower," interjected June. "I can smell it from here."
Max scratched his chin. "I guess my so tasteful shadow will turn into less than tasteful sideburns, if I don’t get a shave soon," he said, rubbing his cheek so the bristles scratched against his knuckles.
"Why can’t I get the cards?" lamented the white-haired dealer, red faced, with a pudding-bowl haircut. "I got no sleep this afternoon either, there were demonstrators at the fashion college opposite my window, chanting, ‘save our park’, crap, crap, crap." He rocked to and fro on his chair, his jaw clenched, his lips pulled away from his teeth.
"There’s no room to pull up a chair anyway," Jonathan pointed out, fiddling with his chips.
"I played with those guys for two and a half days straight last weekend," warned Darjeeling, looking across from the bar. "I lost three dollars fifty."
"But you were up like seven dollars at one stage, weren’t you?"
"Well this is a heavier deal now, you know," giggled Peisan, an Asian physicist riffling his hand. "You’ll wish it was just money you lost!"
"What are you talking about?" said Max. "Here, have a pill. No charge for the first. It’s just caffeine, keeps you going." He fiddled with three capsules in front of him on the table. "OK guys, guess, I mix them up like so, and see! Can you tell me which is the good one? My cousin does this on Broadway. OK, distant cousin."
"I can’t stand another damn hand, what with this, like, one card after another," said the dealer. "Here, have the chips. I play like better than you all. Man, I’ll stick to chess." Throwing his cards down he stood up, chair falling back. He headed away from the table, waddling from one foot to the other, eyes down on the pitted carpet like a polar bear pacing to the rear of its enclosure.
"I didn’t mean to spook him," said Max. "But is that chair free now, though?" He raised his voice. "Hey Bill, can I take your chips, I’ll pay you back?"
"Fry the damn chips, all I care." Bill muttered loudly without looking round, heading to the chess board in the corner.
"Are you sure you’re alright?" asked Teresa, raising her head as he passed. "And did you get rid of that iguana?"
"So did they find out who did it yet," asked June, coming over. "You know, the graffiti," she whispered, conspiratorially.
"The Jewish graffiti," nodded Max sagely.
"Everyone knows who did it."
"Yes, but did they find it out yet?"
"How should I know, I was with them at breakfast, they didn’t say anything much. What does that pill actually do?"
"I think this game’s breaking up for now, Max, actually." Peisan peered through small, round rimmed spectacles across the table, rattling the cards skillfully through his fingers, but showing no sign of distributing them.
"What makes you think that?" asked Max, switching his gaze between the players, waving his hand in protest.
"I think I might be heading off," said Jonathan. Max began to recover his pills and carefully replaced them one by one in a plastic medicine bottle.
"What are we going to do all evening then?" asked Casey.
"How about beer then bed? Don’t you guys have classes or anything tomorrow?" asked June.
"No way, I just got up."
"You’re just afraid to be alone, Casey," teased June. "Reckon maybe there’ll be like some anti-surfer graffiti tonight?"
"What’s that when it’s at home? Something rude about rip tides?"
"Unless you’re a Jewish surfer, dude!"
"There aren’t any Jewish surfers, nerd-head, go back to your computer." Max pocketed his chips and a scrawled IOU.
"Are we off for pool and martinis then?" asked Casey. "You come too, June."
"She should be so lucky. Weren’t we going to Joe’s?"
"Sure, later, after the pool, you can’t really get there before two, anyway."
"That place is so sad, I can’t believe like you guys are going down there again."
"I can’t believe you going down anywhere," giggled the physicist.
"Ugh! You’re so disgusting tonight!"
The Assistant Dean waved as they got up, impervious to the conversation. "Thanks for the company! Gaming night again next week!" He handed each a pastry as they left, wrapping it in a rather thin tissue from a box branded Sunny Select.
Jonathan turned back to the bar, and poured himself a glass of flat diet Pepsi from a large plastic bottle. He approached the resident faculty. One, an Assistant Professor of Sports Information Technology, suddenly said "excuse me", and took out a silver cigarette box and a plastic straw. She sniffed up a little snuff as two small girls played around her.
Teresa was watching. She frowned and said, "Look, at least not in front of the children."
"Where did you get that?" asked Max.
"Do you want some?" offered the professor.
"No, I just have a professional interest," he replied.
Odette was making additional selections among the pecan croissants. She pursed her lips silently at the faculty member. Then she turned to Jonathan, and, being rather short, stared up at him with the large whites of her eyes.
"No self-respecting black girl would ever use such a silly little white straw," she said, in her best English accent. Having attracted his attention, she left as suddenly as she had arrived, bearing a jammy croissant, having neither drank nor gamed, but only grazed.
"Who was that girl?" asked Jonathan, to no-one in particular.
"Odette?" said June. "Well, it’s Odette, I don’t know her very well. She does good accents, huh? And I don’t want to buy any Mexican cigarettes," she added to Max, who was proffering some. "Where’re you from? I can tell you have an accent too."
"I’m from Cornwall."
"Which state is that in?"
"Great Britain, I believe," said Jonathan, smiling politely. He followed Max out with the other card players.
Greg and Darjeeling were becoming a little bored at the mini-roulette.
"I want you to have a look at this ad I wrote," said Darjeeling, with unaccustomed seriousness. He showed Greg a scrap of paper on which was scrawled a personal ad. It started: "Seek girl for strip poker" and proceeded to detail the particular form of strip poker that would be played, together with precise rules governing what would happen to the first participant to lose all his or her clothes.
"The problem is," said Darjeeling, "that to do anything interesting to the person who loses his or her clothes, the winner also has to remove his or her clothes, which makes it difficult to distinguish winning from losing."
"I see," said Greg. "Has this been worrying you a lot?"
"No, of course not. Nothing bothers me a lot."
"To be honest, I do not claim to be a great expert on women, but I think you would have better luck with the gay market. The Assistant Dean might have some ideas about the structure of the game in the technical sense."
"I thought I could put it in the Downtown Times, you know with the personal ads."
"You mean the escort ads."
"No, some of them are real personals, I think. I’m sure there are some real wild women downtown, beneath the business suits. Hey, and what do you know about that girl, Wendy?" He nodded in her direction, speaking quietly. Wendy had started playing patience, Teresa and June having lost interest in the game.
"What do I know? That she looks Chinese and Wendy is a stupid name for a Chinese girl. Or any girl this century, in fact."
"Do you think she’s up for it?"
"No."
"Are you sure? She looks a bit short of money. Her nail varnish is always broken. Maybe she would like to, clean my room, you know? And then maybe I’ll leave some cards out for the strip poker."
"That’s so puerile," said Greg. "Why don’t you grow up and take her to Las Vegas or something."
"Can I at least borrow your car? I think she would be more likely to go out with me if I had a car."
"It won’t get there. Go on the plane."
"I can’t take the plane for ten minutes, anyway it’s difficult to explain as a first date. Could you take someone too and we’ll drive up Hollywood, at least?"
"Borrow the car if you like, I’m too old to double date. I don’t have a date to double with anyway."
"What about that redhead you’re photocopying for? I bet she’s gagging for you. Check if she’s for real." Darjeeling made a strange gagging noise.
"I couldn’t gag anything and think of her at the same time."
"Why not, look, she’s pretty, well dressed, clean teeth, like the sorority girls. I’d go for it."