POTN 3

POETRY  |  FICTION EXCERPT

The Better Feast

by Dan Persons, art by Gayle Feyrer

"But still the warmth flows through me,
And I sense you know me well.
It’s only common sense,
There are no accidents ‘round here."

Peter Gabriel — Lay Your Hands On Me

This happened to me when I was twenty years old.

It was my junior year at New York University, and my second year living in a dorm. The previous year I had lived in the Weinstein Residence, a cinderblock palace on University Place that made Animal House look like a meeting of the Young Republicans. My dormmate that year was a guy named Mike Norack, a mutant from Cherry Hill, New Jersey who considered himself the original Party Monster. His idea of fun was to get shitfaced and attempt to bed anything with two legs and bosoms. When the opposite sex rebuked him, which was always, I was the one who had to pick up the pieces and provide a shoulder for the lout to cry on.

I was wiser for the experience. Next year I set my sights on Tenth Street and scored a room at the Brittany, a former luxury hotel turned high-class dorm. Real plaster walls, twelve foot ceilings, private bathrooms with real bathtubs — the perfect place for the student with an appreciation of the finer things in life.

And I was careful when I filled out the form for my computer-match roommate. This year there would be no slug whose main credo was "beer and broads". He should be fairly serious, and friendly, but not so outgoing as to be a nuisance. And for chrissake, no pre-meds. Being a med student myself, I would be seeing enough of my cohorts during classes and labs. I wanted some inkling of what the rest of the world was doing.

The computer chewed up the info and spat it out. What I would up with was John McCauley.

He had mostly unpacked when I got to our room, and was busy slipping some books into a bookcase. He stood about six feet, with a slender body and long dark hair. When we shook hands, I was startled by the strength I felt in his thin, delicate fingers.

And he was beautiful. That’s not a word I use often (and certainly not for men), but there’s no other word that could adequately describe him. Not "handsome", not "striking". No beautiful he was, beautiful in a way that defied gender.

I scanned the books that he had placed on the shelves; Plato, Camus, Kierkegaard. "Let me guess," I said. "You’re a philosophy major."

"Yeah."

"How’d you get interested in that?"

"Just a sort of natural interest, I guess." There was the slightest twang to his speech, not enough to single him out as a cracker, but enough to lend his voice a pleasant softness.

"You from the South?" I asked.

Nodding: "Kansas City. Kansas City, Missouri, not Kansas City, Kansas."

"I’m from Laurelton."

"Hm. Local boy."

We went to the cafeteria for dinner. They hadn’t quite gotten to speed yet, and the selection for the night was a pair of egg rolls with a mount of fried rice and a packet of Chinese mustard as vegetable. We both opted for cheeseburgers from the grill.

We chowed down on the burgers and bullshitted about ourselves, our childhoods, the courses we registered for — the usual get-acquainted stuff.

"Paul," he said. "You were in the dorms last year, right?"

"Yeah."

"I got something I gotta ask you, but I don’t know how."

"Just ask."

He shrugged. "Okay. When you had a girl in your room and, you know, you wanted to let your roommate know not to come in, what would you do?"

I chuckled. "Actually, the situation never arose."

"No?"

"Well, I had a girl out in Queens and I went out on weekends to see her. My roommate… to put it bluntly, he was a loser. I don’t think there’s a woman alive who’d settle for him."

I expected a laugh or at least a grin. He just kept looking at me.

"Okay," I said. "Let’s say one of us happens to have a guest in the room. How about he puts a rubber band on the doorknob outside? That’ll mean ‘Come back in an hour’."

He nodded. "Sounds good."

"You, uh… expecting to keep busy?"

He glanced down at his plate and back up. "Well…"

"C’mon, out with it."

"Well, women do seem to be attracted to me."

I laughed. I thought it was just more bullshit, a little tongue-in-cheek boasting.

He wasn’t boasting, and he didn’t wait. All too often I’d come back from class to find a rubber band in place on the doorknob. The first few times I went to the library, or upstairs to the lounge. Eventually, I’d just camp out in the hallway, going through my textbooks, waiting for John and whoever to finish up inside. I saw a steady progression of faces emerge from that room: first most of the women on our floor, then, as John’s reputation spread, others from adjoining floors and the nearby dorms. Sometimes the door would open and a man would step out of the room, looking nonplused and more than a little embarrassed. John’s lure, like John’s looks, knew no gender.

I was in awe. I was jealous. I had broken up with my girlfriend over the summer and was trying, sometimes desperately, to find a replacement. John had no trouble. He wasn’t even trying, and people damn near threw themselves at him. He was attractive, yes, but the response he got was all out of proportion to reality. I became obsessed with discovering the secret of his power.

(I was to find out soon enough. I would live to regret it.).