the outer rings of cgs ... page three

"crayons, glue and scissors," which my starting college of CGS was aptly nicknamed, was five stories (plus basement) of classrooms, offices, hallways, and a library full of rather dimwitted jerks and dolls who found daddy's money into a pale life of university party appetites and mediocre gpa's.

freshman year, i tested out of my mathematics101 into a braver world of evening calculus classes pressed closed by thirty-somethings and college kids with something better to do during the day. mondays and wednesdays were bleak beside my little journey to the sidestreeted building of people who appeared much more interesting than those i encountered during the day. perhaps universities are just more desirable in the dark.

peter the beat, on the other hand, was a tall, slim soldier with wide shoulders and an endless supply of tight black t-shirts. walking to and from our west campus cgs hovel, we developed an odd friendship not unlike that of cartoon opposites. he towered over me and loomed down commonwealth avenue while i bopped and paraded around him.

he was the first person i would encounter after getting a blue book back in my office mailbox.

"well, how'd we do?"

"better than you."

"is that so?"

"i bet it is."

our relationship was based purely on competition. we had opposite study habits, practices, and theories of knowledge, but somehow, we scored within mere points of each other in nearly every subject. we tested out into the same calc class, and competition grew.

i always felt that he was the only person that i could carry on a poignant and fulfilling conversation with inside the five stories of hell.

in between class, we'd hunker down in the library. i would, of course, sleep, tight-fisted and tense in uncomfortable chairs dreaming of the art students i could see in the building across the way. peter the beat would, of course, flip through chemistry books for fun or wrap his mind around a bit of light philosophy.

our chemistry class was comprised of more ignorance than bliss, and the two of us would race each other to finish experiments and then get pissed off that we had to wait for our classmates to finish. many afternoons, he and i would roam around the classroom finishing other people's experiments for them just to be able to walk home in the fresh snow a few minutes earlier.

often, as the sun would set, peter the beat and i would saunter over the bu bridge joining revelations about astronomy that we both had separately.

i would stare at the rising stars or my feet, and he would walk his bike gently the whole mile home.