The University of Montana was surrounded by ancient
forests whose wildlife, I had no doubt, was far more daring and
vigorous than that on campus. It was a conservative school in a
sleepy, often cold environment conducive to huddling and conserving
energy. The academic tone was one of intellectual diffidence,
cultural muting, religious mainstreaming. Students gazed somberly out
library windows, rested their heads on their desks, gathered
in the cafeteria to consume starches. The surrounding roads disappeared
into dense woods, vanished under snowdrifts, and probably didn’t lead
anywhere anyway.
When Jeanine graduated high school at the precocious age of
sixteen and began attending the university, rather than finding it
stimulating she found it insufferably dull. But at least she was
away from her parents, and, after pursuing her studies with such
commendable diligence, she was now determined to spend her time in
pursuit of nearly life-threatening debauchery: to finally cave in to
her roaring lust, to shatter her disciplined mind with a dizzying
variety of controlled substances, to betray friends, to tear couples
apart in torrid trists, to…well, to really live.
This was a lot harder than she imagined; this was the
University of Montana. One of the most popular majors was agriculture,
and Jeanine soon concluded that the future farmers of America had
as much of a capacity for hedonism as the vegetables they harvested.
“You look at these torpid bastards and you get the sense that
all they fantasize about is planting row after row of goddam corn.
These are people whose livelihood depends on fertility, for chrissake,
but do you think that even suggests sexuality to them? Hell, no. I’d
like to run the fuckers over with their goddam tractors.”
Jeanine began buying stacks of pornographic magazines in
convenience stores, tearing out photographs of nude women, then
inserting these in library books in hopes of stimulating a massive
outbreak of libido.
But it didn’t work. In her first semester, Jeanine was asked
out once: to a country music festival benefitting farmers.
“The guy wears nothing but flannel. Imagining him in leather
is like imagining a cow riding a motorcycle.”
“You’re too young,” her friend Peggy assured her. “They’re
afraid of being charged with statutory rape, or something. Once you
get older you’ll get more action.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely.”
“How many guys have asked you out this semester?”
Peggy was silent for a moment. “Well, everyone knows that
I’m looking for a husband, not a roll in the hay.”
“Bobby,” she turned to me, “How many girls have you asked
out this semester?”
“I’m too busy planting mental corn to bother with girls,” I
said. She shook her head disgustedly, then grabbed a copy of Penthouse
from her backpack and handed it to me.
I surmised the problem was that Jeanine came off as haughty. She
seemed to disdain all of the guys in school: men destined to spend a
substantial part of their lives shovelling manure, driving tractors.
Her arrogance, partly based on her stellar academic record, came
across as strongly as the Channel perfume she seemed to marinade
herself in. She reminded me of a slab of luminescent flesh yearning
to be ripped apart in someone’s teeth, but which everyone assumed was
lethally poisonous.
* * *
“Ted, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Bob, what’s up?”
I stepped closer to him, turning away discreetly, my gaze
settling on the window. Outside, snow swirled through the cone-shaped
orange beams of the parking lot floodlights.
“You know Jeanine?”
“Not really.”
“Do you think she’s pretty?”
He hesitated, as if somehow puzzled.
“Pretty what?”
“Pretty looking.”
“Well, sure.”
…End of the part1. To be continued..
