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“I’m surprised, but not shocked. I think of you as being generally careful, especially with your words, but I’ll say, I’m completely lost on this front.” Isaac Collins sat at the old desk that took up most of the room, studying the penmanship of an essay Durham had given him. He reclined in the hard wooden chair, then turned his focus to Durham, who was perched on top of Collin’s desk, surrounded by work pushed to the side to make way for his tiny body.
“Oh, it’s not all that horrible, is it? I’ve had more and more lecturers complain recently, but I always blamed it on their bad eyes.”
“You might be the one with bad eyes, I’m afraid. It looks as though you wrote this with a blindfold.”
“Are the thoughts at least there?”
“I’d assume so, but can’t tell. I’ll roast my brain trying to pick through this.”
A flash of bitterness discolored Durham’s face, but it disappeared when Collins exaggeratedly rolled his eyes and put on a mockingly serious affect, assuring Durham, “Mr. Durham, this has destroyed our friendship but I’d go back to tolerating you if you just would get a blasted typewriter.”
Gripping the sides of the desk, Durham leaned forward and swung his legs back and forth. “It’s not the same, handling a soulless machine.” He paused with his mouth open, and Collins could see his eyes flicker back and forth, searching for words. “I live... for the scratch of the pen, the ink staining the artist’s fingers-”
“Artist? You’re hardly Michelangelo.”
Durham’s face lit up and he placed a hand over his mouth. “I am… the Michelangelo of classics. If you’ll excuse my ego.”
“I absolutely will not! Michelangelo at a paltry eighteen?”
“Oh, you couldn’t even imagine.”
“Besides, I’m sure old Mikie’s favorite part of the job was not getting paint all over his hands.”
“The joy of creating is not the outcome, it’s the movement, it’s the-”
“Anyway,” teased Collins, playfully attempting to slap a hand over Durham’s mouth. “If you would deign to explain your essay to me, maybe I would be able to give you pointers.”
“It’s about the importance of humility-”
“Oh, come off it, it is not!”
“Yes, it is!”
“Durham, you’re the biggest hypocrite I know.”
“That’s not true! There’s…” Durham protested, trailing off, searching for a name he could use to defend himself. Theatrically, his face fell, followed by his mouth warping into a wide smile. “No, you’re right. It is me!”
“See, now you’re being humble.”
“It won’t last.” Durham pushed himself off the desk and moved to stare out the window. It was the spring of his uneventful first year at Cambridge. He had not yet fully cast off the mannerisms of boyhood, but he was well aware of this, and used it to his advantage. He had taken to sitting on furniture in recent weeks, although he was considering abandoning this habit because it required him to always push his things around haphazardly, making it much harder to keep his room tidy. Collins thought it was funny, however, and that was really all that mattered.
Durham spun a pen in his hands, his back still to Collins. “Do you really think I’m stuck up?”
“A little. I don’t let it bother me, though. I find it endearing.”
“I can get better.”
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Easier to correct, however, is your penmanship.”
“Oh, let’s start then.”
Collins allowed Durham to take his seat and watched him write the alphabet letter by letter. Unsurprisingly, Durham’s Greek was much neater, but you couldn’t write cards in Greek to most ordinary people, so they set to work on the Latin alphabet. They were adults, so they didn’t have a grammar school primer, leaving Durham to copy his letters out of a large-print copy of Leaves of Grass . Collins studied Durham’s hands as they inched across the page, noting the thin blond hairs sprouting from the knuckles.
“Do you have a tremor?”
“No.”
“You’re nervous, then.”
“How can I not be when you’re hovering over me like this?”
Collins withdrew. Durham paused for a moment, sitting up and glancing at Collins, but said nothing and returned to copying. They did not speak for a long while until, while picking through Durham’s bookshelves, Collins began to hum a tune. Durham tried to join in, tapping his foot in time, but the notes were random, and they fell into discordance. Collins switched to a song he had heard Durham listening to once, and they wordlessly continued through the piece, Durham throwing in a random enthusiastic “hey!” or two.
“Are you finished?”
“Nearly.”
“You’re not only unsteady, you’re slow.”
Durham scoffed. “I had to cross out a few and try to get them just perfect. I also wrote the whole lot in print and once with serifs, just to be thorough.”
“Good boy,” Collins said, but immediately knew this was strange. He cleared his throat. “Rather. Let’s see. Well- it’s not half bad.”
“It better be.”
“Now, you just have to do this one hundred more times. You can start by writing that essay a little more clearly.”
Durham glanced at the paper. “Let’s go on a walk.”
“It won’t help you to avoid this.”
“I don’t need to worry about that right now. The future is the future, thus it is not the present, thus, presently, I don’t care. If that makes any sense.”
“It doesn’t, but I’ll humor you. Grab your jacket, let’s get going.”
“Right!”
The trees had not yet sprouted leaves, but there were reddish-pink buds dotting most of the branches. Collins stopped to pick one off a limb, taking a twig with it. He separated the two and began to roll the bud in between his fingers, unraveling the fleshy petals which leaked sticky residue. Durham had stopped after just a couple steps to chat with a graduate student about some professor’s awful poetry, but Collins wasn’t really listening. He absentmindedly examined his shoe and found that many more dropped buds were mashed and stuck to the bottom.
Durham finally managed to pull out of his conversation and bounded back. The two began to meander through the campus, weaving through the dozens of their other classmates who evidently had the same idea. “I hate spring,” mused Collins.
“Why’s that?”
“There’s all this… stuff everywhere. It’s an unclean season. I’m always tracking mud in on the carpet.”
“There’s someone to clean it up.”
“Yeah, well it makes me feel guilty to cause the trouble in the first place.”
“I didn’t think you got guilty about anything.”
“I do! Not as much as you of course.” In a sudden burst of annoyance, Collins wanted to keep pushing at Durham’s guilt problem. It made him erratic and prone to backtracking. In his home, being emotionally inconsistent was a crime as bad as anything, and Durham, although he had direction, was famously cloudy-headed and able to turn on a dime. Still, it was better than some of the men he knew who were constantly mopey.
Durham cringed then inhaled through his nostrils, smoothing himself out. “My guilt doesn’t hinder me; I just have a more active conscience than you do. Or- I don’t know. You’re perfectly moral, as far as I know.”
“You just think about yourself too much. If you find something to fixate on outside of your own skull, you’ll be able to keep acting correctly without worrying so much.”
“I don’t know what I’d do with my time if I wasn’t worrying.” They were walking unusually fast, and had almost reached the gate of the University. Durham kept glancing over his shoulder and furrowing his brow.
“You’re worrying about something even now. What are you looking out for?”
Durham stopped and stared straight ahead. “...I don’t know. I just feel sometimes that I have to keep an eye on all directions just in case.”
“In case of what?” Collins chewed on his thumbnail and smiled. “A wolf attack?”
“No, but there are other things. Motorcars. Sinkholes. Trees right in my way. I’m always feeling like I’m close to hitting something square in the face and knocking myself out.”
“How would looking behind you solve that?”
“Hm,” said Durham. He tapped the brick wall supporting the University gate, which was wide open at this time of day. “Gee, we’ve gotten far.”
“Do you want to just sit here a while?”
“Maybe we ought to go back. It’s too early for a drink, isn’t it? Do you have something in your rooms? Brandy? Whiskey?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Of course you don’t.” Durham clapped Collins on the back, causing him to cough. “Of course you don’t. Good man! Like I said, it’s too early anyway. Look at the sun.”
“Whatever you say. Sit down, enjoy the shade.”
The two slumped down, their backs to the wall. Durham sat straight as a dart, his knees tucked under him, while Collins took the opportunity to lean back and close his eyes. He felt rather like a cat in the sun, his enjoyment only marred by the fact that Durham seemed to be at a low point that day.
“Did my commenting on your handwriting upset you?”
“No.” Durham spoke slowly. “It’s something else.”
“Explain.”
Durham looked at him sideways then cast his eyes downward at the new grass. “Like you, I hate spring.”
“What’s your reasoning?”
“I’ve come to like this place in the winter. All the little figures out the window kicking up the snow and seeing you in my doorway wrapped in your greatcoat. It’s cozy… and serious, somehow. I missed you on the vac, and now we’ve got things to do and we can’t use the cold to just have an excuse to stay in.”
“That’s understandable.”
Both men separately thought about how it was odd that the other didn’t like the season because they fit so well into it. Collins remarked to himself that Durham’s general energy was more palatable when taken in outside, and Durham noticed how nice Collins looked in his brown suit against the green grass.
Collins sighed. “You know, other undergrads say you get bored of chaps like me eventually.”
“I don’t think I’ll get bored of you at all. That is, if you promise not to become boring.”
“I’ve been considering it.”
“What, becoming boring?”
“Yes! Don’t give me that look, it’s not as stupid as it sounds. I mean, we’re eighteen now, which is a nice age to give up on being clever and try being happy.”
“I’ll never not be clever.”
Collins sputtered, grabbing Durham’s shoulder and shaking him playfully. “If I was mean, I’d say you’re not clever now.”
“You aren’t mean, though.”
“I will be when I’m old, though. One day you’ll come in visit me and I’ll be a miserable curmudgeon with a great grey beard who berates your wife and calls you all sorts of names.”
Durham became seriously exasperated and Collins saw he had gone too far. “Why do you want me to hate you all the sudden?”
“I don’t! I like you loads. I’m just being realistic.”
“Well, I think your prediction is nonsense and not at all realistic. Berate my wife, really? Let’s leave the topic and move on to something else.”
Collins agreed and their conversation meandered for a time. They spoke about family, politics, and Clive listened intently while Collins went on a tangent on a garden he saw once that he liked but couldn’t remember the name of. Once a woman wearing a men’s shirt with the collar half undone rolled into the campus on a bicycle, and they invented a story where she was on the run from the police, although they agreed it was probably just Chapman’s famously strange sister who was supposed to visit. Durham grew calmer and more clear headed, although he had lost the peculiar charm he sometimes had and wasn’t as receptive to humor. Once he lit a cigarette and offered it to Collins, who took one puff without inhaling and passed it back.
“I wish the sun would set soon,” Durham said, craning his neck towards the sky. “I’m exhausted.”
“Take a catnap. I’ll walk you back to your rooms.”
“No, I don’t take naps as a rule.”
“I just called on you last week and you didn’t answer. When I asked about it you said you were asleep!”
“One of these times I must be lying, then.” Durham’s voice was dreamy. “I’ll leave you to figure out which.”
Collins thought back to a time his mother had caught him lying about something along with his friend, he couldn’t remember what about. She had given him quite the talk and had locked him in his room for a number of days. When he came out, he went immediately to his friend who assured him that he had done nothing wrong and they went back to playing as usual. It was nice to see Durham at play, although as an adult Collins was more inclined to agree with his mother. He spoke up. “I hate to see you lying.”
“You better get used to it.”
“Well, I’ll get mean, and you’ll get dishonest. We’ll rot together.”
Durham’s reply was colorless and flat. “Rather.”
“Here, distract yourself. I’ve got a little book and pen in my pocket. You can practice your writing out here to keep you awake.”
Durham took the book and began to absentmindedly write random words in no particular order, although he always kept on the pre-printed grey lines. When he tired of this, he flitted through the pages Collins had already filled, not pausing on one piece for too long. It wasn’t quite a diary, but there were no poems or class notes, only short bursts of thoughts. Some of them he agreed with and some of them he didn’t, but it shocked Durham how many he hadn’t heard before, given that he and Collins spoke so frequently. A couple entries even mentioned Durham, or gave responses to things he had said.
Collins saw what he was doing and snatched at the book. “I didn’t tell you you could do that!”
“Sorry. Shouldn’t you be glad I looked through it? There’s so much we could talk about in there.”
“I don’t want to tell you everything.”
“Why not?”
Collins spoke without malice. “Are you really that dense? Not everyone has to talk all the time like you do.”
“I only talk like this with you. You might as well reciprocate.”
“Surely you have ideas that you keep from me, too.”
“Yes,” said Durham, who grew very quiet. “You wouldn’t want to hear them, though.”
“Maybe I don’t,” joked Collins, but Durham seemed genuinely hurt. Collins felt no pity and just scoffed.
Durham stared at the book. “I am glad we are friends. I just want to talk with you. Like humans should. Humble connection and all that.”
“I’m sure some winter day we’ll speak on that level, but you need to get yourself sorted out first, old man. I’m awfully fond of you,” at this Durham flinched, “and I like you even if you are a little stuck up, if you need a reminder.”
“Here’s my prediction,” Durham said. “One day, when you’re old and have a ‘great grey beard’ I’ll come and visit you, and you’ll read to me out of your books. We’ll have a whiskey together. My handwriting will be fixed by then, and I’ll be as honest as anything.” His mouth smiled, but his eyes stayed distant. “Look, this is sentimental, but then again, I am sentimental- I give you my word this will happen and I hope you can too.”
“It’s not the sort of thing one ought to make promises about.”
“Just this once?”
“Alright, if you’ll break your anti-nap rule and reset whatever’s going on in your head.”
“You’re right.”
“I always say a good sleep can cure just about anything.” Collins waited for a response, and when he found none, cleared his throat, and said, “I promise.”
“Good,” said Durham. The two shook hands. “Well, I’ll see you in that hazy future, but I suppose I will also see you tomorrow at lecture. You’ll see me defend my humility piece then and won’t have to slog through reading it.”
“Have a wonderful rest of your day, Durham.” Collins stood and moved to help his friend to his feet.
“I’ll try.”
“Do give me my journal back, though.”
Durham looked at him, laughed, and put the journal into his pocket. Collins started to protest, but by then Durham was already flying down the path to his rooms. He passed under a tree that had bloomed early into a spread of soft mint green, then disappeared from sight.
Collins cheerfully rolled his eyes and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Michelangelo, my foot.”