Monday

Every Sunday night, Ben Norm sets the alarm on his cell phone for seven twenty-five a.m. Around midnight he cracks open the window of his second floor dorm room in Parker Residence Hall and reaches his right arm out just past his elbow to feel the temperature. If his arm becomes chill, he’ll then reach for his olive pea-coat, hanging on the back of his wooden chair behind him, before scattering like a rat from his room, through the hallway, down the west flight of stairs and out through a blue metal side door under a green neon exit sign to scavenge. But tonight, as Ben reached his arm out the slot of his open window, the air was nearly humid. Retracting his arm, he closed the window, and put on his coat anyway. He needed it. The day had been hot and muggy, and even this late at night, the clouds seemed to linger like ghosts along the yellowed street lamp lit sidewalks and cling to the sides of the various buildings scattered without rhythm about the campus of Oklahoma State University. Stillwater, OK sits flat at nine-hundred feet above sea level, and as the summer months ensue, the air’s thickening moisture struggles to rise outward against Earth’s inward gravitational suction.1

Outside, Ben pulled a small spiral notepad out from a back pocket of his dusted blue jeans and, from a front pocket, unclipped a blue fountain pen. For a moment, he scanned a list he had scrawled on the front page of the pad earlier in the day. Uncapping the pen, he crossed out “food,” etched on the bottom of the list, then recapping his pen, put both pad and pen back into their respective pockets.2

Ben paced briskly under a lamp-lit overhang surrounding Parker’s outer edge, until he had semi-circled around to the north side of the building. Ben always seemed to take the long way around. Leaving the lighted overhang, Ben stepped out onto a gravel lot to traverse the grey expanse in darkness. Ben hated this lot. This was the only parking lot on campus that remained unpaved not because of construction, but because in twenty years or so the university might eventually decide to construct a building in this space. Until then, Ben, along with all the other disgruntled residents of Parker Hall, must tip-toe across to avoid pot holes, mud puddles and from stumbling on the unevenly eroding surface. It’ll never happen, Ben spitefully muttered. There is no convenient way around. Separating Parker’s south side from civilization, the lot is the most direct route to Kerr-Drummond, which contains the nearest convenience store, Twenty Something.3

Having safely traversed the gravel lot without losing a foot, as he surely thought he would, Ben reached the automatic double doors of K-D and hesitated before prying open the semi-functional outer set himself, then walked quietly through the more functional inner set and on into Twenty Something. Funny, Ben thought, how getting here is not convenient. Ben mazed decisively through the isles, as if searching for cheese, knowing exactly what he wanted. Reaching the fruit rack, he a prodded about the pears, until concluding the firmness of a brown speckled one indicated ripeness. Next he made his way to the jerky shelf, where he picked out the most economical pack – Jim’s Jerky, “2 ounces fer 2 dollars.” Can't beat it, Ben thought. Stuffing the items into an inner coat pocket, he made his way calmly to the other end of the store, exiting out the back doors confident and without conviction. Ben had run out of meal-plan money last Friday, but he still had two weeks left of school. He figured that because he had paid the outrageous prices for grocery food all year long, he was entitled to take at least what he needed to survive, which was all he ever took, cash or not. Because of this, he likened himself to Robin Hood, who “[stole] from the rich and [gave] to the needy,” or to Aladdin, who stole only what he needed for him and Abu to survive.4

Nonchalantly whistling A Whole New World, Ben made his way back through the semi-functional double doors and out across the grey expanse of gravel lot, around Parker Hall and back in the same side-door he had exited, up the staircase, down the hall and into his room. Re-hanging his olive pea coat on the back of his chair, Ben silently ate an uneventful dinner before unexpectedly falling asleep, not brushing his teeth.5

…6

Ben’s blue Motorola cell phone bleated and buzzed on the corner of his desk: 7:25 am, Monday morning. Ben did not budge. After two minutes or so his roommate, Tim, who didn’t have class until 1:00 pm, and who had put-in to bed before Ben had left the room last night, shrieked and chucked his bed pillow at Ben’s phone from across the door-side of the room, knocking it to the floor and silencing its deafening ring. There was a hushed stillness as Ben, slightly groggy, slowly emerged from beneath his blue flannel bed sheets. He stood up and let out a slow, shallow moan, stretching his arms above him in the air and arching his back as far as it could bend, as a vast amount of blood rushed from his head to his straining appendages.7

Dizzy, Ben reached about for his olive pea coat, re-hung on the backside of his wooden chair. A little less dizzy, but groggier by the second, he flung the coat over his left shoulder, catching the left sleeve with his left arm on the up swing, then catching the right sleeve with his right arm, as the coat swiftly wrapped around his upper back. Although the nights were warm, the mornings were cool, as the sun took twenty extra minutes, after first piercing the horizon, to rise above the Student Union and shed light on the rest of campus, Finally, Ben grabbed a long brown cigar, a Monte-Cristo-Number-One, from the wooden box upon his desk, shuffled into the beige second-hand Hollister flip flops his mom had sent him in a care package last month, and turned towards the door, a few paces away.8

Taking his first stride, Ben’s peripheral vision caught his reflection in a wedge of mirror peering out from the space between his small white refrigerator and his roommate’s same sized black television set upon their dressers in the middle of the room, which, together, hid the large vanity mirror. Ben stopped, left foot forward, his weight on his right foot behind him. Hips fixed, he rolled his head lazily over his right shoulder towards the mirror. His sharp jaw line was scruffy with short prickly hairs extending up the sides of his face from his square chin. He needed to shave, bad, he thought. He had been thinking for two weeks now. His mud-brown eyes met their reflection, drowsy, in the mirror, peering out from beneath a shaggy mass of brown, unkempt bangs extending to the bottom of his scruffy chin. In his current state, Ben was almost satisfied. He hadn’t had a hair cut since his dad dropped him off for school at the end of the summer, last year. It was now April, and he figured his hair must be at least seven inches long, a new record. Poor Hellen, Ben thought, reminiscing about his favorite hair stylist, she must really miss me. But hair was the last thing Ben cared about. He never used a comb, although he had one, and at this point he wasn’t sure a comb could even brush his matted, frizzled mane.9

Not quite narcissistically staring at himself in the wedge of exposed mirror, Ben narrowed his eyes in question before slowly reverse-rolling his head back on straight towards the door to scatter out of the building as he had the night before – through the hallway, down the staircase and out the blue metal door under the same green neon sign, exiting Parker Hall to the west – only this time, Ben shuffled.10

Outside, Ben rounded the corner of the building to his left and stood by the front doors facing north. Hmmm, he grunted, realizing he could have exited through the front doors more conveniently, followed by a franker Hmmm, reasoning that his life did not include convenience.11

Ben unsheathed his weathered Buck knife from the right side of his belt and, holding the cigar in his left hand, cut off a small circular slice off its rounded end. Re-sheathing his knife, he pinched the cigar between his left canines, holding it steady in his mouth, and looked up. The sky was cool and dark, but getting lighter in the East. The air was stirring, but there was no wind, as the sun had not yet risen, but was about to. Two grey morning doves coalesced through the air before him, fluttering soft grey feathers around a short row of budding lavender trees, planted on a strip of patchy grass alongside the building, which was littered with random Styro-foam cups, red soda straws, and yellow cigarette butts. The doves weightlessly landed on a low hanging limb in the lavender tree nearest the back doors of the building before which Ben now stood, watching. Settled, the birds let out two deep, melancholy coos, which oscillated out over the seemingly endless parking lots spaced between the seemingly scattered buildings, off the countless windshields of restless cars, and whose soothing tones echoed through the bleakness of the sleepy campus, extending beyond. Funny, Ben thought, cocking his head sideways, there’s never enough parking.12

Ben pulled out a small red matchbox from an inner pocket of his coat and gave the box a sidelong glance. On the cover, a beautiful mocha colored Latino woman, wearing an orange and yellow lay of flowers and a loose pink dress, raised her arms in a careless and joyous movement above her head, her lips pained deep red with lipstick against the soft brown skin of her face, and pursed, anticipating a kiss that would never come. Her sharp, knowing eyes stared up at Ben from beneath thick, dark mascara stroked upon long black eyelashes. They were red like the matchbox, and mysterious, as they met Ben’s gaze. Good morning, Lola, Ben muttered halfway affectionately, and he shook the box. A dull rattle echoed from inside. Ben pulled back the red cover and picked out the last match. Striking it against the side of the box, he cupped his hands and, slightly bent over to block the unsteady air, rolled the cigar in his mouth, left to right and back left, above the flame to get an even light. A few short puffs and Ben was satisfied, waving off the flame of the match quickly, before burning his callused fingertips. Cigar in mouth, he suddenly spun on the ball of his right foot, clockwise, suavely tossing the burnt-out match and empty matchbox into the trashcan behind him, wool coat flapping like a weighed down cape, until he braked with his left foot, facing east to stare out at the brightening rooftops about to burst with brightness to the ebbing of the rising sun.13

Distant bell tones rang stolidly from the library’s white bell tower, unseen, from the center of campus, complimenting the morning doves’ melancholy hoots, and signaling the 7:30 am sunrise.14

Ben took another quick puff on the cigar, followed by a smooth long draw, and listened to the mellow crackle of smoldering tobacco leaves. Gently lowering the smoldering stogie to his side, he let the smoke linger on his tongue, and patiently ascend up though his nostrils, singeing his nose hairs.15