Light and Shade
by Casey Flynn

Chapter 2

After the doctor's appointment, I headed back to the townhouse where I lived, which was situated a few blocks from the front gates of the Georgetown campus. I intended to work on my term papers, but the weather was so inviting outside that I decided to study outside on campus. With my book bag over my shoulder, I walked along the uneven, in some cases sunken gray cobblestones reposing on the street. With my spirits buoyed by the pleasant fall weather and the doctor's good news, I playfully hopped atop the silver iron beam from a defunct streetcar line and followed it towards the front gates of the university. I specifically planted my weight on my left leg, then my right, and they felt great, not even feeling a hint in either legs of my old injuries; perhaps it was all just a product of an overactive imagination, just some 'compounded injuries' that needed time to heal.

I was, as my English professor would say, 'in medias ras' of my university days; essentially two years completed, two years left, and I took the doctor's visit as an augur of good things to come for my health. And as I walked through the ornate black iron front gates of the university, I felt determined and immensely excited to enjoy my next two years, especially as a way to dim the memory of those horrible months in my first year when I was essentially bed-ridden.

The fading green foliage of the campus trees was giving way to yellow- and peach-hued leaves or fiery crimsons and maroons, which blended naturally with the red brick dorms in the background. The main building of the campus, the Healy building, was a Romanesque structure, with grey-stone and white trim about its windows. A rectangular clock tower, which lengthened out into a medieval spire, rested above this main building, and noted our place in this temporal realm as its gold-dipped hands crept around the darkened clock front. The other buildings that bordered the green lawns of the front of campus, were gray-and white-stoned structures, that were less impressive than the Healy building, but nicely complemented its architecture. These majestic gray structures, with these autumnal colors ablaze all about them, exuded a sense of permanence as if they had been unaffected by the movement of time and space.

The blue in the sky cleansed away the gothic funereal gray that sometimes hung over these old buildings on a drizzly day. Indeed, even at this late hour in the afternoon, the blueness wasn't just lingering dully in the horizon, but palpably-charged the very air molecules of the campus, allowing the blue to magnify the green uniformity of the manicured commons and the gray cobblestones of the streets bordering the campus.

A crisp, dry breeze knocked a Frisbee from the sky, and it careened on its edge towards me. I snatched up the teetering object, jumped to my feet, jogged over to the lawn, and flipped the Frisbee back towards a dog and its owner. For some time, I hung out, tossing various Frisbees back and forth with various individuals. After each toss, I said to myself after this toss I will go and read.

After a great many more tosses and mainly because I had gotten tired, I fell down into a raked pile of leaves and rolled onto my back with my legs crossed and my hands cupped behind my head, which was resting against my bookbag. I knew that I had to begin working on these term papers, but the distance between where my hands rested and where the bookbag was okay probably not insurmountable, but my hands were comfortably wedged into a place that they were not inclined to move from so I instead took in the scenery. I rested as I felt the pleasurable sensation created by the crisp air – redolent with the smell of the mulched gardens and the fragrant, crumbling leaves – funnel through my dirty jeans and gently blow apart the dried-out locks of my unkempt hair. I pulled down slightly the back of my sweatshirt so the leaves would not scratch against my back. After my head finally found an even more comfortable position on the soft part of the book bag, I went back and forth between people watching and looking up at the trees and sky, periodically yawning at some length. After each ten minute span, I told myself, okay now I'm going to get up and read.

But at some point, I dozed off ('Why am I so tired? Oh that's right I worked security last night, the late shift.') and was about to fall into a deep and rewarding sleep when the hard edge of the book slipped and bore into my skull. For the next few minutes, I moved my head around to find another comfortable spot, but each time I was met with another dagger-like edge. I knew that I had to get up and finally finish those term papers by tomorrow at nine because if I didn't, I would have to go back to Missouri into that fluorescent-lit gaol of the service industry revolution - pinned with the mark of the name tag, burning my hand against the deep fryer because the assistant manager bumped into me while he's rushing to get the order to the car honking at the drive-thru. It wasn't that bad really more tedious than anything; the real horror of course were the funny hats. Those hats, I winced grimly. The thought of this archetypal stigmatic image nudged me up into a sitting position.

Perhaps I can get another extension on one or both of the term papers. Professor Kozoloski of the history department had twice given me an extension. He said to me in his Polish accent: 'Of course, Franz, I trust that you'll get it done.' (My actual name is Francis Joseph Toole. Our family had dropped the O' - perhaps to disguise their Irish roots; perhaps out of laziness; viz. five letters, versus six letters, but I revived it in an effort to get back in touch with my Irish heritage. When I came to Georgetown, I decided to become a Russian major in the School of Foreign Service. My name in Russian class was deemed Franz - with a Cyrillic 'ts' sound, and this name sort of took until everyone begin to call me Franz for short.) The last time I went to his office to get another extension, he actually yelled at me, in a sudden flare of rage, and told me that if I did not have the paper in his box by nine o'clock this Friday, he would flunk me on the paper, 30 percent of my grade. 'Flunk me? You mean give me a C+?', I asked startled at this archaic term as we did live in the Age of Grade Inflation. He replied matter-of-factly, 'An F, now go!'

I looked up at the clock tower, it was 5:20, Thursday evening, and the gilt hand shifted down, like a remonstrating finger-pointing at me, it was 5:21.

I also tried to get a third extension from Professor Wren for his International Law class with the suggestion: 'You know what they say, the third time is the charm.'

He agreed that it absolutely was, but pointed out of course this would be my fourth extension. I pointed out that in England and Europe the second floor is called the first floor, and he patiently raised his hand and said that I had to turn in my paper by noon this Friday. He could not have been more pleasant about the matter, what was unsettling to me was that he had this expression on his face and manner about him when he granted me the final extension, which left me with the sense that if I did not turn my term paper in on time, after three (or four in his version of the facts) very gracious extensions, he would be personally disappointed in me. In many ways, I found this potential outcome even more troubling than the threatened flunking.

Now they were both due tomorrow. The increasing haze of dusk, the cool inviting fall air, the comfortable bed of leaves, the lack of sleep last night, there was just no way, I thought. Sure I had Professor Wren's paper done - only editing left – but the paper for Professor Koz's Russian history class on Napoleon and Alexander I, and the dissolution of relations that led to Napoleon's invasion of Russia was in the theoretical stage. I had all the research books and had done a good deal of reading, but not written word one. I can't move; there's no way, and I was about to get lost in this deep sleep . . . . But when I heard the words of Professor Koz, a man who did time in a Soviet prison with East German guards, threatening to flunk me followed by presumably harsh, Slavic-sounding vulgarities, I sat right up, opened up my book bag, and began to read and I was about ten minutes into my work when a friend from security walked by, noticed me, took a seat, and told me the latest. I was about to say I needed to study but let's face it, Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia with all of its daredevil heroics couldn't compete with the fact that one of our fellow student security guards might have allegedly hooked up with this one really cute female security guard, and as the circumstantial evidence of the encounter was somewhat thin, we had to keep re-examining the evidence as our own form of fact-checking. Then we discussed sports, that day's big scandal in that one sport

that was written about below the fold in the sport's page. I think we pretty much had the same point of view, but for whatever reason we were arguing some finer points. Then he left, taking with him another hour of my life, and it was dark out, and I was sleepy. Coffee shop time.

At the coffee shop, I pulled out seven bucks. With my arms raised and my hands turned, palms up, intending to express large quantities, though I probably looked more like an intense evangelical preacher, about to offer up a prayer, I asked, 'How much caffeine can I score for this much money?'

After receiving some triple shot concoction, I went to the campus quick shop in the student center and bought a case of Mountain Dew, chips and salsa, a box of Ding Dongs (chocolate cream-filled treats), and because I had been thinking about healthy living lately, a banana and a Yoo-Hoo! - an allegedly calcium-enriched drink.