18

I’d hoped the words would scare Ryan off.

They didn’t.

“I should drop by there, too,” he said, much to my surprise. “Mind if I tag along?”

I did. I said, “I don’t mind.”

There I was being a nice guy again.

When we were outside, Ryan started making small talk.

“Seems like a good building.”

“Yeah.”

“I used to live in a real run-down one. Every time I came home, I had to pass these Arabs sitting on the steps, smoking pot or drinking beer.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, in Toronto.”

It was a chilly fall evening, and even under his layers of loose clothing, Ryan was shivering.

The whites of his eyes were yellowish.

His smile never left his face.

For a few seconds, I entertained the idea he was a Caribbean vampire.

“What kind of music do you like?”

“I don’t know. I don’t listen to much,” I said. It wasn’t true, but the lie had been almost automatic. I didn’t like opening up.

“I like jazz,” he said.

17

I took off the light blue t-shirt, and put on pants and a shirt with a collar.

I needed to visit the hospital.

Such was my weakness: I knew I’d do it if only because the nurse had seemed so nice…

Nice guys finish–

“Last night, we were worried about you.”

Ryan was standing in my open doorway. He hadn’t knocked.

“The landlord said we were moving in with someone, and then nobody was here.

“Glad you made it back.”

He held out his hand, which was thin and bony, and hidden underneath his baggy clothes.

I shook it.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said.

“Are you a student?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah. What are you studying?”

“History,” I said.

“Poli-sci. Third year.”

“Me, too.” I got off the bed. I didn’t like talking to strangers lying down. “So are you and Vince friends?”

“Nah. I just met him two days ago. He seems alright, though.”

I was about to ask if the Chinese music didn’t bother him, but thought that might be culturally insensitive.

“Any plans for tonight?”

“I have to go to the hospital.”

16

I was hungry but didn’t want to deal with other people’s messes.

I ducked inside my bedroom and closed the door.

I’d have to get a lock.

Without one, I felt vulnerable.

I could still hear the shrill sounding music through the walls and wondered why, if I was to be lonely, fate couldn’t also let me be alone.

I didn’t like living with people. I’d had room-mates before. I hated them.

I slid off my shoes and threw myself onto my bed.

I realised I was still wearing boxers and a blood-stained t-shirt.

Why hadn’t my room-mates reacted?

I decided their non-reaction meant they were weirdos.

The shirt:

I looked down at it.

It wasn’t mine. I knew that already. But could it be that it was Powder’s?

“SHIT!”

It was Vince.

My peace and quiet: I composed a eulogy.

I would spent more time at the library, I told myself. I’d come here only to eat and sleep.

Loveless and homeless…

15

I lived on the top floor of a fourth story building with no elevator.

There was a note on my door.

I grabbed the note, unlocked the door and opened it.

Chinese pop music blared from inside.

I looked at the note:

Dear Mr Oliver,
You now have room-mates. As per our rental agreement, your rent has been adjusted accordingly to $500 per month.
– The Management

My bedroom was as I had left it, but the living room and kitchen were a mess of dirty dishes, rice and empty cups stained by coffee and Coca Cola.

My study was now a second bedroom, with two beds.

A short, broad-shouldered Chinese guy in glasses was sitting at a desk, playing a futuristic RTS.

A taller and much thinner black man with dreads and a bandanna was reading a book about Marxism.

“Hello,” I said.

The Chinese guy glanced up. “Yo.”

“Good evening,” said the black guy. “I’m Ryan. This is Vince.”

Vaguely, I remembered the room-mate clause. Somehow, I didn’t expect them to appear so suddenly.

“Yo, I used one of your pots to cook dinner.”

14

A nurse from the hospital was calling.

I said I was fine.

She said I needed to fill out some paperwork, that I couldn’t just disappear.

“We can’t afford disorder in health care.”

I apologised and told her I’d be in soon to sign whatever she needed.

She told me I’d left a pair of pants.

The minute she hung up, I felt even more naked than I was.

People stared at me all the way to the bus stop.

I was happy I didn’t have any friends and nobody knew who I was.

On the bus, I pulled out my phone and started writing an email to Powder, telling her all about my adventure.

I burst out laughing.

The girl sitting across from me moved further away.

I’d written a dozen sentences when the stupidity of the whole idea hit me.

If I sent this to Powder, she’d giggle. I’d seem childish, silly. I didn’t want that. Powder was a woman, not a girl.

Women liked real men.

I got off at a stop a short walk from my apartment, held my backpack in front of my crotch and shuffled along home as quickly as possible.

13

“You hope she breaks my heart?”

I repeated the statement as a question, stunned. What kind of advice was that? Maybe Professor K was an asshole…

“Love hurts. The sooner a man learns that the better.

“Your first love won’t be your last.

“Let it hurt like hell, Oliver. Let it leave a gaping wound that you won’t forget.”

I didn’t want it to leave a wound, or hurt, or to have any other love.

Professor K didn’t understand:

The intensity and immensity of my feelings.

I would never love like this again.

Powder was the one.

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

“Now go on home and put on some pants, Oliver.”

I was out of the auditorium but still in the Social Sciences building when my phone rang.

12

I don’t know what angered me more, that Professor K read me like a history textbook or that he wasn’t such an aloof asshole as he seemed.

I said nothing.

Even here, in Auditorium B of the Social Sciences building in my boxers and someone else’s shirt, I couldn’t stop thinking about Powder. I needed to see her again.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Professor K nodded. “Is it your first time?

“In love, Oliver. In love,” he added, probably lest I think he was asking about sex.

I was a virgin.

“Yes.”

He put his elbows on his knees and leaned closer to me, like a friend.

I thought of the song by Pulp.

“I sincerely hope she breaks your heart.”

11

After the students had left, Professor K sat down beside me.

“You say you were hit by a car?”

I nodded.

I had my finger up my nose to stop the bleeding.

“Because,” Professor K said, “over the years I’ve seen my share of faces…

(The photo of Rommel was still on the screen.)

…and in my wisdom I’ve decided that despite the uniqueness of each face, each can, at any point in time, display only one of a small set of common expressions.”

I took my finger out of my nose and wiped it on the shirt I was wearing.

“I don’t look like I’ve been hit by a car?”

“You do. That’s not the point. The point is that’s not what’s on your face, Oliver.”

“What do I look like?”

“Lovestruck.”

10

My body crumpled to the floor, but at least this time I didn’t pass out.

I didn’t lose my sense of being.

Two students grabbed me under my arms, lifted me and helped me to the nearest chair.

Blood was streaming from my nose onto my shirt.

But it wasn’t my shirt.

I’d never seen this shirt before. It was light blue, worn, with a drawing of a man’s face on it, navy, and the words Toumani Diabete written underneath in black.

It was also now streaked with red.

The screen flickered from North Africa to a photo of Erwin Rommel.

But the only face I saw was the face of Powder.

On the screen.

And on every body in the auditorium.

”All right,” Professor K boomed, ”due to unforeseen circumstances, class is dismissed. We’ll make it up next week.

”Not you, Oliver. You stay.”

9

Everyone’s head swivelled to stare at me.

I stammered. “I’m sorry, I…”

And took several steps forward, toward the front of the auditorium, where a student standing at the podium in front of a screen on which was projected an operational map of North Africa had been caught mid-sentence by my entrance. His lips were stuck forming the word Tobruk.

“Mister Oliver!”

“I…”

I looked down at my own naked knees as Professor K said:

“Do you think it’s funny, bursting in like this wearing just your boxer shorts?

“Total lack of respect.

“Immature.”

The presenting student closed his mouth and scratched his head.

Everyone was still staring.

I wanted to cover up.

My energy drained out of me in one sudden, cold sweat.

“Mister Oliver…

I felt tickling, rubbed my nose and saw blood.

“…what happened to you?”

“I was hit by a car,” I said.

“During the Battle of the Atlantic,” I said.

And I collapsed.