BOYS GETTING DRESSED TO GO OUT
My office window faces the boys dorm, Durfee. My window faces the window at the end of their third floor hall. I see boys bike down their hall. Skateboard. Slide. I see boys wrapped in towels, parading. I see boys, hulked in the window in the shapes of the letters C and L: cell phone signal, love far away coming in but only in this one window.
Tonight, I am in my office, trying to work, but I’m not working, I’m distracted by my little tedious and fresh heartsickness. So I’m watching the Durfee boys. And they are draping themselves with lights. I wonder what they are getting ready for, Thursday at 9:30 pm. A reenactment? A Tolkein party? Some kind of zombie video game? A homemade movie? Or is this just Thursday night, and how they go down to the pubs?
I see cloaks and capes and sabers. I see hats that have battery packs, and boys wearing strings of red lights. I see black and caps and antics. A lot of standing around and talking. Laughing. A lack of forward progress. I see boys not getting dressed, boys in jeans and white t-shirts, helping. It’s like in a girl world—some are going out into the night, some are sparkling, others are meant to stay in, after the shiny ones have been all bedecked.
It’s like a boy prom. Reality check. The decorative arts, the dance that is preparation, it’s human, archetypal, not the province of girls, though I was brought up to think so. Humans like to decorate themselves and their dwellings. It’s spring—the Midwest is draping itself with flowers, abundant color, it’s glowing and humming. And the boys are blooming, too. Even the boys.
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