Marcus Lexington was in his room at the University of St. Thomas, busying himself with the chore of unpacking two weeks before the fall-semester was to begin, and he was missing his friend, Johnny Holiday.
He
had been hoping that Johnny would return to classes this fall, but when he
checked into the dormitory, he was notified that he would have a new roommate
for the upcoming term.
Johnny
had been his roommate but he also kept an apartment off campus, so it had been
particularly nice for Marcus to have him as a roommate, because it meant that
he nearly always had the entire place to himself, it was a small room after all.
He liked the privacy, and he liked the extra space to spread out his studies.
It
was the desire to be alone that had him moving back to campus a week early. His parents house was only a couple of miles away,
down Summitt Avenue. It was up on the hill near St. Paul’s Cathedral, overlooking
the State Capital, downtown Pig’s Eye and its port on the Mississippi River.
When he was home, his mother and father were always after him to be productive;
if it was not them, then it was the servants who never let him be.
Marcus was just finishing arranging his wardrobe in
the small closet and was about to unpack his books, being careful to confine
them to his half of the room, when he heard voices outside his door in the
Hallway.
It was the boys from the R.O.T.C., returning from
their drills.
Johnny had been in the R.O.T.C. and Marcus wondered
if any of them had heard anything about his return.
Marcus wasn’t the soldierly type.
He wasn’t athletic at all.
His mother said he was too fragile to go out for
sports, and he had always been the subject of ridicule from the boys on the
football team and most of the other jocks all-throughout his life….at least
until last year, when he started college.
At St. Thomas he was able to make a place for
himself helping the guys who struggled with academics: he tutored, he edited
papers and helped them prepare for tests…if they asked.
More importantly, Johnny looked after him.
Johnny had gotten him a place on the rowing team,
which was probably the greatest single favor any fellow had ever done for Marcus,
not as an oarsman, he did not have the physique for that. Marcus was small and
light and the made him the coxswain; he called the cadence and steered the boat
and he had led the team to a championship the previous year.
Marcus was worried about his friend.
Johnny had gotten into some trouble and had been
asked to suspend his studies, but it had been his understanding that Johnny would
be allowed to return.
The captain of the R.O.T.C., a fellow named Bivens,
had been one of the people who had filed a complaint against Johnny…for
insubordination.
Marcus figured that Bivens would know if Johnny was
expected back, so he stepped out into the hall to see if he could strike up a
conversation and put the question to one of them guys, if not to Bivens
himself.
When he stepped out of his dorm-room door, he got
the feeling they were actually glad to see him.
Marcus had Johnny to thank for that.
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