Blood Sugar(16)
Later, in Abnormal Psych class, I grabbed my enormous textbook. It fell open to a specific page with a thud. There was a note in the spine. “I’m a fan. Want to meet for coffee sometime? Find me. Roman Miller.” The page was about narcissists. Nice touch. When did he get that note into my textbook? And how the hell did he pull it off without me knowing? It was frightening how resourceful he was sometimes. I was smiling so big that when the professor asked if there was anything I would like to share with the class, I said, “I just got my best friend back.”
I found Roman in the quad, surrounded by a gaggle of girls.
“You’re right. I can be a haughty bitch. I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re right. I’m a needy douche for sure.”
We hugged, and that was that. We never fought again.
I immersed myself in my classes and books and syllabi, but I sometimes jonesed for my clubbing days on South Beach. Roman often joined me as I attempted to find some exciting nightlife in New Haven and, when I gave up on that, hopped on a train to New York City. He would throw my ID, fake ID, and cash and dorm key into his pocket so I didn’t have to carry anything and ruin the line of my skintight clubbing pants. And we would go dancing. Playing wingman for the other. Roman pretty much landed every girl he set his eyes on. And he helped me get the attention of guys I was eyeing by showering me with attention himself. He was always the most decorative peacock in any room, and if he took notice of me, other men would too. We had our systems down pat.
If free nights were spent dancing together, free days were spent in courtrooms. Roman loved going to watch trials, state and federal. It was like he was going to see a matinee. He would get to the courthouse, see who was “playing,” and sit quietly in the back row, observing and learning. During important testimony he watched the jurors’ faces like some romantics watch the face of the groom when the bride first steps onto the aisle. He wanted to see if he could tell the moment they believed or didn’t believe. The moment they decided, regardless of the facts, if the person was guilty or innocent.
And similar to our searches for fun dance clubs, we would sometimes venture to Boston or New York City or Providence if the court cases in New Haven got stale. The Northeast had no shortage of exciting trials and notable local lawyers. I once asked Roman if he wished he could bring a bag of popcorn into the trial. He looked at me blankly. “Of course not. The chewing might make me miss something important. And when do I ever eat empty carbs?”
I accompanied Roman to the courthouse because it was interesting and helpful for me to note the human experience of being the accused or accuser, judge or jury member, for psychological purposes. I was especially curious about signs of guilt and also wondered why in this country to feel remorse meant a lesser sentence. The crime is still the crime, so why do a criminal’s emotions after the fact play into it? Perhaps because judges took remorse as a sign that the criminal would not partake in the illegal activity again. But many statistics show that feelings of guilt or lack of guilt do not affect the likelihood of reoffending. It’s as simple as if I ate a cookie, and I feel guilty I cheated on my diet. Fuck it, I’ll eat the whole sleeve. We’ve all been there. Guilt is not an intrinsically helpful emotion for future decision-making. And often the spiral of guilt and shame can lead criminals to remain criminals.
This idea was so intriguing to me, for personal reasons that should already be clear, that I later took it on for my undergraduate senior thesis. My paper, which I turned in six weeks early and for which I received an A, was titled “Remorse and Absolution: Peas in a Pod or Dangerous Bunkmates?”
And while Roman and I made the Northeast our own, I got to know his family. Sometimes we would go to New Canaan for a weekend. The live-in housekeeper would do our laundry and make us yummy sandwiches with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes and roasted red peppers. His father found my crazy Miami tales amusing and appreciated my work ethic. He liked having me around because he felt I was a good influence on his son. Not that Roman needed any help marching along his path to legal greatness.
During my first visit to the Miller house, they didn’t seem to believe that Roman and I were just friends. One of his middle brothers punched him hard in the arm when he saw me, as if to say, Good going. And his youngest brother gave me a few sideways glances, like, Is my brother doing it with you? Gross! At first I slept in one of the many guest rooms and he stayed in his childhood bedroom. But by my second visit they all saw what we saw, an unbreakable, fully platonic friendship. It was then that his parents let us share his old room. We would fall asleep side by side in the queen bed with the brown-and-green plaid-patterned comforter, me quizzing him on Trivial Pursuit questions mixed in with practice LSAT exam questions, him quizzing me with questions on neuroanatomy mixed in with what it feels like to do cocaine.
In a way, I became a part of his family. And received the perks. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were much more effusive with their own children than my own parents were, but with that also came a certain pressure to live up to their demands. Roman wore that pressure like heavy armor that sometimes weighed him down, but since I didn’t have eighteen years of the helicopter-parent dynamic, I only noticed the protective effects of the praise, without the weight. The Millers were so proud of my constant 4.0 GPA they actually put my report card on their own refrigerator. When I saw it up there, mixed in with a magnet from Turks and Caicos and an old sketch from their youngest boy, I got a little teary. I had accidentally found surrogate parents who nurtured me in a way that my own parents never did. I felt awash in joy with a splash of sadness. Getting something new can trigger a painful realization of what you lacked before.