Envy(21)
* * *
It was their place. They were regulars. The moment they cleared the door of T.R.’s, T.R. himself drew them a pitcher of beer and delivered it to their booth.
“Thanks, T.R.”
“Thanks, T.R.”
There were no menus, but it wasn’t even necessary for them to order. Knowing what they liked, T.R. waddled back behind the counter and started building their pie. It and their beer would go on their joint account, which they would pay when they got around to it. T.R. had been providing his customers with this kind of personalized service for thirty-something years.
The story was that he’d enrolled in the university as a freshman, but ended his first term by skipping finals. He used his second-semester tuition money to make a down payment on this building, which was then on the verge of being condemned. T.R. hadn’t bothered to make renovations and it stood today as it had when he assumed occupancy. Engineering and architectural instructors continued to use the building as a case study for load-bearing beams.
The light fixtures were layered with generations of greasy dust. The linoleum floor was slick in some spots, gritty in others. No one dared look beneath the tables for fear of what he would find, and only in emergency situations did beer-bloated bladders seek relief in the restroom.
It wasn’t much of a place, but it was an institution. Every guy on campus knew T.R.’s because it provided two basic needs of the male collegiate—cold beer and hot pizza.
By midterm, T.R. could call every customer by name, and even if the name escaped him, he knew how he liked his pizza. Todd’s and Roark’s never varied—thick crust, pepperoni, extra mozzarella, with a little crushed red pepper sprinkled on top.
Roark ruminatively chewed his first wonderfully cheesy bite. “You really think so?”
“Think what?”
“That Gatsby was a puss.”
Todd wiped his mouth with a paper napkin from the table dispenser, took a gulp of beer. “The guy’s rich. Lives like a frigging prince or something. He has everything a man could want.”
“Except the woman he loves.”
“Who’s a selfish, self-centered airhead, borderline if not full-fledged neurotic, who continually craps on him.”
“But Daisy represents to Gatsby what his money couldn’t buy. The unattainable.”
“Respectability?” Todd lifted another slice of pizza from the bent metal platter and took a bite. “With his money, why should he give a shit whether or not he’s accepted? He paid the ultimate price for an ideal.” Shaking his head, he added, “Not worth it.”
“Hmm.” More or less agreeing, Roark drank from his frosted mug. They discussed the merits of Gatsby, then of Fitzgerald’s work in general, which brought them around to their own literary aspirations.
Roark asked, “How’re you coming on your manuscript?”
A novel of seventy thousand words, minimum, was their senior project, their capstone prior to receiving a bachelor of arts degree. The one obstacle standing between them and graduation was the scourge of every creative writing student, Professor Hadley.
Todd frowned. “Hadley’s up my ass about characterization.”
“Specifically?”
“They’re cardboard cutouts, he says. No originality, spontaneity, depth, blah, blah, blah.”
“He says that about everybody’s characters.”
“Yours included?”
“I haven’t had my critique yet,” Roark replied. “Next Tuesday, bright and early, eight o’clock. I’ll be lucky to escape with my life.”
The two young men had met in a required composition class their first semester as freshmen. The instructor was a grad student, who they later decided didn’t know his dick from a dangling participle. The first week of class, he assigned a five-page essay based on John Donne’s Devotions.
Taking himself far too seriously, the instructor had assumed a professorial stance and tone. “You may not be entirely familiar with the text, but surely you’ll recognize the phrase ‘for whom the bells toll.’ ”
“Excuse me, sir.” Todd raised his hand and innocently corrected him. “Is that the same as ‘for whom the bell tolls’?”
Recognizing a kindred spirit, Roark introduced himself to Todd after class. Their friendship was established that afternoon. A week later, they negotiated a swap with the roommates the university had randomly assigned them. “Suits me,” Roark’s grumbled when they proposed the idea to him. He gave Todd a word of warning. “He pecks on that goddamn typewriter twenty-four hours a day.”
They received the two highest grades in the class on that first writing assignment. “The jerk wouldn’t dare award an A,” Roark sourly observed. Scrawled on the cover of his blue book was a large B+.
“At least you got the plus sign after yours,” Todd remarked of his B.
“You would have if you hadn’t been a smart-ass that first day. That really pissed him off.”
“Fuck him. When I write the Great American Novel, he’ll still be grading freshmen writing assignments.”
“Ain’t gonna happen,” Roark deadpanned. Then he flashed a wide white smile. “Because I’m going to write the Great American Novel.”
Love of books and the desire to write them was the foundation on which their friendship was built. It was a few years before cracks were discovered in that foundation. And by the time those fissures were discovered, massive damage had already been done and it was too late to prevent the structure’s total collapse.