Darren

Ahhhhh, my first day of college, my first real step to becoming a serious, substantial person with an exciting life, or that’s what I thought at the time. First, I had to move out of my parent’s house, out of their overprotective, achievement-minded bubble. I felt such momentum just heading out “on my own.”  And everything around me was new and exciting, new roommates, new buildings to find, new paths to walk down, new ideas to explore. And then there was Darren.

I had noticed him moving in, carrying his big, shiny egg-shaped chair, most of him obscured except his crazy brown hair above the egg and the whole egg moving along on his skinny legs. There weren’t many kids who brought furniture to their freshmen furnished apartments. I knew instantly the chair probably had deep significance to him, why else would he bring it?  You see, at that point I knew no one, so to know something intimate about someone was a comfort as well as a curiosity. So I tracked him as he carried the awkward object in from his little car, up the walkway and then to the apartment who’s door faced mine. So, we were neighbors in the same off-campus apartment complex.  

The next week I noticed him in math class. I noticed he walked the same pathway as I did to get there, out in the sun, beside the star jasmine.  He sat in the back, directly behind me in the 200-seat auditorium.  That Friday I saw him in the parking lot, getting into his little white hatchback, arms loaded down to spend the weekend who-knows-where. 

And then one morning we both came out of our front doors at the same time, his apartment kitty corner, but sharing a common wall. We didn’t speak, though I know he saw me. We were both going to the early morning math class.  We separated and then found ourselves standing near each other in the foyer, waiting for the lecture hall to be opened. 

I spoke first. “Are you worried about the test on Friday?”

He glanced at me but did not look directly at me when he spoke. He shook his shaggy head.  “Nah.”

I was surprised.  “Plan to get an ‘A’ do you?”  I asked, a little annoyed.  The class wasn’t my worst, but it wasn’t easy.

“Nah. I never get an ‘A’.”  He flashed me a smile with white teeth and there was something very charming about it.  A boy with no fear but feeling solid about his expectations.  Huh.  They opened the doors and I sat in my usual place, and to my surprise he sat next to me.  I blinked, trying to act normal.

“He’s late,” I muttered, mostly to myself, referring to our skinny, awkward professor.

“He struggles in life,” my new friend said with a chuckle.  True, the professor often dropped the chalk and nearly fell over the table when he was reaching for it.   “But he seems to know his stuff.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s brilliant.”  I agreed.

“I’m Darren,” he said, out of nowhere and held out his hand to shake mine.

“I’m Andrea,” I said, minimizing the accent for ease.  I shook his hand, long fingers and a confident but soft shake. Somehow it stayed with me. Then we both turned back to the front of the room.

When the professor entered, he chuckled again, not in a mean way, but with a kind of genuine affection.

“What?” I asked.

“He just cracks me up.”  He said, with a smile that was not mocking, but good-naturedly amused.  Amused, but with just a tinge of respect.

I looked at the professor for the first time as something other than a god to be cow-towed to.  Yes, he was ungainly, with ridiculously long legs and pants that did not go all the way to his ankles.  He was skinny, like the Disney drawing of Icabod Craine. And his hair was a mop on top of his head more or less successfully covering his premature bald spot. His glasses were spotted and probably hard to see through.  His nose was red, and he occasionally took a handkerchief out of his pocket to blow it.  And he shuffled through his papers as if someone else had handed him a random stack in which they had hidden his single paper of notes.

The professor started talking and writing in large and small print on the blackboard.  One had to really pay attention because you never knew where his next calculation would end up.  I took notes and thought and watched like my life depended on it.  But I got lost.

“Wait, what do you do after that last reduction?”  I asked, again mostly to myself.

“It’s easy, just take the remainder . . .”  Darren explained it patiently and clearly. It would be a hallmark of him, he seemed to perfectly understand everything in his classes, but, as he said, he didn’t get ‘As’ in his classes.  I never understood.

Then we heard someone clattering down the stairs.  It was Miguel, his roommate. Miguel I had met, the first week of classes.  Barely five feet tall, greasy blonde hair, and a pock-marked face, Miguel had introduced himself to me holding my hand for an uncomfortably long time after the shake.  He tried to look deeply into my eyes, but his eyes were weirdly blue and brown and not quite aligned. 

Miguel pushed past the people on the edge to sit next to Darren.  He dropped his backpack and random things fell out as he tried to get into the chair.  “What did I miss?” He asked, when he got seated upright.

“Half the class,” said Darren and he went back to taking notes.

After class Darren nodded to me and we began to walk away.  Miguel pushed passed him and asked me “can I get a copy of your notes?”  I demurred, generally uncomfortable with him.

“I’ll give you my notes,” he said to Miguel, and I felt I had...Continue Reading