1. Telemachus/ The Tower

Sardonic, tall Matt Richardson came from the doorframe, brushing his teeth with a green tube, a yellow towel suspended from his arm in the warming morning air. He took the foaming toothbrush from his mouth and placed it like an instrument against his chest, facing the sun.

—I pledge allegiance to the sun, and the territory for which it stands: masculine, the center of the universe.

Cut off, he peered back into the shrouded lounge, and summoned.

—Come on, Steve. Come on, you fearful existentialist.

Respectfully, he turned back to the sun.

—Oh thou that with surpassing Glory crown'd, look'st from thy sole Dominion like a god of this new world he intoned. He yelled back into the dark hall.

—Steve. You're of the devil's party without even knowing it. Come pay your respects to the male archetype.

Sleepy with a finger rotating in his eyesocket, Steven Armstrong passes through the lounge. Matt faces him, holding the long thin toothbrush and deep round cup in his hands before him.

His eyes moved while his face remained fixed in the air like a mask, mouth open. His geometric teeth shone. Condominiums.

—Blasphemy is meaningless, Steven. You have to burn flags to get their attention, he intoned. And to the university for which it stands, one ivory tower under Marxism, with liberty and justice for all politically correct.

He turned, let their air out of his lungs, and spoke gravely to his watcher. Steven rubbed his hand under his t-shirt.

Suddenly happy, he pointed at Steve's chest. A contradiction in terms. The european intellectual, named after an allamerican hero: the fellow traveler goes to the moon. How do your bear it?

Happy to be so amused, he went back to the lounge. Steven stepped to the railing, turned and inclined at an angle to it, crossing his legs between the knee and ankle. Buck squeezed the toothpaste in the middle. It oozed green at the end. He began brushing.

Matt Makralson's cheerful speech continued.

—But my name's ridiculous too. Son of a fish.

From inside the hall, a rebounding and resounding throb.

—Wait, Steven the question: How low can you go? Only a brother knows. Shall we ask Todd?

—He doesn't know the answer. How can he? Steven continued. He was raving on last night about the black panthers in the 60s. How the government killed them all.

—He's crazy. People like him are the reason the government killed them, Makralson said. In a graver tone: Does it bother you?

—Yes, Steven said, more disturbed. I can't deal with such inherent contradiction next door to me. BMW and NWA. You enjoy such hyprocrisy. I'm not a conisseur of insincerity, though. If he doesn't shut up, I'll move out.

Matt caught some foam on his shirtsleeve. He saw the towel like a lifepreserver around Steven's neck. He held out his hand palm up.

—Give me your rag.

Steven drew the towel from his neck, wadded into a ball. Dropped it on Matt's hand.  He dabbed his sleeve.

—The towel.

Matt went back to the rim of the porch. Nature, he intoned grandly, what other university is so blessed with it? Great mother, Armstrong.

Steven straightened himself and turned to look to the redwoods leaning over them. He looked down, saw the day shuttle circle the driveway.

—But mothers can be cruel said Matt. Of course, you know that, Steven.

—Nature is no more cruel than she has to be. That's more than I can say for most mothers.

—Bad, bad, Steve. We are UCSC students. We worship motherhood, he said in the tones of tautology.

He tightened his wide-ranging gaze on Steven.

—The RA thinks you're a racist, he said. That's why she won't have anything to do with you.

—I'm a free thinker, Steven said quietly.

—You could have just gone. Nobody matters. Just one day of your life, out of many. Six hours of insincerity- the tax you pay to live in society. I'm as libertarian as you are. But to challenge the whole system? There's something sinister about you, Steven. Like an Ayn Rand novel. Hmh! he said, amused by his observation. That's my name for you now. Rand. Logical positivist. No compromise.

Just as he spoke the last word, he reinserted the toothbrush. He tightened his lips around it, then pulled it back and forth.

—But you're a poet. Allowances must be made.

Every area of his teeth was brushed equally, his mouth closed the whole time.  

Steven recalled refusal, recrimination.  He stood accused.

—We're all hypocrites here, Rand. Brushing our teeth while the world falls apart, while the rainforest disappears.

—It's the duty of every man to minimize the hypocrisy and contradiction in his life Steven said. Or at least recognize it. Why not workshops for prejudice against intellectuals? Something at least meaningful in terms of UCSC.

—Nonsense. Hating intellectuals is a the right of any American, liberal or conservative. It's not arbitrary prejudice. Intellectuals are trouble-makers. Rand. Matt laughed again, an accelerated breath in and out.