Societies' Day

‘Are these free for the taking?’
They’d better be, as the t-shirt is already halfway into my bag.
‘Uh, yeah’, says the guy behind the stack of shirts.
‘Great’. I smile, turn away. Quick getaway.
‘So, do you know what this is about?’ He leans into my field of vision, gestures vaguely at other students with lanyards around their necks.
‘No’, I say, smiling brightly. I half-turn back to the table. ‘What do you guys do?’

I make for the hall, skirting past two gawky Asian teenagers grappling apologetically over a large stick. They are presumably affiliated with the nearby Aikido stand. I pass a stand with decks and big speakers, blasting beats. A girl is leaning across the desk towards the DJ, who keeps his headphones pressed against one ear.

ARE YOU JUST A DJ, OR ARE YOU GUYS SOME KIND OF MUSIC SOCIETY?
WHAT?
WHAT DO YOU GUYS DO?
WHAT?

I begin to make the rounds, weaving in and out between knots of hesitant freshmen. According to their poster, The Muslim Association is ‘committed to celebrating the Muslim faith, and to offering a supportive and welcoming environment to all Muslim students on campus’. They offer baked goods as an enticement to their stand.

I can’t help but feel that brownies were an unfortunate choice.

I put my name down for the running club, secretly relieved that the hardened athletic types manning the stand are already occupied with enquirers when I do. I imagine the tanned figure on the left looking at me doubtfully, lips pursed.

So you do some running, huh? And you wanna sign up? Okay, well…        
He looks at his wizened companion, who nods, barely perceptibly. Turns back to me.
Yeah, we’re gonna have to see you do a few laps of the quad first. It’s just procedure, don’t worry.
Well… okay. Cold sweat. Why do you have a baseball bat?
Oh, we’re gonna chase after you with this. Ha, ha. All part of the fun, y’know. But you’re a runner, so we probably won’t catch you, right?
The other guy smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
That cool? You ready?
Smacks it on his fist. You get a cookie after.

I’m accosted by a girl handing out shortbread biscuits in the shape of an owl, with a little shrub of feathers drawn on in brown icing, below the owl’s waistline. The effect is striking.

‘Did you make these yourself?’
‘No.’ She laughs. Our leaders made them.

I picture a cabinet of government ministers and generals, concealed in a bunker beneath the White House, clustered around a conference table. A solitary telephone in the middle of the table is illuminated by an overhead light. The edges of the room are in darkness. They all bend over trays of cookies, squeezing piping bags with care, tongues stuck out of the corners of mouths.

A middle-aged man presides, shirt sleeves rolled up. He leans menacingly over the top of the conference table.
We can’t afford to hesitate, sir, advises a bookish underling with a name badge. Our frosting supplies have fallen below the critical level.
He tugs at his collar, shifts his weight to the other loafered foot. Swallows audibly.
Well, don’t just tell me about it, for Chrissakes. Do something!
A fist smash. Glasses jump together, ice cubes rattle. Around the table, bespectacled figures blink in fright. Icing spurts from piping bags.
He starts pacing. Goddammit, those owl butts won’t frost themselves.

‘They’re very impressive’, I tell the girl.
‘Oh, thank you!’ She beams.

The medical student societies have huge professional posters, displaying pictures of anonymous white-toothed professionals along with images of globes and handshakes. Tall young men in polo shirts hover nervously with clipboards, offering free branded pens.

I eye the cereal bars invitingly fanned on the next table. I reach to grab one. The keeper of the plate raises an eloquent eyebrow. His gaze slides towards the sign, head unmoving. Society for Black Engineers at Rice.
I withdraw my hand.

The next few are Christian fellowships of varying stripes. Earnest looking white males smile at me, blinking furiously, proffering Skittles and other indulgences. Their posters are handmade, with pictures of sunrises and handwritten messages of hope and inspiration.

Behind the desk, two of them are hugging. One of them breaks off, sees me, lunges in my direction.

In my panicked retreat, I accidentally join the South Asian choir.

Disorientation Week

I’m waiting for my cappuccino in the Brochstein Pavilion. Brock-steen. The menu advertises various American mysteries, such as sliders, heros and root beer. The air conditioning is set to Siberian winter.

‘Latte,’ barks the barista. Somebody scurries forward and swipes it off the counter, before retreating into a corner, in order to consume it at a safe distance from predators.

There is another girl ahead of me, waiting for an order. She’s wearing baggy denim shorts, practical rubber sandals and a striped t-shirt. Her thin blonde hair is coiled on top of her head in a neat topknot. There are goosebumps on her pale arms.

On the sound system, a warbly soprano with bad Italian diction sings a familiar melody. She is accompanied by some nebulous string-orchestra sounds, punctuated by intermittent episodes of classical guitar-twangling. The occasional clave plinks. There are no hooks, or countermelodies, or clarity of any kind. But I do know the melody.

It’s Whitney Houston’s ‘And I Will Always Love You’. In Italian.

Your favourite popular hits, as you’ve never heard them before. Perfect for relaxing at home. Add a touch of class to your dinner parties, or ‘soirees’, as they say in Paris, France.

Slight swell. Pause. The soprano heaves. Key change. Still no cappuccino.

I rub my forearms for warmth, glance at my watch. Here comes the octave leap. I clench involuntarily. The soprano hoots gamely.

‘Americano.’ The blonde girl leaves.

The General MIDI accompaniment hovers at a fermata, and the singer navigates the final flourish carefully. She sings the melisma as a set of exact semiquavers, before landing squarely on the tonic, like a matron lowering herself into a chair. The strings squelch their way to an unimpressive final cadence. There is a brief moment of silence.

‘Cappuccino’, shouts the barista. I grab it and make for the exit. The strings groan into life again behind me; the singer gives an introductory moo. I close the door firmly.

I take a seat on the patio outside. The heat makes my throat constrict. The air settles on my skin like a wet cloth.

The door is flung open again. An orientation guide crashes onto the patio, roaring at his frightened charges, who follow him mutely. They arrange themselves into a clump around him, avoiding eye contact.

He is short, square, blocky, with a lanyard around his neck. He stands with his feet shoulder-width apart, his head held slightly back. Barrel-chested. His face bears the scars of recent teenage acne.

‘The coffee here is very expensive,’ he yells. He drags the ‘very’ out for at least two seconds, widening his eyes. Inside the glass, the staff glare at him from behind the counter. I look dolefully at my cup. ‘But the sandwiches are awesome,’ he adds, inserting a glottal stop before ‘awesome’ for emphasis. He pinches his thumb and forefinger together, hand close to his lips.

The final orientee to exit the pavilion closes the door after him. ‘Yeah, now that we’re outside,’ he bellows, ‘I can tell you that there are better places on campus for coffee.’ One of the baristas, inside the glass, rolls her eyes.

He’s backing onto the lawn.

‘Welcome to the second academic quad. By the way, squirrel!’ He points at a squirrel on the grass. It looks up, alarmed.

Somebody giggles. A middle-aged woman with a greying bob starts visibly. She looks at the squirrel, looks back at the guide. She frowns, confused.

‘Squirrels are awesome, right?’ He looks around the group. Nobody responds.

‘So anyways, this is the second academic quad, and it’s got some cool sculptures and stuff’ – he pronounces it ‘sculptors’ – ‘cos every so often an artist comes and goes, wow,’ – he throws his arms out wide – ‘it’s so pretty, I wanna build you, like, a thing,’ – the word ‘thing’ gets an audible capital T – ‘so Rice goes, cool, knock yourself out, and they build stuff, and it’s awesome, and that one over there is meant to be some kind of study area I guess, it’s like two seats facing each other, except it’s abstract and stuff, but I’ve never seen anybody study there, and I’ve been here a long time, like two years, so I’m not sure what’s going on with that, but I guess maybe they’re just not very comfortable, since it’s art an’ all, but anyways…’

As he holds forth, he’s leading them across the lawn, walking backwards, beckoning, as though luring them into a trap. His charges shuffle reluctantly towards his retreating form.

By now, my computer keyboard is hot to the touch. The fan roars into life. My shirt is already beginning to stick to me. I retreat into the café. I consider whether it’s worth sitting down, or if I should get back to work.

Il Divo take a deep collective breath before launching into the shirt-button-popping, vein-engorging Italian-ised climax of ‘My Heart Will Go On.’

The library it is.

The cockroach

OHMYGODWHATINTHENAMEOFCHRISTISTHAT.

It darts out from behind the draining rack, waving its antennae lazily. A dirt-brown invader, an aberration, a hideous blemish on the white surface. It crouches in the middle of the worktop, facing me with its blind, truncated, pincered front.

I can’t move. My throat constricts. My skin crawls. I swallow a wave of nausea.
It can’t be a cockroach. It can’t be. It’s bigger than my thumb.
Oh Jesus.

It lifts a leg, puts it down again. Suddenly, horribly, it clatters up onto the tiled wall, clackclackclackclack, vanishes behind the shelves. I hear a faint crunching sound. It’s eating something. I think I’m going to be sick.

I’m still rooted to the spot. I can’t see it now. But it’s getting closer and closer to the larder. I picture it crawling over my apples, burrowing into my porridge oats. Tracking the dregs of whatever cesspit it calls home across my fresh tomatoes.

I know that something must be done. And I have to be the one to do it.

I dive for the cupboard under the sink, scan the arsenal. I grab a can of Raid. It trembles in my fist. Here we go.

It skitters down the wall again. OhChristit’shorriblegetitawayfromme. I extend the can towards it, every muscle in my body clamouring for a hasty retreat. What are you doing, run away, run AWAY. I’ve stopped breathing.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and I spray, almost driving the button into the canister with the force.

But it’s too late. I missed. It’s gone.

It’s in amongst the dishes on the draining board now. The clean dishes. I was going to eat my cereal out of that bowl.

Crunch. Oh Jesus.

Here it comes, out from under the tray, skittering on its hideous little legs. I spray it, bullseye this time, yes, yes, die you bastard, DIE.

The cockroach skates blithely, elegantly, through the pool of Raid. It leaps onto the tiled wall in a feat of super-cockroach agility.

What manner of creature is this? That a faceful of poison doesn’t even check its many-legged step? Can it even be killed?

They say they’ll outlive us all. These vile survivors of prehistoric deserts will forge, invincible, through the furnaces of any future hell, watching with their eyeless faces as humankind perishes, screaming, in the flames. Sparks will glance off their armoured phalanxes; they will ford the Styx itself. Nothing else will survive.

What manner of land have I stumbled into? Where such hellbeasts as this roam unchecked across countertops, in larders? It jumps off the wall again, crouches on the counter. It knows that it has won.

Not this time.

I lunge for the kitchen paper, rip off a sheet, wrap my hand in it and bring a thunderous fist, a mighty and terrible fist, down on its cringing form. Crunch, squish, BAM. And again. BAM.

An antenna spasms feebly, a leg jerks. And then all is still.

Your move, Texas.

The casino bar

The bar is empty when we get there, lit with blue lights and technicolour slot machines. Huge TV screens show identical silhouettes of a dancing naked woman (is she definitely naked, or does she have underwear on? Ah no, she's naked all right I'd say. Sure look at her. Ah there's definitely no knickers there), against a block colour background. Every so often the scene changes, to another naked silhouette, this figure gyrating enthusiastically with an electric guitar.

The guitar isn't plugged in, though, I observe. There's no silhouette of a lead. Unfortunately there is no way the naked woman is actually playing, I inform the others. They nod sagely.

You can't see someone's face, in a silhouette.

The barmaid wears a tiny sequined mini-skirt and a bondage-style leather bustier, with studs on the cups. The back of it is mostly straps. A lot of evenly-tanned skin is on display. It's 'ladies' night', so we each get a rose, handed to us by another scantily-clad barmaid. Our drinks are half-price. The men in the group are indignant.

It is poor recompense for the ongoing mass exploitation of my gender, I explain, as I consider the cocktail menu.

We pose for a photograph with our roses, brandishing them like swords, grimacing. Somebody breaks theirs in two. I shove mine into the back pocket of my jeans. It sticks up behind me like an antenna.

We ask the DJ to turn up the music. He looks at us, looks at the empty dance floor, weighs up the odds that we will attract punters. Considers my antenna rose. He doesn't turn up the music.

We go back to the bar. There are games machines built into the counter, flatscreen panels with a credit card swiper at the side. I press some buttons experimentally, waiting to be served. Most of the men in our group sit with their backs to the animations. They keep their eyes firmly on the counter as they order their drinks. What's with the studs on her boobs, somebody mutters.

The girls scrutinise the animated silhouette closely for anatomical accuracy, make crude jokes, giggle uneasily.

I'm still waiting. The barmaid laughs with a male punter. Eventually she turns to me, her studded bosom still pointed at the men, like cannon on a warship. The smile evaporates. 'What can I get ya', she states. I hesitate. She takes a step back, time is money, whaddya want. I hurriedly order a margarita, immediately wish I'd got a martini, say nothing. She slaps it down in front of me without a word, takes my money.

I wonder if my fist will fit into the tip jar. It's not that far to the door.

Later, I signal to her for a glass of water. She ignores me. I wave. She glares at me, waves her hand at me. Her fingernails have elaborate designs stencilled on them, with some kind of black and gold stripe drawn between the quick and the white. It looks like her nails are dirty. 'I know you want a drink, but there's a line,' she says. Gathers some glasses together, bashes them about. 'I have to serve all these people over here.' She gestures at the two men at the other side of the bar, who are at that moment deep in conversation. 'It's no good yelling at me.'

She turns away from me, her glittering rump an emphatic full stop.

The girls waiting to be served spin on their barstools to face me, open-mouthed with indignant delight. 'You didn't even say anything!' They withdraw from the bar, put their wallets back in their bags. We engage in some collective harrumphing, stomping righteously in a pack as far as the door. We gesticulate angrily with our roses. Where does she get off. There's just no excuse for that kind of rudeness. What a massive tart.

The drinks are half price, though, somebody reasons.

We slink back in.

An August night in Reno

The wedding chapel isn't doing much business tonight. Arch of Reno. The neon flickers. Inside, the office is strip-lit. A middle-aged man in a shirt and tie sits behind a desk, his palms flat on the surface. Motionless. A wedding portrait sits on his desk. On the wall, a prominent sign: 'No food or drink'. The glass doors are patterned with peeling heart transfers. Portraits of satisfied customers are arrayed in the display window, in black and white, some with WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE emblazoned across them in Wild West typeface. A tux is displayed for rent. 'Se habla Espanol'. A large graphic of a gold trophy sits over the door. 'Best of Nevada 2003', it says, right beside the sign for the Reno Tattoo Company. This will last forever. 

Plastic sandwich boards outside advertise special offers. 

I turn back towards the hotel. I fall into step with a man pushing a pram. He's got a wide-brimmed baseball hat on, some scrappy facial hair, pale skin. Howya doin', he says. He's young. A battery-operated stereo is nestled amidst the toys and blankets in the tray of the pram. It's blasting generic American rock. I don't recognise the band. 

We make our way across an empty car park, trailing tinny distorted guitars in our wake, skirting around a roller derby practice session. We are eyed by lycra-clad middle-aged women with neon headbands. Some are striped with war-paint.

A pink-clad one-year-old sits bolt upright in the pram, chubby hands on the bumper. Wide blue eyes, fixed on the road ahead. She turns around to look at me. I wave. She doesn't respond. I make a face. The blue eyes blink. There's a drum fill, synthesized strings come in for the chorus. The high frequencies crackle. He drums his fingers on the handle of the pram. 

'Is this your daughter?' 

'Sure is, ma'am.' 

I ask how old she is. She's one, he tells me. I wave again. No response. 

He laughs, apologetically. 'Yeah, she's got that dead stare. Sometimes she smiles, y'know, but mostly she just stares at ya.' 

She's very sweet, I say. He thanks me.

'You have a nice evening, now.' Same to you, I say, turning into the foyer of my hotel. Good night now. They continue down the street, their raucous clamour fading. The child swivels and leans out of the buggy to keep her cool blue gaze on me. I look over my shoulder.

The Sky Mall

A vast array of potentially life-altering products is available for purchase on this very flight. We must be the luckiest bunch of people currently hurtling across the Atlantic in an overheated tin can. A singing toothbrush, which would play my favourite Justin Bieber hits as I brush, could be mine for a mere $14.99. It is part of the advertised collection of 'life-compatible electronics, designed to help you get things done!' All my other electronics are life-incompatible, I suddenly fear. I wonder if I have any headroom on my credit card.

The next page offers a selection of products that promise to maximise wellness. Well of course I am eager to boost my wellness by whatever means possible. Do they take me for some kind of fool? Perhaps I ought to equip myself with a handy device, designed to check for cardiac arrhythmias as I engage in strenuous activity 'on the golf course, while shopping or in front of TV'. Or I could expand the life expectancy of my dress shirt, by purchasing one with a detachable Velcro collar. It looks very smart indeed on the handsome model, who is holding his blazer by the hook at the collar, so that it is draped casually over his shoulder. He gazes sternly at the camera. A special spread of pain relievers features pictures of supine men in suits, smiling blissfully as they are pummelled and kneaded by an assortment of ergonomic plastic goods.

A beauty cream proclaims radical innovation in age-defence through the use of stem cells. Closer examination reveals the cells in question to be extracted from the stems of unspecified plants. I can't see any differences between the before and after pictures, close-ups of a woman's face. I peer closer. The after picture seems to hint at the beginnings of a moustache.

I want to read more about the stylish limited edition Coke-bottle cooler, which turns the classic Coca Cola bottle into a unique personal fridge, but a previous passenger has torn the advert out.

Baseball, blasphemy and bilious businessmen

Boarded. Tiny plane, drop-down movies in the aisle. I'm sitting next to the nun. She knows my grandmother's cousin. They're in the same order in Texas.

'Sure isn't it a small world, sister. A small world.' We shake our heads, marvelling at the smallness of the world. 'Oh, 'tis. Isn't it just. A small world.'

She's brusque. An Irish accent just about discernible under the acquired twang. Sentences are delivered in rapid fire. She'd have done well on Blackboard Jungle.

She realises she's in the wrong seat. 'I should be in in 16A.' And she's gone, like a smell of gas, bolting down the aisle without a backward glance. No, she doesn't need my help with her bags.

'Bye now, sister.' No response.

I acquaint myself with the location of my flotation device.

On the in-flight movie, American characters are saying American things, like 'bottom of the fourth', 'with all doo respect' and 'so help me God'. A baseball player gesticulates at his codpiece. Jackie hits a home run. A string orchestra erupts in soaring jubilation. Jackie nods at his coach, once, in close-up. His coach, on the distant sidelines, nods minimally in response. But really, I don't think they can actually see each other's faces. Jackie is very far away from the coach. I suppose it must have been coincidence that they both nodded at the same time, or something.

The occasional expletive is ridden over roughshod by a voiceover bleating a more acceptable alternative.
'You miserable son of a BIGOT.'
'I kicked that sucker right in the GRASS.'

My companion on the left, a businessman from Limerick who lives in Dublin (I'm still from Limerick though, I won't be supporting Dublin in the hurling or anything, Jesus no, not a chance), is pale under his tan. He was at his brother's wedding at the weekend. He spent last night in the pub, having a barbecue and a sing-song. Not feeling the best now, getting on the plane, he says, throwing his eyes up to heaven. Sure it has to be done, I say. Yerra yeah.

Was it a good sing-song? Ah it was, yeah. All my sisters play. Sure they're fierce talented altogether. Used to play myself, he says, piano and button-accordion. The cornet for a while, as well. That's a yoke a bit like a trumpet.

I say I play a bit too, bit of piano. Doing a PhD in music now. Is that so, he says. Fair play. I did music for the Leaving Cert myself. Is that right, I say. Fair play.