Tales of Oxford

So, if any of the readers know me, or my friends Avè or Ana, you will no doubt have at least heard of (and are probably sick of) our stories of our short summer at Oxford. But if you can still stand to hear more, here's another.

I've been dragging my feet about posting this story, because I don't think it is entirely quite there yet. I'm toying with the last few sentences of the ending, and my description of Ana, which I think comes off a little wooden. But I'm hoping that by posting it, I will suddenly be fired up with a desire to get to work. Yeah.

Also, hell yeah I used a footnote in a short story. Occupational hazard.


The Portly Porter

When I arrived at the heavy wooden doors of University College, my appearance could only be described as a “hot mess.” I arrived after staying up all night on my first transatlantic flight, experiencing for the first time the joy that is going through customs, catching a bus to Oxford, and finally trying to negotiate my 60+-pound wheeled luggage over 1,000-year-old cobblestones. Sweaty and out of breath, I approached the porter’s window to receive instructions on what to do next. A portly man with graying hair and an amused expression asked, “You all right then?” After assuring him that I would be great once I got to my dorm room, he pointed me in the right direction and offered me the keys. I took them and looked blackly at my suitcase. “Remember to lift with the legs,” he suggested helpfully, and then laughed.

I had come to University College on a summer study abroad program. The University had emptied of its own students, and rented its space to my college, Emory, along with the University of Virginia and Southern Methodist University’s law school. After settling in my room and making myself presentable, I ventured out to the program’s introductory garden party, being held in a precisely manicured courtyard. At the party, I picked up a tall glass containing dark and spicy liquor served ice cold and garnished with cucumbers. It tasted strange and bitter, but I continually sipped it so that I would have something to do with my hands and an excuse for being silent. I surveyed the scene, first coolly, and then with increased desperation, looking for a conversation to join. I hit pay dirt when I overheard a few women discussing Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Fantastic! I thought. I can discuss the shit out of that book.

As I approached, a black girl with long braids and muscular arms was applauding Morrison’s use of imagery in the novel. I was about to mention that I particularly liked the passage about Baby Suggs’s fascination with color, when a man in a gardener’s uniform appeared at the girl’s elbow. “Anyone seen the gatekeeper?” he asked.

“No, but I am the Keymaster,” the girl said with a mischievous grin, referencing an exchange from the film Ghostbusters. The gardener looked confused and walked away as I began to laugh.

“Keymaster, huh?” I said, “you sure don’t look like Rick Moranis.” A tall Latina girl to my right began cracking up. The three of us immediately ditched Toni Morrison to discus the hilarity of Bill Murray and other 80s pop culture references. Slowly, all of the other women who had been standing near, trying to participate in the Beloved conversation, drifted away.

The Keymaster, Avè, had an eclectic personality. She had been the homecoming queen at her San Antonio high school despite the fact that she was also a self-described “band geek.” She also was the most-desired guest at a host of Emory parties, but still got every single reference I made to the B-movies I spent my Saturday nights watching. The tall girl, Ana, was like a more laid-back version of the Fonz—cool, yet imminently approachable. She was also a chameleon. Although she appeared—and for the most part was—all sweetness and light, there were moments where she would quietly unleash a torrent of wicked humor that would have us rolling with laughter, while nearby people not in on the joke looked at us with confused expressions. In short, both of these girls were much, much cooler than me, and I desperately hoped that neither of them would notice until at least the end of the summer.

I particularly admired Avè for the adroit way in which she interacted with others. Just about everyone I met, from professors, to librarians, to bartenders felt comfortable speaking with her as if she were their best friend. So naturally, I was not at all surprised when I learned she had befriended the man I had come to think of as the “portly porter,” and whose real name was apparently, “Dusty.” I speculated that a person named “Dusty” was more likely to be a 1930s Oklahoma ranch hand than a 1990s British security guard. “No joke,” Avè said with her most serious face, “this man is awesome.”

We went to speak with Dusty at the porter’s window, and he rewarded us with his repertoire of slightly blue jokes about Texas and Winnie the Pooh. He gave us the inside scoop on the college and the strange and sometimes perverse actions of students which he had been called to deal with over the years. Hanging out with Dusty was certainly more interesting than another night of sitting in the pub watching SMU girls totter on the flagstone floor in 4 inch heels or listening to Emory boys discuss philosophy as only drunk and self-important college students can. We often returned to the window for chats. On one occasion, Dusty felt comfortable enough to show us his anchor tattoo from his British Navy days. Luckily, he did not feel comfortable enough to actually show us the tattoos on his chest, but he did inform us that those above his nipples alternately read “sweet” and “sour.”

During one of our chats, Ana, a hopeless guidebook addict, was complaining that she wanted to see more attractions in the area--especially Blenheim Palace, in nearby Woodstock—but that it was difficult to get there by bus. Dusty immediately offered to drive us there on his upcoming day off. Without really thinking about it, we happily agreed.

Two days later on a Sunday afternoon, we all piled into Dusty’s tiny car. He pulled out of the college’s gates, cleared the pedestrian and bicycle clogged streets of downtown Oxford, and turned onto a curvy country road. The drive was a little nervewracking. I’m not sure if it was simply my disorientation at being on the “wrong” side of the road, or whether Dusty drove faster than was strictly necessary, perhaps trying to give us a quick thrill. Regardless, as promised, he delivered us to the Palace. It seemed large, and—at least to Avè and Ana—impressive. I was pretty much just along for the ride. After a childhood rife with “historic” vacations, and a mother obsessed with estate tours, I would go blank at the mere mention of antique wallpaper preservation. While they marveled over the Palace, I spent most of my time wandering along the lawn and pondering why the site’s operators allowed sheep to roam it willy-nilly. Dusty neither sheep-watched with me, nor looked over the rest of the Palace with Avè and Ana, preferring to sit on the hood of his car.

After Ana and Avè sated their sight-seeing desire, we told Dusty we were ready to go. He asked if we’d like to come back to his house for dinner. We agreed and stopped at a take out curry house to order some dinner. Dusty bought it and also treated us to some neon-pink wine coolers of indeterminate flavor from the liquor store next door. He told us that we could go wait in the car while he paid.

Once back inside, Ana looked uneasy. She paused, looked as if she were about to say something, and then paused again. Finally, she asked, “did anyone else see Felicia’s Journey[1]?” I solemnly nodded. I had become increasingly uncomfortable with the situation, imagining what my mother would say if she knew what I was up to.

I posited how stupid we would look in the newspaper if he killed us, and half in jest, but half seriously read an imaginary article out loud, “Three young tourists dead. Before being bludgeoned to death, the young women were last seen allowing a middle-aged man that they barely knew buy them wine coolers. They then left with him to go to an undisclosed location.”

“Come on,” Avè said with an expression that one usually sees directed at errant children. “Quit acting like that. You know Dusty is not a serial killer. He’s probably just a little lonely. He’s been really great to us, so knock it off.” Her statement rang true. It hadn’t occurred to me that the usually gregarious Dusty might be lonely, or that he had offered to take us out, not simply because he wanted to do us a favor, but because he didn’t want to spend his day off alone.

Instead of putting me at ease about Dusty, Avè’s words made me feel even more uncomfortable. Thinking of his loneliness reminded me of how lonely I had been in the months before my time with Avè and Ana. In the preceding semester, my best friend had moved out of our apartment to study in Washington State, my two other good friends at Emory had dropped out and moved across the country, and I had been hopelessly in love with a boy—not even my boyfriend—who was hundreds of miles away. But in Oxford, the tables had turned. My life had regained inside jokes, adventure, and a sense of belonging. I didn’t recognize Dusty’s loneliness because I didn’t want to. My gut reaction was to recoil from him as if he were contagious.

As I sat on Dusty’s worn sofa in his small, but well-kept flat that night, I fought against my overpowering desire to distance myself from him. I tried, but couldn’t exactly recall how I had participated in a free and easy flow of conversation with him mere hours earlier. Luckily, my participation was not required. In true form, Avè asked a few well-chosen questions and soon had Dusty telling us all about the people in his photos, his little dog, and his Navy days. As she and Dusty, and eventually, Ana, chatted and laughed, I slowly began to relax, and fell into the rhythm of their conversation. Once again, my social awkwardness was hidden by the efforts of my more adept friends, and I was grateful.

As I thought about my intense reaction to the situation the next day, I found myself having trouble reconciling Dusty, the lonely divorced man, with the outgoing Dusty I knew. What had caused him to get there? How could someone so charming be alone? More importantly (to my young and self-absorbed mind), can I prevent that from happening to me? But, I soon had classes to attend, and sightseeing to do, and beer after beer to throw back. It turns out that there is only so much self-analysis that a 20 year-old can manage while in the midst of an extended holiday. And in the end, I found wisdom in an unlikely place when I remembered Dusty telling us about his nipple tattoos. Life is sometimes sweet, and sometimes sour.



[1] Felicia’s Journey is a movie, based off a book of the same name. In it, an Irish teenager heads to England to find the boy that got her pregnant. She is befriended by an older and seemingly friendly British man who eventually tries to rape and kill her.