Free Morning Is a Long Time Coming by Bette Greene Page B

wanting people to be nice to you! Well, why don’t you sometimes try being nice to others? Give to them. Extend yourself. Bread upon the waters and all that.
    With my back propped against the wall, I ate slowly while making plans to assault Iris Glazer’s citadel. But how? With some startling piece of information. Such as? Oh, such as: Memphis should have had more people attending Yehudi Menuhin’s concert. In a city of three hundred and fifty thousand, barely two hundred roused themselves to go listen to a world-famous violinist!
    Classify that under important, but not generally conceived of as important. Startling! I need something startling. Well, I could comment on the random mix of architecture at Memphis State College and how it gives the place an unplanned, almost haphazard look. I sighed. Use same classification as previously indicated.
    At the opposite corner of the room, five people had turned expectant faces toward Iris. “Well, after I refused Melvin a date,” she told them, “for three straight Saturday nights do you know what that jerk did? He sent me one of those mushy greeting cards that said thinking of you. M. That’s how he signed it. Just M.”
    At last poor Melvin scores. He makes everybody laugh. Not so much laugh as snicker. Some citadel! This is what I’m so anxious to enter? Damn right! It sure beats standing here all alone. Okay, okay. But where’s all the startling stuff that’s going to pay the entrance fee?
    Don’t go thinking I don’t have something that would make Iris Glazer’s Melvin story sound like a retelling of Goldilocks. And what big teeth you have, Grandma! Why, I could tell them about myself. Hear ye ... hear ye! I, a guest of this beautiful house, am about to make a confession of startling consequence, but first lock up your valuables and hide your weapons. Because, ladies and gentlemen, you now see before you—tah-dah!—a genuine, appearing in person ... ex-con!
    Suddenly I’d be the hub of Iris’s cluster and soon neighboring clusters would swell the original one until everybody here belonged to a single cluster: mine. Each and every single one of them would be burning to know about me. “What’s your favorite weapon? Have you ever robbed a bank? Killed anyone recently?”
    I placed my now empty plate on the edge of the buffet table knowing that I would never willingly swap my permanent isolation for instant notoriety. It’s not that I’m convinced that isolation is somehow better or less painful. It’s only that I guess it’s ... more familiar.
    As though it were a very natural thing to do, I headed toward the circle that belonged to Iris. Between two guys there was room for maybe half a body, so using my shoulder as a wedge, part of me became very definitely part of the Iris group while more than half of me definitely wasn’t.
    When our hostess saw me (and she did see me), I hoped that she’d say something welcoming. Maybe introduce me to her friends, but first we had to wait until the fellow wearing white bucks finished telling his joke about the sailor and the movie star who are stranded alone on this desert island. When that joke finally ended, I laughed with theothers. Make believe you’re having a wonderful time. WHEEEeee ... !!!
    Then Iris (and I don’t understand how this linked in with the previous conversation) said, “Everybody says that the University of Texas sorority girls are the most beautiful in the world.”
    Was opportunity finally knocking for me? “I’m seriously considering,” I told her, “going to the University of Texas. Do you think it’s a good school?”
    Her eyes checked me over as though I were a raw recruit standing inspection. “That depends,” she answered, while her elbow poked into the ribs of the girl next to her. And the girl, as if on cue, fell into syncopated laughter with Iris. I waited for them to explain further. I waited ... wanting so much to join Iris and her pal inside the laughter.
    But instead I