D.C. as Theater

Continued from The Always Rising of the Night.

I met Andy B. in the fall of 1983 at the beginning of our freshman year.

We lived on the same floor of Xavier Hall, a three-story utilitarian brick box-like residential building, many decades old, that was part of a quadrangle of buildings on city block detached from the main campus, called East Campus. The quadrangle consisted of a large modernist classroom building on the side closest to campus, which then wrapped around the block in a sequence of other buildings and residence halls of varying size and construction, such that they formed a solid wall with an open courtyard in the interior of block. The quadrangle allowed one to go from one building to another of East Campus without going out onto the city streets, but in order to do almost anything interesting outside one's rooms, one had to outside the quadrangle onto the city streets, and usually then walk to the main campus.

Xavier was the least conspicuous and the least interesting building forming the wall of the quadrangle. It was on the south side of block along Prospect Street, which was the last East-West street of Georgetown going south until one started going down the steep bluff to M Street and the river. The current entrance of the building was off the interior courtyard of the quadrangle, but years before the original entrance had been at street level on Prospect Street. The door to the street bore remnants of its one time having been the front entrance but now it looked nondescript without any indication of what was inside, which happened to be the basement recreational lounge of the dorm. By the 1980s these doors served only as an emergency exit and were opened only on move-in or move-out day. Normally one had to enter from the interior courtyard, using a university ID.

The oriignal doors to the basement lounge were open like this at the moment that my uncle pulled up the curve, having driven me into D.C. for freshmen move-in. I had been amazed at his ability to find his way through the maze of the narrow streets of Georgetown thick with row houses. I couldn't fathom that he knew how to get through it so easily.  We had been warned not to park along Prospect, but he ignored that, parking his car in an emergency zone long enough to help me carry my bags inside and up to room. He barely had time to say goodbye and wish me good luck in a rite-of-passage avuncular way before heading back to his car.

I quickly found my room on the first floor, indicated by the cardboard signs with our names and our hometowns. Beside each hometown was a national flag or state flag emblem---my case a tiny Colorado flag. The wooden institutional door, which looked to have been painted over many times, was already open. A pair of basic metal bunkbeds were against the wall and two small wooden desks along the wall were the only furniture. A single narrow window looked out in the narrow space between Xavier and the next building, affording a tableau of grimy brick masonry streaked sunlight that had made its way into the gap between the buildings.

I had not been expecting luxury for my freshman dorm room, but from moment I saw it, the idea of spending my freshman year trapped in this dinghy cell of a room caused me great anxiety.. How was I supposed to stomach spending any time there studying? There was no view, no natural light. A single dim light hung from overhead. I would complain about it from the beginning, to anyone who would listen, including my roommate, who was already in the room.

His name was John, a soft-spoken dark-haired kid from Maryland. I recognized him from having met him the previous week. Before the semester had started, he had contacted me to relay his parents' kind invitation to stay overnight at their home in Prince Georges County, just outside D.C.. They had taken me into Baltimore to have dinner at the Inner Harbor, my first time in that city. Almost nothing compared to the thrill of a new city.

John was Armenian. He didn't mention that. I don't think it ever came up. I only realized it years later from his last name.

I shook his hand and we picked out our beds. He had already put his bags on one of the bunks, but he generously said if I wanted that particular one, he would gladly give it to me. He wanted to make sure he hadn't gotten off on a bad foot. I assured him he hadn't.

The idea of spending a year trapped in this kind of dinghy cell of a room, however, caused me great anxiety from the second I got through the door. My roommate nodded along to my raving, giving me a quiet confirmation that he agreed with me. Looking back I see nothing but my pride and his virtue.

I hadn't seen Charles since Colorado. After he moved into his own room, he came over to find me in Xavier on that first day. He laughed heartily when he saw my room, suggesting he had gotten a much better deal with his own room. His was on Main Campus in a large complex called New South that had its own dining hall that looked out over the valley of the Potomac upstream from the Key Bridge. East Campus didn't even have its own dining hall, so we would have to walk over to Charles' dorm to use our meal cards when we wanted to eat.  I griped at the injustice of it, the way only a young person can gripe. Charles enjoyed telling his new friends in New South how lucky they were compared to ancient nurses quarters at Xavier.

Yet I, along with every student in Xavier---at least those on the first two floors---had requested to be there. Earlier that summer the university had mailed orientation packets to the incoming freshmen that included an inquiry as to our residence preferences. Freshmen were required to live in the dorms. Our responses would used to match us with roommates and assign us our dorm rooms. Having to do things differently than other people, I had selected, for my first choice of residence,  the "Arts Hall," a theme residence for those interested in the various arts. Georgetown didn't have dedicated arts programs. It was widely circulated knowledge that the basketball players---back then Georgetown was a basketball powerhouse---were among the small group of fine arts majors. People shared stories of seeing the famous center for the team, who went on to become a professional star, walking around campus with a sketch pad under his long arms.

Few people who wanted to pursue that kind of college activity as their main focus---the East Coast kids from the class of kids who did that kind of thing---probably would have chosen to go to elsewhere in most cases, unless they had some specific reason for going to Georgetown. Some people like being the odd person out, and are more comfortable in a small program, but the programs were tiny.. Georgetown had a choir, and they probably put on plays.

It sounded like a good idea at the time, to throw my lot in with this crowd of possible freaks. My degree requirements would barely allow any variation of electives in the first two years, beyond one's choice of foreign language to start studying, and also the freshman theology requirement. The choices for the latter were the Bible as Literature, a History of the Catholic Church, and a semester of an upper division history class on Asian civilization, covering eastern religions. I chose the third option, not even consider the other two. I assumed they were for strait-laced students whose parents wrote big tuition checks , and who would do the normal thing one was supposed to do as one went through college.

Residency in the Arts Hall, the packet materials warned, was not guaranteed even if one selected it as one's first choice. One had to apply and be accepted. I seriously pondered whether they would let me in. I didn't feel particularly talented in anything I'd done as far as high school arts activities. I wasn't someone that one would have considered as an artsy student, the way one would have applied that label to others. On the stage I'd been a great ham. I had abandoned violin years ago. I was a passable baritone who mostly stayed in key but who couldn't read music. The last design art class I'd taken was in tenth grade. The East Coast kids would probably be well-trained in whatever their various arts had been. I'd be a poseur. But I could always fake it, at least in the application. Perhaps at some point I'd try my hand at one of the campus activity groups, the way I did in high school.

It would be fun, I thought. The idea of being in a normal dorm, with normal kids, terrified me.

To complete the application to the Arts Hall, one had to select a box indicating which of the various arts was the principal category of art that one found most interesting as a pursuit, and then briefly explain why. The choices included Music, Dance, Visual Arts, and Theater.

It seemed inconsequential at the time---I never took it seriously---but now in some weird way it makes things make sense to me. I picked Theater.