been on a sabbatical.”
Albie looked him over. “Heard about that,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to trust you. But then Lucky told me you were a Quincy man, and I knew I would get a fair shake. A Quincy man is a man of his word.”
Albie asked him about that old groundskeeper, the one who always had a cigar plug jutting off his lips. There had been this geezer who used to trim the shrubbery and leer at the freshman girls, and he decided this must be the codger in question, so he said yes. What the hell did he know about beloved campus characters? He was not the kind who went around befriending beloved campus characters.
School days. Albie asked him what dorm he’d lived in, what year did he graduate. He didn’t need to tell Albie that he’d lived next to the Winthrop Library. There was no need; Albie knew the layout of the quad and had his answer on hearing the name of the dorm. When he’d arrived at the hotel, he’d thought it was just coincidence. There were a lot of rich white people named Winthrop. But of course he of all people should have known that with names there is no coincidence. Only design, design above all. There were a lot of rich white people named Winthrop and they were all related, if not by blood then by philosophy. Old Albie’s great-granddad or what have you had been a big booster of his alma mater. Their alma mater. And now that name was supposed to bind them together. Like it always did.
. . . . . . . .
Some names are keys and open doors. Quincy was one.
It was the third oldest university in the country, founded on a Puritan ethic, structured on the classic British model, whatever that meant. It was prestigious. Quincy men formed the steel core of many a powerful elite, in politics, business, wherever there were dark back rooms. The sons and daughters of the famous attended Quincy and were anointed anew, for now they had two royal titles, one from the circumstance of their birth and the second from the four-year galvanizing process that occurred behind those ivy walls. The sons and daughters of the working class attended and became prows to pulverize the swells of new middle-class oceans. The presidents of foreign countries sent their sons to be educated at Quincy and they returned double agents, articulating American and Quincian directives in their native tongues. The great-grandsons of presidents would sit next to him in Modern European History and exude. Those who wanted to be president one day would leave the room when someone lit a joint. Superfamous academics and former cabinet members and Nobel laureates joined the faculty to be tenured and formaldehyded.
For the right amount of money, it was possible to get your name on a Quincy edifice. The university had a complicated pricing plan based on square footage versus prestige of placement, from the new pool to the new dining hall to the new astronomy building. Their names would live long, tattooed on the granite skin of an eternal university. Their kids would get in, too, no hassle. On Parents Weekend, the proud relatives swarmed the square and snatched up sweatshirts and mugs with the bright green Q so that everyone would know they were a satellite of the pulsing Q star and somewhere in the Heavens, too. It was a strong brand name, as they said in his business.
They reached out to him in his last year of high school. He had filled out a form the previous summer at the African American Leaders of Tomorrow conference, a weeklong program held in the nation’s capital where teenagers debated U.S. policy and tried to break curfew. The pamphlet that came in the mail was his introduction to the world of mailing lists, target marketing. Quincy believed in diversity. He applied. He got in, and ended up there the next fall. What clinched it for him was the Pre-Fresh Weekend, where they pulled out the stops to convince him to come. And come he did. He got laid for the first time at a party his freshman host
Albie looked him over. “Heard about that,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to trust you. But then Lucky told me you were a Quincy man, and I knew I would get a fair shake. A Quincy man is a man of his word.”
Albie asked him about that old groundskeeper, the one who always had a cigar plug jutting off his lips. There had been this geezer who used to trim the shrubbery and leer at the freshman girls, and he decided this must be the codger in question, so he said yes. What the hell did he know about beloved campus characters? He was not the kind who went around befriending beloved campus characters.
School days. Albie asked him what dorm he’d lived in, what year did he graduate. He didn’t need to tell Albie that he’d lived next to the Winthrop Library. There was no need; Albie knew the layout of the quad and had his answer on hearing the name of the dorm. When he’d arrived at the hotel, he’d thought it was just coincidence. There were a lot of rich white people named Winthrop. But of course he of all people should have known that with names there is no coincidence. Only design, design above all. There were a lot of rich white people named Winthrop and they were all related, if not by blood then by philosophy. Old Albie’s great-granddad or what have you had been a big booster of his alma mater. Their alma mater. And now that name was supposed to bind them together. Like it always did.
. . . . . . . .
Some names are keys and open doors. Quincy was one.
It was the third oldest university in the country, founded on a Puritan ethic, structured on the classic British model, whatever that meant. It was prestigious. Quincy men formed the steel core of many a powerful elite, in politics, business, wherever there were dark back rooms. The sons and daughters of the famous attended Quincy and were anointed anew, for now they had two royal titles, one from the circumstance of their birth and the second from the four-year galvanizing process that occurred behind those ivy walls. The sons and daughters of the working class attended and became prows to pulverize the swells of new middle-class oceans. The presidents of foreign countries sent their sons to be educated at Quincy and they returned double agents, articulating American and Quincian directives in their native tongues. The great-grandsons of presidents would sit next to him in Modern European History and exude. Those who wanted to be president one day would leave the room when someone lit a joint. Superfamous academics and former cabinet members and Nobel laureates joined the faculty to be tenured and formaldehyded.
For the right amount of money, it was possible to get your name on a Quincy edifice. The university had a complicated pricing plan based on square footage versus prestige of placement, from the new pool to the new dining hall to the new astronomy building. Their names would live long, tattooed on the granite skin of an eternal university. Their kids would get in, too, no hassle. On Parents Weekend, the proud relatives swarmed the square and snatched up sweatshirts and mugs with the bright green Q so that everyone would know they were a satellite of the pulsing Q star and somewhere in the Heavens, too. It was a strong brand name, as they said in his business.
They reached out to him in his last year of high school. He had filled out a form the previous summer at the African American Leaders of Tomorrow conference, a weeklong program held in the nation’s capital where teenagers debated U.S. policy and tried to break curfew. The pamphlet that came in the mail was his introduction to the world of mailing lists, target marketing. Quincy believed in diversity. He applied. He got in, and ended up there the next fall. What clinched it for him was the Pre-Fresh Weekend, where they pulled out the stops to convince him to come. And come he did. He got laid for the first time at a party his freshman host
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