The Crack of Dawn #772

5/31/2025

5/31/2025

Newsletter #772

The Crack of Dawn

Part II:

At Eastern Michigan University, Robin and I stood at the top of the hill where the school buildings were located. We hadn’t seen each other in several years, and I told her she looked fantastic, which she did; even better than when she was younger. I immediately suggested that we get a cup of coffee right there at the student union. Without hesitation, Robin agreed. As we sipped our coffee, I was quickly enchanted. She was beautiful, smart, well-spoken and funny. Miraculously, my back pain disappeared. As we effortlessly bantered and laughed, I worked my way around to the key question, “So, are you seeing anybody these days?” Robin sat up straight, the humor gone, and said seriously, “I just broke up with my boyfriend, Steve. It was really rough, and it got ugly. I’m not ready to get into another relationship.”

I nodded and said, “Is that so?”

That very day, Robin and I were rolling around on the bare mattress in my dorm room, madly making out. Robin kissed like it was the end of the world. It was fantastic and unbelievable. It was too good to be true.

In mid-kiss, Robin stopped abruptly and asked, “What time is it?”

I didn’t know. I didn’t know what day it was.

She said, “I have to go,” stood up, straightened her dress and looked for her shoes.

I said, “Where?”

“I just have to go. I’ll call you,” she said putting on her shoes.

“When?”

“Soon.” And she was out the door, just like that.

I was flabbergasted. Overwhelmed. It had been a helluva first day at school. I’d missed all of my classes.

She didn’t have to call. We saw each other at school the next day. We went straight back to my dorm room. We did this every day for a week, while still going to all of our classes. Robin still wasn’t putting out, but I thought that I was making significant progress in that direction. But man oh man, I was getting seriously frustrated. And Robin kept pulling that same nonsensical, melodramatic, “What time is it? I’ve got to go,” routine. What on earth could possibly be so pressing?

Not what, who. Her old boyfriend, Steve, that’s who. On that first day over coffee when Robin said, “I just broke up with my boyfriend; what she actually meant was, “I haven’t broken up with my boyfriend yet, but I intend to.” I asked, “And when do you intend to?” She said, “Really soon,” which she kept repeating it each day.

Robin then had the spectacular idea that Steve and I meet. I still chuckle. She actually said to me, “I think you’ll really like him.” Was she fucking kidding? I already hated him. But being a lovesick shmuck, I went along with this silly plan. We all met up at a bar.

Put mildly, Steve and I were very different characters. By then, my long hair had been shorn, but I still had a burly beard. I wore torn jeans (always torn on the right knee), a t-shirt with a pocket, a nice sport coat, often Cashmere (donated by dad) and Jack Purcell sneakers. I was a rocker, and thought disco sucked. Steve had embraced it. Clean-shaven, handsome, taller than me, with a broad, hairy chest that was disconcertingly exposed due to the fashions of the day.

My mind drifts back . . . to 1975, when the disco era first began. Donna Summer was singing, Love to Love You, Baby,” and having an orgasm. This was two years before Saturday Night Fever came out, but that film captured what the time period looked like. Big hair, platform shoes, and fake silk shirts unbuttoned down to the belly button.

That’s why I knew what Steve’s chest looked like. Steve was a menswear salesman, dressed in the newest, hippest, disco clothes, which I found ridiculous. Steve as a person was perfectly friendly, though possibly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But get this, just like Robin’s two older brothers, Steve had a lisp. Well, one needn’t be Sigmund Freud to see that there was some kind of issue at play.

OK, I had seen what I was up against. The question was, how long was it going to take Robin to shitcan this lisping disco clown?

Aye, there’s the rub.

Why should she make a decision? She had two men ardently wooing her at the same time. I suppose things could be worse. I don’t know about Steve, but I didn’t like the situation at all.

Right after 10^th grade I took the GED test (the Good Enough Diploma), passed, then two weeks later, having just turned 16, I started community college. Having always been a poor student, I surprisingly aced every class for two semesters. With all those As I made the Dean’s list. So, just for the hell of it, I applied to Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Both were places far enough away from home that I would have to move there. Getting out of my parents’ house was of the foremost importance. Of course, I chose U of M because it was the most elite university in the state. I chose EMU because my sister Ricki had gone there, had liked it a lot. She married and settled in Ypsilanti. In any case, Eastern promptly accepted me, and U of M didn’t respond.

So I went to Eastern.

And there I was, me and Steve vying for Robin’s affection. I devoutly believed that I was on my way in, and he was on his way out. Logically, it seemed to me, that with a little bit of patience—and plenty of kissing—I was going to win this competition. Plus, Robin and I had a history, we went all the way back to Tamakwa. Whereas Mr. Fancy-pants hardly knew her.

I felt secure. What could possibly go wrong?

About two-thirds of the way through my first, rather successful, semester at EMU, I was surprisingly accepted to the University of Michigan. I looked at the letter from U of M thinking, “Hey, thanks guys, better late than never.”

Here’s where I want to say that I made my fatal mistake. But were it not for this “mistake,” my life would have been drastically different. I could have just thrown that letter out. But being young and stupid, and still vainly seeking my father’s approval, I called him up on the phone. I told him proudly that I’d been accepted to U of M.

He said, “So what are you going to do now, Mr. Bigshot?”

I said, “I’m not going to do anything.”

Through the silence on the phone, I could feel him getting mad. “You’re not going to do anything? What does that mean?”

I explained, “Dad, I just moved here. I like it, and, you’ll see, I’m getting good grades again.” I didn’t mention Robin or any of that.

I should have known better, even by then. My dad went into his favorite mode when dealing with me (and a lot of other people). He proclaimed, “That’s stupid.”

Taken aback (though I don’t know why), I said, “What’s stupid?”

He said, “You’re stupid.”

I said, “I’m stupid? Dad, I just moved here to Ypsi. I’ve got all kinds of shit going on. Ricki lives here. I’m seventeen fucking years old, gimme a break. I’m not picking up all of my shit again and moving to Ann Arbor.”

That’s when my father gave me a piece of advice, bordering on an order, that changed to course of my life—but not in the way he meant it. Dad stated it like it was a given fact, “You get accepted to the University of Michigan; you go to the University of Michigan. That’s all there is to it.”

For my dad, there was the right way, and there was the stupid way. He was now challenging me. Did I want to be right; or did I want to be stupid?

Well, he was older, and theoretically, wiser than me. And he was my dad. He could be right. If you get accepted to Michigan, you go to Michigan. It sounded like it made sense. Therefore, contrary to my better instincts, I packed all my shit back in my VW, including that goddam TV, and moved five miles to Ann Arbor.

End Part II: