Re: The Harmon Building
"What the fu--?!?" Tony Swales spits a mouthful of sandwich into the laundry room trash. "What is that...tofurkey? Why didn't you get me the philly cheesesteak, like I asked you to?"
"Because meat is murder, Anthony," Tony's roommate Geoffrey snarks between bites of his own sandwich as he sits cross-legged on top of one of the clothes dryer. "Soy products have all the protein the body needs, without all the toxins inherent in factory farm slaughterhouses. Plus it's rich in phyto-estrogens, which is a perfect antidote for toxic masculinity..." Tony sees Geoffrey's eyes, half-hidden by a shock of dyed-purple hair, widen in a look of dawning horror. "Oh -- I wasn't trying to imply that you...I mean, as an African-American...and race just being a social construct and all, I mean I don't..."
"Never mind," Tony says; he dumps the sandwich into a paper bag emblazoned with the logo for the "Big Damn Heroes" sandwich shop, then throws it all into the trash. "I wasn't that hungry anyway..."
Geoffrey stands up and busies himself with transferring his clothes from the washer to the dryer; Tony silently marvels that a person could be so dedicated to wearing nothing but black -- shirts, jeans, socks, even Geoffrey's underwear is completely without any contrasting or accenting colors. "Anyway, that Professor Sinclair is such a bitch!" Geoffrey says, trying to change the subject. "I can't believe she gave me a D- on that last paper, 'The Color of Magic'. I mean, it's obvious -- the world is about nothing but decay, and despair, and entropy; of course the color of magic is black!" A rare look of thoughtfulness crosses Geoffrey's face. "What did you write?" he asks.
Tony shifts his weight uncomfortably. He'd heard his classmates discussing their personal theories on the color of magic -- that it was green, the color of life and growing things; or that it was ferocious and wild and must therefor be red; or purple because it's the color of passion; and so on and so forth. But Tony had seen that every one of them had missed the entire point of the last lecture: that magic IS color -- the very concept of "color" is a human construct, meant to pigeonhole and set limits on something that was intrinsically undefinable and limitless. After all, what is "red"?, Tony had written -- when does it stop being red and start becoming orange or purple? Who gets to decide, and by what criteria? Tony was the only one who had gotten a passing grade, and he mentally assures himself that the paper is safely hidden away in his backpack.
A lot of Tony's classes, particularly the ones with Prof. Sinclair, had been like that -- there were genuine secrets, real truths to be teased out of the texts and lectures and handouts; but they almost never revealed themselves on the first pass, and they were invisible to people like Geoffrey, who took everything at face value and expected to be spoon-fed the secrets of the Universe. Tony suspected that the entire course was some sort of winnowing process, although he still wasn't sure what the department was looking for or what reward awaited those who proved themselves up to the challenge.
Before Tony can come up with a distraction from Geoffrey's line of questioning, a beefy young man in track pants and a tank top pokes his goateed face around the corner. It's Victor, the Resident Advisor for their floor, his ubiquitous clipboard in hand. "Hey, guys" he calls out, as upbeat as ever. "Don't mind me -- just doing the annual check on the alarm systems for this floor..." Standing on tiptoe, Victor folds down the "TEST" button on a carbon monoxide detector mounted on the wall, until it lets out a piercing shriek. Victor nods his approval, adds a check mark to the list gripped by his clipboard, then saunters off down the hall.
Tony stares at the detector for a moment, and can almost feel something shifting into place inside his brain.
"So? What did you put down?"
"Uhhh...I didn't do so well on it either," Tony explains. "I'm going to talk to the professor about making up for it with some extra credit..." Tony quickly shovels his own clothes out of the dryer and into his laundry basket, making sure that a clean hoodie and pair of jeans are at the top of the pile. "I gotta go," he says to Geoffrey. "Just remembered a study group I'm supposed to attend tonight..."
Before changing into his Street Demon persona and leaving campus, Tony sends a quick text to Goodguy:
"U there, Big G? It's Tony -- got a brain wave; going 2 meet U at party 2nite, 8pm"