You explain, although your name is Michael, you go by the name of Mick, but most Americans aren’t comfortable with that, and insist on calling you Mike.  You lose your regard for such people. 

   “Mick it will be,” I say.  “I’m Zola.”  

   “I love traveling,” I say.  You agree and turn in your front seat to face me. Your black hair frames your thin, white face and reaches just past your collar.  Your English accent warms to my Chicago twang.  We monopolize the conversation while the driver remains anonymous. I tell you how I visited New Orleans for Thanksgiving, New York City for semester break and now Ann Arbor for Easter. 

   You tell me how you toured much of England, including Nottingham Forest, and all of Wales, with its mystic hills and mountains and its tribal history rivaling my caged house of six sisters, one drunken father and one crazy mother. 

   You turn more, your arm over the front seat, as we compare family size and the influence of family and government shaping personalities. Even endless subjects end. The ride is long. I lean back and stare out the window. Later, I try to include the driver in our talk, but he answers in monosyllables.  Our conversation resumes and we talk most of the six hour drive north to Ann Arbor.  As we near my exit, I become silent.  Almost too late, you ask if you may call when you return from Toronto. I say, “Yes,” wave good-bye, thinking you will not call because what would a graduate student in industrial relations want with a freshman in psychology? 

   You call Monday night, your English accent strong as I hold the phone in the dorm room and remember my older sisters swooning over the Beatles. 

   “Pardon me? I didn’t hear you,” I say. 

   “Did you have a good trip?” 

   “Yes,” I say and ask about yours. 

   “It was good, but expensive.  Would you like to see The Battle of Algiers Wednesday night?” 

   You have seen the foreign film and give me background information about the political situation in Algeria as you hold my hand, walking down the Quad in the cool spring night to the Auditorium. The ivy covered buildings and budding green grass fill the night air. You explain, how, for seven years, the Algerians struggled for independence from France. “It’s an award-winning film.  You’ll like it, Zola,” you say. 

   The Battle of Algiers shatters me with its eloquent indictment of the established powers. Imperialism hasbeen a word before that film. Only now do I begin to understand how a nation can be reduced to slavery and exploitation. I cry.  You talk gently when we leave the Auditorium, then ask if all films make me cry. 

    “Not always,” I say. “It seems so much like Vietnam, and the French were there before us....” 

   You launch into a discussion of world politics and class struggle until I ask, “Where are we going?” 

   “For a beer, at the Red Lion Inn,” you say. 

   We walk through the University of Illinois’ nearly deserted campus greenery with its large, open-lawn quad and then trees along Green Street. I feed you the right questions and listen to your voice. We arrive at the pub, an English Tudor-like bar, with a wooden signpost painted with a dragon-like red lion swaying in the April breeze. 

   “Reminds me of home,” you say and escort me through the dimness to a table in the back, away from the loud rock band. You offer to help with my sweater, but I protest. You leave and return with two frosted mugs of beer. 

   “What are you thinking?” you ask.  “You look so serious.” 

   “I’m watching everyone,” I say. “Don’t you do that?” 

   “Too busy watching you,” you say and bring me to the dance floor.  We match our steps easily to each other. I tease you with a close swoop then a turn around you. When the band quits, you take my hand to the jukebox.  You tell me how much you love Junior Walker and the All Stars.  You chose three songs for a quarter and insist on dancing to “Keep on Running” although we are only the ones on the dance floor.  You hold me close. I swing my head from your face and brush my hair from my sweating brow.  “I wish more men danced!  Because I went to an all girls’ Catholic school, I had to go to this dance place called “The Hut” to meet boys.” 

   “My sister brought home her friends for me and me blokes. Seems I never liked the ones she picked out for me.” 

   The music changes and we find our table, drink the beer to cool off. We dance again when the band returns. Later, at the first sip of the third beer, I close my eyes. 

   “What are you doing?” 

   I keep my eyes closed for a moment longer, but feel your stare.  “Looking at pictures,” I tell you. I tilt my chair back, in love with the James Garner Maverick image of the gambler with boots, stirrups, only, a good beer in a good bar.  “Don’t you see pictures when you drink beer and close your eyes?” 

   “No. I have to keep my eyes open to see!” you smile.  “What kind of pictures?” 

   I lean forward, easing my chair onto the wooden floor.   

   “Thousands,” I confide, looking into the frosted mug of beer. “They race through my mind and I can’t tell exactly what they are, but they sure are nice.” I look into your blue eyes, “Are you certain you can’t see them?” 

   “Why? Is it important to you?” 

    I shrug, look into the crowed of long-haired men and women, patched jeans and Indian headbands, embroidered jackets, and then you.  “People think I’m crazy because of stuff like that. I was hoping you could see images too, and then I  
wouldn’t be so crazy.” 

   “I don’t think you’re crazy,” you say. 

   “Not yet,” I grin.  I lift my beer, touch the mug to yours and we toast, “To craziness.” 

   You pull your chair next to mine, our knees touch.  You place your hand onto my thigh. I cover it with mine and listen to your hitch-hiking stories. “I’ve never hitch-hiked, I say wistfully. 

   “Never? Surely you must? How do you get home for a visit?” 

   “I don’t go.  Christmas was horrible. I took the Illinois Central train to Chicago, then a bus to Des Plaines.”  

   You continue with another hitch-hiking story and your face brightens so much, I interrupt, “Let’s hitch-hike someplace, you and me, Mick.” 

   “Where would you like to go? 

   “We could go to Chicago for a day or so?” You hold my hand, twinning your fingers into mine so I feel brave.  “We could go up on a Saturday, stay with some friends of mine, and return Sunday. I can show you my hometown,” I say. 

   “Isn’t it too dangerous, like in The Untouchables,” you ask seriously. 

   I laugh, “You have that show on British TV?” 

   “Yes,” you say, adding how you’ve watched Eliot Ness’ endless struggle against Al Capone and other Chicago mobsters.  

   “If you don’t want to hitch back, Mick, we can take the train or the bus.” 

   “That’s a super idea, Zola,” you say and bring our two hands, clasped, onto the table. 

   “You mean you really will?” I ask. 

   “Sure.  Let’s have another beer to celebrate,” you say. 

   “This weekend then?” 

   “Yes, Zola,” you say and kiss my ear and stand to get us more beer.  

   “Another beer? I think I’ve had enough,” I say. 

   You kiss my forehead, “One more for the road.” 

   The fourth beer is stronger than all previous three.  When we dance more, you hold me tightly and I have no resistance to falling into your body as I had when I teenage danced at the Hut.  You are older, charming. I am in college and have been drinking. I know I should pull away from you as I feel something harden between us, but we are going to be partners in an adventure, much like I have been partners with one of my sisters when we smoked our first cigarettes or stole quarters from the Church by balancing the vigil light donations onto a knife and working them free of the impossibly thin slot that had allowed them in.  
  
   We leave the pub and walk down Green Street, towards our dorms: your grad dorm is across from my cod-ed undergrad dorm. “Will you spend the night with me?” you ask. You squeeze my hand as I think. You interrupt my thoughts.  

   “We’re going to spend Saturday night together in Chicago.” 

   “This is our first date,” I protest. 

   “We don’t’ have to do anything,” you say. You stop a block from our dormitories and passionately kiss me. I have been though that swooning French kissing, bodies locked into each other.  After the difficult weekend in Ann Arbor, I am sill a virgin. I am saving myself for my first love while my fear of pregnancy makes saying “No” easy. 

   “You’d make me happy if you’d say, ‘Yes’,” you whisper into my ear. 

   “Why not?” I say.  “But we can’t do anything,” I add conspiratorially.  We laugh until you hush me as we walk down the grad dorm hallway, then into your single room with a shared bath annexed to another single. 

   You refuse to let me sleep with my clothes on, but don’t argue my underpants and bra off. I climb into your elevated bed and marvel at your blue cloth sheets. 

   “One of the few things I brought from my blimey home,” you say. 

  You raise your arm, welcoming me into your narrow bed. I don’t want to snuggle too close because I don’t want to lead you on, pretending I will when I won’t, but the bed is narrow.   

   “It’s lucky we are both small,” I say.  You ask for my measurements, then apologize. 

   “36-26-36. Perfect figure, huh? ”I ask. 

   “In more ways than one,” you say.  Your hand flows towards my hips and then towards my front. I remove your hand.  

   “None of that now, or I’ll have to get dressed and go home across the street.” 

   We kiss.  Reluctantly, I turn towards you and feel unfaithful to Shawn, my first love, who I have done this same thing with, but who is not here now. I push you away after your hand again pushes aside the elastic of my underpants. 

   “I have to sleep, I breathe heavily.  “I have a ten o’clock class.” 

    “I’m sorry, Zola. All right.  I’ll set the alarm for you, righto!”