Chapter 7: Getting Into the Swing

August 1981, Chicago, Illinois

We ended up not getting crazy that night. We made love and fell asleep in each other’s arms. We woke up the next morning and repeated what looked like was going to be the pattern for the school year — I jogged and Elyse showered, I showered, and then we ate breakfast.

“Bye, Honey! Have a good day,” she said again.

I headed to IIT and after parking I walked into the Stuart Building for Computer Science 200. I’d been permitted to skip CS100 because I already had extensive programming experience. I walked into a normal classroom and sat in the middle seat in the front row. The class was about 90 percent guys, though a cute brunette sat next to me. Next to her was one of the two other girls in the class, a dark brown-skinned girl with long black hair. If I had to guess, she was Indian, but I wasn’t sure.

Right at 8:00am, the professor, Jon Kwiatkowski, walked in. He called the roll, handed out the class syllabus and computer account information, then immediately began lecturing. We’d be using PASCAL and would have a weekly programming assignment to implement the theories that we would learn in the course textbook on data structures and algorithms. I’d paged through the book after I’d bought it and saw that I’d figured out many of the concepts on my own, but now I would have names to associate with them.

I chuckled when the assignment was handed out at the end of the class. It was to create a program that would search data for matches and print the results. I had several BASIC programs that did that already for the business applications I had written with Beth. If the rest of the assignments were like the first one, I’d breeze through this class with no trouble. I just had to learn PASCAL, but it didn’t look all that hard and Professor Kwiatkowski had spent most of the lecture talking about how it differed from FORTRAN IV and BASIC.

In addition to the assignment, we’d have a project that had to be completed by the end of the semester. It would involve creating an inventory and ordering system. I already had one, and I was sure the class was going to be even easier than I thought when I saw the first assignment. When class was dismissed, the brunette stopped me and introduced herself and her friend, who was indeed Indian.

“Hi, I’m Jackie Phelan and this is Papiya Subramani. We noticed you smile and chuckle when the assignments were handed out. Do you already know how to program? I mean beyond CS100?”

“I’m Steve Adams. Nice to meet you both!” I smiled. “I’ve been writing programs since eighth grade and have my own software company. Why?”

“I’m in the Architecture program and Papiya is studying Mechanical Engineering. We have to take CS100 and CS200 as part of our requirements. Supposedly, it will help us with the CAD/CAM machines.”

“CAD/CAM?” I asked, having not heard those terms before.

“Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing systems. I can use them for basic drafting and designing buildings and Papiya uses them for doing mechanical drawings.”

“Drafting?” I asked, because I was completely clueless about architecture or mechanical engineering.

“Drawing blueprints or plans. But we’re wondering if you would want to be our partner for the class project? It says we have to work in groups of three and we want to work together, but we want someone who is a CS major on the team as well.”

“Sure. Considering you’re the first two students I’ve actually spoken to here at IIT. This is my second day of class.”

“Oh! We thought you were a Sophomore because this is a second level class. We’re both Sophomores.”

“Nope. I’m a Freshman. Is that a problem?”

“Not really. If you’re in this class, you obviously have to know your stuff. They usually don’t let anyone skip CS100, from what I hear. They say Doctor Bauer is a real prick about it.”

“I hadn’t heard that. When I talked to my counselor, he had me send in a reference from a guy I wrote a bunch of programs for, plus a copy of a newspaper article about a program I wrote. My High School computer teacher wrote a letter as well, stating among other things that I was the main teaching assistant for the computer classes in High School.”

“It sounds like we picked the right guy, Jackie!” Papiya said, uttering her first words.

“I agree,” Jackie said. “Which dorm are you in, Steve?”

“I live off campus in Hyde Park with a friend of mine from my hometown in Ohio.”

“Off campus? That’s not allowed for Freshman who aren’t from Chicago.”

“But I am from Chicago! I moved out of my parents’ house before school started and my personal home address is my apartment in Hyde Park. I provided the Chicago address in June, so, for the purposes of IIT’s rules, I’m living at home.”

“Now that’s cool! Does your roommate also come to IIT?”

It dawned on me at that moment that I needed to figure out how to explain the situation. In reality, I’d probably just do it the same way I’d done before.

“She goes to the University of Chicago,” I said, surprising them. “Elyse, that’s her name, has been a friend since my Sophomore year. We decided to get a place together when my now ex-girlfriend blew off our plans to come to IIT and decided to go to Stanford instead; so now I’m sharing a two-bedroom apartment with my friend Elyse.”

“So you’re living with a girl but not living with her? Kind of like Three’s Company?” Papiya asked.

I’d seen like two random episodes of the show, but I knew the premise. A guy rooming with two girls he wasn’t involved with. He pretended to be gay so that the landlord would allow it.

“Something like that. But I don’t have to pretend to be gay because my landlord doesn’t care,” I chuckled.

I had the meeting with Frank to get to, so the girls and I exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet after class the following week to begin planning the project. They asked if they could call with questions about the programming assignments and I said yes. We said goodbye, and I headed to The Bog to meet Frank. I saw him sitting in the corner with a beer and a sandwich. I ordered a burger and fries with a Coke and when they were ready, I took them and walked over to the table.

“Hey, kid,” Frank said when I reached the table. “You ready to go to work?”

“Absolutely,” I replied firmly as I sat down.

“Good. Let me explain the plan.”

It was immediately clear that I wasn’t yet fully trusted, and that didn’t surprise me in the least. Even with Don Joseph vouching for me, these guys had no idea who I was. They would provide me the money to purchase the computer equipment, test it, then show a guy named Richie how to set everything up and use the program. I’d do this at the Cicero house. If there were problems or questions, Richie would get in touch with me. Frank pushed an envelope across the table. I slipped it into my leather book bag and we finished our lunches.

After lunch, I went to the basement of the Stuart Building to get my computer account set up. I was surprised to see that I would have to use punch cards to enter my programs. That meant not being able to edit, but having to throw out cards that had errors, typographical or otherwise. I wondered if there was an alternate solution. I went to the TA office and asked. In order to have any other option, I’d need an account on the Pr1me Computer that they had and permission to use something called RJE to submit my programs to the Sperry/UNIVAC computer.

I asked how to get an account and was told that I’d need to be in a class that used it, pay for it, or be a TA. I asked about being a TA and was told I needed to talk to Doctor Bauer, but he only ever hired Juniors and Seniors. I figured if he let me skip CS100, maybe he’d let me be a TA. It couldn’t hurt to ask. I figured I’d need to at least have CS200 completed so that I could help students, but that might be as soon as after this semester.

I also asked at the desk about purchasing a computer account and when I saw the cost, I decided that I’d use punch cards for the semester! It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford it, but I couldn’t see paying over a hundred dollars for an account just to avoid using punch cards. I knew from reading the course descriptions that my Assembly Language programming class the following semester would be on the Digital VAX system, so at least that wouldn’t need punch cards.

I went to the bookstore and bought a couple of cartons of punch cards, which I would keep in my trunk. My plan was to type the programs into the text editor, print them out, then type the programs from those printouts. It wasn’t the most efficient process to go about it, but it would work. Then, when the program finished, I could evaluate the output and fix any bugs. Unfortunately, rather than just typing ‘RUN’ as I did on my computers at home, I’d have to hand a deck of punch cards to a computer operator who would load them, run the program then return the cards and printout in an assigned mailbox. In some ways, I felt I’d taken several steps backwards.

I headed to my car and, and after stashing the cards in the trunk, I drove home. The apartment was empty when I walked in, so I went to my room, changed into shorts and a t-shirt and checked the envelope I’d received. There was a sheet of paper and a stack of hundred-dollar bills. There was also a smaller envelope that had my weekly pay. I reviewed the sheet of paper, which had Richie’s phone number and instructions for getting in touch with him. I called the number, identified myself as ‘The Kid from Milford’ as instructed, and we agreed to meet at the house in Cicero on Tuesday of the following week. That would give me enough time to get the computer.

I called the computer store I’d seen on Michigan Avenue by Water Tower Place and made sure they had everything I’d need in stock. They said they’d hold everything for me to pick-up on Thursday afternoon. I also asked about an Atari 800 and they said they had them in stock. I’d wanted to get one because in addition to being a regular computer, it could play video games from cartridges. I let them know I wanted one and asked them to hold it with the other equipment.

On a lark, I asked if they knew of a PASCAL compiler for the Apple ][ and they said they actually had one. Then he told me the price — $500 — and I dropped that idea quickly. The salesman did say that there was a version for the TRS-80 that only cost $100. I had him add that to my order. That was much more reasonable and would let me test my programs before I actually had to type out the punch cards.

I sat down at my computer desk to start working on my first programming assignment and was about halfway done when Elyse walked in.

“Hi, Honey, I’m home!” she giggled.

That looked to be the pattern she was going to follow, almost like playing house.

“Playing house, Elyse?” I asked with a smile as I got up to kiss her, chastely, on the cheek.

“Why not? We’re pretty much doing everything a husband and wife would do. I’d say this is good practice for both of us, no matter what happens.”

“That’s true. In fact, other than the wild night, I don’t think you’ve used your bed!”

“Not true,” she replied with a smile. “I took a nap the other day, remember? Is that an concern? I think I’ll have to use it on Saturday night, though.”

“That’s true, given Kathy will be here. Unless you want to join us!” I smirked.

“If you ask me to, I will. I told you. Anything,” she said, her voice toned down. “But I’d really rather not, for the reasons you already know.”

“Keeping it quiet and you have no interest in threesomes.”

“Right,” she said. “But, if you and Kathy want that, just tell me. But there are limits.”

“I don’t think so. I think your plan of keeping this under wraps makes a lot of sense. And I don’t want you to do anything you don’t really want to do.”

“Thank you,” she said, hugging me tight and earning me a quick peck on the lips.

I went back to my programming assignment, and she took out her homework. We worked until dinner, and then after dinner we relaxed with some tea.

“So, have you met anybody interesting yet?” Elyse asked.

“Just two girls in my computer class. One’s an architecture student and the other a mechanical engineering student. They have to take two computer classes as part of their requirements. They asked me to be on their team for the class project once they found out my background.”

“I bet! Sounds like you’ll end up doing most of the work, though.”

I laughed, “The project is basically something I’ve already written. One of those disks in that caddy over there has pretty much the entire project, completed. I just have to translate it from BASIC to PASCAL. I might have to spend maybe 5 hours on a project that is supposed to take 40.”

“Oh wow. So they really lucked out!”

“Yeah. It’s too bad, because they’re both kind of cute!” I teased.

“I won’t stand in your way. You know that. If you want to bang them, go for it.”

“I was thinking more of Kara,” I said.

“You’re going to have to make some decisions. You can stay faithful to her, after a fashion, or you can have fun.”

“Elyse, being with you is about all the fun I can handle! I kind of wish you had clued me in beforehand. I might not have asked Kathy for the arrangement we have.”

She considered that for a moment, then answered, “No, this is better. It gives you a public outlet. I think you need that. Someone you can kiss on dates outside the apartment, that kind of thing. If we go out in public, it has to be as just friends.”

“OK. I’m just really curious why you want to keep this secret.”

“There are two main reasons. First, my parents have to believe we are just friends. Otherwise, they would never let me stay here. Even a hint that we’re fucking would be enough. Second, I don’t think Kara would tolerate us having a public dating relationship. From what you said, she’ll barely tolerate us having sex from time to time. I don’t think you want her to know just how kinky I am.”

“You’re probably right on that last one,” I said. “She already has something of a complex about sex because she knows the other girls do things she doesn’t.”

“My other reason is, if you and Kara do get together, I don’t want people talking about us in front of her. That wouldn’t be fair to her. And I also don’t have to try to explain our relationship if that happens. Now, if she doesn’t come to Chicago or doesn’t move in for some reason, then we can reconsider.”

“Practical as always!”

“Hey, just because I’m a sex maniac with some kinks doesn’t mean I’m not practical and simple in how I live my life.”

“Some kinks? Maybe I should ask Melanie to borrow her books again. I think I missed some stuff!”

Elyse laughed in a good-natured way, “Books? Like sex manuals? I never saw any. I just got personal instruction!”

I decided it was safe to reveal a few things to Elyse.