Chapter 23: TOUGH ROW TO HOE

College is hard. The classes are hard, even the easy ones.

I have to take Calculus, eventually, and everyone agrees I am not ready for Calculus so I’m enrolled in Pre-calculus, a remedial course. I’m not ready for Pre-calculus either. I’m struggling to keep up.

I could have tested out of Spanish. Testing out doesn’t give you any credits, it just allows you to take other courses instead. I am taking Spanish because it’s an easy two credits. I expected it to be easy but it’s not. Castilian Spanish and Mexican street Spanish barely seem to resemble each other. The grammar is difficult.

I threatened to learn to write English someday, as a joke. Freshman English Composition is hard. Laborious. Intensive. I’m required to keep a theme notebook and everyday, write a short story, an essay, or a report article. All short stories isn’t allowed, I have to write a mix. It’s hard and time consuming.

Biology should be easy for a farm boy. Hahaha, wrong!

Fortunately, my house-mates are very helpful. They’re upper classmen or is it classwomen? They understand freshman woes, having survived it themselves. I have to learn how to learn, they say.

Freshmen aren’t allowed to live off campus in private apartments or frat houses. They can live at home or in the dormitory, no options. I showed the bureaucrats at the university registration office the deed to my house, which is my home and place of business, Ψ Φ Θ.

It’s even on my new driver’s license as home address, for krisakes! Only threatening legal action, caused them to defer me from the necessity of living in a dorm. Generally, I like and approve of that rule, but not applied to me. Who wants to live with a bunch of stressed out, weepy, slow to adapt, freshman girls? I can barely tolerate myself!

Have you ever heard there’s something special about French girls? Three varieties of French girls live with me in the Sci-Fi house. One, a Cajun girl from Louisiana, another a Caribbean island girl from Martinique, and the third, a Canadian girl from Montreal. I don’t think they speak the same language.

I am learning French through listening and observing them, though. French is unintelligible without the gestures. I now know how to say, in good vernacular that crosses the borders and is common to all three, at least their three dialects, I can fluently say,

“Pardon me? I did not understand. Would you mind repeating that, please?”

First, I position my arms out by my sides in the form of a W, then eloquently utter “EH???” while raising my eyebrows. Works every time.

Actually, I understand them very well. They’re simply just like other volatile voluble Latinas except with weirder accents.

My other two house-mates share the largest of the four upstairs bedrooms and have a private bath. This is the former master suite. The three French speakers each have their own small private rooms and share two public baths on the second floor. One public bath is available to all downstairs, and there’s my own small bath connected to my room. Previously, it was a pantry off the kitchen. I repurposed it.

Melody and Meredith share a bed in the master’s suite. Cozy. They also pretend to hate men, until either is alone with me, without the other. If they’re as passionate with each other as they are with me, that’s something I’d like to see.

Meredith coaches me in composition. She’s majoring in Journalism. She thinks I show great talent as a tragedian. I assure her, I was trying to be comical. She assures me, her awareness of my intent is why the result is so tragic. I like her too.

Melody is a scientist in training. She’s my coach in biology and maths. The woman has the patience of Biblical Job, I swear. Slowly ever so slowly, I’m creeping ahead in an understanding of both subjects.

Mimi, Angelique, and Yvonne teach me popular culture. How to dress, how to dance, how to talk, and what to talk about. They also enjoy trying to teach me how to kiss and snuggle. I thought I had that down pat, until they began critiquing me. Ego deflation 101.

So far, I haven’t succeeded in fucking any of them, though Melody likes me to suck her nipples. “That’s a good boy, just be gentle, little brother.” Makes me wonder, is it me as a frat brother she refers to?