I'm supposed to meet a mysterious cult of poets in some unobtrusive cellar, but John insists on buying us hot apple cider in the commons and takes us on a long, winding tour of the campus that feels longer and more painful than an elaborate root canal.
Since it was move-in day and a weekend, the velvety fields around Camden were barren, and a wind came from the woods, whipped around, and blew through the trees ripe and heavy with red apples. In the winter, I imagined that they would soften and rot, releasing their sweet scent and eventually becoming food for hungry animals that scavenged in the forest around the university.
The cycle of life was often cruel, but decay would always transform flesh into flowers.
"What are you planning on majoring in?" Homer asks me while John runs to check if the library's open so we can run around and explore inside. It was two stories tall and in its own separate building next to the Royal Theater, where the thespians ran amok. "It's not easy to get into a college like this," Homer continues. "We have a student body of less than ten thousand."
It seemed to me that despite his initial warmness in the dorm, he was implying that I didn't belong there. And despite my initial unwillingness to drive several hours across the state, his half-assed remark sent a spark of inexplicable anxiety through me that I would lose it all. The estate, the money—all of it going down the metaphorical shitter in one semester.
"It's all subject to change, but I aim to major in the classics," I reply, and I sip my cider while I watch John run back towards us, the wind beating at his navy coat back and forth. "I might minor in some kind of art course just so I can get my foot in the door."
"Now that," Homer tosses the remains of his cider aside along with the paper cup, "is just torturing yourself. You must be a masochist; the other Poets are going to go wild."
"What sort of poets enjoy being in the company of masochists?" I ask, my eyebrows jumping.
"What sort of poets don't?" Homer drawls, and I halfway imagine him roping cattle and stomping around horse shit in a barn somewhere. He wasn't just tall; he was broad all around, and the arms and elbows on his tweed jacket had stretched and frayed around his frame.
"Well, it's not like you all host drunken parties in the basement of this fine establishment, do you?"
I laugh too hard and too loud, the sound honking across the college lawn. But Homer just stares out at the fields and watches a black hare dart across, large ears flapping as it vanishes into some thorn bushes to escape my laughter, the cold, or perhaps return to its family.
After a brief, awkward silence, John joins us again, winded with flushed cheeks.
"The library finally opened for the semester," he tells us excitedly, "and Ovid's there."
___
The library turns out to be just as old, if not older, than most of the college. The librarians who ran it at the massive front desk were frail old women in burgundy vests with wispy white hair, pulling cards from what John referred to as The Stacks, rows of catalogs in tiny drawers that referred to every book in the library in order.
It smelled like wet paper, earthy like freshly churned dirt and mushrooms, and the bookcases towered over us on both the first and second floors. It was like walking into a large, open casket already halfway lowered into the ground with us inside, dirt spilling in.
"They used birch wood from the forests around here to make the shelves," John explains excitedly. "They carved gargoyle faces on the tops of every corner, but each one is different. Isn't that fascinating, Dante? The architects actually built one of the oldest churches in Vermont! You can see some of their influence here in the arches and windows."
I didn't find the tiny glaring figures on the shelves very fascinating, and evidently, neither did Homer, who ambled behind one of the huge bookcases and out of view, leaving me at the mercy of John and his little tour. The real prize was the stacks and stacks of books that called to me to touch them and pick them up gently, but John's flapping wouldn't let me bond with my children in peace.
"Er--John? Do you mind if I go to the bathroom? That cider ran right through me," I tell him as he's salivating about how old the desks were and that his father had sat in the same crooked chair forty years ago.
"Oh, yeah!" John straightens and beams a warm smile. "It's towards the back of the library. Don't hurry; we still have plenty of time to explore the rest of the college before it gets dark."
I quickly walk in the direction he'd pointed to, then veer to the right once I'm out of view. Oddly enough, the library appeared to get darker the deeper I walked in between the bookcases.
I had never seen such large textbooks with such old bindings on them. Some of them appeared to be leather, peeling badly, and others were bound neatly with gold writing on the spines. All the stories were here, waiting to be read and flipped through carefully. The poets whispered in between the gaps in the shelves, voices as raspy as wheat in a windy field.
I hear John talking faintly to someone in the distance and stop when a beautiful black book with a leather-engraved cover catches my eye. It was called Treasures from the Poetic World, and when I slid it out to begin flipping through the pages, I quickly realized that someone had penned all the words painstakingly by themselves.
Movement on the other side of the gap where the book lifts my eyes from the gorgeous book.
I see Homer and his big shoulders leaning up against a desk, his weight seeming too much for the small table. Beside him, one of the most elegant figures is flipping casually through a book. Papers, pens, and notebooks are scattered around the table where he works.
"He's new," Homer explains to the other man. "I think he might fit in with us."
"You said that about the last one," The beautiful man replies, "He dropped out and went home after Virgil's little initiation ritual terrified the ever-living fuck out of him. Not everyone has the same inclinations as we do, Homer. Not everyone's fine with crawling around an old building and sucking each other's dicks in the dorm rooms at night."
"Well, goddamn," Homer replies in his country twang, "I've never downed anyone's dick in my whole life, Ovid. How many guys have you blown through? Your mouth ain't that big."
"In lecto Hercules su," Ovid replies breezily.
I take a step back and bump into a metal library cart, sending it crashing along with about a dozen books that hit the floor like gunshots going off. It's enough to alert the whole state of Vermont to my whereabouts, and certainly it catches the attention of Ovid and Homer, who immediately come running around the bookcase to stare across at me.
I stare back like an idiot until John pops out from behind one of the aisles.
"Oh, hey," he chuckles and comes over. "Guess you found Ovid on your own. Ovid, this is Dante Santiago. He's going to be one of the new Poets tonight. Isn't he a cool little guy?"
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