* * *

He smoked dope less often during his junior year, but did not stop completely. He managed to ditch the floater, and picked up two other roommates. One of them, a rich preppie, was perhaps the most ostentatious son-of-a-bitch he had ever met. But the preppie owned a lot of expensive stereo equipment, and was free with his dope, so it was easy to put up with his arrogant manner.

The other one was a middle-class mid-westerner trying very hard to make it at Harvard. Making it meant joining the right clubs, getting the right contacts, getting good grades. A lot of getting--that's what you get with your letter admitting you to Harvard.

* * *

He found out junior year that a great many things made very little sense. Other people seemed to understand why Harvard worked the way it did, or at least they did not let on that they were as confused as he was. He decided that they intentionally tried to deceive him. One day, walking by the Business School, he saw a sign bearing strange initials--"NATD NASCID"--and an arrow pointing down the street. Curious about the meaning of the strange initials, he followed the arrow, but could find no trace of another sign or any indication of what the initials stood for.

About this time, he began to hate television. His preppie roommate had an obsession with T.V.--watching the late movie every night, usually stoned. He could not sleep; no matter how low the preppie kept the volume, the monotonal voice drifted effortlessly into his room, settled down like a farmer guarding his melon patch.

The television screen haunted him, trailing him wherever he went. The closed circuit screen in the grocery store, the big tube in Holyoke Center, the camera in the bank, video labs in the Science Center. He hated it, and cursed George Orwell for writing 1984.

* * *

Junior year went badly. No matter how hard he worked, it made no difference. It seemed like the cards were stacked against him, as if the University had singled him out. First, the History and Lit Department assigned him a history tutor. He was interested primarily in literature. He applied to three seminars, but was rejected from all three. The Law School Board Center said he filed too late, although he knew he sent in his forms at least a week before the deadline.

More out of frustration than real commitment, he got involved in politics. The Nixon administration became his strawman. In Nixon, he saw the root to his troubles, the cause of his alienation.

He had entered college in the middle of Nixon's first term, in the middle of the most secretive and paranoid administration in the history of the nation. Nixon had accused his generation of plotting a concerted attack on American democracy, and yet it was Nixon who tried to destroy activist students through FBI infilatration.

Nixon and his fascists almost made him paranoid. Wiretapping, attempts to defame Daniel Ellsberg, lying, secret bombing--it almost made him glad to be at Harvard. Almost. He thought he might feel better if he knew who his enemies were.

* * *

They're out there.

Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.