* * *

What does it take to live in the 10-Man?

"Number one, you've got to be able to have some money," Hughes says. He estimates their yearly budget at about $4000. They pooled some, and they're also selling t-shirts.

"It's an expensive habit to get into," Flynn explains. "We'll all be broke by Christmas."

Which leads to the number two requirement: the Lifestyle. The 10-Man residents are all different kinds of people--Hughes is a goalie on the hockey team. Suvanto is involved with CityStep, Heffernan does ROTC and is a captain of the shuttle bus operation. But there is a common 10-Man bond, the way Stefanick likes to describe it:

"We're ten guys who like to walk the gray area of the law--and drink a lot of beer."

* * *

It's about as far as you can get from the 10-Man--in every way. It's all the way across campus. It's high, high in the air, far from the noise of the street or the crowds in the lobby. It's not exactly a party suite--it doesn't even have a common room. But the top room in Mather House is legendary in its own right.

Tai Wong '92 was the one who picked "#2" in the Mather House senior lottery. There was no question, he says, which suite he and his room-mates would choose.

The other top-floor suite was taken by the group with the #1 lottery number.

"Some people like the low rise, so they can have a common room," Wong says. "But we like being on top of the world."

The view, Wong says, is "magnificent." On one side: South Boston. On another: all of Cambridge. In the middle: the Charles and the Business School.

On the lower floors of the high rise, Wong explains, "The view's still pretty good, but you just don't get that feeling. This feels like you're on top of everything--you're the ruler of all you survey."

Living closer to the clouds means seeing the world from a different perspective. "I woke up my first morning here and I saw an airplane," says Wong's roomate, Joseph G. Vavpetic '92. "Then there was a seagull flying by my window."

And there are other fringe benefits, Vavpetic explains. "It's nice and cool up here. Fifteen degrees cooler in this part of the tower than the low rise." The lower portion of Mather, Vavpetic says, was "too damn hot. I couldn't breathe."