Montrose Rashomon II: Eliot Paulsen

Second in a series of three short stories by Martin Marks

Note: This story reveals important plot details not available at the start of And the Geek Shall Inherit.

31st May, 1993...

I knew I wanted Miss Bryce the first time she sat down at our table. I'm not an arrogant man, but I know what I have to offer. I'm not unattractive, I'm as intelligent as anyone at Montrose, and I'm financially secure. I'll be the first to say that last part shouldn't matter, but I know it does. I found it easy from the start at Montrose, which isn't known for its diversity; virtually all the girls here are white, and a fair number of the girls I've known here have found me attractive at least in part because of the "exotic" factor. But Tlin was never like that. I never quite understood how she looked at me.

She hated me at first, I knew that much. A lot of girls do, usually by my design: it's all part of Phase One. Not that I ever gave Caitlin the Phases. There are lots of fish in the sea, but some of them you can't catch with worms—and, in any case, Tlin had the Phases figured out and set to stun herself. Perhaps the Phases require more explanation. In reality, they're simplicity embodied. There are three of them, because everything true comes in trinities:

Phase One: To attract, one must first repel.

This is basic physics. If the south pole of a compass is facing you, holding out the north pole of another magnet won't do you any good. If you want the north pole to face you, you must present the south pole. Only then will the needle spin around to face the right way. And the best way to show people the right pole is to piss them off.

My own method of doing this is quite simple, and enormously effective: I merely assume the worst in people, and force them to prove me wrong. (If you don't believe me, try it. You'll soon find people despising you left and right.) I have been accused of misanthropy, and not without reason. I prefer the company of my personal daemons, who make for excellent conversation. Nic was one of the rare humans willing and able to engage me on an intellectual level, so perhaps it's no surprise that the two of us tended to wind up alone at a lunch table together, eating the utterly flavorless cafeteria pasta and having discussions meaningful enough to scare away those (unfortunately many) Rosies who only dabble in higher thought when their grades depend on it.

Tlin was not so easily intimidated, and I can truthfully say I am glad of it. Her contempt for me was clear from the beginning, and I found that Phase One can actually work both ways; to be attracted, one may also be repulsed. I was smitten, I confess it, from day one. Whenever I tried to engage her in conversation, she would change the subject—usually, to something about highways, of all things—in a transparent effort to bore me into leaving. But methought the lady didst protest too much, and in hindsight, me didn't think far wrong.

Phase Two: There is more to the message than the code.

Once the target of the Phases forces her way through the static of repulsion, she encounters the enigma she has been chasing. Every enigma is crackable, even ENIGMA itself. Had the British cryptographers who discovered the secrets of the German code found merely Adolf Hitler's laundry list, they would have simply congratulated each other on a job well done and moved on to the next project. Plans for a Luftwaffe bombing raid on Coventry, however, were enough to keep their interest. Even those codes which are never completely cracked leave hints in their wake as those who would understand them struggle onwards. If the hints are not interesting, there is little incentive to continue studying the code.

Everyone hates encountering enigmae, but loves unravelling them, especially Rosies. I mean, we pay a hell of a lot of money to do just that, right? Some people are great at being enigmatic when it suits them. I'm good at it. Nic can't do it to save his life. Tlin, though... she could write an entire book about being illegible. It was three years before I knew what color her eyes were. Now we've been together almost two months, and I can't say I know all that much more about her than I did when she first sat down for lunch with Nic and I a few months into her freshman year. Perfect.

Yes, Miss Bryce was (and is) a virtuoso of enigmaticity. She used my own weapons against me (to an extent that, in retrospect, could only have been intentional) and she did so to impressive effect. She was a code I wanted to crack, and the puzzle pieces I had—that she was only sixteen (and therefore off-limits for the nonce in my book—despite the rumors, I do have some scruples—but I am nothing if not patient), that she had an accent straight from the most mountainous mountains (and sometimes I suspected her of living near, if not in, that fabled Appalachian town where they still speak perfect Elizabethan English), that she was willing to hold down two miserable jobs to stay at Montrose, and she had a past she didn't want to talk about—gave me little to work on. If I were to be honest with the world, I would have to admit that I have bedded girls more attractive than Caitlin Bryce—perhaps even a few girls smarter, depending on how you measured. But I can never claim to have seduced—or even met—a woman as interesting as Miss Bryce. She was interesting enough to keep me going for three years... and I have no doubt that she is interesting enough to keep me going for the rest of my natural life.

As I say, I have a long way from fully cracking the Bryce code, but certainly the hints have been interesting. Last April, for instance, I learned more about her in one night than I had in all my life up till then. I had a question to ask, a question I had long wanted to ask, and I asked it that night with a kiss. Was it her first at Montrose? I do not know, and know better than to ask. When I broke the kiss, she looked at me, and without a word grabbed me and pulled my lips towards her again. That night, I saw her naked for the first time, truly naked, and discovered what was behind the mask I never even suspected her of wearing. Looking her in the face and realizing I had never truly done so before, that sort of thing keeps someone's interest.

As I may have already hinted, Tlin is better at seduction than I shall ever be, even though—or perhaps because—she makes it seem so unintentional. My own methods of spicing up my message are quite unsophisticated in comparison. It helps that I misdirect the many unwittingly bigoted idiots of the female race by the mere fact of being black. It subtly makes everything else I do (off of the basketball court, at least) seem more impressive, as though I were a Special Olympian. I don't applaud such loathsome stereotyping, of course, but I can't claim not to have benefited from it here in the ivory tower (in more than one sense of the word "ivory"!) of Montrose College. (Of course, the coin has another side, which is that nothing disappoints a typical white woman more than a black man any less endowed than an Ivy League school... but cf. Phase Three.) Tlin never seemed to fall for it, which shouldn't have surprised me, as she (born as she was to what I gather could be politely called "white trash") carried a very similar yoke. She doesn't wear the uniform as I do, but as I've said, she was a native speaker of Hick, and as charming as her backwoods twang may be, it certainly labels her as someone the white establishment may ignore with no sense of guilt. Only when one listens to the actual words does one realize what an interesting message the code reveals. And fortunately for me, few in this world are willing to listen.

Phase Three: Anything silver will tarnish.

Ag₂O, silver oxide, is the unpleasant black patina that always seems to develop on the heirloom silver just before company comes over. The only way to prevent silver from tarnishing is to lock it away in an oxygen-free container. Ah, but here the metaphor gets deeper, for without oxygen, there is no fire. Thus, the only way for an interpersonal relationship made of silver to continue is for it to be devoid of passion. Thus, to preserve, one must destroy.

This has been my method for many years, what is so crudely called by those who don't understand it as the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" philosophy. This from people who would claim it is better to throw away the silver when it is blackened and tarnished, or to erode it slowly away with attempts to polish it! Nothing silver can stay. It is the kindest thing to melt down the silver in the hottest possible furnace and go out mining again, leaving the slag behind, if you will.

Obviously, I didn't apply this to Tlin, and with good reason: gold does not tarnish, much less platinum. I was a diligent miner, and among the Rosie whores found a rose, an ore who, though a minor, was worth waiting to mine. Now she is an old nineteen and I a young twenty-two, and I head off to law school with my sheepskin in hand, and she remains here, but I have no fear that someone will steal my platinum from me. For though she was formed in the Appalachians, she was as hard to mine and to make mine as though she were buried in the Himalayas. Even Nic, who likes to think he has at least scaled K-2, hasn't even made it through the Khyber Pass. Oh, I know all about his childish infatuation with Tlin. I've tried to dissuade him gently. It certainly isn't as though he presents any risk. For now, I will honor Tlin's request that he not be told about the two of us, for her sake. But now our trinity has become lopsided, and I am sad to say that the only logical result will be for him to be quietly excised with the scalpel of neglect.

Now there is only Eliot and only Caitlin. I will spend the next year alone, patiently—and faithfully—waiting for her. Hope keeps me going. What keeps her going I do not know, but I hope it is me. I hope too that I have enough secrets left in me to keep her intrigued until the day I die. Finally, I hope to spend the rest of my life mining the rich seam of mystery she presents, attacking it with my subtle pickaxe. I hope she deigns to let me.