You and Geo are discussing this phenomenon. Geo hypothesizes that it has to do with capillary action. “Capillary action” is a phrase he heard somewhere and it sounds fairly scientific to him. You suppress the impulse to argue and suggest as an alternative the weak nuclear force, which at least has the right ring to it. He considers while you get coffee.

The subject has come up because of some actual experiments lately performed at the house where Geo and Schick and some others live. It had not been expected that Scotch tape would work, given the oiliness of the sausage, and so it was tested and abandoned first. Then came the cream cheese disappointment. Exactly how the idea arose in the first place is no longer clear, but the results are and they seem to demand explanation. The question remaining is, what will suffice as explanation? You’re inclined to be lenient.

“Nope. It’s definitely capillary action,” he says as you return with the coffee.

That’s fine with you. Capillary action, such as is just now drawing the coffee slopped into your saucer up into the napkin you laid in it. The very capillary action that makes it so difficult to draw on napkins, that pulls more ink than you intend into the paper, making a blotch where you wanted a dot. Why, then, was Schick unable to make the pepperoni stick?

You have that feeling once again, the one you’ve had a few times lately, of unease sitting here and drinking coffee and playing the jukebox. Two feelings, actually: unease, and surprise at being uneasy. Hard to put a finger on. As though you had forgotten an appointment or missed a midterm and couldn’t remember what it was you’d not done. What have I not done, you wonder?

Byers is not here. He hasn’t been in here for a couple of days. This, too, is unsettling. You have thought of him as a part of the place, a fixture; more, as an emblem: Homo scriptor. Crossed Ticonderogas, or, on a field, sable. Where could he be?

Maybe it’s spring. Young men’s fancy turning this way and that. But you’re not sure you have any fancy to turn. Or imagination. Was that Coleridge? One of those. “In Xanadu…”. That day in the park – you pretended that someone from the past was walking with you, and your job was to explain what he saw around him. Cars, planes, street lights. It could have been anybody, but for some reason you imagined that it was Coleridge. No; you fancied it was Coleridge. Odd game. Village explainer, is you. Just need a village.

Senioritis, of course. Inflammation of the senior. Perhaps a salve would help. Salve; save me. Where did the “l” go? Where will I go? You don’t know why you applied to grad school. GREs were good, but that’s qualification, not a reason. What else to do? It’s as though you were drawn in without thinking, by some merely physical process. Capillary action.

Geo is restless, too. Physics experiments with pepperoni are only so satisfying. He walks back to the kitchen counter and orders a sandwich. You mosey over to the box. You scan the titles. You’ve heard all these a million times. You sit back down, quarter still in pocket. Ennui. On-wee. On all of us. Like a blanket.

Cold spring, though. Like to freeze at the Cubs game the other day. Warm in the morning, then the wind turned around, came in off the lake right into your face behind third base, and you with no jacket. Beer no fun on that kind of day. Shiver ‘til it’s over.

This is over. The thought falls on you from a great height. This is over. Graduation, a summer that will pretend to be like any other summer, and then? Linda to Columbia; Geo to Madison; you to Ann Arbor; Schick left here. Whatever this is, it’s over. Movin’ on. No wonder those blues guys always sing about it. Sounds better with the apostrophe.

You wonder if Irv will miss you. You know better even before you formulate the thought. Seen your kind for years. Whatever your kind may be. All kinds. Ones he likes and ones he hates are rotten bastards; everybody else just an order and a check. You were a rotten bastard one night; thanks, Irv. How about a valedictory pie? Dutch apple, maybe?

“He never said a word. Just ate his pie and then rode off into the sunset. Who was that masqued man?”

“Hey!”

You look up. Byers. He’s got a laundry bag over his shoulder.

“Hey. What’s up? Haven’t seen you.”

“Packing.” He shakes the bag a little. You wonder how long that could have taken. It’s lumpy. Probably three dozen notebooks and a pair of socks.

“Where you going?”

“Home.”

You realize you don’t know where he’s from. Someone once mentioned the mystic East, then said he meant upstate New York.

“Where’s that?”

He shrugs. An expression plays about his face, struggling to be free, but you’re not sure if it’s a smile or a grimace. Maybe he’s not sure, either.