Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

“Sort of,” said Charlotte. “Not exactly.”

“Now, tell me again why you’re going to the Saint Ray house?” said Adam. “To thank this guy who did what for you?”

As they walked along, Charlotte told him a rather long and involved story about this guy who had saved her from a terribly drunk and menacing lacrosse player. Why a girl like her would even go near a tailgate never became clear. Tailgates were idiotic Saturday afternoon blackout parties for cretins whose idea of a fulfilling weekend was to drink until they passed out Saturday night and then tell war stories about it on Sunday and Monday. He couldn’t imagine a freshman, least of all a lovely little flower like Charlotte—who wouldn’t even touch a beer—going near a tailgate.

“So this guy saves you from a drunk lacrosse player, and he doesn’t even know your name?”

“He didn’t then,” said Charlotte. “I guess he does now.”

She proceeded to tell him a rather boring story about how she and Mimi and Bettina had fled from the tailgate and how she felt bad because she hadn’t thanked her savior. Adam tuned out at that point, and she rambled on. The gist of it seemed to be that she would feel remiss if she didn’t thank him.

Adam said, “If he didn’t know your name, how did you find out his name? How did you know how to get in touch with him?”

“I heard somebody call him Hoyt,” said Charlotte. “That’s kind of an unusual name, I guess, and when I told my roommate, she said her sister, who’s a senior, knew a senior named Hoyt? Hoyt Thorpe?”

Adam stopped and just stood there in the middle of Ladding Walk and stared at Charlotte with his hands on his hips and his jaws agape.

“You’re kidding.”

“You know him?”

“I’ve met him. You…are…kidding me! And now he’s slugged Mac Bolka? Ohmygod, talk about insane—I cannot…believe this!”

“Believe what?”

“I’ve been trying to do a story on Hoyt Thorpe! Do you know about him and the Night of the Skull Fuck?”

“Well—Beverly told me something about it…”

“I want to do a whole takeout on it…everything, beginning to end. I mean, this involves a guy who could become President of the United States.”

Feeble as the light was, he thought he could see Charlotte’s eyes grow larger. Such a rapt look. She beheld him in dawning admiration, brighter, brighter, brighter, until the…glow on her face had become an aura, unmistakable even here in the gloom of Ladding Walk…and now maybe he could do it. Maybe it would be all right to try it. Not enfold her in his arms—well, no, but maybe put his arm around her waist? He tried to picture it. What the hell would that be, or supposed to be, about? He felt so amateurish…a pathetic virgin…

What could only be the Saint Ray house was just ahead. It was the only building alive on the entire Walk. Brass lanterns by the front door…lights in the upper windows, presumably bedrooms…all quiet and serene compared to the random Saturday nights he had gone to open-house fraternity parties…a thought that triggered a sinking feeling. He had had a uniformly miserable time at frat parties…all the hearty Big Man bellowing that went on…but then rational judgment, albeit wounded, returned.

Adam stopped again. They were barely twenty-five yards from the Saint Ray house front lawn. “Hey, I just got a great idea, Charlotte.” His face had lit up with the excited smile that often comes with the Aha! phenomenon. “Why don’t I go in there with you? You want to thank Thorpe, and I want to talk to him!”

Charlotte looked startled. For a moment she bit her upper lip with her lower teeth. “I…don’t think that would be a good idea…I don’t want him to think I came over to thank him just so a friend of mine could get a story for the Wave—you know?”

“All right,” said Adam. “I won’t try to interview him. I won’t do that until some other time when he’s not even going to think about any such connection. But in the meantime he would see me in a like…you know, personal light. When I finally do ask him for an interview, like down the line, he won’t see me as just some—” He started to say “nerd,” but caught himself. He didn’t want her to know that frat boys or jocks or anybody else thought that way about people who worked for the Wave. “—just some guy from out of nowhere who wants to ask him some questions about the Night of the Skull whatever.” He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he decided he should lay off the word “Fuck” while he was asking her for a favor.

“Golly, I don’t know…”

“It’ll seem completely natural, Charlotte! I’m some guy who just happened to walk you over here in the dark.” He turned his palms up and arched his eyebrows, as if to say, “What is there to object to?”

Charlotte grimaced and shook her head but didn’t seem to be able to put her concern into words. “I can—that may be—I know what you’re saying?—and I really am grateful?—but you said—when you write your story you said yourself this could be a really big story?—and what if he’s upset? I mean, I already feel so guilty because I haven’t thanked him up to now, and this is two days later?”

“But he loves to talk about it! He’s proud of it!” Adam could feel his Aha! smile morphing into the excited beseeching of a beggar, but he couldn’t do anything about it. The emotion was too real. “I know that for a fact! One of his fraternity brothers told me. He loves to sit around and talk about it. The other guy, Vance something, he’s the one who doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Quietly: “Now you’re making me feel guilty over you.”

“It’s really not a big deal, Charlotte. It’ll be so…easy!”

“I know,” said Charlotte. “It’s not that. It’s just…I just want to thank him, and then—you know—like I just want to get it done? And leave…with no complications? Besides, if he likes to talk about it, why don’t you just call him up and ask him?”

“I told you. I did. But he doesn’t know who I am. I’m sure he’ll talk to someone he feels comfortable with.”

“I’m sorry, Adam.” It was almost a whisper, and she averted her eyes when she said it. “I just want to get this done, and that’ll be it.” Then she looked up into his eyes and brought her raised face up to his with great earnestness and said, “Oh, Adam, I really am so grateful to you. You’re so wonderful.”

With that, she drew closer and put her hands on his shoulders and brought her face up to his and her lips toward his lips—and detoured at the last instant to his cheek, upon which she planted a kiss.

“Oh, Adam,” she said again, “thank you. Thank you for doing this for me. When I get back, I’ll call you. Okay?”

Now she was turning away to head to the door of the Saint Ray house. A kiss on the cheek? But then she looked back with the sort of smile that tells you so much. She seemed on the verge of tears…that would flow from the eyes of love…Tears…Tears of joy? But what exactly were tears of joy?

Tears for the protector? He had quite an interesting theory he was developing about how all tears, at bottom, have to do with protection. We cry at birth because we come naked into this world and we need protection. We cry for those we love who were desperate for protection and didn’t get it in time. We cry with gratitude for those historic souls who have protected us at critical moments, with great risk to themselves. We cry for those who are voluntarily heading off into the valley of the shadow of death in order to protect us and who will need protection themselves as they do so. We cry for those who needed protection so very much and, with it or without it, have fought the good fight against great odds. All tears had to do with protection. No tears have to do with anything else.