Sam looked at the year old YouTube video and felt he barely recognized himself. There he was, his girl in his arms, laughing at the camera, in the midst of drunken escapade. Everyone in the film had looked to him with respect that bridged on envy, which could clearly be seen in the way they laughed and slapped his back; they wanted him to acknowledge them. Sam himself looked mirthful without appearing too drunk, and seemed as though he had the entire world in hand. The president of a fraternity. A brilliant scholar. A recent admit to graduate school.
That had been his last semester at Denoir University in New Jersey, and he had been in the midst of a six week swan song from the time he finished his upperclassmen independent work and his graduation. He had won an award for his senior thesis for the religion department, where he had written against agape, Christian love, arguing that it was a term that was used to continue the subjugation of African Americans. Sam figured himself an intellectual militant, and he focused much of his independent work researching and speaking out against "the manacles of Christianity" that appear so readily in civil rights literature. He was the department's avowed atheist member, and he was proud of the stand that he took.
But Sam's persona in the department was an affected one. The image of the popular, beautiful life of the party that shined through the video Sam was watching was closer to who he was really was. He was gregarious and carefree, and fun.
Sam clicked out of the youtube link, shut down his computer, and plopped down on his tiny twin bed. His room, a 10 by 12 box, seemed even smaller now as he stretched out his wide frame and attempted to nap the day away. As usual, however, he was unsuccessful and he sat up and considered what he could do for the day.
Graudate school wasn't supposed to be like this. He'd expected rigorous discussion in which he would dismantle what he had deemed "theologic tautology" and affirm once and for all the idiocy of Pascal's "wager." He had envisioned himself laying torch to C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, and, through extensive research of course, destroying any legitimate premise Christianity had to stand on.
It was this last point that gained him infamy in the department early on. In fact Dr. Gregory Freedman, the famed theologist and head of the program had nearly doubled over with laughter when Sam had told his peers during their first seminar that it was his goal to "disprove Christianity." Some in the class had looked at him pityingly, while others just shook their heads.
"Mr. Porter," Dr. Freedman had addressed Sam, "This isn't a geometry proof, or some sort of finite equation. To be successful here is going to take some real THINKING." Sam had been wholly embarrassed but his usual wit deserted him, and he scowled through the entire three hour ordeal.
Sam found his other courses on Christian ethics, ancient Greek and Hebrew, and the Gnostic Gospels, to be utterly unstimulating, and none of the professors liked him. He began to skip class, which was conspicuous given there were only 15 people in his program. When he did show up he was surly, rude and highly pretentious. He never did the reading, talked a lot, and did very little listening.
Outside of class, he had no friends. He had assumed that attending graduate school in New York City would mean that he would be able to continue the constant party from college, but this had been far from the case. Many of his friends had pursued careers in finance and they were therefore constantly occupied by work. His girlfriend was 2000 miles away in graduate school a U.C. Berkley and lately their conversations had become staid and strained. He didn't even consider hanging out with people in his program.
Lately, he spent nearly 22 hours a day in his cell in campus housing. He got up, ate cold cereal, skipped class, looked at porn, ordered awful pizza from the place downstairs, attempted a few naps, watched YouTube videos, and eventually fell into a fitful sleep.
Sometimes, he'd peer out of the little window over his tiny dorm room refrigerator and watch the people pass by. In the morning he watched folks with briefcases and jackets and tailored skirts, clearly going somewhere. At night he observed the groups of grads and undergrads headed out for a night on the town. He wondered what it would be like to be them.
He knew that if he kept this up, he would be kicked out of school, but he didn't care. Something in him was broken, and he didn't know if he could be fixed. He was alive but he wasn't living.
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