Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind

Author:Ron Suskind [Suskind, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780780793965
Amazon: 0767901266
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 1999-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

In room 216 of East Andrews Hall, being alone in the room means the automatic granting of “music control.” As agreed upon and enacted on the last day of September, if the other roommate comes in, he has to wait, silently and without complaints—no matter how long it takes—for control of the music to be ceded. Music control is ceded only when the controlling roommate leaves the room. The roommate left behind then immediately assumes control. If one roommate leaves, then returns to find other roommate playing his own music, too bad. Simple enough?

Rob is sitting on his bed. Cedric, on his.

“Agreed,” says Cedric, curtly.

“Okay, agreed,” says Rob, and the two say nothing more that night. They just sit there in the silence. Since neither of them had “music control” at the time of the agreement, the only way it could be granted was for one to leave. So that night, no one moves and no music is played.

It has not been a good first month for Cedric Jennings and Rob Burton. First, there was the issue of cleanliness, born of a cultural collision between one boy who grew up in casual comfort with a cleaning lady twice a week and the other who spent his life scrubbing dishes and toilets to stave off squalor. Cedric has always been fastidious about his person. Though his room on V Street, his one private place, was often a mess, he always has been neatly dressed and exhaustively scrubbed in public. Now, nothing is private. Just like his person, his room is constantly on display; he might as well be wearing it. The message sent from Rob is the opposite. Rob’s impulse—getting stronger as he feels less and less inclined to give in to Cedric—is not to care about how messy the room is. He doesn’t mind the disarray, why should anyone else? Because his coolness and self-confidence is subterranean, springing from beneath his casual demeanor, it’s important that surface issues, like how clean you keep your room, are afterthoughts.

Meanwhile, if Cedric focuses on what he considers Rob’s faults—his messiness, and, now, his taste in music—he doesn’t have to think about how Rob is a popular kid, at ease, easygoing, and reasonably good looking with his ice-blue eyes. He also tests well; comes from a strong, loving, Leave It to Beaver family, and can be sort of funny in the arch, smug, iconoclastic way college kids need to be.

People are constantly coming by the room seeking Rob—to go out drinking with him at the Underground, Brown’s on-campus club, where beer is served; to go to this party or that; to stroll over to the Gate, the favorite campus eatery just a few feet from the dorm, for a late snack; or just to visit, because he makes them feel comfortable.

Cedric knows he makes them feel uncomfortable. And he is fast on his way to becoming a hermit—or so he thinks one night when he’s alone with coveted music control and answers several knocks on the door, like Rob’s social secretary.

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