When I met Elere she was in her second semester studying
Southern playwrights. She was lusting after everything
Tennessee Williams. I was simply lusting after her. She was earnest and intense, brown eyes behind studious wire frames; thin torso with suddenly round
post-adolescent hips. I would follow her anywhere, but specifically,
Southern Gothic Literature, which included Williams, among others.
As part of the class we were to read, and then watch, a film version of The Glass Menagerie. As we sat on the couch in the basement of the dorm, she stared intently at the blue light.
She: "Man, it's almost too morbid too watch"
I was busy trying to readjust her Mary Baldwin sweatshirt, but I was aware that things were going badly for Sam Waterson and his somewhat whiny handicapped sister.
At the end of the semester she left me for a English grad assistant named Neal.
"He has memorized whole pages of Streetcar!" , she gushed.
He was from Boston, of all places, but had chosen to write his thesis comparing Williams and Ibsen and I guessed that they both were sufficently overwrought for her.
Years later as I sat in the audience with a jaded Psychology student watching a community theater version of "Glass" she turned to me in the dark and whispered:
"I don't think Laura is as helpless as she lets on"
I did not turn to look at her. But I nodded my head.
No kidding, I thought , no kidding.