Oxford: A Serendipitous Return

This has got to be significant, I'm thinking to myself as look down from Saxon Tower on Cornmarket Street and over the spires of Oxford town. When I was sixteen, I stood at this very spot on the last day of the summer when I’d realized I wasn’t a genius or a filmmaker. I’d come to this conclusion in the process of making my short-film masterpiece, which I called “Boris” at the last minute for no logical reason. It was the story of a man haunted by the death of his beloved (the murder takes place in a dream; I copied it from the shower scene in Psycho). He gets a message from somebody who claims to know the name of the assassin. He meets the guy, kills the “assassin”, but it turns out he wasn’t the real assassin, just some guy the informant wanted dead. Then the informant shoots the grieving man to death in an alleyway and the story ends, and we all learn a valuable lesson about vengeance. Anyways it’s a great film and I hope you all never see it.

Back then I was on the frontier of my world, tucked in a little corner I thought I’d never find my way back to. I stood on Saxon Tower for almost an hour, unable to tear myself from the view. A voice in my head said I was missing the most important thing.

I couldn't have anticipated the path that brought me back to Oxford in only five years. I’d finished high school, gone to college, gone to Russia and suddenly I was back visiting friends. I slept on a blue IKEA mattress on the floor of Jeff and Mac’s room for the first three nights. I barely left the Williams compound (I’m still not comfortable calling it that) during the day, where I lounged around in the common room watching movies (including Richard III starring Ian MacKellen––one of the best villains in movie history). I took evil satisfaction in being so lazy in the midst of so many high-powered Williams-Exeter students. I deliberately wore pajamas and slippers until three in the afternoon, and whenever somebody mentioned crew-practice or choir rehearsal, I’d give an exaggerated yawn and stretch backwards, revealing as much of my hairy belly as possible.

Jeff and Mac joked that I ruined their academic lives, but for the record, both of them freely chose to begin Casino Royale at 10pm the day before their papers were due. Just think if N64 had worked (Mac, why the HELL did you keep the busted Mario Kart!). As it was, we spent a good portion of every day watching and re-watching the YouTube clip in which this British kid gets unexpectedly punched in the head, and all he can say to his friend is, “Ah, I can’t believe you’ve done this!”

The next three nights I slept on a blow-up mattress on the floor of my high school friend’s room at Pembroke. We had fish and chips at a bar called The Turf, which is famous for being the place where Bill Clinton did not inhale when he was a Rhodes Scholar. Another night we attended formal hall in the medieval dining hall (they all look like Hogwarts). Everybody except guests were required to wear a gown which many students just threw over their street-clothes like half-assed Halloween costumes. When we were all seated, they recited something (grace, I believe) in Latin.

I got to the Saxon Tower about ten minutes before the custodian locked it up for the night. I was glad to have the time constraint; it kept me focused. I didn’t know where to turn my thoughts at first. I thought it was appropriate to reflect on who I am compared to who I was, but I couldn’t create an accurate picture of either. When nothing interesting came to me I started talking aloud. I told the unhearing pedestrians below that I was grateful and then I went home.