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that sort of person. I was the sort of person who put off signing a lease on the crappy rooming house in Boston he’d arranged to move into in June out of fear he might not graduate.
    I hoisted my backpack higher on my shoulders. I was the sort of person who went out under cover of night to deface public property.
    As I pushed through the front door of my dorm, I forced my mind to stop dwelling on my session with Curry earlier that evening, on Curry riding me about the lack of emotion in my work.
    No emotion, my ass. Curry wanted emotion? How about rage? Would that do?
    I honestly didn’t know whether my graffiti runs were about expressing anger at society in general—I acted like they were, making stencils that called out the hypocrisy of the Reagan administration—or at this picture-postcard town, with its rich hippies and entitled, coddled college kids. I didn’t much care, to be honest. I just knew the anger was there. And when I was done, when I slunk back to my room with my hood up and my eyes burning from exhaustion, it wasn’t, and I could go back to another few days of getting my shit done.
    So. Time to work.
    As I strode across the quad that linked the dorms to the campus proper, a feminine voice pierced my bitter recollection of my session with Curry. “Get away from me, you pig.”
    Shit. I hugged the portfolio that contained the stencil—Mickey Mouse Reagan again because I hadn’t had time to make anything new—close to my chest. The campus at two in the morning was usually pretty deserted. If I ran into anyone, it was generally packs of drunk kids who either said something sneering or didn’t notice me at all.
    With any luck, the couple having a fight up ahead wouldn’t either, and I could just slip by.
    â€œNo, sweetheart. Not a pig. I’m the big bad wolf,” slurred a second, masculine voice. Jesus. These rich fuckers and their melodramas. “You shouldn’t be walking alone at night if you don’t want to attract the big bad wolf.”
    The girl, whose face I couldn’t make out because she was swathed in some kind of neon-pink hooded sweatshirt, was trying to wrench her arms from the guy’s grasp. Damn. Now I was going to have to find a pay phone and call campus security—this was evolving from a lovers’ quarrel into something more sinister.
    â€œLet me go, Royce, or so help me God, I will write about this in the paper. I will write about that other night, too. And I will name names. I will tell Nessa everything.”
    My knapsack clattered to the ground, and the clang of the metal paint cans hitting the ground, even through the nylon fabric of the bag, drew the pair’s attention. Two sets of wide eyes turned toward me.
    â€œWell, well, well, if it isn’t Art Boy,” Royce sneered. “You here to rescue your little cunt girlfriend?”
    â€œNo,” I said calmly as I walked toward them. The scattered, abstract anger that always propelled me on my graffiti runs had crystallized into a deadly laser beam. “I’m here to do this.”
    I punched him so hard he toppled over.
    Then I picked up my bag, pressed my hand against Rainbow Brite’s lower back to give her a little shove, and said, “Run.”
    Jenny
    We didn’t stop running until we were in the lobby of my dorm. The whole way, I kept thinking, I’m going to tell him about Royce . I had no idea why. It didn’t make any sense. I had never told anyone. Not my RA, not my dad, not Nessa. So why was I going to tell this sullen kid who didn’t even like me?
    â€œCome up to my room,” I said, still panting.
    â€œWhat about your roommate?”
    â€œShe’s gone home for the weekend, which I suppose is why her gorilla of a boyfriend is on the loose.” He was holding his right hand gingerly with his left. The crack of bone on bone as his fist connected with Royce’s jaw had been sickeningly loud.