Eighties Journal

         At work, I shared an office with a paralegal who was completing a law degree at night to become a lawyer.  The office had two desks, phones, chairs, names on the wall outside.
         Neither of us had a secretary; we both had the typing pool type our work for us and return it for corrections.
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         Out west, the apartment I shared was near a view of the Pacific.  The apartment was on the second floor, and had a balcony.  I think the building had been a converted large house; but maybe not; maybe it had been built as an apartment building.  The porch was an outdoor deck; a walkway around the building,-in this building,- with entrance ways along it.  A wooden stairway outdoors led to the parking lot.  I’d had a car, but I no longer had it.
         The door opened to a living room, where my roommate had a couch and television set, a kitchen with a table, and two bedrooms with a bathroom.  The rooms were small; but furnished with a desk, bed, table, closet.  The closet was too small.  Law books, casebooks, were on the desk and bed; the carpet was yellow.
The highlighters were pink, blue, green, and yellow.  Legal writing assignments took most of the space beside the typewriter.  I had a few memos to prepare for school.  One a false imprisonment question.  Assault and battery and false imprisonment.
         During class breaks, I sat with other law students in the student lounge.  I read my assignments and prepared for class with most of my time.  At lunch I socialized with a few friends from the school:  we talked; they played cards; we walked outside the school and back.
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         After I moved back to the Northeast, I lived in an apartment; the last in the hall.  The living room had a fold-out couch, and I only had a kitchenette and a bathroom.  The rooms were small, but the lease was for a short term, and the location a convenient walk from town.
When Kit graduated, my parents and I visited him.
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         The apartment was a converted barracks; the complex had once been surplus army housing.  It had a screen door, metal and glass, that opened to a wooden one with a lock.  A mailbox on the side of the front of the building had the number of the house stenciled on the front of it.
         The door opened inwards, and the floor was bare until just beyond the entranceway, where wall-to-wall carpeting began to cover the rest of the lower story.  A hall closet was filled with clothing; mostly boots and coats; maybe some dresses that I didn’t always wear.  The kitchenette was the next section of the ground floor; and the counter obscured the oven, stove, storage shelves, and refrigerator from the living room.
         The living room behind the counter had stools along the kitchen counter; behind them were chairs, a couch, a table covered with law books and notebooks for school.  At the end of the living room was a glass door.  The sliding door had drapes in front of it.  It opened to a lawn.  Across from the couch were bookshelves covered with law books. Graduate school books, for law school; and many fiction books in English, but foreign authors.  Some Spanish books with both languages printed.  Many German books in English.  A language book in German; flash cards; maybe a taped language program.
         The coffee table in front of the couch was covered with schoolbooks.  A desk between the couch and the kitchenette had an electric typewriter on top of it and a chair or bench.  It was cluttered with papers; briefs for school; outlines, notes, and memos.
         Manila folders filled with legal notes and letters and briefs were underneath the bookshelves.  Folders with outlines for school arguments were filled with index cards and notes for arguments stapled to each side.
         A stairway, carpeted, led to the bedrooms and bathroom.  A landing with hall separated two bedrooms, one that was used; and one unused and only furnished with a bed, bureau, closet.  The other had the same furniture.  The closet was overfilled with clothes.  A bureau had two photographs on top of the chest of drawers; and a painted wooden box, a brass clock.  The window-sill had a vase of dried flowers covered by white curtains.  Another vase of flowers was on the bureau. 
         Two posters for a fall college football homecoming weekend were on the wall.  The floor was covered with law books, notebooks, and highlighter marker pens.  The bathroom had a sink, mirror, bath and shower.  It had a toilet and paper. 
                The mirrored cabinet opened to shelves for toothpaste, toothbrushes.  The light and fan were separate switches.
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Epilogue:


         We went downstairs to the station.  Kit was school newspaper in high school, and talented.  Kit wanted to be a writer.  He was going to rival Faulkner.  He’s a good writer. He’s in journalism.  He was a good writer in English class.
          Some of us were in high school together; some in college; the others at work.
          I don’t know what happened to the kid who went to work as a cook.  He disappeared in New England.  But he had to have traveled.  The lifestyles were too different.  Not of each person, though.  The kid who went to grad school after college was younger.  Enough younger so that I didn’t know him.  Kit worked for a magazine.  He took the us to an office party.  Everyone sat around on the fourth floor of the hall.