CHAPTER 1: Fab

---September 9, 1979---
---Apex, NC---

I'll feel dumb when the Freshman calculates Pi faster than me. You don't have to eat all the corn that Babs, the cafeteria lady, will smash on your plate. You'll be a fat mathematician that my suite mates will make fun of. I think of the sun maybe making its way over California and how it might just get here in 3.14 hours as I blow smoke rings out my 9th story bedroom window. I live in the tallest building on Apex's campus. I've been at Apex Academy now for 3 weeks. I just don't feel like a junior in high school, what with going to a boarding school where you live at your school and all.

I try and pull up my window but it's painted shut and paint chips are falling like snow. There are 8 pairs of people below me that might sneeze, if they were to stick their heads out the window. Suckers, at least enjoy the snow I'm providing for you.

My family and I would take trips all the time to come up here, since Apex is right on the coast. When it snows, it floods the spaces in between dorms because there is no outlet for the snow to spread itself out into. My roommate, Fab, and I sometimes go to our friends' dorm on the 3rd floor and jump out his window into the snowy, pillowy mess.

Fab and I would come up here sometimes in the winter and just go lay out on the beach. There's this mournful tone that seems to permeate the atmosphere surrounding you when you walk out onto a beach and can only see the person right in front of you. The air is just really hazy because the layer of water droplets in the air near the ocean seem almost crystallized and seem to linger so motionless that everything is just really quiet and foggy.

It gets so quiet that any noise that might penetrate the crystallized air will hurt to hear, even the crunch of the snowy sand under your foot is as audible as a gun shot anywhere else. When Fab and I would come to the beach, he would always bring this instrument called a Sarangi, which is this bowed string instrument that's really popular in his culture. When he'd play it, it was probably all you could here anywhere a mile from it.

Fab is a hippie Indian. His real name is Founji Ubekhi, but somewhere along the way of him being in America for the past 4 years, someone decided to change that.

My home is only an hour drive from here in Johnson City and I feel like I can see it from this window. Any flashing light on the interstate very well could just be my dad shining a flashlight in the backyard, looking for his pot stash.

Right now, Fab's sitting in front of the tube like the dog in 100 Dalmations that sits with his nose basically touching the t.v.

"Fab, it'd be better to not eat McDonald's for breakfast, ya know. You'd probably be better off eating some of that Bengali cuisine so you'd feel better at times like this."

Fab looks at me like I'm the champion of idiots and says, "Dude, I'm only Indian because my parents are."

"Well, you also lived in India for 12 years."

Fab says, "Well yea, but I am a McDonald's fiend now. Plus, it's 4 in the morning. What I ate a day ago shouldn't be fucking with me now."

I'd like to point out how much Fab nonchalantly cusses.

Fab decides to pull out his Micky Dee's leftovers. Bad idea.
He tosses them out the window, seemingly an attempt at saying, "Suck it, McDonald's." Great Idea.

One of our suitemates, Mo, comes in and asks, "Ya'll wanna watch Animal House right now? It just came out on VHS!"

I look at Mo and say, "Dude, really, it's 4 in the morning. Let's go take a nap on the beach."

Fab looks at me and says, "Right on. Let's go build a bonfire."

I'm glad I room with Fab. Sometimes, if someone wants to pop in a movie, I feel like I should be a party-pooper. I'm so antsy sometimes. Do you ever smoke a cigarette and feel like you can't stop your hands from shaking? It might be because you're getting a buzz. Funny, I typically smoke to calm down my nerves but it typically just makes me even more nervous.