The Fox

Guess who breezed into my office right before we marched through graduation in the Hart? Yep. The great breezer of all time--Gregory Fox himself. Bearded, handsome, excited to see Kimberly, taller? or did I shrink? Wow. It's good to see old friends. He's rich, thinking about grad school, still grins all the time he talks like he has a big secret he's going to tell you. He's writing, but it sounds like it's for other people--not his "truest blue voice" stuff, and he wants to party with AZ people after Christmas. As I sat in the Hart with the December graduates, wishing I'd talked him into sneaking away for dinner, listening to a speaker encourage students to build the right "study environment" (a little odd for an exit speech), I thought of the many days Greg and I have been through, many hours, thousands of minutes.

When I interviewed him for hire, he looked so dang normal. How'd he do that? I swear his head circled the moon at least three times a day. He's a delight, but hard to explain to people. One time before a party, I threw a mop in his hands and said, "I'm so glad you came early." Ten minutes later, I came downstairs from cleaning the bathroom, and Greg's still standing in the same place, looking at the same mop. Luckily Beau came in the back door, saw the problem, gently took the mop, and talked nonstop to Greg, so Greg wouldn't notice him rinsing and cleaning the floor. It was just too hard to explain "mopping a floor" to Greg when the sun hit the horizen. At one Christmas party, I had forgotten presents for the spouses and was hurriedly wrapping last minute gifts. He and Jaren watched for a minute, then, behind my back, they sneaked around corners, scooping up things from my shelves, kitchen, etc. and wrapped them up as gifts to put under the tree. I opened one up later and said, "Wow. I just bought a straw doll at D.I. just like this." Weird? Ohhhh, "I could tell you stories." I grounded him from taking the Scribblers to the English Department because he stopped and flirted with the secretaries and caused such chaos. One day he whine and whined, so I sent someone with him to babysit. Geez, sure, as if she could control him--"How'd it go? Did he behave?" "Well, ...Sister Morgan, yeah, he did. I mean he didn't stop in the office and flirt, but.... " I was walking away and turned sharply to face her. "Well, nothing, really; he just sort of stopped at every open-door classroom and waved at people."
After the Becca heartache, he'd be so ADD some days that I couldn't stand to have him in seminar. But he wouldn't go away, so I'd give him paper to draw on and make him promise to sit in the corner and shut up. One seminar, while he threw across the room strong insights about the essay we were analyzing, he drew fifty pigs in different stages of dying--one had a dagger through its throat, another had his eyes blown out, blood everywhere, etc. I wished I'd saved it. In case I ever get accused of having sane acquaintances, I can pull it out as proof. Nope. Sorry. Normal? Never heard of it. I hang out with writers.

The semester that he, James Best, and Jaren Watson sat in seminar together was electric. Fun. Seriously brain-ripping brilliant, though I wanted to shoot all three of them before it was over.
I really think old friends are the best.