down to the clusters of small churches, the Dollar General, the Dairy Queen. I bend and twist my body as best I can, attempt to loosen the muscles and joints that have tightened from a long night’s ride in a vehicle.
We continue for a few miles before I make my first request. I tap on the divider between us, yell, “Gotta hit the head.” Not true, actually, but I want him to stop anyway, want to get out and move my legs and get a cup of coffee—and corner him, get answers no matter how I have to force them to the surface.
My body pulls forward as Sean drops his speed. We enter the next town at a slower pace, and the town mirrors us; the few people who are milling about walk with purpose but without haste. I tap on the glass again after Sean passes by two opportunities for public restrooms. In the distance I can see he has a few more chances before we ride right out of the other end of this village, but instead of stopping at the Citgo to our right or the 7-Eleven on the opposite side of the road, Sean pulls to the left and down another road. And just as I think he’s about to hang a U-turn in the middle of the street, he turns ninety degrees and drives straight: right through the main entrance for Clemson University.
The campus appears quiet in these morning hours, the only movement coming from those few ambitious students who registered for the earliest sessions or the freshmen who had no choice but to take what slots remained. Giant Georgian buildings perched atop modest hills cast shadows upon students racing to meet the start of their eight o’clock classes.
Sean parks in the first lot with an open space, a lot for which we clearly do not have a parking permit. He gets out, opens my door, and finally speaks: “Let’s do this.” He reaches in the side compartment at the bottom of his door and rummages through a stack of hang tags until he finds one that has some seal at the center, the words official government use printed at an angle across the emblem. He slips it over the bar for the rearview mirror, then closes his door and mine at the same time.
“The Citgo would’ve been fine,” I say as I arch my back. It cracks, loud.
Sean turns and walks away. I follow him, literally—he makes no attempt to walk with me; I remain three paces behind, struggle to keep up. We stroll along a curved path that takes us into the pedestrian-only portion of the campus, not a parking lot in sight. We look like a couple of unshaven, burnt-out collegians arriving a dozen or so years late from an all-nighter. Sean takes us around as though he’s been here a hundred times before, as though this might be his alma mater.
“C’mon, we’ve passed two buildings already,” I say. The sooner I can feign my use of the restroom, the sooner I can get answers.
We arrive at our apparent destination, Martin Hall, one of the more contemporary structures on the university grounds, looks like it was likely designed around the time I was born and does not match the Georgian style of the majority of the buildings, stands above an amphitheater and a large reflection pond with a dozen fountains spraying skyward. A young girl with an overstuffed backpack holds the door for us. Sean goes to the stairwell, takes us up two flights, down the hallway, past sequential classrooms—past the restrooms—and stops just before the far end.
“Wait here,” he says.
My annoyance at his nondisclosure is cast aside from trying to decode his strange behavior. Sean slides against the wall and peeks through a window no more than one square foot in size, embedded inside a giant oak door. He becomes motionless, watches whatever is occurring within the room. He keeps his eyes to the glass, waves me over without turning my way. As I walk up behind him, he steps to the side and into the center of the hall without saying a word, without indicating what requires my attention.
I gaze through the window, the image crosscut by the grid of old shatterproof glass, blurred by a swirl of dust and fingerprints. I see: twenty or so wooden chairs with pull-up desks, a dozen of which are occupied by nineteen- and twenty-year-olds, their backs to our door. At the far end