I loaded up on coffee and tried very hard to pay attention to the lecture. Lab was a little easier because we were standing around Clare and all had to work together. The lab’s usual small talk ensued while we were cutting up Clare’s chest and abdomen. Sherry was telling the group that she took the evening off and had a few drinks to relax and that it was great to take a break. I was pretty quiet.

 “What did you do last night, Joe?”

 “I got mugged and spent the night in the police station looking at mug shots.”

Everyone laughed, thinking it was a joke.

 “Actually, I’m not kidding, I lost my watch in a mugging and will be going out later today to get a new one.”

 “I don’t care about your watch, are you OK?”

 “Yeah, I am fine.”

 “Well? What happened?” Kim asked. “Tell me everything. I can’t believe this.”

I told them the story, including the threat of a gun and me saying no.

 “Only a New Yorker would say no to three muggers with guns.” Dave said.

 “What guns? There were no guns and only one creep got out of the car,” I insisted. But by the end of the afternoon the story was that I had been attacked by a horde of drunken rabble with weapons and refused to surrender my property to them. I never did get the watch back, but I did go to the pawnshop and find a nice replacement.

I procrastinated a couple of days before telling Mom and Dad that I had been mugged. The whole incident was just an inconvenience for me, but I knew that it would be a major melodrama for them. So on my weekly phone call home I resolved to tell my brother Jim first and gauge his response before telling my parents. Jim thought the abbreviated story was hysterical and could hardly wait to watch Mom and Dad’s expressions as I told them one by one on the phone. Dad seemed to take it pretty well and gave the phone to Mom. Mom hit me with a series of questions about my health and welfare thereafter, not quite realizing that her angst was causing me more distress than the mugging itself. Interestingly, when Mom finally seemed to calm down she said Jim wanted to talk to me. I figured Jim wanted to debrief somewhat, but I was wrong.

 “Dad wants me to come out and get you when you’re done there,” Jim blurted out over the phone.

 “I see, you are going to be my hired gun,” I said.

 “Yeah, but it could be a fun road trip.”

 “I understand. You have my schedule here; let me know when you’re coming.”

 “Yep. Later.”

 “Bye.”

He hadn’t said much, but Dad was obviously concerned enough to quickly convince my brother to bring me home safely. Well, as Jim said, it could be a fun road trip.

While I was looking forward to doing the road trip home with my brother, I had planned on stopping by to see Holly. I did want to get some alone time with her and that might be hard with Jim there. Anatomy class was a substantial workload that left me little to no free time. Nonetheless, I scheduled a weekend where I could go to see Holly alone. The week before it, I worked doubly hard to make sure I was caught up on all the class work and planned to leave on Friday night for Des Moines. Holly’s roommates were in town, but she said that they would love to meet me. So, the date was set for a weekend getaway.

On Friday after class ended, I packed up the van and headed east on Route 80. I was about an hour outside of Omaha and the sun was setting behind me when my van started to sputter and stalled. I coasted to the edge of the road/to the road shoulder and tried the engine again. It started up with some protest, and I was back on the road in seconds. When I reached 40 miles an hour, however, I heard the same sputtering again. I let up on the gas and the sputtering went away. I accelerated again, but if I went faster than 35 mph the engine would sputter and die. Even doing 35 miles per hour, it would suddenly die for no apparent reason. With my warning flashers on I limped to an exit and tried to get help. No mechanics were working at the gas stations I stopped at. Strangely, when idling the engine sounded fine. I got back on the highway and kept my speed between 35 and 40, with occasional stalling, from Omaha to Des Moines. I tried calling Holly’s but the line was busy. One of her roommates must have been on the phone. It took forever to get to Holly’s. I got there after midnight completely exhausted and mad at myself and my van.

I knocked on Holly’s door and she answered immediately – concerned by my lateness and happy that I had made it. I explained to her the fiasco with my trip and apologized for being so late, assuring her I had tried to call multiple times. She understood. It was nice to see her and her presence made me calm down. I quickly realized how tired I was, which she noticed and ushered me off to bed.

The next morning, Holly referred me to her mechanic who did not work Saturdays, as it turned out. I finally found a mechanic who would look at my problem. He was the quintessential grease monkey, in blue coveralls, stained from what looked like years of crawling under cars. His name was Emmet and his lower lip protruded from a large wad of chewing tobacco. Emmet “reckoned” that water or “summit” was in the fuel line, although he couldn’t figure out why it was only causing problems at highway speed. While I was trying to show him what was wrong I revved the engine, and it ran perfectly. He suggested some gas additive and told me to run the van out of gas and then add more gas additive during the next couple of fill ups. I purchased some bottles based on Emmet’s recommendations, paid him for his time and went back to Holly’s.  Now it was nearly 3:00 P.M.

I had been on the road for over 22 hours and only shared about 3 sentences with Holly. All the rest of the time I was dealing with car issues, except for the couple of hours I slept on Holly’s couch.

When I got back to Holly’s she was not there. She was grocery shopping, so I introduced myself to her roommates properly. Last night I met one: Jane, and this morning I met Carol, but those meetings had been harried. Now that my van had a clean bill of health, we could have a real conversation.

I briefed Carol and Jane, who were sorority sisters of Holly’s, on who I was and what I was doing in Omaha. Carol was a business major and heavily involved in the sorority. Jane was undecided as to her major, but was not going to do anything medical. Jane was also an avid runner; often participating in marathons. I took the “not medical” comment as a gentle warning to stay away from talking about the gore I was immersed in Anatomy class.

 When Holly got home I helped the three of them unpack the groceries. We were going to have dinner at their place tonight. I asked if I could help and I was assigned chopping. Holly suggested that. Jane seemed to be directing the cooking and she was making a vegetarian casserole, with steamed broccoli and cauliflower on the side along with a salad with choice of dressings. The casserole had noodles, nuts, a mixture of vegetables and a cream sauce. It was very tasty.

Over dinner we talked about college classes, trying to live and pay for classes and the unrealistic expectations of college professors. Carol was advocating the sorority system, which helped sisters struggling in a society that did not value education. She made it clear that the “sisterhood” was a lifelong network to bring cohesiveness to all those smart enough to be in the Greek system. I was not in a fraternity and might have felt like an outcast if it had not been for Holly.

“Joe works as a student athletic trainer in college for the woman’s basketball team.” Holly said.

 “Really?” enquired Jane. “Do you know much about shin splints?”

Jane and I chatted about the causes and treatments of shin splints. It turned out that she was training for her upcoming runs by doing the stadium stairs. This had Jane running up and down every set of stairs in the college stadium. It was great aerobic training and for leg strength. But since she was running down the stairs, too, it put too much strain on her shins. I suggested flat training for a while or using a stair master. If she wanted to do the stadium stairs, I strongly advised walking down them gently. Jane also agreed to ice her shins after every training session and would look into some wraps as well. The two of us kind of got on a roll in the whole sports scene and dominated the conversation for a while.

Dinner wound down, and I offered to help with the dishes. I proffered my opinion that the cooks cook, so the eaters should clean up.

 “Next time, I’ll cook and you can clean up.” I said.

Jane and Carol happily agreed and Holly and I cleared the table and did the dishes. We engaged in small talk as we washed and dried them by hand. As we finished, Carol announced that we were all going to their local hangout for the evening. My eyes met Holly’s but I could not read her expression. My thoughts were; did she want to socialize as a group or did she want us to catch up? Without a clear signal from Holly, I followed the three of them out to a dimly lit pub, called the Rat’s Cellar, that was in the basement of a bicycle repair shop.

It was smoky and full of local college students, all of whom seemed to know one of the three women I was with. Again, Carol took the lead and chose a booth big enough for eight people that the four of for us sat in. I sat next to Holly with Jane across from me. A steady stream of guys stopped by the table to talk and Carol always introduced me as Holly’s friend from back east. I did not say much nor did Holly. We had some drinks and talked with many people as the evening wore on.

Eventually it was time to go. I am not a drinker but had three beers that night. Carol was in training for a marathon, so she was the designated driver. At the apartment, I sat down on the couch hoping to talk quietly with Holly. But, between the stress of class, the agonizingly slow drive here, and the drinks, I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning feeling no worse for the wear from the drinks, but deeply disappointed that Holly and I had not been able to talk or really catch up. It was Sunday morning and I needed to leave by noon to get back to Omaha in time to do what I needed for Monday’s class. I showered and packed up the van; hoping to have some time just to be with Holly.

As it turned out, the only time Holly and I had alone was standing in the parking lot of her apartment complex leaning against my van. The whole weekend seemed surreal and unsatisfying. I clung to the hope that a second visit with my brother Jim might provide more evidence of the spark that once was there, but this weekend did nothing to reinforce a bond between Holly and myself.

I kissed Holly goodbye and hugged her. It was not entirely clear to me whether she was hugging back. As we separated, I looked deeply into her brown eyes and could not get a sense of what she was feeling. I knew what I was feeling, which was a feeling of loss and loneliness. I felt completely alone standing there with Holly in my arms.

I climbed into the van and drove off. Looking at back at Holly, I convinced myself that she looked sad, but I couldn’t really tell. About an hour outside of Des Moines, my car sputtered and died. I was doing 35 miles an hour with my hazard lights flashing. As I drove, I kept going back and forth between thinking there was a hope for a relationship with her, and then back to feeling that there was no hope. Even a long-distance relationship can be considered a relationship, I told myself. Maybe with on my second visit, even with Jim there, I might be able to sense a spark. Holly had told me that when my brother and I returned to see her on our way East, her roommates would be out of town. So maybe, I thought, without her roommates Holly and I could rekindle something. All these thoughts coursed through my brain at 100 miles an hour as my van and I drove under 40 miles per hour all the way back to Omaha. It was late when I got back to my room and I had a ton of work to do before Monday’s class.

It turned out Emmet was right in that “summit” was in the fuel. But it wasn’t water. Some kind of chalky grit had somehow gotten into the gas and it only clogged the fuel lines if the fuel flow was fast for a while. In other words, driving at 60 mph would lead to this gunk stalling the car. The entire fuel line and gas tank had to be flushed to fix the problem, and if that had not fixed it, I might have needed to replace that whole system. Fortunately just flushing worked.