Troped

The long brick building was one of several circa 1950s buildings that the University had bought in the name of expanding the main campus. It had a big sign, chiseled in red stone over the door that said “Kentucky Macaroni Factory.” Several of the buildings had already been demolished to make way for lots of new athletic and academic buildings near the Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, and while there had been some discussion of historical preservation, the talk was largely outweighed by a collective sense of satisfaction with regard to that issue. Old Louisville had saved and restored quite a few buildings in the area—and anyway those had been all the “nice” buildings. No one wanted to go to any lengths to restore what was essentially a brick-walled two-story warehouse. And no one had intended for it to be housing. But there he was, standing in front of it, assignment in hand.

This is where his protestations had taken him; this loggerhead of a building with forlorn (though large) windows for eyes, looking out at the rest of the campus’s updated and sometimes futuristic architecture with some desire to join in the postmodern fun. Gene can only think that he agrees with the University that housing this is not. He adjusts his shoulder bag, chock full of orientation guides, forms, letters, catalogs and campus magazines, and decides right then and there to make the best of it—to not only make the best of it, but to appreciate that this was the outcome intended, meant to be. He’d insisted that he would not live with a roommate and now: factory life. If only for a few moments, while speaking with the woman, the bureaucrat, in the Housing department, it had sounded like the department’s only solution to what was obviously their own foul-up in double-booking his apartment was going to be to simply cram him in with someone else. He is proud, at this moment of defiance, to know that he didn’t given an inch, because once he would have laid down in front of the door and painted “welcome” across his chest.