David Warshow

The mod is dark, smoky, and redolent of sweat and PBR. It's Saturday night and a sea of Hampshire students undulates wildly to the music--something throbbing with rhythm, something that provides every wanton, nose-studded girl with an excuse to grind against the stubbled Colin Meloy-lookalike they've been eyeing all night. You feel simultaneously intimidated, overstimulated, and excited. To your right, a trash can sloshing with something certain to get you shitfaced draws people like flies to a Krispy Kreme. To your left, the redheaded girl from your Neoliberalist Hegemony in Post-Structuralist Micronesia class is topless, heaving jello-shot-green vomit into the cups of her bra. People you've never seen before--Smith girls? UMass frat boys?--dance wildly, guzzling piss beer and not caring about the taste. Hey--you're in college. You're not even just in college, you're at Hampshire, and you're young, you're good-looking, you're unencumbered by everything from grades to romantic loyalty. Damn, you think to yourself, feeling the glorious bacchanalia of the room wrap sensuous tendrils around you. It's a good night to be a college student.

But then. A saber of light pierces the room. Someone is entering, as many have done, but it feels...different. You shrug it off and try to refocus yourself on the bouncing bosoms of Miss Micronesia in front of you, but you find your attentions compromised. Has the music gotten quieter? Has the splashing of the alcohol stopped? Are people slowing down? No--are they looking?

You realize, with a start, that it's true--as a whole, the party is turning its face to the door. A tall, looming figure has entered the room, a man who is more column than person. Backlit, he looks like a wraith or perhaps an ancient, priapic god. He does not walk so much as stride. He does not observe so much as appraise. He is, you realize with ringing finality, the *man*.

Like sunflowers at dawn, the girls of the room look to him, their supple, sweat-sheened bodies eluding the grasps of lesser men. And even they, in their impotence, cannot deny that they are under the sway of the newcomer. Someone hands this man a beer; he graciously accepts. A courageous young woman snakes her hand around his back; he smiles down at her, his face exuding something a mite more benevolent than condescension. Her bravery does not mask the fact that she is only mildly attractive, and no competition for the genuine beauties who are already fighting to get closer to his side.

Slowly, the party regains its hedonistic air. It's found a focus, now, and everything, from the booze to the sex to the dancing has reoriented itself upon this axis. You go back to dancing, imbibing, and sneaking in the odd, quick feel off whatever heavingly female chest happens to be nearby. It isn't the same as before, though. And you find that you can't even be angry, you can only feel a blunted sort of disappointment at your own imperfection and, most importantly, an immense curiosity in regards to the being you now think of as The Man. Who is he? Do you have any classes with him? Have you sat at the same table as him in Saga? Good God, you think, a jumpy sort of thrill rising in your chest--could he teach you his ways?

But as you watch him dance, grace and eroticism infusing every move he busts, you realize that such a thing could never truly be. This man, this monument to masculinity, this behemoth of testosterone, this utterly debonair motherfucker, was born this way. A being like him cannot be made. And you find that you aren't as disappointed as you thought you might be, because to stand in his presence, to breathe his air, to smell his sweat, is a blessing in itself. You are Icarus, he a bird; you will never attain his perfection. But at least you can gaze upon the utter pinnacle of manliness once in your life and know, with absolute clarity, what you are up against. And you feel blessed.

He is The Man.

He is the Divemaster.

He is David Warshow.