study on a seventeen-year-old boy

The conversation begins with six envelopes filled with a single letter of recommendation, one incomplete essay, and sealed high school transcripts. Contact information is indistinguishable.

I think you've missed the deadline.
Well, the difference is that you'd be eligible for scholarships for Africans, whereas someone not born in Africa wouldn't.
Do you have your financial aid document?
I hope you chose the school based on more than distance from your mother.
What do you think your mother's going through, with her baby graduating and moving out?
There's probably not a fridge in your dorm.
There is cable, but you have to bring your own tv.
Do you know the racial demographic at the college?
I'm not saying people will "go racial on you."
I'm just saying a school that is 88% white will be different from where you are now.
If your roommate is gay, he isn't going to rape you.
On that note, rapists are not synonymous with gays.
Starbucks is a type of coffee.
No, you don't have to drink coffee.
Yes, you have to buy a meal plan.
I don't know if they have Chinese.
But I'm pretty sure they'll have rice.
No, you can't have my number.
My email?
Yes.

por un trabajo pesado

C— has a PBR in one hand and a plastic cup with a shot of whiskey in the other. “It’s a recession special—seven bucks,” he says, and gestures wildly, nearly knocking the man behind him. “Oh, sorry, man,” C— says loudly. “Did you go to UT, too?” We’re at a University of Texas alumni happy hour in Manhattan—forty-five students are spending their spring break in New York, visiting offices and meeting internship recruiters. The man behind C— looks unsettled. “No, I just live around the block,” he says, and turns away.

C— doesn’t notice. We are discussing driving in the city, and the PBR is punctuating his thoughts. “People here don’t have cars! That’s, like, not normal,” exclaims C— He’s talking loudly, and the man from around the block can’t help but overhear. He gives C— a disapproving glance. “I think owning a car isn’t normal,” he says. “The suburbs—that’s abnormal to me.”

“Well, I’m trying to imagine if I could handle it here, without a car,” says C—. He’s planning to apply for a marketing internship in the city next year. “I imagine myself driving in a car, with the windows down, driving to the Best Buy—you can’t do that here.” C— says he wants to get into advertising—“I’m a slogan man!”—and he explains his latest idea, for Bud Lite: Por un trabajo pesado, se necesita una cerveza lijera—“For a heavy job, you need a light beer.” He writes it down, scratches out a line. “You’ll have to check the grammar for me,” he says.

Three of C—’s classmates wander over to the bar. They’re heading out, in search of a bar near their Times Square hotel. “This place is for Texans,” says one. “We’re in New York!” The bar is filled with Texas kitsch. A Lone Star flag hangs from the ceiling. Cowboy hats and cattle horns dangle on the walls. The band is playing a Willie Nelson cover. Cowboy’s ain’t easy to love/and they’re harder to hold...

C— tells me he’s always wanted to live in the Northeast. He’s lived all over—the military—and now he’s 28 and finishing up a degree at UT. “You know what turned me around? I read the Hobbit. First book I ever read in my life. From the first page to the last page—I didn’t skip nothing at all. It kept me intrigued. Bilbo! Fucking J.R.R. Tolkien shit.”

Why the Northeast, I ask. He looks at me incredulously. “I sweat a lot,” says the slogan man. “Seriously. I’m a hot individual.”