Five Points, Vol. 17, No. 1

Fall 2015

From Andre Dubus III: "It really felt like rediscovering the fragments. So, that’s my advice. Just write the fragment. Make that fragment as whole as you can, because, guess what? It’s going to open the door to another one, and another one, and another one."

Sample Content

John Skoyles
Johnny London

No one in my family had gone to college; there was no relative to advise me, so in 1967 when I graduated from high school, I took the recommendation of Brother Charles, the guidance counselor, and enrolled at the college that attracted football fans and amateur athletes because the New York Giants trained there in summer: Fairfield University of St. Robert Bellarmine. Named for a leader of the inquisition, prosecutor of Galileo, and responsible for the burning at the stake of astronomer Giordano Bruno. Fairfield University: an all male Jesuit college in Connecticut, its mascot the stag.

A few weeks after freshman orientation, the climax of which was standing before a bonfire wearing red and white beanies and chanting, Stags are Tough!, we became desperate for female company. Students with cars drove into town to simply observe a woman’s legs. Others dated local high school girls who randomly called pay phones in the dormitories, giggling to whoever answered and then driving to campus where they’d meet the boys, go for a ride, or walk to the secluded Japanese gardens behind the gymnasium…

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