A few weeks before I had to go to Rhode Island, I called the other attending student from Maryland to inquire about getting a ride up. It was touching that she was excited to find that another student from Maryland would be attending.

However, when it came to getting a lift, she put it this way, "Well, I could probably stuff you in the front seat, but I will have so much of my stuff, I wouldn't be able to fit any of yours in. I think it best to find your own way, but it is nice knowing that another person from Maryland will be there."

I found it very strange to have a peculiar dream that very night.  I was up at the Rhode Island School of Photography, and dreampt I was in class, surprisingly to found that Jean was up there as a student too. Jean told me, "I miss you and just couldn't see you being here all alone."

The dream ended with a strong squeeze of the hand and a hug. I woke up wowed by the dream, and somehow knew it was related to the call I placed in the afternoon. I just didn't know how or why.

I was able to secure for $125.00, a one way flight from Piedmont Airlines. I ended up packing for the trip up; two small carryon suitcases, two large ones, as well my backpack. Not only was the backpack six inches smaller then myself, it weighed over 100 pounds. Just as I had been taught for the 1979 Philmont trip, I had the whole thing wrapped in plastic bags and duct taped.

At the airport check in, they weren't very happy with me and told me: "I'm sorry, but with all of your baggage, we have to immediately charge you another $100."

"I can pay that, but I am going to college up there and since I only have $500 for food, that will mean, I don't eat for a couple of weeks."

"Oh, you know what? I have a kid attending college out of state. Just hold on and let me see if I can help you out." He got the attention for his supervisor and explained my situation. I lucked out and the airline decided to wave my fees.

While it was a fairly short flight, it was a horrifyingly shorter landing. The second we hit the runway, it was not only full reverse thrust, it was full breaks as well. The entire cabin shot forward held only by their seatbelts. My inquisitive human nature observed the entire plane spilled out from departure to the lavatories.

Most passengers' adventure stopped there, but our apartment's superintendant, Debbie Eaton was being followed by a curious airport security. She greeted me at the baggage claim with a hand truck.

That was then security converged and busted out laughing, "Gee lady, you're supposed to go around back to pick stiffs up, not cart them out of the front with a hand truck."

Debbie whispered in my ear, "Oh, I figured that you had a lot of stuff, so I grabbed the hearse instead of the limousine." I spent the next five minutes as a celebrity explaining to security the situation and the backpacks contents.

I went light fighter with the camping equipment, which was stuck in the lower portion and the pockets, but I had the bulk of the backpack loaded with phonographic albums and photography books.

Once at the apartment, Debbie welcomed me as the first tenant, and mentioned I would meet my next roommate tomorrow. The next day, Steve showed up and I helped him unload. He was fairly tall guy and a second year program student. After getting situated, Steve showed me King/Neutaconkanut Parks that were situated next to each other not far from our apartment.

The next day Steve drove us to Newport and while we never made the beach, the wealth that was displayed was impressive. Docked were two hundred foot yachts and screaming down the streets were plenty of sport cars including Ferraris.

Other preschool excursions included Cranston Mall, as well as a mall in the city which looked like a factory.  We visited the grounds of Brown University and the nearby Rhode Island School of Design (not a part of RISP). Between Providence and Newport, Also, Cananicut Island which had Jamestown, and Fort Wetherill, a coastal battery that was in use from the revolutionary war to WWII.

Next to take up residence was Jeff. He was about my size and had long dirty blond hair and hailed from New Jersey as well. He worked back in New Jersey as a paint salesman and was easy to get along with and a people person. Last to come in was David, a tall curly haired person from Connecticut.

Very soon after our apartment was full, it was time to start school. There was a combination meet and greet, and get the paperwork done. Then our official school portraits were taken, as we later found out they were the highest of quality, mug shots made into a poster, and put on the wall for the teacher's to recognize us.

Late in the day were our locker assignments and we picked up the materials the school supplied us. Textbooks, contact frame, 4x5 films for the view camera and photographic paper. Films and papers came in bulk packages, but I felt that we didn't get the best deal as they bought wholesale and we wondered if they priced it above retail.

I really wasn't happy with the photograph print paper as it was Kodak RC multi-contrast, where you used filters. For me, my dissatisfaction would ring true and I could have made better use of the supplies expense to get materials that you be better suited for me. I admit that in high school, I worked with the best print papers and was spoiled.

I was somewhat shocked that the teachers preferred to be called informally by their first names. Rudy was the chief portraiture curmudgeon, Arthur Rainville was more the fat and happy type with more humor and flamboyance then Rudy, Allen Dean taught commercial photography and was in charge of the studio upstairs, and he had the same penetrating, spur of the moment and humor that also exploited vulnerabilities.

For our retouching classes, were the Hobbs, Madeline and John, but they were more happy to be called Mr. and Mrs. They were up in years and also contributed to learning about scenic photography. For the 2nd year class, the color darkroom was run by Woody, a sort of a tough as nails older man, who seemingly had a God-like air about him with the second year students.

Our darkroom teacher was a former photojournalist from the Providence Journal, who had decided to go into education and just received his teaching credentials. His name was Howard Hunt. The president of the school was Mr. Falgo and he seemed to be Mr. Cool and loved to show off his highly alarmed 12 cylinder Jaguar.

I think the most revered and essential person there was the woman who ran the cantina in the hall way of the second floor. Either really Italian or of Hispanic origin, the food was relatively inexpensive, great quality and she was naturally very friendly, replete with blessings. There were a couple of tables with benches that we could congregate around.

I also met many of the students and we had a few foreigners. In our class was Sandeep Madre, a young man from India who I would befriend. The 2nd year had Natalie and another gentleman from Jamaica, as well, two guys from Malaysia.

I also met many of the dorm women, which seemed to be lead by the Dorm Bitch. Not a pejorative from my mouth, but something that I believe that she fancied herself as. I do know for a fact that a few of the students did refer to her as that. My opinion was quite to the contrary, she simply had the ability to be able to speak her mind, and she really cared about life. She never misused her opinions, used them to punish, or put herself above others.

I also met the girl from Maryland. With the first glance, I walked up to her and said, "You're (The girl from Maryland), aren't you."

She sort of choked and said, "Ah ... Yes."

I then started to converse with her, but she began to get suspicious and hesitant at carrying on a conversation with me. I couldn't believe the familiarity with her, but considering I had her so creeped out, I decided that it was best to stop.

There was a beautiful girl, and many of the male students tried to talk to, but she avoided talking with anybody. The girls instantly seemed to dislike her. Her physical beauty was natural, not even looking like she wore panty hose; her legs sure looked like it. We did find out that her name was Jenifer, but I was left with a strange feeling about her general reluctances.

Also known as both students and people to stop by the apartment, was a Jewish student and a tall black guy who hailed from New York City. Both were characters and quite a trip to be around, it was obvious that with only 122 students in the first year program and about 60 in the sececond year, it was a close knit school environment.

Howard Hunt seemed to be the person with the most problems as he started teaching us darkroom techniques with, "Ok boys and girls, today we are going to learn about the darkroom we are using." Our entire class just looked astonished at each other; every word was simple, clearly enunciated and methodologically used.

Within about five minutes, a quarter of the class walked out on him. Another ten and he lost half of the class. Then it became a contest of who will be the last remaining person in his class as the rest of the class filing out in a slow but steady dribble.

Now there were only two people in his class, another person and I. Nearly ten minutes remaining, we looked at each other, stood up and walked out. I was afraid that he was going to pull out a mirror and say, "Now I see Mike ... and Bob ... and ..."

The next day wasn't much better with him, and most of the class had filed out by the halfway point. I could tell that Howard was upset and concerned, but I was hoping he would figure things out and start teaching us like we wanted.

I was at R.I.S.P for the portraiture and it was astonishing to see the works of the teachers hanging on the wall. I was amazed I will be learning how to do the lighting and hoped I could get it down in a year.

Rudy started, "Well, you may think that portrait lighting is the hardest thing in the world. It is actually the easiest." For the most part we were working with two lights; the third was in the back of the subject you were photographing. That remained in place, while you moved the other two.

We talked about using various lighting ratios; and to make it fast and easy on us, they had strings tied to the lights with knots in them. They taught split, loop, butterfly and Rembrandt styles of lighting. The names were basically the shapes the shadow made under the nose, while the key in Rembrandt lighting is all about the triangle highlight on the cheek.

Last were posing routines, where to place the feet and hands, and how to position the hands and head, and have the body turned. Next we started to practice what we learn. I wondered what we would be doing for the rest of the year.

With commercial photography one had to get an understanding of the view camera. A view camera has a bellows with tilting, rotating planes at both the lens and film plane. We had to get lectured by Allen on how to change the effects of perspective and what camera movements to make.

Also, exposure was a lot more complicated. Regardless of the lens and film, one had to know where the starting point was with the focal length of the lens. The great thing with the view camera was that you could lengthen the bellows, to be allowed to shoot much closer that a regular camera. It took a bit of getting used with using a formula to calculate out what the exposure would be.

Everything else in commercial was just like portraiture, lighting ratios, how to pose and light the objects, which is now called placement. Both facets of photography had a very nuts and bolts approach, still making the challenge of how to get the final result to come out the way that you want it. There were also business ends to learn, all of the instructors handled the photographic end, while Mr. Julianne handled the business end with teaching basic accounting.

It wasn't long before the first Friday rolled around, and I planned to make use of the free study day that Mr. Julianne talked about. I was amazed to find myself the only student in the school, one of the instructors walked up to me and asked me what I was doing there. I explained and was then informed that Fridays was only for the teachers to prepare for next week's lessons.

Not having anything to do and wanting to make good use of my time, I asked to help them out and was sent down into the basement to help Howard Hunt out. He was happy to receive it as he had 30 enlargers to maintain and tanks to clean.

At the end of the day, he simply said, "I am glad that you came and helped out. I know most of the students don't like me very much."

"What makes you say that?"

"Everyone walks out of my classes. I know everybody here knows photography, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve they should be willing to learn."

"Howard, it's not that they don't like you, it's that they can't stand the way you teach everything."

He got a curious look on his face and said, "I don't know why, I just got good teaching credentials and my certification."

"That's the problem; you're teaching us like we are first graders. You're a photojournalist and that's what we want to learn. My advice is, be yourself and teach like you would want to be taught. Throw what you learned to get your teaching certification out and be more like a high school teacher."

Howard was shocked and in a more of a reflective mood said, "Thanks, I'll think about things." I left the school enjoying the use of my time and hopefully setting Howard straight.

Well the next Monday, the change in Howard was monster like, "I have come to hear that no one likes the way I have been teaching class. Well fuck you all!" Now it was the class that was shocked.

"Look, I am a God damned photojournalist, not a teacher. When I learned how to teach, I listened to them. Since you all don't like that, I will try to figure out how to teach you, and to help me out, feel free to make suggestions."

Howard's popularity instantly increased and kept the classes interest. Down in the darkroom, it was more of seeking him out for advice. He was no longer uptight and very resourceful, in a sense he now felt more like a student, but with the respect of authority.

The week went great, and I walked into the school Friday. Mr. Falgo, the president, immediately walked up to me, and yelled, "Just what the fuck do you think you're doing here?"

"I came in to help the teacher's out."

"Fuck that! It's Friday and I don't want no fucking students in this school. I pay the teachers to do their own, God damn work. Now get the fuck out right now."

I turned tail and ran, a teacher spotted I was upset and inquired, taking me into their offices across the street to explain. We all cracked jokes about it, but I was soon sent on my way. That weekend a terrible realization was made. It was weeks without thinking about Jean and even though the guilt wasn't there, the pain and loneliness was many fold.

I missed Jean not being in this world terribly and could no longer bear it. I was no longer pining away in grief, nor suffering depression. In fact, it was quite the opposite and I was very happy. But I really missed Jean and decided that I wanted to join her, or at least attempt it, as I didn't want to be in this world without her and always lonely.

Right then and there, I decided to commit suicide. In my opinion, Mom and my grandmother would be taken care of by heavenly guidance and hopefully would then concentrate on my sister. Dad didn't matter to me as the last year; he seemed to relish being the adversary.

I knew Mr. Schwarz would be upset, as he was worried and warned me about his fears, because many art students attempt to commit suicide, as there find themselves no longer the top dog. I figured that would also become a comfort and realization, as the truth to me was much more horrible to myself.

There was only one thought holding my back. The two girls whose help I requested the year before. I not only knew what guilt was, but how bad the feeling that somehow there was something they could have done to change the outcome. Though a drunk driver had taken Jean's life, I wondered countless times, if I didn't know Jean if somehow, she would still be alive.

I immediately found a solution. I penned the two most vile and vicious letters, with heavy sexual overtones. My goal was to convince them there was nothing they could have done, and that I simply went completely crazy. I didn't want them to grieve over me.

Though this all, "The Theme From M.A.S.H., "was playing constantly in my mind, "Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes. I can take it, or leave it if I please." To me, it was no longer a choice, but a preference.

If Heaven didn't hold the option of reuniting me with Jean, I prayed and asked God, if he had found any good in me, to simply destroy my soul, so I could find peace in my heart and mind. I was firmly resolute and completely calm and resigned in my decision.

I immediately went into action with my plan. I had just bought a log of Copenhagen and being addicted to it; felt that a drop of pure Nicotine wouldn't kill me, though it would kill most people. I turned one of the tins into a tea and concentrated it down to a tablespoon. I guess the pharmacology lessons paid off as I was able to remove much of the tar, and mixed into a few ounce of Coke, would be fairly easy to take.

I wanted a one, two punch, so I had a couple of the diabetic syringes still around. The one's that Norm and I used to inject the food dye into food at summer camp. I would place one in my forearm vein and then put the other in vein located inside of the elbow.

I would take the nicotine, then pump the first syringe, then the other and continue pumping until my blood clotted and caused a stroke or heart attack. I figured that the combination would be so fast, that I would fall back and even if still alive, aspirate and suffocate on my vomit.

With writing my parents, I knew the timing of the postal service, and mailed out the two letters. What amazed me was I was continuing in this world with an enhanced fondness, yet very glad that I was willing and prepared to leave it.

Friday held an evening mixer, which was sponsored by the 2nd year class and I enjoyed it. I once again tried to talk to the girl from Maryland, but in addition to the factor that she was getting creped out, she seemed to have a panic about her, so I thought it best to leave her alone.

It was a nice party and with a healthy buzz, made an effort to talk to every other student. I did notice that the girl from Maryland was talking both to Jeff and David, as was her friends. It was around the witching hour when we decided to go back home to our apartment.

David was driving his car and Jeff was in the front passenger seat. Jeff then said, "Well it looks like Mike is out of contention with [The girl from Maryland] so it's my turn to try to fuck her."

I completely flipped out, "Before you fuck her, why don't you treat her like a lady first and find the friendship."

"Fuck you and fuck that! I am more than happy to get a little sex out of her, in fact she's picking me up to take me to her apartment. I'm going to fuck her if I can."

This exchange went on several more times and I realized that my arguments are fruitless. "You know what, at least I care. If all she wants is to be fucked, then she deserves what she gets. It doesn't matter to me anyway, because I am doing air bubbles tomorrow." Jeff's head cocked in my direction and I shut completely up.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing!"

David then ran his mouth, "Air Bubbles? Mike, are you holding back? I never heard of them."

Jeff shot out, "Shut up Dave." Jeff was now looking at me. "You did say that."

But Dave couldn't leave it alone. "No, what are air bubbles? Is it like a pill or something like LSD?"

"Shut the fuck up Dave!" Jeff yelled.

"No, I want to know!"

"God damn it Dave! Mike just told us that he is going to commit suicide. Air bubbles is sticking a syringe in your arm and injecting air bubbles into your blood stream."

"Maybe Mike's just mad and is threatening it to get attention or get you away from [The girl from Maryland]."

"Bullshit Dave! You should have seen how mad he was when he said it. This is something that is planned. Fuck!"

By that time, we were pulling into the apartment and went inside. That's when Jeff hit me so hard that I basically failed in the attempt at arguing with him and fell into the chair. He hammered me with arguments against committing suicide and how short sighted, even the best of plans are.

I wanted to come, flying up from the chair and beat the living hell out of him; but not only couldn't I move; I couldn't even speak. I just sat there looking at him, motionless with tears streaming down.

Jeff concluded as follows. " I saw your syringes loading film. Do you think that you'll inject enough air to kill you, or just to become a vegetable for the rest of your life? You'd just be there stuck thinking about things. Mike, I hate to tell you, I still plan to fuck [the girl from Maryland], and will if I can. It isn't anything against you, but I think you have been planning this for a while."

"Do you want to know how I know? I had a ton of friends threaten to commit suicide, mainly for stupid reasons, attention, anger, frustration. But I had two friends actually do it, there were signs, but they were quite about it. I know you are serious."

"Look, I hope you don't do it, but I am not going to stop you if that is what you decide. I hope everything works out and you decide to stay amongst us."

With that, Jeff left. David then told me, "Mike, I'm going to bed know, when I wake up I hope to see you alive."

Not only had my mouth betrayed me, but my body did also. I sat in that chair in a catatonic state until 3:00am. Movement once again entered my body and I basically made it to bed, only to collapse in it from complete and utter fatigue.

I woke up between 5:00 - 6:00am to see the girl from Maryland's car in the driveway. While I could only see their backs, I knew the discussion that Jeff and that girl was having, was about me. Feeling powerless, I crashed back into the bed.

I did notice the movement of morning out in the kitchen, but no one was speaking. It was around 11:00am that I was able to walk out.