In my lifetime there have been few stretches of the day as desolate as closing time at the Unit 2 Dining Commons. Less than year before it was torn down as part UC Berkeley’s dorm overhaul, I was finishing off a late dinner (composed mostly of breakfast cereal and chocolate pudding), by my lonesome, in a corner of the cafeteria’s west wing.

The first notes to “Pretty Young Thing” floated in through the DC speakers. I sat upright, waiting for the bassline to make its entry, eyes darting around to see if any other college freshmen were ready for the funk. Not a single cell moved itself from the sparsely populated dining tables, students continuing to haphazardly shovel the culinary equivalent of talk radio into their free refill engorged mouths.

I lowered my eyes and was about to get up for seconds on pudding when a worn, warm and altogether loving voice cried out softly, “Michael! Ohhh, Michael… ”

I raised my head to see the janitor, a black man just past middle age, just starting his cleanup shift, mopping up the floor of the DC service aisle to the rhythms of truly perfect pop music.

This was the most instructive experience of my university education.

Long live the King.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 2:26 pm and is filed under None.