Chapter Seven
Sonora House
The first time I met Nolan, he was not wearing shoes. I was looking for housing close to the University of Texas for the fall ‘85 semester, and I had waited way too late. It was two weeks before classes and I was scrambling. I’d driven up to Austin for the day and looked for one-bedroom apartments, singles, then efficiencies within a few blocks of campus, and they were full, over-priced, or decrepit. Then I checked out student co-ops.
Sonora House was two blocks down in the West Campus area and had two two-story buildings that framed a green area considered the co-op’s back yard. One building had a red wooden deck on its second level. A sandwich board in the co-op’s front yard announced a vacancy, and I walked into the main building, the one with the kitchen a
