Before Collusion: Part II begins, I owe a shout out to Kaki Meyers. My delightful co-worker. She is pert. She is bright. And there is a certain something about her that calls to mind a song by Fiona Apple.
With any luck, most of you were able to stagger through that somewhat exhausting look at some of the types you can run into at any given time at ye olde schoole.
Housing. How shall i describe it.....
Well the way i discovered it i suppose. The dorms. Five nearly identical buildings. Three stories high.... Long rectangle/shoe box shaped buildings made out of dusty yellow brick. The lay one after another in precision on either side of one of the side streets of the campus. All around them were ancient box-woods that had been trimmed on exactly the same schedule, and in exactly the same shape for something like forty years. They were designed for efficiency. Not comfort.
Before stopping here though, in another building of long corridors, campus staff had set up little booths and tables and so had incoming students stop at each to gather pertinent information.... We were all given a number. An ID card. Little blue plastic things. And each new student got a complimentary thumbnail photograph of themselves on the card as well. I was thrilled to discover that everyone's ID picture was exactly the same shade of candid and usually revealed exactly how unfortunate each student could look.
Pamphlets. Papers to sign... bla bla. A copy of the schools calendar, complete with schedule for the rest of the year. And a copy of Almighty Handbook; which i learned to my immense pleasure held the keys to my success here. The Book i learned outlined each and every rule that i would be required during my new life here. My parents came along with me on this journey down the hallways. Up stairs. Around and around...Smiling faces at every turn. Welcoming me.... Sign here. Pose here. Smile! Everything's going to be fine.
My nervous system was doing odd things. It knew i wasn't supposed to be in the same room as that many people. It wasn't meant to process all of these variables. I was meant to join a convent of Keebler elves and bake cookies in a tree somewhere... not discover a remedial school for the emotionally imbalanced, products of religion's 'hitlers youth.'
I would conquer this though. I would make it work. I said my goodbyes to my family. My mother was crying. What is it about your mother crying? Why does it make you feel so pathetic? When my mother cries it regurgitates every sad memory I've ever had. When my mother cries... for a little while my soul hits an iceberg and starts to take on water. I must cry with her. It's an imperative. Other directives are lost. My dad shook my hand. More wood on the fire. Goodbye family.
Alright. Enough about that. Embarrassing. In the next ten hours I would attend 16 meetings. About where i would work on campus... one where i found out about financial responsibility for this academic foray... one where I learned about the penalty of sexual activity during my stay here (a large man with a black sack on his head axes off your right hand).... and one with bagpipes, when all the freshmen marched down the aisles of the largest auditorium to stand at attention as the Sorting Hat shuffles us into the proper Societies based on your how well you fit into one level of the Cast or another.
My housing. Oh dear. According to one of the packets of papers i was handed by a Jane Doe Groupie... I found my room. All but one of the beds were taken. I wasnt surprised. Meet my room-mate? Join me, wont you?
There's Larry. Larry is a senior. A large, large, rotund Hawaiian man, who had somehow managed to endear himself to a host of Handsome Soccer Players, despite being about as athletic as a boulder. I think he had managed this particular addition to his popularity level because he knew all the rules to every conceivable sport... and therefore reffed, and because no one can think of anything to dislike about Hawaiians. I was greeted with polity... and a big girthy, Hawaiian handshake.... and allowed to arrange my things on the one remaining bunk. (Since when is everyone shaking my hand? Who started all this? oh yeah.... thanks dad.) I would soon learn that Larry would spend 11 percent of his time eating odd asian foods made from seaweed, and 89 percent of his time talking on the phone with his gypsy girlfriend. I never met her. She lived... Elsewhere.
Introductions to 1/4th of the rooms remaining members being done... I settled in. I know i started talking a bit about the dormitories and then skived off into other topics. I return to the issue now. As i mentioned before the exterior architecture wasn't anything you'd expect to see on the cover of Architectural Digest... more like what i imagined hospitals from the 50's might look like. I dragged all of my things in through the heavy metal and plate-glass doors in the front of the building. Smith i think it was called... and was immediately over-powered by a smell. I would have had no idea how to describe it then... but now ive come to remember it as the kind of smell left by 200 hundred plus post adolescent males living in the same building. Damp. Salty. Animalistic. Not a powerful smell. Which is to say, it isnt the kind of thing that would turn your head... like say a ladies perfume... as she brushes by. But the kind of smell that you always associate with a place. Like your aunts basement... or a wood shed or something.
I hardly know how to describe the oddness. Parents left. New lay-outs to navigate. And a new and constant proximity to society. There was also a new awareness of perception. (perhaps that will be a topic touched on post-collusion.) An awareness that each new face forged and instant opinion of me. An indelible stamp... They each regardless of their place in the Cast made mental short-cuts for how they should consider me. The way i dressed. Walked. Talked. All of it carried intense meaning under this new system. There were lines and lines of social code that i hadnt been programmed with... but everyone here was already running on. I was mesmerized. But I adapted quickly. More meetings.
Back to the room at night. Time to meet the rest of the room.
There's Ramon. (Maybe it's spelled with an 'e' on the end. I don't remember.) As the name indicates.... this dude is of latin origin. Sort of a Puerto Rican guido. 4 inches shorter than me. And as I'm a lofty 5'7'' that speaks volumes. Introductions were cordial enough. Accent thick like glue. I could tell straight away that this kid was used to getting whatever he wanted... and that the Almighty Handbook would be something that he worked around... rather than towards. I kicked myself realizing how much time i shouldve spent watching spanish soap opera. Conversation with Ramon was alot like fencing. DNA, or something even more powerful, like fate perhaps had decided that he and i were to be opponents. The room we were graciously provided with, was something like 20 feet long and ten feet wide, and making space for any of my things made me feel like a conquistador. Die Incas. Die.
He majored in something like Recurring Revenue and Claims Auditing? I dont remember exactly. Ramon's time was divided as such.... 25% preparing his hair for presentation with a variety of fossil fuel based products.... 10% spent in ricochet spanish conversation with our other room-mate debasing me... 50% being arrogant.... and 15% butchering english with a dull knife.
The last member of the room is was relieved to discover would not be a direct problem for me. Chester. I realize the name probably calls to mind a host of jokes about molestation. This fact was not lost on me. Chester was mute for all i could tell. 6 feet and some change... and built for one of those ancient Roman 'kill or be killed' sports. Chester only ever spoke to Ramon... which was fine by me. There was some sort of un-spoken agreement that I should observed and avoided. That i could deal with. Chester was from some part of the Dominican Republic. Living there apparently makes you immune to humor, communicate only with peoples of like interest in blood sports, and turns your skin coal black. Fascinating land. I imagined that at his birth, there was a celebration where the natives spent a week hunting for the largest boar they could find... then after spearing it to death they roasted it on a spit while chanting praises to their devil gods.
This first day had turned out to be exhausting. This didnt prevent me from having insomnia though. One of the social laws of the Almighty Handbook required that each room meet together and sit in a circle at precisely 10:30 pm to read scripture and pray; and perhaps share observances on the day. And so we did. I love the word 'and'. Larry led this practice. He had been elected to be what is referred to as an Assistant Prayer Captain.... each room was designated one per the Almighty Handbook. As such it was his job to organize these little prayer sessions and also to take a sort of spiritual temperature of the room. I was relieved to find that he would not view this as one of his priorities. Chatting with gypsy girlfriend took priority on most nights.
Day one ended... I took three bendryl. I fell asleep.
