Collusion: Part XXVII

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. What a curious phrase. Are we to suspect that all Romans behave in roughly the same manner? Are we to emulate these toga wearing hive- minds only when we can amass the small fortune which it now requires to make the pilgrimage to Rome? Is it meant to suggest that what happens in Rome, like things that happen in Las Vegas, stay in Rome? I can't be certain. I do not know the origin of the phrase. But like most things that become cliche phraseology, I am certain that there is some sliver of wisdom down deep in its origins... and that should we wander down the old paths to Rome, we would surely find the thing that inspired such a phrase and we would doubtless agree with the wisdom at its root.

And why do I mention? Well you see. In a sense, Bob Jones is... as I had come to see it, Rome. With architecture no less idiomatic and a populace no less united. I came to see as well that I, like Caesar... in forging a relationship with X, had made new and dangerous enemies in the Senate... and soon by degrees they would join and make a calculated effort to end me. The floor of the Senate however would look remarkably like the Dean of Men's office, and the little daggers that my former friends the Senate would make use of... were short but no less quick little tongues. Sharp. Wet with truth... with one simple desire. My blood. Et tu Jesus? Et tu? 

As that small little coven of my friends washed frenetically through their own irrelevant schedules summer was at the front of everyone's mind. Expulsion was happening at a rate that might have alarmed me had I not experienced it's reality in the years past. Like pop corn that you cook on the stove... one might draw a correlation between the ambient heat of the burning season change and a witless students demise.
I couldn't make it to a recital. I didn't really have time to meet them for lunch. I couldn't have been less interested in their final project for Interior Design 101... Congratulations, you have successfully furnished a dolls house. Certainly this means you were born to win? I could feel it in the looks that I got. Those friends that I was unwittingly making into the ghouls from an espionage film. As I think on it though, I wasn't making them into anything at all. My decisions were simply the catalyst... the one true chemical, the acid that would burn away the charming tarnish of their exteriors and leave them bright and shining... and... a vulgar sort of ugly.

Melodie was taking a class with me called "Story Telling," the main goal of which I think was for her to eventually ensnare me firmly in the vice like grip of the lips of her vagina. A concept which had all the appeal of being thrown down a flight of steps. We spent hours non the less, in a large conference room high up on the third floor of the Gustafson Fine Arts Center. The room looked like the kind of place where you might be called in to do a presentation on global warming or some other mind numbing pig shit.

MC: "I know, but do you think my interpretation of the witches voice might be a little too... scratchy?"
ME: ... I was responding to a text from X and could hardly remember what story she was referencing. Oh.. right Hansel and Gretel. "Uh... well. I thought it was fairly accurate. I mean... I was really convinced that you sounded like a witch." M took this as a compliment, and I'm afraid did not get the sense that I could have been remotely back handed.
MC: "The only thing is... I don't want to go hoarse. If I talk like that for too long.... Maybe I just need to bring a bottle of water to class." She chewed the end of a ball point... distressed.
I've been rather straight forward in my descriptions of Melodie, in the interest of honesty. To be fair, she was unflappably kind to me and I had begun to think about our little practice times as sort of vacation. Up here in the conference room I was mercifully free from prying questions and suspicious member of the Senate. Namely, Ami Jasperson, Eric Inafuku, Christine Dodd, Raymond Swope, Louretta and David Landon... and arguably Tim Johnson. These people are as real as oxygen, and at the time seemed just as dangerous as trying to live without it.

MC: "Joshie! Im just nervous about all of this! I mean, I can talk... you know that! (laughing) But I want to really move people... ya know?"
ME: "You are moving though... Like, I think in a sense.... the goal should be to disappear... and let the story tell itself... right?"
MC: She gave momentary thought to this and then gushed... "You're so right Joshie. I hadn't even thought about it like that."

The conversation bore on... and I was looking forward to getting back to my room and jogging to the Field House for a run on the rubber track up stairs there. Mel started putting away her note books and binders into her big snake skin bag. I noticed she wasn't chitting away like she usually was. I asked her what was on her mind...
She pranced on those ubiquitous black stilettos of hers over to the head of the long dark wood table at the center of the room and firmly gripped the edge of the table as if to brace herself.
She ran her nails through her shiny long hair and tossed it back looking me dead in the eye.
MC: "Well, you know joshie... how you're really my best friend in the whole world. I mean we spend pretty much a lot of time together every day. There's no one that I've been quite so fond of in a while."
ME: "Well I feel the same about you Melly..." I hadn't a clue where she was going...
MC: "Well... seeing that you're not dating anymore... ya know and Im glad about that. That silly Christine was just no good for you..." She was smiling with just a hint of malice...
ME: "Well... that's true..."
MC: "I was just.... I think that there's something between us... Ya know?"
ME: ".... .... (blink) like... the table?"
She laughed at this. Rather cloyingly.
ME: "I guess I don't really see what you mean..."
MC: "There's something really sweet about you! And you're so clever and funny... I've started to have a crush on you... (hair toss) and... I just know you feel it to!"
ME: "I... I. (I was at a loss) I really guess I don't feel the same way. I am... Flattered, that you could feel that way about me, and honored even... but I don't think I can return the sentiment."

There was a silence, and I felt intuitively that I had somehow wounded her. errrrr. uh.

MC: "You're sure... there's like... nothing there? Nothing at all?"
ME: "Yeah... Im sorry... but yeah."

I left the room without ceremony. Congratulations Medlin. Look what you've done. Yet another log on the fire. Yet another sharp knife. At least, I thought as I started my run, when you're on the floor bleeding out... you'll simply have to roll your head to the side to see your own blood pooling ironically around the heels of her gorgeous shoes. 

Collusion: Part XXV

I hadn't planned on it happening that way. There's just no good way to do some things though.

Classes were over for the day. A day that had been heavy with the gray brooding weather that drifts across the state in the spring and fall. Rain that rolls down from the mountains and makes the rivers swell and makes everyone change their routes to and from classes. Christine and I had made dinner plans. Or I should say that she had briskly informed me that she didn't want anyone else coming with us to dinner.
"Ok,... that's fine. I only wanted to spend time with you... anyways." I had thought morosely, but didn't say anything.

Something was wrong I could tell. We wandered through the cavernous dinning common, and everyone else in the room seemed like extras on the set of a sitcom pilot that no network would ever pick up. I just got peas. I wasn't hungry and wanted to drag them around the plate while listening to Christine unload. 

ME: "You seem really down today babe... What's going on?"
CD: "Oh, it's nothing.... It's just been a really.... really long week." She said, as if that was all she was really intending room. But we both knew better.
ME: "You know... I can tell somethings on your mind... you've been so so dark lately." The concerned look I was giving her was one I had seen I had seen on the faces of the doctors of ER. It was working like a dream.
CD: "Well... (it's at this point her blue eyes turned all slate and glassed over.) You know how I told you my dad was crazy?"
ME: "Yeah I remember us talking about it."
CD: "Well I don't think I ever said just how crazy.... I mean. Two years ago he converted to Judaism and tried to get my mom and I to stop eating ham. He went on these crazy pilgrimages to imaginary places. He barely spoke to me or mom." I could see it. I could see all the tiny little lacerations in her soul... and you know. I didnt have to look. She was just showing them to me on her own. "He's never told me that he loved me." She said staring me straight in the eye. Metalic.
ME: "Well... damn. Im... I hardly know what to say. You know you mean alot to me. You do. Maybe he's just got a very odd way of showing you that he cares about you?" I searched piteously for things to offer.
CD: "For the Feast of Tents.... he didn't have a ten... So he went out into the yard and lived in a cardboard box for a week."
ME: "See...." I said amused and smirking. "That's starting to sound like a personality disorder."
CD: "Yeah..." She replied. Her voice had turned to gravel and tears slid down her face. Now I felt like a complete shit head. No more smirks. Nothing funny. Lock it up.
For a few minutes nobody said anything. Mostly because i couldnt think of anything to follow up that beautiful little chasm that I had dinted the conversation with... and because whenever Christine is that up set... She just gives up talking. Her voice turns rusty. It's pitiful.
It was in those moments I saw through the layers of collegiate snip that she had developed. She wasn't snarky now. She wasn't dangerous. She was just a little girl. She couldn't be more than seven.

ME: "Babe, you know you're not going to have to put up with that forever... I mean why haven't you and your mom ever moved out?"
CD: "We did for a while.... "
ME: "That sounds like the way it should be always."
CD: "I know I talk about this stuff too much. I let it affect me too much. I let it affect you. Im sorry."
ME: "If it's something you wanna talk about, then we talk about it. It's no big deal.
CD: "I'm just.... so worried about my platform on Tuesday. I still have three pages to memorize. I have to go sign papers with financial aid. Oh and my dorm sup. wants to meet with me and talk about my 'christlike attitude.'"
ME: "Don't even worry about it." I offered with a slow smile. "Ill dress like you and go meet your dorm sup."

That got a little chuckle out of her. But didn't break the mood. I didn't have to think about it too long to come to the conclusion that I just couldn't support the both us. I'm a reasonable guy. But... this was no way to go about a romantic relationship.
It wasn't that I minded her crying in public and getting everyone else to think I had just said something wicked about the way she was dressed. I saw myself more as a care taker. Where's the challenge in that? I didn't say the right things at the right times. We could have a perfectly good date, and at the end of the night, she seemed.... melancholy. Just seemed like she was made out of porcelain, and it was my job to follow her around and pick up pieces that had broken off on her travels... and glue them back on the best I could.

One week later I broke up with her.

I walked her back to her room after another one of those sparkling dinner conversations. We were standing there on the corner in the lamp light.
ME: "I think we need to take some time off, you and me." I said flatly.
CD: "You........ do.........?" She said after a really long pause.
ME: "Yeah. I think it's a good idea."
CD: "So, that's it? walk me home and break up with me?" There was just black anger in her eyes. It sorta cut me.
ME: "Yeah... that's all I got."

I shrugged and without anything more, walked to my room in the dark.

Collusion: Part XXII

Aren't people fascinating? They're all these complex bi-peds (most of them) with need and want and varying degrees of intellect. Some of them are content with food and shelter. Some of them have much more complex needs. Social approval... financial success... a basement full of corpses covered in lime.... Ya just never know with people.

It was a Sunday at school. Sundays were usually the most scheduled day of the week. Required Morning Service to attend, Required Society Sunday School before that... Required Vespers in the afternoon.... You could try to squeeze in some homework somewhere in the afternoon. Snatch some food from somewhere and then pick arbitrarily from one of the seven hundred options for evening churches to attend on Sunday nights in Greenville. Vespers, in case you're wondering was a planned religiously themed program that included drama and music, and usually centered on one main theme. Adultery. Lust. Forgiveness. Dedication of one's life to a higher purpose... such as becoming a missionary to Bolivia. Etc. Etc.

On this weekend I had done my best to noodle about in the city, not having a car. I thought it was important to get a feel for the people who lived outside the walls of my confines.... and perhaps the places where they spent their lives. As I was soon to discover, however, my native talents do not include walking, and so by 'exploring the city' I mean that I wandered the streets around school looking like the victim of a natural disaster. Wide eyed at the simple processes of crossing the street at a light and fascinated by homeless people.

I had managed to find my way to an Asian food store. You know the kind where you can buy bulk Asian foods for the restaurant that your Philippine family owns? I wandered into the store beset with the smells of quasi-fresh fish, Mongolian vegetables, and small pastries shaped like domesticated animals. I can't remember what the place was called, as I had spent all of my energy walking to the store, and thus was un-able to form new memories. My weariness did not however, prevent me from purchasing eight pounds of rice, a very large bag of fortune cookies and a tin can full of quail eggs. Quail eggs I reasoned would be an interesting and tasty alternative to the products of their more well known cousins... chickens. I had no needs for these food-stuffs.... but this was one of those obvious facts that like so many other things at the time, was lost on me.

So on this Sunday.... this fateful Sunday, I decided after morning service requirement that I would make a delicious stew out of rice, new onions, and quail eggs. I would cook these ingredients together in a small Crock-Pot(TM) and reveal the product to my roomates. They seemed to have a never ending need for sustenance, and it was part of my plan was to win their affection by providing them with a curious, yet delicious evening meal. I left the mixture cooking all afternoon without supervision... assuming of course that anything you cook in a Crock-Pot(TM) should require this sort of cooking method.

Five hours later when I returned from evening service.... I was greeted on the first floor by the most amazing smell of my life. It smelled like a mortuary.... and onions.... and pan fried human excrement. High jinx ensued. The roomates and I experienced much laughter as we poked and prodded at the cement like mixture in the Crock-Pot(TM).... and then we scraped together what we could of the mixture... poured it into two shopping bags.... and then threw it under my hall leaders desk.

Collusion: Part XXI

Christine and I had a conversation later that evening about just how little she liked the amount of time that I had been spending with Melodie Cappoccia. We were walking back towards her room after dinner. About as much practice that was going to be done that day, was already done, and I could tell she was in a bad mood.

CD:"I just don't understand why you like hanging out with her.... She's fat... and obnoxious and she smells like cherry blossom rape." She said flatly.
ME: "I mean.... It's not like I'm trying to make her into a best friend or anything... She just always seems to show up whenever I'm practicing."
CD: " Well.... why don't you practice somewhere where you don't usually practice.... like the basement of the dorms."
ME: "I would, but those pianos are complete crap.... I mean, some of them are missing legs!"
CD: "Well, I just think that you probably like the attention...."
ME: (sighs) "Ya know, she just seems like a nice person...."
CD: "She seems like a skank. Just a nasty big breasted skank."
ME: "I'm not even remotely attracted to her! Her boobs are bigger than my head!.... It's a public nuisance..."
CD: "And another thing! Every time I have a conversation with her, she's always going on about how fantastic you are! It's friggin' annoying! YOU ARE SPOKEN FOR! And she needs to keep her hands off you..."
ME: "She hasn't had her hands on me.... ewe. She's just got a crush... it's no big deal!"
CD: "Well. I don't like it. And I don't like her. She's repugnant. And I think you should stop hanging out with her."
ME: "I mean... if it really makes you that unhappy.... (eye roll) Ill make sure to to instigate anything with her.... ya know. Disengage."

We were quite for a while after that, and just walked without speaking, in the half light back to Christine's room.

CD: "Well.... I dunno. Maybe Im just being a total bitch about all this. We just don't get to hang out as much as we used to."
She started to tear up a little bit, and I leaned in to hug her. Just a quick one though. Ya never know who might be watching from a window in the dorms and find the need to punish you for a harmless gesture of affection. Christine, by comparison to Melodie... did not smell like bathroom cleaning liquid. She smelled like a normal girl. Like skin, and shampoo.
ME: "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it bothered you all that much. She's starting to get on my nerves too.... And you're right.... She smells awful."

She was right about us not hanging out as much anymore... I'd transferred out of the Dining Common work force and begged a job from the people at the Museum & Gallery. Which is honestly the quietest easiest job anyone could ask for. I spent afternoons dressed in a simple black suit, and blue button downs and usually my own choice of an hideous tie. My tie choice was never ever calculated.... and most of them were yard sale purchases. All refugees from the seventies who had managed to not be thrown away or burned due to kitsch. I would study note cards and write poetry whilst wandering around in the thickly carpeted dimly lit rooms. Rooms filled with archaic and post Renaissance paintings. Huge... wall encompassing works in which the Virgin Mary would look down peacefully at her christ child son. All works on thick topics like sin, or death.... or the devil. The whole place couldn't have gotten more than 12 visitors a day. And that was fine by me... I loved the luxury of the quiet Bach string quartets on repeat on the PA system.... and the dusty emotionless atmosphere. It was nice. It seemed like a place between places.... Peace and quiet, only occasionally interrupted by the occasional group of antique humans there to look at the antique art.
Because of the new work schedule though... whatever free time I had to spend with Christine had been ganked around so that our schedules no longer coincided.

After our sad little fight, I trudged back to my room, planted myself in my bed, and stealthily put in my ear-buds. Like so many other convenient personal items, earphones were considered contraband. Being discovered with them could land you an easy 50 demerits. Presumably because you could be listening to any of the many types of music forbidden from student consumption... Such as rock, r&b, rap, jazz, soul, and polka. Whatever. Id had a bad day, and I'll be darned if I was going to chill out in my room listening to negro spirituals. No sir. All the other roomies were busy about the lords work.... So I cranked up some tunes and did a little homework reading.

::Knock Knock::

Who now? Uhn. I ditched the ear-buds and my ipod.... tossed them way back onto my bunk and jumped/slid into the chair at the desk. Just in time.... In walks Danny Callahan. Danny is a tallish troll-like creature. With rudimentary spacial perception and infantile logic skills. He's 6'1'' with a blond crew cut and a face like an Irish potato. Also, his accent was something like 'The Real White Trash of Boston Mass." Also, he was this years hall leader. So in addition to being obtuse, it was his job to make sure that everyone was living or dying by the Almighty Handbook.

DC: "Hey."
ME: (I look up from my text book and slowly blink at him.) "Hello Daniel."
DC: "So.... what are ya doin?"
ME: "I'm trying to decided if you got your polo out of an egg machine."
DC: "uh..... ok." He said wondering about the room. He was delighted to discover Roland's soccer ball in the corner and began punting it around. Callahan was, of course, a soccer player.
DC: "So... they've got you rooming with Roland. I wonder why that is...."
ME: "I haven't the slightest. I can only assume it's because Roland is so very fond of me..."
DC: "Ha..... funny. You should be nice to people. They'd like you better."
ME: "I have no intention of being in-genuine with people to win their affection. Besides, soccer players are all the same... Once you've met one, you've met them all." I finished dismissively returning to my reading.
Callahan continued to mill about the room until spotting the ipod, tossed aside.
DC: "So.... who's ipod is that?"
ME: "Oh that old thing!? It belongs to me.
DC: "Well you need to turn it in.... You could get in trouble for having it."
ME: "Yes, thank you Daniel.... I am aware of regulations. And.... Ill turn it in.... I'm just waiting for Hell to freeze over."
DC: "Hey!" He said, pointing at me with mock anger. "Not funny."
ME: "You're right its not funny! How am I supposed to get anything done listening to the air conditioner run. My tunes help me concentrate!"
Danny apparently had lost interest in the conversation, or had rediscovered how fun soccer balls really are... because he was back to his punting. I have always been fascinated by obtuse people. Much as Pavlov was fascinated by dog saliva. It's not that Danny wasn't friendly, or that he was doing his job too well. It was just that I had serious doubts about his being a Counseling major. How could he possibly be good at that? Weren't most of his people lobster fishermen anyways?
DC: "Don't you ever get tired of playing the system?" He asked in a sparkling moment of clarity and relevance.
ME: "Well.... yeah sometimes." I said with earnestness, and then with a passionate intensity.... "But if I do not play this "system".... I ask you.... How then shall it be played!?"
Danny was not impressed with my theatrics. And decided to leave without ceremony....
DC:" You're weird." He said popping his head back in the door before leaving....
ME: "Thank you!" I sang merrily back at him.

Addendum

I have a tiger in my chest, 

It's cage was spun from silk.

Woven daily, and precise,

It purrs, I feed it milk.

The cage that I am weaving,

Keeps the tiger hidden deep.

But at night his playground- jungle,

Is my mind while I sleep.

This monster of my keeping,

Is strong and swift and white, 

He was not meant for taming, 

but for murder in the night. 

With new rope I hide em daily, 

sew him out of sight and thought, 

The isolation keeps me living, 

but the peace is labor bought. 

I found him just a kitten, 

I took him to my house to play, 

But now, he's grown to prowl and hunt,

And break and kill his prey.

I have a tiger in my chest, 

containment, lust and lies.

So mend the fence, and lock the cage,

and if he's loose, we die.

Collusion: Part XIX

What is beauty... exactly? No... seriously. Think about it. I don't mean a definition. What is it to you? Is it balance? Is it symmetry? Is it perfect? Is it that exotic balance between right and wrong? Maybe not any of these things. Not exactly anyway. It's not perfectly constructed personal grooming. Nor is it the product of rampant orthodontia is this country. Beauty is perception. It's our believing, however foolishly, that something is perfect. Balanced. Innately circumspect.

Year two started, and my brother requested to room with me. It was fine... despite his poor sanitary habits, I had grown used to his idiosyncrasies; seeing as we had shared a room for the better part of 2 decades. Through some odd twist of karmic fate, Josh Roland was one of our room-mates. I could hardly wait for the enlightening conversations that might await. This semester was going to be like a season of Dynasty... without the creepy long nails and big hair.

Classes and schedule got set without a hitch and I threw myself back into the work. I was checking performance class times on the bulletin board in the main hall of the Fine Arts Building after chapel on a Tuesday... when someone stomped up behind me smelling like a Bath and Body Works. A heavy wave of Japanese Cherry Blossom rolled into my sinus passages... storming the beach like weather hardened Marines. Desert Storm. First strike. I don't discriminate against ladies who like to wear perfume... but to be frank, there's no reason to drink it for breakfast with your morning coffee. Almost immediately my sinuses clamped shut in defense of the invader.

"Josh Medlin!" yelled a raspy little girls voice behind me. I turned around to a familiar cow eyed round face. Shoulder length black brown hair that was shiny enough to shift around the salty white gray light from the industrial strip lighting in the hall way. A quick survey showed a floral print button down top with frills and a stocky little mandarin collar. Grey pencil skirt and ice pick black patten leather stilettos. Cleavage. Cleavage. Cleavage. This girl is what any self-respecting rapper would call 'thick.' Big old faux alligator skin shoulder bag held most of the library and a laptop.
"When's the next time you play in perf class?" She asked... tossing her hair back in a easy little flick.
What is this girls name? Crap. I've seen her all over the place prancing around like she invented music. We were in at least three classes together. All of which I was sure she was acing.
"Ahhhh. October? Apparently?" I answered... looking for her name on something. Anything. Nothing. I forget this isn't like kindergarten.
"Oh really!?... that's a long time! I've been dying to hear you play something!! Like... anything! What are you working on?" This girl was hard core.
"Oh.... ah. You know. Bach. Some stuff from the Well Tempered Clavier. Tom's wanting me to do a concerto, but I'm not so sold on the idea just yet. Ive got Mozart and Beethoven sonatas in the works... and Ive recently gotten really interested in Edward McDowell. The Sea Pieces, and the fireside tales. Do you know the works?"
"McDowell? Oh! I did his concerto in high-school! Totally love!" She pranced around me and traced down the list of performances and students' names until she found the two dates she was performing. Melodie Cappoccia. A musician named Melodie. Cute.
"How do you say your last name?" I queried... Looking for other topics.
"Oh! Yeah everyone always asks me that! Ha Ha! It's CAP....OH.. CHA! It's Italian..."
Already I was convinced that this amount of vivacity was un-natural.... and that I should begin to inquire who her dealer was, and if he was accepting new clients.
"We should totally hang out sometime! What's your schedule look like? Where do you work?"
I would discover she was always like this. Militant. Aggressively friendly.
"Well... Im a cook. Ya know, in the dinning common." Eye roll. "And I dunno... Im free for lunch today.
"What a coincidence!So! Am! I! I used to work in the dinning common. All the little academy kids who work there had the biggest crush on me." She exclaimed, winking.
She rummaged through her bag and pulled out an over-sized compact and did a little touch up.
"Wanna go now? I've got fourty-five minutes or so until I accompany?"
"Well I... thought I was just gonna skip lunch and practice or something."
"Oh come on! I won't bite! (hair toss... another wave of Japanese Cherry Blossom.)
"Ok.... sure..."

We walked briskly to lunch. To my surprise I found her a bit charming. After you get past the perfume and the mascara.... She was pretty ok. She kept telling me stories about how very 'Italian' everyone in her family was. How she had perfect pitch, how she was trying to lose weight. I really didn't know what it meant to be 'very Italian.' Did she have mafia ties? Was her family life like watching Everybody Loves Raymond? She chatted on and on...

During lunch I noticed a text I had missed. Christine.
CD{R U Free for lunch?}
hm.... this could get interesting.
ME{I found someone to tag along with!}
CD{Oh?}
ME{Yeah. This chick named Melodie... ya know her?}
CD{Oh. Oh yes. I know who she is. She smells like Bath n Body Wrks?}
ME{Yes! And she has enormous boobs!}
Christine and I talked about everything. And everyone... No one was safe from us.

"Is something wrong?" Melodie asked, salting a single pea.
"Oh. Oh no.... Just chatting with my girlfriend."
"OH! Ha!" Blank big eyed stare.

CD{Uh. I hate that girl.}
ME{I dunno... she seems nice enough.}
CD{Nice enough? No one can be that happy all the time.}
CD{Oh.. and she's a skank.}
ME{How do you know that?}
CD{Ill tell you at dinner. Deal?}
ME{KK.}

We finished lunch and said our 'see ya laters.' Why the heck was up with Christine? It was just lunch. Geez. Whatever. Id find out at dinner. Work in fifteen minutes.

Untitled.

Five hours a day,

That's the way,

A week to lift the spirit,

Sit in Green or Red or Blue, 

That gum, you must not chew it.

This way that, 

Don't wear a hat,

Please "Get in the building."

Sing with the rest, 

and you'll be blessed,

Your morals need the gilding. 

Please, please come in, 

and let's be friends, 

Fear God. Give us your money.

And laugh and laugh at all our jokes,

Though they're not all that funny.

Fundraiser for the Christian right...

Loan us your bleedin' pennies.

It's a spectacle of majesty, 

Are not our splendors many?

Save your lofty rhetoric,

I'll wait until you live it, 

The ushers reek of razor-speak,

Push and demand and pivot.

Believe! Believe! and 

Follow us to metal euthanasia!

No thanks....

I'm good.

I'll see ya.

Collusion: Part XV

Doubtless you readers might find the preceding happenings a bit difficult to believe. Such a structured environment must be designed to protect its members, no? So I had thought too. I thought here i would have been safe. I would be safe from drunken frat parties. I thought I'd be safe from being labeled anything but a christian. I thought it would be a place for me to grow and experience a sort of society, without having to worry about hazing, or alcohol poisoning, or roofies. Or perhaps being dragged out of my bed in the middle night and lynched for looking queer. Alas. It was not so to be. I say this all with a sort of wry smile on my face... hind sight is a bit less dire.

The great thing about almost bashing someones head in with an oak chair, is that in societies which still operate by rule of the dominant male, (see last 14 chapters) the more a man such as myself can assert physical dominance over the others, the less likely he is to be maligned by surrounding males who are also competing for dominance. Tale as old as time and all that. For a while the bullying stopped. I had learned enough spanish from my classes that I could fire back slurs at the room-mates mothers... calling them prostitutes; and not the classy kind either. Antonio Banderas wouldn't have approved of this tactic, but Antonio was busy filming 'Zorro' with Catherine Zeta Jones.

Control. Always control. I would fight to maintain it. I had divided my life into cubicles like an office space. Piano was in one, Room-mates in another. Running in one, Classes in another. My friends had a space of about four cubicles; one of the largest rooms... but i still wouldn't let them see what was happening in all the others. Everyone hated it here, but I didn't want them to know that I was seriously considering homicide as a legitimate solution to some of my problems. I would check the status of activities in each of my cubicles, and take the positive activity, and weigh it against the things that weren't going so well. Its part of how I managed. I worked hard at my studies. I would even call my Mom and ask for her help in studying something. E-mailing her a copy of a list of terms that I would need to define. I was one way of trying to stay in touch with the family. I would walk back and forth in front of my dorm talking and talking, papers in my hand or reciting a speech. I think my mom liked those long conversations... I had hoped that those phone calls would make here feel less like an era hand ended; even though it had.

Ramon Nieves would spend roughly forty minutes each morning sculpting his very short very black hair into a desired shape. I was unable to comprehend the amount of pride that must be at the back of this practice. I reasoned that no amount of hair gel would change his race, or make him less of an asshole. Either way I refused to give input. I suppose if your hair is roughly the texture of burlap, then your styling options are quite limited. Ramon was curiously vain and most of our conversations consisted of him regaling me with romanticized stories of his academic triumphs and amorous conquests. I supposed that this must have been some sort of attempt on his part to compensate for the fact that he was nearly 5 feet and 2 inches tall... and perhaps also that 60% of the words I used were beyond the scope of his understanding of the English language.

One evenings conversation was particularly revealing of my relationship with him. He stood at the sink preening in front of the mirror as I read an engaging chapter out of my Harmony text book lounging on my bunk. He pulled out a couple of outfit options from one of the three closets he had spread his expansive wardrobe out in.... to get my opinion on them.

ME: "Where are you going? Whats all the fuss about?" I could hardly have been begged to be interested.
RAMON: "Oy, my societies dating outing. Mayn I'm going wid dis girl.... ah Chelsea I think? What do you dink about dis?" He displayed some garishly colored button-down. Latinos are partial to button-downs. Particularly silk button-downs.
ME: "ummmm. Maybe you could mix it with dark jeans i guess. But don't wear the white shoes. It's too much. Especially if you're going to be playing paint-ball."
RAMON: "Oh yeah right! You're good at this mayn..... Brown belt, or the black one?"
ME: "El negro. Es mas simplé." I had taken to assuring the other members of the room that I was learning Spanish faster than they could hope to learn English.

Ramon puttered around for a few more minutes and sprayed himself down with the most god-awful cologne. You know the kind that leaves a dense cloud of musk after? The kind that leaves you licking the roof of you mouth because of the alcohol at the back of your throat. Ramon left in a hustle, more or less content with the way he looked.

I was feeling particularly wicked. I slid off my bunk and marked and closed my Harmony text. Vanity is punishable I thought.... and I'd nothing better to do. I opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a liter of hydrogen peroxide. I uncapped the bottle and poured about a half of a cup of the magical bleaching liquid into Ramon's bottle of hair gel... then gave the hair gel bottle a shake to incorporate my mischief. Shake shake shake..... gurgle. plop. I placed the hair gel bottle precisely on the shelf as Ramon had left it, and went back to reading my homework.

Collusion: Part XIII

Going back to school was no where near the tooth pulling-experience that it had been when i arrived at the campus for fall term. Everything got boxed or shoved into a suitcase and thrown into the Suburban.
I was no were near ready to return but filled with an unadulterated desire to survive and maybe come out on the side of it with a piece of paper with my name on it. A piece of paper that mentioned just how fantastically talented I was. Preferably in gold calligraphy.
I was mute for most of the return trip.

My mother is a delicate, and quietly passionate woman who is just a hair over five feet tall. She has deeply brown hair that will probably stay the same shade of mahogany forever due to a brigade of chemicals at her employ. She enjoys pruning roses, playing the flute, reading the holy word, and taking exhaustive bubble baths. I have always thought that she was beautiful. But then again, I suppose that anyone who's not a sociopath probably thinks the same thing about their mother, and perhaps in that I'm not significant. Mothers are the link in the chain that connects us to the rest of our culture... right back to where time began.... 

MOM: "What are you taking this semester?"
ME: "Oh something about Harmony again. Something about another Bible class."
I sat listless in the back seat...
MOM: "Well are there any of them that you're excited about?"
The questioning was well intended, but not exactly helpful. Dad was driving. He drives with his knees and elbows and this is reason enough for a healthy prayer life. By ways, or die ways.... from my vantage point it was a little un-decided.
ME: "Well. I guess so."
I was developing a bit of a persona with my parents. I wouldn't even consider telling them about some of the initial bullying and hostility. For one thing, there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it... and on the other hand if i were being marginalized, there was something clearly wrong with me. I wasn't working hard enough on making influential friends. Perhaps there was a certain smell about me that i hadn't worked hard enough to mask... that was no doubt the reason. Expansive orchestral arrangements of hymns were playing in the cassette deck as we made the drive. It was one of those days in January when it's brisk and clear out... and all the scenery was brown and forlorn looking.

I arrived. This time there were no tearful goodbyes... no heartbreaking feelings of being set adrift without a clue of how to carry myself around. I unloaded everything and set about the business of setting my things in order in my little nook in the ant hill. I returned my alarm clock to its precise place on the head board on my bunk and flipped out my silver MOTORazor to find out which of my friends might be back in town. There was a knock at the door as i was re-filling my drawers with my clothes.
The door swung open and un-ceremoniously; in barged Roland.

ROLAND: "Hey man! (beaming) "How was Christmas break!?
I never quite understood the continual vigor which this person poured into every mundane conversation; nor did i understand why he would want to talk to me at all. We have nothing in common! Why are we talking!?
ME: (not looking up from my unpacking) "It was good. It was nice to be away from here for a while."
ROLAND: "Ha ha! I know what'cha mean dude! It's nice to kick back and relax for a while."
I hate being referred to as a 'dude.' Absolutely hate it. I am not a stoner... and i would appreciate it if everyone would just try and respect that.
ME: "er.... right. Well what did you do for Christmas break?"
ROLAND: "Me and the fam went skiing in Vale. It's like an hour away from where we live."
(Why do popular people feel the need to abbreviate words that do not require abbreviating? Isn't the english language deteriorating fast enough without all of us trying to sound like a valley girl?)
ME: "oh wow? really... that sounds like a lot of fun actually." (compared to chopping wood to keep from freezing....)
ROLAND: "Yeah its pretty awesome." (eyebrow raise. general look of self appreciation. he stares off for a second as if to calculate just how wonderful he really is.) "Did you get anything cool?"
ME: "I got some money?.... Yeah. That was about it."
ROLAND: "Sweet dude! I got, like, three different Bible concordances that I was asking for.... a bunch of cash.... and.... hm.... like a bunch of small things. Socks and stuff."
Bible study tools and undergarments. Thankyooou Santa, I thought.
ROLAND: "Did you get a chance to witness to anyone over the break? What's god doing in your spiritual life lately." He asked, as if it were a question about the weather.
ME: "oh..... uh..... witnessing? Yeah... yeah. Seems like I did some of that. I actually got to spend quite a lot of time working in a local soup kitchen, and rescuing tiny kittens from trees for old ladies." I said remembering to add a little smile that i tried to make look honest.
 "Oh... and I've been reading an aweful lot of the Bible! In.... James!" These statements seemed to relieve him of his concern for me... as he began checking for particulates in his teeth in the mirror over the sink, and pushing his super man hair-cut around.

ROLAND: "Yeah man, I been thinkin' that it would be great to start a little Bible study after light bell with any of the guys on the hall that might wanna join. Yeah know... to support hall unity and help us get to know each other a little better."
I stopped putting things in their places for a second to give him a blank look.
ME: (catching myself) "Oh! uh..... that could be good.... . . . . . . . . . . " (wondering how long i would be able to continue this line of conversation without laughing hysterically.)
Roland was now flexing his biceps in the mirror and admiring his profile. I sighed. Yes... what a wonderful idea. Let's start a Bible study. That's going to make my life soooo much easier. Heck.... my room-mates could even stop calling me 'the faggot' in their devil language. This was clearly the next rung I would need to climb in the fame ladder. Look out Ryan Seacrest.... Here. I. Come.

I would realize somewhere in those next few months... that Roland's mind was filled with cotton candy. And he's from a place were smurfs and dolphins are our friends.

ROLAND: "Hows everything going with the room? You guys getting along?"
ME: "... . . . . . . why yes. We are developing into quite the little family." I said flatly enough that i think he finally understood what I actually meant.
ROLAND: "HAHA! DUUUUDE!! I love your sense of humor! its like.... so dark!"

I sighed again. This person was intended to enforce light-bell... not to engage in meaningful conversation.
Thankfully the silence was broken just a few seconds later by one of my friends popping his head into the room. Eric Inafuku. I had met Eric back in first semester... friends of Amy and Christine. He was the first thin Hawaiian that i had been introduced to here. A willowy snarky thing who had changed his major no less than 23 times during first semester. He and I had similar views about school and Handsome Soccer Players such as Roland, and thus got along swimmingly. He was passionate about asian independent films, learning Cantonese....and origami. He also seemed to like photo shopping photographs.... though I have yet to discover why. He always had a way of lightening the mood in a room. I think it had something to do with the fact that he was so outspoken... and that he was so thin, but always always wore black boots with very thick soles.

ERIC: "MERRRRY CHHHHHRRRRRRRIIIIISTMASSSSSS!" he screamed... landing in the room as if he had just dismounted from a pommel horse. "MELE KE IKE MAKA! Hi ya Roland!"
ME: "hey eric."
ROLAND: "Hey." (still looking in the mirror.)
ERIC: "Wanna go to dinner? Everyone's meeting at 5. Tonight's chicken patties!" he exclaimed with mock excitement.
ME: "Sure, yeah.... Christine and I were going to meet anyways I think."
ERIC: "Well it's nearly ten till! Let's go.... we're gonna be late!"
ME: "Ok.... " grabbing a jacket and heading out the door.... leaving Roland alone with his reflection. They deserved one another.

Eric and I made our way down the hall of the dormitory, and across the long walk to the Dinning Common. Chattering and laughing about Roland, Christmas happenings and whatever else we could find to chatter about. Dinner was to become a little ritual for the group. We would work out our class schedules so that we could eat together... enduring the vegetables that had been boiled silly, and the swarm of other students that would crowd the gigantic room. We shared stories from how we spent our Christmases... I didnt have a whole lot to add... but everyone else's stories were funny and touching. These people were my family now it would seem. These people made me feel a little bit like i wasnt so abnormal. We were the loudest group in the football field sized room. Quirky. Nerdy. Mal-adjusted. Those were the days. We created sculptures out of mashed potatoes that were thick enough to glue a glass to a plate. No lie.
Work and class would begin again soon and there were new adventures to be had. Oh, yeah.... and i would have to find a way to punish my room-mates for their behavior. It was way over the line. If the Authority wasn't keeping them in check, I'd have to do it all by myself.




 

Collusion: Part X

And so it began. It was written out in red letters. I had my suspicions confirmed. Not everyone here was my friend. I was a rogue program... The others that fit more perfectly into the matrix were taking notice... they would find a way to have me deleted.

I should not have been surprised. I had seen this type of behavior before. The data was already part of a working map.... a grid that exists in all societies. It is part of our genetic programming to instinctively isolate the weakest member of our group. To chase them out of our social network and prevent their weakness from infecting the gene pool. We instinctively consider the disabled, blind, weak and ill less a part of society... and for thousands of years this instinct has taught us to put our best genes forward.

Flash backwards ten years:

My family had gotten the idea that we should raise chickens. We should have fresh eggs that we wouldn't have to drive thirty minutes to the nearest large town and buy them. It was that convenience and the fact that my dad was overly fond of the idea of housing animals. My house was well situated off of a major highway.... thirty minutes south of the capitol of South Carolina. It was the largest agrarian county in the state. You could drive for miles and miles and see nothing but fields of cotton... soy beans and fields where the stubble of corn stalks remained from the year before.

12 Rhode Island Reds. We had raised them from chicks.... bought them from the seed store. I know what you're thinking... Laura Ingalls Wilder.... "oooooh paaaaaaw!" and all that. Not exactly. We didn't have horses. Either way we raised the chicks to adult hood... and even though i had taught them to behave, they were not so different than human beings. We kept them all together in a rather large coupe with little wooden boxes affixed to the wall where they could have a little privacy to lay their eggs. Much to my 13 year old horror.... I learned that these creatures looked out for not only their own interest... but apparently also the genetic health of the whole species. If one of the hens was discovered to be wounded... the others would mercilessly attack it... pecking at it to drive it away from the group and the food sources. It would seem that regardless of brain size; some tendencies stay the same cross species. The wounded hen would have to be guarded. Kept separate from the flock... otherwise the bullying wouldn't stop. And eventually the other hens would kill her.

I should have remembered these observances. And in truth i hadn't forgotten them... I just didn't realize exactly how helpful the memory would be. Alright... back to the story.

The end of the semester wash rushing nearer and I couldn't be more thankful for the fact. I pushed past Ramon on the way out of the room to dinner. Ever since Devin had taken such an interest in terrorizing me (he and his genitals had become a recurring late nite show) Ramon and Chester had taken it to mind that they would follow suit. But not in such a violent or dramatic way. I would over-hear an insult or two; or part of a funny story involving me and gang-rape. I couldn't make it all out... Even though i was picking up Spanish quickly; I wasn't what you'd call fluent. Of course it was embarassing... but i just thought that the best way to deal with it was to ignore it. Id never been bullied before. I always pretended not to hear... and left the room.

The group was getting together for supper... it had become a little ritual. We had made a little family. Me. Christine. Ami... Richard; Tisha... who by now were a lot more like Richard/Tisha. Gross. Affection. Christine and i had become good friends i would say. She and i were regulars to all the required campus events. We were both odd... and a good match as friends. I hadn't let any of those in the group know about the bullying. After all, if i showed weakness in either group... wouldn't it just incite more aggression? I was new to the game. So very new.

In a very few days the school would hold its annual lighting ceremony. One of the biggest cultural events of the Christmas season. Thousands of people would pile onto the front lawn of the campus. Choirs would have been in place on a stage and some figure head would lead the masses in prayers and songs.You know those obnoxiously feel good Christmas choral works? The ones that stores play all December in efforts to have you buy everything in the store? Those. Huge speakers everywhere. And and chunky mezzo soprano would eventually sing 'Oh Holy Night.' When she reached the most painful highest note.... some one would flip a huge switch and release millions of mega watts into the lights strung all over the place. Thousands of people would gasp... either from electrocution of because the combination choral music and intense lighting gave them the experience of communing with the divine. It was a spectacle. It was an event... The school had opened its arms to thousands of the unsuspecting public. Baked them cookies; gave them a show; and then told them how to go to heaven. It was marvelous to behold. It was fantastic. It was a colossal bear trap made out of fairy lights and guilt.   

The group went and more or less had a good time. It was fun weaving through and around the crowds. Taking photos together and laughing about the goings on. The diversion was much needed. Finals were very soon approaching...

I was academically gifted. I guess that's what you'd call never studying. Maybe it was just that I really didn't have time to study. Meh. Either way i was looking forward to getting away from here for a while and returning to my little house in the big woods... it was so quiet there. I wanted the quiet for a few weeks.

Tensions in the room were getting higher and higher. I was getting closer to having a pretty nasty blow up. I try to steer clear of violence, but sooner or later you get tired and angry about a jack-ass swinging his dick around at you whilst flickering the lights at 1 am. I looked for ways to make peace. I tried talking Ramon, and less often Chester. I tried to discover personal interests and goals.... hobbies even. Chester seemed to enjoy lifting weights. But lets be honest... that's really not a conversation point. Ramon had more than enough to say about himself... but i found it difficult to be interested. The two had affectionately taken to calling me 'el pato.' Which i could only translate to meaning 'the duck.' There were worse things to be called i reasoned... and was too busy about my own business to give much thought to it. I just assumed that was their way of accepting me. Ramon had a birthday on the way. He'd be twenty soon. Kinda old to be a freshman i had thought. Ah well. Maybe they get a later start down mexico way.

My mother has the most beautiful hand writing. Really i'll have to show you a sample of it sometime. She writes in perfect, unbroken cursive. She always had a stash of stationary on hand... and never every misses a chance to send a birthday card or thank-you note. This was a habit that she had tried her hardest to pass on to us children. She had always stressed the importance of letting people know that you're thankful for what they've done for you. There was an elegance to it. An old-world gentility. Its one of the things that I love about my mother. She will always be a graceful thoughtful thing in my mind.

I decided that I could try and bridge the gap in the room a bit. I would get Ramon a birthday card. And so i did. I wasn't anything fussy. It was simple and plain. It mostly wished him well in black ink.... It congratulated him, I imagined, for making it thus far without having been killed in drug related violence in puerto rico. That was something he deserved to be congratulated for. My spanish skills at that point were ever so limited... but in an attempt to further bridge build.... I signed it.
"El Pato Magnifico"
-the magnificent duck-
I handed him the envelope. He looked at it suspiciously... but tore into it. He read it quickly... and read the signature. I was smiling. Hoping to see a thread of friendship being made. But I didn't understand. Something wasn't right. There was a black and serious look on his face...
He said thank-you. But that was it.
Ah well. A hit and a miss i thought.

I would later learn that 'pato' was a slang term used in puerto rico. It meant something akin to our english word 'faggot.' I was mortified. But by the time i had garnered this information it was something that the latino members of the room had been laughing about for weeks. They had no souls, i decided. Their hearts were black and loveless. I was beginning to understand genocide.

I never spoke of the incident again. I stayed to myself... in a very few days everything was over. I had Christmas to look forward to. Home. The home that i had taken for granted until now. I returned to the little house in the big woods and thought about all these things. There in the dark, in the wind in the pine trees i grew stronger. I vowed to make fewer mistakes.

Collusion: Part VI

My classes were stacked on top of one another in precision. Tonal Harmony. Speech. English 102. Lunch. Choir. History of Civilization. Orientation. Spanish. Then... mercifully enough... it was off to the kitchens. How odd I thought, that i should find relief in that steamy, noisy metal plated bunker. But find relief i did. There were other venues for thought there and most of them included re-traying meatloaf.

One of my fellow 'cooks' lived on my hall. He and I would strike up conversations at work. Mostly about how ridiculous this all was. Richard Reece was a good foot or so taller than me... with broad features and black hair. His accent smelled like Boston... or at least like it had driven through Boston. I didn't know they kept naming people 'richard' after 1953... but he had said that was his name; and i believed him.
We usually worked the same shift. The one that fell after the lunch rush.... So it was our responsibility to put away left overs and start dinner.

50 Stainless steel trays of leftover meatloaf needed to be re-trayed, covered in plastic wrap and wheeled on a 5 foot tall aluminum cart to the cavernous walk-in refrigerator. (One of 3 room sized refrigerators that averaged about 12 feet by 16- 20 feet.) I would drag my book-bag and my worries into the locker room in the basement, find the smallest uniform i could (being 5'6'' and weighing 120 pounds made that difficult when all the uniforms were designed for males) and leave all my stress and confusion with chord function and dangling modifiers with my book sack, in my locker.
The locker room smelled like sweat, stagnant water, and granulated carpet detergent. Or a combination of each of those. All the students who worked in the kitchens had to come there and suit-up first... I never spoke to anyone in the locker room. Not because I didn't know anyone's name who might have happened to be stowing their books away and putting on a uniform.... it just seemed un-natural to be conversational, or chatty in such a place. To be jovial in a basement room lined with avocado green lockers, and a variety of carpet patches on the cement floor.... a room with a adjacent military-style style showers.... it just seemed vulgar. 

The anxiety over academic failure.... even though i had yet to expect failure.... blew over me like a strong, hot, summer wind. Like the wind before a thunder storm. As you can see, regardless of my early social programming, I had become extremely self motivated, and had even attached self- worth to my performance in every arena. Somehow though, there was no wind in the kitchen. The kitchen meant work. If there was anything that i could not fail at..... it was transferring 302 lbs of left-over meatloaf slices into shiny new stainless buffet trays, stretching clear plastic wrap over them, and push-pulling a cart full of trays to the gigantic refrigerator.

Sometimes it was chicken patties. Sometimes it was a vegetable that had been baked to within-an-inch-of-it's-life. Sometimes it was those 6'' little pizzas... but it was always the same process. Richard Reece was usually involved with getting a start on dinner. Which meant that he and the Staff Cooks would be lumbering around the Steam Pots... boiling 20 or so chickens at a time, turning 40 gallons of salty water into macaroni and paste, or punching frozen brussel sprouts out of their cardboard cartons, and into a vat of steaming seasoned stock. What would Julia Childs have said? It would have reduced her to tears. She would have been a broken woman.

At any given moment the Kitchen was populated by 20 plus workers. All clad in their white matching suits and tennis shoes that they wouldn't have minded throwing away. (I think that last sentence contained a dangling-modifier.... but in hind-sight I dont think any of the workers would have minded throwing away their works shoes, or their uniforms.) These twenty sum workers were either busy in the bakery department, having gargantuan machines kneed bread, or working in the basement fork-lifting pallets of macaroni to the elevator, or cooking with the Steam Pots, or even sometimes, in the very darkest corners of the kitchen basements.... i had heard that they butchered cattle. A fact that would be much later confirmed by my discovery of a bovine corpse in a large rubber trash can.

In the midst of all this commerce. In the very center of the kitchens.... there was a space reserved for mostly empty stainless tables... and me. Collect the leftovers. Re-pan the leftovers. Drag foods to the majestic cold room. The whole process was so very repetitious.... so delightfully designed, that there was nothing my mind needed to do here. In the continuity of a physical action, i could allow my thoughts to relax... and the tensions of my mind to evaporate. I used a large white plastic scoop for more liquidic food stuffs... or tongs for others. Maybe it was all the steam, maybe it was the fact that this part of my life was so un-like class or piano... But in the most profound irony, this place of gore and metal and blood, was my own little mecca.
I had a set list of very simple tasks. Most of them including meatloaf... but all the same, the tasks were simple... and no one was grading me on my ability to scoop peas.
My work hours would pass along. Not fast... Not slow really, and soon enough i would trudge down to the little room with all of those forlorn looking lockers and its naked bony showers, and id collect my things.

After stopping and practicing piano for a couple hours, my motivation to practice would fizzle out, and i headed back to my room.
Ramon and Chester were at their usual exploits. Fraternizing with the other troglodytes on the hall... being loud and making what Im sure what would have been considered witty snide remarks about my bookishness.... albeit, they might have only been considered 'witty' in the shanty-town countries of the boys' origin. I was working on a bit of homework when the hall leader pushed through a raucous tumble of boys who passed themselves as adults in some circles. Yes, the dormitory was always like this... and unrelenting drama of post-adolescent hormonal sociopaths... talking, laughing, and breaking into un-explainable wrestling matches.

Josh Roland was our Resident Assistant. Hall Leader. Sheriff of the third-floor west wing. I was his job to prevent action against the Almighty Handbook. He took his obligations seriously... the raucous in the hall was precisely why he was here. After making a group of boys stop bowling in the hall, he stepped in to say hello.
Roland was the picture of former highschool-football star, and by extension was a Handsome Soccer Player. One of 12 or so siblings that looked exactly like him, his father was a devout christian doctor in the vein of Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman.... a father who, i assume did not believe in birth control.
How Roland became both popular, and powerfully situated in The Authority, is probably a novel in and of itself. Broad shoulders. Obvious indention in the chin. Blue eyes and extensive self confidence. I think once or twice he appeared in promotional literature for the school. Glossy photo.... glowing credentials.... etc. etc.

Roland appeared through the dust from the crowd, and immediately engaged me in conversation.

JR: "Hey! You're Josh right?" (slight hair toss, and overtly pensive look.)
Me: "Yup... that's me...." (rubs eyes and offers blank expression...)
JR: "How's it goin' man? What ya sudyin' there?"
Me: "Harmony... its.... great...." (More bland expressions.)
JR: "Cool... is ah, Mr. Flowers still teaching first year a that?"
Me: "Yeah. I like it. He's slow.... easy to keep up with."

Roland at this juncture began making his was through the room taking a look of everyone's things, as if they were relics of a lost civilization. He settled on my alarm clock, which due to the fact that so little space in the room was left for me to claim when i arrived, was over across the room on my dresser. It was amazingly over sized, plain faced clock made out of chrome. Hammer and bells and all.

JR: ''Is this thing real?"
Me: "Do you mean, 'is it a clock?' or 'does it exist?" I quarried.
JR: (chuckles; eye roll) "I mean, does it work..." He plowed on.
Me: "Yes. It functions as it was intended." (Blinks.)

I was beginning to lose faith in establishing intelligent thought flow, outside of the class room. Never the less, I was not the instigator of this conversation, and could think of no way to end it without transgressing polity.

JR: "So who're you taking to artist series? You're a freshman right?"
Me: "Yeah, I am... What's artist series?"
JR: "It's where everyone gets dressed up and goes to a concert in the auditorium.... They throw one every coupla months. You invite a girl and buy her flowers.... ya know, it's kinda formal."
Me: (Blinks) "Oh. I think i remember reading something about that in the calender of events. When is that?"
JR: "It's in a couple weeks. I mean it's ok if you don't take a date.... Not all the freshmen get dates."
Me: (More Blinks) "Do I have to go?"
JR: (Ironic laughter) " Yeah... haha. You have to... but they're pretty cool usually."
Me: (moans... shoulder slump.) "Oh... great."

Whatever Roland had left to say has been deleted from my memory, with a slew of everything else that was un-memorable about him. Artist Series. Yet another challenge had presented itself. A formal event he said? hm.... I thumbed through the calendar of events to discover more about this mystery.
hm. Dates. Hmmmmm. The Freshmen don't usually get dates? Hm....
The concept of required entertainment was confusing... but then, there were so many other requirements here that i couldn't force logic behind that i didn't bother trying to make sense of it. It was something that must be done. Just like study. Just like leftovers. Just like piano.

Roland made his was elsewhere and when he left, the rabble in the hallways turned back to their bowling. Bells rang.... Prayers. Larry crawled out of his cocoon long enough to read a few passages from Proverbs, while Chester and Ramon carried on a conversation about something hilarious in Spanish. The were giggling like absurd little girl scouts. More bells. Lights-out.
I laid awake, pondering this new revelation.... Formal event, in which decorum required that i request the company of a female.... hm.... Work had made me tired. When i slept i had dark dreams.... I dreamed of a black forest with wolves. I could hear the wolves. I could hear them, but i couldn't see them.