“Here’s a question: why did you throw a pitcher of beer at that guy?”
Lindsey sensed the tension, whatever kind it was, bristling between us. It may have been carryover from the night before, but I was far from remembering that. We both knew I was still dating my high school sweetheart. I opened the door to new conversation. Lindsey paused and then walked through.
“My fuse is always lit, Shaw. You know that.”
“Clearly. But I can’t remember why you assaulted him with Milwaukee’s Best.”
“He called me the c-word, remember? After we beat their team in the final game? It was a close one and everyone from the floor was around us chanting ‘Blonde Girl, Blonde Girl!’ I hit the last few, we won and Flask, Duncan and their other friend slung some pretty nasty insults at me.”
“So you picked up the pitcher in the middle of the table and chucked it at them. You gave Flask a pretty good welt on his forehead too. Now it’s starting to come back to me.”
“I wanted to throw one at Duncan that night too. He was a royal prick to you. He started acting better than everybody else, like his shit smelled like roses.”
Throughout the game Duncan’s trash talking denigrated into spewing vile slurs. Friendly at first, he quickly aimed it directly at me. I wouldn’t have minded so much had it not been so out of the ordinary for Duncan. But by the end of his rants, which had the entire floor in stitches, my little brother was gay, my mother was easy and I was a charity case let into college because the school had to fill their, ‘poor white boy’ quota. With almost full sobriety came almost full recollection.
“Yeah, wow I guess he was a jackass,” I said. “Did he sleep here last night?”
“I don’t think so,” Lindsey answered. “I remember you and I arguing about me going back to my dorm. You were pretty adamant about me staying here. You said it wasn’t safe to walk alone at night.”
Her smile got even coyer. Her cheeks got even redder.
“Well it’s not safe. We don’t know the campus yet.”
“I guess. I appreciate it. I just thought . . . nevermind.”
“Thought what?”
“Nothing, forget about it.”
“Linds, what?”
“You were really adamant about me staying with you, then you left. By the time you came back with a stolen mattress I was already up here waiting for you. You said something like ‘we can’t’ and then flopped onto the mattress and passed out.”
“Oh.”
There was that tension again. Awkward? Sexual?
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what? Don’t be sorry for anything,” she said with so much feigned enthusiasm and obvious frustration. “I didn’t mean to imply anything.”
“I think I took the mattress from a closet somewhere,” I said to once again change the subject. We were traveling a risky road. “Or maybe someone’s room. I honestly don’t know.”
“You should probably get rid of it before someone misses it.”
She shuffled a little out of view up in the bunk, a maneuver resembling someone putting her pants back on. When she climbed down the ladder I noticed she was wearing one of my t-shirts. It had my high school logo emblazoned on the front.
“Come on, let’s get this out of here and go find some coffee,” she said, playfully pushing my shoulder.
“You should probably not be here if Duncan comes back. I think you ruined his new shirt with flying beer last night.”
“Screw him. His new friends are terrible. And you know what Shaw? So is he. He sort of stabbed you in the back last night in front of all those new people. Insulting you like he did just to make himself the center of attention. Just to make himself look cool. That wasn’t right at all.”
“Whatever,” I said as I tried to flip the mattress upright to fit through the door. “I don’t really remember that much of it anyway. Maybe he was just drunk.”
“We were all drunk, Shaw.”
“Maybe. I have to live with the kid, Linds. I can’t just go punch him in the face because he called me a few names.”
“A few names? You really don’t remember.”
In fact I did. If one didn’t know Duncan and I entered college as friends, they would’ve pinned us as sworn enemies with the way he verbally assaulted me the night before. I was his punch line; or worse yet, his punching bag. I just hoped it was a one-time deal.
“Let it go. I’ll deal with Duncan if I have to.”
“Alright, but just keep your eyes and ears open, Shaw. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“I won’t get hurt, Linds. I’m a pretty tough kid. Plus, if I ever need anything,” I looked directly into her eyes, “I’ve got you.”
Chapter 22
The Providence weather is something of a mystery, for those who’ve never lived there. Some liken it to Seattle, some to London. Others see similarities with every other New England seaside community.
But in Rhode Island, Mother Nature is more fickle. She is at any time every season, every scenario, everything but reliable. She has good days and bad; hot days and cold; wet days and dry; sometimes all of it at once. And yet she refuses to allow any pattern to emerge so that those poor souls held captive to her mood swings might find comfort in consistency.
In the Rorschach test that is the United States, Mother Nature picked Maine to be snowy because it looks like a mitten. She made Texas hot because it sort of resembles a star. But what is Rhode Island? It is the one, tiny inkblot she had no answer for.
To diagnose her psychosis as manic would be to forget the opposite and just as frequent depression. Thunderstorms in the morning followed by warm, clear breeze at midday. She’d promise snow and give nothing more than a single gray cloud. When all seemed calm, a three-day deluge would wash away any progress.
And so the tiny smudge that is Rhode Island weathers Mother Nature’s tantrums like any good, caring family member would, longing for those surprise days when the sun shines and the mood is calm. And when those days do arrive, they pray for some semblance of equilibrium.
So was my introduction to life in Providence. A September fog crept in off the ocean and welcomed the start of classes with an eerie lack of color. The rain popped in for a day or two but by Halloween we were trick-or-treating at the local bars in short sleeves. The next day a snow flurry fell but by week’s end the Quad buzzed with active coeds soaking in a late-autumn heat wave.
The hectic and disordered weather mimicked the atmosphere in our dorm room.
As I promised Lindsey, I ignored Duncan’s first-night fiasco and attributed it to the alcohol. But it made me aware and soon after I recognized splashes of similar behavior. Like the weather, no immediate pattern emerged but slowly his insults and backstabbing gossip grew more frequent. One night he’d invite me out with his new friends only to make me the butt of every joke. The next day he’d apologize and buy me lunch.
It was as if, like Mother Nature with Rhode Island, he didn’t know what to do with me. Should he be warm and kind or frigid and distant? Should he include me or disregard me?
Eventually I gave up. I made up excuses to avoid Duncan. I knew his friends were not my friends.
A high-pressure situation was forming.
Late November proved to be one of Providence’s great meteorological conundrums. Students were unsure whether to play Frisbee or make snow angels. Ben and I half expected Skirt Day—the first warm spring day when college girls, who have been itching under wool sweaters for three months, break open their closets and wear their shortest skirts—to happen in the fall.
And then, in severe contrast to what the local Channel 6 weatherman predicted, eight inches of wet, heavy snow dumped over Cape Cod, Newport and Providence for three straight nights. Classes were cancelled on a Friday, the first day of the storm. It was a cruel joke to play on students gearing up for finals, Christmas break so close. Especially since two days prior could have been autumn’s version of Skirt Day.
Being from Bos
ton I loved the snow, especially while at school. Snow meant the possibility of no classes and not having to shovel. Snow meant an intriguing case study in hedonism.
Perhaps because with snow came the possibility that tomorrow’s day of learning could be buried under several inches of powder, or perhaps because it was just a change of scenery, snowfall at school sent the student body into full fledged party mode—no matter what day of the week or time of day the flakes began to fall.
This particular late November storm was no different. As freshmen it was the first one we’d experienced, so it took some time to catch on to the lightened atmosphere that Friday night.
Ben and I planned on staying inside to catch up on some studying for a take home final due Monday. Regular exams were still more than a week away. But our professor was high-tailing it from campus a bit early. She was on sabbatical during the spring semester and apparently wanted to push her tenure to the limits and escape ahead of schedule.
This, to us, only meant more work spread out over fewer days.
“Damn, you can barely see out our window, Shaw,” Ben said from his desk. Our backs faced each other while we simultaneously tapped at keyboards. Neither one of us was working very hard. We were conversing with each other, amongst others, on social media. Our conversation was half verbal and half electronic.
I looked to my right at the dark, horizontal window. Snow was piled on the sill outside blocking half the glass and most of my view of the hill behind our dorm.
“Figures. It has to happen mostly over the weekend so we don’t get more days off,” I responded. “If this was Monday we’d be off all week! There’s no way Physical Plant is coherent enough to clean this place up.”
“Or sober enough,” Ben laughed. He stopped typing. Voices in the hallway grew louder and closer and soon a piercing laugh cut through our heavy wooden door just as someone punched the keypad buttons and swung it open.
Duncan entered dripping wet in his new winter jacket and thick boots. Ben and I both watched him stride to his computer, sloshing muck and slush across the floor, click a few times and head back out. He said nothing to us and didn’t even so much as acknowledge our existence. The only recognition he gave was as he shut the door and took one last look over his shoulder, directly at me, and then shoved off.
“Doesn’t he have work to do too?” Ben asked.
“Beats me, he’s not in any of my classes.”
“Well I know he’s in mine. And we definitely have a huge paper due next week that I’m positive he hasn’t started yet.”
“Is that the one you’ve been working on since Halloween?”
“Yeah, it’s half our final grade. We can turn it in next week whenever we want, then the rest of the classes are pretty much a joke.”
“Ah I see, so get it done and relax until Christmas.”
“That’s the plan, my friend. That’s the plan.”
We sat in silence for about half an hour, flipping between online chatting and take-home exam essay questions. Our hall was quiet. Outside the snow fell silently.
But outside was far from peaceful. Snow always caused a ruckus and something began to percolate soon after Duncan came and went.
A few times I got up to stretch and stared longingly out at the snow, which illuminated the entire night by reflecting the orange streets lamps along the campus walkways.
It was on one of these frequent breaks that I noticed a group of guys, red cups in hand, climb to the top of the hill behind our building. They lugged what appeared to be lunch trays from the cafeteria.
“Hey Ben, you gotta see this. These guys are going to kill themselves.”
He joined me by the window, after first stopping by our mini fridge and grabbing two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I didn’t even hesitate to crack the beer. We pushed up the window an inch and, with the rush of brisk, icy air came the slurring laughs of the group peaked behind our dorm.
“They know there’s a ten foot wall at the end of the hill, right?” I said.
“Are you asking me if they know there is a ten foot wall or are you asking me if they know they are going to fly off a ledge with a ten foot drop onto frozen dirt?”
“Either way I don’t think they care.”
“Now you’re getting it,” he said, and slugged the rest of his Ribbon, cracked another one and took a long drink.
“Do you think those trays will work?”
Right on cue three of the guys dropped their red cups, bolted for the incline, lunch trays in hand, and launched down the snowy hill, careening headfirst on rickety plastic. One of them was thrown off immediately and the tray skipped away behind a set of bushes. But the other two dueled en route to the cliff, slamming into each other with surprisingly accurate control over their makeshift sleds.
Our question about their knowledge of the wall was quickly answered when one of them noticed it for the first time just a few feet before falling. He rolled off his tray and tumbled to a stop at the edge of the wall, eating a mouthful of snow along the way.
His combatant wasn’t so skillful, or lucky. He tried to turn the tray but caught a slick spot that only increased his velocity and shot him from the ledge like a slingshot. The tray shattered upon impact with the ground, ten feet below. But when the kid hit, with a very noticeable thud, he kept skidding right across the frozen ground, over the snow covered walkway that ran behind the building and slapped smack into the dorm wall, directly below my window.
Every window along the backside of the building erupted in laughter. It seemed like everyone decided to stay in but couldn’t help but feast on the impromptu entertainment. The laughs from the building were drowned out only slightly by the laughs from the remaining guys at the top of the hill.
In the next ten minutes they put on a show worthy of any Warren Miller film, if Warren Miller was hammered and using stolen kitchen items. Some of them lost their nerve at the last second and bailed right before the drop. A few were too drunk, too stupid or too macho and careened over the ledge, screeching like schoolchildren.
The perceived fun was apparently too much for Ben to handle. He caught cabin fever in the few minutes we stood there, finishing off the Ribbons from the mini-fridge. I could see a rosy color flush his cheeks, which could have been from the beer or the brisk wind slicing in the barely open window.
“That’s it, I’m going out,” he said.
“Huh?”
“I’m going out there; I need to get out of here. Enough work for one night!”
“You’re going to go sledding on a lunch tray? Are you alright? At least one of those kids has got to have broken a bone, and who knows how many of ‘em got concussions.”
“Sledding on a lunch tray? Who said anything about that?”
Ben opened his closet door and pulled out a pair of old skis, boots and poles from behind his bathrobe and winter coat. The smile on his face boasted pride and one-upmanship.
I laughed. I wasn’t going to stop him, nor did I want to really. This would be just as funny, if not exponentially more hilarious, than the cafeteria tray luge team.
The initial crowd of a few drunken guys had ballooned into a somewhat large and rowdy gathering atop the hill. More household items had been McGuyvered into sleds—trash can lids, recycle bins, even a stop sign still attached to its pole someone had ripped from a street corner (this ingenious idea did not fare so well, seeing as how its rider was slung from it and subsequently smacked by the metal pole, almost impaling himself).
Duncan and a few of his friends were clearly visible under one of the orange street lamps for part of the exhibition but disappeared just before Ben arrived on scene.
Whether out of showmanship or sheer stupidity Ben put the boots and skis on before climbing the hill. But the duck walk up the slope brought more cheers and even a chant from the spectators.
He stood at the summit to catch his breath, pulled some ski goggles over his glassy eyes and wrapped the pole straps around his wrists. He clicked the poles togeth
er above his head and without hesitation, pushed off down the hill.
My first impression was a marionette—arms flailing, legs jutting out at odd angles and strange, jerking movements. But Ben got himself under control just in time for the skis to straighten out and pick up speed.
He hurtled toward the wall, snow spraying in wide arcs. He threw his arms out for balance and for an instant was vertically spread eagle.
The left ski tip snagged on the top of the wall, pulling his left leg to one side. The bindings clicked loose and Ben was catapulted out of the skis, equipment flailing, over the ledge and slapped onto the frozen ground below.
Silence clung to the snowflakes. I stopped laughing and gazed down with my jaw on the sill.
Ben was lying face down in a pile of dirty snow. One pole was propped neatly against the wall of the dormitory building while the other lay next to Ben, the strap still tightly around his wrist. Both skis teetered at the top of the wall, gazing down at Ben with contempt and pity, quivering ever so slightly as if shaking their heads in a, ‘we told you not to do that,’ scolding.
The once raucous crowd was frozen still and silent. The crowd, from the bottom of the hill to the top, held their collective breath. Nobody moved.
Except Ben.
Without getting up, he raised his right hand, flipped the middle finger in what was probably the direction of the top of the hill, and yelled an ungodly painful, but victorious, whooping sound. The crowd exploded into a, “BEN, BEN, BEN,” chant. Their drunken, late night, snow-covered revelry was renewed.
The foolish things we did for fame and acceptance.
I shook my head in awe and horror, shut the window and went back to my computer. With the echoing noise outside, inside the room became eerily lonely.
The familiar ding of an incoming message on my cell phone interrupted my musings.
The number was blocked but I checked it anyway.
Fuck you, pussy!
That’s nice, I thought, must be one of my high school friends being drunk on a Friday. The noise outside was rising and falling with each lunch tray that rose and fell down the hill. Maybe I should go out and hang with Ben?
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