Go home, loser!
That was strange. My friends typically just said hello with insults. They didn’t carry on entire text conversations with them.
Who is this, I wrote. No response. I decided to go outside after all.
No sooner had I reached for a heavier pair of socks than my printer on top of my dresser kicked on and started warming up to print. I didn’t remember printing anything. I figured I hit the print key on my essay when I closed it out a few seconds before.
Then it started printing. The sheet that spit out was not part of my unfinished take home paper.
I read the sheet twice before the rage filled every inch of my body. The paper in my hand shook from the violent trembling that began as soon as my brain comprehended the big, thick black words on the paper.
GO HOME, LOSER!
YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS. EVERYONE HERE HATES YOU.
The printer kicked on again. Another sheet spit out.
GO HOME TO YOUR WHORE MOTHER AND
YOUR POOR LOSER OF A FATHER!
I hadn’t even finished reading the second sheet before the third started printing.
TRUTH IS, YOU’D BE BETTER OFF DEAD. KILL YOURSELF.
Sweat was beading in my palms and my fingers curled around the papers, crumpling them into a ball and squeezing it tighter and tighter in my fist.
I don’t know how long I stood riveted next to the dresser but when I heard rustling in the hallway and saw Duncan slowly crack the door and peer in at me, I snapped.
I flew over the chair, the couch and the pile of laundry, flung the door fully open and grabbed Duncan by the collar. His body made a weak-slapping noise as I smudged him against the open door.
A mix of pizza and Coolwater Cologne hit my nose like red to a bull. I lifted him almost off his feet.
I barely noticed his group of friends standing, smirking, ready to burst into laughter.
I had him pinned against the door, a good chunk of his collar clenched in my fist.
He must have seen the anger in my eyes because the fear was clearly visible in his.
I knew Duncan was behind the printer prank. I didn’t password-protect my computer and it would have been easy, even for him, to go onto my computer and put my printer on the campus network. He must have texted me to make sure I was in the room before hitting print from somewhere else.
I knew that he was aware it would really bother me. It pricked at something deeper than any usual insult—the obvious invasion of privacy, the lewd remarks, the subtle threats were all bad, but nothing compared to the fact that he was supposed to be my friend. Or he used to be my friend. The knife he had been plunging in my back the past few months was being twisted.
Throughout November, Duncan and I were virtually oblivious to each other. For the first few moths at college Duncan did nothing but belittle me in front of others. He became the bully and I the nerd, ridiculed for the amusement of all and the ego-driven satisfaction of one. When we were alone he acted like nothing was different. I finally stopped talking to him altogether, in public and private. Eventually he reciprocated into an awkward silence. We spoke only when necessary, to give a phone message or ask for a volume change on the television or computer (Duncan went and bought expensive headphones to eliminate the need for this latter conversation). Tension lingered. Ben felt it. Duncan and I never spent time in the room alone (he would always leave if it were just the two of us, usually without a goodbye).
With my hand around his collar, I was about to break the silence. And possibly his nose.
“What the fuck did I ever do to you?” I said softly, so his friends could only make out whispers. I leaned in closer to Duncan’s face and repeated it. “What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
He said nothing. So I did.
“Tell me the truth you little rat. Tell me, what did I ever do to deserve this?”
My other hand was still crushing the crumpled piece of paper. I raised my clenched fist, intending to shove the paper ball into Duncan’s mouth.
His friends must’ve taken it to be an act of aggression because I suddenly felt numerous hands grabbing me and pulling at me in multiple directions. I didn’t even struggle. I never broke gaze with Duncan.
I was on the verge of being pummeled when Ben came striding down the hallway, Shoddy and a few other guys in tow. The hands that held me loosened and as Ben arrived, Duncan and friends skipped down the hall the opposite way.
“What the hell was that all about?” Ben asked.
I didn’t answer him and just walked back into the room and flopped on the couch. I tossed the balled up paper to the trash basket next to my desk, and missed. I didn’t care to go pick it up off the floor.
Ben walked into the room, dripping wet with a purple mark on his cheek. He limped slightly.
Shoddy was carrying his skis—Ben was using the poles to help move around the furniture. But despite his obvious physical maladies, he was grinning from ear to ear and didn’t stop talking for two hours.
While Ben regaled his alpine skills, Shoddy, who was sitting at my computer desk, found the crumpled paper by the barrel. He opened it up and was reading it just as I saw him doing so. Like a bad child caught red-handed, he dropped it in the trash and avoided eye contact with me for the rest of the night.
Duncan did not come back to the room until the following Monday. He never answered my question. He never told me the truth.
Chapter 23
By the end of our first college semester Ben and I hit a series of weekends where workload overtook party time and the inability to decompress socially and alcoholically caused unsaid tension. But Ben and I understood each other. It was Duncan who was the outsider, at least within our four walls.
Luckily, the school set aside the week before finals as study period for underclassmen. Classes ended and the real recognition and recall began. That first freshman semester I endured two intense final exams that certainly warranted real studying, plus the final paper that, by study period, was close to being finished. Had I not been sidetracked the week prior by a certain printer incident, the paper would be finished, polished and sitting on a professor’s desk awaiting early review.
So began our first final exam season in earnest, laced with stress and doubt. Ben took off that weekend and headed for home. Home allotted him a comfort and a quiet unattainable in our parochial cinderblock dormitory among a hundred freshmen cramming frantically to remember their notes or drinking wildly to forget some sudden academic amnesia.
Ben logged out of his computer, packed up his books and took the train north to Massachusetts. I drove him to the train station that night and decided on the way back to campus that I’d stay in and finish that final essay while the info was fresh. Granted, the bars would be packed on the Friday of study period because no student had a test the next day.
There would be plenty of nights out if I got that paper done. It was freshman year—I was still idealistic about academia.
The room was dark and empty when I walked in. The three computers glowed from under our lofted beds, which in the dark room made them look like they were hovering. I promised myself I would get right to the work. Three episodes of Seinfeld reruns and two old cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon later I got off the couch and started writing.
My eyes and my fingers typed until 1:30am. I hit the print button, threw on a staple and shoved the completed essay into my bag.
It was too late to go out. It was too late for anything good to be on TV. I killed our stock of old beer. There was nothing left to do but go to bed. With the fire blazing behind my eyes and lines of Times New Roman, twelve-point font racing through my brain, sleep was not just the only option, but also the best.
After a half hour of cleaning up and shuffling around I was out cold, high above the cool tile floor in my warm lofted bed with only the soft glow of three monitors humming in the blackness.
Then white. Everything was instantly not dark, even though my eyes were still closed. The crash of the d
orm room door on the yellowing concrete walls brought me all the way back from the comfort of dreamland.
I didn’t move as lucidity washed over my body and mind and whoever waltzed clumsily around the room. Through a cracked eyelid I saw the green alarm clock lights flick over to 3:37am.
Dammit, I thought, that bastard woke me up. He was probably out getting hammered.
I had no desire to interact with Duncan at 3:37am so I rustled a bit, got more comfortable and tried to force myself back to sleep.
He moved around for a few minutes before, to my surprise yet extreme pleasure, he threw the door shut and snapped the lights off.
I sighed. I can get some sleep.
But Duncan didn’t climb his ladder into his lofted bunk. And because of that, my brain refused to shut down. Every sound of his movement placed him at a specific location in the room—his closet to change, the fridge for some water, his desk to check his IM, the middle of the room to climb up to bed, past his ladder to Ben’s corner, under Ben’s lofted bed to Ben’s desk, directly across from my bed.
I opened my eyes fully but still didn’t move. I could see Ben’s computer screen perfectly, especially with the lights off. Duncan was leaning over Ben’s chair, not sitting in it, but seemingly looking for something on the desktop. I was curious. Duncan normally only cared about Ben when he needed help getting something from a high shelf in his closet.
But this was something different—something more sinister. Duncan crept around the desk, making sure not to move anything out of place. As if testing for an alarm system, and being satisfied with the result, he jumped into the chair and logged on to Ben’s computer.
It was hard to see exactly what he was doing since his head blocked a large portion of the monitor but, from my high vantage point, I made out with certainty a long Word document, followed by an email website, followed by a message window that said Email Sent.
Duncan had emailed what looked like an essay paper from Ben’s computer. To who, I did not know. But with treachery in the air, I had a pretty good idea what I just witnessed. I felt guilty watching, enraged at what I assumed he had done and relieved that it didn’t involve me. I wondered if that was how Watergate went down. Our own scandal unfolded right before my eyes.
Duncan closed everything out and logged off Ben’s computer. He quickly went to his own desk underneath his own bed and jumped on his own computer.
From my bed the view wasn’t nearly as good as it was to Ben’s desk. Since Duncan was now diagonally behind me, I would have to shift my whole body to get a full view of the screen.
I debated myself. Should I try and see what he was doing? Did I owe it to Ben to get as much info as possible? Or did it not involve me so therefore I should try to go back to sleep? Whatever I chose, I was positive that I did not want Duncan to know I was awake. His reaction to that revelation would be either terror or rage, both of which I wanted to avoid at 4:00am.
I shifted a little so I could at least see the back of Duncan’s head. The debate was answered for me. Duncan had put on his huge, expensive earphones. They were the kind that musicians wear in the studio—the kind that covered the whole ear. Duncan wouldn’t hear me move around. He wouldn’t hear me if I jumped out of my bed and started jazzercising in front of the couch.
I moved a little more so I could see the computer screen. Duncan was checking his email, one of which was new. I couldn’t read it, or whom it was from, but it had an attachment. He went right for it, downloading the long text document, saving it to a folder and then deleting the email.
This evidence supported my suspicions.
I had to tell Ben when he got back. He could check his computer and see what document was recently opened. For some strange reason, maybe Duncan’s late night cat burglary, I guessed the document was a final paper for a class that Ben and Duncan had together.
What else could I do, I thought as I shifted back to my original position and tried to fall back to sleep. Should I confront him? No. Let Ben do it. But what if Duncan deleted everything or Ben didn’t believe me?
Fury started building. Everything from the past few months bubbled up. The printer incident, the first night on campus, the countless times that Duncan had put me down in front of people to make himself look good. Every insult he slung my way combined with every lie I knew he told me and every lie I just assumed he uttered on a regular basis.
I felt guilty. I brought Ben into this ugly living situation with this ugly sham of a friendship I had with Duncan. Since we got to Providence Duncan slung bile at me in front of potential new friends, girls, administration and teachers. Did it make him feel better about himself? It lifted him in the eyes of people I didn’t care about—if they thought that Duncan calling my mother a whore made him a better person than me, I wanted nothing to do with them anyway.
It didn’t bother me, at first. But the repression boiled over that night lying in bed, knowing he had probably just stolen a paper from our roommate—knowing that he would probably get away with it.
That was it. I had to say something. My temper won out and I wasn’t even involved.
I sat straight up, fully prepared to come to blows over an assumption and a few months of him being a terrible friend.
I was punched in the gut before I even got a full glimpse of the situation and I shot back down immediately. What I saw was the full intrusion—from Watergate to a Bill Clinton-esque scandal in one fell swoop.
All at once I realized why Duncan had no problem invading Ben’s computer: he had no idea anyone else was in the room. Which was why he had no problem watching hardcore pornography.
Duncan wore his big headphones; totally muffling any moans, cries or bedspring creaks.
Lying there, apparently invisible to the other person in the room, I prayed for continued silence. But then the nightmare was reality and I heard a strange noise—the noise skin makes when skin is rubbing up against it at a quick pace. I winced.
He was oblivious to the world, masturbating with me ten feet away. I didn’t know what to do.
Vomit was one option. I could feel hot bile creeping into my throat.
I coughed as loud as I could, partly to disturb the sour taste and partly to signal my presence in the room. Nothing. He couldn’t hear me. I coughed louder, kicked my feet against the baseboard, shook the bunk until it slapped against the concrete wall.
“Hey,” I said. “Heyo, hey!” It wasn’t loud enough. All Duncan could hear was the climactic scene from one of Silicone Valley’s cinematic masterpieces.
I tried to think what I could throw at him. My pillow, but I didn’t want that anywhere near him. My alarm clock, but as much as I would have enjoyed seeing him in pain I decided this situation did not merit blatant assault.
Genius washed over me. I pulled off my socks and balled them up.
I laid on my back, the socks held gingerly in my right hand. The blue light from Duncan’s screen sent shadows gyrating on the white ceiling above me. I was involuntarily included in this perverted voyeurism and I hated him for it.
Thoughts of trench warfare materialized. That was what we were engaged in—hostile encounters leading to a spark that would blow the powder keg sky high. He sent shots across my bow as soon as we arrived. I tried to negotiate—my attempts were met with nothing but contempt. I had to return the volley.
My right arm tensed. I rocked up once, twice, the third time far enough to see over the bunk railing to take aim. As my back came down to the mattress my right arm cocked, fired and launched the sock grenade. I watched it arch towards Duncan, scraping the ceiling and fracturing the smut shadows thrusting around the room. The sock grenade was out of sight. I didn’t hear it land but I knew I was accurate. I waited for the reaction, the impending embarrassment and enormous awkwardness.
As I expected Duncan’s chair scraped on the tile and I heard the noise of his headphones being dropped on the keyboard. Female moans, muffled and overacted, spread around the room. He had those things turned way
up.
The orgasmic cries somehow made the anger in me fade away. Instead, I was overcome with the absolute absurdity and comedic value of the situation. Hilarity boomed deep in my stomach and in seconds I was in full out silent laughter, grinning at the possible jokes I could make at Duncan’s expense. Soon, I thought, he would realize where the sock grenade came from, I would jump down laughing and we would joke about it and then never speak of it again. We had a hatchet to bury and as perverse as this situation was, it may be the best hole to bury it in. I laughed at my slew of unintentional puns.
Feeling a bit more relieved, I started to sit up. But before I even peered over the railing Duncan was moving towards my bed.
What the fuck? I thought. I laid still.
He was directly underneath me, the moans still echoing off the concrete walls. Duncan was stealing my tissues. He shuffled back to his desk with the entire box and it was then that I noticed his underwear around his ankles. My sock grenade lay, ineffective, on the tile next to his desk chair. During his duck walk across no man’s land, Duncan unknowingly kicked it under the couch.
He still had no idea he wasn’t alone.
The situation was getting funnier by the minute. Especially since it had only been one or two minutes since Duncan sat down at his desk to start the festivities.
I realized, though, that we had almost reached the point where, if I did not say anything, the situation flipped from Duncan being horny, disgusting and hilariously oblivious, to me being some sort of sick voyeur. For comedy’s sake, I had to keep it from crossing that line.
But I was saved from even having to do that.
“Dunk! Hey Fuckface, open up!” shouted someone from outside the door. Flask’s voice vibrated the walls, along with his fist pounding on the door. “Open the door, Dunk. You gotta hear this. Hey!”
“Son of a bitch,” Duncan whispered to himself.
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