Rise of a D-List Supervillain

by Jim Bernheimer

  “What? Oh, yeah, sure,” he said as he wheeled it toward the dorm entrance.

  She and her friend appeared and scanned the crowd. I tried to think of a way to approach her and start a conversation, but I had nothing. I was never particularly good at being suave with them there word thingies. I was a physics major, which wasn’t exactly impressive. Nor did it impress the girls. But what could I do? Physics was just something I’d had an aptitude for since I was young, and it was part of who I was. I always seemed to have an easy, intuitive understanding of numbers and equations and how they translated into real-world applications. Unfortunately, there were no mathematical equations that helped me talk to girls.

  I was terrible at English. My composition papers rarely garnered me anything better than a C-plus. Equations, though . . . I could write and recite those like poetry. They flowed through my mind and off my tongue like a song. It was how the world worked. I saw numbers and computations the way gifted musicians saw and felt music. How people couldn’t see what I did was beyond me. Physics existed before language. Yet being a master of language—a smooth talker—was viewed as far more important in our society. In the future, I would appreciate why this was the case, but as a college freshman, I was still unable to comprehend why everyone didn’t see things my way. Yup, I was a mix of insecurity and obnoxious ego-centrism in all my awkward teenage glory.

  As a light rain began, I stood there with my belongings, helplessly getting wetter and wetter. But then, it hit me. If I’d been an old-timey scientist, I would have shouted Eureka! I had a brilliant idea to win the attention of my dream girl. I had never been all that good with girls, but this idea would work. I just knew it. When the football player brought me back the empty cart, I would selflessly offer it to my future wife so that she would see me as a gallant gentleman much more considerate than the hoard of recently post-pubescent heathens we were surrounded by. How could that go wrong?

  The rain continued to pelt everything and everyone. As I waited for the cart, I was beginning to lose hope that the football player would keep his word. Finally, I saw him coming back. He had the empty cart in front of him as he slowly navigated through the crowd, not running anyone down this time. He was headed in my direction. I tried to make eye contact and gave a little wave, but he didn’t notice me. Either that . . . before he had seen someone else. Right before he ran into my stuff and me again, he made a sudden turn—straight toward my redheaded dream girl.

  He offered the cart and introduced himself as I stood there in shock. After helping her load her things, he started to push the cart toward the dorm for her. As he did, he glanced in my direction and shrugged his giant shoulders as if to say, “Can you blame me?”

  Uh, yeah, I could blame him. “Thanks, Lennie,” I mumbled under my breath. In my head, he was as big and dumb as Lennie Small from the John Steinbeck classic Of Mice and Men that I had read my senior year. It was at that moment when my habit of teeth grinding began.

  I couldn’t blame the guy. It was a smooth move and my own idea. He’d just beat me to it. As my teeth began to grind against one another, I vowed to myself that my intellect would win me the heart of the red-haired girl.

  Chapter 2

  I might not have had the most game in the world, but I was no fool. My first purchase for college was a bottle opener. I had gotten drunk a few times in high school with my friends. We would stay up all night to play X-Box, laughing like fools. It didn’t take much to get me tipsy at all.

  I recalled my friend’s older brother, the one who bought us the beer, telling us tales of the college parties he had been to. So, I bought a bottle opener, eagerly imagining the use it would get in college. I might not have been able to buy beer, but when someone near me did, I vowed to be ready. Yes, I was that much of a nerd.

  Much to my surprise, my preparedness came in handy on the first afternoon. As I unpacked my stuff, I heard a knock on my open door. “Hey, bud. I’m Dave from next door. This is gonna sound stupid, but do you have a bottle opener by any chance? Free beer if you can help us out.”

  In my shock that my dream scenario actually occurred, I had trouble forming words. “Um . . . oh . . . I . . . uh.”

  “Dude, relax,” Dave said. “It’s okay if you don’t. No biggie.” He turned to leave.

  “No. Wait. I do!” I said, snatching the opener from my desk and holding it up as if it were the Holy Grail.

  Dave responded with a big smile. About an hour later, I had my first college buzz. It was later that night, when I was still intoxicated, that I discovered something that would change my life.

  As I left the restroom, I saw her. Yes, that her. My red-haired future wife. She was in a group of girls walking down my hallway. She didn’t look my way, but I’d know that gorgeous head of flaming hair anywhere. Impulsively, I decided to follow her down the hallway, pretending to look for a room number. But I was confronted by a female resident assistant who sternly informed me that drunken males were not allowed on the girls’ side after ten pm. Nor were sober ones. I flushed from embarrassment when the girls looked at me, but I didn’t care because my heart soared when I saw the future Mrs. Bridges pull out her key to unlock Room 919.

  “Hey, wake up. Are you listening to me?’ the resident assistant demanded. I was and I wasn’t. I heard her, but I wasn’t listening as I turned and floated back to my room on a cloud of euphoria. Well, euphoria and a beer buzz.

  She lives here. Right down the hall! I’m going to see her every day, I thought.

  I was shocked and thrilled a week later when my sophomore friend Dave, nicknamed Salami, invited everyone on our floor, including me, to a party at his fraternity house. As young and naïve as I was, I imagined I was in for all sorts of drunken debauchery. My head nearly exploded when I discovered that my redheaded goddess would be going, too. I had hesitantly asked Salami.

  “Ah, you got a thing for redheads? Don’t worry, buddy. I got your back. Just show up at the party and I’ll hook you up,” he replied.

  Of course, seeing her every day was a very different thing than talking to her. I still had to overcome my anxiety about talking to girls. It was why the frat party would be helpful. I was very quickly learning to enjoy the kind of confidence that rose with the alcohol content. I figured that if I got a few drinks in me, I’d have the courage to talk to her and maybe ask her out. Also, if she were a little drunk, too, she might find me more appealing.

  When the momentous evening arrived, I confidently made my way down the aisle of the Fraternity Row shuttle bus, looking for that red hair, but the driver suddenly shifted the bus into gear and it jerked forward. I briefly and uselessly tried to regain my balance by flailing my arms wildly before falling into a seat. Well, I didn’t fall into a seat . . . I fell into the laps of the unfortunate people in the seats nearest me. When I looked up, she was looking down at me. For a moment, my heart soared and I just gazed into those beautiful brown eyes.

  “Hey, get off me, you perv,” she shouted at me. My face turned red as every set of eyes on the bus turned toward me. As I pushed myself back up to a standing position, I felt something soft. She emitted another scream. “Get off me, creep! You just touched my boob, asshole.” And then, adding insult to injury, her roommate reached across her and slapped me.

  I could feel the heat rising in my face, sure I was red as a beet more from embarrassment than the slap. There was no escape on the tightly packed shuttle bus. I was stuck there, mere feet from her. Turning my back to her, I just stood in the aisle and looked down. It was full with no seats available anywhere. I was dying a slow death inside, knowing I’d blown my chance to ever woo her. But then, in a tiny little place in the back of my brain, I heard a little voice shouting, Woo-hoo! I touched her boob! I tried to get that little voice to shut the hell up, telling myself I was a creep for enjoying that accidental, cheap little thrill. The little voice wouldn’t shut up, and I suppressed a tiny smile.

  My roommate Greg leaned over to whisper to me, “Dude, smooth. Nic
e move.” He smirked and chuckled. He held his hand up for a high five. I ignored it, even though he just held it up there for the full remainder of the ride. It had to be about ten minutes. His arm must have been exhausted.

  The awkward little trip came to a merciful end as the bus made its way down Fraternity Row and pulled up in front of the Zeta house. Dave, otherwise known as Brother Salami at Zeta, was collecting five bucks from everyone at the door. The embarrassment of earlier was replaced by butterflies of excitement as I stepped off the bus and looked up at the bay-and-gable-style house. It was three stories, and the architecture was beautiful with a broad bay window on the first floor. I could already see the house was packed with partygoers.

  We lined up, money in hand. I glanced back over my shoulder to make sure the redheaded goddess was still going the same place I was. She didn’t see me glance at her because she was talking to a friend. I wondered if I’d ever again get to see those pupils looking back at me, but then I saw the corners of her mouth start to turn up. She didn’t look mad. At least, not now.

  “Hey, Landon. Greg. You guys made it. Five bucks. Come on in.” We handed our wadded-up bills to Salami, which was what he insisted on being called at the frat house. I still thought it was a strange nickname. He kept a six-foot boa constrictor in a big fish tank in his dorm room, and Snake seemed more apt a moniker. His snake scared the hell out of me, but Dave had been nothing but nice to me since I arrived on campus. He gave me my first college beer at three in the afternoon after class registration and later invited me to this party. Dave/Salami took me under his wing like the older brother I always wished I had.

  The moment we stepped past Dave and set foot inside, we were each handed red Solo cups full of cheap beer. There was a brother manning a keg right next to the front door. “Uh, thanks,” I stammered. I stood there, my mouth agape and my eyes as big as plates as I looked around. The scene in front of me made every stereotype of fraternity parties look tame by comparison.

  I’d never seen so many people in such a small space. It wasn’t a small house, but almost every inch was filled with people—drunk people doing all manner of things. On what appeared to be a fire pole, or maybe a stripper pole that went from the second-floor ceiling down to the banister post on the first floor was a brother wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. It was obvious he was a frat brother because the fraternity letters were painted in blue on his chest. Hanging on by one hand and leaning out over the crowd, he poured shots of vodka into any open mouth within reach, missing as often as he was hitting their tonsils. There were couples making out in corners and on couches. Girls sat high above the crowd on guys’ shoulders. Someone at the railing on the second floor was emptying a can of silly string all over the crowd. The music was so loud that I feared for my future hearing or lack thereof.

  As a little kid, this kind of sensory overload would have had me curled up in the fetal position in a corner. Yeah, I was that kind of sensitive when I was younger. My mom had to pick me up from a junior high school dance once because I was overwhelmed. Now, however, I soaked it all in and let it light up just about every neuron in my brain.

  Then it happened again. Across the room, through all the chaos, I saw her, and that sight immediately made everything else disappear. I wasn’t sure if she saw me, but I tried to wave anyway. Some drunken frat brother about three feet away reached up to try to high five me but missed.

  I felt a push between my shoulder blades and stumbled forward, spilling my beer on the back of some guy’s shirt. Of course, he was bigger than me. Much bigger. He turned around angrily. “Hey, sorry about that. I got pushed,” I managed to shout timidly. I tried to sound relaxed and friendly, but somewhere in that apology, I think I may have squeaked a little. He shook his head with disgust, as if I wasn’t worth his time. He turned around again, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I turned to look at whoever had given me the shove. It was some drunken guy who looked like he’d emptied about a dozen Solo cups already. He was stumbling and slurring his words, obviously under the mistaken impression that he was the life of the party. He continued to sway and stumble his way through the crowd and was soon lost in the sea of bodies. I’d like to believe that I was the life of the party, but that was the furthest thing from the truth. I was in way over my head in a scene like this.

  I turned again to see if I could locate and make eye contact with Siobhan. Siobhan Murphy would someday be the future Mrs. Siobhan Bridges. I loved it. I had been repeating it in my head all day, sort of singing it over and over to a tune I made up. Yeah, I know, that’s sort of girly, but at least I wasn’t writing it repeatedly in a notebook. Not yet, anyway. I finally spotted her, and then him.

  It was fucking Lennie from move-in day, and he was definitely chatting her up. He had on a Zeta sweatshirt, meaning he was a brother. That definitely carried a little more cache with the ladies than my upper-level physics class did. Suddenly, I felt a clap on my shoulder. It was Tonto, Salami’s roommate. He always cracked me up. He had a way of entering a room that made him look like he forgot why he was there. “Hey Landon, how do you like the party so far?”

  “What?” I shouted.

  He grabbed my head and yelled into my left ear, “How do you like the party so far?”

  “Man, this is a blast,” I replied, trying not to take my eyes off Siobhan. “Have you seen Greg? I lost him somewhere,” I shouted.

  “Hold on a sec,” he shouted as he waved another brother over. The barrel-chested, swaying, stumbling frat brother bounced through the crowd like a bowling ball through pins as he made his way over to us. His cup of beer had been full when he started his brief journey, but I watched as he inadvertently deposited a little bit of the amber liquid onto every person he encountered.

  When the drunken brother finally staggered into us, Tonto grabbed his shoulder with one hand and yelled into his ear, “Hey, Megan’s Law, ask this guy what his name is,” he said, nodding his head toward me. I was confused until I realized Tonto was referring to his frat brother as ‘Megan’s Law.’

  That must be his nickname, I thought.

  Megan’s Law turned to me, took a moment to try to stop his swaying and focus his eyes, and said, “Dude, what’s your name?”

  With a bit of an exaggerated sigh preceding it, I replied, “It’s Landon.” I knew this routine already and how it was going to end. I’d put up with similar conversations my whole life. Now that I was old enough to curse him for saddling me with this absurd moniker, I was disappointed that my dad hadn’t lived long enough for me to do so. You know how sometimes you hear someone’s ridiculous name that makes you wonder to yourself what their parents were thinking? I had one of those names.

  Tonto shook his head and waved his hand. “No, no, no. Tell him your last name too.” He giggled and turned to his friend. “This is the best part. Go on, Landon, tell him your last name.”

  I shook my head, looked down, and shrugged as if to say “I give up.” Looking Megan’s Law in the eyes, I said, “Dude. No way you’re getting my last name until you tell me why your nickname is Megan’s Law.” Tonto burst out laughing and high-fived me.

  Tonto didn’t give him a chance to answer. He answered for him. “Why do you think? He’s named Megan’s Law because he has a gift. A spectacular, incredible knack for ‘accidentally’ hooking up with the occasional seventeen-year-old during sorority rush week.” His nickname was the name of a law in our state related to sex with minors. Tonto resumed his raucous laughter. Megan’s Law just shook his head and blushed.

  “So, what is your last name?” he asked.

  “Okay, you got it,” I said. “It’s Bridges.”

  Tonto barreled back in between us. “Landon Bridges! You get it? We’ve got to get him to pledge with us. Every time he gets drunk and falls, it’s Landon Bridges falling down, falling down,” he shouted in a singsong voice, followed by laughter that clearly indicated he thought this was the funniest thing anyone had ever said and that he was the first person to
think of this clever bit. Then, much to my chagrin, Megan’s Law took up the chant. Then Salami joined in, too. Before I knew it, the whole house was serenading me even though most of them had no idea who I was. I held up my cup and gave everyone a wave. They cheered and then went right back to whatever acts of drunken debauchery they had been up to before that momentary distraction.

  “C’mon, Landon, you have to pledge with us just for that. You’d be the first person in the history of Zeta who got to keep their own name! We’d have the entire house singing your name at every party.” Tonto and Megan’s Law fist bumped over this. I had to admit, having a frat party singing my name was pretty cool.

  “Hey, Tonto,” I shouted, “I’m still looking for Greg. Have you seen him?”

  “What? There’s a hook in your leg?” he shouted back at me.

  “No, Greg!”

  Tonto gave a quick glance around the house and yelled into my ear. “Good luck finding him in here now. Can I grab you another beer?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I replied. “Sure. I could use one.” I wasn’t sure if he heard me, so I nodded and handed him my cup. The music was so loud I could feel the bass throbbing in my chest. I was also thinking I’d need some liquid courage if I were going to successfully recover from the shuttle bus faux pas and talk to Siobhan. Tonto grabbed my cup and disappeared into the morass of sweaty humanity.

  Better him than me, I thought. Now, where was she? I kept scanning the crowd trying to locate her cute little head of red hair, but it was difficult as I was constantly jostled and people were jumping up and down to the music. I would catch just a brief glimpse of her every now and then, but I kept losing her. The crowd surfing was also obstructing my view, and I lost sight of her whenever I turned my head to help pass a body along.

  When I spotted her again, I was immediately despondent. She was going up the stairs with fucking Lennie. He had his hand on the small of her back, and he had a shit-eating grin on his face. The kind of look I’d love to punch. That sealed it. He wasn’t just Lennie in my mind. He was now and forever going to be Fucking Lennie. Well, I actually hoped he wouldn’t be living up to that name in the literal sense any time soon.