Room 136
“Misfits aren’t misfits among other misfits.” – Barry Manilow
Room 136. Our personal oasis. Our home away from home. We were two doors away from the back door escape hatch of McNeely Hall. It was perfectly located for our covert comings and goings late at night without entering/leaving and being seen through the lobby. It was also perfect for sneaking alcohol, girls and other contraband into the dorm. We would either place duct-tape over the locking mechanism to keep the door open or tap on a friend’s window to let us in the back door. Our room was the gathering place for the entire first floor of collegiate oddballs, weirdos, geeks, criminals, ROTC and other generally cool people like us. We called it the “Island of Misfit Boys” (sweet Rudolph movie reference). As you approached our room in the hallway, you would notice a certain unmistakable odor that emanated from the food we had nailed to the outside of our dorm room. This is how we protested the horrible cuisine in the university food service pavilion (a.k.a the cafeteria). Nailed to our door was a collection of various food items from the cafeteria in various stages of decay. A carrot, burger patty, dinner roll, chicken wing, ham sandwich and several strands of spaghetti were all part of our door-front buffet. In addition to being a sign of protest, we also did it to piss off James the Believer across the hall. On any typical day or night you could find a group of us in the room playing poker, drinking beer, watching MTV 24/7 (When they actually played videos) and rarely studying unless the exam was the next morning. It was the hang out room for anyone who didn’t want to study or were just batshit bored. The ceiling tiles in the room were sagging and stained (for good reason). Whenever we played poker, we would remove one of the tiles and throw all the crushed empty beer cans into the ceiling as we finished them. We were the central gathering place for misfits and lost souls. Then one day, we received an invitation to hang out somewhere else. We accepted the invitation only to realize later…There’s no place like home.
Poker Night!
“Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.” – Steven Wright
Typically, poker night was held in our room as everyone else was afraid of getting caught with alcohol and apparently we didn’t care. Some guys would bet and lose their entire weekly allowance in one night and then stress out the rest of the week. One week, our friend Bubby invited everyone to play poker in his room at Tucker Hall. You remember Bubby don’t you? He’s our friend that we left in Florida, sleeping in our destroyed condo, after taking his own truck back to Louisiana and almost going to jail for it. Given we were tired of hosting and having to clean up the aftermath, we gladly accepted the invitation.
It was early evening when we headed over towards Bubby’s room. While dusk outside, there was still a beautiful faint blue light in the sky. Now one thing to know about me is that I notice whenever something’s out of place. Once I was reading Celina’s Victoria Secret catalog and found four typographical errors (true story). Celina still wonders why I was reading the text and not looking at the pictures (I was doing both). The faint dusk light provided a clear image of a round, darkened silhouette of an abnormally giant head peeking over the roof of Tucker Hall. It was an ambush, and we had a pretty damn good idea who was on the roof due to the enormous size of the suspect’s cranium. Stopping short, I stated in a loud voice, “Shit! I forgot my money in the room!” John said “What?” I whispered to him, “They’re on the roof and are going to ambush us. I’ll be right back.” I hastily walked back to our dorm room, picked up the phone, called Campus Security and calmly stated “There’s a man on the roof of Tucker Hall…I’m not sure if he has a gun or not.” Thank God caller ID wasn’t invented until 1987.
Bubby’s Betrayal
“I know the feeling of confusion and betrayal. I know the feeling of fearing for my life.” – Jason Reynolds
When Campus Security arrived in full S.W.A.T mode and surrounded Bubby on the roof, he was shitting bricks. Bubby pleaded with them to let him go and that the whole thing was just a stupid prank and it was John and I that had called as a joke. He said he had planned on bombing us with some “water” balloons which most were actually filled with catsup, mustard or Bubby’s urine. Given what we did to him in Florida, he had every reason to retaliate against us. He just sucked at it. Scared to death, when the officer said “Your friends that called said you may have had a gun.” Bubby defensively and accidentally blurted out “They’re the ones with the guns in their room!” Uh-oh. This, unfortunately, was a true statement. John and I kept two shotguns hidden deep above our room far into the ceiling tiles. These were only used when we would stay the weekend and go dove hunting (which was rare.) If we were caught with firearms in our room, it was grounds for immediate, permanent dismissal. Our response to Bubby’s prank had just crossed the line.
Search & Seizure
“Getting caught is the mother of invention.” – Robert Byrne
John and I were back in our room laughing about the fact that Bubby was probably squirming at the moment and whether he would need to change his underwear. We knew he wouldn’t get in any major trouble, except maybe getting written up for going on the roof. That’s when the “Boom! Boom! Boom! came pounding through our dorm room door. John and I looked at each other with an “aw shit” grin on our face and John casually opened the door. Standing there were two Campus Security officers. In a very terse voice, one of the officers proclaimed “We need to search your room!” John looked over his shoulder at me, turned back to the officer and yelled “No!”, slamming the door in the officer’s face. He then turned to me and said “We’re fuc&ed!” The booming began again and we both agreed that there was no other option but to let them in. I took the lead and opened the door the next time, turning on whatever charm I had and stated “Sorry officer…My roommate is having a bad day. He just found out his girlfriend cheated on him due to his small wiener and he failed his mid-term exam.” John didn’t like my creative ad-lib so he lobbed a textbook and several expletives at me. I told the officers to make themselves at home and search anywhere they liked. They informed me that given the dorms belonged to the university, they didn’t need my permission to search, “But thanks anyway.” John and I laid on our bunk beds feigning disinterest and innocence as the officers searched our closets, drawers, book bags, under our mattresses, inside our pillows and even inside the pockets of some of our dirty laundry. All they found was a lock-blade knife and eight Silver King firecrackers. That was enough to get us in trouble. As the officer was about the leave, he looked up seeing the sagging and stained ceiling tiles and used his night stick to reach up and poke one of the tiles aside. When he did, a shower of crushed empty beer cans came raining out of the ceiling like a clattering aluminum waterfall. There was no way for them to get up into the ceiling to search more thoroughly for any guns, but they were satisfied. They had more than they needed to screw us. As they closed the door, they let us know we would be hearing from the university. Immediately after they left, the phone rang. It was Bubby saying “I’m sorry.”
Consequences
“Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.” – George Bernard Shaw
John and I were subsequently placed on disciplinary probation meaning that if we were implicated in any future violations of school policy, we could be dismissed from the university for a period of no less than one semester and possibly a full year based on the severity of the violation and university discretion. We were cited for possession of explosives and alcohol on campus. They made it sound like we were up on Federal charges! Realizing we were dangerously close to crossing the final line, we calmed our activities for the rest of the Spring semester. We also forgave Bubby because he apologized to us and we never returned the favor. Oh yeah, and because of the Florida incident. The Spring semester ended with a yawn and it was time for us to return home for the Summer. I would be required to get a Summer job, there would be many keg parties to attend and I had three months to decide what to do with my life moving forward. It didn’t take three months. The decision was easy. You know how the old saying goes…”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Well boys and girls, it’s about time to wrap up the Nasty John saga and move on to other things. This story could go on forever as there are so many tales to tell, so I had to end it somewhere. The next episode will be the last in this series. There we will touch on division, new beginnings, horticultural heists, community service and growing up. You may laugh, you may cry, you may become slightly nauseous. Until next week…Cheers!
Hot Jeremiah 