“What the fuck?” I said as I sat down on my bed. It was the only thing I could think to say which surprised me because I had just spent two hours spinning an elaborate, albeit fictional, tale about the sexual indiscretions of my Resident Advisor to the cops. I guess words are harder to come by when you’re speaking the truth. “What the fuck happened?”

Charles, still visibly shaken by what just transpired, shook his head as he sat down across from me. “He tried to take her, man. I couldn’t let him take her again.”

“Her? You mean your video game?”

“Yeah, man, Michelle. When Dean walked in the rec center and saw us, he flipped out. He started yelling and wheezing and sayin’ some Bible shit. Before I could even pull up my pants, he was grabbing the PlayStation, telling me I was going to burn. It was fuckin’ trippy.”

“No shit. So how did the cops end up here?”

“I was trying to explain it to him but he didn’t want to hear it. All he kept doing was snatching up the cords and telling me what a sinner I was and how I was never gonna live there again and sucking on his inhaler. I don’t know, man, then I just lost it. It was like Michelle’s Dad all over again. He was gonna take my happiness. I grabbed the PlayStation and he was fighting me and kicking me but the wheezing got worse and worse. Finally, I grabbed his inhaler and threw it out the window. He stopped fighting after that. He just kept grabbing his chest and fell over. That’s when I called 911. How did you know what to tell them?”

“I don’t know.”

And I didn’t know. I mean it didn’t take Columbo to figure out that Charles got walked in on in the middle of his date with Lara Croft. And when I saw that Dean was speechless, so to speak, I guess I just seized an opportunity. People often look back on the defining moments in their lives with a sense of regret and rightfully so. The, “I should have said this” or “I should have done that” sentiments are usually correct. In that rec center that afternoon, however, I did it exactly the way it should have been done.

“You owe me big.” I said.

Charles just looked me in the eye and nodded his head.

“You name it, bro.”

I woke up the next morning with a smile. You know how some days you just hop out of bed like you’ve been sleeping for a year and you feel like you did when you were a kid on the first day of summer vacation? It was like that. I jumped out of bed, took a shower, got ready and headed off to class. Charles was still sleeping when I left. I knew he would be happy to wake up to the gift I had left him. Right there in front of the 13 inch television we shared in our room was the PlayStation. Inside of it, Tomb Raider was ready to go. I even added a little note, which read, “I’ll be home by NOON. Enjoy!” We were the only ones who played video games in the rec center anyway and with Dean out of the way, I knew nobody would even notice it was gone.

Class that day was a breeze. Two of my professors had decided to show movies and the other one decided not to show up. In college, you give a professor exactly twelve minutes to report to class. At twelve minutes and one second, class was officially cancelled. At least for me it was. I used the free hour I had to sit in the quad, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and people watch. There are few places in the world more suited for people watching than a college quad. At any given moment you can have the pleasure of seeing a spectacular skateboard accident, some brilliant hackey sack maneuvers and a wind assisted skirt blown up all in the same location. Life was good.

When I walked back into our dorm room at exactly 12:01 that afternoon, Charles was nowhere to be found. I could tell that he appreciated my gift because he left me with a gift of his own. I grabbed it, dropped off my backpack and headed back out the door for my newest job interview.

The Schoenfeld Medical center was considerably less crowded that day than it had been the previous day. Still, I decided to head back down that stairwell I had found just twenty-five hours earlier. As I bounded down the stairs to the basement it was Journey, once again, accompanying my footsteps in my mind.

“Just a city boy. Born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere…”

I emerged from the stairwell and walked down the hall to the open doors on the right.

“A singer in a smokey room. A smell of wine and cheap perfume. For a smile they can share the night. It goes on and on and on and on…”

Through the doors was a waiting room. There were a couple of students sitting there. Their heads buried in whatever they were pretending to read. I strutted up to the woman standing behind the counter.

“Workin’ hard to get my fill. Everybody wants a thrill. Payin’ anything to roll the dice just one more time.”

The woman behind the counter lifted her head and unenthusiastically greeted me. “May I help you?”

I smiled at her as I said, “Yes, I would like to donate my sperm for cash.”

“Don’t stop believing. Hold on to that feeling.”

Now I know that I told you earlier that with the amounts of controlled substances floating through my body that year, the only thing you would have been able to get from any of my body fluids would have been a confession to the DEA. I did say that and that was true. But I also told you that I had a plan.

You see, donating sperm can be quite a lucrative endeavor. If the sperm bank deems your little swimmers worthy, you can donate them up to four times per week. Each deposit is worth $175 dollars. You do the math. The problem is that most men cannot pass their stringent tests. The perfect candidate would have to live a completely clean life void of any controlled substances. He would not be able to drink. He would not be able to have sex, as it would lower the sperm count on his deposits. Basically, he would have to be kind of a straight edged hermit who only lives to jerk off. Fortunately for me, I just happened to live with such a candidate and he just happened to owe me a favor.

I filled out the questionnaire the woman behind the counter handed me as dishonestly as I could and eagerly handed it back to her. She handed me a plastic cup and with the unsexiest voice imaginable said, “Go into that room and deposit your sperm in this.”

“No problem.” I said as I snatched the cup from her hand and made my way into the “milking chamber.”

Any brilliantly crafted plan is going to have a speed bump or two. In mine, it had to do with smuggling Charles’s sperm into that sperm bank. I won’t get into any graphic details but we’ll just say that all it took was a little Ziploc baggie, some tape, a pair of rubber gloves and my shaved inner thigh to keep those little fuckers warm. The only other tricky part was figuring out how long to wait in the room before coming out to give her the sample. Too quick would seem suspicious. Too long would seem creepy. After four minutes, I emerged, cup in hand.

“It takes about a week to get the results. We’ll call you.” She said.

“Take your time.” I replied. I handed her the cup and walked out the door.

I had a smile on my face. I had a bounce in my step. I had just nailed my job interview and was about to be making some easy money. It would have been perfect had I not seen Candace as I stepped into the hallway. For a moment we both just stopped and eyed each other. It must have looked like one of those old spaghetti westerns where the hero and the villain face off in the middle of the street except in my case; the villain was a tall, pudgy woman who bared an amazing resemblance to Johnny Depp. She looked at the open door way from which I had just exited. Then, as the realization sunk in for her, she laughed under her breath and walked on by. Goddammit.

That week went by quickly. When the sperm bank called to inform me that my donation was healthy and that I could begin my deposits immediately, I was ecstatic. It was to be the best job I had ever and would ever have.
That fall and winter flew by. I was making money, enjoying life and the new Resident Advisor stayed out of our business. By the way, we never pressed charges against Dean so they threw out the case. I can be a prick but I can’t be that big of a prick. Besides, I’m told that a little jail time is good for the soul.

Charles and I had our routine down. He would do the heavy lifting, so-to-speak, and I would reap the benefits. The only downside was the occasional bumping into of Candace in the medical center basement. Every time I would see her I would either ignore her altogether or tell her something witty and mean like, “It looks like you’ve been eating Gilbert Grape.” I even started to look forward to our serendipitous encounters. How could I still be mad? If it weren’t for her, I would have still been working in that dungeon of a copy center. If the satisfaction she would get by seeing me emerge from the spank bank was enough to light up her miserable life and make her smile at me, so be it.

People reminisce about the joys of college for many different reasons. Some people remember the independence. Others remember the feeling of invincibility that age yields. Some remember the friendships, which were created. Me? I remember the parties. Huge, borderline-out-of-control ragers, where the music never stopped playing and the alcohol never stopped flowing. Where drugs were dispensed like relief aid to the impoverished citizens of sobriety. Where a relationship could run its entire course in a single evening. From introduction to courtship to consummation to separation. Where complete strangers would slip out of their daily lives to gather on a location for the same immediate goal; fun.

I’ve been told that that kind of thinking is juvenile. I’ve been told that that kind of thinking is dangerous. I’ve been told that that kind of thinking is wrong. And that is exactly why I look back on it so fondly. Because it’s not like we weren’t thinking. We just didn’t give a shit.

Spring quarter always brought on the best parties. The weather would start to warm up and the clothes would start to come off. As much as people would like to believe that humans are somehow above the primal impulses of the animal kingdom, one only needs to examine a college party in the spring to know that is complete bullshit.

It was a warm Thursday night when I decided to attend such a party. It was huge. Some ex-fraternity guys who had rented a nine-bedroom house decided to blow off some steam and everybody was invited. There was a band in the living room and a DJ in the dining room. There were kegs in all three kitchens and jungle juice in all five bathrooms. Did I say it was huge? By the time I arrived there were already, at least, three hundred people there and by the look of it, alcohol was not the only mind-altering substance on the premises. You can usually tell the drugs a person is on by the dancing. When people are drunk, they dance off beat. When people are on a hallucinogenic, they dance to anything; car horns, crickets, air. Judging by the people dancing in the front lawn of the house, my money was on mushrooms. Yum.

I already had about six cocktails in me when the ‘shrooms started to kick in. I made my way through the sea of people, greeting the ones I knew and meeting the ones I didn’t. I was having a blast, drinking, smoking, snorting and basically consuming anything anyone put in front of me. They say that it is never a good idea to mix drugs and that is partially true. What they should, but never will, say is that you need to mix the right drugs. Coke and alcohol? Yes. Mushrooms and weed? Absolutely. Coke and alcohol and mushrooms and weed? Now you’re pushing it. And that is exactly what I was doing. Pushing it. To say my judgment was a little off would be like saying Kurt Cobain was a little depressed. I was ripped. Looking back on that night, I actually wish I had done just a little bit more. At least that way, I would have passed out, overdosed or got arrested. Anything would have been better than what actually happened. I can’t, for the life of me, remember much of what happened late that night but I do remember running into Candace. Then I remember going home with her.

You know you had too much when you wake up the next morning still fucked up. I found myself staring up at a ceiling fan, not sure if it was actually turned on or if it was still the drugs and alcohol making it look that way. I scanned the room I had never been in before then realized the truth. I was lying naked in Candace’s bed. She was lying naked next to me. And she was snoring. Son-of-a-bitch.

I managed to sneak out of her apartment without waking her. Good thing too. I can’t imagine what I would have possibly said to her if she woke. “This was a mistake? I had way too much to drink and smoke? I loved you in 21 Jump Street?” I am thankful that the only thing I had to deal with that morning was my own crippling shame and the gnawing hangover that was slowly creeping into my head.

By the following Monday, everything went back to normal. Charles and I kept our routine and the foggy memory of that night slowly began to fade. I only saw Candace a couple times after that night. We would pass by each other in the hallway like we never knew each other and we never spoke of that night.

College seemingly grew better with each passing year. I enjoyed lots of parties, lots of substances and lots of girls. Charles and I stayed roommates until we graduated. The saddest day for me was the day he told me that he was going to move to Argentina to find Michelle and that I was going to have to find another job. Nothing good can last forever. Last I heard, they got married. That was thirteen years ago.

I never saw Candace again and, to tell the truth, never really thought of her again until just four weeks ago. I received an email from a “Candace Wallace M.D.” and in the subject line it read, “SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW.” Her email was very vague but in it she stated that there was something extremely important that she had to tell me and requested that I visit her and she left an address. Now I know what you’re thinking. It was the same thing I was thinking. What “important something” could a woman possibly tell a man thirteen years after their only time together? Motherfucker.

Her home was a two-hour drive from where I live. Those two hours were brutally painful. Thoughts ran through my head like a freight train. “Why would she do this?” “What does she want from me?” “How did she find me?” “Goddamn Facebook.”

I pulled up to her home early in the afternoon on a Saturday. She had done well for herself. A million dollar home in a million dollar neighborhood. When she answered the door, I almost did not recognize her. What was once a fat, Johnny Depp look-alike had transformed into a skinny, plastic, Johnny Depp look-alike. She had become one of these women you see on those reality housewives shows. Faces pulled, lips injected, tits inflated shell of a real human. She still had that condescending smile, however. “How are you?” She said. Not in a sincere kind of way. More like the way you see doctors ask on those drug intervention shows. “I’m fine.” I replied. “What do you have to tell me?” I saw no reason for small talk.

She welcomed me inside her home. It was pristine and cold like a museum. The more I looked around the more I got the feeling that nothing in this woman’s life was real. From the never-before-sat-on furniture to the post modernism art on the walls, the house screamed pretension. She sat me down on the couch.

“I wasn’t going to tell you but I felt that you should know.”

“Know what?”

“I don’t want anything from you I just couldn’t let you go through life without knowing.”

“Knowing what?”

“Jesus, my husband even said that it wouldn’t be a good idea seeing how he’s better off without you.”

“Who? Who the fuck are you talking about?”

“Your son. You have a son. We have a son.”

I knew she was going to say that but when your worst nightmare seems the obvious answer, you’ll pray for the long shot. I was clinging to the hope that she might say that she got my copy center job back. My heart sank. Of all the girls and all the parties why did it have to be that one? I didn’t know what to say. She put her hand on my shoulder.

“How could this have happened?” I said as I buried my head in my hands.

“I don’t want anything from you.” She said.

“How could I have been so stupid?”

“I just had to get this off my chest. I had to tell you.”
“I never should have let this happened.”

“You? I’m the one who impregnated myself.” She answered.

“Yeah but I was so fucked up that night and…wait, what did you say?”

She looked at me with that fucking smile. “Well, I think it is safe to say that you and I both know that we had chemistry but it was never meant to be.”

“What?”

“Realistically speaking, I was going to be a doctor and you were just a burn out who couldn’t even hold a job at the copy center. It would have never worked out. I mean look at you.”

I didn’t know whether to be offended by her remarks or confused by what she was telling me. I must have been invisible because she just kept going on like I wasn’t even fucking there.

“Still, I have to be honest, I had the biggest crush on you. You know how stupid kids can be. After that party that night, I was absolutely obsessed with you. Doesn’t that sound stupid now? Anyway, I knew I was about to transfer later that quarter and I knew that you had been visiting the Schoenfeld Cryobank regularly and I just decided to go for it.”

“Go for what?” My outlook on life was having a sudden shift again.

“Your profile. Your sperm. I impregnated myself with your sperm.”

“What about that night at the party?”

She covered her mouth as she started laughing at me. “The party? Oh dear, you weren’t in any condition to do anything at that party. I’m surprised you didn’t overdose. We got to my apartment and you passed out.

I wish I could have had a camera to take a picture of my face at that moment. Pure bliss.

“So you decided to impregnate yourself with the sperm deposits I was making all that time?”

“Yes, that is what I’ve been trying to tell you. But don’t beat yourself up over it. It really is better that you’re not in your son’s life. Not in your shape.” She said.

Goddammit if I didn’t want to kiss that fat-turned-skinny, plastic bitch right there on the couch. I jumped up to my feet. “You know what, Candace? You’re absolutely right. I am in no shape to be in junior’s life but just let me take a peek at the lil’ bastard and I’ll be on my way.”
Candace looked stunned. Just as I had realized that all she wanted to do was give me some kind of sick sadistic final fuck you to me, she realized that I didn’t give a shit. She slowly got up from the couch.

“C’mon, I won’t let him know his daddy is here. I just wanna see him. Give me a memory to go back to my shitty existence with.” I grabbed her by the hand.

“He’s probably in the den playing video games. You can take a quick look but then you should probably go after that.” She said.

She walked me through a series of hallways leading to their den. When we approached the huge den at the end of the hallway, I could see a young teenager sitting on the floor. I could hardly contain myself when I saw that the little fucker was playing Tomb Raider on his PlayStation 3. “Son of a bitch.” I whispered. “If that is not the craziest shit I have ever seen.” I turned back to Candace. “Let me ask you something. How is his singing voice?” She looked at me shocked.

“Actually, he’s in the choir at school.”

“Yep, that voice must come from his daddy.”

I started laughing and it was the first time in a long time that I couldn’t stop laughing. I walked back down the hallway, covering my mouth and laughing. Candace tried to hush me but I just couldn’t stop laughing. I made it to the front door before I stopped and turned around to Candace one final time.

“Candace. Thank you for giving me the greatest gift a woman can give a man. I wish you and your family a nice life.”

I turned and walked out the door. I got into my car and headed home and as I looked back on the memories I had made those four years in college, I just couldn’t stop laughing.

THE END

Tim Kaiser was the classic schoolyard bully, an overgrown ogre projecting his self-loathing on anyone smaller in stature. Tim was a mischief mastermind, as evidenced by his decision to strategically position himself on the opposite side of a picnic table before calling me the unholiest of unholies.

I was well aware that my height and weight were grossly disproportionate, my rail-thin big brother never missed a chance to opine on the dichotomy and my mirror never failed to parrot his opinion. My weight was, as Tim would soon learn, the key to unlocking my inner simian.

Despite repeated commands to cease and desist, Tim continued calling me “Fatso.” Dead set on doing him grievous bodily harm I gave chase. He eluded my pursuit by simply circling the table again and again. Eventually we came to rest, still on opposite sides of the table. I picked up a golf ball sized stone and dared him to call me “fatso” again. He did. I made good on my threat, leaving him with one less tooth to neglect brushing.

My mother arrived at the principal’s office in hysterics. Tim’s mother, on the other hand, remained calm throughout the ordeal. Her contributions were few, brief and mostly meant to downplay the gravity of the situation. I suspect that as his mother, no one was more aware what an asshole Tim could be when he put his mind to it, and ambivalence was her way of saying, “I’m sure my son did something to set Christopher off,” without siding against her own kin.

Due to our ages school officials swept the incident under the rug. My mother did not follow suit. She made me buy Tim an apology gift despite eyewitness testimony that he had provoked my attack. The gift was a toy car, red with yellow racing stripes and substantially larger than a Matchbox. Financing the compulsory peace offering cost me two month’s allowance. Adding insult to injury I was forced to wrap it and pen an apology. If I had had the wit then that I have now (and a way to sneak it past my omnipresent mother) I would have bought Tim a boxer’s mouth guard and wrote in the accompanying card, “Just in case you didn’t learn your lesson.”

I had to go in early to the copy center the next day. When I got back from dinner that night, I had a message on my answering machine from my manager, Dennis, requesting a meeting. This seemed strange as it would be the first meeting we would have in the two years I had worked at the copy center. Still, I paid no mind to it. I figured I could use the extra hours to bump the puny little bi-weekly paycheck I got from sup-poverty to full blown poverty.

I arrived at the medical center at 11:00 – Two full hours earlier than I normally arrived. I had never been to the medical center before lunch. If I had, my opinion of it certainly would have been different. It was like a real hospital. People were actually working. Doctors and nurses and students scurried up and down its halls like they had some place to be with urgent matters to resolve. I suppose in the world of medicine, the hours of operation stop right after noon or, more accurately, right before tee time.

Unlike the dorms, the medical center’s elevators were pristine; huge, vault-like boxes that could quickly and without stench, escort its passengers from floor to floor. Normally, my trip down to the basement was a solitary ride but as I stood there waiting for the doors to open, I realized that I would not be alone on this trip. People began gathering in front of the elevator doors, staring up at the arrows, waiting for them to light up like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. I’m not what you would call a claustrophobic person but I have never felt comfortable in tight quarters with strangers. Call it what you want, I just feel that if you are going to pretend that the people standing next to you in the elevator are not there, you might as well make them not there. I decided to look for the stairwell.

The stairwell leading down to the basement opened to a corner of the hospital I had never before been. I was used to the quiet confines of the southwest corner where ne’er a group would gather. Where the rooms were always locked behind solid core doors and the only people who had keys to them were the same people who kept the floors clean. This corner was different. The hallway buzzed with activity. The doors were all open and people would emerge from them with charts and files and just as soon as they would emerge from one open door, they would disappear into another. As I walked down the hallway, I read the tapestry of notices and bulletins tacked to the cork boards which stretched down the hall.

“Sign up now for flu shots.”

“Volunteers needed for experimental treatments.”

“Sperm donors wanted.”

“Donate your eggs for cash.”

“Get paid to relieve your allergies.”

And on and on they went. There must have been thirty-five linear feet of advertisements targeting those who did not subscribe to the “my body is a temple” school of thought. I imagined hoards of college kids lined up in stables like dairy cows, each one hooked up to a different machine poking, pulling and prodding them as they waited patiently for their medical center check. I smiled as I made my way into the maze of basement hallways.

There is nothing worse than having a sudden mood shift. For some people it happens without cause. It is like their brain is a traffic light with no yellow. One second, life is swell and peaceful. The next it is not worth living. I am told it is called a chemical imbalance although I am not sure how they came up with that name as it is impossible to measure chemicals in the brain without cutting it open. Who knows, maybe these people volunteered for the medical center. However, there is also another type of mood shift; one that does not happen so internally. It is triggered in response to an external stimulus like seeing a child crawling into a polar bear den at the zoo or, in my case, seeing Candace standing at the end of the hallway with my manager, Dennis.

As I walked toward them I replayed the Candace incident from the previous day in my head, preparing my argument. I knew what was going to happen. I was going to get chastised for not giving exemplary customer service. I was going to get reprimanded for telling one of our “esteemed” medical students to kiss my ass. I was going to get…

“You’re fired.” Dennis said.

I couldn’t believe the nerve of this asshole. Not so much that he would fire me, but that he would do it in front of the bitch who got me fired.

“For what?” I replied. I already knew what the reason was. I was just trying to buy myself some time to try to figure a way out of it.

“For refusing to make Dr. Schoenfeld’s copies. Do you even know who that is?”

That was the second time I was asked that question in less than twenty four hours. He must have been pretty important. I still didn’t give a shit.

“We were closed.” I said. “And I made that perfectly clear to her too. What am I supposed to do, work overtime so Dr. Schoen-whatever can have some book copies to examine on a Wednesday night?”

“It’s Dr. Schoenfeld.” Candace blurted out of her fat Johnny Depp-shaped face. “And since this medical center was constructed from his donations, I think you could have made an exception.”

I could feel myself losing the argument. I, apparently, was ill prepared. “How am I supposed to know who Dr. Schoenfield is?” I asked.

“Feld. Dr. SchoenFELD.” Dennis said. “Are you serious? It’s on the name of the building. Schoenfeld Medical Center.”

Damn. Now I really felt like a tool. Not for getting fired. Not for not knowing who Dr. Shit-for-brains was. I felt like a tool for letting this go on as long as it did. Sun Tzu wrote, “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” I got up, shook Dennis’s hand, nodded an apologetic nod to Candace and walked away. I made it about ten feet down the hallway before I stopped and turned back to them.

“Hey!” I said.

They attentively turned towards me.

“Go fuck yourselves!”

So much for Sun Tzu.

It goes without saying that my trip back across campus that day sucked. It was the first time I had ever been fired from a job. I once heard that there are some things everybody must do at least once in their lifetime. Kick somebody’s ass. Get fired from a job. Fall in love. Now that I am older, I definitely agree with, at least, two of those. But at the time I was desperately broke. I needed to figure out a way to earn some money. Another campus job was out of the question. Although warning misbehaving kids that, “this will go down on your permanent record” is total bullshit, it does hold true at state universities. I even considered some of those advertisements in the medical center basement but that was quickly ruled out. With as many substances as I had running through my body at the time, the only thing I was qualified to donate were cautionary tales. I didn’t know what to do. By the time I got home I had exactly zero ideas. If it weren’t for the distraction of seeing the ambulance and police cars parked in front of my dorm I may have even had a real life anxiety attack.

They must have just gotten there. Nobody was in the ambulance and the masses had only just begun to gather. I quickly entered the stairwell and bound up the stairs to my floor. With each passing step, the knot in my stomach tightened. Remember the intuition thing? Well it was happening again.

I reached my floor and opened the door to the hallway which led to the rec center. I would like to say that I was surprised to see my floor was where all the action was but I wasn’t. I knew it.

A cop came up to me to turn me away but I told him I lived there and he let me go by. In the rec center I saw Dean, gasping for air, on a stretcher. He had EMT’s administering something to him through an IV. Through their bodies, I could see him. He had a mask over his face and his eyes were wide and panicked. He turned his head and we made eye contact. Dean desperately tried to speak but all that came out was wheeze. He tried to sit up but the EMT’s pushed him back down on the stretcher. He tried to motion his arm toward me but the handcuffs locked around his wrist held him tight to the rail of the stretcher.

In the other corner I could see Charles. His shirt was soaked with sweat. His head was down and he was slumped in a chair. A cop was taking his statement. Charles lifted his head and he saw me.

Have you ever done mushrooms before? Have you ever done them with other people? If so, you probably know what I’m talking about when I say that it is possible to completely communicate with another human being without saying a single word. You can read each others’ minds just by making eye contact. I know it sounds silly but you don’t have to take my word for it. If you’ve never done them, ask somebody who has. Then go get yourself some mushrooms.

Up until that moment with Charles, I had only done it while high on mushrooms and with other people high on mushrooms. Charles had never done mushrooms before. Charles had never done anything before. Yet there we were, locked eyes and in complete understanding with one another.

“He’ll tell you.” Charles said to the cop as he nodded in my direction.

The cop turned to see me standing there looking back at him. He pointed to Dean.

“Do you know that man?”

I turned to look at Dean. His eyes, still wide, were staring right back at me. A rush of excitement filled my body. I turned back to the cop.

“Yeah, that’s Dean. He’s our Resident Advisor.”

“Have you ever witnessed him exhibiting any inappropriate sexual behavior?”

I paused for a moment to look back at Dean. The look in his eye was pure panic. He tried to talk but only air was coming out from behind the mask. I looked back at Charles.

All I could think about was everybody who shit on me in the past twenty-four hours. Fat assed Candace and her condescending smile. Dennis and his righteous indignation. Dean and that fucking sound of his inhaler.

I looked the cop in the eye.

“Yes, he’s done things to us. Many times. It’s true.”

Had it not been for the handcuffs Dean would have jumped straight out of that stretcher. He squirmed as the EMT’s restrained him. He made the sound a slashed tire would make if it could breathe.

“Okay.” The cop said. “We’re going to need you to give us a statement.”

“I can do that.”

You may be asking yourself how I could possibly frame an innocent man for a crime he did not commit simultaneously protecting the man who did.

Well, you see, I had a plan.

To be concluded…

I may not have all of the answers to all of life’s little enigmas. I’m not filled to the brim with ideas on how we, as a society of semi-responsible adults, can make this a better World for the children we will accidentally conceive someday. However, the perturbed malcontent in me is alive and kickin. Which is why I’ve compiled a list of things that we, as a society of semi-responsible adults, shouldn’t be doing.

We shouldn’t shamelessly bask in our gluttony. Especially at the dinner table. That means no edible utensils. Resist the urge to substitute your hamburger bun with a split Krispy Kreme doughnut and that spare tire around your neck will diminish before you can say “my left arm is tingling.” KFC recently introduced a sandwich that uses fried chicken patties as buns. It’s called the Double Down and it comes wrapped in a Depression Hurts pamphlet.

We shouldn’t elect people into positions of power based on popularity. California and my car have something in common. They both have a Governor that paralyzes their potential. Furthermore, we shouldn’t start trusting the Government simply because the new President has swagger. I don’t care if Bill Cosby himself was Commander and Chief, having the Government control healthcare, electricity and a relevant chunk of the automotive industry is not in the best interest of the people. Not only have they proven themselves, time and time again, to be in the back pocket of the drug companies, but they can’t even get tap water right- and we’re going to trust them to administer psych meds and vaccinations? Zuh?

Another thing we need to stop doing is supporting music that contributes to the retardification of our youth. Hip hop is rapidly becoming hip hopeless. Remember the day of the lyricist? When De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, KRS ONE and countless other socially conscience acts immersed the listener in a story, they were rightfully respected for their intellect and skill. Now a days, superficial and intangible is the name of the game. There are a hundred thousand Lil’ Wayne fans out there for every Immortal Technique fan. Kids don’t want to be told to read between the lines and to practice independent thought. They’d rather subscribe to the ramblings of a mush mouth promethazine addict, who has a vocabulary that’s as limited as the allotted range on his house arrest ankle bracelet. I guess MC’s stopped writing lyrics when Tupac pretended to die.

We shouldn’t continue to cheer for athletes after they’ve been busted on steroid charges. This isn’t so much an anti-drug sentiment. I’m more concerned with fairness and the integrity of the competition. It doesn’t make sense to lock up minor drug offenders because they don’t have a contract- all the while, cheering on some grossly wealthy, dope sick Mongo because he’s wearing the right jersey. Manny Ramirez should be too ashamed to show his face on the field after being exposed for fertility drug abuse. Dodger fans should be taking the fertility drugs, they’re the ones that got fucked.

It isn’t necessary to spend more than four hours a day staring at a web page that has your name and face plastered on it, 30 times over. Inspired by the success of all of these self- absorption promoting social networking sites, I’m going to develop a web page that transforms the monitor into a mirror. Cha (to the) Ching!

Lastly, no one out there should make the claim that gay is the new black. Granted, the discrimination is there, but it’s a matter of degree. Just because, on some skewed level, you can relate to having a dominant male shoot you in the face with his hose, doesn’t warrant plight equality.

Andy Rooney, eat what’s left of your heart out.

My room was on the ninth floor of the dorm. Unless I was injured or really really high, I usually took the stairs. The elevators in dormitories are akin to elevators in the projects. Never inspected and often smelling of vomit and hair product, the elevators were not a pleasant way to travel vertical. Plus the stairs provided me with the only real exercise I would have for that year. I would jog up the stairwell, listening to the echoing clangs of my footsteps against the metal steps and would think of a song. Somehow the beat always matched. That night it was no coincidence that the song was Journey’s.

Dean was our Resident Advisor. He had asthma. It would not take someone longer than ten minutes of knowing him to figure that out. He was constantly sucking on his inhaler. He would go through cartridges of Albuterol like they were Pez. Dean was your typical R.A. Mid twenties; kind of a prick. He was the kind of person who could find joy in Bible studies and philanthropic endeavors and even more joy in chastising those who didn’t. I usually tried to avoid him. When I reached my floor that night, I was surprised to see him standing in the doorway. He was dressed in his typical RA uniform; khaki shorts, hiking boots which looked every bit used as they were, plaid flannel tucked in behind a brown braided belt. He greeted me with his canned enthusiasm. “Slow down, Prefontaine. The Olympics are still a few months away!”

“Hey, Dean. You taking the stairs now?” I asked. I believe most people are not as stupid as they seem during small talk. When confronted with the dilemma of speaking with somebody you don’t care to speak to or just ignoring them completely, stupidity is what most often comes out. That was certainly the case with me.

“No, I came to see where all the racket was coming from. First I’m hearing your roommate singing up a storm, then I hear your commotion up the stairwell. Good thing it’s not finals week. I wouldn’t want to have to write you guys up again.” He gave a condescending smile as he took a drag off his inhaler. He lived for moments like this.

“Singing?” I asked. “He was just singing?”

“Yes, singing. Loudly I might add. When I got to the rec room, it looked like he was just finishing up.” He said.

“More than you know.”

I slipped past Dean and stepped into the short hallway leading to the rec room to see if Charles was there. The rec room was empty.

“Anyway, I told him the same thing I’m going to tell you. There are students living here and it is my job to make sure that the living conditions support a learning environment. That environment gets polluted when there is a lot of noise, understand?”

I smiled as I contemplated how much noise would be made if I pushed him down the stairwell. “Yes, I understand.” I replied. “It was great talking to you, Dean. I’ll make sure we keep the noise to a minimum. You take care now.”

I turned and as I walked down the hall, I could feel him watching me leave. He said nothing. The only thing I heard was the sudden burst of his inhaler giving him his life sustaining medicine. Like Darth Vader, but pathetic and queer.

Charles was folding clothes when I entered our dorm room. His shirt was still wet with sweat from his “singing practice” and he was whistling a tune. “We gotta talk.” I said as I sat down on my bed. “What did you get busted for?”

Up until that point in our friendship, I did not care to know. He had tried telling me once before. About a month after we first moved in, we were up late one night talking. I was trying to sober up after a late night of partying and Charles, I suppose, thought that would be a good time to come clean. He got as far as, “I am a convicted sex offender” before I passed out. That was the only time he spoke of it, until I asked. He looked at me puzzled. “Why do you want to hear this story again? It’s not like it’s any good or anything.” Charles did not know that I did not know. Sober people can never fully appreciate what it truly means to be in an altered state of consciousness. Sure, you can reach levels of contentment and serenity through breathing practices and meditations but to really understand how the physical universe exists independently from the mental universe, chemicals need to be involved. The night Charles told me of his ordeal, I might not have been sleeping but certainly I was in another place. I remember nothing. “Tell me again.” I said.

“When I was in high school, I worked at a skating rink. I started in rentals but after a couple months I was moved to the DJ booth. Of course I hated it because I had to play the shitty music twelve year olds want to hear. I mean, who the hell skates to Mariah Carey? By senior year, I couldn’t take it anymore and I was going to quit. Then they hired Michelle. You know how people say there is no such thing as love at first sight? Well that’s bullshit, bro. It may not happen to everybody but it does happen and I’m living proof. She worked at the snow cone stand and I tell you, she was an angel. I couldn’t even talk to her for the first month. Every time I would try, I would just get all stupid and I would start sneezing. It was weird. Well one night, after everybody had left and we were closing up, Michelle comes up to the booth to request a song. It was like a John Hughes movie, man. Something just sparked. We hung out in that DJ booth and just listened to the song and stared at each other. It was incredible. After that night, I picked up every shift I could when she was working and every night, after everybody left, we would go into the booth and play songs. That was the best Summer of my life, til one night, it all went bad. Michelle’s dad came early to pick her up and he caught us, bro.”

Charles just sat there, staring at the floor.

“Caught you doing what?” I asked.

“Making love, dude. What do you think?”

“In the DJ booth?”

“Right there in the fucking DJ booth. Anyway, he grabbed her, took off and next thing I know I’m getting arrested and they’re moving to Argentina. I never saw her again.”

“Why would you get arrested for that?” I asked. “She was fifteen, man. I was nineteen. Statutory rape.” Charles’s lip started to quiver as he could barely finish his sentence. Tears were welling up in his eyes. I actually felt bad for the guy. Here I was thinking he had some kind of sordid sexual past when really he was just a kid in love. Then I remembered the game. “Wait, what the fuck does that have to do with you jerking off to Tomb Raider?” I said. “Lara looks just like Michelle. Even though she’s just a game, any time I see her, I see Michelle. I can’t help it, I love her.” He said.

Then Charles stood up, composed himself, and slowly walked out of the room. At that moment, I wished I was fucked up again.