Despite making a complete fool of myself in front of a group of strangers, I pull into the school with tuna salad stains on my tie and an indescribable longing in my dark little heart that I could not quite put my finger on.
The university rose over the tiny college town like a big, red devil with a pitchfork, its spindly horns poking up from a mass of large trees. There were rolling green fields where students could lounge around during their free time and a number of large buildings full of classes that were far less fascinating than they sounded in the packet I had received after applying.
Everything had its place, neat and tidy. The grass was lush, and the students, from what I could see, all wore nice clothing like ties, slacks, and wool coats. Other than that, the parking lot was in an uproar. People were struggling to carry boxes into the building, and some were dragging full pieces of furniture across the road in obvious states of distress.
After grabbing my key to my room from the front office and filling out some paperwork, I join the chaos and start carrying the first round of boxes to my dorm. And by carrying, I meant that my feeble frame struggles deeply to lift more than two packages at a time up the stairs and into the building. My arms couldn't possibly take it by the time I reached my room with the first load, I knew they would snap like twigs if I kept on going this way.
The door flies open as I'm searching for my key, boxes tilting to one side like a melting wedding cake. "Whoa, there!" The man on the other side shouts, "You need some help with those?"
"Please!" I gasped, sweat-slicked and exhausted. "I should have borrowed a cart from downstairs, but I thought I could handle it myself!"
"It's an easy mistake. Everyone thinks they're He-Man until they have to climb all those stairs," The man chuckles and takes the two boxes out of my hands. He was a dark-haired fellow with a gelled wave rising over a broad forehead. "I'm John Ciardi. You must be my new roommate for this semester. I expected you to be taller for some reason." He notes, inspecting me up and down, "How tall are you?"
"Tall enough to be a perceptible threat," I reply, wiping my palms on my slacks. "Is the building supposed to look this outdated? There was a leak downstairs that took up almost the whole floor, and I thought I saw black mold spores evolving around one of the shower rooms."
John laughs, and then he realizes that I'm serious as a dead man in a circus, so he stops and blinks a little. "No shit, little dude, but this place is practically held together with chewing gum and tape," he explains. "They built it in the 1800s, and as far as I've heard, there are no plans to remodel it. Too bad; we needed a new game lounge. It gets boring playing card games all the time. Especially when everyone else cheats."
I follow him into the dorm room when he pushes open the door, and we step inside together. The building itself was brick, so some of the exposed walls that had been painted a sickly shade of white had peeled to reveal red stone underneath. The ceilings were made of a cracked plaster that looked like it would crumble and flake should the tenants above us belch too hard.
My parents had sent me away to camp one year when I was a boy, and that was the only time I'd paid witness to such a small living space crammed with the strangest amount of stuff. John had already set up his side of the room with a bed installed over a wooden desk packed with pictures and books. He had Def Leppard and Blondie posters on the walls and a few scantily clad women pinned in suggestive positions.
"I'm just going to put this stuff down on your bed," John tells me as I ogle his side of the room. "You need help with the rest?"
I couldn't believe he was offering to help me, a stranger, unload his car. Perhaps college students were a completely different species than the rest.
"Or I could give you the grand tour and we can just fuck right off," He says before I can answer, a cheeky grin forming, "My girlfriend just finished moving into the girl's dorm. We can go introduce ourselves to her and a couple of her friends if you want to after we check this place out. Could be fun."
I knew that my idea of fun and his idea of fun weren't remotely in the same universe, but the prospect of exploring the old building seemed interesting.
There's a knock at our door, and both of us pivot when it swings open to reveal yet another young man, this one taller than both John and I with wheat blonde hair.
"You scare off the new kid yet, John?" He asks in a deep country drawl, "Told you not to talk about all that weird shit on the first day. It freaks out the freshies."
"Oh, hey!" John leaps forward and drags the new boy into the room with us. "This country-fried fuck right here's named Homer, the best guy you'll ever meet on campus. He might be big and a little dumb, but he's got a heart of gold. Right, Homer?" He pats his friend's chest a few times and beams at him with a suspicious amount of pride.
"Who you calling big and dumb, you big, dumb loser?" Homer replies bitterly, "You give the new kid a tour yet?"
"I just got here, actually," I admit, unsure of what to make of the two of them just yet. I hadn't been as social as my parents wanted me to be growing up. Dinner events with the wealthy and parties with people my age hadn't really been my thing, but if someone handed me a pen and paper, I was immediately in my element.
"Hey," John slaps Homer's chest again, "We should show him the old building first and then see if the others want to meet him later tonight. Virgil's going to love this guy's attitude, it's right up his alley."
"Who?" I question them as they hold their little conversation right in front of me.
You've gotta come to our clubhouse tonight," John replies excitedly, his blue eyes glimmering when he turns back to me. "We want you to meet the other Poets."
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