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CHAPTER 1: BACK TO SCHOOL
 By Jim Caple |
Previously at 24 College Avenue: Josh Williams, an English major at State College,
has returned from his summer abroad as a tour guide only to find that everyone but
school newspaper photographer Steve Hamilton has moved out of the old Victorian
house at 24 College Avenue and left him with an impossibly large rent bill. . . .
The initial wave of tear gas didn’t seem that bad to Josh, who was accustomed to
overwhelming fumes after sharing a bathroom with Danny Edmonds the previous school
year. The second wave that rolled across the deck at 24 College Avenue was a
different matter, driving Josh and his new housemates choking and sobbing back
into the house.
“I love . . . the smell of napalm in the morning,’’ gasped Paul Fairhaven, rising
from his knees. He walked over to the picture window and pounded his fists on the
glass. “Attica! Attica!’’
A slender film major given to wearing black turtlenecks and smoking clove
cigarettes, Fairhaven had moved into Jenn’s old room and covered every spare inch
of it with movie posters. He also quoted movie lines at length. In fact, Josh
wasn’t sure if Fairhaven had said anything that wasn’t a movie quote since moving
into the house. His knowledge of such quotes was not only encyclopedic, it was a
little frightening – so far there had not been a single occasion for which he was
unable to supply an appropriate line.
“You sure know how to throw a party, Williams,’’ said Edison Murrow. “What do you
have in mind for the next one – sarin gas and anthrax?”
Murrow was a red-faced, 45-year-old computer programmer going through a mid-life
crisis. He had moved into the house for two reasons. One, to indulge his fantasy
that he could develop a relationship with a 21-year-old college beauty (without
actually enrolling in college). Two, his wife, Cynthia, had recently thrown him
out of the house after he had withdrawn $15,000 from their children’s college
tuition fund to purchase a red 1967 Mustang convertible. Murrow spent much of his
time complaining about Cynthia’s steady weight gain, completely missing the irony
of his own growing waistline (and receding hairline). Built a little like a
penguin, Murrow only wore Tommy Bahama shirts because they partially hid his
paunch and he didn’t need to tuck them into his pants.
Josh didn’t reply to Murrow’s comment -- he was too busy spitting up in the
corner, though whether this was due to the tear gas or all the beer he’d drunk was
unclear. Besides, what could he say? It wasn’t his fault that fans rioted after
the Red Devils lost to the University of San Marco Brawlin’ Italians when “upon
further review’’ the replay officials somehow overturned a last-second touchdown
pass due to offensive pass interference. The replays shown on the TV broadcast
clearly showed that Devils receiver Sonny Winthrop hadn’t come close to touching
the San Marco safety but somehow the refs saw differently.
Which was just the sort of thing that always happened whenever a team came close
to beating the Brawlin’ Italians on their campus. Bizarre penalties, unnoticed
holds, extra downs, suspicious spots – they always went San Marco’s way in its
infamous 106,000-seat stadium where the Jesuit school had been playing “Between
the Canals’’ (a six-foot-wide moat circled the field and gondoliers ferried the
school’s cheerleaders around during the game) for more than 80 years. Such
favoritism was a big reason the Italians had only lost at home six times in the
previous three decades. State College had been poised to make that seven losses
after linebacker Kenan Hill, continuing his spectacular return from the previous
spring’s steroid scandal, recovered a San Marco fumble on a third-and-goal with 40
seconds left in the game and the Brawlin’ Italians clinging to a 21-17 lead. One
play later Devils quarterback Ben Nevada appeared to win the game with a touchdown
pass to Winthrop, only
to have the play nullified by the replay officials.
Josh and his new housemates were watching the game during a Back to School party
at 24 College Avenue. Desperate for rent money, Josh had taken out an ad in the
State College Daily seeking housemates. There are always students who need a room
at the last minute before the start of each fall term and Josh was flooded with
applicants who couldn’t be picky about the rent ($450 a month plus utilities), the
poor condition of the house or its location in the official “blighted zone’’ off
campus where student riots invariably formed after a frustrating loss.
And, indeed, one started soon after the football game. Thousands of students
spilled out of their frat houses, apartment complexes and dorms, then gathered
along College Avenue like moths to a light bulb or grad students to a coffee shop.
Dozens of police in riot gear then took position along intersecting State Street
and blocked the campus entrance. Both students and police had been through this so
many times each knew what was expected of them. The students, who couldn’t be
bothered to protest the war in the Middle East because there was no draft and they
thus had nothing personally at stake, wanted to feel rebellious about something so
they shouted and jeered in anger over the offensive football loss. The police,
bored and knowing the students wouldn’t be satisfied until their protest was
treated as a serious threat, obliged them by shooting tear gas into the crowd. The
students fled down College Avenue, the police followed slowly and everyone went
home satisfied.
“We showed them!’’ the students assured each other when they piled back into their
residences. “They have to pay attention to us now!’’
“We’re going to get at least three hours of overtime!’’ the police said as they
launched an occasional tear gas canister for effect. “Double time and a half, too,
because we’re working after midnight!’’
Unfortunately, a freshman student didn’t fully understand the routine and had
overreacted to the tear gas. Rather than simply running away, he had picked up a
container and flung it back toward the police. Also unfortunately, he had a very
strong arm and the canister sailed all the way over the police line and through
the open window of a squad car, igniting a pile of Maxim magazines in the
backseat. By the time someone noticed the fire, the car was uncontrollably ablaze.
The gas tank exploded, setting several other police cars on fire as well. A breeze
spread this fire across the street and onto the roof of the Delta Tau Chi
fraternity house and the Delta Delta Delta Delta Delta Delta sorority (aka, the
Sex-Delts).
Soon, both houses, five police cars and the campus’s oldest grove of sycamore
trees were ablaze.
Josh was not aware of any of this, though, for his attention was focused
elsewhere. To be exact, his mind was focused on unbuttoning the jeans of a
sophomore speech student with whom he had struck up a conversation early in the
party. She had been captivated by Josh’s tales from his summer as a tour guide in
Europe, for she was one of those young students who was unsure what she wanted to
do in life – indeed, what she was even doing in college – but completely certain
that a summer abroad would provide all the answers. Josh was on the porch getting
her a beer from the keg when the first tear gas wave chased him back inside and
she had run to him when she saw him bent over in the corner. “Hold me, Josh, hold
me,’’ she had cried. This sobered up Josh in an instant. “C’mon,’’ he said, taking
her in his arms. “I don’t think the tear gas reached my room on the second
floor.’’
As they walked toward the staircase, he heard Fairhaven quote the crude animated
devil in “Animal House,’’ the one that ended with the two words, “brains out.’’
The one benefit of his many friends moving out of the house was that Josh was able
to move out of his cramped, moldy room on the third floor (aka, the Hobbit Hole)
and into the far more spacious and cleaner room that Nicollette Mayle and Cheryl
Bellamy had shared on the second. Josh’s crush on Nicollette had diminished
considerably during the summer, replaced by his feelings for Magdalena, who was
unfortunately still in Prague and thus just as unattainable. He and Magdalena
still emailed but her last message had left Josh filled with jealousy because most
of it was about Marcus and his return to Prague on some new smuggling scheme.
Nicollette, meanwhile, had moved into an apartment with Cheryl and was trying to
clear her name by suing the Wide Wide World Anti-Steroid Police. Nicollette
claimed that she had never used performance enhancers and that WWWASP must have
mixed up her urine and blood samples with someone else’s. Josh had called her to
lend his moral support and
just hearing her voice had rekindled some of his old feelings for her.
But Josh was thinking of neither Magdalena nor Nicollette as he opened the fly of
the speech major’s jeans while she unbuckled his belt. Within seconds, they both
were both on his bed with their pants off and she laying on top of him. “Do
European girls do this, Josh?’’ she asked as she pulled his shirt off and then
began tracing a line down his chest with her tongue.
Josh wasn’t the brightest guy when it came to women but even he realized this was
a question best left unanswered. If only he could remember this girl’s name. He
was pretty sure it began with an M or an N or maybe an H, something in the middle
alphabet anyway, but he was finding it difficult to concentrate on much of
anything other than her tongue licking his navel.
Unfortunately for Josh, it was at this precise moment that a tear gas canister
shattered the room’s bay window and landed on his desk, igniting a copy of the
Norton Anthology, a half-completed comparative lit essay and a stack of ESPN
magazines.
Next: Meet the Renters
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