The Excess Road Read online

  Chapter Four: Movement

  The entire student body of Wessex College buzzed around campus three days before classes began. Orientation was the next day for freshmen. After signing in and getting my room key, my mother got on the road because she had a meeting the next day in Connecticut.

  I stood before the open door to room 210 with my clumps of bags and luggage. An official letter from Wessex College was taped to the door. Two weak mattresses were bent on the wall inside.

  The softest mattress snuggled into the steel bed frame below the open window with out me having to force it. I tossed my plump gym bags, garment bag and letter on to the bed and nudged my suitcases in with a few heel kicks.

  The sun blazed through the window and warmed my back. I sat and tore open the letter. A smile crawled up my face as I scanned the room knowing I was going to be the only fish in the fish tank.

  The kid who was to be my roommate was not attending.

  As I sat in the Fulton auditorium, two white boys with sideways baseball caps behind me yelled, “Yo, yo Mr. Ed.” when the orientation leader John introduced himself. I chuckled but not because John had piano keys for teeth. The kids just let me know how white they really were.

  I looked down to my left hand. On my index finger a coiled ring made of guitar strings, bronze and silver sonic snakes intertwined, constricted so I began to spin it with my thumb. The ring only cost five bucks at a craft fair in Fairfield, my home town, and I haven’t taken it off in a while. It doesn’t let go easily but it finds a dark place to rest in my pocket.

  We crisscrossed the campus and were shown every brick building where classes met. I could feel eyes on me. It must have been because I was wearing a black oxford and black pinstripe pants and everyone else was white t-shirts and shorts.

  Schedules were made and classes began in a flurry. My nest was coming along after combining the two beds and piles of clothes began build and mottle the thin carpet. I hadn’t spoken to anyone but my professors in a week, not even at the hall meetings.

  No one was going to come to me.

  Change was required so I began wearing jeans and t-shirts.

  On a balmy Thursday afternoon between classes, I decide to crack open the hardcover of Less Than Zero that my AP English teacher in high school bought me as a graduation gift. I leaned back in my plastic backed desk chair, it was fire engine red so I liked it, and opened to the first chapter. The noise filtering in from the hall was distracting so I got up and went to shut the half open door. Two figures appeared and I recognized them from down the hall.

  “Yo man, waz up!” Tim, the shorter of the two, exclaimed with a New York accent. He reminded me of a picture I’d seen in a history text book about the Vandals. Tim raised his right arm and tapped his left shoulder twice with a clenched fist and extended his hand. He clasped my hand, tightened his grip and pulled back so his fingers snapped. He stepped back and crossed his arms.

  I nodded.

  “You remember me, we were introduced in the beginning of the semester, I’m George,” the taller guy said. I actually didn’t. Tim entered my messy lair after I waved him in and automatically grabbed a seat at the foot of my bed. I gave them a quick examination like a guitar at a pawnshop. Tim tucked in the front of his oversized Misfits t-shirt in his light brown pants and kept tapping his right index finger on his thigh.

  George walked straight to the window like a soldier with his work boots chaffing his faded jeans. He leaned against the closet as his large chocolate Easter egg eyes jumped around the room searching for something as he scratched the dark stubble on his diamond cut jaw.

  I spun my ring.

  I couldn’t read either of these guys so I asked, “So, what do you want?” Tim twitched his thumbs and spit out, “So, you get straight A’s for this semester?”

  George dipped down and with a quick slap to the kidneys sent Tim to his knees on the thin carpet.

  George shot his chin out and said, “That’s when your roommate commits suicide, not when a family member gets killed. Anyway it’s bullshit. You think this school would give you anything for free? Shit no!”

  His face cringed like he might have said something stupid and turned toward me and said, “Oh, man I’m sorry if that offended you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Your roommate’s sister was killed so he left,” Tim said.

  “Uh, I never had a roommate,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s what we heard,” Tim said and sniffled.

  “Jack told us that’s why you have a single,” George said.

  “News to me,” I replied. George pretended to wipe sweat away from his face.

  We talked about where we were from, what types of music we listened to, the benefits of having a single room, the rampant use of legal and illegal drugs and cheating on college campuses. George and I came from divorced families and funny enough we all played the guitar and had previously been in bands. Tim said he gave up on his dreams of Rock Stardom because of the insincerity of the music industry.

  We talked about President Clinton’s election and our siblings. George had and older sister. Tim said she was “Hot” and I told them how my brother took off to be a cowboy in Colorado and find himself. Tim thought it was “Kick ass”.

  Tim scanned my room every few moments and looked to the cubbyhole on the right side of the room. On top of the built in shelves below the mirror were my over-the-counter medications. He advised me to hide the cough syrup because there was an incident the year before when a guy went to the hospital because he did too many Robo-shots. He explained that was when you drank cough syrup and booze to make it “more fun” but now RA’s are on the look out for it.

  George told me not to worry and said if I needed a pick-me-up that nearly half the students were on Ritalin and it’s easy to get. After about an hour of discussing where the party houses were located I asked them, “So, why am I being treated like a leper?”

  “Dude come on! Not like you tried to hang out. We thought, at least Tim and I did, that we’d give you some space. Got a question, some of the floor is going out tonight, want to come?” George asked to my surprise.

  “Thursday night?” I asked as my eyes became slits.

  They shook their heads as if they were the grandparents of a three year old who just said “fuck” in front of them.

  “Thursday is the biggest party night at this school,” George said.

  “So, you coming out or are you gonna be a hermit?” Tim asked with a curled up lip as he stared into my eyes.

  I blinked.

  “Sure.”

  Later, George and Tim yanked me from my room and we met two other guys from the hall at the entrance of the chapel on the other side of the campus. There were no introductions but they nodded at me in recognition. The other guys took off down the street because they said they needed to get supplies and left Tim, George and me on the curb. We pack of jackals began to prowl the nearby streets nicknamed Fraternity Row and stalked a party house named the Shed. Nervous, but not alone, I pushed through the fear and dense Southern air thinking I was prepared for anything.

  I was in for a surprise.