I was seven years old when my parents brought me to university. Even from the
vantage of hindsight the circumstances that contributed to this improbable
development seem to me murky and inaccessible. Yet the fact remains: I am eight
and a half, and a college dropout. The reasons for such things, no matter how
important, are never shared with a child. (It is the curse of children that so
much of our lives must be enshrouded in the haze of the inscrutable.) Mostly I
remember sitting in the backseat of the car, gazing in a comfortable way at the
crisp, milky-pale contours of my new school jeans, my mother in the front seat
sitting aslant, craning to share passages from the college guide. I remember
her lively smiling and my father’s beamed looks of support, which I noted. Ignorant as I was, I had the kernel of
awareness to assess that I was embarking on something apparently significant;
confirmed that evening when I was offered my choice of restaurant for a
celebratory supper. (Oh, inquisitive souls! The answer is Beef O’Brady’s.) But what was it all for, anyway? What nightmare, after all, was I really
being driven toward? What tower of cold desperation? What ape-faced nemesis?
And amid these dark questions, readers, please let me submit a darker fact: for
the blunt imprint in my tender memory cannot speak false, and though this
detail will remain inexplicable, it was certifiably three o’clock in the morning when my custodians chose to deliver me to campus.
At that dead hour, let me tell you, the darkness is absolute. I myself was not
used to being up past nine, so for me the ripeness of the night fed feverishly
into the general unreality. There were my parents, hurrying across the campus
lawn, plunging headlong into the swallowing blackness, I in tow. (There could
have been some university greeter or admissions counselor with us, too, I don’t remember.) In any case, there we were. It was impossible in the immediate to
tell how broad the field we were crossing actually was; no nearby buildings
were visible through the darkness. The briskness of our pace was to me
bewildering, and as I rushed blindly over that endless plain, unable to
comprehend the cause of our haste, the strange mysteriousness of the situation
began to truly grip me for the first time. My passive faith in the very
guidance of my parents began to shiver. I got scared. The longer I strode, the
more the thread of time seemed to go slack in my head; it became interminable.
And it was then that my parents informed me they would be unable to continue
any farther…and I learned that I would have to complete the walk alone.
Perception was suspended in the jelly of utter fatigue. My swirling, exhausted
mind registered this unfathomable send-off like a dull blow. But the
leave-taking was without ado. Swift, tight embraces, and I was affectionately
equipped with my luggage, hands pressing my sweater, folding cuffs, pulling
zippers. They stood still and watched as I began to walk ahead. Now bereft of
escorts, I was cast into a blackness deeper than a coal mine.
My footing, I fear, could not have been too sure as I moved off into the
obscurity of the night. I did not dare turn around, readers, for fear of
encountering an abruptly vacated cavity in the spot where my parents had last
stood. Do you assume I felt small? Indulge with me, if you will, while I
summarize the scant facts at my disposal: firstly, that I was alone, and
crossing what I presumed to be an open field, though how open I could not know;
secondly, that I was somewhere on a university campus (intention to enroll).
The only other apparent particular was the coarse, obsidian night, which,
judging by my protracted progress, was dense enough to resist penetration. I
recall a kind of lurid sheen to it, that dark expanse, like the gleam in a pool
of ink, or a dog’s eye. Soon, a vague wind began to tease the silvery grass-tips, and I could
feel the chill of that unholy hour. But no matter how vigorously I endeavored
to project my gaze, I could see nothing ahead but the same solid depths, of the
same Black Sea.
It was the voices I heard first. Initially so faint that I suspected my
imagination, they gradually augmented until I was able to identify the
approaching commotion of a celebration: distant yelling, rowdy hoots and
audible cheering. Simultaneously I perceived, off ahead on the left, the remote
winking of a dozen tiny lights, floating and dipping, a school of wheeling,
swelling orange sparks on a trajectory that bisected with my own blind course.
At this point, dear readers, I was too numb to form any notions, and could only
stare helplessly as the clustering of lights slowly materialized into a
full-scale procession, a raucous, clamoring mob that lurched and weaved in the
distance, spilling across my path like a shadow. I discerned, to my surprise,
that the lights I had seen were torches. Curiosity was the tether that drew me
closer, I could do nothing but inch forward towards this riotous horde. Soon I
began to make out contorted faces in the play of firelight, baboon-like flashes
of extreme elation, arousal, and agitation, like the paroxysms of a frenzied
Hell. Terror gripped me; to be seen by this mob! Stricken animal that I was,
what could I do but freeze: they drank, and danced, and sang, and spun, and
yelled, and laughed, and shoved, and tore at each other’s clothes, and stumbled, and marched; all this I watched mutely. The bottles
were hoisted and slopped, and rang together through the boisterous din, as the
madly flickering torches swept to and fro over the crush of bodies. I saw a
girl in a cape, with a strangely serene look on her face, grinding herself
violently against the lunging pelvis of a boy with devil horns (his shirt:
"Hook-Ups"). Amidst the throbbing chaos of the scene, I was struck suddenly by
the realization that these vivacious partiers were my fellow students. I
wondered: what kind of Dionysian induction was this? And: were they all so
chummy, then? Uncomfortably aware of my own taut breathing, I was instantly
awash with insecurity. But despite my keen and desperate desire for escape, to
cease glutting my greedy eyes with that drunken carnival, I still found myself
rooted to the spot as if by paralysis. Unwilling, I watched as a paunchy boy
fell backwards over a lump of ground, showering himself with wine and
dissolving into hoarse, gurgling laughter. And I stood stiffly in the dark with
my ridiculous luggage, powerless to tear myself away.
Still unbeknownst to me (oh breathless friends!) the hysterical pitch of this
seething spectacle had yet to reach its brutal climax. Can you possibly believe
me? Can you possibly believe – no you must, you must, believe what I will tell you next – the tumultuous ruckus, pulsing into the night, was abruptly buoyed up by a
fresh chorus of whoops, and out of the blazing mass a figure emerged at the
forefront of the procession. As his head swiveled in my direction, my innards
dropped like a rock of ice. Ladies and gentleman, he wore the face of an ape, a
thick-lipped, leathery, leering visage, etched in delirious shadows and hung
obscenely over his cannibal head like a grotesque, fleshy shroud. No eyes were
visible behind the ragged socket-holes, which were as black as the night
itself. Still, as those dark oblivions seemed to sweep over me, I felt pierced
with the heart-stopping certainty of death. My spine convulsed involuntarily, a
rippling spasm, as if compelling me, one final time, to flee with my life. My
quiet-hearted readers, I was simply unable. I am quite convinced that I would
have passed out there, in that field, on that night, my feet fixed firmly in
their dusty imprints, if I had not at that moment glimpsed, framed between the
primate’s two lofted torches, the splash of fire-light on a patch of stone wall. There
was some building (salvation!), not sixty feet away.
The monkey-man let loose a wild howl, and his followers joined it with a boozy
eruption that sent veritable tremors through that demonic night. I waited in
tense suspension for the torch-wielding hoopla to proceed on, for the crowd to
move past and begin to dissolve, before rushing blindly up to the building’s door, abandoning my luggage and scrambling madly to get inside! I was certain
as I did so that a renewed roar of recognition chased me at the heels, honed on
my pathetic darting form. The iron door clanged resoundingly as I slammed it
against the darkness and its revelries. Inside, I was confronted with a broad,
winding staircase, spiraling up dimly to the upper reaches of what I now
realized (with a kind of pulse-pounding detachment) to be a tower. But let us
not dwell, readers, on my heaving chest, or my fumbling with the heavy latch,
my sweat, or even on the crumpled simian sack of a face that sneered somewhere
in the glow of torches. Rather, I beg you, let our lens drift discretely from
that child with terror smeared on his face, let us pan upwards, instead,
alongside the tower, yes, drink that stone column to its pitiless peak, our
gaze resting finally on the uppermost window, waxed with moonlight, a gleaming,
lonely fish-scale. Fade now to our boy-scholar, sitting there at his desk,
alone, looking out the window.
1. About a week later I was sitting at my desk, watching The View and enjoying
a Coke. The collegiate life, as I learned, is not the cruel mistress that one
might easily imagine, and even after the darkest night, the sun (filling my
lungs deeply with the new day) the sun still rises. I was taking a full course
load, 16 credits, Anthropology of Tourism, Folk Religions of the 1800s, Theory
of Media Industries. Yoga. I was settling nicely into my new home in the
dormitory, my room the highest in the tower (good exercise, I say), clothes
folded placidly in their drawers, a little stash of munch-ems spirited
playfully away in the closet. Small TV set, a vice to be sure, but I kept it
unplugged on the weekdays. On the right kind of night, when your homework is
revised and squared away, a little television can be just the thing.
Even the campus lawn was quiet and still as I gazed out my small window over
the darkness below. Occasionally on these idle nights I would spy my old chum
Monkeyface, leading his parade of carnality across the shadowy wastes, a
stuttering little caravan of tumult and torch-light, now so far away. The
school authorities apparently tolerated such debauchery as a legitimate social
expression, although I can’t imagine they were too happy about it. To be completely truthful, the whole
affair held no interest for me. I came to college to be a student, not to run
around at all hours with an ape’s face on my head. What would your parents think, little buddy?
2. The next night I was sitting at my desk, checking my student email and
enjoying a cappuccino. I was becoming quite the brew enthusiast, thanks to my
silvery new Faema Home Machine. Espresso, cappuccino, latte, mocha. Like all
children I loved the taste of Coke, but I wouldn’t recommend it for serious studying. 6:57? Seventh Heaven was about to start,
but I had one new email in my message box. Hm. Better handle this now. I opened
it. “Find out how YOU can unlock the Electronic Gateway to the Global Queer
Community!” Who comes up with this stuff? I spin away to locate the remote, when (now how
should I put this?) “out on the lawn there arose such a clatter”…ha! Monkeyface as Santa? Don’t make me laugh. I strode over to the window to peer down at the drunken circus.
And oh yes, there’s ol’ Monkeyface all right, twirling a cigar in one hand, the other pawing some
skirt. Oh, my furry friend! I’m afraid you must be behind in your studies. Tut tut, Monkeyface. Look, you’re sloshing brandy all over yourself. You’re a messy one, Monkeyface. You look like a fool. You’re an embarrassment, Monkeyface. I simply have no time for your shenanigans,
Monkeyface. That’s the sad part, isn’t it? Yes, we simply have no time for you.
Readers, beneath its glaring, metallic shell the Faema Home Machine is a very
forgiving appliance. I purchased it for its convenience: I keep it for its
complacency.
3. About a month later I was sitting at my desk, reading The Social Reality of
Death by Kathy Charmaz and enjoying a Red Bull. I read: “In the symbolic interactionist perspective, consciousness is linked to the
possession of a self. Having a self means that we can act toward ourselves as
we act toward others. People who are dying may act toward themselves as
devalued objects in the same”…now hold on, what’s that? I froze in perked attunement. Those loud voices outside…it’s that damn Monkeyface and his saucy commotion. And speaking of sauce, shall we
all speculate as to our good friend’s fluid intake tonight…? Guaranteed, he’s three sheets to the breeze by this…the sharp smash of heavy glass abruptly severed my reveries. I flew to the
window, panicked with a fluttering righteousness. The party was raging
alongside the tower, the burgundy already trickling into the sidewalk below.
Well, well, well, Monkeyface! I felt a hot, helpless indignation flow into me.
The revelers were carrying on below, perfectly oblivious. Ho ho ho, Monkeyface!
You’re the goddamn devil, do you know that? You would probably hurl a wine bottle at
your own mother, wouldn’t you, you swine in an ape’s face? You foul, smirking neanderthal! You never think of the people who
actually came here to work. We don’t even exist to you, in your twisted-up little mind. What do you know about the
social reality of death, Monkeyface? What do you know about the revolution in
the free market? Hm? What do you know about symbolic interactionism,
essentially incorporating an analysis of everything? Have you ever used a
conceptual approach? Have you ever taken a structural perspective? No, you
wouldn’t even know what that means.
