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.
Readers, there I stood, staring through my little window, down at the screaming, gyrating, costumed menagerie, rude louts and souses, each and every one. I watched Monkeyface prance through the crowd, waving his torch and grinning through square ape-teeth. The hungry lights cast manic shadows against the tower wall. I cast my gaze back into the room, letting it caress the bed, my desk, my Matrix poster. My Faema Home Machine, glinting with precision. Monkeyface’s ape-bellows reverberated through the night. Snatching up my book, I wrested it open roughly and began to read a random page. “Recent awareness that death causes human dilemmas has been transformed into a vision of death as the new social problem of our time.” Hm. I agree.
