Dorm Stories: Spring Semester

With Love, from Meredith Hall

This is a follow up piece to a previously published collection of stories that was split for length. You probably want to read it to gather some context, if you haven’t.

Shower Songs

When I was in high school, I vowed I would never drink. Many members of my family have struggled with substance addiction—alcohol in particular—and it was hard for me to see that. They weren’t abusive folks when under the influence, but seeing a person I loved disappear in a glassy slurring haze scared me. I didn’t want to lose myself, like they had. Maybe I could trust my fear to help me stay disciplined, but that was too big a risk. In the early years of college, my ironclad teetotaling had me refusing to even attend college parties (it took me a couple years to realize I could go to a party and simply not drink, but like I said, this is a time of figuring stuff out).

It may surprise you to learn that I was in the minority here. Just about every week, one of the fraternities or sororities on campus hosted some kind of shindig; if not there were certainly house parties you could go hang at if you knew the right person to ask. Many of the guys were interested in “rushing the frats”: this is a couple weeks right at the beginning of the semester where the fraternities on campus hosted social events hoping to recruit pledges to join their ranks. A very hot topic over shared dinner was ranking the prospective houses: those guys by Stewart are nerds, and the guys up on the hill are freaks. AKL is really cool, by Pi Kappa had much hotter girls at their party. The SigEps had a nice house but didn’t seem that chill. Something like that.

The boys sampled Greek life in loose groups, and prepared for their outings like they were going to battle. After dinner, they’d saunter back to the dorm to shower, shave, and pick out their outfits (i.e. which color polo shirt to wear with the jeans). I’d sit bemusedly as they grunted through their routine, talking smack with each other and trading movie references while they assembled their itineraries. Usually, I’d take the time to practice ukulele, and I believe that is how my role as a shower minstrel began.

It was probably Hugh or Grant who told me to bring Sadie (my ukulele) to the communal shower so I could play while they scrubbed their bodies. “I’m not very good,” I’d hedged, but those guys wouldn’t accept it. “You know The Rainbow song (meaning Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s famous cover, I’m sure you’ve heard it), right? Just play that. It’s nice, brother.”

So I’d sit on the window ledge and plink out songs for them. It became part of the process: if anyone was going out for the night, Beau was to provide inexpert ukulele music for the bathers. Ted would teach me new chord groups on his guitar and sometimes I’d get ideas from the fella who sat on our front porch playing a banjo. But for the most part, I’d play them Somewhere Over the Rainbow or variations of something I called “Shower Song” which was just a mix of C, G, and D. I recorded a version and posted about it before, but here it is again:

To be included like this meant more than I can properly express with words. But I think it’s about here that I started thinking of them as brothers more than roommates.

Eric’s Soundtrack

When Eric and I were first matched, I had been operating under the assumption he was into alternative music. I’m not sure where I got that idea, because he almost never played any. He frequently played E.L.O.’s greatest hits because they were his dad’s favorite band, but other than that I can only remember him playing a rotation of three songs, usually on repeat.

1. Frolic Room by 311

2. Perfect Gentlemen by Wyclef Jean

3. Call on Me - The Eric Prydz Remix. This one is kinda my fault for showing him the music video, which he LOVED, and would invariably say “this is actually a great song.” Right you are, Eric)

It didn’t bother me that I heard these songs roughly 500 times each. In fact, when I hear the opening chords of Frolic Room, I am infected with a sense of utter nostalgia that defies language.

Wingman

Hugh and Grant had another close friend, Brandy, who lived in the dorm just west of us. We regularly went to Earhart Hall (named for the famous aviatrix) to eat dinner because it had the widest food selections on this side of campus. Brandy and her roommate Stacy (Hugh’s girlfriend) would join us often. Eric liked Brandy a lot. She was a sporty girl, and while she loved to taunt Eric about the Colts being better than the Bears, they were both Cubs fans. Their banter had the electric undercurrent of a crush.

“She’s cute right?” Eric would say with a half smile when I’d ask about her. I’d invariably encourage him to ask her out. “You think she’ll go for it?” He’d wonder.

“She’d be an idiot not to,” I’d smile back. Being terribly shy with girls myself still, I liked to live vicariously through my friends when it came to dating. Unfortunately, their schedules (along with some bashfulness on Eric’s part) kept getting in the way. It was up to me to step in.

Brandy would often work out with Hugh and Grant at the big rec facility just north of Meredith. After one session, they stopped in to say hello and she noticed I had a few Gatorades. “Beau, can I please have one?” she said, “I’ll replace it but that looks so good.” Of course I gave her a bottle and told her not to worry about it; we were pals by this point. But it would become something of an unspoken codeword between us.

I’d gotten her screen name at some time or another, and started sending her, “Where is my GATORADE??” whenever Eric was around and not super busy.

“I know!” she’d reply, “I totally owe you, don’t worry…is Eric there? Maybe I’ll stop by now…”She’d come by (without Gatorade, whoops, I totally left it on my desk!) and suddenly she and Eric would have an excuse to run to the dining hall or take a walk or whatever. We did this three or four times.

It worked.

They stayed together all through college, married, and now have a beautiful daughter together.

The Fire Alarm

One night, my R.A., Mike shook me awake. “Hey! What are you doing?” he demanded.

I bolted awake, furious. Grant stood over Mike’s shoulder with wide eyes. “I’m sleeping?” I growled.

“Why didn’t you come out for the fire drill?” Mike asked.

I thought he was screwing with me. “What are you talking about, there wasn’t a fire drill.”

Grant nodded vigorously. “Yeah there was bro. We were looking for you.”

Mike’s anger turned into confusion. “Did you really sleep through it? Seriously?”

If these guys were acting, they were selling it really well. “Was there really a fire drill?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Mike sighed. “I can’t believe you slept through it. But I’m glad you’re safe. Try…try not to do that again.”

Grant hesitated a beat after Mike left. “Dude, you looked like a vampire just now. You okay?”

I sighed. “I’m just trying to sleep. You’re really not messing with me?”

Grant finally smiled. “Definitely not. You beast,” he chuckled before leaving me and I promptly went back to sleep. I’d slept through a few tornado sirens in my day, so I chalked it up to being a heavy sleeper. But I’ve since been diagnosed with sleep apnea and now suppose that’s how I was able to sleep through a fire alarm. Amazing.

Heartbreak

About halfway through the year, Kate’s boyfriend broke up with her. She’d been sensing a distance between them for a few weeks, she’d said, and we’d all noticed he’d started making excuses not to come to dinner or board games. “He bought a new motor cycle,” she explained, showing us a picture of one of those sporty crotch rocket things. “Isn’t it cool?” she said with enthusiasm that seemed forced when she bit her lip worriedly. “I think he might like it more than me.” She tried to make it sound like a joke.

A few days later, the boys dragged me down to their room to watch The Count of Monte Cristo. I’d never seen it, which was unacceptable. It was one of Kate’s favorites so she invited herself to watch too, but she spent most of the evening on her laptop, her eyes growing ever-tighter as she sent messages. Maybe a half hour into the movie she stood. “I told him if he was going to break up with me, he’d have to do it person.” She thrust a hand at her computer. “Not like this. He said to meet him outside.” We didn’t know what to say to her. What do you say? “I’m not letting him do this,” she insisted, pale but defiant. He wasn’t far away, and her phone buzzed with a text. She left, Hugh swore, and we pretended to watch the movie for another hour or so. I don’t remember a single thing about it, except thinking “oh, I know this plot” because it’s been cribbed a dozen times in popular media.

“Guys,” Grant said softly as he read a text on his flip phone¹. He didn’t need to say anything else. We let Kate in through our Hall’s side entrance. It was technically Quiet Hours (which means no visitors) but now was not a time for rules. She sobbed quietly in Grant’s bear hug for several minutes. I think it might have been the first time I’d ever seen anyone truly heartbroken. A strange sort of anger settled on my shoulders: how could he let go of someone who loved him so deeply? How could he destroy her like this? I never saw the guy after this episode, but I suspect it was simply because he’d been pretty sheltered: he’d gone to college and gotten overwhelmed by how big world really was and it freaked him out. Kate was an unfortunate casualty.

She was around all the time after that. She hated her roommate whose name I cannot remember for the life of me. She’d gone so far as to do the “tape line” thing in her room in an effort to create space for herself, but her grief over her lost love made it impossible to manage. If she wasn’t with Hugh and Grant down the hall, she was with me. I had given her a standing invite to watch the 2006 Winter Olympics, and I remember her huddling in my chair morosely while we watched the “beastly” (Grant’s words) ice dancers do their thing.

“Do you think if I buy a guitar and play Cheap Trick, he’ll love me again?” Kate would ask.

“Which song?” I wracked my brain, what Cheap Trick songs did I know?

“I Want You to Want Me,” she replied. Of course.

“I think that might be too subtle,” I would say, giving her a side hug.

“I’d buy an amp,” she would say.

“Maybe a skywriter?” I’d suggest.

“I could sky dive?” she’d counter feebly.

I’d smile sadly and squeeze her a little tighter. “Yeah. He’ll come around.” But what I really wanted to say was “he’s stupid.” I desperately wanted to see her happy again.

“I know,” she said, not meaning it.

Good Clean Fun

I don’t remember exactly how the prank war started. Probably, as so many things do amongst a group of boys, it started because someone was bored and thought it would be funny. One day, I happened on Ted with a spool of scotch tape and a cannister of Axe deodorant, the green one. “Eric, come help me,” he said. Eric shrugged. Ted slunk down the hall to Nick’s room. “Ready?” He depressed the trigger on the can and then taped it down. As it hissed, he stepped up to Nick’s door.

“Hey—” Nick began before his voice just became a grunt of confusion. Ted rolled the Axe Bomb into Nick’s room and yanked the door closed. He grinned at Eric, who also grabbed the door handle and leaned back. Nick pounded on the door, and you could hear a pitiful muffled “nooooooo!” coming from the other side.

Mike the RA appeared. “What’re they doing?” he murmured to me.

“Axe bomb,” I said with a grimmace.

He shook his head. “Idiots.” Then, louder, to them, “If you guys try that with me, I’m getting you kicked out!” They merely laughed and Mike closed his door.

For the next few weeks, Axe Bombing became a thing between the rooms. Keeping your door open, (up until then, an invitation for anyone in the hall to come hang out) had become a liability for most of the guys. As I said before, I had a kind of armor against these pranks…but Eric was not immune. He’d made the mistake of saying he hated Febreze, so the guys would regularly saunter in and cover his mattress and desk chair with it, before taking a handful of my Honeycomb cereal, winking and leaving. Once, they even got a fresh pile of his laundry with it.

He always made them pay: he’d steal their towel and clothes while they were in the shower and leave the pile in the stairwell. The deterrent was not nearly as effective as you’d think.

The Mattress

The Prank War reached its apex when Nick and Ted came in one day. “Beau,” Nick said with a gleam in his eye. “We’re taking Eric’s mattress.”

“What are you…” I began then shook my head. “You know what, it’s probably best that I don’t know. I don’t see anything.” I went back to whatever I was doing on my computer. They giggled and removed Eric’s mattress from its loft, then maneuvered it out of the room with surprising ease.

Eric returned a few hours later. “Beau?” He asked slowly. I pulled out my earbuds and looked up. I could see he was tired, so I skipped playing dumb.

“Nick,” was all I needed to say. Eric frowned but his eyes smile as he swore, set down his bag roughly and stalked out. A few minutes later, I heard a hollered “SON OF A—” drowned out by raucous laughter. I went to investigate.

Nick and Ted had duct taped Eric’s mattress to the ceiling of another guy’s room. We all had a good laugh at the “astronaut mattress” they’d created, but Ted could see the prank had almost gone too far, and he and Nick helped return the mattress. Eric remained a good sport while they exited with a final round of laughter and this his face fell.

“Those bastards,” he muttered. They’d covered it in Febreze before taping it up, and it still smelled.

Bromance

My major, Computer Graphics Technology, was multi-disciplinary and often required me to visit a computer lab to use specialized software for my coursework. I’d walk over to the technology labs after dinner and hang out on the ninth floor with other classmates to 3D model something or draft digital schematics for a made up machine. On the way back to my room one night, I ran into Eric, Ted and Brandy. They’d all just left a frat party and were enormously excited to see me. “Beau, you’re crazy!” Ted yelled. Evidently, being on Third Street at midnight was the height of insanity to an inebriated person.

“Watch this,” Eric said. He ran over to a pine tree and grabbed a branch. It bent over double, and Eric swung from it, upside-down, like Tarzan.

“Honey,” Brandy laughed, swaying over to him. “Honey no, get down,” she chided with a laugh. “You’ll hurt yourself.” Eric flipped over backward and landed on his feet, an impressive move even if he hadn’t been partying. He grinned ferally, and I remembered stories Ted had told me before.

“This guy turns into a cave man when he’s drunk,” Ted had said with great amusement. He turned to Eric. “Remember when you stole that huge rock from the sorority?” Eric grinned sheepishly. “He wanted to bring it back here and keep it. It had to weigh 80 lbs.”

“Where’s the rock, Eric?” I asked.

Ted explained. “A cop shined his spotlight on us and he dropped it and ran.” Ted began laughing. “That’s like the ninth time he’s done that. Always stealing rocks and climbing things.”

Eric was one of those guys who got giggly and rambunctious when he was tipsy. It was funny to get the whole picture. I smiled at him. “Let’s get you home buddy, yeah?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I gotta walk Brandy home.” I’d asked if he’d be staying with her then. “Her roommate’s around,” he explained. “And,” he looked at his hands, “I probably shouldn’t.” One other thing about Eric I didn’t really realize at the time: he’d never stay with Brandy unless they were both sober.

Ted and I went to our rooms. “Friggen guy.” He said, meaning Eric. “I’m crashing,” he said with a wave. My roommate came back maybe fifteen minutes later. Eric always tried to be quiet at times like this. A noble, but futile, gesture. He scrambled up into his loft with primate grace, still in his jeans and baseball cap.

I expected him to go straight to sleep, as he usually did. Instead he said, “Beau, I know I’m drunk so don’t laugh at me.”

“Okay,” I said and couldn’t help but chuckling at the bluntness of it.

“I said don’t laugh dammit!” he said with forced annoyance but laughed himself. “But seriously man…you’re…you’re a cool roommate you know? The other guys in the hall…some of em can be real jerks. But not you. You’re just…cool to me.”

“Thanks, Eric,” I replied in that kind of patronizing way you use with drunk people. “It’s not that big a deal.” Maybe it was a defense mechanism because I was moved, deeply, to be appreciated for simply being who I was.

“Well,” he said with an almost embarrassed seriousness. “I’m glad I get to live with you. Thanks man.”

I smiled in the dark. “I’m glad too.” Eric and I never argued, fought, or complained about each other during the entire year. I was just as lucky as he.

Summer Plans

Kate asked me to study for finals with her. She was taking an algebra class she didn’t really need help with. “Just in case,” she said. I needed to brush up for my Psych final if I wanted to get an A, so I was happy to sit in one of Meredith’s common study areas with her.

“The Goo Goo Dolls are coming to Deer Creek!” She announced, referring to one of the most popular outdoor concert venues in the state. “You’ll come, right?” I liked the Goo Goo Dolls well enough on the radio (who didn’t love Iris²?) but I didn’t consider myself a fan.

I looked up from my book and found her smiling, perhaps the first real smile I’d seen from her in months. Like the girl who’d been perched on Grant’s knees during orientation week.

Oh.

I’d had crushes before, sure, but this hit me so differently. I need to spend every minute I possibly can with this woman, is the best way to describe the emotion, but it’s a pitiful stand-in for the real feeling. She could have invited me to listen to nails on a chalk board for three hours and I would’ve said, “I can’t wait.”

She glittered. “Counting Crows will be there too. It’s gonna be great.”

“They sing the pave paradise to put up a parking lot song, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you know the Counting Crows.” She fiddled with her iPod and passed me an earbud.

The opening chords of Mr. Jones³ played. “Yeah, I know this!”

She kicked my shin gently and treated me with a half smile that said, “I told you.”

She hummed along as she did her math, and I realized how unbelievably beautiful she was. I mentally did my own algebra: had she always been so lovely? When exactly had my heart started beating for her a little differently?

You’re smart readers. You already know the answer.

Move Out

Grant and I helped Kate carry her boxes out of her dorm. She finished finals early in the week and wasted no time moving away from her horrid roommate. “Thanks for helping, boys,” her mom said as we maneuvered boxes into the back of her minivan. “We really appreciate your muscles.” A schoolteacher, Kate’s mom knew all the right words to use to light up a young man’s ego. She passed us trail mix and energy drinks, insisting we needed to refuel. It really hadn’t been all that difficult, but she was so grateful, it would have been rude to object. “When are you boys leaving?” Mrs. Kate’s Mom asked. I would be leaving the next day, after my Psych final. Grant had to stay until Friday, when Eric would be moving out.

“You’re not going to make us wait til July to see you, right?” Kate said as she broke away from our goodbye hug.

“We’ll definitely hang out before then,” I agreed. I had no major plans besides maybe picking up a few shifts at Dad’s drive-in restaurant.

Grant’s vicegrip paws clamped my shoulders. “Beau, you beast. I’m gonna miss not having you down the hall.”

“I’m going to miss you guys too,” I said and meant it. It had been a good year. I waved the snacks at Kate’s mom. “Thanks for the fuel!”

“Visit any time!” she said as she buckled in. “We’ll see you at church, Grant!” Kate waved goodbye as she dialed the radio. Grant and I acted like fools, waving from the sidewalk like extras bidding bon voyage to a departing ocean liner.

“She’s awesome,” he said, slapping my back. Yeah, she was. “C’mon, let’s go see what Eric and Nick are doing.” They were, naturally, working out.

I sat down in my room. It was mostly empty, having already sent a lot of my stuff home before finals week. Really, just my computer, microwave, and refrigerator needed to go, along with a few changes of clothes. I looked around the half-deserted space with the late afternoon sun slanting in through the windows. It felt earlier than it actually was—Indiana had just started participating in daylight saving time and my internal clock wasn’t used to it.

In the stuffy quiet I wondered: would I look back on this with the bittersweet fondness I was feeling?

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If you’re interested in the Shower Song post I mentioned, it’s here:

1. In those days, we had to pay per text message. You only got so many included in your plan. Texting someone was a big deal.

2. In case you haven’t heard Iris…one of the greatest yearnsongs ever

3. Sha lalalalala la