Dormies groove
on sabotage gags
At first I was a little nervous about returning to the
dorms. After being gone for three years, living in my little
orange-carpeted flat in the Swiss Hacienda Manor, 1 was
afraid I wouldn’t be able to slip back into the dorm routine.
Maybe as a 21-year-old senior I would be too jaded, too
mature to fit in, especially since the only room I could get
was in a freshman dorm.
But as time went on and moving-in day grew closer I
began looking forward to going back. I knew 1 couldn’t live
in the Hacienda anymore — inflation was making my rent
bill look like a phone number and three years of my own
cooking had landed me a part-time job posing for CARE
posters. But even more than that, I was beginning to grow
anxious to return to the carefree days of my collegiate youth:
days of close comradeship, hilarious practical jokes, and
ceaseless, vibrant adolescent energy.
So as I tottered toward the cold brick facade, staggering
under the ponderous weight of one-tenth of my book collec
tion, my heart was light. This isn’t going to be so bad after all.
1 decided. Who could tell? Perhaps by surrounding myself
with those who wore the brilliant aura of youthful vitality
some of its precious glow would seep into my stiffened old
joints, limbering up my arthritic attitudes and teaching me to
enjoy....
My pleasant reverie was abruptly cut off by the roar of a
mammoth streamer of flame, which smashed through a
second-floor window and arched skyward into a thick bank
of fog that hid the top portion of the building. Immediately. I
dropped my books and raced up to the second floor anxious
to discover the source of the blaze.
When I reached the hallway 1 was greeted by a conting
ent of about a dozen young men who bore a remarkable
resemblance to each other — so remarkable, in fact, that
every time 1 counted them 1 came up with a different total.
They were all white, first of all; a sort of bright, insolent white,
and all were beardless, had straight, limp blond hair and
wispy little moustaches that only the contrast of a deep
summer’s tan would render visible.
Each one was dressed, or undressed, in the same attire:
gym trunks emblazoned with “Fourth Floor Knows How to
Score” on the front and carefully weatherbeaten running
shoes. And all of them were convulsed with laughter.
“All right, all right, all right!” one of them screamed,
pointing at an open door. The flickering light from the flames
within sharply outlined his heaving stomach muscles, and
the same roar 1 had heard outside tumbled out and echoed
down the hall.
“Uh, what’s going on?” I asked.
“You’ll see, all right, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah!” they
shouted in unison.
hi
Suddenly the roar stopped, and the light grew dim.
From inside a figure strode out, identical to his mates except
that he was slightly bigger and, impossibly, whiter than the
rest. Strapped to his naked back were two large tanks, which
were connected by a hose to some sort of gun-apparatus.
The barrel was still smoking.
“We did it!” he cried. “Troops . . . retreat!” With that
they banded into a file and charged up the stairs, laughing
and shouting.
Hesitantly, I crept to the open door and peered inside.
The room was gutted, a charred-out hulk. Tiny tongues
of flame still licked at the remnants of a “Ski Vail” poster,
and what was once apparently a stack of beer cans slumped
into a puddle of molten aluminum. I was appalled, and 1 was
about to phone the EPD arson squad when 1 heard a weak
moan issue from beneath a pile of scorched “Intro to-”
textbooks.
“Bassards.. . counter’tack... be sorry” groaned the
voice. 1 swept the books and uncovered a young man, his
wispy moustache smoking faintly and his gleaming skin
popping into incandescent blisters.
“What happened?” I cried.
“Floorfeud ... sneaked up... no chance,” hegasped.
Surfers
(Continued from Page 9)
on me. 1 gulped hard.
“Uh, let’s all calm down a little bit,” I said nervously.
“Doesthisman really deserve to be thrown through a wall?”
“But he said...” came one cry.
“You heard ..said another.
“He wants to...” chimed a third.
“Yeah, I know 1 know,” I said. “But let’s not rush into
something we’ll regret later. Maybe we can work out some
sort of compromise.”
“C-commpromise?” Sheila sputtered. “How can you
think of comp-”
“Sure,” I rasped as the tavern patrons approached me
menacingly. “It doesn’t have to be that bad. I’m sure Moon
doggie would agree to “Oregonizing” his new place a little
— some Douglas Fir paneling here and there, a little wheat
germ in the tacos... maybe he’d even agree to call it
Duck-in-the-...”
“Sure,sure,” the damping Moondoggie gasped. “Any
thing he says, just please put me . .
“I don’t believe it,” Ace rumbled, his eyes wide. He
dropped the Californian, oblivious, and turned to Sheila.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Sheila was staring at me as if I had just set an orphanage
on fire and barbequed the residents individually. “I guess it
could be possible,” she said at last. “He never talked much
about his past, and I had always just assumed ...”
“Hey, hey wait a minute,” I laughed, maybe a little hyster
ically. “What’s all this about?”
But Ace and Sheila weren’t listening, they were huddled
together, whispering. Finally Ace nodded.
“You know,” he said in a loud, theatrical voice, “I’ve
heard that the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland is well worth
the price of a C ticket”
“Yes,” Sheila said woodenly, still staring at me, “so have
I.”
I was confused. “What are you talking about?” I asked.
“What does that have to do with anything? And besides, the
Matterhorn takes an ‘E’ ticket, not a...”
I stopped short, but it was too late.
“He’s a Californian r Ace and Sheila screamed.
Pandemonium broke loose, and the crowd leaped on me
like starved wolves. I felt a hand rip my wallet from my
pocket and saw Ace roughly remove the driver’s license.
“Burbank!” he bellowed above the ruckus.
“No!” I cried “It isn’t what you think! You’ve gotta
believe me! My parents are Oregonians! They were iust
passing through — I was three months premature!”
“Sure,” hissed Ace, his face contorted into a slit-eyed
leer. “Tell us all about it — surfer boy!”
The mob surrounding me was growing uglier. Beer bot
tles were brandished like clubs, and the t^grv patrons
edged closer, closer.
•'‘Thisis gonna be one ‘wipe-out’ you’ll never forget,” Ace
snorted, his face inches from mine.
Then, suddenly—
“Cowabunga!” screamed Moondoggie, body-surfing
down the slippery bar into Ace’s stomach, sending the latter
sprawling over the Marauder’s bass washtub.
“Come on!” he cried, untan^ing himself from the dazed
form. “Let’s split!”
Needing no further encouragement, I dashed out the
door with the two Californians and into the pouring rain.
Footsteps and muffled shouts followed us for a distance, but
we were spurred on by fear and soon outdistanced our
pursuers.
* * *
*
Since that fateful night things have gone surprisingly well
for Moondoggie and Deedee. They discovered a large col
ony of transplanted Californians living in the hills west of
Glenwood and fell in with the group, basking beneath
sunlamps and surfing in the wakes of fishing boats that ply
the waters of Dexter reservoir. And though they, like their
friends, are still heartily despised by the surrounding
populace, they take comfort in the knowledge that their
numbers are swelling daily, as the huge lines in front of the
Duck-in-the-Box testify.
But as for me, I exist as a Man Without a State, rejected by
both principalities as a cultural half-breed. 1 am struggling to
return to the good graces of my fellow Oregonians, to whom
I shall always owe my greatest allegiance, and I remain
hopeful that someday my friends will forget the terrible
tragedy of my birth and re-admit me into their society.
Still, if I am re-instated, 1 wonder if I shall ever escape the
question that has nagged me ever since that horrible night:
How did Ace and Sheila know that the Matterhorn re
quires an ‘E’ ticket?
*
Graphic by Petet Anthony
“We go... hit back. . . dest”
He never finished the sentence — poor devil
I palled a smoldering "made in Taiwan" India print
from the wall and draped it over him, and after a few
moments of silent meditation 1 plodded resolutely to the
fourth floor. They were fiends, I was sure.
The young man had been ambushed in his own room,
obviously as innocent as a wooly lamb The cruelty, the
twistedness, the downright psychopathic depravity of their
unconscionable act would not go unanswered. I was not a
violent sort but as I yanked open the fourth floor door, I
knew that whoever was on the other side had better be
prepared to have the walls ripped down.
But there were no walls on the other side — or ceilings
All that was there were a few room-sized cubicles standing
here and there like lonely waffle squares on an upturned
Nike sole, and some pup tents glistening in the thick mist.
Other than that, the fourth floor was. .. well, gone,
mysteriously swept away by some nameless juggernaut
whose power could scarcely be imagined.
But 1 was still steamed. Although most of it was missing,
this was still the fourth floor, and the fourth floor had to pay. I
picked my way through the rubble and pounded on the
door of the nearest cubicle, determined to have revenge.
“Who goes there?” came the response
“Never mind who goes there,” I growled. “Just open
that door and crawl out here like the chicken-kissing, slime
slurping reptile-raping scums that you are before 1 come in
and beat your heads down so far you’ll have to unzip your
pants to blow your noses!”
“Not bad, not bad,” said the leader, stepping out. He
extended a hand. “Duck you and mellow out”
“Don’t give me that!” I spat, slapping his hand away.
“You’re no Oregon student. What you did to that innocent
- kid down there was the most sadistic, perver ”
“Hold it a minute pal,” the leader said, placing a hand
on my shoulder. “The first thing you’ve got to learn is that in
the dorms, no one is innocent. How do you think all this
happened?” He waved an arm to indicate the mysterious
destruction, and for the first time I noticed four oblong heaps
of beer cans marked with engraved stereo speakers. “Ask
them about innocence,” he said, nodding at the mounds.
“They were the first victims of the Kamikaze style.”
“Basketball?
“Warfare,” he said grimly. “Somebody from the sec
ond floor commandeered a plane from his skydiving class,
packed the nose with Thursday night’s “Chefs surprise”
from the cafeteria, and rammed it into the south rooms
during Johnny Carson. Fortunately, a dozen of us had
heavy dates.
“The dorms are hell, son,” he continued. “I should
have gotten out while 1 still had the chance. How old would
you guess I am?”
1 looked him over carefully. “Oh, I don’t know maybe
nineteen.”
“I’m eighteen — just barely. It ages you incredibly.”
“But down there, you were all laughing and
shouting. ..
“Ritual, pure ritual. Our spirits may be broken but we
cling to the old traditions; the screaming, the yelling, the
idiotic words of encouragement to each other. But it’s all just
u show. ’ ’ He sighed a sigh that welled up from the depths of
his being. “Just a show.”
I had heard enough. Wishing him luck in his campaign,
1 charged down the stairs and threw myself on the mercy of
my landlady. Finally, she gave me my lease back, and I
joyously returned to my old flat, did a happy dance on the
worn orange carpet, kissed all four midnight blue walls, dove
onto the irridescent green couch and gazed contentedly
through the maroon curtains at the steady drizzle outside.
Life in the dorms was for masochists, I decided.
1 was too young to look 22.