There was a certain something about Mankato State. Call it a tone, an atmosphere, an environment. It seemed to stifle emotional maturity and intellectual production. It promoted boredom, apathy, and despair, finding an outlet in myriad forms of nihilism ranging from smoking pot and playing video games to sexual assault and suicide. What was to blame? The prevailing college football culture? Bad cafeteria food? Or the fact that the students lived in cinder-block cell dorm rooms with steel doors that inmates at Stillwater State Prison would find pathetic? It was hard to point at any one thing.
Nevertheless, the symptoms were there. My inner prude was disgusted to learn of the common practice people had--both women and men--of pissing in their dorm room sinks, even with bathrooms available just a few feet down the hall. It was the faculty, not the students, who initially circulated the stories about MSU: Crab Lice Capital of Middle America. "You sure aren't the cream of the crop, but at least you're salt of the earth," lectured one of my professors. This was intended as a compliment, but it seemed to illustrate an unconscious, prevailing lack of faith in the entire institutional endeavor.
The university maintained an eerie pragmatism when dealing with things. Once the phenomenon of Freshmen jumping out of the high story windows of the Gage Towers became an established phenomenon, counselors were sent in to deal with the problem. But the counselors didn't help people mourn; they calculated the angle of the jumps so that a yellow line could be painted on the ground on a perimeter around the buildings. At the beginning and conclusion of each quarter--jumping season--little pamphlets were passed around to warn people, not to avoid alcohol or seek help if depressed, but to STAY AWAY FROM THE YELLOW LINE TO AVOID INJURY FROM FALLING OBJECTS. Broken beer bottles, furniture and smashed computers littering the inside of the perimeter attested that more than just people exited the windows.
Another regularly occurring phenomenon, sexual assault, was dealt with in a similar manner. Forget the oft repeated lessons about boundary setting with dates, avoiding alcohol, the social contexts of date rape, or the adage that "no means no." When a sexual assault occurred, a suspect profile was generated on pamphlets, and at the bottom the revelation that: THE CAMPUS SECURITY DEPARTMENT WISHES TO REMIND YOU THAT RAPE IS AGAINST THE LAW. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. After seeing this warning for the first time, my friends and I scoffed. "It is?" we said sarcastically. "Wow, who knew?" But a couple days later I saw a group of baseball hat clad gentlemen reading the warning, one of whom was wearing an FBI: Female Body Inspector t-shirt that I thought hadn't been sold since 1985. The group stared at the warning with raised eyebrows, rubbing their chins and shaking their heads. Finally one of them said, simply, "is this new? They're always changing the fucking rules around here." It was the most genuine example of confusion I had witnessed since the day my geography class struggled to find Canada and Mexico on an unmarked map for a quiz. People complained that it would have been more fair if students had been asked only to find one or the other.
I found it all ridiculous at first, but soon I realized that a majority of us needed to be informed that a person ought not pee in the same sink where they brush their teeth, that beer bottles thrown out of windows can hit people, that yes, rape is actually bad. It was a philosophy that, much like an against-the-odds military campaign, planned ahead for a certain number of casualties. But if it was an exceptionally grim outlook, it was at least realistic. It wasn't long before I was part of both the problem and the solution.
Sometime in winter quarter I completed my training as a campus security guard. I still can't figure out why Joe, the skin bald, aging no-bullshit ex-Marine chose to hire me: bearded, long hair, with extensive experience flipping burgers and semi-competent with a wet mop. I recall scratching out "huffing keyboard kleener" from the relevant life experience part of the application. "I'm an Aquarian and I used to be really into Zen, but now I'm reading Carlos Castaneda," I informed Joe during the interview.
"Well, are you willing to pursue dangerous suspects and shave once a week?" he asked. "Sorry son. It's just a public image thing. Hippie hair is okay, but I'm afraid the rest of the skid row look will have to go."
"Sure man. No problemo. Er, I mean 'yes sir.'"
"Alright then. Come in tomorrow and we'll start your training. By the way, that Castaneda guy really put out some interesting stuff about inorganic, trans-dimensional beings in The Fire From Within," Joe said with a smile. "Heck, I think I even liked it better than General MacArthur's biography." I still don't get it. The 5th Law of Nature states that bodies in motion that were once Marines, will be invariably repulsed by bodies in motion that have long hair and flakily ramble on about Zen and astrology.
But damned if it was a "job." It was my shiny, new shtick. And I loved it. Unlike many other rent-a-cop gigs, this one had lots of bells and whistles. We dressed, acted and communicated like real cops. We didn't carry weapons, but we had our own dispatcher, squad room, and pre-shift meetings to discuss the perps, and how we'd make them squeal on their friends. We had radios that really worked, and we got to say things like, "10-8, 10-301, got an 81 in progress, and a purple intrusion alarm in the B Complex bulkhead. What's your 20, baby?" It was just too neat! The downside was that most of my comrades were law enforcement majors who desperately wanted to believe that they actually were cops. With their crewcuts (ladies too) and anachronistic cop-speak, they seemed like wizened, New York beat cops circa 1935, sprung from a pulp Dick Tracy novel. "This one's a stool pigeon," they'd say, or "don't rat on us if we have to work over a doper to get him to talk." Additionally, we didn't get to choose cool code names like "Big Brass Monkey," or "Ice Man." I was informed that code names were a form of degradation suitable only for Top Gun air force pilots, or crank snorting truckers. (Damn). My heart was so set on Big Brass Monkey that I almost quit the job before it started. But the uniform made up for these other disappointments. It was a real cop-like uniform, circa 1970's, with polyester tunic that zipped up in the front. But the zipper was concealed by a set of flip-up, faux buttons! It was the coolest fashion lie since clip-on neck ties! And while my coworkers groaned about it, I rejoiced and showed it off to all my friends. I bragged to everyone that the uniform was ALL POLYESTER. No cotton in this leisure suit! While my coworkers were Dick Tracy or Sergeant Joe Friday or J. Edgar Hoover wannabes, my model was Poncharelli a la CHiPs. All the way to the disco bank, baby. All I needed was a motorcycle and a wise cracking gadget guy to fix it and some kids to talk to about drugs while flirting with their mothers for the after-school segment of the show...shift, I mean.
But while Ponch got to look cool in his motorcycle while chasing bad hippies driving vans loaded with jars of baby food tainted with angel dust intended for sale to kindergartners, I rode a 3-speed bicycle with a small rotating light on the handlebars. Both the bike and my uniform were too small, so when I rode in "hot pursuit" with my little flashing light, my knees stuck out and the ends of my trousers hiked up to my shins, revealing some pale, hairy legs and black socks that always sank around my ankles. The bike and its flashing light looked like a toy, and I was more Bozo the Clown than Ponch the Stud while riding it. My mandatory helmet also had a flashing light, and the conduct regs stated that it had to be turned on while in pursuit. "Hey look," my fellow students would yell. "It's the bicycle rent-a-cop, and he's even got his helmet lights on! Hey pig, you got your freak on baby! Got it ON!" I even became part of an on-campus drinking game. People would wait by their dorm room windows for my shift to begin, and then do a tequila slammer or vodka body shot whenever I made an appearance. Two shots if my pants were above my ankles, three if they were above the knees, and four for the helmet lights. Wait a minute, I wanted to yell back. I'm Ponch, you fuckers! Worship me! But instead, I met their taunts with, "have a nice night" or "please remember that excessive alcohol consumption is not recommended by the surgeon general of the United States or the MSU security department." The more articulate citizen by-standers would respond, "Oh yeah? Well the surgeon general also says that excessive jerking off can lead to becoming a rent-a-pig who wears a flashing light on his retard helmet!" One of the things I liked about the job, was how well I was able to establish an honest, good-natured rapport with my fellow students. I was proudly demonstrating the ethic of community policing every time someone took a shot of liquor or yelled, "goodnight pig!" or "You my bitch!" when they saw me coming. It felt good to give back.
One night that winter, I wearily donned my helmet for the second half of my shift. A dark, empty campus was waiting for me. It was below zero with the wind chill, and I made my way through my rounds hoping all would be quiet enough for me to fulfill the usual cop stereotypes of lazy sluffing off and donut consumption in relative peace. About half way through campus, a silent intrusion alarm was called in by the automated system. It came from the student computer lab. Built into a large, computer-controlled network, most intrusion alarms were trigger sensitive, going off for no reason. Or occasionally, graduate students working late hours would forget to phone in ahead, and we'd catch them in their nerdy, physics lab hide-outs. But you never knew. We had to respond to each one like it was a real burglary, entering large, eerily silent rooms full of flashing lights and empty desks, fumbling in the semi-darkness to find the control panel to reset the alarm while looking for potential intruders at the same time. All while totally alone. The quiet, the stroboscopic lights, the solitude and fatigue, and the echo of your own footsteps caused strange, paranoid hallucinations in such situations. Often, merely the shadows thrown by my flashlight made it appear that people were moving in and out of my peripheral vision. With our jangling key chains, beeping radios and clunky shoes, even a no-gooder who was stone deaf could have heard us coming for miles.
It would be all too easy to hide around the corner in the shadows of some titanic hall, and conk the poor rent-a-cop over the head with a pipe. It had happened a few times, though rarely. We all knew the stories. One guy was ambushed from behind in a hallway late at night and beaten to a pulp. His head injuries were so severe that he went blind and had to live in a nursing home and suck liquefied peas and carrots through a straw for the rest of his life. They never caught his assailants, and he never remembered what had happened. The authorities only managed to piece together the incident from patterns left by the blood and broken teeth strewn everywhere. And there were no hero's burials or disability pension plans for permanently crippled security guards. Once your savings ran out, you went to live in a poor house. And when you finally died eighty five years later, after living alone with no friends or family to mop the drool from your uncontrollably shaking lips, you could look forward to an unmarked burial plot in a pauper's graveyard. And after that, hell waited. Every time I felt a little too relaxed when entering the scene of another, sleepy intrusion alarm, I thought about liquefied carrots and bed pans. Staying alert was never a problem for me.
But I never made it to the computer room to investigate the intrusion alarm. Nobody ambushed me. I never had the chance to single-handedly wrestle guns from the hands of cowardly bandits, or rescue their duct-taped victims from certain death. Even if such a heroic situation had been available to me, the bandits and victims of my fantasy would've both shared a laugh at the sight of me stuck to the exterior door of the building I was attempting to enter. There I stood, with the wrong key jammed into the lock, frozen in place, as helpless as a dog tied to a post. How I wished I could just abandon my key and run away somewhere to cry. But in order to extract myself, I would have to take off my belt and trousers, all while tethered to the door by a one foot length of chain. It was starting to dawn on me that in my case, the victim and perpetrator could coexist in the same person.
There was nothing to do but wave at the surveillance camera pointing down at me as I struggled, a camera monitored by the dispatch crew. Half an hour after radioing my supervisor for help, a locksmith team came out with a cutting torch and a cup of hot coffee. Thoughts of liquefied carrots now turned to the thought of one, very cold carrot. I had forgot to wear underwear, and they found me huddled by the door, with my hands down my pants cupping my half-frozen genitals in a pathetic attempt to ward off frostbite and possible amputation. Bless their hearts. They didn't laugh until I had turned the corner of the building. I had to hobble back to the squad room. During the time I waited for help, someone came by and stole my department issue bicycle. He first stopped and examined the bike carefully, looking it over as though he was checking it out at a garage sale. "Nice model," he said as he mounted it. "I like the flashing lights."
"Leave it alone," I told him. "That's state property."
"Come and get it then," he said.
"I can't do that because of my unfortunate circumstances," I said. "But please stay where you are. I'm placing you under citizen's arrest. Hey wait a minute," I yelled as he kept going. "We have tracking devices in those things! I have your physical description. You won't get far, mister!" He spit on me as he slowly pedaled away. When it was all over, Joe didn't have anything to say to me. But I was docked two weeks pay for the bicycle--later recovered in an unrepairable heap of bent spokes and twisted handle bars in the woods behind campus, identified by its last operable feature: the flashing lights, which continued to blink for days in spite of the abuse. I was also docked for an additional two hours pay for damage to the lock, the locksmith service, and dereliction from my other duties during the time I spent chained to the door. Joe said they wouldn't charge me to replace the $2 key, though. It was time for a new one anyway. I guess I should've been thankful that I still had a job.
Since the bicycle was missing for days, fliers had to be put out, and appeals to the public made. It wasn't long before a gaggle of bored, campus newspaper reporters covered the entire story for the front page. BICYCLE GUARD ROBBED AFTER CHAINING HIMSELF TO DOOR. It was thrilling to have made the front page, but in all the excitement of my new found fame, I somehow forgot to clip the article and send it home to the folks. I'd like to think it was my overriding sense of honor and quiet humility that prevented me from doing so. I'd still like to think so. Really, I would...
My long hair and unconventional interests gained me few friends at the security department, and my spiffy uniform was beginning to alienate me from the countercultural rabble that had egged me on to get the job in the first place. A short time ago, my tye-died and dreadlocked neighbor down the hall had been eager to offer me premium west coast acid at below market value. But now, his furtive glances greeted my uniformed approach. "Shhhh," I heard him whisper into his smoke filled room. "He's back." I wanted to impress upon everyone I met that it was just a disguise. I was one of them. No way was I going to bust anybody for drugs! And I took risks to prove it, smoking pot at parties while in uniform before and after shifts, telling the stoners which of their hiding spots around campus were patrolled and which were safe. Hell, I even foolishly toked up with people I found smoking dope in the bushes while on duty making my rounds. But their stunned, silent faces didn't belie any newfound trust. They all stared at me in awe. I wasn't a hero in their eyes, just crazy. There was something about the damn uniform. I wanted coolness, but instead I had a lot of very uncool power. When the uniform was on, even when I wasn't on duty, it was as though I could kill with a glance. Rooms full of friends went silent. People lowered their eyes and shuffled their feet. I never got used to it. After getting these reactions, I studied my face in the mirror with the uniform on in an effort to see what was so intimidating.
Their perceptions must have rubbed off. I couldn't look myself in the eye either.
Soon, I spent more time alone and I even gave myself the willies. I began to distrust myself. I wasn't sure about things. I should have quit the job, but I feared that these changes were irreversible. Who was I and who was I becoming? I was ineffective, but I didn't feel like a sell-out. I had done my utmost to be Officer Friendly, Your Hip Neighborhood Security Guard. Where had I gone wrong? When I didn't find any answers in the mirror, I looked to the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Alcohol and solitude had become my answers.
Getting drunk every day seemed to make things a little easier at first. I actually showed up to classes more often, at least on test days. I got straight As. I didn't eat much, or comb my hair or bathe or brush my teeth. Cutting out these unnecessary tasks left more time for silent contemplation on the laws of the universe...and drinking. Pretty soon, I gave up on pot altogether. Whereas it used to relax me, getting stoned now made me feel edgy and paranoid. Suddenly feeling shy, insecure and reclusive, booze was just the thing to make me feel like a normal person again. Problem was, as I started feeling more "normal" with each gulp of Jack Daniels or Southern Comfort, I also began to act a lot more strange. And as my behavior took increasingly bizarre turns, I noticed it less.
At the beginning of the first binge drinking cycle, I turned into a one man freak show. It always began simply enough. I showed up at parties and had a few. I laughed. I talked. I was generally amiable. Then, with the infusion of hard liquor over beer, I started to preach. If there was a Bible handy, I preached out of that. If there was no Bible, I simply began admonishing all the sinners within range of my obnoxious, spit filled yelling. "Judgment day is upon us! We're all damned! That's right....damned, you damned dirty apes!" Pop culture references found their way into my fist shaking rants as often as religion. In my sober life I was not religious at all, and had never professed any sort of faith or even an intellectual curiosity about Christianity. I think the idea of doomsday and hell had a certain affinity with my despairing state of mind, although I didn't waste any time reflecting on why I was suddenly turning into a drunken preacher man.
When I first arrived, they were unimpressed. "He just looks like some burned out hippie," they would complain. But the host or hostess always confidently asked for patience. "He has to get drunk first. Here, get out of his way. The man needs space to work." Whenever there was a line-up at the beer keg, I was given V.I.P. treatment. "Come on, hurry up Reverend. What are you waiting for!" they'd say. Once, a member of the Vikings football team showed up to schmooze and get laid. Usually, these purple spandex wearing, pigskin tossing felons were the first tier gods of any gathering in greater Redneck Minnesota, but in this case the Viking was politely asked to step away from the keg.
"What?" the steroid addled troglodyte moaned. "I'm on the team, man! Show some respect."
"I'm terribly sorry," the host said, "but I'm afraid the Reverend got here before you did tonight. He has to drink."
"Reverend?" asked the disgusted Viking. "You all a bunch of fucking religious freaks or something?"
The enthusiastic participation with which these folks accepted my abuse offered some insight into why people get up early on Sunday and go to some place just to be told they're headed for hell. Masochism is a cathartic rush. My preaching always started out on a coherent, if clichéd theme. "Hath any of ye sinned tonight? Hath any one of thee cast the first stone?" Soon, things spiraled out of the realm of coherence. "So...cast the first sin, ye who hath never stoned!" I would yell indignantly. And, "Elvis loves you. He's reaching out to you. Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on! Don't you want to be saved? Can't you feel it? Can't you feel the holy spirit calling on your e-ternal soul flame? It's an alien! My god, an alien hath taken the eggs!" At this point in the rant, people really started to get into the spirit of the carnival, freak-show.
"Save us Reverend! I'm headed for Hell!" someone would say melodramatically.
"What?" I would yell back, feeding off the energy. "Hell? You don't want to go there. Some kids try it once, but they...can't...kick it! Not in hell baby. Hell might seem fun for awhile, but hell...hell...hell's a reeeeeal e-ternal bitch! So just lay off it."
After a time, the rant usually descended into obscenity. "You gotta get fixed! Fixed with Jay-zus! He's a-gonna do it, not me. No, no no. I can't fix you fuckers. Come on, you goddamn bastards, gimmie an A! I said gimmie a fucking A!"
"...Fucking 'A'...," someone yelled.
Quite by accident, my sermons often included an abstinence lecture. This was the only part of the show that was even mildly booed. "That's fucking right! Good job! Just remember: fucking is wrong. It is wrong to fuck. It goes against the sin, my little fuckers. If you fuck, you will reap a whirlwind. Only fuck Jay-zus, or else the whirlpool will wait for you...in hell. Bah, ha, ha, ha, ha. Bah, ha, ha, ha, ha." The nomenclature of Armageddon was fairly straight forward. Never the less, I found it difficult to distinguish between my whirlwinds and whirlpools--the sure sign of an amateur. But strangely, nobody called me on it. About the time I started in with the Bah-ha-ha-ing, the sermon petered out into a long set of moans, barks, grunts and wounded animal howling...and sometimes drooling too.
After the drooling, then the self pitying began in earnest, marking the terminal phase of the intoxicated preaching session. "I'm a bastard! I'm a God...Damned...Bastard! No," I would yell, "I'm nobody, nothing, a washed up shithead, an asshole, a son of a..."
"Okay, come along now Reverend," someone would say as the weeping started. Usually, I was too drunk to understand what was happening, but the host and perhaps four or five other people, depending on my ability to walk or lack thereof, would lead me out the door. Sometimes a chaperone would see me home. Once, after an extraordinary sermon which took ten beers, three Vodka shots, and a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 to complete, a caring young lady not only took me home, but helped me vomit and brush my teeth as well. "What you said at the party was disgusting and offensive," she said, "but I'm a real Christian and I'll pray for you." More often than not though, the door was closed behind me and I was on my own. And that's as it should be.
Extreme alcohol intoxication is associated with several, easily identifiable negative mental states including depravity, anger, pity, and a general loss of one's moral fiber. I was personally acquainted with all these, but there is another state of mind that seemed to be a kind of end point, a place so empty, so devoid of consciousness that it defies definition as "a state of mind." More precisely, it is a state of mindlessness, a place of utter confusion, a place where sense of purpose or direction becomes muddled to the point of irrelevance. It is a place where even the self ceases to exist, a place where one is numbed insensate, beyond experience of pleasure, pain or emotions of any type. It's a state similar to the coma patient that responds to certain key stimuli without really being aware. If coma patients could also walk, their circumstances would be virtually identical to mine after the preaching was over.
Three weeks later, the end of the quarter approached. I was on duty when a routine call came in. Some jackass was throwing beer bottles out of a window from the tenth floor of Gage Tower B. "Investigate the scene and identify the suspects," my supervisor ordered. The first step was to locate the Resident Advisor, and inform him or her what I was doing on their floor. I chained up my new bike and took the elevator to the tenth. The RA's office door was open, so I gave a polite knock and entered.
"Whooooa!" I heard someone yell from the back of the apartment. "That one sailed!" A second later there was a loud crash and the same voice yelling, "this bud's for you, motherfucker!" And another crash. Sweet Jesus, I thought. Dispatch is gonna love this one.
"Excuse me," I said. "MSU security, I'm looking for the RA. Is Keith here?"
As I walked into the back room, I felt a gust of cold air. I noticed three, buck naked individuals with their backs turned, hovering near the window. They suddenly turned around. Two women, totally unclad. One man, no clothes, baseball hat. I made a mental note. "Keith here? I'm looking for the Resident Advisor." I said again.
"Yeah officer, uh, that's me," said the dude. "I'm the RA."
"Sorry to bother you," I said. "We received a report of someone throwing objects out of a window from this floor. I've been assigned to the investigation." While I said this I walked over to the window and shined my Mag-Lite down at a pile of broken glass which sat just below. On the floor by the window there sat a five gallon bucket full of beer bottles. The RA's mouth opened and closed several times as I surveyed the scene.
"Uh...," the RA fumbled. "I uh..."
I held up my hand to silence him. "Let's not waste each others' time," I said. "I'll spare you a lecture about public safety and setting a good example. Just don't yell at me or run away, okay? I already know who you are, so it wouldn't do anybody any good to flee the scene. I have to call my supervisor over because a crime occurred. Since there doesn't seem to be any injuries or property damage I don't think we'll need to call the cops, but the soop is the one who decides."
"Look," said one of the women. "Things just got a little out of control is all. We are really, really--"
"Ma'am," I said. "I appreciate your position, but this isn't necessary. My supervisor is the one who decides whether or not to call the police, not me. I just take down names." Looking at them, I felt a rush of sympathy. They had been having such a good time, and now they stood, shivering, naked and downtrodden before an intimidating authority figure, an authority figure who unbelievably happened to be me. During my interview, Joe had said I would be required to pursue dangerous suspects, but these people weren't dangerous, just dumb and naked. I realized I had a lot in common with them. The RA was so distraught and eager to be submissive, that he hung his head in shame, and removed his one remaining article of clothing, his baseball cap. He looked like he was standing respectfully for the national anthem at a nudist baseball game. "If you folks are cold, you're certainly welcome to put on some clothes. However," I added quickly, remembering previous trouble I'd been in due to a cultural misunderstanding, "I understand that this is a private residence and you have the right to ...wear or not wear whatever you want to. I want to be clear that I respect your decision...not to wear clothes...and the religious, political, practical, medical or recreational beliefs which inspired your decision. By no means will I use pressure, coercion or intimidation to force you to comply with traditional standards or community norms regarding...attire." I read all this from a card I prepared. The card was full of blanks to accommodate whatever "nontraditional act" I encountered. Bases covered, I thought, smiling to myself. Welcome back to the force, Officer Poncharelli!
"So you want us to stay naked?" asked Keith, the RA.
"No sir," I said. "What I meant was..." The front door opened and my supervisor walked in.
"What's going on here 13? Why are these people naked? Didn't you tell them they can put on some clothes?"
"Yes sir," I said. "I informed them that I respect their right to..."
"He said we have to stand here naked because of religious, political and medical reasons," said one of the women.
"What?" hollered the supervisor. "Is this true?"
"No sir," I began. "It's a simple misunderstanding. See, I told them..."
But the supervisor wasn't looking at me and my index card, he was looking at the frightened, shivering faces of three naked people. "In all my years...my god! This is a first. You're a sick bastard. You stay right here while I call the cops and let them sort through your disgusting behavior--and don't you run, 'cause I'll bash you're damn head in!" While my supervisor radioed the police, I looked in the faces of my former perps, who suddenly turned into victims. They stared back at me in abject horror. Did they really not understand that I said "nudity is optional," not "don't put on clothes?" It seemed so. All my efforts at cultivating an Andy Griffith-like hayseed sincerity, tolerance and public goodwill had failed. It now appeared that I would be asked to pay the ultimate price. I couldn't win. The drinking continued.
Slowly but surely, binge drinking was turning me into a cow. A door would close. A door to what? You tell me. I didn't know why I was there or what I had been doing or where I was supposed to be. There was no panic associated with this confusion, just an empty-headed, bovine like acceptance of the situation. I would stand and stare at the front door of the frat house, or dorm room, or apartment and that's it. Slowly but surely, binge drinking was turning me into a cow. Finally, someone would come out and say something like, "still here Reverend? Go home." Reverend...Go home...Somehow, something deep inside my bones understood that I was the Reverend, and my body understood that it had to move somehow, in order to achieve "home." Without any predetermined coordinates, the body would turn from the door and begin staggering. Once, I stopped to pee on my way out. I had fallen far from the early days of bemoaning those who peed in their dorm room sinks. I was way beyond hypocrisy. I urinated in stairwells, in carpeted hallways, in and on garbage cans, wherever. It didn't matter. I never even bothered to make sure I was alone. The luck of the stupid was usually with me, so I never got caught. But my luck finally ran out when I looked up midstream, and noticed an irate janitor staring at me, hands on hips. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Pissing in the garbage," I responded sluggishly but without hesitation.
"Why the fuck are you doing that?"
But that was the ten thousand dollar question. If I had been a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and given the chance to eliminate two wrong answers out of four--I still would not have had a shot in hell at coming up with the correct answer. "I don't know," I stammered after an exceptionally lengthy pause. And truly, I didn't.
Had I possessed any presence of mind whatsoever, I would have observed that I was probably about to get my ass beat. But, "get out of here, you drunk asshole" was all the janitor said, as he went about dealing with my mess. When I turned to go, there was no sense of shame, guilt, resentment or gratitude--nothing. I was given a command. I obeyed.
My wanderings took me far from home. I know because this is what I was told the next day, sometimes at a strangers' apartment. Once, I awoke to find two guys standing over me. I was on the floor in what appeared to me the living room of a house. A five gallon bucket sat beside me, filled about halfway full with vomit. I guessed it might be mine. The guys had bemused smiles on their faces. One handed me a glass of water. "You gonna yak this one up too, Reverend?" Reverend. That was me. Somehow this person knew me. He was handing me a glass of water. Maybe he was a friend.
"Uh....I...I hope..." They both bust out laughing. "Who are you? How do you know I'm a Reverend?" I asked, and there was more laughter. I had no idea I could feel so crappy. I hoped I hadn't wronged these people in some way. But hope was all there was, because I didn't know either way.
"Dude, you told us you're the Reverend, and that's about all we got out of you in terms of your name or where you live. You didn't have any ID and you had no idea where you live, or even where you were from originally. You're a real charity case, if we ever saw one. We figured you needed some help, so we brought you back here to sleep it off. I'm Mark and this here is Kurt."
"Why did you think I needed help? Was I in some kind of trouble?"
"Well," said Kurt, "for starters, we found you at a construction site down by the railroad tracks. Its an out-of-the-way part of town, very dark and deserted at night."
"But you were hard to miss," added Mark with a laugh. "You had no shirt or shoes. You were wearing a long, clear plastic sheet over your head and carrying a wooden surveyors' stake with a neon orange piece of ribbon tied around the end. You were mumbling to yourself. Something about organ donations."
Like I said, I was turning into a cow, unable to think. Some guy, maybe an old fella, once said, "an unexamined life is not worth living." I don't know who said that, but I know it wasn't me.
I was amazed by how normal my life was turning out to be. I bashed out the windows of my roommate's beloved VW bus with a metal pipe while laughing like a madman. I worried about the helicopters and surveillance cameras and laws that were surely closing in to kill me. I slept in piles of broken glass and woke up laughing at the sight of my blood. It was under control. It was normal, even if I couldn't remember everything, even if my friends freaked out.
One morning I got up from the ground. I had a black eye. I knew because it refused to open. Dry rivers of blood and vomit had coagulated in jagged lines on my shirt. Somehow beautiful, like purple-black lightning strikes solidified. Amazing. The cops hadn't picked me up. Was all this the result of excessive chemical imbibery? I had the notion that somebody might have busted me up. There were no windows nearby that I could've fallen out of. Naw. Probably got my ass beat this time. It was just a suspicion. An unfounded rumor, that's what. I knew what was what. I'm down, I thought, but its still anybody's game. Push on. Get up. Push on. I got up, staggered toward home. Oh God, ow! My shoulder! What the hell happened here? I had to get home and put on my security uniform on somehow. I had to put...put it on. Had to...protect the citizens of this fair city. A truck flew by me, carrying a six pack of dumbass in the back.
"Cardboard box, faggot!" one of them yelled.
I tried to flip 'em the bird, but my middle finger refused to move. It looked all crooked and bentish. No rest for the wicked, I thought. It seemed broken, but that was just a rumor, a vicious rumor. I took my right hand and uncurled my left middle finger, wincing with the agony, and held it aloft. A-ha! Victory is mine you fuckers! This rent-a-pig yet breathes the air of the living! They were already long gone, but so was I.