CHAPTER 9 What I Did On My College Vacation

September 1961 marked the beginning of my college education. We newcomers were briefed at an assembly by the Dean of North Texas State College. He looked exactly like my high school principal. He proudly announced that he was now the Dean of North Texas State UNIVERSITY and that we were to become the first graduating class in 1965. The school had attained University Accreditation. He was proudly, a major part of that. Reading between the lines was the meaning; "You people had better not screw this up".

He ignored the fact that many of us who were not present were overseas getting our bodies disemboweled and dismembered in Vietnam. He didn't mention that most of us were extremely lucky pricks whose parents had enough bucks to keep us herded together and safely involved in draft exempt activities. Vietnam was like the clouds above us; out of sight, but always threatening rain. None of us spoke of the war. Vietnam was an obscene act taking place with a diseased whore in the next room. We were all too innocent to watch, or even understand it. I left after the speech and blew five bucks on the pinball machines at the drugstore across the street. I liked pinball. You couldn't win, just rack up a big number. Like Vietnam.

War - the Vietnam war at least, was something I despised. I felt terribly alone in that position. I had no idea others felt the same way. I began to realize that I was unable to escape it nonetheless, and that it was somehow harbored in that place of refuge in my mind usually reserved for prayer and nightmares. Being a Freshman at the new University was akin to being a prisoner. My residence was forcibly on campus at the men's dorm. The arrangements were inclusive of room and board with curfew. There were women's dorms and social activities on campus that us "fish" mostly never heard about. I went through several room mates quickly as we all adjusted to each other's personalities. I wound up with one other roomie in a three-bed room. We both delighted in the extra space.

Scott was several years older than I, a travelled ex-paratrooper and considerably worldly. I soon discovered that his considerable worldliness though, came through books perhaps, more than experience. He read voraciously and was an authority on any subject by virtue of his inexhaustible supply of information. There were huge stacks of science fiction and gun magazines in his personal library. I too, had been a sci-fi fan for many years. We became friends quickly and I made a mental note to remember his hometown - Temple, Texas. Weekend entertainment for freshmen living on campus was a simple challenge; get laid if you can, get drunk if you can't. Scott and I spent most of our weekends bombed on cheap Gallo wine. Above our door was the quote from Dante's Inferno; "Abandon hope all ye who enter in". Few did. Our dorm director simply didn't believe we existed, which gave us a kind of diplomatic immunity. The room became a haven for the most bizarre events on the floor, and most of our wing.

Wine for our weekend frivolities was provided by selling the empty coke bottles left around the Student Union Building. In those days, Cokes came in glass bottles that were worth five cents each at any off-campus store. Scott was a student employee of the school and looked at home picking up the place. The nearest liquor store was thirty miles away in Dallas. We made the trip back and forth on my little Lambretta motor scooter often. Gas and wine were cheap. The trips became routine. Scott's mind was a jam-packed reference library on bohemianism and he became my tutor. I rarely read. Through endless conversation I learned of Aldous Huxley, Martial Arts, Weaponry, Jazz, Meershaum pipes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Edith Piaf, Aliester Crowley, Billie Holiday and Agnosticism. There were expansive philosophical overviews of world figures ranging from Lincoln to Marx to Jesus. Scott loved to share his knowledge, I loved to absorb it. I was happy with only passing grades in my academics. My real education was happening outside of class.

I became hooked on Miles Davis and Andre Previn. Stereo sound was something I had never experienced before. I spent many hours in the NTSU music room with the head phones on listening to Miles' "Kind of Blue" album. So many hours in fact were spent with the headphones on, that I began to experience serious ear infections. Interruptions in this personal regimen of culture were usually of a strange and domestic nature. Barry was our Jewish neighbor across the hall. He had the personality of a New York cockroach and was universally despised for his cursed obnoxiousness. He was not a person you could relate to, he was someone you dealt with. The description of this person declined over a period of weeks from "pest" to "asshole". Sadly, he never seemed to realize that he too - was another Jew born for persecution.

Exaggeration and outright lying was Barry's stock in trade. There were few boundaries to his outrageousness. He lived his life like a schizophrenic idiot with a treasure map. Sex for instance, was simple for him. He was his own voyeur. Barry returned from a date one night raving of the beauty he had been with, a girl from Texas Women's University across town. Stomping naked up and down the hall, he cradled his crotch in his hands and howled loudly about suffering from the legendary "stones". The "stones" we all knew, was a rare condition provoked by terminal horniness. The unfortunate victim could attain release only by having sex. Barry presumed that those around him should assist in some way, preferably by providing a girl. The act began to take on the proportions of a burlesque production, with people yelling "shut up!" all up and down the hall. It was after all, after midnight. The production was attended by an increasingly powerful distant thunderstorm. Flashes of thunder and lightning began punctuating the show.

Inevitably Barry worked his way into our room, ignoring the quote from Dante above the door. I listened attentively to his plight, nodding occasionally to the crowd who had gathered in the hall. When he reached the inevitable question of "What should I do?", I decided to help him in the only way I knew how. I went to my closet where I had a small collection of personal medicines. I drew out a bottle of Heet Liniment which was usually reserved for my obsessive trampoline workouts. Heet liniment was powerful stuff in those days. It contained a high dosage of Oil of Wintergreen, Clove Oil and other ingredients which was intended to do one thing - make your skin burn like fire.

The thunderstorm moved closer and a knowing look passed around the crowd in the hall. The Ritual Of Pain had begun and I serving as High Priest, could not reverse the inevitable course of events. I carefully instructed Barry to place "A VERY TINY AMOUNT" of the Heet liniment remedy on either side of his privates, and go to his bed. Lightning flashed. Thunder rattled. Barry soaked himself grossly, emphasizing the seriousness of his condition to anyone willing to listen. The crowd began to mysteriously disperse in a rush of whispers and giggles. My duty finished, I put the nearly empty bottle of liniment away and took note of an unusually long lull in the thunderstorm. It resumed shortly as a perfect concert of thunder and lightning and loud, long yells. Barry had become uncomfortable.

As I toweled up the excess spillage from the floor, I heard the shower being turned on. Oh My God. "Barry, No!" I yelled, "Don't go in there!". 'Fuck You!' he screamed. It was too late. He was damned.

Mixing water with Oil of Wintergreen is similar to pouring gasoline on a lit candle. The agony of Barry's experience was shared by us all as the lightning diminished. The dorm seemed to shake for some reason. It was days before he spoke to anyone. Helping Barry get in touch with his surroundings became one of our local Christian ministries, shared by all his neighbors. So much attention seemed to help him. He became quieter and much more involved with life around him. Pranks and practical jokes involving Barry were rampant for a while. The dorm took on the aspect of a summer camp. One night for instance, someone on our second floor "TP'd" the tree outside our restroom. "TP" meant Toilet Paper. Our entire supply had been wrapped around the tree turning it into a gigantic cotton ball. Barry found it hilarious. His guffaws could be heard a block away which is as close as any of the bootleggers dared to bring any liquor. Our dorm was too "hot" for them to deliver to anymore. Again, there was a thunderstorm approaching. Again, the inevitable happened. One of the neighbors dashed into the bathroom and threw one of Barry's fancy new shirts right past his face, out the window and into the tree. Cussing, Barry wasted no time in climbing out the window to retrieve his shirt. Modesty was not one of his strong suits; in fact he rarely wore anything at all. This time he was in his shorts and he looked like a monkey in a diaper, bouncing from limb to limb. Watching from our windows, we could see a figure lurking in the shadows below the tree. There was a brief flash of a cigarette lighter and the tree, covered entirely in toilet paper, burst into flame. There would be no real danger, just a brief, spectacular blaze similar to a fireworks show. Barry had no way of knowing that of course. Our laughter was loud but it was no contest for Barry's primal screams of terror. There was fire all around him but he remained unscathed. In the minute that it took for the tree to burn out, the lurking figure disappeared. Howling, Barry had made his way down the tree.

When he jumped to the ground he landed almost in the arms of the Dormitory Director.