Читать книгу The American College of Switzerland Zoo - James E. Henderson - Страница 11

The evening before the student council elections, Willie, who was running for president, held a knockdown drag-out party in the lower village. He had rented a room and sprung for several kegs of beer. There was music and dancing at first. Then, as the evening wore on, someone started a gross-out contest. I would put Willie at the top of the list because of the results, but the event appeared to be spontaneous. First a burping contest, then underarm farts, and one really loud, nasty fart! Wilds had just taken a slug of beer when the butt report occurred and his initial convulsion of laughter sent two streams of beer out his nostrils! This act, whether intentional or not, gave him an early lead in the contest. Then, they were off to the races! The whole thing was kind of a whirlwind of twisted faces, odd sounds, and various exposed body parts: several moons, one trouser snake, and a set of gazongas that were more glorious than gross. Admittedly, I don’t remember looking at the owner’s face, just some long blonde hair falling on each side of the globes, but she definitely got my vote! Then, before whoever it was could get her bra back on, Tiny grabbed her, threw her on his shoulders, and nuzzled his large nose and chin into her panties. This brought squeals of shock and delight from the victim and many of the female observers and loud guffaws from the guys. Tiny had jumped into the lead!

At this point, things seemed to slow down, so I found Dee Dee, who was chuckling nearby, and started talking with her. After all, I had carried her down the mountain on my shoulders. Because I was talking to her, I missed seeing the action retreat to one corner of the room, but shortly thereafter groans and cries of “Gross,”“Holy Shit” and “Yuck” seemed to come from that corner. This lasted for a while, and I didn’t have a clue what was going on until Wilds came squirting out of the group and running in my direction. “He ate shit!” he yelled, “He ate shit!”

When he calmed down I got the story. One of the truly drunk contestants decided that he could win the contest by taking a dump in one of the flowerpots around the room. The crowd had circled him and goaded him on until they saw that he was really doing it, then they sat there in curious amazement. However, after this putrid performance, Willie had stuck a finger into the pot and come out with a small dark brown fragment that he popped into his mouth with great relish, accompanied by an disgusting wretch.

Now I suppose that someone could get drunk enough to eat shit. Someone could even be highly motivated enough to do it for a desired result. But knowing Willie, I doubted both. He drank a lot but seemed to keep it under control, and he wasn’t stupid enough to chance whatever parasites or germs were in those feces. I suspect that he had somehow set this whole thing up and had a chunk of softened and shaped dark Swiss chocolate hidden in his palm when he reached into that pot. This, along with the drunken crowd, set the stage for one of the most amazing victories of all times at a gross-out party. Whatever the truth of the event, the results were in, and Willie had not only won the contest but was elected student council president the next day.

After Wilds finished telling his “gross” story, I turned to find that Dee Dee had left me standing once again! This time I didn’t even get a peck on the cheek. Not that Wilds’ story would have stimulated any such reaction. Therefore, Wilds and I found our way back to the dorm on our own, as usual.

By the afternoon following the election, Willie had moved into a room by himself – one of the benes of being president. I didn’t mind having a roommate, but it would be cool to have my own room.

Shortly after that I was in Le Nord and overheard a group of people, including our new president, talking about forming a fraternity in the sophomore dorm. My first instinct was that Willie was pulling Bob’s chain. Bob was a pudgy-faced, slicked-haired sophomore with the personality of a born-and-bred politician (you know, that tattooed “trust me” smile with a “vacancy” sign on the forehead). He was one of the losers from the student council campaign. Willie wasn’t saying much, but I couldn’t quite believe that Bob had come up with the idea on his own, and the idea seemed doomed to failure if only because of the lack of focus in the sophomore dorm.

I mentioned the conversation to Wilds and my feelings that the idea was doomed when I ran into him later, and he agreed, although he said that he always wanted to be a frat guy and added, “I didn’t stand a chance in a real fraternity. But no respectable Greek organization would bother with us.”

“Speak for yourself!” I said, jokingly.

“I meant our tiny college.”

A strange thing happened that weekend: Stallone, Jolie, and Bernd were sitting in Le Nord talking with Bob and praising his idea of a fraternity. None of this made sense until I mentioned it to my roommate, Tiny. “It’s all part of the plan,” he said. “Bob runs the dorm, keeps the records, pays the bills, and answers to the school administration while we get booze and girls in our frat house!” BRILLIANT! Willie strikes again!

With the studs’ support, a constitution was quickly drafted and offered to the administration for review. The organizers got around the Greek problem by declaring “The Association” a non-Greek sophomore fraternity. With the administration’s buy-in, the stage was set for yet another party, of course! This was to be a formal signing party with the school president, the Gut, the student council president, Willie, and all the sophomores and dates.

Dates… I only knew a couple of girls, and Dee Dee was avoiding me. Well, I’m not sure that she ever even looked at me as more than a beast of burden. And Sam… well, I wasn’t sure about her after her sloshing drunk lets-roll-down-the-hill, routine. Besides, she had been drunk enough that she might not even remember me. Walking into the main building worried that I might end up the only one at the party without a date, I ran into Kaeti coming out.

“You look lost in thought,” she said, catching me by surprise.

“It’s just that – wait! – ah… we… the Association, are having a formal dinner to mark the signing of…” I stammered.

“Sure, sounds like fun! When?”

“Great! Ah… Saturday – Did I mention it was formal?” I have a date! Shear blind luck!

The signing party was fun – good food and wine! Roark played his guitar. Is there anything that guy can’t do?! Kaeti looked great in her long light-blue dress, although her heels made her a good inch taller than me. Her long hair looked silky as it glowed gold in the candlelight and set off her hazel eyes in a bewitching combination. Tiny came with Pam, a round-faced young lady with shoulder-length red hair and a hefty chest! More than a mouthful is a waste, I thought. – Well, Tiny has a pretty big mouth! Pam makes Kaeti look like a boy – no, that isn’t fair; Kaeti looks beautiful and feminine tonight. With the formal signing of the constitution, we now had control of our frat house. The evening quickly wound down, and a perfunctory kiss at the girls’ dorm steps let me know that Kaeti was just a friend. At the same time, I owed her a big favor. She had saved me from the certain embarrassment of not being able to find a date to the party.

The Association wasted no time in assigning priorities: Girls, booze, and party, PARTY, PARTY! Bob did take time to “hire” the janitor who already worked at the building and to get a sign made changing the dorm’s name from Florimont, or flowery mountain, hardly the name for a masculine fraternity, to Helvatia House. Helvatia had something to do with the early Swiss people and really appealed to the administration – but “Hell House” had a better ring among the frat brothers. (Willie, again? Maybe…) Yes, Wilds and I were frat brothers, hard to believe! A scarecrow and a short Quaker!

Not a week passed before our inaugural party, a Purple Passion party! The paint wasn’t dry on our sign! Jolie and Stallone went to work on the drink, Purple Passion. It was supposed to be a mixture of grape juice, gin, and white lightning. Unfortunately, Switzerland was not known for white lightning, so vodka was substituted. The formula was one gallon of grape juice for every half-gallon of gin and half-gallon of vodka. In theory, one could taste the gin but not the vodka; therefore, the drink tasted a little strong but not strong enough to be deadly. In reality, the stuff was deadly! To add to the effect, apples and oranges were cut up and floated in the mixture hours before the party. The hope was that the fruit would ferment and add to the alcohol. It didn’t work, but the fruit added color and caused an unexpected effect for those of us who were trying to stay sober. Gallons of the deadly drink were mixed together in a trashcan with a plastic liner.

Sometime the week before, I had run into Sam at school, and she had thanked me for my help on the way back from the Fondue party. Great timing! I mentioned the party, and she said she would love to go! I had a date! That evening, I met Sam at the main building. She looked very cute, but her heels brought her up to my height when she stood straight. Fortunately for me, she did that rarely. Her outfit didn’t look practical for the shortcut to our frat house, so we walked back and forth through the streets of the village.

The party was in our house parlor. The parlor was on the second, well, European first, floor, and should have been the center of dorm life; but that tended to be Le Nord, so the parlor had been converted into a workout room of sorts. Stallone had supplied a basic set of weights and handgrips. Someone else had contributed a Bullwoerker, a strange contraption sold on TV and in the back of “Popular Science” magazine. You could do a half-dozen exercises with it, but it got boring quickly. Stallone had shown me some exercises designed to beef up my upper arms and a sit-up designed to destroy my spine, and I had shown him how to do the headstand-handstand pushups that I used to strengthen my arms for gymnastics. Anyway, the exercise equipment was all hidden away and the room aired out to get it ready for the party. That, music, and a trash can full of purple passions was all the party preparations we did!

As we entered the parlor the party was just getting started. I handed Sam a drink and warned her about the booze, but she tipped her head back, drained the glass, and went to get a second. To my surprise, Kaeti showed up with Tiny. They seemed an odd couple, but they were both great people and Tiny was certainly taller than she was – so they should hit it off. Funny, after the signing party I thought he was into well-endowed women. Given our budding friendship, I did take Kaeti aside and warned her about the booze. I thought about saying something about Tiny, but had the feeling that Kaeti could take care of herself. She appeared to heed my warning about the purple passions by nursing one glass while eating the fruit.

Then Willie showed up with Kayanna. All thoughts of Tiny and Kaeti flew out of my mind. Willie came in quietly and cautiously, as usual, measuring each person with his eyes. Then Kayanna came in slightly behind him; her head was lowered with her long silky blonde hair shadowing her pretty face. Her shoulders were held forward as if to camouflage the beauty of her rather full chest. Had she been a true princess or a goddess, she would have thrust her chest forward and let the world know the gifts that had been bestowed on her. She was nervous and feeling out of place in this already bawdy room. But the differences between Willie and Kayanna were greater than the physical – beauty and the beast thing. By now I knew Willie as sharp minded, focused, more that a little torqued, but very worldly-wise. Kayanna, on the other hand, was a babe in the woods! Her personality could be seen if you ever got a look into her wide-eyed, innocent blue eyes. Actually wide-eyed and innocent would be the definition for all of Kayanna. Her father was an ambassador, if not the ambassador, to France, and she lived in Paris, but her very demeanor shouted that she had lived a sheltered life. Seeing the two together was definitely strange. Kayanna crowded closer to Willie as they disappeared in the room.

It was still early in the evening when I started getting a buzz. I was a little surprised by this because I had managed to nurse two glasses of punch while eating a bunch of the purple apples. They were great! I lost track of Sam for a while and ran into Kaeti while looking for her. “Hey, kiddo, you should have warned me about the fruit,” Kaeti said. “I’m high, and I am still on my first cup!”

“Wow! I was wondering how I got so buzzed! Hey, have you seen my date?”

“Sam? She’s over there by the punch.”

“Again, oh no!”

I turned and saw Sam leaning against the wall by the punch trashcan with one blue eye just visible where her hair parted – and the eye appeared to be wavering back and forth. Then, as I started to walk toward her, the eye disappeared behind her hair, and she slid bonelessly down the wall into a seated position on the floor. I ran over and caught her before she fell over onto her side. She awoke at my touch with a look of total terror! She covered her mouth with one hand, grabbed my shoulder with the needle-like fingers of her other, and dragged herself to her feet. She then looked about crazed, and bolted out the door into the hallway. Sensing her urgency, I ran with her and guided her to the toilet. There I sat holding her hair out of her face and rubbing her back as she puked it all back up! From date to caregiver in half an hour, Great!

When she finished, without giving my presence a second thought, she turned, hiked up her skirt, dropped her panties, sat down and took a leak. When the liquid stopped, she stood, threw her arms around my neck, panties still at her ankles, and leaned into me for a kiss. In other circumstances she might have been inviting, but her recent performance, disheveled appearance, and unbelievable breath drove any thought of romance from my mind. I held her close, but a kiss was out of the question! Even when her hands were roving up and down my back and grabbing my butt, I was frantically trying to think of a way to take her back to her dorm. She gave up quickly and almost tripped when she started to walk out of the bathroom. I bent down to help her with her panties (something I had never done before with anyone out of diapers), and we moved out. She started back toward the parlor, but I convinced her that the party was over, and we headed toward the elevator.

On the walk back, we meandered as I tried to guide her through the streets and she tried to play hide and seek in the shadows from the street lights. I suspected that she was trying to find a place to make out – and if I’d had a gallon of mouthwash, I might have been tempted. Then again, she was so far gone that she didn’t know what she was doing or who she was doing it with, so I guess that I wasn’t that tempted. I managed to escape a vomit-breath kiss at the stairs, but I could tell that Sam took offense at my escape. Oh well, another winning night! I should have gone with my first impression of Sam. What was her problem? She was nice looking. I suspected, with a little self-confidence, she could have been drop-dead gorgeous!

When I returned to Hell House, I surprised Tiny and Kaeti in our room. As I walked in, Kaeti dashed across the room with emotions flying across her face; first embarrassment, then a little anger as she looked back a Tiny, and then relief. Meanwhile Tiny was trying to levitate his six and a half-foot body off his bed.

“Geez, sorry!” I said as I started to back out.

“No, no please stay!” Kaeti said. “We were just –” Her eyes flashed around the room and alighted on Tiny’s big red skis. “– looking at Tiny’s skis!”

She then scanned the room and saw mine. I had almost forgotten they were there. “Are those yours in the corner?”

Quick thinking, I thought. “Yes, I got them at the PX before I came to school.”

Tiny had sat up and was looking frustrated. Kaeti walked over and separated my skis, then began flexing one like an archer testing a bow.

“Harts, huh, really flexible. They should be great in deep powder! Tiny’s Red Stars are really stiff. He needs that, given his size, but they won’t be as easy to turn.”

Kaeti then reached to the top of the ski and measured me with her eyes. “Hey, kiddo, how tall are you?”

“Five foot, nine and a half,” I exaggerated… well, I didn’t add “in shoes…”

“Huh, a little taller than me. Who measured these for you?”

“The guy at the PX, why?”

“Come here and reach for the top of your skis.”

I complied. That put me a little close to Kaeti; in fact I could feel warmth radiating from her. I reached up and could just curl the tips of my fingers over the end of the skis.

“These are a little long for you, even if you were an experienced skier, and you aren’t, right?”

“Is that bad?” At this point, Tiny set his elbows on his knees, supported his head between his large hands, and sighed.

“They’ll be harder to turn. The flexibility will help.” She hesitated for a minute. “The good news is they’ll be a lot more stable at high speed.”

“Okay, I guess…” Tiny shot me an evil eye from the bed. “I guess I’ll go visit Wilds.”

“That’s okay! We were just leaving,” Kaeti said, leveling an intense stare at Tiny. He got up with a sigh and they left.

Tiny returned about a half hour later when I was in bed. “Great timing Henderson!”

“Don’t look at me! We’ll have to work up some kind of signal. Hang a hat or something from the doorknob.” A grunt was Tiny’s only response.

To my surprise Gil started dating Sam shortly after that party. Maybe my stories of pantiless-fondling in the bathroom pricked his interest, so to speak, or maybe he felt she needed a father figure – fat chance! Anyway, they began to hit it off, and Sam started to get her act together. That was really good to see – but then I began wishing I had been able to effect the same change in her to my advantage… Anyway, Gil explained her to me. It seems that her parents had just told her that she was adopted. Instead of feeling love for those who took her in and raised her, she felt lied to by them all these years. She felt unloved by her adopted parents and rejected by her real parents. In fact, she felt that no one could possibly love her. Geez, with that explanation, maybe I didn’t envy Gil. He was taking on a big burden. He was obviously enjoying himself because Sam could be seen leaving his room at all hours, but this relationship wasn’t likely to last forever, and a rejection could just prove to Sam how unlovable she really was. That could be her last straw! Gil and I talked about that, and he knew the dangers but said that he was really getting to like Sam.

After a couple of dates, I started having a little more luck. Maybe confidence was my problem, too. One weekend night that didn’t have a party most of us were hanging out at Le Nord drinking beer and playing zim-zim. After my team was beat and I pulled away from the table, I noticed Jana, a freshman with long brown hair and large brown eyes, sitting with some friends and looking my way. Actually there were half a dozen guys around the game, but she might have been looking at me. I picked up my beer, walked over, and asked if I could pull up a seat. Beer, the great confidence builder! I started talking with the group but stayed focused on Jana. At first she was a little shyer than the others, but I managed to get through to her. She was from upstate California, somewhere in the mountains by a big lake. She loved the mountains and skiing. Once the ice was broken, we talked for quite a while. She even stayed with me when her friends headed back up to the dorm.

I escorted Jana back to the dorm and joined the legion of couples saying goodnight on the steps. The kiss was brief; but as she turned the corner on the stairs, she pulled her long brown hair over her left shoulder and looked back with her lovely, sparkling brown eyes and smiled. That held a hint of promise, didn’t it?

I was thinking about asking her out the next weekend when, from behind me, I heard an accented voice say, “Don’ push eet, Stallone!” Don’t push it, Stallone! Someone has a death wish! What was that accent, Spanish? As I turned to see who had said that, I found myself walking backwards up the stairs toward the girls’ dorm. Stallone was just a few feet from me. His hands were clenched near his waist, his head was cocked forward and down to the right, and his total focus was on some Hispanic freshman, Lopez, I think. “Loco” might have been a better name at that moment. The only thing I knew about Loco was he had braces. Girls get braces, not guys, and girls have their brace work done before college. Maybe it was a jet set thing. Anyway, Loco hopped up onto the balls of his feet, brought his fists to his chest and began bouncing in front of Stallone. His long black hair made him look a little taller than Stallone, but he wasn’t as muscular.

I backed up another step, totally focused on the two. Stallone hadn’t moved. Loco bounced forward a bit, and then it happened. I saw Stallone standing with his fists at his waist. He tightened his torso, let out a sharp, whooping exhale, which was accompanied by a snapping noise that sounded like a fist contacting flesh as the fists disappeared and reappeared on either side of his face. I was focused on Stallone, confused by the snapping sound and by losing track of his fists, until I realized that Lopez had stopped bouncing. My eyes flashed to his face. His eyes were white, his left knee, followed by his right, were bending in slow motion. He dropped to his knees, and then fell slowly forward, ending as his head made a loud popping sound against the floor. His arms made no attempt to arrest his fall. His face was turned toward me; and as I stared, I noticed a trickle of blood run across his lower lip and fall onto the floor. I hadn’t seen the punch! I was watching! I don’t think I blinked or looked away, but I hadn’t seen the punch! I guessed that explained the snapping noise, but his fists didn’t go there.

To me, everything moved in slow motion after that. Stallone, joined by several guys, walked out. Lopez started to come around. A couple of freshmen helped him to his feet. The side of his face was red, but the blood that was running down his chin and falling onto his white shirt was coming from inside his mouth. Someone mentioned that his braces probably cut the inside of his cheek. I just stood there partway up the stairs into the girls’ dorm with my right hand clenched on the railing.

Once I got my wits back, I headed toward our frat house and Wilds. Did I have a story! I found Wilds in his room.

“You won’t believe this!” I said.

“Stallone decked Lopez,” he interrupted.

“How…?”

“Cliff’s been telling everyone.”

“Wilds, you wouldn’t believe his hands. I didn’t see them move!”

“Golden Gloves.”

“What?”

“Cliff said he was Golden Gloves champ in Philadelphia.”

“What’s Golden Gloves?”

“Don’t know, maybe it’s basic training for inner city thugs!”

“Whoa, quiet! Your sense of humor is going to get us both killed!”

“Then maybe it’s like Little League for boxers! They didn’t have it in my hometown.”

“But Wilds, his hands…” and I went on to tell the story as best I could describe it.

Stallone was a God after that, a powerful, vengeful God! Freshmen and sophomores alike showed him deference. No one showed him less than total respect. Well, almost no one. Actually, I heard that the next day Cliff started joking around and telling Stallone “Look out, I know karate!” That ended a little less violently. Stallone pantsed him and held him up by his ankles while Bernd ran, got his camera and took pictures. I didn’t see that episode, but I saw the photo when it was developed, and a severely edited version of it ended up in the yearbook.

To say the next party was a dud would be an understatement, but a few of us had a great time. It was Wilds’ birthday, and he bought a keg and took it to his room. He invited all his frat brothers for a Saturday afternoon bash! Only Gil and I showed up. The three of us sat alone for a time trying to figure out how to tap the keg. It was a large wooden keg with wood plugs and a metal beer spigot that needed to be driven into one of the plugs, and we didn’t have a hammer or a clue how to do it!

I ran down to the parlor, reminded several people in there about the party, and borrowed a steel weight from Stallone’s barbells. Back in his room Wilds decided to do the honors and slammed the spigot with the weight into the plug. It didn’t seat, and beer started shooting out of the hole in the end of the keg. At first we tried jamming the spigot in, but it wouldn’t stay; then we gave up and started drinking the beer as it geysered from the keg.

Soon we were ankle deep in the beer that covered Wilds’ floor and seeped under the doors onto his balcony. Gil had sealed the door to the hall with Wilds’ towel. We began scooping up beer off the floor with mugs, drinking it, and then throwing mug-loads at each other. Wilds slipped while running from Gil, fell face-first into the pool, and slid over to the balcony doors. Then seeing the beer seeping under the doors, Wilds got the idea of opening them, which he immediately followed up on. The beer flowed out of the room, across the balcony, and over the side. Now, Switzerland is known for its spectacular waterfalls, but this may have been the country’s first beer falls as it cascaded majestically from the fourth floor onto the parlor balcony and off to the ground below. There may only have been three of us at Wilds’ birthday – but a great time was had by all! I will add that Wilds’ room never smelled the same again. That stale beer had soaked into everything! Only the cold of winter offered any relief from the odor.