I'm posting this here because my facebook account is linked up with my other blog. And there are definitely some people who I don't want reading this. Then why am I writing it in the first place? Because it's therapeutic. If you know any of the parties involved in this story, don't tell him or her about this post. Because that just draws attention to a blog that no one reads anyway.
------The Day I Stopped Eating Hard Boiled Eggs------
The year was 2004. It was mid to late October. The weather in Baltimore had been cooler than New Jersey, which struck me as odd, since we were actually closer to the equator. To me, the equator always equaled “hot”, but that may be in part because it’s indicated on a globe by a red line straight across. Yes, I was a young freshman, ready to be beaten into a depressive state from which I was never to recover (just kidding). Truth be told, though, we all know what it’s like. Even the people who are having fun are miserable. Oh, he dropped out? That’s strange, I saw him the other day, yelling obnoxiously at Megabites. Oh, she’s taking a year off because she’s been stressed and blue? But I just saw her drunkenly harass a security guard and then fall asleep with her mouth wrapped around some dude’s nipple. I’m not comparing cases, I’m just upset that I chose to both behave and feel miserably.
But this was earlier in the year. Everyone was being receptive. The building I lived in, called the AMR II’s, had an unspoken open door policy that encouraged interactions. We were making friends, talking until two, dancing pointlessly to Summer Jamz ’03. A lot of that dancing was just to dance away the pain. Our rooms were horrid. No air-conditioning, no kitchen, we had to pay for refrigerators, common bathroom, no carpet. It’s true; they really do tie rooms together. You could have the most inviting sheets, the most throw pillows money can buy, but if your floor doesn’t have a carpet, it feels like you’re sleeping either in a log cabin in the middle of the woods, a prison, or a department store (depending on the quality of flooring). This one definitely reeked of Sears, with a splash of Sing Sing (because of the concrete walls). Most importantly though, there was no security, which is absolutely mad. I live in Baltimore, where people prefer violent crime to crime. “Give me your wallet!” “Okay…” *he gives him the wallet. “Okay, you have my wallet, now let me go” *he stabs him.
I don’t remember the events leading up to the night, in particular. Maybe I had dinner with some friends at the dining hall. Maybe I walked over to St. Paul’s for the worst Chinese food ever. Did some reading, wrote in my XANGA, played some guitar. Any one of those, maybe all of them. Doesn’t matter. I fell asleep at around two, only to be woken up at 5 by a wave of screaming and knocking rapidly making it’s way from door to door, up the hall.
“Help! Let me in, let me in, let me in, let me in, let me in, let me in!”
“What the fuck?” My roommate, Teddy is rubbing his eyes, and sitting off the side of his bed. I’m already up, having been awake (I’m have sleep issues), but I don’t move towards the door…because I have morning wood. Teddy opens the door and a half naked girl runs in and slams the door behind her. The towel strap for a robe is tied around her neck, a loosened gag. Her feet and hands are bound, with her pants at her ankles, so I can only assume she’s been hop/running down the halls. My debilitation vanishes into thin air and I’m putting my pants on at the foot of my bed.
“Oh my god close the door. Close the door! Lock it! Is it locked?” She checks the door.
“It’s locked!” Teddy says, irritated. I don’t blame him. If there’s one thing we don’t like, it’s having our sleep interrupted.
“Shhhhhh. Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” The girl is crying and cursing through accelerated breathing. “There’s a man coming after me. He said he has a gun.” Whoaaaaa.
“Shit.”
I’ve been silent the entire time. I try to take action and act tough. I have a tendency to act as confidently as I can when something makes me nervous or frightened. But there’s a flip side to that coin because, while I seem to be fearless and totally in control, my legs cramp up like they’re being shocked with a thousand volts. Volts of fear. I’m practically falling over when I say, “Should we call the police?”
“YES!” She yells. It was a fucking ridiculous question. I toss Teddy my J-Card and tell him to call the security extension. I tell her to hide underneath my lofted bed. She’s still breathing heavily and crying. I’m hanging by the peephole looking through the glass, while I grip onto my leg like I’m trying to stop bloodflow.
Teddy deals with the Hop Cops. He tells them that there’s a man with a gun walking around the halls looking for a girl in our room. She takes the phone from him and starts telling her side. It was one of those scenes where the person starts rambling incoherently through hyperventilation and the operator says, “Calm down, talk slowly.” Try two.
“I woke up and this guy had his hand on my mouth and he said he had a gun and that if I screamed he’d shoot me. He tied me up and took my money and then he said that he was going downstairs to deal with the others and to stay where I was or he’d chase me down. I don’t know if he knows I’m gone or not…. He’s a black guy. I think he was wearing a grey sweatshirt.”
This is all blubbered out in clips and phrases with ellipses. In the meantime, Teddy and I are looking at each other with “holy shits” in our eyes. Deal with the others? Why are you naked? Gun? My thighs were having mini-seizures.
Then we waited for the police. Teddy sat at the side of his bed, silent. I stayed by the door, watching for shadows. I think we tried to make small talk. I tried hard to censor my usual mugging and rape joke routine. She thanked us for letting her in a few minutes before the cops showed up.
“Uh, no problem.”
They took the girl away after talking to her for a short while. I skipped my classes that day. To be honest, I could have gone, but even without the whole fiasco I had only gotten a few, short hours of sleep. Later, we were told by the girl across from us, whose friend’s father works in the Baltimore police department, that she faked the entire thing to get out of an exam. To this day I’m still conflicted, despite some amateur sleuthing by me and my roommate. Why didn’t she pull up her pants before leaving her room? She was really crying pretty convincingly. After we heard it was faked,
this was released, so who really knows the truth?
Also, the title of this story has nothing to do with the story itself.
-----------------------End--------------------
Internship/Job application count: 12!
Peanut Butter and Jelly semmich count: 11!
Turkey Semmich count: 5!
