www.morgypoo.com

Tale of college humor

I was at a crossroads after spring break. I spent the past six months submerged in lager, and it was fast changing me. Sure, I was gaining popularity, but at what cost? I was losing the more noble parts of myself. I had pushed God out of my life completely, and I was somehow reminded of that each time I saw Dicky Jay across the hall. He was living the kind of life I wanted to live, and he was being the kind of person I wanted to be. But I couldn’t let go of the fun and friends that came with power drinking.

It seemed like I was out of control ever since Sheila hit me with the bad news, and that was my fault. I couldn't hold someone else to blame for the person I'd become. I wanted to change, to live for a better purpose. So I endeavored to climb out of the rut I was in, a self made rut that was getting deeper every week. But wanting out and getting out are two very different tales. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, says one of Newton's Laws of physics. To that theory, let me add some of Morgy's Laws:

A man finding fame tends to seek more fame.

Momentum was my biggest enemy. I somehow knew that if I didn't make a full blown commitment to clean up my act, I would only continue to get worse. Funnier and more popular, but worse. And the scariest part was this: I felt I was reaching a point of no return. So now, before it was too late, I resolved to become responsible once again. I went to classes, for starters, and I stayed in on Monday and Tuesday nights. On the big party nights, I tried a new technique at the bars, ordering soft drinks between beers. I stayed more in control that way, but it seemed silly to spend ten bucks on cokes. And you can surely imagine some of the reactions the Boyzz had. "I don't believe it," was all Banjo Jim could say. "Morg drinking pop at a bar. I don't believe it." I let the poor little fella down.

On the other hand, a few of the Boyzz thought it was great that I was trying to maintain control, especially Dicky Jay. "You've gotta do what's best for you, Morgy," he said in support.

The toughest part was finding a new identity. As much as some folks favored my sober-up efforts, they didn't pay as much attention to a normal Morg. I was just a cardboard cut-out. I lost my edge, that unique social edge that made me stand out from the crowd. Being normal was okay, though. I could settle for that.

I couldn’t seem to connect with Candy, physically or emotionally. That was confusing, because we had started in such sizzling fashion on that first night. I thought this was going to be an unrestrained pursuit of passion, but it was like walking in quick sand instead. Now she was wrapped up in studying and going out with her girl friends. I was pretty disappointed; I really wanted this one to work. I liked this lady. And I liked myself more when I was with her.

Candy was so fully alive among a world of half living people. She didn’t run on auto pilot; she was living life every second. And she had the gift of being able to see people, and not look past them. I guess I was already hooked. So the more she pulled away, the more insecure I became. Rats. I told myself I wasn’t going to do that with her. She flew far too high to be grounded by petty jealousy or possessiveness. Once I started wanting her too much, I sealed my own fate.

Of course, partying my brains out wasn’t helping my case. As much as Candy loved to party, she probably had a threshold, a line she preferred not to cross: some trivial or arbitrary line like drinking to the point of falling down. She’d seen me stumble across that muddy line on a couple occasions, and as much as she pretended to hold inebriation in the highest esteem, she was not impressed by my exploits. She may well have been a wild socializer who drank, but I was a wild drinker who socialized. She had no interest in going there.

There was talk of Candy getting friendly with a guy from 7^th floor. And I knew all too well just how friendly Candy could get: too friendly, when it was with someone else. So I took it pretty hard when I saw Candy kissing a guy goodbye one morning on her way to class. Yes, I know, she’d said she wanted to see other people. But seeing her kissing someone else was too much for me to handle. I still wasn’t healed from being in limbo with Sheila; I wasn’t ready for a rerun. So despite Candy making some attempts at staying in touch with me, I blew her off completely.

We humans sure have lousy ways of guarding our hearts. In my case, I rejected a woman who I really liked, just because I was afraid she might reject me. And I poured my heart into things that would only make me more insecure: I jumped back into heavy drinking, head first and with a vengeance. Forget classes. Why even make a pretense of academic life? Unless there was a major exam that I knew of, I skipped every class and became a bar fly and dorm mole. And foosball. I managed to fit that in with my schedule. Before I even realized it, I was more hard core than before my clean-up efforts, averaging five or six nights a week at the Palace, getting loaded and playing foos.

"Friends may come and go," I philosophized. "Women may say the nicest things about your butt before blowing you off, but there is nothing so trustworthy and faithful as a man's foosball table." Sure it's just a game, but you couldn't tell me that. It became the one phase of my life that I could control. It was all up to me to win, and I never had to "give the foosball table more space" or try not to get "too involved" with it. I claimed it to be my therapy, though obsession might be a better term.

Hand in hand with foosball came Advanced Drinking 401. That required some creative budget work, for a college student is very limited in spending. Macomb's bars had excellent beer prices, but sometimes beer alone would not get me to the happy zone. Shots of hard stuff were needed, the perfect supplement to the yellow plasma. Of course, the cost of doing shots at the bars was highly prohibitive. So I worked around that by sneaking pint bottles of whiskey into the bars, a sure fire way to insure a good, inexpensive buzz. And whiskey soon gave way to a more potent pocket pal: 151 proof rum. Whew! 75% alcohol, no wonder the label had a red flammable warning. It was nasty going down, but I got a lot more laughs per gallon out of that stuff.

The rest of the Boyzz began expressing concern over my stepped up level of drinking. The Boyzz, the same guys who always joked about drinking the way most college students do: that the most important thing in life is beer, and more beer. If you didn't get as wasted as possible on a weekly basis, then you were in need of counseling; that's the way we all spoke of drinking. But when I started living out that philosophy, they decided I had gone too far; there was actually a limit that should be adhered to. Now they tell me.

Dicky Jay approached me one day with an ultimatum: "Morg, buddy, we all took a vote and decided that if you don't start going to classes, we're not going to party with you any more." (My average class attendance was one for twelve.) I knew the guys meant well, but I also knew they would never quit partying with me. I was the floor mascot, the comedy relief, the idiot they could not helping laughing at every day and night. And I was happy as such. At this point in time, having fun was far more important than getting good grades and passing classes. What good are grades to a guy who keeps losing the things he treasures most? No, the highest priority I had any control over was partying to new heights every night. Nothing else would do.

I had other priorities, other goals that meant something to me, but they didn't go along with partying. I suppose my second greatest ambition was to live a totally spiritual existence, never giving thought to the physical plane. Kind of like Jesus, or Kwai Chang Kane the Kung Fu guy, a couple people I really admired. I was enamored by the way they could see people for what's really in their heart, and yet somehow see their fragility instead of the hate they show. That's some kind of talent. With a nature like that, you'd never let another person rob you of your happiness. That ambition had to remain a dormant one, though, because every wild party binge set me back a good three days. No matter what kind of progress I made in my soul, a twenty-hour pleasure seeking junket quickly undid it all.

Bouncing back and forth between those two goals was far too draining a task to keep up. That would mean constantly facing my shortcomings and admitting I was on the wrong track. It was a hell of a lot easier to just pick one path and stay with it, and somehow, Morgmonster fit in at college a little better than Kwai Chang. So Beer Guzzler it would be.

One morning I was just bouncing back from a mean hangover, the kind that renders its victim as sickly as a nuclear fallout survivor, when Disco came dancing into my room. He had a big grin on his face, the kind of grin that means good news for the grinner, but bad news for its recipient. "Morg! I get the Kermit award, buddy! Time to relinquish!"

Ouch! My trophy that I cherished so dearly, now plundered by another cookie-tosser. Reluctantly I handed it over. But Banjo Jim overheard the conversation as he entered the room. "What time did you blow chow?" he asked Disco.

"Two AM."

"Mine was Three AM," Banjo Jim smiled, raising a fist into the air triumphantly.

Disco swore as he handed the Kermit over to its rightful owner. I wasn’t too happy, either. As the Boyzz left my room, I hollered down the hall with a desperate cry: "Banjo! I have not yet begun to kermit!"

This called for retaliation, and fast. I couldn't begin to look myself in the mirror or feel at all good about myself until I blew chow once more. And so I talked Lance into an early happy hour that day, beginning at noon. As we bellied up to the bar at the Ritz, I drank not for fun but as though I was on a mission. "Just keeping ‘em coming," I told the Bar Keep as I pushed an empty pitcher his way.

"Geez, Morg," Lance said as he refilled my glass for the fourth time in as many minutes, "you seem bent on self destruction today. What's wrong, did Candy blow you off again?"

I shook my head and said, "Worse."

"You flunked a midterm?" he guessed the second time, like that would mean anything.

"I lost the Kermit award, Lance! Banjo Jim launched biscuits last night, and so did Disco. It's like everyone is gunning for it now."

"Is that all, Morgy? Hey, cheer up, you'll win it back in no time."

"But even if I do, some amateur might ralph an hour later. It's hard to pound pitchers when you have to keep looking back over your shoulder to see if someone's gaining on you." Lance still didn’t seem to get it, so I spelled it out for him: "Lance, my manhood has been challenged."

"Then start drinking, you light weight!" he said, pushing the pitcher closer to me.

Soon happy hour ended, and still I had not thrown up. "Try having dinner back at the dorm," Lance advised. "That usually pushes me over the edge."

His words were wise: a good dorm meal could only help my kermit quest. Yeah, I might even go for seconds tonight. We weren't the only happy hour bandits, I'm afraid. Five hundred other Higginites had similar timing, making for long lines as the cafeteria was preparing to close. That’s when it happened: a helpless Lance darn near got mowed down by Jean-Jean-the-Eating-Machine as she made a mad dash for the ice cream counter. "My God, I saw my entire life pass before me," he panted afterwards as he set his tray down next to mine and took a seat. His hands were visibly shaking. "All I could think was that I might be killed. I mean, she wasn't stopping for anyone."

"Yeah, I meant to warn you, they got a new flavor," I explained as Jean-Jean trudged by, shaking our table and rattling our silverware as she went.

Dinner ended peacefully, uneventfully, with neither Lance getting squashed nor I getting sick. We still had an hour or so to kill before the Palace would be hopping. That time slot between happy hour and Palace time was traditionally spent in Disco's room since he had the loudest stereo. I loved hanging out in his pad before hitting the Palace; it was highly informal partying. You could compare it to calisthenics before practice, or banging shoulder pads in the locker room before the big game. That room shook with party tunes as we howled and screamed and played air drums along to the beat. The Boyzz surely did love to hoot and holler. I never did that kind of thing until I met them, but ever after, I've been a staunch advocate for screaming. It somehow made us feel alive and energetic, as though we were on top of the world and no one could knock us off.

Heck, if I would have howled at the top of my lungs in front of my old high school buddies, they would have given me a rabies shot. "My God, the man's gone schizo!" they'd say. Maybe that's why we Boyzz howled: if you could coyote for no reason at all, and it was acceptable, then you could do just about anything around one another. No bounds. Behavior unlimited. No social sanctions for acting crazy.

As always, the jam session put us all in a positive frame of mind as we left for the Palace. Primed and ready, we arrived at our sleazy destination. Smiles lit up my buddies' faces, sparkles danced in their eyes. This was a jovial bunch, a happy bunch, excited over the many prospects that awaited as they once again stalked the campus bars. Imagine three hundred women in the prime of their beauty, all trashed and all single, gathered under one roof, a passion pit where the stakes are instant romance. Now add three hundred men, drunk and on the prowl, and what you have is bedlam. What you have is a very strange sport with winners and losers, where looks mean everything, and attitude plays the next biggest role. Some nights, you walk in and your charm is a sword. Other nights, you get shot down once or twice and suddenly you feel like a used condom; you can't play the game for another second because your soul saw you trying for something phony, and it drains you to put on such pretenses. I wasn't the only one to slither out of the bar early on occasion and sadly walk home alone, fed up and frustrated, tired of the game.

On this particular evening, though, I wasn't so concerned with the mating game or the many foxy ladies moving about. As their eyes avoided mine, I cared not, for I was here on a mission: Kermit Quest. So whilst the Boyzz wasted their time subtly trying to attract certain women, I bravely endeavored to hurl. "One more beer should do it," became my motto for the night.

Closing time came, and still I had not tasted success. "I can't quit now," I told myself. One more might do it, just one more. So off I went with Lance, Musky, Spanky and Banjo Jim as they searched for after-uptown parties.

"This one has potential," Lance said as he temporarily double parked in front of a crowded house off-campus. He then turned to Banjo Jim in the back seat and said, "McCoy, you and Spock go check it out."

"Dammit, Jim, I'm just a doctor!" Banjo snapped back as he exited the car. He and Musky toured the house, returning two minutes later with their report. Banjo squatted down next to Lance's open window and said, "Here's the story: it's a bunch of Music and Theater majors sitting around and talking about the arts, their keg is empty, and Precious is inside."

Precious, she was a mythical figure of a woman, known to every man in our dorm, her incredible beauty unmatched except by her immense ego. Lance began to sweat. He and Precious had dated on and off, but it never seemed to last. He parked the car and led us inside.

And so we entered the party, albeit a dry one. Lance and Precious wandered off to a corner where they talked privately, both of them looking stressed. I took a seat on the couch a defeated man, with virtually no chance of throwing up, unless I heard one more art major talk about the use of negative space to overcome the feeling of modern day parallelism. "All that drinking for nothing," I said to myself with a hmmph. If only I would have bought a bottle of 151 before the liquor shop closed, I could be in kermit heaven.

Suddenly Spanky burst into the room and pulled me to my feet as he whispered, "They got another keg!" Awesome. All was not lost. As we reached the keg, I drew a cup of beer and chugged it down. "Anything?" Spanky asked.

"Nothing."

My pal handed me his beer. "How about now?" he asked after I drank it down.

"Nope. Still nothing."

We took our places back in line just as Lance, our driver, announced that we were leaving for Taco John's. I implored him to stick around, saying they just got more beer, but Lance answered, "We've gotta go, Morgy. We’re meeting Precious there."

I wasn’t going to win that argument, as noble as my own cause might have been. "Okay, just give me two more minutes."

"Just make it snappy, bud. We'll be parked out in front, waiting." Lance held the car door open as Banjo Jim awkwardly stumbled into the back seat. Lance looked up at me and shouted, "Come on, Morgcat! And no throwing up in my car!"

Yeah, would that I could. I stopped next to Lance’s Cutlass and chugged my final beer with the knowledge that if I didn't kermit now, I would have to start all over again in the morning, from ground zero. As I swallowed the syrup-like lager, my throat felt bloated, yes, as if something big was brewing down there. I began to laugh as I braced myself against Lance's front bumper, and the Boyzz slowly began to chant from inside the car: "Chunks! Chunks! Chunks! Chunks!"

"Ha ha, this could be it!" I shouted. And then it happened. "Oh God!" Splat.

The Boyzz laughed and cheered all at once, loving the performance they'd just witnessed. Seconds later, I crawled into the back seat next to Banjo Jim and sprawled out in exhaustion, a complete man once again. Words cannot explain the relief and contentment I felt in that moment. Spanky looked back at me with eyes glazed over from tears. "Goddam, Morg, you amaze me sometimes," he said in thorough amusement, like he couldn’t believe what he just saw.

"You okay?" Lance asked before pulling out, perhaps worried about his upholstery more than my health.

With a peaceful smile I replied, "I came, I saw, I hurled."

The story spread quickly throughout the dorm the next day, of how I chased down the Kermit award with a mad vengeance. "Look, it's the Kerminator!" people exclaimed, even ones I didn't know. Folks now saw that I was for real: I would not give up the Kermit without a hellatious dogfight. Anyone who wanted that trophy would have to earn him and keep on earning him on a daily basis. No more pretenders. No more fair weather drinkers.

Ten of us Boyzz sat around the lunch table that day, nurturing hangovers and recapping the previous night's events. It was a common ritual that served to remind us of the goofy things we'd done while in "the other world." Banjo Jim gave the guys a colorful impression of my kermit form, causing all of us to chuckle a bit. But suddenly, the Boyzz on one side of the table hushed and looked up. "Morg! Ex-chick at ten o'clock," Spanky muttered under his breath.

Just as I turned, Candy came walking by with her food tray. I had avoided the woman for two weeks now, ever since I saw her getting friendly with another guy. But she spotted me now. "Morgypoo! Where have you been lately?! I've been trying to get a hold of you," she said with a cheery beat that should have made my heart soar.

"I've been around," I answered rather coldly, turning back to my meal. The guys all looked like they were embarrassed for Candy, like I was being kind of a jerk. And I suppose they were right. I should have been friendlier to her, but I really wasn't capable of it. I felt too vulnerable, as though I would only get sucked in and hurt again. So I let my pride stand in the way of a second chance, or perhaps a second burn.

Candy wandered down a few tables and I pretended nothing ever happened. "Good mostaccioli, huh?" I commented, obviously reaching pretty far for something to say.

"Yeah, real good," Spanky answered as he mixed his pasta in with his chocolate milk, ready for the garbage can.

I loved hanging out at the lunch table, even if the food was pathetic at times. And of course, no one said you had to "eat" the stuff. Dorm food has many uses. Peas, for instance, work great in Projectile Wars. Or take a handful of toothpicks and an entree gone bad, and you've got the makings for a masterful sculpture. Add some greasy cookies, nice and pliable, and there's no limit to the accessories you can create.

With the Boyzz, food sculpturing was a group task. The finished product was usually a horse or reindeer with a magnificent set of genitalia, and it never failed to draw strange looks from ladies at neighboring tables, especially "The Ice Cream Brigade." The ICB's. Oh, but they were a fearsome bunch. Picture seven or eight ladies with a median weight of 200+ pounds, moving in herds through the cafeteria. Tables would shake. Jello would quake. Pity the man who didn't get out of their way in time. And they were led by, you guessed it, Jean-Jean-the-Eating-Machine.

The Brigade had a self imposed diet that began with a fresh garden salad and one or two glasses of diet pop. If you didn't know any better, you might think, "Wow, they're really serious about trimming down." But no, they were merely saving themselves for a big encore. Once their leader gave the signal, they rose in unison and marched eagerly back to the food line, returning moments later carrying large salad bowls piled high with all kinds of ice cream and delicious toppings. The instant they sat down, spoons were flying. Grazing in action.

"I can't believe Flick is going out with a girl from that herd," Lance sadly noted.

My brain jolted as I said, "You're kidding! Which one?"

"Lazy Susan," he pointed with his fork. "She's the 'little' one on the end." Flick was no Romeo, but surely he could do better. "Yeah, Flick's pretty crazy about her," Lance went on. "The guy's been on cloud nine all week."

"Love is blind," Spanky reasoned.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," was another Boyzz' explanation.

Musky laughed through all of our notions, then asked, as if it weren't obvious, "Don't you guys know why he's going out with her?"

We all stared silently, then blurted out guesses one at a time:

"She's rich!"

"Flick owes her money!"

"She's a nympho!"

Musky laughed until he finally answered, "She works for a pharmacist, man. She gets him shit-loads of drugs for free."

That explained everything, including the imaginary pet I'd seen Flick walking the day before. Truly beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No, Lazy Susan wasn't a beauty queen, or an aristocrat, or even necessarily a nymphomaniac, but she was everything that Flick could ever want. I suppose that, under the correct dosages, Flick saw Lazy Susan as a stunning figure of a woman. And who can argue with that?

Musky then described how Flick had single handedly turned last Friday night into Quaalude Night at the Palace, passing out gobs and gobs of pills to strangers for free. "You never saw so many people looking so stupid," Musky laughed. "Goddam, everyone's falling into each other like there's an earthquake or something." And Musky rocked about as he described the looks of wasted partyers, making zombie eyes for full effect.

That's what I loved most about our lunch huddles: when we Boyzz weren't busy sculpting or watching the calorie conscious girls, we were storytelling. Whoever had the best recollection of our latest antics recounted them to the rest of the group. It reminded me of an Indian tribe gathered around the fire, passing great hunting tales down from generation to generation.

It's tough to say who the better storyteller was, Lance or Musky. Musky's eyes were penetrating and always focused on his listener. Whenever he spoke, you felt like you were in a football huddle: Musky was the quarterback, you were the receiver he was going to, and this play was for all the marbles. You couldn't help but listen closely. What a hypnotic conversationalist. The man bordered on genius, yet spoke in blue collar manner, coming off as some plain ol' farm boy. His was a rare combination of intelligence and yet disregard for stuffiness. An honest spirit, this Musky, always cutting through the crap and putting things bluntly. He had no social fear, either. Whether talking to one person or twenty, he was the same relaxed yet boisterous man.

And Lance, his eyes smiled when he told Boyzz tales, as though he was really enjoying the story himself. He relived every detail as he told it, bringing a real sense of freshness to the events. I suppose half the material in this book would have been lost and forgotten if not for those sessions when we pieced together the preceding night’s crazy events.

As fun as lunchtime was, it paled in comparison to late night partying. When the bars closed for the night, playtime was just getting started. Flick and Musky were the latest night owls on our floor. I could usually count on one of them to be up when I got in. On one particular night, Musky and I ran into each other in the hallway when we were both too wasted to walk, much less stand. So we sat side by side in the hallway for hours, talking about all kinds of deep things, some serious and some funny. And as usual for this time of night, it came down to discussing what we really wanted out of life. "My greatest ambition?" I said, repeating Musky's question. "To graduate."

Musky laughed instantly, knowing I was pulling his leg. "No, seriously Morg. What's your biggest goal in life?"

Here he went again. I looked up at the ceiling like I was lost and I said, "I don't know. Maybe I got no ambition."

"You do, you just don't recognize it," Musky objected.

"Okay, Musk, what's your greatest ambition?"

"I can't tell ya, Morg."

"Oh, come on! This is the Morgster you're talking to. I won't tell anyone."

With a little more nudging, Musky revealed his secret plan to recover Hitler's lost supply of gold. He swore me to utmost secrecy on this, so please don't tell anyone. Now according to Musky legend, Hitler hid his riches underground somewhere in Poland. Since WWII, many adventurers have tried to recover it, but all attempts have ended in death or other embarrassing situations. The secret cave, you see, is surrounded by old mine fields. And on top of that, many booby traps await would-be thieves. And I’m told that it's a distinct possibility that heavily armed men patrol these grounds. Now remember, only a few people know about this, so I would appreciate your keeping a lid on it. The only reason Musky let me in on the secret is because he wanted me on his task force.

Ideally, Musky will lead three or four well armed men to the gold, but not before they undergo hundreds of hours of rigorous planning and training. Crossbows will be used to shoot arrows from tree to tree, with steel cable attached to the arrows. This will enable Team Musky to trolley over the mine field safely. And once inside, a specialist will disarm any booby traps protecting the treasure.

I'm not sure how I was to fit into the picture. I think Musky wanted me there because he's seen the way I handle a squirt gun. But then he went and qualified me. "Can you kill someone?" he asked in a hard nosed, businesslike manner.

"You've seen my shooting," I replied.

"That's not what I asked, Morgman. Could you actually kill somebody, look 'em in the eyes and pull the trigger." Musky's message was clear: this wasn't a dorm game he was talking about. This mission called for mercenaries, men who wouldn't think twice about ending another man's life. "'Cause if you can't, then they'll kill you," he added, his intense eyes glaring into mine.

"No, I couldn't kill anyone, Musky."

"That's cool. I respect ya."

Turn to Chapter 9: Savage Women… http://www.morgypoo.com/ch9.htm