A NEW YEAR... and turning bad early (Part41b)

When I got back to the fraternity I found out that the house had been taken off the “social probation” that followed my being thrown into the lake. It seemed like that news took the burden off me as the cause of it. Because no drinking had been allowed in the house it was all being done in the bars downtown. Before Christmas break I hadn’t been joining in with my friends in the “Unholy Alliance” because I had been pretty much in recovery mode from the pneumonia. Because I’d spent so little time at the house during that time I wasn’t really aware of the fact that they had joined with a group of senior brothers known in the house as “The Mob”. To emphasize that name, the room of the leaders was painted black and had nothing but a blue light bulb in the ceiling for light. That night I was “introduced” to them. It was the beginning of whole new period in my life.

I can say, without a doubt, that I spent more time drinking than I did studying over the next two weeks. That’s not a good thing right before final exams. But sometimes good things happen to stupid people. On the Saturday prior to the start of exams a steam pipe that fed the classroom part of the campus failed. When we showed up for the first exam on Monday morning the temperature in the room was about 40 degrees. The instructors tried to start the exam but a group of the guys walked out and headed for the administration building to complain. Long story short... exams were postponed until Thursday and, unbelievably, we had a mini blizzard that made travel and getting around almost impossible. It killed me because I knew Elle was finished with her exams but I actually took advantage of the extra time and made a half hearted attempt to prepare for the exams. BUT... the really bad part was that the delay was cutting into the time that was to be our intersession break. AND... in spite of the promise of “special time” that Elle had made, I soon found out that it wasn’t going to happen.

Elle found out that she had to report to the school where she was going to practice teach on that Friday, the day of my last exam. I’d promised to take both her and her new roommate, Teresa, and their things down, thinking that it would be on that Sunday. Another “plan” vaporized. There was a teachers meeting scheduled after classes that day to introduce the girls and to give them their first assignment. Fortunately, my exam was first thing in the morning. The weather cooperated and I managed to get them there in time. I waited for them to finish up as I still had to help the girls get settled in where they were going to live.

It was still light out when they emerged from the school, somewhat overwhelmed. That was nothing compared to what they were in for. When I brought the girls to visit a few weeks earlier they were comfortable with their choice of a residence. That changed almost immediately after we arrived. They knocked on the door and were welcomed in. I had Elle’s bag and started to follow behind them but before I got through the door I was told I couldn’t come in. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when she said that her “rules” didn’t allow any males into the house. I know I made some sort of a remark and Elle tried to explain that all I was doing was carrying her suitcase into her room. It did no good. To put it mildly, I was pissed. But that was only the beginning.

I helped as much as I could, bringing their clothes and supplies to the door. Then I just waited in the car. It was close to an hour until I saw Elle again. The look on her face wasn’t that of terror but it was close. Terry followed her and they ended up sitting in the car with me. What I heard from them was just as unbelievable as me not being allowed to carry the suitcase into the house.

They wondered what happened to the “nice lady” that they’d met a few weeks prior. As soon as all their things were unloaded from the car and into their room the lady sat them down and went over the “house rules”. It turned out that it wasn’t a residence as much as a POW camp. The kitchen privleges did not include using the stove or oven. They had part of one shelf in the refrigerator and in the pantry. There was to be no eating in their room. The girls knew that their curfew was to be the same as if they were at the sorority but the “house rules” were that all lights were to be out at the same time. They could only make collect calls from the phone and were only allowed a total of six incoming calls a week between the two of them. They could only do their wash on Saturday mornings and had to time their showers to no more than 5 minutes each. There was a LOT more but I don’t remember all of the other petty things they were saddled with. I do remember Teresa calling it a Stalag as her older brother had been a German prisoner of war in WWII.

As you can imagine, the girls were mightily upset. I was too but I really didn’t know what to do for them. We ended up going down town to get something to eat and that brought up one of their major concerns... eating. They had fully expected that they would be cooking for themselves and had budgeted for that. We sat and talked until the place closed up at around 9pm. The girls didn’t really want to go back to the house but there was no other choice. They still had to make up their beds and sort out their things. There was nothing that I could do for them. As I drove the 20 miles back I couldn’t help but feel sorry for all three of us. It was going to be a LONG eight weeks.

To be continued...