Deconstruction Acres by Tim W. Brown

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Sorry, Sold Out

ONE
   Underdog became a townie during the second week he
lived in Jasper. His purpose for coming to town was to
begin his freshman year at Jasper College. He and his
parents arrived on campus in an overloaded Oldsmobile,
squeezed into and wriggling amongst all the possessions
required to appoint a comfortable dorm room: suitcases
filled with brand-new clothes bought from Underdog's high
school graduation money; a black-and-white portable TV;
a stereo system whose components were split into five
boxes; toiletries contained in a plastic bucket for
carting to and from the communal bathroom; a few of
Underdog's favorite books; a box filled with school
supplies; another box whose sides bulged from holding a
football, basketball, baseball glove and frisbee;
backgammon, chess and Monopoly games; posters rolled up
and rubber-banded together; and a Norfolk pine tree, a
gift from his high school sweetheart, which Underdog held
in his lap, its branches slapping his face the entire
trip due to the breeze blowing in open windows.
   They parked in front of Barrett Hall, Underdog's new
home, a dormitory he chose, despite its distance from
most classrooms, because he wanted to try life in a
high-rise after living all his life in a one-story ranch
house. At check-in, the resident assistant informed him
that his room would be on the second floor, not on the
higher floors, much to Underdog's disappointment.
Jostling with a hundred other students and their
attendant families, Underdog and his dad managed to move
his things into Room 212. As usual, his dad complained
the whole time, about the line of people waiting for the
elevators, and of the heat. Obese from a sit-down
insurance agency job and a two-gallon-a-week ice cream
habit, his dad sweat a lot; Underdog noticed that with
each ride up the elevator, sweat stains on his dad's
shirt became more pronounced, as did his chili pepper
smell. Sick of his dad's complaints, he suggested that
they take the stairs, since it was only one flight up.
His dad said to hell with that idea, he had "to get up
and go to work tomorrow and pay for all this."
   Underdog's mom stayed in the room, busying herself by
exploring its storage capacity; she pulled open all the
desk and bureau drawers and felt around inside them,
opened up the closet and peered inside, and crouched on
her knees to assess whether Underdog's empty stereo boxes
would fit under his bed. By the time Underdog and his dad
finished bringing everything up from the car, his mom had
an efficient storage system figured out and directed
where each item should be put. Once all of Underdog's
things were stowed to his mom's satisfaction, his dad
announced that he and his mom had to leave, so they would
get home before it got dark. Never mind, thought both
Underdog and his mom, that it was only three o'clock,
that it wouldn't be dark for another four or five hours,
and that his parents' house was up in Peru, a half-hour
drive north. "Let's go," his dad insisted as his mom
hastily kissed Underdog on the cheek and wiped her eyes,
fighting off tears welling up. Before walking through the
heavy, self-locking doors that led to the elevator lobby,
his mom sniffled and turned to wave pitifully, and his
father accusingly pointed his finger and said, "Make sure
to call your mother."
   Leave it to his dad, thought Underdog, sitting on his
bed and looking over the dorm room, to rush him and his
mom through a big event in their lives. It reminded him
of past occasions, like when his dad wanted to skip the
reception after Underdog's induction into the National
Honor Society, or when he was irritated by the little
brothers and sisters of Underdog's classmates running
around the park during the band's family picnic, then
demanded that they leave right after they ate, causing
Underdog to miss out on all the fun and games afterward.
   At least his mother acted like she would miss him; she
even sat him down at the kitchen table several weeks
before his move to Jasper and told him how she was glad
to see him grow up, but sorry to see him move out of the
house. Sensing that her son suspected that his father was
glad for him to go, she added that his dad would miss
him, too.
   "But he keeps telling me how he can't wait for me to
move out so he can turn my bedroom into a TV room,"
Underdog said.
   "You know it's hard for your dad to show how he feels."
   "Well, he sure yells a lot. He doesn't have any trouble
showing when he's mad at me. Which he's been all the time
lately."
   "That's a sign he's torn about the idea of you going
off to college. Deep down, he knows he'll be sorry when
you're gone."
   "Has he told you that?" Underdog asked.
   "No, but I can tell he'll miss you."
   "I wish I could tell," he responded, then left his mom,
who cried softly into a pot holder. He wanted to tell her
that he'd miss her, too. But instead he shut himself in
his room, put on headphones, and turned his stereo up
loud to drown all of the sad thoughts suddenly swimming
around inside his head.
   The sound of the door to his dorm room opening
interrupted Underdog's reverie. In came a gangly
individual wearing a seed corn baseball cap who was
carrying a laundry basket full of folded shirts and blue
jeans. He set the basket down on the other bed in the
room, then introduced himself as John Schmutzer.
Immediately after shaking Underdog's hand, he took off
his shirt, saying, "It's hotter than a pig barn inside
here." The hat, the pig barn crack and the classic farmer
tan revealed to Underdog indicated that he had acquired
a farm boy for a roommate.
   To get a feel for his new roommate, hoping he was of
the cool farm boy variety _ like his friend Jeff, who
threw beer and bonfire parties on his parents' farm
outside Peru, and not the sick type that picked up kids
who lived in town, beat them up and dumped them in corn
fields far away from home _ he said, "Yeah. I wish I had
a beer right now to cool me off."
   To Underdog's great relief, John said, "Me too," and
then they talked about kicking in on a small refrigerator
where they would store all their beer. That issue
settled, John left to move the rest of his things into
the room, and Underdog walked down the hall to take in
his new surroundings. Hovering outside ten or twelve
doorways there were his new floor mates, each looking him
over expectantly, hoping to make a new friend. Underdog
politely nodded to each, but saw nobody that he thought
he could relate to, since nearly everybody, in their
sleeveless Forty-Niner and Cowboy tee shirts, had that
brawny, macho look of the jocks at his high school, whom
he couldn't stand. To prevent any unwanted conversation,
he ducked into the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, he was
glad to find that there were a number of shower stalls,
all of which had its own shower curtain to ensure privacy
as residents washed. The thing that Underdog most hated
about high school was showering in gym class; there were
parts of his body that he simply didn't like washing in
front of people.
   Upon his return to the room, he found a note taped to
the door from John. It said that he was going out to buy
books at the campus bookstore and promised that he would
stop over at the home of a buddy, who was old enough to
buy beer. At that moment, the door across the hall opened
and out stepped a shaggy-haired guy wearing a faded
Aerosmith tee shirt. To Underdog, this looked like a
person he could maybe relate to.
   "Mark Reid," said the guy.
   "You can call me Underdog."
   "What are you, some kind of cartoon?" asked Reid.
   "Everybody calls me that. Ever since my second grade
Halloween party, when I wore an Underdog costume."
   Seeing that his beer approach worked once already in
breaking the ice, and hoping that Reid might himself have
some beer to share while he waited for his roommate's
return, Underdog said, "I wish I had a beer right now to
cool me off."
   "That'd be good," said Reid. "But you know what I could
really go for? A joint."
   Underdog laughed, for unbeknownst to his parents, he
also had packed among his things a plastic baggie full of
marijuana. "I've got some," he said.
   "I'll get my papers. Plus I've got a couple of beers."
Reid went to his room and returned a moment later with a
sweaty paper sack. Both of them furtively glanced up and
down the hall, then slipped into Underdog's room.
Underdog dug the baggie of weed from out of his school
supply box, while Reid pulled a couple of cans of
Budweiser from out of the paper sack. He also pulled out
a can of spray deodorant.
   "What's that for?" asked Underdog, watching Reid open
the door to the hall again.
   "Throws the R.A. off the scent," answered Reid,
spraying a big, white cloud of deodorant into the
hallway. When he shut the door, he said, "Best to put a
towel under the door, too."
   "Is it safe to smoke in here?"
   "Well, you can get kicked out of the dorm if they catch
you. But if you take a couple of precautions, you won't
get caught."
   "Sounds like you're an old pro at this."
   "I'm a sophomore now. I guess that gives me pro
status."
   After Underdog stuffed a towel from his toiletries
bucket under the door and Reid rolled up a joint, they
pulled chairs over to the window and proceeded to pass
the joint back and forth. They took long drags, then blew
the smoke through the screen, watching it disperse over
a basketball court. As they smoked, they got acquainted.
Reid was a sociology major from Iowa; he listened to
bands like Aerosmith and Guns 'n Roses. Underdog informed
Reid that he planned to pursue a program in business
administration, and he preferred more straight-ahead rock
and roll, but he could still appreciate the head-banger
stuff.
   After they had smoked about three-quarters of the
joint, the door swung open, and John walked in the room
juggling a plastic shopping bag filled with books, a
twelve pack of Miller beer, and a ten-pound bag of ice.
"Join us?" asked Underdog, motioning John to hurry up and
shut the door.
   "No, but you go ahead and start the beers without me,"
said John, a little startled. "I'll be back," he said,
laying down his load on his desk, then exiting again.
   "You didn't tell me you got stuck with Schmutzer," said
Reid. "We better put this out before he gets back."
   "He doesn't approve?"
   "No, man, he disapproves. Real bad." Underdog hastily
put out the joint on the window ledge and pocketed the
roach. For several minutes they both sat silently,
anticipating John's return and feeling swarms of ants
crawl up their legs, a paranoid sensation made doubly bad
by marijuana. Then they heard a knock at the door,
knuckles rapping hard and insistent.
   "I think we're busted," said Reid. "They know we're in
here, so you better open up."
   Underdog opened the door, and there stood the resident
assistant who checked him into the dorm earlier that
afternoon. The R.A. spied around the room, raised his
eyebrows in acknowledgment of Reid, sniffed the air a few
times, then asked Underdog to follow him to his room.
There he explained to Underdog that John had complained
of his marijuana smoking, that as R.A. he must respond to
the complaint by filling out an "incident report," and
that Underdog would have to appear at a hearing before a
college disciplinary board to determine if he should be
removed from the dorm.
   What followed was a week where Underdog felt adrift in
a river full of white water rapids. The routine of
attending class buoyed him, giving him the impression
that things were floating along nicely, that his head was
still above water. But below the surface he sensed a
nasty undertow which threatened to pull him under for
good, with nothing, not a rock or branch, to cling to.
The only lifeline anybody offered to throw was when the
disciplinary board assigned his case to the school's
ombudsman, a woman who would represent him at the board's
hearing.
   She was not a lawyer like he hoped, however, but a math
professor who, it was plain, would rather have been
teaching class than serving her turn as ombudsman in the
rotating system the school had devised. As Underdog sat
in her office in the Sciences Building, explaining his
side of the story, she barely listened; instead, she
stared out the window at the twisted metal sculptures
that dotted the college square, and twirled her bangs in
her fingers, acting like all the bored girls he observed
in high school study hall. All his experiences with her
before the hearing pointed to the fact that they might as
well have thrown him a sack of lead to catch, so he could
sink to the river bottom and be done with it.
   At the hearing itself, Underdog felt certain he would
be railroaded right out of the dorm when he looked over
the three persons making up the disciplinary board. The
first, the Director of Residence Halls, whose pained
expression made Underdog think he hadn't had a bowel
movement in weeks, declared his intention to "make this
case send a clear signal at the start of the school term"
about his policy of zero tolerance concerning drugs. The
second, a senior business major who wore a navy blue
three-piece suit with an American flag in its lapel,
testified how drug parties prevented him from studying
for final exams the previous semester. The third, a
weasly-looking professor of ethics, expounded on how
Jasper College had a mission to steer its students away
from the "immoral fog of drugs" so that they could assume
their places in society.
   Also present was John Schmutzer, whom Underdog had
succeeded in having the entire dorm floor refer to by the
nickname "Schmuckster" in response to his tattling on
him. Underdog explained to everyone who inquired that he
would have been perfectly happy to stop smoking pot if
John had asked. Although many of the guys he talked to
did not do drugs themselves, they nonetheless sympathized
with Underdog, for John had violated an ancient schoolboy
code by tattling. John recounted for the board how he
walked in on Underdog, embellishing his story with
out-and-out lies, like how the room was so thick with
marijuana smoke he left coughing and choking. Absent was
Underdog's partner in crime, Reid, who honorably refused
to speak at the hearing.
   Earlier in the week, during one of those rare moments
when he had the ombudsman's attention, he asked her why
Reid was not facing the disciplinary board. She answered
by saying that it was "a situation analogous to drunk
driving." Only the drunk driver is held responsible, not
his passengers, she explained; the offense in question
occurred in Underdog's room, so Reid would not be held
accountable.
   Since he was caught red-handed, Underdog's only defense
was that he did not know that smoking marijuana resulted
in getting kicked out of the dorm. Professor Morality
responded by saying that "in all judicial systems,
ignorance is not an excuse in breaking the law," adding
that the towel under the door which tripped up John
Schmutzer when he entered the room was evidence that
Underdog knew he was committing an illegal act. After
deliberating for only four minutes, the board ruled that
Underdog had twenty-four hours to vacate his room, and
the college would refund his room and board money less
one week's stay.
   There was more bad news for Underdog, however. The
constipated Director of Housing announced that he would
also be expelled from the college. He admitted that he
had no jurisdiction over off-campus housing, saying, "If
students who live off-campus want to smoke dope and zone
out on MTV, that's their business." But then he brought
to everyone's attention the in loco parentis rule that required all
freshman-level students who were registered at Jasper College to live on campus.
Underdog could probably get away with attending class for another few weeks, but
the Registrar's Office would eventually catch up with him. He advised Underdog to
withdraw from school right then, so the college would refund more of his tuition than
if he waited to be dropped from their records. Thus, a few hits of marijuana
effectively ended Underdog's college career before it started.
   Until the final decision was made, Underdog did not inform his parents of the
goings-on. But once the hearing before the board was over, he returned to the dorm
to place the phone call. Ever since being turned in by Schmuckster, he spent a
minimal amount of time in the room. Reid and his roommate were nice enough to let
Underdog drag a mattress into the center of their room and sleep on the floor, and
he spent most of his time outside of class in their room, fretting over his troubles and
drinking beer in an effort to dilute them. He was sure that they wouldn't mind if he
called long distance from their phone, but he decided to call from Schmuckster's
phone and stick him with the cost. Upon Schmuckster's leaving for his Friday three
o'clock class, Underdog entered the room to get on with the dirty deed.
   As could be understood, his parents were shocked that in a matter of a week their
son was kicked out of both dorm and school; they were doubly shocked as to why,
because, with the help of breath mints and eye drops, Underdog had succeeded in
hiding his smoking habit from them for three years. They had never caught him
smoking marijuana, they probably didn't even know what it smelled like. So when he
proposed moving home and attending Peru Community College, his father refused.
"You had your chance, young man, and you muffed it. I'll be goddamned if I have a
drug addict living under my roof," he said. Moreover, he refused to have any further
dealings with his son, telling Underdog before hanging up the phone that he was on
his own and not to bother calling home again.
   Feeling sorry as a misbehaving dog abandoned miles from home, Underdog began
to pack up his things. While fumbling with his cassette player and box, the phone
rang. He decided to answer, hoping it was his father calling back after he had a
half-hour to cool off. Instead, his mother was on the line. Her voice breaking, she told
him that she and his father had talked it over and decided to let him keep the
refunded tuition and room and board money to tide him over until he found a job.
She would have loved for him to return home, she explained, but she couldn't go
against his father's wishes. Then she hung up in a hurry, leaving Underdog only to
imagine how tear-soaked the pot holders in her kitchen must be.