found drama

He’s running around the house, checking everything, making quiet announcements about whether things are safe, and what should be hidden. There really isn’t anything that needs to be hidden. There’s imminent danger, he tells you, tells all of you. Get the others. Is everyone home? Good. Go get them. Everyone gathers in the living room. He keeps stepping over to the patio door and glancing out and up. Across the greens is a six story building. Everyone knows it houses people that don’t belong here. (“Here” being “on campus”.) The ones living across the green are much too old; it’s like a filing cabinet for embittered divorcees. (None of them attend classes here; none of them teach classes here; none of them work on campus.) What’s the danger? one of you asks. He seems agitated, like you all should know. He doesn’t come out and say it but he implies that it’s drugs, that someone sold out the house to the residents across the green–sold us out over an unlit joint and half an ounce. (“Not even anything serious.”) But (one of you protests) nothing like that has gone on here all year. (“Maybe last year…”) But he doesn’t calm down, and before anyone realizes it, a short, pudgy, balding man marches across the green and stands there in the doorway. He leaves the patio door wide open. You all have twenty-four hours to get out. His tone is angry, but there is a quaver that betrays… something. Is he bluffing us? Over what? you ask. On what grounds? He goes on: Campus administration made the call this morning. Everyone out. He isn’t more specific. You try to call him on this bluff. What’s the charge? He levels a finger at you. Cheating. (As in: “It was you, and you were caught cheating.”) But his backing explanation is flimsy. I’m accused of cheating over some technique I used on an exam. Not technically cheating. It’s bullshit, and everyone in the room knows it. But he won’t back down.

About Rob Friesel