Freshman Follies...

This story has been “in progress” for the better part of probably 8 years. I’ll dedicate the finished product to Mr. Galen Rockett, longtime Director of Judicial Affairs. He has since passed away, but I cannot express enough my respect and thankfulness to this man who was able to recognize the difference between a bad kid and simply a stupid one. RIP and thank you, sir.

I stood transfixed at the sight of her, leaning against the wall looking bored and quite appealing, complete with gun, billy-club and brown hair. You guessed it, hot cop. My sexy aura was working too, because she almost immediately looked my way. But not for very long, however. To my dismay after a somewhat languid up and down, her eyes traveled elsewhere. "Dude, would you hurry the hell up?" The voice of the person behind me brought me to several realizations. Not only was I a gawky freshman holding a lunch tray, I was also holding up the line, which naturally consisted of hungry football players that were all scowling at me.

As I walked in a purposely casual manner across the cafeteria, I studied her out of the corner of my eye. To my disappointment, she didn't look my way again. As I stared into the rising steam that separated me from the surly lunch ladies piling my tray with gelatinous goop, I resolved that I would get not only her attention, but her affections as well.

My RA at the time went out of his way to chat with the incoming freshmen, to make them feel welcome. So, on his next visit, I immediately announced my plans to him. I half expected to see the weary, why-the-hell-is-this-happening-on-my-floor look that so often accompanied our conversations, but to my surprise, he perked up. Not only did he know her name, but he knew a substantial amount about her. After a lengthy interrogation by yours truly, he took his leave, but stuck his head back in to inform me she was working the desk on the night shift this week.

Two minutes later I was parked in front of the campus police station, rifling through the campus parking tickets that blanketed my car floor. After gathering a couple handfuls, I thumbed through them looking for anything questionable. I finally settled on one of the more exotic parking zone/fire zone/handicap zone tickets that I had to triple park to get, and hurried inside.

"Can I help you?" she asked without looking up. I pushed the ticket through the Plexiglas that separated us, "I hope so", I replied, trying to sound suave and sultry. "How is this even possible?" I asked. I couldn't tell you her reply to this query, because shortly after posing the question, I became lost in her eyes. It was one of those moments you see in a film, where the female walks into the room and shakes out her hair and walks in slow motion towards the camera. After her very kissable lips stopped moving, and I became acutely aware of the silence I snapped out of it and made a poor job of trying to elicit casual conversation. Luckily she was bored and that made the ordeal less of an embarrassment. To my credit, I managed to fit in a comment of how slow it was and how bored she must be. After she acquiesced to this fact, I promised to stop in and relieve her boredom in any way possible. Bidding the vixen farewell, I bounced off to bed and spent a good portion of the night replaying our conversation in my head.

Over the next few days I stopped in frequently to chat. I did my best to be entertaining and flirty, generally just being an ass until I started feeling I was giving off the stalker vibe, since being my usual reticent self had gone out the window days before. Being acutely aware that she was more world-wise than I was, I would often attempt to fabricate stories that made me seem less of the dork I was. It was on one of these moments when I was walking out, after lying about going drink with some friends, she said something to the effect of "No fair I want to come". Seeing the opportunity to show a little dignity and self control by walking away, I bypassed it and walked back in for another chance to gaze into her eyes. Long story short, I suggested that after me and my "drinking friends" **editor's note: I did not drink at this time** finished our night on the town, we would do a pseudo-striptease in front of one of the many security cameras' she was monitoring. She immediately brightened at the suggestion, and said she would even tape it. "Call me when ya'll get back" she said and pushed a piece of paper through the Plexiglass that separated us. I assured her I would, then left.

She had given me her number. Cloud nine wasn't quite high enough to describe my elation. Being that excited, I was absolutely unfit to drive. But of course I did, and after half-dancing half-swerving back to my dorm, I set out to find some striptease helpers. They were not as forthcoming as I would have liked. As a matter of fact, no one seemed to think it was a good idea at all. As a last resort I entreated my RA for assistance, but to no avail. He gave me a half-incredulous half-pitying look before closing the door to his room. Well I wasn't quite up to the task of doing it alone, so I finally admitted defeat. Because she had been so excited about it, I felt it would be only appropriate to inform her in person; the fact I was addicted to looking at her had nothing to do with it. As expected she was disappointed and I went to bed feeling like I let her down.

Back at the dorm I was emptying my pockets for bed when the paper with her number caught my eye. After smelling the paper a couple of times I glanced at the dorm phone lying next to my bed. After a brief contemplation period, I did what seemed like a good idea at the time; I prank called the number. I don't remember exactly what I said, but at the end she was laughing and I, for the moment, was comforted. So much so that I decided to go on a bubble gum binge. For you uneducated, that consists of cramming as many pieces of gum in your mouth as you can. Great flavor and sugar rush, but it leaves you at a decided disadvantage for conversation. I didn't immediately miss this advantage when my RA stepped through my open door several moments later. I gave him a friendly wave and motioned at a chair. After the two police officers stepped in after him I used my highly advanced perceptive abilities to discern this wasn't a social oh-my-God-you-have-so-much-gum-in-your-mouth-thats-kinda-funny type visit. With my same abilities I also noted that both officers were out of breath and hella-pissed.

It seems that the elevators in my building had broken again, and the officers had just made the very long trek up the stairs. It also seems that the number I had received and subsequently called that night was the number of the Tech police station. Now having a ridiculously large mouthful of gum is an advantage when explanations are demanded of you, because it gives you time to think before you start talking. However, the looking like a sheepish blowfish probably hurts the inevitable answers credibility in a way that the added thinking time just can't justify. In any case, the cold fury in their eyes made the trip to the sink a tad awkward. There is no dignified way to spit a baseball-sized wad of gum out of your mouth, but I made the best of it and turned to face them.

As I recall thinking, I was in some deep shit for this, so there was no point in namedropping and associating her with this failboat heading for the icebergs. I do not remember what I ended up telling them, but she had no role whatsoever in it. That being the case, the resulting explanation of my actions was weak as hell. What I do remember about the explanation process was the look of "kill me now" on my sleepy RA's face as he stood behind the fuming cops and slowly beat his head into the frame of my door.

There are a few times in my life when I believe I have done something so noble, that I swim in my own magnanimousity for a good ten minutes, almost oblivious to my surroundings. This was fortunate, because one of the officers proceeded to give me the your-actions-have-consequences-now-that-you-are-away-from-home-you-little-shit speech which, if done right, is slated to last about that long. As he spoke, his clinched fists only opened to occasionally jab a trembling finger at me, presumably to accentuate his current point. His perfectly trimmed mustache, which was a deep brown, twitched like a caterpillar that accidentally wandered into an antpile. His ever silent partner was an older man with white hair and keen eyes that regarded me briefly from behind his small, round glasses. As I stared at the floor I could feel his eyes moving slowly over everything in my room.

Although aware of all of this, I was miles away with the woman whom I had so recently and gallantly refrained from implicating. "I can't believe you didn't tell them" she was exclaiming over and over while I modestly shrugged off her gratitude. Our subsequent slow dance in a windy field of grass didn't end until the melody of lecture and the rhythm of thumping head had stopped playing.

A week later as I sat nervously in a bitter cold office awaiting my judicial review, that same feeling of bravado could not have been farther away. My eyes were riveted to the top of the secretary’s head, which was the only part of her I could see over the partition that separated us. It was a strange pendulum of doom, swinging from side to side, the sounds of typing and rustling paper marking each apex. My mind raced as my name was called, and I was ushered into a room with a smiling older gentleman. "Mr. Wahl, how are you? Have a seat." he said warmly as he leaned across his desk to shake my hand.

I sat opposite from him and wiped my clammy hands down the sides of my pants in what I hoped was an unobtrusive manner. Time seemed to slow as he reached for my folder, and flipped it open. His warm smile from earlier gradually faded as his eyes traveled across the pages. He finally dropped the folder onto the desk and looked up. "Son, you want to enlighten me on just what you were thinking here?" His voice was stern as he leaned forward and gave me a quizzical look. I swallowed hard, looked up at him, and made a decision.

"Sir, have you ever been in love?" Somewhere Celine Dion was undoubtedly doing a /facepalm, but I had to pull out all the stops. If this man didn't have sympathy for my pathetic plight, I was a screwed. "Uhhh...what?!" He looked lost for a moment. "I mean have you ever done something stupid to get a woman's attention?" His eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to say something, but I rushed to continue. I explained everything. Where I first saw her, my previous attempts to try and impress her, my last ill fated attempt. His face remained in the same slightly open-mouthed, incredulous stare throughout my entire soliloquy.

When I was done we sat in silence for a long period of time while he surveyed me thoughtfully. At long last he cleared his throat, leaned back, and looked out of his window. "Son, there are..." His voice trailed off. After a moments pause he turned to face me. "I'm aware of the officer you're speaking of. And there are many good-looking women on our police force. In the future I suggest you limit your advances to their off-duty time."

"So how long will you be cleaning the parking lots?" My RA was sprawled out on the couch of our dorms cramped office flipping through channels on the small television in the corner. I heard chuckles from the other two as they scribbled work orders and filed mail into the personnel boxes that lined the wall behind the counter. "He let me go." They stopped mid-flip, mid-form, and mid-file respectively and stared at me open mouthed. "He what?!?!" The warm, odoriferous air of the dorm was gradually absorbing the chill of the frozen judicial dungeon, and as I began to thaw, my confidence and ego were slowly returning. "Yeah, I was all like, 'Do you know who I am?' and he was all like 'No' and I was all like 'I'm Dan Wahl' and he was all like 'Oh sorry Mr. Wahl, you can go now'".

After winking and extending a Fonzie-style finger at them, I sauntered from the room and hopped into the nearby elevator. The sounds of their dissatisfied inquisitiveness became muffled as the doors slowly dinged shut. As the elevator painfully pulled itself up to my floor, I began planning our inevitably blissful reunion. Being anywhere near the police station had really not been an option for the last week, and I was looking forward to tonight when she was patrolling the campus via police cruiser. Once back inside my room, I set the alarm clock for later that night and, after burrowing into the pile of unfolded, clean clothes that blanketed my bed, I slipped into the Downy-scented sleep of the freshly acquitted. I awoke before the alarm and quickly showered, shaved and donned my best white shirt. After blowing several kisses to myself in the full-length mirror I had duck-taped to the back of our dorm room door, I grabbed my keys and headed out.

After I had matched the soundtrack in my car with the one that was playing in my head, I pulled out of the dorm parking lot and onto the mostly empty streets. It was a warm night and the humid Ruston air wafting in through my open windows smelled faintly of burning leaves and paper mill. It took a bit of driving and several false alarms to finally spot the correct police cruiser, parked just off of a darkened Tech parking lot overlooking the road. After pulling up alongside her car, I stretched in the overly casual manner of the insecure, settled back into my seat and nodded at her silhouette. A puff of smoke came through her open window and regarded me dolefully before being dragged away by the slight breeze. "Haven't seen you around lately..." she said as she leaned slightly into the light. “Well, I have been trying to avoid your lovely co-workers after you sent them to my room..." She raised an eyebrow at me. After explaining my selfless acts of silence in the face of my angry interrogators, I leaned back expectantly with a modest smile.

"I wouldn't have gotten in trouble...” she said, laughing, "You’re the one who is in for it now." Not exactly the gratitude infused response I was looking for. But although slightly miffed I forced a smug wink. "Ahh, it’s not a big deal. The Judicial Affairs guy actually let me go". I was feigning bravado, but being laughed at had definitely thrown a fat kid into my candy factory. The birds, bees and butterflies that had formed the fluttering musical backdrop to my anticipated Disney-like thank you session had ceased flying about and hovered uncertainly. She squinted at me as the tip of her cigarette turned a bright red. "Must have been a hell of a story..." I nodded in agreement as I watched the smoke swirl between the cars. As it wafted into the night, my chances of wooing this woman with any action seemed to be following it. Her voice once again brought me back. "Because it’s not like him to just let people go...” Seeing an opportunity to change the subject I quickly did so. "You know him pretty well, then?" I asked. "I should" she said dismissively, “He’s my future father-in-law."