February 2004

During the first two years of college, there was so much uncertainty. How long it would take for me to get arrested again and kicked out of school for good? How long it would take my naivete to get me sucked into a silly little pyramid scheme? In this case, obviously not very long. What stupid bullshit major I would end up studying? Would I ever discover that free Booze is god and no one gives a shit how much you study, because your life after college is most likely gonna suck? In this case, I was already almost 2 years too late. The only thing that was ever certain during these tumultuous years was that there was always a party to look forward to Saturday night at the Sigma Chi house on Ashford Street.

During my first two years of college, this was always the go-to house for a crazy freshman party where over half the people there would know me, mostly for some random drunken reason, there was always enough ghetto keg swill to go around several times until the cops broke it up. IF they broke it up, and stupid hip-hop music reigned supreme, much to my liking (I was still in the tail end of "The Rap Years").

These parties would pack with freshmen cum dumpsters, jocks, and frat boys and give me all the college fun I needed. Until one night when it all went horribly wrong. I was with the crew from my sophomore year floor: Sportskid, CollegeSuperHero, Nelly & J-Lew, and things were going swimmingly. Until I got a little chilly, and I decided I needed my jacket, which I had left down in the basement. This basement was absolutely packed, so much that you couldn't move without brushing against someone. And leaning right up against my jacket were three unbelievably homophobic guidos.

Yes, they fit the stereotype exactly. Meticulously tousled hair, thick Italian accents, and in the case of two of them, enormous, bulging muscles. In other words, the kind of kids you would not want to meet at a back alley in Jersey. To get to my jacket, I would have to make a very ackward grab for it, reaching between the leader and one of his big-muscled henchmen. I never was the one to think at all before I act, so I just went right in, got the jacket, and got the hell away. Or so I thought, until I felt a sharp tap in the back. It was the leader of the guidos, and he had a couple kind words for me:

"Excuse me, you oughta watch where you're pushin' your arms there, because my two paisans, they have a little problem with what you just did. So if I were you, I would kindly get the hell away from here before you cause any more problems".

I just walked away and gave them all a mean look. "Whatever. What the hell was up those guys' asses?" I got another beer from the keg, walked back upstairs to my friends, and just chilled for another while, forgetting about the incident completely. Then we left.

As we started the walk back to our dorm, I heard an awful lot of commotion behind us. Some guy was screaming at a kid, at the top of his lungs. I dismissed it as typical macho posturing. A brawl, about to break out in front of a frat house? Who would have ever thought?

But the screams kept getting louder and louder, until they were practically right behind my ear. CollegeSuperHero probably said at best: "Um, dude, I think they're yelling at you." I turn around, and sure enough, it's the same three guido guys from earlier, and they are very obviously screaming at me."YOU FUCKING FAGGOT. FUCK YOU, FUCKING HOMO. I"LL KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS"

Holy shit. These guys were so homophobic that they interpreted me reaching between them to get my jacket as a "gay gesture". And it's obvious that the guys on my floor would not be able to compete with these meatheads, and a couple might actually take enjoyment in seeing this beatdown, such as Nelly. Shit, it was me against the world, I figured. "I gotta run."

I ran track in high school, and although it seemed like a meaningless hobby at the time, it has saved my ass countless times, and now it was a necessity to run my best 400-meter sprint. Our dorm complex was in clear sight, directly down the street from the frat house. The setting couldn't have been better scripted.

Without any words to any of my crew, I just screamed "Oh, shit" and took off. I sprinted hard as I could for about 20 yards, looked back, and saw all three guidos running after me full sprint, their beatdown positions assumed.

About 20 yards later, I looked back. They were gaining ground on me. "Holy shit I am in trouble." I turned up the juice in my legs to the fastest they would possibly go. I did not have much more left.

20 yards later, I looked back. They were right behind me, literally a stone's throw away. Their fists could smell blood. I began to brace my body. "Holy shit, this is not gonna end well."

In the next 20 yards, my steps slowed. I could not make it. I anticipated the incoming thud to the pavement and pounding blows all across my body. For once, all my track experience and nice-guy excuses were gonna fail me.

But amazingly, that thud never came. I was panting, so out of breath, yet I kept on running, slower and slower. And still, the hard hit never came. I wondered why these guys were such pansies. They had been yelling at me so vehemently. Then, as I finally neared the parking lot of my dorm, I had the balls to turn around, half expecting all three of them to be right there, ready to pounce and yell "PSYCH!". But there was no one in sight. Not a soul.

Still convinced they were hiding somewhere, I turned out every single ounce of energy I had for the rest of the distance, until I practically collapsed inside the doors to my dorm. Sweating and panting heavily, I slammed my dorm door as I entered, and locked it. My roommate "Timbo", who was in the middle of sweet talk with his girlfriend, was scared half to death."They're coming to get me, help there's three guys chasing after me. They might be here", I practically screamed. It took Timbo about 20 minutes of slamming water down my throat and to calm me down. After about half an hour, the entire floor crew came back, also stunned in disbelief. I calmly filled in the blanks of the story to them, but they were not satisfied. J-Lew especially was puzzled: "OK, so they were chasing you down, and then they just quit? WHY did the guidos stop running?" I couldn't think of a substantial answer. Several months later, I would learn the truth.

In college, I usually liked to keep the fact that I was not normal on the hush hush and the down low. I didn't really think about it, but the kids on this floor were smart. From the day we all moved in, they noticed the obvious, that the volume of my voice was always way too loud for the social situation, an uncommon characteristic. And you know, being around a bunch of intellectuals, some of the kids started talking, you know, and slowly but surely, kids figured things out.

So back to the story. A few months later, out of the blue a floormate of mine, called "Bloomberg" came into my room and confessed. "You fucking owe me big time, man." I had barely ever spoke to this kid at all the entire year and had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I didn't even like the kid. Bloomberg was a raging drunk who loved to wrestle anyone who entered his path, and destroy the people who naysayed his popped collar and beloved Cali-cool sports teams. I had no idea what this asshole could possibly want from me. Then, he just came out and said it."I was the one who stopped the guidos from running".

It turns out that Bloomberg had witnessed the whole thing. The callout, the initial dash, everything. He was coming back from a different party with his buddies when he saw me zooming past, followed by the three large guidos. He had stopped them to ask kindly why they were chasing me. They responded, of course, that I was a fag and they were about to beat my ass. He started laughing. Then they got all in his grill about why he was stopping them. What he said: "Oh no. You don't wanna chase after him. That kid's like, autistic or something."

I do happen to possess is a very, very mild, barely noticible syndrome on the autism scale, so as much as I hate to say it, lucky guess Bloomberg! And why exactly did the guidos stop running? It's still beyond me to think that such homophobic, brawl-sniffing guidos can have the slightest drop of compassion. I never saw them again, so I guess we'll never know.

And yes Bloomberg, I still fucking owe you.