A Life On College Hill Read online

  To my surprise, she sat down on a bus stop bench and motioned for me to sit next to her.

  “What year are you in?” she asked.

  “I’m a junior,” I replied.

  “So am I,” she said. “You don’t look familiar. Why haven’t I seen you around campus?”

  I told her I had just transferred to Central Valley after two years at a community college.

  “Why were you sitting out on the porch steps?” she asked.

  Without hesitation, I replied, “Because your boyfriend is a jackass!”

  Feeling emboldened, I asked why she was leaving in such a hurry.

  “For the same reason,” she answered.

  I was rather proud of myself for even carrying on a conversation with Meghan. In high school, a conversation with a girl like her would have been difficult. I was always nervous speaking to a good-looking girl, or any girl for that matter. The fear of saying something stupid often made me say something stupid.

  By the time I entered college, that fear was gone. A revelation relieved me of all my nervousness around good-looking girls. I realized it was a mistake to believe one of them would ever want to go out with me. Realizing that I had no shot alleviated all my fears. I knew I could say anything to a girl; whether it was stupid or brilliant didn’t alter my chances.

  We started walking again and soon reached her sorority house. I said, “Here you are, safe and sound.”

  She glared at me and said, “I thought I was walking you home.”

  As if I made an honest mistake, I said, “Oh, then we walked the wrong way. I live on the other side of town.”

  I stepped up onto her porch, motioned to the door, and asked, “Can I get this for you?”

  Her face lit up as she smiled. “You’re a nice guy, Randy Duffy. You’ll probably be in a coma by morning, but you’re a really nice guy. Take care of yourself.”

  Bottom of the First Inning

  The walk to my apartment was over a mile, and the adrenaline was wearing off. It felt as though a bell were ringing in my head with each step. Each time the bell rang, the pain intensified. It was breezy, and my eyes were starting to tear up, making things blurry.

  Central Valley was quiet that night. The only sounds came from inside Will’s Bar, as I passed. Block after block of brick buildings, storefronts, and alleyways, there wasn’t another soul to be seen on Main Street. I was feeling dizzier with each step and began to think Meghan might be right about that coma. I needed to rest and sat down on the curb. The bell in the town hall clock—or maybe it was the bell in my head—chimed nine times. I was fairly certain it was nine.

  Meeting Meghan had been one of the highlights of my life. When she smiled at me that night, it was like gazing into the face of an angel. Knowing that I had earned that smile made the whole night seem worthwhile. I was astonished that she seemed genuinely concerned about my injuries. It was as if she didn’t realize girls like her don’t have to be nice to guys like me.

  It made it all the worse that I lied to her twice that night. First about where I lived. Second about why I was on my own.

  My brother had managed to get his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Vicky, pregnant. Her dad was not happy with our Ricky and wanted him locked up. He would have lost much more than a scholarship. My parents had to hire a lawyer to keep Ricky out of jail and negotiate a very generous support agreement to care for my new nephew. Ricky kept his scholarship at one of the most prestigious colleges in Philadelphia, but my parents had nothing left for me.

  Mom took the whole thing hard. She didn’t eat or sleep for days and ended up in a hospital. Not the medical kind of hospital. Spending time in a straightjacket turned her into a different person. She told me she didn’t have the strength to go through something like that again.

  Community college became my most affordable option. I lived at home, kept my job at the diner, and tried to help my parents with some of the bills. The plan was to finish my last two years commuting to a city school. Fate had other plans for me. Vicky’s dad made her life miserable after she had the baby. As soon as she turned eighteen, she moved into our house. Two more mouths to feed was the last thing my parents needed.

  I love my little nephew. He looks just like his dad, which means he looks just like his Uncle Randy. Vicky is, well, she’s Vicky. I wished Ricky and Vicky and Ricky Jr. well, but my parents’ house just wasn’t big enough for all of us. My advisor at the community college had some connections at Central Valley and helped with my admission.

  My eyesight had suddenly become very blurry, and I couldn’t understand why I was so nauseous. I didn’t even finish one beer at the Sigma house. I thought maybe it was something I had for dinner, until I remembered I didn’t have dinner. To make matters worse, I was coming down with a cold. My nose was running relentlessly, and I was coughing like I had tuberculosis. I was exhausted and just needed to curl up and close my eyes.

  I was confused when the bell in the clock tower started to chime. I’d only been sitting there a few minutes, it shouldn’t have been ringing so soon. My eyes were so blurry it took some time to focus on the hands of my watch. There was no way I could have been sitting there for an hour! Suddenly, there was a light in my eyes.

  “Are you alright?” the voice behind the light asked. It was one of Central Valley’s finest.

  “Never better, Officer, thanks for asking,” I replied.

  “Were you drinking this evening, Mr. Duffy?” the officer asked.

  I should have just said no but for some reason told him, “I wish I had been, I probably would have had a better time.”

  “Were you in an altercation?”

  “No, sir, I’m not very good in a fight.”

  He asked why my face was bleeding and I said, “I’m not bleeding, Officer, I just have a runny nose.” He turned away as I coughed toward his face.

  “Sorry about that, sir. This cold came out of nowhere.”

  Shining his flashlight at a puddle on the sidewalk and then back at my face, he said, “You don’t have a cold, Mr. Duffy. You’re bleeding and coughing up blood.”

  Touching a finger to my face, I could feel the bandages had come loose. “Oh, I guess I am bleeding. It’s from the door,” I replied matter-of-factly.

  “Did someone hit you with a door?”

  “Yes, sir, the cheerleader hit me.”

  With a chuckle, he asked, “Why did the cheerleader hit you with a door, Mr. Duffy?”

  Not really remembering the circumstances, I said, “I think she was mad at her boyfriend.”

  Smiling, he asked, “Do you know which cheerleader hit you?”

  “Yes, Officer, I do.” I smiled as a vision of Meghan, on the sidelines, flashed through my mind.

  He asked, “Mr. Duffy, can you tell me who bandaged your face?”

  “How do you know my name, Officer?”

  “From the driver’s license I took out of your wallet ten minutes ago.”

  He must be a pickpocket, I thought.

  “Who bandaged your face for you?” he repeated.

  “Chet!”

  “Chet who?” he testily replied.

  “The best chili in the valley Chet,” I answered. “I know what makes the chili so good.”

  The questions kept coming, and he wouldn’t let me close my eyes. God, what I would have given for a ten-minute nap.

  I was shocked when he said, “Hang in there, Mr. Duffy, an ambulance is on the way.”

  “Officer, I don’t need an ambulance. I just need to get home and get some sleep.”

  The wail of a siren echoed up and down the deserted Main Street. The siren really wasn’t necessary, as there wasn’t another vehicle on the road. The red flashing lights, however, drew people like moths to the flame. The street that was deserted a few minutes earlier now teemed with people. It was difficult to focus, but I re
cognized a few as students.

  I managed to distinguish a few voices from the murmuring crowd. A girl said, “He’s in my accounting class.”

  From somewhere in the crowd, I heard, “It’s that busboy.”

  I protested when the paramedics started working on my face, “Officer, I’m not going to the hospital!”

  “Mr. Duffy, I’ll need the name of your next of kin,” he sternly replied.

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Someone will have to claim your body from the morgue. Just give me your mom’s phone number so I can call her, in the morning.”

  The thought of my mom getting that call was distressing. She couldn’t deal with that kind of phone call. “Please don’t call my mother! That would kill her,” I begged him.

  “Then get in the ambulance, Mr. Duffy!”

  It was five-thirty in the morning when I signed myself out of the hospital, against medical advice. They finished working on me hours before. The treatment plan switched to making me miserable. I was under observation, and a nurse was assigned to screech at me every time I closed my eyes. She was very good at her job and seemed to enjoy her work.

  After a sleepless night, I had to get to work so I could pay the hospital bill. They must have burned out a calculator adding up all the charges. It was a fifteen-minute walk from the hospital to Chet’s. The bell in my head rang with each step.

  Chet normally showed up about six, so I had a few minutes to kill. I pulled some cardboard out of the dumpster and sat down on it outside the rear door. Curled up in a ball, I tried to keep warm while I thought about all the money my Saturday night had cost me. Twenty-nine dollars for a jacket I owned less than an hour. The hospital bill was sure to be fifty times the cost of the jacket. My car was never getting new tires.

  Chet’s voice brought me back to reality. “Those look like real stitches. Wasn’t my tape job good enough?”

  “The Central Valley Police didn’t think so,” I replied.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not really sure. I walked that girl home, and then some cop started asking me twenty questions.”

  With concern in his voice, he asked, “Don’t you remember that girl’s name?”

  “I wish I could. Do you?”

  “You called her Meghan.”

  “Meghan, yeah … sure . . . Meghan.”

  “Who was the policeman?”.

  “I didn’t catch his name.”

  “What did he ask you?”

  “I don’t remember, Chet. It was just a bunch of questions.”

  Annoyed, Chet asked, “What did you tell him?”

  “Chet, I don’t remember what he asked. How can I remember what I answered?”

  Still annoyed, he went on, “What did they tell you at the hospital?”

  “Chet, you’re as bad as the cop. They told me I needed stitches,” I sarcastically replied.

  “Did they say anything about a concussion?”

  With disgust in my voice, I answered, “Yeah, they did mention something about a concussion.”

  “Did they tell you your nose is broken?”

  I nodded my head and said, “At least I got to see something on all those X-rays they took.”

  “Randy, you know you don’t have to be here until seven. In fact, if you have a concussion, you can take the day off.”

  “Chet, I’ve worked through worse hangovers,” I argued.

  He was up for the argument. “Have you looked in a mirror? Forget about how bad your face looks, you’re still wearing the same bloody clothes from last night. You’ll scare all my customers away. Why don’t you go home?”

  “The doctor told me not to go to sleep. If I go home, I’m going to fall asleep. Besides, there’s no one else here to do my job.”

  Tired of arguing, Chet allowed, “If you can get yourself home, and cleaned up, you can work.” He started for the door and said, “I have to get things going inside.”

  He probably didn’t think I’d get home and back to work. Little did he know how money can motivate a college student in debt. One look in my mirror told me why I’d scare the customers. Through a very black eye I stared at a swollen face held together by railroad track stitching.

  The scars I would be left with were bad enough. It may have been the blurry vision, but my nose definitely looked a few degrees off kilter. I thought I had problems getting a date before. No girl was ever going to go out with me now. One smile from a pretty girl was not worth a lifetime of looking at this in the mirror.

  The door must have scrambled my brain. If I had any idea how badly I was hurt, I would have gone straight to the emergency room. Trying to avoid the hospital wasn’t the worst decision I made that fateful night. Leaving the Sigma house, I had my choice of six steps to sit on and drink my beer. If I sat one step higher, the door would have hit my shoulder. One step lower and it would have missed me completely. Fate had been incredibly cruel to me once more.

  Moving any facial muscle brought searing pain. That wouldn’t be a problem, though, because I wasn’t planning on smiling again, ever. I tried drinking some juice, but it wouldn’t stay down. Throwing up with a face full of stitches was not a pleasant experience. After cleaning myself up, several times, I made my way back to work and clocked in a few minutes before my regular starting time.

  Nauseous or not, the first cup out of the coffee urn was going to be mine. I didn’t care if I threw it all back up, some of the caffeine would make it into my bloodstream. I watched for the ready light to come on and lunged at it, mug in hand.

  The first sip tasted like the nectar of the gods, and I followed it up with a couple of quick gulps. The life-restoring energy surged through my veins, but my stomach became very angry. Throwing up in the bathroom was not a good idea. Customers would soon be in for breakfast, and I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s appetite. The dumpster, out back, was a better option. Turning quickly toward the kitchen, I was startled to find myself staring at a police badge.

  “Mr. Duffy, you work here at Chet’s. Now your story makes a little more sense.”

  That voice sounded very familiar.

  On seeing the officer, Chet asked, “Is this who sent you to the hospital?”

  “I believe it might be,” I replied.

  “Well, Randy, I’d like you to meet Sergeant William Kelly, my brother–in-law.”

  In a serious tone, Sergeant Kelly said, “Chet, we have an APB out on a Central Valley cheerleader. Don’t approach her if you see her. She’s prone to violence when mad at her boyfriend.”

  Chet looked over at me and laughed, “Thanks, Bill, I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Then Officer Kelly said, “Chet, we need to talk about this secret ingredient in your chili.”

  “Oh, shit, I have to get to that dumpster,” I said aloud.

  I found some trash to take out and then hurled what little coffee I had in my stomach. I left the door open and could hear Chet talking to his brother-in-law. He told Chet he found me, unconscious, on the sidewalk. He thought I was road kill until he saw the bandages on my face. After trying to rouse me for several minutes, he said I just sat up and looked at my watch.

  I walked back into the kitchen and could hear Sergeant Kelly laughing about the things I said to him. Some of it sounded familiar, but I had no recollection of most of the conversation. I especially didn’t remember telling him Chet put fingers in the chili.

  Walking back into the restaurant I heard, “… with a stupid grin he says, yes, Officer, I do, it was the pretty cheerleader.”

  When he was finished laughing, Chet replied, “Yeah, Bill, but if you saw her, you’d understand.”

  Eric and his boys came in for their usual Sunday breakfast. They loved making as big a mess as possible and leaving pennies for a tip. There was a donation jar on the counter where I always threw their change, af
ter clearing their table. They were loud and obnoxious, as usual. I tried to keep a low profile until Eric caught sight of my face.

  He laughed and said, “Hey, buddy, your face must hurt because it’s killing me just to look at you.”

  I was too tired and beat up to take on the challenge until one of Eric’s pals recognized me from the party.

  “Hey, Eric, he’s the guy Meghan decked last night,” he said.

  Another one said, “Yeah, he was laying on the ground, bleeding, and Meghan was standing over top of him. She was just warming up on him, Eric, you’re next.”

  Eric took a good look at me and laughed. “I remember him, he’s the delivery boy. Can you believe he let a girl do that to his face? How pathetic? What’s he even doing in this school?”

  The little pride I possessed would not let me keep quiet. I answered, “Oh, hell, I came to the Valley for a career in dishwashing. Chet only hires college kids, so I had to enroll. You know, it wasn’t that difficult. I guess they let anybody go to this college.”

  Eric’s friends all laughed, and one of them said, “He’s right, Eric, they let you in.”

  “That’s different, I play football,” he angrily replied.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but Eric had to repeat a grade in elementary school. His college grades were as dismal as his college quarterback performance. Apparently, I had hit a nerve. It was something of a moral victory. I withdrew to the kitchen and let Eric’s friends continue to make fun of him.

  I was only supposed to work until two, but my relief called out sick. Chet needed the help, and I wasn’t going to feel any better sitting in my apartment. A couple hours of overtime would come in handy given my current fiscal deficit. I just wished that damn bell would stop ringing.

  It was late afternoon when I realized Meghan was in the restaurant. I had been working in the kitchen and heard her voice as she talked to Chet. My memory was still fuzzy, and I was struggling to remember her last name.