Ch 3 Physics Can Be Fun

The night would have been calm without the wind and walking back from the library at 1l: 00, Taylor thought of only one thing: sleeping. Walking alone, stumbling in the dark, auto drive, auto pilot from a sideways map. It all seemed slightly familiar but the words make no sense. Floating through the night. She went to cross the street as a car raced up to the cross walk. Its tires screeched as she unswervingly continued in a sober daze from Physics. It always managed to leave her mind numb and the world opaque. She prepared to flick the driver off after he cursed at her but instead a smiling boy’s face poked out of the passenger side window. “Hey can you give us some directions?” she stopped and slowly turned her head back. He had teeth so white that any moment you expected a spark to twinkle in the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah sure.” She glanced quickly at the car. It was a BMW 332ci and she saw that not only did it have a 2.5-liter dual overhead cam with a 24-valve inline 6-cylinder engine, the owner had gone with the optional sport package and gotten the 17 by 8.0 steer spoke alloy wheels with 225/45R-17 91W performance tires. No wonder he stopped so quickly.

“Can you show me how to get into your pants?”

The textbook for her Electromagnetism and Oscillatory Motion class had 700 pages. And as she hurled it at his Xenon low-beam headlights with auto leveling, Taylor studied the trajectory parabola of the book and calculated that the force she exerted would even do damage to his halogen free fog lights. Smiling she thought ‘Physics can be fun.’

Ch 7 The Break Up

“I just can’t believe that noise down there! How do they sleep with it on? If it’s playing loud tonight I swear I’m going to complain. You know that girl in the elevator earlier? Jamie talks to her sometimes. She lives down there. I wonder how they let her do that.” Kelly said as she looked down through her window at the room below her.

“Mhmmm,” said Jen, not really listening to her roommate as her manicured hands flipped through a Vogue.

Claire threw open their door. “You got to get out here and see this!” she said, her curlers coming undone. As she jogged back down the hall, they started to unfurl. By the time they had trotted after her to the lounge, Claire’s hair had come completely undone and baby blue circles littered the hallway as the shouts grew louder. They walked out to find Joe, belligerently inebriated and breaking up with Amanda.

“You know, you know what I’m talking about? The shit you do with your shoes and your parties and your backstabbing bullisht. Buuuuuuullshit. Buuuuuuuuullshit. Oh! And let’s not forget that guy that you fucked in Reno!” He stumbled and fell over himself repeatedly.

“Joe, sweetie you aren’t making any sense!” Amanda said sobbing, “I’ve never been to Reno. And where are your shoes?”

“OH you’ve never been to Reno! Well darling, Reno isn’t a place, it’s a state. But not like the United… or the mind! Yeah and then what about Paul, huh? Paulie! Does he want a cracker? I can’t believe you got so fucking upset about that shirt of yours that I didn’t like and then your mother went off and had sex with that prostitute.”

“What did you say?”

“That shirt that I didn’t like.”

“No, after that.”

Joe paused to recap what had happened. “Ok,” he began, swaying gently with his eyes lids fluttering up and down. “I said ‘that shirt that I didn’t like.’ And then you said ‘No, after that’ and then I said ‘I said ‘that shirt that I didn’t like’’.”

“No, after ‘that shirt that I didn’t like’.”

“I said ‘I said ‘that shirt that I didn’t like.’’ And then you said ‘No after ‘that shirt that I didn’t like.’ And then I said ‘I said ‘I said ‘that shirt that I didn’t like...’”

“No, after the first time you said it.”

“I SAID YOU’RE MOTHER’S A WHORE!”

“Ok this is just making my brain hurt.” Amanda said. “Joe, lets go in my room and talk about this…” She said looking around at the crowd that had begun to gather to watch the newest reality show. Everyone was there. Everyone was watching this happen to her and then it just got worse. She saw the stairwell door open and a pair of RA’s making their rounds entered at the other end of the lounge. Amanda turned back to Joe and began to whisper, “Joe, let’s go.”

“You can just suck my dick or did you get enough of that in RENO!” To everyone’s horror, he stubbed past her and towards the stairs only to run straight into the RA.

“Have you been drinking?” The RA said, tired of his rounds already.

“No but she has!” Joe said as he pointed back at Amanda. Her whole face was red and wet from crying. ‘The whole floor has seen this!’ she thought to herself. After seeing that his path was blocked, Joe turned on his heel and started heading the other direction. The Resident Assistant reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

“Why don’t you come with me, dude.” He pulled Joe to face him.

“YOU’RE NOT MY FATHER!” Joe shouted and then proceeded to vomit all over the RA.

Ch 16 Gauntlette

The elevator opened its double doors and Taylor stood facing four young men. She had heard them as she rode up the lift. There voices had echoed in the shaft. Although she felt stupid for it later, she checked to make sure her shirt was straight before the buzzer signified that she had reached her level. She would later reminisce that the last level these boys had reached was in fourth grade for reading. Their gregarious bellowing laughs paused slightly when they were faced with her. ” They towered over her. She stepped through them saying “hello gentlemen” and noticing Paul on her left with John. They must have been on Paul's intramural basketball team stepping out side to use the night court adjacent to the dorm. There was a mumble of greetings as Taylor proceeded around a small corner and down the hallway, now out of view.
“Hey,” she heard from behind her. “Is that ‘hunter green?’” It took a half a second before she realized he was talking about her jacket.
“No. It’s not,” she shouted back, as she looked down at the kelly green. “Hunter green is darker.” Taylor turned her key and then realized that she hadn’t locked her room. “God, you’re a guy.”
One of the boys responded with a staggered “huuh huuuh” laugh. “Do you like it dark?”
Taylor mimicked John's yokel guffaw loud enough that she knew they heard it and then shut her door.