University+ by Sadie House
The line seemed to stretch for miles. Watered-down shades of blue, gray, brown, green, and black hoodies and t-shirts, accompanied with whatever qualified as slightly above engaged in those empty stares. Excitement buzzed through the air like a biblical horde of gnats, tangible and unavoidable for the freshman of Fall 2004—their collegiate adventure started today.
It would probably go by quicker than this line. Rico didn’t care.
Currently, all he could do was entertain himself with fantasies of what a college lifestyle might bring.
“How many parties do you think I’ll make, just today? Hell, I won’t even sleep!” said Rico, holding the Nokia flip phone entirely too close to his lips.
“I… don’t know,” came the exhausted, ever-suffering voice of Pop. “Best to sort out your schedule before dipping into the booze and whatnot. That is why you’re there, mm?”
Rico rocked back and forth on his heels, sussing out how far away the rickety-looking plastic check-in desk was. He hadn’t even passed under the diluted rainbow archway yet, “A Streamline Education” engraved into the cobbled bricks.
“That’s right, Pop! Only a quality education for me, the complex history of how to get a—”
“That is not what I was referring to.” There was a long pause, and Rico was smart enough not to interrupt. He could imagine his father’s heavy breathing. “Have you met with financial aid yet?”
The BO processional finally got moving. Rico silently praised whatever deity happened to be listening—Jesus? Baby Jesus?—because the sweat was beginning to carve a new river down his back. The muggy Aberdeen air clung uncomfortably to his skin like a water strider to the lake, and cicadas beat a steady drum pulse from where they hid in the grass, making his eardrums throb.
“Already taken care of.” Rico neglected to mention the absolute steal his tuition was. Only $17.99 a month!
Rico spared a glance to the other side of the freshly cut knoll, still riding off of summer’s optimism, mystified to see a much shorter line of students awaiting IDs. Maybe only a dozen or so. And surprise, surprise, their eyes didn’t have that vacant quality. Rico wouldn’t be shocked if the orientation leaders were personally fanning them with palm leaves every few minutes.
“I’ll call you back, Pop,” Rico said, shutting the Nokia with an abrupt snap.
He darted over to join the lucky few, and only a minute had passed before arriving at the check-in table. After all of that, the only thing that awaited Rico was a cluster of neon papers and a bored faculty member fighting a silent battle with drowsiness. Talk about a letdown.
“Name?” she asked.
“Rico Rooney,” Rico stated proudly.
The woman was already feverishly writing something down on a notepad. “And your major?”
“Undecided, ma’am.”
“Go ahead and select your logo,” she said, pushing the neon papers toward Rico. He could see now that they included rows of cartoonish circles: a mucus-tinted goblin, a troubled unicorn, and a squeamish turtle.
“My logo?” Rico asked, confused.
“For your student ID,” the woman answered dully, peering up at him from behind her thin glasses. “It’s included in the Premium Package. I assume you’ve already made the 300K downpayment—which includes room and board.”
Thank God I commute. “Three hundred—three, what?” he sputtered. “I thought tuition was eighteen bucks a month!”
The woman huffed, pulling back the logo papers as if he’d committed a great sin in touching them. “That would be the Standard Package, with ads.” She pointed across the knoll. “In that line.”
Rico’s eyes widened, stuffing his hands into his sweatshirt pocket. Now that he’d gotten a taste of what it felt like to be king, it was agonizing to return to the lowly life of a peasant. Still, Rico retreated.
To the back of the line.
American History, Rongo Hall, 2:30 p.m. Rico arrived promptly at 2:32 p.m. for his first college class. The only seat available in the spiraling, altogether monochrome and dank lecture hall was in the front row next to a spindly blonde. The professor had not yet arrived.
Rico hadn’t brought a backpack, or even a water bottle, so he only had himself to deal with. Plopping down in a rotating chair, Rico kicked back and relaxed with his feet resting on the desk.
“Hubba Bubba?” said the girl next to him, the blonde. She held out a small circular container. Bright pink.
Rico turned to her, unbothered. “Sorry, what? I didn’t catch your name.”
“Gully,” she said. Her blue eyes were a little too wide, her speaking cadence too fast. “And it’s gum. Hubba Bubba. Six feet of fun, six feet of gum!”
“Oh, okay,” said Rico. He took the roll of gum, popped a clump into his mouth, and began to chew. “Coooool.”
A stout, flannel vest-clad man rushed in with a clutter of paperwork and folders slipping behind him. After a few awkward seconds of getting his materials together while the class watched in silence, the man straightened and introduced himself as Dr. Pusch.
“I ask that you excuse my lack of punctuality this afternoon. Of course, I realize we do not have much time.” Dr. Pusch pulled down the wrinkled projector screen that hung against the wall. “Right. The Boston Tea Party was paramount…”
Rico hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before because Mother Mary had been watching him. Those beady eyes, imploring. Her flowing blue robes like drowning ocean waves. The ceramic cross seemed to weigh heavy against the saint’s back. Could she hear his every move, would it anger her if Rico turned away? And why had Pop insisted on keeping the sculpture on his nightstand of all places? Sure, the heirloom reminded them both of Mamá after her passing, but, geez, at what cost? Rico’s constant paranoia and rapidly degrading sense of sanity?
Maybe Rico would move Mother Mary somewhere out of sight. The drawer, the closet, behind the curtains. No, that would be insensitive…
A mechanical whirr threw a wrench into the train tracks of Rico’s steam-powered thoughts. Dr. Pusch, oddly, had also stuttered to a stop, completely rooted in place. The projector screen abruptly blinked off of some nonsense about British colonial taxes, switching into a too-bright, picturesque scene of a family picnic on a cloudless day. Their smiles were comically wide, their porcelain plates too small. Their meal? Multiple giant lobsters.
An omniscient narrator spoke in a soothing baritone:
What ever happened to one normal day? Quiet moments with the kids? Her first preschool lunch. His first word. All of it forfeited in favor of a beeline to the bathroom? A sudden drop in the abdomen? You deserve to enjoy the little things—cheery music kicked in, and the visuals somehow brightened even more—Talk to your doctor about if Zuima is the right fit for your irritable bowel syndrome. Do not take this medication if allergic to listed ingredients. Do not take if currently pregnant or planning on being pregnant within the next several years. Side effects may include impaired judgment, nausea, fatigue, hallucinations, renewed mental problems, onset of compulsive behaviors, increase of blood sugar, decrease of blood sugar, explosive, severe, or watery diarrhea, unexplainable agitation, insomnia, temporary inability to move while falling asleep or waking up, a prolonged demonic presence while asleep, sudden blindness—a daughter and mother shared an emotional hug over their untouched lobster—memory loss, depression, suicidal thoughts, irregular heartbeat, inability to breathe, inability to swallow, swelling of the tongue, yellowing of the skin or eyes, melting of the skin, uncontrollable earwax, a ruptured spleen, severe abominable cramps that may be fatal, or death.
Once the pharmaceutical advertisement concluded, the projector screen immediately returned to Dr. Pusch’s lecture. The professor continued as if the sudden ad had been a minor blip.
Rico turned to Gully, slightly bewildered. “What was that just now?”
“Ads. They play every five-ish minutes.” Gully cracked open a can of Diet Coke. She’d seemingly pulled it from thin air. “Aren’t they great?”
Rico reclined farther back into his seat, never happier with his own choices. “Yep,” he said. “I can definitely get used to this.”
The singular window in Rico’s room was so old and crotchety he didn’t know why he’d bothered to open it in the first place. He could check it into a nursing home considering closing the thing was practically a 20-step self-help course. When Rico eventually did manage to shut it, he made sure to leave the bedroom with his Cup O’ Noodles in hand—still steaming, unlike the chilly October draft lurking outside the fogged glass.
Pop’s apartment was quiet now. The lights were hardly ever on, only dimly lit at best. Hanging Harvard certificates of anthropology and an emphasis in ancient weaponry, magnifying “Seamus Rooney” in bold, cast dancing shadow figures across the narrow hallway. It gave him the heebie-jeebies. But Rico never remembered being scared of it as a kid.
In fact, everything in Pop’s bachelor pad hung in a gloomy, slanted, slightly twisted contour. Lurking Sesame Street monsters playing the part of stacked crap. The man had never been a hoarder before Mamá left, and now each accumulated trinket and doodad was crammed artfully into the apartment’s nooks. Abacuses, genuine Edo katanas, long-fried Nintendo controllers, Pokémon cards, at least six atlatls, the whole nine yards.
Rico took a seat at their round dinner table, moving the stacks of frayed, mysteriously wet, months-old newspapers to set down his Cup O’ Noodles, slurping the chicken flavor to his heart’s content. Just as the silence became uncomfortable—Rico had begun to hear his self-inflicted tinnitus—Pop walked through the door.
Pop’s keys jingled as he hung them on the coat rack, along with his jacket. He took one look at Rico and sighed. There is just no pleasing this guy. “Just because you’re a college student now does not mean you have to eat like one,” he said. “There are leftover boneless teriyaki wings in the freezer.”
“I’m immersing myself in the experience,” Rico said, mid-noodle.
Pop pulled out a small bowl to heat wings for himself. “Yes, and speaking of the experience, I hope you are taking it seriously. Getting all of your work done and turned in on time, I expect.”
Well, Rico couldn’t lie straight to his father, so he expertly shoveled a large amount of noodles down the hatch to avoid suspicion, settling with a noncommittal classic, “Mmph.”
Pop stared at him, contemplative and a little sad. “I do not want to see you nosedive like in high school.”
Nosedive? Pleeeease. Rico had pretty much been on cloud nine in high school. Everyone loved him, and he loved their attention. Clearly, Pop saw it differently, because weekly keg parties were the furthest thing from a nosedive. They were as euphoric as an episode of Air Disasters with fatalities in the single digits.
“I’m being serious, Enrico,” Pop tried again. “If you do not pass this semester, I am going to need you to pack your things and find a new place to live.”
Rico shoved his Cup O’ Noodles to the side. “What? You’re kicking me out?”
“I am asking you to take initiative in your future.”
Rico’s head spun. This was completely illogical. Now he had to buy textbooks!
Turns out the university bookstore was a hole in the wall. Literally. Like a grayscale Hooters without the women. Or the books, for that matter. The most excitement the place had seen last was probably when the Neanderthals invented written expletives. Only a shabby paper hung against the mutilated desk: Relocated Online, Sorry For Incompetence Inconvenience.
Rico, for one, was flabbergasted. Textbooks on the web? Why go through all that trouble when he could read them physically—like actual books?
Back at the apartment, it meant he had to pull out the clunky Gateway 2000 that Pop loved so dearly. The thing nearly took up a quarter of the apartment space.
After some serious heavy lifting, Rico did manage to free the contraption from its dust-doomed prison. He found the university’s website, tracked down the textbook access tab, clicked it, and then—
Rico didn’t get very far.
“IT Department speaking,” came the monotone voice. It didn’t particularly sound male or female, just…like a computer. Strings of ones and zeroes.
“Yeah, I’m having trouble accessing my textbooks online. It says I haven’t, uh, unlocked them?”
“Premium or Standard Package?” it asked through the phone.
“Standard,” Rico said.
A too-long pause spanned too many seconds. “Are you interested in the Premium Package? It includes unlimited textbook access, with an ad-free viewing experience.”
Rico rolled his eyes. Let me guess, the textbooks are an additional 300K? “No, I just want to see my class-assigned books. Does it cost extra? How much?”
“Yes,” the voice answered after seriously pondering the question. “I can help with that. Textbook access is included in the Premium Package, ad-free.”
“No, I don’t want the Premium Package. Just the textbooks!” Rico seriously considered banging his head repeatedly against Pop’s piece of crap computer. He generally wasn’t easy to rile—cool-headed, for lack of a better term. But this…this unidentified entity was really grinding his gears, making his hair stand on end as if he’d just been systematically attacked by a rabid balloon animal. “I already pay for the Standard.”
“…I can sign you up for the Premium Package. Textbook access has never been more convenient—”
“Doesn’t feel convenient,” Rico muttered.
“—or easy to navigate. We strive to make the student experience painless, and ad-free.”
“Now you’re just toying with me.”
“I am switching you to the Premium Package. Rooney, comma, Enrico. Down payment: three hundred and fifty thousand. Your social security number is two-four-six, five—”
“God no!” Rico cried, slamming the Nokia shut and chucking it across the room.
As November wormed its way around the corner like an unwanted fart, the foreseeable future was beginning to look bleak for Rico Rooney. He had been involuntarily switched to the Premium Package and was now being burned alive by the hungry flames of student loan debt. Still no textbooks, either. Maybe this was what Mother Mary was trying to warn him about—standardized sabotage.
On top of that, Pop had already begun to pack his clothes and even his spare pillowcases. Increasingly subtle, his father. Pop wouldn’t even talk to him. Only shooting him the occasional I’m-not-mad-I’m-disappointed-and-want-better-for-you look.
By some miracle, be it holy, satanic, or just comically at his own expense, Rico had scored a meeting with the dean.
The dean’s office was surprisingly ornate in contrast to the Pink Floyd-esque campus landscape. Grand, glossy pillars framed the wide chestnut door. The waiting area was made up of velvet couches so soft that Rico wouldn’t mind sinking into them indefinitely. It might come to that, given how long he’d been waiting so far—the receptionist had informed Rico that it’d take the dean some time to get everything “booted up” before they could meet.
“Dean Impotence will see you now,” the receptionist said.
“Thanks.” Finally, I can get some real help around here. Rico pulled open the heavyset door to find a homely meeting space. Nothing but a narrow-ish desk lined with a few chairs around the edges and a small gray box bolted in the center.
Rico took a seat in the lone chair closest to the door, on the shorter side of the table. No dean yet. Rico twiddled his thumbs, then feverishly tapped a random concerto against the grain.
He sighed, checking his watch—except Rico didn’t own a watch. He was just trying to find a less awkward way to pass the time.
“I can speak first.” Rico jumped. The box at the table’s center had lit up with a green cubic smile. And now it was talking to him. Great.
“Are you Dean Impotence?” Rico asked, though judging by the sinking feeling in his stomach, he already knew the answer.
“Please, call me Al,” the dean spoke with a chipper tone. It inflected syllables at random.
“Okay… Al,” Rico said. “Look, my grades are slipping through my fingers faster than ABBA’s hit song, and I need some real help. My tuition plan has been switched against my will and I can’t, for the love of God, access my textbooks.”
“Understandable. I would like to visit Santa Monica,” Al responded. “Went out strolling with my wife, talking about it. Just this morning.”
“Did you, now.” Rico had clearly taken the crazy train about five stops past incredulous. “And are you at all capable of helping me with my textbook issues? Or even my tuition?”
“Pristine, trashy beach-es. Eclectic tourists and beaming boardwalks! I will go soon. Will you come with me?”
“I couldn’t afford it,” Rico said blankly.
The impuissant cube that housed Dean Impotence lit up in fireworks of geometric boogers across the dated screen as it laughed. At what exactly, Rico wasn’t sure. Probably at him. Al’s laugh was a discordant cacophony—a taunting, descending staccato arpeggio. “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.”
“Is…is it even possible for me to buy textbooks with the Standard Package, or is that barricaded along with an ad-free education, too?”
“I yearn to swim in the pure waters of the Pacific Ocean. Take a dip, dip, dip,” Al continued, somehow wistful. Al tripped over words so often that Rico wondered if the educational bohemian was buffering. Or if Rico’s suspicions about simply being another brick in the wall were proving to be true.
“Don’t we all,” Rico sighed. Heat was rising in his temples.
“My wife says a brief ja-unt would fry my circuits. To that I say—I will show you wha-a-at my circuits can do!”
Rico only ever raised his voice for one of two things. Number one, Olive Garden’s bottomless breadsticks, and number two, apparently, terrible deans.
“Sir, please,” he exclaimed, basically begging. “You’re as ridiculous as the system this school runs on! Just tell me, is there any way I can get textbooks? That’s all I’m asking, man. I really can’t be any clearer.”
Al’s expression turned inquisitive. Somehow. “Why not say so-o?” it chortled. “I will direct you to the IT department.”
If Rico had bothered to have a backpack, he would’ve let it drop to the floor with a resounding thunk. Regardless, he was already a foot out the door, almost taking flight in the storm of exasperation that now consumed him. Static clung to him—Rico felt as if there were lightning bolts at his fingertips, and it was making him twitchy.
Leaving campus, the world became brighter. Snow glittered from the squished rooftops of downtown and the crisp air hung comfortably, warm around the ears.
As Rico walked past the local community college, glancing at the buildings, he couldn’t recall feeling more elated. Pulling out his Nokia, Rico entered the sequence of numbers he knew like the back of his hand.
“Hey, Pop,” Rico said. “I’m moving out.”