The R.A. (resident advisor) I had on my floor freshman year at college (6th floor, Haven Hall, also known as the toilet bowl) was a little thing, no more than five foot two, if that, and she had a Dorothy Hamill haircut, which didn’t really suit her, even though she had similar thick dark hair – but who was I to say anything? She was a Junior, and over twenty; I had just turned eighteen five weeks earlier, and was a hot mess. Still I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t have Hamill’s joie de vivre, grace, or athleticism; on her it was more of a helmet than a style, you know? Still, not my place to say anything, if I’d been able. This was the first time I’d been away from home for more than two weeks, and that was for Girl Scout camp over a decade before college, a camp where I was surrounded by other pre-teens from my region of the Catskills and further west, toward Binghamton. I wasn’t happy at camp, either, but there wasn’t any booze, drugs, or boys to further complicate my emotional weather at good ol’ Camp Skanatati. And camp was – camp. I always preferred the outdoors to being inside with my family, unless I could bury myself in a book, in winter, when there often weren’t any other choices.
I became a little sister at a frat that first semester, Phi Psi, mostly to get free booze and meet people, I think, and maybe I rushed that frat with a friend? I always think I did this, rushed Phi Psi with a friend, but if I did that friend is lost to memory. I suspect she might’ve been that other person I also was at the time, the avatar or hidden twin of myself, always watching what I did, standing aside, waiting for the other shoe to drop, or kick me in the face. That entire year passed in a blur, but I still remember them, the girls I knew but lost touch with after that first semester and difficult year: Marisa from New Jersey (boy-mad, bad skin, shaped like a pear), Kathy from Buffalo (hair like a frizzed out bird’s nest, deeply in love with Elvis, who died that fall). I also remember a thin, quiet girl who seemed palpably miserable even though we never spoke; she was a sophomore in an all-girls dorm mostly filled with freshman (you chose this?), across the hall from my cramped double. She had a single room with a view. We all noticed that she arrived back to the dorm after the holidays, on Sunday nights or early Monday mornings in a limo. She was a Carrier, as in the Carrier Corporation and soon-to-be Carrier Dome, which was built to replace Archbold Stadium. My class would be the first to use the Dome for our graduation in 1981; Al Haig spoke, and some of us stood and turned our backs. I stood and showed my back but then sat down to listen because that was the thing to do, I thought, be both defiant and polite enough to listen. I remember Michelle, too; she was my roommate and had a boyfriend named Joe Hotung whose family was rich-y-rich, like in the film Crazy Rich Asians. He was at Amherst? Dartmouth? Michelle was a lovely girl from Hong Kong where her dad had been a diplomat; she died in the early nineties of liver cancer. Michelle Champeau.
The resident advisor – whose name I don’t remember – was a Christian, and white as fuck. She dressed in casual Christian, most often wearing skirts, with darkly colored tights and flats, very occasionally donning khaki pants, paired with buttoned to the chin long-sleeved blouses, and sweaters that were not very tight, if you get my drift as in nothing form fitting. I don’t remember ever seeing her wear red, or purple, but she might’ve. Cross of gold prominently displayed around the neck. Chrissy? Debbie? Susie? Tina? Whatever it was, I don’t recall, but I do remember her asking me to stop by her room for a chat. She said it had been noticed, by her and by others, how much drinking and partying I was doing, and that I had on more than one occasion been sick to my stomach, as well as blacking out, perhaps? Were there any troubles at home I wanted to talk about? This was years before I would ever admit my home life or childhood was anything other than perfect, and the idea – she asked – that Dick and Dot might be getting a divorce, thus the reason for my blackout drinking, was ludicrous. I might even have laughed in that sincere girl’s face. I was hungover, or drunk, and very possibly high when I stopped by for this chat. Nope, no divorce, no issues at home, perfect family, perfect childhood, ideal, really, the envy of everyone in town. Perfect town, too. Small town U.S.A. Gotta love it!
Shit, though. Was my drinking that noticeable? Was I drinking more than I had in high school? If so, not by much. And other than that first semester, I made the Dean’s List consistently all four years. Being able to succeed while seriously fucking oneself up is a learned skill, one I’d got my scout badge in early.
If you were an R. A., you had free housing. But housing and meals were all I had, my parents had, to pay for. I was there on a full academic scholarship, and was determined – no, I was programmed to do well, because education was a value in that house, the one she worried about, that short, simple Christian girl. Doing well in class, being smart, was something I found easy – unlike almost everything else – except maybe bowling and fooling people, mainly myself.
I was friends, good friends, for a while with this girl named Tracey; she lived on another floor in the toilet bowl, but we drifted apart, when she – and my roommate Michelle – joined sororities, a world that I found dismayingly gross, narrow, and materialistic. I wondered, too, who among the girls I knew had told Miss Whatshername R.A. about my boozing it up. Had I really blacked out or passed out drunk in such a noticeable way? More so than any other girl on my floor? Still, someone must’ve said something to her. This made me suspicious, and angry. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Late in the first semester that year I made friends with a girl who was in several of my core classes; she became a dear, close friend, thanks be fate, or destiny, whatever. We’re still friends, and for that, I am thankful. I felt the R.A. watching me that year, after our chat, and resented it. I recognized even then that she was just trying to help, doing her job, but in hindsight I know – I know – that there were girls with more serious issues on that dorm, girls with abusive, controlling boyfriends, girls with obvious bruises or injuries, girls puking their guts out in the bathroom every day after every meal (I thought it was the flu, it was not), girls obviously starving themselves to death, or nearly, as had my older sister – but she was worried about me, doing what all-American girls do – booze and dry hump guys in frat houses? Sheesh.
My roommate’s brother – her twin – shot himself that semester, somewhere in suburban Maryland or Virginia; did that troll of an R.A. with her fucking prayer group (you’re all invited, every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday night!!) ever talk to Michelle about that? Michelle and I became close that year, but she never said anything much about it, to me anyway. When you’re young, nothing seems like the bump in the road it obviously is, the road sign to pending difficulty, the red flag, the hump you will never quite get over, until it hits you years later, in the middle of the night or amidst a fight with a family member, how you felt, how lonely and lost and scared and always, always trying to get it right. God forbid you should say, to anyone, how it really was, how much you struggled, when your entire modus operandi is strength, intelligence, and humor. What a show! Strength, intelligence, and humor. And silence. The thing is, I thought the R.A. was asking me to chat with her about religion (no thanks, sweetie), or to offer me the chance to be an R.A. in future myself. Now that, that is funny.