I’m Finally in College!
In spite of my appearance of “normalcy” during my senior year, I suddenly had a new place to live, no parents determining my actions, and an ancient boyfriend with a very different way of life. I realized quickly that I needed to find a way to enmesh my separate lives without losing my college friends.
Larry felt confident that all the young girls admired him – which was nowhere near the truth – so he had no qualms about visiting Mount Union. But Bonnie wasn’t sure what to do with Larry. She liked the bold step that I’d taken, breaking away from my own parents while still acquiring an education. But for some reason that I couldn’t fathom, she wasn’t immediately crazy about him.
Having Larry visit my personal haven wasn’t my favorite idea. I didn’t mind roaring off on the motorcycle for all the world to see, but I didn’t want Larry to actually spend time there. I’d spent three years enjoying life with people my own age, creating my own space, loving intellectuals, laughing with people who understood my sense of humor, partying the way partying should be, and making friends I adored. In other words, I finally felt like I’d found a place where I belonged.
I didn’t want to demolish all that by sharing weekends with a bushy-bearded old man who thought fart jokes were funny and who’d only graduated from high school – and he’d done that before I was born.
But Larry was now my life, so I didn’t have much choice.
Clonking through the dorm in his heavy boots, Larry smiled without letting his cigarette drop from his lips. “I’m finally in college!” he said, way too loud, throwing ape-arms above his head in triumph. “My mom’s gonna be so fuckin’ proud!”
Larry thought this was very, very funny. He later shared his joke with all of his friends and many strangers.
I wondered how old Larry’s mom was, if she was even still alive. If she’d wanted him to go to college, why hadn’t he gone? I’m guessing brains and money were lacking.
I wanted to get off campus as quickly as possible, so Larry took Bonnie and me to bars we’d never seen before. Larry bought all the drinks, and Bonnie and I partied for free.
Larry was happy that I was happy. And I was always happy when I was drinking. Until I wasn’t.
We went to a crowded bar called The Red Rose with wood-paneled wall-to-wall people, but not a single college student. There were a couple of bushy-bearded guys wearing leather at the bar, matching the motorcycles we’d seen outside. There was no dance floor or country band, so I browsed through songs on the jukebox and played darts.
We got wasted and then I snuck Larry through the window into my loft bed.
The next night we went to The Elm Inn, where the parking lot was full of motorcycles and the bar itself was nearly empty. It took awhile for me to realize that the front room was not the only place to sit. Bikers appeared seemingly out of nowhere, then disappeared again through a door that looked like it led into someone’s house. We didn’t dare go into that door.
Not that night, anyway.
I’d thought all the bars in town revolved around college students but apparently not. Alliance had its own biker bars and its own non-college population. Students had referred to these folks as “townies” for years – and suddenly, I’d been thrust among them.
Little did I know how deep into that population I would dive.