Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

“If who wasn’t such a dick?” Debbie asked. She was working the counter at the snack shop.

Mike looked up guiltily. “What did you hear?”

“That Gert’s a dick,” she said, flashing a smile.

Mike and Paul quickly rewound through their conversation trying to see how much they had given away.

“We never said Gert,” Paul said. Mike was inclined to believe him, but they had just shared a particularly large joint and Mike wasn’t entirely too sure what they had said. He had been so fixated on the large, frosted, chocolate chip brownie, he hadn’t even noticed Debbie working the counter.

“I saw you working on Gert’s door two days ago,” she said to Paul.

“Shit,” Paul answered her. “But that was two days ago, if you knew, and we’re still at school.”

“Relax! I can’t stand him either. He asked me on a date on the first day of school and when I told him no, he wrote me up the next day for having a candle in my room. Didn’t matter to him that it wasn’t even lit.” Debbie handed Mike two brownies.

“I don’t have enough for two,” Mike told her, brushing the dust off his wallet.

“They’re on me,” she said, flashing another smile.

“Sweet, thanks,” Mike told her, doing his best to smile back, but the munchies had taken a serious hold on his social skills and all he could do was concentrate on the treat.

“What do you want?” Paul asked cautiously.

“Nothing much,” Debbie answered coquettishly.

“Huh?” Mike asked, looking up, half a brownie in his mouth, chocolate on his cheek.

“You don’t get out much,” Debbie said, smiling. She wiped his cheek with a wet towel she had behind the counter.

“She wants in,” Paul said.

“In what?” Mike asked.

“Dude, get your face out of the brownie.”

“Sorry, man, I’m pretty hungry.”

“We just had dinner.”

“Yeah, but that was before.”

“Before what?” Debbie asked.

“Ah nothing,” Paul told her evasively. “Mike, Debbie here thinks we are up to something with Gert.”

“No,” Mike said, looking around. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t want to play hardball, but I saw Paul trying to get into Gert’s room the night we all listened to a very loud rendition of ‘Running with the Devil’.”

“It’s ‘runnin’,” Mike corrected her.

“So you know what I’m talking about?” Debbie asked him.

“All I said was that it is a common misconception that the title is ‘Running’ when there is actually no ‘g’.”

“It’s your word against ours,” Paul told her.

“Do you think Gert’s going to need much more than that to get you two kicked out?”

Mike was busy finishing off his second brownie when Paul agreed to let Debbie in on the next prank.

“When?” Debbie asked, joining them at a small table tucked away in the shadows of the small shop.

Mike could not get over the feeling that they were spies in German occupied France during WWII as they discussed their plan. Some was due to the subject matter they were studying, but a larger portion revolved around the magic bud they had enjoyed fifteen minutes ago.

“We have to lay low for a couple of days. He’s so high-strung right now that whenever someone’s door opens, he yanks his open. It’s pretty friggin’ funny,” Mike said, having a hard time not snorting.

“He scared the shit out me the other morning,” Paul said. “I was going down to take a shower, I don’t even know how he heard me, but I was right next to his door when he jumped out and told me he ‘Got me.’ Dropped my shampoo and everything. I know he’s close to losing it because he actually apologized.”

“Don’t you feel bad?” Deb asked us.

“A little, but it’s him or us, and I’d rather it was him,” Mike said, and Paul nodded. “I don’t want him to go all Hara Kari on himself or Texas library roof., I just want him to relinquish his job as dorm douche. Oops! Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Deb laughed. “Both of my parents were in the Navy.”

They had left it at that point and promised to reconvene their clandestine meeting two days hence. Either that was too long or Deb was too amped up, but she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“What’s going on?” Paul asked Deb as he came up to the dorm room after his Sociology class.

The entire population of the dorm occupants were milling around outside.

“Hey, buddy,” Mike said, tossing a football in the air. “I was sleeping, and someone pulled the damn fire alarm.”

“Didn’t you have English Lit?” Paul asked.

“Was that today?” Mike asked, throwing the ball back up in the air.

“I know it was you!” A soaking wet, towel-clad Gert yelled at Mike as he dropped the ball from the distraction. “I can’t prove it, but I will. You super-glued my lock and I couldn’t get in after my shower!”

“Whoa! Hold on there, boss! I didn’t even think you European types showered,” Mike said.

“You think this is funny? You freshman turd! I’m freezing my ass off in a towel.”

“I actually think it’s hilarious, but I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Jert,” Mike said.

“It is Gert, Gert Hans. And I promise you that I will have you and your roommate thrown out of this school.”

“Listen, Hansel, I was sleeping. I was having this weird-ass dream about huge Pop-Tarts. I have no idea why you are out here soaking wet and in a towel. And why do you not have flip-flops on? Oh, please don’t tell me that you go into a public shower without footwear? That is just disgusting. That’s how people get foot fungus. Man, you’ve been in school long enough! Haven’t you learned anything?”

Gert was so sure that he had nailed Mike, that he was completely put off by Mike going on the offensive.

“I know you did it,” he said weakly. “I know you did everything.”

“I’m a little sick of your accusations. You’ve written us up five times for puissant violations and now our academic careers hang in the balance because you’re a control freak. My roomie and I have walked the straight and narrow for almost three weeks. I was hoping for some congratulations, but instead, you accuse us of even more trouble-making. I’m sure the list of folks who loathe you is a relatively long one. Maybe you should go back and rethink who else would do this to you.”

Gert stood there, anger flaring, his skin tone changing hues, from blistering blue to raging red. Paul was certain Gert was about to go ballistic.

“Um,” Debbie interjected into the testosterone fray.

“What?!” Gert spat.

“Umm, you’ve got a little something hanging out,” she said, pointing down.

Gert was so lost in his anger, he did not know what she was talking about.

Mike looked down and then made his pinkie finger fold and unfold. “The lady said you have a little something showing,” Mike laughed.

Paul almost went to his knees, tears running from his eyes as Gert’s red rage turned to a fevered flush when he realized he had just exposed himself to a girl.

“You know, I’d say you could get in a lot of trouble for that if we had actually been able to see anything,” Mike yelled to Gert’s retreating back.

“What did you do?” Paul asked Mike.

“Dude, I’m serious. I was snoozing hard,” Mike answered his friend.

Paul turned to Deb who was now wearing a wicked smile. “What did you do?”

“Pretty much everything he said Mike did. I waited until I saw him head for the shower, then I went and shoved half a tube of super glue into his door lock. Then I waited until I was pretty sure he had just lathered up his head in shampoo, then I pulled the fire alarm.”