Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

“That’s kind of risky; what if someone had seen you?” Mike asked her.

“I went to the third floor lounge and did it. No one ever goes there unless it’s to study and nobody does that at three on a Friday afternoon.”

“I thought we agreed to wait a couple of days?” Paul asked her.

“I did, but I changed my mind.”

“Nice.” Mike said, shaking his head in disbelief. “He looks like he’s about to cry.”

Gert was over by the fire truck, yelling at whoever would listen that someone had pulled the alarm on purpose and that they just wanted him to come out into the cold weather in merely a towel. The fireman was hardly even acknowledging his existence as he checked on the truck equipment.

“I need to get back inside before I catch pneumonia!” Gert was screaming now.

“Listen, kid,” the fire captain was saying. “We’ll let everyone including you in when we are convinced it’s not a real alarm.”

“I’m telling you it was not. It was pulled specifically while I was in the shower so that I would have to come out here like this. I even tried to go back to my room, but I could not get back in.”

“Dankins,” the chief yelled over to one of his subordinates. “Could you please get this kid a jacket and shut him up? I’ve got better things to do than play baby sitter with him.” And he walked away.

Gert looked like a war refugee, all wrapped up in an oversized fireman jacket, huddled up on the stoop of the truck. Paul and Mike didn’t know if Gert’s winning charm had won the captain over, but it seemed to them to be one of the longest fire alarm resets that they had ever been through.

“Man, he is never going to take a shower again,” Paul said, as the three of them sat in Debbie’s dorm room.

“I wasn’t kidding when I called him on the whole taking a shower thing anyway,” Mike said. “He always smells like ripe sauerkraut.”

“That’s so gross,” Deb said, holding her nose.

“Great prank by the way,” Mike told her, and she blushed slightly.

“Thank you,” she said, doing a small curtsy, that did not go unnoticed by Gert.

He did not know for what reason she had performed the small bow, but that she was flaunting her body to those two good-for-nothings infuriated him.

The trio laid off Gert for close to two weeks. The guy was wound so tight, he wouldn’t even go out anymore to get food. He had delivery come two weeks straight.

“I don’t think he’s even been to class,” Paul said to Mike as they watched the Chinese food deliveryman leave the building.

“Was that for Gert?” Deb asked, catching up to the two boys and pointing back towards the driver who had gotten in his car and was getting ready to leave.

“Yeah, that’s the third order of Chinese this week,” Mike said.

“I almost feel kind of sorry for him,” Deb said.

“You should. You’re the one that gave him the flu,” Paul said.

“He should have gotten a shot like the rest of us,” Mike said, absently rubbing his arm where the vaccine had been administered a month prior.

“Are you going to keep messing with him?” Deb asked.

“Hey, you’re the one that brought it to a whole new level,” Mike told her.

“Maybe we should stop, maybe he’s finally figured out that he can’t just do whatever he wants around here because he has a clipboard,” Paul said.

“That’s two warnings!” They could hear Gert yelling from the hallway. “One for keeping an excess of garbage in your room and the other for not making your bed!”

“Not making your bed? What the hell is he talking about?” Paul said as the three went over to the door and looked out.

Residents up and down the hallway were looking to the fuss, Gert was walking into rooms and going ballistic, writing students up for infractions that he seemed to be making up as he wrote.

Most students got the message and began to close their doors, hoping to escape the wrath of Gert Gone Mad. Paul was one of them.

“Leave it open,” Mike said.

“What are you doing, Mike? Look at him; he’ll write you up for your shirt,” Paul nearly whined.

“What’s wrong with Ozzy Osbourne?” Mike asked.

“Fine. I’m going to start packing my things.”

Gert was making a beeline for the only door still open. Mike stepped in his way just as Gert was about to enter.

“Whoa there, pardner,” Mike said with a Southern drawl. “Where you going in such a hurry?”

“Mandatory room inspection!” Gert was nearly frothing at the mouth, his pen was already making contact with the clipboard.

“On whose authority, Gert?” Mike asked him.

“What?! You dare to stop me!? On my own damn authority!” Gert raged, and then made a motion to push past Mike.

“Listen, asshole,” Mike said, pushing Gert across the hallway to the far wall. “I’m going to say this real soft so that you can’t subpoena any witnesses, so pay attention.” Mike got right up to his ear. “You ever try to enter my room without my permission, I will beat you to within 2.58 centimeters of your worthless existence.”

The rage in Gert’s eyes cleared for a moment as he looked into Mike’s eyes, trying to ascertain if this were an idle threat and whether he should continue with his mission as planned.

The tension in Gert’s bunched muscles eased as he realized this might not be the best time to make his last stand.

“This isn’t done, Talbot, all I need is one more infraction and you and your halfwit friend are out of here. And I’ve got a feeling that neither of you idiots will make it another week.”

Mike released Gert from his grip and left him to weasel away to another unsuspecting victim.

“What happened?” Paul asked, pulling Mike in the room and closing the door.

“We’ve got to keep pressing his buttons,” Mike said. “One of us is close to leaving and we need to make sure it’s him. That dude is a whole suit short of a standard deck.”

“Looks like all you get when you stretch an asshole to its limits is just a bigger asshole,” Deb said.

Mike stopped what he was thinking about, he looked over at Deb before he busted out laughing.

“What?” Debbie said, blushing, not sure exactly what she said to elicit such a response.

Paul had joined in with Mike and once tears started to flow, Deb joined in, not even sure what for.

It was the seemingly least innocuous prank that finally pushed Gert to his limit and the trio had nothing to do with it. The local chapter of Iota Gamma Upsilon sorority (or more commonly known by the call letters of their house as I Go Upstairs, a reference that many had found to be a truism much to the delight of all the party goers) saw to that. As an initiation right to their pledges, they had given each one a giant container of Vaseline and told them to use it around campus in any manner they saw fitting, but to not come back until the tub was empty.

Randi Betcher had used the container in a way that half the basketball team and part of the track team would not soon forget, but that is a tale for a much different kind of book. Wendy Treadman had decided that spreading the sticky gel on the door handles at every residence at the James House dormitory was just absolutely the funniest thing since just about ever!

She had just finished up and was heading out the door when Gert had hit her shoulder, nearly knocking the plastic jar to the ground.

“Watch it!” Gert had sneered at her.

She was going to call him a big fat jerk, but she told her best friend, Jenny, that he had crazy eyes and she just wanted to get away from there.

Gert had just received his first grade of C in his entire academic career and could not even begin to process the information. He had nearly needed to be tossed from the class when he got loud with the professor, arguing that he could not come to class because there were people out to get him.