by David Bartholow

CHAPTER ONE

Pierre arrived at university bearing baggage. He feared homesickness, anticipated potential difficulty in finding friends, often worrying that he’d be incapable of surviving without constant parental attention. Not that he really had any reason to worry; his firm middle-class background had shaped him nicely, actually. He was prepared in a most optimistic sense. Pierre was now sort of growds up, strong but susceptible to the fantasies of his previous life experience. Not everyone had had it so easy. Some had to get by by playing games.

Little did he know, a disarming task force of artful dodgers and petty schemers lurked amid the university masses.

Now, having experienced, a rather, let me think, yes, a rather idyllic boyhood with pools and creeks and bikes, no struggle, no strife, Pierre arrived at university hoping that his first friends would have lived life as optimistically, naively, sheepishly as himself. There was something particularly off-putting about the notion of people’s potential differences, people’s manner of living, people’s survival tactics.

Pierre couldn’t really ever possibly say that he’d been exposed to much.

“I imagine few here take risks,” he thought, “everyone like I, I’m sure, lives honestly, lives a good honest life. Like I. Wouldn’t want to curb anything like a system, like I, now would you?"

Despite private school education, his grammar clearly could be very poor. That would improve with each passing year. “Fred’s and I’s bikes is the same. I like a fellow who can caress the bars and careen through crowds ever so effortlessly on one of these Cannondales. He good at it also.”

You know, at first, he judged others based on how much they resembled him. Admittedly, others probably thought he deserved nothing less than a handful of lashings for his evident expectations of others. “What if I don’t like others who aren’t like I?” he wondered. “Surely others have to be as good as me, why else would they go here?”

He had a lot to learn in the way of accepting the necessary differences of peers, and oh, would he learn.

Naif Pierre, bewitched by his own credulousness, in fact discovered early on that a slew of artful schemers – both admirable and deplorable – were in his midst, that polar opposites abounded, and that many of the people which surrounded him were actually acceptable and worthy of his worthy association. Takes all kinds, I guess, takes all kinds to make a grown boy learn.

What he found most appetizing in new friends, new acquaintances was a certain illicit, lawless approach to living. Pierre often times fantasized about school schemers, hardy boys and girls with a penchant for manipulating laws and rules. He knew full well that he was not to participate in any games, but he was simply happy to live vicariously through others.

“I’d like to be a little more like that,” he thought while absorbed in conversation. “I, of course, never could be, why, but at least I can try in my head, and if not then, then I will reap the benefits of accompanying others in their rebellious deeds.”

If Pierre was not to be a leader, he at least might follow.

CHAPTER TWO

The university’s burgeoning schemers ran the gamut, if you will. In the face of Pierre and others' cherubic innocence, rebels and rogues ran wild.

Fascinated, fascinated for years, Pierre kept a log of the blokes he had seen over college’s course. The devil in him made him so admire some, though the opposing angel, forever sunning on his shoulder, caused him to question those who took scheming to more dishonest extremes.

A list was compiled over time. I do so appreciate him letting us borrow his research findings.

“No problem there,” said Pierre. “But, if you don’t mind, can I have the slate back by, say, 7:00 p.m. or so, I’m worried you might try to publish this or something. I’m scrawny, the lake winds blow me backwards, if this is in the wrong hands, then I may be hunted. One may want to kill me until I die from it.”

Oh. Anyway, here are fictional Pierre’s factual findings.

Risk takers are artful dodgers

I’ve made a friend I quite like a lot. He’s rotund, he’s good natured, ingenious, but I get the sense he doesn’t apply himself so rigorously in the academic realm, that he’s too enterprising to be bothered with petty scholastics, arithmetics, that sort of thing. After three years of boarding school, he’s mastered the art of getting you things. Potential trouble certainly won’t stand in his way.

He offered to sell me a fake just yesterday – he makes good fakes, offering an array of states. I think I’ll buy a Vermont, which is not to say his Georgia looks bad. Georgias abound. He charges $50 for friends, $100 to friends of friends. Ten grand he’ll make by year’s end, I swear by it. If the cards aren’t passed through other on-campus hands, he’ll mail them off to other universities, by the truckloads.

To see how he traces his steps is a real wonder, he fears getting caught as much as he enjoys the game. His confidence in these matters borders on astounding.

Am I bad person for admiring such attributes?

My friend has asked me to supply capital for a weed deal which should render four ounces for recreational smoking pleasure. I chose not to contribute, but that’s because I fear he’ll be caught and locked away and then I’d have him no more, what would I say? A friend of his from home is to mail him some, though I don’t know if it should arrive…

…it did indeed come in copious supply. He’s sold all remnants of the package he received in under two hours. Except his share, of course, the executive must have some to keep. I like a man who compulsively watches his back, who understands the sheer necessity for meticulousness in these highly dangerous illicit matters – if he’s lax, yes, it’s his ass, yes.

He’s no crook, no no, just ambitious, uncaring about laws and systems which prohibit him from smoking bomb and making bucks. His artful ways, I believe, are wholly indicative of future success. We have a few more years before he gets caught, but I’m uncertain as to whether he will. I don’t anticipate that some conspiring mole will ruin the fun.

Where there’s risk, there’s venture capitalism

My rotund friend’s parents don’t trust their son with lofty sums – he’s squandered too much on lavish dinners and impromptu trips to Bermuda and Italy. I do believe he should be swatted. Fortunately, his thirst for fun is facilitated by another friend’s parents who don’t mind extravagant spending – $555 to $1111 withdrawals aren’t monitored, and if they are, certainly aren’t questioned. I mean, what if he wanted to have a night off at the Drake?

My other friend’s the lone son of a stock broker or some weird financial wizard, something along those lines, and it shows. Oh, how it shows. In depth, he rambles endlessly about money, how to use money, how to avoid money, where to hide it, how to love it. I can’t fault him for having been reared on the engrained American obsession. I might not quite like this fellow as much if he weren’t so bloody bizarre, so inescapably amusing and charming.

As the rotund artful dodger seeks to make one of his highly-touted transactions, he relies loyally on this investor, effortlessly winning his capital thanks to a savvy business plan. Maximum revenues and various other benefits for his contributions are most assured.

Admirably, this venture capitalist knows who to trust – he’d never admit to it, but he’s a connoisseur of human nature, people. It’s more than apparent to me that he permits free reign with his money – so long as he’s not tied to it in the event of, perhaps a mishap, a police altercation – because intuition tells him not to let his powers control others.

The investor exists to better society and the university underground economy.

Fuck Everything There Is

(a) I have to say this lad's politically-correct, anti-establishment liberalism is wearing thin. Empty idealism translates into ignorance. Sometimes it’s just so dumb the way people are. I overheard someone in Norris bragging about how much he had stolen from Best Buy on Howard – it was as if he assumed the merchandise, the DVDs, the CDs, were already his because they occupied space in a multi-national electronics chain. Wow, justice.

The courthouses of ye yonder Skokie won’t recognize or accept unnecessary causes.

(b) Another acquaintance admitted to cheating because the professor asked for a paper on test day. “Two in one’s excessive, no, ludicrous. Fuck him…anyway, I cheated extravagantly and still made a C.” At this point, he had forgotten his purpose in being here at all.

(c) Consumed by thoughts of all the every which ways he might evade university bureaucracy, another friend has “realized” he can “conquer all-fucking-all” by stealing from Norris. He has yet to realize that the prices there are so inordinately high because people like he steal so regularly.

Dear mom,

Will you send me a switch or three? I need to lash a few in the back of the knees.

I know a few kids who brag about earning unwarranted financial aid. Is that selfish when that happens? I bet it’s hard when money’s strapped, but sometimes I think you should be honest. Right?

What is the mafia? I know a few who are affiliated and they always talk about offshore banks.

Petty thieves are harmless, they’re not really thieves, but a thank you would be nice

I’m tired of Tanker and Tykes always taking cokes. I mean, sure, I’d happily let them sip all the Coca-Cola they could ever dream of if they’d simply ask, but they don’t, so I won’t take it anymo’. Only I I I get to a drink the Coca. .

Lately I’ve noticed that too many take what others aren’t using. Bates only comes over when we have beers, which is like every night. Murmod has taken two of my Mach 3 razors in the last month. Fredericks likes to take cookies when people no lookie – two bags of Chips Ahoy, two bags that I bought for the price of one at Dominick’s disappear in like two hours when Fredicks’s around.

I’m terribly guilty of bumming cigarettes. I’d give you one if I had one but I never do but you can have one anyway.

Remember how mom and dad taught me to share, to be fair, to say thank you when offered something and return to others or something by reciprocating because it’s nice and polite and you should never mind a thing like sharing? Well, why don’t I see any of this? Aren’t other peoples’ mommies and daddies nice too?

CHAPTER THREE

In the final weeks, before he donned the silly-looking cap and gown, conclusions were drawn about a university where innocence reigns and scheming resides.

A few Nevin’s Tanqueray and tonics opened his mouth and his inarticulate thought process. Many shuttered, or at least turned away, in these rare moments when declarative words and verbs slipped out in elaborate, convoluted ruminations.

Indeed, by career’s end, he had hoped to retain some of the naivete on which he had thrived his whole life. Some believe he managed to accomplish this just fine. Others have to say that in time, what’s left will deplete altogether.

“And, like Milton said, Eve fucked up, yeah, but Adam let it happen. It’s a war on war, man. Paradise lost, dude.” he said in conjunction with the following.

“I come here with open eyes and a closed mind, hoping not encounter what might taint my optimism, my pale blue eyes, but people are plentiful, here and there, and some simply don’t care, some try too hard and others think they can achieve without trying at all.”

Some listened.

“Yes,” he added, “I’m a little saddened by this. But I can deal.”

“All I can do, my friend, is observe, my friend, is hope that I don’t acquire the schemer’s knack.”

And, at that, he turned into the biggest schemer there ever was. Only took 25 years, too.

Friendless, David Bartholow writes with no basis in reality. He can be reached at d-bartholow@northwestern.edu.

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