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From a letter sent May, 1989:
Did I ever tell you about my suite-mate Fred? The guy who the day before Xmas vacation came storming into my room while my roommate Ken and I were sitting there, and started yelling about how we had screwed up some sort of phone message?
He thought I was the one who had made this screwup, and called me a motherfucker while trying to confirm my culpitude. Upon finding out that at the time in question I had been taking a final exam, he started to yell at Ken and threatened to kill him. Pleasant fellow.
I'm pretty sure I didn't tell you what happened just before Easter vacation.
Now Fred had some heavy drug habits to support, and the way that he financed these operations was printing up fake I.D.'s. Apparently, a MacIntosh printer can print up a label remarkably similar to some label printed up by the DMV. Both Ken and I had had to ask Fred stop using our computers to print up these labels. I don't know how I feel about fake ID's. Someday I may want one to get into some of the nicer clubs. But Fred was so out of control, I wouldn't be halfway surprised if he got caught, leaving me an accessory. Anyhow, Ken and I had told Fred not to use our computers.
A couple of nights before the night I'm gonna tell you about, Fred came into my room while I was half asleep and asked to use my computer "real quick, just to type something up." I said sure, but then I noticed he had all these drivers licenses in his hand. I asked him if that was what was he was going to be working on. He said yeah, and I told him again not to use my computer for that. He argued for a while, and I argued back, and he finally gave up.
The next night, Stuart, Fred's roommate was going to be working on an essay late into the night. He asked to use Ken's computer, and they decided to move the computer into our shared living room so that Ken and I wouldn't be kept up all night by the typing. That night Stuart worked on his essay.
Now--to the night I've been getting ready to tell you about.
It was around midnight. I had just gone to bed, and was lying in bed with my eyes open. Ken had just sat down in front of his computer. Stuart was sleeping in his & Fred's room. The door slammed. I heard some talking, then some yelling. I didn't really find out what happened until after the fact, but I'll tell you now.
Ken had sat down at his computer, and noticed that something was printed on the paper in his printer. It was part of an I.D. label. He was mad, because Stuart also prints up fake I.D.'s and Ken thought that Stuart had been printing up I.D.'s using the computer for such fell purposes against Ken's will. Then again, Ken thought, Fred also might have done it.
So Ken wrote a note, saying, "Whoever printed up those labels with my computer did so without my knowledge, against my wishes, and can furthermore suck my cock. --Ken" He was kind of upset.
Just as he finished off the note, Fred came walking into the suite (that was the slamming door) with a couple of his friends from the baseball team. Big friends. Ken asked Fred if Fred was the one who had printed up the labels on his machine. Fred said yeah he was. Ken said that he (Ken) had a message for him (Fred) and handed him the note. Fred read it, and that's when the yelling began.
So I'm lying there in bed, hoping for shuteye, and what do I hear but "Suck YOUR cock, motherfucker? Listen fucker, I'll suck your cock, then I will kick your ASS all the way up and DOWN Piedmont Avenue!" At this point, I was out of bed and stumbling into the living room doorway bemoaning my fate to myself.
Ken sat by the computer, arms crossed, arguing calmly. Fred stood over him, screaming and yelling. Fred's friends were sitting on the couch, watching the action. One looked angry. The other looked as if he was about to burst out laughing.
As the argument continued, and I watched stupidly from the doorway, trying to figure out what was going on, Ken made some good points. He pointed out that he had evidence on paper, and also on disk. Fred had left files behind on Ken's hard drive so, "All I have to do is show these files to Michele [a dorm official] and your life is ruined. You'll be kicked off the team, and that's the only thing that's been keeping you going." Fred didn't seem to understand anything that Ken was saying. He just kept on repeating that he was going to kick Ken's ass and asking Ken if he wanted to step outside.
After the Christmas vacation incident, Suruchi, a dorm official who was a friend of mine, had suggested if I were to find myself dealing with Fred during any more of his steroid-induced paranoid episodes, that I should say, "Fred, calm down" in my most calm, commanding voice. Being tired, I did not recognize this for the really bad idea it was, but stumbled into the living room, and said in a kind of sleepy, whiny voice, "Fred, calm down."
He ignored me, and asked Ken if he (Ken) wanted to step outside with him (Fred). I stumbled forward again, until I was standing behind Fred.
Fred's angry looking friend said, "What an asshole." I asked him which of the two he meant. He said that he meant Ken. I explained to him that he didn't know the full situation, and mentioned the time that Fred had falsely accused me and called me a motherfucker. Behind me, Fred started to describe to Ken what was going to happen if they didn't step outside. He seemed as if he was going to hit Ken. "Fred, calm DOWN!" I said, getting rather shrill at the end as I started to panic. As he turned around to face me, I calmed down.
Now, Fred and I were standing nose to nose. I found out then that Fred is taller than I am. I found out that he had been drinking. And I found out that even if all the strength goes out of your knees, they can still support the weight of your torso just so long as the upward force being exerted by your dinner trying to rise up counteracts the weight.
He just stared at me. I stared back. He stared at me. I stared back. I decided to try something that never fails to crack people up. Our eyes nearly level, I twisted my head 45 degrees, waggled my eyebrows and grinned. Fred didn't move a muscle. Fred is an intense dude. I settled back so that we were no longer nose to nose.
"He can't say that to me," Fred explained.
"You're way out of line on this one, Fred." Whenever I'm tired I revert to cliches.
"He told me to suck his cock."
"You called me a motherfucker because you thought I had messed up one of your phone messages."
"Yeah, but..."
"A goddamn PHONE message." I'd like to think I looked dangerous when I said that. It felt good to say. It felt really good when he looked down and turned away.
Then he started talking to Ken, but he was more on the defensive. Ken would say something, and Fred would talk back, but was obviously confused. I figured that he might be willing to listen to some common sense at this point. Like I said, I was sleepy--my judgement was off.
"Fred, you're not making any sense," I said, "Why don't you go to bed, we talk about this in the morning," only I never made it past "about", because Fred had turned around and shoved me.
Not being at my most alert, instead of stepping back and maintaining my center of balance I swayed back. As I swayed forward again, I got mad, and I had already been sleepy.
So I shoved him back. He took a step back. This was apparently not enough to restore his alcohol-impaired balance. He took another step back. This also was not enough. As Fred stumbled, Ken was reacting to the first shove, leaping out of his seat, saying, "Don't you lay a finger on him--he has nothing to do with this." Just a night for cliches I guess. Fred started to take another step back, and backed up against a chair. He looked up at me, rather surprised.
Fred turned around to yell at Ken some more. At this point, Stuart stumbled into the room and asked what the hell was going on. No one told him, but as Ken, Fred, and I yelled at each other, he must have got the idea.
Stuart called Fred over for a quiet talk. I headed back to my doorway so I would have something to lean against before my knees gave out. Stuart worked things out with Fred. Apparently, part of the problem from Fred's point of view was that the computer had been set up in what he thought of as his part of the living room. This was the first that we had heard of this, but apparently, in exchange for peace, he demanded that the computer be moved back into our (Ken's and my) room, and that I go to bed. That was fine with me.
As Fred stood off to the side and called Ken a, "wimpy ass white boy from the suburbs," we toted in the machine. I was setting down the printer as Ken was coming in the door. At this point, the angry friend said to Ken, "and get a haircut."
Ken, not being in the best of moods, replied, "Get a brain transplant." I get the feeling that this angry guy must have looked up to Fred as a role model, because he got up from the couch and followed Ken into the room, saying "You want to step outside, motherfucker? C'mon--you want to step outside?" I was dumbstruck. I just watched this guy standing there and talking. I didn't know what to do. I was done for the night. Luckily, at this point, the other friend came in, took the angry guy by the shoulder, and told him to "Come on, man--we're leaving. Just come on man, what the hell."
Angry guy left. When we came back out into the living room, Stuart was the only one there. We sat up and talked for a while. Then I went to bed. It was four hours before I calmed down enough to fall asleep.
Fred finally got kicked out of the dorm when he physically harassed some maintenance worker. Since he was on the baseball team, and thus guaranteed housing, he apparently got sent to one of the units. A week later, with just two weeks of school left, someone else moved into the vacancy. We were surprised that anyone who was enrolled in school could have waited until the last two weeks of school to find a place to stay. Turns out this new guy got kicked out of some other dorm. Apparently he had been accused of rape, and the alleged victim had asked that he be moved to a place where she wouldn't have to see him each day. An accused rapist.
I knew I had to get out of the dorms.