What Am I Doing Here?

                                   What Am I Doing Here?
                                                                               Marty Livingston
      Jim sat in his dorm room staring at the design on the wall.  It was a globe repeated over and over again across the room.  He wondered why it had so little color.  Whoever chose this really lacks imagination, he thought.  What am I doing here?  Why did I ever agree to come to a place like this?  He slumped a bit in the overly soft chair someone had stuck in the corner.  I don’t belong here.
         
      He got up and reflexively brushed the hair away from his eyes with his hand like his mother always nagged him to do.  There were some stirrings down the hall.  That might be his roommate.  Bad enough I have to be here away from everything I know.  I don’t even get a room of my own.
         
      Kessler something or other the third bounded through the door with a stupid smile.  “Hello there chap.  I’m going to be your roomie.  That’s great isn’t it?”
         
      “Just swell’” Jim said with as much feigned interest as he could muster.  Kessler sat down on one of the two beds in the room, directly in front of where Jim sat.  “What made you choose Dickinson?  I came because of the pre-law program.”
Jim grunted.  “Yeah, I heard of the pre-law program.  I don’t know what I want to take.  I’ve never been big on school.”

      Then, kind of abruptly, he got up and walked out the door.  “Be back later.”
         
        Out on the campus at least he didn’t have to talk if he didn’t want to.  He wandered down the street towards the edge of campus.  Several kids were hanging out on a bench near the corner.  They seemed to belong.  They certainly were smiling and jiving with each other.  Jim walked by as if he didn’t notice them.
         
      What am I doing here? He asked himself again.  These kids are all fuddy-duddy rich kids wanting to study. Probably a bunch of intellects with a mix of jocks thrown in.
         
        He crossed paths with a couple of girls loaded down with books.  One smiled.  “Hi.  Are you a newbie?”
         
        Jim scowled and kept walking.  Just great, he thought.  She smiles at me.  That’s nice, and then she calls me a newbie.  Like that really makes me feel welcome. 
         
        He proceeded down the campus path.  After a hundred yards or so it came to a street.  The end of the campus, Jim thought.  Let’s see what the town is like.
         
        As he crossed the street he noticed a little ice cream parlor.  Kohr’s it said in bright colors.  At least it didn’t seem like the dull campus.  Maybe it would be an okay place to sit awhile. 
         
        There was a counter with stools.  Almost like a bar, Jim thought.  He climbed up on one of the stools and looked around.  The place was empty at the moment and rather quiet.  It had some tables, but what really caught his eye was a bunch of pinball machines.  Jim loved pinball games.  He was good, really good.
         
        He ordered a half pint of French vanilla ice cream.  Ice cream always eased his down feeling.  He remembered when he was a little kid and always sick.  His mom would bring him ice cream.  “Ice cream is good for a sore throat Jim.  I will sit with you for a while and join you.  I love ice cream.”  She would sit on the bed and stroke his face.  Sometimes she sang softly. 
         
          That was a long time ago, Jim thought as he smashed some of the ice cream.  That made it soft and smooth.  It went down good.  Those were the old days, before mom remarried.  She didn’t even get along with Paul.  They were always fighting, often about me, the chatter continued in his head.
         
          “Hi stranger,” the lady behind the counter said.  “How are you doing?  Is this your first day round here?”
         
          Her smile warmed Jim a bit.  “Not great.  I don’t think that I’m gonna like it much.”
         
          “Gee, that doesn’t sound so good,” she continued. 
         
          Jim grunted and turned away.
         
            A couple of town kids came in dressed in jeans and dungaree jackets.  They went right to the pinball machines and put a whole bunch of quarters on one of them.  “Let’s try the King Colossal one first.  I usually can win some games on that one.”  “Okay Joe, let’s see if you are as great as you say.  You go first and I will match any score you get.”
         
            Joe approached the machine with the seriousness of a guy who knew what he was doing.  Jim couldn’t see the action on the machine from his stool, but he felt at home with the sounds and lights flashing. 
         
          He got up tentatively and took a few steps closer.  Joe and the other guy were wrapped up in the machine and didn’t seem to notice Jim at all.  Jim went a few more steps towards them to where he could see the ball moving around and banging into things.  He was entranced as Joe kept the ball in play.  He was pretty good with the flippers, Jim thought to himself.  I bet none of the college kids could do that.  They wouldn’t stoop to something so “childish.”
         
          That triggered a memory of when his mom loved to watch him play with his blocks.  He built all kinds of things and she cheered him on.  That was also a long time ago.  Recently, she would say, “Jim, It is time for you to grow up and do meaningful things.  Your stepfather is a good example.  Look at the way he works hard all day and earns money.  You have to get involved in serious things like school.  That’s why I want you to go to a good college.  Have you looked at the materials the guidance counselor gave you?”
         
            “Yeah.  They’re okay.  I thought that I would just go to a city school and live home.”
         
            “Dickinson is a great school and it isn’t too far away.”
         
              “What is so great about it? And it’s 200 miles away.  I wouldn’t get home much at all.”
         
              “It’s a good school.  It has a good pre-law program.  That is serious grown up stuff.  You need to begin to take an interest in grown up stuff.”
         
              “I need to have fun mom.  I like hanging out at home.”
         
              Jim remembered how Mom’s voice got tighter and high-pitched.  “Going to an out of town school will be good for you.  It will help you grow up.”
         
              Jim knew that tone.  If he challenged it, she would crack.  Once she cracked Jim’s world cracked.  He would feel like shit.  She needed him to back off and if he didn’t it felt like her whole world of pain would come down on his shoulders.  Somehow he knew it was his fault.  Like when his real dad died and she closed up and shut him out for months and months.  He knew he had to back off and do what she wanted. 
         
          That’s why I’m here, he thought.  So she and Paul can work out things and be together.  I hate it here.  I am here because they want me away.
         
            Joe looked over at Jim just then.  “Hey schoolboy, do you play?”
         
            Jim lit up.  “Sure.”
         
            “Want to match for a buck?”
         
            “Yeah, why not?”
         
              Jim went over to the two boys.  They seemed friendly enough.  Even with the kind of taunting words, Jim felt more acknowledged than he expected he was going to feel with the college kids.  They shook hands and smiled.  They had a strong grip when they shook hands.  It felt man to man.  Kind of like tigers sizing each other up, yet with a knowing that they are all tigers. 
         
              Jim put a five on the top of the machine along with a bunch of quarters.  “We play five games.  Each of us puts up five bucks.  Winner keeps all fifteen.  You guys go first,” he said.  “Let me see what I am up against here.”
         
            “Yeah, like you haven’t already been watching us, but I’ll go first.  My name is Joe and this here is Johnny.”

            “Okay guys, my name is Jimmy.”
         
              Joe turned in a score almost twice what he had accomplished while Jim was watching.  “Pretty good with the flippers,” Jim said.  “Not much body English though.”  The back and forth patter was as much of a challenge as the actual pinball action.  “This is my world,” Jim thought.
         
              As Jim expected, Johnny’s first game wasn’t much of a challenge.  “Joe is the main guy here,” Jim thought.  “I can take him.”
         
            Now it was Jim’s turn.  He approached the machine slowly and stroked its sides.  “King Colossal, huh?”  “You are going down for the count.” 
         
          He pulled back the spring and launched the first ball.  His eyes focused intently on the ball as it descended.  As it hit the first carom he brought his palm down on the side of the machine and moved his right hip forcefully forward.  “Body English,” he said.  “It is all a matter of body English.” 
         
          The ball began to bounce from cushion to cushion and then came in range of Jim’s flippers.  Timing his flip perfectly he sent it right at the King Colossal at the top.  “That’s where the points are,” he said aloud.  “I’m going to blast that king.  Boom, got him square.”
         
        With each flip, with each pound on the sides of the machine, Jim began to hit harder.  When he brought his palm down on the side of the machine it was now a solid pound, no longer a caress.  “We’ll show the king who is in charge,” he said. 
         
          Jim’s body was electrified with each attack.  His tone was more and more hostile.  “You damn king.  I’ll show you.  Bam.  I wish I could just explode him once and for all,” Jim said as he relentlessly pounded and flipped with an errorless precision and a mounting fury.
         
          Joe and Johnny watched in awe.  “Wow.  You’re a real killer,” Joe said with a tremor in his voice.  “I never saw anyone manhandle a machine like that and get such results.  You were ‘a man on fire. ‘  I would hate to have you pissed at me like that.”
         
            Jim ran through all five games with increasing intensity and electrified control.  He had never felt so connected and fierce.  He could sense a roar down in his gut.
         
            Jim pocketed the fifteen dollars.
         
            “Let’s sit and have a soda,” Joe said.  “Nobody told you the local rules.  Winner buys.”  “Yeah,” Johnny added.
         
              “Sounds fair,” Jim replied.
         
                 “I would love to be able to play anything from inside of that kind of a cocoon you go into,” Joe said.  “You were awesome.  That body English is powerful and I would love to learn some of it.  Can I ask you a question though?  If it is too personal, tell me and I’ll back off.  Okay?”

              Jim was a bit shaken.  His legs suddenly felt wobbly.
         
              “Sure Joe, ask away,” Jim said.  His body was slowing down now.  He could feel his chest expand and his breathing deepen.  I showed these guys something today, he thought.  I showed them and they are still interested in asking something.  “Sure, ask away,” he said again.  “You guys seem okay.”
         
              Joe continued, “You really wanted to kill that King C.  What did he ever do to you?” 
         
              “He didn’t want me in his kingdom,” Jim quipped without a pause for thought.  “I hate guys who don’t want me in their kingdom, like the fuddy-duddy rich guys in this school.”
         
              “What are you doing here, in this school, anyway?” Joe asked.  “You are not like most of the school kids I see coming into town.  Mostly they look down their noses and ignore us.  They call us ‘townies.”
         
                “It wasn’t my choice to come here,” Jim replied.  “My mom and my step-father insisted it would be good for me, help me grow up.” 
         
                “They don’t want you in their kingdom, huh?” Joe prodded.
         
                “I hadn’t realized it, but I guess they don’t.  I hate them for that.  In my gut, I want to let them have it.  Blow up their house or something.  But my mother means well.  I don’t really want to upset her.”
         
                Joe continued to press, “I would be pissed, just like you were with King C. “
         
                  “Yeah.  I could really blast them.  I hate not being wanted in the kingdom.  Even my mom wants to get rid of me.  They really did get rid of me. I’m so pissed I could burst. They got rid of me.  They actually got rid of me.”

                  Jim’s lip quivered as he heard himself repeat, “rid of me” several times.

                    Joe reached over and touched Jim’s hand.  “That’s a real lousy deal, getting sent away to school.”

                    Jim could feel the fierce roaring lion deep inside suddenly become an injured bear.  It was as if a huge bullet was lodged in his gut tearing him up.  He felt an urge to double over into a ball, to hide his underbelly.  Jim knew that this searing pain was never to be exposed; certainly not with guys he just met.
Still, he heard himself say, “My own mother, my own mother is getting rid of me.  She doesn’t want me home.”

                      Then, as suddenly as the feeling had overwhelmed him, Jim brushed away his tears and regained his composure.  “I am real unhappy being here.  This school is a strange kingdom.  I don’t think I fit.”

                  Joe touched Jim on the shoulder and continued, “If it were me.  I’m not saying that it is you.  If it were me, I would be scared in that kingdom, on campus.  You were real gutsy walking in to our hangout and tackling the main man, but I think in the kingdom across the street you are scared.  Am I maybe a little right?”

                Jim hesitated.  “My gang back home doesn’t talk about things like this.  Maybe we should call it a night.”  But then he ventured a bit further.  “I don’t know if there are any kids like us on campus.  With you guys, I can stand up and hold my own.  I can take whatever comes at me and dish out as much.  I don’t know if anyone across the street will give a damn.”

                “So, why are you here?” Joe persisted.

                  “What the hell am I doing here? That is a good question.” Jim said out loud.  “I don’t usually follow orders and clear out.  I guess I wished that college could be a new place for me, a new kingdom where I might fit.”

                “You hope, but you're scared,” Joe said softly.
“Yeah, maybe it might be different.  Maybe I could be different.  Maybe I could be the way I feel with you guys.  My little cousin Susie says that whenever I get mad or scared by something, I ‘isocute’ myself.  That’s quite a word for an eight year old to come up with. Isn’t it?  I think that is what I have been doing at school since I got here, isocuting myself,” Jim said through his tears.  Then he quickly got it all back together once again. 

                  “I gotta get back before curfew.  They have this curfew thing for ‘newbies.’  It’s a drag.  I’m glad that we talked and played.  It’s good to have some friends in town.”
         
                “We hang out here at Kohr’s and beat up on the machines a lot, especially right after work on Fridays.  It’s usually much more crowded.  I’ll look for you.”

              “Basketball tryouts start tomorrow.  Maybe I can butts heads with some guys there and get to know them.  I can handle myself pretty well on a basketball court in the schoolyard.  The word ‘tryouts’ and being in an indoor gym scares me a bit, but it could be okay.”

                As the three boys got up to leave, they shook hands and Joe said, “Just get into it like you did with King C.  You’re a killer.  Make them reckon with you.”