Suite Dream
Phil Wohl
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2006 Phil Wohl
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Table of Contents
Foreword
Chapter I – Bittersweet
Chapter II – Brick Wall
Chapter III – Change Is Good
Chapter IV – The Roommate
Chapter V – Summer Lovin’
Chapter VI – So Suite
Chapter VII – Just One of the Guys
Chapter VIII – Midnight at the Pile-On
Chapter IX – Break Up, Light Up
Chapter X – Hoop Screams
Chapter XI - Boys Are Back in Town
Chapter XII – Nightclub Night
Chapter XIII – Beer Hunter
Chapter XIV – Suite Games
Chapter XV – What a Dickstein!
Chapter XVII – My Buddy Slips Away
Chapter XVI – Concert and Crash
Chapter XVIII – Bed in the Baja
Chapter XIX – Bonfire Season
Chapter XX – Last Licks
Epilogue
Foreword
I’m not much for crowds. In fact, group activities usually leave me wanting to run until my legs fall off. There have been so many instances when I held the wall up while at a party or a school gathering. My life had become a standoff between my crowd phobia and people misinterpreting my shyness for the obvious markings of a prima-donna.
My friends and girlfriends have always been solo excursions. Quiet is one of this earth’s greatest gifts to mankind. That was, until I turned 18 and went to college, where alcohol and quiet repel each other like oil and water. The funny thing about drinking is that it is much more effective when done in groups. Solo drinking usually leads to its desired outcome, depression. Drinking and college are definitely both social events worthy of crowd mentalities.
I was fortunate enough to experience one of the most enjoyable years of my life while surrounded by a group of buddies. What started as a spark of a roommate friendship, blossomed into a genuine group effort where life was never boring. I has spent my life in sports but tended to leave all relationships on the court, or the field, after the game. My sophomore year of college presented me with the rare opportunity to be just one of the guys. My name is Paul Adams and this is my suite dream.
Chapter I – Bittersweet
To say that “life is bittersweet” would be like looking at a mansion and saying, “Wow, that’s a big house.” Life has always presented me with a cruel twist of love and hate, of right and wrong, of good and bad. I tend to be such a middle-of-the-road person that polar opposites tend to leave me fairly paralyzed from the stress.
Elementary school was one of the best experiences of my life. It was great except the time when I had to use leafs to wipe my ass following an unexpected, emergency delivery in the woods next to the school. The impact of living in South Field, New York was generally positive. The one thing you have to understand about New York is that the people there are totally crazy. Once you get over the general neuroses of the population it becomes fairly easy to shrug off being called a “Scum bag!” or a “Fuckin’ asshole” about as often as the wind blows.
By the time I got to high school, things were starting to happen for me. Yeah, I was still holding up that same wall at parties but my confidence had grown enough to keep my head up and make eye contact with people as I walked down the hallway. This is not easy task for a teenager who had advanced note writing to a veritable work of art. To this day, I have never been caught passing a note in class. I’ve never had to suffer the ultimate humiliation of the teacher interception followed by the public reading of the oh-so-private message. The fact was that at least 85 percent of those notes were blatant attempts at making fun of the teacher. The other 15 percent were scattered among “How much does this class suck?” “Will this class ever end?” and “I’d rather listen to Principal Kerry talk about the school’s no tolerance policy ten more times than be here.”
A strange thing happened on the way to completing high school – I completely focused on sports and only picked up my textbooks to move them in and out of my locker to fetch my lunch. I wasn’t stupid just remarkably unmotivated. It would be an easy out for me to say that I was on drugs, or that I had discovered beer, but I was just a lazy bastard. If I’m not challenged I tend to get a bit laid back and locked into a brain freeze condition. Good thing I could shoot a basketball through a hoop in the dark. It was also a good thing that college coaches were coming to my games and I was producing.
In retrospect, it was amazing to me how uninformed both my high school coach and my parents were about the colleges that were pursuing me. Not only was my head still frozen but it had inflated to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon proportions. That’s the tragic thing about big heads – the more they grow, the louder the explosion when they pop. It was so hard to keep a level head when everyone was paying me as many compliments as the Prom Queen.
My bittersweet theory takes into account that everything has a yin and a yang, a high and a low, a Starsky and a Hutch. Appearances can be the most deceiving element in my two-sided theory and life. A perfect case in point was my trip with my parents to Piedmont College in Rhode Island.
The Piedmont coach had seen me play basketball and wanted me to check out his college. I had visited a few other colleges but was left feeling that I needed more. It was almost like eating plate after plate of Chinese food and then finding your way back to the kitchen a few hours later to eat something else.
Needless to say, Piedmont’s campus rendered my parents and me speechless. The moment we stepped onto its soil I knew Piedmont was the college for me. Yeah, I’m sure that the Trojan horse also looked real pretty as it rolled into enemy gates. That’s part of the reason why I never liked gift-wrapping. The moron that invented the colorful covering must have been giving a real shitty gift and wanted to disguise the contents.
Case in point: do men usually wrap an engagement ring? Of course not! Women know from the minute they see that box what is about to transpire. I’ve even seen people wrap obvious things like footballs, rakes, and books. I really had no defenses for the beauty of the Piedmont campus, and I think people receiving gifts are in a similar predicament. You need time to work up a reaction to new things; when it is thrust in your face there is nowhere for you to run or hide.
Life felt real right on that visit but I was unaware that the bittersweet door swung both ways. What made it right for me to enjoy a moment of pause after much hard work and a job well done. The school, after all, was going to give me a free ride to college; they were going to cover all of my expenses except beer and books. It would have been foolish of me to think that those signs were pointing to happiness.
I have to say that being 18 and out of my parents house didn’t exactly suck. Gone was the tension of being a pacifist being surrounded by a bunch of combatant personalities. I liked to fight as much as I liked vegetables, instead preferring the quiet of my own thoughts and a hamburger with french fries. I really didn’t know what to expect from college. I mean, I had only drunk two beers in my entire life and those came after a big basketball win.
My parents and I made the three and-a-half hour trip up to Piedmont and they left after we had lunch and visited the local K-Mart to get some necessary accessories. I remember my dad buying a few copies of Ghost In the Machine by Sting and the Police, after we heard the music playing. We were spirits in the material world that afternoon.
The dorms at Piedmont were set up like luxury apartment buildings. To say that my dorm, number 10, was sweet would have been my first understatement of my time there. Everything in the dorm was carpeted, even the self-operating fire extinguisher. That afternoon, I met the group of people that would be my suite-mates. Yes, suite-mates. There were four floors in the dorm with four separate suites on each floor. Inside each suite were three rooms where two people shared a room.
To be honest, I have always had my own room at home. Although my family respected my privacy as much as Martha Stewart overlooks details, I still had my own space. My roommate was a little red-haired guy named Fred Jenson. I couldn’t help feel a strange vibe from the 24 year-old that spent three years battling an undisclosed ailment and spent just about every weekend at his parent’s home in Massachusetts; so much for not having my own room.
The weather was really nice that first day, being that it was early September, but I immediately noticed a strange phenomenon: my suite-mates were hooked on soap operas. In the room to my left lived Charlie Breuger and Sal Mariani; the room to my right was Edward Van Nostrand and Larry Dyer. Being in the center room had its advantages, but privacy and quiet were not two of them. The minute you opened the door to the suite you could walk a straight line into my room. The noise from the other two rooms also found their way through my walls.
Breuger was the guy who brought the television; he was also the one who got everyone else hooked on the soap operas. Yeah, everyone but me; I was already familiar with the daytime dramas before I met Breuger. General Hospital, with Luke and Laura, was Miami Vice before Crockett and Tubbs patrolled the coast of Miami. I also liked The Young and the Restless with Nicky and Victor. We definitely were not the most active suite on campus.
With such a group of adventurous mates, it was no wonder that I didn’t taste a sip of beer until the end of my first month. With a full course-load of classes, including Accounting I, Intro to Business, Business Communications I, English I, and Intro to Getting My Ass Kicked, my head was spinning like a top. I was never a person who studied as much as I should; in fact, I barely ever cracked the seal on a book. My learning was more of a knowledge by osmosis technique. I figured that if I made contact every now and then with the books as I shuffled them in and out of my backpack, the wisdom would filter through my veins to my empty brain. I also had this theory when I was a kid that women took a pill to get pregnant.
Basketball practice didn’t start until October 15th, so I pretty much chilled out the first month and-a-half. Little did I know that my teammates were playing almost every day in the gym. It must have slipped their minds to tell me that I could, or should, join them and play. They were about as supportive as people drinking alcohol at an AA meeting.
Meanwhile, back at the suite, Edward Van Nostrand was really starting to weird me out. Mr. Ed use to make some real strange sounds in the bathroom; by strange, I really mean strange. Half the time I walked into the bathroom, I wasn’t sure whether he was jerking off, pushing some shit out of his pimple-covered ass, or giving birth to an alien. Whatever he was doing behind that stall door was definitely requiring a great deal of his energy. He used to walk around campus talking to himself, and he was in the library when he wasn’t in class. I only heard that he was in the library because I set foot in the library as much as I did the gym during my first months.
By the time October rolled along, I thought it was about time I started playing some basketball. I was in the middle of playing in an intramural tennis tournament and had made it all the way to the finals. My priorities were definitely in line; the only thing I had avoided was drinking, but that would soon change, too. By the middle of October my world would come crashing down into a reality I never knew existed.
The guys in my suite were constantly studying. Four of them six were accounting majors, while Mr. Ed was a UFO specialist and I was a Business Communications major. Nothing I had previously experienced prepared me for the slap in the face I was about to receive. I was used to coasting along and getting by on basically fumes. This was college and the only way I was going to leave with a diploma was to open my eyes and start working hard. Lessons are usually learned when you do something incorrectly, and I was about as far away from correct as possible.
October 15th came a lot faster than I had hoped. My body was bent out of shape and I was about as ready to run up and down a court as I was to balance assets with liabilities and shareholder's equity. While my suite-mates were impressed with the fact I had a full scholarship, I had done absolutely nothing to further their praise.
I’ll never forget my first practice with the Piedmont College Braves; it was like I had stepped out of a dream where my legs and arms weighed more than an elephant’s appendages. Survival was the name of the game on day one, not basketball. Looking back, the two-hour practice was tame compared to other workouts I had to endure. I went through practices in high school that burned my lungs worse than that. It wasn’t my lungs that were damaged on that first day it was my blatant lack of heart.
The walk back to Dorm 10 must have taken me at least 45 minutes. The quarter mile stroll usually took me about 15 to 20 minutes, but I was having trouble simply putting one foot in front of the other. Once I began my long ascent up the stairs of my dorm to my third floor suite, I cursed the day I moved into a building without an elevator. That walk up those stairs was about as painful as seeing two really disgusting people kiss. In hindsight, I would have rather kissed a frog’s ass than walk up those stairs.
In the category of just when you think it can’t get worse, I thought I was paralyzed when I woke up at 7:15 the next morning. With only a few minutes to shower and get out the door to my 8:00 a.m. accounting class, time was definitely something I didn’t have. What I also didn’t have was any foreseeable way to move my aching, inflexible body out of bed. As I began to move slowly I felt like the tin man who was left out in the rain over night. It was too bad I was up the creek without an oil can.
I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment that I had to sit through a day of classes that interested me as much as listening to monks chant; what was really cruel about my ever-changing life was that I had to go back for a second day of practice. The bright red color had drained from my tired legs but I was dreading another day of uphill walking on flat surfaces. The look on my face was one of confidence, but my head was filled with mostly doubt and confusion.
About 15 minutes into practice my body started to feel a lot looser and more familiar. I thought to myself, “Maybe you were that guy that they brought here to make the team better.” That was, until the coach lined us up for a one-on-one full court drill. I was paired against freshman walk-on Paul Richardi; a walk-on is a player who makes the team without a scholarship. Richardi was a gangly 6’5” guy who had all of the grace of a buffalo. His clumsiness combined with my lack of leg strength proved to be a recipe for disaster.
The object of the drill was to put the ball in the basket, which was a task that I thought I had already mastered. We went up and down the court a half-a-dozen times before the ball squirted loose and Richardi accidentally nudged me backwards. I instinctively put my right hand behind me to break my fall and it worked like a charm. Coach Blanda blew his whistle as I slowly got to my feet. I tried to move my right wrist but it was stuck in a painful lock; I motioned to the coach and softly said that something was wrong with my wrist. He initially told me to get back in line and then he inspected the gimpy wrist and reluctantly pointed me to the training room to get it checked out. An hour later I was at the hospital and I had a cast on my right arm from my right fingers to my elbow. Hello college, goodbye basketball for four to six weeks.
My life had started to spin out of control so I was glad to slow my downward roll a bit. The mesh cast was my daily reminder that the stakes had been raised and I had to step my game up a bit. There was a month until the season started and I had never missed a game in my life. The fire had been relit under my dormant ass and I was determined to get it right.
Before I could get it right I had to drink some of my blues away. A bunch of girls on the floor above us were having a party the night I broke my wrist; I found out about it when I returned from the hospital to my dorm and was approached by a girl named Kathy O’Connell on the stairwell to my floor. She noticed my arm and said, “You’re on the basketball team, aren’t you?” I wasn’t sure how she knew that being that I had been in the gym three times in the month and-a-half I had been at school. She quickly told me about the party and I told her I would be there.
I was primed for action by the time I walked into the girls’ suite that night. It was a Friday night and I had no plans beyond my fourth floor social exploration. I was somehow able to pry my new buddy Sal Mariani away from his accounting books. The one thing I liked about Sal was that he was always up for a party, regardless of how much work he had to do. Van Nostrand was nowhere to be found on the planet, Charlie Brueger was watching the show Dallas and could not be bothered, and Larry Dyer was anything but sophomoric.
In those days I was still pretty soft-spoken and introverted; I didn’t have much experience with women and was really weak at starting conversations. My lone serious relationship was a two-month stint in my senior year in high school; by the time I left for Piedmont the relationship had been over for at least a month. It was my second experience with a girl but the first time I had circled the bases. I guess you never realize how comfortable and familiar you get with someone until you have to start all over again.
Sal and I walked into the suite and my senses immediately noticed the difference between a suite full of girls and a suite full of guys. The main room was as neat as the library, it smelled like fresh flowers, there was a party going on but it was quiet, and I actually felt calm in a social setting.
Sal said, “I’ll get us a few beers,” as he headed straight for the cooler in the bathroom. I don’t know how he knew where the beer was but I was glad to be with an experience partier.
I was surrounded by a few girls that were signing my cast by the time Sal returned with a couple of Bud’s. The only way I could have drawn a bigger crowd was if I walked into the party with a puppy. We had a real good time at the upbeat, yet tame party. It was the first time in my life that I was really able to appreciate the healing and relaxation powers of a cold beer.
It had been quite a day, but at least I was able to avoid the remainder of practice. I felt a huge sense of relief when the doctor put that cast on my arm. Nonetheless I was pretty tired when I went back down to my room after a few hours at the girls’ suite. I got out of my clothes and put a t-shirt and shorts on; then I put some quiet music, dimmed the lights and nestled into my bed. My head barely hit the pillow when there was a knock on my door.
Usual suite protocol called for a knock on the main door before entering the inner sanctum. I didn’t here a knock on the suite door before a knock on my door, so I assume that it was Sal coming in to shoot the shit.
I casually said, “Yeah, come in.”
I should have known it wasn’t Sal; if it were Sal at the door, he would have said something like “You decent?”
The door swung open and a tipsy, red-faced Kathy O’Connell walked in. She closed the door and confidently strolled over to my bed.
I had only kissed two girls in my whole life and I by the looks of Kathy, I was a few minutes away from number three. I really can’t remember what the hell Kathy said to me after that point. She might have said how sorry she felt for my wrist and me; on the other hand, she might have said, “You sure look like you could use a sponge bath.”
Within minutes of her arrival, Kathy was on my bed making out with me. With my right hand out of commission, it was time for my left hand to have all of the fun. This unique opportunity also gave me pause to work on my left side kissing skills, where the head is cocked to the left. Sounds weird but we all have a dominant kissing side, just like we have an ear that we like to use when we talk on the phone. I use my left ear when I talk on the phone; when I try to use my right ear my brain just won’t function the same way.
Back to the two of us kissing on the bed; she was my introduction to guarded New England girls. They dress conservatively and are no different in the bedroom, or couch, or floor. I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule but I didn’t find them. My lack of experience cost me a chance to get Kathy’s multi-hook bra off. My girlfriend in high school would always quickly take off her bra and spare me the embarrassing fumbling and bumbling. Who invented these things anyway? It must have been Houdini himself because he wanted to get all of the girls.
Kathy might have been drunk but I still wasn’t warm enough to melt her frigid heart. Kissing and groping was as far as she would go despite the fact I had unhinged two out of the three clasps on her bra. She left after about an hour of sweaty action with a quick kiss goodnight. Within minutes of her departure I was asleep, barely impacted by the woman that was just in my room. I figured it was better than spending another night alone, but not much better.
We barely spoke again after that night. It was probably a combination of her embarrassment and my general disinterest in seeing her again. I like people with passion, whether it’s focused or misguided. Kathy had about as much passion as a blackout; the spark-less encounter was bound to remain just an encounter not a relationship.
Chapter II – Brick Wall
It’s really a pain in the ass to have a cast on your arm. I remember going to accounting class almost every morning with my cast still dripping from the shower I quickly took. That first semester of college was a huge learning experience in class, on court, and on campus. I had such a simple view of college before I arrived that it’s no wonder that I completely got my ass kicked.
My life was difficult but at least I was free; there is nothing like being on your own and battling the sweet struggle of independence. The Assistant Coach of the basketball team was an Italian guy named Augie Cardinalli. His name was about as Italian as the alumni who supported the school with millions of dollars. I was naïve to think a Jewish boy from New York could change what was already set in stone.
Coach Cardinalli offered me a ride home one weekend as an exchange for going to scout some high school hopefuls at a pre-season camp. My parents immediately offered to put the larger-than-life coach in our house and the homebody coach quickly accepted. He was looking forward to a home-cooked Italian meal and thought my mom would be stirring a pot of sauce when he walked in the door. I have learned that appearances can be quite deceiving.
The minute Coach Cardinalli walked through the door of my parents, Mezuzah-laden house, I was completely screwed. He had been calling me the same nickname that my friends called me, Pauli, and assumed that I was as Italian as cannolis and pizza. My grandfather had shortened our last name from Adamson to Adams when he arrived in New York to avoid discrimination. Mission not accomplished, grandpa', and the fun was about to begin.
When I got back to practice the next week, I could sense that something was up. I was treated as an outsider since I arrived on campus but now was completely on my own. Three weeks had passed since I broke my wrist and my hand was starting to feel better. I had been working so hard on my left hand that it was starting to respond to the extra attention. I had always worked on my left hand as an additional option but now it was nearly as strong as my right.
A week later, I was begging Frank the athletic trainer to take me to the doctor and get my cast off. I had never missed a game and wanted desperately to get back in the action. Frank checked my grip and was astonished that I was able to squeeze his hand so tight. Forty-five minutes later I was back in the gym sinking shots with my right hand. Coach Blanda put me into a scrimmage and he was shocked when I hit a few shots.
My strong play was attracting the attention of the other players and the coaching staff. Whether I was Jewish, Italian, purple, or green, it was hard not to try to make the team better.
Shortly after I returned, starting center Vincent Damarco panicked, got into his car, and went home to upstate New York. The junior center was dangerously close to losing his starting job and decided to pull as much rank as possible. We were a week away from the start of the season and our starting center was throwing a tantrum.
The Damarco family was one of the school’s biggest boosters; roughly translated, they demanded that Coach Blanda drive up to talk to them. He obliged and the family made him promise that their son wouldn’t lose his starting job. Coach Blanda had little choice and gave in to the demand, because it was either listen or lose his job.
I’ll never forget the first game of the year. We were down by six points in the first half when Vincent got banged in the head and acted like somebody had shot him. He was always hurt in practice and often sat on the sideline resting in while everyone else was busting their ass.
Coach Blanda yelled down the bench, “Adams!”
I leapt off the bench and headed toward Vincent on the floor. He held his left hand over his left eye and squinted with his right eye at the sight of me coming toward him.
He looked at Coach Blanda and whined, “He’s not coming in for me!”
Coach Blanda looked at Coach Cardinelli and shook his head.
“Vincent added, “I’m staying in.” I never saw the light of the first half the rest of the season.
I barely survived the first semester and finished with a paltry 1.8 grade point average. The second semester I recovered slightly and peaked above the Mason Dixon Line with a 2.1 grade point average. I hadn’t been with another girl since I made out with Kathy after I broke my wrist. I was truly an outsider looking in to a world that had abruptly turned its back on me.
I did a lot of soul searching that summer between my freshman and sophomore years at Piedmont. The easy decision would have been to give up and go to school closer to home. I think my dad asks me at least a dozen times if I wanted to transfer. He kept bringing up a story that occurred during the previous year. He told it like this. “I remember walking through that hallway and Vincent Damarco’s father approached me and told me that I might as well get you out of the school, because you weren’t going to play.”
I must admit, the odds were completely stacked against me but that didn’t stop me from working my butt off that summer. I worked at a day camp all day and then worked out with free weights and played in basketball leagues at night. I also met this girl at camp named Jocelyn who just graduated high school. She was going to Cornell University in the fall but I was trying to take advantage of every moment we had together. I knew once she headed off to school that I would be just a summer memory. Part of me wanted more, but most of me was focused on recommitting myself both academically and athletically for my sophomore year.
I thought all summer about the abuse I took my entire freshman year. It didn’t matter that I could excel on the court because I was still a rookie. Going from the top of the mountain to the lowest depths of the earth was a humbling existence. Being a lone wolf most of my life made it tough to bow to the hazing that took place.
Shaving my pubic hair was the first demand the upperclassmen hoop players put on the freshman. What a bunch of gay bastards these guys were, and I mean no offense to people that are actual gay; I would never even think about demanding anything of any other person except hard work and dedication. These mother-fuckers were so consumed with tradition and ridiculous rituals that they forget to lace their sneakers up when the walked on the court. The team won a total of six games and lost 16 my freshman year. Yeah, it was a real joy to watch these guys stroll through loss after loss.
I also remember watching a few guys I trounced in high school play major minutes for other teams we played. It was very embarrassing to be chained to the bench even though I had the game to be a major contributor. Being Jewish had always made me proud, and being snubbed because I was Jewish only firmed up my resolve.
With all of the guys in my suite being non-Jewish, it was impossible to confide in any of them. The hardest part of learning for me is always the pain that accompanies the process. My dad even thought I was lying when I told him I was the best player on the team. But, the basketball situation was the least of my problems.
I knew it was time to step up and get to work in the classroom. The coaches told me that I had to get my grade point average above a 2.2 in my sophomore year. It was painfully obvious that were trying to do anything they could to get me to leave the school and release themselves from the financial obligation. I guess I didn’t read the fine print on the Letter of Intent they had me sign. In my mind they would never have the option to tell me when to leave, because I would go when I was good and damn ready!
I came back for my sophomore year in the best mental and physical shape of my life. With my basic accounting classes completed, I was free to take a bunch of classes that I had realistic chances of earning at least a B grade. Public Speaking, Intro to Psychology, Creative Writing, Marketing Management, and Business Ethics were the courses that gave me hope. Yeah, taking an ethics class was a pretty ironic twist to a pretty messed up journey.
Things were a lot different the first day I set foot in the suite that second year. Gone were my roommate Fred Jenson and his too old for college ass. My new buddy Larry Dyer was glad to move to the middle room with me, as his wacky roommate Eddie Van Nostrand kept walking right on out of the college when school ended the previous year. Charlie Breuger and Sal Mariani still occupied the left room, and Charlie brought back and even bigger television for the second year. Our newest suite-mate, living in the right room alone, was the one and only James “Taylor” Harris.
It was amazing what a difference a new roommate made; with Larry by my side I was able to bounce things off the junior accounting major that didn’t make sense. I was no longer a freshman in so many ways. I was in the gym and the weight room the first afternoon I arrived at school. Despite my parent’s requests to tag along, I took the car that I bought over the summer and drove myself to school.
My parents made a deal with me that if I got a full scholarship they would give me money toward a car. My maroon 1980 Ford Mustang was anything but a muscle car. The six-cylinder car handled fairly well but the brakes were pretty suspect. Who was I to complain, I finally had my own car! It felt good not having to bum rides off other guys and be able to go out and clear my head every once in a while. I had come to the conclusion that being a freshman sucked even more than the first year of middle school. I thought I had all of the tools coming into college but still wound up completely getting my head handed to me.
I was so locked in that first month of school that I only socialized on Friday and Saturday nights. Many college students start the weekend on Thursday night, but I chose to hit the books for a change. Mind you, I still wasn’t studying more than two hours a night, but I got my work done.
I had come to college weighing about 205 pounds but had gained about 20 pounds of muscle over the six months leading up to the October 15th first day of practice. What a difference a year made; I was in such great shape that I was looking for to the start of practice. In the month leading up to the start of practice, I had effectively taken over the minds of my teammates. By the time we walked into the gym that first practice I owned any and all comers.
Coach Blanda was still doing his best to ignore my strong play and promptly buried my deep in the second team for our first scrimmage. After my team, the second team, destroyed the first team the coach took me out and made me watch. I guess scoring nine out of my team’s eleven points was too much for him to bear. In hindsight, I probably should have walked off the court the previous year and never returned.
Watching was pretty much all I would do the first few months of the season. I had aced all of my mid-terms and my focus had shifted from sports to academics for the first time in my life. The mix between sports and school was usually about 70/30, but it had shifted to more like 30/70. I wasn’t blind to the blackballing that was in my face. It became of utmost importance for me to focus on the things I could control. Getting good grades was definitely in my control but the amount of playing time I did or didn’t receive was up to my tainted coach.
My second season with the Piedmont Pioneers was almost a mirror image of the first. I was seeing more bench time than the old lady who feeds the pigeons at the park. My suite-mates were starting to get on my nerves about my lack of playing time. I kept telling them that I deserved to play but they didn’t believe me. Finally, I told them to come to one of our regular inter-squad, Sunday afternoon scrimmages.
The minute I saw Larry and Sal walk in the gym to the open-to-the-public scrimmage, I was ready to go. Not that I needed an excuse to torture that whiny bastard Vincent Damarco, but he had it coming. I scored 12 points in the first four minutes of the scrimmage on 6-7 shooting. Damarco tripped over the foul line and was gingerly escorted off the court like someone had shot him in the leg. He wasn’t going to be embarrassed in front of the 25 students that had gathered in the gym.
I looked straight in starting power forward Chris Paulino eyes and said softly, “You’re next, bitch.” Paulino gamely suffered through another 28 points of my misery before the final buzzer sounded on the second team’s rout of the first team. I had glanced over to my two suite-mates during the game but waited to talk with them until I got back to the dorm. They didn’t understand how frustrating it really was for me to dominate my teammates in practice but be glued to the bench when the games started.
Accountants must have balance in their lives in order for things to make sense. What Larry and Sal witnessed destroyed any previous t-account knowledge they had accumulated. I walked into the suite expected quite but was greeted with the intense rantings of Sal Mariani.
He yelled into my room, “Larry, Paul’s back!” He then approached me and asked, “What the hell was that all about?!”
I replied, “I told you I could play. You guys didn’t believe me.”
Larry chimed in, “We just thought there must be a reason that he wasn’t playing you.”
“Like, I suck,” I said looking at Larry.
Sal interjected, “You definitely don’t chomp.”
After that day my suite-mates and many of their friends went to every home game and heckled Coach Blanda. The rough treatment of the coach became a fad because the team hadn’t won a home game all year. In fact, not much was going right for a team that struggled through a record of 2-10 in the first half of the season.
Chapter III – Change Is Good
I went home for the Christmas/New Year break and told my dad it was time – I was done being demoralized while watching these boring games. There was little pleasure to be gained in watching something that could have easily gone a lot smoother. I only went back for the winter session because I was going to be taking a cool Asset Management class. The class combined with living in the awesome upperclassman townhouses was enough to entice me back to tolerate some more sports misery.
The three-and-half weeks I spent during that Winter-session seemed like months, or years, at times. I’ll never forget the day I walked around the school after class and discovered that the professors had posted the Fall Semester’s grades on a bulletin board. I went through class after class and intently searched for my social security number and the corresponding letter grade. One, two, three, four, and the five B’s later I had compiled my first 3.0 semester and was no longer an average C student.
The team had a game that night in a tournament in Massachusetts. Coach Blanda knew about my grades, because when we were down 20 in the beginning of the second half he didn’t hesitate to put me in the game.
I was shocked when he shouted, “Paul, go in for Damarco!” I didn't response at first because he called me by my first name, so I clumsily took my warm-ups off and entered the game. Six minutes later, we were down four points and I had accumulated 12 points, six rebounds and three assists. The home team’s crowd was stunned to watch a guy who hadn’t played all night score at will against their team. They were even more confused when Coach Blanda looked down the bench during a time-out and said, “Vincent, go back in for Adams.” The team moaned and went back on the court and quickly handed the game away by 22 points.
My dad came up to watch the next night’s consolation game. He had seen the box score of the previous night’s game and wanted details. He even talked to some of the guys on the team, who excitedly recounted my wild six-minute stint. It was no consolation to me that my view from the bench remained unchanged throughout the game that afternoon. There was no call from a coach who must have been read the riot act from the previous game by boosters who wanted my feet to remain in cement shoes for good. This was my last game in a Piedmont uniform. With the spring semester only a few weeks away, it was finally time for me to move on.
My dad was on the phone that night with a coach that had shown interest in my when I was in high school. By midnight, Coach Shaw of Rawlings University had excitedly promised my dad that the school would gladly pay my way. My parents would have to pay for only one semester because the school had used up all of its scholarship money for the year. I got the call that night and started packing before I even hung up the phone. By nine o’clock the next morning, I already talked to Assistant Coach Cardinelli, because Blanda was nowhere to be found, and had packed my car and left Piedmont University without hesitation.
As I drove away from the townhouse, the moment once again was bittersweet. The three-and-a-half hour drive back home gave me time to collect my emotions and play back the key moments of my year-and-a-half metamorphosis. I had such simple expectations when I first arrived at Piedmont – play a lot of basketball and do a little schoolwork. What I wound up doing was doing a lot of schoolwork and playing very little basketball.
I managed to balance the good times with the bad on the drive. The first great time I remembered was the Grain Alcohol Party we threw in our suite and the end of the Fall Semester. Grain alcohol is like 800-proof paint thinner that destroys brain cells with the velocity of a speeding bullet. The guys in the suite made this punch that not only got us all drunk but also knocked us out. We woke up the next morning in a pile in Charlie and Sal’s room with heads as heavy as anvils. What made it a night to remember was that we did it all together, as suite-mates. Being shunned by the basketball team made me even more appreciative of the time I spent with the guys in the suite. I would have crashed and burned without their support, especially Larry Dyer.
The worst memory I had at Piedmont happened about a month before I left. We had just lost another game on the road and, as usual, I had a good view from the bench. I had hit rock bottom and the world no longer made any sense to me.
The world had never been so cruel to me that I was unable to overcome extreme obstacles. I felt like a failure in a situation that gave me absolutely no chance to succeed. Even though I had turned my disappointment on the court to satisfaction in the classroom, the feeling of helplessness left me crushed. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I sunk into a deep funk that lasted until the sun came up.
Sitting in front of the rippling pond on that crisp December night taught me that I could only control my end of the bargain; that banging my head against the wall, no matter how much courage and intestinal fortitude it took, would leave nothing to show for my effort except painful bruises. I was definitely better for the effort but a little damaged in the process.
I smiled when I remembered the night I tried to “jam” with James “Taylor” Harris as he played his guitar in his room. Jim was about as smooth as asphalt but he thought he had a set of golden singing pipes.
Now, I’m no stranger to singing my ass off. I was in chorus from sixth grade through high school, so I could belt out a mean Ave Maria. Singing a duet with the self-professed James Taylor was like a picnic with ants. His laid back style and my lack of style translated into fingernails scratching against a blackboard. We got frustrated and drank a couple of beers and kept singing and drinking until we thought we sounded good.
My social life at Piedmont was another source of frustration for me. I never could get in sync with the women of New England. In fact, the only girl that I spent any time with besides Kathy O’Connell was girl from North Dakota named Nina Ashling. Nina was a nice girl and I was a nice guy, yet we could never find the right moment to be nice together. We had a brief connecting encounter in the beginning of my sophomore year at a party in my dorm. We went back to my suite and talked all night, and even kissed a bit in between. Since Larry always occupies our room, the physical activity remained light and the conversation went as well as it could on a few gallons of beer.
I was a bit dazed as I flipped coin after coin into the tollbooth receptacles on the uneventful trip back to New York. When I got home my family consoled me like someone had just died. Despite the fact that my parents had seen the dramatic improvement in my grades, the Piedmont experiment was largely viewed as a failure: my failure.
My definition of failure is not succeeding when you have a chance. I had about as much chance to excel on the basketball court as a jet’s chance of soaring inside of a hangar. In fact, I felt even more confident about college knowing that I could compete in the classroom. Playing sports was second nature to me but studying used to be as foreign as trying to find my way in the dark. I had finally given myself a chance to succeed in school and was rewarded with excellent feedback in the form of grades.
A few days after I drove home, I was not only itching to get the hell out of there but was on my way to check out my next destination. I had seen Division II Rawlings University on television a few times because it was in the same division as a few local colleges. Thankfully, the school was a good hour away from my parent’s house. It was the kind of drive you had to think about a little before getting in your car. I had a different feeling in my stomach on the drive up to Rawlings than I did initially going to Piedmont. Piedmont was so new and so clean that there had to be some dirt to be dug up somewhere.
I had both my windows and my eyes open as we approached the Rawlings campus. By the smell alone, I knew that water was nearby. The intoxicating windswept aroma caressed my lungs and eased any anxiety left in my body. My dad followed the signs to the main administrative building and we met with a wonderfully, pleasant women named Sally Mitchell who went over my transcript and lauded my recent efforts. She said that most of my credits were transferable and I decided to major in English, with a minor in Business. My dad said about three words in the hour we spent with Mrs. Mitchell because he was waiting for the athletic part of the tour.
When our meeting was over, Mrs. Mitchell led us out to the building’s main room where my eyes were brought to joyful tears by a wide panoramic view of the water. The late afternoon sunshine glistened off the endless seascape of water and all at once, I knew I was home. The Rawlings Dolphins could have played their home games outside in the middle of winter for all I cared. With the water as my muse, so many of the boundaries and obstacles that confined my existence were already melting away.
In many ways, I have never left that room and its awe-inspiring view. It’s like that when you finally find what you are looking for. When I need to regain focus it’s always helpful for me to return to a time or a spot that helped me calm down and arrange my thoughts.
My dad looked out at the water view and said, “Hey, it’s the water. You ready to go to the gym.”
I was able to take a few extra moments as he emptied his bladder in a nearby bathroom. I looked to my right and saw a door that led outside; I took a few steps onto the large stone patio and let the air sweep over my relaxed body. It had only been a few days since I escaped from New England, but Piedmont College was now the furthest thing from my mind.
The sun was setting as my dad ushered me back into the building and to his car. What an incredible sight that was; the sun seemed so close that you could walk into it. My calm state was ramped up when I walked into the gym and that musty smell invaded my senses. My dad and I walked through the doors of the and noticed that there were now only five white guys in the gym, including us. There were 12 guys on the team and two of them were white - so much for Piedmont discrimination. Come to think of it, there might have been less than 10 black students at Piedmont College.
Coach Shaw was a white guy with a great deal of soul. He remembered me from high school and jumped at the chance to add me to the mix the following year. The truth was that he was having a real slow recruiting year and was happy when I fell into his lap. When the guys on the team looked at me with a challenging stare, I wished that I had my sneakers with me to show them a little something-something. But, that would have to wait a few days until I joined the team for practice.
I went home for a few anxious days and then drove myself back to my new school, Rawlings College, for a little New Student Orientation. Coach Shaw made sure I was well taken care of by giving me a personal guide instead of making me sit through hours of tiring presentations.
The guy that showed me around was the diminutive, yet crafty, Sam Johnson. Within two minutes of the initial introductions, he had persuaded me to join his Intramural basketball team. I knew I would be practicing with the school’s team, but also realized that I couldn’t play in any games. Scholarship athletes must sit out two full semesters, or one year, when they transfer. A whole year without playing in basketball games - what a goddamn relief! I had just turned 20 years old, and it had been over 10 years since I had gone without playing on a team.
I applauded Sam’s initiative by agreeing to play for his intramural team. Sam rewarded me by helping me to get in the coolest dorm on campus, the Beachside dorm. The dorm was located adjacent to the sandy Baja, which was an area that was a few miles from the nearest beach. Johnson had his own room on the lower level of the two story u-shaped structure. I would be on the other end of the complex on the upper level in Suite 524. Sam also brought me to the nearest beach, bought me lunch on the school’s dime, and helped me get both an ID card and cafeteria pass.
I spent that Friday night with a smile on my face, and reveled in the fact that I was so near my favorite place in the world: the beach. I put all of my clothes away in the right closet and set my bed up on the left side of the room, because that closet was cleaner and the bed was the firmer of the two. First come, first served was the theme of that day. The room was empty when I got there because all students had to clear all of their stuff out after each semester. Other students occupied these rooms during the winter session, but they had also cleared out a few days before the makeshift cleaning crew went to work. You could hear a pin drop that night, but that would change for the better in a matter of hours.
Chapter IV – The Roommate
I woke up on Saturday morning and was greeted with bright sunshine and the above average temperature of 45 degrees for February 1st. Weather omens are usually good indicators for me, so I rolled out of bed and took a quick shower before strolling the 200 yards down to the Barrister Building for brunch. My eyes lit up like a pinball machine when I saw a wide assortment of my favorite sugar cereals, including Cap’n Crunch, Cocoa Krispies, and Sugar Pops. I took a little bit of each hoping to achieve blendmeister status. Fresh milk filled a few glasses on my tray before I came to the mother of all food offerings: the omelet station.
The guy behind the counter happened to be a student who said, “Why don’t you try a ham and cheese omelet.”
Not being one to argue I nodded and then accepted the full plate a few minutes later. While I was waiting, I loaded a few bagels in the toaster and breathed a sigh of wonderful contentment.
I jokingly said to the omelet guy, “If you guys have ice cream in here, I might never leave.”
The guy, who’s name was Larry, said “The machine is over there, but you’ll have to wait until dinner for it.”
I rolled out of the cafeteria about an hour and ten pounds later, with no thoughts or plans for the day. I had already registered for my classes and strolled through the campus bookstore to beat the crowds. About five yards into my journey back to the dorm my body became extremely exhausted and was threatening to shut down. I barely made it up the stairs and through suite screen door on the way to my bed. A few hours later I was in a daze when I heard the front door of the suite slam closed. I slowly sat up as this guy with a mustache slung a duffle bag into the middle of the room.
He said, “Whoa, I guess you got that side of the room!”
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