("Do you and your ex-boyfriend attend the same college?" my psychiatrist asked me yesterday.
"No," I said. "He goes to Ithaca College in New York."
"Ithaca College." The doctor scratched his chin. "I was there once for a conference."
"It's a pretty stupid school," I said.
"I'd have to agree with you there," the doctor said with a smile.)
It was the summer of 1999, and my then-boyfriend Chris and I were going to Ithaca College for his orientation session. His dad dropped us off in Ithaca at 5:30 in the morning, and we headed into a room that looked a lot like my middle school gym. We sat down on the bleachers, and a presentation soon began. Professors and students were speaking dramatically about the school ("You are about to embark on a great educational journey as Ithaca College freshmen..."). I was rolling my eyes. As in other dreams I've had lately, I had apparently come to this place in time knowing that my and Chris's relationship would end in November 2000. Because I knew how many times Chris would eventually betray my trust, seeing him act like a boyfriend to me again was a bittersweet and confusing experience.
There was a break in the orientation program, and one of the professors turned all the clocks in the gym back to six AM. Strangely, all the students began to *feel* like it was six AM again, and Chris and I started falling asleep on each other. We finally shook ourselves awake, and then Chris started hugging and kissing me. Other people around us seemed to be sick of looking at such a sappy couple.
Chris got up from his seat to talk to one of the professors standing on the floor. She was wearing a shirt from one of the local TV stations. Chris commented that he really liked the TV station's logo, and he and the professor struck up a very geeky conversation after that. Chris was wearing khaki shorts and a red polo shirt that I'd always liked. I noticed, however, that his legs were abnormally skinny.
Around me, there were a lot of girls wearing expensive Abercrombie and Fitch outfits. When Chris returned to his seat, I commented on this. He said, "Yeah, they're all rich snots from Connecticut." Chris seemed pretty underwhelmed with Ithaca College at this point. The students were supposed to be passing around an attendance sign-in sheet, and Chris was mad that it hadn't gotten to him yet. He started cursing everybody out, and I had to calm him down.
Suddenly, I felt a jolt. Time had shifted, and it was now October of 2000. I was visiting Chris at college again, and we were seated in the gym. This time, though, Chris was wearing a white long-sleeved t-shirt that said "Abercrombie" on the front.
"Hey, you look like one of the Connecticut kids!" I said to him, not realizing that more than a year had passed in the last few seconds.
"Connecticut?" Chris looked up at me. "Nobody here's from Connecticut. They're all from New York, Jersey, and Pennsylvania."
"Well, I'm sure you've made a bunch of really great friends here at school," I said.
"You're mocking me, aren't you?" Chris said.
Before I could answer, a bunch of guys came up to Chris and started affectionately slapping him on the back. They asked if he'd be going to The Crab Shack that night.
"Of course!" Chris said.
"Everybody knows Chris!" one of the guys shouted to no one in particular. "And if you don't know him, he's easy to spot. He's ALWAYS drunk!"
Chris laughed and nodded. He was entirely proud of himself.
The next thing I knew, it was nighttime and Chris and I were hiking in the woods behind Ithaca College, making our way to The Crab Shack. It lived up to its name: The Crab Shack was little more than a log cabin. Inside, it was sparsely decorated, with a concrete floor, cinder-block walls, and a few neon beer signs. Chris, who had apparently abandoned not only his no-alcohol principles but his vegetarian principles as well, immediately downed a few plates of crab cakes and a couple of beers. I didn't have anything.
Then, everyone in The Crab Shack started doing chicken fights. Chris didn't ask me if I wanted to participate; he just hoisted me onto his shoulders and began spinning around drunkenly. Because he had such a huge beer gut, few people even attempted to overtake him. Before long, he and I were the last "team" standing. Everyone else had cleared the floor to create a circle around us. I recognized most of the people as the former "Connecticut kids"; they were all wearing North Face jackets and pants from Abercrombie.
Chris's pals started clapping their hands and then broke into a chant of "Hit her and kill her! Hit her and kill her!" Before Chris could officially win the game, he had to knock ME off his shoulders and onto the floor. People started pushing him, trying to get me to lose my balance and fall. "Hit her and kill her!" everyone continued chanting. I was screaming. Chris started slamming me up against the wall, but I wasn't sure if this was intentional or just an effect of his being completely trashed.
I fell off, hitting my head on the cinder-block wall and then on the concrete floor. Nobody stopped to help me. Instead, Chris's pals rallied around him and took him upstairs for more beer and crab cakes.
While on the floor, I lost consciousness. What happened next was either a dream within a dream, or another instance of me travelling in time. I suddenly found myself at a round table in a dark, smoky room. Chris was there, along with a bunch of strange looking characters from Ithaca College. I was witnessing the first time he tried drugs. I was invisible at first, but slowly I found myself sitting in a chair at the table. When Chris turned to me looking fearful, I realized that everyone at the table could see me. They were a mixed bunch. The ringleader was a long-haired neo-hippie. He opened an embroidered briefcase that contained the dope, which he called "green corn."
"Chris, you smoked green corn in high school, didn't you?" the hippie said.
"Sure," Chris lied. The drug was contained in brightly colored Chinese finger traps. Chris took one and passed one to me. Everyone had bowls of either grits or mashed potatoes in front of them, and we were instructed to mix our "green corn" in with the food. When I dumped mine out, it looked like oregano leaves.
The hippie got stoned pretty quickly. He started humorously insulting everyone at the table. Chris was first: the hippie made fun of his loves for highways, maps, and radio. I wasn't looking forward to hearing what the hippie would say about me. Luckily, I would be last.
Chris tentatively began eating his "green corn." Soon, though, he was slurping up his grits and asking for more. We had other food laced with drugs at the table. Chris had a granola bar full of pot, and I had an orange popsicle made with LSD. I ate some of my mashed potatoes and a small bite of the popsicle, but I didn't feel any different. Chris, though, was really out of it; he couldn't stop laughing, and when he turned to me, I noticed how glassy his eyes were.
Before the hippie could insult me, I found myself outside The Crab Shack, lying in the snow. I was back to the night of the chicken fights. Chris found me outside and told me I was no fun, but that we'd go back to his dorm anyway.
"I might need some medical attention, you know," I said, but he ignored me.
A lanky black girl was standing by her SUV, smoking a cigarette. I recognized her as one of the people from the drug room. "You can't count on him," she said quietly from behind a cloud of smoke. "You can't count on anyone."
Suddenly, Phoebe from Friends emerged from the woods and started thrashing through the snow, trying to catch up to Chris.
"You played your stupid chicken game with me when I was pregnant with Frank Junior's triplets!" she yelled at him. "Now all the babies do is fight, and it's all your fault!"
Phoebe looked as though she was going to get violent, but before anything happened, the smoking girl beckoned her to come where she was standing. Phoebe went, and the girl whispered a few things to her, and then Phoebe went back into the woods.
A Land Rover Discovery pulled up on the dirt road outside The Crab Shack. The seats had been taken out, and there were about twenty guys in North Face jackets sitting on the floor. The passenger side window rolled down.
"Hey Chris!" one of the guys shouted. "You coming drinking with us?"
"Sure," Chris said, opening the back door and hopping into the SUV. It pulled away and I was left on the road with the smoking girl, who exhaled again before slowly beginning to walk away.
