My Breakfast Club

University was a word I had anxiety about my entire life. To avoid it would be outstanding, to enjoy would be a roller-coaster.

When that letter of acceptance comes through your mailbox you feel this sigh of relief; you made it, you're above the rest, you'll conquer the World. Well, no-one told me it would be a journey like no other with hiccups that resemble creatures from the Lost Lagoon. Highs and lows so profound, Jack Nicholson is easily taken to task for his role in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'.

You leave 'what was your life' in a storage locker called 'the family home'. You also take a buddy with you so you're not left 'totally' alone to face an alternate Universe/University. You observe at first before sharing anything that will label you for the remainder of your school year. You tread gently in a land full of hormones and expectations.

My room, ROOM 209, was in a dorm full of men from various places across Canada. Introductions are made and you file away 'thoughts' of who will be avoided and who will be your study partner. One young man, at the end of the hall was on my 'hit list' of AVOIDEES. He was scruffy. Not only was he scruffy, he played loud daunting music and was always lying on his thin mattress with his foot bobbing back and forth to 'downer music'. I assumed he was going to be the drop-out, the drug dealer or the pimp. I suddenly had visions of 'The Breakfast Club' with me, unjustly accused, sitting next to him while he tapped his switch-blade against his worn jeans.

In that moment had God jumped out and told me 'this will be your new best friend', I would have jumped from the second floor into the manicured hedge.

I looked at my enclosed rabbit hutch for the school year: one desk, one prisoner-of-school bed, one worn stand-up closet with graffiti chiseled into the wood and one metal chair. Lockdown in Room 209.

After hanging up my pleated pants, my cuffed shirts and folding my Eddie Bauer Boxers into a warped drawer, I checked out the oval grounds. I would find my escape places in the maze called 'University'. The one room where I could escape was the piano room. Yes, the black and white keys would be my place to pound away when the drugs were unleashed and the booze began to flow...and this only took 24 hours.

Party, party a lot, party day and night, party until your head is literally fused with the toilet seat. That was the condition my condition was in. On one of these 'party nights', the man I deemed to be my 'study buddy' knocked on my door. It was Eric. Eric with the goofy face and big glasses. He was my big lug side-kick who would spare me hallucinations and fist fights. When I opened the door his glasses were gone and his eyes were red. He pawed my shoulder and demanded 'I COME TO THE PARTY AND GET SMASHED.' Being a polite and gentle soul, I simply said, "thanks Eric but, I do have an essay due for tomorrow". With that amazing cop-out the last thing I expected was Eric's huge hand slapping my face as he muttered, "you gotta have a party man!" And, he was gone.

Yes, the juices were flowing, the spittle from his beer-guzzlin' mouth hit me square in the cheek. Okay, I'd find another study-buddy and put some ice on my face; there was a tub full of ice in the common bathroom where the beer was being chilled, the 200 bottles of beer. Then I heard a voice as my door was being shut. "He didn't mean to do that." Probably God, again, telling me what an 'adventure' this was going to be. Perhaps Eric's slap-of-the-night had jarred a personality I hadn't met? But, it wasn't God, it was a hidden personality, it was THAT GUY AT THE END OF THE HALL...yup, the ONE, the one I had promised to side-step. His door was open, his Bhudda pose on his mattress was dressed in a black t-shirt, probably those same jeans, afro hair gone wild and a single pearl ear-ring telling me he was dangerous for my education. But, he invited me to come to his lair. Yes, it was time to meet 'Magic Mushroom Man'. Lamb to the slaughter.

I tried everything to escape the terror at the end of the hall. My excuses were lame and he knew it. I would be a drug addict by midnight, listening to acid rock and getting a tattoo somewhere on my student body. He would be my undoing. I knew I should have gone to Church.
I would become his puppet...he would be 'the dark PUPPETMASTER'.

I stood at the end of Bhudda's bed. His hands were clasped over his ratty t-shirt. The man had a hole in every piece of cloth on his body not to mention that one in his ear. He tapped the side of the bed and TOLD me to sit. His grin was pretty menacing..kind of Cheshire Cat I'd say, but more feral. I don't think I spoke which was unlike me because I had this great attribute of never shutting up in a crowd. The silence was deadly, for me, for him...not so much. I think he was embracing my terror. Yes, he was embracing my terror which hit a real high when he calmly said, "SHUT THE DOOR SO THE FACE SLAPPER STAYS OUT." Caged. Trapped. Mercy Kill.

He introduced himself while I let my eyes wander to his collection of books. Likely slasher novels or 'alternate ways to party'..but, no, I was wrong. Oh, I was wrong about many things. Standing tall were the best authors of days gone by, books of poetry, classics. He, Misha as I would come to call him, was more complex than any part of my life. He was someone you were lucky to listen to. Weaving stories of his life, he became my best friend who would hide from his followers in Room 209

or escape with me in my Volkswagon Beetle to the ocean where we'd talk about going to Australia or what our families would be like.

I found myself in that piano room too often throughout that year in Room 209. Misha was a man, like all of us, fighting his demons. I had demons of my own and in a world called DORM LIFE, demons rise from a filtering system smothered with booze and drugs, sex and lies. But, there were moments of greatness. Your 'Breakfast Club' of two becomes your outlet to a safer place. It's an elite Club where you can escape the loud music, the blurs and slurs of room-mates, the Von Trapp born-again Christians and the constant pressure of 'making it'.

I never went back. My holy friend moved away and took my dream of family while I stuck out my thumb and hitch-hiked through Australia

to face my demons, but not with my friend. He was at another University changing lives and rising above those books I saw on his shelf the first day we spoke.

We all have turning points in our lives. One of mine was in Room 209 and shared with a stranger I had judged as my biggest nightmare but, at the end of the day, he was 'My Breakfast Club'.