Piece of Shit Car

It was the beginning of Spring Semester 1999.  I arrived on campus to find that the heating pipes of my frat house had frozen over Christmas break.  Industrial-size heaters were put in the house to use until the furnace was fixed.  A problem arose because the industrial-size heaters let off very poisonous gases.  This meant no one could sleep in the house.  I was told by our President that everyone that lived in the house needed to find somewhere else to sleep that night.  Luckily, someone was coming to the house Tuesday to fix the problem, so it would only be one night that we were inconvenienced.

We were given plenty of notice, so everyone should have found a place to sleep that night…except for me and my partner in crime, Z.  Now, me and Z could have easily found somewhere, but we were never the type to listen to authority.  We always did what we wanted.  If the fire inspection people tell us we can’t even sleep in our own house, then we say “Fuck You!”.  After all, it was our house, and we were not going to abandon it.

It was the middle of winter, so we couldn’t camp out.  What we decided on was even better, however.  A KA Alum, Ye Enka, who lived nearby, had left a broken down car in our driveway for months.  It had stalled out on him and he had it towed to the house, never bothering to pick it up.  Z and I decided to sleep in the car.  Not because we had to, but because we wanted to.  We were both known for doing whacky things like that. 

In preparation, we went out that night and got bombed.  We hit up a couple parties and then went to the bar.  We told everyone we saw what we were going to do.  They all thought we were crazy.   Z and I must have had 10 offers from others to crash at their place- including 3 different frat houses, a few sports team houses, and the apartments of some very hot women.  We turned everyone down.  We were men on a mission.  At closing time, we stumbled back to the house and ran inside to grab shit to keep us warm.

I came down with a pair of jogging pants, a few layers of shirts, and my bedding.  Z came down with basically his whole wardrobe:  6 coats, multiple layers of shirts and pants, wool socks and an electric blanket.  He ran the blanket’s cord from inside the house, and , once settled in, attempted to get cozy in the front seat.  I got stuck in back, of course.  It ended up being single digits temperature that night.  Amazingly, I don’t remember getting cold. I actually slept decent.

The next morning, we both woke up around 9 or so.  When we were slowly making our trek back into the house, an Alfred Fire Inspector car pulled in the driveway.  Z and I just stood there, in our multi-layers of clothing, bedding in hand, watching as an Alfred Fire Inspector got out with a clipboard and started walking towards the house.  She saw us, and suddenly looked very confused.  She walked up to us and asked if we lived in the house.  After we confirmed her worst nightmare, she looked down at the bedding in our hands, then at the open car door, and immediately understood that we had issues.  She didn’t know the half of it.

Z and I went on to spend the night in automobiles, hotel rooms, closets and many other places together.  We have both led very long and happy lives.  Unfortunately, the fate was not the same for the other character in our story - Ye Enka’s car.  A few months later my fraternity was having our Annual Pig Roast outside the house.  There was tons of beer, crazy food, and we actually had nice weather, which was a rarity in that town.  The party was crowded; everyone was hanging out, eating and drinking.  Some people were playing horseshoes, others were keg bowling.  After awhile, the party goers apparently got bored of these activities and were looking for something else to do.  One of the brothers glanced around the lawn and saw a baseball bat.  Before the words “Who wants to play Home-Run derby?” were out of his mouth, he noticed an old, beat-up car sitting there in the driveway, abandoned.  A sinister idea popped into this young man’s head…

A favorite pastime at KA- keg bowling.

Twenty minutes later, the car had dents all over it; all the windows were already busted out.  Glass and metal was everywhere.  Drunk party goers took turns bashing the car, with no regard for anyone’s safety.  Every time a window was smashed, glass would shoot everywhere, including all over the vandalist, but no one cared because everyone was shit-faced and having the time of their lives.  One of our more opportunistic brothers even charged people to hit the car.  Not a bad money-making idea, I must say. 

The funniest part of this story is that, a few weeks later, Johnny Fast-Times (JFT), another one of our alumni who coached football at the College across the street stopped at the house to visit.  He noticed the beat to Hell car and decided to play a joke on Ye Enka.

JFT called Ye Enka, who he coached football with, and told him that one of his football players wanted to buy the car.  With that piece of good news, Ye Enka came to the house  to pick up his car.  When he got there, all he saw was a demolished, windowless hunk of scrap metal.  To say he was pissed would be an understatement.  Ye Enka’s not a good man to piss off.  He is 6’6” and around 400 lbs, with long, flowing blonde hair.  He used to carry two full kegs at a time when he was an active brother.  Most people I know can’t even lift one off the ground, much less carry two.  These are the old school kegs too, with no handles.  They were very awkward to carry, yet he had no trouble.  When Ye Enka saw his car, he flipped out!  He stomped into the House like the Incredible Hulk, ready to disembowel anyone who was unlucky enough to be there.   He broke whatever wasn’t already broken in the house, and threatened the life of the House President, who had nothing to do with the car bashing.  He lifted this poor guy, Jimmy P, up by his neck and slammed him against the wall, shaking the whole foundation of the house.  After Jimmy P shit his pants a few times and started crying, Even let him go, then stormed out.  The other alumni heard what happened, and let Ye Enka in on the joke.  Ye Enka didn’t talk to him…or us, for months.