The Astigmatic Eye

Skip Mars and Eric Airey and a coupla other guys like Sancho Jones would save all of their empties in an unused wall locker in Skip’s room. When the locker was full, they’d return all the empties and have a Latin Night. No, this had nothing to do with Ricky Martin or Selena. These were toga parties, straight out of “Animal House.”

They wanted to keep their soiree’s from getting out of hand, so they usually only told a few guys. Women were a different story. The more, the merrier. Anyways, Friday, some pencil neck dweeb freshman named Joe Sykes found out about their plans for a Latin Night that evening and pretty much told the whole campus.

About eight, George and I walked up to Loyola Hall where the party was, looking very Caesaresque in our togas. George even had a green camouflage headband on, like a wreath, in his hair.

“Nero! Tiberius!” Eric greeted us, “So glad you could join the evening’s festivities.”

“Just call me Caligula.” I replied.

“Fine. Vino, Vidi, Vinci!”

Skip and Eric and those guys were pissed off at Sykes for inviting the whole peninsula. Vengeance was on their minds. Eric was a dirty trickster par excellence. Had he been born 25 years earlier, he would have been working with G. Gordon Liddy and the Plumbers.

There’s this girl they all know, Lola something-or-other, who Sykes had a crush on. So they got her to come on to Sykes and lure him into what appeared to be an empty room. Sykes, thinking that he was going to get some, got ambushed by four toga-clad dudes, instead.

I had just finished off a funnel o’ Natty Lite and it was for me to bleed the dragon. So I walk into room where Sykes just got waylaid. Sykes lunged at me and nailed me in the jaw with a left. Today, I saw him with a cast on his left arm. It turns out that he broke his left hand when he punched me. I didn’t remember any of this.

As the night went on, things got more beery. Some guys brought in a Pizza Hut sign that they stole off some delivery driver’s car. Marv Aschenbach, who delivered for Pizza Hut, showed up a little later. It was his sign they stole. Anyone else would have been pissed, but not Marv. He was a 6’5” Mellow Mountain.

There was some asshole at the party from Monterey Peninsula College who showed up around one. He thought that he was King Shit. He could bench 400 pounds; he could drive a golf ball 300 yards; he hit .425 last season. I got sick of his shit. I was running a lot back then, so I challenged him to a mile race; in togas.

The track was just up the hill from Loyola Hall. Everyone who was still awake came up to see the race. It was a quarter-mile track, so the race was four laps. Marv waved a flag and Mr. Wonderful and I were off. I was leading after two laps and was starting to pull away when I started feeling nauseous. I had to pull over and throw up. The townie overtook me, but I was keeping up.

There was half a lap to go and he was about to pull away. I figured my only chance was to trip him. The crowd was cheering me on. It was my crowd. But when I went to trip him, I step on his toga and it came off. He ran the last hundred yards totally naked. Then he blew chunks all over the track. It was one of the most memorable sights I’ve ever seen.