Chapter 15

We straggled upstairs, too stunned to speak, and started to dress. The cops, bright-eyed at the sight of so much bare flesh of the female variety, followed us upstairs ("Just to make sure nothing funny happens") and watched with eagle eye as the girls donned their undergarments. I bet those cops hadn't had so much free kicks since they joined the force.

All along until this moment I had been privately gloating that the law had come. I had stood back, a detached observer during the fight, and I was pleased that all these foul ones would get their just deserts. And then it occurred to me that I was just as guilty as any of them, and that I was probably going to get expelled along with the rest.

The police wagon had arrived, along with a few more men, and as we finished dressing we were shepherded downstairs and placed in the wagon. Carol was slowly waking up, now, and managed to dress herself. She didn't speak to anyone, didn't even seem to have any idea where she was or what was going on.

Finally all of us were loaded in the wagon, all but Fred, who rode separately in the police car. We were taken down to the lock-up, since it was too late at night for any kind of judicial action.

So that was how I happened to spend a night in jail. We were stuffed in four to a cell, and I drew Chuck Gordon, Les Haberman, and Ted Felks as my cellmates. We huddled up miserably in the dank, dark place. Somewhere in the distance one of the other prisoners, not part of our group at all, was intoning a mournful Negro spiritual. I felt pretty mournful myself now. They had taken the girls, locked them up somewhere else. Carol had been locked up with them, as though she were as guilty as any of them. Fred was not with us. The cops were smarter than to lock him in a cell with any of the group.

Chuck sprawled out on his cot. Evidently Fred had given him a real workout. His face was swollen in half a dozen places, and his nose looked either broken or badly bent. He didn't say anything.

Haberman sat huddled up against the wall. He had his face in his hands, and every once in a while his shoulders shook in a dry sob.

Ted Felks said in a dismal voice, "What do you think they'll do to us, Haberman?"

Haberman-who up until a couple of hours ago had been pre-law-said hollowly, "They could slap us in on any of a bunch of statutes. Disorderly conduct; immoral congregation; mixed nudism; hell, there's even an old fornication law they could invoke."

"They couldn't prove fornication, could they?"

I said, trying to be helpful. "They didn't catch any of us in the act."

"That doesn't matter. If they've got any sense they're giving all the girls physicals, now. They'll discover that most of them have been had five or six times tonight, or worse. Draw your own conclusions."

"At least they won't make trouble for Carol," I said. "They'll discover that she wasn't taking part."

Felks said, "Go on, Haberman. What can they do to us? What kind of sentences do these things rate?"

"I don't know. I was only pre-law, not in law school. But I guess they could put us away for years. Or fine us, or something."

"They wouldn't do that!" Felks said hotly.

"Why not?" Haberman asked.

Nobody had any good answer for that one, so we were quiet again. I began to see that we might be in real hot water. I hadn't been thinking in terms of jail sentences. Suppose they gave us each five years? Hell, five years at hard labor! I would die. Absolutely die.

But even at best, we were sure to get expelled. That was the end of medical school for me, the end of a lot of things for these others. Maybe with my marks I never would have gotten into med school. But Haberman, Felks, Burchard, Carter-they were seniors, probably they had already made application to graduate schools, they were all set to enter their careers. Poof. Finished in a second. Finished for good. Instead of a big-shot lawyer, Haberman would wind up as a bookkeeper, maybe. His whole life was split open in one night, nobody's fault but his own, but still a hell of a thing to happen.

I thought about Don Hammer. He was the lucky one; he had escaped. I wondered if any of his alleged buddies would incriminate him.

Thinking thoughts like these, I fell into an uneasy half-sleep that lasted until morning. They brought us breakfast, but none of us were hungry. Then they left us alone to stare at each other until noontime.

And then they came around to tell us that the Dean of Students had arrived, and wanted to see us.

We were let out of our cells and marched down the hallway to a brightly-lit big room, while curious winos and pimps and panhandlers peered at us out of their cells. We walked like condemned men being led to execution.

Dean Chisholm was waiting for us. The Dean is a mild-mannered, gentle man who always has a cheery smile for anyone he meets in the street who might possibly be a Metropolitan man. But he wasn't wearing any cheery smiles right now. His face was rigid as iron and pale as death, and his eyes glared at us like little bullets set in his face. He waited while we filed into the room and arranged ourselves on a long bench in front of him. He particularly winced when he saw Burchard and Haberman, whom he must have known very well.

Cops were standing at either end of the row of us. The Dean paced up and down in front of us, arranging his words in his mind, obviously trying to check the flow of abuse he wanted to pour out on us. I wished I could melt into the floor.

Finally he said, in a soft voice, "I've just read a sworn statement by a member of the Class of '65, describing the state of affairs as he found them when entering your place last evening. I've also spoken to two members of the police who are prepared to testify that they discovered all of you, plus some fifteen or sixteen women, in a state of partial or complete nudity. And I've been shown a record of the medical examination of the Chesley girls arrested with you. The record shows that some of them had had sexual intercourse many times during the past twenty-four hours."

He paused, fixing us each in turn with eyes that were alternately sad and menacing. "I conclude from what I've been told that you and this group of Chesley girls had met regularly for the purpose of committing immoral acts at that address. Does any of you care to deny this?"

He waited, his lips compressed in a tight little line, his eyes searching us one by one. When his gaze came to rest on me, I bowed my head, unable to meet his stare.

"Very well," he said crisply, when he had looked us all over. "I take your silence to mean an admission of guilt." He folded his arms. "I have arranged with the authorities to have you released without arraignment or punishment. This is not primarily for your benefit, but to prevent undue scandal being linked with the University's name. In the same connection, of course, it will no longer be possible for any of you to continue as students at the University. Your Chesley confederates are being similarly treated."

So that was it, then. His words echoed ringingly in the big room. There would be no flashy trial, no jail sentences, no scandal. The Dean had made a deal with the forces of law. No fuss; but we were to be expelled.

I saw him staring ruefully at us. He had said all he intended to say, but he couldn't help going on, "I must tell you how shocked I am at this. Men I've known and trusted-men with high positions in the student body-men with brilliant careers ahead of them-" He scowled. "I don't need to tell you that I am physically sickened by this. And I hope never to see any of you again on the campus. We will try to blot out the memory of you as though you had never enrolled."

He turned away. With an offhand gesture he told the police he was through with us.

But there was one thing I had to find out from him. As the cops started to shuffle us back to our cells, I left the line.

"Where you going, bud?"

"I have to ask the Dean something."

"Dean don't want to talk to you."

But the Dean had heard, and he had turned around. I grabbed my opportunity and called to him, "Dean Chrisholm, I have to ask you something!"

He nodded to the police, who let go of my arms. As the others went off to their cells, I advanced toward the Dean. He was much shorter than I, but I felt about as tall as a worm.

"Well?" he asked sternly.

I gulped audibly. "Sir, I-I have nothing to say in my own defense-but-but-"

"Yes?"

"I was wondering-about the Chesley girls who were caught with us-will all of them be expelled too?"

"Of course."

"All of them? But there was one of them who isn't really mixed up in this. She was drugged, brought to the session under duress-"

The Dean shrugged. It was apparent that he found even talking to me distasteful. "The Chesley authorities will take whatever action they deem to be just."

"But, sir, this girl doesn't deserve expulsion. Heck, sir, the medics must have examined her! Didn't it seem peculiar that one girl of all those was still a virgin? Surely-"

He shook his head. "If the girl is innocent, Burnside-it is Burnside, isn't it?-she can speak in her own defense. I'm only concerned with the behavior of Metropolitan men. Is there anything else you wish to say to me, Burnside?"

"No, sir."

"Very well, then."

He walked away, and the cop who had remained guided me back to my cell. We stayed in the lock-up for most of the rest of the day, while legal arrangements for our release were being made. Toward evening we were called before a magistrate, who gave us a royal dressing-down, let us know what sort of sentences we deserved, and warned us in no uncertain terms that if we were ever hauled in on any sort of morals charge again, the law would descend on us with double vigor. At present, he thought, we were being punished enough by the disgrace we had brought upon ourselves, and so he was releasing us on probation.

And that was that. The law turned us loose. We were free men. We slunk out on the streets, sullen and afraid to talk to each other.

All this entire time since the arrest, we hadn't seen either Fred or the girls. I wondered if Carol had been exonerated.

We must have made a pretty sight as we rode uptown in the subway, each of hanging his head as though he wore the Mark of Cain above his eyes. We got out at the 216th Street Station and went our separate ways without even saying good-by.

I walked back to the hotel, let myself in, and slammed the door. I was beginning to get used to the idea that I was expelled, that I didn't have to go to my morning classes tomorrow, that the textbooks piled sloppily into my bookcase might just as well be sold back to the book store now. I wasn't Joe College any more. I wasn't part of the Ivy League, now.

I was just Jeff Burnside of Hudson, New York, and now I was supposed to go trailing back home with my tail between my legs and let them see what a fine figure of a man their son had turned out to be.

Everything had happened too fast to absorb. The sudden arrival of Fred, the free-for-all, the cops, the arrest, the trip to court, the expulsion-it was all such a blinding sequence of events that I was only now beginning to get it all sorted out in my mind.

I didn't know what to do now, where to go, how to react. Should I just leave, slip out of New York like a thief in the night? That didn't seem right. I didn't know what to do, so I settled down on my bed fully dressed in the dark, smoked a dozen cigarettes, and then closed my eyes and went to sleep.

The ringing of the phone got me up. I was surprised to see that it was after ten. Nobody else seemed around to answer it, so I climbed off my bed, hurried out into the hall, and caught it on the fifth ring.

"Mr. Burnside?" a cool, efficient woman's voice asked.

"T-that's right."

"This is the Dean's Office calling. Kindly report here at noon to pick up your papers."

"Noon? Okay, I'll-"

Click. I stared at the dead phone awhile, finally replaced it on its hook.

I shaved, showered, breakfasted. By that time it was nearly eleven. I started over to Michaels Hall to see the Dean.

On the way, I paused at the newsstand, and what I saw made me feel sick. If the Dean had hoped to avoid scandal by getting us released, he was going to be disappointed. Because smeared across the front of the Daily News in big black letters were the words, EXPOSE IVY LEAGUE LOVE CLUB.

Hastily I dumped a nickel down, snatched up the paper, opened it to page three. And the whole story was there. Some fast-moving reporter with an inside track on the police had gotten it all. It was even illustrated by six photos, that looked like they had been taken for the senior yearbook. The smiling, well-groomed mugs of Zelda Hughes, Lois Reznik, Nora Sands, Roy Burchard, Les Haberman, and Ted Felks stared up at me.

The article began, "More than two dozen Metropolitan and Chesley students were taken into custody over the weekend after the exposure of a collegiate 'sin house' near the Metropolitan campus." It went on to give the whole lousy story, or as much of it as was printable. It listed the names of everybody taken in-I found my own name right there, Jeffrey Burnside, Hudson, New York, and ironically enough it was the second time I had ever had my name in the paper, the first time having been when the Hudson rag proudly announced that I had been accepted by Metropolitan University. Don Hammer's name was not listed, which implied that he was going to slip through, and Carol West was listed among the girls apprehended. That upset me. Fred was mentioned too, as a jealous lover whose arrival in search of his girl had touched off the exposure. That was accurate enough, though they didn't name the girl.

Maybe bank robbers save their press clippings for their scrapbooks, but I didn't want any part of the newspaper I was holding. I read the article through again, shuddered, and dumped it in the nearest trash barrel.

So now the cat was really out. Everyone on campus would know; the home papers would find out; maybe the wire services would pick the story up and blare it all over the United States.

I walked on leaden feet toward the Dean's office, wishing I was wearing a sack over my head. The campus was comparatively quiet at this hour, most people being in classrooms, but I was sure that a thousand eyes were on me, a thousand tongues whispering what I had done.

I skipped up the steps of Michaels Hall, crossed the lobby, and waited outside the office. It was precisely half past eleven. Chuck Gordon came out, stared dazedly at me, and walked rapidly away. I went in.

The coldly impersonal secretary looked up at me and said, "Your name, please?"

"Burnside, Jeff." My voice was barely a croak.

She searched through a stack of file folders on her desk and handed me one with my name on it. At her order I looked through it and found a note from the Dean officially advising me of my expulsion, a voucher informing me of the amount of tuition refund that would be paid to my parents, a record card with my freshman grades, and various other official odds and ends. I closed the folder and said, "Is there anything else?"

"No."

So I turned and left. Lome Byris was waiting outside the door as I came out, looking like a ghost. I didn't say anything to him.

I went back to the hotel. The hotel manager had a copy of the Daily News spread out on his desk, and while I waited for the elevator to come he smiled at me with greasy joviality and said, "Hey, Burnside, this your name I see in the paper?"

"What of it?"

"Told you, you'd get into trouble, fooling around with all those girls!"

"I'm moving out this afternoon," I told him. "Don't worry about my lowering the moral tone around here."

"Nice young fellow like you, why'd you have to get mixed up in that crap?"

"Go to hell,' I said. The elevator came and I got into it.

The apartment was empty upstairs. Good thing, too; if Miss Rooksby had come out clucking about my sinfulness, I might have committed murder or something. But there was no one around. I tossed my damning file folder down on the bed and wondered about my parents. I decided finally I better call them.

So I did, collect. My father answered the phone and said immediately, "Hey, there was a story on the radio this morning about a bunch of kids getting expelled from Metropolitan-"

" I know. I was one of them."

He started to say something, then realized what I had just told him, and I heard him gasp.

"What?"

"I'm out, Dad. I guess I got mixed up in something too deep for me, or something." I prayed that I would drop dead right here at the telephone, so I wouldn't have to continue this conversation.

But he said, "Let me get this straight. You've been-expelled? For being part of that sex thing?"

"That's right, Dad."

He was silent for a long time. Then he said, "What about the money I paid for this year's tuition?"

"The University is sending it back to you."

"Oh," he said. There was something like a cough. I wanted him to offer sympathy, to forgive me for my mistake, to say something encouraging.

Instead he said, "What are you planning to do now?"

"I-don't know. I guess I'll come home first, and then-"

"Home? You're not coming here, you filth! How could you dare show your face in Hudson again?" He went on in that vein for nearly a minute, playing variations on the theme of never-darken-my-door-again, and then, as though remembering that this was a collect call and so his tirade to a worthless son was costing him money, he slammed down the receiver.

Numbly, I hung up the phone-it was the second time in the past few hours that someone had hung up on me, and I didn't like the sensation at all. I walked back into my room and took stock of things.

I had fifty-one dollars in cash, and about two suitcases full of belongings. The important thing now was to get out of the college area. I decided to move to Greenwich Village or some place, get a job, support myself, and try to figure out what my next big move would be.

Cash was the most important item now. I piled together all of my textbooks, dragged them over to the book store, and struck a deal for $25, or approximately half of what I had paid for them.

Returning to my room, I packed up the rest of my belongings. The next step was to take a subway ride down town and find a place. Within three hours I had found one, not quite in Greenwich Village, but over on East Third Street. A reasonably clean room, eleven dollars a week, with sink, community kitchen and bathroom, and use of a phone.

I settled up my rent uptown, dragged my pitiful belongings into the subway, and rode to my new place of residence. I said good-by to nobody. The chapter in my life called Metropolitan was over, and it hadn't had a happy ending at all.