Looking for God
While Naked and Standing in a Foot of Snow
by Don Drewniak
It was a cold
mid-November afternoon during my sophomore year
in college. I pulled my car into a parking area
next to the dorm in which my long-time friend
Lenny had a room at the University of
Massachusetts in the college town of Amherst.
I had a date
that evening with a girl I dated throughout the
previous summer back in Fall River, Massachusetts.
She had been in my graduating class at BMC Durfee
High School and was now a student at UMass.
There was a
scribbled note taped to the door of Lenny’s
room that read, “In the library third floor.”
It was shortly before five in the afternoon when
I found him seated at a table with a book,
notebook and an assortment of pens and pencils.
“How’s
it going?” I whispered.
“Rotten,”
he replied loud enough to draw the attention of a
dozen or so students sitting nearby. Lowering his
voice, he continued, “I’m flunking two
courses. F’n German is killing me.”
I’m a bit
hazy on this, but I think he needed two years of
German in order to apply for whatever program he
wanted to take in his junior year.
He plopped
everything he had on the table into a knapsack
and said, “Let’s go eat.”
It was off to
a cafeteria where he put together a supper. I
opted for a bottle of Coke from a machine as the
date included dinner at a local restaurant and
the viewing of The Wonderful World of
the Brothers Grimm at a nearby theater.
As soon as I
walked into his room after the date, I could see
that Lenny was smashed. He was sitting on the
edge of his bottom bunk holding a pint of whiskey.
An empty pint was on the floor. I assumed it was
cheap stuff as I didn’t recognize the brand
name. He had on one piece of clothing, boxer
shorts.
Also in the
room were his roommate and two others, one of
whom I remembered from a previous visit. He was a
backup lineman for the UMass football team, about
six feet, two inches tall and probably slightly
over two hundred pounds. The others were
nondescript guys who were an inch or two shorter
than my five eleven. All three were holding cans
of beer and seemed to be sober.
“Toss
‘im a beer,” slurred Lenny.
I caught a can
of Schlitz.
Lenny began to
babble pure nonsense as he took a slug of the
whiskey.
“Lenny,
you’ve had enough. Give me the bottle,”
said his roommate.
“Nobody
gonna take it.”
The big guy
stepped up and grabbed it. Lenny took a wild
swing at him that missed. He then popped up to
his feet and bolted out the doorway.
At this point,
I can’t remember who said what.
“Probably
puking in the men’s room.”
“We
better check.”
Off we went.
There was one guy taking a leak.
“Lenny
come in here?”
“Nope.”
“Shit. We
better find him.”
We checked
another head and a shower. No soap. Down we went
to the first floor, again checking the heads and
showers. No Lenny.
“Hey,
look at this.” There was fresh puke and
Lenny’s boxers on the floor near a side door.
It looked like he had tried to clean up the puke
using the boxers.
“Shit!”
Out we went.
He was about twenty feet away from us standing in
a foot or so of snow.
“The
asshole will freeze to death.”
Lenny had his
hands raised over his head and was yelling,
“God, where are you? God, where are you?”
The big guy
said to me, “Stay here. Don’t let the
door shut. We’d be locked out and going
through the main doors might cause problems.”
He then bolted
through the snow and wrapped Lenny in a bear hug.
The other two grabbed a foot each and back they
came. It was up a flight of stairs and into the
room.
We dried him
off, dropped him onto his bunk and covered him
with blankets. He was asleep seconds later.
“Anyone
know where I’m supposed to bunk?” I
asked.
“Eighth
door down on the right. Door’s unlocked.
Lock it if the guy in there is asleep. Take the
top bunk.”
As he said
that, I detected a slight laugh from the big guy.
That should have raised a red flag, but it didn’t.
Fortunately, I left most of my stuff in Lenny’s
room.
I took care of
necessities and off I went. The light in the room
came from a waxing gibbous moon. I locked the
door. Whoever was in the bottom bunk seemed dead
to the world. Up I climbed into the top bunk.
Exhausted, I dozed off.
I awoke to the
sound of radio static.
What the
hell?
Checking my
watch, it was just after three-thirty. “Where’s
that static coming from?” I asked.
A somewhat
high-pitched voice replied, “Isn’t it
beautiful? Come down to my bed and we can listen
to it together.”
Son-of-a
bitch! Lenny set me up!
Dropping down
to the floor, I grabbed my shoes, the few items I
had left on a desktop and two blankets from the
top bunk. Out the door I went.
The
bastard set me up. The bastard set me up.
I rapped on
Lenny’s door. The roommate opened it and
began to laugh.
“So you
knew about it!”
“So did
the two who were here before. That’s why the
empty bunk. He doesn’t have a roommate.”
With that he laughed as tears dropped from his
eyes.
Meanwhile,
Lenny was still dead to world. “Is he alive?”
“Yah,”
“Too bad,”
I replied.
He carefully
removed Lenny’s two blankets from him,
folded one in half and placed it by the door. He
also took a spare pillow from a closet and
dropped it at the end of the floored blanket.
“Grab
Lenny's two wrists. I’ll get his feet.”
We carried him over to the folded blanket and
deposited him on his new bed. Lenny was moaning
as more gibberish came out of his mouth. We
covered him and he became silent.
“Is he
always like this?”
“Only on
Saturday nights when he can’t get a date.
Never this bad. He’s flunking big-time and I
think he finally realizes he’s going to
flunk out. He’s a bright guy, but he picked
some tough courses. Also, he messed around back
in September and dug himself into a hole.”
I got up
around eight. Lenny was awake and claimed to have
a “monster” headache.
“Good, I
hope it stays with you the rest of your life.”
“Did you
have a good time with Tommy last night?” he
laughed
“He was
disappointed that you didn’t come for your
usual Saturday night sleepover.”
“Bullshit.”
From the
“All’s Well That Ends Well”
Department: Lenny and I next met during the
Christmas break.
“The Uke?”
asked Lenny.
“Let’s
go.”
During Fall
River’s heyday (1870–1920), it had
approximately 120 cotton manufacturing mills. A
dozen or more were located in the Globe section
of the city where I lived. At that time in my
life, all the mills had gone out of business.
One of the
mills had a separate office building located
diagonally across from my maternal grandfather
and grandmother’s house. A strong-armed
baseball player could have hit it throwing a
baseball from in front of their house. I tried it
once. The baseball fell woefully short and rolled
into a sewer.
When the mill
went under in either the late 30s or early 40s,
St. John’s Ukrainian Catholic Church bought
the building and named it the Ukrainian National
Home. Used by the church for banquets and other
special occasions, it became known as “The
Uke.” By the late 1950s, church membership
had dwindled to the point wherein it could not
afford to maintain the building.
It was sold
and a bar/restaurant named The Uke opened in 1959
in the basement of the building. It featured
outstanding Polish and Portuguese food.
We each had
two beers and half of a loaf of Portuguese bread
stuffed with chorizo.
Long story
short. Two or three days after my visit to UMass,
Lenny dropped out. His freshman year grades were
good enough to get him into a business-oriented
college from which he ultimately graduated. He
then built a highly successful business.
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