Welcome to the inaugural edition of Campus Chronicles! Each week, The Campus will pose a question to the students of Allegheny College. Send us an email at [email protected] with your best story, and we’ll print our favorite.

This week: What is the craziest thing you did this summer?

Next week: What is the strangest night you’ve had at Allegheny?

As a librarian, I have done such things as help foreign dignitaries accurately convey their Powerpoint experience on their resumes, catch patrons masturbating to Women’s Health magazine in the bathroom, and watch fourteen year old boys accidentally have cybersex from opposite sides of the children’s section. Perhaps my strangest day, was caused not by the strange needs of the library’s visitors, but the seemingly innocent suggestions of one of our staff members.

Have you ever judged a dance competition? Prior to this summer, neither had I. I don’t even like to dance. I distrust anyone that can the same way I distrust anyone who dresses well. If you need to work that hard to get people’s attention, what the hell is wrong with you? So when our children’s librarian, Amy, beckoned me into her office and asked if I would judge the children’s disco competition at our annual Summer Reading Bash, I was a little skeptical.

“Hell no,” I said immediately and turned to escape, pocketing a few of the McDonald’s coupons we were supposed to give the kids for trying to read.

“Come on,” Amy smiled and locked the door. “I think you’d be perfect for it.”

“What exactly does it entail?” I imagined myself sitting behind a desk, scowling like Simon Cowell while children tried in vain to impress me with dance moves copied from their parents’ prom photographs.

“Just hang out. Keep them dancing. At the end, find a kid you saw trying real hard and tell her she won. Be encouraging.”

“Encouraging?”

“Be enthusiastic. I don’t know. Get in their faces and tell them to shake it.”

I had to smirk at that. I was making a dollar under minimum wage shelving carts of Danielle Steele books and smiling at old people. Now I had to yell at little girls until they danced for me?

“I’m going to feel like a sleazeball or a pimp or something. Thank God I got my purple velvet suit dry-cleaned.”

Amy’s face lit up. “Really? Wear it!”

The problem was that I wasn’t kidding: I really did own a purple velvet suit. I’d bought it to participate in a male beauty pageant in high school (which, despite a stirring speech where I drunkenly requested that the audience refer to me as “The Candyman,” I lost) and it really was just hanging in my closet, waiting for my next foray into flamboyance. Now that Amy knew I owned it, she couldn’t get it out of her head.

“DJ Disco!” she’d corner me and say every time she saw me for the next two weeks. “Are you ready to pimp it up at the Bash or what!”

“Disco, you ready to shake that groove thing!”

“Disco! You excited to dress up like a man who sells women for money and teach a bunch of toddlers how to YMCA?”

Maybe that last one is made up. But that’s what it felt like to me. When did it become acceptable for pimps to attend children’s parties? Dig up a photo album and check the pictures from your third birthday party. If there is a man present with bling around his neck that spells out the word “Sugtastic” in diamonds with his arm around your mom, something is wrong. But that was 1993, and this is 2010, and I guess Xzibit made pimps completely socially acceptable. So when Amy would corner me so excited that I would be dressing up for her party, I couldn’t think of any reason to tell her no. And besides, dear readers, there is no better job to show up high for than “librarian,” so I was much more interested in getting away from her and chilling on a beanbag in the reading room than in any sort of deflection.

On the morning of the Bash, I woke up and dug through my closet, looking for the suit. In the seventies, my father had ventured into a clothing store which he will only describe as “not for us” (hint: I am white) and picked it up to wear to the rehearsal dinner for his and my mother’s wedding. It came in a big black bag with “Le Tigre,” the name of the store, written in gold lettering across the front. Every time my father sees that logo, he laughs. Every time my mother sees it, she stares out the window and starts thinking about her high school boyfriends. But maybe there is some sort of magic to wearing clothing named after that most majestic of jungle cats (screw lions), because when I saw that logo, I felt ready. If there were any day I felt up to pimping, which despite its necessity is a very difficult art form to master, it was today.

I threw the suit in the car and rolled up to work. The Bash didn’t start for two hours, so I took it easy, making coffee and flirting with the old ladies who do cataloging. I set up the speakers outside and threw on the JoBros playlist I had prepared for the occasion. It was going to be a good day.

Eventually, Amy found me wandering around the break room. “Are you ready to start?” she asked, and I nodded, and we climbed into the elevator to get down to the basement where the Bash was being held.

“Can I ask you one last favor?” she said as the doors finished closing. “Keep an eye on my husband, OK?”

Amy’s husband was a nice guy, but an Irishman in the worst way. He was the dude everyone wanted to party with in college: heavy-drinking, carefree, careless, and genuinely likeable. Even she couldn’t help but smile when she came into work telling us the story of how he got smashed drinking whiskey out of a water bottle at a free jazz show in the park and crashed her car in their driveway. Amy was aware of this quality.

“Please, please, please. No matter what he says to you, do not let him go off and get high.” I nodded, and the elevator doors opened, and we walked through the basement to the parking lot outside. We were at the Bash.

The kids had come in droves. They’d started lining up an hour before the Bash even started, anxious to spend the coins we had given them for lying about reading Superfudge on pencil erasers and paratroopers. At the request of Amy, I put on an air guitar contest for the people in line, which involved five of the bravest young souls I have ever seen standing in front of their peers and feigning seizures to “Eruption” in exchange for t-shirts. Then Amy handed me a guitar, got on the mic, and started to open up the festivities with a song of her own composition.

As I started to strum the chords she whispered to me, I had to smile. Today was going to be fun. Why should I keep being so negative?

“Summer’s here, what are you gonna do?” she began. Some of the kids in line had heard the song before, and started to sing along.

“Jump in a lake, eat a big slice of cake, what are you gonna do?” More kids joined in, and even I had to salivate at the thought of chilling on the water and eating desserts.

“Catch a ball, run down the hall, what are you gonna do?” Hell yeah I want to catch a ball, I thought. I haven’t played catch in ages.

“Run up the slide, take a horseback ride…” Yes! I wanted to shout to Amy. Give me my childhood back! I just want one more chance!

By now, all of the children in line were chanting along with Amy. “Summer’s here, what are you gonna do!” They all screamed and clapped and Amy began to congratulate them on their reading. I stepped inside to put my guitar away and hide it before the madness began. Suddenly, I heard a “Pssst!” from around the corner. Out stepped Amy’s husband, shoulders slumped, bags under his eyes, looking supremely hung over. He shoved his hand in his pocket and produced a small ceramic pipe and flashed me a winning smile.

“Interested?” he said.

I mentioned earlier that being high and at the library is a fantastic experience. For the most part, it’s a peaceful, quiet place with comfortable chairs and no one to bother you. If you like to zone out when you smoke, I highly recommend it. But this was different. For one thing, I had never actually smoked at work. For another, Amy had explicitly requested that I keep her husband from getting high so he wouldn’t make a fool out of himself and get her fired.

But hell! I thought to myself, what was Amy’s song about other than throwing caution to the wind and just enjoying yourself? If kids were going to run up slides and take horseback rides, I was going to smoke a bit of weed. If I was going to recapture my inner child today, I was going to do it right.

I nodded and we snuck out to his car, which was the only vehicle parked in the abandoned lot next to the library that the police station adjacent to our building used to use. As Amy’s husband started to pack up the bowl, I had to come clean.

“You know I was specifically supposed to prevent you from doing this,” I said.

“I know.”

“You know it’s not very good of me to be doing this either.”
“I know.”

Well, that was that. We smoked and schwerved our way back to the library. As usual in these sorts of situations, I had gotten much higher than I wanted to.

“One sec,” I mumbled to myself and took a detour to my car. I grabbed my pimp suit and my sunglasses and ambled through the back door of the library. I stumbled into the staff bathroom, locked the door, and unzipped the suit bag.

“Hehe,” I giggled. I removed the crushed velvet suit and put it on.

“Fuckin’ Austin Powers,” I giggled. I removed the frilly undershirt and put it on.

“Smoov as hell,” I giggled. I slid on the velvet purple pants and checked out my butt in the mirror.

The piece de resistance, though, was the hat. It was gigantic, zebra-print, with a huge pink feather stuck in it. I put it on, threw on my aviators, and looked at myself.

“Yeahhhhhh,” was all I could muster as I stepped out the door to present myself to the world.

I strutted past my coworkers to the elevators, shooting them all suave smiles and saying “How you doin’, baby?” When I got to the elevator, there was Amy, holding a long stick gift-wrapped in Christmas colors.

“I made this for you,” she said. “I think it will really tie your outfit together.”

I tore the paper off. Inside was an old man’s wooden cane that we had been keeping in the lost and found for the last couple of days. Amy had glued sequins all over it, and stuck fake diamond on the top.

I could have cried I was so happy. I hugged her.

“You makin’ me feel like a rock star,” I said.

“You smell like a skunk,” she replied, but I was already slinking into the elevator, ready to take up my post at the disco competition.

When I got to the basement, I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. Usually, feeling that, I would duck out immediately. But all dressed up, I was feeling pretty good.

“Heyyyyy,” I said to one parent, doing my best Fonzie.

“Sup, lil lady,” I said to some seven-year old trying to eat a cheeseburger.

“Smokin’” I said to one of my co-workers running the prize room, and even I didn’t know where I got that one from.

“Aren’t you supposed to be running the dance competition?” she replied. “They just started.”

“Shit!” I said too loud in front of a family of Mormons. I ran over to the next room, where I heard the opening notes of “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee-Gees. I stopped at the door and looked in.

The lights were down and I could just make out through my sunglasses a couple of the girls I worked with trying to teach about thirty seven-year old girls how to line dance. They glared at me for being late, but all I could do was shrug my shoulders.

Alright, I thought to myself. You are DJ Disco. Do it.

I led with my cane and sauntered in. I tried to walk with as much swag as possible, rotating my hips and shoulders casually, like I just oozed mojo. I flashed the girls a winning smile, and to my surprise, they all started to cheer.

Damn, boy, I thought. You look good. Make it happen.

“Hey kiddies!” I shouted in my smoothest tone of voice. “Dis DJ Disco here ta judge yo dancin’. So who here ready to dance?”

They all cheered and I thought, goddamn, boy, maybe you are a rock star.

“Who here’s ready to crown the winner?” one of my co-workers shouted from the front. But all eyes were on me.

“Who here want to win DJ Disco’s lowdown dance competition?” Everybody cheered again. “Anudda song!” I ordered.

As YMCA started to pipe out of the speakers, I started to work my magic. These kids were dancing hard now, and they were doing it for me. I picked out the ones really trying and approached them.

“Waz your name, girl?” I asked one doe-eyed little girl who was frantically spelling out the chorus of the song with her arms. She was speechless for a second, but then breathed out “Lorena.”

“Well hey, Lorena. I think you one of our winners.”

She lit up. “What do I win?”

My face went blank. These kids were so greedy. I would have been happy to just win at their age, but no, they needed prizes? This was supposed to be fun, not capitalism. All the same, I had them in the palm of my hand. I couldn’t lose them now.

“Aight, Lo,” I whispered. “How you like a piece of Disco?” I reached into my jacket and took out the tiny leopard print pocket square that my sister had cut out for me to wear. Lorena snatched it up, her eyes wide. She definitely wanted a piece of Disco.

And so did everyone else. As soon as they saw me hand her the fabric, they went crazy. Some were jumping. Some were spinning. Some were getting low. Anything to get a piece of Disco.

As cool as I could, I sauntered up to the most enthusiastic.

“You get a piece of Disco,” I said to one, handing her an extra pair of sunglasses I found in my pocket.

“And you get a piece of Disco,” I said to another, handing her the diamond off of my cane.

You done good, Disco, I thought. Now let’s wrap this up. But as soon as I opened my mouth to end the dancing, I felt a tug on my sleeve.

I turned. There was a little blonde girl, staring up at me like her dog just died. As the beat of the song picked up, she began to dance as fast as she could. Not knowing too many moves, this mostly consisted of spinning, punching, and running in place.

Even pimps have hearts, and hell, how could I not reward this level of desperation? I felt in my pockets for something to give her, but I had nothing. I took off my hat and took a knee, trying to find the words to tell her that there weren’t enough prizes to reward all the good people in the world.

Of course! I thought, looking at my hat. I removed the giant pink feather from the band.

“Now dis,” I said solemnly, “dis is a very special piece of Disco. I want you to have it. What’s your name, girl?”

“Alexis.”

“Well, Alexis, I want you to have dis feather. Cherish it.”

All she could do was nod. I stood up.

“Erryone, this party is over! Give all your winners a big hand!”

Everyone clapped and glared at the people who had beat them in this sham of a competition. The lights went up.

“Disco is on his way out!” I shouted. “Goodnight!”

I made my way up to the bathroom and started to change. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt a little bit dirty. But, even now, I can’t help but hope Alexis still has my feather under her pillow.

Even now, I wish I could have given everyone a piece of Disco.

Then again, even now, I still have my suit.

So next time you’re party hopping and see a man in a crushed velvet suit strutting his stuff, you better be ready to shake it.