Boy Fun: An Adventure Story

Okay, I’ll admit…It was entertaining. My downstairs neighbors were terrorizing the sorority that backed up to our duplex (terrorizing is a little strong but what else do you call running half-naked around a parking lot and yelling ‘Sororo-whores’?). We had an epic rivalry with that house. From my spot on a balcony overlooking the mayhem, I was alternately laughing at their antics and cocking a judgmental eyebrow at their immaturity.

But mostly I was paying attention to Jack Steele, the deliciously cute sledneck (that’s the Minnesota version of a redneck: someone really obsessed with snowmobiles and Fox racing jackets-so not my type…usually) visiting my downstairs neighbors for the weekend.

“Oh my god, what is Paul wearing?” I asked, squinting down at my slightly mentally unstable housemate.

“Is that a G-string?” Jack Steele wondered.

“I think so. Yeah.” We got the giggles. Somehow this didn’t surprise me about Paul. The fact that he owned a G-String went along well with his roommate Corey’s theory that Paul was a secret male stripper. Could it be true?

Jack Steele and I went on talking and cuddling. I was having such a lovely evening gazing into his Josh Hartnett eyes that you can imagine my surprise when I heard a voice from below me shout:
“I’m gonna break your fuckin’ door down!”

Unable to see where that had come from, I laughed. “Why?” I asked. Then Jack Steele was dragging me into the house, where Paul and his friend Taylor and some guy whose age kept fluctuating between 15 and 18 (we’ll call him Questionably Young Kid, or QYK) were already freaking out. It happened really quickly; I was completely disoriented. Before I could ask what was going on, Paul was hurrying us all downstairs into the basement. He unlocked our landlord’s huge utility room with the key that he’d once discovered hanging on the wall. This key gave us access to endless free cleaning supplies and keys to half the houses in the Dinkytown neighborhood. It was so against the rules.

“What’s going on?!?” I kept asking, but Paul waited until we were safely locked in the utility room with all the lights out before he answered me.

“Ellie, that was the cops. Either the sorority or the Christian housing collective next to them called them. You and Jordan are underage so we have to hide you.”

“So are you!” I protested.

“Ha. Please. I have a military fake ID. Cops don’t mess with soldiers.”

“And I’m not even drinking, I’m the only sober one here! They’re just here ’cause of your noise.” Not listening to me, Paul searched the room by the light of his cell phone, and found an empty metal utility cabinet that would fit both me and QYK.

“What! No way,” I said, as QYK squeezed into the small space and Paul forced me into it also. In the dark I could just barely see the apologetic look on Jack Steele’s pretty face. “No way, no way, no way. I am so not a part of this! Just let me go to bed!”

“You can’t go upstairs,” Paul said with frightening force. “They’ll see you and we’ll all go to jail!”

“No we won’t! I haven’t been doing anything wrong! Just let me go to bed,” I said. Paul closed the door of the cabinet. “I’m the sober one here, you’re being unreasonable!” I yelled from inside the cabinet, but the other guys were gone already. I heard them creep out of the utility room. They were off to see if the cop car was still outside. “Ugh, this is ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” QYK agreed.

“Hiding from the cops. Why me? I wasn’t even doing anything! I wasn’t drinking, I wasn’t annoying that sorority.” I took my cell phone out of my pocket and used it to light up the interior of the cabinet. This might be the time you expect one of us to start having a panic attack. Claustrophobia’s quite a common problem, and the space we were in was extremely cramped. But if anything, I’m actually claustrophilic, if there’s such a thing; I love small spaces. And I love hiding. So beneath my terror of getting in trouble because of Paul’s decision to hide from the police officer, I was also loving the suspense.

“Paul’s crazy,” QYK stated.

“Yep. So how old are you?”

“18.”

“Why’d they say you’re 15?”

“Dunno.”

“If they would just let me go to sleep, I could get out of this whole situation.”

“I think it’s kinda fun.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I kind of think so too. But god, if we get in trouble for not letting the cops in…”
“We won’t. They’re not even busting us for drinking. They don’t give a shit about noise complaints. This is a college neighborhood.”

“True,” I said. “But I’m guessing they’re not going to be happy that we’ve barricaded ourselves in here. Let’s hope they don’t see it as a fun challenge. Find the hidden college kids.” We sat in silence. Dum-de-dum. From above us came the noise of the guys running up and down the stairs. I figured if the cops were still lurking outside, QYK and I did have the best spot in the house. I decided to stop fighting my forced imprisonment. I chatted with QYK about school (he claimed he went to community college but I wasn’t so sure), his juvenile record, and the dangers of being friends with Paul.

Suddenly the guys were back. They saw my cell phone and took it from me.

“The cop’s still here, he’s circling the house. Be silent,” Taylor said in his ultra-manly deep voice.

“Why are you wearing a G-String?” I asked Paul innocuously. He ignored me. They left again, this time leaving me and QYK in pitch darkness. We had nothing to say. I tried not to think about all the spiders inside the cabinet with us.

“Alright. I’ve had enough. I’m sneaking into my apartment and going to bed,” I said. “Mission acquired.”

“Good luck.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling into the pitch darkness. Okay, this whole snafu was getting kind of fun. I climbed silently out of the cabinet and braced myself for the impossible task ahead of me. I would have to creep up 5 flights of creaky stairs without running into Paul and the others. It would require ultimate stealth. They were running all over the house now, I could hear them. I began dashing quietly up the stairs, stopping at every landing to peer around the corner. Somehow, the coast was clear all the way up. I reached the door to my top-floor apartment and found it locked. Oh no. Was it worth it to wake up my roommates? Thinking back, I should have been worrying more about myself and less about interrupting their precious sleep. But it wouldn’t have worked anyway; I later learned that the door was locked because Paul had repeatedly banged on the door to be let in. Hypocrite. He knew my apartment was the safe zone. To me, he had claimed the cops would knock down every door in the house and arrest us all, even though they were separate apartments. I knew I needed to be on the other side of the door. My room was my only hiding place from the guys. But as I stood there deciding what to do, Paul ran up the stairs behind me and grabbed me by the wrist. I was again banished to the cabinet. He was obviously overreacting to the situation. I felt like the only rational person in the house.

It didn’t take long for me to wriggle my way out again and declare that I was going to be a part of the patrol team. I might as well join the fun they were obviously having. The cops were gone, but crazy Paul thought we still weren’t safe. It was strange to be the only girl running wild with a bunch of guys, especially when one of them was only wearing a black G String. This would never happen with my wine-swilling, socially-conscious, book-nerd girl friends. I realized this was what boy fun was like. It was kind of entertaining, in a one-time-only kind of way. It was like fart jokes or throwing burritos at your friends’ cars: even the most ladylike of us girls like to indulge in boy fun from time to time.

We were all sitting on the steps somewhere in the labyrinth of staircases. “Are you a male stripper?” I asked Paul.

He considered whether to tell me or not, but when you’re drunk you always want to tell secrets. “Yeah, I am. Men of Steel.”

“Oh my god! I mean, I sort of suspected it but…”

“Yeah, it’s a great job. I get paid to go party with hot older women. The company provides us with drinks and security guards. It’s awesome. I’ve been trying to get pretty-boy Jack Steele to be a stripper too. His name’s perfect for it.”

Jack Steele laughed it off awkwardly.

“This is the craziest night of my life,” I said. This running from floor to floor at the whim of Paul the Stripper continued for like an hour. He was sure that the police would come back and get us.
Finally, Paul got over his paranoia and we all went to clean up after the party he’d thrown earlier that evening. A few minutes into the process, there was a knock on the door and the words, “It’s the police.” We were all accounted for, so it wasn’t a prank.

“That’s enough, I’m out of here,” I said, heading for the stairs to my apartment. Thankfully the door was unlocked now. I brushed my teeth and put on pajamas and crawled into my tiny little twin bed. Ten minutes later, there was the loud and distinct sound of Paul knocking on the door. He would do this all night if I didn’t answer the door-I would know. That was quite a frequent problem in our apartment. I sighed and got out of bed. I opened the door and Paul and Jack Steele were standing in the hallway.

I let them in. We sat on my bed and talked about the night.

“They can’t do anything if you don’t let them in,” Paul said, explaining his decision to ignore the cops once again.

“They can tell our landlord about this whole ordeal,” I said.

“Whatever, Ellie. Tom doesn’t mess with us. He knows we’re soldiers and we get what we want.”

“Okay, it’s five in the morning. I need to sleep,” I said. Instead of leaving, though, the guys climbed into bed with me. I was too tired to protest, though I made sure there were at least 3 blankets between me and Paul’s G String. Gross. Somehow we fell asleep like that.