I’m Moving Out

Grandma had told me that it was really no problem, to think nothing of it. I was astounded by her generosity, but at this point I had no reason to be astounded. She had been known in circles for her generosity, in addition to her various eccentricities. 

It was raining slightly, dripping. Misty, but also dripping outside. Like icicles had formed under every awning and were beginning to melt. I moved all of the boxes by myself, and tried not to make too much noise as I marched up and down the stairs with the boxes in tow. I knew full well that they were already up – mom sitting up in her bed with her lamplight on, and my grandparents sitting up in their bed, side by side, with both lamplights on – but even so, I tried to not make too much noise. I liked to pretend as if they were still asleep, for my own peace of mind. 

When I arrived at the university, the front gates were closed. It seemed odd to me that there was not a security guard posted at the check in point. It wasn’t as if I was arriving in the dead of night. It was about 5:00 in the morning. And even if I had been arriving in the dead of night, shouldn’t there still be someone there manning the station?

I turned off the engine and stepped out of the car. I walked up to the front gate and looked inside the office at the check-in point. The front door was wide open, the overhead light was on, and there was a laptop open with a screensaver on display. There was a cup of coffee next to the laptop and a jacket draped over the desk chair. 

I looked around the premises and didn’t see anyone around. I looked at my car – well, I say “my car”, but it was really the “family car” that I was borrowing as long as I was a student. I couldn’t remember if I had locked it, so I took the key fob from my pocket and pressed the lock button two times. The front lights flashed twice. 

I stepped inside the check-in office and sat down in the desk chair. I touched the mousepad on the laptop, and to my surprise the laptop woke up and took me straight to the home page. There was no automatic lock prompt that popped up asking me to type in the password. 

The background on the desktop was of a darker skinned family. A father, a mother, two daughters, and a son. It looked like they were on a family vacation in Hawaii. There were seven file folders on the desktop, marked “Inventory”, “Work Stuff”, “Wallpaper Pics”, “Fiction”, “Applications”, “Grandfather’s Will”, and “Car Management.” There was also a Word Doc titled “Song List”. I was tempted to open the files or search his web history, but I already felt guilty enough about this whole unnecessary search, and closed the laptop entirely. 

I looked around the space, at the assortment of papers on the desk and the whiteboard that was hanging on one of the walls. There was a simple message on the whiteboard, scrawled in green erasable marker: “Days Without An Incident.” And under this, scrawled in the same green erasable marker, was the number “72”. 

I stood up from the desk chair and stepped outside. It was still misty in the early morning but it wasn’t as drippy as it was when I had left home. I walked a few steps so that I could see down the path, and I saw a short and burly man wearing a windbreaker and a baseball cap walking my way. I could tell by his build that he was the father in the Hawaii family photo on the laptop. 

He seemed to be in a huff, and as he got closer to me I saw him wagging his finger and shouting, “You’re not supposed to go in there.” 

As he got closer to me, he repeated, “You’re not supposed to go in there”, and he was continuing to wag his finger in consternation. 

“I’m sorry,” I replied, and I truly was sorry. I could hear the sorriness in my own voice. “It’s just that the door was open, and I was curious. And it’s kind of cold outside.”

“You could have waited in your car,” he scoffed. “Did you open my laptop?”

“It was already open.” 

“You know what I mean, son. Did you look through my laptop?”

I found no need to lie. “I just looked at the folder names, that’s it. I swear.”

“Didn’t open the browser, huh?”

“No, I didn’t open the browser.”

“Well if you had, you would have discovered that I’ve been researching which charity to donate my monthly earnings to.” He hiked up his pants, and I could see that he wasn’t wearing a belt. “I’m making enough now that I’ve got a little extra money to throw away, and I figured, ‘instead of drink it away, why not donate it every month?’ So that’s what I was doing. I was researching charities.”

“I believe you.”

“You thought there was going to be porn on there, didn’t you? Bet that you thought Pornhub was just going to pop right up.”

“No, I thought nothing of the sort.” And I genuinely didn’t. 

“Well, that’s good, because you would have been dead wrong. I’ve been researching charities.”

“I believe you.” And I really did. 

“Want to know which charity I landed on?”

“Not particularly, no.” And it was true, by this point I wad starting to get tired of the conversation and of the man in front of me. 

“Red Cross,” he said. And then he hawked up a big glob of spit and shot it out of his mouth and onto the pavement. “Yep. Red Cross. They’re the best. That’s who I landed on.” 

“Well, that’s great,” I said. “But I’m a new student here, and I’d like to pull through so I can begin unpacking my things.” 

“New student, eh?” he asked. “They give you a key, and a student identification card?”

“Yeah, but the gate is locked.”

“Damn right the gate is locked, and I’m the only one who can open it. It’s up to me, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly. You didn’t see that big red button on the underside of the desk?”

“No, I must have missed it.”

“Well, that controls the intercom. And the big black button next to it, on the underside of the counter, opens the front gates. And it’s up to me to be in charge of ‘em. Don’t you forget it. Why don’t you hop back into your car, let me do my job, and you can be on your way.”

“That would be great,” I said. I looked at his name tag which read “Douglas.” “Thanks, Douglas.”

“You got it, son.”

I hopped back in the car, started the engine, and waited for him to walk back into the small office and press the big black button on the underside of the counter. The gates slowly opened, and when they were all the way open I pulled through and waved at Douglas through the window. He waved back. 

Truth be told, even though I had the dormitory keys and the student identification card, I didn’t know exactly where on campus my dormitory was located. But I would drive around for a while until I found it. I didn’t feel like asking Douglas for directions.