Peter Lasagna had the makings of a
good cultist. His house was located atop an obscure mountain in the midst of a
range that seemed to border and lend relief to a wide expanse of fields set
aside particularly for vague farmers that never emerged. Only ten minutes of
driving past the woods lining the outskirts of these ranches would bring one
into the relative shelter of the city of Vista, which was one place that one
never wanted to be in after a certain hour. If all California cities had a
density in the air that gave the very atmosphere the character of a hangover,
Vista’s was an angry drunk, and there was a nervous texture that seemed to
sprout from its cement floor, fueled by cocaine.
Peter
Lasagna was a smart kid.
He had even
made it to the University of California at Santa Cruz.
In his
second year, I think, he got expelled. I heard the story recounted from Alan
the guitarist.
Purportedly,
Peter had left his dorm building that day with a camera in his hand, actively
having begun filming, already, everything in sight.
I know not
what had become of the footage.
One of the
topics, however, that had particularly pleased Peter was, apparently, a
particular woman whom he had met that day on the campus. She had been sitting
innocently on a bench.
According
to Peter, (according to Alan) he had not done anything overtly inappropriate to
upset her and to thus warrant the sex offense charge that she would go on to
file against him in the aftermath of the events. Suffice to say, however, as
Alan recounted groggily in a placid, darkened kitchen nearing midnight, Peter’s
footage would, if it was still existent, a fact that Alan almost laughingly
expressed uncertainty towards, show a greater interest in the girl’s bottom
than in her personality.
If that
encounter alone had sealed the doom of Peter’s academic career at UCSC,
however, he had made ample use of his remaining hours of freedom, if not
sanctity, on campus.
Encountering
another woman of apparently equal attractiveness but surpassing familiarity,
Peter invited her back to accompany him in his dormitory. His room mate, by his
fortuitous absence, did not interfere with the sexual encounter that ensued.
As Peter
explored her, he found himself, to his infinite alarm, unaffected by the
experience. Distant and stunted, he withdrew.
This had
been the moment that the lady entered into a catatonic state, as Alan
speculated. In great disrepair and thoroughly unprepared, Peter hid her under
the bed in his dormitory, for her protection.
As night deepened, young men
tapered off into sleep, attention surrendering consciousness. Either the lack
of attention or the loneliness, as Alan told me whilst I took a confident sip
of Tecate, upset Peter, and it added to his discontentment at having returned
to the dorm room, some indefinite time later, to find it deserted.
He sought
to remedy this, first, by throwing open the window by virtue of which his
chamber looked out over the courtyard and onto the skyline. His room mate, he
must have surmised, had yet to pay a visit to the room.
It was at
that approximate time of extreme morning that students at the University of
California at Santa Cruz reported having been awoken by the screaming of a mad
young man threatening to throw himself out of the –th story window.
It had taken several people to
fetch him from his precarious station.
They had succeeded in pinning Peter
Lasagna to the floor of his dorm temporarily before he riggled, aggressively,
to a kind of freedom that led him straight down the stairs, where he met police
officers looking for him.
His room mate had, upon returning
to the dorm room, found the girl, with terrifyingly
withdrawn eyes, lying hidden under his roommate’s bed.
Horrified, he called the police.
Two men were arrested and expelled that
night from the University of California at Santa Cruz: Peter Lasagna and his
room mate. The latter had supplied, earlier that day, the mushrooms.
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