I lie down in bed at night to the sound of the "woo" people screaming and yelling and chanting football fight songs. The occasional siren pierces the air as an ambulance or fire truck screams by to a destination unknown. When I at last drift off to sleep there are forty thousand people surrounding me in a circle with a one-mile radius, I at the center. The clock at Old Main chimes "Hail to the Lion" one last time before it silences itself for the night.
When I awaken the next morning to the sound of the show choir singing the same football fight songs to which I was lulled the previous night the local population has increased to one hundred and forty thousand. I head off to breakfast to see herds of people on foot traversing the campus in every direction. The trees are blowing, the clouds are racing, and old men and students alike are standing in my path waving football tickets in my face; the only static element in the scene which surrounds me besides the buildings themselves is the traffic. I stand in line for spongy eggs on uncooked English Muffins.
After breakfast I head down into one of the centers of chaos: the interface between on- and off-campus real estate—College Ave. I stand in a crowd of fifty people waiting for the light to change. We flow across the street and melt into the throng on the opposite and saturated sidewalk. In the grocery store people wearing college shirts, college pants, college hats, and college socks stand and peruse college trinkets, college decorations, and college board games. Back out on the street people pass me with faces and bodies painted blue and white and clothing adorned with lion paw prints.
The crowds are thick and so is the smoke. I make my way over to the next corner, passing through an assembled crowd representing four generations of football loyalty. As I approach the MAC machine towards which I am headed I hear a man calling out, "Tickets for sale! Anybody selling tickets? Anybody need tickets? Tickets for sale!" I look around to see half of a dozen people either waving tickets at passersby or holding up signs displaying their need for tickets. The thought occurs to me: why don't the people who need tickets buy from those who are selling? This question probably has an economics-based answer, I thought.
A middle-aged man with greasy hair and ripped clothing is waving two tickets over his head and shouting about his offer of sale on worn vocal cords. A kid in front of me yells, "How much?" The man comes trudging over.
"Tickets? Tickets!!"
"How much are you selling them for? I'll pay fifteen bucks, max," says the kid as he pushes his long hair out of his face and leans his bicycle up against a railing.
"You'll pay what?"
"Fifteen a piece."
"Hey, I just got 'em for fifteen. I'll give you the pair for..." says the man, stopping to calculate. "I'll let you have 'em for thirty-five bucks for the pair."
"Sorry, no deal," says the kid.
"Hey, I gotta eat, too, kid! Ya ain't gonna find a better price!" shouts the man.
"Sorry, no deal." The kid turns his attention back to the MAC machine. The man crosses the street and his battle cry disappears into the background noise of the avenue.
I glance out to the curb to see a worn and weathered old man holding up a piece of cardboard box on which is written "I need tickets". I am reminded of the homeless whom I saw on my most recent trip to New York City. "Will work for food" "Need football ticket" The parallel disturbs me slightly and makes an interesting statement on the importance of football tickets on this campus in comparison with the importance of life's necessities everywhere else. I look away for a moment and when I look back the man is tucking his sign into his shirt and holding four tickets in his mouth as he walks away. The scalper is still yelling:
"Selling a ticket? I'll buy your extra tickets!! Anyone need a ticket?" He takes a drag on his cigarette. "How many tickets do you need?" he says to some young ladies passing by. They ignore him and quicken their pace slightly, soon also disappearing into the crowd. Finally I am done and I, too, can push my way back onto the sidewalk. Just as I am leaving another man who has been standing near the scalper starts shouting a similar sales pitch from a few feet away. Their contrapuntal song disappears behind me as I travel into the oncoming populace like a salmon swimming upstream in autumn.
Back in my room I can hear the sounds of the marching band through my window thanks to the off-campus bookstore across the street which plays their recordings through external speakers all day. The only break in the monotony is when the show choir or the band itself appears to put on a live performance.
Finally the game starts. I can tell because the campus appears somehow sedated, as if ninety-eight thousand people had all been removed from the streets and placed somewhere else. This is, of course, exactly what happened. I walk upstairs and notice that through nearly every open door there is a student on a couch or a bed watching the game on television. I walk past the television lounge and glance in to see what is on TV. "We're leading 14-7," comes the voice from the speaker. Twenty or thirty students are sitting in rapt attention. I head to the music building and spend some time with Brahms and Vierne.
Back in my dorm, people are screaming and blasting 'music' throughout the building. We won! We won! Out at the bookstore a majorette in full outfit is putting on a baton-twirling show. College Ave is once again overpopulated. Old Main chimes half of "Hail to the Lion": it's 5:30.
As I am sitting in my room after dinner listening to Beethoven and reading "The History of the Franks" the blaring sound of brass and the crashing of drums outside my window suddenly break my reverie. The smell of cigarette smoke is propelled into my room by the small fan in my window. I step out to see the marching band assembled at the bookstore playing their 'greatest hits'. The distasteful sound of the ensemble fills my room for an hour as the sky grows dark and the assembled clientele changes. From time to time a camper adorned with paw prints and carrying a full payload of faithful alumni cruises past, horn beeping almost in time to the music and gleefull shouts eminating from the open windows.
After the band is done the streets transform fully into their nighttime character. The bars open and the evening has officially begun. Drunken alumni stagger around the campus and admire the trees and the buildings with alcohol-induced zeal. They recount the "good old days" loudly and with boisterous laughter. The students populate the nighttime land across the street as they move from bar to bar—from party to party—with ever-increasing jollity.
I lie down in bed at night to the sound of the "woo!" people screaming and yelling and chanting football fight songs. The occasional siren pierces the air as an ambulance or fire truck screams by to a destination unknown. When I at last drift off to sleep there are one hundred and forty thousand people surrounding me in a circle with a one-mile radius, I at the center. The clock at Old Main chimes "Hail to the Lion" one last time before it silences itself for the night.
© 1997 David Citron