We went into the nearby Wawa and bought enough toilet paper to serve a large family well into the future, and then we crossed the street to the theater. I remember looking up at the fire escape—a ladder leading straight up into the sky—and having second thoughts. I overcame them. We adventurers must push fear aside.
With one arm around a pack of toilet paper and the other locked around the ladder rungs, I started to climb. It was at least ten or twelve stories to the top and slow going. I didn’t look down. Nolan and Evan stood lookout at the base of the ladder and failed miserably, because suddenly a deep voice was shouting at me to come the hell down off that ladder.
I looked down. My friends and a uniformed campus policeman and a few other passersby were all looking up at me from below. Way below. For a moment I froze. Then I dropped the package of toilet paper and began a slow descent.
The moment I was back on firm ground, the police officer shined his flashlight in my face and asked if I was a student.
I told him I was.
“Let me see your student ID,” he said.
He shined his flashlight on it, then on my face again.
I grinned widely.
“This isn’t funny,” he said, “so shut your fucking mouth.”
His manner startled me. University police, called proctors, were extremely well-trained men, gentlemen really, who knocked on dormitory room doors when parties became too loud and reminded us to please keep it down. They carried flashlights, not guns, and weren’t prone to gruffness. What we didn’t know then was that the prior spring a student had fallen nearly to his death while climbing this exact fire escape, while in this same inebriated state. He was still in the hospital, and the family had filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the university. Our small prank therefore loomed large in the eyes of campus police.
We were freshmen, though, and ignorant of any number of things that later would seem like common campus knowledge.
“Sorry,” I said.
“I don’t care about sorry. I care that you coulda been killed, or killed somebody else.”
“With toilet paper?” I asked.
“You throw something off the roof, hit a car that’s going by, car swerves off the road and hits a telephone pole or a student, you’re damn right with toilet paper. Or you fall, hit your head, who do you think takes the blame for that? You? Some spoiled, snot-nosed freshman? No, not hardly.” His voice was raised, and a few other students had started to look on. “Anyway, I’ve seen your ID, and I know you’re underage. And I also know you were all told about academic probation during your orientation.”
Princeton was swallowing up a good deal of my parents’ life savings, and the possibility of jeopardizing my education sobered me right up. Suddenly I felt like a spoiled, snot-nosed freshman. “I wasn’t …” But I didn’t know what to say. How do you explain that you’re so happy to have actually found a few friends in a place so foreign from the place you used to call home, and that to celebrate your good fortune you wanted to rocket rolls of toilet paper from the town’s highest building into the starry autumn sky? “The thing is …”
“Please.” Evan had stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder. “Will wasn’t ever planning to climb all the way up or throw toilet paper off the roof.”
The officer had shut off the flashlight and put it back in its holster. Now he crossed his arms. “He wasn’t, huh?”
“No. He was just seeing if it was possible to climb the fire escape. He wasn’t going to go any higher. And that toilet paper … well, we’d bought some at the Wawa because they’d run out at the dorm. Which is where we’re heading. Home. To bed.” He lowered his head deferentially. “I promise.”
The officer stared at him for a while. Without uncrossing his arms, he said, “What’s your name?”
“Evan Wolff.”
“You a freshman, too?”
He said that he was.
The officer watched him some more, deciding.
“I want the three of you out of my sight. And you”—he pointed a thick finger at Evan—“are in charge of seeing that he”—he pointed at me—“goes straight back to his room and goes to bed. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Now give me that,” he said.
I handed over the bag of toilet paper, and we all said thank you, and then we got the hell out of there. We’d laugh about the incident the next day, but truthfully our run-in with the campus policeman left me feeling uneasy, and I vowed not to behave like some privileged jerk again.
On the walk home, I made a point to thank my lawyer.
“You really want to thank me?” Evan said. “Then treat me to a round of golf next week. I’m broke.”
I knew he was into golf. I’d never even picked up a club and couldn’t understand why anyone would want to.
“I’ve never played before,” I said.
“Perfect,” Evan said. “Then we’ll be betting a dollar a hole.”
A few days later, Evan, Nolan, Jeffrey, and I were working our way through eighteen agonizing holes at Springdale Golf Club. The experience was unspeakably frustrating, and I resolved—after handing over eighteen dollars to Evan—to give up the game forever. It was too hard, and too expensive. A complete waste of time.
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