Welcome to Rubble

Where is Hubbell?
pic via
http://www.ketr.org/post/hubbell-now-rubble

August of 2000 my parents helped me move into my wreck of a dorm.  Hubbell Hall.  It was a week or so before classes.  Nick and I wanted to settle into our new digs.  That tiny dorm room that was probably 10 feet by 15 feet.  There was a walk in doorless closet and we shared a bathroom with two knuckleheads next door.  There was a shower down the hall.  The window to our room would not open. There would develop, over time, a funk.  But not yet.  Everything was bright.  That grungy green hue would not filter our dorm for a few months.  All was okay.

That first semester or so my parents would buy my books.  Everything else was provided by grants, scholarships and my savings.  I wouldn’t get a job at the theater for a couple of months.  Knowing this my mom stepped up and gave me her debit card and pin number for emergencies.  I thanked her and had no intentions of using it.

Steven, a guy Nick and I went to school with since like Kindergarten, lived down our hall a couple doors.  God bless him. While he did luck out and didn’t get a roommate, he had crappy suite-mates.  They had left his bathroom door locked and he had to use our bathroom.  The whole semester.  For some odd reason he didn’t confront them about unlocking the door.  What’s more is that it’s not like the lock was some impenetrable force.  One time our jackass neighbors left the door locked too.  Did I knock next door?  Damn right.  Nobody came though.  I had a butter knife though and was able to jimmy the lock.  Not even a credit card like in the movies.  A butter knife.  I took my dump (by the way why is it called taking a dump and not leaving a dump?) 

This has been my second Beavis and Butthead reference on this blog.  

Anyway, back to before school even started.  I went to a gas station and some older black man approached me and asked for a ride.  Normally I’d say no but being a young progressive, I wanted to show that I’m not some racist East Texan and said "Sure".  I asked him the address, but he knew I was new to town and didn’t know the streets.  He’d just tell me how to get there.  On the way he told me some vague story about needing some money to buy back his trailer from a guy, so he could haul his stuff and sell it.  I pulled over and got out my wallet.  I gave him $20.  He said he’d pay me back at his next location when he got his stuff.  It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I didn’t want to call him a liar.  We got there, and he asked me to wait.  He got out for a second and came back.  We kept going and he said he needed a little more.  I obliged.  And obliged. And obliged.  To the tune of $80.  All my cash on hand.  I knew I was scammed at this point but was too embarrassed to protest and demand my money back.  But…what if this was legit?  He just needed his trailer. He would pay me back after he sold his stuff, right?  Eventually he asked me to pull over and let him out.  It was the middle of nowhere I told him.  He said yeah, but his “guy” would be mad if he saw the old man showing strangers where it was at.  

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay you back.”

“You don’t know where I live.”

“Where’s it at man?”

“Hubbell Hall, room—”

“Ok, ok. Got it. Got it.  Be there later.”

He shut the door and was off.  With my $80.

“Fuck!” I shouted at myself.  How did I let this escalate?  I let a conman rip me off, just so I wouldn’t seem racist.  Nope, I seemed like a sucker.  I was a sucker.

Later that afternoon John, Nick, Maurice and Steven went to the Student Services Building to play pool.  I stayed behind in case my new friend showed up. He didn’t. I was out $80 and was ashamed.  I had to use my mom’s debit card.  And that would be the last time I used it too.

Two years later after Rubble Hall was long gone from my residency status, I was chatting with Eric at the movie theater.  Two years later!  He says to me, “See that man there?”  pointing to an old black man in the parking lot, “Yes” I had no idea who it was.

"He runs this scam on freshmen.”

“Oh yeah?”

“He gets them to give him a ride and talks them into giving him money.  He tells some story about his trailer.  Sounds crazy doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.  Idiots will fall for anything.”

Eric looked at me for a moment and changed the subject.  How the hell did Eric know?  I didn’t tell anybody about it.  It happened before I even met him.  It brought back a shame I long forgot.  I’m sure my face turned red and shot down any plausible deniability I had.

Rubble Hall was a dump, but it was our dump.  Wednesday nights the five of us crammed into my dorm room and watched Battlebots on Comedy Central.  Carmen Elektra was so hot.  She wasn’t the only thing that was hot though.  I was also incredibly hot.

Let me explain.

John was over one time for a Battlebots viewing.  He had this bottle of giant pills.  When asked what on Earth they were, he said "Niacin".  I had no clue what that was.  John said they were, “No Bueno, my friends.”  They burned. Heck, that was a challenge.  I told him “I’ll take four."  He cautioned me, and I ignored.  Then nothing.  I was expecting immediate reaction, but the meds need time for the blood to absorb it.  Then, like sniffing model glue they hit me.  Gradually, then a rapid ramp of heat swallowed me whole.

“Guys, this is getting warm…Oh God it’s burning…Oh shit I’m dying!”

I grabbed a towel and ran down the hall to the infamous curtainless community showers.  That was the only enjoyable cold shower I had in my life.  About twenty minutes in near ice-cold water eventually subsided the cruel heat.  It trickled to a fading warmth and my body was freed from the fiery grasp of the demon’s fist. 

That’s what college was all about.  Learning.  Not just in the classroom.  But from committing stupid actions and dealing with the consequences.  Let there be flaws and mistakes.  That’s where the real learning happens.

Hubbell Hall was built in 1968. I’m sure it was a fine place in the 70’s. Maybe even the 80’s.  But by time it was my home in the early aughts it was a dump.  Hence the nickname “Rubble Hall.” Three years after I graduated Hubbell become and empty shell, no longer in use.  A few years later it was put out of its misery and demolished.  A pile of actual rubble.  Nary a tear was shed.

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