Saved for posterity

Password

CHRISTIAN
Tonight, we have a very special segment. We’ve picked out two couples who were here in our studio audience and we’re going to have a competition to win some great BUTV prizes. We’re going to play Password, the idea is there’s a secret password only one roommate can see and the pair that can solve the password in the fewest one-word clues wins. So let’s bring out the couples. First, from Myles Standish, it’s Dan and Kate.

DAN and KATE enter, holding hands. They smile and shake hands with CHRISTIAN enthusiastically as they take their seats.

CHRISTIAN
All right, and our second couple comes to us from Sleeper Hall down on West Campus, please welcome Tim and Liz. Come on out, you guys.

CUT TO

The place from which TIM and LIZ are supposed to enter. Nothing happens. We hear strained whispering.

CHRISTIAN
(off-screen)
Uh, Tim? Liz? You can come out now?

TIM
(off-screen, whispering)
Will you just forget about that?

LIZ
(off-screen, whispering)
How can I forget about it? Do you have any idea how much that hurts me?

TIM
All right! I get the picture! I’m sorry, I told you that, it just came out—

CHRISTIAN
Uh, Tim! Liz! The—the game is starting.

TIM and LIZ are suddenly quiet. They peek out nervously and make their way to their seats. They shoot each other glares. LIZ starts to mouth something but TIM cuts her off, hissing “not now!”

CHRISTIAN
OK, great to see you guys.

DAN AND KATE
Great to be here!

TIM
(curt)
Yeah.

CHRISTIAN
All right, well the first word is for Dan and Kate, so Dan, pick up the card in front of you.

DAN
OK.

VOICE
The password is, “cherry.”

DAN
OK, um—fruit.

KATE
Apple.

DAN
No. Uh—stem.

KATE
Cherry?

DAN
That’s it!

CHRISTIAN
Good job, guys! You got it in two. OK, Tim and Liz, you two are up. Tim take the card.

TIM
Huh?

LIZ
The card, Tim. Let’s get this over with.

TIM
Well that’s some attitude.

LIZ
Just take the card!

TIM
I’m taking it!

VOICE
The password is, “boyfriend.”

TIM
(under his breath)
Christ.

LIZ
Was that a clue, Tim?

TIM
No. Just shut up, OK?

CHRISTIAN
Uh, guys? One word only please.

TIM
All right, just keep it down, Curly. Here’s my clue. Me.

LIZ
Cruel.

TIM
(annoyed)
Me.

LIZ
Inconsiderate.

TIM
(exasperated)
Me.

LIZ
Why don’t you try giving me another clue, Tim?

TIM
This is a good clue, Liz! It’s pretty easy! Me!

LIZ
Slow! Stupid! Idiot! Only got into BU because of a high-placed friend in the admissions department.

TIM
Hey, that’s below the belt, Liz!

CHRISTIAN
(interjecting quickly)
Sorry. Sorry, you guys didn’t get it. Uh, this time you go first. Liz, please pick up your card.

LIZ
(without picking up the card in front of her)
Oh yeah, here’s a clue for you Tim. Rachel.

TIM
Liz, we’ve been over this! Rachel’s just a friend of mine!

LIZ
Oh yeah, I know all about your special friendship. Give up? (imitating VOICE) The password is, “slut.”

TIM
You’re so insecure, what did your parents do to you? Why don’t you go throw up in the bathroom and then cry about it while I’m trying to study for a midterm again.

VOICE
The password is, “pillow.”

LIZ
Oh, real mature, Tim. I might need something to get me started though, could you lend me the socks you stuff down your shorts when you go to the gym.

TIM
All right, I’m out of here.

LIZ
Don’t call me.

TIM and LIZ exit in separate directions. CHRISTIAN, DAN and KATE sit awkwardly for a few seconds.

CHRISTIAN
All right, let’s hear it for our winners Dan and Kate!

DAN and KATE smile nervously.

CHRISTIAN
Let’s never do that again. We’ll be right back.

The Chris Sartinsky Memoirs: Chapter Seven: A Summer in Vienna

In the seventh grade, I joined the band and picked up the alto saxophone. I found music a wonderful release from the stresses of middle school life and would often lock myself in my room, playing for hours from the time I got home from school until the time I had to go to sleep. As will happen whenever someone practices as much as I did, I became pretty good. I joined the concert band, but the director quickly recognized some talent in me and promoted me to the symphonic band with the higher level players.

The rigor of symphonic band was very different from the easy-going concert band. It seemed that the stress that I had sought to escape with music had continued following me and was now poisoning my new favorite hobby. Symphonic band worked on a kind of tier system, where the section was divided into parts and, within those parts, chairs. The solos and whatever glory was involved in a middle school band went to those in the first chair of the first section. Despite my reluctance, I found myself swept up in the cutthroat competition.

I started at the bottom of the ladder, as the third chair in the second alto saxophone section. At first, I was content to just be a part of such a celebrated ensemble, but this feeling did not last for long. The players in front of me were ruthless. They insulted each other and, quickly, me. Being the new kid in the section, the four of them quickly found a common target in me. They mocked my technique—my articulation, mainly. At first, I found their taunts easy to ignore as the saxophone was just a hobby for me, not a lifestyle as it seemed to be for them. But their taunts began getting on my nerves.

One could move up a chair by challenging the person in front of him to a one-on-one audition to be judged by the conductor. Such challenges were infrequent, but they were always fiercely competitive. They also took up an entire class period, so they were popular with the rest of the band who would become spectators. Before I had arrived in March, the saxophone section had existed in a kind of unstable equilibrium, with no changes in structure or even any challenges since the beginning of the school year. But my presence somehow changed all this. My initial refusal to be affected by their mocking made them turn against each other for some reason. There were three challenges in two weeks, one of them resulting in a change in seat. Then, I decided to throw my hat in the ring.

I challenged the kid in front of me, a fellow who was also named Chris. Our competition consisted of playing scales selected at random by our conductor and a sight-reading of a piece that would be new to both of us. I embarrassed him. When we finished, a hush fell over the band room as the outcome was instantly obvious to everyone. When the conductor announced me as the winner, Chris ripped his mouthpiece off his saxophone and flung it across the room in frustration and walked out.

This monumental defeat plunged the saxophone section into bedlam. For weeks, there was a new challenge every day. Sometimes I was the challenger, sometimes I was the challenged, sometimes I was just a spectator. I won some and I lost some. Much of the system became trying to exploit your opponent’s weakness on a bad day; one kid named Matt broke up with his girlfriend and was challenged every day for a week until he dropped from second chair to the very bottom. It was not uncommon for a person to inhabit two or three different chairs in a single week. Since these challenges took the entire period, we got very little practice as a band. When our concert arrived in late May, we were awful. But I was first chair, and that’s what was important.

On the night of the concert after the show was finished, I was waiting in the parking lot for my parents to come pick me up. It was late and it was dark and the school had mostly emptied out. Suddenly, before I knew what was happening, I was hit across the shoulders with a pipe. I was soon being stomped by four people—the rest of the saxophone section. They beat me viciously for a few minutes before they left. Lying on the sidewalk clinging to consciousness, I vowed to myself that I would do whatever was necessary to lock up that first chair for my entire eighth grade year.

That summer, I convinced my parents to send me to an expensive and highly regarded conservatory in Vienna. I did not speak the language, but this only helped me as I was forced to focus all my waking energy on the saxophone. I joined a junior orchestra and tackled more and more difficult pieces as the summer wore on. By July, I was able to play any piece almost flawlessly the very first time it was put in front of me.

My training essentially complete, I spent the last month and a half of my time in Vienna enjoying the city. I learned every street like the back of my hand and to this day I have an undying passion for the old Austrian capital. I hope to retire there someday on the crooked streets that I grew to know and love that summer. I would just wonder around aimlessly for hours, taking in every sight and somehow finding my way back to the conservatory by dinnertime as if directed by some unperceived force. I would eat in cafés, watch people in sunny parks and speak to tourists I found who spoke English about any old thing. Vienna was truly a reawakening for me. I had never been able to converse with others or live so fully back in Connecticut. I never wanted to leave.

My love for the place only grew when I met a local girl named Johanna. She had long, bright blonde hair which is what I remember about her more than anything. We had a strange courtship that lasted only three weeks before I had to return to the United States. I have vivid memories of waking up early in the morning so I could get to her house for a light breakfast and spending the whole day with her. It was a true summer romance; every day shared the same lazy, lovely feel and we would do essentially the same thing every day. We shared breakfast at her house, walked the streets for a few hours before having lunch in a sunny park somewhere and then returning to the conservatory where we talked for a while before I insisted on walking her home and wouldn’t get back to bed until it was time to go to sleep. It was strange when I left. It was undoubtedly sad, but the whole relationship had this feeling of inevitability about it. We knew it would happen and we were mature enough and not caught up in our feelings enough to keep ourselves contained.

I never stopped thinking about her, which isn’t necessarily unusual for me, but is worth noting, I suppose. After college I went back to Vienna to look for her, but never found her. The people who know lived in her old apartment told me that they had heard rumors that Johanna was prostituting herself across Europe, but I did not believe them, and we may have just misunderstood each other. They also called me an orange little boy, so I don’t think they had a perfect grasp of English.

Things that might have been going through the mind of the hitchhiker I saw yesterday by the Hinman Sawmill on Rt. 69

1

These shoes are uncomfortable

2

Somebody better pick me up, I need to get back to my time machine so I can return to the late 1930s.

3

WHOOOOAAAAAOOAOAA OOOOOHHHHHHH AAAAAAHHHHH OOOHOOOOHHHHH
FOR THE LONGEST TIME
WHOOOOAAAAAA AAAAAAHHOOOHHHH
FOR THE LONGEST

4

Why is that kid with the ugly hair laughing at me?

The Chris Sartinsky Memoirs: Chapter Six: The Awkward Age

I entered the sixth grade and, with it, middle school with no small degree of trepidation. Lockers, periods, different lunches, the whole thing was intimidating. Suddenly, my future began to loom ominously in front of me. There were only three years of middle school and then there was high school and then college and then it was time for a career. I thought I should learn a trade and got a part-time job over the summer working with a local mechanic who paid me under the table to avoid scrutiny for hiring a ten year old.

Unfortunately, I knew nothing about cars. Only three weeks in, my right ring finger was sucked into an engine. It was shredded seemingly beyond repair, but the good people at the Bristol Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery Office did miracle work. The only time an observer can tell the difference is after a particularly long shower when it turns a strange shade of brownish purple and swells to the size of a thick marker, but the swelling quickly subsides. I feel no soreness when it rains, though I did feel a strange soreness once and a small freak tornado touched down a few miles from my house only an hour later. I do not know if this is a coincidence or if something in my finger reacts to changes in pressure or wind speed just before a tornado is about to touch down since I was never able to test it again, tornadoes being exceedingly rare in Connecticut. I have lobbied several weather prediction companies and tornado watchers hoping for financing to live in the Midwest for a while and test my abilities, but so far have received no offers.

With no more job, I spent the summer before sixth grade lounging around the house. I decided that since I was clearly not fit for manual labor, I would pursue more intellectual endeavors. I read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov in three weeks. Perhaps less than ready to deal with the implications of the great Russian writer, I attempted suicide in utter desolation after reading the novels. I tried to overdose on a prescription medicine I found in our cabinet. I was unsuccessful in my attempt, so much so that I regained consciousness after only a short forty-five minute nap and no one in the family was even aware of what I had tried to do.

Unfortunately, the episode did not end there. The medicine had unforeseen side effects. It wreaked havoc on my thyroid glands, my hormones and just about every gland, nerve and secretion in my body. As a result, I grew seven inches the night after my attempt. I grew another five and a half inches the next night. At first, my parents only told themselves that I was going through a growth spurt, but this explanation soon proved insufficient after I shrunk a foot and a half the next night. My height continued climbing and falling night after night so that in a period of a week the difference between my tallest and shortest heights might be as much as three feet. Doctors could do nothing for me and the only solution was a series of boots with soles of different sizes so my classmates would not noticing my fluctuating size. Unfortunately, because of the extremity of the growth spurts, the boots had to level off at seven feet four inches, an effect which was aided by boots that were as tall as four and a half feet. As a result, I was very easy to push over and it became something of a pastime for my friends to slam into my huge boots and send me sprawling to the ground. The condition stays with me today, though it is nowhere near as bad as it once was with my tallest lifts giving me no more height than an average pair of stiletto heels.

As one might expect, enduring middle school with such a condition was less than ideal. My life became something of a nightmare. I was teased mercilessly and I was only able to put up a fight about half the time. Even when I was tall enough to handle any physical intimidation, my spirit was depleted. I would spend most of my time between classes hiding from other people, a task which would vacillate between simple and difficult from day to day.

My parents encouraged me to join activities in school to keep my mind off my problems. I tried out for the basketball team, and though I was decent, the coach was intimidated by the prospect of building a lineup around someone whose position would change every day and cut me. After that, I tried out for the school play. The director asked every student to come prepared with a monologue from a movie or play we enjoyed. I found something from “Caddyshack” but accidentally printed a seven page anti-Semitic Fascist political tract. Hopelessly nervous on stage and not really aware of the full connotations of what I was reading, I delivered the whole thing with no feeling. Of my stiff performance, the director said he was relieved that I seemed to be a good democrat but, unfortunately, I was still a terrible actor.

Desperate, I joined the new Calligraphy Club. Struggling and uninspired with school, I poured a great deal of effort and discipline into my calligraphy. I became quite good and the teacher who ran the club even called me a prodigy. I made a sample sheet and my teacher submitted it to a design company who turned it into a font. To date, six brands of publishing software bundle my font, which is named after the teacher who ran the group who took credit for the font and enjoyed royalties until the club was disbanded and he was imprisoned for molesting a seventh grade girl who was on the track team, which he also coached. Her name was Debbie and the font bears her name, which makes it more creepy than anything. It is not very popular.