bed, as she had commanded, silent and neutral.
'When did they start calling themselves the Terrorists,' she asked during a lull.
'Who knows? Maybe Wild and Crazy Guys was too old-fashioned.'
'Maybe the hijacking of that NATO tank yesterday gave them the idea. That got lots of coverage. Shit, here they are again.' Cheerfully screaming, another Airhead was dragged down the hail to be given her upside-down cold shower. The original Terrorist plan had been to drag the Airheads to the bathroom by their hair, as in olden times, but after a few tries they were convinced that this really was painful, so now they were holding on to the feet.
'Terrorists, Terrorists, we're a mean, sonofabitch,' came a hoarse chant as a new group gathered in front of Sarah's door. 'Come on, Sarah,' their leader shouted in a heavy New York accent. He was trying to sound fatherly and patient, but instead sounded anxious and not very bright. 'It'll be a lot better for you if you just come out now. We're tickling Mitzi right now and she's going to tell us where the master key is, and once we get that we'll come in and you'll get ad-dition-al pun-ish-ment.'
'God,' Sarah whispered to me, 'these dorks think I'm just playing hard-to-get. Hope they enjoy it.'
'Give the word and I'll shoo them off,' I said again.
'Wouldn't help. I have to deal with this myself. Don't be so macho.'
'Sorry. Sometimes it works to be macho, you know.'
Their previous effort to flash her out of her room had failed. 'Flashing' was the technique of squirting lighter fluid Under a door and throwing in a match. It wasn't as dangerous as it sounded, but it invariably smoked the victim out. Powdering was a milder form of this: an envelope was filled with powder, its mouth slid under the door, and the envelope stomped on, exploding a cloud of powder into the room. Three days earlier this had been done to Sarah by some Air-heads. A regular vacuum cleaner just blew the powder out again, so we brought my wet-dry vacuum up and filled it with water and had better results, though she and her room still smelled like babies. She had purchased a heavy rubber weatherstrip from the Mall's hardware store and we had just finished installing it when the flashing attempt had taken place. From listening to the Terrorists on the other side of the door, I had now become as primitive as they had— it was no longer a negotiable situation— and was itching to knock heads.
'Why don't you stop bothering me?' she yelled, trying too hard to sound strong and steady. 'I really don't want to play this game with you. You got what you wanted from the others, so why don't you leave? You have no right to bother me.'
At this, they roared. 'Listen, bitch, this is our sister floor, we decide what our rights are! No one escapes from the rule of the Terrorists, Terrorists, we're a mean, sonofabitch! We'll get in sooner or later— face up to it!'
Another one played the nice guy. 'Listen, Sarah— hey, is that her name? Right. Uh, listen, Sarah. We can make life pretty hard on you. We're just trying to initiate you into our sister floor— it's a new tradition. Remember, if you don't lock your door, we can come in; and if you do lock it, we can penny you in.'
The Airheads had once pennied Sarah in. The doors opened inward and locked with deadbolts. If the deadbolt was locked and the door pushed inward with great force, the friction between the bolt and its rectangular hole in the jamb became so great that it was impossible for the occupant to withdraw the bolt to unlock the door. One could not push inward on the door all the time, of course, but it was possible to wedge pennies between the front of the door and the projecting member of the jamb so tightly that the occupant was sealed in helplessly. Since this maneuver only worked when the owner of the room was inside with the door locked, it was used discourage people from the unfriendly habit of locking their doors. Sarah was pennied in just before a Student Government meeting, and she had to call me so that I could run upstairs and throw myself against the door until the pennies fell out.
'Look,' said Sarah, also taking a reasonable tack, 'When are you going to accept that I'm not coming out? I don't want to play, I just want peace and quiet.' She knew her voice was wavering now, and she threw me an exasperated look.
'Sarah,' said the righteously perturbed Terrorist, 'you're being very childish about this. You know we don't want that much. It doesn't hurt. You just have one more chance to be reasonable, and then it's ad-dition-al pun- ish-ment.'
'Swirlie! Swirlie! Swirlie!' chanted the Terrorists. 'Fuck yourselves!' she yelled. Realizing what was about to happen, she yanked my pliers out of my toolbox and clamped their serrated jaws down on the lock handle just as Mitzi's master key was slid into the keyhole outside.
She held it firm. The Terrorists found the lock frozen. The key-turner called for help, but only one hand can grip a key at a time. The handle did rotate a few degrees in the tussle, and the Terrorists then found they could not pull the key from the lock. Sarah continued to hold it at a slight twist as the Terrorists mumbled outside.
'Listen, Sarah, you got a good point. We'll just leave you alone from now on.'
'Yeah,' said the others, 'Sorry, Sarah.'
Looking at me, Sarah snorted with contempt and held on to the pliers. A minute or so after the Terrorists noisily walked away, an unsuccessful yank came on the key.
'Shit! Fuck you!' The Terrorist kicked and pounded viciously on the door, raging.
After a few minutes I got on my belly and pried up the rubber strip and verified that the Terrorists were no longer waiting outside. Sarah opened her door, pulled out the master key, and pocketed it. She smiled a lot, but she was also shaking, and wanted no comfort from me. I was about to say she could sleep on my Sofa for a few days. Sometimes, though, I can actually be sensitive about these things. Sarah was obviously tired of needing my help. I felt she needed my protection, but that was my problem. Suddenly feeling that dealing with me might have been as difficult for her as dealing with the Terrorists, I made the usual obligatory offers of further assistance, and went home. Fortunately for what Sarah would call my macho side, I was on an intramural football team. So were all of the Terrorists. We met three times. I am big, they were average; they suffered; I had a good time and did not feel so proud of myself afterward. The Terrorists did not even understand that I didn't like them. Like a lot of whites, they didn't care much for blacks unless they were athletic blacks, in which case we could do whatever we wanted. To knock Terrorist heads for two hours, then have them pat me on the butt in admiration, was frustrating. As for Sarah, she had no such outlets for her feelings.
She lay on her bed for the rest of the afternoon, unable to think about anything else, desperate for the company of Hyacinth, who was out of town for the weekend. Ultra-raunch rock-'n'-roll pounded through from the room above. The Terrorists figured out her number and she had to take her phone off the hook. She ignored the Airheads knocking on her door. Finally, late in the evening, when things had been quiet for a couple of hours, she slipped out to take a shower— a right-side-up, hot shower.
This was not very relaxing. She had to keep her eyes and ears open as much as she could. As she rinsed her hair, though, a klunk sounded from the showerhead and the water wavered, then turned bitterly cold. She yelped and swung the hot-water handle around, to no effect, and then she couldn't stand it and had to yank open the door and get out of there.
They were all waiting for her— not the Terrorists, but the Airheads in their bathrobes. One stood at every sink, smiling, hot water on full blast, and one stood by every shower stall, smiling, steam pouring out of the door. With huge smiles and squeals of joy, they actually grabbed her by the arms, shouting Swirlie!, Swirlie!, took her to one of the toilets, stuck her head in, and flushed.
She was standing there naked, toilet water running in thin cold ribbons down her body, and they were in their bathrobes, smiling sympathetically and applauding. Apologies came from all directions. Somehow she didn't scream, she didn't hit anyone; she grabbed her bathrobe— tearing her hand on the corner of the shower door in her spastic fury— wrapped it around herself and tied it so tightly she could hardly breathe. Her pulse fluttered like a bird in an iron box and tingles of hyperventilation ran down her arms and into her fingertips.
'What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you crazy?'
They mostly tittered nervously and tried to ignore the way she had flown off the handle. They were leaving her a social escape route; she could still smooth it over. But she was not interested. 'Listen to me good, you dumb fucks!' She had let herself go, it was the only thing she could do. In a way it felt great to bellow and cry and rage and scare the hell out of them; this was the first contact with reality these women had had in years. 'This is rape! And I'm entitled to protect myself from it! And I will!'
She had stepped over the line. It was now okay to hate Sarah, and several took the opportunity, laughing out loud to each other. Mari did not. 'Sarah! Jeez, you don't have to take it so serious! You'll feel better later on. We've got some punch for you in the Lounge. We were just letting you in to the wing. We didn't think you were
