The Burglary and other things Texan
By Jerome Pearson
April, 2010
When I was a freshman in college, I once caught a fellow student –red- handed- trying to burglarize me.
When I walked into my dormitory room, the first thing that I saw was this guy sitting on my bed with my pillow case, from which extended one sleeve of my leather jacket. I had seen this guy in my room before, but he was always with my two college roommates who were two dead-beat pot-heads from a town called Hollywood, Florida.
When we arrived at Texas College as freshmen in late August of 1976, we were told that there were three students in each room. However, there were four of us from my high school, Scott’s Branch: John Green, Clarence Hilton, Ronald Nelson, and myself. I quickly volunteered to be the “odd” man out because I wanted us to stick together, and for some reason I felt a need to make the sacrifice, which required that I room with two other students that I had just met. This was an unusual and perhaps extremely unselfish act on my part because I was, after all, the smallest among our group, who might have been expected to be the main one who should not be isolated. However, be that as it may, the room in which I would be residing was actually right next door to the room of my friends, and I knew I would probably be spending more time in their room than my own.
I was depressed on my first day arriving at Texas College because after dreaming of living away from home for the first time, I realized that I was not happy with where I had arrived. In many families, before a college is selected, students, along with their parents, may visit several schools before even making a selection. Our first opportunity to see Texas College was just only one day before registration. After experiencing perhaps my most fun summer ever, I realized that this wonderful summer had now culminated with Texas College. After having been so high, I had now fallen so low.
As soon as I unpacked, I went to a window and began looking towards the hills that surround Tyler, Texas, vainly wishing that I could see South Carolina somewhere in the far horizon. It was only later that I realized that I was actually looking “West” rather than “East”, and that I had a greater chance of seeing Houston than I did Columbia. Texas College certainly proved that the “grass is not always greener” on the other side.
My two roommates were from Florida, and although friendly, they had no interest in college. My roommates shared the bunk bed, and I had the single bed next to the window. I was happy to be near the window because it put me at a greater distance from them, and also because I would be able to allow the marijuana smoke that would later be enveloping our room to escape before getting too high myself. Mind you, this “high” would have come, not because I would part take – because I didn’t – but when in a room that is enveloped with smoke, one cannot help but be affected, if only incidentally. I must admit that I did sleep well that first night, and this beautiful somnolence was not due solely to the air conditioner that was suffusing a cool, moist, mist into the sultry, hot, Texas air but also, perhaps, due to the lingering marijuana smoke that inevitably found its way into my innocent and unprotected nasal perimeter.
My roommates had no interest in college, so I am not exactly certain why they chose to come. I was polite to them, and they were polite to me, but we had nothing in common. There would always be guys hanging out in our room, one of whom would later attempt to burglarize me while neither my roommates nor I were present. The first question that the reader will probably ask is how could this guy, whose was referred to as, “Peanut”, get into our room when none of the residents were present.
The guy “Peanut” was a student who lived off campus, and had apparently asked one of my roommates for his key one day while they were out because he needed to relax. At around 7pm on the day in question, I was sitting in the room next door which was the room of my South Carolina friends. I was dozing off, as the others were studying. Suddenly, I heard closet doors opening and closing. I had heard closet doors opening and closing in the past, but I was never suspicious because for some reason my keen hearing led me to believe that those were the closet doors of one of my two roommates, but not my own.
However, on this particular day, I sensed that it was my closet door that was sliding and not my roommates. Now, how I was able to determine this from the room next door is beyond me! But for some reason on this particular day, I felt a need to do a little quick checking. I didn’t know who was in my room, but I got up and left my SC friends room without saying a thing. I walked up to my door, and decided to slide the key in the lock very smoothly and quickly, as if I wanted to surprise who ever was in my room and not give them time to properly react. Therefore, I was turning the key and opening the door simultaneously, and when I did, there was this guy “Peanut” sitting on the edge of my bed with his head hanging down and with my pillow case stuffed with clothing to include my new leather jacket that I purchased shortly after arriving in Texas. Can you imagine sitting in someone else’s room, on his bed, with his pillow case, stuff with his clothes? Well, that is precisely what I observed upon entering my room. Not knowing whether this individual was armed, I “played it off” and walked directly to my closet.
I could tell that things were missing. In those days, I didn’t have many clothes, so I could quickly determine that not only was my jacket missing, but several other items as well. And the fact that this guy was in my room without the presence of my roommates meant that he was attempting to burglarize me. He was about my size, so I was an ideal candidate. He must have looked in my closet previously when my roommates were present, and decided that one day he would return at a convenient time to take some of what he had seen. I knew he must have looked at my closet because I did not go around campus wearing nice things at all.
I quickly left my room and walked back next door informing my friends that I was being burglarized. Clarence, John, and Ronald jumped up and as we were walking back to my room, Peanut, was quickly walking out, empty handed, but before he left, he had tried putting things back. My jacket was now returned to the closet, and the pillow case lay empty on my bed. We then went down stairs to inform the Resident Manager, who, somehow, was able to summon Peanut to return to the dorm to discuss this problem. Meanwhile, my roommates were informed of the situation, and they were summoned too. Peanut was brought back to my room by the Resident’s Manager. Peanut denied that he was trying to steal anything and that he was just sitting on the bed. The Resident Manager was not buying his story and was asking why the heck would he be in someone else’s room when they were not there?
Although he had returned the jacket back to its original place, there were several pants missing. Peanut then suggested why don’t I look in a specific drawer, which was actually a drawer used by one of my roommates and not me. (idiot!). Sure enough, my pants were there. Therefore, we all knew that he could only have known that my pants would be in the incorrect drawer if he had placed them there himself. Even my roommates had to admit that there was no way they would be there because we had the drawers evenly divided. The fact they were there, and only Peanut knew they were there, meant that he placed them there. In his haste to put things back, he must have started stuffing things wherever he could.
My two roommates later apologized and expressed their regrets about what had happened. However, they were obviously also responsible because one of them gave him a key, and allowed him to enter our room unsupervised. I don’t think that they knew what he was planning, but it was still poor judgment on their part, and I if I were a little less astute, no one would have known what happened. When you were as penniless as we were, losing anything could be absolutely devastating.
The school scheduled a hearing for two days later, and all witnesses, to include my two roommates, and my friends from SC, were summoned to attend. However, Peanut did not show up for the hearing. We all gave our version of the story, with my version being the last.
When I was done, the School Administrators thanked me because they said I had finally helped them solve a crime that they had been trying to crack for quite some time. There had been allegations by other students that this very same guy “Peanut” might have stolen something from them, but no one ever caught him in the act and there was never any absolute proof. But finally, my story was so true, and had so many witnesses that they could finally kick him out of the school.
Peanut was kicked out of school immediately. Also, when, the midterm grades were posted, I was also happy to learn that my two roommates had both incurred a 0.0 grade point average. They should have expected that because they never attended class. I was happy to see their grade point average because it meant that I would probably not have to see them again after the end of that semester. At the end of the semester they were indeed sent packing back to Hollywood, Florida.
When we returned to college after the Christmas holidays, I knew that I would have two new roommates, and I had hoped that they would not be two more pot heads. We returned to school on a Sunday night after New Years, and as I was opening the door of my room, there was a party going on, music was blasting, and the room was so foggy with marijuana smoke that I could barely see my own bed.
I dropped my luggage on the floor, and went right back down stairs and told the Resident’s Manager that I was not having it. Get me another room because I was not going through another semester with a bunch of pot heads. I knew I would be leaving the school at the end of the second semester, but I was not about to go through what I had gone through the first semester.
This time, I was roomed with a rather conservative guy from Houston Texas who apparently did not smoke, and another roommate who was much older than us, but who was an absolutely psychotic nut, again from Florida. This guy’s name was also Jerome, and while he apparently did not smoke, he was certainly nasty as hell. He was also an epileptic and he would have these fits that would spring from no where, and he would not be able to remember them at all. The first time I heard him having an epileptic fit, I did not know what it was, so I ran down the hall to get my friends from SC to help calm him down. My other roommate had already placed a spoon in his mouth which was supposed to keep him from biting his tongue.
This particular roommate had the bottom bunk and I slept on the top, as our other more conservative roommate had the single bed, which is what I would have preferred. The roommate on the bottom bunk was also a sexual deviant who kept all kinds of lewd magazines underneath his bed and was not shy about pleasing himself as he perused the magazines, even when others were in the room. I was awakened earlier one Sunday morning by this flapping sound, and I was like “what the f…!” This guy had no shame, and would only laugh when we confronted him about it. He would also put all of his dirty clothes in a pile in the middle of the floor, and wash them perhaps once a month it seemed. Any visitors to our room would immediately see this pile of dirty, stinky clothes sitting in the middle of the floor. He was older and thought that he was smarter than everyone else, but he never went to class either. He was always trying to impress me with his so called “arcane” knowledge, but he wound up flunking out that semester while I got a perfect 4.0.
I could not win for losing. Texas College seems to attract the “dregs of society.” It was almost as if the recruiter went around trying to find all of the “idiots” possible, and lure them all to Texas College. As I hearken back to my senior year in high school, and hearing the Guidance Counselor – Mrs. James- proudly advertising the fact that several of us had received scholarships to Texas College, I realized that she knew very little about where we were headed.
My friends and I would leave Texas College at the end of the second semester. That meant that we would have to apply to other schools and send our transcripts. We started this process early so that we could begin planning for our second year. We chose to remain in ROTC during the second semester with the sole purpose of winning a ROTC scholarship which we were told could be transferred to any school. We had to take written and physical examinations, be interviewed by active duty military officers about current events, and maintain excellent grades for the remainder of the year.
Therefore, the rather unusual fact that we, as freshman boys, were forced to take ROTC for one semester would later prove to be one of those opportunistic blessings that could only have been heavenly sent. Sometimes I wonder how we would have survived the financial burdens that would later come our way if it were not for the ROTC scholarships that we would later be awarded. It was almost as if some divine force had propelled us to a an undesirable school; a school which had the unique, and perhaps illegal, requirement of making freshman boys take one semester of ROTC, something that did not exist at our high school, with the omniscient plan of guiding us impoverish and naive young men towards a means for paying for our education.
We all went to the Registration Office together to request our transcripts. An evil old lady working in the Registration Office asked us why we were leaving. After we told her why, she said: “Well, every year they all say that they are leaving, but come September, they are right back here!” Clarence became agitated with her and said, “Lady, I will tell you what! I am going to leave you my address, and “come September”, I want you to write me, and tell me who came back!” I almost died laughing!
Yet, I do value that one year at Texas College. We can sometimes learn valuable lessons, even in some of the most unlikely of places. The strange bunch of characters that I have illuminated here are only the tip of the iceberg; I can write a book about Texas College, and perhaps one day I will.
We left Texas College on Thursday, May 12, 1977, and we did not come back. Ronald decided to quit college altogether, and moved to Miami. John Green and I went to Morgan State University in Baltimore; Clarence Hilton went to Howard University in Washington D. C. We used the ROTC scholarships that we were awarded for our performance at Texas College to pay our tuition for the remaining three years. Without missing a beat, we all graduated 3 years later in May, 1980.
Wherever there is a “will”, there is certainly, always a “way”!
Jerome Pearson
April, 2010