Then there were two rooms designated as singles, because they weren't much more than upholstered closets, and if the health department ever found out we used them, we'd be shut down. One was a third floor Garret over the kitchen with a ceiling too low to be legal. Also, there was the Underground Railroad room on the landing. The main house went back to the 1850s (the courthouse burned down about that time, so we don't really know how old it was) and at one point had been a stop on the Underground Railroad that hustled escaped slaves from the South up to Canada. There was a trap door in the floor and a false floor to hide people, and a ladder and tunnel down to below the basement. It was closed up long ago, but it originally connected with Troy's sewers and went down to the river.
Finally, one of the rooms on the first floor of Grogans' had originally been the living room when it was a private house, and was absolutely monstrous. This room was known as the Triple, because you could room three guys in there easily. Final maximum count - 41 brothers.
That was the supply side of the equation. On the demand side, we had 15 incoming sophomores, 8 sophomores staying on as juniors, and 12 juniors becoming seniors, plus 2 seniors staying on as grad students. Total - 37 residents. We were going to be crammed in!
For room roulette, the House Manager put up two large maps on the bulletin board, showing each floor of both the main house and Grogans', with rooms laid out, and covered by Plexiglas, with a grease pencil tied to a string. You would write your name on a room, but it all depended on following the Byzantine rules:
Squatter's Rights - If you were already living in a room, you could stay there the following year without being kicked out. Doubles Beat Singles - Two guys ranked higher than one guy. Lower Ritual Number - When deciding which two brothers to pick, the lowest ritual number won. Crones Should Die! - Graduating seniors who stick around become known as crones, and lost all ritual number rights. You ended up with some real gamesmanship and political shit going on! Squatter's rights were very important, but if one of the two residents of a room graduated, the remaining resident would lose precedence to an incoming double unless he picked a new roommate. This resulted in the most desirable rooms, such as the triple or the black light room, invariably being passed down generation to generation, with upper classmen leaving and younger members moving in. If two sophomores decided to bunk together, it was very important that one of them have a low ritual number, since the lowest number counted. In our class, I was number 13, about as bad as it could get. I wasn't even sure I would rank high enough to get a closet!
Over the years you had all sorts of fun and games. Often, two upper class guys would put their names on a room just to fuck with everybody else's heads, and then switch around later. During room roulette it wasn't uncommon to have potential residents knock on a door and come in, to start looking over whether they wanted to move in, just like people walking through homes with a real estate agent! Further, there were always cascading effects. If a couple of people selected a room with a name already on it, that they had a better number for, those people would now find a different room and kick them out, and so on and so forth. It was major food for gossip for two weeks, and usually went right down to the wire!
My ritual number was so lousy I was probably going to end up living on the porch. I needed to hook up with a guy who was higher up the food chain. I was friends with several upper classmen, but the best candidate, Marty Adrianopolis, was staying with his current roommate in their double in Grogans'. Likewise, while Ricky Holloway was a good friend, as the doper supreme, with squatters' rights over the black light room, he selected Jack Dawson, another major league pothead, as the inheritor of the tradition. Like I had done before, I hit up Joe Bradley, who was number 3 in our class. Linking up, we could call the shots over most of the other sophomores.
I buttonholed Joe after ROTC that first morning after room roulette was announced. "Joe, given any thought to what you're doing in room roulette?"
He eyed me curiously. We got along well enough, but if I was asking, it was obvious what my reason was. "Why? Interested in rooming together next year?"
I nodded. "I hadn't heard that you had hooked up with anybody yet, and my ritual number has me living in the pantry."
Joe nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you're shit out of luck. I heard Bruno's moving in with Lynchburg into the triple."
"Yeah. Ever been over there? They've got a fireplace for God's sake!" I thought for a second. "Barry's rooming with Terry up on the third floor."
"Barry's going to have a single half the year. Terry's going to be out on an internship the entire first semester.", commented Joe.
"Then that makes you the man! You're top dog of the freshmen after those two. Interested in teaming up?"
"The Cisco Kid is still looking for a roommate.", he answered with a smile.
"I'll get an apartment before I do that. If you haven't noticed, personal hygiene isn't high on Tony's agenda." He stunk! Cisco had a heart of gold, a head of cheese, and armpits from hell. "Anyway, you interested?"
He shrugged. "Maybe."
"I have a mini-fridge and a stereo.", I said, sweetening the deal.
"That's nice.", he said with a smile.
I thought for a second. I had roomed with Joe our sophomore year, but it broke down at the end of the year. Junior year I had the single on the third floor, and senior year I shared a room on the mezzanine with a sophomore. I suspected I had been the one who screwed up with Joe, and didn't want to repeat the mistakes. "Joe, you got any rules I need to be aware of?"
"Like what?"
"Well, I don't know about you, but I like girls. What happens if Marilyn wants to come for the weekend? Is that going to be a problem?"
"It is if it's every weekend. Are you tapping that yet?"
I ignored the question. "How about once a month, and only if I clear it with you ahead of time?" Marilyn didn't end up coming over more than that anyhow, but we needed to give him more warning.
"That I can handle. You never answered my question.", he commented.
"No, I didn't, did I. Anything else? You do know that I've been known to smoke the occasional joint now and then, right?"
His face hardened at that. "I don't want any of that shit anywhere in the room. No way, no how!"
It was as I suspected. Previously I had been a serious doper. He hadn't said anything, but I had known he didn't like it. I nodded in understanding. "Okay. If I keep it out of the room, is it a problem if I still smoke on occasion?" I figured I could store my head kit in somebody else's room.
He shrugged. "I just don't want that stuff around."
"How about liquor or wine? You have a problem with that?" Joe was a pretty straight-laced guy, but I didn't recall him as a teetotaler.