I hated the circle game but everyone played it freshman year. I maintained a steadfast policy of feigned maturity but really I just hated getting punched in the arm. Nick loved the game and loved punching people in the arm most of all. I always insisted I was not playing but he would not yield. He was relentless, catching me on the way to the shower and even in the academic halls of my major. What was he even doing in the fine arts building? Reluctantly, I had been drafted into this stupid game. I suffered for so many days that it seemed endless.
The way it works, if you’re not familiar, is this: The protagonist cups his forefinger and thumb in a circle below his belt, anywhere but it has to be below the belt. He then conspires to get you to look. If you look, you lost and you get punched in the arm. The only other option is to quickly stick your finger in the hole and retrieve before he can catch it. If he catches your finger in the circle, you again have lost. Like most things in life, this game favored the bold and the aggressor usually won most matches. The game becomes more absurd as your opponent goes to greater and greater lengths to draw you attention to the circle.
One day, I was talking to Audra, a sweet girl from my english class, on the stairs. Nick was walking by, stopped and asked me if I got the note from my room-mate? What note, I said. Nick smiled and went “Ya know what, I got it right here” but there was no note. Nick, I said I wasn't playing. "You owe me" was his response. Audra looked confused. Nick nodded towards Audra as if to say, don't make this difficult. I used my middle finger to respond. Angrily, he chased me thru the halls of the dorm. I laughed gleefully as I could run pretty fast. However, I soon grew scared as he was relentless in his pursuit. The final lap of the building, on the ground floor, I threw a full recycling can in front of him. He stumbled and fell in a puddle of stale piss and beer. I stopped just long enough to see him get up. The RA for that floor opened his door and told him he would have to clean up the mess. I howled with laughter and saw a look of devout anger on his face.
Later that evening, we had a small party. One of those lame dorm room parties that seemed a lot cooler than they were. A bunch of us stood crowded into one room sitting or standing and drinking beer while listening to music. At this time, the college had a policy of enforcing the drinking age in the hallways of the dorm only. Once you were in a room, you were safe, provided the music was low enough. I left the room to get some music from Zach, who happened to be the roommate of Nick, my circle nemesis. Zack had a huge collection of compact discs which was only strange when you realized that he did not actually own a CD player of any kind. “I wanna have a good collection when I buy one” he said. Well, there I am, in Zach’s room and there’s a party raging in the across the hall. You can hear the faint percussion in the distance. I’m looking through this pristine music collection for the perfect CD but it’s mostly Columbia House monthly selections, which were always terrible. The music in the room suddenly grows louder.
I turn around and there is my opponent but he’s way more intoxicated than I am. I can see this by the way he glares at me and struggles to stand. He’s got both of his hands behind him and he’s fiddling with the door. All of the dorm rooms had a locking mechanism on the inside edge of the door. You had to open the door to push the lock button. I realized that he was locking the door at the exact moment I recalled my earlier victory in evading the circle game. “What...what are ya doin Nick?” Nick shook his head disappointedly, standing in front of the now locked door. “Why, why did you lock the door Nick?” I asked but Nick just continued to shake his head wearily. He slurred, Why did you do it? “What?” I asked. "You know what you did. Why did you do it? Why, did you do what you did? You said you weren't playin tha game but you looked...you looked" He shook his head and stumbled toward me.
At this point, there was a knock at the door. Zack wanted to get into his room. That bastard did not trust me to pick the right music even though he did not actually own a CD player. How did he decide what was good, by the cover? I shook off this thought as Nick drunkenly sighed, “You know what you did” and shuffled toward me. At this point, I was reminded of an old after school special called, “When Daddy Drinks”. Nick had cast himself as daddy in this melodrama and I was obviously to play the part of the wayward child. True fear entered my mind as a small drop of sweat rolled down my back. This guy was angry and there was no apparent escape. I was going to have to fight him but he was far bigger than me. I looked around for a weapon of some sort. Thankfully, at that moment the door opened, Zack had found his key. I still had to escape, I faked right, then left and using Zach to block, left the room. Once again, Nick glared at me as if to say this is not over as I closed the door.
Nick was fine the next day, he acted like he was just joking at first and then pretended not to remember anything when I mentioned this story to him. Once sober he was one of the nicest people you could meet but after a few beers he was literally the worst drunk I’ve ever known. A few weeks later, there was a party near the end of the semester. We had all fallen into comfortable groups of friends, some of us even had girlfriends. There was one girl who seemed particularly sheltered. At once, I noticed Ann was gone and asked where did she go. To pick a CD from my room, Zack said. Where’s Nick, I inquired next? I thought of the drunken altercation from a few weeks past. Every date rape scenario presented by the freshman seminar on sexual assault crept into my mind and I grew quite paranoid. Ann was a nice girl and rarely drank. How many beers did she have already? I tried to figure her consumption but I had already lost my own count. I sipped my warm beer and contemplated a course of action.
I jumped up, sprinted into the hall before I realized I had made a decision. I tried the door to Zack and Nick’s room which was surprisingly, not locked. I walked in and they were both sitting on Nicks bed, just talking. I had obviously interrupted something but I did not care because I had a plan. Nick glared at me and asked "What's up", in a manner that clearly said, get the fuck out of here. "Oh hey, " I said "Zach jus wanted me to ask you, if you had one of these?" I smiled at Nick as he realized he had been caught in the game. Angrily, Nick shook his head “Not now, man.” Oh yes, I said smiling back. “Is it a game, I wanna play” Ann innocently asked. In response, Nick gave her the same terse introduction to the game that everyone got. He immediately followed with “Did ya ever see one of these?” and when she looked, he punched her in the arm, full force and without any regret. Ann jumped up, at the pain in her arm and walked out of the room horrified. Suddenly, I remembered something my mother told me about good deeds. Nick smiled gleefully, remembering our previous encounter from weeks past “I still owe you”. He chased me down the hall and into the quad while I yelled back, “You looked, you looked.”
