The Man In The Green and White Shirt

It must have been late in the school year, with the warm weather starting to surface and the carefree sense of the world returning to university campus’s around the nation. I think this was back before the death at M.I.T. back before the regulations grew stricter. I was a sophomore at the time.

My fraternity brothers had gone to Panama or Mexico or somewhere drivable for Spring Break that year. I had gone to visit my parents. They had come back with a suitcase full of illegal fireworks. I had not, but we were all glad to be back nonetheless and we drank and celebrated as university students do. The fraternity resounded to the early hours of the days with drunken laughter until the late night crew could take it no longer and there was sleep.

I had a new girlfriend at the time, and as usual with the socializing completed we regressed to my elevated bunk in my room where we engaged in more intimate socializing. As we slept that night, and almost every night in those weeks following Spring Break, the darkness beyond the house was rocked by the explosions of heavy ordanace manufacturing in the great fireworks armories of Cancun and Guadalahara.

A handful of the faithful, keeping vigil from the roof as rockets arched skyward would be there until they too grew tired or more frequently were forced to vacate at the arrival of the Police. The drill was the same, the heavy thunder and drunken revelry would incite the neighborhood, the neighborhood would groggily request police intervention, the police would come, the brothers in question would decist and disappear until the Police left. They would then sleep or begin anew until dawn or the police arrived again.

Needless to say, after night three, the neighborhood and the Police learnt that this was not a passing disruption in Suburbia, that the rebels were well armed and obviously prepared to continue shelling until the last shot had been fired. The Police decided that this time they would employ some more innovative technique in the hopes of actually catching a perpertrator in the act. There brilliant strategy involved parking across the street, lights off, lurking in the shadows until propellant became visible and the show began.

Officer A and officer B then crossed the street and proceeded on foot down the driveway to the back of the house where Brother T and Brother B were happily situated with fireworks, beer and other items on the second flor roof. The good men of the township spotted them at which point brother B sensing the impending citation quickly dived through the window and out of sight. Brother T, probably more inebrieated and somewhat more overcome by the prospect of having the nights attack on the neighboring settlements interrupted leapt to his feet and lingered long enough to say:

“YOU FUCKING PIGS!” a battle cry twice repeated by Seargent C when I spoke to him a half hour later. Officer A at this point responded with something to the effect of “I see you, you little bastard in the Green and White shirt.” Brother T sensing the impending situation about to unfold like brother B dove back into the darkness of his room.

They say that heroes are made in instants and quite frequently heroic deeds are done on instinct and it was so in this case as Brother T transgressed into the realm of champions, and tore from his body the green and white shirt, the mark of a “fucking pig” caller. He quickly dawned a red shirt and it was he that met a furious Officer A and Officer B moments later at the front door of the fraternity house. It was he, wearing a red shirt and thus above suspciion that led the officers to the scene of the crime and then followed it with a tour of the fraternity in search of the insidious man in the green and white shirt.

The story became mine not long later when I awoke to some commotion in my room. As I peered from my loft I could make out that brother B was in my room and that the light had been turned on. I managed a “what the fuck” before I became aware that my vision forward was obscured by a blinding light that came into focus as a flashlight attached to Officer B. Panic swept me momentarily until I could think of nothing immediately that would make me a fugitive from justice. The officer was saying something that I could not understand until my girlfriend sat up topless to see what was going on. The cop at which point then said “Nope it couldn’t have been this guy..”

As I questioned Brother B and the now present Seargent C in the hallway I discovered that a man had been sighted on the roof and since I also had a roof accessible from my room they were checking for his presence there. As I looked around I was vaguely amused to see that Officer A and B had decided to search for the man in my desk drawers and underneath my couch. Meanwhile my girlfriend on hearing there was a man on the loose became panicked, until we established for the good officers if anyone had come through we would have heard them.

In time they left empty handed. In time we filed a complaint with the township for police harassment and in the following months we were harassed perpetually in lieu of the capture of the man in the Green and White shirt. But for that night in the ongoing struggle between the police and my fraternity we were triumphant, and we had a leader, the man in the green and white shirt.