Dead College Roommate

I really have no opinion on the recent tragedy in Virginia Tech. But it got me to thinking about my own death story in college. It was either my third or fourth year in college, they all blend together, plus I was in college for so long I can't remember. Anyhow, I was living up in the attic with Mark, Kevin and Todd at 2949 Murray. But Todd moved out at semester. Todd ended up getting someone to sub lease his room. And his name was Tom. Tom had his own issues, we all thought he was a manic depressive alcoholic. One time Kevin and I were hanging out having a couple beers and watching TV. The phone rang and it was for Tom and I knocked on his door and opened it at the same time to give him the phone. As I opened the door, I noticed that he was hiding a vodka bottle under his pillow. I asked him what he was doing, and he said nothing. I told him if he wanted to drink he could drink with us instead of drinking alone in his room. But he wanted to just hang out in his room. Now this is not to say that I didn't have my own binge drinking issues which technically are still to this day not fully resolved. I eventually nicknamed him "The Gimp" (a Pulp Fiction Reference) because he never left his room. Another time "The Gimp" came home from classes and actually asked for our help with his math home work. Since the three of us were all engineering majors you would think it would be easy for us to teach him. Not quite so. It was easy stuff, I think Algebra. He would ask why you do something and we would just tell him "because it is a rule, it just is." He never got it. The story I heard about "The Gimp's" death was that he tried breaking into his parent's house one weekend when they were gone. He was drunk and locked out, so he broke the bathroom window and crawled in. While he was crawling in, he managed to cut himself so badly that he ended up bleeding to death in the bath tub. A couple weeks later, his sister called and said that they were going to stop by to collect his stuff. Mark answered the phone and asked "Why? Where the hell is he?" And that is when his sister said that he died. By the way, I did not receive straight A's for the semester because my roommate died.

I was watching a little of CNN today and they were interviewing the roommates of the shooter down in Virgina Tech. I was trying to imagine what I would have said if I had been interviewed after "The Gimp" died.

Reporter: "What was Tom like?"

Me: "The Gimp? He was a drunk who never did the dishes."

By the way this is me, Mark, Kevin and Todd, with Suzanne in front.