Let me explain something. I do not strip. I do not get naked. Unless nudity is an intrinsic requirement of a situation, the clothes stay on at all times. Not during the most aggressive heat strokes or my most embarrassingly drunken moments have I ever felt the urge to disrobe. Yet I found myself running around campus at midnight on Thursday night in the rain, in my bra, along with two of my equally, if not more so, naked roommates. Isabel had called us.
On our semi-nude tour of campus, we headed by Copley lawn, the sight of many graduations featuring prestigious speakers and faithful companion of equally faithful studiers on sunny days. The former star of an episode of The West Wing was now unrecognizable underneath the orgy of mud-wrestlers covered in her newly-crafted mud. Isabel had been there.
As we ventured onto the lawn, we noticed something very odd, the boy-girl-tackle- straddle with definite sexual undertones move was used surprisingly little. The majority seemed to be using the I’m-going-to-knock-you-down-using-all-possible force-and-sit-on-your-face” move. Indeed, no sooner had we started to head back to our apartment when one particularly inebriated stranger took offense to the absence of mud on us and decided to tackle us all to the ground. I will never forget the look on my roommate’s face when our new friend approached her, with mud on his face, and bad intentions in his soul. It read, “this guy isn’t actually going to touch me, right?” But he did. Very much so. He picked her up, dropped her on her ass in a huge puddle, and held her there for a few seconds for good measure-just to make sure she was really good and muddy.
When he failed to take me down on the first try, he went for my knees, like anyone who has had years of older-sibling fighting experience would do, almost taking my last article of clothing off with him. It looked like a few determined party goers with umbrellas and high-heels on, who happened to be passing by, might meet the same fate. Isabel had been there too.
We finally headed back to our apartment. Just when we were feeling a little exposed, just when we were really starting to notice we were the only girls in the general vicinity in our underwear and just when we were starting to feel really naked, a group of guys streaked by us and out Healy Gates, wearing nothing but their birthday suits.
Isabel cheered them on. She probably hid their clothes while they were running bare-assed around Georgetown, too.
Yes, that acrid tang you smelled on the wind was not just acid rain. It is the smell of cheap vodka, fresh mud, Keystone Light, felled trees and good times. It is the smell of Isabel. You know her. She is your loudest, crudest most drunken friend who dances on table tops and pees in the middle of well-lit streets. She is not the life of the party. She is the party. And she felt that things were getting a little too dull at Georgetown. Copley was looking a little too green and a little too occupied by book-laden students. Classes were being held too often. So she came and made it all better for us, like the loyal-yet-wholly-unpredictable friend that she is.
Isabel has gone now. She has moved on to greener front lawns on other campuses. Some skipped her party entirely. One friend of mine expressed disappointment in missing out our topless jog up to Healy and back; he was too busy being indoors. I wanted to say, “sorry buddy, you missed your one chance. Life is cruel like that.” But then I stopped, and had to smile.
For I know, one day, when things get to be a little bit too quiet, when school is in session altogether too much, she, or perhaps one of her equally raucous consorts, will come save us. And the rain will start once more. And the clothes will come off once more. And the mud-wrestling will commence once more-Isabel will be back.
Vanessa Machir is a sophomore in the College. She is a category five hurricane.
