The Mechanic's Daughter

In the darkened hallway of the men's residence, there is a line of about five boys standing outside the door of one of the rooms. Something about the way they stand, not facing one another and barely talking, resembles a queue at a bus stop. They seem to avoid looking at me. Then one boy comes out of the room and another goes in. I am walking past with a date, a commerce student called Howie Glossop, and we are party-hopping, moving from a party in the residence to a supposedly more promising one off-campus. It is Grey Cup Saturday night and football is the overt excuse for both of these parties. Howie has spent the evening so far shepherding me around the room from one group of people to another, all of whom are making conversation about people I don’t know. He somehow manages never to speak to me directly. I keep struggling to join a conversation with anyone who is not drunk. Whenever I am successful in this, he links his arm around mine and steers me over to a new group of friends. I am already beginning to think of excuses for going home.

“What is happening there?” I ask Howie. He looks at me directly for the first time all evening. “Not our business,” he says and puts a hand in the small of my back as if to guide me toward the exit. I walk on obediently, wondering why I had found him so charming last week, when he first approached me in the dining hall. As we reach the double doors at the top of the stairs, a woman dressed in black comes up and through them, walking with huge strides. She is tall and broad-shouldered, with a mane of black wavy hair hanging down her back and her lips pressed in a grim line. I turn and see the boys scatter. Something in her demeanor makes me follow her back the way we’d come.

She tries the shut door, which proves to be locked. She beats on it, kicks it with her heavy boots. “I know you’re there,” she shouts. “If you don’t open up now, I’ll call security.” The boy who had gone in opens the door abruptly, his shirt unbuttoned and jacket thrown hastily over it. “Scum bag,” she hisses at him as he flees down the hallway. I hesitate, then follow her into the room.

There is a girl on the bed, mostly naked and with her legs parted. Her head is turned away from us and her cheek appears flushed. The white of her belly shines in the light from the doorway. I look down the hallway – it is empty now, even Howie has disappeared. I shut the door and turn on a lamp. It takes me a moment to understand what I am looking at – why the boys had lined up outside. There is a funky smell, of alcohol and sex. Whoever had been first had been too hasty to take off her bra. It is still hooked around her back, but twisted where it had been pulled down to expose her breasts. There are red marks on her neck and shoulders. She draws her legs up, moaning slightly and rolls over, her eyes still shut. “She’s barely conscious,” says the woman in black. “Help me get her up.”