Streaking

Winter days in the little trailer on the edge of town. There were not many students living in the park. Most were working people, older than we were but not much. The couple next door were in their twenties. One day, a pretty, young girl moved in with them. She was the fellow's niece, and really, she was more than pretty. She always smiled when she saw us, and one day she said hello. It turned out that she was only seventeen, and we were afraid. She didn't look seventeen, but that is what she said, and her redneck uncle probably wouldn't approve of us chatting her up too much, we knew. But she sort of liked Mike, and she would come over once in awhile to make us nervous. We would play our guitars and sing for her, and when she wasn't around, we'd sing for her, too. It was a torment for us, but only for awhile. One day, she was just gone. And in a way, it was a relief.

But in those days, it did not take long for something else to arrest our interest. And one day, like a tornado or a tidal wave you can't predict, people began streaking. It happened quickly. One day, people simply began to take their clothes off and run through classrooms. I was in my organic chemistry class the first time I saw it, a large amphitheater with doors in the front and in the back. It was over in a flash. A boy opened the back door and galloped down the gently sloping stairs and out the front. There was a howl from the class, of course, and the professor looked startled, but then he chuckled and simply continued to lecture.

Within a few days, it was a national phenomenon.

One night, Mike and I were walking on campus after dinner and noticed a huge crowd of boys beneath the windows of one of the dormitories, so we walked over to see what was going on. On the third floor, the lights of a single dorm room were blinking on and off behind the venetian blinds that covered the window.

"What's going on," we asked a guy in the crowd.

"Two girls are up there teasing all the fellows. They are going to do a striptease."

And they did. As one girl worked the blinds with the skill of a carnie, opening them and closing them in rhythm to some barely heard music, the other girl began taking off her clothing. The boys began to whoop. With the yelling, of course, the crowd began to swell, and the boys who had been sitting cross legged in the grass while the lights went on and off were forced to their feet, the blinds obscuring then revealing, horny boys moaning out in agony and delight.

That week, during a nationally televised basketball game, a boy streaked across the court at half time. The nation saw it and we were proud. In Boulder, they had set the record for the number of people streaking at one time. Somewhere else, a group of students had parachuted naked. But WE had streaked on national T.V.

Every day for two weeks, you'd see people take off their clothes and run naked across the campus. And like any frenzy, it had to peek. And so one Saturday night, a march had been organized. People would walk naked from Fraternity Row to Sorority Row, a march of around a mile. Everyone had heard about it, even the town's folk, and that night the "Parade Route" was lined with thousands of people. Families came with picnic baskets and blankets, patiently waiting.

"Are you going to take off your clothes," one of us asked?

"Don't know. Let's just follow and see what happens."

What happened was that we found ourselves in a crowd of about a hundred naked men. We marched along behind them watching the swell of cheering townspeople, children on father's shoulders, waving and shouting like it was Mardi Gras.

"I don't want to take off my clothes to march with a bunch of swinging dicks," one of us said to the other, but just then, there at the back of the line, the first girls joined in. Suddenly, they ripped off their clothing and got in line. They were naked and they were cute, and without saying anything, both Mike and I began shedding our shirts and pants, sticking close to the girls, watching the shiny whiteness of their bouncing breasts and butts like beacons in the night. And suddenly, the number of naked marchers began to grow. Now, even townspeople were getting into the act, jumping from the curb with a hoot and a shout and getting naked, too. There were a lot of naked people now of both sexes, but truly, it was still mostly guys. Mike and I jockeyed hard to stay next to the girls as abruptly the crowd began to run. And suddenly, there were television lights and cameras everywhere. "Shit," Mike spat as we ran head on into a camera crew from our own hometown. I put my head down and held my pants in front of my face. "Great. My parents are going to be watching the news tomorrow night and see my naked ass running toward the camera. They're going to cut off my money."

Just then, as the naked crowd began to slow, the group of girls peeled away down a little hill next to an old dormitory. Mike and I went with them. They were laughing and shouting excitedly while they slipped their clothes back on, Mike and I dressing with them. I don't know what we thought might happen, but whatever it was, it didn't.

"You guys want to go over to Sarah's," one girl said to the others.

"Let's get something to eat first. I'm starving."

Mike and I stood there watching and listening like we were about to be invited, but we weren't. The girls waved and we waved and they were gone, left alone, standing in the darkness below a knoll of cold and slippery grass that separated us from the crowd.

The parade had ended now, and people were just hanging around wondering what to do. But suddenly out of nowhere a motorcycle bearing a naked couple came driving by. The crowd set up a cheer just as the police cruiser pulled them over. "Hey, what the hell," somebody yelled, and within seconds another cruiser had pulled up. We were on campus and these were the campus police. Surely they would make the couple put their clothes back on and let them go. But it was taking far too long. And suddenly--and I don't know what got into me--I was standing on a retaining wall and shouting out, "Look, look, they are arresting the motorcycle couple. We can't let them do this! It isn't right." And like that, the crowd began to move toward the cruisers, piling up around them. And then somebody began a chant which the crowd picked up.

"Let them go, let them go."

And then more policemen showed up. Things were getting ugly. The police had not let the couple get dressed and they had handcuffed the boy. He still had his motorcycle helmet on.

"Free the streakers. Free the streakers," the crowd chanted, now in a more furious tone.

But it was to no avail. Suddenly, two officers put the boy into the back of a squad car. They put the girl into another. And seeing that, the crowd went wild. Shoving forward, they began rocking the squad car.

"Let them go. Let them go."

But the police moved in doing their usual policemen thing, grabbing selected boys from the crowd to make an example for the rest. Then the two cars with the arrested streakers drove away and were gone.

And that was that. The crowd began to disperse.

"What a night," Mike said.

"You think we'll be on T.V.?"

"I hope not. My dad will shit. He already thinks all I do up here is hang out and fuck around."

That was Saturday night. By Monday morning, it was all over. The university had identified the boy who had streaked at half time of the nationally televised basketball game and had suspended him from the university. I don't know whatever happened to the streaking motorcyclists. But nobody ever streaked again. It had been two weeks of crazy silliness and fun.

I thought about old friends who were not living this life, those working day to day at ordinary jobs and those who had chosen not to come to the state university. They were missing much, I thought, things they could never really catch up on. How could you tell it? They had seen it on the local news, but they would never know what it felt like, and I would find that there would be no use in trying to tell them. God, I thought, I got lucky.