Dean Hunt

FRESHMAN EATS

By Dean Hunt

They’re young, they’re motivated, and someday soon they all will SAVE THE WORLD. There are no problems for these college freshman, only opportunities to create solutions. Though with that said, most “first-years” can admit something is off with that one restaurant -- the restaurant called “FRESHMAN EATS.” And notably, no one does anything about it. Because what feels so wrong about the place? It’s hard to put a finger on just what.

FRESHMAN EATS.

Is it the all-caps sign that’s off-putting?

Or the fact that the lettering’s blood-red?

Not major things, of course, but while on the topic, do those words need to be five-feet tall? Does the neon need to flash day-in and day-out? And why can you feel it strobe in your fillings, like the buzz of a bee some insane dentist’s walled deep inside a molar? Plus, is that buzzing getting louder? Can neon signs even get louder? And cause toothaches and headaches and blurred vision?

How is any of that possible?

The other campus food options are either dining halls or one-off’s named after donors. Not that there’s much variety. “Smith?” goes the joke. “So we meet at Smith Grill, Smith Bagels, or Smith Wraps?” And the second part: “Does it matter? Because you know they all taste the same.”

And truly they do, with everything run by the same food-service corporation and those same, smiling zombies, the campus restaurant employees. They spend their days defrosting the same wilted patties, the same emaciated bagels, the same soggy wraps. And after two-and-a-half minutes in the microwave -- identical for each and every item -- the food is ready for your enjoyment, plunked down on a Styrofoam plate.

They say eating it can’t hurt you.

But the choices all taste gray.

“What’s this supposed to be?” someone occasionally asks. Usually, it’s a student too rushed to bring a lunch. And there’s rarely, if ever, an answer.

But back to FRESHMAN EATS! Which clearly is NOT cut from the same cloth. The aroma outside of the building is different, for starters. No, it attests to nothing specific -- is FRESHMAN EATS a burger place? A burrito place? Does it serve ramen noodles? It’s hard to discern, and the back alley doesn’t smell of wet cardboard, the front not of disappointment and wasted meal points. Is that pizza in the air, with sausage? Soup, like a bisque, or maybe the aromas of a type of dessert? There’s a warmth to it all, but not a welcoming one -- less like cocoa on a winter’s day and more like spice inside of a witch’s gingerbread house where the oven is always on.

Always on, and always waiting.

The outside grounds of FRESHMAN EATS have been landscaped, with hedges cut into angular shapes and a lawn that’s always weed-free. The restaurant has windows, but without the same off-white blinds you see in all the classrooms, as sure a thing as the toilet paper in all the campus bathrooms being single-ply. And why can’t you see far inside FRESHMAN EATS? There are tables, and… what else? And though outside speakers play music, how come no one can name the genre? Is it eighties hits? Nineties soft-listening? Though the beat is snappy enough. 

There aren’t many parking spaces, which makes sense given that FRESHMAN EATS is in the middle of campus. But the restaurant would be fine with none, a fact that illustrates the final oddity: you never see cars at FRESHMAN EATS. It doesn’t seem like the place does enough business to sustain, well, business. Because few people go in. And NO ONE comes out.

And how, again, is that even possible?

It’s ironic that a restaurant, positioned exactly one block from the main Physics building, appears to violate the law of the conservation of mass. People joke that FRESHMAN EATS must have tunnels beneath it, but why would a restaurant need tunnels? Or maybe the place is a disguise for unsightly electrical boxes, or cooling units? But why go through that effort? Or could FRESHMAN EATS be a teaching institute? Except the school doesn’t have a hospitality program. Those are some of the theories, and none of them fit, so to appropriate a quote from the English Department, located three blocks to the east, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Despite the clean grounds, something is dirty.

Despite the tempting aromas, something’s repulsive.

Or, just in short, FRESHMAN EATS stinks.

###

“It’s a ‘To Serve Man’ situation,” Tommy jokes. “It’s gotta be. It looks OK on the outside, but inside they’re cooking and plating and serving man. You know… SERVING MAN.” And the rest of the group has to admit, “FRESHMAN EATS” is a pretty weird name that is ripe for entendre. Yet...

This is the real world.

Restaurants don’t serve up people.

We are not living in a science fiction story.

These are the points they all tell themselves in the dining hall while drinking off-brand sodas from white paper cups. In the center of the table is a pile of cookies. They get them every day, meaning the cookies are passable, though no one knows if they’re chocolate chip or raisin. “Why can’t we tell? We should be able to tell!” Tommy always exclaims; then he lists the ways chocolate chips and raisins are different.

Yet still they eat them. Because what undergrad turns down free food? It comes with their meal plans, paid for dearly with loans. And outside of that, they’re broke.

Tommy pretty much always talks about FRESHMAN EATS. He mentions things like “ambrosia plus” and “soylent green,” and works of literature like Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. They all listen because it’s a crack up, with Tommy’s arms blurring as he espouses his cannibalistic theories, his curly, black hair shaking, his voice rising higher and higher in pitch, and his dark eyes going wide. But also, Tommy’s theories are just about the only thing that plausibly explains FRESHMAN EATS.

No one they know goes into FRESHMAN EATS. No one they know knows anyone who has ever gone in, either.

During the first week of school, Ashley asked an upper-classman about it. “Don’t eat there," came the reply.

“But how come?” she wanted to know.

“Because FRESHMAN EATS eats up freshman like you.”

Then the upper-classman walked away.

Ashley was offended; she hadn’t realized her freshman-ness was so conspicuous. And after that, they all stopped asking questions about FRESHMAN EATS of people outside of their gang.

###

Tommy, Ashley, Jordan, and George are the first-years investigating FRESHMAN EATS. They’re all in the same wing of Smith Residential Hall, and they’re all interested, or perhaps even obsessed, with the enigmatic restaurant and its buzzing sign they see at the back of the quad. And why not be interested? They’re freshman after all, and they do eat. Plus there isn’t a lot to do after class if you don’t have money. Additionally, the restaurant’s more stimulating than physics homework. It’s more enticing than British literature. It’s more engaging than calculus or musicology, or even intramural softball or drinking. Because how can a business exist without a clientele? Is it part of an elaborate study put on by a psychology professor? Or maybe it’s just a money-laundering front. Because after all, universities do worse things for money. And again, how have they failed to meet anyone who’s gone in there? The questions are maddening, and so is the fact that no one’s solved them. So one night they have a stake-out.

Tommy in the bushes, on one side of the property.

Ashley to the left, under a group of pines.

Jordan in the back, hiding behind hydrants.

And George to the other side, observing from inside one of the Physics Building’s dumpsters. Truly, he said he didn’t mind getting in there. And truly, that’s a freshman male for you.

They settle into their places at 6:00 PM sharp, which they figure is prime eating time. But thirty minutes pass and no one’s shown up for dinner. The front sign on FRESHMAN EATS just buzzes away, and before long Ashley, under the pines, is feeling it. Something about the sound and the deep red light reminds her of the family farm, and the slaughterhouse out back. By 6:40 her stomach is turning, and by 6:45 she’s done. For Jordan, in the back, what first smelled of real food and authenticity now smells like her uncle’s mortuary. Soon after she’s retching, officially calling it quits at 6:50. And five minutes later George, in view of the main neon sign, feels a back tooth crack.

Can a neon sign do that?

Its buzzing break a tooth, and from a distance?

With tears running down his face George crawls out of his dumpster, and that’s the crew, all gone or departing, except Tommy. And Tommy wonders, is FRESHMAN EATS really that bad? He swears that tonight the air smells interesting, nay good, because for once the aroma is clear: that’s yeast and cinnamon, and icing, too. They never have sweet rolls in the dining hall, and with a lick of his lips Tommy decides to go for it. Because dessert sounds good, if he doesn’t go in will they ever figure out what’s up with this strange restaurant?

And it’s empty in there, right?

So where’s the danger?

With a mix of curiosity and hunger, and with a bit of bravado thrown in for good measure, Tommy leaves his bushes.

He walks up to the restaurant’s revolving doors.

He hesitates just once, to look up at the neon, and Ashley, who has come back to check on Tommy, sees him from afar. She’ll later tell the gang that every detail of his face, bathed in the red light, was clear and visible, except for his eyes. Those were hidden in shadow, like his body below. So the final image of Tommy in her mind is like that of a floating skull, and Ashley swears that as he looked upwards the buzzing stopped. The sign shone steadily, and in fact grew in intensity until Tommy, like a churchgoer to communion, lowered his head and pushed forward, walking somberly into the crimson glare.

And that was the last they ever saw of him.

###

Except.

Senior year: Ashley and Jordan run inside a campus hotdog shop. They’ve driven to campus early to get their graduation robes and honestly, they know the food won’t be the best. But they figure they’re in for a long night of celebrating and that they should get something into their stomachs first. Plus, George is off with his parents. He and Ashley are dating -- they’ve been an item, actually, since right after Tommy left the picture. George is a vegetarian who doesn’t approve of meat, but what George doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Plus, does a campus dog really count?

The girls think not.

They spend several minutes reading over their options. Over twenty types of “gourmet” hotdogs are listed, though the pictures on the menu are all pretty similar. Then Ashley has a revelation -- this is like their old joke, and it doesn’t matter which one she gets. Because, of course, all the dogs will taste the same. She tells this to Jordan, who laughs and agrees. So they pick two dogs at random, and later they’ll look at the menus and try and guess which ones were theirs.

They go to the back to wait, and now Jordan has a revelation: she hasn’t eaten on campus since freshman year. “Wow,” she says, “being here sure brings back memories.”

     “Was this a hotdog shop then?” Ashley asks.

Jordan shrugs. “Maybe it served pitas?”

“Then it’s barely changed since!”

They laugh and laugh.

Then Jordan says, “Remember the Freshman Fifteen?”

“Thanks to too many places like this, I still know it well!” The response causes them to laugh more.

Their server brings some plastic cutlery. “Your dogs will be right up,” he states. Then he shuffles off.

“Thanks,” the girls say. Once the server’s out of earshot, Ashley asks if Jordan thinks the server eats hotdogs every day. Jordan rolls her eyes, but yeah, her lack of response -- and the fact that she turns to watch the man -- shows that she thinks so too. Across the room, he’s wiping down a table, and his thick fingers look pretty similar to the plump pieces of meat, or “meat,” that he and his co-workers put inside buns all day. He makes small, wet circles as he works his way across the table, and his dark eyes, staring out from an overstuffed brow, seem content. And Jordan remembers what they used to call the food-service workers during their freshman year -- zombies.

The pair are silent until the server returns with their food. Something is bothering Jordan, and Ashley is about to ask what, but then a hotdog plops down on their table. Or at least that’s what she assumes is beneath the pile of gray relish.

“One for you,” the server hums.

“Thank you,” Ashley replies.

“And one for you.” Jordan’s hotdog is at least visible, though it’s thoroughly drenched in dayglow-yellow cheese.

Jordan expresses her appreciation, and the server asks if they need anything else. Both women respond in the negative.

“Well then, have a great day!”

And that does it. Now Jordan knows what’s been bothering her. It’s the voice, a voice she used to hear every day.

She leans over to Ashley once they’re alone. “Ash! Do you remember Tommy?” And Jordan doesn’t have to say another word. Ashley swings around to look to where the server is washing another table, and she too is immediately certain. Same curly, black hair. Same dark eyes. He’s probably 150 pounds heavier, and he’s not even half as animated as before, but that’s Tommy. She’d know, too, because Ashley was the one who filed the missing person reports. She’s the one who talked to the police, who put up the signs, who tried for months to speak with the Dean of Students about the restaurant that, as crazy as it sounded, evidently swallowed Tommy up.

“What did they do to him?”

“What did who do to him?” Jordan asks.

“FRESHMAN EATS,” Ashley replies. And of course, it was FRESHMAN EATS. It was always FRESHMAN EATS.

For the rest of their meal they rehash, while stealing glances at the man who is probably Tommy, all those conversations from their first year of college. And they add to the theories. Perhaps FRESHMAN EATS wasn’t the place they thought it was. Malevolent, sure, but perhaps the restaurant that preyed on freshman didn’t eat them in the literal or science fiction sense. No, perhaps it just got them in the adult-sense. The real-world sense. THE CORPORATE SENSE. It enticed the curious, then gave them dining hall jobs and transformed their bodies somehow?

“No one ever dreams of working in a campus dining hall,” Ashely says. “The weird building and sign were guerilla marketing at its finest!”

“But why accept the job?” Jordan replies.

“Remember being desperate for money back then?”

“I’m desperate for money now!”

“Exactly. So maybe Tommy just needed the income.”

“And if the college knew FRESHMAN EATS was a recruitment tool, well that would explain the lack of concern.”

“Yes! They’re probably the ones who took down the posters.”

“And with no one ever coming out?”

“Probably just staying late with onboarding paperwork.”

“But why’d he cut us off? Why disappear?”

For this one Ashley doesn’t have a great answer.

They finish eating in silence, pondering and playing out scenarios in their heads. The hotdogs are truly awful, but the women are excited to tell George and everyone else about their discovery, so it’s all been worth it. They clean off the table. They paid when they came in, so there isn’t a need to talk to the server who would be Tommy. They’ll come back later, they decide, when George and a few other people can give him a good look-over. So they walk to the door, though right as they open it and start outside would-be Tommy calls out.

“Hey! Hold up a second.”

Ashley and Jordan stop.

As would-be Tommy shuffles over, they recognize a familiar swinging of the arms, despite the much slower pace. And as would-be Tommy gets closer, Ashley and Jordan get excited.

But when would-be Tommy stops in front of Ashley and Jordan, he only hands Ashley a receipt. “I think you dropped this.”

And then he shuffles away.

“Huh,” says Ashley once he’s back to wiping tables.

“Yeah,” Jordan chimes in, “I really thought….”

With nothing else to say, they exit and walk towards the car. And Ashley starts to put the receipt in her pocket, but stops when she realizes that it’s slimy. She looks down. And freezes. Because there’s writing on the paper -- on top of the characters that record her purchase there’s a message scrawled in ketchup. And now the question of whether or not that is Tommy in the shop is clear beyond all doubt. The message raises so many more questions than it answers, which is amazing since it’s really just two small words.

“HELP ME.”

The End

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