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Most Brown students believe that living in Perkins must be hell. "It's so far.like, five blocks. Do you know how far that is? You can't even see it from the SciLi!" said one student. To quote Nick Mark '10, "Substance free? At that distance? If I lived that far, I'd need to be drunk all the time just to deal with the pain. I mean, I'm always drunk anyway, but that's not the point." "I hear they eat a hobo every month," said one quaking first year.
The Brown Noser, in the spirit of inquiry, service to the general public, and in an effort to dispel all rumors, decided to investigate just what life is like in Perkins. What was discovered was a sordid truth far more disturbing than anything rumor could manufacture.
Living in Perkins is not like hell. It is Hell. When one enters Perkins, there are no rooms, but an infinite blank vacuum, devoid of any substance or form. Within these lonely mists remain trapped the undesirables and the damned of the Brown community, left a year to suffer for their decision to check the Sub-Free box. The wraiths are unable to interact with the real world. But they can speak, and through them we learned their tragic story.
"If we listen carefully, we can hear the sounds of happy, drunken laughter on weekends," said James Hammond '12, as he looked wistfully out of a window. "But they never come here. No fun ever reaches here." No alcohol, no drugs, not even Robitussin are to be found in the dark void, and even those who are lucky enough to have someone outside remember their name are incapable of leaving to see these 'friends.' Some new souls will try to convince their friends to come, but to no avail.
"They always say it's too far, and there's nothing to do. Dumb fresh fish still try to convince 'em," said Brad Livings '10, a veteran of Perkins living. "I'd hate the fuckers for refusing, but they're right. One time Lauren [Hastings '12] here managed to convince someone to make the trip." He paused to take a drag on his cigarette. "Poor bastard died of exposure halfway." With no outside entertainment, the damned must resort to what little internal diversions are available to them. Yet even this becomes a form of torture. "We're on our 50,000th game of Scrabble," says Hastings "And 20,000th game of Apples to Apples. Do you hear me, damn you?! HELLEN KELLER ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE! THAT'S WHAT WE'RE REDUCED TO."
It should be noted that the only movies in Perkins are Robocop II, Dirty Dancing, The Road to El Dorado and Ishtar. Recently, the desperate Perkins residents made an official appeal to the Vatican to see if their sentence to Purgatory could be altered. Sadly, the Pope said that Catholic doctrine would not allow the Perkins Purgatory to be changed. When questioned why, his response was simple: "Have you ever tasted the blood of Christ? By God, if alcohol isn't part of life, I don't know what is. I am afraid those living in substance- free Perkins are serving a justifiable sentence for their decisions."
And so for now, the lost residents of Perkins shall continue to serve their sentences. At the end of each year, most are released to the main campus once again, though their adjustment process is difficult. "Inside Perkins, I was the guy with the Ishtar DVDs," said one former Perkins resident. "I was a somebody. Here.I'm nothing."
