The morning light stabbed Chuck's eyes. Scowling he comforted his sore head by gently rocking it, mesmerised by Brad's leg as it swung up and down over the arm of the chair. Boy did he have a headache and his tongue felt like it was welded to the roof of his mouth. Motes of dust danced far too busily in the sunshine as it flooded in through the window. 'We really ought to pull those drapes before crashing,' he thought. Looking around, he watched his frat buddies unroll and emerge from their stupor. As usual his and Larry's dorm was littered with empty pizza boxes, cases of Bud, and fellow students.
'Ok who's turn is it to take out the trash?' Larry's question was met by a barrage of swearing and leftover pizza crusts. 'Cut it out you guys. The janitor will be here soon and if we aren't careful we will be pulling extra classes through the spring break.' More bits of food rained down on him.
Chuck closed his eyes and let his mind wander to the road trip ahead. He really should check the route to Zap. The article on the front page of the college newspaper had said it was somewhere in the Knife River Valley. He still hadn't gotten his mind around how this whole thing had snowballed into what half the students in the mid west are calling the 'Zip to Zap Grand Festival of Light and Love'. Zap had just sounded like a cool place for a picnic and something for him and his buddies to do.
Larry had been astounded when Chuck told him that it was he, Chuck Stroup, who had put the cryptic ads and articles in various student newspapers about a 'happening' in Zap. He had also confided to Larry that he had been mildly alarmed when The Spectrum, North Dakota State's finest student newspaper, had picked up on his prank and run a front page article about it. The article had read:
'Located in the valley of the scenic Knife River, Zap has thrown open its arms to students. The beautiful burg's 250 residents welcome us to their shores. Shall we say no to this truly fine gesture of western hospitality? Of course not. On May 10 we and students like us from all over the mid-west will flock to Zap.'
Chuck had thought that The Spectrum was over egging it a bit. And then some dude in the Associated Press had picked up on it and the Zip to Zap thing had gone national.
Larry had been blown away by the news. He kept repeating, 'You're a national phenomenon, Dude,' and shaking his head in disbelief. Chuck had just sat there and wondered why he had done it. Boredom, that's why. It seemed to him that the excitement and chaos in the other colleges had passed North Dakota State University by. The sleepy Fargo campus hadn't seen any rebellion against the authorities or the Vietnam War. Their campus seemed as far away from the centres of the hippy movement as could be. All Chuck and his buddies had done to date was ruefully quarrel about the true nature of sit-ins and love-ins and the merits of long hair for attracting women. Chuck was also angry about not being able to afford the spring break festivities in Fort Lauderdale. 'Florida was just too far man,' he had moaned to Larry. So that's why he had cooked up a little local entertainment for them all in Zap.
The click, click, click of the stuck gramophone needle started to aggravate him. 'Will someone please turn that damn thing off before it ruins the stylus?' he croaked . . . Moisture . . . his mouth needed moisture. In the dorm kitchen he stuck his head under the faucet and a thought of his brother pushed its way into his head. Rod had failed to evade the draft, caught at the Canadian border with 4 others. Strangely though, Rod had gone on to make officer rank in Delta Company 3/187th. His last known location was the jungle shrouded mountains of South Vietnam, close to the Laos border. Chuck smothered these thoughts until they retreated to the pit of his stomach where they usually slept, occasionally waking up and giving him acid.
Back in his room he was delighted to see that it had been cleared of last night's detritus and Larry was carefully putting his new Creedance Clearwater Revival Album back in its cover. 'I love 'Bad moon rising' man,' Larry said as he passed the album over. 'So right about the apocalypse thing that will be visited upon us. But not this weekend eh buddy? Lets Zip to Zap as they say.'
By mid day they were dressed and ready, hangovers sloughed off down the shower. Amidst cheering and whooping a convoy of a dozen or more cars and pickups set off from his frat block alone. Chuck's 69 Dodge Charger was carrying five of his buddies, the rest were crowded onto the back of Larry's flatbed Ford. Larry's passenger seats being reserved for two jumbo Coolers rammed with cold beers. 'Priorities man, priorities,' he had explained.
As they got closer to Zap, Brad unfolded his copy of the Spectrum which had helpfully run another article with a map of Zap and details of the two bars and three cafes and the scenic beauty of the Knife River Valley. The others in the car encouraged Brad to read out the last line of the article, again. Clearing his throat he declaimed, 'Cough . . . in addition to these events, a full program of orgies, brawls, freak-outs and arrests is being planned. Do you dare to miss it?'
This was met with the predictable roar of 'No we won't!'
Later that night, staggering back from the bar with a tray full of beers, Chuck shouted over the mass of heads to Larry, 'How much was your last round dude, 'cos that barman has just relieved me of 12 bucks? I swear it wasn't that price earlier on.'
Larry held up six fingers and shouted back '6 bucks'. Over the general din of the drunken crowd in the bar he could hear a ground swell of indignity as the masses started to realise a rip off was in progress. Beer prices had doubled. Brad shouted out that the f***ing Zap burgers in the fast food places were twice the price as anywhere else too. Another group of students stampeded into the bar shouting that the one down the road was dry, just as the shutters came down on the bar they were in.
Chuck jumped up and shouted at his buddies to high tail it to the door. 'This is turning ugly man . . . Lets split . . . rapidomundo'.
Out in the street, it looked like 3,000 drunken students were about to get really cross. No more beer. Chuck noticed that some kids were vomiting and urinating in any receptacle they could find. 'Jesus, the townsfolk aren't going to like that, man.'
'It's bloody cold, man,' Larry moaned.
'It won't be for long, look,' Chuck pointed to the huge bonfire in the town square. 'I think we need to scoot. Rendezvous back at the cars if you can remember where they are.'
It was very, very late when they piled into the frat house. They slumped down on sofas, chairs, the floor, anyplace so long as they could see the TV in the common room. Before the image warmed up on the screen they could hear the voice of Walter Cronkite on a rerun of the CBS Evening News. He was interviewing Governor William Guy.
'Well it was just a full scale riot. I had to call in troops from the North Dakota National Guard to disperse the drunken hooligans.' Cronkite suggested to the Governor that the use of fixed bayonets by the guardsmen was possibly a bit of an overreaction.
'Look,' said Governor Guy 'this was not a political statement, nor a demonstration. They were juvenile delinquents running amok in this small town, setting fire to buildings. Several will have to be demolished including the Town Hall. Who is going to pay for clearing up this mess and the rebuilding of these businesses and the Town Hall? I hope the organisers of this shameful event are ready to face justice.'
Cronkite turned back to camera 'Thank you Governor Guy. That was a special report on the riots in downtown Zap, North Dakota.' As a footnote to the piece, Cronkite shook his head and delivered a sermon to the unruly, in the words of a North Dakota Sheriff. 'If those folks are really going to take things over one of these days, may the Lord have pity on us! Now, here's the rest of the evening news.'
Slowly the common room emptied as everyone hit the sack relieved they had got out before it had gone bad. Chuck sat watching the rest of the news . . . contemplating his fate as the instigator of what had turned into an official riot. Man, was he in trouble. His parents will cut off his allowance and he may get sent down. As he reached out to turn off the TV he realised that Cronkite was reeling off a list of casualties suffered by US forces in an assault on a heavily fortified Hill.
Hill 937 - a Hill of no strategic importance that was about to chew up his brother and spit him out like mince meat. The notorious Battle for Hamburger Hill was underway miles away from where our little frat boy sat feeling very sorry for himself.