The Tree Fort

Past Blasters: Volume Two, Issue One

As promised, Domestic Terrorism.

The Tree Fort

Okay, I'll explain. This is (was) the back end of my college fraternity's attic. When I joined that illustrious institution, the attic was technically a storage space for members, but it was really a glorified junk yard where alumni left the shit they didn't care about and brothers lost the things they did.

That banner was left over from this embarrassing incident.

In the spring of '09, brother "JP" and I undertook the arduous task of sorting through all that shit and making sense of it. This resulted in making 'stalls' along the length of most of the attic where we screwed wooden posts to the floor and strung up chicken wire between them, thus compartmentalizing the attic based on the rooms in the house. This was messy, painful work and not many people helped us.

These doors don't fit in any of the house's frames.

That was okay though, because it meant that we got to take the bounty. And oh, how bountiful it was! Alumni had been leaving shit up there since the chapter moved to the house in 2003, and we found tons of clothes, toys and two cartons of delicious Chunghwa cigarettes, direct from China. Most of this stuff we carefully saved, as we planned on turning the back of the attic into a DIY hangout space.

So we sat on this shit. Summer came and went, and we were both too busy with other monumental projects in the house to give the attic time. Then winter break came and JP and I were still at school, working for the radio station and painting half the house. Suddenly, we only had two days left before we had to go home, and the attic was still a barren place with piles of junk in it.

This is Bro Bay. It's where bros go.

It was time for action. We had a lot of masonite scraps, a ton of old t-shirts, some bits of carpet, lots of knick-knacks and a couple unused doors. The walls of the attic were uninsulated, and unfinished. Between the studs, nails from the shingles threatened the incautious and the tall.

We improvised. Doors were affixed to the wall studs and the floor with hinges to form knee-walls. Carpet was noisily nailed to the floor. T-shirts were stapled to studs. In the bays we nailed up maso scraps. It took two glorious dream-like days, but when it was finished it was like no other space I had ever been in. Part rumpus room, part sitcom set, we dubbed it the Tree Fort. And we went home to enjoy Christmas. The Tree Fort was one of the things of which I was most proud.

It was to be short-lived.

The Tree Fort turned out to be a popular spot. Too popular. During the winter break we had a number of visits from the Galesburg fire inspector. And let me tell you, that guy was an asshole. According to some college employees he was a new hiree, looking to advance his career through sweeping threats and intimidation. Among the things he told us during his inspection was that: a) all the upholstered furniture in the house had to be thrown away, b) he would drywall up the door to my room if I didn't get rid of the extension cords and c) he didn't care if the school had to relocate everyone in the house, he would condemn it if he wasn't happy. To prove he was a big man he flashed us his eviction notices.

It's people like that that cause me to tarnish the good name of firefighters.

This is babe bay, where bros take babes to lay.

Anyways, during all this bellicose rhetoric and waking me up at 7 am to tell me I was going to be kicked out or burn to death, he never went to the attic. In fact, during all previous inspections no fire department or school official went to the attic. We figured we were in the clear.

It was not to be so. About a month after the term began, the chief groundskeeper or whatever the fuck came knocking. Along with the head of campus security. And they wanted to see "the room in the attic." They saw it, and were unimpressed. We were given an ultimatum: It had to be taken down within the week, and they were coming back to check.

Give Up. Fight.

My reaction was despair, followed by rage. Repeat. It was something like this. But threats are threats, and we were under the gun to comply. That Friday we threw an impromptu attic party. The next day I made other people take it down. I couldn't bear to do it myself. I don't think I've ever felt more broken by The Man. It was the lowest point of my senior year in college.

Galesburg is burning.

Ultimately, I regret not taking a stronger stance. Sure, what we had done was against fire code (geeze, what isn't?) and sure it created a fire hazard (because all of that stuff would never burn if it was left in a big pile the way it was) and yes, it violated our lease (which had expired anyways). But it became obvious that the school only cared about looking tough in front of the fire department, and the fire department didn't care that much after all, because they never came back.

Insidious fire hazard

They never came back. 

They.

Never.

Came.

Back.

All of their threats were empty. They were only interesting in making pronouncements and intimidating college kids; none of them cared about fire code and you can be sure none of them gave a flying fuck about the creativity, work and imagination that went into creating something we destroyed for their mercurial wishes. When a truly genius room appears in this house, you may know it by this sign, that the dunces are all in a confederacy against it.

All photography by Gerber.

I would like to conclude with a curse. I would like to curse all the bureaucrats, busy-bodies, pencil-pushers and asinine inspectors of the world:

May your lives lie as fallow as your minds. May your hearts be constantly constrained by invisible bars, and may you never taste the satisfaction of creating something original  for which you can be truly proud. May your uterus shrivel and your urethra narrow. May you die ignorant of all things except the knowledge of your inability to appreciate the good. May the things that you care for be ripped from your grasp by indifferent authorities. May the sun never give you warmth. May your children denounce you and all that you stand for, and may you be blind to all the beauty in the world.

R.I.P. Tree Fort (Dec 2009 - Feb 2010)

I'm done writing about things I did in college for a while. It's been a year since this accomplishment, and since then I have only reached higher heights. What's done is done.