They'd been following up on a case and had to talk to a witness who was a student at CCNY. As they walked across the campus Lennie started slowly turning around looking at things.
"What's up, partner?" Ed Green asked.
"I went to college here, about a million years ago," Lennie replied.
"Really?" His partner said in that tone of his that said 'tell me the story, please'.
"Yeah, I thought after a couple of years in the army, which really hadn't been my idea in the first place, that college might be fun," Lennie answered.
"You get drafted into the army?" Ed asked, thinking Lennie was probably about the right age to have served in Vietnam.
"Nah, it was either go into the army or do a year in Spofford," Lennie answered nonchalantly.
"What?" Ed sputtered. "You have a juvey record?"
"No, back then your folks could cut a deal. They signed the papers so you could join the army, even though you were under aged, and then everything got forgiven and forgotten," Lennie answered with a smile.
"What did you do?" Ed asked.
"Mostly be young and stupid. I was the youngest guy in my senior class and the guys used to make me feel self-conscious about it. So when I graduated, I decided I was going to have the coolest party anyone had ever seen. I got a hold of my older cousin's ID, bought a bunch of booze and found an empty apartment in the building next to the one my folks lived in. I invited all the cool kids in the senior class, and we had a real blow out. A few things got out of hand, as things will when teenagers have too much to drink. As the guy who broke into the empty apartment and provided the booze, things came down on my head," Lennie finished his tale.
"So Mom and Dad shipped you off to the Army to get a little discipline?" Ed asked.
"Yep, that's pretty much how the story goes," Lennie replied.
"So was college fun?"
"Well, the dorms weren't much better than the army barracks and my roommate was a geek with a capitol G." Lennie recalled.
"But the one thing college really had going for it was the coeds. I chose my classes by checking out the lines at the registrars that seemed to have the prettiest girls in them," Lennie remembered with a laugh.
"Of course, that's how I ended up in an 8AM Calculus class. I could have hacked the math, but not the hour, I liked hanging out at the pool halls until 2AM far too much to be alert and attentive for calculus class, and after the professor threw an eraser at me for nodding off, I decided to drop the class and take something at a later hour," Lennie admitted as the two partners strolled across the campus grounds.
"So there were a lot of pretty girls in your 8AM Claculus class?" Ed asked sounding a bit skeptical.
"No, but the gal handing out the punchcards in that line was a real looker," Lennie explained.
"I used to do that too," Lennie said pointing to some guys playing flag football. "All to showoff for the chicks. Showing off can be painful though, I found that out one day when one of the guys forgot we were playing flag football, and I ended up with this," Lennie said pointing to his slightly less than straight nose.
"Huh, I always figured you got that in a fight," Ed said.
"Yeah well, don't tell anyone any different, sounds a lot better than getting it broken playing flag football," Lennie said with a grin.
Just then a group of students came out of one of the halls, Lennie noticed that most of them were carrying a copy of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. "God, they still make them read that, hope nobody dies of boredom."
"Come on Ed, we can cut across here, save some time," Lennie said.
"Still not following the rules, huh Lennie?" Ed asked with a grin.
"Aw well, that's the difference that comes from dropping out of college and going to the school of hard knocks. Now a days, I either don't get caught, or I charm my way out of the punishment," Lennie replied with a grin.
"Huh, I'd have thought it was just the difference that comes with age," Ed said and then ducked Lennie's playful punch.
