University on Watch: Crisis in the Academy

By J. Peters

University on Watch is a story about youthful hope, yearning for more, and triumph over failures and mistakes beyond our own control and doing. The book is a native story to New York state, but couldn’t be more otherworldly, at times supernatural and grippingly suspenseful as the book unfolds. The crisis in the academy, or New London University, is one that goes to the very epicenter of higher learning and education. This crisis is also conjectured, created by the mind of Jacques Peters, a student rejected from the graduate school in English at New London University.

Jacques Peters will do everything in his power to uncover the reason for his rejection from graduate school. Meta-power, a word Jacques Peters believes is behind the root of power in the English department and the reason for his rejection becomes the point of departure for a quest into the very root of power in New London. During this quest, Jacques stops at nothing to hold university officials, department offices, and the community accountable for terminating his education prematurely.

Mr. Peters will travel across New York State, visiting friends, loved ones, and old schoolmates from his High School days at Wales. Through his journey, Jacques will undergo another transformation while contesting the admission decision to the very end, putting his health and life at risk forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728304502

Book preview

ONE LAST TOAST

WITH MY FRIENDS

Martin Jay’s diagnosis … [is] variously identified with

irrationality, illusion, fantasy, myth, sensual seduction,

the imposition of will, and inhumane indifference to

ethical, religious, or cognitive considerations.

—J. Peters, Contesting Admission

B IRDS WERE CHIRPING, THE SUN was out, and I was in the heyday of young adulthood. On the exterior, I had above-average looks, more than enough friends, and a supportive family. I spent my time either driving around rocking out, jamming, and head-bopping to Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac or partying with my friends.

At face value, I was your average New London University student. Inside, I couldn’t have been more miserable. I had recently dropped out of college and was working at a Nissan dealership, selling cars for a living. Little did I know what the next six months would bring as I dove headfirst into what would be the most transformative summer of my twenty years of life.

Cheers! I said. I gave a toast with Kim and Patrick, my two friends who had driven up to New London before our other friends, bringing with them a few shots of cheap vodka and a full bottle of sleeping pills. After every shot of liquor, I snuck off into the bathroom to swallow another handful of sleeping pills. Noticing my behavior becoming increasingly bizarre and erratic, Kim went into the bathroom and found an empty bottle of generic sleeping medication on the counter.

I was depressed because I had just broken up with Dorothea, my girlfriend, my first real relationship in college. I should be cautious when I say real, though. Nothing was real about this relationship. Sure, we were intimate and connected emotionally, but the entire affair was psychologically rife with abuse, anger, and resentment of each other and our respective behaviors. By the time the relationship ended, I was riddled with emotional pain, tormenting myself over the mistakes I had made. My goal was to exact one last vengeful blow to her.

Kim came back from the bathroom with the empty bottle of pills in her hand. I flatly denied taking them. Before I could protest more, the effects of the medication began to take control. My friends herded me into Patrick’s car and took me to the emergency room at Burgdorf Hospital. I stumbled around and finally collapsed on the floor.

MINI M&MS AND

EXPLANATIONS

B URGDORF HOSPITAL WAS BUZZING THAT night. After I fell onto the floor of the ER, a triage nurse rushed over to take my vital signs. Kim and Patrick, my high command as I liked to think of them, pressed the nurse to transfer me into a hospital bed. The last thing I remember before completely losing consciousness was staring at the monitor, watching my blood pressure and heart rate decrease, and then everything faded.

Just before I passed out, I thought this would be the last moment of my life and also the most painful. There were too many toxins in my body. I needed to be charcoaled. If I didn’t get immediate medical attention, my organs would completely shut down. I suppose now, reflecting back on that nightmare, I should not have pressed my luck wishing for worse.

I woke up with my ex at my bedside, a catheter in my penis, and my parents at the foot of my bed. I am not sure what was more painful to deal with: looking at my parents’ disappointed faces that their son was in the hospital again for attempted suicide, sitting next to a girl I had just broken up with the night before, or having a tube inserted into my privates.

When I came around, I saw Kim outside my room. My parents went out to greet him, thank him, and—I assume—look for comfort. When my ex saw them out there, she joined them. I was left alone with the nurse, who was playing around with the tube in my mouth; she told me she was going to remove it, a process I thought would be painless until I realized it was connected to the catheter.

Everyone looked into my room when I screamed, but they quickly turned back to their conversations. My parents walked in a moment later and told me that I was on my own now, that this was the last time they would come to Liberty for a psychiatric emergency. I was in too much pain to respond or comprehend their feelings at the time, but I told them I understood. They left to go home that night while I was still in the hospital. My ex went home shortly after with Kim, and I was left alone with my thoughts.

The following morning, a nurse and a social worker came in and explained my status. I told them I wanted to be discharged immediately, but the social worker said she had to give me a brief psychiatric evaluation before I could leave in order to ensure my safety. I agreed to one because I was no stranger to psychiatric evaluations, and after all, being evaluated was my ticket to getting discharged and going home to my friends.

I told the social worker that I had simply mixed up the sleeping pills with a container of mini M&Ms. For the first time since high school, I passed a psychiatric evaluation. If I hadn’t just tried to kill myself, I would have been impressed with my performance.

Despite running a slight fever, I discharged myself against the doctor’s advice with the promise that I would see a therapist on an outpatient basis.

FROM STUDENT TO

CAR SALESMAN

M Y EX WHEELED ME OUT of the hospital and helped me into my Toyota Camry. As we drove off, I quickly inserted my own mixtape back into the CD player, replacing her choice of music. I was depressed the entire ride home. Overcome with a number of different emotions—guilt, shame, sadness, anxiety—I went upstairs to bed the minute I got back to the house I shared with my friends.

I lay in bed for days, a vaporizer filled with the best pot available in southern New York by my bedside. I stayed high for days until I finally realized it was time to part ways with my ex and begin the healing process. She was toxic, and I needed to start making decisions that would have a positive and nurturing effect on my health. I needed to be able to love again. Having Dorothea in my life was just not working for either of us. I’ll never forget what she said when I dropped her off at the campus of New London University for the last time: You really are crazy, Jacques.

My friends who had been away for winter break were starting to trickle back for the new semester. Jonas and McDaggot joined Kim, Patrick, and me in the house where we all lived. They were all upset with my behavior, but what else was new? I wanted to think that over the course of our college years, they would eventually forget about my behavior, but I knew I was foolish for believing that.

It was time to find work and be productive again. So I cruised the parkway for sales jobs. I had made a lot of money selling large appliances at Sears the previous year. Now I would step up my game and go bigger. Much, much bigger. I would sell cars.

THE HOUSE

E VERY DAY I ARRIVED LATE for work. I was unkempt and wore the same clothes for days on end. And I was hypomanic. I never sold one car. Every day I went into the sales office to gaze at the sales board. Every salesman was listed along with the number of cars they had sold that month. The number next to my name never changed from zero.

But it wasn’t not selling a car that lost me that job. It was reenacting Hitler’s last days in his bunker for the sales manager, using figurines I picked up at the local Michael’s store. No surprise that I found myself at an exit interview only a week after being hired.

With no job, an overabundance of cocaine, and thinking about my good friends, most of whom were getting ready for graduation, I began to get nervous. Two weeks before commencement, I made the most important decision I had ever made up to that