Becoming the animals behind the cage

In the middle of the afternoon on a Monday, the library, as always, is jam-packed. Students chug paper cups of coffee. A girl fails to pull her nose from the binding of a paperback book. Some students slump over in their rolling armchairs, having abandoned for a moment the conscious will to sit up straight. Several boys basking in the glow of a Chemistry slideshow forget how to blink, breathe.

I tried to type, one headphone, then no headphone in. Somebody’s phone rings, immediately silenced. One freshman gets ballsy and plays 15 seconds of a Drake song over her iPhone speakers. She and her friend giggle and sway. Half the room turns its neck to glare.

The collective murmurings of the 50 or so Hopkins students stationed around me are easy to tune out after a half of an hour or so has passed. The soft-spoken strains of last night’s dramedies, the occasional flinch of laughter, all sounds appropriate to be shared before a window wall three stories tall. If you squint, Monday afternoon in Brody looks like the name of a country club brunch. It’s definitely a different vibe than the one on D Level, where students self-bury in rows of cubicles and swear off the sunshine until the test is done. I rub the knot in my shoulders and lean closer to the computer screen.

Then the tour guide enters. She slowly steps backwards in her white TOMS and tries to direct a unit of helicopter parents past the library barricade. Her voice rings in the aggregate ear; she speaks with the confidence of a camp counselor, or a swineherd.

A few students look up; I whisper to my friend and neighbor, “Is this serious?”

He nods. I roll my eyes.

“Do you go to school here?” he asks me, sarcastically of course. We laugh. We should be used to this. Tour guides tromp through the BLC, through the Gilman atrium, through a series of student study spots on the hour every hour, and nearly every day.

But I would love to know the name of the person who made the decision to allow strangers to enter the University library at 2 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. I want to know who it was that determined students should be used as living props on a prep school safari.

Tour group after tour group filters through the lobby. A few have already made a commitment and bought merchandise.

As I loiter in the stretch of asphalt outside the northern entrance, I make sure to light a cigarette within smell-shot of the next tour guide entourage. This is my method of rebellion. I want them to see the bags beneath my eyes. I haven’t showered since Friday; my blood is a syrup — water, sugar, caffeine.

Every tour guide worth her salt is sure to bring up the mummy in the Gilman basement and show-off the screen in Brody that can sense a wave of a hand. But she is expected to omit certain details. I am one of those details. I itch the scalp beneath a chunk of unkempt hair and bear my yellow teeth at a woman in a Lululemon sweatshirt. Then I cough, shiver, throw away the cigarette and grind it into the marble step. Nobody pretends to see me. I hoist my 10-pound sack across my shoulder. I want to sneer, but I can’t stop coughing.

The “top 15” colleges brag about the bag of goodies available upon entrance and the mark of a guaranteed brand name upon exit. Signs of security can be seen almost anywhere, from the guards at the crosswalks to the little cameras perched like spiders on the walls. We can swipe condoms out of the bathroom on A-level. Every other week, the president sends out another email to crack down on “binge drinking.” So-called resources — counseling centers, religious groups and resident advisors — get pinned to freshmen bulletin boards like specimens dipped in formaldehyde.

But for all the promises of security, we have lost our sense of what is sacred. Now, when Hopkins wants to use our image for the purposes of display, we grin and simper like a woman showing cars in an evening gown. The administration assumes that we accept a tacit bargain. Sure, everybody is allowed to know the real joke about Club Med college. Everyone at least is vaguely aware that Hopkins plays to the desires of a particular niche of upper-middle class parents, seeking to ascribe to the delusion that their children are being “protected,” even while they are out of sight. The phony school-sponsored “sober-fun” events, the unexplained, brand new “practice” football field and the corny made-for-Youtube videos are all parts of a system to attract new tuition checks and keep alumni funds flowing.

The best of us slap on siders and retreat into our own elite fantasies of “instant success.” We picture ourselves as future human rights lawyers engaged to beautiful actors or future doctors with enough dough to provide for two extended families. We sacrifice normalcy for what we assume to be a future reality. Like an emperor with no clothes. We drug ourselves stupid trying to forget the kind of fabric in our hands.

These bougie delusions set the stage for one another. We try to rush through school, ready to rip off the Band-Aid. We hate it. But is there a place to break away?

Are “elite schools” really the ones responsible for the leadership class? If so, I might be right to be afraid.