The Latch

When I was in 11^th grade I went to my brother’s apartment to hang out for a little while. He was hanging out with some guy I never met before. I have no idea what his name is, nor do I think I have ever seen him since. However, a conversation that we had that night would lead to a crazy series of events.

            This gentleman was quite a bit older than my brother and I, but he had some funny stories. He said that he had also gone to Johnson City High School a number of years ago. After telling a bunch of tales of mischief, he told one story that was too bizarre to be true. He said that there was a latch in the ceiling in the boy’s bathroom on the second floor, the one near the swimming locker rooms. Allegedly, he and his friends would skip classes and climb into the ceiling to hang out and smoke cigarettes. He said that there was a large room up there and also a tunnel that ran throughout the second floor of the school.

            I was very intrigued by this story even though I knew it had to be bullshit. However, there was only one way to find out for sure. The next day at school, the very first thing I did was took a walk up to that bathroom just to see. I opened the door and looked up at the ceiling. Sure enough, there was a square, metallic latch in the ceiling right near the entrance.

            According to the guy, all you have to do is slide your fingers in a little bit and pull down. He said that even though it had a key lock on it, the latch would pop open when you pull on it hard enough. Even though I am pretty tall, it is just out of my reach. Luckily, there was a section of bathroom stall casing below. There was no legitimate reason for it to be there, but it provided something to climb on and put my weight on while I pulled. This time I pulled very hard and the latch popped open causing a very loud “bang”. I fell down to the floor and onto my back.

            The latch had hinges on one side of it, so that when it was open it just hung straight down. When I first looked into the opening in the ceiling, all I could see was complete darkness. I quickly tried to close it back up because the noise it made when it opened was so loud that it startled me. Unfortunately, I was unable to close it because of the type of lock. There was no way to close it back up without the key. I began to panic, so I just took off out of the bathroom and told nobody.

            The next day I walked in there all nonchalant just to use the restroom. To my surprise the latch had been closed. There must have been a janitor at night that had seen it and locked it back up. This bathroom is not is a main section of the school, it is not near many classrooms so it is seldom used. I truly wish that this would have been the end of the story, but as they say; “curiosity killed the cat”.

            About a week went by, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the latch. I needed to see what was up there, even though I knew how risky it was. So, one day during lunch time, I told my buddy Joe about it. He was couldn’t believe it either, so eventually we ended up going to the bathroom together opening the latch again. He gave me a boost up into the darkness and I grabbed onto what was the bottom rung of an iron ladder. I got some footing on the top of the stall and climbed up this ladder, there were about 10 rungs.

            At the top of the ladder was a narrow hallway with wooden floors. There was some type of very dim safety lights around so it made it possible to see a little bit. The ceiling was very high, probably 20 feet at least. It needed to be that high because there was a ton of huge machines up there. On each side were gigantic generators and what I think was industrial heating and air conditioning units. Joe was able to pull himself up as well and we explored the rest of the area together. Luckily he had a lighter so we could see at the end of the hallway where it made a slight turn.

            At the end of this hallway was a regular door, the same model that they have all over the school. It was the type of door that you push to open and unlock, and they lock by themselves behind you. I was very surprised to find a door like this up there in the middle of the darkness, it just didn’t seem like it belonged. When we pushed it open, the sunlight rushed in very quickly. It led out onto the roof in the south end of the school. It was funny; I had seen that door on the roof before from the south parking lot but never thought twice about it.

            Anyways, we closed the door and made our way back to the ladder. As we did, I noticed several cigarette butts scattered about on the wooden floor. I assumed that they belonged to the maintenance men who probably had to go up there from time to time in order to check equipment and/or make repairs. The looked too fresh to have belonged to the guy who told me about the latch, but who knows. I mean, everything else about his story has held us thus far. Everything held up except for his mention of the “tunnel”, that is. We didn’t find any tunnel that supposedly led throughout the entire second floor, which the guy had mentioned. However, when we were climbing back down the ladder, I noticed something interesting. If one were to climb through or around the ladder, it looked very much like a tunnel. It was very hard to tell for sure, and it was far too dirty to attempt it.

            So, we made a plan to bring old clothes to school with us at the end of the week. After school on Friday, we were again going to meet in the bathroom. We planned to change into our dirty clothes, climb through the ladder, and crawl on our hands and knees to explore the “tunnel”.

            The next day I popped into the bathroom just to see if the latch had been locked up by staff again, and it had. I began to worry that the maintenance staff might be catching on. But again, there was no stopping me, I had to do it.

            When the final bell rang on Friday afternoon, I ran to my locker and grabbed the old clothes I had brought with me. I stuffed them into my book bag and made my way to the bathroom. Because I was staying after school that day I knew I would be missing the bus. But I didn’t care; even though it was going to be a long walk home…I had to do what I had to do.

            But all that would begin to change as soon as I walked into the bathroom, I got a bad feeling. Joe was there and he had brought Brian and Steve with him. I couldn’t believe that he had told two other people about our plan. They were all changing into their old clothes and the latch was already hanging open. We tossed our back packs up onto the ledge just inside the hole and climbed into the ceiling. I was the first one to climb through the ladder, and as soon as I did I felt very claustrophobic. It was extremely dirty in there and I paused for a moment. I briefly thought about this decision and had a moment of reckoning. If I took one step down that tunnel it would be the point of no return. I would have 3 people behind me in just seconds, and there would be no way to back out. It was at that very last moment that I had a serious change of heart.

“You know what, I’m not doing it”, I said.

“What? Are you serious?” Joe looked at me in disbelief for a moment. The others backed off and I climbed back through the ladder and jumped down. “I’m just not feeling it guys”, I said. I gave the others a boost up and they all crawled into the darkness. My clothes were not dirty but my hands were black.

            I went over to the sink and started washing my hands. It wasn’t even two minutes later when 2 male teachers came walking into the bathroom gawking up at the ceiling. “Oh here it is right here”, one of them said. He was looking at the open latch in the ceiling when he seen me washing my hands, he immediately turned his attention to me. “What the hell are you doing in here”, he scolded at me.

“What do you think I’m doing in here? I took a piss and I’m washing my hands”, I sneered back at him in a confident tone.

“Yea, sure you are”, he said.

They began to explore the opening in the ceiling when they noticed one of the book bags hanging over the top.

“Well”, the teacher said, “we know who they are at least”, grabbing my book bag and pulling it down.

“That’s mine” I quickly said before he could open it and see anything inside.

“Oh yea, if you had nothing to do with it then why is your bag up there smart guy”, he said it in an “ah-ha” type of manner.

“Listen”, I thundered back. “I came in here to piss. I heard some noise in the ceiling. I threw my bag up there and I pulled myself up to see what the hell was going on. I didn’t see anything. I jumped back down and my hands were dirty. I started washing my hands and you guys came in”.

             I didn’t think my story was going to work, but this was my only hope. I was going to play the “completely innocent and pissed off for being accused” guy, and I was going to play it to the grave.

            “Yea, sure Dan, nice try. Have a seat out in the hallway and don’t go anywhere”, he said.

“Oh my god, are you fucking serious? I didn’t even do anything” I annoyingly stammered back while picking up my book bag and walking out of the bathroom into the hall.

            I stood against the wall for a few minutes; more and more staff began to show up. I could hear them yelling into the ceiling for the kids to come out. They were making threats and telling them they were in big trouble. Apparently they crawled over the female gym teacher’s office and she heard loud ‘thumping’ sounds and started freaking out. She immediately called whoever she could to come inspect.

            They asked me who was up there and I told them I had no clue, I had nothing to do with it. A few minutes later I was sent to the principal’s office. When the principal called me into his office I told him I had no idea why I was there. I told him I heard some noise in the ceiling, I went to inspect, and they sent me down to him. I couldn’t believe that be bought it, but he told me to “go home now”.

            I walked out of the school, and as soon as I got outside I began to run like an Olympian. I ran almost the whole way home, I was so relieved to be out of that situation and I just wanted to get as far away as possible. In the back of my mind I thought I could still get in trouble, but I knew those guys would never sell me out.

            A few hours later I stopped by Brian’s house because it was close to mine, but nobody was home. I wanted to know what happened to the others so desperately. I kept stopping by his house and calling the others but I couldn’t get a hold of anybody. In the back of my mind I knew that I was ultimately responsible for whatever happened to them, it was all my idea.

            A few days later I finally spoke to Joe. He said that stayed in there for 2 hours because they were scared. The teachers threatened them this whole time, but they never made a peep. They told them that they already knew who they were, Joe and Brian by the information they found in their book bags. Apparently, Steve didn’t have any book bag with him, so they didn’t know he was in there.

             Eventually they told them that if they didn’t come out immediately that they were going to release dogs into the tunnel to come get them. It was obviously a bluff, but it worked. Joe and Brian crawled out and were suspended for a week. Honestly, I think that they got off kind of easy considering the offense.

            Steve however, stayed in the tunnel because they didn’t know he was in there. The others promised not to tell on him so he laid there until 8 o’clock at night. Then, he crawled out of the tunnel and went up the ladder. Next, he walked down that wooden hallway and out the door onto the roof in the south wing of the school. It was dark out so it took him a while to explore the different edges of the roof before he found a safe place to jump from. He hung his body over the edge, dropped to the ground, and walked home a free man. Nobody ever knew that Steve was up there at all.

            Normally I like the end my stories with a lesson learned, but I didn’t learn anything from this, probably because I didn’t get in trouble. As a senior I would end up getting expelled for horsing around in school, but that is another story. The funny thing is, I never once got in trouble for the real mischief I caused, only the petty things.