casey gets into the closet

Let me begin by saying that Casey is, to the best of my knowledge, nothing but strictly heterosexual. The title is just, you know, a funny play on words. A little classic Sunshinean paronomasia. He insisted I make that clear. Casey is a loyal Zete, a guy who until recently went to Columbia, lived in the ever-popular, much-repainted Ruggles Residence Hall. But then he decided, like so many Zetes before him, to take the spring off, recuperate, rejuvenate, regenerate. A lot of people feel that one semester of formal schooling is enough for a year. But Columbia takes a dim view of persons not actually being educated staying in their residence halls, so he's been living of late at the Baird-Chucky- Robert-Cesar residence at 142d Street and Broadway, bringing the total occupants to five, which means every room, from the 8×8 storage room to the living room, has a tenant. It also means the rent per capita is insanely cheap. All of this economy of rent and diseconomy of space has created certain, though surprisingly few, problems. One is closet space. Casey's living in the ironically named living room, which lacks any kind of storage space. He has, however, remedied the situation in a serendipitous manner.

Evidently, some time ago, a raucous party transpired at La Casa del Baird y Todos Los Otros. Not that racuous parties are unusual, but this one was notable in the present sense for one reason: Casey got into the closet. Inscrutably, he was trying to climb the wall in the narrow main hall by bracing his back against one side and walking vertically up the opposite wall. This was proceeding apace until his legs suddenly (and, one must assume, unexpectedly) plunge through the drywall into a space beyond. Intoxicated, Casey stumbles off in a daze, but forunately Seth is in attendance, and he has a devoted interest in chaos and destruction. Over the remainder of the night, he rips down the rest of the drywall to reveal a full-fledged closet—shelves and all—which was evidently walled-over and forgotten.

Sadly, there is no putrescent corpse or satchel of cash waiting inside, which would be a considerably more entertaining story. Alas, it is only a plain, ordinary, fully-functional closet. But of course, this is what Casey most dearly needs, and it's nice and ironic that it's he that first shoved his legs into it. One still wonders why anyone would wall over a perfectly decent closet, especially in New York, which is greatly starved for storage space. Still, Casey finally gets his closet. And that's good enough.