The house that weird built

Jake Halverson and Dan Stoner walk in from a post-party breakfast, and a guy is masturbating in their kitchen. Well, not just any guy. He has a name. It is Pee Pants -- at least, that's what's sharpied on his forehead. He was named Pee Pants because he got loaded on acid and booze, then passed out on the front porch soaked in urine. Oh, and with a cock drawn on both cheeks.

Three hours ago, Pee Pants stood erect with the kind of dazed smile only brought on by the Euphoria of Drug as he clumsily navigated his way through a 13-keg party at the Ninth and Washington house referred to as The Clinic.

So here is Pee Pants, cock-chinned and all, waxing his full-morning johnson, and Halverson and Stoner are walking into the kitchen. Their first reaction is to kick him, and that's what they do. They kick him down to the hard-time killing floor blues and kick him out of the house, careful to avoid all contact outside the sole of the shoe.

"Not a good way to come back from breakfast," Halverson says. "But that's the abortion clinic, baby."

That is Pee Pants.

Goodbye, Pee Pants.

Goodbye, Clinic.

So The Clinic is a party house -- or was a party house. But to simply call it such not only shows a lack of perspective but a lack of understanding. It was a short-lived culmination of only the most collegial desires. Certain kinds of brilliance are never meant to last, kind of like Tupac or the back room at Studio 54. Eventually all the coke gets blown out.

"My pants get tight when I think about the parties and the beer and the women," says Stoner, overlooking his old porch.

Halverson and Stoner's time at The Clinic is over now and so are the parties. Neighbor and senior Amber Kim recalls how the area used to be after a Clinic party.

"Total disregard for nature," says Kim. "For a block there'd be yellow cups all over the place, in the street, in people's yards."

And then she was Facebooking one day and lo and behold, she saw an advertisement for a Clinic party and more than 500 people had already accepted invitations. That's when Kim thought, "Holy shit. What is this place?"

IU seniors Halverson and Stoner revisit The Clinic on a December morning. They no longer live here. No habitat is permanent, and life sent The Clinic members down separate paths. The house isn't theirs anymore. They don't know the current tenants or if there are still parties at the place like they had up until that final day, but they doubt it.

"Those were the glory days of pure existence," says Stoner of his time at The Clinic. "And they couldn't last forever."

But memories last until the grave, and that's all they have now. It is cold this morning, and grey clouds blanket the sky overhead. Halverson and Stoner choose to remember The Clinic in their own way and remember their last morning still under lease.

"That was a special time," says Halverson with a smile.

Indeed.

The last morning, Aug. 15

The sun is shining and a handful of people are hanging around. A sample platter of blunts sits on a table next to a couple of coolers full of champagne and orange juice.

A celebration, bitches.

Today they pay homage to The Clinic with a puff of weed for reminiscence and a mimosa to wash it down. Cops have never been a problem. Halverson claims a sort of "halo protection" where police tend to lose focus on those houses next to bars.

Bloomington Police Department Officer Tom Kuhlenschmidt denied this logic, saying, "I think most people who live near the bars go out, so it really doesn't matter."

Either way, cops never busted The Clinic.

A blunt is lit. Apricot this time, maybe peach next.

It's not just that this place suffers from a weed infestation or the kind of routine double-digit keg presence that amasses enough people to shatter any existing Tijuana fire codes. There's something here that's part of that Grand American College Experience. This much is evident when Halverson and Stoner start to recant tales of typical Clinic parties.

Parties at The Clinic start in the morning, with friends drinking morning beers like fine Irishmen in the early twilight of St. Patty's Day. The kegs usually show up in the afternoon, and the people show up, too. The first wave comes, then the friends of friends come, and the friends of the kegs come with them. They migrate into different parts of the house, only to find more of those shining aluminum beacons of freedom nestled in almost every corner of the house. A horde of Bills and Jills call friends to say, "Bring Billy and Christy; they've got kegs and kegs. And jungle juice."

And junior Billy and sophomore Christy come with more Billys and Christys and tap into the source. The herd gets shelled off the tank, multiplying like bodies in the River Styx.

The rambling builds over the hours, rolling into the crazed kind of inertia equaled by rodents on a mean mix of cocaine and Spanish Fly. The energies entwine in one inexorable ball of lust, thirst, envy, booze and uneven smiles until the level can't be maintained and crashes in on itself in one gleaming collapse in the American night.

Lines form outside just to take a piss. A stream of multicolored cups floods the street.

Slouches become more defined. Eyelids get heavy. Tongues get greasy. Lust finds a home. Many find company and good cheer. Some find frustration. The rest find temporary comfort in things better left unsaid.

That's Clinic love, baby.

Halverson and Stoner claim some 900 hundred people will pour through The Clinic on a night like this. Considering one bar manager puts the average attendance at Kilroy's on a Saturday night at about 700, you can see The Clinic is capable of putting a dent in the local economy.

And that could be the story, and it would be enough. We are a herd of a species, and that is what ultimately defines us. But there are always the shepherds.

People who live at The Clinic have another name for them.

"Randoms," Halverson says. "There are countless stories of Clinic randoms."

Randoms, dude

There's "Harlan," who comes into parties with a big beard and full biker gear. The guy rides in on a motorcycle from some unknown part of the American countryside. He stands out in a sea of Uggs and Abercrombie.

As Stoner puts it, Harlan is "the only guy who wears leather pants and looks cool doing it."

The first time Harlan walked into a Clinic party, he started handing out what Halverson calls "nugs of fire." The last time The Clinic guys see Harlan, his pockets are loaded with sugar-cube doses of acid, and he happens to run into a guy named Pee Pants.

Then comes "Barson," drinking G&T's with a woman on his arm like they're at Gatsby's on the West Egg. Halverson stops by home for a little midnight medicine and sees these two with champagne sparkles in their eyes and talk on their tongues.

"I come downstairs, and they're on the couch with my sheets all over them," Halverson says.

The next thing Halverson knows, Barson and his girl are going at it. But he doesn't say anything because it's not Clinic policy.

"I thought he was friends with somebody, and I wasn't going to harass him," he recalls. "That's just not how The Clinic was."

Come one, come all.

There's the "Big Motherfucker," who massacres the house, knocking all kinds of shit over and eating raw sausages out the freezer. There's "Remegis," the saint of a drunken order who walks like he's dancing on lily pads and filters more liquid than a grey whale. There's the "Mandolin Boy" who shows up on the porch with a case of beer and a will to pick.

But none of the randoms embody The Clinic quite like this one:

"Toothless Gill" has more holes in his socks than hopes -- or dollars, for that matter. He says he doesn't mean to intrude on anybody when he walks over and sits down on a stranger's porch like that.

"But, shoot, I ain't gonna hurt nobody. I just need to get out that gaddum sun."

Gill's got enough money for the 32 oz. Miller High Life in his hand, because, baby, this is the high life. He sits on the porch sporting the kind of weathered tan that can only be earned with work and sweat, and speaks like some cross-minded, down-on-his-luck apostle.

"God loves us, man. I'll tell you what ... I done a lot of bad in my life, but God is great." He points to his beer. "The Lord spoke to me and told me to get motivated to get this beer."

Gill takes off his hat and folds back the inner lining, revealing a half-smoked joint. The sun exposes his little beads for eyes. He sparks up the joint and passes it around. Some wave it off; others accept it.

"I was smoking this joint when the Lord tells me to get outta there, so I leave, and right in the alley rolls the police," Gill says in that guttural sort of rambling dialect particular to Hoosier country. "He put me on this porch and away from that squad car, man. God is great, man."

Gill thinks God brought him to The Clinic. He explains how he smokes meth out of a light bulb, and the people on the porch learn why Toothless Gill is toothless.

"Burst the bottom of the filament, put some water and salt to get rid of the lining. It'll be as clear as this glass right here," Gill says, rapping his knuckle on the window pane. "Once is good, but you can do it as many times as you want, depending on how tweaked you are."

The stories topple over each other until Gill can't make sense out of them anymore, and it all comes out in one frustrated question.

"You got any light bulbs here?"

All he gets is blank stares, and people start to leave the porch. "I'm sorry, man. My brain's fried. See how my stories jump?"

He salivates over his toothless gums and mutters, "My momma told me on her death bed, man, she says, 'I know you smoke that stuff, Gill. You're just running away.'"

The talk gives way to a quiet stare of resilience and sadness. Eventually, Gill slips away unnoticed, and that's the way it always is.

Never see 'em coming. Never see 'em going.

Au revoir, ma maison

Pee Pants and Toothless Gill are gone, but The Clinic still stands, though no longer as a refuge for highwaymen and wanderers, the kind of souls who tire far after their feet are worn.

"The Clinic," Stoner explains, "is open to any race, creed or sexual orientation."

The ghosts of The Clinic walk its hallowed halls one more time in the form of stories.

They're in the hallways.

In the basement.

On the front porch, passed out in their own urine.

But mostly these ghosts exist in the smiles of the people who congregate here on its final morning because The Clinic, like any fine democratic institution, is always about the people.

For the last time, the party slows down in a lazy combination of THC, champagne and sunshine.

The stories are passed like blunts and sipped like mimosas. Halverson, Stoner and company send off The Clinic with some bud and bubbly.