I live in a beautiful and luxurious castle in South Oakland. People come from near and far to… I live in a beautiful and luxurious castle in South Oakland. People come from near and far to see our botanical gardens, the ivory fountain and all four of my Bentleys. But when people ask to see the inside of my abode, I become nervous and embarrassed. The one time eager tourists were able to push themselves past security and inside my house, they were met by a terrible surprise.

There are holes everywhere, covering the walls and staking their claim on all of our doors. There are big ones and small ones, both round and fist-shaped. There are more holes in my house than a Swiss cheese factory, a doughnut shop and Bush’s foreign policy combined.

There is only one reason for all of these blemishes in my previously perfect house – one of my roommates is an angry, violent drunk. I’m not going to name any names, mostly because the other six people I live with know exactly who I am talking about. In order to protect him, I’ll call him “John.” I don’t mean to say that he has a drinking problem, but when he does imbibe he becomes a very destructive person. Luckily, “John” is not one of those violent drunks who randomly pick fights with other people; that’s another friend and a whole other column. This special, special guy takes out all his anger on the place he lives and the things inside it.

In the time I have lived with him, I have seen “John” destroy doors, walls, windows, a lamp, a cabinet, a wiffle ball bat, a scarecrow, an Army helicopter, three original Monets and a baby giraffe. OK, I might have embellished the last few items, but everything from “doors” to “a scarecrow” is true. In quite possibly his worst and most dangerous act, he lit our only broom on fire and waved it around in the air on our front lawn. The neighbors weren’t too happy about that one. Nevertheless, the important thing to realize is that “John” gets unnecessarily violent, and considering how much I trust the landlord, his actions could easily cause my house to fall down.

“John” isn’t the only hooligan guilty of this problem. In just two years at Pitt I have seen windows broken with bare fists, side-view mirrors ripped off of cars and entire couches set on fire.

Oh wait; no intelligent person would ever do that last one.

Drunken violence is becoming a widespread problem, and while I have concluded that “John” was the one to start this trend, he is not the only one carrying it out. The epidemic is spreading, and we need to stop it before Oakland is a thing of the past.

What I don’t understand is why some people must ruin other people’s times by causing destruction. I’ve never found any enjoyment in breaking things – except for that one time some friends and I beat up a broken stereo just like the guys from “Office Space” went crazy on their nemesis fax machine – but that was in a controlled environment and I was completely sober. Anyways, I normally don’t equate having a good time with throwing dangerous missiles or beating up on inanimate objects. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather sit down and have a nice conversation.

Is there any way that these people can be stopped? We’ve tried making “John” wear a straightjacket, but not only was it hard getting him into it, once it was on all he did was run headfirst into anything he thought might be breakable. We had similar problems when we tried fixing the problem by using handcuffs, an electric fence and a system in which we rewarded him a golden star sticker for every hour he behaved like a good little boy. We thought about locking him up in his room, a lot like that weird, mutant stepchild that you don’t want your guests to know about, but we realized that in between rampages he could be a funny and entertaining guy and that we’d miss him too much.

So as we let him hang out with us, our house continues to look worse and worse. It’s gotten so bad that our plumbing is broken, our foundation has gone crooked and there’s an eerie stench that seems to have penetrated every single room. Or maybe that’s just South Oakland.

Sorry, “John.” E-mail Sam at [email protected].