Who needs sleep?

At 4:20 A.M., approximately 80 minutes after Hillary Clinton answered her phone, one hour before the sun rises over the Point, and 28 hours since the list—The List—was first unveiled, all is quiet in the halls of Max West. The only sign of life, incidentally, exhibits few signs of life: A particularly fatigued scavvie lies face-first in the hallway, passed-out. The writing on his sweatshirt is clear for all to see: “Where fun goes to die.”

Inside the first-floor lounge it’s a slightly different story. The boundless energy of the list-reading pizza party is gone, replaced by dogged determination as eight or so members of “The Audacity of Pope” burn the midnight oil. The floor around the work area is chaotic; team members tread carefully over piles of discarded cardboard, ripped copies of the Maroon, a half-empty box of Cheerios, paint brushes, glue guns, banana peels, empty glass jars, and shoes that don’t always match. A large table covered with boxes, unfinished projects, and individually wrapped brownies commands the center of the room.

Jeremy Harris (’05) is taking part in his seventh scav hunt. Limited in his mobility by crutches, he spent much of the day working on item # 40, a bust of Abraham Lincoln made from pennies. So far he’s used more than 21 fluid ounces (three bottles) of Elmer’s glue and 3,000 pennies with only the base and part of the Great Emancipator’s neck completed. The later stages, he says, will be more difficult, but a more artistic-minded team member has a plan for that.

Harris, known to his teammates and friends as “Gerbil,” is an extreme case, but his story reflects a common sentiment among those who do scav.

“How often do you just decide, ‘I’m gonna build something!’” he asks.

The answer, for most college graduates, is not very often—and even rarer is the adult who takes four days off to toil on tasks such as “confirmed delivery of mail to Centralia, Pa.” (item #60), as Gerbil did earlier.

Third-year Gretchen Pfau, like Harris, hasn’t had much sleep since the list was released, although not for lack of effort (“Every time I try to fall asleep, people keep saying things [to me],” she says). Pfau took a half-hour nap earlier in the evening, although she admits her recollection is a little foggy, and she’s sprawled across a couch as Gerbil recounts his fonder memories of the event. Pfau is waiting for her classmate John Laycock to wake up from his nap so she can catch up on rest. Pfau is secretary for the Palevsky squad, which means that, unlike her roles in previous years, her job now is less about personally attending to items, and more about keeping everyone else on task, particularly page captains.

At last Laycock arrives and Pfau gives in to the running temptation to grab some shut-eye. Meanwhile, in another corner, several team members discuss possible means of completing the much-hyped item #152 (“A Superdelegate. Must Superdelegate”).

The war room is a mess and its tenants are exhausted, but the show must go on.