Sophomores

by Sean Desmond

  “Thank you, Mr. Malone. A Norwegian rat is smarter than the mousetrap; he can outthink the maze. Perhaps next time, gentlemen. Class dismissed.”

  Oglesby ignored Dan as the class packed up and exited. There was a small part of him that suspected Oglesby had set up this trial to push him further, but then the bell rang, and Dan couldn’t help but get caught up on the miserable fact of how he blew this on his birthday.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, the birthday boy waited outside the principal’s office with the layout boards for the chronically late November edition of The Roundup. After ninth-period dismissal announcements, the door opened and Father Paul Dallanach waved him in.

  The office was unlike any at Jesuit, cocooned with purple curtains, the fluorescents abandoned for a low brass reading lamp; its inhabitant priest enchambered by lots of wood, books, and bottles. Father Dallanach mumbled something over his shoulder and offered a seat to Dan. He then stopped at the bottle of Cutty Sark, which he clinked against his crystal tumbler. The carriage clock housed in dark cherry read 3:50 p.m.

  Father Dallanach fell back into his chair with mock exhaustion. Another school week realized and rendered. Dallanach carried himself with a Chevy Chase aloofness that was both fickle and endearing. Scarecrow skinny, he rarely wore the collar, but instead dressed in navy blue pinstripe suits. One wall of the office bore a roll of parchments from Harvard, Weston, and the University of San Francisco. He was an academic first—an educator, not a teacher—and a priest somewhere further down on the list.

  “So, Mr. Malone, let’s see what’s been happening within the arcadian confines of our fair campus.” He smirked and then pulled a red marker out of the desk drawer. Dan wasn’t that worried, as Father Argerlich would have vetoed anything within a Ranger mile of controversy from the pages.

  “Hmmm, is this an editorial about the NFL players’ strike?” Dallanach tipped his chin into the tumbler while holding the big poster-board layouts smeared stiff with wax and black leading tape. “Didn’t that end a month ago?”

  “Yeah, we’re a little behind on our copy flow.”

  “I’ll say.” Father Dallanach tapped his heart, looking for the soft pack in his chest pocket. “That’s fine. As long as you haven’t turned this thing into the Daily Worker we should be all right. Oh, so Mr. Tsimboukis concludes that the strike hurt the fans the most. That’s a little safe, no? Look at all this sports bull. This is a school, you know. Where’s the art page?”

  Dallanach scanned the rest of the layouts. Dan didn’t think he was reading the articles as much as proving the point he was the principal and publisher, but then he raised the red marker.

  “Here, the wrestling coach, Hyman. I don’t want him complaining about how Strake uses illegal holds. The principal there, Father Moran—Lord knows how he gets a copy of our school paper—loves to call and complain. That old goat has nothing better to do. Let’s just change this quote . . .”

  “But that’s what he said, don’t we have to—”

  “Believe me, Coach Hyman doesn’t remember.” Dallanach knocked his skull. “A few too many thumps on the cantaloupe. Just make it say we hope to win, competition is the foundation of excellence, some crap like that, okay?”

  Dan swallowed his concern and agreed. Dallanach handed the layouts back. “Otherwise approved. A little boring, and you need to do more campus life. Do you have anyone who can do that?”

  “Not really.” His staff was proving to be reliably unreliable.

  “What about you? Oglesby told me you can write.”

  Dan’s eyes hit the carpet in bashful reflex. “I guess I could.”

  “Listen, Mr. Malone, do you know why Mr. Whalen is no longer editor?”

  “Uh . . .” The not-so-diplomatic answer was Father Argerlich thought he was a pain in the ass. “Not exactly.”

  “He surprised me.” The priest flicked a long light-tar Benson & Hedges out of the pack. “You can print what you want, within reason, but I don’t need city agencies shutting us down because they think this is Love Canal. If you have a good story, just tell me, and you, me, and Father Argerlich will figure out the way to tell it. You want to be critical of this school? By all means. Believe me, I know better than anyone that this place ain’t perfect.” Dallanach took another sip of whiskey and lit the cigarette. Friday vespers were well under way. “But just don’t try to sneak some chickenshit past me. Got it?”

  “Got it—will bury the story about Father Argerlich being responsible for the JFK assassination.”

  Dallanach chuckled and had that self-satisfied, half-lit glazed look, like he had performed a Jedi mind trick and now he and Mr. Malone were in cahoots. “That you can publish! I want to send that story to the provincial.”

  The priest then stood up and came around the desk. He gave Dan a squeeze on the neck and then a push out the door. He squinted through the smoke and the drink and jabbed at the layouts under Dan’s armpit.

  “Just make this worth reading again. Be good, Mr. Malone, in all senses of the word.”

  * * *

  Dan raised the Mexican flag at their table, signaling the waiter for a refill on Dr Pepper. For his birthday dinner, he had chosen Santa Anna’s on Webb Chapel, which featured a giant mariachi riding a caballo on the roof. His mother, Anne, ate her soft taco platter (the Ponce de Leon) with a knife and fork, eyeing the refried beans and pico de gallo suspiciously. His father, Pat, was on his second Dewar’s and molared his way through the gristle of his Cabeza de Vaca entrée. Dan had the chicken enchiladas (the de Soto platter) and wolfed down two baskets of chips and salsa.

  It seemed everyone in Santa Anna’s that night was celebrating life’s minor victories, and the mariachis were busy serenading anniversaries, birthdays, and the like at each table. Their waiter told the band it was Dan’s cumpleaños, but they misheard and sang something in Spanish to the tune of “He’s a jolly good fellow” very loudly that went on for two verses longer than needed. When they were done, the Malones smiled uncomfortably, Pat thanked them, and Anne asked for some ice to water down her house red.

  Dan was given a big IOU in terms of presents from his parents, who reminded him that if he wanted a car next year, he had to be good. So that left him with a Chess King sweater from his aunt Catherine, a horror show of blue and purple pastels. Earlier, in the parking lot of the restaurant, his father had palmed him a ten-dollar bill with a handshake.

  In public, the Malones behaved like a reasonably happy (if depleted) family, and while Dan knew his parents’ tension wasn’t related to him, a guilt pressed and folded in all the same. Finished with dinner, Pat swallowed the last of his scotch in one big gulp. He offered Dan a wordless happy-birthday pat on the head. Trying to dispel the silence, his mother smiled at him, which was truly unnerving. Everybody in Hotel Malone is checked out, Dan surmised, piling cheese, rice, and beans into one equanimous bite.

  Pat asked one of the waiters (there were over a dozen buzzing around the tables, all dressed in black tuxedo vests) for another Dewar’s, drawing a “Take it easy” from Anne and a reminder from Dan to raise the Mexican flag when he wanted to order something. Pat rattled the ice around his glass and watched the waiters and busboys falling all over each other.

  “Mom, can we get sopapillas for dessert, please?”

  “What are soapy peas?” Anne asked. She’d diligently eaten the ground beef out of her tacos and left everything else on the plate, which a busboy cleared the second she put down her fork.

  “Mexican donuts. They’re awesome.” Anne nodded, and Dan raised the flag. The mariachis started singing “Cumpleaños Feliz” at another table for what felt like the hundredth time. And the Malones sat there with oncoming indigestion, waiting once again for the music to stop.

  * * *

  Pat Malone paid the check and drove his family home. The car reeked of free peppermints and taco grease. As he gunned the
Cougar onto Forest Lane, Pat felt very tired and sour. A block later, he revved the car through a yellow light—Right foot a little slow on the gas there—and Anne sucked on her mint, annoyed. A left onto Marsh and two turns later, he brought the car down Crown Shore and up the driveway. It was a warm autumn night, the crickets protesting the dusk. The Malones went inside and deposited themselves in various rooms. Pat made himself a vodka and Seven and flopped down in the den. He turned on The A-Team—who were sneaking Joe Namath out of East Germany, God knows why—and turned the TV off again. He took a long sip of Smirnoff, his head buzzing like the waitstaff at Santa Anna’s. Anne paced around the kitchen, finding ways to make noise, but with nothing to actually do, she finally shuffled into the den to sit across from Pat. To his surprise, he wasn’t drinking alone tonight, as Anne placed her own Waterford cordial of Irish Mist and a pack of Rolaids on the end table.

  “So, Pat, what do you have to say for yourself?”

  “It’s been a long day, love.”

  “Your son is a young man now.”

  “That he is.”

  “Put some music on or something.”

  His left leg was stiff again, and Pat limped, drink in hand, over to the stereo. The record player was entombed in a large wooden Zenith console they had brought down from the Bronx.

  “What do you want to hear?”

  “I don’t know, the old songs are fine.”

  “That they are.” Pat pulled out an album by the McNulty Family. Irish Showboat. Friday nights, his mother and father would listen on the radio. Pat plunged the needle, and then suddenly, a ship’s foghorn bellowed out, followed by an accordion plunging over notes.

  The ship will sail in half an hour to cross the broad Atlantic,

  My friends are standing on the quay with grief and sorrow frantic . . .

  The ship captain broke in:

  “All ashore that’s going ashore, all aboard that’s going aboard. We are about to take a short pleasure cruise piloted by the McNulty Family. And as the brilliant green and gold craft steams up the bay, we hear . . .”

  And the accordion riled up again, and Ma McNulty warbled “Hills of Glenswilly.”

  “That’s good now,” said Anne, sipping her Mist and patting the plush arm of the chair. Pat staggered into the kitchen to make himself another drink, which Anne ignored. Dan wandered into the den, hoping to watch TV before hitting the town with his crew, but instead found his mother cooing along to “Irish Soldier Boy.”

  “You’ll win my boy don’t fear,”

  And with loving arms around his waist,

  She tied his bandolier . . .

  “Come, Dan, sit, you know these songs. Pat, play ‘The Irish Rover,’ he knows that one.” His mother was smiling again—a facial contortion that made her son wary—and then added cheerfully: “That’s the one where the dog drowns, remember?”

  Dan rolled his eyes and huddled onto the couch. Bracing himself against the wall, Pat moved back toward the stereo and pulled the Clancy Brothers album from its sleeve.

  “Here’s this one, Danny boy, come on now . . .”

  Dan blushed. Deep down, he knew and even liked the song, but he was no longer a child and an unabashed canary that would croon at Malone family drinking parties. But never mind—his father, face flush with wild life, burst forth:

  In the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and six,

  We set sail from the coal quay of Cork . . .

  Anne started clapping in time, then stood, step-dancing as a goof and singing at her son.

  There was Barney McGee from the banks of the Lee,

  There was Hogan from County Tyrone,

  There was Johnny McGurk, who was scared stiff of work,

  And a chap from Westmeath named Malone.

  “That’s you, Danny Malone!” His father took a big gulp of his drink and crashed it onto the coaster on the end table. “Sing the next verse with me.”

  “You people are nuts, you know that?” Dan blurted as his mother let out a laugh, acknowledging that was true. They listened to the same songs, over and over, about how great Dublin and Donegal were, how terrible war and partition were, how they should have never crossed an ocean, leaving true love or green fields behind. In a thunderbolt of passion and coordination, Pat pulled Anne into his arms, like Gomez would grab Morticia on The Addams Family, and then twirled her free. Dan shrank into the couch, head in his hands, embarrassed by all of this. Pat and Anne fell into facing chairs, ready for the finale. “Here it comes!” Pat yelled, and they all sang together:

  And the whale of a crew was reduced down to two,

  ’Twas meself and the captain’s old dog.

  Then the ship struck a rock, oh Lord what a shock,

  And nearly tumbled over,

  Turned nine times around,

  Then the poor old dog was drowned.

  I’m the last of the Irish Rover!

  “Great stuff, Pat,” Anne panted, and then, like she remembered that she was supposed to be worried and upset by everything in her life, abruptly returned to the kitchen. As Pat flipped through records, Dan slunk away to get ready to go out. That left Pat alone, drunk and humming “The Close of an Irish Day.” He queued up the B-side of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem live at Carnegie Hall, and realizing his family had abandoned him, Pat raised his ever-emptying glass all highfalutin, as if addressing the Al Smith dinner at the Waldorf: “To the British Empire, may she go down like this.”

  * * *

  Dan showered, shaved (even though he didn’t need to), and changed into his going-out clothes: painfully bleached light blue jeans, yellow argyle socks, and a blue and gold rugby shirt. He made several passes through a cloud of Calvin Klein’s Eternity, which Rick told him would de-panty any girl instantly. At eight p.m., he grabbed a pack of Marlboro Reds from their hiding spot behind the disk drive of his Commodore 64, slid on a pair of cordovan wing tips, and marched out to the curb for pickup by his crew. Four cigarettes into waiting—his mother kept peering out the window and Dan kept cupping the glow of the butt—the O’Donnell station wagon pulled around the bend on Crown Shore. Riding shotgun, Rick rolled down the window, the seltzer of some zydeco song off of Graceland burbling out.

  “Hey, birthday boy, ready to hit it?”

  Rob was AWOL—with his dad on some pastoral duty—so the backseat was empty as Dan slid in. Sticky checked his mirrors and rolled out. “Don’t smoke back there. My mom had a shitfit about the ashes.”

  “Wasn’t going to. Where we going?”

  “Downtown.” Rick turned down Paul Simon’s ghosts and empty sockets.

  “Meeting Jane, Tarzan?”

  “I think so.”

  “I smell a bunch of arty assholes.”

  “First off, you are an arty asshole, Malone. Second, it’s just going to be Jane, Maura, and another girlfriend. Maybe Winship and a couple others.”

  Tommy Winship was a sophomore transfer from Arts Magnet. He was witty and chummy, but Dan didn’t trust it—or him. Part of this was jealousy at Tommy’s social skills and sophistication, which Dan didn’t have, but Tommy was too alternative, and there was a gag level of cattiness and poser ennui around that whole Magnet clique.

  * * *

  Before its endless ribbons of highways, Dallas existed because of the railroad, and Deep Ellum was the neighborhood closest to the central track. After the Civil War, bales of cotton came on those rails, along with free blacks who brought their work songs and spirituals and something that would become the blues. Blind Lemon, Lead Belly, Bessie, and the man who learned to play guitar from the devil, Robert Johnson, all passed through. After the Second World War, the railroads were replaced by highways and Deep Ellum was shunted and bypassed, its storefronts and factories vacated. The proper amount of urban decay to attract disaffected teenagers crawling out of s
uburban tract housing.

  Dallas in 1987 was built on a lot of late-Reagan contradictions—mile after mile of strip malls, manicured lawns, and white-slated steeples—a bright shining Babylon of mirror-windowed office parks and big-box retail and prosperity cordoned carefully with blue laws and zoning. Sure, there were South African levels of apartheid, a top-five murder rate, and a river of greed as shallow as the Trinity, but God blessed us, and we were still winning—the NFC East, the Cold War, you name it. In short, plenty of materialistic asshattery to rage against.

  And Deep Ellum was a teenage locus for this. An underground scene. Describing it, defining it, comparing it to Austin or Athens or wherever, would ruin its authenticity. The word “authenticity” ruins it. It was a blighted place with a bunch of self-aware, drug-addled kids trying to eke something out in a ten-block stretch of identity. The word “identity” also ruins it. This was before Generation X, before grunge or emo, before slackers, before irony became a de facto case of the fuck-its. Just the incandescence of adolescent rebellion in all its hits and misses. There were plenty of alt/boho kids, graffiti goths, acid phreaks, dropouts and runaways, cranked-up bikers, ink and piercing addicts more tatted and needled than Maori warriors, trustafarians, potheads, not so new wavers and chemical ravers, out and fabulous gays, grumpy lesbians, and even a few glam-and-glitter transvestites over at Club Clearview (a.k.a. Club Queerview). And post-punk Deep Ellum sure had a lot of punks hanging around—skate punks, headbangers and slam dancers, hardcore punks, death rockers, friendly skinheads and fascist skinheads, mascaraed droog types, self-conflicted preppie punks, and garden-variety Chelsea trad punks with Mohawks, combat boots, safety-pinned clothing, and ridiculous Texan oi accents.