Sophomores

by Sean Desmond

  An apocalyptic vision in a series of grotesqueries foreshadowed by the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. It opens with a paraphrase of the classic ballad “Lord Randall.”

  Dan then pulled Helen Ferris’s Favorite Poems Old and New off his shelf and scanned the index of titles. There was the anonymous ballad, and as he read, another chord was struck, and he picked up The Catcher in the Rye and flipped through until he found that Holden had to know that “Lord Randall my son” crap to pass English at the Whooton School. He moved back to the Ferris, studying the style. You have to have two great opening lines, lines that swing the door open. A ballad is just like the blues. The song was almost done again. Rewind and replay. He leapt back to the Shelton.

  Lines etched in acid paint the ruins of war. A panorama of Spanish battle scenes comes to my mind, out of García Lorca’s poetry, Picasso’s tortured “Guernica.”

  There were no Lorca poems in the Ferris, but Dan found Guernica in his mother’s copy of E. H. Gombrich’s Art and Illusion. His focus darted from the cruel electric light to the nostrils of the horse to the horns of the bull, absorbing all the contortions, the soundless screams, the terrible misplaced eyes, the hard rain falling. Back to Shelton . . .

  A thrust of imagery that owes a debt to García Lorca and Rimbaud . . . A landmark in topical, folk-based songwriting, here blooms the promised fruit of the 1950s poetry-jazz fusion of Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, and Rexroth.

  Dan turned to his journal and wrote down the names cited. The fallout from the song became a reading list. I need to go to the library. The tape for Freewheelin’ stopped and popped. Dan looked at all the books now open and facing down on his bed. He had a lot of work to do, but there was a flow to it.

  This is hard shit, but it’s what you wanted. You wanted to be a Norwegian rat, he reminded himself. Don’t be afraid. Be open. Cut through your crap and write to the marrow. And read more. Read everything. Read and write all the time. Talent is bullshit. Being an alternative poser is bullshit. Being some antic Irish Catholic kid from New York, Texas, wherever, is bullshit—they don’t get you, because there’s nothing to get.

  I have to earn this, he chided himself, but it felt good, like an ascetic scourging his will into mastery. The only path for the Norwegian rat is suffering. And one of these keys—the song, the poems, the biography, the painting—is going to spring the lock on my ideas.

  He had to keep going, he had to know more, but he also fiercely felt the need to write and respond to all the clues. The last pieces of this puzzle were sitting on his desk. Oglesby had also given him Hawthorne’s Mosses from an Old Manse to read over the break as a supplement to The Scarlet Letter. There had to be some connection between Screwtape and Young Goodman Brown if Dan just could reread them together. He picked up his journal . . .

  Idea:

  Write a ballad about how the devil tricked everyone into arguing with themselves.

  Refrain:

  The devil came to me in a dark wood,

  Telling lies how he was misunderstood.

  The words were simple with bluesy timbre. He was picking the right downshifting vowels for a cautious, moonlit duel with the devil. Dan flipped the Freewheelin’ tape, and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” purred along. He was coming into the zone, vibrating with ideas, tameless and swift with thoughts and songs.

  And then a hard knock, and his mother—having returned from Porlock, no doubt—opened the door. Dan heaved a sigh with his back to her.

  “What?”

  “Don’t start with me. I’ve had enough already.” Dressed in an off-white robe, she was loaded for bear. Christmas for the Malones had been Cold War tension turned proxy conflict turned quagmire. In Dan’s mind, his mother had escalated things, and he allied with his father’s failed attempts at pacification. It had started after Mass on Christmas morning with the opening of presents, of which there were few. They sat around the artificial tree, and Dan unwrapped a Hecht’s box to reveal a red cable-knit cardigan—Two sweaters in two months!—from his aunt Catherine, which he liked in an ironic Mr. Rogers way. Anne’s turn. Santa had gotten her a bottle of Chanel No. 5, which was most certainly her fragrance. The only problem was that she had gotten the same for her birthday in July. Pat sank into the sofa when reminded of this fact.

  “A lifetime supply,” Anne hissed. “Great. I’ll be dead before I fucking run out.”

  It was eight in the morning, and Anne was performing Samuel Beckett’s little-known adaptation of “The Gift of the Magi.” Pat, who didn’t want to think how lit he had been at the perfume counter at Dillard’s, was quietly cueing Dan to open another present when his wife went exothermic, her ire spewing forth all at once:

  “Why are you spending money we don’t have?

  “Do you ever think about someone besides yourself?

  “Why can’t you get your shit together, Pat?

  “Why haven’t you had a single interview or call about a new job?

  “What are we going to do? Tell me. You sit around all day with time to think about it.”

  It was a miserable combination of below-the-belt punches. Pat tried to deflect and not take the bait.

  “Calm down. I’m sorry.”

  Anne threw the Chanel No. 5 into Pat’s lap, demanding he return it. Then she stormed around the tree picking up scraps of wrapping paper until she broke down crying. Dan escaped to his room, where he lurked until dinner listening to Dylan. His father retreated to the back room and pretended to care about the Sun Bowl while waiting for an early cocktail hour. At dinner, Pat told Anne again he was sorry, but that just set off another venomous litany. This time Anne was triggered by forgetting to take the bag out of the turkey before putting it in the oven, and it had been cooking all day, but the stupid thermometer hadn’t popped, and when she skewered into the breast the juice didn’t run clear, and it was a twelve-pound bird and still underdone, and what a fucking waste of money, and the oven was cycling off too much, which was the real problem, and that was another thing we don’t have the money to fix, and I forgot to make gravy, and the Brussels sprouts are a little burnt, and the stuffing dry, and the sweet potatoes the only goddamn thing that turned out, and sorry, folks, but no one helps, and I work like a dog and have to do everything, and it’s not my fault, none of this is my goddamn fault.

  So that was Christmas—the three of them locked in on each other around the dinner table with nothing good to say. Now began day two of the siege. As his mother took a step into his bedroom, Dan shook his head and waved her off. It was obvious he wanted to be left alone, and that was when his mother was the most hectoring.

  “Fine, I guess we’ll all just sit in separate rooms and not talk to each other.”

  Good idea, Dan thought.

  Anne was in a royal mood to pick a fight but instead caught herself.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday. Your father can drive me crazy.”

  “Mom . . .”

  “We both love you.” Anne noticed the copy of The Scarlet Letter on Dan’s desk, but it did not stop her; she was in martyr mode. “It’s just hard with how things are now.”

  “Mom, stop. Just leave me alone.”

  “I’m trying to talk to you!”

  “And I’m trying to work! Please just get out.”

  “Fine, you and your father. No one can talk to either of you.”

  “Go!”

  “Stop yelling at me.”

  At this point, the coils in the pullout mattress in the back room creaked and popped. Pat had woken up. The truth was he had barely been asleep—his mind addled, his legs racing with uneasy, tired fits. He heard this carry-over argument between his wife and son and sat up.

  Anne continued in a fake whisper. “Honest to God, Dan, no one can talk to you.”

  “Fine. Go away.” He turned up the volume on Dylan.

  “Don’t tell me
what to do.”

  The way she kept turning the argument around on him—this drove Dan nuts.

  “Stop!”

  “If you were just civil to me for once.”

  “Stop!”

  Dan was trying to end the fight, but his mother just provoked and prolonged. A pressure inside his head and chest started to pulse.

  Anne threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this type of treatment!”

  “Get out!” Dan screamed, and then swiped the books off his bed.

  “Calm down.” Anne took a step out of the room.

  “Get the fuck out!”

  Pat hobbled into the hallway. “Stop it! Dan, stop screaming.”

  Dan looked at his father in his light blue pajamas and saw how worn down and upset he was. And he just started crying.

  “Please, just leave me alone. Please!”

  “What is wrong with you?” Anne sneered.

  “Leave him be.” Pat put his hand on the doorknob and moved them both back into the hallway.

  “Your answer to everything . . .” And the door shut on Dan’s mother as she pivoted like a mongoose toward Pat, their bickering carrying down the hall.

  Dan wiped his tears.

  Dylan was bouncing through the bars on “Corrina” and a bird that sings, and enough—Dan popped the tape. He sat for a long minute trying to calm down, but he could hear nothing but the muffled, aggrieved inflections of his parents. He moved back to the desk and turned on his Commodore, staring at the blue field of the monitor as it booted. He didn’t feel like reading or writing anymore.

  * * *

  The rest of that morning and afternoon Dan gave his mother the silent treatment, but there was a problem: he had a date that night with Cady Bloom. Inspired by Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! and driven mad by holiday wish fulfillment, he had called her, and Cady said “sure” in a way that was a little underwhelming and hard not to read into. So now he was stuck, and before dinner he ignominiously asked his mother for a ride. He caught her in a reflux of guilt about the ruined Christmas, and she muttered something about getting out of this godforsaken house. A begrudged accord was struck; both sides had lost and left it at that.

  It was a cold, clear Saturday night when Dan hopped out into the Chili’s parking lot off Montfort Road. Cady Bloom was standing out front and gave him a small clandestine wave. She was cuter than Christmas—a holly-green argyle sweater with suede elbow patches, a crisp white oxford shirt, a gray skirt, and gray tights. Dan reached her, smiled, and hadn’t thought about how he was going to greet her, and now this was painfully obvious.

  “Hi. Sorry . . . well . . .”

  The moment lingered for what felt like the rest of the Reagan administration, and just as Dan leaned to hug her, Cady turned and swung open the door to the restaurant.

  “Sorry. Hi . . . well . . .”

  They sat in a corner booth. In ladylike fashion, Cady spat her cud of Juicy Fruit into a Kleenex. They drank Dr Peppers from heavy frosted mugs and shared chips and queso while Rick Astley warbled “When I Fall in Love” from the bar area.

  Cady chewed on her straw. “How was Christmas?”

  “Really great, how about you?”

  Cady had an Oscar-caliber eye roll. “Oh my God, like shoot me, my family is so crazy.”

  That set Cady on a rant about the Bloom clan, and Dan just soaked in every detail of this girl—her clear lacquered nails tapping the talavera tiles set into the table, her brown hair curling over pearl earrings, her dark eyes darting like wrens—and he was just happily lost and infatuated while pretending to follow something about Cady’s racist grandmother from Corsicana. When she finally came up for air, Dan nodded vigorously, overselling his disbelief.

  “Wow. Really?”

  “I know, right? Ugh, so bizarre.”

  In the amber light of the booth, she seemed very kissable, even as she wolfed down queso. To her credit, Dan noticed, Cady didn’t scoop, but dipped her chip daintily.

  A coked-up waiter in suspenders sidled by. “How’s this happy couple doing?”

  They both blushed and giggled. Dan thought about ordering a cup of coffee to seem more worldly, but Cady asked for the check.

  “The basketball game starts in an hour. We gotta get out of here.”

  “Right.” Distracted by devising right and wrong moves, Dan had spaced on the Mavs game they were going to. “How are we getting down there?”

  “Well . . .” Cady frowned and glanced over Dan’s shoulder. “My brother is driving us. I apologize in advance. Todd, you ready to go?”

  Dan turned around and there was Todd Bloom, Jesuit senior, scourge of the underclassmen, and one of the biggest pricks to ever come out of Preston Hollow. He bolted out of one of the back booths with his doofus sidekick, Lang Dudek, in tow. He gave Daniel a knowing feline smile.

  Fuck.

  * * *

  Todd Bloom drove like a jackass down the Dallas North Tollway making stupid jokes about Cady and Dan feeling each other up in the darkness of the backseat of his Jeep Wrangler, which had no shocks and a canvas top that turned highway driving into the Iditarod. He even listened to music like a dick—knuckling the preset stations on his Pioneer stereo while mocking every song he heard as for fags. The upside was the more her brother embarrassed Cady, the better Dan seemed in contrast. They made their way downtown until hitting a traffic jam two blocks from Reunion Arena. The game was about to start, and Todd should have let them hop out, but instead he honked and screamed at his fellow late-arriving assholes. Finally the Jeep lurched into the Escher ramps of the parking garage and they found a spot with five minutes before tip. The four of them were rushing across Reunion Boulevard when Todd shot back onto the curb. Dan caught this in the corner of his eye and grabbed Cady by the arm, sure they were about to be hit by oncoming traffic.

  The light was a stale yellow turning red with nothing crossing. Todd had done it just to fake them out. Lang cackled like a hyena.

  “Made you look!”

  Todd Bloom, ladies and gentlemen.

  Running to the gate and tickets stubbed, they thankfully split up—Todd and his butthead buddy Lang took two in the section behind the Mavs’ bench, and Cady and Dan had the mezzanine seats at half court. Both were primo spots in the arena—Cady’s dad was on retainer for Trammell Crow—right in the fat-cat sections. They skipped up the escalator grille as a soprano sax player asphyxiated on Francis Scott Key for three eternal minutes, and scooched into row fifteen just as James Donaldson stepped in elbow to elbow against Hakeem Olajuwon. Cady and Dan looked at each other like they had just made the last train out of Paris, and it was whirlwind and romantic, and Dan almost kissed her there, but then Hakeem swatted the ball to Sleepy Floyd and the crowd settled down in mild disappointment, the game begun, the moment of anticipation gone with it.

  * * *

  With its football teams in decline and fall (Landry in act one of Lear, the NCAA salting the SMU campus), Dallas, for the first time, became a basketball town. With a Mark Aguirre–sized chip on their shoulder, the Mavericks were underrated and coming off two road wins, including an upset against Jordan in full demigod mode. James Donaldson played center like a cop who had seen it all; Sam Perkins was Kevin McHale on quaaludes, somnolent but productive; Derek Harper and Rolando Blackman were the sneaky best backcourt in the league. The bench was like a casting session for Hoosiers (Brad Davis, Steve Alford, Bill Wennington), possibly directed by Leni Riefenstahl (Detlef Schrempf and the Big Bratwurst: Uwe Blab). And the secret heat check: the prelapsarian Roy Tarpley as sixth man. Their head coach was John MacLeod, who registered on the Pat Malone scale of Catholic sports stars for having carried Bellarmine basketball sometime before the flood.

  Hakeem’s first shot rimmed out, Perkins rebounded, and Derek Harper brought the ball downcourt, his chin up like he had a nosebleed.
>
  Cady whispered not so softly into Dan’s ear: “I’m so sorry about my brother.”

  “Not your fault.” Dan scanned the bench for Tarpley, who had his head draped in a towel like a Bedouin. “These are great seats.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Cady looked out over the court, feigning interest.

  Dan realized he had a problem. Here was the best basketball team in the world not named Celtics or Lakers, and he’d be an idiot not to watch . . . but . . . he was on a date.

  “I mean, it’s great they’re together . . .” Dan blurted the rest: “You know, away from your brother. Sitting together. Us . . .” Shoot me now.

  “Totally.” Cady smacked her gum, and it dawned on Dan that the Mavericks weren’t the only ones who might have trouble scoring tonight.

  Fifteen seconds into the possession Perkins waddled into the paint and Harper lobbed it in. Perkins posted Hakeem, double head-faked, and then flicked the jump hook. The shot went in with a foul for reaching in. The crowd erupted like it was the first three-point opportunity in the history of the franchise.

  “Do you like basketball?” Cady asked brightly.

  “I love it. I love Roy Tarpley.”

  “Does he play for the Mavs? Which one is he?”

  “He’s on the bench. He’s coming in later.”

  “Is he not good enough to play?”

  Oh boy. Then he looked down at Cady’s clear manicured nails and her James Avery rings and her hands pressing the pleats in her skirt, and Dan missed Perkins’s hitting the free throw. Okay, I’m on a date until the second half.

  “So you think Roy Tarpley isn’t any good? Are you saying you’re better than him?” Dan popped his eyebrows to make sure she saw he was kidding. “Should we get you down to the floor?”

  “Hey, I’m pretty good. I can shoot for baskets.”