How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater

by Marc Acito

  “Kathleen?”

  “Kathleen's not here right now,” she mumbles into her knees. “Would you like to leave a message?”

  Two wine bottles sit on the coffee table—one empty, another well on its way. “Yeah,” I say, “tell her I'm worried about her.” I pick up the bottles and move them to the piano where I put them on top of the score of Godspell so they won't leave rings.

  “You're sweet,” Kathleen says, and makes room for me on the couch by shoving aside a transistor radio, a roll of paper towels, and two phone books. She pats the spot, the Internationally Recognized Signal for “Sit here on this stained, crumb-infested piece of furniture,” then regards me with moist, fermented eyes.

  “Do you think I'm an alcoholic?” she says.

  I nod.

  Kathleen sighs. “Yeah, me, too. I suppose that means I should get some help, what with being a mental-health professional and all.” She blinks, like she's not sure she's seeing right. “Why are you wearing a bathrobe from the Palm Beach Hilton?”

  I pull the robe across my legs to make sure I'm not hanging out. “Fashion statement,” I say.

  Kathleen rests a slender hand on my wrist. “You know,” she says, apropos of nothing, “Brad really liked you.”

  I guessed that from the way he ground his crotch against my ass when he cracked my back.

  “I wish I could say I felt the same about him,” Kathleen says, tracing figure eights on the sofa cushion. “Don't get me wrong. I love my son. But just between you and me, I can't say I like him very much.”

  That seems to me a remarkable thing to say about your own child. Kathleen blinks back a tear. “He's turned out just like his father.”

  If she only knew.

  She gets up and takes the bottle of wine off the piano. “I shouldn't be surprised,” she says. “Everyone's always said that Brad's just like Jack and Bridget's just like me.”

  “What about Kelly?” I say.

  Kathleen looks at the bottle and puts it back down again. “Kelly,” she says. “Who knows what Kelly is like? She's got so many secrets. Just when I think I understand her, she surprises me again. She's like those Russian dolls; you know, the kind where one is inside of another.” Kathleen staggers along the wall of family photos, peering at them like she's never seen them before. “Kelly is my great hope for this family.” She points to my senior portrait, which I rescued from the junk drawer. “You and Kelly. Neither of you are willing to do what people expect of you.” She smiles. “I admire that.”

  It feels weird to have a grown-up admire you.

  Kathleen turns and appraises her wedding portrait, Miss Chastity Belt 1961. “Look at me,” she says. “I didn't have a fucking clue. I dropped out of college my junior year to get married and I got pregnant with Bradley on my honeymoon. I told both of my girls that when it came to having sex, stick with oral. No one ever got knocked up giving a blow job.”

  Words to live by.

  She stumbles back over the couch and rests on the arm. “You know I love you kids; there's not a thing I wouldn't do for any of you: lie, cheat, steal—kill if I had to. But I've got to say I understand how your mother felt. Of course, I don't approve of her leaving you and your sister, but you just can't imagine what it was like for us back then. Here we were in the suburbs, driving the kids to Little League and making brownies for the Brownies, and suddenly there were all these books and magazines telling us we should be self-actualized and liberated and free. But we had noses to wipe and diapers to change. It was like we had missed the parade.”

  “But you stuck around,” I say.

  She smiles and tousles my hair. “I wouldn't have missed it for the world. But if I had a chance to do it all over again, I'm not sure I would have had my kids when I did. I don't know. It doesn't really matter now anyway.” She brushes the hair out of my eyes and looks at me. “What I'm trying to say is this, sweetie: don't let twenty years of your life go by before you join the parade.”

  I reach for her and she puts her arms around me. Her touch isn't anything like her daughter's, or her husband's, or her son's for that matter. It's a mother's touch, warm and comforting, and I lay my head on her lap as we sit silently in the dark together, both enjoying our dozy, miserable happiness together.

  We're both startled by a banging on the front door. The cats scurry, making scratching noises on the floors as they go. “I'll get it,” I say.

  I open the door and there, like a blast of hot air in my face, is my evil stepmonster.

  “Azzhuuuuuuuuuull!” she screams.

  I shut the door.

  “Who was that?” Kathleen calls from the other room.

  “Jehovah's Witness,” I say.

  Dagmar bangs again. I pull the curtain aside in the little window next to the door. She looks distorted through the beveled glass, like her face is all banged up.

  If only.

  “What do you want?” I yell.

  “I know it vas you!” she screams. “You did tsis! You did tsis!” She shoves what looks like a bank statement against the glass.

  “Go away. I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “OPEN TSIS DOOR!” she bellows, and pounds again.

  From the living room I hear Kathleen mutter, “Oh, for Chrissake.” She gets up and weaves her way into the entryway, where she opens the front door. “Now listen,” Kathleen barks, “in this house crazy people belong in the basement, not on the front porch.”

  Dagmar takes a step back and shakes her head, her tangled curls writhing like Medusa's. “He stole money out of my account,” she says, handing the bank statement to Kathleen.

  Kathleen glances at the statement, then turns to look at me, her face just inches from mine. “Sweetie, is this true?”

  I may be one of the Best Young Actors in America, but I'm not sure I've got it in me to lie to Kathleen anymore. About anything. I take a deep breath and look her right in the eye.

  “I don't have her money,” I say.

  Hey, it's true.

  “There must be some mistake,” Kathleen says to Dagmar. “Maybe Al withdrew it and forgot to . . .”

  “No!” Dagmar barks. “He doesn't . . . it is not possible.” Dagmar snatches back the statement. “First tsing Monday mornink I vill be callink tse Financial Aid office at Juilliart,” she says, sounding like the gestapo in a World War Two movie.

  I feel my stomach drop to my knees.

  “And maybe tsey can tell me who tsis LaChance Jones is.”

  Evil. Evil. Evil.

  “I don't care how much time it takes,” Dagmar says, shaking a bent twig of a finger at me, “I vill not give up until I see you in jail, you azzhuuuull.”

  And your little dog, too.

  “Well, thanks for stopping by,” Kathleen says, starting to close the door. “It was horrible meeting you.”

  Dagmar turns on her spiky heels, clicking and muttering to herself as she goes.

  Kathleen shuts the door and leans against it. “She must be great in bed,” she says. “There's no other explanation.”

  I consider calling Natie for advice but, frankly, I've kind of had it with his suggestions. Nor do I want to talk to Kathleen, even though she's very sympathetic. I just want to go to bed for a really, really long time and forget I was ever born. I pass out into a dreamless sleep until about three o'clock in the morning when I sit bolt upright in bed to discover that, while I was sleeping, I've taken every bit of bedding—the blanket, the sheets, even the mattress pad—and tossed them across the room. I lie awake, the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my ears as I envision the step-by-step process of being tried, convicted, and sent to prison where I'll have the words “Raoul's Bitch” tattooed on my ass. Eventually I'll be killed in prison and God will consign my eternal soul to the fiery pits of Hell where I'll burn forever because I'm a very, very bad person. Like Hamlet says, “My offense is rank. It smells to heaven.” Suffocating under the tyranny of my mind, I finally get up around five o'clock and do the only thing I can to
escape, which is take an absurdly long jog.

  All day long at school I watch the clock, praying that Laurel Watkins has either gotten another job or has suffered a blow to the head rendering her incapable of remembering Edward Zanni, Gloria D'Angelo, or the Catholic Vigilance Society, but then I remember that Laurel Watkins is pregnant, so instead I try to telepathically induce her labor so she's not in the office when Dagmar calls.

  The announcement comes over the loudspeaker while Mr. Lucas is discussing the hollow, decadent lives of the idle rich in The Great Gatsby. “Would Edward Zanni please report to the main office right away? Edward Zanni, to the main office right away.”

  The class makes that “oooh” sound students make when someone is called to the office, completely unaware that the next time they see me it will be on the evening news in an orange prison jumpsuit. I feel strangely calm actually, almost relieved that all the lies and deceit are finally over. Loyal to the end, Natie comes with me, not to admit anything, mind you, but for moral support. (“Why should both of us take the rap?” he says. “I can be much more helpful to you on the outside.”) We go into the office together.

  There is not, as I expected, a pair of armed police officers waiting for me, but just the usual clacking of typewriters and people going about their business. One of the secretaries motions for me to come behind the counter. “Edward, there's a lady on the phone who says it's urgent that she speak to you.”

  A lady? I grab the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh, thank God,” the voice on the other end of the line says.

  “Paula?”

  “Listen,” she says, “you've got to get down to the Camptown police station right away.”

  “Why? What's wrong?”

  “Aunt Glo's been arrested.”

  Kelly's not in her eighth-period class and I curse myself for being the person who taught her how to cut school undetected. We need a car, and fast. Natie and I intrude on four different science classrooms before we finally find Doug, who looks relieved to have any excuse to get out of Mr. Nelson's treacherously dull chemistry class. The three of us run all the way to Doug's house to get his old Chevy. Or perhaps I should say Doug and I run all the way to his house to get his old Chevy, then double back to pick up Natie, who's lagging behind like the Poky Little Puppy. I'm not convinced, however, that Doug's tin can of a car is actually capable of getting us there, but it's the best we have, so I caress what's left of the dashboard as we drive, trying to coerce the old girl to make it just a little bit farther, baby, just a little bit farther.

  Since I flat-out told Laurel Watkins on the phone that I was eligible for the scholarship, you'd think she and Dagmar would have put two and two together and come after me instead of Aunt Glo. What's more, I'm amazed at the swift arm of justice. I don't remember Aunt Glo actually mentioning to Laurel Watkins where she lived, so I'm not sure how they found her so fast. But then again, never having committed fraud before, I'm not real familiar with the protocol.

  After getting lost a couple of times (just because I'm a criminal doesn't mean I know where the Cramptown police station is), we finally locate the building, a nondescript brick box. We dash through the doors and explain to a skeptical-looking receptionist why we're here. She points to a couple of those cup-shaped plastic chairs that are supposed to be comfortable but aren't and tells us to take a seat. Natie and Doug flip through old Reader's Digests while I pace the well-scuffed floor, wishing that I smoked instead of masturbated as a nervous habit, so I'd have something to do. Believe it or not, I'm more worried for Aunt Glo than for myself. She must be terrified.

  The receptionist buzzes us in and an officer leads us down a long hallway to an open area containing a lot of cluttered desks, bad overhead lighting, and, in the center of it all, Aunt Glo. There she sits on a high stool, chatting and laughing with Cramptown's finest and otherwise looking like she's having a marvelous time. It's like that scene you see in old movies when little Timmy or Bobby disappears and everyone is frantic with worry until they go down to the police station and find him sitting on the chief's desk, happily licking an ice-cream cone, an oversized policeman's hat on his head. Aunt Glo sees us and flaps a pudgy hand from across the room.

  “The LBs!” she screeches like she's throwing a party and she's so glad we could make it. “And Maya Angelou!”

  I turn around to see if indeed the esteemed poet is standing behind me (at this point I'd believe anything), but instead I find myself face-to-face with a dark, bearded priest who looks alarmingly like Father Groovy. For a split second I fear that this poor guy has been picked out of some kind of clerical line-up, when I realize that Aunt Glo must have said, “My Angelo.”

  If I ever wonder what I'll look like in fifteen or twenty years I need only stop in at the Church of the Holy Redeemer in Hoboken, New Jersey, and see how Father Angelo D'Angelo is doing. We've been introduced a couple of times over the years, but it's only after having seen myself dressed as Father Groovy that I realize how close the resemblance is. Sure, there's some gray in his curly hair, and he is, believe it or not, more athletic-looking (who knew priests worked out?), but otherwise we could be, pardon the pun, cut from the same cloth. I find him, in an unsettling way, attractive.

  He doesn't seem particularly happy to see me, however, and he rushes over to his mother.

  “Ma, you all right?” he says.

  Aunt Glo calls him Maya Angelou again and gives him a hug that could easily be mistaken for a chiropractic adjustment. This is when I notice Paula who, rather than taking center stage the way she normally does, hovers off to the side. Perhaps it's because she's wearing nothing but a leotard, a corset, and a long muslin rehearsal skirt. She looks like a Victorian whore brought in on charges of soliciting in the wrong century. I walk over to her and she frowns. “Right now two sisters are sitting in a rehearsal hall wondering why the third took off for Moscow without them,” she mutters.

  Aunt Glo tries to give up her seat to Angelo (“You look tired, baby doll”) then makes introductions all around. I'm impressed she can remember the cops' names (Officer Atkinson, Officer Barker, Officer Salazar) until I realize she's reading their badges. “You kids hungry?” she says to us. “You wanna doughnut? I'm sure these nice policemen wouldn't mind.”

  Aunt Glo.

  Paula kneels next to her, giving seven men an unimpeded view of her nineteenth-century cleavage, not like it was hard to miss before. “What's going on?” she asks.

  “You!” Aunt Glo sniffs. “If you weren't off having premarital sex with your long-haired boyfriend, you'd know!”

  “You're having premarital sex?” Angelo asks.

  “We broke up,” Paula says, as if that answers the question.

  I wiggle my pinky at Doug to explain.

  Paula turns to Aunt Glo again. “What's that got to do with you being arrested?”

  “Well,” Aunt Glo says, “since you left, it hasn't been easy, y'know, trying to find people to drive me . . .”

  Paula's eyes immediately fill with tears. “I told you I'd help you whenever you needed,” she says, taking her aunt's tiny hand in hers.

  “I don't like to be a bother,” Aunt Glo says as she pulls a tissue out of her purse. “Today I woke up feeling pretty good, so I said to myself, I said, ‘Gloria, it wouldn't hurt anybody if you drove the Lincoln over to the A&P to pick up a little veal chop . . .'”

  Angelo looks dismayed. “Ma, you didn't . . .”

  “. . . and before ya' knew it I got cops swoopin' down on me, sayin' I gotta come into the police station.”

  “Her taillight was out,” says Officer Atkinson. “And when I asked her for her registration all we could find in the glove compartment was the 1983 World Almanac.”

  Oops.

  “You brought her in for driving without her registration?” Angelo asks.

  “No,” says a voice behind us. We turn around and the cops make room for a tall man wearing a shirt and tie and the air of someone in charge. “I'm Det
ective Bose,” he says, shaking Father Angelo's hand. He's got a 1950s buzz cut, a caterpillar mustache, and a very Dragnet-y manner about him. “Your mother was detained because her vehicle was identified as the same one used to perform a number of acts of vandalism last summer.”

  “Vandalism?”

  The detective looks at his clipboard. “Vandalism involving a certain ceramic Buddha.”