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

by Marc Acito

  “C'mon,” Doug says, giving Natie a shove into the car, “we've got a Buddha to deliver.”

  The house is dark and for a moment I wonder whether it's too late to be doing this, but there's a light coming from the kitchen. “You guys stay here,” Doug says. “I'm the one who stole it.”

  “But I kept it,” I say.

  “We kept it,” Kelly adds. “It's my house, too.” She opens her door to get out.

  “She's right,” Paula says. “We got into this together, we should get out of it together.”

  Natie clears his throat. “Don't you think at least one of us should wait with the car?” he says. “This isn't the nicest neighborhood, y'know.”

  “All of us,” Ziba says, and she shoves him out the door.

  The seven of us (including the Buddha) go around the side of the house to the kitchen door. We knock.

  A middle-aged woman with a dried-out perm and split ends peeks through the curtain, then unlocks the door. Sneering at us like we're the most contemptible bunch of fiends ever, she shouts, “Ma, they're here.” We all take extra care to wipe our feet, partly out of politeness and partly to stall, then slouch our way into the kitchen. You'd think that after everything I've been through I wouldn't shock easily, but what I see truly takes my breath away.

  Buddhas. Everywhere.

  I mean, everywhere. There's a Buddha cookie jar, a Buddha egg timer, and Buddha oven mitts; a Buddha lamp, a Buddha clock, a Buddha salt, and a Buddha pepper; here a Buddha, there a Buddha, everywhere a Buddha Buddha, all of them laughing deliriously in spasms of joy, taunting us with their lopsided grins.

  Now when they cast the role of the Buddha woman in the movie of my life, they'll need to find the smallest, oldest, most arthritic-looking grandmother type you've ever seen. Better yet, imagine for yourself the absolute last person on earth you'd ever want to harm and then cast her.

  The Buddha woman reaches for her walker so she can stand.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the woman needs a walker. I'm going to burn in Hell for eternity.

  I have no idea what to say. I consider introducing myself, but it feels weird and somehow wrong. Everything feels weird and wrong. “We brought your Buddha back,” I hear myself say. “We're so . . .”

  Thoughtless? Selfish? Evil?

  “. . . sorry.”

  The Buddha woman regards us through her trifocals and I can tell that forgiveness is not forthcoming. “I certainly hope you are,” she says in a chipped teacup of a voice. (Lord almighty, even her voice is frail.) “You kids have no idea the hell, excuse my language, you've put me through. I can't for the life of me understand why you chose to pick on me, ringing my bell in the dead of night, scaring me that way and making me move my statue back time and again.”

  I try to imagine this parchment-y looking woman, barely bigger than the Buddha itself, trying to lug a fifty-pound ceramic statue back into her garden. Did I mention I'm going to burn in Hell for eternity?

  “And then to steal it from me, like it's a big joke. My dead husband gave me that statue, you know.”

  Oh God, and it was probably the last thing he did before expiring from a sudden heart attack, leaving her without life insurance and only her Buddha collection to give her solace in her lonely remaining years.

  O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I.

  You know how on The Flintstones when Wilma is scolding Fred and the more ashamed he feels, the tinier he gets? I feel about as small as the Buddha air freshener above the sink.

  “I don't know how we can make this up to you,” I say.

  “You can't,” she says. “Just put it back in the garden where it belongs and don't ever bother me again.”

  I must remember this shame for my acting.

  Edward.

  Once the trauma of being arrested, jailed, and completely humiliated passes, I'm able to finally get my head around the other mind-altering event in our lives: Ziba and Kelly.

  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

  In retrospect, I suppose there were some clues, like how Ziba could be so worldly and yet act like such a prude; and as for Kelly, well . . . still waters, I guess. Doug drops some completely unsubtle hints about wanting to be with the two of them at once, but Ziba makes it abundantly clear that she's had enough of men. (“And no, you can't watch either,” she adds.) I try to take advantage of Doug's pent-up sexual frustration, but he's not buying the whole Aldonza the whore one-pair-of-arms-is-like-another thing.

  “I'm sorry, man, you know I love you, but you just don't do it for me,” he says, almost as if he were apologizing for not being more of a sexual deviant. “I swear, if you were a chick I'd be with you in a heartbeat, but I just can't get past you being hairy and having muscles and stuff.”

  At least he said I had muscles.

  What's worse, though, is that now I find myself wanting Kelly more than ever. And I hate myself for it because I know it's just some knee-jerk reaction to her being unavailable, but the fact is I can't stop thinking about her. Living in the same house has become a whole new kind of torture.

  So here I am—no girlfriend, no boyfriend, no father, no mother, no money, no job, and no future. The only thing I do have is a psychotic Austrian trailing me like a hired assassin. I give up.

  I call off Jordan Craig's blackmail.

  One night in the county jail was all I needed to realize I'm way too big of a wuss to consider white-collar crime as a viable career option. I wish I could say that sending Jordan the negatives makes me feel better (that is, after I pry them out of Natie's pudgy, clenched fists), but as far as I can see, an unwillingness to blackmail still ranks fairly low as a standard for ethics and morality.

  Still, shame clings to me like a bad smell and the only peace I get is from taking insanely long runs, which become increasingly more compulsive the closer we get to the opening of Godspell.

  Godspell.

  I know it's going to make me sound like one of those glassy-eyed Young Life kids (you know the type—the ones who always quote scripture in the yearbook and whose major social activity is the church lock-in, a scary brainwashing ritual where they play volleyball in the church gym all night until they're too exhausted to be reasonable and then accept Jesus as their personal savior just so they can go to sleep), but the fact is, right now Jesus is my only salvation.

  Playing Jesus, I mean.

  I've begun fasting on Fridays—okay, mostly because I have to take off my shirt in the baptism scene and I don't want to look jiggly—and I have actually read all four Gospels for research and even tried to do some of the Zen meditations my mother taught me, even though I have the attention span of a mosquito on cocaine. Everyone thinks I'm acting totally freaky (“You were more fun when you drank, man,” Doug says), but it makes me feel, I don't know, purer in a way.

  Which is not to say that my version of Jesus is a wimp. I hate it when Christ is played all profound and dull, like he's addicted to morphine instead of inspired by God. Personally, I see Jesus more as a Pharisee-ass-kicking Christian superhero. Mr. Lucas agrees. Being a Mr. Lucas production, this Godspell promises to be unlike any ever seen before. The usual cast of Jesus and the disciples is backed by a chorus of fifty, which gives the whole thing a much more spectacular Jesus Christ Superstar kind of feeling.

  You see, Godspell was written in 1971, so it's usually done in this hippie-dippy, flower-child kind of way, with the cast dressed as clowns and acting out the parables all wild and funny, but Mr. Lucas thought the whole thing was a little too Hair: The American Tribal Love Rock Musical for his taste so he's set it in a high school in the 1980s, which is particularly good for the weaker cast members because they won't have to stretch as much as actors. Our version is very Fast Times at Ridgemont High; there's still a lot of running around and being nutty, but it's our kind of nutty, with Mohawks and Moonwalks, and imitations of ET and Boy George and Ronald Reagan. No matter how crazy the show gets, though, Mr. Lucas mak
es sure that Jesus doesn't get lost in the mayhem.

  I swear, it's the only thing that's keeping me in school. I mean, otherwise, what's the point? Since I'm legally emancipated I can write my own notes, so I pretty much come and go as I please; Mr. Lucas calls it the OAP—the Optional Attendance Plan. Pissing off the secretaries in the attendance office is one of the few pleasures I have left. Here are a couple of my faves:

  To Whom It May Concern,

  Please excuse my absence. Or don't. Like I care.

  Edward

  To Whom It May Concern,

  Please excuse Edward's tardiness. He was mentally ill this morning.

  Love and kisses,

  The people who live in Edward's head

  To Whom It May Not Concern,

  Please allow me to leave early today. I'm bored and I'd like to get home in time for Match Game.

  Later,

  E.Z.

  On Easter Sunday, Kathleen, Kelly, and I go with Paula and Aunt Glo to Mass at Father Angelo's parish in Hoboken. Kathleen hasn't been to church since her parish priest refused to serve her communion because she got divorced, so Kelly and I get to enjoy watching Kathleen defiantly commit a minor heresy by allowing the Holy Host in her formerly married mouth. Aunt Glo is right about Angelo's version of the Mass; it is like a musical. There are two choirs, a small orchestra, and a soloist who was Betty Buckley's understudy in Cats. Angelo even sings (“Such a voice Maya Angelou has,” Aunt Glo says); it's all we can do to stop ourselves from applauding his rendition of the Holy Eucharist.

  Afterward we go back to Aunt Glo's where lots of short, loud people eat and shout conversations at one another from opposite sides of the room. It makes me miss all the Zanni relatives in Hoboken, but it's not like I'd be seeing them anyway; Dagmar's cut Al off from all of them, too. Kathleen seems a little too Wallingford Tennis Club at first, but once she's gotten some wine in her she surprises everyone by knowing all the words to “Volare.” Paula and I harmonize on “Ave Maria” like we did at her cousin Crazy Linda's wedding, and every male D'Angelo cousin between the ages of fourteen and forty asks if I'm dating Kelly and, if I'm not, could I maybe hook him up?

  If they only knew.

  Kathleen gets a little too happy, however, and staggers off to bed as soon as we get home. I've just changed into the tartan flannel nightgown when I see Kelly standing in the doorway, her face scrubbed Ivory Girl clean and her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wears an oversized Wallingford High football jersey that Doug gave her.

  “I hate when she gets like that,” Kelly says.

  I pat the place next to me on the bed. She climbs on, pulling the jersey over her knees like a tent.

  “She's just unhappy,” I say.

  “I know.” We sit in silence while Kelly traces patterns on the quilt with her slender fingers. She shivers.

  “You want to get under the covers?” I ask. She looks at me through her bangs and nods.

  I pull the blanket aside and we climb in. The bed is too small for two and I have to put my arm around her shoulder, but just in a snuggly, slumber-party way. “Your feet are freezing,” I say. “What are you, a corpse?”

  “Sorry,” she says, “let me just warm them.” She rubs her frigid feet against my calves.

  “Cut it out, icicle girl,” I say, fidgeting. “You're killing me.”

  She laughs and nestles her head in the crook of my neck. It feels nice, but I'm not reading anything into it.

  “You mind if I just lie here for a while?” she says.

  “Stay as long as you'd like.”

  Please God. I've got nothing. Let me just have this.

  “Shall I turn off the light?”

  I can hear her swallow. “Sure,” she says quietly.

  I inhale and get a whiff of Kelly's shampoo. Herbal Essence. I've missed that smell. She rests her arm across my stomach.

  “You're getting skinny,” she says.

  “Really?” Thank you, Jesus. Literally.

  “Yeah, right here,” she says, poking at my side.

  “That tickles,” I say. I don't know why the reaction to being tickled is always to announce it, because inevitably it only inspires the tickler to tickle you some more.

  “C'mon . . . stop . . . really . . . ,” I say, “your mother will hear . . .” This stops her. “Nah, she's passed out,” I continue, and start tickling Kelly back.

  “No fair, no fair, no fair,” she says, trying not to laugh too loudly.

  Kelly rolls over on my thigh and I stop tickling her. A strand of hair has gotten loose from her ponytail and I reach up to brush it out of her mouth. She looks so beautiful and, well, I'm sorry, I can't help myself—I just have to kiss her. Her mouth tastes minty and fresh and alive. I pull her to me, like I want to inhale her entire being as she gently grinds against me and . . .

  Happy Easter! Jesus ain't the only one to rise today.

  I worry for a moment that I won't stay hard, but a little dry humping convinces me that I am once again a member in good standing. In fact, all I want to do is get as close to Kelly as I possibly can.

  “Do you want to?” I ask.

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” she whispers. “But first you have to . . .”

  “Put on a condom, I know.”

  “Well yeah, duh,” she says, “but first you have to take off my sister's nightgown.”

  We make love: slowly, gently, quietly. Climbing inside her feels like slipping into a warm, soothing bath. Or a dream.

  You couldn't ask for a better first time.

  I lie with my head on her breast for a long time afterward, listening to her heartbeat. “Thank you,” I murmur.

  “You're welcome.”

  I lean over and make butterfly kisses on her belly with my eyelashes.

  “Still think you're bisexual?” she asks.

  I prop myself up on my elbows. “Do you?”

  “I asked you first.”

  We look at each other a moment and then both of us bust up laughing.

  “Hell, yeah,” we both say.

  “Nothing personal,” Kelly says, “but I think maybe only a girl can, like, really know what feels good to another girl, you know what I mean? Oh, not that it didn't feel good when you went down on me, even if you were doing it to avoid sex.”

  I sit up. “You knew?”

  Kelly rolls her mismatched eyes. “I'm a therapist's daughter,” she says. “How dumb do you think I am?”

  “And you didn't mind?”

  “What? That you, like, practically gave yourself lockjaw trying to satisfy me? That's a lot more than I can say for Doug, I tell you that.”

  “Really?”

  Kelly gives a feline stretch. “Please,” she says. “He thinks all he needs to do is fuck gently and carry a big stick.”

  This girl never ceases to surprise me. I take a good, long look at her. “Have you always been this cool and I just never noticed?”

  Her eyes cloud and she nods. “Actually, yes,” she whispers.

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Thanks.” She lowers her head and does that coy Princess Di thing that pretty girls do. “I know how you can make it up to me, though.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  She gives a little push on my head. “Why don't you finish what you started?”

  I'd answer, but it's rude to talk with your mouth full.

  You know that scene in Gone With the Wind when Scarlett wakes up humming and singing to herself the morning after Rhett carried her up the stairs and gave her the banging of her life? That's how I feel the next day. Just the thought of the night before gets me hard, often at very inopportune moments, like while practicing to play our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Kelly and I agree not to mention it to anybody, least of all Ziba. Given my new sense of ethics, I'm not crazy about the idea of sneaking around behind Ziba's back, or Kathleen's, for that matter, but hey, I'm only human. And eighteen.

  We have a harder time
staying quiet during the Anne Frank in the Secret Annex game. Over the course of the next couple of weeks we progress from making love to making hot monkey love, complete with little high-pitched chimpanzee noises and that totally sexy thing when you call out each other's names while you're doing it. I think having someone acknowledge by name that you and you alone are the reason for their pleasure is such an immense turn-on, unless of course you have an unsexy name like Agnes or Wendell. It must be tough getting aroused when your partner shouts, “Oh, yeah, do me, Wendell!”