“Really? You think so?”
“Hippie boy,” Vanessa said. “Fucking hippie.”
“Yeah yeah,” Benji said. “Sure.”
“Nice speech, son.” Dennis grabbed Benji by the shoulders. “You were really good up there, for what it’s worth.”
“Thanks, Dad. That’s worth a lot actually. I think Grandpa would be proud too, don’t you?”
“I do.” Dennis shook his head. “Absolutely.”
“He’d be proud until he realized you’re, like, campaigning for sports,” Vanessa said. “You know there are hostages in Iran right now? You might have wanted to mention that.”
“That’s enough,” Sharon said. “This is about much more than just the Olympic Games. The Olympics is about everything. Everything. Isn’t it, Ben?”
Yes, he’d meant to tell her, but he’d turned away, distracted by the thumps on the back and the hugging by his fellow organizers.
Perhaps Rachel had already left the party, Benji thought now as Peter, jolly as hell, filled cups up at the keg, planted conveniently by the bathroom. Benji couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t wait to see him, unless she was irritated about dinner. He had dinner with his parents and Vanessa at Franca’s—the only brick-oven pizza this sad town had to offer, which he knew his mother would appreciate. Rachel was to have joined them, and he had looked so forward to her cramming in between him and Vanessa in a little red booth, impressing his parents with her brilliant ideas. But that had been planned before she hadn’t shown up at the rally, and he had just walked down the hill with his family, retrieved the Volvo, and left campus without so much as giving her a call.
When he told his parents he and Vanessa were going to a party, his mother looked as if she would be sick, her nose flaring at the nostrils and her mouth, also exposed, quivering a bit at the sides. Benji felt horribly guilty, though he had made the right gesture with his sister, whom he wasn’t much dying to bring either. Would she sit in someone’s room alone biting her nails to the quick, refusing every offered drink or pill or pipe, or might she—might she?—just this once join in and have some fun? Bee and Heather and Jessica had been licentious, decadent girls; though he had pretended to ignore them, he had enjoyed their reckless presence and the titillating possibility of fleshy, mostly drunken Bee in the bedroom next to his. Now Vanessa was the opposite of that; she was serious, earnest, incapable of fun.
“We’re off then,” Benji had said, getting up from the booth where he and Vanessa had faced their parents during the meal. The remains of a spinach-and-ricotta pizza was on the silver plate before him. Hmmm! his mother had exclaimed when it came to the table along with a mushroom-and-sausage pie; she had brought out a margarine container filled with wheat germ and offered it around the table before sprinkling it over her own oozing slices.
His father looked pissed but said nothing.
Vanessa had stood as well, brushing off invisible crumbs, as if she too had partaken in the gluttony that was Benji and Dennis and Sharon descending upon the bubbling pizzas when the waiter placed them on the table. What Vanessa had actually done was pick at the spinach and say that her stomach was bothering her.
Benji turned to Vanessa. “You coming then?”
Not long ago, when Vanessa was the old Vanessa, the one smiling in jeans and Sunshine House T-shirts and macramé platform sandals, who named her hermit crab Joni, who fought with him over the cubes of meat they’d stick in the hot oil of the fondue pot trying to knock each other’s chunks off their skewers, this Vanessa and Benji would steal bottles of wine from the Magruders’ bags in the basement and drink in the backyard, straight from the bottle, just the two of them. He could not recall what they had talked about then, though he remembered the comfort in looking up to the filmy suburban sky and the feel of the grass on his neck, the damp of the earth seeping in through his T-shirt, and the relief that he could lie next to his sister in silence without the pressure he felt with any other girl, to lean over and kiss her, and then move on from there, and from there, to a place where he had to take different routes home or skip classes or do it all over again.
But tonight Vanessa was a ghost of that girl, and Benji half expected her to rise and hover, shake some teacups, slam a window, then disappear into the smoke-filled air.
Now, Andy and Larry came out of their room—one of the funky circular ones with walls curved by the castle tower—joined by Schaeffer, who still appeared to be tripping. The three of them made their way over to Benji and his sister.
“We did an amazing thing today.” Andy slapped Benji hard on the back. “Let’s celebrate our victory!”
“Hello, sister,” Larry said. “Sister Goldstein.” He put his hands together at his chest and bowed his head.
“Vanessa,” Benji said, halfheartedly swinging out his right hand. “Larry and Andy.”
“Hey,” Vanessa said.
“Vick-tow-ree!” Larry said, his hand in the air, fingers forming a V. Andy did the same.
“Goldsteins.” Schaeffer draped himself over Vanessa’s and Benji’s shoulders, the hand hanging over Benji holding a full cup of beer by the tips of his fingers. “Gold. Steins.” The beer slipped to the floor, landing miraculously upright. Beer sloshed onto their shoes, but Schaeffer made no move to acknowledge this or to pick it up.
Larry and Andy were right: there was much to celebrate. The rally had been well attended—more than eight hundred people according to one of the designated counters, which had been another one of Alice’s solid ideas—and according to her, thirty-six people had also signed up to vote, all registered Dems. It was, she pointed out, going to be a serious defensive fight this year.
“I saw you on TV!” a girl whom Benji had never met said as she walked by.
“Yeah,” Larry said. “You made it on the news.”
Benji headed for the keg, Vanessa in tow, kicking himself for not having designated a proper spokesperson to talk to the media on behalf of STAB. All the news organizations had been directed to Benji because he had made the initial calls, but he had been the wrong guy for the job.
He’d had a great and supportive interview with the Justice, the campus paper, and the Phoenix, the alternative Boston weekly, then a reporter and a cameraman from the local NBC News affiliate had made their way to him.
“What do you expect the rally to achieve?” the reporter had asked. He was balding and jowly, a paunch evident even beneath his trench coat, which was far too light for the cold March day.
“I expect it will stop this boycott, that’s what I expect,” Benji said. He thought it strange that a man in this physical condition could have a job on television. “Our athletes should be going to Moscow this summer!”
“Really? What are you doing to get the message to Washington?”
Benji shifted his feet and stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Well, we’re hoping people like you will get the word out on what we’ve achieved here.”
The reporter looked at Benji searchingly, as if he were just now seeing his interviewee. He brought the mike back up to his mouth and turned to the camera. “And what, young man, is next?” he asked, turning back to Benji. “What if there’s silence from the White House on this? I’d say you all need to move fast.” He held the mike up to him. “Summer is coming up quick.” He turned to the camera, raising his eyebrows.
But they had moved so speedily! They’d done all this in a single day. One fucking day, man. Benji pictured his message, written in some secret code on a folded piece of paper, making its way to President Carter at that desk, the desk where anything of import was announced. It could be that easy. He could almost get Carter that slip of paper himself, thought Benji. After all, he had been there; he’d seen the White House close up on a number of occasions, and once he’d even been on a special-access tour for the kids of political officials. Nixon had been president at the time; his father had said it over and over as they’d walked through. That little shit, he’d said, and then he’d smiled as the guid
e had ushered them all right into the Oval Office. This is where it all happens, the guide had said, clicking his tongue and lifting the red velvet rope at the door to the room. Benji had circled the desk with several other kids. Right here, bills become whole laws, and here is where they break; just vanish into thin air, the guide had said, snapping his fingers. It takes a lot to get by our president, the leader of the free world. Benji remembered a feeling of access, his feet planted on the Oriental rug, his hand close enough to swipe a finger across the Pledge residue skimming the mahogany desk. How could he be this near? Benji’s nose was pressed up so close to the window that looked out onto politics, he could see those gears turning and turning. But to what end? he’d wondered, even as an eight-year-old. That’s what it felt like to grow up in Washington.
A blurred memory of the energy crisis came to mind, and how he and Vanessa imitated the way Carter said the phrase—inergy crass-is—for days. He imagined Carter taking the note and opening it slowly, smiling slyly, then looking into the cameras, yelling directly at the television, “The boycott’s off!”
Perhaps the way to ensure the president heard their pleas would be to do something to stop the Washington machine. “Accidentally” torch one of the campus buses, say. Pull a Patty Hearst: I’m Benji, up against the wall, motherfuckers! He imagined pointing a gun, anywhere. Or, on a slightly saner note, perhaps every university and liberal arts college could have a rally of its own. A map of the states came to Benji’s mind, different universities marked instead of by pushpins, by flames.
Benji had smiled at the reporter and said “What’s next?” It was an angry smile that did nothing. “Revolution?” he’d said, shoulders high, palms up. “Yeah, because this government manipulation must stop.” Maybe he should kidnap someone and demand it: stop the manipulation!
But what he had really, truly thought was, when would it be enough to simply believe? It was sad for Benji because he had briefly touched the faith he’d held as a child, those moments on the Mall, Pete Seeger with his banjo, everyone swaying back and forth. Everyone now! Peter Seeger had said. All together. Pete Seeger hadn’t wanted to sing alone, and the whole fucking crowd had sung with him, We shall overcome some day ayayay. Everyone held hands—Benji felt as if the whole goddamn world were holding hands—and his mother was crying. When had she started shedding tears merely for herself? Deep in my heart, I do believe, and now Benji wanted so desperately for that feeling again, for that conviction that was not what Grandpa Herbert found in a synagogue once a week, reaching out to touch their heavy story, stored in scrolls, not the faith Benji had never so much as considered looking out from the bimah the first Saturday in the month he’d turned thirteen, but Sigmund’s faith, faith in people, in every song, every speech, every man, every movement, for all of this to finally ring true, but he was old enough to know that the time for that had already eluded him.
The reporter had laughed and again turned to the cameraman, making the universal sign at his throat for cut it. “Choose your battles, kid.” He looked back at Benji. He was laughing at him. “There’s a hostage crisis on, you know that, right? I mean, sure, maybe you’re bored of that story, but do you really think it’s correct, a bunch of kids just wanting to swim some laps and jump as high as they can for communism?”
Benji stared at him and saw instead soldiers in the rain, trudging through a forest, covered in mud. He saw a president bleeding on his wife’s chest. He saw men in the lotus position bursting into flames. He saw bras burning. The sixties. “Every generation needs something,” Benji said halfheartedly.
“It certainly does,” the reporter, that ass, said.
“But it’s not for communism; this is for freedom.”
“Communism, kid,” the reporter said, shaking his head, lassoing his wires together in his meaty palms, “is no joke.”
After he’d left the interview, Benji could have killed himself for not having stated the obvious: that the Olympics were not about politics at all. They’re supposed to be above politics, about the world coming together, and leaving the political machinations behind them. Benji had not been quick-witted enough—perhaps his mind was not as fast as his body—and after that he refused to speak with the media. Peter, and also Andy and Larry, for better or for worse, talked to some local papers, and they made good, happy spokespeople, though the message was beginning to get muddled by their cries for victory and their personal stories of being jilted by the government. The damage had already been done; Benji could feel it as he handed Peter a cup to fill.
Schaeffer followed the siblings across the room. “I have presents,” he said. “Gifts from above. Come, shepherds.” He beckoned them closer with one finger. “Shepherdess.” He nodded at Vanessa. “Partake in some pure, unadulterated allover love.”
Vanessa crossed her arms; Benji held out his tongue.
“You’re kidding,” she said. She looked around, momentarily forgetting her disgust at such excess, alarmed now at being at a party where she knew no one, on a campus in a town where she knew no one, with her brother, whom she hardly recognized, about to head off into the sunrise of an acid trip. When had he become such a goddamn hippie? She almost preferred him as the asshole jock he’d been in high school. But now she saw in him the strength that had once made her friends want to follow him anywhere. Getting ready to go out on weekend nights at Vanessa’s house, Bee would lean down and kiss her mirror; her bubble-gum-flavored Bonne Bell lips would leave an indelible imprint. That kiss is for Bennie! she’d say, annoying Vanessa by calling her brother by a nickname used only by Dennis. Once Bee had lifted up her halter top and, her nipples erect, shoved her tits against the glass. Vanessa had quickly wiped the two dots of fog away, though their impression, and those kisses, left a smudged swath that distorted Vanessa’s features the next time she looked into it. The girls would all wait at the top of the stairs for Ben to yell up to them that he was leaving, that tonight would be the one he would take them out with him.
“What the hell am I going to do?” Vanessa asked now. She hugged her stomach; she pictured the grease from the mozzarella at dinner burning through her digestive tract. She felt the cheese attaching itself, blowing her up from the inside out.
“Ummmm.” Benji looked at his wrist for a nonexistent watch. “Hmm. I don’t know, chill maybe?” he screamed over Robert Plant. “It’s been a stressful day is all, and I want to have some fun now.”
“Might as well, might as well, might as well . . .,” Schaeffer began to sing.
Benji thought then of sitting on that bus heading north on 15 through Pennsylvania on the way to Buffalo after a night serving whole-wheat veggie pastas to all the ’Heads at the Coliseum show in Maryland. Rachel and Benji cuddled together on one of the ripped vinyl bus seats under a red and black Mexican blanket. One of the women, Sarah, an aeronautics major, her long hair in a thousand braids, wiped pots and placed them in the airtight storage boxes, and these two kids up front—planetary science Anthony, and chemical engineering Gerald—picked up their guitars and started to play. Several joints were passed around, and they began to sing “Dark Star.” Benji and Rachel had tripped on mushrooms for that show, and it had felt good, easy and mild, but still joy overtaking. He’d almost taken the acid and the mushrooms together, the best of so many worlds, merged, but he had already eaten the mushrooms and he absolutely needed to drop the acid first, otherwise, he knew from experience, he could get really sick. Benji had felt perfect with the gentle combination of ’shrooms and beer and a little weed, and now the sky was this incredible midnight blue, stars were pushing their way through, tiny needles punching into the heavy night fabric, the titanic swarm, Anthony had told them before picking up his guitar and singing, we ourselves are starstuff and we are heading into the titanic swarm. They played and sang softly and Benji held Rachel against his chest. He felt his heart beating at her cheek, and he felt the kind of love that was not of the earth but that floated down, blanketing them from the sky above, released from the clouds per
haps, or the bubbles and gas tendrils of exploding stars, in the galactic spiral of dust and stars and gas, somewhere deep within the time and gravity lost and then gained around some dark hole in the universe.
“It’ll be okay,” Benji said to his sister, who looked as if she were about to let out a howl. He missed Rachel. “Don’t worry about it so much. It’ll all be fine.”
Vanessa felt for a brief moment as if she would cry, then she gathered up her features and made them strong again, her heart now obdurate, closed, and she took a plastic cup from the stack by the keg.
“Thata girl,” Schaeffer said, nodding in her direction. “Straight Edge is for pussies.”
Vanessa squinted and drew up her mouth at him as Peter Cox filled her cup.
“The golden potion,” Peter said, holding the tap at the side of the cup.
“Hey, man,” Benji greeted Peter. “That’s my sister’s first drink in, what, Van, how long?”
Vanessa rolled her eyes and crossed one foot over the other. “It’s been a while, Ben. A while. Okay?” She took a sip while looking at him harshly; it was all coming back to her: her inability to refuse a dare, her continual search for obliteration. Sometimes she thought the straight-edge stuff was not really her at all, but more a way to keep herself at bay. Protect herself, even, but it was selfish in this way; it did not consider the betterment of the world, as she claimed. And a lot of the people she saw at shows were having fun. They were drinking beer and they were unplugging the amps and they were dancing wildly and they weren’t taking themselves so seriously. The music was theirs too; everyone needed to have hope, everyone needed a way to let loose. She thought of Sean, rushing so soon after he was done to pull on his pants, his tattoo disappearing beneath his T-shirt just as quickly as it had appeared. She thought of the skin magazines strewn around him as she and Jason crept up the stairs. Sean was as self-righteous as anyone she knew—he wouldn’t even read magazines that had liquor and cigarettes advertised in their pages—and taking another sip, she wondered, did he do his drinking in private, the way he looked at porn, the way he did his fucking?
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