“Superintendent Culp,” I said, drawing myself to my full height (not much). I forgot to say that it’s always apparent that this secretary’s stone-turning gaze had apparently been directed long ago at her own brain.
“Principal Bodin,” she said into the phone, “Superintendent Culp is here to see you.”
Jean Bodin, large as life and twice as fat, opened the door. “Superintendent Culp!” he boomed, like an aging sports hero. Then he saw I was just some kid. “You’re just some kid,” he said.
“Who needs a new biology teacher,” I said.
“I’m busy,” he said, raising his hands in an A-Student!-Usher-Her-Out-Immediately! gesture.
“Maybe you can find a few minutes before the superintendent shows up,” I said, and Bodin sighed and led me in to the inner sanctum. Medusa scowled; she always hates it when Perseus shows up. Check it out, Peter Pusher! A limp-wristed humanist who knows the classics!
Principal Bodin sat in his big chair and put his hands in back of his head like he was about to do sit-ups, though given his size he’s probably never done any of those in his life. As a footnote, he must have gone on some radical diet a few months ago–in the press conferences at which he spoke extensively about new measures the San Francisco Unified School District had taken “virtually to ensure that teen-to-teen murder would be kept at an all-time minimum,” he looked positively slender. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Nothing seems to be the problem,” I said, “There is a problem. The problem is that Mr. Carr and I are mutually incompatible. I need a new biology teacher. Give me Mrs. Kayak (even though she sleeps behind dark glasses during class at least once a week). Give me Mr. Hunter (even though he displays at best a passing knowledge of biology). Give me anybody. I can’t stay in there any longer.” I bit my lip, hoping it was trembling. I figured the Teary Approach was a good opening strategy. I could always go for the Unstable Approach if things got too rough. It was too bad it wasn’t gym; all I’d have to do was look at my lap and begin a sentence and the Man In Charge would let me do anything I wanted.
“I can’t help you,” Bodin said. All three chins moved as he spoke. “As you know, all of our classes are filled to capacity. If I let you move”–he gestured in my direction, presumably to remind me who I was–“I’d have to let everybody move, and then where would we be? Everybody would be coming in every few minutes, claiming that they were mutually incompatible. Everybody would catch it. The school would be a mess.”
“This isn’t a virus,” I said, apparently deciding to go for the Angry Approach instead.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s not a virus. And you know what? I don’t think it’s a problem, either. You know what it is?” He grinned beatifically, a Caucasian Buddha. “It’s a challenge. Your biology class is tough? Good. It should be tough. You’re here at Roewer to be pushed to the limit academically, athletically and whatever-the-other-one-is.”
“Sexually,” I offered.
“Yes. No. Socially.”
“It’s the same thing.”
Bodin looked at me like he just realized I hadn’t brought him a birthday present like I said I would. “Well,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s a challenge, for you to work out.”
“Please,” I said quietly, trying to backpedal to Teary again.
“Medusa!” Bodin called. “Show this young lady out, please.”
The titan still babbling behind him, Perseus stormed out of the cave without waiting to be shown out, casually swinging his sword and decapitating the Gorgon at the front desk, but as I walked farther and farther down the hallway I felt like less and less of a hero. After all, tomorrow I have to go in and see Carr again, and Bodin’s secretary will probably grow another head like that other creature back in Greece.
Tuesday September 21st
“MARTIN, MALCOLM AND MARK,” the banner read, stretched loosely across the top of the auditorium stage so the letters rippled and lurched, and to this annoying abundance of alliteration they forgot to add MORTIFICATION, so I kindly supplied plenty of that. Instead of blundering into Bodin’s office yesterday, I should have hung out in the Visual Arts Center, because once I realized what they were drawing I could have stomped all over it, ripped up the butcher paper. Ripped up all the butcher paper. For after I participated in an off-key, half-learned version of what most definitely was not Mark Wallace’s favorite song, conducted by Johnny Hand, the art classes presented a fidgety assembly with a triptych of hurriedly painted portraits, each about the size of–well, about the size of an enormous head painted on butcher paper.
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Mark Wallace. Two great civil rights figures and Mark “Nice Tits” Wallace. Principal Bodin spoke, reprising word-for-word large sections of yesterday’s intercom elegy for virtually the same audience, while local TV cameras took note. Later they used a shot of Bodin’s speech during the umpteenth Basic Eight scoop–“death is no stranger to Roewer High School”–with Bodin and his chins clutching the podium against a background of the lower half of Mark’s face.
Principal Bodin was finishing up by telling us to go to our classes, but never to forget Mark Wallace, when a bunch of Mark’s friends stood up with their fists raised. One of them, speaking as “a representative of Mark Wallace, his friends and The People,” which I thought was an interesting distinction, demanded that school be canceled for the day, raising his voice even louder as the television cameras swiveled to find him. He reminded Bodin that if a white student had died the school would definitely be closed. This turned out not to be true, but Bodin didn’t argue the point. He agreed immediately, licking his lips and standing directly beneath the half-opened mouth of the middle head like Mr. X was about to eat him. Everyone cheered–which gave the whole proceedings an even more eerie feel–and we all left. I didn’t have to catch anyone’s eye to know that we’d all meet at the Mocha Monkey, and sure enough within twenty minutes Natasha, Gabriel, V___, Kate, Douglas and I were all sipping lattes and draping our coats on simian faces. V__, always having the upper hand in matters of pocket money, had bought a big plate of some luscious-looking biscotti, and I would like to proudly say that I only ate half of one. Natasha–you know, thin, beautiful Natasha–took three.
“What this gang needs,” Natasha said, eating the third, “is another dinner party. Are we charming sophisticates or aren’t we?”
“Oh,” Kate said, clasping her hands together. “We are, we are!”
“Yes,” V__ said, “with just the Basic Eight. No outsiders, particularly those who quote from any nationally syndicated collection of record setters.”
“Friday night?” Douglas said. “I know Lily can make it then.”
“Where is Lily?” Kate asked.
“She had to go home and practice,” Douglas said, miming a cellist.
“She has to practice being home?” V__ asked.
Douglas tried to look offended but gave up and laughed. It’s good to see him without Lily chaperoning.
“Friday it is.” Kate said. “Where should we have it?”
“My parents are–”
“Let me guess,” I said, and everybody chimed in. “Entertaining.” The last of my steamed milk went down wrong.
“My, we are punchy today,” Natasha said. “My house is out too.”
“And mine,” I said.
“You just said that,” Douglas said. “Kate?”
“OK,” she said. “But can we watch a movie afterward? I’ve been craving noir.”
“Well, OK,” Natasha said airily. “I guess I could sit through an old movie. Maybe–just maybe, mind you–one with Marlene Dietrich in it.”
“OK, it’s all set,” Gabriel said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll cook. Something with peanuts, maybe.” He leaned against V__ and gave her a kiss on the head. “Let’s get away from all these monkeys. Flan, do you need a ride?”
“No, Natasha will take me,” I said.
“That’s nice of her,” Natasha said
dryly. “Let’s go.”
I heard a few bars of Darling Mud when Natasha turned on the motor, but she immediately ejected the tape. “I’m so sick of them,” she said, and put in something with echoey guitars and a man singing earnestly about the pain in his heart. Very unlike her. “You know what?” she said, swigging from the flask and scowling impatiently at the car in front of us. “Gabriel, Flan. Gabriel. He is so fucking chivalrous. Go go go! The speed limit is just a rough guideline,” she snarled. “He is so fuck-ing chiv-al-rous.” Each syllable was punctuated by a blast of the horn. “Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“It just hit me,” she said, merging. “Asking you if you wanted a ride home. Listening to your love woes by the lake. Taking you home after the dance when you were such a mess, you know what I’m saying?”
“No,” I said, and she looked at me, turned up the music and clamped her mouth shut all the way home. She opened the car door and looked at me like an overbearing mother, watching me disobey her. “No,” she said, “you wouldn’t.” I got out, shut the door and looked at her.
“Come in and have some coffee,” I said, but she was already halfway down the block. What the hell was that?
Wednesday September 22
God, I’m bored. Bored of high school, bored of my friends, bored of editing this goddamn journal. Nothing happened today, how’s that for the prime period of my life? Nothing. I cut choir and hung out with Hattie Lewis, there, that’s something. She was correcting papers, though, so she barely said a word. She got some red ink on her nose, is that what you want to read? Carr passed out fruit flies, what more do you want? We’re going to breed them and see the colors of the eyes of the next generation, how’s that for riveting prose? Do you approve of that sort of education, schoolchildren watching bugs have sex, Peter Pusher? How’s that for some psychological insight into a symbol for Youth Gone Amok, Dr. Tert? After school we played a game where we improvised scenes with Ron Piper–you remember him, folks, you witch-hunted him all November–changing the tone instantly by calling out a genre. “Gothic!” he called out and we were gothic; “Western!” he called out, and we were all western. What do you want, reader? How shall the rewrites go? You’re paying taxes for my room and board, so I’ll do anything you want. Isn’t that what you wanted? Wake up, America!
Thursday September 23rd
Today’s the day. This is the day that Flannery Culp commits the crime. I can almost feel the itch on your noggin as you scratch your head, reader. You didn’t think it was this early, did you? You thought it was around Halloween. How confusing. Could it be that our narrator is unreliable? No such chance. Mind like a steel trap, I have. Lucky for me, because there’s a Calculus test tomorrow, covering “what we’ve been doing,” Baker said, glaring at me like I was an idiot when I asked. “What do you mean we?” I wanted to say, but there’s no reason to fish for an F where you’re pretty much guaranteed one by your own skills. Oh boy.
In other Glaring News, Adam has been glaring at me all period as I sit and write this. He should be glaring at the tenors, who can’t get their parts right for the life of them. But as he drills them he keeps glaring at me. It makes my stomach do that snapped-elevator-cable thing. Everybody hates me. Maybe I’ll get up the guts to talk to him next period; we haven’t had a real conversation since we went and got wine, aside from me confessing my love during my alto audition. I lead a ridiculous life.
LATER
So after choir I waited for everyone to leave, until it was just Adam, sifting through sheet music on top of the piano, and me, and two hundred thousand folding chairs. He pretended not to notice me for a full minute, I could count on the official school clock clucking above us like some Authoritarian Hen. Where’s Natasha when I need her? She’d know what to do. All I could think of was clearing my throat.
Adam looked up, sourly. “Hi,” he said like he’d rather be sorting sheet music than even looking at me. “What’s up?”
“No fair,” I sighed, not looking at him. “That was my question.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. He had a little pile of sheet music he was straightening, clunking it on the piano top like knuckles. It punctuated the buzzing in my head.
“I mean what’s up?” I said, meeting his blank eyes. “You’ve been glaring at me all rehearsal.”
“I’m just tired,” he said, lying. “I meant to be glaring at the tenors.”
“Oh,” I said. The clock clucked. “You know, if something’s bothering you, you can tell me.”
“Well,” he said. “I am sort of annoyed that you keep cutting choir.”
“What? When?”
“Yesterday, for example.”
“Well, that.”
“You’ve cut a number of times.”
“Well, it’s nothing personal,” I said. “I didn’t realize it bothered you. I mean, you know how it is. Sometimes you have stuff to do.”
“Forget it,” he said, and grabbed his backpack. “I have to go.”
“What’s wrong?” I said, and heard with horror that I sounded like a whining girlfriend. “You glare at me today, you barely spoke to me Saturday night.”
Adam put a hand on my furious shoulder. “I just need some room,” he said, taking his hand away and running it through his (gorgeous!) hair. “I just need”–gesturing nowhere–“a little room.” He left and I was alone with the folding chairs. I looked around the cavernous rehearsal hall and felt yet another stupid pun leap out of my throat like acid. “You don’t need a little room!” I shouted at the gaping door. “You already have an enormous room! Look at this place!”
I stalked out the door and almost ran into him. Somehow I assumed he’d be long gone. He was watching me with typical boy detachment, like I was some toddler tantruming and that any moment he’d pick me up by my feet and take me to bed.
No chance of that, I suppose.
“What?” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Pop! All the air left me. “Oh,” I said. He didn’t look very sorry, but what can you say when someone says they’re sorry, particularly if they don’t really have much to be sorry for. So I love him. So he doesn’t know if he loves me yet. What can anyone do?
“Come on, let’s talk,” he said, gesturing toward a side door. A talk outside the side entrance was something; people either made out or broke up out there.
Both of us were sighing in unison when Adam opened the door and we stepped out into the little dismal postdoor area. Another PTA sign, half-ripped, was taped to a wall; apparently we were supposed to be pushed to the limit academically, athletically and so. A brimming trash can, cigarette butts and a small bench with Carr’s teaching assistant sobbing on it. Oh.
Adam and I looked at each other and I felt our own small troubles wilt. Adam cleared his throat but she didn’t hear, or didn’t look up. “I’m going to–” I said to him, stepping toward her, and he nodded, turned around and went back into the building. When the door slammed shut she looked up, saw me and started crying harder. For some reason I froze for a few seconds and the world froze with me–I could even hear birds chirping like they do in suspenseful outdoor scenes in movies. Poised between comforting her and running back to find Adam, I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there, and then I heard in my head the Voice of Calculus, Mr. Michael Baker. He was reciting his rule, Baker’s Rule: do something. I guess somewhere in my head I was actually studying for the Calc test. Do something. So I did.
The door stuck for a second, so I had to pull it extra hard, and it made a wheezing noise that let me know I was supposed to be pushing. So I pushed in, and stalked down the hallway, around a corner, almost ran into Adam. Without thinking I just shot out my hand and pushed him aside; I heard him hit the lockers, hard. I kept walking. When I reached my biology classroom I peeked inside to see if Carr or some studying geeks were around; nobody was. That would probably mean the door was locked and that I’d have to pull it off its hi
nges.
No such luck. The door opened immediately, and the cabinet was unlocked, too. Using my whole arm I picked up all the test tubes like I was gathering daisies. Some of them dropped to the floor and shattered, but the other ones I did methodically: I put them on the desk, and one by one I uncorked each one and set all the fruit flies free. Fly out the window, I thought. Sleep with anyone you want, red eyes, blue eyes; sleep with yaks if you so desire, fucking Drosophila! I walked back out of the room and stepped into the hallway just as the bell rang. People washed over me, a tide of binders and fruit-flavored gum and snatches of gossip. I sat through Applied Civics like a zombie, and walked slowly to Advanced Biology like a conquering general on his way to see the city burning. I have to work on my grandiose walk; I was late.
“You guys have a free period,” Carr was saying as I opened the door. “We were supposed to start work with the fruit flies today, but my teaching assistant let all the fruit flies escape. She’s been fired. There’ll probably be a new assistant next week.”
Friday September 24th
What sort of loser cuts Calc to sit in the library? I’m sitting in the part where ivied-campus posters loom over you like those annoying suspicious teachers who prowl the aisles of the classroom during tests until you can’t keep your eyes on your own paper, only on the annoying suspicious teachers telling you to keep your eyes on your own paper. The posters remind me why I’m here: I’m here at Roewer to get As, so I can go to college and read books in artfully lit libraries and peer into test tubes in well-equipped labs and read a little Thoreau on beautiful lawns and play Frisbee with people of different races. I need to forget about squinting at expensive black leather journals in awfully lit libraries and peering into test tubes of fruit flies (luckily, I can forget about that; the next shipment won’t arrive for a few weeks) and reading a little Dickinson in potato chip-littered courtyards and playing mind games with people who are for the most part of my race. I must concentrate on the future, on where I will be. I need to try to forget about Carr. I can’t touch him. He’s indestructible. I just need to hang on, and take plenty of notes and make it through this. I want to go to college; I don’t want to end up some loser, living alone under a bridge or something.
The Basic Eight Page 10
