Rich Boy

by Sharon Pomerantz

  “It’s Janis,” the kid said, putting the guitar down on the floor. “Janis Joplin. Big Brother and the Holding Company. Outta San Fran. Something else, ain’t they?” The boy had a high-pitched, scratchy voice, like a scary elf in a children’s story.

  Tracey held the album up to him. “She’s white. You ever heard anything sound less white in your life?”

  Robert wondered what Tracey knew about any of it. He’d come to college loaded down with the Dave Clark Five. The song was ending. Was she singing “don’t own me” or “down on me”? It didn’t much matter. Her voice was like nothing he’d ever heard. Pleading and angry and victorious all at the same time. “Can you play that song again?” Robert asked.

  Tracey reached over and put the needle at the start of the album. Then he ruffled the boy’s hair, looking over at Robert and smiling. Having finished the first joint, the kid took another out of his pocket and lit it. He and Tracey passed it back and forth, then the kid came over and handed the roach to Robert. He sat on Robert’s bed while Robert finished it off, then the boy stretched out, getting comfortable. His sharp knee momentarily grazed Robert’s thigh.

  “Go over there,” Robert said. The boy gave him the creeps. His fingernails were dirty and his eyes wild, but it was his voice that Robert couldn’t stomach, as if his words were poised in the air, always trying to decide whether or not to break.

  “He’s not much fun,” the boy said, standing up.

  “Don’t you have parents to go home to?” Robert asked. “It’s almost one in the morning and I have an economics exam tomorrow.”

  “Vishniak, some manners,” Tracey said, but he complied, getting up to walk his guest out. Robert walked behind them, continuing on to the bathroom. When he came back a few minutes later, ready for bed, Tracey was still gone.

  Two more weeks went by and Robert did not see Tracey. He assumed he was spending time with his friends—certainly he came in very late and left early, or perhaps he didn’t come in at all. Robert now freely borrowed Tracey’s typewriter and played his records. Tracey was not there to give him permission but had always been so generous. Robert felt self-conscious each time he used what was not his, even as he could not resist.

  This was the year that the students began to protest parietals. Robert went to meetings to talk about how to end the separation of the sexes, and found that the mood made everyone amorous. He picked up girls as easily as he had in Oxford Circle; they were willing to sneak into his room, coming up the fire escape or crawling in a lower window. People cooperated; there was a spirit of civil disobedience in the air, and he was suddenly grateful that he had no roommate to speak of. On one such afternoon, he’d snuck a redheaded, voluptuous girl named Jill Jamison into his room. The two of them were making out on his bed. She’d already told him she was on the pill, God’s newest gift to mankind, and he’d just gotten her bra off when they heard a loud knock at the door. He told her to ignore it, his hands on her breasts, but then the knocking got louder, more aggressive.

  “Vishniak!! Open this damn door!!” There were several voices. Then more pounding.

  “Don’t move!” he commanded the half-naked girl, who lay on top of him, her hips pressing so deliciously into his. But then the pounding started up again and would not stop. “Go answer it,” she said, rolling off him. Robert obeyed, mumbling that it had better be important.

  “Doesn’t anyone on your floor answer the phone?” Cates asked. Van Dorn stood behind him. “We’ve been calling for days. We’re looking for Tracey.”

  “He’s not here,” Robert said as Jill, now dressed, gathered her coat around her.

  “You can stay,” he said again, but she was already at the door, shaking her head. The two boys stood aside to let her go, Cates looking satisfied and Van Dorn watching her hungrily as she disappeared down the steps.

  “I see how you’ve been using the damn room,” Cates said, as Van Dorn pushed his way through, mumbling that it was hot as hell in here.

  “Our heat is either blasting or nonexistent,” Robert mumbled, trying not to think of his lost opportunity. “I told you, he’s not here.”

  Van Dorn sat down at Tracey’s desk and put his face in his hands. No one knew where Tracey was. The dean wanted to see him. He was on the verge of flunking out and his parents were calling Van Dorn and Cates and Pascal.

  “If Tracey wants to disappear, you can’t do anything to stop him,” Robert said. He was sure Tracey had been back a few times. “I haven’t been here when he came in,” he said, “but it was clear that he took clothes and his mail.”

  “Then why wouldn’t he contact us?” Cates asked.

  “I don’t know,” Robert said. “Maybe he’s off with a girl, maybe he’s getting high in a hotel room, maybe he’s found some new friends he likes better.”

  “Fuck you,” Cates said, but he sounded half afraid that Robert was right.

  “Where’s Mark Pascal, the voice of reason?” Robert asked.

  “Off writing about panty raids for the Crimson,” Cates said, kicking at a warped floorboard with his foot. Van Dorn cursed Pascal as no help at all. “Call if he comes back,” Cates added, and wrote down his number. He had once wasted energy disliking Cates, hating him even, but as he watched Cates and Van Dorn leave, they seemed to Robert stuck in time, lost without their leader, and suddenly very young.

  Tracey did finally turn up a few days later. Robert had handed in a series of physics problems that all but killed him. He’d felt the relief of, at least, finishing the test, no matter what the result. To celebrate, he and Zinnelli went out after work. They had a few drinks in a local bar, then came back to Robert’s room and smoked a joint that Zinnelli had bought off one of the full-time kitchen staff. The heat went out again, and they sat with their coats on. By the time Zinnelli left, and despite the bracing temperature, Robert’s body was heavy with exhaustion.

  After a quick trip down the hall to brush his teeth, he piled Tracey’s quilt on top of his own and got in bed. His eyes were heavy and he huddled under the warmth. Suddenly he was with Margie Cohen. She had her clothes on but was lying on top of him, kissing him, unbuttoning his pants. He was aroused but also frustrated because she wouldn’t let him touch her. “You’ve betrayed me,” she whispered in his ear. “And I’m calling the draft board.”

  A loud whistle pierced his consciousness. He awoke into blackness, his heart pounding. A shadow danced on a distant wall, cast by the light below their window, lit to bring last-minute stragglers safely back to their rooms. Then the radiator sounded again, and the pipes shrieked and knocked. He was awake in his dorm room. The heating had come on. Warm now, he pulled off the top blanket and rolled over onto his side.

  “Leave the covers on,” a familiar voice said softly.

  An arm was around him in the darkness, a body pressed against his. “Don’t move, Vishniak,” the voice pleaded. It was Tracey. He reached down and began to stroke Robert’s thigh. “I’ll give you anything,” he said. “Anything I own. But don’t pull away.”

  Could he be dreaming? I’m awake for Christ’s sake and Tracey’s hand is on my thigh.

  Tracey’s touch was light, tentative. He smelled of alcohol. “Just pretend, Robert, pretend I’m a girl.” Tracey moved against him, moaning softly, his erection pressing against Robert’s lower back. His hand moved along the waistband of Robert’s boxers. “Anything you want,” he repeated, and Robert wondered, What would I be willing to do for that MG?

  “I’m sorry,” Robert said, finally grasping Tracey’s wrist. “I don’t think much would happen, even if I could bring myself —” He sat up, pushed the covers back.

  Tracey turned to the wall.

  “I’m sorry,” Robert repeated, getting out of bed and turning on the desk lamp.

  “Turn it off,” Tracey snapped. He had grasped his knees up to his chest like a child. “Turn it off! I don’t want to look at you right now. I’ve had to look at you for two and a half years. Two and a half goddamned years!”
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br />   Robert turned off the light and walked to the other side of the room, got the bottle from Tracey’s desk, and came back with it. Unfortunately there wasn’t much left. Why had the idea never occurred to him? He had been so sure that Tracey was scrutinizing him, correcting him, pitying him even. He approached the bed where Tracey, still curled up and facing the wall, had begun to cry softly.

  “There’s bourbon for you on the desk,” Robert said. “Maybe it’ll help.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  The room was now very warm, the air rank with the remnants of pot smoke, alcohol, dirty laundry. Robert went over to the windows and began to yank each one open in turn. What was he to say? He hadn’t known what was in front of him all along—and yet, how could he have seen it? He hadn’t known to look.

  Tracey finally rolled over and reached for the bottle. “Promise you won’t tell anyone,” he whispered.

  “I promise,” Robert said, turning around as a thought occurred to him. “The others, do they know?” Of course, they must have known.

  “Pascal has no idea. The other two, they’re not like me,” Tracey said. “It was different for them.”

  Robert didn’t say anything, waited for Tracey to continue.

  “Cates would have to be very drunk; Van Dorn just wanted someone to like him. They outgrew it long ago. It is possible to outgrow it? Right?”

  “I don’t know,” Robert said. “Where were you all these weeks?”

  “Hotel. That dirty little boy took fifty dollars out of my wallet. Threatened to tell my father. Like my father would take a call from him. Like he hasn’t known longer than I have —”

  Robert walked over to his desk, took a swig of bourbon from the bottle, and turned on the desk lamp. Tracey was now sitting in his bed with the covers pulled up to his neck, despite the heat, as if he were trying to cocoon himself. His hair was disheveled and his face looked ghoulishly pale under the harsh light. Robert tilted his head back and let the last of the liquid burn his throat. Then he put the empty bottle down, turned out the light, and went over to Tracey’s bed to lie down.

  “You won’t tell anyone about this—about any of it?” Tracey asked again.

  “No,” Robert repeated. “I promise.”

  “All right then,” Tracey mumbled, “I believe you.” Within a few minutes, he was snoring, but it took Robert some time to fall asleep. He lay on Tracey’s mattress, staring into the darkness. For the last two and a half years, Robert had been convinced that something was wrong with his behavior, his speech, his eating, and his manners. What he’d seen as Tracey’s scrutiny and hesitation was really a kind of love in disguise. And now, finally, he could be himself. Only he’d changed into that other person so thoroughly—gotten rid of the long Philadelphia vowels, held his fork and knife differently, dressed differently, walked differently—that he couldn’t have summoned up his old self, the boy he’d been when he arrived with the duffel, even if he tried.

  The next day they acted as if nothing had happened. Tracey did as he always did at the end of term—raced to make up for all that he had neglected, exhausted himself with cramming. There was no talk of whether they’d live together the coming year. No talk really, of anything much after that. Tracey made a show of giving up drinking entirely, though he seemed always to be leaning out the window, blowing pot smoke into the courtyard. And when Tracey was in the room, Robert no longer wandered down the hall from the shower in only his towel. Instead, he bought himself a bathrobe, like a man from an earlier era.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The natives are restless

  Few that day had actually shown up for the cause. They were for the cause, of course—few their age wanted the war—but most were not organizers or screamers, were not angry enough, or idealistic enough, or maybe just didn’t like public speaking. Robert, for instance, was sleeping with one of the organizers, and she’d begged him to come and bring friends. He was planning to dump her and he figured he could, at least, do her this one last favor. And Tracey came because Robert invited him, and because it was an exceptionally warm day for early April; he liked the idea of sitting outside on the banks of the Charles, listening to music—plus his sailing plans had fallen through. And if Tracey went, then Cates and Pascal and Van Dorn were not far behind, not just because they followed him everywhere, but because these days Tracey always had a stash on him. Goldfarb knew a guy in one of the bands that was playing, and Zinnelli agreed to make his appearance because Robert was always making it with some gorgeous girl, and gorgeous girls tended to have gorgeous friends; these events, everyone so high-strung and emotional, were a great place to pick up chicks.

  They all stood together—Robert, Zinnelli, Goldfarb, Tracey, Cates, Van Dorn, Pascal. They looked more alike now than different with their long hair, torn jeans, and sloganeering T-shirts—the slogans mostly proclaiming, in endless variation, the importance of individuality. Flyers for the event promised an appearance by someone famous—Peter, Paul and Mary were rumored to be making a surprise visit. Someone else swore they’d heard it was Country Joe and the Fish. But the only musicians who played that afternoon were student musicians, and not very good ones. The sound system malfunctioned, and most of the student speakers, those who could be heard at all, lost their voices from screaming. Meanwhile, the Harvard rowing team glided along the Charles, impervious to the small crowd on the opposite bank. Shoulders squared, oars hitting the water in a tight synchronicity that obliterated individual need, they looked to Robert as if nothing could touch them.

  By midafternoon the protest resembled nothing so much as a group of picnickers sitting on blankets or cardboard signs, eating sandwiches and rolling joints. Robert had fallen, that semester, under the spell of speed. Marijuana had begun to irritate his breathing, and quaaludes made him sleepy at a time when he was far too sleepy already. He felt that he had to be on his toes in class, could not afford to be hypnotized by the blowing of a curtain, or the lines etched in a desk. He liked the energy of speed, and found that he could go for a day without eating if he needed, could write papers with remarkable clarity, had an ascetic’s lack of desire for anything but movement; his thoughts raced, all self-consciousness gone.

  But that afternoon, his heart pounded and his hands shook. “Got anything to calm me down?” he asked Tracey, who was now as generous with his drugs as he’d been with his other possessions.

  “Here,” he said, handing Robert a ’lude. Then Tracey stood up and looked into the crowd. “Hello, Boston!” he shouted. “Here’s my contribution to social equality!!” He reached into his backpack and threw handfuls of pills into the bored, stoned crowd. A sea of hands rose everywhere, people scrambled over each other, pushing and shoving. Tracey, having caused the chaos, sat down and watched. “Look at that, man, like mice with the cheese,” he said. “Well, at least they’re moving around.”

  A girl two rows in front of them, searching for the source of the beneficence, turned to smile at them, popping several pills in her mouth at once, washing them down with a green liquid in a bottle next to her. Then she stood up, squinting into the sun.

  “Look at that,” Cates said.

  “She’s an angel,” added Pascal.

  “Fuck me,” mumbled Zinnelli.

  She was, Robert would think then and for the rest of his life, the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. For a moment, he wondered if he could be hallucinating. Come this way, he thought. Look at me. He made a wish and reached out his hand, wishing that if his looks had ever worked for him before, dear God, let them work now. She saw the yearning in his expression, the furrowing of his brow, as if by force of will he could move her toward him, and then she noticed his lips moving, as if in prayer. She stumbled over legs and heads and butts, then half-sat, half-fell, right in his lap.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, and scooted over to a space between Robert and Tracey. Robert was unable to speak, still feeling the moment when she’d fallen on him, the softness of her hair as it skimmed his face, th
e smell of her lavender shampoo. Tracey mumbled something under his breath. The girl turned to him. “Thanks ever so much,” she said. “So generous of you.”

  She had a British accent, and her skin was creamy smooth, her cheeks flushed. She took a half-eaten bag of potato chips out of her backpack and offered him one. He stared into her honey-colored eyes, still unable to say a word. When he didn’t respond, she took out a chip and ate it, licking the grease from her fingers. Finally, he leaned over and took one himself, glancing down her peasant blouse at the hollow of her cleavage. No bra. What felt like hours went by, and still he just looked at her.

  “This is just awful,” she said.

  “What is?” he asked, hands in his lap, afraid to touch her because he wanted to so badly.

  “All of this. The terrible music, a gathering with no real purpose. Hardly any mention of the war. Just an excuse to get high and make new friends. People are dying in Vietnam, but in Boston, it’s all a big party.”

  “There are worse things,” Robert said. She was not looking into his face the way women usually did, but seemed to be staring over his shoulder, at the rowers.

  “Yes, what do you care that they’re sending so many black boys off to die? You’ve all got your student deferments, and when that’s finished you’ll find something else. It’s worse because you all think you’re so noble.”

  “I don’t think I’m in the least bit noble,” Robert replied. He had spent the last three years studying people for clues to their origins. Despite the changing times, he had never given up the habit—even high, filled with lust—it was like swallowing. He knew, from her accent, from the casual way she wore her shabbiness, from the light, clean smell that clung to the edges of her, that she was one of them. A wealthy girl masquerading. But there was also something fragile about her. Her wrists were so narrow, he could have snapped them like twigs. He took her hand, turned it over in his lap and looked at the blue-green veins running under her pale skin. He wanted to protect her, though from what he had no idea. “What is your father, a duke or something?” he whispered, and his words came out sarcastic, annoyed, though that wasn’t his intention.