Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp

by C. D. Payne

  7:45 P.M. Dad just got spiffed up and left the house. He has a date. With a woman!

  Right after he left, Paul telephoned sounding uncharacteristically non-mellow. He reported that Lacey came out of work today to find that someone had jimmied a window on her Toyota and filled her austere vinyl interior with three cubic yards of rapidly solidifying concrete. She has given a description of Dad to the Ukiah police!

  I can’t help but wonder if there’s some symbolism in this particular act of vandalism. Why concrete? Freudians ask. And what does he really wish to seal up?

  10:30 P.M. Sheeni just called in a mild panic.

  “Nickie, my parents are totally ecstatic. They say you’ve won a scholarship to study in India!”

  “That’s right, darling. You see, you’re not the only one interested in exotic foreign cultures.”

  “But, Nickie, you can’t go!”

  “Why not, darling? I have my passport and everything. I’ve been granted 10,000 captive rupees as my first year’s stipend. It’s the first time I’ve ever had 10,000 of anything—let alone captive rupees.”

  “But, Nickie, if you leave Ukiah my parents will… I mean, I’ll miss you terribly.”

  “As usual, Sheeni, the solution is in your hands.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Leave that school, darling, and I’ll repudiate my scholarship—even if it creates an international incident.”

  “Why don’t you turn down your scholarship, Nickie, and I’ll think seriously about coming back?”

  “Sorry, Sheeni. I need more of a commitment than that. We’re at a crossroads, darling. These are momentous, life-altering decisions we’re facing. Who knows what wonderful prospects await me in India?”

  “When are you leaving?” she asked sullenly.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied. “Possibly after Thanksgiving dinner at your parents’ house.”

  “Don’t be silly, Nickie. I couldn’t possibly invite you.”

  “That’s OK, darling. I’m already invited—courtesy of your hospitable brother.”

  “Nick! My brother is an idiot. You are not coming to Thanksgiving dinner!”

  “Sorry, Sheeni. I can’t refuse now after already accepting. That would be ungracious. Besides, I’ve promised to bring flowers for your mother.”

  “Nick, my father has a loaded pistol in the top drawer of his bedroom bureau. He may be capable of extreme violence. I fear he is losing whatever slight grip he had on his reason. He appears to be obsessed with paranoid fantasies involving smuggled birth control aids. He just spent another 45 minutes interrogating me on the subject. Now he claims to have seen some sort of written confession by Trent.”

  “What did you tell him?” I asked, thrilled.

  “I refused to discuss it. I told him to take two aspirin and lie down.”

  “Good for you, Sheeni. That’s the only tack to take with obstreperous parents.”

  “Nickie, darling,” said Sheeni, shifting her magnificent charm into overdrive, “you won’t go to India or come to dinner, will you?”

  “No, darling,” I cooed. “I promise I won’t be any more intransigent than you.”

  “Oh, Nick! You are impossible!” Click.

  I wonder if Mr. Saunders really has a loaded gun. I must keep my guard up. If he excuses himself to go to his bedroom, I shall exit immediately.

  THURSDAY, November 15 — 3:30 A.M. I was just awakened by a rude knocking on my trailer door.

  “Who is it?” I demanded.

  “Me, Nick,” answered D——e.

  “Suck the gas pipe!” I replied, rolling over.

  “It’s your pop!” he called. “He wants you on the phone.”

  “Oh, all right!”

  Expecting the worst, I followed the near-nude emissary back into the house. As usual, Dad did not disappoint.

  “Nick,” he said, “this is your father.”

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “There’s been a slight misunderstanding. I’m down here at the police station. I want you to call up your mother and have her arrange for my bail.”

  “What did you do, Dad?”

  “Never mind that now.”

  “How was your date?” I asked.

  “Nick, just call your mother. Tell her I’ll pay her back right away.”

  “OK, Dad. She gets up about seven. I’ll call her then.”

  “Call her now, dammit! I don’t want to spend another minute in this stinking hole.”

  “Oh, all right, Dad,” I replied. “Keep your shirt on.”

  I dialed Mom’s number and my worst nightmare came true. Lance answered.

  “Hi, Lance,” I said, pleasantly businesslike. “This is Nick, your putative stepson. Is Mom there?”

  “This better be fucking important, dipshit!” the cop growled.

  “Nickie, is that you?” asked Mom, sounding groggily alarmed. “What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”

  “Not me, Mom. It’s your first husband. He’s in jail in Ukiah and wants you to bail him out.”

  “He does what!”

  “He wants you to spring him from the slammer,” I said, adopting the appropriate B-movie patois.

  “What was the louse arrested for?”

  “I’m not sure, but the charge may be malicious mischief. He’s allegedly filled his old girlfriend’s car with cement.”

  “Nick, you tell that no-good philandering father of yours that as far as I’m concerned he can rot in jail. I wouldn’t spend ten cents bailing him out!”

  “That’s how I thought you’d feel, Mom,” I replied.

  “And, Nickie, if your father is in serious trouble, you get on the bus to Oakland. I mean it.”

  “I will, Mom,” I lied.

  Hanging up the phone, I looked around the kitchen for potential bail donors. I found only three bleary-eyed prospects, none from the affluent classes. One I rejected out of hand on moral grounds. That left two.

  “Uh, Mr. Ferguson…” I began tactfully.

  “Nothing doing, Nick,” he stated firmly. “You tell that rotten scab to call the American Nazi Party.”

  “Mrs. Crampton?” I said hopefully.

  “Sorry… Nick,” she replied. “I ain’t got…but six dollars…to my name…Your dad…owes me… three weeks’ back…pay!”

  In the end, I had to throw myself on the bristling mercies of my sister Joanie. She bows to no one in her dislike of Dad, but finally agreed to wire a short-term, high-interest loan to save her only brother from Life with Lance.

  I fear another financial crisis looms. What will happen to us if Dad gets fired from his scab job? How will I pay my monstrous phone bill?

  4:15 P.M. More bad news. Fuzzy took me aside in gym class to relate a shocking story. His mother, purportedly off ministering to a sick friend, arrived home in the middle of the night in a Ukiah police car. She had been detained on charges of public inebriation and disorderly conduct, after having been discovered at the Burl Pit tavern in the company of my father.

  “Your mother was out with my dad?” I asked, flabbergasted.

  “That’s what I understood from all the screaming,” whispered Fuzzy, earnestly pretending to be performing vigorous sit-ups.

  “How in God’s pajamas did they meet?” I asked.

  “I heard Dad accusing her of hanging around your dad’s truck,” replied Fuzzy.

  “Your dad was pissed, huh?”

  “Totally ballistic.”

  “Wow, Frank, this is incredible!”

  “Yeah, Nick. I guess this almost makes us brothers.”

  “Yeah, well, at least your side of the family has money,” I said bitterly. “Now Dad’s sure to be fired!”

  7:30 P.M. Or perhaps not. Dad came home from work whistling like he’d just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Truck Driving. I immediately dialed Fuzzy for an update.

  “Uncle Polly,” he explained. “He’s still pissed at Dad for trying to hijack Grandmama’s car. So he went to bat for your dad. He told my dad y
our father was their best new driver. He also said your dad’s cement-seat-covers stunt took a lot of balls. But they’re docking his pay for the missing concrete.”

  “So they’re not firing him?”

  “Firing him? Uncle Polly gave him a raise and a promotion. Dad’s still pissed, though.”

  “How about your mother?”

  “She laid down the law at dinner. She said if Dad can diddle the entire dispatching department, she’s at least entitled to date one truck driver.”

  “You mean they might see each other again?” I asked.

  “Could be, Nick. Who knows? But your dad better watch his ass.”

  “Does your father have any guns, Frank?”

  “Any guns!” exclaimed Fuzzy. “Don’t spread this around, Nick, but we have a room in the basement that looks like a National Guard armory.”

  9:45 P.M. I just found Dad lounging in the living room listening to my most prized F.S. album. The front drapes were open, giving any passersby a clear shot at his head.

  “Since when are you interested in this kind of music?” I asked. Dad, as a confirmed culture climber, pretends to appreciate only rigorously unmelodious music of the modern Progressive Ennui school.

  “I’m not, as a rule,” he replied, “but a friend of mine claims to dig it. Pretty syrupy in a turgid sort of way, if you ask me.”

  I, of course, did not. Nor did I close the drapes.

  FRIDAY, November 16 — Life is full of surprises. Take, for instance, the phone call I received this afternoon after school.

  “I’d like to speak with Nick Twisp, please,” said a distinguished masculine voice.

  “This is Nick.”

  “Hello, Nick,” said the voice. “We haven’t met. This is Trent Preston.”

  Alarming heart fibrillations.

  “Oh. Hello, Trent.”

  “How are you, Nick?”

  “I’m …fine. How are you?”

  “Not so good, Nick.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Trent. Did you take a bad spill windsurfing?”

  Prolonged silence.

  “Nick,” Trent said finally, “I called to ask you just what you think you are doing?”

  “Well, at the moment I imagine I’m talking on the phone,” I said, chuckling nervously. I wanted to hand this conversation over to François, but he seemed to be off somewhere on an espresso break.

  More silence.

  “Nick,” Trent continued, “my parents are forcing me to withdraw from school.”

  “Well, the economy certainly is not as robust as one might wish,” I said. “Private schools can be quite a hardship for parents. I know—my parents recently found they could no longer financially sustain my private instruction.”

  “It’s not the money, Nick.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s all the lies you’ve been spreading about me. And Sheeni.”

  “Pardon me, Trent,” I said indignantly. “I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do, Nick. I think you’re deliberately trying to wreak havoc in our lives.”

  “Why, why would I want to do that?” I asked innocently.

  “You tell me, Nick.” More silence.

  “No answer. I see. Then tell me this, Nick,” he continued. “Do you care anything at all for Apurva?”

  “I like her, sure. She’s very nice.”

  “Have you slept with her?”

  “Uh, what exactly do you mean?”

  “I mean have you callously possessed her body?”

  “Not callously, no.” I replied. “Have you slept with Sheeni?”

  “Yes.”

  This was not the reply I had anticipated.

  “Recently?” I croaked.

  “Fairly recently. Two days ago.”

  François muscled the receiver out of my hand. “You’re a fucking liar, Trent!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh, so now I meet the real Nick Twisp,” said Trent.

  “You met him, asshole! I’m glad your flunky parents are yanking you out of that cake eaters’ school!” I had seldom seen François so inflamed.

  “Nick, I’ve spent the last four months trying to convince myself you’re a decent person. I wanted to like you for Sheeni’s sake. But now, fella, the gloves are off. Two can play your nasty games, pal.”

  “It’s a fight to the finish,” agreed François, seizing the gauntlet.

  “May the best man win,” said Trent.

  “Hey, shark bait,” added François, “suck my surfboard!”

  “Kiss my hydraulics, hamster humper,” replied my enemy.

  SATURDAY, November 17 — More scab overtime for Dad. He left at 6:30 A.M. with Mrs. Crampton’s famous Blue-Collar Bagged Lunch: one-half fried chicken, three deviled eggs, a Danish (for morning break), carrot sticks (for fiber), one pint potato salad, two large homemade brownies, an apple, and a cherry cupcake (for afternoon break). I just hope Dad’s fringe-benefit package includes an hour off after lunch. He may feel the need for a nap.

  Dad won’t be running over any elderly boarders today. Mr. Ferguson is spending the day lying on the sofa in a fetal position. You see, he has sacrificed his principles for love.

  To distract her fiancé from his ethical qualms, Mrs. Crampton made us all banana waffles for breakfast. I ate mine with yesterday’s school newspaper propped in front of me—screening from view a large, unsightly silage grinder named D——e. I also enjoyed rereading the page-one lead story by talented journalist Tina Jade Manion. Her style is a marvel: ungrammatical, as wooden as pine, yet steeped in the warm flush of softly throbbing randiness. As I reviewed her ostensibly straightforward narration of my academic accomplishments, I felt the unmistakable sensation of being covertly, yet brazenly, groped—in newsprint. I have decided to respond by writing a letter to the editor—similarly coded—thanking Ms. Manion for her kind words. I only hope I am up to the task.

  11:30 A.M. INCREDIBLE, MIND-JOLTING NEWS!

  Sheeni just called in tears. HER PARENTS ARE PULLING THE PLUG!

  “Oh, Nickie, it’s a tragedy,” she cried. “I know I shall forget all my French. I shall never leave Ukiah. I’ll be trapped there forever—like a prehistoric fly frozen in amber!”

  “At least we’ll be together,” I said.

  “You’ll be in India!”

  “Oh, right. I forgot.” At this delicate stage, I knew I dare not divulge my trip was off. “When are you coming home?” I asked.

  “Wednesday is my last day. Trent’s too. His parents are being just as unreasonable as mine. Oh, Nickie, I think I’ll kill myself!”

  “Don’t do that, Sheeni!” I said. “Think of me. And Albert. We need you!”

  “Yes, at least now I can be with my sweet dog. Has he grown, Nickie?”

  “He’s tripled in size,” I said. “Sheeni, did Trent say anything to you about me?”

  “He mentioned he talked to you on the phone yesterday. He didn’t say what it was about, though. Just that it was a private matter between you two. Oh, Nickie, I’m so distraught!”

  “Sheeni, I hate to tell you this, after you’ve had such an emotional shock, but I have some more bad news. Your friend Trent is spreading disturbing lies about you.”

  “Like what?” she demanded.

  “He said he slept with you. Three days ago!”

  “Oh,” she said weakly. “He said that, huh?”

  “Sheeni, is it true?”

  “Of course not, Nick. You must have misunderstood him.”

  “He said it plain as day, Sheeni. I heard it with my own ears.”

  “Must you speak in clichés, Nick?” she asked. “You could hardly have heard it with someone else’s ears.”

  “So you haven’t been sleeping with anyone?”

  “Of course not,” she replied. “Have you?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Good. Then we can all take pride in being equally lonely, miserable, and unloved. I hope you’re satisfied, Nick.”