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

by Acito, Marc

  Things are no better on the job front. Desperate for any kind of work, I answer an ad for a chambermaid at a motel out on the highway. The manager, an old Asian lady, doesn't get it.

  “Why you wanna be chambermaid?” she says. “You a boy.”

  “I just need a job and figured since I'm very clean . . .”

  “But you a boy.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “I don't want no trouble.”

  “I'm not making . . .”

  “You a boy. Go get boy job. I don't want no trouble.”

  We continue in this vein until I realize that either I'm encountering some huge cultural divide or this woman is seriously insane.

  My only option left is the mall. I can't believe it's come to this. I'm from Colonial Wallingford, for God's sake. We don't even shop at the mall.

  I answer a help wanted ad for a fast-food place called Chicken Lickin'. I'm demoralized at the thought of working anywhere that sounds like an adorable Beatrix Potter character and I pray I don't have to wear a stupid hat. Chicken Lickin' is in the food court, an orange-and-yellow assault on humanity that Dante, were he alive today, would surely have included as one of his rings of Hell. Onion rings of Hell, to be precise. I wait in line behind two guys with combs in the back pockets of their Jordaches, confirming that this is indeed the Mall That Time Forgot. The girl behind the counter has a blond frizzy perm with black roots—less of a hairdo and more of a hair don't—and wears black mascara on both upper and lower eyelashes for that my-boyfriend-beats-me look.

  “Welcome to Chicken Lickin'. How can I help yuz?” she says without actually moving her lips.

  Jordache Guy #1 leans his crotch against the counter and says, “Yeah, uh, are you the chick I get to lick?” He looks over his shoulder at Jordache Guy #2, who punches him in the arm and pants a voiceless laugh. Obviously National Merit scholars.

  “That depends,” Miss Hair Don't mumbles. “Are you the dick whose ass I kick?”

  The Jordache guys don't know what to say, so they just get an order of Chicken Pickins, pay, and make a hasty exit. “Have a chick-a-licious day,” Miss Hair Don't says in a tone that's usually reserved for phrases like “Come near me and I'll break both of your fucking legs.”

  I step up to the counter and announce I'm here about the job. Miss Hair Don't responds with the same level of unbridled enthusiasm.

  “So?” she says.

  I fill out an application full of lies and hand it back to her. I tell her I really need a job and that I'm available for any shift outside of school hours.

  “That's good,” she says, “'cuz, here at Chicken Lickin' we do things the Chicken Lickin' way. We don't work around no one's schedule. We pay more than minimum wage, y'know, so we expect more of yuz.”

  Minimum wage is $3.25 per hour. Chicken Lickin' pays $3.35 per hour. I'm not at the job more than a day before I start calibrating what I think constitutes ten cents an hour more of effort. What's worse is that I continually get shifts with a girl too stupid to realize that this job sucks. We call her Nice Shirt, because she always has some cheery compliment for every single person with an IQ low enough to want to actually eat at Chicken Lickin'. “Ooh, where'd you get your earrings?” she'll coo, or “I like your pants,” or her signature line: “Nice shirt!” Customers love her.

  She makes the rest of us look bad.

  I entertain myself by imagining Nice Shirt in other social situations where her chipper demeanor might be less appreciated, like a funeral (“Nice casket!”), or the hospital (“Cool catheter!”), or a prison (“Love your jumpsuit, where'd ya' get it?”). Sometimes I just fantasize about drowning the silly bitch in the deep fryer.

  I feel like Pip in Great Expectations, working at a job I loathe and am certain I'm too good for. Like Pip, I too have great expectations, or as Sinatra would say, high hopes, although it's hard to keep them in mind when your job requires you to say things like “Would you care for one of our chick-a-riffic side dishes?” At least I don't run into anyone I know except TeeJay, who works weekends at Meister Burger. Occasionally we'll nod a brief but solemn hello to one another across the food court, like we're in prison and don't want the warden to notice us communicating. His boss, a sweaty lump of a guy with a comb-over, is always standing over him at the grill, carping about something.

  To add to the endless cycle of misery that is my life, I continue to endure playing basketball in gym. As with football, I have no idea how to play this ridiculous game, nor do I care to learn. It all seems like a lot of gratuitous running back and forth to me, which is exactly what I do, in the hopes that I'll appear to be playing the game when in actuality I am avoiding it. As expected, Ms. Burro makes us play shirts and skins, which is particularly demoralizing because I haven't taken a dance class all fall and now have the added pressure of trying to scamper about without letting any accumulated fat jiggle unbecomingly.

  It's exhausting.

  Once again, not only am I the worst player but I am also the oldest and, once again, I have to contend with Darren O'Boyle, the evil sophomore, who looks like he's going to have an aneurysm every time I make a little mistake like pass the ball to someone on the other team. (How do mean kids get so mean? Are their parents mean, too? Say what you want about Al and Barbara Zanni, at least they didn't raise mean kids.) Smashing my finger with a hammer is starting to sound more attractive.

  As if that weren't bad enough, I'm growing increasingly panicked about my Juilliard audition. Even the thought of performing my monologues for Mr. Lucas in drama class makes me constipated. I don't know what the hell's wrong with me. Usually I can't wait to get onstage. I ask Ziba to follow on book in case I need prompting.

  I come out onstage and face the big black giant that is the audience. “I am Edward Zanni . . .” I say. (Mr. Lucas told me to say “I am” instead of “My name is” because it sounds more confident and assertive.) “And this is Haemon's monologue from Sophocles' Antigone.”

  So far so good. I close my eyes to collect myself, then look up to begin.

  I can't remember a fucking thing.

  “I'm sorry, can I start again?” I say.

  “NO!” Mr. Lucas bellows, his voice echoing in the darkness like the voice of God. “Pretend this is the real audition.”

  “I'm sorry. I guess I'm a little nervous,” I say.

  “Keep going.”

  What the fuck is happening? I know this monologue cold. I must've recited it into Kelly's vagina a gazillion times. I close my eyes again to collect myself. The first line is “Father, you must not think that your word and no other must be so.” Got it. I look up.

  “Father, you must not think that your word and no other must be so. For if any man thinks that he alone is wise . . .”

  Oh, God.

  “Line?” I say.

  “That in what he says and what he does . . .” Ziba says.

  “That in what he says and what he does . . . uh . . .”

  This can't be happening to me.

  “Line?”

  “That man is but an empty tomb . . .”

  “That in what he says and what he does he's above all else—that man is but an empty tomb . . .”

  “A wise man,” Ziba says.

  “I know it, don't tell me,” I say. “A wise man . . . A wise man . . .”

  “. . . isn't ashamed . . .”

  “. . . isn't ashamed to admit his ignorance and he understands that true power lies in being . . .” I stop. “I'm sorry, I can't seem to do it,” I say. My entire body is soaked in flop sweat. I see Kelly and Natie in the front row, looking pained.

  “Of course you can,” Mr. Lucas says. “You're doing fine. Don't worry.”

  Oh shit. If Mr. Lucas is being nice, then I must really suck.

  “Just give me a second,” I say. Okay, Edward, concentrate. Concentrate. Concentrate.

  “I have no idea what comes next,” I say.

  “Ziba, please read the rest of the passage to Edward.”

&nb
sp; Ziba reads:

  “Have you seen after a winter storm how the trees that stand beside the torrential streams yield to it and save their branches, while the stiff and rigid perish, root and all? Or how a sailor who always keeps his sail taut and never slackens will only capsize his boat?

  “Father, I may be young, but you must listen to reason. Please, I beg you to soften your heart and allow a change from your rage.”

  “Maybe you ought to be auditioning for Juilliard instead of me,” I say, trying to laugh.

  “Just finish,” Mr. Lucas says.

  I clear my throat and crack my neck. “Okay,” I say, “Have you ever seen after a winter storm how a sailor keeps his sail taut . . . and, oh, that's not right . . .”

  “Keep going!” Mr. Lucas bellows.

  “And his root stiff and rigid,” I yell back.

  The class laughs and my face starts to burn.

  I'm going to work at Chicken Lickin' for the rest of my life.

  Afterward, Ziba suggests that she, Kelly, Natie, and I go to the movies, y'know, to take my mind off my troubles (which, as far as I'm concerned, is really just another way of saying I sucked). So we go see Yentl.

  Now I'm going to assume that anyone reading this story has a working knowledge of the Barbra Streisand oeuvre, but just in case you don't, I'll fill you in. Yentl is about a young Jewish girl in Eastern Europe at the turn of the century who disguises herself as a boy so she can go to yeshiva and study. There she falls in love with another student who, of course, doesn't realize she's a girl. It's like Tootsie on the Roof.

  As I sit in the darkened theater I realize that I am so like Yentl: we're both prevented from going to the school of our dreams, we both break into song in public places, and we're both so in love with our best friend it's almost physically painful.

  It's true. Despite my erection problems with Kelly, one look at Doug and I'm harder than calculus.

  I don't share this insight, of course, but instead listen to Ziba as she analyzes the film on the way back to the car. Ziba takes “the cinema” very seriously, which you can tell because she always makes us sit through the credits and she compares everything to the works of Kurosawa. “The direction was surprisingly polished,” she announces, “and the cinematography was astounding, but I still think it would have served the story better if the whole thing had been in Yiddish with subtitles.”

  This from the Muslim girl.

  “I think Barbra Streisand should have actually had sex with Amy Irving,” Kelly says.

  We all stop.

  “What are you looking at?” she asks.

  Even though she agreed to a three-way and asked me to talk dirty into her vagina, I'm still surprised when Kelly says things like this.

  “Interesting,” Ziba says, as she chews over the notion. “But how would she get around not having a penis?”

  Kelly thinks for a moment. “She could go down on her.”

  I don't like where this conversation is heading, so I change the subject. “Anyone notice how Yentl wore the same glasses as Father Groovy?” I say.

  “Yeah,” Natie says. “Maybe you oughta go live in a yeshiva.”

  “I don't think they let in Catholics.”

  “Okay, a monastery.”

  Suddenly Kelly throws her arm in front of me, the way you do when you want to stop someone from stepping into traffic. “That's it,” she says.

  “What?”

  “You could live at my house.”

  “What are you talking about? Your mom would never go for that.”

  “She would if she thought you were gay.”

  “But I'm not,” I say, my voice rising higher than I intended.

  “'Course not, silly,” Kelly says. “You'd just pretend to be—y'know, like Yentl pretends to be a boy.”

  Natie nods his head like he's impressed. “Y'know, that's not a bad idea.”

  Kelly's eyes brighten with excitement. “It'll be great!” she says. “I'll tell my mom we broke up and of course she'll want to psychoanalyze me, so I'll go on about how you broke my heart but I understand because you're gay, but still I'm not sure I can ever trust men again, blah, blah, blah . . .”

  Natie and Ziba continue this train wreck of thought with her, cheerfully hypothesizing about the various ways that Kelly could have discovered my latent homosexuality. While they entertain themselves with the presumably hilarious notion that Doug and I are secret lovers, Kelly leans over and whispers in my ear. “The best part,” she says, “is now we can be together any time we want.”

  As they say in the yeshiva: Oy vey.

  I don't go home after I drop everyone off, but instead drive around trying to sort out Kelly's idea. If I tell Kathleen I'm gay, I'd kind of be telling her the truth, but I'd actually be lying to Kelly, because she thinks I'm totally straight. On the other hand, if Kelly and I are fooling around, then I'd definitely be lying to Kathleen. Then again, how much of a threat can I be to her daughter if I don't have an erection? The whole thing makes my head hurt.

  On top of everything else, thoughts of Doug keep knocking at the door of my subconscious. I know he's way too Timberland boots and flannel shirt-y to ever feel about me the way I feel about him, but the forbidden, star-crossed-lovers thing is partly what makes him so appealing. I see us as a modern Romeo and Juliet or, in this case, Romeo and Julius. I imagine us growing up and getting married (to women, I mean) but still carrying on annual clandestine trysts in the manner of Same Time, Next Year. I see us renting a cabin with our unsuspecting wives, then stealing away to the woods where we'll fuck like the rugged, outdoorsy men we truly are.

  I can't stand it any longer. Just thinking about him is torture, but an almost exquisite kind, like the transcendental agony you see in the paintings of martyred saints. I must be losing my mind.

  I drive over to his house.

  It's too late to ring the bell, so I prowl along the creaking front porch and peek in the window. Someone is sitting in Mr. Grabowski's uneasy chair watching scrambled porn on cable, but I can't tell who it is from behind. I'm almost sure that it's Doug from the tufts of kinky hair rising above the back of the chair, but I don't want to risk it being his creepy dad, either. Finally, the figure rises and stretches and I see from the boxers and football jersey that it is indeed Doug. I tap on the window. Cupping his eyes with his hands, he leans against the glass to see who it is, then indicates he'll let me in the front door.

  “What's up?” he whispers.

  “We need to talk,” I say, pushing past him.

  The room feels suffocatingly small for the enormous thing I'm about to say and I pace the dingy carpet like a caged animal. Doug looks concerned.

  “What's wrong, man?” he says.

  “I don't know how to say this, except to just come out with it.”

  “What did you do, kill somebody?”

  “I'm serious.”

  “Okay,” he says, “then just say it.”

  I'm certain my lungs have collapsed and that there's no possible way I can draw enough air to speak, but there must be because I hear myself blurt out, “I'm in love with you.” Just like that, as if the words fell out of my mouth and landed on the floor.

  Then it's like I can't shut up. “I'm sorry, I had to tell you; I couldn't keep it inside me anymore. I am totally, head over heels in love with you. I think about you a thousand times a day, and even more at night. I don't know what to do anymore. It takes every bit of discipline I have not to leap across a room and grab you whenever I see you.”

  Which is exactly what I want to do right now. I want to grab him and kiss him forever, but I don't dare. I'm guessing Doug's more likely to let me blow him before he'd ever submit to something as intimate as a kiss.

  Doug doesn't say a word, but his icicle eyes begin to melt. I'm not sure he even realizes it because his face remains expressionless as the tears stream down his cheeks, like water trickling out of a rock at a river base. I can't even begin to understand what this reaction means.

/>   “I'm so sorry,” he whispers. “I just . . . can't.”

  I drive around the dark, sleepy streets of Wallingford feeling deflated and spent. I'm such an idiot. I had this great, intense friendship with lots of touchy-feely, homoerotic action and then, like Frank says, “I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you.” Doug will probably never talk to me again. What's more, I've got nowhere to live, I can't remember the words to Haemon's fucking monologue, my father doesn't care about me, my stepmother hates me, my mother has probably been kidnapped by South American guerrillas, and I've eaten so many baskets of Chicken Pickins that my pants don't fit. Then, to top it all off, I've got to play basketball with a bunch of sophomores out of Lord of the Flies. Something's got to give.