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

by Acito, Marc

  It's time for the hammer.

  I drag myself into our dark kitchen and open the junk drawer to hunt for a hammer to break my finger, but instead of the usual assortment of paper clips, twist ties, and rubber bands, I'm surprised to see my sister's face staring back at me, tanned and airbrushed, blissfully unaware that she's inside a junk drawer instead of on the wall where she belongs. I pull out Karen's picture and there I am underneath, looking smiley and carefree in my skinny tie. I spin around to look at the wall where our school portraits have hung for the last ten years and see that we've been replaced by one of Dagmar's photographs, a still life of a bowl of fruit.

  Now maybe, just maybe, if she'd replaced us with something of equal sentimental value like, say, her ancestral Austrian home or a portrait of her precious Nazi collaborationist father, then maybe I wouldn't get so upset. But to be replaced by a goddamn bowl of fruit—that does it.

  I snap. Like a rigid root in winter.

  Al saunters into the kitchen in nothing but his bikini briefs, looking like the first guy in the evolution of man to walk on two legs.

  “You want to explain this to me?” I say, pointing to the photograph.

  “Like it?” Al says, scratching his hairy belly and opening the fridge. “Dagmar won some prize for it last weekend.”

  “Well, lah dee fucking dah,” I say.

  Al glances over his shoulder. “Hey, watch your fucking language.”

  “You just don't get it, do you?” I say, my voice rising. I grab our pictures out of the junk drawer. “Don't you see what she's trying to do? She's stuck us in the junk drawer. Your own kids. Doesn't that mean anything to you?”

  “Don't be so sensitive,” Al says.

  There are certain phrases I can't abide hearing, and “Don't be so sensitive” ranks right up there with “Could you please keep it down?” and “No personal calls allowed.” I feel a surge of rage course through me. “How can you support her career as an artist and not mine?”

  “What I do with my money is my own goddamned business,” Al says, slamming the refrigerator door. “I could spend it all on bubble gum and blow jobs if I wanted.”

  “You got that half right,” I mutter.

  Al waves a hairy finger in my face. “You watch your mouth, you little shit. That's my wife you're talking about, and I'll have you know that woman does more for me than you or your lazy-ass sister ever have. All these years I've raised you by myself and I've gotten nothin' but grief in return.”

  “I see. All those straight A's I've gotten, and the awards, and the leads in the plays, that's been grief to you, huh?”

  “I'm talkin' about respect. And obedience. And maybe some appreciation once in a while. You think I can't see how you sneer at me, Mr. Honor Roll, like I'm too dumb to notice? You and your sister treat me like I'm a fuckin' bank machine. Well, finally somebody comes along who thinks about me for a change. Somebody who cooks and cleans for me and cares for me and loves me; so, yeah, you're damn right, I'm gonna support her.”

  “So you're saying if I could fuck you, you'd support me, too?”

  “Why, you sick little . . .”

  “Well, here you go, watch me,” I say, then I point to my mouth and enunciate in my best actor's elocution: “Fuck . . . you!”

  It feels really good to finally say it.

  From behind me I hear a growl like the mouth of Hell opening and I turn just in time to duck a wineglass being thrown in my direction.

  “Asshole!” Dagmar screams, except, being foreign, she gets it all wrong, putting the accent on the last syllable. “Azzhull! Get out, you fuckink azzhuuull!”

  She lunges for me, claws bared, and Al has to hold her back. “You ungrateful azzhull, you . . . you . . .” she struggles for the word, “. . . Schwanzlutscher.”

  Now, thanks to Doug, I happen to know she just called me a cocksucker, which gives me the satisfying opportunity of leaning my face right into hers and saying, “Well, it takes one to know one, you evil bitch.”

  Dagmar's eyes go wide and she flails like a mad dog, huffing and sputtering, undoubtedly enraged because, as a non-native speaker of English, she's not able to think of a good comeback. I brush past her into the entryway, a little more like Bette Davis than I intended.

  “Call me when she's dead,” I say, then slam the front door behind me.

  I lean against the door to catch my breath, the sharp cold air piercing my skin. From inside, I can still hear Dagmar screaming like a crazed harpy.

  “Azzhuuuull.”

  I start to run, trying to put as much distance between me and the House of Floor Wax as I can.

  I run all the way to Kelly's, banging on the door like a madman until Kathleen answers. I'm soaked with sweat and the frozen air in my lungs burns me from the inside out. I collapse in Kathleen's arms, hyperventilating and feeling like I'm going to throw up. Kelly appears at the top of the stairs. “Get a blanket,” Kathleen says, “quick.”

  “Why do they hate me so much,” I gasp. “Why?” I feel like I'm drowning and I grip onto her like she's a lifeline. “I just want to go to college, I just want to be an actor, I just want . . .”

  “I know, dear. Ssh. Everything's going to be all right.” I sink slowly onto the floor and Kathleen goes right with me, wrapping me in a wool blanket.

  “I don't get it,” I say. “There are so many kids who are so fucking ordinary and their parents love them. And I do so much and . . .”

  “Ssh,” she says, “just rest.” She tells Kelly to get something warm for me to change into.

  “He'll be sorry,” I say. “He'll be sorry when I'm famous and don't thank him when I accept my Oscar. He'll be sorry when he realizes his kids hate him. I'll show him . . .”

  Kathleen doesn't say anything, but just holds me tight, humming and rubbing my back the same way my mother did when she sang me to sleep.

  I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch,

  And all I do is cry all day . . .

  Kelly returns. Out of the corner of my ear I hear Kathleen whisper, “What the hell is that?”

  “It's all I could find,” Kelly whispers back.

  “Edward, sweetie,” Kathleen says, “you need to get out of these wet clothes and into this.” I open my eyes and look down to see that she's handed me a tartan flannel nightgown. It's got a white ruffle at the collar. For the first time in what feels like forever, I laugh. We all do.

  “If your father could see you now,” Kathleen says.

  I go to change while Kathleen cracks open a bottle of wine and pours us each a big glassful. “Merry fucking Christmas,” she says.

  “And a happy fucking New Year,” I reply, clinking glasses.

  Then the three of us get completely bombed, even though it's a school night. Kelly is particularly affected and decides, for reasons known only to her, to put on the Evita album and perform the entire thing for us, after which she crawls into the corner behind the tree and says, “Hi, everybody, I'm the talking Christmas tree. Merry fucking Christmas,” before passing out.

  Kathleen and I sit in the dark watching the blinking lights. “What am I gonna do?” I ask.

  She swirls her wine in her glass. “You'll live here with us, of course.”

  “So Kelly told you . . .”

  Kathleen laughs. “About you being gay? Oh, sweetheart, I figured it out on my own.”

  While I'm glad to see Kelly's plan worked, a little incredulity on Kathleen's part would have been nice.

  “Do you honestly think I'd let you live here if I thought you were screwing around with my daughter?”

  I must look tense again because Kathleen reaches over and rubs my back. “Stop worrying,” she says. “Just for tonight, okay? You can worry again tomorrow, I promise.” She exhales and so do I and I begin to feel warm and safe again. “Now why don't you go put that star on top of the tree where it belongs?”

  On what must be the worst night of my life, I don't think I've ever been so happy.

  Part of the de
al with declaring financial independence is that you can't accept more than $700 of support a year from your parents, which means I have to pretty much give up everything: no money, no insurance, no car, nothing. Leaving MoM behind is the hardest. Natie and I actually consider parking his parents' car at the bottom of a hill and releasing the parking brake on mine so it totals both and Al has to pay for a new one for the Nudelmans. But in the end, I do like my mother did and just walk out, taking only my books and my clothes and a couple of records from Al's Sinatra collection. I do score a little extra cash by placing an ad in the Thrifties and selling my bedroom furniture. (Another Natie idea.) When Al discovers it's gone he says to me, “That wasn't your furniture to sell. I own that furniture.”

  “No,” I say, “Marvin Nelson of Camptown, New Jersey, owns that furniture.” Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

  Al shakes his head. “How much did you get for it?”

  “Five hundred bucks,” I say.

  “That much?” he says. “Marvin got took.” We both smile and laugh a little. Naturally Al's against me moving out, calling it “selfish.” He can't even bring himself to refer to Kathleen's house except by its address, as if I were simply moving into one of his investment properties. But my decision to leave has actually eased the tension a little and occasionally we even have a quasi-friendly moment, like this one at Marvin's expense. Dagmar, on the other hand, seems to have radar that goes off anytime Al and I are remotely civil to one another, and she stalks in, rubbing lotion on her rough, calloused hands.

  “Tsis room looks zo much bigger vitsout all tsat crap in it,” she says.

  Bitch.

  Paula comes home, full of vigor and enthusiasm from her first idyllic semester at Juilliard, which naturally irritates the shit out of me. She's prepared to pick up right where the Creative Vandals left off, visiting the Buddha and rearranging someone's Nativity scene so it's the Adoration of the Lawn Jockey, but my heart's just not in it. Last summer seems like a lifetime ago, and I feel old and jaded and bitter. Most of the time I can barely stand being inside my own skin. I can't sleep. I can't concentrate. The only thing I can seem to do is eat, so when Aunt Glo offers me Christmas cookies I figure, what's the diff?

  Aunt Glo asks us to sing for her, so Paula and I harmonize on a few Christmas carols while Aunt Glo rolls out dough and cries. The sound of Paula's velvety voice makes me want to cry myself (that is, assuming I could). I look at her wide mouth parted in a blissful smile, her fleshy throat smooth and relaxed as the sound flows out of her like water. She's so open, so uncomplicated, so free.

  I'd like to strangle her sometimes.

  Afterward, Paula asks me to do my audition monologues.

  “I thought I'd start with my contemporary one,” I say.

  “Oh, no, no, no” Paula says, “begin with the classical. That's what they're really interested in. It's all about classical training. We're even taking fencing.” She leaps up to demonstrate various “en garde” and “touché” type moves. “Isn't it splendid?”

  Paula and Aunt Glo take their seats while I psych myself up for Haemon's monologue.

  “Okay, Edward, nice and easy,” I tell myself. “You can do it. Just relax. Relax. Relax, goddamnit!”

  I'm so freaked I might forget my lines that I speak v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y like Haemon's got a learning disability. Paula squints as she watches me, as if I were far away. When I'm finished, she says, “You wouldn't have anything else, would you?”

  “Well, there is Mercutio's death scene,” I say.

  “Oh, that sounds grand,” Paula says. “Don't you think so, Aunt Glo?”

  “Oh yeah, I love a good death scene. Didja see Terms of Endearment? That Debbie Winger, she sure died good in that.”

  I perform Mercutio's death scene and this time Paula tries to keep a placid expression on her face, but she can't help but wince and twitch from time to time. I stop in the middle.

  “You hate it,” I say. “I can tell.”

  “I don't hate it,” she says. “Besides, you shouldn't be focusing on how I react, you should be focusing on the scene.”

  “What's wrong with it?”

  “Well . . . you just seem, I don't know, disconnected from the pain.”

  “Jesus Christ—excuse me, Aunt Glo—what is so great about pain?”

  Paula picks an imaginary thread off of her long woolly skirt. “I don't suppose you have anything else, do you?”

  “There's always ‘Bottom's Dream,' but . . .”

  “Oh, yes, do ‘Bottom's Dream,' absolutely,” she says. “Don't you think so, Aunt Glo?”

  “Dreams are nice,” Aunt Glo says. “I had a dream once that Liberace unclogged my drains.”

  “See?” Paula says. She smiles her curtain-up-light-the-lights smile to encourage me.

  So I do “Bottom's Dream,” followed by my contemporary monologue from Amadeus. Paula and Aunt Glo laugh in all the right places. “Definitely these two,” Paula says. “Trust me.”

  “But they're so much alike. Shouldn't I do something that shows off my range?”

  “Not if you don't have a ra . . . not everyone is suited for dramatic scenes, Edward. Don't worry, it'll be fine.”

  Fine? It can't just be fine. It has to be kick-ass amazing. I've sacrificed everything for this: I've moved out of my house, I've given up my car, I've gone to work at Chicken Lickin', for Chrissake.

  “And don't be concerned if they don't ask for a second monologue,” Paula says. “That doesn't necessarily mean they didn't like you.”

  Yes it does. Everyone knows that.

  I'm doomed.

  Kathleen and Kelly go to “Nana's house” on the Cape for a huge Kennedy-style Christmas, leaving me with two neurotic cats and a station wagon so old we call it the Wagon Ho. I don't want to feel like some pathetic Dickensian orphan at someone else's family holiday, so naturally I turn to Natie.

  “What do Jews do on Christmas?” I ask him.

  “Go to the movies and eat Chinese food,” he says. “Ya' can't beat it.”

  On Christmas Day we see Terms of Endearment. Aunt Glo is right: that Debbie Winger does die good. I sit in the theater, wincing, trying to connect with her pain, searching for that reservoir of emotion in myself.

  “You all right?” Natie whispers.

  “I'm fine,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Chinese food gives me gas, too,” he says.

  The Thursday after Christmas I take the train into the city with Paula because my audition's at ten o'clock the next morning. I've chosen a bulky black turtleneck to wear because (A) black is slimming and (B) I can wear it untucked so no one can see that my jeans are too tight. I wear a pair of black Keds with it, and my long thrift-store overcoat. Paula thinks it's a good look for me. “Very Serious Young Actor,” she says. “You'll be splendid, I'm sure!” She squeezes my arm to give me encouragement, but the more she tries to boost me up, the more convinced I am that I must suck. Otherwise, why would I need a boost?

  Paula lives in Hell's Kitchen, though the neighborhood looks more like Hell's Bathroom to me. It's like Beirut, except colder. A couple of hookers shivering in miniskirts and fake furs stand outside her building and Paula cheerfully greets them both.

  The taller one leans in to kiss her. “Thank you, child, for that Shalimar you left me,” she says.

  “And the penicillin,” says the other. “Girl, you're a godsend.”

  “Well, Merry Christmas to you both,” Paula says, beaming. “This is my friend Edward.” I reach out to shake the hookers' hands and notice that the taller one is a guy. His (her? okay, her) big mascaraed eyes bore into me.

  “I'm Anita,” she says, “Anita Mandalay. Now where you been hidin', sweet thang?”

  “Uh . . . New Jersey?” I say.

  “Well, you better watch out, I might just stuff you in my stockin'.” Anita throws her head back and laughs, revealing a mouth full of gold fillings. And herpes sores, no doubt.

  “Nice meeting you,” I say. We g
o inside. The whole place smells like sweaty feet. Paula calls it rent controlled, which is an optimistic way of saying it's a welfare hotel.

  “Isn't this place fucking wild?” Paula says. “The people are so real. Next door to me there's an unwed teen mother whose boyfriend is a drug dealer. And across the hall are Pakistanis who set up rugs outside my door and pray to Mecca.”