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

by Acito, Marc

  Yes, it's all for the best . . .

  During intermission, Mr. Lucas gathers the cast together, tells us how well he thinks it's going, and reminds us to concentrate. “They're a great audience,” he says, “but they're a tad rowdy, and will be even more so after the marching band sells them all that candy. So you must remember that when Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss, it is essential that you set the tone for the audience. Remember, that kiss is the confirmation that your savior is being condemned to death. If you take it seriously, so will they.” He glances at me and Doug. “We hope,” he mutters. It's just a quick peck, but this is high school, after all.

  Mr. Lucas's concept for the second act is supercool. Instead of our funky 1980s clothes, we come back dressed in yuppie power suits; the idea being that we're grown now and Jesus is almost like a political candidate. The Pharisees come on wearing hollowed-out televisions on their heads and talk in Southern accents like they're televangelists. Mr. Lucas wants people to understand that even if Jesus were to come back today, he'd still be rejected and crucified.

  I wouldn't be surprised if he lost his job over this one.

  The second act goes really well, but the closer we get to the betrayal scene, the more nervous I become. I can sense the tension onstage, but then I wonder if maybe it's just me. That's the funny thing about tension. When you're tense how can you tell if anyone else feels that way, too? Maybe they just seem tense because you're tense. Anyway, the door at the back of the auditorium clangs open and everyone in the audience turns to watch Doug as Judas walk down the aisle to the edge of the stage.

  I look deep in his eyes, the world as seen from outer space. “Friend, do quickly what you have to do,” I say.

  A spotlight follows him as he climbs the stairs to the stage. He crosses to me, stops, and turns to the audience as if to signal the Roman police. I turn, too, and stand ready for him to kiss me on the cheek.

  Then, in one totally shocking, totally unexpected, totally welcome move, Doug grabs my face in his hands and kisses me right smack on the lips. Everyone gasps: the chorus, the audience, and, undoubtedly, Doug's father, the embittered Tastykake driver. No one laughs or says a thing, it's just so startlingly radical. I mean, here in Colonial Wallingford.

  Time seems to stand still as I savor the feel of Doug's thin, soft lips on mine. I don't know if this was Mr. Lucas's idea or some strange whim of Doug's and, you know what, I don't care. I've dreamed of a kiss like this countless times before I drifted off to sleep, but never, ever, ever did I dare believe it could actually happen, and certainly not in front of the entire school. It's not like he uses his tongue or anything, but his mouth is open and, for just a second, I inhale as he exhales, as if he were breathing the very life into me. I'm telling you, if Judas's kiss was anything like this one, then Jesus died happy.

  Our lips part. The show must go on, and pretty fucking quickly if we want to avoid totally freaking out everyone. As directed, I step up to a podium and speak to the audience as if I were addressing a rally. But just as I begin, a tall figure in the fifth row stands up and says, “Excuse me, Jesus . . .”

  I lean forward to search the blackness for the voice. The figure raises a pistol and fires a shot that echoes all over the auditorium.

  The place goes nuts. People scream. I smash the blood pack under my shirt and collapse on the floor as the figure (Boonbrain) dashes out the nearest exit. A couple of audience members actually run after him like it's real. The stage goes to red and the electric guitars start to wail.

  It's fucking brilliant.

  There's no time for the audience to recover. Onstage it's chaos: fifty teenagers keen and scream, choristers dressed as cops, paramedics, and reporters dash on trying to restore order, but only complicating things. And in the middle of it all is me, lying in a pool of blood. This, this, this is what being an actor is about. To be able to elicit such a strong reaction from hundreds of people at once—that power is awesome and irresistible and humbling. If you want to think I'm needy because I love applause, go ahead. But I know that the reason I perform is for moments like these, moments when you connect with an audience and take them somewhere, whether it's scary or funny or sad, it doesn't matter. That's what makes it worthwhile.

  The cast surrounds me as I gasp my final lines.

  “Oh God, I'm dying . . .”

  All around me disciples cry real tears, even Natie who, much to my surprise, heaves huge soul-rattling sobs. But I can't help but feel so very, very happy as I indulge in the sheer sensual pleasure of pretending.

  To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream.

  Natie gently closes my eyelids for me. Some of the disciples can hardly sing, they're so choked up, but me, I feel nothing. No, nothing's not the right word. It's more like nothingness, and a sense of calm washes over me like warm water. As the disciples carry me to the back of the auditorium, I have no worries. There is no Al, no Dagmar, no Juilliard. I don't even have to carry my own weight. The disciples sing the final notes of “Prepare Ye” from the lobby, then gently lay me down on the cool linoleum floor. I don't want to move. Ever. Slowly I open my eyes like I'm awakening from a dream and listen for the applause.

  Silence.

  We're not prepared for this. Shows end, people applaud, that's how it works. “What do we do?” someone whispers.

  “Wait,” I say.

  Then, all at once, it starts. I'm not talking that phony-baloney thing you see in the movies where a few people start slowly and eventually everyone joins in. No, this applause starts like a clap of thunder. I've never heard anything like it. It's as if the sky opened up. The music begins and we run down the aisle to the stage and the audience goes wild, leaping to their feet in a real, honest-to-God standing ovation. Not the kind where a couple of idiots get up in front because they're the type of assholes who always give standing ovations, and then the people behind them have to get up because they can't see or because they want to stretch their legs or duck out early to beat the traffic. No, this time the audience rises as a body, as if they were carried on a gigantic wave. It's pandemonium. We sing the final reprise of “Day by Day” and I feel so exhilarated I could leap out of my skin.

  On my cue, we take a company bow, once, twice, three times. The applause is still going strong and I allow us to stand there, basking in the goodwill of people rewarding us for a job well done. I gesture to the band, which takes a bow, then walk into the wings where Kelly and Mr. Lucas are standing. Mr. Lucas gestures to Ziba at the stage-manager's desk to join them, and I lead the three onto the stage. The applause rises to acknowledge them. Mr. Lucas is always subdued and humble about this part, but his eyes shine with pride. I think he'd rather not come out onstage at all, but he knows we'll insist on it. We take one final bow together, then back up to make room for the curtain. We turn to one another the way a cast does after the curtain closes. We're mature enough not to cheer (it's so unprofessional), but Mr. Lucas stops us in our tracks by shouting, “Nobody move.” We stand listening to the sound of applause coming down like so much rain and he gestures with his crutch to the wings. “Curtain!” he says.

  The curtain opens again and the audience is still there, clapping rhythmically now while we take a final bow. I don't care what I have to do—I'll clean toilets or dig ditches—but there is no way I'm going to give up a lifetime of this. No way.

  The curtain closes and I turn to Natie, whose face is as red and puffy as his hair. I clasp my arms around him and he leans his little cheesehead against my chest.

  “It was just so real,” he whispers.

  I pat him on the back. “Yeah, I know,” I say.

  Then everyone converges on me at once like they want a piece of me: people I know, people I don't know, Mr. Lucas, Kathleen, Kelly, Ziba, Fran and Stan Nudelman, Aunt Glo. Everywhere I turn there are hugs and congratulations but these aren't the usual way to goes and you were greats. No, something different happened tonight, something that affected everyone in a profound and meaningful way, som
ething bigger than me and the show and all of us.

  The jocks and cheerleaders—people like Duncan O'Boyle and Amber Wright—gather around Doug and I get just a glimpse of him across the crowded stage. He winks at me and I feel my face smile.

  Mrs. Foster, the wife of my old lawn-obsessed neighbor, appears out of nowhere, grabs me by my elbows, and says, “Edward, I just wanted to tell you that when I was your age I wanted to major in drama, too, and my parents wouldn't let me.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I've regretted it ever since,” she says.

  We've never spoken before.

  She steps away, suddenly providing me an unobstructed view across the stage. And then I see him, jingling the change in his pockets and glancing around like a caged animal.

  Al.

  He nods his head at me several times, smiling a tense, tight-lipped smile as he leaves Dagmar behind him and crosses the stage. I meet him halfway.

  Silence.

  “Good job, kid,” he says finally, and gives me a little pat on the shoulder.

  “Thanks, Pop.”

  More silence.

  “Looks like you lost some weight.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “They feedin' you enough?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” he says, as if that settled something. He glances over his shoulder at Dagmar. “Guess I better be going,” he says.

  I nod.

  “You take care of yourself.”

  “I am,” I say, but it comes out sounding angrier than I intended, and I immediately regret it.

  Al rubs his hands together and slowly turns away. “Good . . . good,” he says.

  Suddenly, from behind, a pair of huge arms wraps around my waist and lifts me in the air, and I know instantly it must be my new best friend, TeeJay. “You were amazing, man!” he crows. “I'm coming back tomorrow.” He puts me down and gives me that handshake where you knock fists. I glance over to catch sight of Al and Dagmar but they're gone already.

  “You remember my cousins, right?” TeeJay says. I turn and say hello to Bonté, Shezadra, and the one whose name sounds like Pneumonia. Standing behind them is the little dumpy one, Margaret, who chews on the drawstring of her hooded sweatshirt. They all smile and say hello, but a little reverentially, like my having played Jesus automatically entitles me to respect.

  “Na-tay!” TeeJay shouts, and gives him five. “Man, you're funny. When you did that Donald Duck voice I thought Margaret here was gonna pee her pants.”

  “Shut up,” Margaret says, giving him a limp slap on the arm. She smiles shyly at Natie.

  “Come on,” TeeJay says, “do it again.”

  Natie blushes. “You don't really want to hear it, do you?”

  The girls insist. Natie starts reciting the beatitudes in the Donald Duck voice and the girls hold on to each other as they laugh. A small crowd gathers for the encore and I feel TeeJay's large hand on my shoulder.

  “Can we talk a minute?” he says. We walk into the wings and huddle at the stage manager's desk.

  “I hate to tell you this on your big night,” he says, “but I figured I better let you know right away.”

  I feel my heart leap into my throat.

  “Some crazy foreign lady came to talk with my mom today.”

  Dagmar knows just about everything she needs to know. She knows that the very same day someone pretending to be LaChance Jones withdrew $10,000 in cash from her account, the Catholic Vigilance Society donated $10,000 to Juilliard for a scholarship for which I was eligible but did not receive. As worried as I am for myself, I'm even more concerned for Ziba, whose photocopied picture is now in Dagmar's gnarled hands. What's more, now that she's traced LaChance back to TeeJay's mother, Dagmar is just one step away from the awesome (and possibly Mafia-related) power that is Frank Sinatra. Forget jail time. I'm going to sleep with the fishes.

  So you'll understand why I don't feel much like going to the prom. It's hard to muster enthusiasm for adolescent rites of passage when you're facing the prospect of a painful, lingering death. Kelly suggests we throw our own anti-prom party instead.

  I'm not really up for anything, to be honest. I always feel a certain letdown after a show, but this is the worst one ever, even though I win the Brownie Award for Most Messianic. I just hadn't realized how empty my life would feel without Godspell; it's like I've left Technicolor Oz and gone back to black-and-white Kansas. (Frankly, I've never understood why Dorothy didn't stay in Oz, anyway. Why leave a land of talking trees and dancing scarecrows to go back to doing farm chores in the dust bowl?) What's more, the grim reality of having to find another job sets in. All around me, people are preparing to go away to school. I'll join a conversation and a hush will come over the group, and I'll know immediately they were talking about college and don't want to make me feel bad. I feel like I'm some kind of untouchable, like I've been lumped in with all the burnouts and wastoids in the smoking section who aren't going anywhere with their lives either. I imagine my friends coming home for the holidays, full of excitement and new ideas and erudite collegiate banter that I can't relate to or possibly understand, until eventually they begin to avoid me altogether, the One Who Stayed Behind, the loser who tries to relive his high-school glories but eventually ends up a sad, bloated alcoholic hanging around New Jersey bars and picking fights.

  Reluctantly I agree to go with the gang to Something for the Boys.

  On the way we stop at Dionysus where Ziba dashes any hope I had of getting back in Kelly's pants by buying a strap-on dildo. My only consolation is that they choose one that's about the same size as me instead of Doug.

  We stop at the door of Something for the Boys and Ziba pulls a long, silk scarf out of her beaded clutch purse.

  “What's going on?” I say.

  “It's a surprise,” she says, tying the scarf around my eyes. Natie and Doug each take an elbow and lead me into the club, where a group of men are singing a stirring rendition of “Climb Ev'ry Mountain.” I feel stupid and self-conscious, like everyone must be looking at me. We stop.

  “Stay right there,” Doug says, and I feel someone untie the blindfold. I blink for a second to adjust to the hazy purple light and then see Paula in front of me, giggling with delight. She's holding a birthday cake that says “Happy Birthday, Salvador.”

  “Salvador?” I say.

  “Dali. He's eighty today. Quick, make a wish before the candles go out.”

  I stop for a moment to take a mental photograph of my best friends, the fuzzy glow from the candles shining on their smiling faces: Ziba, with her spiky hair and dark eyes, beaming her Mona Lisa smile; Kelly, tilting her head in that way that pretty girls do; Paula, her mouth spread wide in full curtain-up-light-the-lights mode; Doug, deep-dimpling his satyr's grin; and Natie, the light surrounding his little cheesehead like a halo.

  They all look so beautiful to me, like angels in an Italian fresco. I close my eyes to make a wish. You'd think that I'd wish for Juilliard to come through somehow, but you'd be wrong. I don't even want to think about Juilliard at this point. No, what I wish for is to feel normal again, to feel as carefree and happy as I did last summer, to feel the magic and the mischief and the laughter. I want all the uncertainty and weirdness of these past months to be over, no matter how it turns out. It's not like I want to be stupid and naïve again; I just want to be happy. And safe.

  Most important, I want my friends to be happy and safe, too.

  I blow out the candles and everybody claps, including the guys at the piano. The pianist with the Humpty-Dumpty face strikes up “Happy Birthday” and everybody in the place sings along. I can't very well tell them to stop, so I just stand there, embarrassed and grinning stupidly while the wave of sound washes over me. I feel something wet on my neck and when I reach up to brush it away I realize that I'm crying, not a pushed-out, constipated kind of crying, but an easy, steady flow, like a light rain.

  It's transcendental.

  Paula's done up extra special for the occasion. She's wea
ring combat boots (one brown, one black, of course), a large skirt made out of tulle, and a bustier which pushes up her enormous boobs like a shelf. There's no mistaking her for a drag queen this time.

  “You look like that chick from MTV,” Doug says, “you know, the one who wears her underwear outside of her clothes.”