by Ron Koertge
When she looms over me, I feel like I’m about to be taken to the principal.
“Look, Ben, this was a field trip, okay? What did you think — that I was gonna be your girlfriend? You’re a sweet kid, but you were just something to do until Ed showed up.”
AS I PROWL THE HALLS the next morning, I catch people looking at me, checking out my bruises and cuts. Guys eye me; girls glance, whisper to each another, and glance again.
Then I round a corner and there’s Colleen propped against the wall outside her homeroom. I stalk right up to her, and I mean it this time. Bad leg or no bad leg, I stalk.
“Boy, that was really crappy.”
She barely opens her eyes.
“What happened to your face?”
“Remember that guy who knocked me down? I found him and tried to knock him down. You can see how that turned out.”
“How did you get home?”
“I took a cab.”
“I couldn’t believe it when you split. We would have dropped you off.”
“You came with me.”
“Ben, I drove! You came with me!”
“You know what I mean. What you did was really crappy.”
Colleen just fumbles for her sunglasses and puts them on. “Lookit, I wasn’t going to use last night, all right? Before I left for Marcie’s, I did what you said and left my stash at home.” She pulls up her Ramones T-shirt and wipes at her nose. “But I go to the bathroom at the club and this girl I know has got some coke. And then I run into this other chick who’s got some dolphins. You know when we were dancing and having a good time? I was high. That scene with Marcie made me nervous; I couldn’t wait to get high. Then Ed shows up with this shit and he’s not kidding: it’s the best I ever smoked.”
I take off my book bag, something Ed would never carry, something none of the cool guys ever carry. “You don’t have to keep doing it, though.”
Colleen digs in her purse for a Kleenex. “Remember when Marcie asked us what kids were passionate about? Well, I like drugs. I’m passionate about drugs.”
I shake my head. “Not all the time. You could be like those Buddhist guys — you fall down, you get up.”
“No, I like falling down too much.” She looks at the ground. She’s wearing shower clogs, thick blue ones. Her feet are long and white.
“Colleen, listen —”
“You listen. We’re history, okay?” She’s so loud people stop to stare.
“I don’t want to be history.” I’m as loud as she is. “Anyway, you’re just hung-over. You’ll feel different tomorrow. You know you will.”
“Yeah? Well, if I do, I’ll just smoke another joint. Make your little movie, Ben. Forget about me.”
I watch her turn and walk away. Her pants are dirty. The tag on her precious Fresh Jive T-shirt sticks up. She’s wearing those stupid shoes. I bellow, “Fine. I will. And it’s not little, either!”
ARTIE WEBSTER FOLLOWS ME into an empty classroom. I motion for him to sit behind the teacher’s desk, then plant myself in front of him. I look through the viewfinder.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, okay?” When he doesn’t answer I glance up. “Okay?”
“Yeah, sure. I was just thinking your voice is different than I remember. Higher. More like a girl’s.”
“Very funny.”
“When’s the last time you talked to anybody?”
“I talk in class.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“Well, I’m talking now. So will you answer some questions? I’m making a movie.”
“What about?”
“High school.”
“Any girls in it? Like, at the beach? Or unconscious?”
“Try and relax, Artie.”
“What happened to your face?”
“Hey, who’s interviewing who here?”
“You ask me one, I’ll ask you one. I go first — what happened to your face?”
“I got in a fight.”
“Somebody hit you? That was chicken shit.”
“Maybe I’m tougher than I look.”
“Man, you better be.”
“My turn to ask a question: What do you want out of high school?”
Artie pretends to think. “All right. What I want out of high school is to prepare myself for the future in the best way possible.”
I roll my eyes. “Scene one, take two.”
“To get out of this place alive, then, okay? That’s my biggest goal.”
“That’s more like it. And then what?”
“Are you kidding? Go to college.”
“So you feel like high school prepared you for college?”
“Hey, my dad says you get out of things what you put into them.”
“But what do you say?”
“I just told you.”
I look over the top of the camera. “No, no. I mean what do you believe?”
“Huh?”
I glance at my list of questions, a list Colleen and I thought up together. “Forget it. If you could change one thing about high school, what would it be?”
“Do you know Stephanie Brewer?”
“Jeremy’s girlfriend?”
“That’s the change I’d make. There’d be more girls like Stephanie.”
“So there’d still be metal detectors and gangs and burned-out teachers but way more Stephanies?”
Artie leans forward. “But there wouldn’t be gangs then, so we wouldn’t need metal detectors.”
“Why not?”
“Stephanie jerks Jeremy off.”
“So?”
“So if everybody had a Stephanie, everybody’d be happy.”
“Can I quote you? I need one more source for my term paper on Utopia.”
“Hey, you should know what I’m talking about. You had Colleen.”
“I never had Colleen.”
“You can tell me, man.”
“Artie, I know where this is going, so just don’t, okay?”
“But I heard that Ed said when Colleen was high she’d do any —”
I loom over the desk and put my bruised face right in Artie’s. “Shut up, man. I’m not kidding.”
Stephanie Brewer leans against the north wall of the gym, the wall with the big panther logo.
“Move a little to the left, okay?”
“Who else is in this movie?” she asks.
“So far just you and Artie.”
“Who’s Artie?”
“A little more to the left.” I look through the viewfinder. “I kind of want that panther’s paw to show up in the frame.”
“Did Ed do that to your face?”
“No.”
“Well, it looks kinda cute.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Well, it’s not bad. What’s bad is those clothes your grandma makes you wear. And how you think you’re better than everybody else.”
“I never thought that.”
“It sure looked like it. Two years ago I asked you to run for treasurer of the freshman class, and all you did was glare at me.”
“You just felt sorry for me.”
“I needed a treasurer, and you’re good at math.”
I raise the camera. With her blue pedal pushers and banana-colored top she could have stepped right out of an ad. “Ready?”
“Do you want me to do anything special?”
“Just answer the questions.” I glance at my list. “Do you feel safe at school?”
Stephanie frowns. “Most of the time. High school’s kind of like L.A.: you’re fine if you know what you’re doing. And like they say — there’s safety in numbers.”
“Meaning?”
“You know who my friends are.”
“The jocks.”
“Exactly. Even the really bad kids go to the games. And they know who’s with who. So I don’t get hassled very much.”
“You mean guys like Spoonhead care if we beat Compton or not?”
“For sure. But like summers are kind o
f bad, because there’s no games and people get high and forget and stuff. And after graduation is really bad because then you’re just another white face. But Shaunelle and Lourdes really helped. They told me what to do.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Like when some blunted-out homie starts in on me, I get right in his face. I give him back twice as bad. You can’t ever let them know you’re scared. I learned more from those two girls than I ever learned in classes. Stuff I could really use. Not like George Orwell and Virginia Woolf.”
“Sounds like you’re anxious to get out.”
Stephanie puts both hands on her hips and tries to look saucy. “How’s this?”
“Fine. Are you anxious to get out of high school?”
“It’s like . . . okay, it’s a jungle and all that, but it’s my jungle, you know? There’s animals and stuff, but they’re animals I see every day. And if there’s quicksand, I know where it is. College is going to be really different. Everybody says how much better it’ll be not worrying about guns, but I’ll bet it’s way harder. I get good grades because I remember what teachers say in class and I’m no trouble. Kids come back from college all the time because they flunked out.”
“But at least you’ll be with Jeremy.”
“Jeremy will last maybe half a semester. He thinks he can play college ball, but all he can really do is stand in one spot and hit three-pointers. He’s not all that tall and he gets intimidated anywhere inside the paint.”
“Man, that’s cold.”
“I’m just realistic, Ben.” As I fiddle with the camera, she meanders toward me. “Speaking of which: What was it with you and Colleen? I mean, was that realistic?”
“Obviously not.”
“She’s kind of a lowlife, anyway. You’re better off without her.”
“Take that back.”
Stephanie frowns at me. “What?”
“Take back what you said.”
“You think she’s not a lowlife? Are you kidding?”
“I don’t listen to people badmouth Colleen.”
Stephanie shrugs. “Fine. I take it back. Jesus, what’s got into you?”
I sit at a table near the back of the cafeteria, talking to three girls. Each one’s got her head cocked at a different angle. Two have their arms crossed.
“You think we don’t know who you are?” says a girl named Chana. “Your grandma’s the one shows up at the park every Thanksgiving wearing those little plastic gloves and handin’ out food to the darkies.”
“You know my grandma?”
Debra snorts. “One eye on that big-assed Cadillac of hers, the other up to Heaven where God’s got nothin’ else to do but put gold stars right next to her name.”
I nod. “Sounds like her. But she’s not here. I am.”
“Why are you askin’ us last?”
I just look at her. “You’re not last.”
“Really. Well, Jeremy said no, and Spoonhead said no and a lot of other people said no.”
I pick up my camera. “Sorry I bothered you.”
Molly pulls her blue-and-white Adidas jacket around her. “Wait a minute. What all do you want to know?”
It’s too hard to get all the way up. I lean on the table. “About stuff you’ve been through. I mean, you all are seniors with babies and you always sit over here by yourselves. What’s that like?”
Debra leans forward. “I’ll tell you what you should be doin’ with your time, and that’s makin’ a movie about birth control. You do that and you can put my big ass right in the middle of the picture.” She leans toward the camera. “You don’t want to end up like me, stay out the back seat of the car, don’t go in nobody’s room to look at no NBA highlights, and keep a lock on your panties twenty-four seven.”
“Do you still see the fathers of your children?”
Molly shrugs. “Around. I see mine around, carrying his basketball instead of his baby.”
“So do you go out on dates and stuff?”
The three girls look at each other. “Well, it’s hard,” Chana says finally. “When my grandma can’t baby-sit, I can’t go anywhere. And she’ll only baby-sit so much, so it’s either go to school or go dancing. And without school, I’m in more trouble than I am now.”
“I’m just not interested,” Debra says.
Molly blushes. “I’m interested, but all guys want is to do the nasty. They think ’cause I did it at least once I’m just gonna fall on the nearest bed.”
“What do you want to do after you graduate?”
Chana grins. “I want to sit on the beach and have people give me money. But that position has apparently already been filled ’cause I never see it up on the Job Board.”
“My sister started at Macy’s part-time. Now she’s an assistant buyer. I could do that.”
Molly says, “My people make soap and go to craft fairs. Lot of single mothers in that business.”
Chana glances down. “Oh, man. I’m leakin’ again.” She turns to me, and I angle the Sony. “What’s wrong with this picture? You’re not supposed to leak milk on your Gap T-shirt. You wear a Gap T-shirt, you’re supposed to be dancin’ at a cookout and bein’ all happy ’cause you’re more comfortable than anybody in the world.” Chana puts her hand over the lens. “Do I get to ask you a question now?”
I turn off the camera. “Sure.”
“What’s the story with you and Colleen?”
I stand up. “Thanks for talking to me.”
Chana scowls. “Oh, fine. Get all cold on me now. You’re crippled, little man, not blind. Are you telling me you couldn’t see the two of you got nothin’ whatsoever in common?”
MY GRANDMOTHER GETS UP EARLY, but since she does yoga and checks to see what the stock market is doing, we don’t always bump into each other. But all of a sudden there she is, looking like an icicle in white linen slacks and a white blouse. She sits across from me as I stare blearily at my cereal.
“You remind me so much of your grandfather, Benjamin. He’d brood and stay up late, too. It was best to let him alone. Sooner or later, he’d be his old self.”
“I’ve just been across the street, Grandma. Working on that project I told you about.”
“I know there’s something on your mind besides a home movie. If talking about it would make you feel the least bit better, I’m available.”
“Grandma, it’s not gonna do any good. And, anyway, you don’t want to hear it.”
“Because it’s about that girl.”
I look up from the last of my Cheerios, each one like the empty life preserver of a doomed ship. “She’s got a name.”
She reaches for the faded bruise on my cheek. “Did the boyfriend do this?”
“No. This isn’t a Sean Penn movie, Grandma.”
“But she prefers him.”
“Colleen likes drugs. And her boyfriend’s got a lot of those.”
She nods. “What is it exactly that you see in her? Besides the narcotics, she’s so profane and . . .” She thinks for a few seconds. “So badly decorated.”
I reach for her hand. “Grandma, you’re really a hoot.”
She picks at the cuff of my seventy-dollar shirt, the one that she sends to the best laundry in town. “Some men like to rescue women. I hope you’re not one of those.”
“Grandma, in the last three years, except for you, she’s the only person who actually touched me, actually put her hands on me.” I shake my stunted arm at her. “She touched this, she touched my stupid leg. It was like it didn’t matter. When I was with her sometimes I felt like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever bopping down the street carrying that can of paint.
“And we had fun. We talked on the phone, we went to Marcie’s movie, we went to a club. And I know you don’t like her, Grandma, but when she’s with me, I swear to God, she’s different, too. And I just know that if I wasn’t like I am . . .”
And then I cry. I can’t help it. Grandma waits, then hands me one of her perfect little linen handkerchief
s.
I blow my nose. “Sorry. I just —”
“Benjamin, I don’t know what you see in that girl. But I do know this: everybody, and I mean everybody, stands in front of the mirror and wishes they were different.”
AT SCHOOL, I DODGE SOME JOCKS with their arms around each other’s shoulders, cut between a couple holding hands, and pull up beside Oliver Atkins.
“Oliver, can I talk to you a minute?”
“So, Benjamin, what shall we begin with: my impeccable taste in clothes or those show tunes I can’t help but hum?”
“So you already know about the documentary?”
“Oh, sure. But the real buzz is about you.”
“What about me?”
“Are you kidding? You’re like this high school Lazarus.”
All of a sudden I’m honest-to-God dizzy thinking about wasting years of my life, years of this incarnation. I have to bite down hard to keep my jaw from quivering. I raise my camera. “Can we, uh, just do this, please?”
“I’m ready when you are. Shall we step outside?”
“No, no. Let’s just let people stream by behind you.”
“You’re the director, Mr. Scorsese.”
I look at the questions on my list. “Let’s just start with how safe you feel around here.”
“As a homosexual or as a Homo sapiens?”
“Either. Both.”
“Well, as a gay man, I feel reasonably safe. I’ve been out since sixth grade.” He raises his left arm festooned with silver bracelets. “Nobody’s surprised when they see all these ornaments, for example. The teachers accept me, either because they’re truly tolerant and enlightened or because they think they should be. The jocks are tired of making fun of me and to the gangstas I’m just beneath contempt. Except for school, I live in an all-gay world. My dentist is gay, my doctor is gay. I patronize a gay dope dealer.”
“Do you ever stand in front of a mirror and wish you were different?”
“Only every day.”
“Do you want to be not gay?”
“No. I want to be better-looking.”
Stephanie’s boyfriend, Jeremy, looms into the frame. “You tell ’em, faggot. You got all the answers.” Then he staggers away laughing.
Oliver sighs. “Wouldn’t it be nice if high school were either voc ed or college prep? That way when somebody read a poem all the boys in the back row wouldn’t have to act like they’re throwing up; they’d be somewhere else learning how to fix a toilet.”
