Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath

by Steven Goldman

  “What?” I ask Carrie.

  “It’s a guy M.C. knows.”

  “That guy?”

  “Yes?” Carrie answers.

  “Knows?”

  “Knew.”

  “Can we go?” M.C. asks.

  Louis explains the wedgie inquisition

  “Are we going to the prom?”

  “Together?” David asks me. I think he means it as a joke.

  “Carrie wants to set me up with Amanda.”

  David doesn’t answer immediately. He lays out his napkin, arranges his lunch, and opens his chips. Maybe he’s thinking. I look at his sandwich.

  “Turkey? It’s been ham for three days and now suddenly turkey? You never switch mid-week.”

  “What do you have today? You are always obnoxious about my lunch when yours sucks.”

  I look in my bag. There is a thermos of something. Thermoses are almost always a bad sign.

  “You know, I don’t think you like turkey that much. And you don’t look hungry. Now that it’s baseball season, you’ve really got to watch your weight. And a whole sandwich?”

  David hands me half of his sandwich. “I should just start packing two.”

  “Bert, Ernie, how’s funny?” Louis pulls a chair from a neighboring table and places it directly next to mine. He reaches over me, removes the sandwich from David’s hand, takes a large bite of it, and then gives it back. Chewing and grinning and shaking his head at the same time, he turns back toward me.

  “So, Spielberg, rumors are that Sorrelson gave your effort a thumbs-down. Rotten tomatoes. No stars.”

  David is looking at the remains of his sandwich, trying to figure out how he feels about eating it after Louis’s bite. He decides against it and places it back onto his napkin. Louis picks it up and finishes it in two large chomps.

  “You’re not so used to being hauled in by the inquisition, are you? Prissy boys like you guys who spend all their time calculating their GPAs to the fifth decimal point don’t do the heart-to-hearts with the drool king often. Hung you by your wedgie, didn’t he? How are those balls feeling these days? A little squeezed?”

  “I don’t think it’s a big deal,” I say, with no confidence in my voice.

  “Probably not. Just your future. Any chance of success later in life. That permanent record has legs, you know. It gets up and follows you everywhere you go. ‘Mitchell Wells, we were going to offer you the vice presidency of our gigantic corporation, but I see here that your high school principal says you’re a bad apple.’ ‘Dr. Wells, I’m afraid we will have to reject your license on ethical grounds. We see in this file that you are a pornographer and blasphemer.’ On the plus side, you can probably convince some floozy to marry you. Guys with reps, you know, always in demand.” He leans in closer to me. “Don’t let them get to you. They’ve got nothing, no leverage at all. Sorrelson, that belly of his is full of hot air and he makes those faces at you”—Louis sticks out his lower lip and frowns—“but what’s he really going to do? Tell your mommy? Make you sit in the library for a day suffering the horrors of missing Ms. Bexter sighing her way through math class? Sorrelson can’t do squat and he knows it.” Still only inches away from my face, he bellows in a suddenly deep voice, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

  With that, he stands up, palms David’s apple, and strides out of the cafeteria.

  “What’s in the thermos?” David asks.

  I hand it over and he opens it, grimaces, and hands it back.

  “Maybe I’ll buy something.” He looks around, distracted. “You didn’t tell me you had to go talk to Sorrel-son,” he says to the empty chair next to him.

  “It was a couple of days ago. He asked me to bring the film in, but he hasn’t gotten back to me about it.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “I don’t know yet. Someone complained that it was offensive.” I shrug like it’s all no big deal.

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  I don’t know. I was going to tell him right after it happened, but we weren’t ever alone in the hallway and then he went to practice. And then on Friday I was going to bring it up at lunch, but we spent the whole period talking about something else. And then it was the weekend and we went to a movie but we didn’t really talk, and now it is Monday, and it felt weird to bring it up since it happened four days ago.

  “I guess because nothing’s happened yet,” I lie.

  “Could you e-mail or something if you get expelled? Just to keep me in the loop.”

  “I’ll send you an invite to the hanging. I know how you feel about missing big social events.”

  “Gay” as a metaphor for everything that’s fucked up between us

  There is a moment a few hours later when we almost communicate. We are standing next to each other in the hallway outside the film lab. The trolls are inside, the previous class is long gone, and David asks what’s wrong with me lately.

  “I don’t know how to act around you anymore,” I answer.

  “Since when?”

  “Since you told me.”

  “Oh,” David says.

  “I mean, I don’t think you want me to act any different. Differently.”

  “Does it make you nervous that I’m …”

  “Gay?” I need to say it.

  “Does it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you afraid someone will find out and think you are too?”

  “No.”

  “Are you afraid I’m going to try to kiss you, or feel you up or something?”

  “No—of course not.”

  David takes two steps forward and looks me square in the face. I can’t read him at all. He doesn’t look angry. Is he hoping that I’ll lean over and kiss him? Is that what he wants?

  I turn my head and stare at a spot several feet to my left.

  “I’m just afraid I’ll say the wrong thing.” My voice comes out quiet, almost believable. I don’t look up for David’s reaction.

  We stand there. Months, maybe years go by and we don’t say a word. Then we go into class.

  CHAPTER 15

  You Know, Guy Stuff

  Thud

  We go watch David play baseball. Actually, we go watch David watch baseball, since he hasn’t seen a minute of action all season. Making varsity doesn’t mean that you play varsity.

  We constitute a small crowd all by ourselves. Carrie and M.C. are here. So is Amanda. And my mother. Mom is here because Mom is a baseball fan. Mention baseball and she becomes another person. She cares deeply about who is on top in the American League. She always has an opinion on trades and salaries and which records require asterisks. She and David can sit happily in the kitchen arguing about who should have gotten the Cy Young and whether the Mets will suck again this year. Her own children, who have never showed any interest in the all-American pastime, are a disappointment to her.

  So Mom is at the game, perched in the stands wearing her Red Sox hat with a small ponytail sticking out the back. She gives a little wave to David, who smiles but does not wave back. His parents won’t be here. He has told them not to come and they will be more than happy to oblige. He does not look up at me.

  Although there were four of us in the minivan, I am the only one sitting with Mom. I wonder if I should be more self-conscious about sitting in the stands with my mother, but I don’t really have much choice. Carrie would probably prefer a tonsillectomy to sitting near Mom at a baseball game. Between Mom’s baseball cap and her regular, often vulgar taunting of the umpire, I can understand Carrie’s embarrassment. But my mother would be offended if I left her by herself. I also don’t have anyone else to sit with. As long as she doesn’t hold my hand when she gets excited, which she has been known to do, I will sit with her. But I am not willing to hold hands with my mother in public.

  Carrie is not a baseball fan. She’s here mostly to scope out the players. I suspect that Amanda and M.C.’s presence is part of Carrie’s prom strategy. Of the thre
e of them, only M.C. looks like she is focused on baseball. She is sort of squinting at the field as if something is written on it explaining what is going on. Every once in a while she will clap, sometimes even at the right time. Mom whoops when we score on a well-hit double in the third inning. Following her lead, M.C. gives a little “Go Blue!” cry, but it isn’t convincing. I’m pretty sure she has no idea what she’s watching.

  I steal a glance at Amanda, who is sitting quietly beside Carrie, and I catch her eye by mistake. She smiles at me. I turn my attention back to the game in panic. We score another run and David stands up in the dugout to give a whistle and clap. High fives all around, as Glenn takes off his helmet and sits down. David may not be playing, but he looks right in his uniform. His blond hair sticks out from under his cap, framing his face. The shirt hangs well from his shoulders—he must be lifting weights. If he could ditch his glasses, he could be in a beer commercial. I try to imagine him through the eyes of the trio of females watching him from the stands. He’s good-looking. I bet M.C. would think he has a nice butt.

  At the top of the sixth, with one out, runners on second and third, the cleanup batter for the other team hits a hard line drive to our shortstop, who stops it short. Unable to decide whether to throw to first for the out or to the catcher to hold the runner on third, he instead hurls the ball straight into the home team dugout. I’m thinking error. I’m not sure whether David was attempting to catch it or just trying to get out of the way, but he half stands up, which puts him directly into the ball’s flight path. There is a very loud thud, and now everyone is standing to watch David topple over the bench backward, taking the rest of the second string with him.

  “I think he got it in the head,” Mom says, and she runs down the steps of the bleachers toward the dugout. Maybe she feels responsible for David as a surrogate parent. Maybe she just wants to see what happened. Three rounds of deciding I should go too and then deciding that I shouldn’t, I decide I should and I follow my mother. She has a good lead on me, and by the time I get to the dugout she is talking to the trainer, who holds an icepack on David’s head.

  “He’s fine, sweetie,” Mom tells me.

  “It was just his head,” the trainer says, deadpan. “He wasn’t using it much anyway. Although this may be a first for me.”

  “What is?” asks David, who is now holding the icepack himself and looks a little firmer.

  “I’m not sure we’ve had anyone who’s managed to get injured while sitting on the bench. Usually you have to be in the game.”

  No, no, no, yes, yes

  Mom won’t let David drive home in case he has a concussion or something. As a responsible parent, she decides to drive him home in his car so she can let his parents know what happened. I am instructed to take Amanda, Carrie, and M.C. home. Amanda didn’t come with us, so I am a little suspicious about why I now need to give her a ride. Still, how much of a setup can this be? She didn’t bean David with a ball, and Carrie and M.C. are in the car with us. Carrie and M.C. race to the car to take the backseat and ensure Amanda rides shotgun. They aren’t very subtle.

  Amanda’s idea of conversation is to ask lots of questions. It feels a little like an interrogation.

  “Do you go to all the home games?”

  “No.”

  “Do you play baseball?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a Braves fan?”

  “No.”

  Without looking in the rearview mirror, I can tell that Carrie is groaning and rolling her eyes. She is so embarrassed by me.

  Amanda goes to a lot of games, plays softball, and loves the Braves.

  “Do you think David has a concussion?”

  “No.”

  “That must have really hurt, don’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is David your best friend?”

  “Yes.”

  Amanda thinks it was probably just a bruise, but it does hurt and she knows because she once got walloped by a field hockey ball. Did I know she played field hockey too?

  She grills me about what teachers I have for what subjects. My taste in music. Whether I’ve ever played a musical instrument. She’s played cello since she was six. It is a long ride home.

  Oh, yeah. Oops.

  Dad meets us at the door, looking for dinner. Dad can cook, but you have to tell him that he’s supposed to or it just doesn’t happen. If he hadn’t married Mom while he was still in residency, he might have starved. Carrie shows him where the kitchen is and reminds him how to boil pasta. We are searching for something to put on it when the phone rings.

  “Oh, yeah. Oops,” Carrie says. “I’ll tell him. Hey, Mitchell, forget something?”

  I can’t think of anything.

  “Do you want to go back and pick up our mother? We stranded her at David’s house.”

  Oh, yeah. Oops.

  On the way home my mother tells me how worried she is about David. I listen carefully, because when she is worried about me she often expresses it in terms of her anxiety about David.

  “I think he’s too shy.”

  David’s not shy. No one would call him gregarious, but he’s not shy.

  “About girls.”

  Oh.

  “Has he asked M.C. to the prom yet?”

  No. But I don’t know if anyone has told him he’s supposed to. I certainly haven’t. Mom has been focused on the prom lately, partly because Carrie is obsessed with it and partly because she thinks it is a good opportunity for David and me to go out with girls.

  “We haven’t talked about the prom,” I tell her.

  “What do you guys talk about?”

  “Explosives, red meat, professional wrestling. You know, guy stuff.”

  Normal

  David has decided that we need to be more normal. That’s what he says when he calls me. His head is just fine, we need to be normal, and he will be by to pick me up at 8:13. It’s a Monday, but I don’t argue. When he pulls up at 8:11, I ask where we are going and get a “just get in the car,” and so I do. He drives about a quarter of a mile from my house into what might be a future cul-de-sac. This end of the development is still being built; there are no houses on this little road, just a few large piles of dirt and some scrap wood that someone dumped here. It isn’t scenic, but it’s deserted. It occurs to me that this is the kind of place where you’d expect to find some couple parked making out.

  “We are seventeen years old. We should be drinking more.” David reaches behind the front seat and produces a brown paper bag. We get out of the car and sit on the curb. David pulls two beers from the bag and hands me one.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “My parents had a big party, and I lifted a six-pack. They weren’t counting, so they’ll never notice.”

  I try to imagine David sneaking around his house with a six-pack and hiding it in his room. Where would he hide it? Under his bed? In his sock drawer?

  I try to twist off the top, but David is prepared. He pulls out a Swiss Army knife and pries off the caps.

  “I don’t think I want to drink more,” I tell him. “The last time I got drunk was at my cousin’s bar mitzvah. For some reason, the college student tending the bar was serving anyone over the age of thirteen. I guess he figured that we were adults by Jewish law so it was okay. I had five bourbon and gingers and threw up on the centerpiece.”

  “Your problem,” David tells me as he readjusts his glasses, “is that you fear vomiting.” He takes a big swig of his beer, and then continues in a very authoritative way for someone who, up until tonight, only drank soda. “Men vomit. Men are not afraid to toss the cookies, worship at the porcelain palace, chew the cud …” He waves his hand around, searching for more metaphors.

  “Spit the multicolored rainbow?”

  “Exactly.” David opens his mouth as if he is about to say something and lets loose a large belch. He smiles. “But if you don’t wish to puke, it is important to burp,” he tells me sincerely. “Keeps the gas from
building up in your stomach.”

  I take a sip. “It’s warm.”

  “It’s not like I could keep it in the refrigerator. So when did you become a beer connoisseur? It’s good. They drink it warm in England.”

  I don’t think the English drink Bud Light warm, but I down some more to show I’m with him on this. David takes a few more glugs and makes a face. I don’t think he’s enjoying it much either.

  “And we need to use more obscenities,” David continues. He has obviously been thinking this through. “We don’t cuss enough. How’s the fucking beer?”

  It’s warm and tastes like thin mucus. “Fucking great,” I say.

  “Louder,” commands David. “We should be loud. HOW’S THE FUCKING BEER?”

  “FUCKING GREAT,” I shout. It isn’t much of a shout.

  David drains about a third of his bottle. “And we should complain about our parents more.”

  “Yeah, parents suck.”

  We sit quietly. Since discussing Danielle’s ass is off-limits, we are out of normal conversation.

  David sighs and takes another pull from his bottle. I can tell he’s trying to find words, but we don’t know how to talk about much beyond school, parties, baseball.

  “Feels like we’ve been a little off lately,” he offers after a long silence.

  “Sorry,” I say. I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for.

  I look at David. How is he still so David? How can this gay, non-cell-phone-carrying, pineapple-pizza-eating brown-bagger be so goddamned normal?

  He nods and rubs his nose. “Me too,” he says, but I’m not sure it’s even an apology. Maybe this is the way real guys talk. It would be nice if we could manage longer sentences. Or more sentences.