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

by Steven Goldman

  While I’m busy enjoying the hair stroking, a less welcome face slides into view.

  “Buddy? Wow, that’s so … saccharine. It’s cute. If you’re going to emasculate the poor guy, at least call him ‘puppy’ or ‘sweetie’ or something.”

  “Louis?”

  “Yes, Danielle.”

  “Go away.”

  “Can’t,” Louis says as he plops his bulk into the chair Amanda just vacated. “I need to talk to my little buddy here.”

  “Not now, Louis.”

  “Please go away,” Danielle repeats.

  “No, no—this is for your own good. You guys can play library later. If you can keep your hands out of her indices for a few minutes, I have something serious to tell you.” He turns to Danielle. “You know, from what I know of Mitchell, yours may be the first pair of female lips he’s ever sucked on. Is he a fast learner? Is he figuring out what to do yet or is it like sticking your tongue into an open spigot?” Danielle rolls her eyes, sits next to me, and opens her chemistry book. Nothing will deter Louis.

  “I just got the word. Sorrelson is sending you to the J-Board. Day in court. Very interesting. Passing the buck, letting the juvies decide your fate. Now usually I’m the hanging judge type …”

  “How did you even get on the Judicial Board?”

  Louis looks offended. “Elected by my peers, and lucky for you I was too, because I am one of the few people who truly gets it. It’s a freedom of expression thing. First Amendment. Tits as art. Someone has to take a stand, and I’m proud of you, my son. Now, usually I recommend groveling. That goes down well with the J-Board. But a brave man like yourself should take on the establishment. Give it to the man. Consequences be damned, liberty or death. We are with you, brother. Long live the revolution!”

  Louis stands, raises his fist in solidarity, and finally leaves. Danielle looks at me.

  “J-Board?”

  “Yeah. Next week.”

  “I could kill my parents.” She looks genuinely upset. We spend the rest of the period writing out flash cards, Danielle’s left elbow resting on my right arm as I whisper chemical elements to her softly. I decide being a nerd isn’t such a horrible thing.

  Who is “we”?

  It is Friday. Usually on Fridays David and I go to a movie. Or hang out and watch TV. Sometimes we go to a party or a game. But it’s always been easy. We did something. Now there’s Danielle. We haven’t talked about what happens now.

  First attempt to talk to David:

  Me: It’s Friday.

  David: I know.

  First attempt to talk to Danielle:

  Me: About tonight …

  Danielle: I don’t know what you were thinking, but I was thinking maybe about eight. Could I be ready at eight? Maybe, but I could try because then we could have a little time before going over to Emily’s. Don’t look that way. It isn’t a party, just a couple of people, and Emily is one of the few people who has been relatively nice to me since everything happened.

  Second attempt to talk to David:

  Me: Danielle said something about Emily having a party tonight. Not a party party, just a few people.

  David: I don’t know. What about a movie?

  Second attempt to talk to Danielle:

  Me: I was talking to David. Just checking in about tonight.

  Danielle: Is he coming to Emily’s?

  Me: I don’t think so.

  Danielle: That’s good. I wasn’t supposed to be telling lots of people about it. She gets all wiggy about her house when her parents are gone and she doesn’t want a lot of gatecrashers.

  One, maybe two, or possibly three of us are in denial. In a bizarre turn of events, I have too much to do on a Friday night. I consider faking a stomach virus. Instead I call David when I get home.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, David, it’s Mitchell.”

  “I know.”

  “Danielle really wants to go to Emily’s tonight.”

  “And you want to go with her.”

  It would be helpful to know if that is a question or a statement.

  “No, but I think I maybe should.”

  “Okay. What time is the party?”

  “I don’t know. It’s more just a few people getting together.”

  “Call me back.”

  I call Danielle.

  “Hi, guy.”

  “David wants to go to the party.”

  “I thought you said he wanted to go to a movie.”

  “He did, but with me.”

  “Can’t he go with someone else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We all go to Emily’s. David meets us there. I stand uncomfortably between him and Danielle while they talk to different people but never each other. Danielle insists it’s not a party, but it’s a lot like all the parties I go to except I’m here with two people, neither one of whom is spending much time talking with me. David is also drinking. He’s decided he likes beer, he tells me in the same assured way he defended his lack of taste for it in the past. All told, he drinks about three beers, which I tell myself isn’t enough to worry about. When it gets late, I leave with Danielle. David half smiles a good-bye.

  CHAPTER 26

  More Words I Thought Were English

  An herbaceous, biennial, and dicotyledonous flowering plant of the family Brassicaceae (or Cruciferae), sometimes decorative but often used in dishes such as coleslaw—but that’s not what’s for dinner

  Doesn’t one of you have a teacher named Al Curtis?” Dad asks as he walks into the house. None of us except Hubert are standing in the hallway, so the question is more or less addressed to the dog. The bipedal members of the family are all sitting in the kitchen.

  “I do, or did,” I stammer from my perch at the breakfast bar.

  “Nice guy.” At first I assume this is a question, but the inflection is wrong. Dad is making a statement. Where has he met Curtis?

  Dad helps himself to coffee from the pot that has been sitting cold since breakfast. It can’t be tasty at this point, but he drains his mug and refills it. “What’s for dinner?” he asks. We all look down at our plates. None of us is quite sure what to call it.

  “Brown stuff,” Carrie volunteers.

  “It’s sort of a tofu stir-fry,” my mother explains. When the one who cooks it uses a term like “sort of,” it’s a bad sign.

  Dad doesn’t seem to be following up on his remark about Curtis. He takes down a plate and tops two spoonfuls of rice with a token sampling of the stir-fry. He then takes the vacant stool beside Carrie at the breakfast bar and begins shoveling the contents of his plate into his mouth, chewing quickly in the interval when his fork travels to and from the plate. Finally I ask, “Where did you meet Curtis?”

  “At the hospital,” he replies without stopping the food intake process. Rice and globs of brown sauce dribble back onto his plate.

  “Is he sick?”

  Dad shakes his head. He takes a sip from his coffee cup and gurgles, “His mom.”

  It’s not exactly a surprise that Curtis has a mother, but somehow it feels wrong to think of him as somebody’s son. I’m somebody’s son.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Dad, in a rare display of manners, actually stops chewing. “She presented a couple of weeks ago with an M.I. with q’s and flipped t’s. Her discharge stress test showed some ischemia, so we upped her beta blocker, but she came back with angina, some atrial fibrillation, and she had a cabbage.”

  Carrie and I stare at him blankly.

  “You fed her cabbage?” Carrie asks, finally.

  I’m glad she asked. I was wondering too.

  “Bypass surgery. She had a heart attack and CABG is bypass surgery,” Mom explains. She speaks Cardiothoracic Surgospeak more fluently than the rest of us.

  Dad nods and returns his attention to inhaling his food. After a few more mouthfuls he pauses for another gulp of coffee and adds, “She had some complications. Al’s been there the whole time. N
ice guy. He and his fiancée, nice young woman, kind of tall, they’ve been taking shifts with her, reading to her, holding her hand. Al tried to go back to work but he said he didn’t make it all the way through his class and the school gave him leave. Good son. Nice family—well, I think I’ll have more. Anyone else want seconds?”

  I decline, planning to sneak down later and find something more readily identifiable to eat. Dad’s news about Curtis has a strangely calming effect on me. He was upset because his mother was in the hospital. An understandable, rational reason for taking a sudden leave that has nothing whatsoever to do with his sexual orientation, a Claymation video, or a student with a crush. Two chapters of history, eight calculus problems, and most of a chem lab write-up later, I come back down for a bowl of cereal. Carrie is on the computer. Mom is on the phone. Dad and the dog are asleep on the couch. As normal as we get. I eat my cereal and walk softly up the stairs. I might actually finish my homework early at this rate. It’s sort of sad that I’m excited by that idea.

  Private. Personal. None of your goddamned business, but thanks.

  The knock on my door comes only moments after I close it, and is immediately followed by my sister entering. Why does she bother to knock?

  “We have to talk.”

  “No, we don’t. I have homework I have to do.”

  “That’s school. This is important. You need my help.”

  “No, Carrie, I need you to go away.”

  “It took me a long time to figure it all out, but I have it and I want to help. The whole Danielle/Amanda thing. David’s letter. I think you just need to be willing to admit that you’re gay.”

  “I’m not gay.”

  Carrie waves her hand dismissively and sits on my bed. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I want you to know that as your sister I will love you regardless of your sexual orientation. I know you’re worried about Mom and Dad, but they’ll get it. Dad may take a little time, but Mom will get it right away, and family support is very important for you right now.”

  “Carrie …”

  “And I understand that you might not want people at school to know yet …”

  “Carrie …”

  She looks up.

  “Have you been looking up stuff on the Internet?” I ask her.

  “A little.”

  “You sound like a pamphlet. Web sites about coming out? Gay teens? Suicide rates? That sort of thing?” I know what’s out there. I’ve looked them all up too. She nods. “Why?”

  “Because my brother’s gay.”

  Carrie has her serious face on. It is hard to recognize because I haven’t seen it often. Most of the time her face is stuck in disdain, occasionally anger, once in a great while actual silliness, but almost never empathetic seriousness.

  “Did you read something that was in my desk?”

  “Of course I did. You left it sitting in your drawer, what was I supposed to do? It was a love letter, Mitchell. An actual love letter. I almost cried, it was so beautiful. Well, the intention was beautiful, the writing was more like a book report, but it was a love letter. I’ve never gotten a love letter from anyone. And all this time I was trying to set you up with busty Amanda when you were already seeing someone. How come you didn’t trust me enough to tell me?”

  “More reasons than I can count, but mostly because I’m not gay. David is—we’ve worked it out and we’re friends, but we’re not…”

  “Lovers?”

  “God, no. Nothing has happened. Nothing is going to happen. We are friends. I am straight.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “I am. I know. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Carrie looks disappointed. I think she was excited that there might have been something interesting about her brother. A secret life that might have saved me from being the boring dork she orders around.

  I should be so pissed at my sister right now. Not only did she go in my desk and read a very private letter, but she’s been a total bitch for the last six weeks. I try to summon some anger, but it isn’t there. I’m just relieved that someone else knows. I didn’t realize until now how badly I’ve wanted someone else to know. Carrie looks up suddenly. “Can I tell M.C.?”

  “Please don’t. David hasn’t told anyone else. At least I don’t think he has.”

  “But she wouldn’t care.”

  “She might. He’s taking her to the prom.”

  “As friends. There’s no romance there at all and she’s fine with it. There’s no romance anywhere at the moment. You and David were my best hope.”

  I don’t bring up the possibility of a Danielle romance. “What about Seth?”

  “What about him? He’s cute and attentive, but he can’t complete whole sentences. Unless he gets a brain transplant soon, I’m guessing we’ve got a week.” She smiles. “Maybe six days.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Pure Terror

  It was a dark and stormy night

  The prom is in six days. Since I have only had a prom date for about a week, I haven’t been panicking sufficiently. Then Danielle sent me an e-mail. Now I am sufficiently panicked.

  Danielle, who appears to take the prom as seriously as she does her homework, e-mailed me a checklist she found on the Internet. Someone else might be insulted, but I’m surprisingly grateful. It details everything I am supposed to do, from arranging transportation to remembering to ask her the color of her dress so that the corsage will match. It has a timeline that goes from twelve weeks before the prom to the day of (remember to refrigerate corsage, don’t forget to tell date that she looks beautiful, don’t lock car keys in car). I forward it to David and we spend the afternoon studying this document, particularly the little spreadsheet that outlines projected costs for male and female. Danielle had also sent us a short rant from a prom dress Web site about why boys should pay for most things (mostly because girls have to pay for more expensive haircuts and dresses). Proms appear to exist in some time warp—corsages and girls waiting patiently for their dates to arrive—but even my feminist little sister seems to have bought in and, in truth, I find the haircut explanation compelling given my recent experience.

  We are behind. Way behind. But we have a list.

  A shot rings out

  On Monday night, Danielle calls and says something that chills me to my soul.

  “My parents want to meet you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Tomorrow. For dinner.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Maybe because you are taking me to the prom on Saturday. You know my dad’s a minister, right? He’s also a prick. Don’t listen to a thing he says. He’s used to making pronouncements from his pulpit and he believes that everyone cares what he thinks.”

  I sort of met Danielle’s mom last week when we were studying buttons at her house, but it was just a quick “Hi Mom, this is Mitchell” and her dad wasn’t home.

  Tomorrow is also the day when I have to go sit in Sorrelson’s office with the Judicial Board. Maybe I’ll get lucky and a meteorite will crash into the planet and destroy all life as we know it.

  A blood-curdling scream echoes in the empty house

  11:20. Tuesday. I am standing in front of Sorrelson’s office. The door is closed. The seven members of the Judicial Board are crammed inside the tiny room being briefed on the facts of the case. I’ve watched them all arrive, one by one. The two seniors are quiet, earnest types who were elected because of their unwavering lack of humor. The other junior is Hannah, who Carrie insists is a lesbian and militant feminist but who looks awfully normal to me. The lone sophomore is a girl named Sophie, who looks embarrassed about the whole thing. Sorrelson and Coach Hayes are the designated adults. Louis is late and the last to get there.

  The door swings open. In a small miracle of engineering, eight chairs have been shoehorned into Sorrel-son’s office. Sorrelson sits at his desk between the two uncomfortable-looking seniors. The coach and Louis are at the far wall. Both of the girls are sitting opposite the desk cro
ss-legged because there isn’t enough room for their feet. I squeeze past the chair at the door. Sorrelson motions for me to close the door behind me, and I reach back and pull it shut. It makes a loud and ominous thud. I sit in the chair, one leg touching the nearest senior, the other pinned by the corner of the desk. The smell in the room is already oppressive.

  “I have explained the situation to the board. They would like to ask a few questions.”

  “Did they watch the film?”

  “Louis has, of course, because he was in class. No one else. I didn’t feel it was necessary. I told them what was relevant about it.”

  “Isn’t it hard to talk about whether it is offensive if no one has seen it?” I don’t mean for the question to sound rude, but it seems so obvious that I can’t help but ask.

  “It is offensive,” Sorrelson insists. “People were offended.”

  “I think the question,” one of the seniors begins, “is whether the movie was intended to be offensive.”

  “I think that’s irrelevant,” says Sorrelson.

  The senior goes back to staring at the floor.

  “Mitchell, would you like to explain why you decided to turn in a Claymation project rather than a paper?” The coach is smiling encouragingly.

  I try to remember. Saying that I did it so I wouldn’t have to read the book doesn’t sound like a good answer.

  “I was trying to do something a little different.”

  “Well, you did that,” Sorrelson interrupts. I’m beginning to sense how these meetings go.

  “I don’t even know why we are here,” Hannah says, clearly frustrated and utterly unintimidated. “If you want to punish the guy for making a funny film, just do it, and stop pretending you care what we think.”

  “That’s not fair. We do care what you think. You are elected members of the Judicial Board of this school and you have the responsibility to protect the integrity of the values this school holds dear …” Sorrelson is angry and spitting again.