How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater (14 page)

Once we're on the first floor we can move about freely, although we're still hyperconscious of getting caught. Doug's come along with us (it just wouldn't be a true CV Enterprise without him) and we wander the empty corridors together, the only sound coming from the squeaking of my sneakers across the linoleum floors. Why they call them sneakers I'll never know, because they don't seem very effective for sneaking. They should call them squeakers instead. To make matters worse, my left knee cracks every other step. “Jesus, Ed, you're like a friggin' one-man band,” Doug says.

Everything looks different at night—the classrooms, the hallways, the offices—and it all appears more sinister and scary, like we're visiting an evil parallel universe. I'm aware of every echo, every shaft of light, every movement.

It's thrilling.

Natie accompanies me and Doug to the gym and leaves us there while he goes to the main office to intercept some detention slips and do a little forgery for his “clients.” Apparently, he's been building up a little cottage industry among the rich, white-boy druggies who can afford to pay a handsome fee to have their school records cleaned up. “I'll meet you guys here at 0200 hours,” he says. “And don't go wandering off. You don't know where all the alarms are.”

Doug and I have to go into the girls' locker room to get to Burro's office and, as we pass through the door, it suddenly occurs to me—gym teachers go to work every day in a locker room. While admittedly there's a certain sexiness about it, overall it's got to suck, particularly for the men. Few things stink worse than teenage boys' feet.

The door to Ms. Burro's office is locked.

“Now what?” Doug asks.

“We've just gotta wait for Natie, I guess.”

Doug ambles over to the lockers and tugs on the locks to see if any are open. “I've always wondered what the girls' locker room looked like,” he says.

I glance around. “Not so different from the boys', is it?”

“Guess not,” he says.

We wander through the shower room and out to the pool. The room is humid and smells of chlorine and mold. The only sound comes from the water lapping into the filters.

Doug Grouchos his eyebrows at me. “You up for a swim?” he asks.

The water is dark and scary looking and undoubtedly cold, but I'm not about to pass up an opportunity to see Doug naked. Normally I have to go to a lot of trouble to do just that—showing up early at his house so I might catch him stepping out of the shower, inviting myself to sleep over despite the fact that his father, the embittered Tastykake driver, totally gives me the creeps. Doug whips off his clothes the way little kids do, like he's eager to be liberated from them. But there's something almost graceful about the way he pulls his shirt off, reaching from the bottom instead of wiggling out from the neck the way I do, and I make a mental note to remove my shirt that way in the future. He strides past me, the muscles in his legs as attenuated as something you'd see in
Gray's Anatomy
and I feel ashamed that my body is so jiggly. He stands naked at the edge of the pool, spreads his cobra lats wide, and cracks his back before making a perfect javelin dive into the silver-black water. I descend the steps halfway and watch him flop about like a dolphin, his butt periodically popping above the surface of the water. He swims over to me.

“Aren't you coming in?”

I'm stuck in that stage between wanting to go in and being afraid to take the final plunge. So instead I stand there shivering like an idiot. “It's really cold,” I say, my teeth chattering.

“Wuss,” he says, then grabs me by the wrist and yanks me in. All I can hear is the plunging sound of water as it rushes past me and I feel quite lost for a moment. I swim for the surface and look around for Doug but I don't see him. I paddle to the center of the pool, unsure of what to do next. It's kind of creepy swimming in a dark pool at night, like any minute you expect to hear the theme from
Jaws.

At that moment Doug grabs a hold of my foot and drags me under.

We sort of wrestle, each of us preventing the other from coming up for air. Doug's body is hard to the touch and, even as I struggle for breath, I find myself envying it. (How great must it be to go through life with that sense of firmness under you, like you have a solid foundation?) When we can't stand it any longer we rise to the surface.

“Very funny,” I gasp.

Doug flashes me a lupine smile and I feel his legs brush up against mine as we tread water. He looks so handsome with his wet hair pushed off his face, like an old-time movie star. It's all I can do to stop myself from just leaning over and kissing him right on the lips.

“What's wrong?” he says.

“Nothing. Why?”

“You're looking at me funny.”

“That's 'cuz you're funny-looking,” I say and splash him. He pops up and dunks me and once again the water whooshes around my ears. I reach for his legs and find my head in his crotch and suddenly Doug is over my shoulder, his cock mashed against my neck, the muscles in the back of his thighs tensing in my hands. I have to push him off of me to get a breath, but as soon as I do, Doug whips around, thrusts his hand between my legs and gooses me.

I squeal, just like a little girl, the sound reverberating around the room. Doug backstrokes away from me.

“Hernia check,” he says, winking.

This is what I imagine life with a male lover is like—rough and playful and grabby—and I revel in the sheer manliness of it all. I follow Doug down to the shallow end where we do handstands and have breath-holding contests until it's almost 0200 hours.

We don't have any towels so we sit on the pavement to air-dry. Doug lies back, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. I gaze at his lean and chiseled body, which reminds me of Jesus on the cross. (Is it just me, or is it strange that churches have statues that make our crucified Lord look like a triathlete?)

“Ed, can I ask you something?”

I turn and see that Doug has opened his eyes. Caught.

“Sure,” I say.

“Promise you won't take it the wrong way.”

“'Course I won't.”

I feel my heart skip a beat. Unfortunately, the blood rushes to my groin instead.

Doug sits up on his elbows. “Are you gay?”

H
e's cool with it;
he's totally, totally cool with it, and reminds me yet again of his homo-friendly credentials (the ubiquitous gay German gymnast uncle). In fact, he even seems to admire me for being bi, like it makes me some kind of adventuresome sexual outlaw. Slut Cassidy.

“But you gotta understand that I'm not like that,” he says. “There's nothing wrong with it, of course, but I'm just really, really straight, you know what I mean?”

Methinks he doth protest too much. Now I just need to find a way to wear down his resistance without resorting to a blow to the head with a blunt instrument.

Natie can't get us into Burro's office, but he does offer to break my finger for me. I decline, and turn my attention back to the college issue.

Luckily, Mr. Lucas agrees to plead my case with Al. But just the thought of the two of them meeting (aka
When Worlds Collide)
gives me a pain in my chest like someone is gripping my heart and won't let go.

I want to assert my identity as an artist by wearing my lime-green harem pants and judo jacket, but Kathleen says I'll get further if I dress conservatively (or “normal” as she calls it), so I wear khakis and an Izod shirt, which I even tuck in, as well as one of those horrible preppy belts that looks like macramé. With my Hall and Oates haircut I look like a lesbian golfer.

Being unemployed at the moment (you make a couple of personal calls when you're supposed to be telemarketing and you're out of there), I slip in the back of the auditorium to watch the Act One run-through of
The Miracle Worker.
It's the first time I've seen any of the show since I quit, and the moment Kelly enters I totally forget my worries. Her performance as Annie Sullivan is an absolute revelation to me. First off, she's completely convincing, down to the character's Irish brogue and troubled eyesight and I often forget it's Kelly I'm watching, so swept away am I by her performance. I had no idea she could be so good. She's so real, so harrowing, it makes me want to cry (assuming I could do that kind of thing), partly because I'm so proud of her and partly because I want so desperately to be up there myself being real and harrowing.

When the lights come up at the end of the act, I see Doug leaning against the side wall by the door, his kinky hair wet and messy from a post-practice shower, his T-shirt damp in spots, like he dried off in a hurry to get over here. He tosses his gym bag and letterman jacket over his shoulder and saunters down the aisle, slapping his chest with one hand to applaud. Kelly pulls off the dark glasses she wears in the role to see who it is, then lights up with enthusiasm at the sight of him. He drops his gear on the floor, then hops onstage in one swift move and rushes over to give Kelly a hug, which lasts a little too long to be considered just friendly. They part, but still he grips her skinny forearms with his big monkey hands, nodding his head emphatically as he speaks, undoubtedly complimenting her on her performance. Kelly responds by looking down shyly, occasionally glancing up from under her bangs and making tentative “Do you really think so?” type gestures. I stand at the back of the auditorium watching them. They look so right together, these two, so lean and clean and L.L. Bean, that I almost don't want to interrupt them, but I'm so consumed by jealousy that I find myself dashing toward the stage to break them apart.

Just who I'm more jealous of I'm not sure.

I don't wait to reach the stage before calling out “Hey” and they both turn, looking surprised but happy to see me. Kelly holds her arms straight out in front of her as she advances toward me, the way you do when you're encouraging a baby to take its first steps. I slide into her arms and give her a longish kiss for Doug's benefit, then hold her face in my hands and stare into her mismatched eyes.

“You were great,” I say, like my opinion should mean more than Doug's, which it does. “This is absolutely the best work you've ever done.” Kelly smiles and squeezes me hard.

“I can really act, can't I?” she whispers in my ear.

I lift her up in the air, which I'm not really strong enough to do. “Yes, yes, most definitely yes,” I say, swinging her around. We part, but I don't let go of her hands. “I'd love to drive you home,” I say, “but I've got this thing with Al and . . .”

“That's okay,” Kelly says, “Doug'll take me.” But she doesn't turn and ask him, which leads me to believe that this has become a regular arrangement in my absence.

From the auditorium Mr. Lucas bellows,
“Egg
zellent work, ladies and gentlemen,
egg
zellent.” He peers over his glasses and shakes a crutch at Kelly. “Miss Corcoran, Miss Corcoran, Miss Corcoran,” he says. “You are full of surprises. Today was your best day yet.”

Kelly is so delighted she actually hops up and down in place.

“Now, all of you, out of here,” he says. “Mr. Zanni and I have an appointment.”

Doug gives me a thumbs-up, then gathers his gym bag and Kelly's knapsack. Kelly gives me a soft kiss on the cheek and whispers “Good luck” in my ear. A wave of sadness comes over me, a watching-my-mother-leave-for-the-last-time kind of feeling, and the tightness in my chest returns. Fuck Al for doing this to me.

As if on cue, the heavy auditorium doors bang open and Al saunters in wearing slacks and a Members Only jacket, stopping to say hello to Kelly in his usual repulsive fashion, grabbing her face in his hairy hands and kissing her on the lips. This breezy, “I've Got the World on a String” attitude of his just irritates the shit out of me. Someone who's deliberately ruining his son's life should at least have the decency to act a little more restrained. I look at him there, popping his gum and jingling his pocket change, and I wonder how it is I descended from anyone who would actually wear a Members Only jacket.

He strides in like he owns the place, cracks his hairy knuckles, and says to me, “Okay, kid, what's up?”

I introduce Al to Mr. Lucas, who puts on his best Sunday-school manners for the occasion. Al reaches out to shake hands, but Mr. Lucas's arms are in the wrist braces of his crutches, and as he struggles to free them up, he whacks Al right in the shin.

Things get worse from there.

Al plops his bulky frame down in the front row and spreads his arms across the backs of the seats, rubbing the upholstery like he's trying to decide whether to buy them. I pull over a chair for Mr. Lucas and then sit down on the cold floor next to him. He fixes his gaze on Al. “Mr. Zanni, I've asked you here this afternoon to give you my opinion, not only as Edward's drama teacher, but as a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and a former professional actor myself.” Mr. Lucas emphasizes these credentials in a way that's meant to impress, but Al just unwraps another piece of gum, deposits the piece he's chewing in the wrapper, and pops the new piece in his mouth. He glances at his watch.