Stoner & Spaz (9 page)

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 of 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 handkerchiefs.

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.”

“What are you going to do after high school?”

“Probably move to San Francisco. My parents hate me.”

“You said probably. If you don’t do that, what else would you like to do?”

“Join the navy. Now can I ask you a question?”

I turn off the camera. “I guess.”

“Are you gay?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Let’s start with the way you do neat-and-clean. Add that look-but-don’t-touch act of yours to a fag hag grandma and I’m thinking you might be deeper in the closet than my polyester flares.”

“I’m not gay.”

“So Colleen wasn’t just a beard. You really liked her?”

“Yeah.”

“But she’s back with Ed.”

I nod.

“If you’re so butch, get her back.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Hey, you’re the cinephile: meet him in the middle of some dusty street at high noon.”

I go right to the parking lot where Ed tends to hang out. Is Oliver making me do it? I don’t know. But I have to do something.

Sure enough, there’s Ed by his spotless Camaro. He leans on the fender. Everybody else keeps a respectful distance from the paint job. Four or five guys and a couple of girls listen to him, then laugh on cue. When he spots me, he stops his monologue.

“What’s up, spaz?” The studs in his eyebrow ascend, registering the question.

I glance at Colleen, who’s slumped in the front seat sipping gingerly at a can of 7Up. I’m glad to see her, but she doesn’t look too good.

“I was worried about her.”

Ed points to the car. “Somebody should be. She could be in one of those movies you like so much, you know?
Invasion of the Zombies
or something.” Ed’s T-shirt is tight, but he inhales, anyway, so I can see the slabs of his pectoral muscles.

“How do you know what kind of movies I like?”

“Are you kidding? When she gets loaded, you’re all she talks about, and she’s loaded most of the time.”

I go over to the car, open the door. “Want to take a little walk?” I hold out my good hand.

Colleen takes it blindly and gets out one limb at a time: first a leg, then one arm, the other leg. When she finally finds her purse, she clutches it like a courier carrying news that could alter the course of the war.

Ed sidles up to me. “Just for the record: I’m giving her to you, you’re not taking her away from me.”

I watch a girl named Heather step up beside him. She slips one thumb into his belt loop. She’s got big boobs and she presses one of them into Ed’s arm. She’s been waiting for this. She’s the understudy and this is her big chance.

I take Colleen by the arm to steady her. “You okay?”

She swallows hard. “I don’t think so.”

Behind me, somebody says something, somebody else laughs at me. Or Colleen. And I want to turn around and shut him up. I want to hurl myself at him. God help me, I want a gun. Man, I have seen way too many movies.

I ask Colleen, “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll take you home.”

“Fuck, no.”

“We can go to my house.”

“And have your grandma croak? No way.”

“You should eat.”

“Like I could keep it down. Give me your hand. I’m all, like, woozy and shit.”

We haven’t gone ten yards before Colleen stops. She puts both hands to her face. “I’m all fucked up, Ben.”

“It’ll wear off.”

“No, not just the weed. More like everything.”

I point. “Your car’s just over here. Can you drive?”

Colleen shakes her head.

“Then we’ll take the bus.”

“No, I’m sick, Ben. I’m really sick.”

COLLEEN DOESN’T WANT ME to see her in the hospital. “I look like shit” pretty much explains why. After about a week, though, she knows when she’s getting out, so I block off those days on my calendar, then cross them out one by one like some guy in prison.