Almost Like Being in Love (3 page)

Oh, yeah. It took a lot of work, but I finally talked him into losing the Van Heusens by giving him one of my Grateful Dead tops instead.

Definitely an improvement. He wears T-shirts well. The guys at Brigadoon won’t even recognize him anymore.

Travis Puckett

Room 214

BECKLEY SCHOOL

TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK

I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t even premeditated. Kerry Fusaro was singing “Almost Like Being in Love” and all I had to do was wait for a cue from Craig and push a flat onto the stage. Period. We’ve done it a hundred thousand times before. But one of the baby-blue spots picked that moment to spill over into the wings and light him up—all 5-foot-8

of him, holding his clipboard and wearing his white T-shirt and winking at me with the one-dimple smile that nobody but yours truly ever gets, with the little crinkles around the corners of his eyes. DEFCON 3!

DEFCON 3! The next thing I knew, I was wrapping my foot around the brace so that the damned flat wouldn’t move, just before I heard myself whispering (in a terrific impersonation of panic(, “Craig, it’s stuck!” What’s the matter with me?! Naturally I got the one-dimple thing again while he moved behind my marks and slid his arms around my chest to help me push. With his chin in my neck. And his nose in my ear. As he began humming “Almost Like Being in Love” right along with Kerry. It would have served me right if I’d had a cerebral aneurysm on the spot. Instead, I forgot all about my foot—until we shoved the flat onto the stage. I think we broke my ankle.

This is bullshit. I have finals to worry about.

Henry IV, Part I

Notes

Themes: It doesn’t matter what people think of you as long as you know that your head and heart are in the right place. Everybody figured Prince Hal for a wastrel like Falstaff, but that’s the way he wanted it. He was only marking time until he could prove that he was brave and honorable and righteous and loyal.

And strong.

And funny.

And gallant.

And

Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig McKenna

Room 311

BECKLEY SCHOOL

TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK

If he ever scares me like that again, I’m going to break his neck. How it started was when I had this really weird dream that he came barreling into my room at 7:00 in the morning, out of breath and with red ears—which usually means that 'a( somebody’s civil rights got violated, (b) he figured out who killed Kennedy, or (c) Ethel Merman farted. But this time he was talking so fast I could hardly understand anything he was saying. Even more than usual.

‚Oh my God Craig I just opened a letter from House of Records in
Scranton and they have one used copy of Greenwillow but they can only hold
it for me until 5:00 tomorrow so I’ve got to hitchhike to Pennsylvania can you
cover for me in case anybody asks?‛
Then he turned into a cat.

I didn’t think much about it while I was brushing my teeth—I mean, it wasn’t half as creepy as the one about Idi Amin chowing down on the Partridge family—but when I hit the dining room for breakfast and he wasn’t there, I started getting worried. (It was creamed-chipped-beef-on-toast day and Smerko wouldn’t have missed that even for open-heart surgery.) So I lied to Mr. Drew and said that Travis was somewhere puking—a crock of shit he’d definitely believe on creamed-chipped-beef-and-toast day—and then I tore up two flights of stairs to his room. But he wasn’t there either, and his oversleeping roommate wasn’t a hell of a lot of help.

“Gordo, listen to me carefully,” I said, shaking him partly awake. “He wouldn’t really hitchhike to Pennsylvania just for a record, would he?”

Gordo stuck his head under a gray pillow that used to be white and groaned.

“At least. G’night, Craig.”

For the next three hours I felt like a short traffic cop. First I told Mr.

Naylor that Travis got called in to Mr. Dexter’s office. Then I told Mr.

Dexter that Travis was taking a makeup French quiz for Mr. Mitton.

After that I told Mr. Mitton that Travis was covering study hall for Mr.

Denning who had diarrhea, and finally I told Mr. Denning that Travis was still arguing with Mr. Naylor about that idiot Desdemona. Then the loop started all over again.

WHO THE FUCK HITCHHIKES TO SCRANTON?

What if some creep picks him up? Do you know what kind of people are
out there? Read Helter Skelter if you don’t believe me. And how easy would it
be to get run over on a freeway? Does he have enough money on him?

Suppose he can’t find a ride? What if he gets stranded in the rain and the
only joint around is the Bates Motel?

By dinnertime I was such a mess my stomach couldn’t even handle a cupcake. Travis may be a lot of things, but a bruiser isn’t one of them.

And without me around to protect him, who knew what could happen?

At least that’s what I kept telling myself while I was sitting in front of the school at 9:30 tonight, waiting for him to come back.

He hitched three hundred miles for a record album. And half the time I can’t even motivate my own ass across a room.

Travis Puckett

Room 214

BECKLEY SCHOOL

TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK

ANTHONY PERKINS

in

GREEnWILLOW

music and lyrics by FRANK LOESSER

book by LESSER SAMUELS

Opened March 8, 1960; Alvin Theatre

95 performances

I was already playing Side Two on Craig’s stereo when he finally came upstairs. (He should have known I was going to sneak in through the Common Room window. Don’t I always?)

Except for a gold and white label pasted on the inside sleeve that says

“Property of Leon,” it was definitely worth spending three hours in the back of a Pennsylvania-bound cheese truck for. Craig doesn’t think so.

“Who’s that singing?” he demanded as he flopped down on the bed next to me.

“Anthony Perkins,” I told him, handing over the album cover to prove it.

“Yeah? Well, I liked him a lot better when he was stabbing people in the shower.”

I’m guessing that he had a bad day. He should have come to Scranton with me.

Craig McKenna

Room 311

BECKLEY SCHOOL

TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK

Moral:
It’s a lot easier to patch things up with somebody when he doesn’t even know you were pissed off at him in the first place. And I was halfway right. Norman Bates singing sounds like what happens when you accidentally step on a dog.

While we were in the middle of our 11:00 P.M. cookie fight, one of my Chips Ahoys flew into the closet—and even though I told him he didn’t have to, Travis went to get it anyway. '“Craigy, how can you go on with your life knowing it’s still lying there?”( Since it landed between a pair of sneakers and two jockstraps, I didn’t think he was going to find my guitar. But duh—he found Scranton, didn’t he? So I wasn’t too surprised when I wound up cross-legged on my bed in my Jockeys singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane” to the only person in the world who wouldn’t laugh at me or spill the beans to anybody else.

Actually, I thought it was cooking pretty well, but when I got to the

“one more time, let me kiss you” part, Travis headed for the door and said he had to go study. (Without me?)

Okay—maybe Peter, Paul, and Mary I’m not.

Travis Puckett

Room 214

BECKLEY SCHOOL

TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK

If I’d stayed in that room for another nine seconds, I wouldn’t have been responsible for my actions.

So on top of everything else, he sings like an angel in underpants. And he doesn’t even suspect it. All he needs now is a little confidence (at last—a flaw!( and a Henry Higgins who’s figured out how to pick his material. Something that fits his dimple. Something that lights up the razzle-dazzle he still doesn’t know he has. And definitely something that would piss off Richard Nixon (if he still mattered).

Back to the library.

Bob Dylan

Joan Baez

Laura Nyro

Pete Seeger

Woody Guthrie

Jim Morrison*

All right, maybe this is a little extreme, even for me. I mean, what I don’t know about Bob Dylan would have provided enough ballast to keep the Titanic floating for another six hours. (FACT: His last name is really Zimmerman and so was Ethel Merman’s before she dropped the Zim. Period.) But if I play my cards right, Craig is going to be singing “I Want You” directly to me. What did JFK used to say? “The journey of a million miles begins with a single step.”

Come to think of it, “Light My Fire” is a really lousy idea. It can only get me into trouble. So drop it.

Craig McKenna

Room 311

BECKLEY SCHOOL

TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK

Travis says that if I ever get a handle on “Light My Fire,” I’ll own humanity for the rest of my life. Sometimes talking to him is like reading my fortune. In Chinese.

So it turns out I had Brigadoon pegged all wrong. It’s really about making miracles happen with your heart. When Tommy falls in love with Fiona and the whole village comes back to life even after it’s disappeared for a hundred years, it’s the same as me pushing Fenway Park a block and a half with my little pinky. But Tommy had Fiona, and I don’t. Sigh.

Tonight Smerko and I sat next to each other in the wings listening to Kerry sing “Almost Like Being in Love,” and for the first time I felt the kind of high I usually only get from (a) Clapton, (b) grass, (c) baseball, and

'd( people who hitchhike to Scranton. Either we’ve been hanging out with the chorus boys too long, or else Kerry’s actually figured out how to put a song across. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It only took him fifteen minutes to learn a slider.

But that was just the warm-up act. The same buzz kicked into fifth gear during the middle of the night when Smerk and I were cramming for our English finals.

Vocabulary Review

(with a little help from Travis)

i
ncandescent

Radiant, glowing; think of a football diamond during a night game when the lights are all on and everybody’s looking at you.

r
edoubtable

Formidable, fearsome; Carlton Fisk in 1975; you in a couple of years, after you’ve won your first hundred cases.

c
avalier

Chivalrous, noble; remember when the guy in the Pacer called you an asshole? That wasn’t cavalier. Remember when you pretended to lose the coin toss so I could be Smerko? That was.

e
mpathetical

Sympatico, compassionate, knowing somebody inside and out; romance isn’t just about roses or killing dragons or sailing a kayak around the world. It’s also about chocolate chip cookies and sharing the Grateful Dead and James Taylor with me in the middle of the night, and believing me when I say that you could be bigger than both of them put together, and not making fun of me for straightening out my french fries or pointing my shoelaces in the same direction, and letting me pout when I don’t get my own way, and pretending that if I play Flower Drum Song one more time you won’t throw me and the record out the window.

a
nomaly

Paradox, enigma; imagine two disparate people who turn into best friends.

d
isparate

Us.

u
biquitous

Craig.

I looked up from my notes and glanced over at Travis, who was scrunched behind my desk reading King Lear for the third time—like he didn’t know it by heart already. But his forehead was frowning again, so I knew if I asked him what “ubiquitous” really meant, he’d only throw a raisin at me. That’s how—at 2:18 in the morning—I wound up opening a dictionary for the first time since Lyndon Johnson was president.

ubiquitous

Omnipresent, all-pervasive, spiritually sustaining; see Siddhartha.

“Smerko?”

“What?”

“Siddhartha was ubiquitous too.”

“So?”

“So shouldn’t you be praying to me?”

We got into a raisin fight anyway.

Before he went back to his room we took a shower together. Partly because we smelled and partly because it’s the only place I can talk him into singing the “Miles and Miles and Miles of Heart” song for me.

“No.”

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?” I whined, soaping up his back. Usually that’s enough to change his mind, but now he had another card to play.

Without even turning around, he rinsed the shampoo out of his hair and glanced over his shoulder in an out-and-out challenge.

“Only if you sing ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ first,” he demanded 'with his make-believe redoubtable face). So I put on my best Dylan and pretended I’d lost the round—even though we both knew he’d have caved in anyway. How could he not? Nobody argues with ubiquitous.

He called it a football diamond. (Grin.) Maybe I could move Fenway Park with my pinky.

Things to Do

--- Your groundwork. Never let him know that you always figured “If I Had a Hammer” was about construction workers. (What the hell were you thinking?)

--- Teach Travis how to play baseball. He definitely has the body for it.

Travis Puckett

Room 214

BECKLEY SCHOOL

TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK

THE PUCKETT/DUBOISE DEBATES