Stoner & Spaz (8 page)

I watch a girl in a gold tube top dial the only phone. She puts one finger in her ear and frowns as she listens. “I’m as committed as you,” she bellows. “I am, too. I just can’t come home right now. I’ve gotta hear this band.” Marcie would like her; she was pretty clearly passionate about something.

My camera gets a lot of attention in the bathroom. In fact, it just about clears the place. Then two guys in leather pants have a little argument that explains everything:

“He can’t be a narc, man. Look at him.”

“The perfect cover, if you ask me.”

“Are you a narc, man?” asks Leather Pants 1.

I shake my head. “Gee, no.”

Leather Pants 2 sneers, “What’s he gonna say, man?”

They eye each other. Then me. Then they bolt. Or split, as the locals would probably say. Split at top speed.

When I find Colleen a minute or so later she bows politely. “May I have this —”

“I really don’t dance, okay?”

“You just need a little E.”

“You sound like Vanna White.”

“You watch
Wheel of Fortune
?”

“Grandma does. But she doesn’t know that I know. It’s one of those guilty pleasures.”

“Ed’s mom loves that show. Sometimes we watch it with her.” I let her lead me into the center of the floor. “Ed’s pathetic. The board will have something like The o-u-n-d of Music. And he’ll look at me and say, ‘Hound?’ ‘Pound?’”

“In ‘The Hound of Music’ this big dog from the Baskerville estate kills Julie Andrews. It’s on my top-ten list.”

“Shut up and dance.”

So I try, but I’m totally self-conscious.

“How am I doing?” I ask.

“Let’s put it this way: you’re making everybody else look a whole lot better.” She takes hold of my belt loops. “Move your hips.”

“Ask them to play ‘The Monster Mash.’”

“Very funny.” Colleen puts her warm palm over my mouth. But gently. “And let’s get rid of that camera. Keep an eye on me.”

I watch her scamper to the bar and hand the camera to a guy with huge biceps and one of those sinister goatees. When she points at me, I wave, and he gives me the thumbs-up sign.

All of a sudden, the bass player smashes his guitar in what I guess is an angst-ridden fit. Some people keep on dancing to the music in their heads. Most of us stop, but nobody leaves the floor — not that there’s anywhere to sit, anyway.

Just then a guy with a lot of metal in his face sidles up to Colleen and whispers something.

She shakes her head. “Not tonight.”

“C’mon,” he says, “I’ve got the money.”

“I don’t care if you’ve got an American Express card. I don’t have anything.”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

“Fuck you, Vincent. Take a hike.”

When he just stands there, I step closer. “You heard her. Why don’t you mosey along?”

He glares down at me but asks Colleen, “Where’s Ed? What are you doing with this loser?”

Colleen takes hold of my shirt and pulls me into the crowd. “Are you nuts? ‘Why don’t you mosey along?’”

“I always wanted to say that to somebody. I’ve heard it in about a million Westerns.”

“Well, I can take care of myself, sheriff. You don’t want to mess with Vincent. He’s mean.”

I take both of her hands. “What
are
you doing with me?”

“Don’t get all serious on me, Ben. I’m having a good time.”

“I’m not getting all serious. I’m just curious.”

“I’m here, okay? And you’re here. We’re dancing. I’m not doing anything with you except dancing.”

“But you like me.”

Colleen takes a deep breath. “Not in the way you mean.”

“What way, then?”

“You’ll get mad if I tell you.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Guys always say that. Then they get mad.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Colleen glances around. She puts both hands on my shoulders. She leans into me. I like this. If I’m going to get bad news, this is the way to get it. “When I’m with Ed,” she says, “sometimes I end up in a little room in Watts where all the guys have got guns and all the girls hate me because I’m white.

“But you want to make a movie, you’re worried about getting into college, you like to kiss. When I’m with you, it’s like I’m really in high school.”

She steps back then. The band plays a few long, ugly chords. The dance floor starts to fill up again.

“I’m not mad.”

“Really?”

“Colleen, it’s true. I
am
in high school. So are you.”

“So we’re still dancing?”

“Sure.” Because I’m not going to think about what she said as much as I’m going to think about her leaning into me while she said it.

So I try dancing again, and I’m actually doing better, actually looking less like somebody with one foot nailed to the floor, when a bare-chested dervish whirls by and I take an elbow to the cheek. I go right down right on my butt.

“Man!” I feel my face. “What was that all about?”

“Some fucking mosher.” Colleen crouches beside me. People peer down at me. “C’mon. Get up. I see him.”

“I’m okay. It’s no big deal.”

“It’s not okay. Get up and deck that fucker.” She holds out one hand and helps me to my feet.

“I’ve never decked anybody in my life.”

“Then it’s about time.”

“Easy for you to say. If things don’t work out, you can actually flee. I, on the other hand, have a tragic wound from trying to rock climb on my Harley.”

“He lays one fucking finger on you, I’ll put the hurt on him in a big way.”

There’s a great word to describe Colleen’s eyes right that second: coruscating. Emitting vivid flashes of light. She emits a few more, then leans into me. And kisses me. “Now let’s go.”

But we don’t get anywhere near the guy who’d hit me, because Ed slithers out of the dark and right up to Colleen.

“Hey, I went by your place.”

Colleen sticks out her tongue at him, like a seven-year-old. Then she dances away, putting a guy in leather pants between them.

Ed follows her. I follow Ed. We weave through the crowd.

“I have got some shit you will not believe, Colleen. It’s like one-toke hash but better. Unbelievably smooth. No paranoia, no nothing. It’s gorgeous. You’re gonna love it.”

Colleen slips between two girls, one in red, the other in green. Like stoplights.

When Ed turns around and frowns, there I am. He looks me up and down, then asks Colleen, “What’s goin’ on here?”

“Leave Ben alone. He just asked me to show him around. And why not, huh? You were busy with Ms. Wonderbra.”

“Hey, she was buying a ton of product for a kegger.”

“You took her out for lunch.”

Ed tucks his hands under both biceps so they look big enough to write an essay on. “To seal the deal is all. Relax.” He leans and whispers something.

Colleen shakes her head. “No, I’m dancing. With Ben.”

“Bring him along.” Ed glances down at me. “You want to party with us? This is very good stuff. If you like it, you know where to get more.”

“I mean it, Ed. Leave him alone.”

“Let him decide for himself. Hey Ben, you want to party or not?”

Colleen won’t look right at me anymore. “Don’t let him talk you into anything, Ben.”

I watch Ed put one arm around her. I watch her pretend to struggle, then lean into him. I say, “You came with me.”

She kisses Ed. On the lips. “Give me a second here, baby.” But she’s talking to him. Of course.

When she looms over me, I feel like I’m about to be taken to the principal.

“Look, Ben, this was a field trip, okay? What did you think — that I was gonna be your girlfriend? You’re a sweet kid, but you were just something to do until Ed showed up.”

AS I PROWL THE HALLS the next morning, I catch people looking at me, checking out my bruises and cuts. Guys eye me; girls glance, whisper to each another, and glance again.

Then I round a corner and there’s Colleen propped against the wall outside her homeroom. I stalk right up to her, and I mean it this time. Bad leg or no bad leg, I stalk.

“Boy, that was really crappy.”

She barely opens her eyes.

“What happened to your face?”

“Remember that guy who knocked me down? I found him and tried to knock him down. You can see how that turned out.”

“How did you get home?”

“I took a cab.”

“I couldn’t believe it when you split. We would have dropped you off.”

“You came with me.”

“Ben, I drove! You came with me!”

“You know what I mean. What you did was really crappy.”

Colleen just fumbles for her sunglasses and puts them on. “Lookit, I wasn’t going to use last night, all right? Before I left for Marcie’s, I did what you said and left my stash at home.” She pulls up her Ramones T-shirt and wipes at her nose. “But I go to the bathroom at the club and this girl I know has got some coke. And then I run into this other chick who’s got some dolphins. You know when we were dancing and having a good time? I was high. That scene with Marcie made me nervous; I couldn’t wait to get high. Then Ed shows up with this shit and he’s not kidding: it’s the best I ever smoked.”

I take off my book bag, something Ed would never carry, something none of the cool guys ever carry. “You don’t have to keep doing it, though.”

Colleen digs in her purse for a Kleenex. “Remember when Marcie asked us what kids were passionate about? Well, I like drugs. I’m passionate about drugs.”

I shake my head. “Not all the time. You could be like those Buddhist guys — you fall down, you get up.”

“No, I like falling down too much.” She looks at the ground. She’s wearing shower clogs, thick blue ones. Her feet are long and white.

“Colleen, listen —”

“You listen. We’re history, okay?” She’s so loud people stop to stare.

“I don’t want to be history.” I’m as loud as she is. “Anyway, you’re just hung-over. You’ll feel different tomorrow. You know you will.”

“Yeah? Well, if I do, I’ll just smoke another joint. Make your little movie, Ben. Forget about me.”

I watch her turn and walk away. Her pants are dirty. The tag on her precious Fresh Jive T-shirt sticks up. She’s wearing those stupid shoes. I bellow, “Fine. I will. And it’s not little, either!”

ARTIE WEBSTER FOLLOWS ME into an empty classroom. I motion for him to sit behind the teacher’s desk, then plant myself in front of him. I look through the viewfinder.

“I’m going to ask you some questions, okay?” When he doesn’t answer I glance up. “Okay?”

“Yeah, sure. I was just thinking your voice is different than I remember. Higher. More like a girl’s.”

“Very funny.”

“When’s the last time you talked to anybody?”

“I talk in class.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Well, I’m talking now. So will you answer some questions? I’m making a movie.”

“What about?”

“High school.”

“Any girls in it? Like, at the beach? Or unconscious?”

“Try and relax, Artie.”

“What happened to your face?”

“Hey, who’s interviewing who here?”

“You ask me one, I’ll ask you one. I go first — what happened to your face?”

“I got in a fight.”

“Somebody hit you? That was chicken shit.”

“Maybe I’m tougher than I look.”

“Man, you better be.”

“My turn to ask a question: What do you want out of high school?”

Artie pretends to think. “All right. What I want out of high school is to prepare myself for the future in the best way possible.”

I roll my eyes. “Scene one, take two.”

“To get out of this place alive, then, okay? That’s my biggest goal.”

“That’s more like it. And then what?”

“Are you kidding? Go to college.”

“So you feel like high school prepared you for college?”

“Hey, my dad says you get out of things what you put into them.”

“But what do you say?”

“I just told you.”

I look over the top of the camera. “No, no. I mean what do
you
believe?”

“Huh?”

I glance at my list of questions, a list Colleen and I thought up together. “Forget it. If you could change one thing about high school, what would it be?”

“Do you know Stephanie Brewer?”

“Jeremy’s girlfriend?”

“That’s the change I’d make. There’d be more girls like Stephanie.”

“So there’d still be metal detectors and gangs and burned-out teachers but way more Stephanies?”

Artie leans forward. “But there wouldn’t be gangs then, so we wouldn’t need metal detectors.”

“Why not?”

“Stephanie jerks Jeremy off.”

“So?”

“So if everybody had a Stephanie, everybody’d be happy.”

“Can I quote you? I need one more source for my term paper on Utopia.”

“Hey, you should know what I’m talking about. You had Colleen.”

“I never had Colleen.”

“You can tell me, man.”

“Artie, I know where this is going, so just don’t, okay?”

“But I heard that Ed said when Colleen was high she’d do any —”

I loom over the desk and put my bruised face right in Artie’s. “Shut up, man. I’m not kidding.”

Stephanie Brewer leans against the north wall of the gym, the wall with the big panther logo.

“Move a little to the left, okay?”

“Who else is in this movie?” she asks.

“So far just you and Artie.”

“Who’s Artie?”

“A little more to the left.” I look through the viewfinder. “I kind of want that panther’s paw to show up in the frame.”

“Did Ed do that to your face?”

“No.”

“Well, it looks kinda cute.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Well, it’s not bad. What’s bad is those clothes your grandma makes you wear. And how you think you’re better than everybody else.”

“I never thought that.”

“It sure looked like it. Two years ago I asked you to run for treasurer of the freshman class, and all you did was glare at me.”

“You just felt sorry for me.”

“I needed a treasurer, and you’re good at math.”

I raise the camera. With her blue pedal pushers and banana-colored top she could have stepped right out of an ad. “Ready?”

“Do you want me to do anything special?”

“Just answer the questions.” I glance at my list. “Do you feel safe at school?”