Fast Times at Ridgemont High (20 page)

T
he third week in February was College Orientation Week. For five days, representatives from city, state, and junior colleges came to the Ridgemont campus to speak to the students. Afternoon assemblies were held in the gym, mandatory for seniors and optional for underclassmen.

Brad Hamilton filed into the Thursday assembly entitled “The Advantages of Higher Education,” sponsored by University of Southern California. He took a seat in the bleachers with the rest of his period-four English Composition class, and watched as David Lemon, one of his old Carl’s buddies, tested the podium microphones.

All year long Brad Hamilton had delayed making any decisions about his life beyond senior year, though somehow he knew he would end up in college. To him the thought was like a dentist’s appointment or a visit to a crotchety relative—he could always put it off another month. This, after all, was to be his Cruise Year, and he had intended to consider life beyond high school only after he had a maximum amount of fun. Now everyone was going around talking about college applications and essay questions, and Brad hadn’t even gotten his cruise year into gear. College Orientation Week made him nervous.

The presentation began with Principal Gray. “Now, I realize,” he began, “that it’s getting near prom time and the end of the year . . .” The audience of seniors laughed and cheered, interrupting his prepared speech, and Brad joined in. Somehow Principal Gray had uttered the magic words
prom time
and
end of the year.

Principal Gray smiled and acknowledged the cheers. “High school
is
about having fun,” he continued, “but it’s also about preparing yourselves for the crossroads of life . . .”

The laughs and cheers died out.

One thing about Principal Gray, Brad thought, he sure knew how to kill a good time. He talked for several minutes about the importance of college, and mentioned that many students, like Cindy Carr and Steve Shasta, had already been accepted by the college of their choice.

Then Coach Ramirez took the podium and, looking like he had been lobotomized for the afternoon, said that “even big-time sports takes a back seat to big-time education.”

Halfway down the bleachers from Brad, a group of guys started laughing and nudging each other. Brad knew them from Mechanical Arts. They were another group from the outskirts of lunch court, the construction workers. They drove Datsun pickups, and their common refrain was, Construction is where the bucks are. You could bet they weren’t headed for “big-time education,” Brad thought.

The main speaker of the afternoon was a red-haired woman, fortyish, wearing a smart, peach-colored suit. She was the head career counselor from University of Southern California, and the first thing she said was, “Don’t believe the jargon about Ph.D.’s driving taxis—a great education will get you a great job.

“It’s easy,” she went on, “to ignore the issue of college while you’re having fun in high school. But going to college, especially a school like USC, is like making a big investment. There’s a lot of work involved, but the dividends you reap are enormous. And who’s to say we can’t make college fun for you, too . . .”

Brad Hamilton sat there, listening, and in the back of his mind he realized what was bothering him about College Orientation Week. It was one long parade of adults, and the thrust of all their presentations was,
Yeah, we know high school’s one big party, but now it’s time to get serious.
Didn’t they understand how tough it was to work, to go to school, deal with teachers, and then with assistant managers, with parents, and with customers, and then with the lunch-court crowd, too? Hey, he felt like saying, who’s having
fun?
Life isn’t like “Happy Days.”

“The important thing,” the woman from USC concluded, “is to fall in love with your work. There’s always room at the top for the best. You’ll suffer for your vocation, but you’ll be happy.”

Now that made Brad feel better. He was already several weeks into a new job, and even though it wasn’t the
best
location in Ridgemont, it was at least a job that gave him fryer duty. That was his specialty. That was what he
did.
He was a fryer, and he was the best!

Still, after College Orientation Week, Brad Hamilton began to get a nagging image in his mind. In it he was forty years old, wearing an apron and working in a burger stand. He was surrounded by junior high school kids, telling him his fries were still the best.

Frisbee Champs

T
he first Friday of every month in Public Speaking class was Expert Day. Mrs. G. had an expert address the class on his or her field. They were usually the best-attended classes of the year.

Several members of the class were chosen at the beginning of the year to assist Mrs. G. in talent coordination for Expert Day. They had sent letters to everyone—to Ted Nugent and Henry Kissinger. To Jack Nicholson and Pete Townshend. From Bo Derek to G. Gordon Liddy. To Budweiser and the FBI. They even sent a letter to Charles Manson, just to see if he’d write back. (He did—saying to invite him again when he was due for parole, in 470 years.)

Once a demolition chief showed up on Expert Day. A meek-looking man in an old brown suit, he calmly showed the class how to make an explodable bomb out of household materials. Another time two members of the Gay Liberation Front showed up and explained the homosexual act in great detail.

“Now
boys,”
said Mrs. G. cheerfully. “We didn’t send out slips to the parents on you two, so let’s clean it up a little.”

One day a letter came to the speech class. It read:

Dear Mrs. George and all members of the exciting Public Speaking class at Ridgemont University:

We are pleased and delighted that you have requested our special World Class Frisbee Champion Presentation, featuring two (2) World Class Frisbee Champions. Should your college campus be available to them on the twentieth of January, and a room can be reserved for the 10–3
P.M.
time frame, please let us know. We will be glad to provide you with our World Class Frisbee Champion Demonstration.

Very truly yours,

Rick Slutzah
Frisbee Champion Liaison

A call was put through to Rick Slutzah at Frisbee headquarters. No, it wasn’t a college, the Expert Day coordinators told him. It was a
high school.
No problem, said Mr. Slutzah. Wham-O was happy to accommodate their interest. The date was set for the twentieth, fourth period, at 11:20. The two champions would be there, said Mr. Slutzah. They always arrived one-half hour ahead of presentation time.

By the end of third period on the twentieth, Mrs. G.’s room was packed with sun-bleached surfers. Kids who hadn’t been around Ridgemont since the first week of school. It was as if they had traveled across the burning desert to lay a wreath at the foot of the demigod. They were in Mrs. G.’s class to pay homage to a hero. Here was someone who had
beaten the game.
Here were guys paid to travel around and throw a Frisbee around. It was
inspiring,
man.

At twenty minutes after eleven, a white El Camino pickup screeched into the Ridgemont parking lot. Two men leaped out like a couple of SWAT team members. The hall monitor brought them into the room filled with admirers.

“Introduce yourself, boys,” said Mrs. G., “and I won’t write you up for being tardy.”

It was a typical teacher’s joke, the kind anybody with a heart at least gave a courtesy laugh to. But the Frisbee champs did not. They stood there, humorless, looking like Laurel and Hardy after a few years under a sunlamp. They were holding bulky white plastic sacks.

“Uh, listen,” said the taller of the two Frisbee champs. He spoke in a bewildered voice. “We thought this was a college.”

Mrs. George spoke up. “We cleared all this with Mr. Slutzah, who said he’d tell you. He said there would be no complication.”

The two champs looked at each other.

“Slutzah,”
said the taller Frisbee champ.

“Hey, we’re happy to be here,” said the shorter, swarthier of the two. He knew how to switch it on. “Hi everyone! I’m Kent Vanderjack. This is my brother Todd. As Senior World Class Frisbee Disc Champions we have a special slogan. His is Let It Fly, and mine is Fly with Me.”

Then Kent Vanderjack’s brother Todd reached into his white sack and began flicking three-inch mini-Frisbees to kids in the audience. Each Frisbee was meticulously inscribed with a champ’s name and motto. They were Frisbee business cards! The surfers sat up in their seats.

“Hey, how do you get to be a champ, man?”

“Well,” said Todd, “I broke the twenty-four-hour disc-throwing record in Australia. I threw in Europe for a while, then came back here for the season a few years ago and just stayed. I won eighteen out of the twenty-one qualifying tournaments leading up to the big Disc Championship at the Rose Bowl every August.”

“Who won it last year?”

“Some little wimp from Virginia,” said Kent Vanderjack.

“How much is the prize?”

“Four thousand dollars.”

“How much do you guys make a year?”

“About $15,000,” said Todd.

There were whistles among the enraptured surfers.

“And Wham-O got hold of
us
and hired
us.”

The room was enthralled.

“How much do you practice?”

“Between four and eight hours a day,” said Todd.

“But it’s not all hanging out in the sun,” said Kent. “It’s a lot of hard work. When you’re throwing the disc, your hobby is your job. And that takes a lot of effort.”

“How long have you been throwing Frisbees?” came another question.

“Well, I’ve been throwing the
disc
for fifteen years. Todd for twelve.”

The message was clear—it’s called a
disc
—and thereafter no surfer at Ridgemont, no real hardcore, ever called it a Frisbee again.

It was a brief presentation, this World Class Demonstration, and the two champs ran through it by rote. They described the six basic disc holds, offered an explanation of how to join the International Frisbee Association as a lifetime member, and gave a brief “health report” on how disc throwing improved hand-to-eye coordination.

They made a dramatic exit, with upraised fists and a cry of “Circulate the disc!”

It was a great effect, ruined only slightly by the fact that the two champs then hung around the rest of the lunch period,
on
lunch court, and collected phone numbers from the very girls who had been so unattainable all year long to the surfers who idolized them.

A Late-Night Phone Conversation

L
inda and Stacy had already been on the phone over an hour.

“Linda,” asked Stacy, “what makes a great lover?”

“A style.”

“Gentleness?”

“In some guys,” said Linda. “That’s Doug. Doug’s tender. He’s very gentle. He really is. He goes for your neck and your mouth . . . you just go, ‘Ohhhhhh.’ ”

“What other styles are there?”

“Aggressive. Like Bob, who used to work at Swenson’s. Remember him? He attacked me in front of Jack in Jack’s Camaro. He tried to get Doug mad by giving me a hickey.”

“You never told me this.”

“He never gave me the hickey.”

“Did Betsy know about that?”

“Betsy doesn’t know about half the shit Bob does.”

“I don’t know,” sighed Stacy. “I think I want to find somebody funny. The guy’s gotta have a sense of humor. And be well built . . .”

“And good in bed.”

“You never can tell that.”

“Hey,” said Linda, “whatever happened to that Mark Ratner?”

“Nothing. He’s around. He’s real nice. His friend is pretty cute.”

“High school boys,” said Linda. “No matter what they look like, they’re still high school boys.”

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