Fast Times at Ridgemont High (25 page)

“I had her for speech.”

“So you never took English Composition?”

“I guess I didn’t. Is there a big problem?”

“Well, it shows up on your SAT right now that you have a basic problem with your writing skills. But I think we can get you into a Contemporary Composition class real quick and sort this whole problem out.”

“You’re not really going to do that, are you? I work and everything. I go straight to school from work.”

She studied his transcripts. “Well, your Mechanical Arts class is an elective. You can switch that with English Composition and not harm your workload at all!”

Brad looked down. “Damn it.”

“It’s for your own good.”

Brad had a theory about that line. Every time someone told you something was for your own good, it meant you had to pay for it.

Brad Hamilton’s Contemporary Composition class consisted of tenth graders and several foreign exchange students who were in the same leaky boat as Brad Hamilton. He was seated next to a Korean kid named Jim Kim. Mrs. George was always having Brad grade and correct Jim Kim’s papers. The kid didn’t know much English.

Today’s assignment was to write about the pros and cons of moustaches.

“Okay, now switch papers,” said Mrs. George toward the end of the class.

Jim Kim handed Brad his paper. It read:

I’m going to try to grow a moustache. Because it will be looks nice and more younger person. You grow moustache too. If you grow moustache, I think persons look at you for gentle man and more strong person and people can respect you better than right now. If you have moustahce, some people think about you like this, maybe they think you have nice personality and good knowledge. So you try to grow your moustache. I hope you will grow your moustache when I grow my moustache. I think secondly moustache will make you look more solemn. Because man must have solemn. It is a manner of man. If not man looks like woman. I think most women like solemn man. I think you should grow the moustache. It will probably improve your sex life and will also make you stand out.

Brad, who had already been trying to grow a moustache for some months, thought about writing: “You should learn English before you worry about moustaches.” But he didn’t. The guy didn’t know any better, so Brad wrote: “Pretty good. B.”

Jim Kim handed him back his paper. Brad had written a basic little essay about how he always wanted to grow a moustache and was going to this year.

“You don’t answer the question,” Jim had written. “So I give you D.”

It was that kind of year for Brad Hamilton.

Mr. Six-and-a-Half

O
f course The Rat was taking it hard. It was difficult falling out with your best friend in high school. Particularly when he was your
only
friend. He was down, depressed.

He stood at his P.E. locker, twirling the combination, and he could hear the thyroidal voice of fellow classmate Bob Tobin getting closer. Tobin was like a blue jay, always squawking about something. The only reason he got away with it, The Rat thought, was because he was so fucking tall, about 6'1"

“Ratner,” said Bob Tobin. His voice naturally carried to all ears in the area. “Hello there, little man.”

The Rat ignored him. But that just ignited Tobin, who got right up in The Rat’s face and said, very loudly, the words that struck the solar plexus of the American male, however young: “Why is your dick so short?”

Ratner wriggled into his pants and tucked in his shirt. Things had been going bad enough without this guy.

“But why is your
dick
so short, Ratner?”

He took a long look at Tobin. The line just came out: “Sorry to
disappoint
you.”

The Rat had Spanish next, and Mr. Valencia was going over subjects that might appear on the next quiz. The further conjugational adventures of Carlos y Maria. Aw, fuck it, The Rat just wasn’t there.

No, now he was thinking about his dick.

Now he wasn’t a guy who went around
looking
or anything, but The Rat knew this much—his dick wasn’t any bigger or smaller than that of any of the other guys in the P.E. showers. But he had never thought much about it . . .

By the end of the day The Rat knew what had to be done.

“Want to go to the mall?” someone asked him.

“Naw,” said The Rat, “I gotta study.”

At home The Rat went straight for the garage and rummaged through the old magazines his dad kept in stacks. It had to be there somewhere! Somewhere with the
Playboys
. . . there it was! Dr.
Canby’s Guide to Marital Bliss.

Funny, it had the most official title, but this was the most hardcore book of all the ones in the stack. Pictures of all kinds of people, all wrapped around each other in pulpy color photos. There was even a guy in there who looked like Mr. Vargas.

And then Rat found it—the sex doctor’s question-and-answer column. He flicked down the list of questions.

Q:  DR. CANBY, HOW BIG IS THE AVERAGE PENIS SIZE? John Bilecky, Los Angeles, CA.

A:  The average penis size is 6-7 inches when erect. When not erect, the penis can shrink so small as to be enveloped by the scrotum.

Six-to-seven inches! Well, there was no choice but to measure! So The Rat rummaged through the toolkit and came up with the best he could—a tape measure. He pocketed the tape measure and went back to his room.

He thought of Stacy. No, she was better than this! She was above a cheap tape-measure job.

He thought of Cindy Carr. Of Cheryl Ladd.

Slowly he peeled out the tape measure and laid it against his maligned dick.

Four.
Only
four?
His heart sank.

Hold on! Two-and-a-half inches for the case! The case made him . . . six and a half. Normal! Better than normal!

“All right,”
The Rat found himself saying. And he didn’t even talk to himself.

“Mark? Are you home yet?”

“Yeah, Mom! Just going through the tools!”

War Games

T
here had been a poll taken in the
Reader
earlier in the year. The question had been, Would you be willing to go to war to defend American interests in the Middle East?

Overwhelmingly, from liberals to reactionaries, the basic student response was, No way. I wouldn’t go to war unless America was attacked.

But you had to wonder just how sincere that was when Mr. Hand began his most popular class exercise, the five weeks in March and April when his class played War Games.

War Games was a Mr. Hand invention, built as a large-scale version of the popular home game of world domination, Risk. Each player-student was allotted a number of armies and countries. Turn by turn, the students were expected to defend and bombard each other until only one remained—the ruler of the world U.S. History class.

War Games brought out the maniac in some students. This was a time when the kids who carried briefcases to school reigned. They could barely wait until U.S. History, when the moves began again.

“How are you doing?”

“Okay. I’ve got Bulgaria. I’m going for the entire continent today.”

“Are your armies in good shape?”

“Are you kidding? I’m going to blow their heads off, eat their flesh, and drink their blood!”

“Okay, Delbert, see you at lunch.”

“Yeah.”

Jeff Spicoli was, naturally, one of the first players to lose all his armies and sit drawing motorcycles for the rest of War Games.

“What is your problem?” Mr. Hand had demanded of him.

“Boredom,” said Spicoli.

“Mr. Spicoli,” said Mr. Hand, “the next world war will be fought out of boredom.”

A Date with Linda

L
inda Barrett was standing in Child Development when she felt two hands on her waist. She turned to see herself in the reflector sunglasses of Steve Shasta.

“What’s for dinner, snookums?” asked Shasta.

“You scared me, Steve.”

“I hear you called me.”

“I didn’t call you.”

They never called each other. Ever since their one make-out session in the bleachers of an eighth-grade Sadie Hawkins dance, nothing had sparked between Steve Shasta and Linda Barrett. There had been polite hellos in the hallways, a few words here and there on lunch court, but mostly Linda left the Shasta-watching to her girlfriends.

“Well, it doesn’t matter if you called me or not,” said Shasta. He tipped his shades. “I just want to say that you’re looking real fine . . . You want to play some miniature golf this Friday night?”

Linda Barrett looked him up and down. He was cute, that much she had to say for Steve Shasta. And if she
were
going to go out with a high school boy, there wasn’t a more sought-after or mysterious figure around Ridgemont.

“You know I’m engaged,” she said.

“Sure,” said Shasta. “Still Doug?”

Everyone always said that to her these days, even her mother. Sometimes Linda had nightmares in which she died and her unmarked tombstone read only:
Still
Doug.

“Of course, still Doug.”

“Well, leave him at home.”

He laughed. She would.

Shasta was a half-hour late to pick Linda up on Friday night. He had been out pursuing a favorite Shasta pastime after a tough soccer game—downing a six-pack of Miller within ninety minutes.

He had forgotten to write down the address, instead remembering it as the corner house at Avenida Western and Avenida Birch in the Valley View condominium development. Ah, but . . . which corner house?

They all looked the same. Shasta first tried the house on the northern corner.

“What do you want?” a voice challenged through the door. “I don’t open the door past 8:30!”

“Does Linda Barrett live here?”

“No!”

“Do you know which house she lives in?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well fuck
you,
lady.”

Shasta went back out into the street to regroup. He did not see her car; it must have been in the lousy garage. Which garage? He just could not remember. In fact, he was not remembering too much of anything.

He was, in further fact, really
blitzed.
Six beers on an empty stomach. If he didn’t get some food soon, the spins would be there. He popped a mint into his mouth and thought about it some more.

Shasta tried the doorbell on the next-best-looking house. It was the one with a Martini flag hung outside the door.

“Does Linda Barrett live here?”

Linda stood in her room, listening at her door as Shasta entered the Barrett home. She knew what would happen. They would invite him in and, under good light, inspect him carefully. Then they would call her out of her room.

She hoped he hadn’t been drinking.

“Hello,
Steve,”
she heard her mother say. “Car trouble?”

She heard Shasta swallow a small alcoholic laugh. He was drunk, just like he’d been when they made out at that dance in eighth grade.
Asshole.

“Are you all right, Steve?”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Barrett.”

“Congratulations on that game,” said Mr. Barrett.