Fast Times at Ridgemont High (27 page)

“Yuk.”

“I know.”

“What are you going to tell Mike?”

“I’m not going to tell him. Are you crazy? And don’t you tell anybody either. I don’t want anybody finding out.”

But the problem with high school, as Stacy Hamilton would soon find out, was that one still saw the same people every day. It wasn’t hard for Stacy to miss Mike Damone whistling down the hallways, acting like Joe Stud. He should know! He should know he was a prick! He should know how it felt!

Within two days she knew she had to tell Mike Damone. She thought about it and came up with the best location to have The Big Conversation. It was away from everybody, and yet still at school. Stacy Hamilton walked out onto the field during Damone’s P.E. period with Assistant Coach Les Sexton. Damone was timing runners on the football field.

“Hi, Mike,” said Stacy.

“Stace. What’s going on?”

“Mike, there’s something that’s been on my mind, and I have to tell you about it.”

“What? Now?” He clicked off a time on a runner and then turned to her. “Why don’t you call me?”

Stacy looked at him, and the feeling that came over her was, as she later told Linda, zero compassion. She took Mike Damone’s hand and placed it on her stomach.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

Damone made a spitting sound with his mouth. “Give me a break. You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. Why would I lie about it?”

Damone put his hand up to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun. “How do you know that it’s mine?” he asked. “We only did it once.”

“I know it’s yours.”

Damone switched tones entirely. Now he sounded whiny, like a child trying to talk his way out of a spanking. “You made me do it,” he said. “You locked the door to your changing room.” He paused, then said the words that hurt the most: “You wanted it more than me!”

She didn’t flinch. She stood there and stared at Damone, waiting for him to take the words back.

“There’s only one thing we can do,” said Damone. He folded his hands across his yellow P.E. shirt. “We gotta ace it.”

“What does that mean?” asked Stacy.

“We’ve got to get an abortion. My brother, Art, got his girlfriend one. It’s no big thing.”

She looked down at the ground. “It’s already planned.”

“Do you want me to pay for it?” asked Damone.

“No,” said Stacy. Suddenly she felt like a character from one of Mrs. Melon’s sex-ed lectures. “Just give me a ride downtown day after tomorrow.”

“No problem,” said Damone. “No problem.”

It was strange how society set these things up, Stacy thought. She was upset. She was
scared.
And she was
hurt.
Hurt just to think that someone who cared about her so much could be so cruel. To think that
anybody
could be that cruel. But what could she say about it? They both went to the same school. She needed a ride.

Stacy waited out the week. She had P.E. first thing in the morning and had to get out there and run even though she felt sick most of the time. The day came for Damone to show and take her down to the free clinic in his Toyota.

Her abortion was set for three in the afternoon. Stacy followed her plan that night, contracting a phony twenty-four-hour flu that would keep her home the next day. She waited until the time Damone was supposed to show up at the mailbox—2:00
P.M.
He didn’t show.

She waited twenty minutes and walked back to her house. She dialed Damone’s house.

“Hello?” Damone answered.

“I can’t believe you’re still home!”

“Oh, hi Stacy . . . oh shit, I
forgot
about today.”

“Forgot?”

“Yeah, my mom wanted me to stay with the house. Some people are coming over to look at it. Can you reschedule it for another day?”

“I guess I could reschedule it. I’ll call. I just don’t want to be alone when I go. Will you please take me?”

“Just call me back and tell me when. I’ll be right here.”

She was a little relieved, happy to put it off for any length of time. She was told by the free clinic that it would be unwise to delay more than another week. They reset the date for the following Tuesday. Stacy called Damone back. He was almost nice, and for a few days it was almost easy to forget she was still pregnant.

Guys.
She’d already had just about her fill. Why, in retrospect, Linda had pretty much been right down the line. High school boys. One part of them wanted to be in high school, and the other part wanted to be back at Paul Revere Junior High. The more the year wore on, the better The Vet, his slight
dorkiness
aside, looked.

One night Stacy decided to call him up. It had been seven months. He couldn’t still be mad that she’d lied about her age.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is Ron there?”

“This is Ron. Who’s this?”

“This . . . is Stacy! Remember me!”

“Oh, hi. What can I do for you?”

“Well . . . I just thought I’d call and say hello.”

“Hello.”

“Is something wrong?” asked Stacy.

“No. But if you’d like any further attention you can give me a ring at the office. Okie-dokie? Thanks.” He hung up.

Stacy sat staring at the phone for many minutes afterward. She decided to forget about that, and remember him as he was. Under the fifty-watt lightbulb up at the Point.

Time always went quicker when you dreaded something, and Tuesday rolled right around again. It brought
—I can’t believe it, Mom
—another twenty-four-hour flu. She waited around the house for the appointed time, then went to wait by the mailbox.

Five minutes away, Damone sat in his living room and waited for the phone to ring. He had finished a large tumbler of Tia Maria and cream. Lou Reed was blasting in the background.

Damone was paralyzed. All he wanted to do was go away, forget about this problem. Why wouldn’t it just go away? Why did it fall on him? She’d had just as much fun as he; it was her responsibility, too. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen when you had The Attitude.

Stacy waited. Finally, she went home and called Damone, forty-five minutes before the operation.

“I’m sorry,” said Damone. “I gotta help my dad in the garage.”

“You could have called!”

“I forgot.”

“PRICK!” She hung up on him.

Stacy immediately called Linda. No answer. There was only one way to get downtown, now—waiting for the bus would take too long. Only one person would do it on such short notice.

“Hello?”

“Mark?”

“Stacy!”

“Hi. How are you?”

“I’m all right. How are you, Stacy?”

“Just great. Mark, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but could you do me a big favor?”

“What’s that? Are you okay?”

“Well . . . I’m really stuck for a ride downtown right now. You know, the flea market. I have some girl’s shopping to do . . .”

“Sure. I’ll give you a ride.”

The Rat pulled up in his sister’s car and tooted the horn.

“Thanks for picking me up.”

“Any time.” She looked at him. If he only knew.

“God, Mark, you’re the nicest guy I know.”

“Just once,” said The Rat, “I want to be dark and mysterious.”

“Okay. You’re dark and mysterious.”

“Thanks,” said The Rat. “Are you going to be needing a ride home?”

“No. I’ll take a bus. It’s all right.”

They rounded the corner onto Broadway Street, passing on their right that big maroon building with FREE CLINIC painted on the side.

“There’s the flea market over there!”

The initial examination took the most time of all. Blood pressure. More urine and blood samples. Flashlights in the eyes. It gave her plenty of time to get more scared. She wanted to scream,
Just get it over with!

There were many other girls around, most of them with the same embarrassed look on their faces. Filling out forms. Taking samples.
Why didn’t men have to go through this?

Finally she was led to another room—the operating room—and seated on a steel table. Minutes passed. Another nurse came in and told her to wait just five more minutes.

Ten minutes later, the doctor entered the room. He by-passed courtesy greetings. He by-passed conversation completely.

“If you’d like to change your mind, please say so now,” he stated.

“No, thank you.”

The nurse reentered the room. They did not speak to each other. The doctor turned his back and opened a metal cabinet. He selected from it a tube filled with an emerald-colored chemical, then took from the nurse a sealed packet. He ripped the packet open and withdrew
the biggest syringe
Stacy had ever seen.

She started to panic.

“Will I be able to have a child after this?”

“You should,” said the doctor.

“Is this going to hurt?”

“Have you been taking the pills we gave you?”

“Yes.”

“Well . . . those should help a lot. They’ll reduce swelling and bleeding.”

“But does it hurt a lot?”

“This is your first time, right?”

She nodded.

“Well,” said the doctor, “you’ve felt pain before. It’s over very quickly . . . is your boyfriend out there?”

“Yes,” said Stacy. Out there somewhere, she thought.

The doctor watched as the nurse strapped Stacy’s legs into stirrups. He inserted the syringe into her vagina.

“Squeeze me when you feel pain,” said the nurse.

Stacy shivered as the cold rush of anesthetic swept through her lower torso. “I feel all cold,” she said.

“It’s normal.”

The nurse inserted two metal tubes leading into a large glass jar that had been placed between her legs.

“I’ll be with you after this is over,” said the nurse. Then the suction noise began.

Stacy started to panic again. “Aren’t you going to knock me out?”

“Oh, not for this,” said the doctor. It was as if she was in the dentist’s chair, and he was filling a quick cavity.

“I thought you were going to knock me out . . .”

“It will be over in a moment,” said the doctor. “You’re a good patient.” The words seemed to hold no particular meaning for him.

A huge cramp pulled Stacy’s stomach into a tight knot. Then she felt daggers of pain shooting into her solar plexus. She squeezed the nurse’s hand until it was white.

“It’ll be over in a moment. You’re a good patient.”

In one minute the jar had filled to the top with a purplish bloody membrane. She had most wanted to be knocked out so she wouldn’t have to see . . .
it.
But it was not even an embryo. It was just a glob.

“Send that to the lab,” the doctor directed. The tubes were withdrawn.

“Is it over?”

“Not yet. We have to do a little scraping.”

“The papers didn’t say anything about . . .”

“Just relax,” the doctor said.

They had inserted two metal scraping devices. The doctor started probing and scratching her deep inside. She was bleeding heavily, all over her white gown.

“This hurts even worse than it looks.”

“It’ll be over in a second. You’re a good patient.”

“I wish men could experience this,” Stacy said.

Her abortion had taken a total of ten minutes. The doctor patted her behind the neck. “You were a good patient,” he said. “Is there anything you need while you’re resting in the next room?”

“A box of tissues.”

The nurse left the room to get the tissues, leaving only Stacy and the doctor.

“I have one question,” said Stacy. “Does it hurt more to have a baby?”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “But you mind it less.”

She emerged from the resting room, her eyes a teary red, and sat down to complete the last of their forms. As she did, a girl and her boyfriend entered the same reception area. This girl was on her way in. Her boyfriend picked up a magazine and leafed through it.

The girl looked at Stacy. For a moment the two caught each other’s eyes and locked in. What passed between them Stacy was not sure about, but she knew she would remember this a long, long time. The tubes. The jar. The doctor. And she would remember the look in that girl’s eyes. They were like a deer’s eyes, caught in headlights.

It was March twenty-first, and she would always remember the date, too, because it was her mother’s birthday. Stacy Hamilton felt a lot older today.

“Nurse,” she said, “I’m going to wait for my boyfriend downstairs.”

The Tribute

M
rs. Paula Benson, the forty-two-year-old cafeteria manager of Ridgemont High School, had come to the end of the line with her job. It was her ninth year with the school, and still the administration hadn’t favored her with a policy change. A decade ago, then Vice-Principal William Gray had decided that the cafeteria was the best training spot for retarded and handicapped students hoping to make an entrance into the mainstream. The idea caught on. For nine years Mrs. Benson had been helping the handicapped help themselves help her.

A next-door neighbor had planted a terrible thought in Mrs. Benson’s head: “Paula, you are the same age now that Elvis Presley was when he
died.
You take care of yourself.” Mrs. Benson looked in the mirror and saw a woman much older than her years. She decided to quit Ridgemont.