Rats Saw God (6 page)

“They make morning announcements. Generally, they shoot for cuteness, like ‘The chess club will hold its monthly
board
meeting today at lunch' or ‘The Grace Thespians will get their
act
together after school in the theater.' A witty, yet newsy, directive.”

Though I remained a nonmember, Doug put me in charge of publicity. The following day I acquired an announcement form from an insanely pleasant receptionist.
The real chore, though, was composing suitably dadaistic prose. The end product, approved by Doug, read: “Avalanche the ghost roper! Defy Mother Nature and her minions. Dadaists unite in secular purgatory, Pizza Hut, tomorrow night at 6.”

The principal in charge of reading announcements required several attempts before completing the announcement. The only two words he enunciated clearly were
Pizza
and
Hut.

Dub looked back at me as the announcement was completed. “So when did avalanche become a verb?” she asked.

Pizza Hut, with its uniform, vinyl, mansard-roofed architecture, might not have seemed the most felicitous setting for the birth of a society bent on the overthrow of convention. “All You Can Eat” was a powerful draw, however, and we were sans the faculty advisor who could secure us classroom space for a meeting on campus. I didn't really expect people to show. If Doug and I hadn't foreseen GOD being an active club, why would anyone else? So I was surprised to see our complete roster, with the expected exception of FCA prez, Tom Pittman, at the meeting. Nine girls, five guys—six if you included me—the times they were a-changing.

As this was the first assembly of GOD, few of the members knew one another. Chitchat reached the din we associate with spearfishing Eskimos or cloistered monks. Still, I felt antsy. I had this awful vision of Doug standing and clinking his glass with his spoon to get everyone's attention. If we weren't careful we had the potential to slip into mainstream high school participatory bullshit. We'd be following
Robert's
Rules of Order
and exchanging friendship gifts with GOD squads from rival schools at halftimes of basketball games before we knew what hit us. But, I reminded myself, that's why we had called this meeting—to nip any thoughts of activism in the bud. The contradiction was easy to spot, though; we were having a meeting to let members know we wouldn't be meeting.

Without standing and without raising his voice, Doug began what I imagined would be the first and last meeting of the Grace Order of Dadaists.

“Welcome to Cabaret Voltaire,” Doug said, confusing everyone. Cabaret Voltaire was the name of the club Tristan Tzara had contributed work to in Zurich in the twenties, a haven for fellow dadaist painters, poets, and performance artists. “My name is Doug Chappell and I'm an alcoholic.” He got a laugh. The standard conventioneer icebreaking opening joke. Would he follow with the one about the traveling salesman? “I thought we needed to get together to talk about the goals we have for GOD.”
Goals?
Doug scanned the table. “GOD, as you probably already know, is not for everyone. Like our artistic forefathers, we are concerned with the destruction of established mediums. In other words, our goals should include nonparticipation in anything established society—in our case, school—presents. Dances, canned food drives, campus cleanups”—Doug looked right at Dub— “parades—these are anathema to the true dadaist.”

“I suppose dadaists wouldn't pose for yearbook photos either,” Dub said.

Touché.

“I know about your bet with your parents. I have friends in Skate or Die. I respect the lengths you'll go to to win, I really do, but don't sermonize about the rules of dadaism when
your
motives are impure.”

I was floored by the onslaught. Doug handled it gracefully.

“A yearbook photo is different from a parade. We're subverting the system by appearing in a book they want exclusively for homecoming queens and football stars. A float only serves as further glorification of the status quo.” Doug shook his head in a most fatherly no as he spoke his last sentence. He mistakenly thought he was having the final say.

“Wrongo,” Dub said. Dub sat at one end of the tables we had pushed together. Doug sat at the other. The rest of us were forced to rotate our heads in tennis spectator fashion in order to follow the action. “You are assuming our float would be like the floats of the student council and the Key Club and the German Club. That's where you're mistaken. We wouldn't put a giant buccaneer on the float. We wouldn't sit up there and grin like idiots. Our float would be a giant rolling sample of dadaistic art. We
would
be subverting the system. Think about it—a giant rolling carrot or maybe just a flatbed truck with nothing on it but a six-pack of generic cola.”

“Or how about the word ‘elbow' spelled out in carnations?” said one of the males of the group sitting next to me.

“Or maybe we could get a bunch of people lined up on the float dressed and acting like they were watching a parade,” offered one of Dub's friends. “That way the people watching the parade could see how ridiculous they look.” I
could tell we had a budding performance artist.

“That would be more surreal than dadaistic,” Dub suggested to her friend. Dub turned her attention back to Doug. “Anyway, there are a million good ideas for the float, but my overall point here is this: We should participate in every cheesy event the school lobs up to us. But every time they do, we put our own spin on it. I don't want to be in a club just to get my picture in the yearbook; we should produce dadaistic art. We should open our own Cabaret Voltaire where we exhibit our art, and anyone else's for that matter. We should lead the cultural revolution at Grace.”

Dub had accomplished with Doug what it had been infinitely easier to do to me: She left him speechless.

Doug and I discussed the ramifications of the meeting on the ride home from the Hut.

“That sure didn't go the way I planned it,” Doug said.

“I must say I admire how you took control in there,” I said. “Now, which committee did Dub put you on? Are you in charge of refreshments?”

Doug was missing the humor. “Maybe I should resign.”

“Shut up! You are
such
a big wuss. What's bothering you the most here? That she was right? Or was it that she took charge?” Sometimes Doug's need to lead got the better of him.

For the twelfth time during the last hour, Doug took off his John Deere cap, removed the rubber band from his long blond ponytail, and shook his hair out, letting it fall in front of his face; pulled his hair tightly back into a ponytail, re-rubber-banded it; and weaved it above the adjustable straps of his cap.

“Either that or laziness. Do you want to spend your free time working on a float?” he said.

“With nine girls? Yeah, I do.” It was an easy decision for me. “Look, you're an idea man. You haven't lost control of the club; you just need to rethink your goals a bit.”

“That girl is something else, isn't she?” Doug said.

“Frightening.”

As my chemistry teacher lectured, I began casually changing the Styrofoam and Tinkertoy water molecule models on display along the back wall into kryptonite (the formula and structure were revealed in
Superman
#178). An office aide relieved the monotony by requesting my presence in the counselor's office.

If you knew what you were looking for in DeMouy's office, you could spot the eight-inch-high nonfern easily. I'll say this for marijuana: Given plenty of light, nutrient-primed soil, and consistent watering, it will shoot up like, well… a weed. DeMouy stood peering into the top drawer of his desk as I entered. His long sigh at seeing me indicated my visit was business, not pleasure.

“Sometimes, Steve,” he began, “we sow seeds born of desperation and rage that, as older and wiser souls, we eventually regret.”

So this is where this is heading,
I thought.

“This idea is planted in our head—we can walk away without minding the crop, but unless that crop is harvested, the reaper will indeed be grim,” DeMouy continued his allegorical
lecture. He ended by looking me straight in the eye. “
Capisce
, Grasshopper?”

If I was reading his sermon correctly, I knew what I needed to do.

“Look! I think I see a troubled teenager considering self-destructive behavior,” I said, gesturing toward the window.

DeMouy obliged me by turning around. I quickly stepped around his desk and pulled the ganja out by its roots.

“Grasshopper,” DeMouy said, still facing the other direction.

“Yes, honorable master?” I said, stuffing the offending plant up my sleeve.

“Leave it in the wastebasket.”

With the exception of its leader, GOD's members were exhibiting an esprit de corps I had never experienced firsthand. We spent two to three hours each Monday through Thursday in the porta-barn owned by the parents of the Whiteside brothers, Bill and Matt. Beverly Shoaf's parents bred horses, and she was able to talk them out of their flatbed trailer for the last two weeks of September through the mid-October homecoming game. I probably could have asked for the
Apollo 3
spacecraft had I told the astronaut I was working on a homecoming float. Instead I explained my late hours by saying I was filling in for a vacationing co-worker at the 'Plex.

Initially I assumed my fellow dadaists had joined the group for the same wiseass reasons Doug and I had founded it, but as I got to know my comrades, I learned their motivations
were as varied as the members themselves. Possibly the sole thing we had in common was a need to be challenged. Let's face it, outwitting school officials doesn't require more than ten or twelve brain cells. To be the cleverest member of GOD, though, now that would be a big deal.

Because you can't tell your nihilist without your program…

Rhonda Smith:
Dub friend number one. Rhonda consistently dressed two days behind Dub (i.e., Dub wears peasant dress Monday; Rhonda wears peasant dress Wednesday). Has resisted urge to dye her red hair black, however. Tardy but eventual participant in all activities Dub-borne.

Missy Carmical:
Dub friend number two. Missy offered the Pizza Hut idea of peopling the float with faux parade spectators. If Rhonda represented Dub's superego, Missy was the id. Nothing was too radical for Missy: seethrough dresses with black bras, experimental drug use. Rumored to have lost virginity as sophomore to member of Material Issue after show at Fitzgerald's.

Beverly Shoaf:
Daughter of Unitarian ministers, she was inspired by Doug's showdown with Tom Pittman, who she had always considered an ass. Spoke little, but was right on the money when she did. Least
hip
member of group. She dressed in early dowdy.

Zipper:
No one ever took the time to explain the difference between punk and new wave to Zipper. She worshipped both Richard Hell and Robert Smith. She wore only black and shot for a complexion just on the eggshell side of pale. Bandied about the word “conformist” like she was getting paid for each usage.

Virginia Cole:
Like Zipper, Virginia joined GOD hoping it would serve as an “anticlub”—a club for social misfits and badge-flashing losers. Saw everything as “us versus them,” the haves versus the have-nots. Of course, when your house borders the fifth fairway of the Clear Lake Country Club golf course, as hers did, feigning populism doesn't get you far.

Holly Cooper:
One of three seniors in the group, Holly was the editor of the
Grace Gazette,
the school's newspaper. She was also in the running for valedictorian, but needed to beat out fellow GOD member and debate partner, Samantha Ellis.

Samantha Ellis:
Though I never saw the two of them in action, I've heard they dismantled opponents in such ruthless fashion that they often broke into finals without having to win a match: rival debate teams saw Ellis/Cooper as their draw and simply scratched. Samantha, along with Dub, represented the active feminist segment of GOD. Male members learned quickly to call our female members “women” lest we be called “boy” in withering tones.