Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp (19 page)

“OK,” I said. I looked at the ceiling. “Mr. Rumpkin, what famous actress was married to Frank Sinatra, Artie Shaw, and Mickey Rooney?”

“Ava Gardner,” mumbled the giant.

“Correct,” I said, impressed.

“No, ask him a proper question,” insisted Mom.

“OK.” I tried to think. “Mr. Rumpkin,” I said, studying my water glass, “can you name the first United States female winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature?”

“That’s easy,” mumbled Wally. “Pearl S. Buck.”

“And what does the ‘S’ stand for?” I demanded.

Wally gulped. “Uh…oh, I know, Sydenstricker.”

The man is an absolute genius. He may turn out to be a great scholarly allusion resource for my intellectual correspondence with Sheeni.

8:30
P.M
. Wally and Mom are still doing the dishes. At least, they’re down in the kitchen being awfully quiet. Lefty just called with some good news and some bad news. The bad news is his parents are sending him to a shrink to get his sexual orientation reprogrammed. The good news is there’s been an emergency cancellation of his grounding so his date with Millie Filbert could be moved up to this coming Friday. The further bad news is they screamed at him for two solid hours for violating their ban on associating with me.

“It’s depressing,” said Lefty, “all my dad did today was pester me to shoot some baskets with him or go fishing. You can tell he thinks I’m a pansy. I wish your mother had kept her trap shut just this once.”

“So do I,” I replied. “Odd thing is, ever since she told me it was OK to be gay, she’s been really nice to me.”

“Parents really suck,” said Lefty.

“The hairiest fur ball they can find,” I agreed. “Are you going to see Millie tomorrow at school?”

“Yes, and I’m really nervous.”

“Just be natural,” I said. “You’ll do fine. She likes you a lot.”

“OK, Jim,” replied Lefty. “I’ll trade you a Juan Marichal for a Pee Wee Reese.”

“Say hi to the guys at St. V’s for me, Lefty.”

“OK, Jim,” he replied. “I’m sure sorry you won’t be there.”

10:30
P.M
. I just heard Wally’s truck pull away. I hope to see him again. Maybe he can keep Mom distracted and off my back.

I laid out the best of my 1973 wardrobe to wear to school tomorrow. The question that haunts me: Are bell-bottoms totally, totally out of it?

MONDAY, September 10
— Today I entered the gulag of the Oakland Public Schools.

I was neither stabbed nor shot, though, as I approached the school grounds this morning, I was compelled to hand over my 90 cents in lunch money to two 12-year-old thugs with beepers on their belts. You’d think they’d stick to robbing kids their own age.

Once past the sullen guards at the doors, I felt a little safer, though still exposed. When you’re one of two dozen white kids (and the only one wearing bell-bottoms) in a big inner-city school, some degree of self-consciousness may be excused.

The ever-chipper, always rotund Rhonda Atari was in my homeroom class. She greeted me effusively.

“Like your bell-bottoms, Nick,” she cooed.

“Thanks. I like your muumuu.”

“It’s not a muumuu,” she said, offended. “It’s a dress. My mother made it.”

“She’s very talented,” I lied.

Rhonda beamed. “How was your gang meeting, Nick?”

I said I couldn’t discuss it because of my vow of secrecy.

“What are the principles of your gang?” she asked.

“The usual,” I replied, “theft and mayhem.”

“Wow!” she exclaimed, “that’s heavy.”

Not as heavy as you, I thought.

The first period was gym, taught by a grizzled old white guy who may have been a plantation overseer in a previous life. “OK, you slackers,” he bellowed, “get out on that track!”

The rest of the morning was a blur. I received my English, history, and biology textbooks—all nicely broken in by untold generations before me. In every class, the teacher called the roll. Yet each time, when they came to the “t”s, my name was not mentioned. Am I enrolled or not?

Since I had study hall right before lunch, I skipped out and went home to make a sandwich and perform some leakage. (I had ventured into a rest room at school, but not wanting to smoke dope, buy drugs, or converse with 20 robust fellows in Raiders jackets hosting a switchblade show-and-tell, I quickly turned around and left.)

Mom wasn’t at home. Her bereavement period has expired and she’s gone back to work—leaving behind the lonely Albert. He lay in the dead Chevy, pining for a prayer book.

While I was home, I called the State Office of Human Resources in Marin and asked to speak to the caseworker for Dad. After a lot of festive music on hold, I was finally connected to the proper bureaucrat. Oddly, I couldn’t think of any better strategy than the truth. The woman seemed quite interested and sympathetic. I said Dad was in arrears on his child-support payments, was not seriously looking for work, and had turned down the offer of a very good job. As a consequence, I had no new clothes for school (technically true) and had to go to public school in Oakland.

“Not the Oakland schools!” exclaimed the woman, appalled.

“Yes,” I said. “And I was robbed of my lunch money this morning.”

“Don’t you worry, young man,” she said, “I’ll get right on this.”

“You won’t tell him I was the one who snitched on him, will you?” I asked. “He has a violent temper.”

“Of course not,” she replied. “And don’t worry. We’ll light a fire under that deadbeat.”

My first class after lunch was beginning Spanish. I had requested French (in preparation for my life in Paris with Sheeni), but those classes were full. To my surprise, about three-quarters of my fellow Spanish scholars were Hispanic. For 45 minutes they conversed among themselves in their mother tongue, telling jokes and making fun of the teacher’s accent. Miss Talmadge, an aging ’60s peace warrior, had learned her Spanish dodging bullets in the Peace Corps in El Salvador. Perhaps this is why she now chose to teach in Oakland.

Wood technology class was next. This, it turns out, is just wood shop with an upscale name. Our first project is to transform a large block of pine into a small doorstop. This could be done quite accurately on a table saw in about 10 seconds. We’ve been given a not very sharp hand plane and two weeks. I think they should rename it wood technology for serfs.

Basic office skills was the final class of the day. What a relief to gorge the brain at last on true intellectual meat. In 45 minutes we learned all the size classifications, types, styles, and uses of the paper clip. Tomorrow we move on to thumbtacks and pushpins. I can’t wait.

Mom was feeling pleased with herself when she got home from work. She has accessed the DMV computer and changed the registration on Jerry’s Lincoln and trailer into her name. “That woman may have Jerry’s body,” boasted Mom, “but I’ve got his entire rolling stock.” (Definitely the better of the bargain it seems to me.) To obscure the paper trail even more, Mom registered them in her maiden name (Biddulph, rhymes with “bit off”) at Mr. Ferguson’s address. Not even the KGB could track down those hot vehicles.

7:30
P.M
. Lefty just checked in by phone. He said the ravishing Miss Satron expressed her regret that I was no longer enrolled at St. V’s and would not be taking her English lit class. “You should have seen the sweater she had on today,” exclaimed Lefty. “It was like dual nose cones on an F-16 fighter jet.”

“Did the kids razz you about your suicide attempt?” I asked.

“Not too bad,” he replied. “Dinky Stevens asked me if I was going out for the swim team. Then dumb Tatar Collins asked me if it was true I was allowed to park in handicapped zones. I told her anyone who parked in her zone would have to be handicapped.”

“Good for you,” I said. “Did you talk to Millie?”

“Sure,” he replied, “we ate lunch together. Boy, does Millie look sexy biting into a ham sandwich. I had to hold my lunch bag over my lap.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Mostly my baseball card collection. I’m not sure she was too interested either. But, I mean, what do you talk to girls about, Nick?”

“Well, you could talk about movies and books and current affairs. You know—the issues of the day.”

“You mean those guys I see driving around in jacked-up pickup trucks with hot babes all snuggled up against them are talking about movies and books?”

“I expect so,” I replied. “That’s what Sheeni and I talk about.”

“Yeah, well, you guys are a couple of eggheads. Half the time I was up at Clear Lake, I didn’t have a clue what your girlfriend was talking about. But I wasn’t too surprised considering the wacko parents she’s got.”

I felt this criticism of his recent hosts was most ungracious. Mr. and Mrs. Saunders may be somewhat eccentric, but let us not forget they will be contributing half the chromosomes of my future children.

“Speaking of mental illness,” I said, “when’s your appointment to see that psychologist?”

“Tomorrow after school,” replied Lefty gloomily. “I wonder if he’ll give me a test.”

“What kind of test?”

“You know, show me a
Playboy
. Then
Playgirl
. See which one gives me a hard-on. I hear they do that. Then, if you go for the wrong pictures, they zap you with electric shocks.”

“That sounds like it might be effective.”

“Yeah,” said Lefty, “I hear it’s painful as hell. That’s why I’m laying off my meat tonight. One peek at that first tit tomorrow and prong, I’m going to prove to that shrink I’m straight.”

“Straight in a crooked sort of way,” I observed.

“Damn those fucking vitamins,” replied Lefty. “They haven’t done jack shit.”

TUESDAY, September 11
— I had a pleasant day at school today. I didn’t go. I got within a half block of its grim walls, but couldn’t proceed any further—almost as if an invisible force had glued my Reeboks to the pavement. It didn’t help that those grammar school stickup artists were lurking by the main gate. So I crossed the street and kept on walking. I spent the day downtown at the library. At first I was worried someone was going to ask why I wasn’t in school. But nobody paid the slightest attention to me.

Mom remains cheerful despite her bereavement and daily morning chow chucking. She had another long phone conversation with Wally; the next phone bill should be quite a whopper. (Our family only falls in love with people who telephone collect. I wonder if Joanie’s physicist reverses the charges when he makes his surreptitious love calls.) Wally, reports Mom, is now on his
way back—hauling a load of religious tracts from Salt Lake. Perhaps he’ll put one aside for Albert.

8:15
P.M
. Further telephonic communication with Lefty. He reports that while walking from English to math class, he successfully reached for and grasped Millie’s hand.

“She has a nice sexy hand,” said Lefty. “Warm and soft. Not too clammy.”

Lefty said he mentioned this to Dr. Browerly, his shrink, right away, but the guy wasn’t particularly impressed.

“Why not?” I asked.

“He said I didn’t have to prove anything. That he wanted to help me become more accepting of my latent tendencies.”

“That sounds bad,” I said. “Did he show you any pictures?”

“No, we just talked. He asked me if I thought a lot about suicide and touching guys on their private parts.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him all I thought about was baseball cards, computers, going out with Millie Filbert, hating my sister, and getting my dick straightened. Of course, I said ‘penis’ to him.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He asked me what I thought about my mother. So I said I thought she should lose some weight and stop dyeing her hair orange.”

“Did he ask you what you thought about your dad?”

“No. He was a lot more interested in my mother. Maybe he’s got the hots for her.”

“Did he ask you about Martha?”

“Yeah. That was bad. He asked me if I ever had lustful thoughts toward my sister. So I told him about beating off once with her brassiere.”

“What did you tell him that for?” I demanded.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” replied Lefty. “These guys release chemicals in their office to make you tell the truth. You can’t hide anything.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. He wrote it all down, though. Maybe he’s going to blackmail me with it when I grow up and get a good-paying job. The guy drives a gold Porsche. I just hope he doesn’t tell Martha.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. He’s her shrink too.”

“You’re going to the same psychologist?”

“Sure,” answered Lefty. “Mom got us a package deal. Fifty bucks a session and the bill goes to your house.”

“You mean my mom has to pay for you too?”

“I guess so. It was your cock I was sucking.”

“Yes. But it was your idea!” I replied.

“That’s true,” he admitted. “Gee, maybe I am gay.”

“Don’t be retarded,” I said. “We were doing research for our girlfriends.”

“Oh right. I forgot. That’s a relief.”

“Do you have to see Dr. Browerly again?”

“Next week,” replied Lefty. “Yes, Jim, next week I can trade you a Joe Jackson for a Bob Feller.”

“Maybe you’ll have laid Millie Filbert by then.”

“Yes, Jim,” said Lefty. “That would certainly be a great day in major league baseball.”

10:30
P.M
. Mom was watching TV in her bedroom when the phone rang downstairs. Thank God I had had the foresight to sabotage the extension next to her bed. It was Sheeni, calling collect with marvelous news. Dad is going to Ukiah tomorrow for an interview!

“He sounds quite eager to accept the position now,” said Sheeni. “I don’t know how to account for such a complete reversal of mind.”

“I do,” I replied. “It was extreme fear.”

“Extreme fear of what, darling?”

“BMW withdrawal,” I replied. “Dad couldn’t survive if his Beamer were repossessed. The yuppie shock would kill him. Let’s just pray he gets the job.”

“He shouldn’t have any trouble. The only other candidate is my brother Paul.”

“Your brother’s back?” I asked, surprised.