Authors: Chuck Stepanek
“But I’ll still have to…” the words ‘touch him’ almost betrayed her, but she caught herself in time and redirected. “I mean, I’ll still have to… do Schroeder’s make up.”
Ms. Bagner wasn’t buying the deflection. “No, you’re exclusively Charlie Brown tonight. Now go find a hair dryer and comb.”
Charlie Brown was not used to all of the attention. He enjoyed it, a little bit, but mostly it made him uncomfortable.
When he arrived on opening night he had sat quietly on one of the locker room benches and waited to be instructed. Everyone around him was animated, chatty and full of energy. Occasionally a student of good intent would ask if he were ready for tonight or if he had all of his lines down. Yes, he was ready. Yes, he had his lines down.
There was a slightly odd moment when Ms. Bagner had told Sue
Hespen
to wash his hair and she had squealed: “Eeeew! No! Gross!” But he heard girls saying things like that all the time. The odd part was the conversation that ensued between the woman and the girl, and then there was the way the room had become quiet. It seemed to Charlie Brown that there was something there, something that he was missing. But then Ms. Bagner was washing his hair and the odd feeling drifted away.
The hair washing was exquisite. Charlie Brown felt Ms. Bagner pour cupful after cupful of warm water on his head as he hovered over the sink. Then came the shampoo which his drama teacher drove into his scalp with her long sturdy fingernails. The sensation caused him to break out in gooseflesh on his neck and back. But when Ms. Bagner leaned in to scrub the top of his scalp, gooseflesh became the secondary sensation. What he thought were her breasts, were brushing against his left arm.
The scrubbing lasted a good long time and then was followed by several more cupfuls of warm water. A towel then landed on the back of his neck, and Ms. Bagner shimmied up and over the sides and top of his head applying more and more friction to force out the water.
“Okay, why don’t you have a seat at the first makeup table and Sue
Hespen
will finish your hair.”
‘Finishing the hair’ amounted to Sue
Hespen
maintaining a safe distance from Gre -- uh, Charlie Brown and aiming a hair dryer in his general direction. From time to time she would take a comb, the one with the longest handle she could find, and make a few quick token strokes before retreating out of the range of jumping cooties.
Opening night passed.
On the second night Charlie Brown again arrived on time and waited to be instructed. And when Ms. Bagner directed him to the makeup station, he asked honestly “Don’t you need to wash my hair first?”
It may have been part lust for feeling those knockers brush against him, or it could have been earnestly informing his teacher that she had forgotten that part of the preparation.
The question arrived unexpected. “I think that – well, it should be fine.” Ms. Bagner was dancing between white lie and full disclosure. “We need to spend more time on your makeup tonight.”
She hadn’t expected her star to arrive on the second night having shampooed in advance (he had not) and she felt that her scrubbing on opening night would be good enough to last through four nights of performances (it would). What she hadn’t anticipated was his completely innocent question.
‘God, the kid really doesn’t know.’ She mused. ‘I really should have a talk with him about it, but now? Before a performance? He could become totally conspicuous about how he’s looked all semester and why people call him Greaser. He might walk right off the stage. No, not now.’
And so Greaser completed his role flawlessly, a little more sheen and snarl creeping into his head each performance, but still passable by the time closing night arrived. In fact the only mistake he made occurred two weeks
after
the performance.
When he showed up for the cast party on the wrong night.
Chapter 3
1
“Greaser, you’re moving too slow!” A pair of twel
ve year old twerps skated past G
reaser with reckless confidence.
Yes,
G
reaser was moving too slow. He had only been roller skating twice before (back in grade school) when the entire class had been invited to some rich kids birthday parties. But it wasn’t the reference to moving slow that surprised him, it was that these young kids had called him by that nickname. That, and the fact that it was not customary, in fact it could be downright dangerous, for a young punk to sass off to a high school kid. Not that Greaser was the type to react in such a manner, but curious just the same.
Saturday night at the Roller Rink was almost exclusively reserved for the junior high crowd and below. Greaser kept looking for more people his own age, specifically members of the Charlie Brown cast who were supposed to be here tonight. But that had happened
last
night. Tonight the cast members were at the
unofficial
cast party at Judy Zimmer’s family cabin getting blistered on Boones Farm Red and Columbian Gold. Somehow Greaser had gotten the date wrong. Or maybe he was misled on the dates to prevent him from crashing the proprietary guest list for Ms.
Zimmer’s
soiree. Regardless, he was here, it was the wrong night, he was skating, and to leave before the 90 minute session was up would be a sin.
“Greaser! Don’t be slippin’ and falling!” The twerps again. They could make three circuits of the rink to every two of
Greaser
’
s. Each time they came in fast, spouted out their taunt, and then cut in front for another lap.
Again they made the circuit. “Greaser! There’s grease coming off of your skates!”
This time, it made sense. The junior high punks weren’t messing with him. They had merely observed grease coming off of his skates and had been trying to tell him. Greaser looked down but couldn’t see any telltale signs. He risked a quick glance back but could not detect an accusatory double trail of oil in his wake. But the sharp eyed youngsters had caught it, and they had shown the courtesy to bring it to his attention.
It could be handled. There was a place and a person for skate repairs; the attendant staff member at the skate rental counter.
Greaser worked his way along the cement wall that separated the skate/no skate zones. He hesitated for just a moment as he rolled onto the carpeted area, caught his balance and mentally thanked the junior high kids for alerting him to the problem.
Near the end of the cement divider he rolled up to the stall designed for skate adjustments. For skaters young and old it was a ceremonious event to come to this stall and be serviced for a loose stopper or a jammed wheel. You placed each arm on the shelf to brace yourself and then lifted your skate into the pre-cut trough. When the attendant looked up from where he was shelving skates he would drift over to the stall to service your rolling footwear.
“What do you need.” More declarative statement than question. The attendant had seen the grease
-
baller earlier in the evening (God, how could you miss a sight like that) and figured him to be retarded.
The attendant, 20 year old Nick MacInturf, had worked at the roller rink since he was 15. During those five years he had feigned adjustments for thousands of skaters whether they
needed adjusting or not (many did not). The less time he would have to deal with this slimy loser, the better.
“Some kid told me that I had grease coming off of my skates.”
‘You have
got
to be fist-fucking me.’ Nick MacInturf needed a moment to absorb what he had heard. Some punk-ass kid tells this sorry sap that he’s got grease coming off of his skates and he buys it? The attendant looked at his customer, then at the skate, and then back at the customer with a ‘what are you stupid’ expression.
He would have liked to tell this dork that he was a blithering sap-sucking idiot, but he also wanted to keep his job. He supposes that he could scramble up a rag from someplace and pretend to wipe down the
nonexistent
grease; but if anyone were to see him, he’d end up giving shoeshine jobs to every brat in the building.
Finally Nick MacInturf takes one final look at his client, rolls his eyes, and wordlessly returns to his duty of shelving skates; leaving the retard to sink or swim on his own.
At first, Greaser stays put; thinking that the attendant has gone to fetch a rag or tool of some kind. But when the attendant resumes shelving a third, then a fourth pair of skates, he has been abandoned. Ignored.
Greaser maintains his ready position in the service stall and tries to connect the dots. The eye rolling suggests that he has been sapped, there was no grease, the attendant will not be coming back, the junior high punks have probably been watching and laughing.
Conspicuously, Greaser extracts himself from the stall and turns toward the skate floor. He ponders what has just occurred but only for a moment as his thoughts are interrupted by the roller rink announcer:
“IT’S TIME NOW FOR OUR MULTIPLYING COUPLE SKATE. ALL THE BOYS LINE UP ALONG THE BLUE WALL, ALL THE GIRLS ALONG THE PINK WALL.”
The multiplying couple skate was one of Greaser
’
s favorites. The skate begins with just one pre-selected couple on the floor, after 20 seconds the referee would blow his whistle; the couple would break and select new partners. Two would become four, four became eight, eight, sixteen, and upward until everyone in the building (sometimes forming groups of three to accommodate the extras) was skating as a couple.
During his t
wo grade school visits, G
reaser had been chosen early in the multiplying couple skate, mostly because, as the quiet kid, he presented little risk to the reputation of any grammar school princess. This shocked him and pleased him. The fond memory overshadowed his rental counter experience and he made his way hurriedly to the blue wall.
The multiplying couple skate began to the sounds of Maureen McGovern singing “The Morning After.” A wise choice of music; love song appeal for the girls and favorite scenes from the movie The Poseidon Adventure for the boys. The whistle would blow (tweet!) the couples would split and double; split and double again.
Maureen McGovern cross-faded into Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen” and at the lyrics ‘we all play the games and when we dare, cheat ourselves at solitaire’ Greaser began to feel that something was terribly wrong.
He hadn’t expected to be picked in the first few rounds, he knew that he was older than most of this crowd and that they had their own friends. By now there were perhaps 40 couples skating, and only a handful of boys and girls were left without partners. One more toot of the whistle…there it was!...and he along with everyone else would be skating under the colored Chinese lanterns.
The couples broke, reformed, some in twos, some in threes, and everyone had been picked. Everyone, that is, except for Greaser.
Greaser looked the length of the blue wall and saw it barren. He watched as dozens of sets of eyes rolled by and stared at him freakishly. Panic began to crawl out of his lungs and clench his heart. Conspicuously isolated, he tried to---
“Hey Greaser! Why aren’t you skating!”
The two junior high twerps, with a pretty junior high girl between them, skated by as a threesome, laughing at the lone Greaser abandoned at the blue wall.