Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath (10 page)

“I know who wrote
The Grapes of Wrath
,” Sorrelson intones, as if he had caught Steinbeck earlier and already punished him for it. He stares at me, knitting his unruly white eyebrows together. “Had it occurred to you at any point in this process that someone might find this little cartoon of yours …” He pauses and looks at the ceiling for a moment, as if he needs to summon the next
word from above, and then with sudden fury he discovers it among the fluorescent lights and, lowering his gaze, he spits it at me: “…
offensive?
!?!”

I panic. “No. I mean, I knew that there was a little nudity, but it isn't very explicit and they are made out of clay, I mean they don't look like people, they look more like those little Fisher-Price figures, except Eve has breasts but you wouldn't know they were breasts except that they're round and where breasts should be, but if they weren't there you would think that they were … little tiny half-grapefruits or something, but really tiny, so I didn't think anyone would be too upset by little toylike naked clay things, oh, except for the dancing Steinbeck, which is a naked Ken doll, but they aren't anatomically correct anyway …” I run out of steam. Mr. Sorrelson is staring at me quizzically.

“There was nudity? No one said anything about nudity.”

Crap.

“Well,” continues Mr. Sorrelson, who now seems a bit flustered, which has the advantage of making him talk more quickly. “The issue wasn't about the nudity, but we'll come back to that later. I have received several complaints from quite a few families …”

There is something in the way he says “quite a few” that makes me question the claim. How many people need to call to constitute “quite a few”?

Sorrelson takes a deep breath and continues in a tone that almost sounds confidential. “We had a few calls saying that your cartoon was a parody of the Bible and was inappropriate to show to a class that includes people of deep religious conviction.”

“Oh.”

“Was that your intention?”

“To make fun of somebody's religion? No.”

“Do you see how someone might interpret your cartoon this way?”

“Maybe.” I'm biting the inside of my lip and thinking through the sequences. You'd have to be pretty damn sensitive.

“I think the best thing would be for you to bring the DVD in and let me watch it, and we will continue from there. In the meantime, I will call your parents and inform them of our discussion today. I assume that they have seen your cartoon.” He is back to talking slowly.

I shake my head.

“Perhaps you may wish to show it to them before you bring it to me. Do you have anything else to say?”

I shake my head again.

“Then you may return to your class.”

“Thanks,” I say, although I'm not sure why I'm thanking him for this unpleasant experience.

Mom loves the film. Dad, who actually likes Steinbeck, thinks it's a bit harsh, but makes several encouraging
comments about technical features, such as the melting figures in the dust bowl and the flying monkey sequence. Carrie tells me that it's better the second time, but it's still gross. We eat popcorn. I can't imagine this is what Mr. Sorrelson had envisioned when he told me to show the “cartoon” to my parents.

Butterflies, bondage, and balloons

I miss David,” Carrie says as she stands with me and M.C. waiting for Mom to pick us up.

“You miss his car.”

Baseball season is in full swing. David has retrieved his glove from underneath his mattress, where it had hibernated all winter wrapped around a baseball. It was a little like watching a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis, only a lot less picturesque. Suddenly there were lots of very important conversations he had to have with teammates he'd barely spoken to in the off-season. And suddenly our designated chauffeur became much less available.

Sometimes I drive when Mom doesn't need the car. Other times we have to wait for Mom to pick us up. Mom is always late, so not only do we not get to drive ourselves home, but we have to stand around watching everyone else leave, knowing that when they look out the window of
their various sports utility vehicles and occasional secondhand wrecks they see supposed high school students pathetically waiting for their mommy to pick them up. For Carrie, it is slow torture, even worse than having to ride home with me in the minivan.

“Do you think,” M.C. says, staring out at the pond, “that when we're old, we'll remember anything about high school? How much does it matter? As long as we make it to college, will anything that's happening now even be important to us in ten years?”

“How long is baseball season?” Carrie asks.

“All spring,” I answer.

M.C. is in melancholy. Maybe she's missing Curtis. “You know,” she says in a low monotone, “everything we care about now—grades, hair, boys—when we leave here, we won't give a crap about any of it.”

“I'll still care about my hair,” Carrie says. “And boys will be men then and we'll probably care about them about as much as we do now.”

“But differently, you know?”

The three of us are now the only ones left in the pickup area. Carrie is pacing the road. I give up and go sit on one of the benches. It may be baseball season, but it's unseasonably chilly. I dig my hands into my jacket pockets.

M.C. sits next to me and we don't say anything for way too long. I am in my own funk. This morning I dropped off my movie with Sorrelson's administrative assistant,
who gave me the kind of thin smile you give someone who you don't quite trust but are trying to placate into going away as quickly as possible. She held the sides of the case as if it were contaminated and said a simple “Thank you” in response. I waited for too long thinking I was supposed to receive some sort of instructions, but she just repeated “Thank you” and smiled again, and I left. I'm assuming Sorrelson will let me know my fate sometime soon. I feel like one of those cartoon heroines tied to a track watching a very slow train coming to run me over. A very, very slow train.

“What are you thinking?” I ask M.C.

“Ice cream.”

“It's freezing.”

“We don't have to eat it outside.”

“But in ten years …”

“I'll still want ice cream.”

We convince Mom to let us drop her off at home, and the three of us go out to the mall for ice cream. I know I'm transportation, not company, but M.C. has cheered up and Carrie's not being any more obnoxious than usual.

M.C. orders a banana split with everything. I have one scoop of chocolate ice cream with pineapple topping. Carrie orders a Diet Coke.

I have never seen anyone devour a banana split the way that M.C. does. If we came here to change her mood, it's
worked. M.C. is a frenzy of eating. She digs straight into the middle, where the chocolate sauce is melting into the ice cream and pulls large spoonfuls out, slurping them down with gleeful abandon. She picks up the banana slices with her fingers, leaving a trail of drips on the table, on her shirt, on her chin. She has ice cream in her hair. She unself-consciously licks the splattered whipped cream off the back of her hand and smiles at me.

“Don't you love banana splits?”

The door of the restaurant opens. Carrie looks up and then away, pretending that she didn't see who came in. Ryan, Danielle, Nicole, and some guy I don't know are standing at the door. M.C. turns around in her chair to see who Carrie is so carefully ignoring and all of her happy energy drains away. It's like watching a balloon deflate. She spins back around and grabs a napkin. As the foursome walks past us to find a table, we sit absolutely silent, as if maybe we are invisible and if we don't say anything they won't notice we are here. Of the four, only Danielle seems a little awkward about completely snubbing us; she gives us a little “Hi guys,” and a wave. “Hi,” I answer, and maybe there's a nod from Ryan. They settle into a table on the other side of a line of booths.

“What?” I ask Carrie.

“It's a guy M.C. knows.”

“
That
guy?”

“Yes?” Carrie answers.

“Knows?”

“Knew.”

“Can we go?” M.C. asks.

Louis explains the wedgie inquisition

“Are we going to the prom?”

“Together?” David asks me. I think he means it as a joke.

“Carrie wants to set me up with Amanda.”

David doesn't answer immediately. He lays out his napkin, arranges his lunch, and opens his chips. Maybe he's thinking. I look at his sandwich.

“Turkey? It's been ham for three days and now suddenly turkey? You never switch mid-week.”

“What do you have today? You are always obnoxious about my lunch when yours sucks.”

I look in my bag. There is a thermos of something. Thermoses are almost always a bad sign.

“You know, I don't think you like turkey that much. And you don't look hungry. Now that it's baseball season, you've really got to watch your weight. And a whole sandwich?”

David hands me half of his sandwich. “I should just start packing two.”

“Bert, Ernie, how's funny?” Louis pulls a chair from a neighboring table and places it directly next to mine. He reaches over me, removes the sandwich from David's hand,
takes a large bite of it, and then gives it back. Chewing and grinning and shaking his head at the same time, he turns back toward me.

“So, Spielberg, rumors are that Sorrelson gave your effort a thumbs-down. Rotten tomatoes. No stars.”

David is looking at the remains of his sandwich, trying to figure out how he feels about eating it after Louis's bite. He decides against it and places it back onto his napkin. Louis picks it up and finishes it in two large chomps.

“You're not so used to being hauled in by the inquisition, are you? Prissy boys like you guys who spend all their time calculating their GPAs to the fifth decimal point don't do the heart-to-hearts with the drool king often. Hung you by your wedgie, didn't he? How are those balls feeling these days? A little squeezed?”

“I don't think it's a big deal,” I say, with no confidence in my voice.

“Probably not. Just your future. Any chance of success later in life. That permanent record has legs, you know. It gets up and follows you everywhere you go. ‘Mitchell Wells, we were going to offer you the vice presidency of our gigantic corporation, but I see here that your high school principal says you're a bad apple.' ‘Dr. Wells, I'm afraid we will have to reject your license on ethical grounds. We see in this file that you are a pornographer and blasphemer.' On the plus side, you can probably convince some floozy to marry you. Guys with reps, you know, always in demand.”
He leans in closer to me. “Don't let them get to you. They've got nothing, no leverage at all. Sorrelson, that belly of his is full of hot air and he makes those faces at you”—Louis sticks out his lower lip and frowns—“but what's he really going to do? Tell your mommy? Make you sit in the library for a day suffering the horrors of missing Ms. Bexter sighing her way through math class? Sorrelson can't do squat and he knows it.” Still only inches away from my face, he bellows in a suddenly deep voice, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

With that, he stands up, palms David's apple, and strides out of the cafeteria.

“What's in the thermos?” David asks.

I hand it over and he opens it, grimaces, and hands it back.

“Maybe I'll buy something.” He looks around, distracted. “You didn't tell me you had to go talk to Sorrel-son,” he says to the empty chair next to him.

“It was a couple of days ago. He asked me to bring the film in, but he hasn't gotten back to me about it.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“I don't know yet. Someone complained that it was offensive.” I shrug like it's all no big deal.

“How come you didn't tell me?”

I don't know. I was going to tell him right after it happened, but we weren't ever alone in the hallway and then he went to practice. And then on Friday I was going to
bring it up at lunch, but we spent the whole period talking about something else. And then it was the weekend and we went to a movie but we didn't really talk, and now it is Monday, and it felt weird to bring it up since it happened four days ago.

“I guess because nothing's happened yet,” I lie.

“Could you e-mail or something if you get expelled? Just to keep me in the loop.”

“I'll send you an invite to the hanging. I know how you feel about missing big social events.”

“Gay” as a metaphor for everything that's fucked up between us

There is a moment a few hours later when we almost communicate. We are standing next to each other in the hallway outside the film lab. The trolls are inside, the previous class is long gone, and David asks what's wrong with me lately.

“I don't know how to act around you anymore,” I answer.

“Since when?”

“Since you told me.”

“Oh,” David says.

“I mean, I don't think you want me to act any different. Differently.”

“Does it make you nervous that I'm …”

“Gay?” I need to say it.

“Does it?”

“Maybe.”

“Are you afraid someone will find out and think you are too?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid I'm going to try to kiss you, or feel you up or something?”

“No—of course not.”

David takes two steps forward and looks me square in the face. I can't read him at all. He doesn't look angry. Is he hoping that I'll lean over and kiss him? Is that what he wants?

I turn my head and stare at a spot several feet to my left.