Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath (4 page)

“Ditchell, Mavid.”

Louis frequently joins us at lunch, which is surprising because David and I are the only juniors who have early lunch. In theory, Louis should be in class now. But here he is again. He pulls up a chair and places it right alongside David's, leg to leg. David scoots a little to the left to mitigate the personal space invasion.

Sitting next to David, I realize that he and Louis are almost the same size. But while David isn't someone you would easily pick out of a lineup of teenagers, Louis is someone you would notice immediately. He's a lot like David, only more so. Both are taller than me, but not really tall. On David, the height makes him look average. Louis is a little chubbier, with a rounder face and enough weight to make him bulky, but not really fat. His height makes him seem big. David's hair is blond, but not pale blond, or Swedish blond or beach blond—just mostly blond with enough streaks of brown to make the blondness less noticeable. Louis is fair as well, but his hair is almost yellow, and there is something beacon-like about his head that makes him easy to spot walking down the hall. And then there's the grin. David doesn't really smile much. He
might enjoy things, but deadpan is as funny as he gets. Louis is always wearing a very wide, very happy grin. It isn't really a friendly grin, but it sure makes him look like he's enjoying himself.

Louis picks up David's lunch bag and shakes it a little. “Not even any chips left! Selfish bastard. So tell me, Mitch Hell, have you been keeping tabs on how some of these freshgirls have become much more fresh and less menly? Where did those tits come from? You guys haven't noticed at all, have you? Just squeaky background noise. More important things to focus on, huh? Like your sister's best friend. Not too developed, but close at hand. How close were your hands?”

“Louis, what are you talking about?” I finally ask. Louis should come with subtitles.

“Pizza. Double-dating with your sister. Little odd, backseat-frontseat kind of thing. I guess it's kosher, as long as you don't try reliving those bathtub moments from when you were three. Of course, if my sister was Carrie …”

“How did you know we went out for pizza?”

“Usual methods. Tire tracks. Surveillance cameras. Mozzarella on your breath. Zach works there in the kitchen making pizza.”

“Louis,” David says, checking his watch, “maybe you should try to get a life of your own. Start simple. A hobby. Or showing up for class.”

“Evade all you want, but it makes me proud when two eunuchs such as yourselves take those first teeny steps toward manhood. But you're right. I'm probably late for French. Or maybe physics.”

“The scary thing,” David says as we watch Louis leave, “is that he is ranked second in our class.” He checks his watch again. David doesn't trust the cafeteria clocks. “Wall-man time.”

“I figured out what a green screen is,” I tell him as we get up to leave. “There's definitely one in the lab. We can do some really cool things, but we'll have to convince one of the senior trolls to help. It involves some computer program I've never heard of, but it doesn't look impossible. I'm going to try to get in some time after school—Wallman said it was fine.”

“You're starting to scare me,” David says, tossing his lunch bag in the trash can by the door. He doesn't sound scared.

“Oh, come on. We're on a roll.”

“Have you started your English paper?”

“No.”

“Have you finished reading the book?”

“No.”

“Have you started reading the book?”

“I've tried. I just can't do it. I can't get past page seven.”

David gives a little grunting noise of disapproval. Two freshman girls pass us in the hall. Louis is right. Now that
spring has arrived and they aren't layered in coats and sweaters, the ninth graders definitely have more to show.

“David,” I ask as we turn the corner and walk down the long hallway to the film lab. “I know that you aren't hooking up with Mariel …”

David stops walking and turns toward me. I have set off the perimeter defenses.

“And I know why you aren't, but theoretically, if you were, which I know you're not, would you have told me?”

David doesn't quite know what to do with that question. He pushes his glasses back toward the bridge of his nose.

“Yes,” he says.

“What if it wasn't Mariel?”

He pauses again, considering. Finally, he shrugs. “Probably.”

“So, nothing has happened?”

The door opens and a stream of sophomores passes us by. He waits them out before he says no, as if that one syllable would reveal some secret he doesn't want anyone to overhear.

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth
.

I'm almost asleep by the end of the first line. I have decided to start the book over again because I can't remember one thing that happened in the seven pages I read. There was dust, lots of dust, I got that, but the whys and wherefroms were a little fuzzy. Maybe it wasn't important. Like why there were two countries in Oklahoma. Part of the problem with a book like this is trying to figure out what is important information and what isn't.

Gophers and ant lions started small avalanches
.

I don't know what a gopher or an ant lion looks like. I don't even know what an ant lion is. I suppose I could look it up, but how important can it be? There is not an essay topic on ant lions in
The Grapes of Wrath
. Keep going, keep going.

And as the sharp sun struck day after day, the leaves of the young corn became less stiff and erect …

Stiff and erect. Is it just me or is that a little suggestive? Maybe because I'm reading in bed. I am not currently stiff and erect. Was Steinbeck gay? Fitzgerald was the one with the goofy wife—Steinbeck had a little mustache, I think. That wouldn't make him gay.

… they bent at a curve at first, and then, as the central ribs of strength grew weak, each leaf tilted downwards
.

Poor leaves.

Is this what I've become? I'm spending my time lying in bed thinking about penises? Oh, God, maybe I
am
gay. I mean, it would be okay if I was. Sort of. But it would be a surprise. How could I not know I was gay? I know I'm not in touch with my feelings, but I'm pretty clear about my hormones. Denial wouldn't cover it. I could be bi, maybe. That would almost be cool. But it would be sort of half-gay. Mitchell, you're being an idiot. Having a gay friend does not make you gay. Even if you've never done anything with a girl. On the other hand, I've never done anything with a guy either. David says I throw a baseball like a girl. David can actually throw baseballs, so maybe that's irrelevant.

Read, Mitchell. Read.

The men sat still in the doorways of their houses, their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The men sat still—thinking—figuring
.

I think I would rather be playing with my stick and my little rocks than reading this book. There is nothing so far in any of the first four pages I've read that feels even remotely related to my life. In the last eleven years I have swallowed more books like this than I can count. I can't get this one down.

I close the book and drop it back onto the dirty laundry I still haven't cleaned up. When did my mom stop coming in and cleaning my room? Is it dangerous to sleep next to so many smelly clothes? Isn't there like bacteria and stuff in there? Why do I always have questions like this before I go to sleep? I need an answer.

In the dark, in my bed, I give myself an erection test. One by one I imagine every student in my English class. If I only have erections for the females, I'm straight. It's really the only way to tell. I start with Simone, who doesn't get much of a reaction, unless I imagine her without her shirt, which is surprisingly easy given that I've never seen her without one. Louis, thank God, is an erection killer and Thad scores in the negatives as well. It is a little too creepy to think about Mariel without her shirt—it feels like an invasion of privacy. Danielle sits next to
Mariel. Danielle is as far as I get. I reach into the crack between my bed and the wall for the old T-shirt that I need to find a way to wash soon.

In the dust there were drop craters where the rain had fallen and clean splashes on the corn, and that was all
.

Scenario 1: Three guys walk into a …

Say three guys are standing in a hall waiting for the class before them to file out so they can go in. A female student wearing jeans walks past them. The jeans aren't obscenely tight but fit nicely and emphasize the roundness of her backside. What is the proper reaction?

This is not a hypothetical question. Louis, David, and I are standing in the hallway, waiting to go into chemistry. Danielle, on the way to her locker (she will show up for class fashionably late), passes by us with a slight nod that might be an acknowledgment that she knows who we are. I look at the floor, immediately flustered. Louis taps me so I can see that he has turned to stare at her butt as she walks down the hall.

“Admit it, you'd give your left nut to bang her,” he says with an exaggerated sigh.

David clears his throat. “Wouldn't that be counterproductive?”

Louis gives David a blank look.

David clears his throat again. “I mean, without a left nut, wouldn't it be hard to bang her?”

“I think you might be able to … bang somebody with only one nut,” I suggest. “I don't think you need both.”

Louis can't decide whether we're stupid or joking, so he concentrates on Danielle's retreating behind. “You guys fags or something?”

At some point when you are still in elementary school, someone teaches you the word “faggot,” the noun meaning a bundle of sticks. For me, it was fourth grade. We were reading an adaptation of
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
and whoever was doing the adapting didn't feel the need to adapt that word into something we wouldn't giggle about. I think most of us had no idea why we giggled when the faggots were brought forth to burn Hank Morgan, but it sounded dirty and dangerous. We already knew you could use “bitch” if you were talking about dogs, and “ass” was a donkey, and we tried our best to come up with sentences where we could get away with using those words in front of adults. But even then we knew “faggot” was different.

Our fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Baker, was a theatrical woman with too much hair, which sometimes she piled on her head and other times she wore in a long braid down her back. The braid was a swirl of brown and gray, but she wore jeans and played kickball with us at recess. For Ms. Baker the classroom was a stage and we performed regularly, so it
was not a surprise when she assigned us scenes from
A Connecticut Yankee
to turninto little skits. I can't remember which scene I was in, but I do remember that three or four of the boys were given the burning scene. The scenes were never elaborate, we always mimed the props, and it was often a little difficult to tell what was going on. Louis was King Arthur, I think, and I can't recall who played Hank, but I do remember that at one point he yelled very loudly, “Bring in the faggots,” and Thad and Glenn skipped in together pretending to be holding wood. General mayhem followed.

What did we understand about this joke? Enough, I guess, to link the skipping and the two boys together to the word “faggot.” They skipped in and we called them faggots and we thought it was the funniest thing we had seen in a classroom since Douglas farted loudly during a quiz in third grade.

A week ago Louis's comment would not have even registered. But suddenly the word means something to me. How am I supposed to respond?