I Am Charlotte Simmons (97 page)
Read I Am Charlotte Simmons Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
“Put your arm around me, Charlotte,” he said in a pitiful way. “I'm so cold.”
So she sat down on the bed and put her arm around him and wondered what was coming next. He didn't look at her or at anything else. He began shaking terribly.
“Please ⦠bring me a blanket. I'm freezing.”
Charlotte stood up, walked toward the doorway, and fetched the blanket from the floor. It was a sickly green. The material was so stiff, so unnaturally dry, so cheaply synthetic, so synthetically horripilate, she could scarcely bear to touch it. Nevertheless, she brought it back to Adam. Slumped over this way, he looked like the sculpture of that Indian, the sculpture called
The End of the Trail.
The Indian is on his horse at the edge of a cliff with nowhere else to go. Indian civilization has come to an end. The white man has exterminated it. That picture, which she had seen in an American history textbook, had always fascinated her ⦠and made her so sad. She draped the blanket over Adam's narrow shoulders. When he reached up to pull it closed over his chest, his hand touched hers. His was as cold as ice.
The End of the Trail.
The Indian is on his horse at the edge of a cliff with nowhere else to go. Indian civilization has come to an end. The white man has exterminated it. That picture, which she had seen in an American history textbook, had always fascinated her ⦠and made her so sad. She draped the blanket over Adam's narrow shoulders. When he reached up to pull it closed over his chest, his hand touched hers. His was as cold as ice.
“Hold meâplease hold me, Charlotte.” His eyes remained squeezed shut.
Charlotte put her arm around him again and pulled him close. He was shaking and chattering so violently, she thought he must have the flu. She put her other hand on his forehead ⦠Whatever else he had, he didn't have a fever.
“I'mâI've got to lie down.” With that, he let the upper half of his body flop onto the bed. His legs were twisted, but his feet still touched the floor. His eyes remained shut tight. Charlotte lifted his legs and swung them onto the bed. They were so light, his legs ⦠She slipped his leather moccasins off. Now he was stretched out on a turmoil of wrenched and twisted bedclothes and blankets, a crumpled clear polyurethane bag from the cleaners with the bill stapled on it, abandoned underwear, socks, a T-shirt, the innards of a two-day-old copy of the
Philadelphia Inquirer
. Part of the blanket Charlotte had fetched for him was under his head and shoulders, but the rest was flopped down over the side of the bed and onto the floor. Charlotte retrieved it once more and made up the bed on top of him as best she could. Adam's eyes were closed, and she hoped he was falling asleep; but with the next breath he said, “Charlotte, I'm so cold.”
Philadelphia Inquirer
. Part of the blanket Charlotte had fetched for him was under his head and shoulders, but the rest was flopped down over the side of the bed and onto the floor. Charlotte retrieved it once more and made up the bed on top of him as best she could. Adam's eyes were closed, and she hoped he was falling asleep; but with the next breath he said, “Charlotte, I'm so cold.”
“I've put your sheets and blanket on top of you. You'll start feeling warmer.”
“No, hold me,” he pleaded. “You've got to hold me. I'm so cold. I'm afraid, Charlotte!”
Charlotte stared down at him for a moment. Adam was shaking and chattering to beat the band. That left only one thing. She took her Keds off and got under the covers with him, still in her jeans, socks, and sweatshirt.
She embraced him from behind and pressed her body up against his back, just the way he had held her. He shook and rattled, but gradually his torment subsided.
She embraced him from behind and pressed her body up against his back, just the way he had held her. He shook and rattled, but gradually his torment subsided.
When she got up to turn off the lights, he began pleading in a groggy voice, “No ⦠no ⦠Charlotte ⦠don't go away. I'm begging you! Don't leave me alone. Hold me. You're all I've got left.”
So she turned off the lights and got back into bed with him. As long as she held him, his breathing was regular. There they were in the dark. Both of her arms were around him. The circulation in the arm under him seemed to be cut off. She whispered, “Are you asleep?”
“No.” The voice of doom.
She knew he was staring wide-eyed and terrified into a black hole. She knew all about that.
She held him that way all night. She sank into naps now and again. Somehow he could tell. She would wake up to him saying, “Hold me. Please don't leave me.”
After a while it became pretty tiresome being mother to someone like this. But she was repaying a steep debt. Adam had kept encouraging her, and he had brought her back from the depths. But Adamâshe couldn't think of anything to encourage him with.
She was holding a truly doomed boyâand then she thought of Jojoâand then she thought of Hoyt. This poor weak boy she heldâhe was like some kind of insipid Samson. He had brought the temple crashing down on everybody.
Â
Â
Hoyt came out of Phillips onto the Great Yard so angry, he was muttering to himself loudly enough for people to hear. At this particular moment, heading up the sidewalk that bordered the Yard, he had just become the prissy, fluty, faggoty, “sophisticated” voice of that little fucker Mr. Quat. “âI'm not trying to cast doubt on your sincerity, Mr. Thorpe. I'm sure you're all too sincere. I'm merely suggesting that unconsciously or otherwise you've cobbled together several rather weary nostrums of the religious right and presented them as an argument. And that would be tiresome coming from
anyone
.'”
anyone
.'”
On a walkway that crossed the Yard diagonally past the Saint Christopher's Fountain and in the direction of Mr. Rayon, he switched to his own voice: “Yeah? And I'm merely suggesting that you're Jesus with his head cut off, flapping around squawking, âTolerance! Tolerance! Tolerance for the
meek so they can inherit the earth!' and you don't even know it. You think you're some brave little intellectual Jew who's above all this God shit.” That's what he
should
have told him. But the fucker would hardly let him say
any
thing ⦠Mr. Jerome Quat and his “intellectual” “wit”: “âWe value freedom of speech and the play of differing viewpoints here at Dupont, Mr. Thorpe, but may I suggest that in the interest of time, we postpone this particular rant of yours? You can deliver it immediately after class, and I'm sure all who want to hear it will gather round.' Fat, scarce-haired motherfucker ⦔
meek so they can inherit the earth!' and you don't even know it. You think you're some brave little intellectual Jew who's above all this God shit.” That's what he
should
have told him. But the fucker would hardly let him say
any
thing ⦠Mr. Jerome Quat and his “intellectual” “wit”: “âWe value freedom of speech and the play of differing viewpoints here at Dupont, Mr. Thorpe, but may I suggest that in the interest of time, we postpone this particular rant of yours? You can deliver it immediately after class, and I'm sure all who want to hear it will gather round.' Fat, scarce-haired motherfucker ⦔
Students were staring at him as they passed by, but how would they know if he was talking to himself or not? Everybody on the whole campus sounded like he was talking to himself. Everybody had his head keeled over into the palm of his hand talking on his cell phone. The what?âfour or five percent?âwho didn't walk around the campus with the usual cell phone had the kind with a microphone below the chin and an earpiece so small you had to look for it if you wanted to see it. They'd think that's what he had, and if they didn'tâfuck'm.
Well, he had gone and shot himself in the ass again, hadn't he ⦠That obese, bald-headed little pisser Mr. Jerome Quat would have the last laugh. He'd give him a lousy grade. But how could the rest of them sit there and just listen to this PC shit and not say anything? Fucking sheep ⦠they just swallow the sheep shit he gives them and regurgitate it every time he asks a question. If that's all you do, it doesn't matter whether you believe it yourself or not. It ends up being the only “proper” shit to say, and so you keep on saying it because why not be proper and not the kind of person you can't invite anywhere because he might introduce a fart into a proper conversation.
As he passed the Saint Christopher's Fountainâthat magnificent piece of sculptureâwhat was the name of the Frenchman who did it?âa fucking genius that guyâwas there another campus in the country with a piece of sculpture that great?âno, there was nothing even closeâ
“I'm a Dupont manâI'm
imbued with all the strength and all the beauty and all the traditions of that great figureâwhat's it made of?âbronze, I guessâcopper?ânahhhhâhas to be bronze”âHoyt cooled down. There was no way Quat could hurt him now. He wasn't going to have to take a hopeless elevator up to every goddamn investment banking firm in the country trying to explain away his college transcript, which barked like a dog, so he could get a job. Miracles happen, his dad had once told him. “They happen to those who are already ready to roll. No lucky man is simply lucky. He's the man who recognizes Fortune the moment he looks her in the face.” Hoyt Thorpe, a
Dupont man, Hoyt Thorpe, a Saint Ray, had been ready, locked and loaded, and the miracle had come. Hoyt Thorpe
had
a job waiting for him, Mr. Jerome Quat or not, and not some flickering-fluorescent-lit cold-call boiler room in Chicago or Cleveland, either, but with the mightiest of the mighty, Pierce & Pierce, in New York. Ninety-five thousand a year to startâto startâwith no limit in sight. It was hard for him to believe it himself ⦠but he had it made.
“I'm a Dupont manâI'm
imbued with all the strength and all the beauty and all the traditions of that great figureâwhat's it made of?âbronze, I guessâcopper?ânahhhhâhas to be bronze”âHoyt cooled down. There was no way Quat could hurt him now. He wasn't going to have to take a hopeless elevator up to every goddamn investment banking firm in the country trying to explain away his college transcript, which barked like a dog, so he could get a job. Miracles happen, his dad had once told him. “They happen to those who are already ready to roll. No lucky man is simply lucky. He's the man who recognizes Fortune the moment he looks her in the face.” Hoyt Thorpe, a
Dupont man, Hoyt Thorpe, a Saint Ray, had been ready, locked and loaded, and the miracle had come. Hoyt Thorpe
had
a job waiting for him, Mr. Jerome Quat or not, and not some flickering-fluorescent-lit cold-call boiler room in Chicago or Cleveland, either, but with the mightiest of the mighty, Pierce & Pierce, in New York. Ninety-five thousand a year to startâto startâwith no limit in sight. It was hard for him to believe it himself ⦠but he had it made.
It was cold out in the Yard whenever a gust of wind blew across the icy crust of the snow that remained. He buttoned up his overcoat. Given a choice, he preferred leaving it open. In the wintertime this was the Saint Ray look, the coolest look on campus: ankle-high boots, khaki pants with no crease, a bulky-knit crewneck sweater, a flannel shirt open at the throatâand on top of all that, a navy melton-cloth overcoat like this one, single-breasted, long, reaching down well below the knees, lined in navy silk, the kind of coat that would be perfectly correct with a tuxedo, too. It was the contrast between the casual stuff and the dressy look of the topcoat that made it so cool. You possessed the full give-a-shit freedom of youth, the MasterCard license, and at the same time you knew about the ultimate sway of the other world, an older world of money and power, two things that had excitements all their own. A coat like this one cost a thousand dollars at Ralph Lauren. Hoyt got his for forty-five dollars in a secondhand clothing store in South Philadelphia called Play It Again, Sam's. Now, that was cool. The long, single-breasted coat gave you a tall, lean, glamorous silhouette. You were fairly bursting with the sexual power of the first ten years following pubertyâand at the same time you already knew where the rice bowl was. Hoyt had once heard a friend of his dad's, an old guy with a florid face, say that. Hoyt couldn't have been much more than eight or nine at the time, but he always remembered the old guy saying, “I'm too old, too fat, and I drink too muchâbut I always know where the rice bowl is.”
This train of happy thoughts had just about brought Hoyt back to his old self. By the time he got close to Mr. Rayon, he was humming a disco song called “Press Zero.” He could remember only one line: “For additional me, press zero,” but he couldn't get it out of his mind ⦠“For additional me, press zero ⦠For additional me, press zero ⦔ By the time he reached Halsey Hall, he was moving his lips and singing the words under his breath. “For additional me, pressâ”
âhe didn't complete the line. What he saw in front of the entrance to Mr. Rayon was too strange. It was cold as hell out here, but there was a regular
hive of students, twenty of them at least. Their heads were lowered, and they were silent ⦠save for the random chortle by some guy or screamlet of laughter by some girl. What the fuck were they doing? Then he saw the newspapers. They had newspapers in their hands, poring over them ⦠outside in the cold. A few others were rooting like maggots to get to one of those metal newspaper boxes with windows that were out front of Mr. Rayon. It was a taxicab-yellow box ⦠That would be the
Wave â¦
A bunch of students standing out here riveted by the school newspaper? That was megaweird.
hive of students, twenty of them at least. Their heads were lowered, and they were silent ⦠save for the random chortle by some guy or screamlet of laughter by some girl. What the fuck were they doing? Then he saw the newspapers. They had newspapers in their hands, poring over them ⦠outside in the cold. A few others were rooting like maggots to get to one of those metal newspaper boxes with windows that were out front of Mr. Rayon. It was a taxicab-yellow box ⦠That would be the
Wave â¦
A bunch of students standing out here riveted by the school newspaper? That was megaweird.
Hoyt joined the throng. A girl piped up with one of those high-pitched shrieks you usually hear at parties. Guys were beginning to make comments. They were so excited, they were taking the Fuck Patois over the top.
“This fucking stuff is ⦠tooâfuckingâmuch!”
“âfucking
student
! The fuck you talking about?”
student
! The fuck you talking about?”
“Where's Jeff? Where'd he fucking go? I think he fucking knows this guyâ”
“âdidn't know they could print âfuck' in the fucking paper!”
“âopera house. Same fucking family!”
“âfucking name? I don't knowâHoratio Fucking Fellatio.”
“âsame fucking one! I was fucking
here
!”
here
!”
“âblow job! I don't fucking
believe
this!”
believe
this!”
Blow job?
Hoyt felt like his brain was flushing. He began doing some accidentally-on-purpose body checks in a bid to get to the yellow box before the newspapers were all gone. “Sorry! Coming through! Gotta restock!” he said as he swung his left leg in front of the right leg of a guy slightly ahead of him, a guy in some kind of old military jacket with ghost shapes where chevrons and other insignia had been removed. Hoyt figured the cool authority of his seriously awesome topcoat would intimidate half of them. But the guy with the ghost jacket was stubborn. He gave Hoyt an accidentally-on-purpose shove with his hip. Hoyt battled back by accidentally extending the range of his left calf across the stubborn guy's right shin on purpose. That made Hoyt turn siighttyâand he saw a girl, a pretty girl, with that Norwegian lookâstraight, shiny blond hair a mile long and parted right down the middleâstaring at him with big eyes. She nudged another girl, a dog, and they both stared at him. Then the mouth of the hot oneâgorgeous!âhe loved that Norwegian look, the blond hair, the bright blue eyes, the fine bones of the face, the rolls in the snow, naked, and then into the sauna, nakedâher mouth fell open, her eyes widened. She gave him a
stare that all but ate him up for two seconds, three secondsâand then she said, “Ohmygod â¦
Oh
mygod ⦠aren't youâ
your're him
!
You're Hoyt Thorpe
!”
Hoyt felt like his brain was flushing. He began doing some accidentally-on-purpose body checks in a bid to get to the yellow box before the newspapers were all gone. “Sorry! Coming through! Gotta restock!” he said as he swung his left leg in front of the right leg of a guy slightly ahead of him, a guy in some kind of old military jacket with ghost shapes where chevrons and other insignia had been removed. Hoyt figured the cool authority of his seriously awesome topcoat would intimidate half of them. But the guy with the ghost jacket was stubborn. He gave Hoyt an accidentally-on-purpose shove with his hip. Hoyt battled back by accidentally extending the range of his left calf across the stubborn guy's right shin on purpose. That made Hoyt turn siighttyâand he saw a girl, a pretty girl, with that Norwegian lookâstraight, shiny blond hair a mile long and parted right down the middleâstaring at him with big eyes. She nudged another girl, a dog, and they both stared at him. Then the mouth of the hot oneâgorgeous!âhe loved that Norwegian look, the blond hair, the bright blue eyes, the fine bones of the face, the rolls in the snow, naked, and then into the sauna, nakedâher mouth fell open, her eyes widened. She gave him a
stare that all but ate him up for two seconds, three secondsâand then she said, “Ohmygod â¦
Oh
mygod ⦠aren't youâ
your're him
!
You're Hoyt Thorpe
!”
Unable right off the bat to think of any other cool response, Hoyt gave her his most charming get-something-going smile and said, “That is true. Had lunch yet?”
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