Rats Saw God (23 page)

“Didn't I see a letter from Harvard the other day?” Mom
asked, either blindly optimistic or unintentionally insensitive. “What did they have to say?”

“Don't call us. We'll call you,” I said. The audience shifted uncomfortably and returned to their conversations after this bad news.

“Oh, honey, who needs Harvard, anyway? Plenty of schools still want you.”

“I'll survive,” I said. I tested, with meatballs, the sturdiness of a paper plate, then escaped to my room. Even a closed door couldn't protect me from the blasting of the
Sleepless in Seattle
soundtrack. I dragged the cord of my telephone into my closet and shut the door, affording myself some silence. I dialed the 713 area code, then with a little difficulty, the remaining seven digits. The astronaut answered groggily. I had forgotten the two-hour time difference and the old man's adherence to
Poor Richard's Almanac.

“Sorry I'm calling so late.”

“No problem. What's up?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I can make the wedding.”

“Steve, that's super. Jacqueline's excited about seeing you again.”

Why did he have to put it that way? “One other thing. I'm graduating June third. I get four tickets, and I've got one left.” He didn't speak. “I'll leave it at the auditorium window… if you can make it. If you can't, that's fine.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

We said light-speed good-byes and hung up.

I returned to Texas the same day my former projectionist coworker (okay, supervisor), Perch Boy, left to go to some trade school in Kansas. In his absence I became senior projectionist at the 'Plex. I began work the night I got home from San Diego. With my additional quarter raise, I was the five-dollar-an-hour man. Donna Hawkins, the manager of the theater, presented me with an alarm key. I had arrived.

I slept until noon after my first shift as chief moron. As the “in charge” person, my night had been extended by half an hour while inventory was completed and the registers were counted out. Dub was killing the days before school started on one of her too-frequent stays with her aunt and cousins in Shreveport. Having nothing else to do, I called Doug.

“Yeah.” It was traditional Doug phone etiquette.

“Hey, I'm back in town. What's up?”

“Who is this?” Doug asked. I was sure he was, as they say in mob movies, bustin' my balls.

“You know who this is.”

Doug spoke, but he had moved the phone away from his mouth. He was talking to someone else in his room. He conspicuously forgot to cover the receiver with his hand. “It's somebody who won't tell me who he is,” Doug told the other person in the room. “I think it may be P. W.” I was pretty sure the second letter stood for
whipped.

“But I thought you said he was dead.” The second voice was Veg's.

“Yeah, but I heard a rumor that he was in town this summer.
Someone said they saw him here, but I figured it was just like one of those Elvis sightings.” He spoke directly into the phone. “What's it like, you know”—he let his voice quiver— “on the other side?”

“Kiss my ass,” I said before hanging up.

GOD was dead.

And none of us had the energy to revive it. The Grippe hired itself a new guitarist, a sophomore named Ogden. Doug was more interested in appearing in the
Houston Press,
the city's weekly arts and entertainment bible, than the yearbook. No one else had the dynamism to found a new club. Regrettably, I couldn't quite avoid seeing our former leader. He was, along with Dub, one of my fellow thirteen students in Mr. Waters' creative writing class.

And what a strange class it was. On the first day of school, Waters had us all take out some scratch paper. On it, we were to write down a word that we thought described ourselves. Dub scribbled away almost immediately, while I sat there with an eraser in my mouth until he came around to pick up the modest assignment. From that day on, the man referred to us only by the words we'd chosen. I think Dub was initially embarrassed by her selection of “Irresistible.” Her shame faded upon learning Doug had christened himself “Stallion.” I was known as “Cynic.”

Waters issued each of us copies of James Joyce's
Dubliners.
He instructed us to read some of the stories before our next meeting.

“Which ones?” Andy cum Success asked, pen poised.

“Any of them. Any that catch your attention,” Sky responded.

Success smirked. “Which ones will we be tested on?” But Sky ignored the question.

“Your homework for tonight—‘What I Did This Summer.'”

The class groaned. So much for contemporary approaches to education. I had done this assignment since fifth grade.

“It can't be any longer than one sentence,” Sky continued. “Just give me the essence. Spare me the details.”

The next day, he had us read them out loud.

In a cold place, devoid of light, I searched for understanding and love.
—Goldfish

After a leadership conference in May, I attended a band camp where I won two performance ribbons before heading off to Mock Congress in Austin. (This assignment isn't fair. It needs to be longer.)
—Success

During my parents' third honeymoon—a two-month Baltic cruise—I lived with my aunt and uncle and managed not to mutilate my total brat cousins.
—Driver

The murky, moss-bottomed home to tadpoles cooled my two feet, and in the pure delight of sunbeam collecting, I scarcely heard the steel-toed boots of impending fall.
—Writer

I watched the soaps… MTV during the commercials.
—Tredder

I joined a Houston boys' club and tried to get out of Clear Lake as much as possible before I found myself playing croquet, eating angel hair pasta with walnut-ajilla chili pesto, and punching Dad's new friends who say what a nice boy I am.
—Black and Proud

I answered phones at the Houston Rape Crisis Center.
—Medea

Nothing worth writing about.
—Rocker

My parents took my little brother and me to Germany, but it wasn't much fun because my dad made us tour Dachau which is where my great-aunt and uncle were killed.
—Fat

The highlight of my summer was when Sanders Lownwright got beaned in the back of the head by a foul ball and lost a tooth when his head snapped forward into my cash register while I was handing him a snow cone at the Kiwanis Park concession booth, which only shows how pathetic my life is.
—Confused

I pissed off my parents in the following ways: I didn't visit any colleges, I spray-painted the name of my band on my jeep, I refused their $250 offer to cut my hair.
—Stallion

I became a woman.
—Irresistible

This summer I came to the conclusion that Texas isn't as bad as say, Oklahoma.
—Cynic

Or at least that's as close as I can remember. When Dub recited hers, everyone turned and stared at me. Doug sneered. Waters gave a Mr. Spock raised eyebrow of acknowledgment, the kind that withheld judgment.

•   •   •

I drank as fast I could—four beers into downtown Houston while Dub drove. By the time Missy, Rhonda, Dub, and I arrived at Zelda's for The Grippe's (Mach II) debut, I was in a goofy zone. You know, almost like I wanted to dance. I had a little shoulder shimmy happening by the time this monolithic bouncer painted an impressive black X on the back of my hand with a Marks-A-Lot.

The band tuned and primped onstage. The girls insisted we say hello before they began. I was saddened, but not surprised,
to find Doug would be performing shirtless. He looked distracted when we approached.

“You guys are going to be great tonight,” Missy assured Doug.

“Good house,” was his non sequitur reply.

Good house? I had to cough to prevent flying into hysterics. “Break a leg,” I said.

“Yeah,” he answered, not looking at me.

I led the girls out of the probable moshing zone and snatched a table when fans of the previous band rushed to escape. Over the next thirty-eight minutes, The Grippe delivered twenty songs ripe with teen angst. They performed with all the fury three boys from Clear Lake can muster. Victims of their haranguing? Neighborhood security patrols. Elderly drivers. Suburban wastelands. I didn't hear my name mentioned in “Fool for Love,” but I got edgy anyway. Particular faves included “Scary Mariah Carey” and the caustic “Cineplex Lady”—an obvious tribute to my boss, the only theater manager in town who checked IDs.

Hey Donna, You still wanna?

Cut out the scenes

where the heroine screams

in the sauna?

What they lacked in technical proficiency, they made up for in self-absorption and debauched charm. As much as I didn't want to admit it, Ogden was a better guitar player than Bill. Veg could sing. Once he could play bass, the band might be dangerous. I just wish we had made it out of there before Doug threw his drumsticks into the crowd. It made me physically
ill to watch two sophomore girls fight over one of them. My expression left no doubt that I didn't want to wait in the greeting line to pay homage to the conquering heroes.

“Do you think they have a shot?” Rhonda asked me on the car ride home.

“A shot at what?”

“Making it. You know. Of us seeing them on MTV someday.”

I thought about Doug playing in an MTV all-star softball game, rounding third and trying to take out Bo Jackson at home plate.

“Oh, I hope so,” I said.

We dropped off Rhonda, then Missy. Dub was normally pretty stubborn about keeping her radio tuned to the Rice station no matter how weak the signal became, but as Missy fumbled for her house key, Dub dialed up a classical station.

“I'm tired of loud music,” she said.

“Loud something,” I said.

Dub pulled out of the driveway. “Sylvia's taking a psychology class at Rice, and she said that their professor told them that, when you're young, you're attracted to someone the opposite of you—personality-wise.” I immediately thought of my parents. “But as you get older, you become more attracted to people who are like yourself.” Dub blew her bangs out of her eyes. “In the end, either type or relationship has about an equal chance of making it, which is, these days, about zip. So, which type of relationship do you think we have?”

“I think we're alike.”

“See, I knew you were going to say that. I think it's obvious we're completely different.”

“No, we're not,” I said defensively. “We think the same things are cool. We think the same things are fake and stupid. We like the same bands.”

“Yeah, but none of that stuff is what counts. It's how you deal with shit, what your first impulse is, that determines your personality—not whether you think country music sucks. You—when you get upset, what do you do? You shut up. Me? I yell. You sit in the back of every classroom and try to hide how smart you are. I make sure everyone knows how brilliant I am. I see everything as gray. You see everything in black and white. We've got everything in common, but we're not at all alike.”

“Is that bad?”

“Of course not, sweetie.” She patted my knee. We listened to a whole opus… or movement… or concerto—whatever the hell they call the span of classical music between the whisperings of zombie DJs—before Dub spoke again. “Do you have any of those condoms left?”

“No, me and my other girlfriends, we've been going at it like porn stars.”

“That's too bad.”

“I might have one left.”

Dub took the familiar turn that led to Cottontail Circle, an undeveloped cul de sac accoutered with driveways but as yet no houses or streetlights. We climbed into the backseat of her Civic—and in case anybody asks you, it is possible. Unlike our first time, we weren't so concerned with the poetry of the moment. Only necessary clothes were removed, and those were tossed carelessly aside. I didn't think so much, but it
struck me: I was enjoying the moment. From some of the crazy faces Dub was making, I'd say she was too.