We Ride Upon Sticks

by Quan Barry

  Is this gonna be like The Incredible Hulk?

  What chu talkin’ ’bout, Willis?

  You know what I mean. That guy on the Hulk.

  David Banner?

  No. The newspaper reporter.

  Jack McGee.

  Nice one, Sue.

  Thanks. I’ll take ’70s TV for a hundred, Alex.

  Yeah, but who played him?

  Bill Bixby was Dr. David Banner, Jack Colvin played the cynical reporter Jack McGee who’s just trying to further his own career by tracking down and proving the existence of the Hulk. Jack Colvin went on to guest star on such series as The Rockford Files and The Bionic Woman.

  You guys are the worst. Why are we talking about The Incredible Hulk?

  Open your eyes! Is this chick gonna hound us to the ends of the earth looking for some story so she can win a…what’s that thing called?

  A Flamie.

  Yeah, that.

  Probably.

  Unless, you know, something, er, shall we say, uh, unexpected, were to happen to her…

  Ooo! We’re all ears!

  No, we’re not!

  What are you suggesting? Something like A Separate Peace?

  Nobody is pushing anybody out of a tree.

  That’s not what kills Phineas.

  Yes, it is. If he hadn’t broken his leg, then the marrow never would’ve come out of the bone and gunked up his heart.

  Oh yeah. My bad.

  How does Nicky know about the blue tube sock?

  Hell, how does she know about the Marks from Papa Gino’s and Halloween?

  Wait, does she know Brunet Mark thumbed my nipples?

  That’s not really a thing.

  Waddya mean it’s not a thing?

  Technically, he touched your nipples with his thumbs. End of story.

  Yeah. You “thumb” a guitar, you don’t “thumb” boobs.

  Ah, I do believe you “strum” a guitar.

  Same same.

  Can we get back on topic here?

  If she’s gonna be Jack McGee to our David Banner, then what’re we gonna do when she outs us?

  None of us had an answer to that. Thankfully, right on cue the sound of crickets filled the locker room.

  (There was a rumor going around that the janitorial staff had finally found the source of the cricket infestation. Supposedly they were all hatching from the soundproofing that lined the band room. The stuff was probably made out of asbestos, but our six-legged friends didn’t seem to mind.)

  Because of the crickets, it took us a while to realize Nicky had finished her spiel. “Oh, you’re done,” said Abby Putnam, putting down her celery. “So what do you want from us?”

  “Anyone care to comment on my story?” said Nicky.

  We all looked around at one another, the crickets a TV laugh track except they were crickets and they weren’t laughing.

  Heather Houston had a lot on her plate. District tryouts, college apps, her mother’s red satin panties, her own insatiable sugar addiction. Still, she stepped up to the plate, bat in hand. She was solid like that. “Why don’t you meet us this Wednesday over at the Rebecca Nurse house?” she said.

  “What for?” said Nicky. The Chin looked as if It were thoughtfully stroking Itself as It considered the possibility.

  “Thursday’s our last regular season game against Winthrop,” explained Heather. “Wednesday it’ll be a full moon. We can show you what we do before a game.”

  The Chin lit up like a good-idea lightbulb but in the wrong place. “Awesome,” said Nicky. She wrote something down in her notebook.

  “Be there at midnight,” said Heather. We could sense she was winging it, but there was nobody better at winging stuff than Heather “Watch-Me-Wing-This-and-Land-an-A+-Anyway” Houston. “And wear all black.”

  We are not pushing anyone out of any trees, repeated Abby Putnam. Everywhere green strings were hanging from her teeth like Spanish moss.

  Why take anything off the table, thought le Splotch.

  Yeah, echoed le Splotch’s new minion. Let’s keep the table set. The Claw vigorously nodded Its assent, banging on the table with Its platinum fork and platinum knife gripped in Its platinum fists. It was practically wearing a bib—It was so up for anything.

  1. What is one thing you wish more people paid attention to? Be specific. How do you think awareness about the topic you have chosen could positively impact society?

  I really really wish folks would pay closer attention to song lyrics. I mean, if you think about it for two seconds, why would Jimi Hendrix be singing “ ’scuse me while I kiss this guy”? Same goes for Caiaphas in Jesus Christ Superstar. Why would the high priest of Jerusalem be running around complaining about “Bill Cosby, Bill Cosby, Bill Cosby one man”?

  Easy case in point: a few summers back I was traveling with my family in Italy. We were staying in a quaint little pensione just up the street from the Trevi Fountain. Unfortunately, it was a quaint little pensione just up the street from the Trevi Fountain, i.e., it was TOURIST CITY plus there was a nightclub across the alleyway, the club blasting American music all night long. (Someone in the Boston Symphony had recommended the place to my dad but from what I remember the guy was a timpanist so probably he was hard of hearing.)

  Either way, it was the Fourth of July. I’d actually forgotten it was the Fourth because we were in Italy and I’d just eaten a plate of squid ink pasta for dinner and my dad let us kids each get one scoop of vanilla gelato, which was a big deal for us. I woke up a little after midnight. I was still on East Coast time. Everyone else in my family was asleep. The AC was cranked to ten, the windows closed, but I could still hear music. The nightclub started playing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” That’s when I remembered it was the Fourth. I could hear people shouting along to it, all of them probably drunk and swaying arm in arm and saying stupid stuff like, “Te amo, man…”

  The whole thing was weird, you know? Like Freud’s Das Unheimliche weird, which occurs when the everyday gets made freaky and strange because it’s been placed in a different context. Kinda like when you see your most uptight teacher at Chuck E. Cheese and it weirds you out. Maybe it’s crazy to admit but right there in Italy was the first time I ever really listened to “Born in the U.S.A.” 3,000 miles away from home in the Eternal City and I finally heard what the hell Bruce Springsteen is going on about.

  Born down in a dead man’s town,

  The first kick I took was when I hit the ground.

  I got up and walked over to the window. I could feel my head exploding. I stood there listening good and hard. He was singing about the raw deal some lower-class kid gets whose only get-out-of-jail-free card is to agree to be drafted and go to Vietnam. Talk about total bullshit. First the kid’s best friend gets killed in Khe Sanh, and then when the kid himself comes back home to the U.S., he can’t find a job and winds up in jail.

  I dunno but ever since Italy I really hate that song because people don’t get it, especially politicians. They think it’s some kind of national anthem. Every Fourth of July, Americans running around pumping their fists in the air, but what they’re really cheering for is inequality and killing innocent people. Rah-rah-rah…

  In the morning I tried to explain it to my mom but she just looked at me like, “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with America now?” My parents are Republicans. They’re arty and Unitarians, so it really doesn’t make a whole lotta sense except for money and taxes, same as the old Boston Brahmin families like the Cabot Lodges. I mean c’mon, my dad’s a flautist, for Chrissake. He knows tons of gay men dying left and right. Sometimes I’ll see someone who obviously has AIDS in the audience at the BSO, the guy all skin and bones, his eyes big as saucers. Then there’s that kid my age, Ryan White, out in Indiana, a hemophiliac just trying to get people n
ot to spit on him. Jesus! But I digress.

  In conclusion, how would the world be a better place if people listened more closely to song lyrics? Hmmm…I actually don’t know, but probably the more you pay attention to anything, the more you pay attention to everything. Does that make sense?

  Heather looked expectantly at Cressida Zwick. They were sitting in the Houston family dining room, the table piled high with brochures and applications plus a milk crate with hanging files that Cressida had brought with her. Cressida Zwick was in her early thirties. She herself had gone to Dartmouth. She handed the draft back to Heather and shook her head. “I don’t even know where to begin,” she said. Her disappointment was obvious. She’d been hoping Heather would be her Yalie. She needed at least one of her clients to land in New Haven in order to up her fee the following year.

  Heather nodded politely as Cressida explained what kind of tone and subject matter she should be aiming for—memorable yet bland, thought provoking yet uncontroversial—but more and more every room in the Houston household stank of tropical climes. Hey Cressida, thought Heather, wake up and smell the coconut! It was as if her family were living in a goddamn Mounds Bar factory. Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go. In light of the coconut stench, the strip of blue tube sock tied around Heather’s arm just really couldn’t give two shits about the whole college application process. And by association, neither could the one wearing it.

  * * *

  —

  Tuesday during the last period of the day Heather signed out of study hall. Since Coach Mullins was still out on paid leave, a rotating cast of warm-bodied adults sat reading the Boston Herald behind the sign-out desk in Senior Privilege. Today one of the most beloved personalities at DHS was in the chair. With his Greatest American Hero white-man Afro and his cool young uncle demeanor, Alfie, the head of the custodial staff, was a welcome reprieve from the scowling subs of the past few weeks, though technically union rules said he was never supposed to supervise students.

  Rules schmules.

  Heather handed him her forged pass. At this point in the semester it was more about the principle of the matter, the fact that she could. The truth is any teacher in any subject would’ve written her a pass if only she’d asked. But Heather Houston and her Coke-bottle glasses was tired of playing by the rules. Twelve years of being a model student were enough. The blue sweat sock tied around her arm was making her itch in more ways than one.

  At the desk, Alfie was sitting up straight like a bird dog. He studied her pass for a moment, then winked at her before stamping it. “Mrs. Bentley’s left-handed,” he whispered. “Everything she signs is smudged. The lady leaves a trail of ink a mile wide. It takes half a bottle of 409 to keep the library looking good.” Heather nodded, impressed at the intel, which he of all people should know. He handed her back her forged pass. “Keep on fighting,” he said cheerfully. You could tell Alfie would make a better teacher than 99% of the folks currently standing at the blackboard. It was his lack of pretense, plus his hair was self-effacing in an Art Garfunkel kind of way. The whole package just made you want to listen to him.

  Most afternoons Heather was still going to the library on the regular, but as the season progressed, she spent less time poring over ancient books and more time working on college essays. Today her plan was to start in on yet another one. She imagined a room full of admissions officers sitting around drinking Jack and Cokes and laughing their asses off. Hell, she’d give ’em something to laugh at. But first, she’d swing by the Home Ec room and return the Malleus Maleficarum to Julie Minh. The book had proven to be both a major flop and an existential crisis. Never before had Heather encountered a subject that on paper should’ve been loads of fun to get lost in yet so thoroughly resisted her sinking her teeth into it, the Maleficarum drier than week-old Thanksgiving turkey. Except for the woodcuts, she could barely bring herself to even open it. The salacious parts weren’t salacious. The author used a hundred words when he could’ve just used one. It was hard to even tell what was being said about witches. Secretly Heather was worried. There were only so many occasions in her life (actually, none) where she’d been called on to interact with a 15th-century primary source. And now that one had been brought into her life and hand delivered to her with the help of a Smurf figurine, she’d read fewer than ten pages in it. It didn’t bode well for the career she’d always envisioned for herself somewhere in academia.

  The Home Ec room was empty, no class in session, Mrs. Emerson probably off smoking in the teachers’ lounge. In a corner, Julie Minh stood ironing some kind of backing onto a strip of royal-purple satin to make it stiff. There it was again—that fabric! What was it about women and satin?

  “Here’s your book,” said Heather. She tossed it on a nearby table where it landed with a tremendous bang. Later Heather would realize it was probably the loudest noise she’d ever made in her entire school career.

  “Thanks,” said Julie Minh. “Was it helpful?”

  “Not really,” said Heather.

  Julie Minh paused in her work, giving the iron a moment to fully heat back up. “Tomorrow night we’re not really going to push anyone out of a tree, are we?” she asked.

  “Beats me,” said Heather. She looked around for whatever top-secret project her best friend had been working on all semester long, but all the mannequins were naked. The only clue was the piece of purple satin lying on the ironing board, and it didn’t look big enough for even a crotchless G-string. “You have someone to go with?” Heather asked. The year before, neither of them had gone to the junior prom. Instead, they’d spent the night at Heather’s house watching the Wim Wenders movie Wings of Desire. Intrigued and admittedly teen girl titillated by the title, they’d picked it up from Blockbuster, but less than twenty minutes in, they both fell asleep.

  “Maybe,” said Julie Minh.

  Heather reached into her bag and pulled out a tiny blue figure, the thing frozen in a pose involving flexing its muscles. “Still need this?” she said, placing it on the ironing board.

  Julie Minh picked it up and looked it over. It didn’t come in any packaging, but that was okay. The tiny red heart tattoo on the bicep signaled it could be none other than Hefty Smurf. With this addition, her brother would now have all the major Smurf arcana.

  “If you put the book back in your dad’s study, why do you still need to bribe your little brother?” Heather asked.

  “Cuz secretly I’ve been seeing somebody,” Julie Minh explained. Heather knew who without even asking. “And no, we haven’t yet,” said Julie Minh, answering her friend’s unasked question.

  For a moment, Heather felt empty inside. Empty and lonely. It had been a crazy season. Between district tryouts, college apps, her mom, and Julie Minh’s secret life, she could see the distance growing between her and her best friend like a bridge that was still under construction. She wanted nothing more than to cross over, but it was growing late in the day. And what about next year? Julie Minh would be off at Gordon, and Heather would be off at whatever school would take her if anyone still would, given the kinds of college essays she was scribbling. Hell, she might end up staying right here with her mom at Salem State. The thought made her shudder.

  “Either way, I’m sure you’ll look pretty,” Heather said, adding, “Vale, amicae.” Farewell, friend. Already the iron was back up to temperature, Hefty Smurf perched on the ironing board like a sentinel as her once best friend completed yet another piece of her dream.

  2. Discuss a mistake you made that you regret and what you learned from the experience.

  This past spring I cheated on the SAT and got a perfect 800 verbal, 800 math. That’s right, suckers! And now that I’ve got your attention, you might be surprised to learn that my regrets are a bit out of the box. Here goes:

  My mother has this rule when you go on a trip: if you bring something with you, you have to wear it at least once. So the day of th
e SAT, I smuggled in a little something-something to help take the edge off the math section. (Nota bene: I consider what I did to be a proprietary act—if I told you how I pulled it off, then you (i.e., The Man) would be on the look-out for similar things, and I don’t want to screw the future youth of America, so please don’t ask what I did.)

  Anyway, long story short: since I’d gone through all the trouble of plotting and executing my plan, of really sweating over the small stuff, when I finally came to the very last math problem on the test and realized I still hadn’t used my cheat-cheat, not even once, I felt totally defeated, like I’d put in all that time and effort for nothing.

  Here’s the takeaway: when tout le monde thinks you can do no wrong, you have to work extra hard to keep yourself amused. The thought of cheating on the SAT felt utterly delicious to me, like stealing a pair of sweatpants from Marshalls, and then when I didn’t actually do it, it was such a letdown. It was like I gave up on myself by not cheating.

  [Speaking of letdowns, the college adviser my parents have hired to coach me through my applications says these essays are supposed to be “memorable yet bland, thought-provoking yet uncontroversial,” but my mom’s having an affair with someone and eating chocolate, so I really don’t give a f*ck. Just an FYI in case you were wondering.]

  What I learned from scoring a perfect 1600 on the SAT without using my cheat-cheat: the more everyone thinks you’re perfect, the harder you have to work to remind yourself that you’re not. In conclusion, you should cheat a little more in life, i.e., let yourself be imperfect so that you don’t wake up one day as a fifty-year-old secretary at a third-tier state school and then spend your life inflicting your dreams of perfection on your daughters.

  Thanks for listening!

  * * *

  —

  Wednesday practice turned out to be one big Hungarian goulash of weirdness. By 2:30 it was the coldest it had been all year, all day long the sun struggling to break through the November clouds. Officially winter was still more than a month away, but we were hardy New England stock, suited up in our spandex and earmuffs, our leg warmers and gloves, hats with blue-and-white pom-poms, scarves endlessly spooled around our throats. Girl Cory wrapped herself up good and tight like a burrito in an old fur that belonged to her grandmother. The fur was dirty blond just like Girl Cory. We had a hard time telling where she began and where she ended, not that that was anything new.