by Steve Bloom
“I figure if I live at home and keep working part-time, I can swing it. I already have almost three thousand dollars saved up. I mean, I know it’s not much, but I should qualify for some kind of financial aid . . .”
“With your grades and scores,” Strack says, telling me what I already know, “you’re a cinch for a full ride at Rutgers.”
“Exactly. That’s what I said,” Charlie jumps in again. “Rutgers. A perfectly fine institution of higher learning!”
I know where he’s going with this. Where he always ends up going. I shoot him a warning look.
“I mean, I went to Harvard,” Asshole proclaims. “Lotta good it did me!”
“You went to Harvard?” Strack’s aghast at the senseless waste of it all, as any normal person would be.
Harvard. A day doesn’t go by when he doesn’t mention it at least fifty times.
“Ms. Strack,” I persist, desperate to stay on subject. “All I want to know is if I have a chance at Columbia. And if I do, will you go to bat for me?”
“Your GPA’s right up there, Brad,” Strack says, re-scrutinizing my sheet. “Your extracurriculars are a little exotic and more than slightly suspect, but abundant.”
“Brooks,” I correct again, shifting in my seat uneasily. Here comes the stretch of the profile I’ve especially been dreading.
“Co-captain of the Pritchard High School fencing team?” she asks rhetorically. “In the twenty-three years I’ve been here, I wasn’t aware we even had a fencing team.”
The Pritchard High School fencing team consists of me and The Murf. Our foils are wire hangers. No wimpy pads or helmets or officials for us. It’s balls-out, anything goes, no holds barred. A great after-school activity. I highly recommend it. Mostly ’cause, since I outweigh him by a good forty pounds, I flail The Murf’s ass raw every time.
“It’s new,” I say weakly.
“President of the Pritchard High School Greco-Roman Association?”
The Pritchard High School Greco-Roman Association also consists of just The Murf and me. Another of my many innovations, a nifty excuse for us to imbibe while wearing bedsheets as togas. So far, it’s convened once.
“Also new,” I maintain.
“Secretary-General of the Pritchard High School Ethno-Percussion Society?”
Charlie bursts out laughing, confirming to me he’s most definitely baked. I elbow him in the side.
“Secretary-General?” she repeats.
I wince guiltily at the vision of me and The Murf by the Reservoir, both of us totally fried, hair flying, joyfully thumping in savage jungle cadence on industrial-sized overturned plastic buckets that we liberated one night from a Dumpster. Probably pushing the envelope, but I’d figured it was worth a shot.
“I suggest you try again with something a tad less creative,” Strack says wryly, though not unkindly.
“Hey, I’ve got one,” Charlie cracks. “Grand Poobah of the Fellowship of Flatulence.”
He guffaws, thoroughly entertained by himself. Neither Strack nor I is amused. Giving him another look, she resumes her summation of my paltry life.
“Unfortunately, your SATs, excellent as they are in the larger scheme of things, are at the low end of the range for Columbia. Especially your Verbal.”
Verbal. I flinch at the dreaded mention of my nemesis. My heart pounds. I get that familiar churning pit in my stomach.
“I’m retaking them again!” I squeak.
“Again?” she repines, registering my multiple columns.
“Again-again.”
“Again-again?” She raises a skeptical brow.
“Well, again-again-again,” I admit, reduced to a puddle.
Meanwhile, Charlie, he just keeps snickering at his lame joke, which he thinks nobody gets but him because he went to Harvard.
I have made an Indelible Impression, just not the one I intended. Strack looks at Charlie, sizes up my pitiful situation. I can tell she feels sorry for me having a burnout pothead like Charlie as a parent. Degrading and depressing as that is, hey, I’ll take what I can get. I look at her abjectly.
“Columbia, Brad?” she sighs once more, closing my file, my interview, as far as she’s concerned, over. “I don’t think you fully comprehend what you’re up against. Last year, the University of California, Santa Cruz rejected sixty-three applicants with scores of twenty-two hundred or above. This for a school, Brad, whose mascot is Sammy the Banana Slug!”
I swallow hard. This is truly disturbing news.
“It’s Brooks,” I say firmly. “If you’re just going to blow me off, at least get my name right.”
She gives me a long look, then reopens my file and clicks her pen to jot notes. “Any minorities in the family tree? Aleutian, American Samoan, Creole . . .”
I shrug, glance inquiringly at Charlie, who just continues to snigger.
“None that I can think of,” I reluctantly, but honestly, answer.
“Foreign travels? Rich relatives? Triumphs over adversity?”
“Only defeats,” I glumly conclude.
“Physical handicaps? Learning disabilities? Congenital defects?”
“My second toe’s longer than my big one!” I declare, brightening.
Strack clicks her pen again, puts it down, and rubs her temples. “Why does it always have to be the Ivy League?” she asks the ceiling. “Why?”
Then, suddenly, she bolts into action. Assigning a numerical value to every aspect of my application, she punches the keys of an ancient adding machine with the skill and dexterity of a crazed accountant during the height of tax season. Nobody knows her formula, only that it’s an algorithm of such complexity and top secrecy it would do a hedge-fund manager proud. And she’s never wrong. If she says you’re out, you’re out. Strack’s like Pritchard High’s very own Oracle of Delphi.
Finally, she rips off my sum worth from the spool of paper. A long beat. I brace myself for The Cold Dose of Reality.
“Bring your Verbal up seventy-five points and write a killer personal essay, and maybe, just maybe, you might be in the hunt,” she concedes at last. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
Sidetracked
I’m on cloud nine. I’m high-fiving. I’m slam-dunking. For I totter on the cusp of Greatness. Usually at this point after school, sleep deprivation has kicked in and I’m stumbling around in a semi-coma. But, after my minimally encouraging parley with Strack, the synapses are firing on all cylinders. I am revitalized, refortified, coursing with renewed energy and purpose.
I might be in the hunt! Okay, only if I somehow miraculously raise my Verbal seventy-five points and come up with a killer essay. But, for the moment, I choose to ignore those minor details. However remote from shore, I am still within the realm of possibility. Yeah, I know Strack said maybe, just maybe. I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but I can’t help it. They’re sky-high.
My thoughts turn to the task nearest at hand. The Personal Essay. Let’s face it, at Columbia’s august—adjective, inspiring awe and reverence—level, everybody and their kid sister has the grades, the boards, the extracurricks. Which leaves the connections, of which I’m most lacking. Which makes the Personal Essay all that much more crucial to nail.
“Seven hundred fifty words or less of pure profundity,” I extol to The Murf, who, of course, since he’s settling for CC, doesn’t have to write a single syllable. “Seven hundred fifty words or less to separate myself from the herd. To express incredible depth and extra-fine sensitivity, but without getting all gushy. The Personal Essay must be imbued with youthful optimism, yet be light on self-importance. Unique without being too out-there. Don’t want to freak them out or make them think I’m some nut job. I’m telling you, Murf, it’s a fine line I’m treading.”
“Pickles, onions, olives,” The Murf says, not listening.
I plummet back to orbit. I’m at work. Wearing asinine oversized fedoras and suspenders, The Murf and I comprise a two-person assembly line behind the counter at The Submachin
e Gun. The conceit of the joint, if you can call it that, is gangsters and molls. Submachine guns, submarine sandwiches. Get it? Real original, right? Apparently the owner, whom no one has ever actually met, is a major Godfather freak. Like, who isn’t? Anyway, The Gun’s supposed to be the first in a budding franchise, but in reality, it’s a lone outpost not much longer for this world. But, for the time being at least, it’s the only place besides the pool hall open downtown after six so it does some business.
“Mustard? Mayonnaise?” growls The Murf.
“I said lots of everything, moron!” snarls our customer, a ten-year-old skate punk, who, adding insult to injury, pops his gum right in our faces.
The Murf starts to climb over the counter to throttle the little bastard, but I restrain him.
“I can’t believe I let you rope me into working at this dive, just like you rope me into everything!” he seethes.
“I never roped you into anything,” I mildly protest, even though I did, always have, and do.
Our beloved night manager, Pat Wilson, the owner’s morally challenged nephew, just out of jail for the third time, leans back on his swivel chair from his cubbyhole. Nobody knows what he does in there, just that he’s always in it. Nobody wants to know.
“Hey, cut the chin music!” His Lordship commands. “You’re ruining the mood!”
“Blow me, Pat!” The Murf answers by way of clever riposte.
Pat disappears from view again, his executive duties done for the day.
“Oh yeah, what do you call the fencing team?” The Murf says as we heap on lots of everything.
“Just trying to broaden your horizons.”
“Yeah, well, I still have the welts.”
Through the front window, I spot Burdette’s brand-new old Beamer pulling up at the curb. Practice must be over. Burdette and the rest of the offensive line pile out in their letter jackets, whooping and body slamming each other.
“It’s Friday night,” The Murf says, not seeing them. “We should be broadening our horizons by getting laid, or at least trashed in the pursuit thereof. But no, not you. You’ve gone monk!”
Burdette and his three fellow lunkheads barrel one after the other through the door, each successively larger and beefier than the last. Only in our national pastime is gluttony so esteemed.
“Hey, you sack of shit, double meatball all round!” bellows the massive mound of lard known as Cartelli as he deposits himself with the others at a table. The chair literally buckles under his weight.
“Meatballs, I’ll give them meatballs!” The Murf says, grabbing a mushy fistful to bombard them. He and I have a long, humiliating history with the offensive line.
“HEY, HOW ABOUT SOME NAPKINS HERE!” booms Burdette.
“Use your sleeve, asshole,” The Murf glowers back at him.
“And wipe the table while you’re at it, Murphy. This place is a pigsty!”
Point of fact, the place is a pigsty. It’s filthy. Every table needs to be bussed, the floor needs to be swept, the trashcans need to be emptied. Under Pat’s inspiring non-supervision, The Murf and I make it a point of pride to do as little actual work as possible.
As I shove The Murf out of the way to get the napkins and grab a rag and tray, I can’t help but overhear what passes for conversation.
“The chick gets stood up and suddenly I’ve got to find her a stand-in,” Burdette says, tossing cans of soda from the cooler to his buddies.
“Give it up, Burdette,” cracks Cartelli. “Nobody’s taking your loser cousin in Havendale Hills to Homecoming tomorrow.”
Cartelli’s a fine one to talk about losers. Besides being freakishly rotund, the guy’s already been held back two years. At the rate he’s going, he’s going to be the first high school senior in the state of New Jersey to legally drink.
“At least check out her Facebook page,” Burdette appeals to Flanagan, another behemoth. “Maybe you could score with a hot friend at the after-party.”
They raise their arms like lords of the manor as I clear and wipe down their table like a vassal—noun, slave, servant. As a non-varsity athlete, I have little, if any, status. As someone who actually has to punch a clock to keep gas in the car and maintain a halfway decent phone plan, I have less than none. Me and my kind are nonexistent to them.
“No way,” Flanagan says, shaking his Coke and then opening it. “I’ve got a rep to maintain.”
Coke sprays everywhere. Real class. Fuming, I go to grab a mop.
“Well, somebody’s gotta do it,” Burdette moans. “She won’t go with me, and my old man’s all over my ass.”
I return with the bucket on wheels. They lift their feet as I swab around them.
“My aunt’s made it into this huge tragedy. Dana’s a senior and she bought a dress and it’s already been altered or some shit.” Burdette makes a grotesque whiny face. “Wah. Wah. Wah. And she’s never gone before—”
“And she never will!” Cartelli snorts, farting loudly in emphasis.
They laugh uproariously. I don’t know why, but they’re really getting under my skin. Hey, I’m not asking for any medals or someone to erect a statue of me or anything, but meanness, especially deliberate meanness, always gets me going. Especially meanness against someone who’s not around to defend themselves. Especially a girl someone. Especially by a bunch of supersized dumbasses. It’s like all my buttons are being pushed at the same time.
“One friggin’ night.” Burdette turns to the last of the gruesome foursome. “C’mon, Butnik, I’ll pay you fifty bucks.”
“I wouldn’t do it for fifty thousand,” declares Butnik, starting center, three hundred pounds of slobbering blubber, pretty much subhuman. The idea that even Butnik wouldn’t take Burdette’s cousin to Homecoming is the height of hilarity to the others. They jiggle with cruel merriment. For some reason, I am short-circuiting; I am reaching boiling point.
“I’ll do it,” I blurt out before I realize what I’m saying.
Suddenly the laughter stops. Suddenly I have the rapt attention of over half a ton of suet. Burdette acknowledges my existence for the first time.
“What did you say, Rattigan?” he asks in disbelief.
“I said I’ll take your cousin to Homecoming tomorrow, Burdette.” Again, swear to God, it comes out before I know it.
Cartelli finds this a crack-up and doubles over. Flanagan and Butnik join in the hilarity.
“Shut the fuck up!” Burdette slugs Cartelli, who bitch slaps Flanagan, who smothers Butnik in a headlock. Burdette readjusts his girth to face me.
“You will?” He breaks into this big grin. He’ll take anybody. Even me, which kind of ticks me off. “No shit?”
“And it won’t cost you a cent,” I announce grandly. I mean, I wouldn’t take Burdette’s money if he put a howitzer to my head.
“Done!” Burdette all-too-swiftly seals the deal by crunching the bones in my hand in his iron grip, impressing on me the dire physical consequences if I fail to honor said commitment. It all happens in almost a blink of an eye. The Murf, finally showing up with the napkins, just when I don’t need him, watches my pact with the devil, stunned.
“Have you flipped?” he says in horror. “You can’t take Burdette’s cousin to Homecoming! Look at Burdette!”
I look at Burdette. Then I shut my eyes and fight to suppress the mental picture of a female version of him.
“Yeah, Rattigan,” Burdette beams. “She’s a real grenade.”
---
Later, as we turn off the lights and close up, The Murf’s still in a state of shock. I am too, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let him know it. I repeat again what has been an almost nonstop three-hour litany of rationalizations.
“So what if I do someone a good turn?” I philosophize. “Maybe I’ll get a decent meal out of it. I could use one.”
The Murf, sucking down a cold Guinness from Pat’s private reserve, remains extremely dubious.
“Yeah, Brooks, but Burdette’s cousin.”
&nbs
p; If he says it one more time, I’m going to throttle him. I know it’s friggin’ Burdette’s friggin’ cousin. So what if she’s Burdette’s cousin? That doesn’t necessarily mean she has to look like Burdette, even though they both come from the same gene pool. Somehow I maintain the noble facade.
“Anyway, I felt kind of bad for her,” I say, pulling down the grate across the storefront and padlocking the entrance.
“True. She is Burdette’s cousin.” The Murf inhales on the last embers of a roach. The weed has made him contemplative. “That can’t be easy.”
The Beast’s parked down the block. We trudge through the dark chill toward it.
“What happened to being in training?” asks The Murf, polishing off the can. “Clean living? Total focus?”
“One night’s not going to throw me off my game,” I say dismissively, although I would kill for a belt or a hit of anything, preferably both now that the possible repercussions of my rashness are finally registering.
I climb behind the wheel, lean over, and unlock and jar open the dented, aging passenger door. The Murf slides in, pulling out another purloined stout from a jacket pocket.
“Plus, I’ve always been meaning to scope out Havendale Hills,” I add. “Be nice to get out of Pritchard for a change.”
“What’s wrong with Pritchard?” he says, taking a gulp.
It’s ten o’clock and we’re the only two people in downtown Pritchard getting into the only car on the street. The Murf’s hopeless. I don’t even know where to start. So I don’t.
Unknown Quantity
The weather’s unseasonably warm, a big orange sun’s setting over central Jersey, and the northbound Garden State Parkway’s miraculously clear as I embark on the trek to Havendale Hills. I’ve got a full tank of gas and I’m speeding, unencumbered, from Pritchard and, I must say, it feels mighty fine. I should have Bruce cranked to the max and be grooving to Clarence’s tasty licks to orchestrate the moment. Instead, I’m listening to yet another SAT practice tape.
That’s right, tape, as in cassette. The Beast, cherished and pampered as she is, predates the advent of the CD, let alone the MP3 player. So make do I must. I scored these tapes for a pittance on eBay. They’re from the seventies. But I figure obscure, polysyllabic vocabulary words with simple meanings never go out of fashion with those ETS jokers over in Princeton.