Scags at 18

by Deborah Emin

  When we arrived in the orchard, my tears were gone. I enjoy spending time with her. Eileen told me about how her new relationship, that’s what she called it, with Philip. They’re going on a date soon. She hopes. She pulled a joint out of her pocket, lit it and passed it to me.

  I must have looked like the biggest dummy on campus because I didn’t know what to do. I don’t smoke, anything. Pot was just a word to me and not an actual drug. Now my mind was being altered a tiny bit by the drug and it went racing around the orchard like it had been given some jet fuel to speed things up. In this altered state, I saw Eileen going off to spend time with Philip, meaning I would be alone again. I saw my worries about old fuck face being chased by my fear of failing his class and losing my scholarship. Every thought had velocity and it couldn’t stop long enough for me to talk about it. That’s what the pot did to me.

  Eileen spoke up then and said, “Look, I can give you two pieces of advice.”

  She took the joint back and began a long pull on it.

  “No one ever fails here unless they really mess up. He can’t do a thing to you. That’s what makes him so crazy. He would fail all the women but he can’t. He won’t fail you. Show up to class, do the work and you will pass.”

  “But you dropped out because he was going to fail you.”

  I must have looked really frightened by the prospect of failure because she told me a secret.

  “I didn’t work at all in his class. I couldn’t take him but what they were talking about was way over my head. It wasn’t for me, his class. But you’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t believe her. I wanted to though because it would have quieted down my anxiety. I was going to wait until we weren’t stoned and ask her again about his class and the fact that she might have failed it.

  “What’s the second piece of advice?”

  “When I described Dr. Fish to my mother, she told me to read Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own.’ I did and while it helped me understand what male prerogatives are like and how damaging they are, I couldn’t finish Dr. Fish’s class but that was me.”

  Eileen doesn’t know me well enough yet to realize how useful her advice was. No, that isn’t correct. It was the best possible advice she could have given me—go read a book. The best answer to any problem in the world. How did she know that?

  Still all fueled up by the pot I’d smoked, I told her I had to go. She looked puzzled but I couldn’t stay there with her. I had to go to the library and find that book.

  Eileen’s advice got me so involved in the library that I almost forgot to go to the movies tonight. That was when the most magical series of events began. Thus the pendulum from this week began to swing in a marvelous new direction.

  I was racing toward the library when I saw Charles drive up. He parked right where he always does beside the guard station. Only at that moment did I slap my head and realize I had almost forgotten about the movie. But I needed that Virginia Woolf book. I dashed off to the library, checking the time on my watch. By my calculation, I had plenty of time to find the book, check it out, go to dinner and freshen up and then stroll into the movie and find a seat near Charles. After all, that was my plan and I had prepared myself for how to approach him and what to say.

  But my plans got all messed up due to the books, yes, plural, I found in the library. Purely by chance as I entered the main floor of the library and turned my head towards the reserve shelves, a title and a name caught my eye totally by surprise.

  No librarians were at any of the desks. I walked straight toward that book on the reserve shelf and took the book, put it under my sweater. I know. I am becoming someone else. Who is this Scags? Well, wait, it gets worse.

  In my defense, the book I spied was Dr. Fish’s first book of poems. It had an odd title, “Thoughts for Tonio.” I had to read it. Like a compulsion to know something I shouldn’t know, I made myself smuggle it upstairs where I also went looking for the Virginia Woolf book and then did something else I’ve never done before—I stole the Virginia Woolf book.

  Now my life speeds down tracks with some unknown destination. What would Miss Fromm or Mrs. Wald think if they saw me now? Would they recognize this reckless Scags? Everything changes so fast here. First I am lonely and miserable and then I am this sleuth and then a thief, who does drugs. What’s next? Who cares?

  That’s the odd thing about all of this. I don’t care that I behave this way now.

  It is paying off. Do you hear me, you old Scags waiting for that seedling to sprout? It is happening. My new life has finally begun to excite me. Even though my poor head is accustomed to a much quieter life, the newly sprouted Scags is finally having some fun.

  I didn’t want to be that sad Scags who went to the movies by herself on Saturday nights and sat in the Old Orchard Theater with a book in her hands, the same book every Saturday night, while her classmates were on dates. Over the top of the book, I spied on them as they held hands, goofed off and made out. I watched the movies, lost in them only to have to return to my life, such as it was, and walk home alone wishing things were different.

  Here, all at once, the news of my new life finally reached me. I have important things to look forward to.Thank you Mama for this diary. Without it, there’d be no way for me to keep track of all these quickly changing scenarios.

  I’m going to savor every part of this story as it comes tumbling out of me. I read Dr. Fish’s first book of poems. Not what I had expected. Never in a million years, never, would I have imagined him sitting in a cafe watching young men walk by and wishing he could make love to one of them. Never. Where I come from, young men don’t want other young men as lovers. Or if they do, they never, ever say so. And not in print.

  It’s not that I have anything against Dr. Fish wishing to fall in love. That’s exactly what I want too. But I’m not sure I want to know the specifics of what Dr. Fish wants. I put that book back at the reserve desk as if I had found a dirty magazine under one of the chairs and couldn’t quite say what it was when I turned it in. No one looked at me or said a word. That was damn lucky.

  They didn’t suspect either that inside my book bag was an old torn copy of the Virginia Woolf book. I had to take it. It was the only copy on the shelf and it was going to disappear. The cover on it was torn as was the spine of the book. People had drawn in the pages and all in all, it wasn’t fit for the shelves.

  Dr. Fish’s book was old too. But it had been read and taken good care of. People must admire him, I told myself. I had looked for a time, despite how little time I had, at his photograph on the back of the book. Young, thin and wearing very similar clothes to those he wears now, Dr. Fish wasn’t what I would have ever called handsome.

  Of course, he was brilliant and intense. I would like to be known that way too. He looked out of the back of that book at me as he does in class—he doesn’t see me at all. He doesn’t want to either.

  Opening the book was like walking into his house to steal his diary. Now I know things about him that I may not want to know. No, I definitely don’t want to know this about him. Each moment I sat there reading his book, I knew I was in danger of missing out on sitting next to Charles at the movies.

  But I couldn’t stop reading. It was like when I found my parents’ love letters. I knew I should put them back on their closet shelf but once I began reading, I couldn’t stop. I knew what I was doing was wrong, that knowing those intimate things they shared were none of my business—it didn’t matter—I couldn’t stop.

  For weeks, I couldn’t look at them without blushing.

  But who is this Scags who read through that entire book? Stole the Virginia Woolf book and then raced over to the arts building for a movie and made herself sit right next to Charles as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. Who are you Scags?

  I’m the happiest person in the world. But tomorrow, first thing, I have to find Eilee
n. I have a million questions to ask her about my date with Charles tomorrow night. For instance, how do I tell Charles I have no money to go out to dinner?

  I found him at the movies. The movie had already begun that’s how late I was. But I forced myself to sit as close to him as possible. Tony was with Charles, of course. But so few people were there. I don’t get it. Free movies are like free food. Never say no to it. That is my new motto.

  I sat near Charles and Tony. They were joking around with each other. The room got dark and the credits began to roll. I heard Tony say to Charles, “Hey Charles, your name sakes in this movie. Charles Foster Kane.”

  Charles hit him in the ribs. “Don’t be a wise ass.”

  “Okay, I won’t. But I still think it’s funny your parents naming you after a character in a movie.”

  “It wasn’t this movie, you dummy. That was ‘Citizen Kane.’ Now shut up.”

  I liked listening to them goof around with each other. It helped me relax a bit. Well, I don’t think I relaxed. I watched the movie, or film, as Charles calls it, and remembered my Pops whistling that zither music. That also helped to calm me down.

  I watched the film and most of the way through it, I didn’t really care one way or the other what happened. It wasn’t that I was bored; it just seemed to go right over my head. Until, that is, I saw, towards the end of the film the way Anna didn’t care about all the awful things her man Harry Lime had done. She just wanted him to be alive. Even if she never saw him again, it didn’t matter. She said something like, “Right now, Harry is alive. He is doing things.”

  The way she said that, it made me think that was the kind of love I was looking for. Her love for that despicable Harry Lime inspired me to speak to Charles.

  Yes, I got up the nerve to speak to him and then we walked back towards the dorm and his car. Along the way, much happened that wouldn’t have happened had I not seen the way Anna’s eyes looked as she thought of Harry being alive. Harry who had killed all those people because of his greed. She lived inside her love, and to me, well, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It was almost religious on her part.

  As Charles and I walked along the path that led to the dorms, I tried to explain this to him. He lit his cigarette and for several minutes we were in the film, walking along, talking about it and trying to understand it together.

  In the midst of that attempt to explain my thoughts, I got cold. The nights here are now very cold and I had a jacket with me and ran into so much difficulty trying to put it on that we both laughed our heads off.

  Wow. He has a wonderful laugh. I laughed so hard I began to cry and then the crying wouldn’t stop. It went on and on. I knew it was for Anna. I said that.

  “Anna makes me feel so sad. This love of hers is so different from anything I have seen before. I admit I don’t understand it but I loved watching her feel it.”

  Charles then untangled my jacket and got it on me properly. We continued to the door of this dorm and stood next to it. I was afraid to break the connection that had popped up between us.

  “Would you like to go to dinner tomorrow night?” Charles asked me. In such a quiet voice too for such an important question. His hands were on either side of my shoulders. It was like being pinned to the canvas, like a painting pinned to the wall. I smelled his coffee and cigarettes.

  I shook my head yes and looked right into his eyes. He and I stand eye to eye. I like that. Being so tall has always been a problem for me. Charles was right there. I put my arms around him. For a moment I held tight and then broke free of him and tried to run upstairs by getting into the doorway before he could stop me, but he stopped me. He held the door closed and told me he would pick me up at 7:00 tomorrow night.

  He took a step back and I grabbed that door handle and pulled it open and began to move away. I stopped though, remembering it would be good to say yes, and that I was happy to be going out with him.

  Happy to be going out with him? Never have I uttered such an understatement!

  Goodnight my Handsome Charles.

  Date: Sunday, 9/14/69

  Now I have officially been on a date. Oh my. What a date it was. So much to tell about it and if I get it all down right, even if we never see each other again, which of course I don’t want to happen, I will have this to read through so I can remember it all.

  First, I had so many things to take care of on Saturday morning to get ready for this once in a lifetime experience that I barely slept on Friday night. Too excited and too worried. I had no idea how I was going to pay for this dinner. Even with the extra money Goldie sends me, well, I didn’t know what it would cost. I had spent so much money already on books.

  Clothes too were going to be a problem unless I got out of bed early and made sure that I had clean clothes to wear that looked presentable. For the first time in my life, I looked at my wardrobe and saw that it was a sorry story. Nothing about it told anyone who I really am. The kids here have such interesting clothing. I look like a stock character from the Midwest who has just recently learned how to apply lipstick.

  I see their boots, Frye boots, and tasseled leather jackets, lots of leather all the time. Leather vests. Leather hats. Charles just has that one leather jacket but it looks so good on him. In the cold it makes a noise that sounds like feet in very cold snow.

  I have solid-colored everything and my one concession to something different for me is the collection of striped oxford cloth shirts that require lots of ironing to look nice and neat. I wore corduroy pants with an oxford cloth shirt and one of the new bulky sweaters Goldie bought me because of how cold it gets up here and boy does it ever. I thought Chicago was cold.

  But even though my clothes make me feel inferior and let’s face it, poor, it’s the actual lack of money that weighs me down here and no more so than when I got out of bed on Saturday morning.

  Boy, what an idjit I am. Girls don’t pay for the dates. As soon as Alex told me that, I began to soar above everything. I was filled with helium and my sorry wardrobe and my even sorrier bank account were insignificant. Now above all that worry, I was determined to have the best date ever.

  I looked around for Eileen on Saturday morning but couldn’t find her. I wanted her advice about clothes and money. I went for my scheduled run when I couldn’t locate her. Alex and I were the only ones who showed up. Saturdays we go for a 7-mile run. I showed up without yet having committed to being on the team. I enjoy running. I assume I can run with them whether I compete or not.

  For the first 3 miles of our run, Alex didn’t speak. He was annoyed that no one else had showed up. I didn’t mind his silence as I was building up my courage to ask him for a loan. I hoped the opportunity to ask would just present itself.

  When he asked me what I was doing for the weekend, I thanked the air around me, and started to tell him that I had been asked out on a date but didn’t really have the money to pay my way.

  We were running side by side at that point so I blurted my words out to the air in front of me. Alex laughed. I hadn’t expected that.

  “What are you some womens’ libber? Don’t you like it when the man pays for you? Feel like he’s taken away your power or something?”

  That shook me up. Out of my confusion, I said, “Hey, I’m no feminist.” In all likelihood, that isn’t true but as I noted, I was very confused.

  “Then why are you concerned about having the money for a date?” He tried to look at me sideways but it was difficult in the terrain we were now racing through. I have no idea why the speed of our run had increased, but we were really moving along at quite a pace then.

  “Well, just in case he needs me to help with the bill,” I eked out of my now very confused brain. That at least seemed somewhat plausible.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, my lovely Scags, and could we please reduce our speed here? This area is tricky and with all this leaf cover we cou
ld have a serious accident and be so far from the campus.”

  He spit into the woods and slowed down. I did too.

  Back in my room, I was overcome with something I never felt before—gratitude. I have felt gratitude before of course, but this was a different type of gratitude. It was like being held in the arms of good luck and not worrying about when it would drop me.

  Charles showed up right on time for our date. I was ready, had been ready for at least an hour and I was starving but also afraid I would throw up when we ate.

  His beat up Jeep is even more unpleasant to be in than it looks. It was dark outside when Charles came to get me. The lights don’t go on inside the Jeep when you get in. Even my Mama’s old Rambler has lights inside. In the darkness, I couldn’t see anything. I kept banging my knees against this metal plate where the glove compartment should be. It was drafty too. Cold air rose up through the floor.

  Charles drives like he owns a sports car. He is plain reckless. At the bottom of the hill at the spot where you have to turn left or right to leave the College, he frightened the pants off me. It was a foggy night. I couldn’t see anything and I don’t know how he could either. There’s a sharp curve so the cars coming from the right aren’t visible until they are coming right at you.

  I held my breath as he turned right onto the highway. Not one car came up behind us or towards us. The noise of his engine made my sigh of relief inaudible but once he got the damn thing up to speed, I started laughing about the close call we had just had. He said that wasn’t true. We had had nothing to worry about. Yeah sure, I thought, he had nothing to worry about. I worried enough for both of us.

  By the time we reached the Town, the fog had lifted, and I could calm down. He drove along the silent streets with his car sounding like we were an invading army. By the time he pulled into a parking lot in the middle of town, I could barely hear anything. He took my hand as soon as I got out of the car. I was too excited to object and followed him straight for the restaurant. I wanted to roam the streets in quiet with him before dinner. But he was hungry and also said he wanted a drink. I thought, oh my, good thing he’s paying for all of this.