“Hold on.”
“Okay, I’ll hold,” said The Rat. The maitre d’ gave him a nasty look.
“Okay. I found it.”
“Okay. Thanks, Mike. I’ll see you here.”
“You owe me your life.”
“Okay. Thanks, Mike. I’ll see you here.”
Mike Damone strolled into the Charthouse forty-five minutes later. Stacy and The Rat were still picking at their dinners and trying to make conversation out of life at Ridgemont High.
“Hey Ratner! Is that you?”
“Damone! What are you doing here?”
“Hey, you know what, Mark? I found your wallet the other day. You want it back?”
“Wow. What a coincidence. I’ve been looking for that thing!”
The evening was a complete disaster. Only a few sentences passed between them after the wallet incident. They had gone to the theatre. The kid right in front of them hauled off and puked right toward the beginning of Phantasm. It smelled up the whole row.
By the time the movie was over, The Rat was wondering if he should even try the next step of the game plan—maneuvering her to the Point, where he would slip on the first side of Led Zeppelin IV.
They reached the car again. Something was wrong. The Rat had remembered locking his door. The Rat opened Stacy’s side of the of the car, then she leaned over to open his and found it . . . already open. The Rat knew something was wrong. He looked at the dashboard of his sister’s car.
The tape deck was missing. In its place was the steel bolting ensemble. The machine was gone.
The Rat turned pale, didn’t mention it to Stacy. He drove her straight home, without even asking her about the Point.
He pulled up in front of Stacy’s house. “I had a really nice time,” he said like a zombie.
“Me too,” said Stacy. “Do you want to come inside?”
“Aren’t your parents asleep?”
“No, they’re away for the weekend. Brad and I are watching the house.”
It’s midnight and she wants me to come inside.
“Okay,” said The Rat sullenly. “Sure.”
He followed her inside.
“Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know. Probably out.” She set down her purse. “Want something to drink?”
“No. That’s okay.”
“Well, I’m going to change real quick. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Naw. I don’t mind.”
She turned her back and pulled up her hair. “Will you unzip me?”
This cant be what it seems.
He unzipped her, past the bra and down to the small of her back. It was the first time The Rat had ever done that.
“Thanks.”
Stacy walked down the hall to her room, easing out of her dress as she walked. She left the door to her room open. “You can come in if you want.”
She wouldn’t be doing this if she hated me.
He followed her into her room, his heart pounding in his throat. He turned the corner and stepped into the room. She stood there in her bedroom in a diaphanous white house dress. He pretended not to notice the difference.
“So . . . pretty nice house you got here.”
“Thanks. What do you want to do?”
Damone’s Rule Number Two: Always call the shots.
“I don’t know,” said The Rat.
“Do you want to see some pictures? I have all these pictures and stuff from Paul Revere. I kept a whole scrapbook! How stupid!”
“Sure.”
She fished the old Paul Revere scrapbook out of her closet, and they sat together on her bed looking at the photos of mutual friends and acquaintances. Her knee grazed his.
She definitely expects something.
For twenty minutes, Mark carried on two conversations. The one with Stacy about her scrapbook and the one in his head. There was a scoreboard in his mind, and the odds seemed to be racking up in his favor. He debated all the signs. She had brought him inside, they were alone, she had changed. He had unzipped her.
But what if he tried to kiss her and she screamed or something? He would feel like Jack the Ripper. No, he wouldn’t. Or maybe he would. What a wuss.
Then it occurred to The Rat. It wasn’t one of Damone’s big rules, but he had given Rat the special advice just the same: Tell her you don’t hang around many high school people, make her feel special. He decided to use the tip, but it came out like this:
“Not too many people like me in high school.”
Stacy looked at him oddly. “That’s too bad,” she said.
More silence. He watched her pull her hair up and let it fall back down again. Another sign?
After a while it all got to be too much for The Rat.
“Well,” said Mark, “I’ve got to go.”
“Really?”
He got up off the bed and stood up.
Beg me to stay.
“Do you really have to go?”
“It’s getting pretty late.”
Beg me to stay just a little.
“Well . . . if you’ve got to.” She stood up, too. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
The Rat gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and ducked out of the front door.
He walked down the steps of the Hamilton house. He wanted to turn around, to go back and tell her that he didn’t want to leave. He wanted to violate all the rules of The Attitude and tell her how much he liked her.
And she, of course, she would tell him that she wanted him to stay, that she was glad he came back. And that this was just the beginning for them. And she would hug him and press up against him and . . .
Just as The Rat was heading back up the stairs, he saw Stacy’s bedroom light shut off. He stopped in his tracks. It hit him like an enormous gong. It was as if the words were a Cecil B. De Mille production written in the nighttime sky, just for The Rat: YOU BLEW IT, ASSHOLE!
Bob Savage
Early in January, just after classes were back in session after Christmas vacation, Ridgemont High held a traditional mandatory assembly. The subject was ordering the school yearbook, the Rapier, and class rings.
A.S.B. President Kenneth Quan kicked the assembly off with a brief pep talk about spirit and rivalry as a substitute for violence and vandalism. It was a direct reference to the spray-paint job done on the school over vacation. The usual culprits had hopped the locked steel fence leading into the Ridgemont campus. When students returned from the Christmas break they found the black spray-paint insignia over everything: LINCOLN SURF NAZIS! It was the biggest green job for the janitors yet. Forty buckets. The school had smelled like paint all year long.
Kenneth Quan introduced the editor and two members of the Rapier staff. They gave a quick progress report and dropped a juicy news item—this year’s Rapier would be black. They were off in a hurry.
Everyone was waiting for the main attraction. His name was Bob Savage. A young man in his late twenties, Savage was well known to many of the students. If you had no desire whatsoever to own or wear a class ring, you were digging for the money after ten minutes of listening to Bob Savage.
Bob Savage had the kind of shaped hairstyle that could only belong to (a) one of the Bee Gees or (b) a werewolf. It was reddish brown, and came back in a wide sweep that seemed to be held in position by laws defying nature.
Savage began his presentation with a slide show. “High school is a time for living and learning,” narrated Savage, “and being young.” His timing was well practiced, as it should have been; he had been making the same spiel for at least seven years. “It wasn’t that long ago that I was sitting in class. Boy, did I want to get out . . .”
Polite laughter. He switched to a shot of kids in cars leaving their campus parking lot.
“But I have strong memories of high school. The cars. The fun . . .”
Switch to a shot of an attractive student couple walking down the hallway, hand in hand.
“. . . The romance.”
Switch t
o a shot of a gymnasium dance and lots of swinging teenagers in ten-year-old formals.
“And the prom. It didn’t matter how you felt about going to the prom. You went. I went. I thought I’d go all the way with high school. I’d go to the prom. I’d take my best girl, and I’d even order a class ring.”
Switch to a student admiring his new class ring.
“Some of my friends told me, ‘You’re not in sports, you’re going to graduate soon, you don’t need one.’ I told them I was going to get mine anyway. I laughed at the time. ‘Maybe it’ll be worth something someday.’ ”
Switch to shot of drag racers at night.
“Racing was my thing,” continued Bob Savage. “And it was on prom night that I made a real bonehead move. I know a lot of you may have heard about it. I played a little game called chicken on a blind curve. I didn’t swerve in time to avoid the oncoming car. My girlfriend was killed. The other family had some injuries, but they’re recovered now. But my legs are still severed.”
A shocked silence settled over the assembly.
“A lot of people ask me why I do this—how I can still talk about it. I tell them it’s the only way I can bear that accident. I think about it every day of my life. During my many months in the hospital we were unsure whether the grafting might take. My family and friends were there constantly. But there were many more times when no one could be with me at all. All I had were my memories.”
Switch to a class-ring close-up.
“And that’s what getting into the spirit, getting a class ring, is all about. I want you to call me at home—I live right here in Redondo—and talk about it. My number is in the Reader and in the phone book. I’m honored to be able to represent Contemporary Casuals Class Rings. And I’d be honored if you ordered one from me.”
Bob Savage. He’d probably been a real jock at school, before the accident. But as he wheeled himself offstage in his motorized wheelchair, it was like he was a rock star. He’d reached them all.
Even Brad Hamilton, who had decided against it earlier, went ahead and ordered a class ring.
Even Jeff Spicoli stood and applauded. “That guy is tremendous,” he said.
School Picture Day
There is a certain smell unique to high school gymnasiums. It’s a difficult aroma to break down exactly, but certainly the three main ingredients are old socks, hardwood flooring, and English Leather cologne. Every year teams of janitors are paid to sanitize gyms everywhere. Still they smell the same.
Today was School Picture Day at Ridgemont. Students were herded in and out of the gymnasium all day long, by class and last names. A professional photographer on the front stage faced thousands of students on Picture Day. Over seventy percent had been cool coached by friends not to smile—no matter what he says—and by the end of the day the photographer would invariably have no voice.
“Smile, please.”
During first lunch, the Ridgemont courtyard was cleared of all trash. Room was made for the entire school. It was School Picture time, a photo of no small importance, and for this the professional photographer would have to step aside and make room for Reader photographer Arthur Chubb. Chubb relished the job. He got to get up on top of the Technical Arts Building with all his camera equipment and take The Big Picture of the entire school. It was the double-page color centerspread of the Ridgemont Rapier yearbook.
Before going out on the courtyard for The Big Picture, Mike Damone mentioned to The Rat an idea he had for a bet.
“How much will you bet me I won’t take off my pants for this picture?”
“Nothing,” said Ratner. “You’d do it anyway.”
“I’m serious. How much will you give me to take off my pants? And face the camera while I’m doing it.”
“And not cover your face?”
“And not cover my face,” said Damone.
“A buck,” said Ratner.
“But you have to moon.”
“Me, moon?”
“It’ll be great. You’ll be immortalized and no one will know who it is.”
“What about you?” asked Ratner.
“Chubb will just airbrush me out. He did it once before in junior high school.”
The Rat thought about it for a second. “It’s a deal.”
Mick Jagger Gave Me This
A peculiar thing happened right about the middle of January. Students from all classes began to plot out a calendar in their heads. Homecoming. Christmas vacation. School Picture Day . . . all the good stuff had already happened. What else was there to look forward to? Why they’d even started talking about the Rapier and class rings and the prom.
It was the most insidious of diseases, not in any journal but as infamous in its many names as the common cold. It was called Senioritis, Graduation Fever, Terminus Attendus, The Apathy Bowl, The Adios Syndrome.
It was that gnawing feeling that all that stood in the way of graduation were a lot of deadhead months of needless paperwork. Even colleges, as the rumor went, only looked up to your seventh semester. Even they knew about Senioritis.
One of the best gauges as to just how much Senioritis had set in was usually Mrs. Gina George’s Public Speaking class. Mrs. George prided herself in the personal attention she gave to her speech students. She believed in their intrinsic good, which was either her greatest asset or fatal flaw, depending upon which side of the faculty lounge door you ate your lunch.
Students called her Mrs. G. She even let them grade themselves. All a student had to do was justify the grade in front of the class—and it was interesting how brutal the class could be at times—but it was still a matter of students grading themselves. She was not a contract teacher, but her only assignment for the semester was a five-minute demonstrative or informative speech. The class was always packed at the beginning of a semester. Then a substantial number of students disappeared for months, only to reappear from the abyss for a quick demonstrative around grade time.
Mrs. George was a Texas-born woman in her late thirties. She still spoke in the wild, excitable accent of her youth, and still wore her hair long like a schoolgirl’s. She was divorced, the mother of two children who had grown up and moved back to Texas. She was the kind of teacher who had students over to her house and loaned them money. Few ever pushed Mrs. George to her limits.
Jeff Spicoli was one student who never seemed to accord Mrs. George the proper respect. He had to be forced, one week after report cards went out, to give his five-minute demonstrative speech and replace the incomplete that Mrs. George had given him instead of an F.
Spicoli stood before the class, leaning hunchback over the podium. The years of marijuana use had taken their toll on Spicoli. His speech had become slower and thicker, and he had the classic surfer affliction of dropping the ends off all his words.
He grabbed a hunk of his stringy hair and whipped it back over his head. He had no idea what to say.
“Jeff, you ought to try standing away from the podium.”
He wandered just to the left of the podium. Then, in a burst of inspiration, he reached into his sock and withdrew his steel marijuana-smoking apparatus. He held it high, for all to see.
“I wanna tell you about bongs,” said Jeff Spicoli.
Students stole anxious looks at Mrs. George to check her reaction. We went through this phase in junior high. Mrs. G. sat at the back of the class, expressionless.
“Bongs,” said Spicoli, “I personally like better than smoking through papers. Because you can just put in how much you want to smoke and . . .” He shrugged. “That’s it.”
Mrs. George interrupted him. “Jeff? Do you like two bowls or three?”
The class laughed, and Spicoli seemed unsure exactly who was being laughed at.
“Jeff?”
“Well . . . it depends, really.”
“Have you ever tried bonging through wine?” asked Mrs. George.
“Uh . . . no.”
“I’ve heard you haven’t lived until you’ve bonged through win
e.”
The class was definitely laughing at him, Spicoli had decided. His face now taking on a distinct red tint, he responded by plucking a medallion off his chest. He then launched into the most incredible Jeff Spicoli story anyone could remember.
“See this necklace?” Spicoli said, looking to all parts of his audience. “MICK JAGGER gave me this necklace.”
Pause.
“It’s true. Mick Jagger gave it to me himself at the Anaheim Rolling Stones concert. You know? I was walking around behind the stage, you know, and I . . . I just saw Mick standing there. And he had some white stuff on his nose, and I said, ‘Mick, you’ve been snorting coke!’ And Mick said, ‘Yeah, I’ve been snorting coke, man. You’re right!’ And he kind of laughed and said, ‘What’s your name?’ ”
“I said, ‘Jeff Spicoli.’ He goes, ‘Nice to meet you, man,’ very gentlemanly. Then he asks me if I want to do some coke with him.”
Spicoli cleared his throat. He had them now.
“I figured, Mick Jagger? ‘Sure.’ I don’t do coke, but I’d do some with him. So he pulled out a vial and we sat down. And Mick Jagger asked, ‘Do you have a coke spoon?’ And I said, ‘No! Are you crazy?’ So he goes, ‘I know what, we’ll use this necklace to do the coke!’ And he took this necklace off and we got high and then . . . he gave me the necklace.”
Spicoli held it high again. “And I won’t sell it. Not for ten thousand dollars.”
There was a pause, after which someone said loudly, “Bullshit.”
Spicoli thrust out his hand. “Any amount of money. Any amount of money.”
“Okay, Jeff. What grade do you think you deserve in this class? My book shows you missing twenty-three times last semester.”
“Well,” said Spicoli, “I think I deserve an A because I really used all the basics that you taught me in this class. I use them in real life.” He pointed out the window, to Luna Street.
Silence. There was no majority of hands from the class.
“All right,” said Spicoli, “a . . . B.”
No hands.
“Hey, come on . . . get ’em up.”
Fast Times at Ridgemont High Page 13