“Don’t you dare go away!”
“And there’s PTA punch in the lobby!”
The school combo started blasting the jazz-rock Muzak again.
In the lobby, once nervous performers were now stars. They stood around with parents and relatives, luxuriously sipping PTA punch and considering futures in show business. Even Adams and Leach were in the lobby.
Adams was cross-examining Cindy Carr. “Did you come late? You came late, didn’t you? You missed the best part. David and I came running out and sang part of this song and then talked over it like a couple of Broadway Joes. It was totally classy! And you missed it, didn’t you?”
Back on stage for the second half, Gregg Adams was all pro. He led with a joke.
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I’ve been noticing Lieutenant Flowers. He’s actually a nice person! I went to him the other day and said, ‘Some sophomore looted my locker,’ and he went and took care of it in the calmest way he knew how. He SHOT THE KID AT SUNRISE!”
Big laughs.
The second half of the Ridgemont Talent Show opened with a duet between Kathy Golson and Dave Kepler. They began at opposite ends of the stage and worked toward each other as they sang. It was another case of aspiring amateurs. For the first time all night, the rowdy contingent came alive.
Then came the noise again, an incessant little series of beeps, nearly impossible to trace to its holder. Jeff Spicoli was playing a pocket computer football game in the last row of the auditorium. Gregg Adams chose not to mention the noise from the stage.
Rex Huffman came out for a skateboard routine—all his best tricks, then Ernie Vincent did his balancing act, culminating in his balancing a wheelbarrow on his nose. No one knew he could balance until he auditioned for the show. (Interviewed in the school paper, he said, “It started two years ago with a broom, and the rest is history . . .”)
“Okay,” said Gregg Adams, “now we have a special nonsinging nondancing act. We’ve got Rhonda Lewis, whom you’ve seen at the fair and at the Baton Twirling Championships at the sports arena. She’s one of Redondo’s biggest baton twirlers, and we are glad to have her with us here tonight! Rhonda Lewis!”
The music started—a scratched and crackling record that would have been better suited to a Tijuana strip joint—Rhonda Lewis, in a ballerina costume, flipped through her first few twirls with a self-assured cock of the head. It was just like her at school; she did not acknowledge anyone in the slightest.
Then she tried a high-kicking twirl . . . and dropped the baton. Parents gasped. She was upset, gave a snotty little stomp of her foot, and picked up the baton again.
Now, Spicoli had decided to give her all the breaks, but after that . . . well, there was no choice. He started in with the football game. He was merciless, beeping away while she dropped it two more times.
Gregg Adams and David Leach returned, continued with their all-showbiz philosophy of ignoring the casualties around them.
“Well, David, you know what time it is?”
“What time is it, Gregg?”
“It’s time that we answer your questions. And you know what, David? It’s funny, but every year we get asked the same question on talent show night.”
“What’s that, Gregg?”
“They ask, ‘Where did you get those great tuxedos?’ ”
Boos.
“They sure do ask us that. And we always tell them . . .”
They sang in harmony, pointing thumbs at the huge clapboard signs that had been sitting on both sides of the stage all night.
“We got ’em at . . . Re-gis. REGIS FORMALWEAR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. A BIG HAND!!”
“You look like SHIT,” someone yelled.
“Okay okay! The next number for you cannibals is . . . a slight deviation from the program. Originally it was to be Reginald Davis’s Stevie Wonder medley. But he’s sick, and he’ll be replaced by Paul Norris, with his original composition, sung a cappella, “The World.”
A lot of people didn’t know Paul Norris could sing, but sing he did. In a very loud voice.
“The wooo-hu-hu—hooooooorld . . .”
He sang every syllable as if his very life depended on the line.
“The woo-hu-hu-hooooooorld is a pa-laaaaaaaaaace of dooooo-uuuuuuu-ha-ha-ouuuuuut . . .”
He kind of snapped off the ends of his words.
“But we are Chilllll-dreeeeeen of the woooooooor ha-ha-ld.”
Some thought he had finished and applauded, but Paul Norris was just getting warmed up.
“The woooorllll . . .”
In the audience, Jeff Spicoli’s friends were goading him, challenging him. Go ahead. Go ahead, Spicoli.
“I say beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-heeeeee . . .”
Spicoli started tapping on the electronic game, bip bip bip . . . and right away Paul Norris started noticing it.
“I say beca . . .”
Paul was getting nervous.
“Because you got to, I say GOT TO take a chooooooicc . . .”
It was a low-threshold night for Paul Norris. He probably didn’t want to be there, but Reginald Davis had no doubt called and bottom-lined it. Man, I’m just not up to that Stevie Wonder medley tonight . . . You could see something inside Paul Norris snap, his concentration shatter.
“KISS MY ASS!” he shouted.
He dropped the mike at his side and stomped backstage. There was silence, then embarrassed applause. Adams and Leach came bounding back out.
“Okay . . . we’ve reached that special part of the evening when we present THE BIG SURPRISE!”
The big finale of the Twentieth Annual Ridgemont High School Talent Show was pretty standard stuff. More fluorescent lights, another scratchy Polynesian record, and a big Tahitian dance featuring the entire football team in hula skirts.
It’s Up To You, Mike
Stacy Hamilton caught up with Mike Damone on his way to the bus stop. “Can I walk you home?” she asked.
“I was going to take the bus.”
“Let’s walk.”
“Okay,” he said. Might as well give her a taste of the Damone charm, he thought.
They made some small talk about how all the sophomore guys blasted K-101, the lamest station in town. Then Damone just said it point blank.
“You know Mark Ratner really likes you, don’t you?”
“I know,” she said.
They walked on.
“Do you like him?” asked Damone.
They arrived at Stacy’s house. “I like you,” she said. “Do you want to come in for a second?”
“Do you have any iced tea?”
“I think we have some.”
“Okay.” He was just going inside for an iced tea, Damone told himself. “You know Mark’s a really good guy.”
They stood around in the kitchen while Stacy fixed two iced teas.
“I really like Mark, too,” said Stacy, handing Damone the tea. “He’s really a nice boy.”
“He’s a good guy,” Damone said.
“You want to take a quick swim?”
“Well . . .”
“Come on. Brad probably has some trunks you can borrow. I’m going to my room to change!”
She’s going to her room to change.
“I think I better go,” said Damone.
“Don’t go! You don’t have to shout! You can come back here to my room!”
She’s asking me into her room while she changes.
Stacy was standing there in her bikini.
“Let’s go to the changing room and see if there are some trunks,” she said.
“I think I better go,” said Damone.
“God,” said Stacy, “you’re just a tease!”
“I ain’t no tease,” said Damone.
“Good!” said Stacy. Things were working out just as she and Linda had planned.
They went into the changing room, and Stacy locked the door behind her. “Are you really a virgin?” she asked.
Damone could feel
his legs starting to shake the slightest bit. “Come on . . .”
“It’s okay.” Stacy walked over and kissed him.
“I feel pretty strange here,” said Damone. “Because Mark really likes you. He’s my friend.”
He kissed her anyway. Standing there, feeling Stacy in her bikini, feeling her kiss him, Damone felt some of his reservations slip away.
“You’re a really good kisser,” she said.
“So are you.”
“Are you shaking?”
“No,” said Damone. “Are you crazy?” But he was. The last time Mr. Attitude had gone this far on the make-out scale with a girl had been with Carol back in Philadelphia. Carol had let him reach into her pants and touch her, but just for a second. That had been enough for back then. That had been enough to make him feel like he and his brother, Art, could really talk about women. But this . . . this was The Big One.
“Why don’t you take your clothes off, Mike?”
“You first.”
“How about both of us at the same time.”
And as if that made it emotionally even, they both stripped at the same time. Stacy unhooked her top and stepped out of her bikini bottom. She went to sit down on the red couch in the changing room.
She watched Damone hopping on one leg, pulling first out of his pants, then his Jockey underwear. Then he caught the underwear on his erection, and it slapped back into his abdomen. He sat down next to Stacy, expressionless.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” said Damone.
She reached over and grabbed his erection. She began pulling on it. The feeling of a penis was still new to her. She wanted to ask him about it. Why did it hurt if you just touched it one place, and not at all at another . . . but later she would ask him that. For now, she just yanked on it. Damone didn’t seem to mind.
“I want you to know,” said Stacy, “that it’s your final decision if we should continue or not.”
“Let’s continue,” said Damone.
As Mike Damone lost his virginity, his first thought was of his brother, Art. Art had said, “You gotta overpower a girl. Make her feel helpless.”
Damone began pumping so hard, so fast—his eyes were shut tight—that he didn’t notice he was banging the sofa, and Stacy’s head, against the wall.
“Hey Mike,” she whispered.
“What? Are you all right?”
“I think we’re making a lot of noise.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” He continued, slower.
What a considerate guy, Stacy thought. He was kind of loud and always joking around other people, but when you got him alone . . . he was so nice.
Then Damone stopped. He had a strange look on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think I came,” said Damone. “Didn’t you feel it?”
He had taken a minute and a half.
They were unusual feelings, these thoughts pooling in Mike Damone’s head as he lay on the red couch with Stacy. He was a little embarrassed, a little guilty . . . mostly he just wanted to be alone. He wanted to get the hell out of there.
“I’ve got to go home,” said Damone. “I’ve really got to go.”
Stacy called Linda as soon as he left.
“Where did it happen?” Linda answered her phone.
“On the couch. In the changing room.”
“Bizarre.”
“I left it up to him, Linda. I could have made the final decision, but I left it up to him. I said, ‘It’s you, you make the final decision.’ And he said, ‘Why not?’ ”
“Did you talk afterwards?”
“A little. He said he was relieved.”
“So are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend now?”
“I don’t know,” said Stacy in a singsong.
“How do you feel?”
“Guilty.” She laughed.
“Did he call you yet?”
“Lin-da. He just left.”
“You know, Stacy, that when someone asks him on his deathbed who he lost his virginity to, he’ll have to say you. He’ll remember you forever!”
A Late-Night Phone Conversation
“Linda,” asked Stacy, “how long does Doug take?”
“Doug takes forever.”
“You told me once it was twenty to thirty minutes.”
“I didn’t say twenty to thirty. I thought I said ten to twenty.”
“You were arguing with me ’cause I told you that The Vet took twelve. You were arguing with me . . .”
“I didn’t say twenty to thirty.”
“You said at least twenty.”
“Maybe I did,” said Linda. “How long did Mike take?”
“A while.”
“How long?”
“A long, long time.”
“Not bad,” said Linda. “Not bad for a high school boy.”
A Surprise in the Shower
The A.S.B. Ball was coming up. Second only to the senior prom in overall stature, the ball was the one dress-up dance that sophomores could also attend.
Stacy had hoped Mike Damone would ask her to the A.S.B. Ball, and, for a few days, he was sure he would.
Then, just one week before the ball, Damone had been taking his regular morning shower. He was singing along to a radio, washing himself, thinking about school, thinking about nothing, when he noticed—jeez—a small red pimple at the base of his penis. At first he thought nothing of it.
Then, slowly washing over him like the soap running down his back, came the memory of a million Health and Safety films. A red pimple. A sore near the genital area. Syphilis. Blindness. Infection. Death.
He had to call a doctor when he got to school. But he knew only one, old Dr. Morehead, the family’s pediatrician. He had to call. And worse yet, Cindy Carr was sick today. Gregg Adams was on the pay phone every two periods. Finally Damone got the jump on the third bell in English II and beat feet down to the phone. Clear. He dialed the medical office.
“Dr. Morehead’s line.”
Well, Damone thought, what if it wasn’t syphilis at all. Where would that put him? Where would he be the next time he came in with his parents for a physical? He could just hear it.
“Yessssss,” old Dr. Morehead would say, “we were all very happy around here when your boy Mikey didn’t have venereal disease.”
Damone slowly replaced the phone on the receiver. Who else? Gregg Adams snapped it up behind him.
Damone decided to go visit Les Sexton, assistant P.E. coach. In the past Damone had made his share of Les Sexton jokes. The Sextons were one of those families who had a name, a great house, and about a million kids. You couldn’t go anywhere in Ridgemont without running into a Sexton. They all had those classic master-race looks. Les was a real jock. He knew he was cool. But how cool was it, Damone always questioned, if you graduated Ridgemont High . . . and then came back. That was the feeling Mike Damone had about Les Sexton. Until now.
Les Sexton’s office was in the boys’ locker room. It was more like a cubicle, separated from the steamy shower area by a glass compartment. The glass was thick, the kind with wire mesh running through it.
Damone always figured it looked like a cage. Sitting inside this bulletproof enclosure, Les Sexton did his paperwork at his desk. To Damone, Sexton in his office was like a human in a zoo for aliens.
“Jock Working at a Desk,” Damone figured the sign should read.
Mike tapped on the glass. Sexton looked up.
“Damone,” he said. Everyone was a last name to Sexton. “Howyoudoin’.” It was less a question than a single-word statement that meant—speak.
“Can I talk to you?”
“What’s up?” Sexton immediately took a few books off the extra chair in his office. Already he sensed it was a Guy Problem.
“Well,” said Damone. Gee, he thought, it wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t like you could just sit down in a guy’s office and say, I think I have V.D.
“I mean, really talk to you, Mr.
Sexton?”
“Sure, guy.”
“Well . . . I was taking a shower the other day, and I noticed that . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Well. I noticed that I was starting to get athlete’s foot. And remember when we used to have those dispensers in here? I just think you could install maybe one of them again.” He looked at Sexton, who was waiting for more. “You know?”
“Well, Damone. You could bring some athlete’s-foot powder from home—like some of the other guys—and keep it in your locker.”
“I could do that,” said Damone. “I could do that.”
“I appreciate your mentioning it to me, though. I’ll bring it up with Coach Ramirez. Okay?”
Damone leaned forward in his chair. “Mr. Sexton, I’m really worried. I think I have venereal disease.”
Sexton snapped to like an anxious firedog. Now this was more like it. He scooted to the edge of his swivel chair and clasped his hands. “What makes you think that?”
“I noticed this sore at the base of my . . . penis.” The word penis came out funny. He didn’t often use the word. Dick, crank, cock, wang, pud, pecker, schlong, weiner, or frank—they all came much more easily.
“Have you had sexual contact?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know the girl?”
“Of course I know the girl.”
“Have you talked to her about the problem.”
“No. I thought I’d check first.”
“You want to show it to me?”
“Not really,” said Damone. But he dropped his pants just the same.
“Is she married?” asked Sexton.
At first Damone thought Sexton meant his dick. Then he realized he meant the girl. It was still a strange question.
“Naw.”
“That lets my wife out,” Sexton said. Then he laughed.
Gee, Damone thought, if I was looking at some guy’s dick I sure wouldn’t be making jokes about my wife. Especially if I thought he had syphilis.
“Hey,” said Sexton, “I’m just trying to make you feel better. Now what this looks like to me is a normal chafing blister. But I wouldn’t leave it at that. You gotta go to your doctor or the free clinic and get a test taken to be sure.”
Fast Times at Ridgemont High Page 16