“Brad, listen, I’m going district here in a couple weeks, and I was wondering if you wanted to come back down here and work with us again. You can have your old fryer back. We’d love to have you here. Everyone wants you back, buddy!”
The nerve. The ultimate nerve of the guy.
“Last time I talked to you,” said Brad, “you wanted me to take a lie-detector test. Now it’s ‘Am I disturbing you?’ ”
“I know what’s eating you, Brad. That incident with the money. Well, that money turned up in the dumpster after you left. I am sorry. I should have called.”
“Yeah, you should have.” Brad paused. “And I probably would have taken your lousy job back if I hadn’t taken a district supervisor job myself—with 7-Eleven.”
The Last Bell
On the last day of school, Mike Damone stood at his locker and cleaned out the last mimeographed sheet crammed into the back corner.
“If this paper could talk,” he said.
Standing next to him was The Rat. “Well, Damone. In the end, it looks like it comes down to just you and me.”
“Looks like it.”
Damone clanged the locker door shut. “A very touching moment,” he said, “I feel like I just ripped my heart out. A whole year I spent in that little box. It’s like a brother to me.”
“You could get the same locker next year.”
“I considered it. It’s a pretty good location. I’ll have to see where my classes are. This is a good sosh area, though. You get a good crowd that comes by.”
The school was all tank tops and t-shirts, red faces and Frisbee discs. You knew it was almost over when people actually saved the last issue of the Reader. For once it wasn’t blowing all over campus.
“Stacy wants you, you know,” said Damone. “You should go for it.”
“No way, man,” said The Rat. “I can’t wait to get my car and head for Flagstaff.”
“She should come to you,” said Damone.
“Says who?”
“Says The Attitude.”
“The Attitude,” said The Rat, “is only good until you meet the right girl.”
“Whatever you say, Rat.”
Students were still signing their annuals, hanging lazily out the windows, and talking with friends. Mr. Bates was playing his ukulele in social studies class. On this day, school was a countdown.
There were many rumors of an elaborate end-of-the-year stunt for the last day. But the fact was, given the chance of staying and pranking or getting out . . . Ridgemont students went.
Across the commons, Damone saw Steve Shasta striding down the hallway in all his glory. Shasta had been selected for a Yale scholarship, their first for soccer. They had pulled him out of class to tell him, and his mom was sitting there in the office and everything. Teachers were giving him investment advice. They had given him the treatment in the local press, too.
Now, Damone wasn’t in the habit of asking a lot of people to sign his annual, but it was Shasta. You couldn’t help but yell something at the guy.
“Hey, Shasta! You hear about the big party on Marine Street?”
Shasta caught a look at who was calling his name. “Yep,” he said.
Mike Damone trotted up with The Rat following behind. “Sign my annual, Shasta.”
“Yeah,” said Shasta, bored.
“Bet you’re happy.”
“Yep.”
Shasta opened Damone’s annual to a soccer shot and signed, right under his picture: “Best wishes, Steve Shasta.”
Damone laughed as if it were a joke. Okay, he felt like saying, now sign it for real. But that was it. Shasta was already a big soccer star. No time for personal messages that might be worth something someday.
“Thanks,” said Damone.
The Rat had to go to class, so Damone sat out on lunch court for a time. Brad Hamilton was sitting out there too, finishing an assignment for Mrs. George’s Project English class. It was the ten-year letter she asked all her seniors to write. The letter was meant for yourself, and Mrs. George was going to mail it back to you (at your parents’ address) in ten years. “Be relaxed,” she’d said. “Be natural. Say exactly what’s on your mind today. This is one paper that will not be corrected for grammar.”
Damone decided to take a walk by the 200 Building, where Mrs. G. taught class. What he found was no real surprise at the end of any semester. It was a full speech class. They were all there on the last day, the last-chance students appearing to get their grades. Damone took a seat by the open door.
The final on this last day was a five-minute career speech, to have been prepared on 3x5 cards. The speech was meant to hit on all the points listed on the board in Mrs. George’s neat script.
1. What is my career?
2. Do I like my career?
3. What are its financial rewards?
4. What kind of schooling does it require?
5. Did I enjoy this class?
Damone watched as Jeff Spicoli, the last of the Ridgemont surfers, stood at the front of the class reading from a three-page manuscript. It was a speech about the sixties, which was the wrong topic, and it had probably seen more than one teacher this year, but Spicoli read it with passion. He read it, in fact, like it was the first time he’d had a chance to look at it.
“Everything was going great in the sixties,” Spicoli said. “Diseases were being cured. We were winning the space program.” He looked up, for eye contact. “Then everything went off balance. A president was assassinated. The divorce rate approached one marriage in two. A president was caught in an attempt to lie and cover up with more lies. A nation was shocked and dismayed.” He looked up again and appeared to ad-lib. “It was awesome.
“What has happened to the generation or two earlier that was dedicated to answering all the unanswered questions? For the latter part of the seventies it appeared America gave up asking.”
Some clapped, but the speech was not over. Spicoli had just lost his place in the manuscript.
“With the care-free life of the fifties and the problems of the sixties and all the even larger problems of the seventies and eighties, who knows what will happen in the future? With nuclear power and gas shortages and many other problems, I doubt that it can get much worse. Hopefully the past has taught us we should not give up before finding the solutions.”
Spicoli mumbled a last line, but it was drowned in applause. The clock was inching closer to the 2.00 mark that meant The End of School.
“And I really like this class, Mrs. George.”
“Thank you, Jeff,” said Mrs. George. “But you didn’t say anything about your career.”
“Well, I’m glad you asked me about that,” said Spicoli. “It just so happens that I was going to go to Mexico this summer. I had it all planned and everything. But the time came around, and I looked at the bottom line, and you know what? I just didn’t have the bucks. It was a total drag. So I had to go find a place to work. And I just want to warn you that you may see me this summer . . .” He gulped, threw his hair out of his eyes. “Working at Alpha Beta.” He paused. “And it’s only for six weeks, so don’t hassle me.”
Mrs. George smiled. “Is that the truth, Jeff?”
“Any amount of money,” said Spicoli, holding out his hand.
“Okay, well thank you for your speech. Have a nice summer, Jeff.” Spicoli took his seat, bowing to applause. “Now where’s Valerie?”
“Oh,” said a girlfriend of Valerie’s. “She went to Mission Viejo’s prom last night. She knew she wouldn’t be here today.”
“Well. Her grade goes down from an A- to a B+.”
“I don’t think she cares,” said her girlfriend.
It was at that moment that Brad Hamilton walked into the classroom to deliver to Mrs. G. his ten-year letter. The speech class stopped in silent respect. A buzz passed through the class. That’s the guy! That’s the guy who poured coffee on the armed robber!!
“Sorry I’m late with this, Mrs. G.,” said Brad. “I wa
nted to do some extra thinking about this letter.”
Brad Hamilton placed his letter on Mrs. G.’s desk. Here was the lunch-court king of last September, toppled from grace in October, back on top in June. He made it look easy. Looking back, he had been struggling all year long just to make his car payments, cover his schoolwork, and just stay even. He had been busting his ass, he figured, when his parents, at the same age, were probably busy just being seventeen.
College could wait another year, Brad had decided. He was going to put in a full summer at the 7-Eleven, keeping those little guys out of the store and pulling in the coin. Who knew where it would take him, but he was ready for the ride.
All Brad knew right now was that sometime ten years from now he would be visiting his parents, and they would say, “Oh Brad, something came for you in the mail.” And Brad would open a decade-old letter, this record of his tumultuous senior year:
Dear Brad:
This graduation business sure sneaks up on you. Every year I get my annual back, and it’s filled with “Have a nice summer.” Now it’s “Have a nice life.” That’s going to take some getting used to. If I could go back and do this year over, there are a few things I wouldn’t have done. I wouldn’t have bought a gas guzzler, and I wouldn’t have worked at Carl’s. I would have taken another class with Mr. Hand. I would have taken Dina Phillips to Hawaii for three weeks, and I then would have married Linda Barrett. As for my friends, I wouldn’t change one of them, for they are the best group of friends a guy could have.
Sincerely,
Brad Hamilton
He walked out of speech class and over to the parking lot, to The Cruising Vessel. Stacy was waiting for him by the car.
“Let me guess,” said Brad. “You want a ride home.”
“Mind reader,” said Stacy.
Brad opened her car door first, a grand gesture for him, and then walked around to his side. He got inside The Vessel and gunned the engine.
“All in all,” he said, “an excellent year.”
“I know it was,” said Stacy. “Just wish me luck. I have two more years here.”
They headed down Ridgemont Drive, past fast-food row. As he drove, Brad spotted a couple of unkempt underclassmen loitering on the street corner. He stuck his head completely out of the window to shout at them.
“HEY,” he yelled, “WHY DON’T YOU GET A JOB!!!”
Back at Ridgemont High, a motorcycle ripped along Luna Street. There were war cries coming from the parking lot.
The third bell had rung.
Grateful Acknowledgments
David Obst, Irving Azoff, Art Linson, Neal Preston, Bob Bookman, Joel Bernstein, Fred Hills, Danny Bramson, Ron Bernstein, Kathy DeRouville, Erica Spellman, Jackie Snyder, Cindy Crowe, Alan Hergott, David Rensin, Virginia Johnstone, Tom Pollock, Bill Maguire, Leslie Ellen, Louise Goffin, Judy Boasberg, George Cossolias, Judd Klinger, Susan Blond, The Thugs, Debbie Gold, Richard C. Woods, Karla Bonoff, Harold Schmidt, Daniel Kortchmar, Shaun Daniel, Thom Mount, Susan Bolotin, Abigale Haness, John Dodds, Kevin McCormick, Lori Zech, David Bernstein, Barry Steinman, Jann S. Wenner, Riley Kathryn Ellis, Martha Cochrane, and Wendy Sherman.
CAMERON CROWE lives in Los Angeles and is a free-lance writer, contributing to Rolling Stone, Playboy, and The Los Angeles Times.
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