by David Klass
“Yes. You must make time for the beautiful things in life.” Mrs. Hallelujah closes her eyes, tilts back her head, and for several seconds lets the music wash over her like summer rain. She looks sad, and very beautiful. In a soft voice she tells me, “This is his ‘Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.’ It was inspired by a poem of Mailarmé.”
Mrs. Hallelujah, you are a wonderful woman. I suspect that you know all there is to know about music and about French poets. Furthermore, Mallarmé, whoever he was, may have written about fauns, but you went him one better—you raised a fawn. There is very little that I can say to a woman such as yourself except congratulations, well done, and please don’t hold it against me if I lie to you throughout this entire conversation. You see, if I told you the truth—that I know absolutely nothing about music, or art, or poetry, and that, in fact, the music police have a long-standing warrant out for my arrest—you might not let me take your precious fawn to the basketball game.
We begin walking again. The hallway seems to go on forever. Paintings hang on the walls in wooden frames.
“Gloria tells me you are quite musical yourself,” Mrs. Hallelujah says. “You’re in the band, aren’t you? What do you play?”
I begin to answer, and the two-syllable word catches on my tongue. It is the first time I have ever realized that I play an unglamorous instrument. I wish I could tell her “I strum the harp.” Or “I tinkle the piano keys now and then.” Instead, I hear myself saying, “I play the tuba.”
“The tuba?” she repeats. “How . . . courageous of you. All that brass and piping. I’ll never know how people get a sound out of it.” Somehow she makes me feel like I am the plumber of the music world. Then she smiles at me. “Gloria should be down in a moment. Why don’t you go into the study and say hello to Gloria’s father.”
She ushers me toward a doorway and calls out, “Fredrick, come meet John. He’s here to take Gloria to the basketball game.” She gives me a little push through the doorway, and whispers, “I’m making some ginger snaps and they should be just about ready. I’ll bring them in a minute.”
I am propelled into the study by the gentle push from Mrs. Hallelujah. The study has bookshelves filled with books. Some of the books have leather bindings, and the room has a smell of old wood and leather. A wood fire burns cheerfully in the fireplace.
A solidly built man with broad shoulders and strong, handsome features stands up from a desk as I enter the room. He has a great chin and a most impressive forehead. They look to me like they belong on Mount Rushmore, carved between the faces of Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. “Well,” he says, moving around the desk toward me with surprising speed, “so you’re the young man I’ve been hearing so much about.”
My hand is seized in a strong, warm vise of a grip. My fingers are pressed together as if the intent is to wring orange juice out of them. My right arm is pumped so hard I believe it actually rips free from my body, but it manages to cling to its socket by two or three tenacious tendons. “How are you doing? It’s John, right? How are you doing, John?”
“Fine, sir.” I believe you have just rearranged my skeletal system, but it’s still a pleasure to meet you.
“You don’t have to call me sir. Mr. Porter will do. Or heck, even Fred. Why don’t you come have a seat by the fire here, and we’ll get a good look at each other. My little ducky—I mean, my Gloria—tells me you’re a math whiz.”
Sir. Mr. Porter. Fred—I will follow you over to the fireplace and I will sit down across from you on this oxblood leather armchair, and I will attempt to avoid catching on fire myself, but let me assure you right now, I am not a math whiz. I am not even a Cheez Whiz. I am no kind of whiz. “No, sir. Math is real hard for me.”
“Modest, eh? I like that. But my Gloria tells me you correct the teacher. She also tells me you’re an athlete. Soccer, right?”
I am not nodding, Mr. Porter. That would be confirming a lie. I am merely moving my head front to back because it feels like I am starting to singe my hair.
“I don’t know much about soccer, to tell you the truth. My game was football. I was a running back. You know what my nickname was, John?”
“No, sir.”
“Bulldozer. You know why they gave me that nickname?”
“No, sir.”
“I used to run people over. Squash them. Obliterate them, really. Well, it was just part of the game.”
You do not have to defend yourself to me, sir. I am not blaming you. No doubt you had every right in the world to pave football fields with the flattened corpses of your opponents.
“John, enough about football. Let’s talk about something more serious for a moment. Do you run track?”
“No, sir.”
“Neither did I, John. But here’s my point.” Why are you suddenly leaning forward, sir? I can hear you just fine. Why are you now putting your rather large hand on my rather small shoulder? “It’s not a race, John. Get me?”
I am trying to follow you, Mr. Bulldozer, sir, with every gray brain cell at my feeble command, but you have lost me. “Uh . . . not quite. What’s not a race?”
Why are you lowering your voice almost to a whisper? Is your chin quivering—is it preparing to bludgeon me, or could that just be my imagination?
“I’m a straight shooter, John. I know you and Gloria are young and full of beans. Heck, I’m not that old myself. I remember how it is. The old Bulldozer had a pretty hot engine in his day. But, you know, it’s not a race, John.”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, it’s not, sir.” I still have no idea on earth what you are talking about, but I am positive that you are one hundred percent correct.
“There’s plenty of time, John. Plenty of turns in the track.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because I’ll be honest with you, if I thought somebody tried to take advantage of my little ducky . . . well, I’d . . . I’d . . .” Mr. Porter, your face no longer looks like it belongs on Mount Rushmore—it now looks like it belongs in the FBI’s file bank on men most likely to commit crimes against humanity. And the grip of your hand on my shoulder has become so tight that I believe your fingerprints will remain on my skin for the rest of my life.
“Dad?” Glory Hallelujah has materialized in the doorway. She is wearing very tight black pants and a silky blue top that accentuate the curves of her young and highly nubile body. If I were not in the presence of her father, the human bulldozer, and if he did not have me in his Vulcan death grip, I would describe it as an extremely sexy outfit. As it is, let me just say that my date for the evening looks quite lovely.
“Ah . . . my little ducky.” The smile snaps back to Mr. Hallelujah’s face and he releases me from his grip of death.
“I told you not to call me that,” Gloria says.
“She’s so cute, isn’t she?” Mr. Hallelujah says to me, with a wink. “John and I were just getting acquainted.”
I step a bit away from Mr. Hallelujah, and glance at my watch. “Maybe we should be going. We don’t want to miss the tip-off.”
Glory Hallelujah walks over to me, slips her fingers into my own, throws a look at her father that I can’t even begin to interpret—and then she surprises me by stepping even closer and kissing me on the cheek. “John,” she says, “you look nice. Umm, you smell nice.”
Mr. Hallelujah’s face begins to turn an unusual shade of red. It is the color a volcano turns when it is trying to not erupt by swallowing down large quantities of molten lava. “John,” he rumbles, “remember what we talked about . . .”
I would like to talk to you further, Mr. Hallelujah, but as you can see, I am being pulled toward the door by your little ducky of a daughter, whose feather-soft fingers are far more pleasant than your death grip, so hasta la vista . . .
But Mr. Hallelujah does not give up. He is following after us, muttering phrases. ‘About track . . . about things that are not a race . . . You don’t want to make a mistake early on that could cripple you . . .”
; Mrs. Hallelujah has materialized on the other side of us. “Ginger snaps, hot and crusty!” she sings out, and pops some small and delicious tidbit in my mouth.
With the sugary dainty melting on my tongue and Mr. Hallelujah’s veiled warnings ringing in my ears, Gloria and I leave the Great Bonanza Ranch House and set off toward our antischool through the autumn darkness.
13
My Dig Date
“Thanks for putting up with my parents,” Gloria says as we walk down Elm Street hand in hand.
“They’re really nice,” I say.
“Be glad you don’t have to live with them,” she responds. “They’re completely nutso.”
Gloria, I fear you lack knowledge about the true range of the parental nutso scale. If you would like to come over to my house that is not a house and spend a few hours with the man who is not my father, you might reappraise, whatever that means, your opinions about your mom and dad. “Your house is also real nice,” I tell her.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Mindy Fairchild’s house is much bigger.”
Just then, a ferocious growl explodes near us like a howitzer blast and reverberates down the block. Glory Hallelujah ducks her head instinctively, and grabs my hand tighter. “Good lord, what was that?”
I hesitate to tell her that, to me, it sounded very much like the frustrated roar of a Siberian bull walrus who has been scorned during mating season by all the cows and has spent the last several days grinding his tusks against the ice in solitary fury. I do not offer this opinion to Gloria. I also decide not to tell her that it may be Billy Beezer, my friend who is not a friend, tracking us through the darkness. I do not want to alarm her with the thought that we are being stalked by a convicted egg roll felon. “Maybe it was a hungry squirrel,” I suggest.
“Squirrels don’t roar,” she says, and as an amateur naturalist myself, I find it hard to argue with this observation. She peers nervously into the darkness. “C’mon, what do you think it was, really?”
Among the Lashasa Palulu, when it becomes necessary to inform the female members of the tribe of an unpleasant situation—such as, for example, an impending attack by giant and invincible cannibal warriors—it is their practice to break the bad news in small and non-threatening installments. “We’re going to have some company soon, dear,” a Lashasa warrior might say to his wife. “Some very hungry company. In fact, there may soon be a feast the likes of which neither of us will probably ever see again.”
I decide to adopt this line of response with Gloria. “You know, one of the great things about having friends is that you’re never quite sure when or where they’re going to pop up,” I say.
“Like that has something to do with anything?” she mutters, scanning the darkness for signs of large predators.
“Just that we’ll probably end up meeting some of my friends at the game tonight,” I continue. “As I’m sure we will meet some friends of yours.”
“Mindy Fairchild may be there,” Gloria says, “but if she expects us to sit with her, she can just forget it.”
“It is even possible that we may meet some friends on the way to the game,” I say gently, giving her hand a comforting squeeze. “Friends who are having problems that might make them act a little weird.” Gloria stares at me—she may be deciding that I am as nutso as her parents. “Gloria, have you ever been in a situation where one of your friends from school—or even somebody who’s not a real close friend—is a little jealous of you?” I ask.
She relaxes—I have apparently hit a topic she likes to talk about. “Oh, sure, isn’t that just the worst,” she says as if it happens to her every hour of every day. “Kim Smallwood is so jealous of my hair that she tries to copy it right down to the highlights and the bounce. But I can’t help it if my hair is naturally blond and full-bodied and hers is like fishing line. And Julie Moskowitz saw my Anna Sui mini and bought one just like it for herself, but with her knees she should concentrate on covering up rather than showing off. And Yuki Kaguchi stole my shade of lipstick, and said that she was wearing it first, but everyone knows she’s a little liar.”
I am trying to follow this list of small crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated against my beloved by her jealous friends, but I admit my head is reeling.
“But the worst of all,” Gloria continues, now rolling with a full head of steam, “is when Mindy Fairchild goes around saying that I’m jealous just because her father earns more than my dad and they live in a bigger house on more land and Mr. Fairchild drives a new Lexus Coupe with calfskin seats and a Steadson-Olson speaker system. Can you imagine her saying that? As if I would care?”
“Why should you?” I agree. “Money isn’t really that important.”
“Absolutely. Her father doesn’t earn that much more than mine,” Gloria says. “She’s just jealous of me because Luke loves me more than he does her, and when we both walk into the stable he comes to me first and nuzzles me, even if she puts an apple in her pocket to cheat, which she always does, but it doesn’t help, because animals know what people are really like.”
Glory Hallelujah is in a righteous rage. I keep silent and feel her soft hand in mine and think how lucky I am to be walking with her. ‘And the truth is,” she tells me, “I don’t think her house is really that special—it may be big and expensive but it’s such an ugly puke color and there are rats in the cellar—real rats, the size of little dogs! I swear, I’m glad I don’t live there. And I don’t care at all for her family’s new Lexus, although she could offer me some more rides in it if she wasn’t such a sulky sourpuss, always upset ‘cause Luke won’t even wiggle his ears for her. And I think she has bad breath, too, only don’t you dare tell her I said so.”
We are now very close to our school that is not a school. There are cars pulling into the two parking lots and dozens of students streaming toward the main doorway. I am prepared to make my grand entrance with my big date. This is an important moment in my up-till-now-miserable life that is not a life. Glory Hallelujah will be, of course, the belle of the ball—or rather ball game—in her tight black jeans and silken blue top. I do not mean to be critical of my other charming female school mates who have no doubt labored hard to make themselves appear attractive on this autumn night, but they all look like a herd of yaks compared to the fawn I am escorting.
The foolish and highly judgmental taste arbiters of my antischool are about to realize that they have been ignoring a very special person. No doubt they will all line up during halftime and apologize to me for their past rudeness and shortsightedness. As we approach the main entrance I am trying to decide if I will forgive them.
Glory Hallelujah lets go of my hand. “I guess we don’t need the PDA stuff,” she says.
“PDA?” I repeat, my hand now grasping only empty air.
“Public display of affection. I mean, we don’t want people to think we’re—you know, going out, and, you know, a couple, just ‘cause we’re going to a stupid basketball game together. Right?”
“Right,” I say.
“People are so stupid. They think things that are not real are real, but they gossip about them as if they are real, and in a weird way they can kind of make them real, even though they’re not real. Do you know what I mean?”
I look at my date who is apparently not a date and nod, even though I do not comprehend so much as a word of the complete drivel she is spouting, beyond the fact that she has constructed some type of elegant intellectual rationale, whatever that means, for ruining my grand entrance. “Absolutely,” I say. “I’ve often thought the same thing, but I’ve never put it into words.”
And then we are swept up in the human tide of students and families and carried along through hallways and down stairways toward our old anti-school gymnasium. Several times during this procession I am poked from behind with enough force to make me stumble. Each time this happens I believe I hear faint, mocking laughter—the exact type of laughter, in fact, that one might expect from a jealous lunatic.
But
when I whirl around expecting to confront a familiar face with a prominent beezer, I spot no one I can single out and blame for shoving me. Either Billy Beezer has gotten much better at quick getaways since his apprehension by the Wong Chong chef, or I am suffering from the paranoid delusions that quite understandably may accompany going on a date that is not a date to a school that is not a school to watch a basketball game that will not be a basketball game.
It will not be a basketball game because on this night our team, the Friendly Beavers, are matched up against the best team in the county, the Saber-Toothed Tigers of Fremont Valley.
We reach our old anti-school gymnasium. A big American flag hangs down from the high steel girders at half-court. The wooden bleachers are already filling up with Beaver hopefuls and Saber-Toothed Tiger loyalists. “Remember, we are not under any circumstances going to sit with Mindy Fairchild,” Gloria says, scanning the crowd.
We pass several people I know. Violent Hayes walks by us, heading in the other direction. Her gaze flicks from me to Gloria to me again. For a moment, our eyes meet. Why are you looking at me that way, Violent Hayes? She does not answer, but she must be distracted by something, because she swerves suddenly and bangs into Gloria, nearly knocking my lovely date off her feet in a maneuver very similar to a hockey check. “Excuse me,” Violent Hayes says.
“Clod,” Gloria mutters as we walk on.
We pass Mrs. Moonface, who is wearing an old high school jacket that I believe dates back to her days as a student in our anti-school. She is sitting by herself. In the algebra room Mrs. Moonface inspires terror, but sitting all alone on a bleacher she appears rather pitiful. As we pass her, I send her a telepathic poem that I make up on the spot:
Mrs. Moonface, as you can see,
I, who know nothing of geometry,
And less of algebra, am here with my cute date,
While you, Mrs. Moonface, who can equate,
And divide and factor like a computer,
Are all alone, the loneliest Beaver rooter.