Or Not

by Brian Mandabach

  Man, oh man, oh man, that better not come back and bite me in the butt! I’ve got to move on this now, before the scores come in, or I’m sunk. Vanquished. Worsted.

  I can’t think about that. I still have time, not much, but enough. I hope. Once I’m gone, they can’t send me back, can they?

  Okay, what’s the plan? I don’t have a clue. I’ll tell Mom and Dad that I can talk to the administrators myself, and that my reason for advancing is just to get back on track with my age group. But I need their support. That sounds mature, doesn’t it?

  21 September

  They said yes!

  We had breakfast out back, as nice an autumn Saturday as you could wish for. I think they had already decided because, after I summarized my pros and cons, and we discussed a couple of flaws in my arguments, like the notion that avoiding small challenges prepares you for big ones, they agreed to help me try it. They liked how I admitted that it might not be any better in high school and could even end up worse.

  “You realize,” Mom said, “that if we are able to convince them, if they agree, and you go up to Parker—that’s that. You can’t go back. You’ll have to deal with that decision.”

  “You have to be committed to it,” said Dad. “For better or for worse.”

  “It’s just a school, Dad. I’m not marrying it.”

  “But you’re committing.”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “And don’t get your hopes up too high yet,” said Mom. “We still have to get this past the powers that be.”

  “What’s your plan for that?” asked Dad.

  I told them my vague ideas and gave them my bit about not really knowing exactly what to do and needing their help.

  They thought I was right, the first step would be for me to discuss it with the principal. They wanted me to see her on my own first. I should let her know that I had their support, and they would talk to her later.

  Now I’ve got to chill this weekend and be ready for Monday. I hope we can get a decision before I go to Oregon. (One week from today!) Maybe I can even get registered, meet my new teachers, and get my makeup work before I go.

  Chill? Just using the word tells me that my brain is anything but.

  At the end of the summer, Sean finished his season with a three-day guiding trip. Since he wouldn’t be around, Ally and I decided to go off on our own trip to some hot springs in New Mexico.

  We stopped the first night at The Valley, a hippie-ish sort of hot springs club on the way south. Ally said that it was “against her religion” to pay for hot springs, but she was willing to make an exception since we also got a little cabin to stay in. It’s a beautiful spot. The network of warm pools on a mountainside of the Sangre De Cristos overlooks a flat valley, blue-gray in the distance, with the San Juans to the west and New Mexico to the south. The pools aren’t that hot, but the bubbly spring water is heavenly.

  Ally had gone “almost totally” vegetarian since the beginning of summer, and we had some awesome tofu and watercress sandwiches for dinner. The joke was on me because I’d insisted on buying watercress as part of our grubstake, and then we found it growing wild in the stream by our cabin. We also had a twelve-pack of beer, of which I was only allowed one per night. I forgot to mention that I had been developing a taste for the stuff that summer because Sean occasionally let me have one when Mom and Dad weren’t around. One beer was enough to get a little bit of a buzz though, just enough to make me sort of mellow and giggly, and that was how I felt after we took a last sunset dip in the springs and then went back to our cabin.

  It had been a long time since I had done anything resembling a sleepover, and it was fun to lie in opposite bunks, talking and laughing until Ally fell asleep.

  I could hear people outside the cabin, partying around the big pool, and I imagined the night accepting the noise as it drifted across the valley under the stars. It’s a lyrical image, or so I thought, and I played with it for a while: the still air of the night carrying the voices as it carried dust, insects, and echolocating bats. The silly laughter spilled out around the pool, and the drunken shouts were taken by the night air just as our “environment” takes everything we give it, as our bodies take what we feed them, and our minds what we read, what we view, what we hear …

  And I lay there a while thinking until, in much the same way, sleep took me.

  The next day we headed down to the springs in New Mexico. Straight roads took us across the valley to the border, then we followed creeks and rivers through the mountains until we came to the pullout where there was a trail supposed to lead to the springs. The word was that they were “technically” closed to the public, but you could go in this side route and “nobody hassled you.” Wrong.

  We climbed up over a ridge, losing the trail a few times among pale, sun-reflecting rocks, and I began to wonder why we were sweating and toiling in the heat of mid-day only to arrive at a pool of boiling hot water. It was a scene right out of a mythical place where, I would soon be told by Matthew, I would spend eternity.

  But when we got there, it was heaven! Massive cottonwood trees ringed the pool and rustled in a breeze that hadn’t existed a moment before. Just a few yards from the hot spring, a stream of cool water flowed, and it had several promising holes for dipping. There was, of course, the fence—easily climbed—and the road downstream. But we were all alone.

  First we took off our boots and waded in the cool creek, then we sat in the shade and had some lunch. The cottonwoods were full of birds, and with our sweat drying in the breeze, the hot pool began to beckon.

  Because a kind of berm rose up around the spring, we couldn’t see down to the creek and the road, and this increased our impression that we were in a special, magical, private place. All the more cruel, then, after stripping off shorts, T-shirts, skirt, etc. and slowly settling into clear, effervescent, almost-too-hot waters, lying back wearing only sunglasses, closing our eyes in utter relaxation—all the more cruel, then, to hear a voice and see three government employees peering at us from under baseball caps.

  “This area is closed to the public—you girls are going to have to get going.”

  I sank myself beneath the water, but looking over at Ally, I could tell it wasn’t exactly concealing me. I tried to hide behind my knees and arms, aware that our clothes were across the pool and behind our audience. The one guy talked in a sort of mumble about this area being closed to public bathing, and we were going to have to go, and he should really write us up, but he didn’t want to go and do that. Under their caps, the guys were enjoying our discomfort as well as getting an eyeful, and the leader didn’t seem to be in any hurry to finish his piece about us getting lost.

  “Okay,” Ally said. “We’ll get going right away now. Would you mind?”

  “Would I mind? I’m not sure I care for that, miss. Would you mind might be a better question since you’re the ones climbed in here over the fence onto closed U.S. Government property. Adjacent to the atomic nu-kyuh-lur research facility, I might add, and as such under heightened security regulations due to homeland security considerations of the highest degree. So maybe I’d better write you up after all, though I really—”

  Ally must have been getting the same impression I was—that he was just talking as a way of keeping us there. My response was to cower, but hers was the opposite. In the middle of his rambling she stood and strode through the water without any attempt to cover herself. “Pardon me,” she said, as she stepped dripping between them and grabbed our towels from where they lay across some willows.

  The guys stood stunned as she turned, her own towel over her shoulder—again no attempt to cover up—and waded back in to bring me mine.

  “Okay, then, if you’re clearing out then, I guess, okay,” said Uniform as they turned back down the hill.

  Ally held my towel out for me like a curtain as I stood
up, and she hugged it around me.

  “Did you see their faces?” she asked.

  I certainly did, and mine must have been the same when she rose all bare and streaming water like Aphrodite from her shell in the sea foam. She was a sight to see, and no mistake. She sent those guys humiliated down the hill by giving them a straight-up shot of what they were angling to see. They were probably telling stories about it now, in which, no doubt, they didn’t turn tail and run, scared of a real, live naked woman.

  After that we headed back to Colorado. Ally had her heart set on hot springs, so I suggested Ponderosa Pass. It’s a favorite family destination for us because Dad and Sean can fish the nearby beaver ponds while Mom and I soak in the pools. Ally and I made it there an hour before sunset. We checked in for the night and sampled the springs until it got dark, at which time the pool area becomes “clothing optional,” and kids are banned. I assured her that I didn’t mind if she stayed out at the pool, but I was feeling sort of ditched and depressed, all alone in the room.

  After a while, I thought about sneaking out to the dimly lit pools, but there were a bunch of naked naturists out there that I really didn’t want to see—even if I was wearing a swimsuit myself. Summer was practically over, and I brooded over my book, not really reading but just dreading the coming school year and Ally leaving and everything. Maybe a taste of too much freedom wasn’t so good for me. I felt it all closing in on me like Huck Finn being taken in and “civilized” by Aunt Sally and wanting to light out for the territory, but there wasn’t any last good country left anymore for Cassie to light out to.

  Ally came in around one, and I pretended to sleep while she got into bed and passed out.

  We spent the next morning in the water, but Ally had a hangover from too much beer and hot spring-dehydration, and I couldn’t shake my bummer mood. In addition to school coming up, Ally was leaving. I knew it wasn’t her fault that she and Sean were taking off for a leisurely trip back to Oregon, but I couldn’t help it. I was going to miss her.

  So I was pissy, and Ally was hung over, and it was the end of the summer and all, but it had been a fun trip. I just had the blues, right? Running through my head, I had “Summer’s Almost Gone,” by The Doors, so my mood even had a soundtrack:

  Morning found us calmly unaware—

  Noon burn gold into our hair.

  At night, we swim the laughin’ sea—

  When the summer’s gone,

  Where will we be?

  We drove back that afternoon, cruising across the wide fields of South Park. Pronghorn floated ghostly on the high plains, and bison stood dark and dumb behind their heavy fences. Home on the range, twenty-first-century style.

  Back at the cabin, Ally and Sean started getting ready for their trip. Mom and Dad came up, and the day after that we all left.

  We had some good times,

  But they’re gone

  The winter’s comin’ on—

  Summer’s almost gone.

  Journal Six

  22 September

  Heavy and dead today. Worried that my grand plan will come to nothing. I’ve got to get this thing pushed through before my CSAP scores come in.

  But what if I get kicked out when they do come in? Should I come clean?

  No way. I’ve got to Stay Cool, out of trouble, and hope for the best.

  And what am I going to do with myself today? I wish we were in the mountains. But maybe a long walk in the park—that might help.

  Or not. I walked all the way down the creek to the Spring Street marsh and the beaver ponds. The parents probably wouldn’t approve if they knew I had gone so far because it’s not the best neighborhood. After a couple of miles you don’t see any joggers or families with strollers. Just a few hardcore runners and bikers go past the pool, playgrounds, and ball fields. Farther down from there, the creek goes between the power plant and the railroad tracks and the beat old section of town where the homeless people set up camp under bridges and in the groves of cottonwoods that beavers are trying to take down. That’s where the springs and the wetlands are, a little oasis for birds and bums. I sat for a while on a bench beside the trail, watching a few mallards and a single Canada goose. Across the water, Sunday traffic raced up and down the interstate and across from that, red, white, and blue balloons sailed above the car dealerships of Motor City. “WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!!” (Because it’s good for business!)

  A homeless guy with two dogs came out of the woods as I was sitting there. I got scared, but he was all right, didn’t even spare change me, although I wished I had something for his dogs. Those poor homeless dogs always bum me out. It’s not their fault that their humans don’t have a place to live or enough food for them.

  I picked up a couple of malt liquor and vodka bottles and dumped them in the next trash can as I hiked home. And now, here I am. Hope followed by dread.

  Dinner was hard. I’m feeling so stupid and low. They noticed, of course, and Mom wondered if I was having second thoughts. Just a little nervous, I said. They assured me that I had their support now, and one way or the other, everything will work out for the best. I thought of the homeless guy and his dogs.

  I tried to act optimistic, but I escaped up to my room as soon as I could. I don’t feel like being around the parents, but up here alone, I realize I don’t feel like being alone either. I called Ally and Sean—nobody home and I didn’t leave a message.

  There is a bit more about the summer I wanted to describe: music and all the CDs that Ally played for me on the trip, and this journal, though I’m on what, notebook number six?

  Music-wise, maybe there’s not much to say. We listened to a bunch of old Nirvana and Pavement and some new Radiohead and a bunch of other stuff. I guess I’m willing to give CDs their due. They’re okay for the car, and the sound is clean with a band like Radiohead that gets a smooth, atmospheric sound laid down—or downloaded or uploaded or sampled.

  Even better is the way Nirvana plays so huge and dirty that there’s no place for the machinery to hide. I guess it doesn’t matter. Ally says that I’m just putting up structures to hide behind, and that’s my machinery.

  But don’t we all hide somehow? Everybody wants an artificial environment, everybody needs an SUV like a tank.

  And maybe I am doing the same thing with my great, big, vegan cocoon, but I’m just trying not to be a machine. I’m trying to be alive, but I still have to die, right? And I’d rather die than become a robot, so I’ll just say “no” to robot music.

  Everything is easy and clean in the digital world, in the clean-room where computers are born. So you take someone like Kurdt Cobain, and you listen to him in your clean-room, but he’s dead then anyway, and aren’t you too? And maybe that’s what killed him. Maybe he couldn’t live in the clean-room. Maybe he was filthy bio-mass that had to be removed to preserve the sterile environment of the giant digital music machine.

  23 September

  I was awake off and on all night, obsessing, telling myself to mellow out and hope for the best, but it didn’t help. Finally, I realized that if I am resolved on my grand plan, I need to gear up for the fight instead of mellowing out. That helped a little. I thought of Frodo and Sam, trudging on toward Mt. Doom, hopeless but still not in despair. Not that this is a great chapter in the battle between Good and Evil—it’s just my own little life. But if I can’t handle this, what good am I? One way or the other, I’m going to fight the machine and never give up.

  I got to school early and went to see the GT lady. As hard as it was to ask her for help, at least I knew her. And as I’d hoped, she seemed pleased to see me.

  “What can I do for you, Cassie?”

  “Well, I remember you telling me your door was ‘always open’ … ”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I guess I should say that you’re right.” I ga
ve a stupid sort of laugh.

  “I’m gifted that way.”

  “And, like you said, middle school is not a great challenge to me, so I—my parents and I—have come up with an idea.”

  “Fabulous! How can I help?”

  “You see—” I fumbled with how to put it. “I turned fourteen before the official cut-off. I really should be up a grade, in high school already.”

  “I should have guessed.”

  “Yeah, well, I was wondering if they ever move people up a grade.”

  “You do think outside the box.” She had some little toys on her desk—puzzles and clear plastic containers of colored oils and water that you flip over so that they swirl around. She picked up a magnetic base covered with metal chips and played with it, forming the metal into a tower.

  “Is this an academic thing, or do you want to get out of here to avoid certain … social problems that might be troubling you?”

  “I can handle those,” I said. “It’s academic. I, we—my parents and I—believe that high school would be more appropriate.”

  “I see. Why now?”

  I explained that we should have thought of it sooner, last year, this summer at the latest, but that it just occurred to us, probably since my birthday had just passed. I had heard of people moving up and didn’t see why we couldn’t do it now, the sooner the better, to get me up where I belonged. She said she’d heard of it too, and that it was the right thing for some people, but it was complicated. And, now, since we were more than halfway through the first quarter, the complication increased because in high school you had to earn credits, and middle level work didn’t transfer.

  “I never came to you before,” I said, “because I didn’t think you could really do anything more than the contests and stuff, and no offense, but that stuff didn’t appeal to me.” I had to lay it down hard now. “You were right. Middle school is killing me. I am bored out of my skull, and I need your help. If I have to sit through another lesson on topic sentences or the stop, yield, go, red, yellow, green ‘steps up to writing’—if I have to do another CSAP practice test, then—” I had her attention, and she waited for me to finish.