It’s hard to explain. The process is unbelievably slow. First you have to plan the whole scene, frame by frame. You then have to build sets and the actual characters. We spent four days trying to get our figures to stand up before Wallman explained what an armature was. It turns out that clay men need a little frame or they fall over. When you finally get to the actual filming, you set up the scene, position the clay figures, set the camera, take a shot, reposition the figures in the tiniest, most subtle of steps, and repeat. You have to have some time to spend. It isn’t really a spectator sport.
“Exercising your OCD?” Mariel asks.
“More like playing with dolls in extreme slow motion,” David says, using the caliper to measure the position of the figure’s left hand. We are working on a wave.
Mariel looks around the lab. “Where did all this equipment come from?”
“Someone donated it,” David explains, motioning for me to take the shot. “An anonymous donor. The prevailing theory is that Wallman bought it all himself with the money he saved by not having a house and sleeping in his office. There’s some pretty cool stuff down here.”
“Can I try?”
I look at David. He shrugs and shows Mariel how to manipulate the little figure. We get most of the wave done.
Wallman wanders over, eating a sandwich. “You should be using a green screen behind that,” he says, then wanders away again.
“Do you know what a green screen is?” I ask David. I don’t know why I ask. I can tell he has no idea from the look on his face.
“Does this mean we have to do all of that over again?” Mariel sounds stricken. We’ve been down here for the better part of a forty-minute period.
“Only if we want him to wave,” David says, rubbing his nose with the palm of his hand. “So, Mariel, what are you doing tomorrow in study hall?”
Fourteen screens, each with its own sticky floor
The only actual homework for any of Wallman’s courses is that you have to go see movies. Wallman shows some himself using a digital projector and a portable screen. His choices tend to be obscure or disgusting, sometimes both obscure and disgusting. Afterward he leads a discussion of the film’s technical qualities. Content is irrelevant to Wallman. Sometimes he requires us to attend specific films in actual theaters. Last semester he sent David and me to watch an animation festival that was showing only at an arts theater in Charlotte. It was a two-hour drive each way on a school night, but it was worth it. Some weeks he just tells us to go see a movie.
“Movie?” David asks. It’s a Thursday, but it does count as homework.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“7:23?” he asks.
“Great,” I answer.
But here’s the deal. It is 7:15. I am waiting to be picked up by my friend David. What makes this not a date?
Okay. For starters, he’s not paying. But would he pay even if it was a date? Do people take each other to the movies? It sounds like something my parents would have done when they dated. My mother has this story she always tells about my dad being really late for their first date and how she sat, all dressed and made up, waiting for him. They never made it to the movie. Wait, what did they do if they didn’t make it to the movie? Is that a story about my parents having sex? Why does my mother tell this story? Am I the girl here, waiting for David to come pick me up? No. Things are different, and this isn’t a date.
Two. David and I have been going out for months. Going out to movies and parties and things, not going out. But if he was always gay, is it possible that we were going out going out and I didn’t know about it? Can someone be accidentally dating?
Three. No kissing. No sex. No touching at all. Can’t be a date, can it?
David picks me up. We go to see the movie and sit side by side in the nearly empty theater. I eat popcorn and stay well within the limits of my seat space. David doesn’t seem any different. On the way home we talk a little about what we want to do with our film. We’re just friends seeing a movie. What is wrong with me?
My bedroom
When I get home, waiting for me on the floor of my bedroom on a pile of fetid escapees from the laundry hamper is a small paperback book. It looks gray and cold, almost lonely. The cover is a black-and-white photograph of a guy in overalls with his mouth slightly open, his hair standing up in the wind. He does not look happy. A white box bisected by a thin black line sits two-thirds of the way down the page and contains only six words written in some odd, asymmetrical type. Above the line: John Steinbeck. Below the line: The Grapes of Wrath. There is nothing on the cover of this book that makes me want to open it.
I do not pick up the book. I do not want to read this book. I feel a surge of anger at having been asked to read this book. Isn’t wrath a kind of anger? Do I have to read the book? I have to write a paper on this book, but does that mean I actually have to read it first?
I call David. He can’t have been home for long. Does David wear pajamas?
“I don’t want to read The Grapes of Wrath,” I tell him.
“That would make writing the paper harder.” He is being so unnecessarily rational. After all, I took really good notes in class; surely I could just fake this one through. Maybe my notes weren’t that good, but I took notes; that has to be enough. Okay, my notes suck, but I wrote down words in my notebook and mostly listened. How much do I need to know to write this paper? I’m pretty sure I remember most of the characters’ names.
“Come on,” I say confidently, “how hard can it be to fake a paper?” He wouldn’t know. Neither would I. We’re the good kids. We work hard at school. We sit up in class and take notes. We read the syllabus and study for tests. What is wrong with us?
CHAPTER 4
Monday
School
There are six conversations. It helps to memorize the proper responses.
Most frequent:
“How did you do on the (test, paper, project, lab report, SATs)?”
“Okay, I guess.” (Vague, never say, “Really good!”)
Regular:
“You got an extra (pen, pencil, piece of paper, copy of your math homework)?”
No verbal response required. Nod and hand over. If the request is for a cigarette, smile weakly and shake your head.
The same people, every day:
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Rare, more from adults:
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going.” (Usually follow with a shrug to show that it is, but not too well.)
If standing with a group:
“Did you see (some movie, TV show, concert, Ryan and Danielle making out in the hall)?”
No response required if answer is no. Answer is always no if the question concerns Ryan and Danielle. If answer is yes, then a short, noncommittal “yeah” until the group preference is established, and then agree. Usually things suck.
If standing with a group of males discussing females:
“Did she … will she … did you see her … she’s such a …”
There are no safe responses, since all imply some level of expertise. Stand quietly, exit ASAP.
School
I don’t react much to chemistry as a rule. Labs are a game of trying to figure out what was supposed to happen, guessing the proper conclusion, and trying to finagle the data to support the right answer. I believe this is what is known as the scientific method. Mariel, my frequent lab partner and the will-be valedictorian of our class, has declared me a hazard and won’t let me touch anything combustible or corrosive. Mostly I take dictation while she does the experiment. Lecture days are always a relief. Today’s is on molecules randomly bouncing off each other. I spend the period mesmerized by how much of Simone’s bra I can see through the persistent gap between the second and third buttons of her shirt. It is less than an inch of nondescript white—none of her actual breast is visible—but it is much more fascinating than anything I am being told about the chaos in a glass of water.
&
nbsp; School
Mariel and David are laughing about something in front of Thad’s locker. In all likelihood, it’s Thad. A couple of lacrosse players walk down the hall followed by three cheerleaders—or if they aren’t actually cheerleaders, they look like they would want to wear short skirts and stand on one another’s shoulders to get a rise from the crowd. They exist in a separate high-school universe and they pass the rest of us as if they can’t see us. Maybe they can’t.
There are signs reminding us to register for the SATs. There’s a bulletin board that displays last month’s calendar surrounded by a lot of notices for events that happened long ago. But it’s almost April. In September, everything is hung nicely. In October and November, someone dutifully replaces the old notices with new ones. By now, everyone has given up.
“Are you okay?” Carrie asks me when she passes me after B period. I must look upset, because she usually doesn’t talk to me at school.
“Maybe,” I answer, but I don’t elaborate. She accepts my one-word response and lets the pull of the between-classes crowd drag her away.
School
There is a rhythm to the day. We don’t march, we don’t dance, but the movement of our feet isn’t simple Brownian motion. Some genius has decreed that our schedule should rotate, but it’s more of a lurch and tug. No one two three four five six seven. A and B start our day, then some combination of ones to fours except on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which have an activity period, and Wednesdays, which include time for a morning assembly, assuming we aren’t on a shortened flex schedule. If it’s Monday there’s no fourth period, Tuesday no first. There’s a logic without sense.
But we get there, mostly on time anyway. We have longer blocks for labs and seminars around tables and a gym with a real climbing wall, but it’s still just school.
School
“Are you really going to eat that?” David asks, unwrapping his sandwich. David has one of three possible lunches. To be more precise, David has one of three possible lunchmeats; the rest of the menu doesn’t change at all. One apple, red; one small bag of chips, greasy; a piece of paper towel as a napkin; and a sandwich, white bread, mustard, meat. I haven’t noticed a pattern to the meat itself but he only seems to eat roast beef, turkey, or ham sliced thinly. No cheese.
David does not seem to have a sense of humor about his lunch. I often try to convince him that there is some deep-seated pathology in his rigidly limited sandwich selection. But my efforts usually fail because I am always trying to convince him to trade lunches, and I have the world’s worst lunches. My lunches consist of whatever happens to be in the fridge when we wake up in the morning. Cold lasagna. Pickles and cream cheese. Meat-loaf and mashed potato sandwiches. Once, a jar of capers, a package of crackers, and my aunt Ann’s red pepper jelly. Roast beef starts to look really good.
“You don’t even look anymore, do you?” It’s an accusation, not a question.
“Sometimes I can finish it before I figure out what it is. If I eat fast enough, sometimes,” I say, still chewing, “I can eat the whole thing without really tasting it.”
I peel back the top layer of bread. The brown spread is most likely peanut butter. The red chunks are probably peppers. The little white squares have to be tofu. My mother thinks adding peanut butter to anything makes it authentically Thai. I don’t believe that anyone in Thailand eats peanut butter, pepper, and tofu sandwiches. At least not on white bread.
“You could make your own lunch,” David suggests, handing me a half of one half of his sandwich. I’ve noticed that he is more willing to share the ham sandwiches than the roast beef. Not sure what to make of this fact. I’d feel worse about my mother still packing my lunch for me if she did a better job at it.
School
There is nothing about history that requires me to do anything other than look alert, which I can do without paying any attention at all. The same five people answer all of Ms. Kalikowski’s questions, and she prefers a lively class of five with twelve onlookers to trying to get the rest of us to participate. Sometimes I surprise her by raising my hand. She always looks pleased—partly, I think, because when I do say something it is relevant.
School
“Do you need a ride home today?”
“Always.”
I follow David to the parking lot, the way I have for most of the last year, as if nothing at all was different.
CHAPTER 5
Godless, Homosexual, Vegetarian Communists
Will she skip ski trips if he slips tongue tricks?
Over the last six months, David has become our taxi service. Since about October, he’s been giving me, Carrie, and Carrie’s best friend, M.C., a ride home several times a week, and he still does on days when he doesn’t have baseball practice. We don’t even ask anymore. Carrie and M.C. wait for us in the parking lot so they won’t be too identified with us. We are not the cool juniors, but Carrie decided that the bus is way too ninth-grade and David has a car.
David doesn’t seem to mind. At least he doesn’t say he minds. I’m not sure what he gets out of the deal.
Sometimes Carrie makes us stop on the way home. We need french fries, we need gum, we need some shade of lip stuff, and the world always depends on us having it before we get home. Home is clearly some form of dungeon. David shrugs, we stop. David shrugs a lot. It took me a while to realize that the shrugs mean something.
A short list of David’s non-verbal vocabulary:
1) Shrug = okay. It is used to indicate that he is willing to go along, but only because you asked. It’s a sort of “I don’t care either way.”
2) Pulling glasses = not so okay, but also a sign that he probably doesn’t have any choice, so he will go along with it anyway.
3) Rubbing the top of his nose. He uses his whole hand for this maneuver. It means “I am really uncomfortable with this suggestion,” but unless there is an easy way out, he will go along with it anyway.
4) Staring at his feet. If he is driving, the same effect is accomplished by staring robotically ahead and not responding. This is an attempt to convince you not to ask whatever you are about to ask. Bottom line: he will go along with it anyway.
Usually Carrie and M.C. ignore us, which is just fine. But today Carrie taps me on the shoulder from the backseat.
“I have a question. You’re guys,” she says. I don’t immediately answer because I assume that our guyhood is not the question. “So give us a guy opinion.”
“Sure,” I say. I hate agreeing before I know what it is I’m agreeing to.
Carrie then launches into a very long story. It begins hypothetically, something about “this girl,” who “may or may not” have done something with “this guy” on this camping trip, or maybe it was skiing, anyway, it wasn’t here, but he came back and told everyone about it, even though there wasn’t much to tell about it because they hardly did anything at all. So if she didn’t really do anything, but she did something, and now that they’re back she doesn’t want to do anything at all, this is his problem, not hers, right?
I start to ask who, but I can tell from the punching in the backseat who the story is about and that the right answer is of course his problem, not hers.
“So you’d be willing to go out with someone who you knew this about, wouldn’t you? If you liked her, you wouldn’t care who she kissed on some camping trip.”
If I say I wouldn’t go out with her, then I’ve just implied that I wouldn’t want to date an indiscriminate kisser, which feels all wrong particularly since I’m pretty sure I’d be in favor of it if it involved my mouth. If I say yes, I have admitted that I would be willing to ask her out, although I guess not as the real M.C., just as an abstract M.C.
“Sure, yeah, of course. Yeah.”
“See,” Carrie says, turning back to the less hypothetical M.C. “Even my brother would go out with you. What about you, David?”
“I’m saving myself for marriage.”
Perhaps popular people pick a pepperoni pizza
“I’m not hungry,” David argues.
“So?” Carrie answers.
“So, why do I need to eat pizza at 3:30 in the afternoon?”
The real answer is because Carrie told us we had to, but she tells David it is because she and M.C. so value his companionship and wit, which amounts to the same thing. David shrugs, we get pizza. He sits with M.C. and I sit with Carrie and it could be a date except David is gay and I’m sitting next to my sister.
We agree that a whole pizza is cheaper than slices for four people but David doesn’t eat pepperoni.
“You’re joking, right?” Carrie never knows quite what to make of David.
“No, I don’t eat pepperoni.”
“But you do eat pizza?”
“Yes, just not pepperoni.”
“I didn’t realize you’re a vegetarian,” M.C. says brightly. “My older sister is a vegetarian, except she eats fish. And chicken. And turkey at Thanksgiving. And sometimes bacon cheeseburgers.” I think she’s joking, but she keeps a straight face. She’s a little like David; I can never tell when she’s being serious. The difference between the two is that David never smiles when he’s making a joke and M.C. smiles even when she isn’t.
“I’m not a vegetarian,” David says calmly. “I just don’t eat pepperoni.”
Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath Page 2