As soon as he was outside, Blondie began to shout “It’s over!” again and again.
After they were all in the car, Blondie explained what had happened.
“Phyllis will never speak to you again,” Feller said.
“That’s the best part.”
Flossie was waiting for them at her house, watching out the picture window. She seemed unsure of herself, but happy to see Blondie.
“Where to, my love?” Feller said to Delores.
She guided Blondie through town and north toward the Pennsylvania state line. After they passed through the light at Milton, she told Blondie to take the next turn, a road so narrow and overgrown with trees it seemed like a lava tunnel. A wooden gate materialized at the end of the tree-lined lane. Blondie slowed the car.
“I thought you said the pond was in the middle of nowhere,” Feller said to Delores.
“There wasn’t any gate last year.”
“What do you think?” Blondie asked Feller.
“We’re here now,” Feller said.
Blondie got out of the car and opened the gate. It swung shut behind them after he drove through. A short distance further, the road forked.
“Right, I think,” Delores said.
Blondie missed the turn and drove into tall grass.
“Blondie’s four sheets to the wind,” Feller said to Flossie.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” she asked Blondie.
“No. But I’m sure we’re going to.”
He cut loose with a rebel yell.
“All right!” Feller said.
“Why do you guys get so much out of getting drunk?” Delores asked.
“For the same reason you get so much out of getting laid,” Feller responded.
“That’s mostly to please you.”
“Well, it sure does.”
Except for the moon’s reflection upon it, Blondie would’ve missed the pond. It was smaller than he’d expected, less than a hundred feet across. He pulled off the road and parked.
“Are you sure it isn’t too deep?” Flossie asked.
“Positive,” Delores said. “When I was here with Bobby …. oops.”
“Bobby who, Delores?” Feller asked.
“Never mind.”
“Bobby Clements, perhaps?”
“So what?”
“When were you skinny-dipping with him?” Feller asked. “He’s been going steady with Ethel for three years.”
“Maybe it was before that.”
“You would’ve been in seventh grade.”
“What do you care? You know I’ve been with other guys.”
“I’m not jealous, believe me.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Well, is anyone going to get in?” Flossie asked. “If not, I’d just as soon go somewhere and get a Coke and some fries. It’s chilly out here.”
“Hell yes, we’re going to do it,” Feller said, ripping off his bow tie and cummerbund.
Blondie followed suit and soon there was a mound of pants, jackets, shirts, and underwear on the seat between him and Flossie.
“How come Feller and I are the only ones without any clothes on?” Blondie asked.
“Yeah, what’s the deal?” Feller said to Delores.
“I’m not going to undress in front of everyone.”
“Me neither,” Flossie said.
“Am I missing something here?” Feller asked. “Aren’t we all going to be naked in the pond?”
“That’s different,” Delores said. “Now, get out of the car while we get ready. Both of you.”
“Girls!” Feller exclaimed.
Blondie was glad the water was still warm from the day’s sun, but that was all he was thankful for. As soon as he stepped into the water, his feet sank into slimy mud.
“It wasn’t like this last year,” Delores said.
“Is it the same pond?” Feller asked irritably.
“I don’t know. Why are you getting angry?”
“Well, let’s make the best of it.”
“What should we do?” Blondie asked.
“Swim, I guess,” Feller replied.
“I’m not swimming out there in the dark,” Flossie said.
“Why not? You think there are sharks?” Feller demanded. He softened his voice said, “Okay, okay, let’s just wade where it’s shallow.”
“We came out here to wade?” Blondie was incredulous.
“How do I know what to do?” Feller said to him. “I’ve never been skinny-dipping before. I just know it’s supposed to be sexy.”
Once Blondie got used to the squishing between his feet, it wasn’t so bad. He enjoyed watching Flossie and Delores prance around in the nude in the moonlight. It appealed to his romantic sensibilities.
He went over to Flossie and put his arm around her.
“Are you having fun?”
“Yeah, but can we quit soon?”
“Isn’t it great to let the breeze caress your body?”
“There isn’t any breeze.”
“It’s the idea, though. Don’t you see?”
“You’re drunk.”
“That’s not relevant.”
Blondie heard a motor.
“Holy shit!” Blondie yelled, “Someone’s coming.”
Headlights appeared at the gate.
They began scrambling from the water. At the edge of the pond, Blondie stepped on something sharp. He screamed.
“What is it?” Flossie cried, wading over to him.
“I cut my foot.”
“Let me help you.”
Leaning against her, Blondie limped back to the car. He turned on the overhead light. His toe was bleeding.
“Here,” Flossie said, throwing him her panties.
Blondie looked at her.
“It’s all right. They’ve been bled on before.”
Blondie wrapped the panties around his toe, then started to pull on his pants.
“Forget your clothes,” Feller said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t drive down the road naked.”
“We can dress after we’re through the gate.”
“I don’t think I can drive with my foot like this,” Blondie said.
“Give me the keys, then,” Feller ordered.
With much knocking about and cursing, they exchanged placed. Feller started the Pontiac and swung it around toward the gate. He stepped on the accelerator. The wheels spun briefly, spraying gravel into the dark, then caught.
Ahead, the other car — Blondie could see it was a white Mercury — began to turn away from them at the fork. Maybe it wasn’t coming their way after all. Then it stopped. When their headlights hit it, Blondie could make out two people inside, a boy and a girl. The boy had a flat top and was wearing a tux. The girl’s shoulders were bare. He couldn’t make out their faces.
Feller turned on the overhead light.
“What’re you doing. They’ll see us,” Blondie shouted at him.
“That’s okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“Can’t you see who it is?” Feller asked. “It’s Rudy Tilly and Mary Cherry. This could be rich.”
“Are you nuts? I don’t want them to see us like this.”
Blondie began covering himself with loose articles of clothing.
Feller coasted the Pontiac up to the Mercury as Rudy and Mary watched apprehensively. For an instant, the headlights lit the gate behind Rudy’s car. Blondie was dismayed to see a small sign on one post: George and Helen Cherry. Of all the places Delores could have picked for their nude nocturne, she’d chosen Mary’s homestead.
When Mary recognized Blondie and Feller, she started to wave. Her hand stopped in mid-air, then flew to her mouth. Rudy looked straight at Blondie. His mouth drew tight.
“I guess they’ve never seen four naked people in one car before,” Feller said.
He rolled down the window.
“Pardon our lack of attire,” Feller apologized to them. “We weren’t expecting company.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Graduation — a Friday afternoon — arrived sunny and hot, hot enough to turn graduation gowns into mini-saunas. Inside the gym, Blondie fidgeted with the tassel on his cap, trying to remember whether it was supposed to hang to the left or right. In his black robe, he towered above his classmates like a dark angel.
Feller was checking out his “look” in a pocket mirror his mother had lent him, practicing various smiles for effect — confident, happy, smug, gratified. He screwed his face into a madman’s grimace.
“Just right,” he said, grinning at Blondie.
Dispatch was attempted to balance his cap on his thick shag of hair. Shakes was trying to cope with his oversized gown, which overflowed his small frame and formed an inky puddle around his feet. Brick was nowhere to be seen.
Blondie figured Grouper had already taken his place on the raised platform from whence school dignitaries would consecrate them into the ranks of the satisfactorily schooled. In a brief message over the public address system the previous Monday, Mr. Bearzinsky had surprised the whole Club — the whole school — by announcing Grouper as class valedictorian. He hadn’t sounded happy about it.
“Grouper? I thought sure it would be Mary Cherry,” Blondie had commented to Feller.
“Everyone did, including Mary. Would you believe it? Grouper had all A’s. Mary had one B. She took it well, though. She told Grouper he must have cheated.”
“Does this mean Grouper is going to make a speech?”
The thought made Blondie nervous.
“That’s what the valedictorian does.”
Later in the week, Grouper told him the Bear had begged him to step aside in favor of Mary.
“Of course,” Grouper rumbled, “I told him that wouldn’t be right. It would be a violation of school procedure.”
Now it was 3:45 p.m., 15 minutes until launch time, when an armada of bobbing mortarboards would be loosed upon the waiting crowd outside. Blondie could envision his mom and dad sitting stiffly on their metal seats, craning their necks for the first sign of the soon-to-be graduates.
He noticed Barnwell putting on his gown in the corner, alone. Purdy couldn’t be with him today. For a moment, Blondie felt a tremor of sympathy for him. He had no future and he had to know it. Then Barnwell looked his way and glared at him, and his sympathy vanished. His kind didn’t deserve a future.
The boys and girls were paired — boys in black, girls in red — for their march to glory and Shakes had drawn Mary Cherry by the luck of the alphabet. He and Feller had plans for her.
“Keep your head down when you go down the aisle,” Feller advised Shakes.
Blondie had been coupled with Ethel Philbin, a circumstance that, a couple weeks before, he would have considered a score of major proportions. But not anymore.
At 3:50, Bucky began forming them up. She spoke to them as ladies and gentlemen, as if their imminent graduation at last had rendered them worthy of respect. Blondie took his place beside Ethel, resplendent in her scarlet robe, a queen to the last. Her face was gorgeous as always, but there was no joy upon it. He felt out of place, an interloper. Bobby was the one who should have been marching beside her. Knowing that wouldn’t have happened anyway — paired as they were according to last names — did little to lessen his discomfort.
The aluminum doors of the gym crashed open and the repetitive strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” washed in. With a few loud belches and simulated farts — Blondie suspected one or two were real — the Class of 1962 snaked forward, squeezing itself from the gym and into the bright afternoon. A multitude of keyed-up parents turned their faces toward them in collective beatitude.
Splitting the crowd was a colonnade of rose arches — thorny rose branches wrapped around flexible metal rods — supported by members of the junior class. Miss Spalding had begun the tradition several years before. She termed it her “greatest inspiration.”
Sweat gathered between Blondie’s shoulder blades. The velvety robe stuck to his arms and back like masking tape. Nonetheless, he strode on proudly, chin up. Ahead, he saw Feller whip out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. Mr. Farber appeared from nowhere and yanked them off.
Beyond and above the flowery passageway, Blondie saw Grouper seated beside Mr. Clapper and the Bear on the plywood platform. He was wearing a black suit and gray tie. He seemed serious, but calm, as did Mr. Clapper, whose serenity bordered, as usual, on comatose. In contrast, the Bear’s expression was as sour as if he’d just licked a day’s run of postage stamps. Mrs. Buckley labored up the short flight of stairs and plopped onto the empty chair next to him. His look grew grimmer.
Blondie suspected Bearzinsky had one goal for the afternoon’s proceedings — to escape with his dignity and that of the school untarnished. He knew it would be in vain. The fix was on and in a matter of seconds Mary Cherry would receive a long-overdue comeuppance.
Blondie watched as the first few couples disappeared into the shady tunnel — first the A’s, then the B’s (including Barnwell), then the C’s … Caldane and Cherry. He smiled in anticipation.
As Shakes and Mary arrived at the arch held by Neil Golden and his partner, Neil dipped the bough, snagging Mary’s cap on its thorns. When Mary reached back for it, Nancy Cochrane bowled her over and then tripped on her fallen body. A brief domino effect snared two more girls and sent them sprawling before Mary managed to pick herself up and run off after Caldane, who’d marched on, stride unbroken, in the dirge-like rhythm Mrs. Buckley had taught them.
Phyllis was one of the first juniors Blondie came to after he entered the rose tunnel. Her eyes were darts. As he passed beneath her bough, razors raked the back of his head. A warm trickle began running through his hair. He put his hand to his head. It came back streaked with blood.
“Bitch,” he muttered to Phyllis. A nearby woman gasped at his language. Ethel, looking stricken, hurried on ahead.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he mumbled to her when he caught up. He felt stupid.
His mood improved when he passed beneath the arch Tammy held and received a friendly smile. Apparently, she wasn’t holding his buffoonish performance at the prom against him. But what difference did it make? He’d never connect with her now. There were no teen dances during the summer and he’d never summon the courage to give her a call.
With a flurry of banging knees and shifting chairs, the class seated itself, facing directly into the sun. A squeaky voice issued from the glare.
“I want to welcome each and every one of you to the 22nd annual graduation ceremony at Fenton High School,” Clapper began. “Twenty-one groups of earnest and aspiring young men and women have passed before you and gone out into the world to make their mark …. ”
“Like Merwin Fester,” Feller whispered from several rows ahead.
” … doctors, lawyers … ”
” … butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers …. ” Feller interjected, drowning out Clapper.
“Sh-h-h,” Mary Cherry hissed at him.
“Every class is different…” Clapper went on, then he seemed to lose his place and everyone heard Bear’s voice echo through the speakers, “No, over here, Mr. Clapper. This is the next line. Is the mike on?”
“Oh yes. This class is unique, not just because no other class was born in the same year … ”
Feller groaned.
” … but because you’re graduating in a year that is very significant in American history. This year marks the one hundred and eighty-sixth anniversary of the American Revolution. Never again will we be able to say that.”
A few parents coughed.
“This class is unique … ”
Clapper broke off again and there was more whispering followed by Clapper’s voice inquiring, “Did I already say that?”
Some of the seniors began
to laugh. Clapper sputtered to a stop and turned the ceremony over to the Bear. He kept his comments to a minimum, making a few cutting remarks about the class’s “high jinks” during the year.
“Now he calls them high jinks,” Feller said loudly, causing more tittering.
“Most of all,” the Bear concluded, “high school prepares our students intellectually. We’re proud that several students attained the highest academic marks. Only one, however, earned straight A’s in all subjects for all four years. As you might expect, we’re quite proud of that student ….” Bear seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. ” …. who will speak on behalf of all the graduating seniors of 1962. It gives me great pleasure to present to you this year’s valedictorian, Mr. Walter Clarence Whipple, Jr.”
Blondie heard loud clapping behind him. A large, bald man in a business suit was banging his palms together as hard as he could. Beside him, an Amazon in a green dress and a blond wig followed suit. Blondie was surprised. Grouper acted like his parents paid him no mind.
Grouper stood and lumbered toward the microphone where he loomed above the crowd, a shadowy pillar against the sky. Blondie heard the rustling of the small sheaf of papers Grouper placed on the lectern. He bent toward the mike and cleared his throat. When he began speaking in his deep bass voice, it sounded like the voice of God.
“Thank you, Mr. Bearzinsky, your example has always proven instructive,” he said, almost without irony. “Good afternoon parents, faculty and fellow students. I’ve spent some time researching valedictory speeches. What I’ve discovered is that they almost always consist of paeans to the faculty for their efforts on our behalf and exhortations to the students to make the world a better place. As a consequence, they’re uniformly predictable and fatuous. I beg your indulgence as I depart from this formula.”
There were a few murmurs from the crowd. The Bear’s face widened in apprehension.
“As Mr. Clapper so redundantly pointed out,” Grouper continued, “we’re a unique group of students. But does anybody know who we are? Let me ask each graduating student to consider whether his or her classmates or teachers truly know who he or she is?
“Let me speak for myself. I’ve spent four years here at Fenton High and very few know me. Sure, I hang around with a group of guys, but we all play our accepted roles and seldom do we delve beneath our facades. We mainly spend time protecting our fragile egos and polishing our personas through rote performance of traditional adolescent behavior.”
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