Rudy was at his desk building a plastic model of a battleship. His room was filled with miniature planes, ships and cars. What a juvenile hobby for someone who’d been senior class president!
“You’re a prick,” he said to Rudy when he turned.
Rudy sat back in shock.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Blondie said, the heat of his anger driving him on. “You’re the one who followed me the other night, aren’t you?”
Rudy blushed and then shrugged.
“I was just coming home,” he said.
“Maidenspring Lane’s not on your way home.”
Rudy said nothing. Defiance was in his eyes.
“You sent that letter to New York too, didn’t you?
“So what?” Rudy’s said indignantly. “You and your ilk think you’re such hot shits.”
Ilk? Hot shits? Was Blondie hearing this right? Rudy, super politico of their class, upset because he thought the B & F Club acted superior?
“What are you talking about?”
“The way you treat people …. “
“Who?”
“Mary Cherry for one. And Phyllis.”
Phyllis? He cared about Phyllis? First Shakes and now Rudy. Was Blondie nuts or blind or both? How could anyone care about Phyllis?
“You asked her to the prom, didn’t you?” Blondie probed.
Rudy’s look affirmed it.
“We’ve been dating all summer,” he said. “She told me how you treated her that night.”
For a moment, Blondie was speechless. The peckerhead was playing the gallant knight.
“I ought to punch you out,” he finally said.
“Asshole,” Rudy replied.
Blondie could see this was getting nowhere. And he was in Rudy’s house.
“The two of you deserve each other,” Blondie said as he stomped off.
What a turn of events! All this time he’d been fearing Potter, blaming him for being a tormentor, and his only sin was being a cranky old coot who guarded his yard like a bull terrier.
When Blondie rounded the corner of his house, he was surprised to see Potter standing on their porch. Blondie jumped back and peeked around the corner. He was talking to his mom, who was standing in the doorway. She was looking at him in a consoling way. Blondie ducked behind the chimney as Potter made his way down the stairs and across their lawn to his house.
“What was Potter doing here?” Blondie asked his mom when he got inside.
“His mother died this morning,” she answered. “Poor man. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. She was all he had.”
Blondie felt a pang of sympathy he wouldn’t have thought possible even moments before. Maybe everyone, no matter how shitty they seemed, had feelings. It was an awesome possibility. But it wasn’t the first thing on his mind. The first thing on his mind was death.
Bobby, Mountain, Marilyn, Mrs. Potter. The body count was rising. What had Grouper said? People die. Blondie’d known that intellectually, but never before had it had any emotional force. Suddenly, intimations of mortality whispered to him from every quarter. Thinking that life was so … terminal … was almost unbearable.
* * * * * * * * *
The trip to Ocean City was Shakes’ idea. They were in the P-mobile drinking beer at the quarry several nights after Blondie’s folks returned — everyone but Grouper. Shakes was griping about summer coming to an end.
“I d-don’t w-want to just g-go back to school,” he said.
Shakes and Dispatch had been accepted to the University of Maryland and decided to go.
“What are you going to do, Shakes, stop the clock?” Brick asked.
Brick didn’t like talking about college. He hadn’t applied. With his grades, it would have been futile. He was planning to join his dad in his grocery wholesale business.
“I mean w-we ought to d-do something.”
“Steal a car, beat our meats, what?”
“C-come on, Brick, that’s n-not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, Shakes?” Feller asked.
“R-raise h-hell.”
“That’s it? That’s your idea? Raise hell?”
Shakes was briefly cowed by Brick’s sarcasm.
“We c-could g-go to Ocean City,” Shakes offered, watching for the group’s reaction.
Nobody said anything.
“Over L-labor D-day weekend,” he added.
“Hm-m-m,” Feller murmured.
Blondie’d been to Ocean City once with his parents. He remembered it as a seedy version of Atlantic City: large, white-shingled houses transformed into run-down hotels, an old and splintery boardwalk, tiny shops with tawdry merchandise. And the smells … fried fish, cotton candy, salt air and saltwater taffy. But what Blondie remembered most were the kids. Ocean City belonged to teenagers.
The notion of one last madcap escapade suddenly seemed enticing. A little craziness might lessen the weight of recent events: Bobby’s suicide, his breakup with Flossie, Rudy’s betrayal. It might be good for his mental health to blow his mind in one ultimate, three-day-long, beer-guzzling, girl-chasing sortie.
“It could be fun,” Blondie allowed.
“What would we do?” Brick asked, still skeptical.
“We c-could g-get drunk,” Shakes said.
“We could get laid,” Dispatch said.
“We could get arrested,” Brick added.
“You’re being too negative, Brick,” Feller said. “Shakes and Dispatch are both right. We could get drunk and laid.”
“The place has to be cheap,” Brick said.
“And sleazy,” Dispatch added. “So we don’t arouse any attention.”
“Cheap and sleazy, huh?” Feller said. “I don’t think that’ll be any problem.”
It had been decided.
“What about Gr-grouper?” Shakes asked.
Blondie had almost forgotten him.
“Do you know what’s going on with him, Blondie?” Feller asked.
“Same old, same old … problems with his folks,” Blondie lied. He didn’t feel comfortable telling them Grouper had lost interest in their company. “Y-yeah, old m-man Whipple is pretty w-weird.”
“Blondie, why don’t you get in touch with Grouper and tell him our plan,” Feller suggested.
Blondie realized he wanted him to come, even if he chose not to join in some of their activities. His presence would provide a steadying influence.
He realized the hopelessness of his cause the minute he heard Grouper’s voice over the phone. It was lifeless. He invited him along anyway, making the jaunt sound as appealing as he could.
“I’m not in the mood for getting drunk and talking nonsense,” Grouper responded.
“You seem to need a little merriment,” Blondie said.
Grouper snorted.
“What can I say to change your mind?” Blondie asked.
“There’s nothing you can say. I just don’t feel like going. My life isn’t right. I can’t seem to find solid ground.”
Blondie could identify with that.
“Look, you’re not alone. I’ve been feeling a little off-center myself. Can we talk about it?”
“When?”
“Tonight?”
The line was silent for a while before Grouper agreed.
The night was so clear and bright there were shadows. Moonlight cast a frost-like sheen over the pasture and flooded the woods with a silvery fog. Blondie envied the moon. It was remote, detached, dignified. He wished he could be like that.
Grouper had been distant and grumpy the whole way up. He’d slumped against the door with his arms across his chest. However, after a few beers, and as Blondie shared his concerns, he gradually came to life.
Blondie told Grouper he’d felt a foreboding ever since Bobby’s suicide. Marilyn’s, Mountain’s and Mrs. Potter’s deaths had substantially compounded it.
“Have you been thinking
of your own death?” Grouper asked.
“A little, I suppose. But that doesn’t feel like what it’s about.”
“What then?”
“More like death is going to impact my life even more in the future.”
Grouper laughed.
“I can guarantee you that.”
Through the open windows, crickets fiddled and an owl romanced the moon.
“It bothers me to think that death is the end of everything,” Blondie said after a time, “that’s there nothing more.”
“Maybe that’s all people want eventually … an end to things. Relief.”
Grouper’s prosaic tone bothered him. He told Grouper so.
“What is it you want?” Grouper asked with a trace of exasperation. “Do you want me to tell you death is tragic … that it isn’t fair … that it makes a mockery of life?”
Blondie realized that was precisely what he wanted to hear.
“Death is just part of the rules of the game. As Bobby showed, it can also be an option.”
“That’s pretty existential,” Blondie complained.
Grouper sat up and clapped his hands.
“Existential! By God, I have taught you something.”
“Get hosed.”
After a few more beers, Blondie told Grouper about Rudy’s betrayal.
“You shouldn’t have been surprised,” Grouper said. “You challenged his values.”
“Me? I never said anything to him about anything like that. I just helped him with his homework.”
“Don’t you see, just by being the way you are, you rejected Rudy and everything he believed
in …. “
Grouper clamped his huge hand on Blondie’s shoulder.
” …. Rudy is a small-town guy, a play-by-the-rules guy. He’s invested his whole life doing things the way Fenton told him they were supposed to be done. He’s going to resent anyone who calls any of those rules into question — especially from someone who has to help him through school.”
Blondie looked away, out through the windshield. Empty beer cans on the dash formed a row of steel tombstones that obscured the view of Fenton below. Blondie could feel it coming to an end — the nights drinking with the Club, the nights talking with Grouper. Inevitably, the bonds would be broken. Was that the sense of doom he was feeling?
“I’m not going to the University of Pennsylvania,” Grouper said after he’d killed another beer.
“How come?”
“My dad wants me to stay on there and get a law degree. I don’t want to be a lawyer.”
“Have you told your folks?”
“No.”
“Won’t your dad be disappointed?”
“Yes. But I can’t repeat his life.”
“Where will you go to school?”
Blondie wondered if it was too late for Grouper to get into Smith-Reid. Wouldn’t that be great? He and Feller and Grouper all at the same place?
“Where I go to college is not an important issue for me at this time.”
The way he said it gave Blondie the creeps. Again, he wondered what was going on with him. It had to be more than not wanting to go to college where his dad wanted him to go. He felt uncomfortable probing, though.
“It’s your life,” was what he finally said.
“Exactly. That would seem to give me a great deal of say about it.”
Blondie could think of no reply. He was beginning to have trouble thinking of anything. His thoughts were slowing down, spacing out. The alcohol.
“Maybe we should go back,” he said.
“No, not yet.”
Blondie felt Grouper’s hand apply a trifle more pressure on his shoulder. He looked his way, but he was looking straight ahead.
“I envy you, Blondie,” he said seconds later.
Blondie was astonished. How could Grouper envy him when his whole life was off kilter?
“You have ability and you have a dream, one that might come true,” Grouper continued.
“What? My writing? All you’ve ever read of mine is a silly poem and some abysmal articles in the school paper.”
“True. But they show me you have a talent, one that will point your direction.”
Blondie didn’t feel any sense of direction.
“You’re smarter than I am,” Blondie said. “I wish I had your mind.”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s more a burden than a blessing. Anyway, being smart isn’t the same as being talented. It doesn’t tell you where to go.”
Grouper slumped back in his seat.
“You underestimate yourself, Blondie.”
He said it in almost a loving way.
“Before we’re all blown away to the four winds, there’s something I need to tell you …. ” Grouper halted.
He sighed and it was as if all the noises of the night were sucked into his breath.
“This is harder than I thought.”
Grouper dropped his hand from Blondie’s shoulder.
“Go ahead,” Blondie encouraged him. “You can talk to me.”
Blondie couldn’t understand why Grouper was being so hesitant. What could he possibly have to say that would shock him? That he’d cheated on a test, swiped a record, peeked up a girl’s skirt?
“I never had a girlfriend before Meryl …. ”
Blondie hoped Grouper wasn’t going to start bemoaning her loss. There was no way he could sympathize with him over that.
” … not because I could never get one, though that might have proven true. I never even tried.”
“Well, I guess that’s okay,” Blondie said, relieved. So Grouper was afraid of girls. So what? They all were to one degree or another.
Grouper fell silent. Blondie wondered if he’d said something wrong.
“I’ve never told anyone this … ” Grouper began again. This time Blondie didn’t interrupt. ” … I’ve never found girls that appealing.”
“What are you trying to say?” The sense of dread he’d felt before returned.
“I think you know.”
Blondie felt a tremor along his neck. Grouper was telling him he was a guy who liked guys! That made him a …. Blondie refused to let the word into his brain. But images popped up. Images of guys doing things to each other — disgusting things. It couldn’t be true. Not his best friend.
“What about Meryl? You were banging her,” Blondie argued.
Grouper waved his hand dismissively.
“I never said that. If I intimated it, it was a lie. I never touched her. At first, she thought I was just being shy or playing the gentleman. But she figured it out. She called me a … pervert.”
Grouper’s words broke in anguish.
“How can you be so positive?”
Surely, there was room for doubt. Perhaps he was just unusually shy around girls.
“That’s the sixty-four-dollar question. It’s not something you want to acknowledge. My first inkling came when I was fourteen and visited my cousin in D.C. He was fifteen. One night, after our parents had gone off to some function, he asked me if I wanted to play ‘blind man’ with him.”
“Blind man?”
“It was just a name he’d made up …. ” Grouper said in a monotone. “He asked me to strip to my shorts and get into bed with him in the dark. Once we were under the covers, he took off his underpants and asked me to do the same. Then, we stroked each other until we were both spent.”
Blondie shuddered. He couldn’t help it. What Grouper was talking about was gross.
“It was just a lark to my cousin,” Grouper continued, his words as slow and steady as a lava flow. “But to me it was a revelation. It explained why I’d never been attracted to girls.”
An even more disturbing thought wormed into Blondie’s mind.
“You never think of us that way …. ?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘never,’” Grouper answered in a whisper.
Blondie asked
no more. He wanted to bolt from the car. He felt himself in the grip of an ever-growing horror.
“That time with my cousin was the only time I’ve ever done anything with a guy.” Grouper said after a while. “But I’ve had desires …. “
“Maybe they’ll go away,” Blondie offered, his voice trembling.
Grouper snorted.
“Not likely. When I think of someone at night, someone I’d like to be with, it’s not a girl. And, yes, my parents know. They won’t admit it, but they know. I see it every time my father looks at me. His look hurts more than I could ever describe.”
Grouper’s voice cracked again. Blondie looked out the window into the darkness, forcing his thoughts to slow down. He noticed that the owl had stopped hooting and the crickets had quit chirping. Was the whole world holding its breath? Listening in?
“Is that why you hate billies so?” Blondie asked to keep the stillness from overwhelming him.
“Let’s just say there’s a natural antipathy between those who celebrate brutish maleness and those who supposedly fall on the more feminine side of life.”
There was a cynical edge to Grouper’s words.
“Why are you telling me this?” Blondie asked.
“Did you ever feel there was something so big inside that you’d explode if you didn’t get it out?” Grouper asked, looking toward him. Blondie was glad he couldn’t see his face.
“That’s how this thing feels to me,” he went on. “Keeping it in for so long has made me feel so alone, like no one else in the world has any idea who I am — as if I’m not authentic, not real.”
For a moment, Blondie could empathize with Grouper’s distress: to carry such a big secret inside, to try and contain its pressure. He could identify with that. Wasn’t that how he felt about Tammy? He could imagine how much more burdensome Grouper’s secret had to be.
Blondie tried to process what Grouper had told him, to find a way to let his words in and still think of him as before. Wasn’t that what a friend was supposed to do — accept someone as they were? Then why was he having so much trouble doing it? He realized it was because of an even more frightening thought lingering in his mind. He had to pursue it.
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