Cecily Von Ziegesar (10 page)

N
ovember was a curious month. Some days it was warm as summer. Some days it rained. And some days the wind ripped the leaves off the trees and scattered them mercilessly all over campus. Buildings and Grounds worked round the clock to keep the quad green and leaf-free. Weekends the leaves were burned, filling the air with pungent gray smoke. The heat had come on in the dorms and hot chocolate was served in the dining halls. There was a briskness to the student body, too. Midterms weren't far off, and after that, vacation. Of course Thanksgiving was first, but anyone who lived farther away than New York stayed on campus for the turkey buffet in the dining hall.

Now was the time when students became aware of how well they were doing in school. Tom was nearly failing Portraiture. Economics was impossible. English sucked. Geology required way too much memorization. And there was a good chance he would be replaced in Professor Rosen's one-act play, meaning
that he would fail to obtain the extra credit. Today he'd decided to try something new.

“It's like this,” Wills explained. He tied his long platinum dreadlocks in a knot on top of his head to keep them out of the way of the hot pink ecstasy tablets he was counting out on Root's kitchen table. “You do E every two days. On the off days you smoke pot and cook huge meals and eat like a king. On E days you chew gum—lots of it—and run around outside. Or, if you can't get any E, you steal ether from the chemistry lab. It doesn't last and it stinks, but man—you got to try it at least once. Between the drugs and the running around and the healthy food, your body stays in shape, and basically you're golden.”

Each tiny pink pill had the almond-shaped outline of an eye stamped on it. Tom watched as Wills sorted the tablets into neat piles, four for each of the Grannies, and four for him. He'd agreed to purchase the E on the condition that the Grannies do it with him, in case he freaked out.

Back in Bedford, Tom had stayed away from drugs. Mostly because of sports, but also because he wasn't sure how he'd behave. Drinking was okay. His parents drank. Everybody drank. His dad was even cool with picking him up at rugby team parties at 3
A.M.
when he was stark raving shit-faced with puke on his shirt. Still, he'd always been curious about drugs, and now that he was away at college, why not? Mainly he was looking for a way to loosen up.

“Dig deeper. Go nuts. Let yourself come unhinged!” Professor Rosen had screamed at him during his first rehearsal. Then she and that quiet kid, Adam, had stood there gawking at him and waiting for him to go nuts, but all he could do was talk louder and wipe his nose a lot and apologize for being such a shitty actor and forgetting his lines.

“You will never create something that is truly yours until you let go of your inhibitions,” his painting teacher, Mr. Zanes, would murmur. Mr. Zanes was a whispering graybeard who padded around the studio in bare feet and was forever sucking on lollipops. “For my laryngitis,” he said. Apparently his work was all the rage in Prague in the early eighties, but the only evidence of his artistry was a teetering mound of lollipop wrappers in the corner of the studio.

Of course it was nearly impossible for Tom to let go of his inhibitions when the subject of every class was Eliza in all her naked glory. Eliza sitting with her angry chin on her fists. Eliza in profile. Eliza lying on a sofa with her dark hairy crotch in plain sight. Every time Tom looked up, she would mouth “suck my tits” or “olive juice” or “blow me” while subtly giving him the finger. In retaliation Tom would turn her face into a giant oozing sore and omit her pale but rather nice tits. Now he was getting a D+ in Portraiture, which was supposed to be his easy A. And the play was a fucking disaster. Drugs were his last and only hope.

“You know this stuff is all-natural? Comes from the oil of sassafras root,” Wills said. “Used to find sassafras oil in soap and root beer and all sorts of shit till the FDA got involved in the sixties and banned it. I was gonna order a big ole sassafras plant through the mail so I could make my own E, but then I was like, do I really want the FBI parked outside my dorm? Do I really want my phone tapped? Do I really want the pigs up inside my sphincter? I think not.”

Tom nodded. The little history lesson was interesting and all, but he really couldn't give a fuck. Grover sat down next to him at the table, his electric shaver in hand. He turned it on and ran it over his closely shaved head, buzzing off the few filaments of brown peach fuzz that had accumulated since he'd shaved his
head the day before. The kitchen windows just grazed the grassy edge of the quad. Outside a bunch of sporty-looking girls played Ultimate Frisbee.

“What you do is put it on your tongue, flip it back, and swallow it,” Grover explained, pinching a tablet between his thumb and forefinger and demonstrating the technique.

Liam came over and stuck out his tongue with a lizardly flicker, waiting for Wills to place a tablet on its tip. He flicked his tongue back inside his mouth. “It goes down kind of dry, but pretty soon you'll be feeling it and you won't care.”

Tom poked at one of the tablets with his fingertip. It looked like confetti or baby aspirin. “Feeling what?”

The Grannies chuckled. Wills leaned over and sucked a tablet into his mouth right off the table like a human vacuum cleaner. “Like a god,” he elaborated enticingly. “Like you're all dick.”

Tom liked to think that he felt that way all the time, but maybe the enhancement of his existing attributes was exactly what Professor Rosen and Mr. Zanes meant by digging deeper. He put a pink tablet on his tongue. It was bitter and wrong-tasting, like he was eating a crumb of squirrel shit off his shoe. He swallowed it down. If this smidgen of trash could get him off, he'd be pretty freaking amazed. “Now what?” he demanded. He couldn't just sit in his dorm kitchen staring at the Grannies while they waited for the E to kick in.

Wills pushed his chair back and stood up, his wraparound skirt cascading down to his ankles. “Now we go for a really long walk.” He reached out and patted Tom's shoulder. “And when we get back, you'll be a different man.”

 

H
ands tucked innocently into their coat pockets, the pre-rapturous huddle of boys crossed the quad and headed for the five
mile running loop that snaked around the periphery of Dexter's pretty brick and ivy campus. Mr. Darius Booth, the frail president of the college, could be seen creeping along the loop every morning at 5:45
A.M.
with his three terrifying German shepherds. Tom knew this because he'd actually woken up a few times at that hour and gone jogging himself. He'd thought he wanted to stay in shape, but all he got from running that early was a killer cramp and some serious heartburn that lasted all day.

He'd come to Dexter with every intention of joining the rugby team. After all, he'd played rugby for the Bedford school district since he was twelve. But he really wasn't up for spending weekends at away games and going through the fratlike hazing rituals of a men's team. Weekends were all about having sex with Shipley, sleeping late with Shipley, and ordering in with Shipley, not necessarily in that order. Besides, he'd heard the guys on the rugby team actually made the freshmen eat a saltine with a senior team member's jizz on it. Not exactly appealing. So he'd skipped the first practice and didn't even mention it to his dad, who'd been captain of Dexter's rugby team his senior year and had probably eaten a whole bucketful of jizz in his day.

Tom hadn't noticed before what a perfect fall day it was. The leaves were gold and crimson and hot pink, and the fading sun slid down the hill behind campus like a giant egg yolk. As they walked, the hair on the backs of his hands took on a lovely coppery sheen. Wills walked directly in front of him, his tie-dyed skirt swaying back and forth, his long platinum hair bouncing liquidly in the late afternoon light.

“Nice,” Tom observed, allowing Liam to take his hand. Grover started to skip. The toes of his dirty bare feet were painted with silver nail polish. He played a cheerful Irish-sounding ditty on the harmonica strapped around his neck, accompanied by some enthusiastic chest beating and overall strap jangling.
Grover liked to make noise, which made sense, given that he was the Grannies' percussionist.

A jogger strode up behind them. His long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his cheeks were sunken and sallow. A maroon Dexter basketball shirt flapped from his bony shoulders as his sinewy arms and legs pumped away. Besides the shirt, he sported a pair of those flimsy Dexter running shorts with the built-in mesh underwear that no full-grown man would ever wear, and white Asics running shoes with no socks. The thing was, this guy wasn't full-grown. In fact, he looked like he was shrinking as he ran. When they were shoulder to shoulder, the jogger turned to look Tom square in the eyes, not accusing or threatening, but penetrating Tom's very soul and mind-melding with him. A powerful chemical odor pervaded the air. If Tom weren't on E, he would've been freaked out.

“That guy eats only Granny Smith apples,” Liam explained in a whisper as the jogger pulled away from them. “You know how the grocery store puts wax on the apples to make them shiny? Well, he scrapes the wax off with the file on a pair of nail clippers because he doesn't want to ingest the extra calories.”

“He's very pure,” Wills added from up ahead, his voice bulging with admiration. “All he does is apples and ether.”

“We should hit the Pond and go for a swim!” Grover shouted gleefully, puffing on his harmonica a few times for emphasis. He stopped in his tracks and pulled a pack of Doublemint gum from the chest pocket of his overalls. “It's seriously minty,” he said as he doled out pieces to each of the boys.

They continued to walk. Tom unwrapped the gum and stuffed it into his mouth. It tasted unbelievably fresh. His jaw thrilled with the act of chewing.

“Come on. Who's up for a swim?” Grover said again, skipping backward down the road.

“I'm not ready to get wet yet,” Liam murmured, gripping Tom's hand even tighter. “Get wet yet,” he repeated, smiling goofily.

“Neither,” Tom agreed, chewing hard on the gum. They were walking faster now. He could feel it in his legs. It felt awesome,
he
felt awesome. “What I really want to do is paint something,” he continued, licking his lips and quickening his stride. He didn't have to stick to what they were painting in Portraiture. He could paint the leaves if he wanted to. He could paint the sky!

“I'm burning up, son,” Wills called out to Grover, who was skipping and leaping and prancing ahead of them. “A swim would be good.”

A green road sign loomed up ahead.
ENTERING HOME CITY LIMITS. POPULATION
9,847.

“There's no place like Home,” Liam declared, rubbing the earflap of his hat against Tom's burly shoulder.

A white Dodge minivan drove by, slowing to avoid Grover's flailing arms and legs. Tom gave the driver the thumbs-up, and the driver gave Tom the thumbs-up in return. It was Professor Rosen.

The van stopped. On the rear bumper was a sticker that read
SONA SI LATINE LOQUERIS
. Professor Rosen stuck her head out. “Hey, Tom. Need a ride to rehearsal?”

Tom had forgotten all about rehearsal. He dropped Liam's hand and walked toward the van.

“Hey, what're you doing, man?” Wills demanded.

“Come on,” Tom called. “She'll drive us wherever we want to go.”

The boys followed him to the van. Tom slid open the back door. A blast of cooked air hit him in the face.

“Van's been parked in the sun all day,” Professor Rosen explained as he slid into the seat behind her. He'd never noticed
how beautiful and shiny her hair was—coppery brown, with gold flecks like mini sun rays. It was darker than Shipley's, but just as complex. Shipley's hair, Tom remembered, was what had inspired him to take up painting in the first place. It was Shipley he needed to paint, not the sky or the leaves, and definitely not Eliza. Shipley was his gorgeous golden goddess—his woman, his love, his muse!

The other boys slid into the van after him. “We went for a walk,” Liam told Professor Rosen, glancing conspiratorially at his bandmates. Next thing he was going to tell her all about the E they'd taken.

“Hey, teach, what's with the bumper sticker?” Wills demanded cheerfully. “Is that like a quote from Chaucer or something?”

“It means ‘Honk if you speak Latin.'” Professor Rosen glanced in the rearview mirror. “Hey, Tom, are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, but I just
gotta
paint something,” Tom said, rubbing his hands together and chewing hard on his gum. “I gotta find some paint.”

“And we
gotta
go swimming,” Wills mimicked Tom's urgent tone.

“Brrr,” Liam agreed, rubbing his arms. “Oh man, you gotta feel this!” He offered his arm to Tom. “Here, rub it.”

Tom met Professor Rosen's gaze in the rearview mirror. She had the prettiest greenish brown eyes, and skin like milk. Milk! He could drink a whole carton of it right now, a gallon even. Milk was so white and pure and cold, and all of a sudden he was extremely thirsty.

“Why don't you harness some of that creative energy for our rehearsal?” Professor Rosen suggested. “And then maybe later you can paint.”

“Okay, but I'm super thirsty.” Tom stuck out his tongue and began to pant. “Think we could grab some milk?”

Professor Rosen grinned. Tom appeared to have done his homework. He was coming unhinged right there in her car. “Sure, sure.”

 

A
dam was early. He sat cross-legged on the floor of the small, dimly lit studio on the second floor of the Student Union, reading through the script.

The Zoo Story
had nothing to do with the zoo, and not much happened until the ending. It was all about these two lonely guys who run into each other in Central Park. Peter, the part Adam played, was just an everyday businessman, sitting on a park bench after work, watching the world go by. Jerry, the part Tom played, was this scary creep who starts talking to Peter and basically ruins his life. Peter was actually a lesser role because Jerry did most of the talking, including a giant monologue about a slobbering, mean, black dog that went on for six pages. How Tom was going to pull that off, Adam had no idea.