Fast Times at Ridgemont High (28 page)

As she explained to Ray Connors on the Friday before Easter vacation, it was
not
that she minded working with the disabled. She was just tired of
all
the students, and it was about time that she “started keeping her own house clean.”

Ray Connors took a look at this woman, this quiet soul who had summoned all her courage to make this decision, and rewarded her, typically, with a promotion to area manager. It was a job that involved her traveling to all the local schools and working with
all
the handicapped students in
all
the cafeterias. With the promise of a small raise to go along with the new title, a tired and wan Paula Benson reported to her last day at Ridgemont High School.

She had heard the loud screeching noises from as far away as the parking lot. As she drew closer, she realized with no small terror that all the racket was coming from—my God—the cafeteria.

She entered through the side door. It was an incredible sight—there had to be thirty young men in Afro hairdos or wigs, all carrying amplified guitars. Wearing scarves. They looked to her with hope.

“What’s going on here?” she asked.

“We answered the ad,” said one boy. A red scarf was tied around his thigh. “For the tribute.”

“What ad?”

“Oh,
man.
You mean you don’t know about it either?”

“I’m the cafeteria manager. I’m afraid I don’t know about any of this. Who let you in here?”

Another boy produced a scrap of paper from the local
Reader.
“Look at this!”

It read: THIS MONDAY MORNING, 7:00
A.M.
, all-day auditions begin for HENDRIX, an Off-Broadway tribute to the greatest guitarist of all time. Big money commitment. Performances across the country. Must be able to look and perform like the great Jimi Hendrix. Report to cafeteria at Ridgemont High School. Be early!

“But there ain’t nothing around here got to do with Hendrix,” complained the kid.

Three more Hendrix lookalikes appeared at the doorway holding amplifiers. “This where the tribute is?”

Then it dawned on Mrs. Benson. The last time someone pulled a prank like this was about three years ago . . . to the day. April first.

“Gentlemen,” said Mrs. Benson, “I think this is someone’s idea of an April Fool’s Day joke.”

“Motherfu . . .”

“
Hey
,” said another kid. “Jimi would have wanted us to play all day!”

“Let’s get a P.A. in here!”

The Jimi Hendrix imitators set up camp in the cafeteria. More kept arriving all morning. They had jammed for an hour and a half before Lt. Flowers pulled the electricity switch. During lunch time he visited the various troublemakers of the school and grilled them as they bit into their sandwiches.

“Do you know who is responsible for this action in the cafeteria?”

“I don’t know, Lt. Flowers. I heard it was Steven Miko.”

That Little Prick

A
fter the operation, Stacy took the bus to Linda Barrett’s house. The two girls disappeared into Linda’s room to discuss the experience. When Linda heard about Damone’s standing her up a second time, about his leaving Stacy to find her own ride downtown, she did something uncharacteristic of her normally regal manner. She slammed her fist into the wall.

“That prick!” she said.

“I know. You told me about high school boys.”

“Forget that,” said Linda. “He’s a LITTLE PRICK!”

“Calm down,” said Stacy. “Your parents are in the living room.”

Her mother knocked at the door. “Are you all right, Linda?”

“I’m okay!”

“We’re all right, Mrs. Barrett.”

“THAT LITTLE PRICK,” shrieked Linda.

Stacy had gone home and gone to sleep. Linda went out later that night and found Mike Damone’s smart new Toyota. Using a key, she had scratched three words along the driver’s side: PRICK PRICK PRICK.

There had been only a brief confrontation between Damone and Stacy, and it happened in Public Speaking. On Expert Day. Mrs. J. had a Personal Growth Counselor from nearby City College come in and lecture on such consciousness-raising methods as Awareness Therapy. The counselor had selected Damone as a centerpiece. He asked several students around the room to comment on Damone’s personality.

It was soon Stacy’s turn.

Three weeks after the abortion, she was still disoriented at times. She still experienced the symptoms of pregnancy. Slowly her body adjusted to its loss. But the resentment deepened.

She still saw Mike on lunch court, in the hallways and in Speech class. His mood was mostly one of relief at having averted a near-disaster. He had even become jovial, wisecracking with her. She had come to feel like a notch on his Lynyrd Skynyrd belt buckle.

“I think Mike is always covering up,” said Stacy. “Every time you see him he’s got this
façade.
I just wonder what he’s really like, what he was like back in Philadelphia.”

Silence.

“Well, now
that
was insightful, wasn’t it Mike,” the counselor had said. “That young lady has given you a perspective on yourself that could have only come out of Awareness Therapy. There are other kinds of therapy . . .”

“What are you
talking
about?” added Damone. “You don’t know me! You may think you know me, but you don’t know me!”

“I know that you’ve got an act.”

“You’re just saying that,” raged Damone, “because you wanted to be my girlfriend, and I didn’t feel like having a girlfriend.”

“Bullshit!”

“Bullshit!”

“Okay you two,” said Mrs. George. “I think we’ve had enough Personal Growth for one day.”

And of course there was the matter of rumors. Between Damone’s PRICK PRICK PRICK Toyota, and the few friends he’d told about the abortion, and Linda and Laurie, it soon seemed that the only ones who hadn’t heard the story were The Rat and Brad Hamilton.
Was it really true that Stacy Hamilton had a . . . ?

No one dared question Stacy. She was never around anymore. She had done the American thing about putting some distance between herself and the traumatic memory of March twenty-first. She had thrown herself into her work. There were new managers now at the Town Center Mall Swenson’s, and they had given her some tough weekend hours to hostess. She worked them without a complaint, and the new managers made a big deal about it. They made her Employee of the Month. Some of the back kitchen girls even began to worry about their jobs.

Then came a further twist. Some of Damone’s friends began to work at the Town Center Mall Swenson’s. Damone, tired of his own janitorial job, resigned, and one day turned up on a job interview with the new managers of the mall Swenson’s. Stacy did nothing to block his being hired as a busboy. A few weeks later, it was announced that Stacy Hamilton was new Weekend Nighttime Manager. This meant only a few hours, two days a week, but the title alone was awesome for a girl who was still fifteen years old and a sophomore at Ridgemont High School.

One weekend in early May, Swenson’s was filled. Stacy was rushing here, rushing there, exercising her new authority.

“Damone,” she said. “You want to clean off table 19? Or do I have to do it myself!”

And out of the back bustled Mike Damone—Mr. Attitude—in a peppermint shirt and a bow tie.

“Gimme a break! I’m coming! I’m coming!”

Danny

“S
ome people,” said Mrs. George, “come to this school to learn.”

She was red-eyed and shaking as she faced her morning speech class. Today was meant to be Debate Day, a period in which students like Damone and The Rat took the podium and argued such subjects as “The fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed Limit: Boon or Bust,” but it was obvious there would be no speeches and no debates on this morning. This morning Mrs. George had been awakened with the news that one of her students had hanged himself.

His name was Danny Boyd, and to many students he had been a joke figure, another campus character. Danny Boyd had been a senior for two years, taking a couple of courses at a time, trying to improve his grades to get into a state college. He wasn’t around school that much, but he always carried a big black briefcase with a double combination lock. Sometimes he stood around the parking lot, near Mrs. George’s brown Monarch, talking with other members of the “briefcase preppy set.” Like the surfers, they too had been pushed out onto the parking lot by the fast-food militia, but not even the briefcase set could really find room for Danny Boyd.

“Danny came to me two months ago,” said Mrs. George, “and told me that nobody here would talk to him.” She was a teacher of great enthusiasm, and nobody had quite heard such disgust in her voice before. “He felt that just because he studied more than the rest of you for College Boards, he made people feel uncomfortable. All of you knew he
had
to work harder, and still not one of you reached out to him. You were all too busy with yourselves.” She sighed, examining her hand.

“Well. He was turned down again last week by every college he applied to. And it appeared to him he didn’t have a single friend to help him through his disappointment. You were all too busy . . .”

In the nervous silence of the room, only the electric buzz of the clock was heard. Mrs. George looked up again.

“Sometimes I sit back there and listen to you talk amongst yourselves,” said Mrs. George. “And it is absolutely amazing to me. You talk about your working hours, your adult lives and your
adult
emotions, yet you are
all
such children, really. You’d do yourselves well to remind yourselves of that from time to time.”

And even though Mrs. George had not been particularly
close
to Danny Boyd, she made a point of admonishing each of her classes for their insensitivity toward the student. There was a special article on Danny ordered for the school paper, the yearbook staff made an announcement that they would keep him in with the senior class photos. Danny Boyd became a special cause for about two weeks, before the onrushing pace of high school events swept his memory into the past.

Fish and Chips

B
rad’s new job location was way down on Ridgemont Drive, in a green building between two office-supply stores. There was a huge off-purple drawing of a lobster out front. The sign read: Captain Kidd Fish and Chips. Brad himself couldn’t really tell you how good the fish was. He didn’t like fish.