Revolting Youth: The Further Journals of Nick Twisp (2 page)

MONDAY, February 22 — Carlotta confided to Sonya Klummplatz in clothing technology class that her rival Apurva soon may be banished to India. Thrilled to her considerable marrow, Sonya wrote out a note of commiseration, which Carlotta slipped to Trent as he was entering the boys’ locker room for swim practice. The guy looked extremely stressed and profoundly miserable, especially after perusing Sonya’s note.

“What are you going to do?” whispered Carlotta.

“I don’t know,” sighed Trent. “We’re terribly desperate.”

Fabulous, thought Carlotta, patting his tanned muscular arm in sympathy. She yields only to vengeful François in reveling in the suffering of Sheeni Saunder’s erstwhile boyfriends.

7:12 p.m. Sheeni declined an invitation to come over this evening, saying she intended to “wash her hair and reread Flaubert.”
I fail to see how either of these activities could be preferred to energetic teen intercourse. Yes, My Love and I have some small issues in this department, relating chiefly to frequency and reciprocity.

Considering our age and hormone levels, I believe that three times a day is by no means excessive, even if it entails blowing a small fortune on condoms. Sheeni, alas, rarely can be maneuvered into bed more than once or twice a week. She says we’re too young to “wallow in carnality.” She’s afraid we’ll burn out on sex and end up “jaded, disinterested, and passionless” by age 20. I seriously doubt that, subscribing instead to that age-old teen maxim, “Use it, baby, or lose it.”

We also appear to have severely discongruous oral expectations. Speaking frankly, I am no slouch in this department, and can state without exaggeration that I have licked, sucked, and tongued virtually every square inch of My Love, not excluding the divine crack between her perfect ass (she didn’t seem to mind, though afterwards she refused to kiss me for three days). Sheeni says making love with me is like perfuming oneself with a strong liver paté and climbing into bed with a “pack of famished Pekinese.”

As for my needs, Sheeni explains that she cannot divorce the act of fellatio from its political implications. She feels that women have been prostrating themselves at the feet of men for eons, and that it is time to take a stand against female oppression. Therefore, although she delights in the mutual exchange of pleasure, that particular act must remain off the menu. “Trent was very understanding,” she assured me when I at last worked up the nerve to broach the subject. “He is quite progressive in his views for a rural youth, as I also expect my future French husband will be.”

How I hate that unknown, potentially unfulfilled Frog!

TUESDAY, February 23 — My best pal and landlord Frank “Fuzzy” DeFalco threw up in Mr. Tratinni’s physics class today.
He is in emotional turmoil because his long-distance girlfriend Heather recently dumped him for a surfer in Santa Cruz. Fuzzy was sent with a note to Nurse Filmore, while Mr. Tratinni desperately paged Janitor Bob, who remained aloof and disinterested as usual.

Later at lunch Carlotta discussed the situation with the troubled hirsute teen, who slumped listlessly in his chair and refused all nourishment.

“I’m so depressed,” groaned Fuzzy. “Every time I think about Heather making it with that guy my stomach flips into back-flush mode. If this keeps up, I might actually be able to make the wrestling team—in the featherweight division.”

“You’ll get over it,” Carlotta assured him, keeping an anxious eye peeled on Sheeni and loathsome Vijay lunching together at the next table over. (To quell vicious rumors, My Love insists on drastically curtailing her public appearances with Carlotta.) “It’s probably just a Valentine’s Day fling,” I continued. “Girls get desperate when they have to spend that overhyped holiday alone. So what does this surfer creep look like?”

Fuzzy sighed. “I’m told he’s very good-looking, is a great athlete, and has a wonderful outgoing personality that has made him a beloved figure among the young and hip Santa Cruz surfing crowd.”

“Oh, dear,” said Carlotta.

“I hope the fucker wipes out on his board and gets eaten by a shark.”

“It’s tough, Frank,” said Carlotta soothingly. “I know you feel jealous and upset. But it’ll pass. It’s just your genes.”

“My jeans? It’s Heather’s jeans I want the guy to keep his damn mitts out of.”

“Our genes control our behavior,” I explained. “We’re all programmed to get out there and multiply as much as possible. Your genes took one look at Heather and said: ‘Wow, fabulous
breeder chick!’ So now your genes are pissed because they got aced out of the action.”

“That’s dumb,” said Fuzzy. “Then why wasn’t I trying to knock her up?”

“Simple, guy. Your rational mind realizes a pregnancy at your age would be a disaster. But make no mistake, your genes would have been thrilled. And hers too. That’s why kids our age are so sloppy about birth control. We’re at the prime childbearing age, and our bodies know they’ll never again get such great odds for genetic immortality.”

“OK, Einstein,” said Fuzzy. “So why am I throwing up?”

“It’s obvious. Your genes are trying to make you sick of Heather. So you’ll snap out of it and score another good breeding prospect.”

“You mean …?”

“Yep, Frank, long-distance phone sex with Heather is not the answer. It’s time you found a local girlfriend.”

“Hmmm,” ruminated Fuzzy. “Sex anytime I want it.”

“It’s genetically predestined, guy,” Carlotta said. “Go for it!”

“OK, but you’ve got to help me.”

“Me? How?”

Fuzzy looked around and lowered his voice. “I’ve been helping you dodge the cops, dude. So you have to help me hook up with a new chick.”

“OK, OK. I’ll see what I can do.”

Swell. I’m supposed to find some sexy girl to go out with a not-very-attractive, unpopular, klutzy wanna-be jock who ranks in the 99th percentile for body hair. Oh well, at least Fuzzy’s parents have money. That should help.

7:15 p.m. Sheeni dropped by “to study” as Carlotta was finishing up dessert (custard-drizzled cherry crisp) with Mrs. Ferguson and her dim offspring Dwayne Crampton.

“Why do you dine with your domestic staff?” asked Sheeni,
after Dwayne had washed the dishes, My Love had pocketed 75 cents from him in accumulated Albert dog-walking fees, and he and his mother had departed in their wheezing old Grand Prix.

“I have to,” I sighed. “Mrs. Ferguson gets very testy when I ask them to take their meals in the kitchen. She refuses to set two tables. You have no idea what it’s like to sit here night after night and watch Dwayne devour thousands of dollars worth of groceries with his mouth open. Not to mention his constant suggestive allusions to his dearth of underwear. And speaking of things disgusting, why did you let Vijay paw you like that in the cafeteria at lunchtime?”

“It’s to counter all those rumors,” Sheeni explained. “This entire tiresome town is gossiping about us.”

“OK, so what if we are lesbians,” I said, nuzzling her perfect ear. “What business is it of anyone except us?”

“You know how people talk,” she said, pushing me away. “We have to be careful. Don’t forget you’re a fugitive from the FBI.”

“My genes don’t want to be careful,” I whispered, sliding a hand up her enticing thigh.

“I know all about your genes,” she replied, removing my hand and opening her physics textbook. “They manifest drives of a remarkable primitiveness—even for a Twisp.”

10:30 p.m. All we did was study, believe it or not. What a waste of privacy and expensive mood lighting. Sheeni wouldn’t even let me put on my latest Frank Sinatra CD, preferring to bone up on the hydrogen atom without romantic musical accompaniment. Later, as Carlotta was walking Sheeni home, we ran into Vijay (we seem to be doing that a lot lately). He reports his father has bought the plane ticket. His sister Apurva leaves for India on Saturday.

Damn! Now I have to dredge up new girlfriends for Fuzzy and Trent.

•    •    •

WEDNESDAY, February 24 — Fuzzy is feeling better. He reports he only threw up once today—in wood technology class when someone mentioned they were thinking of laminating up a surfboard. No trips this time to Nurse Filmore. Mr. Vilprang tossed some sawdust on the splatter and made Fuzzy clean it up himself. To distract my pal from his troubles, Carlotta suggested over lunch that we meet this evening after dinner for some minor-league breaking and entering.

10:30 p.m. As arranged, Fuzzy was lurking in the bushes outside my father’s rented modular house when my sociopathic alter ego François Dillinger rolled up on my bike just after eight.

“Nick, is that you?” he called, blowing on his hands in the frigid darkness.

“Of course it’s me, Frank,” I whispered, wheeling my bike out of sight under the carport. “Who else would be sneaking around out here in the boonies with a ski cap pulled down low to obscure his features?”

“Are you sure your dad’s not here?” Fuzzy asked nervously as I fiddled with my keys by the side door.

“Relax, Frank. He’s at that public hearing in Willits. I read about it in the newspaper. As PR spokesman for the timber company, he has to explain how their proposed massive clear-cutting will actually benefit the forests. He won’t be back for hours. Hey, my key doesn’t work. Looks like my dad changed the locks.”

More parental “don’t exist” messages for Nick.

“Damn! What do we do now, Nick?”

“We look under the mat.”

Sure enough, a cursory search turned up a shiny brass key.

The first thing we noticed inside was the smell.

“Sheesh, what died?” asked Fuzzy, shining his flashlight around
the chaotic living room. “It smells like someone’s soaking an entire football team’s worth of sweat socks in old cat piss.”

“My dad never was much for housekeeping,” I said, switching on my flashlight and leading the way toward Dad’s “study” (the spare bedroom). “You see anything you want, Frank, just take it.”

“No thanks, Nick. There are some seriously major cooties in this place. I can’t believe my mom used to sneak around with your dad. That is so gross.”

As expected, there in the middle of Dad’s cluttered desk sat my trusty PC clone. It beeped a friendly greeting as I flipped it on, and its ancient hard drive rattled into life. Lots of new files, but thank God my journal was still there. I slipped in a floppy and started the download. Nick’s traumatic adolescence had not been erased!

While my old computer churned at its glacial Reagan-era pace, I snooped through Dad’s stuff. Alas, no lovingly framed, tearstained photos of his runaway son. Just piles of boring timber reports and some wadded-up currency.

“Here’s a hundred-dollar bill for you, Frank.”

Cooties or no, Fuzzy pocketed the cash. François slipped the rest into my wallet as overdue child support.

“How are you getting on with your dad, Frank?” I inquired.

“All right, Nick. We try not to acknowledge each other’s existence.”

“A sensible accommodation.”

After my journal was copied onto the floppy, I took the precaution of erasing it from the hard drive, then uploaded a file from another floppy.

“What’s that?” asked Fuzzy.

“It’s a little looping program I wrote. Next time anyone turns on the computer it will scramble a few files, display an onscreen
animation of a guy mooning the user, and flash ‘Thanks a pantsful, geezer!’ in vivid electric type.”

“Cool! Can we see it now?”

“Sorry, Frank. It’s a special treat just for my dad. I only wish he had a color monitor to get the full, horrifying effect.”

THURSDAY, February 25 — Carlotta’s long-simmering gym-class crisis came to a head today. Boorish Dwayne was snapping Carlotta’s bra straps in world cultures class when a student aide arrived with a note summoning me to the office of Miss Pomdreck, my aged guidance counselor.

“Oh, there you are, Carlotta,” she said, when I appeared at the door of her cinder-block walled office. “I trust you have obtained a note from a local physician confirming the diagnosis of … what is your affliction?”

“Ossifidusbrittalus syndrome, Miss Pomdreck,” I said, wincing as I took a seat beside her battle-scarred metal desk. “I’m afraid I haven’t been well enough to face the trials of yet another medical exam. But perhaps in a few more weeks …”

“I’m sorry, Carlotta. I can’t postpone this matter any further. I’ve given you several extensions already. I can only stretch the rules so far. Miss Arbulash is adamant in demanding an immediate resolution of your gym status.”

Miss Arbulash is Redwood High’s celebrated lady bodybuilder gym teacher.

“Er, why is Miss Arbulash so interested in me?” I asked.

“She says you have a remarkably boyish frame for a girl. She believes you would be a natural for acquiring significant muscle mass.”

“But I don’t want any muscles,” I protested.

“Frankly, I don’t see the fascination either, but Miss Arbulash is not one to be denied.” Miss Pomdreck called up Carlotta’s records
on her computer. “OK, I’m taking you out of seventh-period study hall and moving you to girls’ gym. You start tomorrow.”

“Very well,” I sighed. “Shall I give you the name of my next of kin for when I collapse and die on the gym floor?”

“No one will be collapsing, Carlotta. Miss Arbulash can be demanding of her girls on the weight-lifting machines, but I’m sure she’ll make allowances for your frailty.”

Not when Carlotta drops her towel, lady.

“Whatever you say, Miss Pomdreck.” I made no move to leave.

She looked at me over the tops of her old-lady glasses, virtually identical to my own. “Is there something else, Carlotta?”

“Miss Pomdreck, I’d just like to say that you do a wonderful job helping students with special needs on your limited resources. You’re a legend in the school.”

“I try my best, Carlotta.”

“Yes, and I was just thinking how much more you could do if you had your own discretionary funds.”

“Discretionary funds, Carlotta?”

“Yes, private monies you could dip into to assist needy students or for other uses. Funds that would be separate from the school’s, that you could administer entirely on your own.”

Miss Pomdreck was clearly intrigued. “I suppose such a theoretical monetary influx could be of immense benefit to my work.”