Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath (14 page)

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The pizza place is a little too public, so we swing through the drive-through and pick up cheeseburgers and drive over to the cul-de-sac where we drank beers the other night. The weather, which had been so nice lately, has turned and it is too cold to eat outside, so we eat in David's car. I don't take off my seat belt and neither of us turns to face the other, so the entire conversation takes place as if we are performing for an audience watching through the windshield.

I start.

“I read your letter. This doesn't have to be a big deal. I know you're gay. I've known for a long time. I told you already that I'm fine with it.”

“This isn't about me being gay.”

“It's about me not being gay.”

David takes a long breath like he's about to say something that he's hidden somewhere deep inside himself and he needs extra air to speak it now.

“Has it ever occurred to you that this may not be about you? I'm not gay to annoy you. I'm not gay because of you. At some point has it ever flickered across your consciousness that it might be more difficult to be a gay seventeen-year-old than to have a gay friend?”

“You always seem okay.” I don't mean to sound defensive, but if he has been having such a hard time, he hasn't shown it much.

“I am okay. But you aren't helping much.”

I stare out the windshield. “I thought, from your note, that this was about me.”

“It was about us. Who we are.”

“We're friends, aren't we?”

“Just friends?”

The phrase has the crisp snap of rejection. I swallow hard. Are we “just friends”? I want to tell him not to demean the word. Not make it sound so flimsy and insubstantial.

“Still friends?”

It starts to rain. Ugly, loud, angry drops of rain. It moves over the car in waves, drowning out anything we might have said. If we were talking. I have an irrelevant moment of revelation in which I realize that the phrase “heavy silence” is an excellent description of how much presence silence has when you sit with someone and don't talk. It is the most present absence I have ever felt.

“Yes,” he says after way too long.

David starts the car and drives to my house. He pulls the car into the driveway, but neither of us speaks.

I want to do something. I want to change the topic. I want to talk about our calculus homework or whether Wallman ever bathes or whether he thinks I have a shot at getting into Princeton. I want to laugh. Why can't we laugh?

Or cry. I can't imagine David crying. I've never seen him cry—except that one time in fourth grade when we got into a fight and I punched him and he cried and I cried even though he hadn't punched me back. I still can't remember why I punched him. Is it a fight if only one of you is fighting? Fighting doesn't seem like something you can do by yourself. A little like love.

I want to scream. I want to be angry and scream. I want David to say something.

I close my eyes for a moment, listening to the rain, trying hard to find some counterpart in my experience for this moment, something that will let me know how I am supposed to respond. There must be a right answer, some magic words that will open up this car door and let me out and let me go on with my life. I know so many stories, so many scripts—but this moment isn't in any of them. I don't know what we are doing here. I don't know what I should say. I know we will eventually leave this car and on Monday we will go to school and eat lunch together, and David will give me half of his roast beef sandwich (the smaller half). I will go watch him sit on the bench at his next home game. He will give me rides home from school. We will go see movies. We will eat pizza.

When we start talking again, it is in quiet voices of resignation and lies. David says he wrote the letter because he felt he needed to tell me how he feels,
but he didn't expect anything to change. I tell him that I now know how he feels, but it doesn't change anything. What we mean is that both of us will pretend that nothing is different, and wait for something to change.

Theory 2: I got Curtis fired (Mitchell version)

Finally, over a week after I turned in my offensive DVD, Sorrelson's administrative assistant comes to get me in the middle of calculus. Although I haven't said anything about my last meeting, everyone already seems to know I'm in trouble and why. Curtis has officially taken a leave of absence and we are on our fourth sub. This one is an older woman who seems very angry almost all the time. Her primary objection seems to be the school smoking policy, which forces her to walk off the campus grounds in order to smoke. Class starts punctually six minutes late and ends six minutes early, as it takes twelve minutes to walk to the edge of the campus, smoke her cigarette, and walk back. We mostly wait quietly in our seats, being the passive good doobie sheep we are. At least she has read the book.

Mr. Sorrelson's lower lip is sticking out again when I
arrive. At first he ignores me and continues reading some memo, the single sheet of paper on his vast desk. The memo looks to me like it's only about ten lines long, but he leaves me standing there for several minutes while he studies it. Either the whole thing is for dramatic effect or he should never have been allowed out of third grade.

“Please sit down, Mitchell,” he commands with his gruff formality, as if he has just that moment realized I've been standing there.

I sit down. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It occurs to me that Louis has misquoted the movie and that it doesn't fit this situation at all, but repeating it to myself over and over again is strangely comforting.

Sorrelson sighs deeply and begins again in his painfully slow gurgling voice. “I have watched your cartoon.” He pauses for a reaction. I can't think of a good one, so I just sit there and wait. “And I am disappointed in you. This is not what we expected from a young man of your accomplishments. I am sure that you meant it as a harmless prank, a kind of joke, but you are old enough to take other people's feelings into account before you act. Now I feel as if, perhaps, we may have been mistaken about your character. We will now have to bear that in mind when we write your college recommendation letters.”

Ouch.

“I also spoke to your parents.” He pauses again for a
reaction. “I believe that I was able to make them see the gravity of this situation.” He obviously hasn't spoken to my mother. I wait out his next pause.

“I feel that, given the seriousness of this offense, I have no choice but to refer the issue to our Judicial Board.”

Cue the scary music. The Judicial Board is a group of five students and two faculty members who review breaches of the school's honor code. They don't get to wear black robes, and all they can really do is recommend disciplinary actions to the headmaster/CEO, who ignores them a good half of the time, but it is never a good thing to be sent to the J-Board. The student positions are all elected, and I think people do it mostly because it looks good for colleges. I can't even remember who we elected this year. I have an uneasy feeling that it might have been Louis.

Sorrelson is looking at his calendar. “The Judicial Board usually meets on Tuesdays during activity period, and obviously we've already missed today. Let's see, because of the holiday, next Tuesday is a Monday schedule, but we could try to get them together on Wednesday … but no, wait, Wednesday is a flex day because of an assembly, but we do have a Tuesday on Tuesday that next week, I think. Yes. Right. Two weeks from today. 11:20. They meet in my office.”

How? Does everyone stand? Do people sit on the desk?

“I assume you are aware of how this works. The Judicial Board will ask you questions, then they meet and
discuss what they have heard secretly, I mean without you, and then they will make a recommendation to Dr. VandeNeer. I'm sure he will want to meet with your parents to discuss any disciplinary actions we may need to take. You may return to class.”

“Thank you,” I say as I leave, since he seems to be waiting for me to say something. Why do I keep thanking this man?

I must look pretty shellshocked when I return to calculus, because even David notices. Luckily, lunch is next.

If anything has changed since our car ride over the weekend, it is hard to tell from the way David's acting. Over the last two days we have talked about homework, baseball, and Curtis's sub, and he has done his Pib and Pog voices about sixty times. Nothing unusual. David is sitting at lunch with his sandwich and apple, waiting for me with the same slightly bored look on his face that he always has when I take too long at my locker. He looks a little less disinterested when I fill him in on the details of my conversation with Sorrelson.

“I hate to agree with Louis, but he's right. What are they going to do to you?” David sounds convincing, like he really knows about these things. “The J-Board is a complete joke. And there is no way Sorrelson is going to poison your college recommendations. Your parents would sue.”

I nod, but all I'm really thinking is, “Shit, I have ruined my entire future by showing a cartoon to my English
class.” You would think it would be harder to screw up this badly.

David is looking at me with an expression that conveys the depth of his sincerity and concern. I'm thinking of punching him, but he seems to remember who he is suddenly and makes a typical David comment: “Some school will take you. It's not like you're serving jail time or something. Plus, you know, there are lots of jobs that don't require a college degree.”

Jobs. A wave of guilt-induced nausea brings the taste of vomit to my mouth. I manage to keep it down and breathe loudly through my nose.

“Are you okay?” David asks. “You look like you're about to color the carpet.”

I nod, without opening my mouth. “It's not just me,” I explain between long breaths. “They fired Curtis for letting me show the thing. I'm sure that's why he's gone. I got someone fired. I got Curtis fired.”

I can't finish lunch. Instead I treat myself to a lie-down in the nurse's office. I'm the only one over twelve who still uses the cot. She takes my temperature and gives me Pepto-Bismol and a few clucking noises. I can't tell if the clucking indicates sympathy or disapproval, but she leaves me in the little room and turns off the light. I lie in the darkness, wondering what professional options pompous, recently fired English teachers and pathologically shy, recently expelled teenagers have.

Theory 3: I got Curtis fired (M.C. version)

The nurse's office is by the sophomore lockers. When I do finally get myself off the cot, I have to pass by M.C.'s locker, which at this moment has M.C. in front of it. She's not, however, simply standing in front of it; she seems to be engaged in some form of tug-of-war with it. It is hard to tell whether she is trying to put her backpack in or take it out, because she's smashing it viciously with the door. When the bag has been punished enough, she yanks it loose, which precipitates a rainstorm of books, notebooks, loose paper, and various articles of clothing. She picks up some of what has escaped, opens the latch, and tries to toss it in before more falls out. So far, this does not appear to be a successful strategy. I help by picking up a shoe and a French book and tossing them into the locker, but the shoe misses the mark and bounces back into the hallway. It isn't until I retrieve the shoe that I notice she's crying.

“Maybe you should just take a few minutes and clean out your locker. It can't take that long.”

“Stupid fricking locker,” she snorts, and slams it again. The door catches on her binder and the locker vomits most of its contents onto the floor. M.C. sinks to the floor next to the pile of debris and lets loose a wail.

“I'll help,” I say, and I start picking up the larger books. M.C. reaches up, grabs my hand, and tugs me down beside her.

“Forget the locker. Who cares about the locker?” She looks at me, tears streaming down her freckles. “I am a horrible person.”

“You are?” This is a dumb response, and I know it is a dumb response even before it comes out of my mouth.

“I got Curtis fired,” she tells me, and looks away again.

“No, you didn't.” I feel pretty sure of this since I'm convinced that
I'm
the one who got Curtis fired.

“He didn't do anything, I mean we didn't do anything. Nothing. Nothing at all. I mean, I wanted to do something, not everything but something, but I didn't even try to do anything.”

I am still stuck on the idea that M.C. wanted to do anything with Curtis and I am now totally flustered. She looks up for some sort of response and the only thing she can read on my face is horror. She begins to sob.

And I'm stuck. I know that this hallway will soon be full of people. I'm not sure what they will make of the two of us sitting on the floor beside the spilled contents of M.C.'s locker. And what am I supposed to do about M.C.? I think I should hold her hand or give her a hug or something, but I'm not sure how to do that. Her hands are currently wrapped around her waist like she is giving herself a hug. I pat her on the back, a little too forcefully, like maybe I'm trying to burp her or something, but she responds by leaning into me a little. My arm is sort of draped over her shoulder, but my hand hangs limply in the air, too far to
rest on her shoulder but not far enough to reach her arm. I flail a little, then leave it hanging there.

Now that the physics are out of the way, I try working up a verbal response.

“M.C., what are we talking about?”

“Carrie said that David said that you said that Curtis was fired. I thought he just had some sort of nervous breakdown or was outed or something.”

“He wasn't fired because of you. I don't even know that he was fired.”