“He’s right, sir.” Of course everybody looked at him. Travis says maybe four words a year, and they’re almost always comparison examples that have Ethel Merman or Pearl Bailey in them. So Naylor wasn’t prepared for an attack from the left.
“Mr. Puckett,” he grunted, with snakes coming out his eyes, “have you something to say?” Boy, did he ever.
“According to Peabody’s Contemporary Criticism,” said Travis, “Brontë intended a level of psychosexual ambiguity in order to leave the reader wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“Whether Heathcliff was in fact attracted to Catherine or whether he was merely searching for a homoerotic substitute.” While Naylor was picking himself up from the mat, me and Travis made eye contact for about 1/100 of a second, which was just long enough for him to ESP three things to me: (1) I’m pulling this out of my ass as I go along, (2) I’ll get you off the hook, and (3) we’re in this together. And for a minute I even felt sorry for Naylor.
“Mr. Puckett,” he glared, going for the kill. “I’m not familiar with Peabody’s Contemporary Criticism.”
“Neither was I, sir,” admitted Travis, “until I found it in the reference room at Donnell Library. Third floor.” And he didn’t even blink while he was saying it!
I need to find out what makes Travis tick. Then maybe he can teach it to me.
Travis Puckett
Room 214
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
Craig:
I finished your essay, but I sort of rewrote some of it. No offense. I had to cut the part about the Mafia and the Jets and the Red Sox and being half-naked at Madison Square Garden and getting laid when you were 15. The only thing left was half a line—where you died. So I put in stuff about coming from Missouri and your mom being a doctor and your dad’s law practice and your Little League trophy and the way you scored three touchdowns in one game last year and how nobody in our class got into Harvard but you. And how come you didn’t say anything about the Citizenship Award? You were the only tenth-grader who ever won it.
I was two hours late getting it to him, but that was only because (a) I’d been chasing down a used copy of Greenwillow from an out-of-print record store in Colorado that turned out to be a bum lead, and (b) I had to redo all four pages when Gordo dropped a chili cheese dog on them.
Gordon Duboise is the roommate from hell. The unsanitary part. At five feet ten inches, he weighs 158 pounds. Two-thirds of that is muscle and the rest is bacteria. You can tell where his side of the room starts and mine ends, because there’s an invisible Berlin Wall right down the middle—it kind of looks like what would happen if an intensive care unit collided with a city dump: randomly scattered biology notes, partly empty Coke cans, and three pairs of toxic underpants (all left over from junior year) in one sector, versus hospital corners, symmetrical dustballs, and carefully labeled history books that all smell like Windex in the other. (His half of the closet is no better—one time I found a radial tire, a bag of peat moss, and a 1911 New York Times.) Far from being ashamed, Gordo claims that he can identify any article of unwashed clothing by its aroma—even with his eyes closed.
“What stinks?”
“Sweatshirt,” he says, sniffing. “Georgia Tech.” And he’s always right!
It’s also impossible to keep secrets from him. Even the ones I don’t know about yet.
“What’s an option play?” I yawned casually, closing a physiology text and switching off my desk lamp. Gordo was sprawled out on a reprehensible mattress covered only by a World War I army blanket that hadn’t been dry cleaned since the battle of Argonne, engrossed in the most recent issue of Hustler.
“Who’s been asking you about option plays?” he replied, looking up from an improbable pair of breasts that couldn’t possibly have existed prior to the silicone patent. “You got a boyfriend or something?”
I hate it when he figures me out before I have a chance to do it myself. Especially when I’ve been counting on at least seven more years of denial.
Craig McKenna
Room 311
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
English Assignment
My Obituary
Mr. McKenna: In the unlikely event that you achieved this of your own accord without any outside assistance, you’re to be commended. Otherwise, disregard the accolade.
Grade: A+
Shea Stadium was packed and so was the subway. We had to stand pressed together all the way from Grand Central to Willets Point and Travis squeaked six times while we were doing it.
He didn’t want me to pop for his Mets ticket, but considering that I deserve an A+ in English about as much as Pete Rose does, he really didn’t have a choice. So we wore our caps backwards and we used my phony ID to buy beer and we got mustard all over ourselves and by the bottom of the 9th, the Mets were trailing the Dodgers 4–3 with two out and two men on. Then Mazzilli came to the plate with “Don’t fuck with me” written all over his face and you knew he was thinking “first pitch outta here.” But instead it turned out to be a weak pop-up to first and I was already reaching for my jacket, when all of a sudden Steve (Your Highness) Garvey—who had the ball in his actual hands—dropped it on his Dodger Blue feet. YES! Travis and I were already jumping up and down on each other even before Foli and Flynn scored, and when Otis slugged Maz for sliding into home and the brawl started, we yelled ourselves into at least three days of laryngitis. I haven’t popped my cork like that since Fisk belted the homer in ’75.
Travis says that Roosevelt called us “The Arsenal of Democracy” the same week he locked up 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps. Also that Black soldiers had to ride in boxcars while German POWs got to eat in the dining car. And by the way, next month is the 215th anniversary of the battle at Bunker Hill.
I have six varsity letters. How come I don’t know these things? And where did Travis learn so much about baseball?
Travis Puckett
Room 214
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
Somebody hit a ground rule double and somebody else stole a base and then a fight started, presumably for pro forma reasons. Then it was over. The blue-and-orange uniforms won.
What was I supposed to talk to him about?! Chugging brews? Naked girls? Crotch rot? If he hadn’t already said something about Carlton Fisk, I’d have been up shit creek. Thank God the library had a copy of The Baseball Almanac. “Carlton Ernest Fisk, born December 26, 1948, in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Has played with the Boston Red Sox since 1969 and is best known for a twelfth-inning haymaker in the 1975 Series off of Reds hurler Pat Darcy.” So I looked up Reds hurler Pat Darcy, who was only a short hop to Alvin Dark and the New York Giants. But that was the end of the line. When Craig asked me about Thurman Munson (sp?), I had to drag in Hitler just to throw him off the scent. I don’t know how long I can keep this up.
Craig McKenna
Room 311
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
Tonight me and Travis stuffed our beds with pillows and snuck into Tarrytown to see the 10:00 P.M. I Wanna Hold Your Hand. While we were waiting in line to buy our tickets, Travis said we still needed to resolve Critical Issue Number 1—which one of us gets to be called Smerko in this relationship? So we flipped for it and he won. (Actually he didn’t, but it’s not like you needed much of a brain to figure out that he wanted it a lot more than I did.)
Anybody who’s never been to a movie with Travis needs to try it at least once, just for the entertainment value. First of all, he goes to take a piss exactly three minutes before showtime, even if he doesn’t have to. It’s a preventative measure just in case. The reason is because metabolism sometimes sneaks up on you faster than usual, and what if it suddenly happens smack in the middle of a good part?
Second of all, he won’t touch any of his popcorn until the movie starts, but previews don’t count and neither do the credits
—you have to wait until after the director’s name rolls off the screen. (“Not even one piece?” “No. That would invalidate the whole box.”) Meanwhile he sits there with his hand over the top like maybe a tornado’s going zip through the theater and blow some of it away or a popcorn thief is going to hit him up while he’s not looking. Finally, when he does get to eat some, it happens in three-piece installments. No more. No less. And he spaces it out so it lasts for an hour and ten minutes.
Third of all, where we sit is another big deal. It has to be exactly three-fifths of the way back (which means counting the rows first), on the right-hand aisle. How come? The perspective is better there. Scientists didn’t need to figure this out—Travis did it for them.
By the time the movie started, I was worn out. How does he do it? If I had to keep track of all those things, I’d wind up in a nuthouse. So I watched him for the first twenty minutes—thinking about metabolism and peeing, and eating three pieces of popcorn every seventy-five seconds, and counting the rows again to make sure we weren’t one off—and suddenly it all made sense. That was the scary part.
Oh, yeah. It took a lot of work, but I finally talked him into losing the Van Heusens by giving him one of my Grateful Dead tops instead. Definitely an improvement. He wears T-shirts well. The guys at Brigadoon won’t even recognize him anymore.
Travis Puckett
Room 214
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t even premeditated. Kerry Fusaro was singing “Almost Like Being in Love” and all I had to do was wait for a cue from Craig and push a flat onto the stage. Period. We’ve done it a hundred thousand times before. But one of the baby-blue spots picked that moment to spill over into the wings and light him up—all 5-foot-8 of him, holding his clipboard and wearing his white T-shirt and winking at me with the one-dimple smile that nobody but yours truly ever gets, with the little crinkles around the corners of his eyes. DEFCON 3! DEFCON 3! The next thing I knew, I was wrapping my foot around the brace so that the damned flat wouldn’t move, just before I heard myself whispering (in a terrific impersonation of panic), “Craig, it’s stuck!” What’s the matter with me?! Naturally I got the one-dimple thing again while he moved behind my marks and slid his arms around my chest to help me push. With his chin in my neck. And his nose in my ear. As he began humming “Almost Like Being in Love” right along with Kerry. It would have served me right if I’d had a cerebral aneurysm on the spot. Instead, I forgot all about my foot—until we shoved the flat onto the stage. I think we broke my ankle.
This is bullshit. I have finals to worry about.
Henry IV, Part I
Notes
Themes: It doesn’t matter what people think of you as long as you know that your head and heart are in the right place. Everybody figured Prince Hal for a wastrel like Falstaff, but that’s the way he wanted it. He was only marking time until he could prove that he was brave and honorable and righteous and loyal.
And strong.
And funny.
And gallant.
And
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Craig McKenna
Room 311
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
If he ever scares me like that again, I’m going to break his neck.
How it started was when I had this really weird dream that he came barreling into my room at 7:00 in the morning, out of breath and with red ears—which usually means that (a) somebody’s civil rights got violated, (b) he figured out who killed Kennedy, or (c) Ethel Merman farted. But this time he was talking so fast I could hardly understand anything he was saying. Even more than usual.
“Oh my God Craig I just opened a letter from House of Records in Scranton and they have one used copy of Greenwillow but they can only hold it for me until 5:00 tomorrow so I’ve got to hitchhike to Pennsylvania can you cover for me in case anybody asks?” Then he turned into a cat.
I didn’t think much about it while I was brushing my teeth—I mean, it wasn’t half as creepy as the one about Idi Amin chowing down on the Partridge family—but when I hit the dining room for breakfast and he wasn’t there, I started getting worried. (It was creamed-chipped-beef-on-toast day and Smerko wouldn’t have missed that even for open-heart surgery.) So I lied to Mr. Drew and said that Travis was somewhere puking—a crock of shit he’d definitely believe on creamed-chipped-beef-and-toast day—and then I tore up two flights of stairs to his room. But he wasn’t there either, and his oversleeping roommate wasn’t a hell of a lot of help.
“Gordo, listen to me carefully,” I said, shaking him partly awake. “He wouldn’t really hitchhike to Pennsylvania just for a record, would he?” Gordo stuck his head under a gray pillow that used to be white and groaned.
“At least. G’night, Craig.”
For the next three hours I felt like a short traffic cop. First I told Mr. Naylor that Travis got called in to Mr. Dexter’s office. Then I told Mr. Dexter that Travis was taking a makeup French quiz for Mr. Mitton. After that I told Mr. Mitton that Travis was covering study hall for Mr. Denning who had diarrhea, and finally I told Mr. Denning that Travis was still arguing with Mr. Naylor about that idiot Desdemona. Then the loop started all over again.
WHO THE FUCK HITCHHIKES TO SCRANTON?
What if some creep picks him up? Do you know what kind of people are out there? Read Helter Skelter if you don’t believe me. And how easy would it be to get run over on a freeway? Does he have enough money on him? Suppose he can’t find a ride? What if he gets stranded in the rain and the only joint around is the Bates Motel?
By dinnertime I was such a mess my stomach couldn’t even handle a cupcake. Travis may be a lot of things, but a bruiser isn’t one of them. And without me around to protect him, who knew what could happen? At least that’s what I kept telling myself while I was sitting in front of the school at 9:30 tonight, waiting for him to come back.
He hitched three hundred miles for a record album. And half the time I can’t even motivate my own ass across a room.
Travis Puckett
Room 214
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
ANTHONY PERKINS
in
GREENWILLOW
music and lyrics by FRANK LOESSER
book by LESSER SAMUELS
Opened March 8, 1960; Alvin Theatre
95 performances
I was already playing Side Two on Craig’s stereo when he finally came upstairs. (He should have known I was going to sneak in through the Common Room window. Don’t I always?)
Except for a gold and white label pasted on the inside sleeve that says “Property of Leon,” it was definitely worth spending three hours in the back of a Pennsylvania-bound cheese truck for. Craig doesn’t think so.
“Who’s that singing?” he demanded as he flopped down on the bed next to me.
“Anthony Perkins,” I told him, handing over the album cover to prove it.
“Yeah? Well, I liked him a lot better when he was stabbing people in the shower.”
I’m guessing that he had a bad day. He should have come to Scranton with me.
Craig McKenna
Room 311
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
Moral: It’
s a lot easier to patch things up with somebody when he doesn’t even know you were pissed off at him in the first place. And I was halfway right. Norman Bates singing sounds like what happens when you accidentally step on a dog.
While we were in the middle of our 11:00 P.M. cookie fight, one of my Chips Ahoys flew into the closet—and even though I told him he didn’t have to, Travis went to get it anyway. (“Craigy, how can you go on with your life knowing it’s still lying there?”) Since it landed between a pair of sneakers and two jockstraps, I didn’t think he was going to find my guitar. But duh—he found Scranton, didn’t he? So I wasn’t too surprised when I wound up cross-legged on my bed in my Jockeys singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane” to the only person in the world who wouldn’t laugh at me or spill the beans to anybody else.
Actually, I thought it was cooking pretty well, but when I got to the “one more time, let me kiss you” part, Travis headed for the door and said he had to go study. (Without me?)
Okay—maybe Peter, Paul, and Mary I’m not.
Travis Puckett
Room 214
BECKLEY SCHOOL
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK
If I’d stayed in that room for another nine seconds, I wouldn’t have been responsible for my actions.
So on top of everything else, he sings like an angel in underpants. And he doesn’t even suspect it. All he needs now is a little confidence (at last—a flaw!) and a Henry Higgins who’s figured out how to pick his material. Something that fits his dimple. Something that lights up the razzle-dazzle he still doesn’t know he has. And definitely something that would piss off Richard Nixon (if he still mattered).
Back to the library.
Bob Dylan
Joan Baez
Laura Nyro
Pete Seeger
Woody Guthrie
Jim Morrison*
All right, maybe this is a little extreme, even for me. I mean, what I don’t know about Bob Dylan would have provided enough ballast to keep the Titanic floating for another six hours. (FACT: His last name is really Zimmerman and so was Ethel Merman’s before she dropped the Zim. Period.) But if I play my cards right, Craig is going to be singing “I Want You” directly to me. What did JFK used to say? “The journey of a million miles begins with a single step.”