“Just get up?” he asks, smirking.
“Yeah. Missed my guitar tutorial. Shit.” I climb on the bike and try to start it. I hand him the onion bagel. I turn the ignition. I decide to just fake it; pretend the bike won’t start. He won’t be able to tell.
“You shaved,” I say, trying to make conversation; get his attention away from the bike.
“Yeah. I was getting a little scruffy there,” he says.
“Doing it for Mom? That’s real nice,” I say.
“Uh-huh,” he says.
“Nice,” I say.
“Can I have a bite of your bagel?” he asks.
No way. I don’t want to give him a bite of my bagel. I say, “Sure.”
I start the bike up, jiggle the keys, then let it die again. Put my foot on the accelerator; turn it off with a flick of the wrist. Then start it up again. The bike makes a sputtering sound, the engine dies.
“Oh shit,” I say.
I pretend to try it again. The bike, of course, just won’t start.
“Shit.” I get off the bike and lean down. He’s watching me closely.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I don’t know what to say so I say, “Needs a jumpstart.” Smile to myself.
“Jumpstart? Christ,” he mutters, checking his watch.
I get back on the bike and do the trick again. The bike just will not start.
“It’s not gonna start,” I tell him.
“What do I do?” he asks.
I sit there, look out over Commons, finish the cold bagel, yawn. “What time is it?”
“Eleven,” he says.
He’s a liar. It’s only ten-forty-five. I go along with it. “Your bus leaves at eleven-thirty, right?”
“Right,” he says.
“That’s enough time to find someone who’ll give me a jumpstart.” I yawn again.
He’s looking at his watch. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll find someone. Getch’ll do it.”
“Getch has Music for the Handicapped now,” he tells me.
I knew that. “Does he?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say. “I didn’t know Getch took that.”
“I’m taking a cab,” he says.
Thank God. “Okay,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says.
“Sorry guy,” I say.
“It’s all right.” He’s irritated. He gets off the bike and tucks the copy of the book he’s reading in the dufflebag, straightens his sunglasses.
“I’ll see you Sunday, okay?” he says, asks.
“Yeah. Bye,” I say.
Go back to my room and drink some Nyquil to get to sleep. I heard that junkies use the stuff when they can’t find any heroin or methadone. It does the job. The only problem is that I dream about Lauren, and she’s all blue.
PAUL It was a Friday morning and I was waiting by Sean’s bike in the student parking lot. It was only ten-thirty and the bus station in town was maybe a five minute drive from campus but I wanted to get there early. When I was sixteen I was supposed to meet my parents in Mexico. They had flown down the week before and told me that if I wanted to come I could get a ticket and meet them down in Las Cruces. When I got to O’Hare to catch the flight down to Mexico City I found out I missed it. When I went back to my car I found a parking ticket on the windshield. I stayed home and had a party and ruined the couch from Sloane’s and saw eleven movies and skipped school all that week. And that’s probably why I get so paranoid before going on a trip. Ever since then, I arrive at airports and train stations and bus terminals much earlier than needed. Even though it was ten-forty and I knew I’d probably make the bus to Boston, I still couldn’t concentrate on the copy of The Fountainhead I was reading or anything else. Last summer Mitchell told me I was an illiterate and that I should read more. So he gave me a copy of The Fountainhead and I began it, rather reluctantly. When I told Mitchell one day at some cafe that I didn’t like Howard Roark, he said he had to go to the restroom, and he never came back. I paid the check. I remember that my parents bought me a stuffed iguana and smuggled it through customs for me. Why?
Sean arrived and noticed that I’d shaved, flirting, like a bastard. His bike wouldn’t start, so I decided to take a cab to the bus station. He was nice about it and I felt sorry for him that his bike wouldn’t start, and he looked like he was really going to miss me and I decided that I would call him when I got to Boston. Then I remembered The Dressed To Get Screwed party and knew that he was going to get laid; that everyone does. By the time the cab brought me to the bus station I was chain-smoking and bending my copy of The Fountainhead so hard that it became permanently creased. But the bus was late anyway when it arrived at eleven-forty-five, so I had nothing to worry about in terms of making it. Myself, some young fat lady with a blue jacket with dice on the back of it and her blond dirty-faced little boy, and a well-dressed blind man were the only people getting on at Camden. Since there was no one else on the bus I took a seat in the smoking section, near the back. The fat woman got on with her son and they sat up front. It took a while for the blind man to get on and the driver helped guide him slowly to a seat. I hoped that the blind man wouldn’t sit next to me. He didn’t. I was relieved.
The bus pulled out of Camden and started up Route 9. I was glad that there was no one else on the bus today going to Boston. It would be a nice, calm trip. Opening the book, I stared out the window, and got the feeling that maybe this weekend in Boston wouldn’t be too awful. Richard would be there, after all. I was even a little interested in what my mother wanted to talk to me about. Her stolen Cadillac? It was probably a company car anyway. Easy to replace, nothing to worry about. It certainly didn’t merit a visit to Massachusetts though. I took off the sunglasses since it was overcast and lit a fresh cigarette, tried to read. But it was too nice out not to stare past the window at the mid-October countryside, still signs of fall everywhere. Reds and dark greens and oranges and yellows all passed by. I read some more of the book, smoked some more cigarettes, wished that I’d brought my Walkman.
After about an hour the bus pulled into some town and made a stop at a small station where an old couple got on and sat near the front. The bus pulled out of the station and continued back on the highway for a mile or so and then stopped in front of a huge group of people, kids from the college nearby, standing in front of two green benches. I tensed up and realized as the bus slowed down and pulled close to the curb that these students were actually going to board the bus. I panicked for a moment and quickly moved to an aisle seat.
When the kids from the college got on, I took my sunglasses off and then put them on again and looked down at the book, hoping that they wouldn’t realize I was a student from Camden. Fifty or sixty of these kids piled into the bus and it got unbearably loud. Most of them were girls dressed in pinks and blues, Esprit and Benetton sweatshirts, snapping sugarless gum, Walkmans on, holding cans of caffeine-free Diet Coke, clutching issues of Vogue and Glamour, looking like they stepped out of a Starburst commercial. The guys, eight or nine of them, were mostly good-looking and they sat in the back, near me, in the smoking section. One was carrying a big Sony cassette player, the new Talking Heads blasting from it, issues of Rolling Stone and Business Week being passed back and forth. Even after all these Pepsi rejects got on, there was still no one sitting next to me. I started feeling completely self-conscious and thought, god I must look pretentious, sitting in the back, Wayfarers on, black tweed coat ripped at the shoulder, chain-smoking, faded copy of The Fountainhead in my lap. I must scream “Camden!” But I was still grateful that no one sat next to me.