salad.
“They said they were ready to sign me up,” said Dean, taking his seat. “Everybody was slapping me on the back and all enthused to have me aboard, then they handed me a little container for the drug test.”
“Um,” I said. “So then—”
“So then I told them I took that as a goddamn affront to the deeply ingrained American tradition of guaranteeing personal liberty, not to mention my rights as a citizen of this great nation. Asked ’em how the hell they got off thinking the Constitution gave anyone the go-ahead for requiring me to whip it out on command and fi ll some plastic Dixie cup with my Purity of Essence. That’s not why our boys died in Iwo Jima.”
5 1
CrazySchool_HCtextF1.indd 51
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“ Please tell me you didn’t actually bring up Iwo Jima.”
Now he was grinning at me. “Goddamn right I brought up Iwo Jima. Guadalcanal . . . Flanders Field . . .”
I tried to just roll my eyes in response, but I had this vision of him standing up on some battle-worn desk in his suit and tie, slamming fi st against palm while ranting about the Halls of Montezuma and the Shores of Tripoli to a bunch of cowering temp-agency staffers, and I couldn’t keep a straight face.
I raised my glass to him. “You are just fucked in the head, sweet boy.”
He shrugged.
“Not like you would’ve passed anyway, ya stoner,” I said.
“Like that’s any of their business. Buncha damn commies.”
I started cutting into my chicken. “Enough with the Semper Fi crap, already. Eat your dinner.”
5 2
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8
The clock radio cranked up in the dark, NPR pundits chatting about the Berlin Wall’s remains getting hacked into fi st-sized souvenir chunks.
I hit the snooze button too many times, trying to catch up on all the sleep I’d missed during the night while I’d been rolling around and fretting.
Dean’s side of the bed was empty, already cold. I pushed away the covers and got up myself.
He had the paper spread out across our little table and a tall milky glass of Café Bustelo waiting for me on the kitchen counter, sweetened to syrup just the way I liked it.
I croaked out my thanks before raising the sacred vessel to my lips with both hands and chugging half of it down.
“Want dibs on the shower, Bunny?”
I shook my head. “I’m late for work.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I lied.
* * *
5 3
CrazySchool_HCtextF1.indd 53
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The narrow lane before me whipped and curved through bare black woods framed stark against that just-before-dawn gray light, everything to the east brushed with a faint anticipatory pink.
This early, mine was the sole car on the road, which in my seemingly perpetual lateness was no bad thing. I put another tape in and turned up the volume to the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.”
Coming out of the last hairpin bend before campus, I had to downshift and brake like crazy to keep from back-ending a rusty old Volvo wagon.
Volvos, Jesus. My nemesis.
I blew by it on the straightaway. Double yellow, but I didn’t want to do a turn-in for showing up after the faculty meeting had gotten under way.
I raced between Santangelo’s stone gateposts at 6:27 a.m., hoping I’d luck out and discover someone had committed a grosser transgression than lateness in the last nine hours.
My right eyelid twitched from lack of sleep. I wasn’t in the goddamn mood to ape contrition, saying that my being late all the time was just totally fueled by passive-aggressive shit and I was so grateful to the community for helping me get committed to tackling my issues around punctuality.
I’d had my fi ll of seventies neuro-hooey from Dad. It wasn’t until I’d washed up at Santangelo that I realized he’d armed me with native-speaker fl uency—like, slap a set of headphones on me and I could’ve snagged a simultaneous-translation gig at the UN, psychobabble to English.
Why
“They said they were ready to sign me up,” said Dean, taking his seat. “Everybody was slapping me on the back and all enthused to have me aboard, then they handed me a little container for the drug test.”
“Um,” I said. “So then—”
“So then I told them I took that as a goddamn affront to the deeply ingrained American tradition of guaranteeing personal liberty, not to mention my rights as a citizen of this great nation. Asked ’em how the hell they got off thinking the Constitution gave anyone the go-ahead for requiring me to whip it out on command and fi ll some plastic Dixie cup with my Purity of Essence. That’s not why our boys died in Iwo Jima.”
5 1
CrazySchool_HCtextF1.indd 51
28/5/08 2:44:14 PM
“ Please tell me you didn’t actually bring up Iwo Jima.”
Now he was grinning at me. “Goddamn right I brought up Iwo Jima. Guadalcanal . . . Flanders Field . . .”
I tried to just roll my eyes in response, but I had this vision of him standing up on some battle-worn desk in his suit and tie, slamming fi st against palm while ranting about the Halls of Montezuma and the Shores of Tripoli to a bunch of cowering temp-agency staffers, and I couldn’t keep a straight face.
I raised my glass to him. “You are just fucked in the head, sweet boy.”
He shrugged.
“Not like you would’ve passed anyway, ya stoner,” I said.
“Like that’s any of their business. Buncha damn commies.”
I started cutting into my chicken. “Enough with the Semper Fi crap, already. Eat your dinner.”
5 2
CrazySchool_HCtextF1.indd 52
28/5/08 2:44:14 PM
8
The clock radio cranked up in the dark, NPR pundits chatting about the Berlin Wall’s remains getting hacked into fi st-sized souvenir chunks.
I hit the snooze button too many times, trying to catch up on all the sleep I’d missed during the night while I’d been rolling around and fretting.
Dean’s side of the bed was empty, already cold. I pushed away the covers and got up myself.
He had the paper spread out across our little table and a tall milky glass of Café Bustelo waiting for me on the kitchen counter, sweetened to syrup just the way I liked it.
I croaked out my thanks before raising the sacred vessel to my lips with both hands and chugging half of it down.
“Want dibs on the shower, Bunny?”
I shook my head. “I’m late for work.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I lied.
* * *
5 3
CrazySchool_HCtextF1.indd 53
28/5/08 2:44:14 PM
The narrow lane before me whipped and curved through bare black woods framed stark against that just-before-dawn gray light, everything to the east brushed with a faint anticipatory pink.
This early, mine was the sole car on the road, which in my seemingly perpetual lateness was no bad thing. I put another tape in and turned up the volume to the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.”
Coming out of the last hairpin bend before campus, I had to downshift and brake like crazy to keep from back-ending a rusty old Volvo wagon.
Volvos, Jesus. My nemesis.
I blew by it on the straightaway. Double yellow, but I didn’t want to do a turn-in for showing up after the faculty meeting had gotten under way.
I raced between Santangelo’s stone gateposts at 6:27 a.m., hoping I’d luck out and discover someone had committed a grosser transgression than lateness in the last nine hours.
My right eyelid twitched from lack of sleep. I wasn’t in the goddamn mood to ape contrition, saying that my being late all the time was just totally fueled by passive-aggressive shit and I was so grateful to the community for helping me get committed to tackling my issues around punctuality.
I’d had my fi ll of seventies neuro-hooey from Dad. It wasn’t until I’d washed up at Santangelo that I realized he’d armed me with native-speaker fl uency—like, slap a set of headphones on me and I could’ve snagged a simultaneous-translation gig at the UN, psychobabble to English.
Why
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