The last football game of the regular season was to be played against Patrick Henry High School. It would be a tough game. If the Raiders won, it meant the first play-off berth in the school’s twenty-year history. Two days before the game, most of the players were already too nervous to go out and party. Not Charles Jefferson. He went out, partied, and broke into a Radio Shack with two men he’d met earlier that evening near the Richards Bay Information Tower. The police arrested Charles Jefferson later that night.
“Who were your accomplices?”
“I just went along with these two dudes! I didn’t know what they were going to do.”
“Two dudes? Can you identify them?”
“No.”
“Do you know where they might be?”
“No. They were just some brothers. I thought we’d go get Colt and . . .”
Charles Jefferson was sent to juvenile detention camp to await trial. He lost his scholarship. Ridgemont lost the game against Patrick Henry. Teachers quit calling Jefferson’s name for roll call. It was like he never existed.
“Charles Jefferson was an enigma,” wrote Louis Crowley in the Ridgemont Reader. “He passed through our lives like a shot in the dark.”
“Louis,” said Mrs. Sheehan, “don’t mix your metaphors.”
The Rat Moves In
A student could mark his time by certain events that passed during the school year. First there was homecoming, then the World Series, then Halloween, and Thanksgiving, all working up to that coveted fourteen-day Christmas vacation. Like any other school, Ridgemont High made a big deal of the Christmas season. The classrooms were decorated in tinsel, the windows frosted with spray snow. Some teachers brought in trees. It all meant two things. First, it was a season to rejoice. Second, the race to vacation was on.
The Rat sat in biology watching the clock. Only three more periods until Christmas vacation; three more classes until Mark Ratner was sure Stacy would be lost forever. He made the decision sitting in Youth and Law. Today was the day.
After class, Ratner walked by the A.S.B. office and there she was, working side by side with Mike Brock. As usual.
Her eyes. She had the greatest eyes. And her hair! It was just great the way it fell onto her shoulders . . .
Stacy finished up. “Next,” she said.
“Hi,” The Rat mumbled.
“Hello. How are you doing today?”
“Pretty good,” said Ratner. His glance turned directly downward. It was as if nothing, nothing in the world could get him to look up at this girl with confidence. “I was wondering when basketball tryouts started. I missed it in the bulletins.”
“Let me check,” said Stacy cheerfully. She shuffled through some papers.
“Monday. They start Monday in the gym.”
“During vacation?”
“I guess,” said Stacy. “Are you going away?”
Ratner looked up. “Maybe,” he said. It was a well-known fact that Cool People never hung around during Christmas vacation. “How about you?”
Stacy gave a sour look. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think I have to stay here in yuk-town.”
If ever there had come a time for The Attitude, Rat figured, it was now. “Hey,” he said. “How about if I give you a call over Christmas vacation?”
“Sure,” said Stacy. “That would be fine.”
“Great,” said The Rat. He watched as she tore off a piece of an envelope, wrote her phone number on it, and pushed it through the hole in the window. He silently coached himself. Take it slow.
“Good luck with tryouts,” she said.
“Thanks,” said The Rat, all Attitude. “And maybe I’ll talk to you over vacation.”
The Rat nodded a cool goodbye, turned the corner, and banged into a trash can.
The 100% Guaranteed Breakfast
Well, Brad Hamilton thought, Jack-in-the-Box wasn’t that bad in itself. At least they’d taken down all the little clowns—the plastic Jacks that kids would always make jokes about over the intercom. Jokes like, “. . . and after you give me that turnover you can tell Jack off ha ha ha.”
No, working at Jack’s wasn’t as bad as Brad Hamilton thought. Pay was okay; he started at $3.10 an hour. He’d get a raise soon, no problem. But he was beginning to hate his new hours.
Brad had daybreak hours now, which meant a different atmosphere and mood altogether. Rarely did any kids his own age come into the place in the mornings. It was mostly the harried businessmen, on their way to work and hauling ass. And how long will that take, please? A morning man at Jack’s got to hate the way they said “please” most of all.
Jack-in-the-Box spent a lot of money advertising their specialty items. They had a mushy steak sandwich that took Brad one entire minute to make. They had a chicken sandwich he wouldn’t even talk about. Worst of all the specialty items, however, was the 100% Guaranteed Breakfast.
Even though it was a big publicity campaign for Jack-in the-Box, a customer could only order the celebrated 100% Guaranteed Breakfast between the hours of 7:30 and 10:00 A.M.
It took about eight minutes to microwave the complete pancake-and-syrup-scrambled-egg-and-English-muffin breakfast. And how long will that take, PLEASE? For the same amount of money you would think that the businessman would say “Screw it! I’ll have a Breakfast Jack! They’re already prepared and just sitting there!”
But the businessmen rarely backed off. During Brad’s new shift, from 8:00 to 10:15 A.M. (he was on independent work study for the first two periods), the businessmen stood and waited right there, with sweaty hands on the metal counter. And how long will that be? Please!!
The third week of work, the place was pretty empty. Just Brad at the fryer. David, the other morning man, was at the register. And the new assistant manager, an older man who’d transferred from a pep Boys in Santa Monica. Brad hadn’t had a chance to talk much with him.
One morning David had turned to Brad and said, “I gotta whiz, will you just cover me at the register for a minute?” Although anybody in fast food pretty much knew how to work a register, it was an unspoken rule that you didn’t do it unless your assistant manager designated it as one of your responsibilities. Brad hadn’t gotten that far; he was happy enough to be working the fryer.
But hell, here was David, a decent guy. They had to work together every morning. The assistant manager was in the back room. There was only one businessman in the place, and he already had his breakfast.
“Sure,” said Brad, “take off.”
It was like “The Twilight Zone.” As soon as David disappeared into the bathroom, the one businessman in the place got up and returned to the counter.
“May I help you?” Brad asked nervously.
“Yes,” said the businessman. He had short curly brown hair and spoke in a whine, the kind Brad hated. “This is not the best breakfast I ever ate . . .”
The man pointed to the huge cardboard display—Try Our 100% Guaranteed Breakfast.
“. . . and I want my money back.”
“Well, I believe you have to fill out a form,” said Brad. He started looking beneath the counter for the pad of refund forms.
“No,” said the man, “I get my money back right now.”
“Well, that’s not the way it works, really. And you ate most of your food already, too . . .”
“See that sign?” said the businessman. “It says, 100% Money-Back Guarantee. Do you know the meaning of the word guarantee? Do they teach you that here? Give me my money back.”