“Well, Damone. You could bring some athlete’s-foot powder from home—like some of the other guys—and keep it in your locker.”
“I could do that,” said Damone. “I could do that.”
“I appreciate your mentioning it to me, though. I’ll bring it up with Coach Ramirez. Okay?”
Damone leaned forward in his chair. “Mr. Sexton, I’m really worried. I think I have venereal disease.”
Sexton snapped to like an anxious firedog. Now this was more like it. He scooted to the edge of his swivel chair and clasped his hands. “What makes you think that?”
“I noticed this sore at the base of my . . . penis.” The word penis came out funny. He didn’t often use the word. Dick, crank, cock, wang, pud, pecker, schlong, weiner, or frank—they all came much more easily.
“Have you had sexual contact?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know the girl?”
“Of course I know the girl.”
“Have you talked to her about the problem.”
“No. I thought I’d check first.”
“You want to show it to me?”
“Not really,” said Damone. But he dropped his pants just the same.
“Is she married?” asked Sexton.
At first Damone thought Sexton meant his dick. Then he realized he meant the girl. It was still a strange question.
“Naw.”
“That lets my wife out,” Sexton said. Then he laughed.
Gee, Damone thought, if I was looking at some guy’s dick I sure wouldn’t be making jokes about my wife. Especially if I thought he had syphilis.
“Hey,” said Sexton, “I’m just trying to make you feel better. Now what this looks like to me is a normal chafing blister. But I wouldn’t leave it at that. You gotta go to your doctor or the free clinic and get a test taken to be sure.”
“Okay, thanks Mr. Sexton.” Damone pulled his pants up. “Thanks a lot!”
“And it’s between us,” said Sexton.
A Late-Night Phone Conversation
“So,” said Stacy Hamilton. “He says all these sweet and wonderful things to me when we’re alone. But when anyone else is around, he’s Mr. Cool.”
“Did you talk to him last night?” asked Linda.
“Yeah.”
“What did he say? Did he call you?”
“I called him. I just called him and said, ‘Guess what?’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I’m reading our English assignment, and I just realized we’re all going to die someday . . . we’re all dying.’ I said, ‘Do you realize that, Mike?’ And Mike goes, ‘So what?’ I said, ‘Doesn’t it bother you that even if the nuclear reactors don’t react and kill us all, we’re still going to die? Doesn’t that bother you?’ He goes, ‘No.’ He says that pain is what bothers most people, not death. And pain doesn’t even bother him. That’s what he says.”
“Wow,” said Linda, “I didn’t know he was that deep.”
The Rat Finds Out
It was just a feeling that Mark Ratner got. There had been a bunch of them all sitting around at a cookout down on Richards Bay. It was a group that was forming—Stacy, Linda, Damone, Ratner, Doug Stallworth, Randy Eddo, and Laurie Beckman. They had been having a good time, but there were little hints that The Rat didn’t quite understand.
Damone got up to leave. “I gotta get to work on some chemistry,” he said. “Come on, Mark.”
The Rat got up to leave with Damone. He heard an odd conversation behind him.
“That Damone sure works hard,” cracked Randy Eddo.
“He gets to play a little, too,” said Linda. “Doesn’t he, Stacy.”
There were knowing giggles. Giggles that made Mark Ratner think. When he reached the car, he mentioned it to Damone.
“Hey, is there anything between you and Stacy?”
Damone shook his head. “No.”
“Really?”
“No. Not really.”
“What do you mean, not really?”
“Let me tell you something, Mark.” Damone sighed. “Sometimes girls just go haywire. I went over to Stacy’s house to go swimming once—I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you ever since, ’cause you’re my bud—and we started messing around and . . .” Damone shrugged. “Something happened. It’s nothing serious, and it’s all over.”
The Rat said nothing.
“I don’t like her as a girlfriend,” said Damone.
The Rat said nothing.
“I don’t even like her as a friend that much. She’s pretty aggressive.”
The Rat started shaking his head. “No, Damone. I don’t understand.”
“She wasn’t really your girlfriend,” mumbled Damone.
“Hey, FUCK YOU, Damone. There are a lot of girls out there, and you mess around with Stacy. I can’t believe you. What have you got to PROVE?”
“I’m sorry,” said Damone.
“Jesus.”
“I always stick up for you,” said The Rat. “I always stick up for you. Whenever people say, ‘Aw that Damone is a loudmouth’—and they say that a lot—I say, ‘You just don’t know Damone.’ When someone says you’re an idiot, I tell them they just don’t know you. Well, you know, Damone, maybe they DO know you pretty GOOD. And I’m just finding out . . .”
“Fine,” said Damone. “Get lost.”
Ratner walked away and vowed never to speak to Mike Damone again. It didn’t make sense to him. For all the time The Rat had spent talking and dying over girls, he would never consider ruining his friendship with Damone over any one of them. Friendship—wasn’t that what it was all about? Apparently not to Damone.
Ratner kept to himself at school for the next several weeks. His first social appearance since the Damone incident was a dance for Marine World workers held at a local hotel. The Rat wore his green army-fatigue jacket and sat in a corner.
Two Marine World co-workers stood at another part of the dance. “Where’s Mark Ratner?” asked one.
“He’s over there,” said the other, “looking like he’s going through Vietnam flashback or something.”
Moustaches
Brad Hamilton had been sitting in Mechanical Arts, making a tape rack for his car. It was already March. As the year wore on and brought all its devastating twists and turns, Brad had realized something important. More than a lot of things, he liked his car. It made him feel responsible. It was a ticket to happiness. It got him places. It didn’t let him down, not like girls and managers. The Cruising Vessel. It was his best friend.
Brad had been making custom items for The Cruising Vessel all year in Mechanical Arts. He’d made a tissue box, a special cover for the tape deck, and now he was almost finished with the tape rack. School, he figured, was good for some things.
Brad was just sanding down the tape rack when the buxom office worker came swinging into Mechanical Arts with a white slip. He looked at the girl, and the slip. Somehow he knew.
“Brad Hamilton?”
“Yo.”
“You’re to visit Mrs. Crawford in the front office.”
A white slip was medium priority, so he went to the office after Mechanical Arts. He trudged down to the office and took a seat outside the counselor’s department where Mrs. Crawford worked.
She poked her head out. “Brad Hamilton?”