“How are you doing?”
“Okay. I’ve got Bulgaria. I’m going for the entire continent today.”
“Are your armies in good shape?”
“Are you kidding? I’m going to blow their heads off, eat their flesh, and drink their blood!”
“Okay, Delbert, see you at lunch.”
“Yeah.”
Jeff Spicoli was, naturally, one of the first players to lose all his armies and sit drawing motorcycles for the rest of War Games.
“What is your problem?” Mr. Hand had demanded of him.
“Boredom,” said Spicoli.
“Mr. Spicoli,” said Mr. Hand, “the next world war will be fought out of boredom.”
A Date with Linda
Linda Barrett was standing in Child Development when she felt two hands on her waist. She turned to see herself in the reflector sunglasses of Steve Shasta.
“What’s for dinner, snookums?” asked Shasta.
“You scared me, Steve.”
“I hear you called me.”
“I didn’t call you.”
They never called each other. Ever since their one make-out session in the bleachers of an eighth-grade Sadie Hawkins dance, nothing had sparked between Steve Shasta and Linda Barrett. There had been polite hellos in the hallways, a few words here and there on lunch court, but mostly Linda left the Shasta-watching to her girlfriends.
“Well, it doesn’t matter if you called me or not,” said Shasta. He tipped his shades. “I just want to say that you’re looking real fine . . . You want to play some miniature golf this Friday night?”
Linda Barrett looked him up and down. He was cute, that much she had to say for Steve Shasta. And if she were going to go out with a high school boy, there wasn’t a more sought-after or mysterious figure around Ridgemont.
“You know I’m engaged,” she said.
“Sure,” said Shasta. “Still Doug?”
Everyone always said that to her these days, even her mother. Sometimes Linda had nightmares in which she died and her unmarked tombstone read only: Still Doug.
“Of course, still Doug.”
“Well, leave him at home.”
He laughed. She would.
Shasta was a half-hour late to pick Linda up on Friday night. He had been out pursuing a favorite Shasta pastime after a tough soccer game—downing a six-pack of Miller within ninety minutes.
He had forgotten to write down the address, instead remembering it as the corner house at Avenida Western and Avenida Birch in the Valley View condominium development. Ah, but . . . which corner house?
They all looked the same. Shasta first tried the house on the northern corner.
“What do you want?” a voice challenged through the door. “I don’t open the door past 8:30!”
“Does Linda Barrett live here?”
“No!”
“Do you know which house she lives in?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Well fuck you, lady.”
Shasta went back out into the street to regroup. He did not see her car; it must have been in the lousy garage. Which garage? He just could not remember. In fact, he was not remembering too much of anything.
He was, in further fact, really blitzed. Six beers on an empty stomach. If he didn’t get some food soon, the spins would be there. He popped a mint into his mouth and thought about it some more.
Shasta tried the doorbell on the next-best-looking house. It was the one with a Martini flag hung outside the door.
“Does Linda Barrett live here?”
Linda stood in her room, listening at her door as Shasta entered the Barrett home. She knew what would happen. They would invite him in and, under good light, inspect him carefully. Then they would call her out of her room.
She hoped he hadn’t been drinking.
“Hello, Steve,” she heard her mother say. “Car trouble?”
She heard Shasta swallow a small alcoholic laugh. He was drunk, just like he’d been when they made out at that dance in eighth grade. Asshole.
“Are you all right, Steve?”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Barrett.”
“Congratulations on that game,” said Mr. Barrett.
“May I have a glass of water, please?” Shasta asked.
“Look, Ben, look at the boy’s face. It’s flushed.”
Listening behind the door, Linda winced.
“Look at him, Ben,” her mother said. “Doesn’t he look just like . . . just like John Kennedy?”
Linda heard them seating Shasta in the living room on the sofa. Typical. The sofa faced Mom’s and Dad’s chairs, the fireplace, and two mammoth department-store oil paintings that dominated the entire room. One of the paintings was of Linda and the other was of her brother, Jerome, The Brain.
“Do you know Jerome?” asked Mr. Barrett. “He used to go to Ridgemont. He goes to USC, now.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Well,” Mr. Barrett chuckled, “if you don’t know math, he doesn’t want to know you!”
“I see,” said Shasta.
“Ben, where is Linda?” Her mother spoke in a real Taster’s Choice testimonial voice. “Come out, honey, Steve’s here.”
Linda opened the door and came bounding out. “Hi! Wanna go?”
“Sure,” said Steve.
“Have a good time, kids!” Her mother patted them both on the head, like good kids.
They walked the forty feet to the car in silence.
“Is it too late to play golf?” asked Linda.
“We gotta get some food first,” said Steve. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
Shasta slammed the door of his car shut and turned the ignition key. The radio came on at a deafening volume. He turned it off. They pulled out onto the highway and lurched into overdrive.
“I get behind the wheel of a Corvair,” said Shasta, “and I’m a madman.” He laughed. “You know what I hate? I hate people who give their cars names.”
Linda nodded. Her pickup was called Dino, after her first dog.
They went to a Swedish Smorgasbord, where Shasta knew a night cook named Walsh. The place was closing. Walsh kept it open.
Walsh, a freckled kid in a white smock, pointed to the limp remains of the day’s Swedish Smorgasbord. “Go for it.” Walsh even sat down with them at the table in his white smock and watched Shasta and Linda eat.
“How’s it going?” Walsh’s head bobbed constantly as he spoke.
“Pretty good. This is Linda Barrett.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“So,” Shasta said, “how’s it going with you?”
Walsh’s head kept bobbing. “Old people,” he said, “Lots of old people. Man, they flock here. And they eat their brains out. They don’t even talk to each other, they just eat. It’s amazing.”
“Really?” asked Shasta. “I heard there’s a movie where people eat themselves to death.”
“Yeah,” said Walsh. “They probably filmed it at a Smorgasbord. It’s most crowded on weekends, you know, and that’s real funny ’cause on the weekends we get a lot of stuff from Denny’s. They get their new food on Saturday mornings. They clean this stuff out on Friday afternoon. It’s all leftovers.”
Linda picked at the rest of her meal. It was Friday night.
After dinner at the Swedish Smorgasbord, Steve Shasta played his car radio and drove Linda Barrett directly to the Point.
“I really made a decision, you know,” said Shasta. He brushed some hair out of his eyes and checked himself in the mirror. “I made a decision not to pressure myself.” He looked at her, giving Linda the full eye. “Some girls I could really fall for . . .”