Chapter 4:
Friday, March 15, 1963 “Let’s stop here for supper, gang.”
“Yay, Jeannie!”
Conrad felt dazed and confused. This was the first time he’d been allowed to go out in three weeks. An outing of the church youth group, on their way to an all-state Episcopal youth jamboree. The girls had been singing for eighty miles, singing with hysterical good cheer. The only other guy was named Chuck Sands. He read the Bible, had pimples and greasy hair. Strong, jolly Jeannie—a woman who often helped with youth group activities—was driving this van, and Conrad’s father was driving another. What a nightmare.
They piled out of the van in front of a family restaurant in some tiny Kentucky town. The girls rushed ahead and got a table by the window. There were four of them. Butt-faced Patsie Wilson; a distant, chain-smoking girl called Dee Decca; and two “hot” gigglers named Sue Pohlboggen and Randy Kitsler.
“Come on, Bunger,” urged Chuck Sands. They were still out by the van. Inside the bright window’s yellow space, Sue Pohlboggen was fluffing her blonde curls, and Dee Decca was lighting a Newport.
Patsie was whispering secrets to Randy. Jeannie was in the ladies’ room.
“I need air, Sands. I’ll just get something at a supermarket and eat outside, OK?”
“Fine,” said Sands. “That gives me more room to maneuver.”
Conrad hurried around the corner and walked a few blocks. Seed store, drugstore, dentist, bank. It felt good to be alone, in the middle of nowhere, free from the relentless pressure to conform. He flared his nostrils and breathed in alienation. This was a time to be thinking deep thoughts.
What is it all about?he asked himself.Why is all of this here? How can human beings be so blind?
The girls primping their hair and waiting for food. Didn’t they see the nothingness which underlies everything?
For the last few months, Conrad had had a strange feeling of having just woken up. His early childhood ... he could barely remember anything about it. Later, as an adolescent, he’d simply taken things as they’d come, the good with the bad, no questions asked. But now ... he was cut off, awkward and posturing, aself in a world of strangers. And what lay ahead? A meaningless struggle ending with a meaningless death. How could anyone take rules seriously? His parents, the brothers at school, the cool party-boys and the horny youth-group kids ... how could they act like they knew the answers?
Conrad tripped on a crack in the sidewalk just then. Something strange happened as he fell. Some special part of his brain cut in, and instead of falling, he ... hung there, tilted forward, in defiance of natural law.
The instant the miracle dawned on Conrad, it was over. He fell the rest of the way forward and landed heavily on the cracked cement. For a full minute, he lay there, trying to bring back the state of mind that had let him float. He’d had the feeling before ... on New Year’s Day in the pasture with Hank. And he often flew in dreams. But now the feeling was gone, and Conrad didn’t know how to bring it back.
Maybe he’d just made the whole thing up. Maybe he was going nuts.
He got to his feet and walked around the corner. There was a lit-up supermarket. He drifted in. Muzak washed up and down the empty aisles; the fluorescent lights oozed their jerky glow.Someday I’ll be buying food for my children , thought Conrad;someday I’ll be dead. He found a package of bologna and a small bunch of bananas. Thiscar trip will never end; I’ll be in high school for the rest of my life.
. “He just bought lunchmeat and ate it out in the street.”
Dee Decca sat next to Conrad at breakfast. She was impressed by Conrad’s bid for freedom. “Where are you going to college next year?” she asked him. “I don’t know yet,” said Conrad. This Dee Decca had short dark hair and a reasonably pretty face, though there was something odd-looking about her body. “Harvard already turned me down and I haven’t heard from Swarthmore. Georgetown is my ace in the hole. They’re dying to have me because I go to a Catholic high school.” He paused to light one of Dee’s cigarettes. “I sort of wish they’d all turn me down. Then I could go off and bum around.” “I want to go to San Jose State in California,” said Dee. “I want to join a big sorority and go to a lot of parties. I missed the boat in high school.” “A frat house with an ever-present keg of beer,” mused Conrad. “Surfing. That sounds cool.”
“Listen up now,” yelled leather-lunged Jeannie. “It’s time to divide into our discussion groups. We’re going to share our feelings about the liturgy.” “What’s that mean?” whispered Dee. She had a husky, sophisticated voice.
“Let’s sneak off,” answered Conrad. “I’ll meet you outside by the pavilion.”
The Kentucky State Episcopal Conference Center was a collection of buildings something like a summer camp. Two groups of cabins, a dining hall, an administration building, and a large outdoor pavilion. The buildings were perched at the top of a long empty hill that bulged down to a forlorn brown river. It was almost spring. The ground was wet but not muddy. The pale sun was like a chalk mark on the cloudy sky. Conrad took Dee’s hand; she let him. They walked downhill, lacing their fingers. Her face was creamy white, with two brown moles. Her mouth had an interesting double-bowed curve to it.
“Question,” Dee said after a while, saying it as if she were in a college seminar.
“Yes?” “Where are we going?”
“To make out?” As Conrad said this, he released Dee’s hand and put his arm around her waist. They were over the brow of the hill now, and the buildings were nowhere in sight. “I hope you don’t have W-H-D.”
“What’s that?”
“Wandering Hands Disease.”
“Oh. That’s ...”too stupid of you to even talk about , Conrad wanted to say. On the other hand, it could be a come-on, couldn’t it, that she would bring uppetting right off the bat? He steered them into a grove of trees and slid his hand up from her waist and toward her bra strap. “Stop that, Conrad.” She planted her feet and turned up her face. He kissed her. She pushed her tongue in his mouth. She tasted like tobacco. He pushed his tongue back. Her mouth was cool inside. The taste of her spit. Her smell. They were hugging, hugging and French kissing, not wanting to stop, afraid they wouldn’t know how to start again. “CONRAD!!!”The voice was rough and distant.