Fast Times at Ridgemont High Page 6

  “Someone do something!”

  “He’s having a fit!”

  “Can anyone help that boy?”

  Ten more Marine World visitors arrived to gawk at the young worker flailing on the ground. The Rat rushed over to Damone’s side and bend down to ask how he could help. And then, just when Damone had a huge audience, he popped back up again. He was the picture of complacency.

  “I’m just not myself today,” he said. It was Damone’s special stunt.

  Damone was fired after only three weeks at Marine World, but not before he had made fast friends with Mark Ratner. To The Rat, Damone was a one-of-a-kind character. But it was beyond the Twitching Man acts that Damone used on occasion to rip up whole restaurants and shopping malls. To The Rat, Damone was someone to study. He was a guy with a flair for living life his way, and that particularly fascinated Mark Ratner.

  What was his secret?

  “I’ll tell you what it is,” Damone said. “It’s The Attitude. The Attitude dictates that you don’t care if she comes, stays, lays, or prays. Whatever happens, your toes’ll still be tappin’. When you are the coolest and the crudest, then you have The Attitude.”

  To Mike Damone of Philadelphia, everything was a matter of attitude. Fitting into a California school was no problem for him. Once you had The Attitude, Damone said, success was never again a matter of luck. It was simply a question of whether or not you behaved as if it were yours already.

  The Attitude. The Rat and Damone had been sitting in fourth-period biology a couple of days into the new school year. Damone leaned over. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Starved,” said The Rat.

  “Wouldn’t you love a pizza right now?”

  “Don’t torture me.”

  A few minutes later, there was a knock at the front door of the classroom. Mr. Vargas had been giving a lecture. He paused to answer the door.

  “Who ordered the pizza?” asked an impatient delivery man for Mr. Pizza.

  Damone waved his hand. “We did back here.”

  The class watched in amazement as the delivery man took his steaming pizza to the back of the class and set in on Damone’s desk. Damone paid for it, even pressed fifty cents into the delivery man’s hand. “This is for you,” he said.

  Mr. Vargas looked on, bewildered, while Damone and The Rat began eating pizza.

  “Am I the only one who thinks this is strange?” Mr. Vargas asked.

  The Attitude.

  Damone had put on a classic display of Attitude the day after hearing of The Rat’s dream girl at the A.S.B. counter. Ratner chose to watch from behind the bushes on Luna Street while Damone cruised by for an official check-out.

  He had meant only to look, but Damone went right up and said hello to the girl. The Rat’s girl. She and Damone had a three-minute conversation that The Rat couldn’t hear. Then Damone had tapped his hand on the A.S.B. counter once and turned to leave. He walked back over to The Rat.

  “She’s cute,” said Damone, “but she doesn’t look like Cheryl Ladd.”

  “Fuck you, Damone.”

  “Her name is Stacy Hamilton,” he said. “She’s a sophomore, and she’s in Beginning Journalism. What more do you need to know?”

  “She just told you that?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll tell you something,” said The Rat. “I really think something could happen between this girl and me.”

  “You ought to meet her first, you wuss.”

  (“Wussy” was a particularly expressive word that had sprung up in Paul Revere Junior High and taken a foothold in the Ridgemont lexicon. It was the handy combination of wimp and pussy.)

  The next day The Rat had it all planned. He waited until the period he knew she would be working at the A.S.B. office. He walked slowly over to the 200 Building, down the hall to the corner office. It was a green counter, with a glass window in front.

  And there she was! Stacy Hamilton. Both she and Mike Brock, the football jock, were finishing up with two students. There was only one other kid in front of The Rat. It was a fifty-fifty chance. A crap shoot!

  Mike Brock finished first, and the other student went to his window. Fantastic, The Rat thought. Then Stacy Hamilton finished and looked at him.

  “Next.”

  But just as The Rat stepped up, Stacy Hamilton’s A.S.B. phone rang. She picked up the receiver and held a single finger up to Ratner. It was a call from the front office, and the conversation stretched on. The third attendance bell rang, but The Rat stayed.

  Mike Brock finished with the other student. “Over here,” he said.

  And what could The Rat say? No, you thick asshole. No, you stupid jock. I’m already being helped, you penis breath. No. The Rat didn’t say any of those things. He chose the wussy way out.

  The Rat shrugged and went over to Mike Brock. He asked Brock something ludicrous, some lame thing off the top of his head.

  “I was wondering where the Spirit Club meets,” he mumbled.

  “I don’t know,” said Brock. “You oughta look on the big bulletin board.”

  “Thanks,” said The Rat.

  He turned to go.

  “Oh, sir?” She had gotten off the phone and called out to him. “I think the Spirit Club meets on Tuesday after school in room 400.”

  “Thanks,” said The Rat. He turned around again. “See you later.”

  She called me sir! He was overjoyed. The way The Rat figured it, she would never have done that if she wasn’t interested in him.

  Mike Damone shook his head sadly as he heard the whole story, incident by incident, over Cheetos on lunch court. “Is that it?”

  “It’s better than yesterday.”

  “Yeah, Rat, but you just opened the door a little bit. And then you let it slam back shut again. You gotta talk to the girl.”

  “Tomorrow!”

  “You can’t do it tomorrow,” said Damone. “Tomorrow makes you look too eager.”

  “I know,” said The Rat. “I know. I’ve got to have The Attitude.”

  But for a guy like The Rat, the idea of waiting another two days was criminal. He felt there was nothing he could possibly do to fill up the dead time. What was good enough on TV? What was interesting enough down at Town Center Mall? What record or book could ever be interesting enough to take his mind off her?

  In Spanish class the next day, someone offered The Rat a vocabulary lab listening headset. He was a zombie.

  “You know what?” said The Rat. “I don’t give a shit what happens to Carlos y Maria.”

  I Don’t Know

  Mr. Hand began dropping test papers on desks as if they were pieces of manure. “C . . . D . . . F . . . F . . . D . . .” He looked up. “What are you people? On Dope?”

  He continued, sadly, as he passed out more papers. “What is so difficult about this material? All week we’ve dealt with the Grenville Program. We have not even reached the American Revolution yet, and you people can’t tell me what the Stamp Act is. How hard is . . .”

  Then Mr. Hand looked up suddenly, interrupting even himself. “Where is Jeff Spicoli?”

  Silence.

  “I saw him on campus earlier today. Where is he now?”

  Silence.

  “Anyone?”

  There was always one, of course. Always one kid willing to sell his soul for a shot at Mr. Hand’s good graces. Or better yet, a shot out the classroom door.

  “I saw him,” said William Desmond, the wrestler-columnist. “I saw him out by the fruit machines.”

  “Me too,” said Mike Brock, the football jock.

  “How long ago?”

  “Ten minutes. Just before class, sir.”

  Hand snapped his fingers, McGarrett-style. “Okay. Bring him in.”

  Desmond and Brock hustled out the door, and Mr. Hand continued his tirade over the Stamp Act. Five minutes later, a red-eyed Spicoli walked into the class with the Desmond-Brock posse.

  “Hey,” said Spicoli. “This is a frame! There’s no bi
rthday party for me here!”

  “Thank you Mr. Desmond, Mr. Brock . . .” said Hand. “You can sit down now.”

  Mr. Hand left Spicoli in front of the class, for show. “What’s the reason for your tardiness?”

  “I couldn’t make it in time.” Spicoli’s bloodshot eyes told the story.

  “You mean you couldn’t,” said Hand, “or you wouldn’t?” It was a vintage “Five-O” line.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why are you continually late for this class, Mr. Spicoli? Why do you shamelessly waste my time like this?”

  “I don’t know,” said Spicoli.

  Hand appeared mesmerized by the words. Then he turned and walked to the board. He wrote in long large letters as he slammed the helpless chalk into the green board: I DON’T KNOW.

  “I like that,” said Hand. “I don’t know. That’s nice. ‘Mr. Hand, will I pass this class?’ Gee, Jeff, I DON’T KNOW. ‘Mr. Hand, when is the test?’ Gee, I . . . DON’T . . . KNOW. I like that, Mr. Spicoli. I’ll have to use that one myself.”

  Mr. Hand left special instructions that the words I Don’t Know remain in front of the class all week. People began stopping Spicoli in the hallway.

  “Hey,” they’d say, “aren’t you the I Don’t Know guy?”

  A Bad Day at the Fryer

  There was a mirror in the boys’ locker room that was perhaps the finest Brad Hamilton had ever used. Well lit, the perfect height, it was just superb. The kind of mirror that showed a guy for what he was.

  On first-period P.E. days Brad spent his mirror time luxuriously. Pass the mirror test, he figured, and you were good for the entire day.

  He caught himself—hi!—from several angles, and then ran through all the basic facial movements. Brad whistling. Brad happy. Brad sad. Brad macho. Then—Jesus!—he noticed a small blackhead at the base of his left nostril. Brad remembered someone had once told him that any time you popped a zit below your eyes and above your mouth it would leave a big crater in your face after the age of twenty-five. Brad weighed the dilemma in his mind. The same guy had once told him Colgate toothpaste was an aphrodisiac, so what did he know. Brad decided to eliminate the one tiny flaw.

  Now. Brad stepped back and looked at the entire portrait. People were always saying he looked like a young Ronald Reagan, and Brad didn’t mind that a bit. Why, he could even see some moustache action coming in over his lip! And he was more trim now than at his best football weight. This was it, Brad thought. The Lean and Hungry Look.

  The tone was set for a great day. Brad bounded through his classes, went home for an hour, and then drove to work at Carl’s.

  Brad got along pretty well with his boss, Dennis Taylor. Dennis Taylor had been the assistant manager (the real manager had a desk job at the big Carl’s building downtown) for as long as Brad had been there. Taylor was thirty-three and still lived in his family’s guest room. He was obsessively clean. His Datsun was absolutely immaculate; he washed and waxed it constantly. Dennis would even walk around Carl’s with a Windex bottle. Sometimes Brad got the idea that Dennis bolted out of bed in the middle of the night wondering if he might have missed double-checking the shake machine.

  A lot of people made jokes about Dennis around Carl’s. But those were the people whose hours he’d hacked, or the people who just didn’t know Dennis. You had to know Dennis, the way Brad looked at it, to realize that he was a pretty simple guy. He was just a franchise man, all the way. He was the type of guy born to wear plastic pen holders and carry bundles of keys. Don’t get him in trouble and he loved you.

  Dennis Taylor was in a bad mood that night when Brad showed up. It was a Tuesday night, slow night, and just the guys were on duty. No Lisa at the intercom. There was a problem with the carbonation, and Dennis got more and more upset trying to fix it himself. He didn’t like calling in another franchise man.

  There was also the matter of new uniforms—brown-and-white country-style uniforms for Bar-B-Cue Beef months. Girls were required to wear bandanas. Boys were asked to wear string ties.

  “A string tie?” Brad balked. He hated wearing a tie unless it was something like prom or Grad Nite.

  “We get older clientele in here, too, Hamilton. They like to feel they’re getting something special. Something they don’t get at home.”

  “Hey,” said Brad. “Why not. I love looking like a golf caddie.” He turned to his buddies with the wild grin of a kid who doesn’t often think of such lines until two, three days later. “I love it!”

  Dennis Taylor spun off to the back office, where assistant managers like to stay until they hear their title called for.

  To any fast-food employee, an irate customer was an I.C. There were usually about two I.C.’s a night, at least on Brad’s shift. Brad had a philosophy about I.C.’s. It was all ego. Everybody was trying to impress someone. Everyone has to be a big man somewhere, and an I.C. was someone who had no better place to do it than in a fast-food restaurant, at the expense of some kid behind the counter.

  The first I.C. of this night came into Carl’s Jr. at 9:30 P.M. Brad knew she was an I.C. the minute she started to inspect the food before paying. She was an older woman with a silver-gray wig. She tried the fries last.

  “These fries taste like metal,” she announced.

  “I’m sorry,” said David Lemon, the clerk, following the customer-is-always-right party line. “I’ll get you some new ones.”

  “No,” said the woman. “No. They tasted the same yesterday. They’ll taste the same tomorrow. I want to speak to the manager!”

  Bingo. Dennis Taylor was out of the back office like a nine ball.

  “What’s the problem, ma’am?” Even the irate customer was always right, Dennis liked to say. He would do anything to keep a complaint from reaching the franchise office downtown. One complaint and they called Dennis himself on the carpet.

  “I said these fries taste like metal.”

  Taylor looked at Brad, who had the duty of frying the potatoes. “Did you drain the grease yesterday before you started work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you changed it since you came in, on the hour?”

  Brad was getting indignant. It wasn’t just ordinary frying, it was his specialty. “I change it,” he said, “every hour. And I always make sure that the potatoes are fried in new grease. I can tell by the color.”

  Hamilton turned to the woman. “May I taste?”

  The woman recoiled with her white-and-yellow Carl’s Specialty sack. “Are you calling me a liar? I’ll go to the head of the company if I have to.”

  She had pushed a button with Dennis “Mr. Franchise” Taylor. The words go to the head of the company struck him at the very marrow of his corporate aspirations.

  “Ma’am,” said Dennis through a Carl’s Jr. smile. He rang open the register and scooped out the exact change. “Here’s your money, ma’am, and I’m sorry you had a problem. The whole meal’s on us!” Dennis laughed, as if it were party time, but the I.C. was still shaking her head.

  “No,” she said. “No, that won’t do. That’s not enough. I want that boy fired for calling me a liar. That boy right there.”

  She was pointing at Brad.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Dennis Taylor, “but Brad Hamilton is one of our best employees.”

  Brad was impressed. He found himself saying, “Thanks.”

  “Brad Hamilton,” said the I.C. She reached for her purse. “Brad Hamilton.” She rummaged through it until she found a pen. “Brad Hamilton.” And a piece of paper. “Brad Hamilton.” Then she wrote his name down. “Brad Hamilton.”

  Now the odds that the I.C. would actually write the letter were slim at best, everybody knew that. Most people were happy to have gotten a little attention; they usually forgot the hassle before they even arrived home. But the threat, even the threat of a letter, and the thought of having that letter sitting in his franchise file . . . well, you could see it ring up on Dennis Taylor’s face like a big No Sale sign.r />
  “Hamilton,” he barked. “Go clean up the bathroom.”

  It was an insult, sure, but that’s how Dennis Taylor worked these things out. Brad knew it was no big problem. Dennis took over the fryer. In five minutes he would beg Brad to come back and work it.

  “I’m really sorry,” Brad said, and grabbed a scrubbrush. He went to attack the new graffiti: I Eat Big Hairy Pussy.

  Life, Brad marveled there in the john, is like a chain reaction. Someone gets pissed and then takes it out on the next guy down the ladder. Everyone has to piss on somebody.

  Later he went home, called Lisa, and broke up with her.

  Child Development

  One of Stacy Hamilton’s interesting new classes at Ridgemont was Child Development. Child Development was a new-age tax-cut class that combined bachelor arts and home economics into one big jamboree, “attempting to guide young adults past the hurdles of adulthood.” The class met in a double-sized room complete with fifteen miniature kitchens. The teacher was a fidgety woman named Mrs. Melon.

  It was a typical contract class. On the first day Mrs. Melon divided all the students alphabetically into tables of four. She passed out purple mimeographed assignment sheets and signed each table to their contract of work.

  Mrs. Melon had a nervous habit of rubbing her forearms while she talked. The more nervous she was, the redder her forearms. Today she was rubbing harder than usual.

  “You are grownups,” she said, “and you live in a grownup world. Most of you already know we’ll be going into forms of sexuality, birth control, domestic problems, and divorce in this class. I’m going to need these state-required forms filled out and signed by your parents.”

  She began dropping more piles of the purple sheets on the alphabetical tables. Most of the students had already received their parental consent forms, including the sex-ed forms, with the thick green Ridgemont High School Rulebook sent out in August. And the school gave out more of the same forms with the first-day registration papers. Now Mrs. Melon was rubbing her arms and passing out even more of them. Somewhere along the line a student could get the idea Ridgemont was nervous about sex education.