Bad to me

By G.M. Drosdowich

With one foot in the Beat Generation and another in Hippie culture, Bad to Me excavates the coming of age of its main character, George Jazlo, amid the heady swirl of American life in the late 60s and early 70's.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nine Mile Art Corp
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798987192757

Book preview

Bad

To

Me

G.M. Drosdowich



Rectangle Rectangle

For my wife, Patti Rosenberg



Rectangle Rectangle

NINE MILE BOOKS

Publisher: Nine Mile Art Corp.

Editors: Bob Herz, Stephen Kuusisto

Book and cover design by Kevin Breen Cover image derived from Adobe Stock images

Nine Mile Books is an imprint of Nine Mile Art Corp.

Bad to Me Copyright © 2022 George Drosdowich  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

For permissions contact: [e-mail]  This is a work of fiction. Although its form is that of a memoir, it is not one. People, places, and times have been rearranged to suit the convenience of the book, and with the exception of public figures, any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is coincidental and product of the author’s imagination. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author’s.

ISBN: 9798353055709

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.



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Contents

Chapter 1 The True Story of  Scarlett O’Hara

Chapter 2 Lebensraum

Chapter 3 The Judgment of Paris

Chapter 4 All Hopped Up

Chapter 5 Gaul in Winter

Chapter 6 Studs for a Democratic Society, Pt. 1

Chapter 7 Studs for a Democratic Society, Pt. 2

Chapter 8 You Can’t Stop the Dancing Chicken

Chapter 9 One of the Boys

Chapter 10 The Chemical Christ

Chapter 11 A Red, Red Rose

Chapter 12 The End of My Rookie Season

Chapter 13 Twilight of the Go-Go’s

Chapter 14 Getting Beat

Chapter 15 Gimme Shelter

Chapter 16 Across the Mississippi

Chapter 17 Hare Kill the Krishna Pigs, Pt. 1

Chapter 18 Hare Kill the Krishna Pigs, Pt. 2

Chapter 19 A Babe in the Woods

Chapter 20 The Mysterian

Chapter 21 Natural Blue

Chapter 22 Power

Chapter 23 The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter

Chapter 24 Rattlesnake Shake

Chapter 25 Winter’s Raft

Chapter 26 The Further Adventures of Spin & Marty

Chapter 27 …and the spirit drove him into the desert

Chapter 28 Pair o’ Dice

Chapter 29 Proverbs of Hell

Chapter 30 Your Teddy Bear

Chapter 31 Walking Between Two Deserts Singing

Chapter 32 Winter in Slow Moon

Chapter 33 Idyll

Chapter 34 Exile on Main Street

Acknowledgements

About the Author

The spirit gains its true identity by discovering itself in dismemberment. Its power does not come from taking a positive stance that averts its face from everything negative – as when we say of something, this is nonsense, or wrong, and then, finished with it, turn to another matter. The spirit is power only by looking the negative in the face and abiding with it. This abiding (Verweilen)is the magic charm (Zauberkraft) which converts the negative into Being.

–G.W.F. Hegel, as quoted in the essay From the Sublime to the Hermeneutic, by Geoffrey H. Hartman   

Yes, I feel like I owe it to someone.

–David Crosby   



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Chapter 1

The True Story of

Scarlett O’Hara

At the last minute, Jon and I decided to fuck Chicago’s Mayor Daley and instead hitch to a place called Big Deep outside of Woodstock, NY. It was Friday, August 23, 1968. We ran around naked in the woods, swam in the rock pool, jumped through a bonfire at night with the other freaks, and slept next to girls we didn’t know. And while the peace demonstrators got themselves beat bloody, we got full body tans. I came back to Yonkers the afternoon before I had to leave for college.

The next morning it was hot. I was staring at my front porch, and it was odd that the thing I remembered just then was freezing my ass off beneath the ice-blue Christmas lights that had always hung there in December.

I heard the flip-flop of slippers coming down the steps. I had one hand on my forehead. I was groggy. My mother came out the screen door and down to the front gate. Last night’s pizza burned in my throat.

Give me a kiss goodbye, honey. She pressed against my chest, face up, eyes closed, lips puckered like a girl posing in a magazine. I kissed her and quickly wiped my mouth before she opened her eyes.

You should’ve let me make you a nice breakfast, honey. Why don’t you and your father come back inside? You still have time. She was caressing my cheeks with both hands.

No thanks, Ma. Too much pizza last night.

I retreated toward the car, while a fresh breeze blew down from Park Hill, where the rich people lived with their stuck-up kids, pools, and tennis club. I lived on the flats where the wind blew westward to the Hudson River.

"I love you, Georgie. You know that, figlio mi? You were always my favorite."

The old man drove a ’64 Olds. It was iridescent gray and changed colors like a sharkskin suit. I helped him lift my cartons and bags into the trunk. He was compulsive about arranging everything to fit. He was thirty-nine, five-eight, and had bowed legs, pronounced elbows, and a Lucky always dangling from his lips.

During the summers, I’d worked with him on his side job, loading heavy canvas and lumber into and out of a super-heated truck. After work, my father and his fireman buddies drank beer after beer at a Forties Baroque Bar, next to a live poultry market in the old Italian neighborhood of Yonkers. The local papers regularly ran photos of him or one of his buddies carrying a kid out a smoking window. Once they had a picture of him giving mouth-to-mouth to a family’s dog. His men rarely talked about the fires and there had been an awful lot of them lately.

He stood in the sun in a tight red short-sleeved shirt watching us. Come on Dad, let’s get going.

He stood still, eyes bleary, as if any motion would loose a tear. It’s your mother, Georgie, look at her. She loves you.

I didn’t want to hear it.

You’re her first baby and the first one to leave the nest. She was only a girl when she had you. Lulu stood on the porch with her green chiffon housedress clutched tightly to her breast. He waved to her as if he was on the deck of an ocean liner.

Bye-bye Lucille, bye-bye. Wave goodbye to your mother, stupid. She likes that. Women are simple. He said this in a slightly lower voice. Don’t you know anything? It doesn’t take much to make your mother happy. She was crying as we pulled away, but she cried easily.

Even with the windows open, the smell of Aqua Velva filled the car. I ran my fingers across my old man’s face.

Smooth, man.

He laughed and removed a fresh pack of Lucky’s from his shirt pocket, tore open the foil, threw one in his mouth, and lit it nimbly with a match. I had always liked that smell mixed with sulfur and tobacco.

So this is it. He looked at me and blew smoke through his nose. His heart tattoo MOTHER bulged as he shifted into gear.

So this is what?

You’re on your own now that’s all.

The shift whistle blew at the Domino Sugar refinery down on the river. Last week, when the workers had unloaded a freighter, the paper had reported that tarantulas had scurried out of the raw cane.

Take out the map in the glove compartment, will you?

I put my book down, hit the chrome button on the glove compartment, and removed a wrinkled Texaco map of New York State.

You see Geneva on there?

Yeah, Dad.

It’s near a Thruway exit, isn’t it?

Yeah, but that seems like the long way to get there.

Well, I don’t know about those roads up in the country, they go over mountains and through a lot of small towns with lights. We’re goin’ to take the Thruway. He leaned back and stretched. Six lanes, no lights. This way we won’t make any mistakes, and it’s sixty miles an hour all the way.

But that’s the boring way. No scenery. Don’t you want to see the Catskills?

My father thought for a minute. We saw the Catskills already. Don’t you remember when I took you up there?

Yeah, seven years ago.

There’s enough scenery along the Thruway. After we pass by Albany, you’ll be able to see the Erie Canal.

I turned on the radio.

Put on another station. I don’t want to listen to that jigga-boo music for the next six hours.

I hit the button for my father’s station, and a Harry James/Frank Sinatra tune triggered the smell of an old bar room in my nose. My father relaxed.

Ah, that’s music. Makes you feel calm, doesn’t it?

Nope, it makes me depressed, like being stuck in a room of empty whiskey glasses and stale pretzels.

You know, for a kid that’s supposed to be so smart, you don’t know nuthin’. He clamped his thumb and forefinger just above my left knee and squeezed hard. Pain shot through my leg.

Dad! Cut the shit!

He looked pleased with himself.

We neared the Harriman exit, and its terrain of dried grass and chiseled red rock came into focus. The overhead sign read ‘Albany, Buffalo, Montreal.’ The Olds could not go fast enough for me.

Dad, did you really drive a bank robber up to Albany after he murdered someone?

What made you remember that?

Nothing. Just that we’re going toward Albany, that’s all. It was a blue DeSoto wasn’t it?

My father tightened his lips and squeezed his eyes together like he had a pain in his head.

That was a pretty dumb thing I did. You really remember me telling you that, huh? Boy, I could have been in prison. It was stupid. I’m lucky the cops didn’t catch me. It was raining that night and we had a fast car. I thought I was smart.

What year was that, ’48?

’47, I’d just gotten outta the Navy and was going with your mother. If it wasn’t for her and you kids, I’d be dead or in jail now. He nodded his head. Back then, I never thought of doing anything, you know? Just working and drinking, and being with my buddies. I used to think there was no use tryin’ to do anything… I still do sometimes. It was the bomb. I told you about Bikini.

Yeah, I wanted to steal that certificate you keep in the bottom drawer with the Arab knife and silver dollars, but you never really told me what it was like.

He hadn’t flinched. There had been a pack of erotic playing cards, lambskin condoms, and a Playboy in there too. He nodded his head and stared at the highway.

Our ship was just over the horizon from ground zero, circling like we had orders to do. It was night. When it was time for the detonation, they told us to cover our eyes. Everybody was like this. He put one hand over his eyes and quickly looked over at me through his fingers. Then there was that boom. I’ll never forget it. And then WHOOSH, this white fireball shot up into the sky like it was from God. He pursed his lips. I think that’s what happened to you. You know, radiation, your deaf ear and everything. That’s why you have no common sense.

It was afternoon when we finally got off the Thruway and came down into Geneva on Route 14. We stopped at an old gas station. The skinny attendant wiped away the fat bugs that had splattered across the windshield like bits of custard and iodine. I had picked Hobart College from a thick, white catalog. I needed to be in New York because of the scholarships, and I’d chosen Hobart from its description: small, liberal arts, ivy-covered walls, quadrangle, tucked away. That’s what I had always imagined college was supposed to be like. They had interviewed me across the street from Central Park back in the spring and gave me a nice scholarship. Neither of us had seen this place before.

My father drummed his fingers on the dashboard waiting for the attendant to finish fucking around.

This is really a one-horse town, he said, not moving his lips, which was what he did when he was being severe.

Large, thick oaks lined both sides of the road. They were old and the breeze made them sing.

Dad, it’s beautiful here. All these trees—are you kidding? This is paradise.

He made a face like he had just chomped on a piece of tin foil.

I don’t know what kind of hicks live around here. You’re not going to like it. You are used to too many conveniences. What are you going to do when you want to go ‘downtown’? I know you. You’ll be bored in two weeks.

On Route 14, we had passed a lot of overgrown yards, old, faded signs, ramshackle cars, and rusted washing machines in front yards. That wouldn’t be tolerated in the neat, working- and middle-class neighborhoods of Yonkers. I had some doubts about the hillbilly-looking places myself. I saw a big white building in the distance; at six stories it was the tallest thing around. The trees though were still singing, and the air was sweet.

That’ll be five bucks, sir.

My old man pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off five for the gas, then tossed the attendant a quarter.

Hey pal, you know where there is a good Italian restaurant around here?

The young man placed a black-stained hand on his pimply chin, curled up his lip, then turned his sharp face and pointed down the road.

About half a mile… straight ahead. His elongated arm was shaking like a tree limb, and it hung there for what seemed like a long time. Just before you get to the Seneca Hotel, that’s the big white building there. The restaurant is called Marie’s. The food is supposed to be good.

My father pulled out of the station spraying gravel like a bulldog kicking up grass after he’s finished with his business.

Christ, this burg hasn’t seen a coat of paint in twenty years. You’re going to freeze your ass off up here too. What street we on?

I wasn’t paying any attention to the map. Something had caught my eye on the left, between two clapboard buildings, and again beyond some railroad signals. A bright blue expanse had yawned out unexpectedly. The sun flashed silver across the surface. I saw a white sail.

Hey stupid, what are you dreaming about? I asked you which street we were on.

I think it’s Exchange Street, Dad.

Ok, good. That’s where we hafta be. Now where is this place Marie’s? It’s two o’clock and we didn’t even eat lunch yet.

The restaurant was empty except for the thin brunette waitress in a wrinkled skirt hemmed three inches above the knee. Her hair was dyed, and her face made up and rouged like a cadaver’s. She moved away from the counter where a cigarette burned in a black ashtray. She picked up two glossy menus.

Want a little something to wet your whistles, boys?

Yeah, give me a Schaeffer. What do you want?

Give me a Coke.

I can bring this young fellow a Coke, but I’ll have to see some kind of ID for you, sonny.

My father turned a little red and took the waitress’s hand and smiled, exposing the gold-capped tooth way in the back of his mouth.

Sweetheart, I know you shouldn’t do it, but if you could just sneak one to me. He let go of her hand.

For you, cutie pie, I’d do anything. The waitress stared down at him with her thickly made-up eyes and tilted her hips. Even though the air conditioning was on full blast, a little perspiration had formed on my old man’s forehead.

She’s just your speed, Daddio.

My father looked at me like it was time to listen up. No matter how old they get, they are still women. A woman is a woman, and you always have to treat her like a woman. Remember that.

A disheveled busboy appeared with two glasses of ice water, then the waitress came back with the Coke and beer. I drank my water straight away, then half the Coke in two gulps. My father read the menu with his new bifocals. They made him look older. I felt a little sad for him. The waitress stood by shifting her weight from one leg to the other. She was tapping her pencil against a green pad.

What’ll it be?

Give me the veal scaloppini with spaghetti on the side, ok, dear? She wrote down the order and pointed to me with her pencil.

Spaghetti and meatballs, please. My father eyed me like I was a hopeless case.

Whattaya want spaghetti and meatballs for? You can have that any time. Why don’t you order something you can’t always get like some veal or shrimp?

That’s all right, Dad. I’ve got a taste for meatballs, you know?

Spaghetti and meatballs? The waitress repeated. I nodded my head while my father coolly sipped his beer, regarding me.

You’re just like your mother.

Give me a break, will ya? I looked into his hazel eyes and thought about how he was sometimes just like his mother: ignorant. But that was something my mother would say.

You’re weak just like your mother too. And scared, he continued.

When somebody offers you something in this world, you have to take it. Don’t feel like you don’t deserve it. Grab it, and later grab the person who gave it to you by the throat and take it all. He stuck out his two strong fingers and grimaced like he was ripping somebody’s trachea out. There, you bastard. He pulled at the imaginary larynx. He looked away for a second collecting himself, then smiled back at me. But I’m your father. You shouldn’t be ashamed of taking things from me.

He leaned back and lit a sweet-smelling Lucky while the busboy, now wearing a dirty, red satin jacket with a loose button, brought the breadbasket. My father put his cigarette down, took a piece of bread, and bit it. He started to shake what was left in his hand at me.

You know, there’s no place that makes Italian bread like New York. This stuff up here tastes like shit, all spongy, no crunchy crust. He threw the half-eaten piece back into the black wire basket and buttered a saltine.

Man does not live by bread alone, I said. He just glared at me.

Those priests really fucked you up. They were all queers. I should have sent you to public school. Would’ve been cheaper too. The food came and he unfolded his napkin and tucked it under his chin so he wouldn’t get tomato spots on his shirt. He cut into the veal. The knife screeched across his plate. You’re going to miss your mother’s cooking.

South Main Street in Geneva still had some marble horse posts and black wrought-iron fences bordering the rows of stately nineteenth- century houses. Old elms hung luxuriously over their eaves and the street was also lined with chestnut trees and tall oaks. The clean glass windows on the houses shone back like black mirrors. We passed mansions with white pillars and Greek letters over the doorways and everywhere there were trees and more trees, and to the east lay a huge blue lake, wider than the Hudson and stretching south only to meet the sky.

There’s a girl over there, ask her where Sherrill Hall is. The old man swung the Olds up against the curb and stopped in front of a stone chapel and spire with gargoyles looking out in four directions. The girl was about six-foot-one and shaped like a mama grizzly. She had embroidered cloth sewn around the cuffs of her farmer’s jeans and colored patches sewn here and there.

Hippie girls all look like skanks or lesbians, the old man whispered. I leaned out the car window into the sun and noticed the small golden hairs on my forearm. At the sound of my voice, the girl spun around lightly as a dancer might. She smiled sweetly and pushed a pair of wire rims up the bridge of her nose with one finger, then removed a big red bandanna from her back pocket and mopped her brow.

Make your first right at the corner, she told us. Sherrill is the large building on your left. Looks like a Howard Johnson’s. She frowned. My father flicked his cigarette into the street.

Some hunk of woman, he said as we pulled away. What a cow! Not like the nice Italian girls, and Polish girls, with the big legs, you got back home.

We found the Office of Student Affairs in the basement of Sherrill Hall. A man was bending over the keyhole in the darkened hallway, trying to make sure the door was properly secured. His stomach protruded beyond an open Madras sports coat.

Are you Mr. Bedrossian? the old man asked. A man upstairs said we’d find Mr. Bedrossian down here. The fellow straightened up and admitted to the name. I’d like to get my boy here settled into his room. Dad had his hand between my neck and shoulder and was squeezing there as he spoke. All the air rushed audibly out of Bedrossian’s lungs.

I was just about to duck down to the club and get in nine holes. He seemed a little annoyed. He opened the door, flicked on the lights, and led us past several empty desks into his private office. The wall clock cut through the silence in precise twitches. You’re early, Bedrossian said.

Well, Mr. Bedrossian, you see, I’m a firefighter. This was the old man’s excuse for a million things. We don’t always get weekends off like some people, and this was the only time I could bring the boy. The heavy-set man nodded impatiently and opened the top drawer of his desk, extracting a manila envelope.

Now what’s your name? Bedrossian asked over the top of his reading glasses.

George Jazlo, my old man answered before I could speak. Bedrossian flipped through a sheath of typewritten papers. Behind him, all along the bookshelves were pewter and ceramic mugs engraved with the school’s coat of arms, Hobart pen and pencil sets, and Hobart pennants hung on the wall. We sat on sturdy black Hobart chairs, and there was an oil painting of the building we were in hanging behind the empty coat tree.

There you are, ‘George Michael Jazlo.’ Bedrossian folded his glasses and put them in a case, then spun around on his swivel chair and deftly picked a key from a numbered pegboard nearby. Room 107, he said. It’s upstairs in the east wing of the building, down the hall on the left. He picked up the phone, I’ll have Mr. Trumbull open up the linen room over in Bartlett Hall. It’s just the other side of the road here. You get clean sheets every Tuesday night if you bring back the dirty ones. If you lose them, there’s a five-dollar fee.

You better not lose your sheets, the old man said, grinning. I bet a lot of boys lose their sheets. Am I right, Mr. Bedrossian?

The heavy-set man chortled. You’d be surprised, he said. You wouldn’t want to know what they do with them. He got someone named John on the phone and asked him to open up the linen room. Early arrival, he said with some distaste. I could tell my old man was a little embarrassed. Bedrossian hung up the phone with an exasperated gesture and glanced up at the clock. If I don’t get out of here in ten minutes, I won’t be able to get nine holes in, he said. He stood and shook hands with me and my father, then showed us the door. Welcome to Hobart College, George. I think you’ll like it here. He said this sincerely.

I would have lived in Death Valley if it had gotten me out of Yonkers. The Sisters of Charity had pounded it into me that if I didn’t study until my fingers bled from turning pages, I would end up a heroin addict on the Bowery where all the sons of Yonkers who hadn’t become priests would likely spend their miserable lives.

My new room was four unpainted cinder-block walls. A wooden bed frame was bolted into the far wall. It hung stiffly in space like the hypnotized body of a woman in a magic act. There was a wooden desk area with overhead fluorescent lights. I threw my stuff on the bed by the windows.

Well at least you’re close to the fire stairs, my old man said looking out the window, and it’s only a six-foot drop to the ground. He glanced around, shaking his head. Not like the nice attic you had all to yourself back home though. I don’t know how you are going to like this. I know how you can’t sleep with anyone else in the room with you.

I’ll handle it, I said. The cinder blocks reminded me of a park latrine. You get settled in, unpack, pick up your sheets, he said. I’m going to get a room for the night out on Route 5 & 20. Mr. Bedrossian said that they have guest houses there for ten bucks a night with your own shower.

When you coming back? I didn’t really feel like being alone. He looked at his gold Timex.

How about 5:30? he said. I feel like taking a shower and lying down for a while. We had a three alarmer last night and I really didn’t get much sleep. He yawned. You want to go to the movies tonight?

What’s playing? I said and repressed a strong urge to hug him.

"I thought I saw Gone with the Wind on the marquee downtown. Did you ever see it? It’s long but it’s good."

Ok, I said. As long as you don’t mind seeing it again.

I saw it three times already, he said. "It’s good. Clark Gable. It’s about the South during the Civil War. The music is from Million Dollar Movie, so you’re going to laugh when you hear it."

We maintained eye contact for a while after we finished talking. When he closed the heavy wooden door behind him, there was a knot in the bottom of my throat, and when I looked down to unpack, the suitcase was blurred.

I was singing to myself on the steps of Sherrill Hall when, at 5:30, the sharkskin Olds pulled silently up to the curb. There was a paper on the front seat. The Geneva Times. My father pronounced every word slowly like it was a foreign language. I was looking up the movie times when the old man announced, I found the campus hangout.

How do you know it’s the campus hangout?

What else could it be? he said. It’s right at the end of the block here. He massaged his jaw in thought. The guy that owns the place is probably a millionaire. You want to go there for supper?

The movie starts at seven thirty, I said. "We’ve got some time to kill.

I think I want spaghetti again." The dust blew across the dried grass of the quadrangle. I noticed the tall girl from earlier walking across the far side.

The old man drove to a pot-holed lot at the end of the block. An unlit neon sign swung in the wind over Route 5 & 20: THE OAKS, RESTAURANT AND BAR. There was one blue pickup outside, and when we walked in, a lone workman was sipping his beer at the far end of the bar. He was talking to the bartender, a big man with a broad stomach, whose face was stubbly and red. The barkeep wore thick horn-rimmed glasses. He walked toward us in a dirty white apron, smoking a green cigar. He removed it from his mouth and pointed its sickening wet end at us.

Beer from the tap, the old man said, what do you got? He leaned his Popeye physique over the bar and eyed the long handles on the spigots. Genesee and Miller, the bartender said, as though if we were expecting more, we should forget it. Miller, the old man said.

The big man in turn motioned toward me with his cigar. You want one? Yeah, give me a Genesee. I wanted to dive right into this upstate thing. The beer tasted good, like some vital fluid I’d been short on for a while.

I downed three drafts before I knew it.

This is my son, the old man said. I felt his hand on my neck again. He had laid a thick bankroll on the bar as I had often seen him do.

Yeah, and who are you? the beefy bartender said.

I’m George Jazlo from Yonkers, my father answered proudly.

I’m Dutch Venutti. I own this place. Glad to meet you, Mr. Jazlo. They shook hands.

The kid’s a freshman here at Hobart, the old man said.

Venutti smiled with yellowed teeth and cherry-pepper cheeks. He chewed on his cigar some more and bought the next round, drawing one for himself. Then he reached under the bar and came up with one of those plucked rubber chickens, dangling it in front of the old man.

Cute, my father said. Is that on the menu? You got anything else interesting under there? Venutti whipped out a gleaming pair of brass knuckles. The old man didn’t flinch and reached coolly in his shirt pocket and withdrew another cigarette.

Venutti lit it with the brass knuckles. Some creep came in here two weeks ago and tried to rob me with these. We’re right on 5 & 20 out there, and we get some winners in here once in a while.

My barstool had started to feel high up. I was losing track of the conversation.

So what did you do to him, Dutch? the old man asked.

I just grabbed him around the collar and said ‘come’ere you fucking bastard.’ Then I hit him with this. Venutti produced a blackjack from his back pocket.

Can I see it? I said instinctively. I never seen a real one before. I took the rubber-coated bludgeon and tapped myself on the forearm a few times until I felt pain.

It breaks bones without leaving a mark on the skin, Venutti said proudly.

It must get pretty rowdy in here with all them college kids, the old man said. How do you handle them, Dutch?

"Ah, they’re no trouble, George. Once in a while they get a little wise, like when they’re on that pabanya. But I got this." He brought out a thin- barreled, twenty-two caliber revolver from underneath the bar and fired a shot off toward the ceiling. The pungent smell of gunpowder filled my nostrils. My old man drew back and glared at Venutti, then started to laugh.

Jesus, he said. I guess you do keep them in line. Venutti soon had tears in his eyes from laughing hard too.

I always keep a blank in the first chamber, he said. Scares the livin’ shit out of everybody. Dutch poured us another round of beer.

See that? the old man said rubbing my shoulder. You don’t want to start any trouble around here.

If I do, I’ll make sure I bring a shotgun, I said.

Ah, you won’t, Venutti said. You look like a good boy.

He is, the old man said. And I want him to study and not be hanging around this place every night, just sometimes. Look out for him will you, Dutch?

Venutti blinked a watery eye behind his glasses, hooked a thumb in his white apron, and removed the mangled stogie from his teeth. I sure will, George. I won’t let him get into any trouble.

I couldn’t believe how easily my father made friends with guys like that.

The scene where Rhett and Scarlett’s little daughter, all dressed in blue silk, falls off her pony and dies, made me choke up. I wiped my eyes on the sleeves of the flannel shirt that I had brought against the air conditioning.

By the end I was beat.

The house lights came on and the small audience drifted out into the soft air and moonlit street. I kept swallowing hard. I didn’t want my old man to know I was so affected by the movie. On the corner, the lone traffic light was blinking red.

You like that movie? the old man asked.

One of the best, I said, my throat so thick I could hardly talk. I don’t know why Scarlett went for Ashley though. That didn’t make sense.

That’s because she’s a typical woman, Georgie. All women are stupid. The moon made the large trees visible on the hill where the college was. Their wide crowns swayed in the breeze, filling the night with a sleepy sound. My father dropped me off at the dorm.

I’ll come and get you for breakfast at eight. Be ready.

Thanks for the ride and everything, I said. I had a great time today. The old man looked good with the breeze blowing in the folds of his shirt. The tendons moved in his forearm when he flicked his cigarette into the moonlight.

Chapter 2

Lebensraum

The cold wind blew dried leaves in circles near the entrance to Sherrill Hall. It was almost dark. My roommate, the minister’s son, was standing by our single mirror rubbing hair oil into his scalp. His dandruff was bad, but he made it greasy too. Flakes clung to the bristles on his brush, which he always laid close to mine. I imagined this was so the cooties could more easily jump over. The day he’d moved in, he was smoking a pipe, wearing a paisley ascot, and of course, his dandruff. George, old boy, you think I should part my hair on the left or the right? he mused, studying his head in the mirror. His September crew cut had grown out and with the oil treatment he looked as though he was wearing a baby porcupine.

Either way it looks greasy, man. Try letting it grow out a little more. It’s good for your hair to grow out. Then smoke a little pot.

No, that’s not me. I don’t mind if you do it, but that’s not me.

I honestly wanted to like Chris. We undressed in front of each other. We slept in the same little room. We were civil and didn’t argue. He’d hung a wood-framed picture of the small New England town he’d grown up in over his bed. I’d taped up a black and metallic-gold poster from a head-shop on St. Mark’s Place. It was a naked woman and a quotation from William Blake.

Chris took a glass of elderberry wine every night before bed. He kept a book of Robert Frost, though he didn’t read it. Two months had passed. He asked me a lot of questions about the one course we had in common, Western Civilization. He seemed confused by it. In high school, otherwise dull-witted guys could make good if they tried harder than everyone else. But Chris had no desire to do that. He started to drink beer until the wee hours. One night, he came back to the dorm at 3 a.m. with a STOP sign on his shoulder singing Waltzing Matilda.

Most of the guys in Sherrill were decent, considering I didn’t have to rub asses with them much. It seemed to me there’d been no rhyme or reason to how Mr. Bedrossian matched people up. The two guys west of me had both been fatsos in high school but had lost most of it. The first thing I saw when I walked into their room was a stack of diet fruit cans covering one wall. They kept several obscenely tapered bottles of Sucaryl, and bright pink packets of Sweet’N Low peppered the floor and furniture.

I had liked Baker Wolken right off and wished he had been my roommate. He was tall, handsome, and had the manner of Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby. His old man was president of a big avionics company. I’d read it was favored to win the contract to build the Navy’s new fighter-bomber. Baker couldn’t have cared less.

Baker’s roommate, Beau, was from Mobile. He was a pain in the ass. He delivered smart, cutting remarks in a syrupy drawl that drove me crazy.

Chris was still trying to brush the dandruff out of his hair when I got paranoid about breathing it in. I walked over to Baker’s room and knocked. His fifty-watt KLH was juicing out Cream’s Wheels of Fire.

Baker opened the door for me. Why George, come on in. Want to smoke some grass? He smelled like a brushfire doused with British Sterling. I rarely refused a friendly bowl and Baker’s KLH, when he cranked it, shook the cinder blocks between our rooms. I’d often lain in bed listening to that bass thump far into the night like the heart of a restless beast.

How’s your love life, Georgie? Beau smiled knowingly from his corner of the room, pillow propped between his back and the cinder blocks.

What are you flappin’ about, Beau?

Oh, look Bake, he’s playing innocent like he didn’t pork that honey he picked up at the Keuka mixer in B-ALL H-ALL.

Beau picked at his long toes. I imagined his toes had gotten that long from tying fishing line to them and falling asleep under a Magnolia tree. Baker handed me the smoking pipe and I took a deep hit; Jack Bruce sang I’m a po-liti-cal mah-an and I practice what I preach. Good isn’t it? Baker asked enthusiastically. I nodded, held my breath, and looked up at his beaming face. He was chomping away on diet bubble gum as he fingered a fresh pack of Player’s cigs in his breast pocket.

So, what’s the latest with your alter ego? Beau said, pulling some dead skin from his heel.

I turned and looked at him. Who’s my alter ego?

JP, he answered.

JP!?

That’s right. Beau asserted. JP Honeycutte, the one and lonely. Didn’t you defend him when he thought a jock strap was a gym cap?

Come on Beau, he’s just an innocent kid. It’s too easy to pick on him. I said.

Beau started to clip his toenails, sending little crescents on random trajectories. Baker put on his earphones and leaned against the window and chewed his lower lip.

He’s a dick, said Beau flatly.

I was stoned enough now to visualize a big schlong just hanging there in the fluorescent void. Now he’s got me thinking about dicks.

But Honeycutte was indeed a nebbish. The door opened and Billy Lehman slinked into the room singing Dat spoon, dat spoon, dat spoonful with the record. He had his palms out for some skin as he scanned the room with droopy eyes. People called him The Geek. He was tall and skinny and a little hunched over. He was from Manhattan.

So, what’s happening boys? You can hear this music all the way down the hall.

Beau put his feet back into a pair of deerskin moccasins. Baker re-lit the pipe and passed it to The Geek as he collapsed onto Baker’s bed.

We were talking about Honeycutte, Beau snickered.

Honeycutte? It took about four minutes for the corners of The Geek’s mouth to stop rising. Honeycutte lived in the room next door to The Geek. Let’s kill Honeycutte, The Geek laughed, he’s hopeless. He’s better off if we put him out of his misery. You know what happened this afternoon?

What? I said.

"JP brought back a copy of Playboy from the bookstore and cut some of the pictures out and taped them to the wall while Coolidge was out. I was really proud of him. You know the way Coolidge is, with that framed picture of Jesus on the wall and two Bibles by his bed. Well, Coolidge came back while Honeycutte was at class and guess what he did?"

Beau grabbed the pipe away from The Geek, a Bogart if there ever was one. What, for Christ’s sake? Beau asked.

The Geek thumbed his nose and continued. Coolidge cut out small strips of white medical tape and put them across all the tits, bush, and ass so when Honeycutte came back, his pin-ups were censored!

I snickered, but Baker, who had taken off his earphones to hear the story, got mad. He stomped over to his dresser and ripped open a fresh pack of Bazooka Sugarless.

That’s fucking terrible, he said. The guy can’t even hang a nudie if he wants to. So what did he do about it? Baker rummaged through his dresser, took out some sourballs from Paris and passed them around.

He didn’t do anything. The wimp just left them that way.

We all shook our heads; Baker changed the record, and The Geek took a shot of nose spray.

I had already tangled with Coolidge myself. He believed that every word of the Bible was delivered by God like a hot pizza with double anchovies. I’d told Coolidge I was a Buddhist and he told me Buddhism was a devil religion and I’d go to hell for sure. Even though I didn’t believe in hell, it didn’t please me to hear it.

Let’s pull a trick on JP.

Why Georgie boy, I don’t believe I heard you right. Beau stretched out his long legs and rubbed his hands together. I thought you liked JP.

I never exactly liked him. I just felt sorry for him.

The Geek drummed his fingers on his chest, then stroked his Fu Manchu. What do you want to do? he asked.

I really don’t know, but the other day I was bullshitting JP about how Hobart was a secret training school for communist revolutionaries and guess what?

What? said Baker, chomping on his pink gum and sweating from the Dexedrine he and Beau had scored from the older girls