Higher Education (17 page)

Allan pauses, glaring through the hair that has fallen over his eyes. “Well, if you don't know,” he says, spitting visibly, “then I'm not going to tell you. Will the goddam band please start already?” He stalks to the end of the stage and clambers off, hampered by his pillowcase.

The crowd groans, and the camisole is pitched onto the platform. “I really need to know,” someone says. “Where's the goddam bathroom?”

All at once the lights go off, and we are held in teeming darkness for what seems like an eternity.

“Jesus Christ,” the voice exclaims. “I'm sorry I asked.”

In our shadowy little nook I can hear Gerard snickering next to me. Two large spotlights have been trained upon the sleep masks and now are gradually illuminating them in a ghostly pink wash of intensifying sheen, making them seem, horribly, to be growing. Suddenly there's a dazzling flash as a bank of hot yellow lights flood the stage, and then Richard's striding up to his microphone and adjusting his guitar over his shoulder. “Hi, we're White Bread,” he says in his low, thrilling voice.

A couple of girls up front scream, and Richard grins in my direction, although it's hard to say for sure if he realizes that it's me he's smiling at past the glare of the lights. The other members of the band have scrambled up on stage and take their places, the rhythm guitarist snatching up the camisole and draping it around his neck with a loud whoop.

This provokes more screams from the girls in front, and then the band crashes into an ardent rendition of “Honky Tonk Women.” The dance floor resumes its kaleidoscopic convulsions, once again all shimmying torsos and flapping bath-towels under the twirling silver strobe light. Frowning, I turn my eyes to the small bevy of fans standing inert, worshipful, in front of the stage. I'm watching them smile and cry out when Richard executes a particularly voluptuous rock-star move—plucking a low, wailing note on his guitar, his body arching backward in an impassioned torque of leather and spine—when Gerard nuzzles me with his prickly chin.

“Here.” He thrusts a small plastic squeeze-bottle of Afrin at me. “Have some.”

I take the bottle. “I didn't know you had a sinus problem.”

“I don't.”

“You have a cold?”

“No.”

“So what's this for?” I look at him suspiciously. “Do I sound stuffed up?”

“Miranda.” He's snuffling with laughter. “What do you think's in there?”

I look at the bottle, then at him. “This is a trick question, isn't it?”

“I'm afraid so.” He takes the bottle and unscrews the top. “Two little squeezes, and no more sinus problems. Watch.” When he's done he gives the bottle to me again. “Here's to your health.”

“It's Geritol, right?” Slowly I'm bringing the bottle up to my face. “Just tell me it's Geritol.”

“It's Geritol. Three out of four dentists recommend.”

“For their patients who—” I interrupt myself to inhale once, twice in each nostril. Then I give him back his Afrin. “Hey, Gerard.”

“What?”

“Want to hear the answer to the riddle?”

“You know it?”

“Of course.”

“Well?”

“No, you've got to ask me the question first.”

“Oh, all right. How many surrealists
does
it take to screw in a light bulb?”

“Apple.” Triumphantly I fold my arms across my chest.

His brows contract. “Is that it?”

“Yes,” I snap.

Then he starts laughing. He's still flapping his bare feet in gleeful mirth when “Honky Tonk Women” ends to loud applause. The girls up front are actually mewing and a small red heart-shaped pillow is tossed onto the stage. “Richie, I love you,” one of the girls calls out. The rhythm guitarist grabs up the pillow and stuffs it down the front of his pants, and the girls scream even more shrilly. Leering hugely, he unwinds the camisole from around his neck and shoves it down his crotch, displaying the result with a raucous pelvic thrust.

The crowd cheers. Richard laughs and says in one of his casual half-amplified asides, “Anybody bring his cucumber?”

“Ninety-three,” somebody yells.

The rhythm guitarist swaggers to the edge of the stage. “Wanna suck me off?” he asks the girl who's just called out to Richard.

“What?” She takes a step backward.

“Sixty-nine, sixty-nine,” someone shouts.

“Sure, okay.” He starts to divest himself of his guitar. “How about doggie style, huh?”

“Woof!” Gerard hollers. With a cry, the girl bobbles around and begins pushing her way back into the crowd.

Leaning back against the wall, I grin and follow her with my eyes.
Serves you right, you little tramp
.

The rhythm guitarist resettles his guitar strap over his shoulder. “How come I can never get a date?” he complains.

A cool, husky voice replies over the PA system. “'Cause you're a loser, man.” It's Lyndon, the bass guitarist, speaking in his usual dispassionate tones, his pale handsome face devoid of all apparent emotion.

“Oh yeah?” the rhythm guitarist sneers. “And what makes you so goddam special, punk?”

“My tact, dick-face.”

“Why don't you just suck me off?”

“Can't,” Lyndon replies lazily. “Forgot my magnifying glasses.” He looks at the audience over the rims of his mirrored aviator sunglasses, the violet streaks in his white-blond hair glinting brilliantly under the lights.

“Oh yeah?” The rhythm guitarist glares. “Well, fuck you, you goddam fag.”

Unmoved, Lyndon pushes his sunglasses higher on the bridge of his nose with a long white forefinger. “The next song,” he says, “is an original. Yeah, I know, they wanted us to play all covers tonight.” He looks around, his hair glimmering. “But we figured you clowns would be so fucked up by now we could sneak in a couple of our own tunes without anybody really noticing.”

There's some scattered hissing at this, but for the most part people maintain a respectful silence, awed as ever by Lyndon's elegant New Wave apathy, the psychedelic flashes of color in his towering Retro pompadour, the conspicuously nurtured stains on his heavy dark hobnailed boots. Lyndon responds to the hisses with a contemptuous little smile. “Hey, signs of life.” He glances over at Richard. “Maybe we should do all originals tonight.”

More hissing, with some bolder groaning and booing. “Fleetwood Mac,” someone calls out.

“Rod Stewart.”

“Abba.”

“Eat shit, freaks.” Delicately, Lyndon runs a hand up and over his hair. “Jesus, you guys are almost better than TV.” He reaches into his inside jacket pocket, removes a pack of Marlboros, taps out a cigarette and puts it into his mouth. Then he pulls out a lighter, touches it to his cigarette, inhales, and slowly, slowly, exhales. “Okay, kids. We get the message.” He pauses for another languid drag. “One teeny-weeny original and then we'll go back to your jerky little Top Forty tunes. Okey dokey?”

There is some tentative applause.

“Terrific.” Lyndon exhales a tremendous blue cloud of smoke. “Richard wrote this one, and he really tried to make the lyrics meaningful.” He sneers, ever so slightly. “So the least you pinheads could do is pay attention.”

More applause as Richard steps up to his microphone. “I wrote this song for a friend of mine,” he says softly. “It's sort of a ballad.”

The girls near the edge of the stage are moaning. From way in back somebody calls out: “I love you, Richie.” My mouth tightens, and next to me Gerard twitches restlessly.

“Miranda, I'm thirsty. Let's go get a drink.”

“In a minute.” Absently I pat his knee. “I want to hear this song.” My eyes are fixed upon the stage, which is now immersed in a faint bluish light that deepens into a bright rich aquamarine as the guitars begin, played neither fast nor slow, weaving a melody that seems at once melancholy and curiously elusive as the long, undulating notes keep slipping away, and disappearing into the momentum of the song itself.

Richard lifts his head and begins to sing.

Queen of woe

Never lets go, never lets go

Finding things that ain't lost

Opening doors that ain't closed

Sailing an ocean weeping

Pretty queen

Can you afford the cost

Gerard jostles me in the strange, misty turquoise light. “This song is depressing me. Can we go?”

“In a minute.” I'm gazing at Richard as if I've never seen him before.
Blue like the sky …

Lyndon adds his flat, honeyed voice to the next verse.

Miranda blue

Lunar smile, crystal eyes

Can I see you, can I see you

you're lost, lone mermaid going higher

Lost in cool hearts

Cool hearts and sapphire

“Hey,” Gerard whispers. “It's about somebody with your name.”

“Imagine that,” I say through dry lips. I sit frozen through another verse of Richard and Lyndon's mournful harmonizing, wincing in the painfully bright blue light. Finally, as I latch onto Richard's voice singing “Can you freshen a notion, reverse the automatic,” I seize Gerard's hand. “How about that drink?”

We slip along the edge of the crowd. My heart is pounding, and glassily I stare at Gerard's pattering feet in front of me. When a big hairy arm blocks my passage, I release Gerard's hand and look up at Loomis the bear standing in front of me, a permanent smirk on his hoary muzzle.

“Ahoy there,” he greets me, a paw jauntily resting where his waist might be. “Want to dance,
Miranda
?”

Numbly I reply with the first thing that comes to mind. “Suck me off, fuzzy-face.”

“I beg your pardon?” He strains closer, and I utter a little panicky cry, feeling my knees start to tremble. Just then Gerard reaches around Loomis and takes me by the wrist, maneuvering me around the bear's paunchy middle. “She said,” Gerard tells him genially, “to shove a beehive up your ass.”

“Fuzzy-face,” I prompt in a grateful mumble.

“Fuzzy-face.” Gerard starts leading me away.

Loomis the bear stands there befuddled, scratching his armpit with a long-nailed claw. All at once I notice that he's wearing a pair of big, scuffed-up saddle shoes, one of which is unlaced. The skinny white shoelace dangles onto the polished wood floor.

“Hey, you old fleabag,” I scream. “Tie your shoe. Don't you know you could get into an accident that way?”

After swiping a small pitcher of martinis from the bar we sneak into the kitchen, which is mercifully dark, and huddle in a comer next to the food processors, launching into our martinis with two shots apiece.

“Yuck. Too much vermouth,” Gerard complains, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks up and his eyes bulge. “Check it out, Miranda!” he whispers, nudging me. “Look at 'em go!”

“Huh?” I look around. The kitchen, as I knew it would be, is filled with couples twined in various postures of amorous entanglement. I shrug in the shadowy dimness and look down at my Dixie cup. “Just pitching woo.”

“Is that what you call it? Jesus, look at those two over there on the butcher block.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on. It's like being at the movies.” He nudges me again. “Look, she's unbuttoning his shirt with one hand.”

“So what.” I pour myself a refill.

“Oh, come on, Miranda. Lighten up, will you?”

“Don't call me Miranda.”

“It's your name, isn't it?”

“I want a new one.” I bolt down the contents of my Dixie cup in one swallow.

“What do you mean, you want a new one?” He turns to stare at me.

“I mean I want a new one.”

“Terrific. So what should I call you then?”

“You go to Harvard. You come up with something.”

“Oh, Jesus. This is supposed to be my day off.” He screws up his face and thoughtfully eyes first the hanging copper pots, then the butcher block. “Wait. I think I'm on to something here.”

“Well?”

“Roberta.”

“Gross.”

“Oh, come on. Why not?” He takes the olive from his cup and pops it into his mouth. “It's got dignity, substance.
My Ántonia
charm.”

“Oh, I'm
sure
.” With a scornful twist of my hand I flick a strand of hair off my shoulder.

“Wait. How about Ruth? Dignity, substance,
My Ántonia
charm.”

“No way, dude.”

“Miranda, will you cut the Valley Girl stuff? It's bumming me out.”

“Don't call me Miranda.” I grip his arm with soggy insistence.

“Ow. You're hurting me.”

“Sorry.” I let go, simpering. “Guess I don't know my own strength, huh?”

“It's okay. I mean, normally I'd be into it and all—”

“How about Tanya?”

“Sounds like country-Western Chekhov, if you ask me.” He fills our cups and meticulously drops an olive into each.

“I guess you're right. Well, how about a nice androgynous name?”

“Better safe than sorry.” He gives a rubber-necked nod of agreement. “Especially in these trying times.”

“Okay then.” I think hard for a moment. “Terry, Sandy, Robin, Bobby, Sue—”

“Sue. I love it.” He raises his cup. “Cheers, Sue. To the new you.”

“Cheers.” I take a large sloppy gulp. “God, it's great to be alive, isn't it?”

“Sue?” Gerard says, tenderly.

“Yes?” I beam at him.

“Can I have your olive?”

“Of course.” I hold out my cup. “I hate olives.”

“Thanks, Sue.” He plucks out the olive and swallows it with a little smacking noise. “Hey!” He's goggling over my shoulder. “Looks like she's about to go down on him now.”