Read I Am Charlotte Simmons Online

Authors: Tom Wolfe

I Am Charlotte Simmons (28 page)

BOOK: I Am Charlotte Simmons
5.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
“Sort of,” said Jojo, “more or less.”
“Sort of more or less. That's great.”
Jojo could feel emotion rising in his throat. “Okay, Coach, you're right, I'm kidding myself if I say I know, but I want to learn something, Coach! If
I'm gonna be sitting in classes anyway, I'm tired of—you know, skimming and scamming by the way I've been doing. I'm not just a stupid jock, and I'm tired of treating myself like one!”
Coach ignored all of that and said, “You know who Mr. Margolies is, by any chance?”
“No, but I hear he's really good.”
“Yeah, really good,” said Coach in a thoughtful, contemplative tone.
Then—bango!
“REALLY GOOD AT BEING ONE OF THOSE PRICKS I TOLD YOU ABOUT! THAT FUCKER'D LOVE TO GET HIS HANDS ON SOMEBODY LIKE YOU! HE'D CHEW YOUR ASS UP AND SPIT IT OUT THE CORNER OF HIS FUCKING MOUTH! The Age of Socrates … You simpleminded shit, I got news for you. As far as you're concerned, THIS IS THE FUCKING AGE OF JOJO! You got it? You got any fucking idea what I mean? YOU GOTTA MAKE IT RIGHT OVER THERE!” He thrust his right forefinger in the general direction of the basketball arena so hard, his whole shoulder and upper torso jerked. “AND YOU GOTTA MAKE IT THIS YEAR!—OR YOUR ASS IS FUCKED! The Age of Socrates … YOU'RE HERE TO DO THINGS WITH A ROUND ORANGE BALL!” He made a basketball shape with his hands
—“
THAT'S THE ONLY FUCKING AGE YOU GOT TO THINK ABOUT!”
Jojo had never shown his anger to Buster Roth, but the “simpleminded shit” crack had breached the Coach/coached barrier. “You're just like everybody else! You think I'm stupid, don't you! You—”
“That isn't what I was saying—”
“You think I'm good for one thing in this world! You think I'm this animal you put out there to take your goddamned round orange ball off the boards and set up picks so other—”
“That isn't what—”
“—other animals can shove your round orange ball through your—”
“Jojo! Listen to me! That ain't—”
“—fucking basket and whack the shit outta the big motherfuckers the other team's got inside—” It occurred to Jojo that he had just mentioned three things instead of one. That caused just enough of a hiccup in the gusher of anger for Coach to break in successfully:
“Jojo”—he had his palms up in the
whoa whoa
stance—“come on! You know me better than that! We been close for a long time. Ever since that night—remember that night?—one second, one
split
second after midnight,
July first—I had your whole telephone number already punched in except for the last digit—and as soon as my watch said twelve-oh-oh, I punched that last digit—it was a
seven
—right?—I even remember the fucking number—am I right or not!—and I said, ‘Jojo, this is Coach Roth. I want you here at Dupont as much as any player I've ever tried to recruit in my entire career.' That was God's own truth then, Jojo, and it's—”
“Yeah, but you just called me a simpleminded shit!”
“—and it's true now! Christ, I don't wanna sound sappy, Jojo, but I've always though of you as a son. Like my firstborn. If I didn't, I wouldna used a term tike—like what I said. But you and me, we're so close we can exaggerate to each other to make a point, and I wasn't even talking about you, in the sense of you, Jojo Johanssen”—he spread his arms out wide, as if Jojo Johanssen were about as grand as things got in this world—“I was talking about this one decision you wanted to make, a course with a prick like Margolies. That's all. I just thought it wasn't savvy, and you're as savvy as any player I've ever coached. Why do I depend on you to set picks? I'll tell you why. You know this game, Jojo. Other players just play the game. But you know the game while you
play
the game. You see what I mean?”
Part of Jojo didn't believe a word of it for one moment. And yet … another part of Jojo purred, however reluctantly, under the stroking.
“Yeah, but you shouldna called me that, Coach.”
Coach
. Even Jojo realized that his anger had just gotten flattered back down below the Coach/coached barrier.
“Of course I shouldna. But I get emotional when the subject's a great player like you. I guess that's a personal defect I got, Jojo, but having somebody like you to coach is what this game is all about, if you're a coach. Someday, someday way down the line,
years
from now, when you decide to call it a career on the hardwood, you might wanna be a coach yourself. Oh, you'll have plenty a other options. Sometime remind me to tell you all the different great things our players have gone on to do. When you play the game the way you do, a lot of doors open, Jojo. You'll have a
lotta
options. But if you wanna coach, you'll be a
great
coach, Jojo, a
great
coach, and you'll understand how much it means”—he tapped his fist against the center of his chest—“to have a player as talented and smart as you are right now.”
Jojo averted his eyes, set his lips into an angry twist, heaved his great chest, and sighed … and nodded his head several times, ever so slightly, in assent, as if to say, “Don't think for one minute I'm not still angry at you … but I
am
willing to be justly praised.”
Coach said in as calm a voice as you please, “You know, this is big-time basketball we play here at Dupont, Jojo. It's as big-time as it gets. But it's also college, and I think of myself as a teacher, and I
am
a teacher. I know some players hear me say that, and they think it's just something I say because it sounds good, but I mean it. I mean it as much as anything I've ever meant in my life. We were just talking about Socrates, right? Well, Socrates was a Greek, and in the age of Socrates the Greeks had a saying:
Mens sana in corpore sano
, a sound mind in a sound body.”
Jojo didn't know the first thing about Greek, but for some reason that didn't sound Greek. It sounded more like—that was the problem, he didn't even know what it sounded more like. He was dying to interrupt Coach and demonstrate the wattage of the Johanssen brain, yet he couldn't very well interrupt and say something told him Coach was wrong, but he didn't have the remotest idea what it was.
“See?”—Coach went on—“The Greeks knew something we've lost sight of. A good mind don't mean much unless it's one and the same thing”—he held up his hands and interlaced his fingers—“with a good body.
Mens sana in corpore sano
. That's Greek for ‘If you want a great university, you damn well better have a great athletic program.' Whether you know it or not, you're an educational leader here at Dupont. Yeah! A leader. You're a role model for the whole campus.” He lifted his right hand to eye level and made an almost 180-degree sweep of the hand to indicate the whole campus. “They see a guy like you, and they see what they gotta shoot for. Now, none a those kids are gonna get a body like yours”—he gestured toward the Johanssen body. “A body like yours is a gift from God plus a lot of hard work. But that's what they oughta shoot for. The reason our program has to put a slightly greater emphasis on the
corpore
is because it's our program that teaches the entire student body what protects and fortifies and energizes the mens and enables it to make a difference in the world. We're all educators—me, you, the whole program. Like I say, you're a role model. You're helping teach all of this great university the Greek ideal:
Mens sana in corpore sano.
Every time they see you out on that hardwood—hell, every time they see you on the campus—they all know you by sight—they all say
Go go Jojo
—you're teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching them the Greek ideal:
Mens sana in corpore sano,
Jojo,
mens sana in corpore sano.”
With that, Coach sank back comfortably into the swivel chair and beamed Jojo a Solomonic look.
Shit. Jojo felt like he was treading water in a vat of mineral oil. The goo
made him feel like anything he tried to do would be half speed. Was this how his big decision, his big academic turnaround, was winding up—with him floating like a dead bug in a vat of slippery Buster-brand bullshit? With his last ounce of moral courage he said oh so slowly and oh so hoarsely, “I never thought about it that way before, Coach—”
“Of course you didn't. There was no reason for you to. You're a great guy and totally committed to the program. Now you step back a few feet and take a look at the big picture and realize what a big part you're playing.”
“—and I'd like to take the Socrates course, too.”
Coach put his hand over his eyes, massaged his temples with his widespread thumb and middle finger, swiveled about twenty degrees away from Jojo, and let out the kind of sigh that sounds like an eighteen-wheeler's air brakes. Without turning back toward Jojo or lifting his head or removing his manual eyeshade from his brow, Coach said calmly, softly, albeit wearily, “Jojo, do me a favor. Take a nice long walk before practice tomorrow. Think about what I've just told you. Think about your role on this campus and your obligations and loyalties in life. Or if you don't wanna think about that, then think about a big, enormous, resentful prick. His name is Margolies. Anyway, think about something. Anything. Anything that'll make you use your head and not just your impulse of the moment.”
He still didn't look at Jojo. He didn't budge from his posture of pain. And he didn't say any more.
So Jojo got up from his chair and stood there a moment. The whole thing was damned awkward.
“Coach—” But he decided not to continue. If he made one final pitch for the Age of Socrates—he wasn't even up to imagining what might happen.
So he just turned around and left.
B
ettina, Charlotte, and their new friend, a freshman named Mimi, had just returned from PowerPizza to Bettina's room and the usual stew of unmade sheets and blankets, contorted pillows, strewn clothes and towels, abandoned catalogs, manuals, instruction sheets, CD cases, beauty-enhancement magazines, empty contact lens packets, stray rechargers, and dust balls dust balls dust balls.
“That place is a rip-off!” said Charlotte.
“Forget rip-off,” said Bettina. “My jeans will never fit again.”
“Yeah, I'm so-o-o-o full!” said Mimi. “But that was so good.”
“Now what should we do?” said Charlotte.
Silence. That was, indeed, the question, for that question led straight to a larger one.
Bettina's roommate, Nora, was out … naturally. After dark she was always out … and Bettina, wearing a polo shirt and tight blue Diesel-brand jeans that made her legs look even chunkier than they were, had settled back into Nora's techie-looking desk chair. Mimi, wearing likewise fashionably exhausted Diesel jeans and a sweatshirt, sat on one bed with her back propped up against the wall and her knees pulled to her chest. Mimi was a big-boned blonde with a lot of hair, the type boys at Dupont called a Monet,
meaning a girl who looks great twenty-five feet away and not that great up close. Up close you became aware that Mimi's nose was too long for her face. Charlotte sat on the edge of the other bed in a T-shirt, sweater, and shorts. Wearing shorts at night this late in October was pushing it, but she was determined to show off her legs, and besides, she now realized that her only jeans, the inky-blue ones Momma bought her just before she left Sparta, were not faded, were not low-cut at the waist, had tapered legs, and made you look about as un-Diesel as you could get. So here they were, the three of them, assessing their situation, which was that it was Friday night and they were sitting in a dorm room with nothing to do.
Finally Mimi said, “I need—I'm gonna go to the gym.”
“It's ten-thirty on a Friday night!” said Bettina. “The gym's probably closed. Besides, that would be lame. We're not that pathetic.”
“Well, what do you propose we do?” said Mimi.
Charlotte said, “Anyone have any cards or board games?”
“Oh—come—on!” said Bettina. “We're not in high school anymore!”
“Wanna play drinking games?” said Mimi.
“Drinking games?” said Charlotte. She tried not to reveal her alarm.
“Yeah, ever heard of them?”
“Yeah—” said Charlotte, who hadn't.
“Where are we going to find alcohol?” said Bettina.
“Good point,” said Mimi.
More silence. Charlotte felt enormously relieved. She didn't want to look like a moralistic little mouse in front of her new—and only—friends. On the other hand, there was no way she was going to take a drink of alcohol. Momma's powerful embrace had her arms pinned to her sides when it came to something like that. Did Bettina drink? Charlotte rather desperately hoped not. Bettina was the motor, the energy, the gregarious force, the enterprise, that had brought the three of them together on a Friday night, so that, whatever their circumstances, at least they weren't alone. But Mimi was the one with … experience. Mimi had gone to a private day school in Los Angeles. She was the one who was up on subjects Charlotte had never heard of, everything from “morphing” with computers to “doing lines” of cocaine and “rolling” at “raves”—which seemed to be some sort of orgies people who used the drug ecstasy went to—and sexual matters such as “the seven-minute seduction,” which Charlotte still didn't comprehend but didn't want to ask too many questions about, for fear of appearing hopelessly innocent.
In short, Mimi was the sophisticate of the trio, the one with the sharp wit, the amusing cynicism, the world-weariness. She also seemed to have plenty of money to spend on things like going out for supper at a restaurant just because it might be fun. To Charlotte, even going out to PowerPizza was an extravagance. The real reason she had called the place a rip-off was to manufacture a reason why she had ordered so little.
Bettina got up and turned on her absent roommate's television set. An unseen commentator was yelling, “That did it! That did it! Look at that choke hold! Now she wants to twist her head off!”
“Eeeeyew,” said Bettina, “mud wrestling.” She turned to Mimi and Charlotte. “WWE, CNN, our 90210 reruns?”
“Um—90210, I guess,” said Mimi.
“Reminds you of home, hunh?” said Bettina.
“Totally not,” said Mimi. “It's so-o-o-o unrealistic, if you actually know anything about Beverly Hills. But I like it anyway.”
Bettina looked at Charlotte.
“Oh yeah,” said Charlotte, “
90210
, definitely.”
“So
90210
it is.” Bettina began clicking the remote.
Screams rose up from the courtyard, the unmistakable screams, once more, of girls singing their mock distress over the manly antics of boys. Very loud they were, too. The boys sang their choral response of manly laughs, bellows, and yahoos. To Charlotte, this bawling had become the anthem of the victors, namely, those girls who were attractive, experienced, and deft enough to achieve success at Dupont, which, as far as she could tell, was measured in boys.
“What are they doing screaming so loud?” she said.
“It's Friday,” said Mimi. “Hello-oh?”
“Well, they don't have to be
that
loud.”
Still more silence. Then Bettina stood up and put her fists on her hips. “This is ridiculous. We're not sitting here watching
90210
reruns on a Friday night. What happens when people ask us what we did all weekend? What are we gonna say? ‘Watched TV'?”
Charlotte said, “We could go bowling?”
“Okaaay …” said Mimi, drawling the word out dubiously. “Do either of you two have a car?”
“No.”
“No.”
“Well, that kind of rules that idea out.”
“Still, why don't we go out,” said Bettina. “You know … like try a frat party or something. There's supposed to be a big party at the Saint Ray house.”
“Are you invited?” said Charlotte. She looked at Mimi, too, including her in the question.
“Doesn't matter,” said Bettina. “Sometimes they keep guys out, but they always let girls in.”
“We won't know anybody,” said Charlotte.
“That's the whole point,” said Bettina. “We're supposed to meet people there. How are we supposed to meet anybody if we never go outside this dorm full of rejects?”
“How far is it?” said Charlotte. “How would we get there? How would we get back?”
“Hopefully we won't,” said Mimi.
“What do you mean?” said Charlotte.
“Well, maybe we'll meet some hot guys and not have to come back.”
“Nora certainly has that one down.” Bettina motioned with her head toward her roommate's side of the room. “She used to sexile me. Now …” She rolled her eyes meaningfully.
“Oh, I've seen Nora,” said Mimi. “I bet she hasn't slept in this room for like two weeks, has she?”
“Nora's okay,” said Bettina, “but she's such a slut. Did you see what she was wearing tonight to go to dinner?”
“Yeah,” said Mimi. “Could her skirt be any tighter?”
“Maybe she has a date,” said Charlotte.
“Yeah,” said Mimi, “a date with her pimp.”
“Do we really have to stay over there?” said Charlotte.
“No, of course not,” said Mimi. “Let's go. Seriously. It could be fun.”
“But suppose it's real late? How do we get back?”
This provoked such a sigh from Mimi that Charlotte discarded the travel barrier and returned meekly to the first roadblock she had tried to erect. “And you're sure we can get in?”
“Yes! Come on!”
“They're not even gonna notice us,” said Bettina. She turned to Mimi. “What do we wear?”
Charlotte broke in. “Have you ever been to one before?”
“Obviously! Yes, of course,” said Mimi. “They're like totally cool. Upperclassmen are way hotter than freshmen. They don't look like they just got off the school bus.”
“Was everyone really drunk?” said Charlotte.
“Where are you from? What do you think? No, they drank apple juice the whole time.”
That left Charlotte speechless. She knew she should act cool about it; in fact, she looked anxious.
“Come on!” said Mimi.
“Well, maybe,” said Charlotte. “I mean if we're all gonna go.”
“I'll lend you my makeup case,” said Bettina. She was brimming with enthusiasm for the adventure ahead.
“Hey, can I borrow that red halter top of yours?” said Mimi.
“Yeah sure,” said Bettina.
“Do you think it would be flattering?”
“Yeah, it looks good on anyone.”
“What should I wear?” said Charlotte.
“Black pants,” said Bettina. “And a bright-colored top. That way you'll stand out.”
“I don't want to stand out. I'd rather look like I was supposed to be there.”
“Then wear all black,” said Mimi.
“I don't know …” said Charlotte. “I was looking at a magazine, and that's what they wear in New York. I'm not from New York.”
“Help yourself to my closet,” said Bettina.
“I don't think anything will fit me,” said Charlotte. “I'm gonna have to run down the hall to my room.”
“Well—don't take all night,” said Bettina.
In 516, all the lights were on, but Beverly was not there, not that Charlotte had thought for a second she would be. Her heart was hammering so hard that when she opened her mouth, an odd chafing sound rose from her chest with each beat, as if her heart were rubbing against her sternum. Beverly's side of the room was as much of a mess as Bettina's room. A pair of Beverly's jeans were on the floor at the foot of her bed. It was as if they had dropped straight off her hips and telescoped at her feet. A round, crushed, prefaded denim pie on the floor was what they looked like. Diesels, needless to say. Charlotte's side of the room was a model of neatness by Little Yard standards. For a start, she didn't have enough clothes to be lazy or absentminded enough to leave some of them lying around mashed up like that. For another thing, when you grew up in a five-by-eight-foot bedroom, most of which was taken up by the bed, leaving stuff on the floor and stepping
through it was more trouble than keeping it neat—not that Momma had ever left her any choice. Charlotte's eyes remained fixed on the abandoned blue jeans, but they no longer registered. Crashing a fraternity party—and what did she
think
they drank, apple juice? She was breathing too fast, and her underarms and her face were abloom with heat. Somehow she had just committed herself to a dreadful test that wasn't worth taking in the first place. Well, that was crazy, wasn't it? One of the things that made Charlotte Simmons Charlotte Simmons was the fact that she had never let herself be bent by peer pressure. Nobody could
commit
her to doing anything. But Mimi was already fed up with her doubts and fears, and if she didn't go, then there would just be Mimi and Bettina, and maybe it would remain that way, and she would have no friends. She had had only one real friend at Alleghany High, Laurie—four years at the same school, and one friend. What was it—this implacable remoteness, this inability to surrender herself to the warmth and comradely feelings of others? Could being an academic star, being applauded over and over again as a prodigy, take the place of all that? She shuddered with a feeling she couldn't have put a name to. It was the congenital human fear of isolation.
She was no star here at Dupont, not so far. Nothing had altered her inexpressible conviction that she would be the most brilliant student at this famous university—but how was anyone supposed to know about it, even if she was? At Alleghany High, there was a steady flow of recognition in one form or another. If you skipped a grade in a certain subject, if you were receiving special advanced instruction, if you were chosen to represent the school in some sort of academic competition, if you made nothing but A pluses, everybody knew about it. Here, if you were so brilliant, who would know and who would care, especially if you were a freshman? At this exalted institution, what was that compared to success as a girl? What should she wear? She didn't have any black pants, and she didn't have any black top, even if that was what she had been dying to put on. Her blue jeans—they weren't even a conceivable choice. She looked again at Beverly's, lying in a clump there on the floor, faded and worn out to near perfection … She'd never even miss them. But suppose somehow she
did
! Besides, they were bound to be too long. Desperately she scanned the room … Mimi and Bettina were probably already drumming their fingers. Unable to come up with anything better, she put on her print dress, the same one she had worn under the kelly-green gown at commencement. It wasn't the right thing, but at least it showed off her legs—although not enough … Ohgod. In a frenzy
she took off the dress and raised the hem a good two and a half inches, using safety pins … By now they'd be ready to kill her … She looked at herself in Beverly's door mirror. A bit primitive, the hem job, but lots of leg … Anything else? … On top of Beverly's bureau there was Beverly's makeup case and her vanity mirror. Charlotte snapped on the mirror lights. The face she saw, lit up that way, looked like somebody else's, but somebody else not bad at all. She put her hand on the makeup case. She took her hand away. She'd rather die than have Beverly somehow figure out that she had used her makeup. Besides, she wasn't sure exactly how you were supposed to use the things in that forbidden container. She left the room frantic, a little soldier about to plunge, feebly equipped, into a dangerous battle for no other reason than to keep up with some girls she knew.
BOOK: I Am Charlotte Simmons
5.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Out of Sight by Isabelle Grey
Mind Games by H. I. Larry
The Prisoner of Heaven: A Novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Vegas Envy by J. J. Salem
A Wilder Rose: A Novel by Susan Wittig Albert