Rats Saw God (20 page)

“What are we going to do about a sponsor?” Doug asked sullenly.

“I say screw 'em. We're mainland China,” Dub answered, not being much help.

“What about Mr. Waters? I think he's an English teacher,” I said, remembering Sylvia's suggestion.

“Man, I don't know,” said Ivy. “I've heard he's a freak.”

That settled it for Doug. If Ivy said he was a freak, the man was in. “He must be perfect.”

Veg got up from the grass and patted pita crumbs off of his turquoise wool Mexican Baja. “I'll go try to find out where his classroom is.” And Doug's latest yes-man was on his way.

It turned out that Mr. Waters' classroom was segregated from the rest of the English department. Room B16 used the space between an industrial trades (shop) class and a family solutions (unwed mothers) class. Because his classroom was smaller than the breakfast nooks of most Clear Lake homes, Waters had given the space a modicum of openness by removing all desks other than his own, which he tucked in a corner. A score of navy blue plastichairs were arranged roughly in a circle in the middle of the room. Behind his
desk, a poster of the cover of Bruce Springsteen's
Born to Run
stretched from the ceiling to the floor. The rest of the wall was covered with a comparably sized flag of Scotland. On the chalkboard, he had written, “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann.

Waters was sticking chunks of banana in his mouth as our half dozen entered his room. He also had a thermos cup full of stew and a Koala kiwi-lime-grapefruit soda resting on an unfolded cloth napkin. He appraised us as we encircled his desk.

“Mr. Waters, do you have a minute? We're the Grace Order of Dadaists.” It must have sounded ludicrous, like we were witnessing door to door, hoping for converts.

“Ah, yes, the infamous—” (That made us feel good.) He wiped his mouth. “And outlawed, from what I hear.”

“That's what we're here to see you about,” our leader said. “We need a sponsor to get rerecognized.”

“Why would a group of such obviously secure trendbuckers like yourselves need official status, anyway? Doesn't your banning only serve your image as young iconoclasts?”

“I'm not sure,” Doug said. “What's an iconoclast?”

“You need to take my class; you'd know these things,” Waters said. “An iconoclast is someone who debunks the platitudes mainstream society espouses: ‘Elvis is king,' ‘Love is forever,' ‘My country, right or wrong.'”

“So what you're saying,” Dub said, “is that an iconoclast probably wouldn't show up panting for a yearbook picture party.”

“Goes without saying,” Waters said.

But he accepted our offer. He had been out of the good graces of the school's administration for so long—hence the trial-size classroom—that he figured sponsoring us could do no further damage. When he actually got out of his chair at one point to see us out, it seemed as though never-ending limbs just kept issuing from below the desk. He must have been six-foot-six, but he was, as well, the only human at Grace who could make me seem husky. He looked spidery and breakable, his bony features accentuated by a pointy goatee and piked nose. His mustache was of the wispy sort favored by cast members of
Godspell.
Though his coarse, dark hair was graying slightly, his wrinkle-free face led me to believe he'd yet to see thirty-five.

I didn't show up for yearbook photos, but Dub had a friend on the yearbook staff who smuggled us out an extra print. Each member of the group packed a clawed red hammer. They had crossed their arms across their chests, their hammers in their right hand. No one smiled, except Lynnette. I realized after gazing at the picture for a couple minutes that they were all doing something peculiar with their free hands. I asked Dub what it was.

“Sign language,” she said. Sure enough, when I gazed even closer I could tell each of their hands formed a letter.

“So what does it spell?”

“Depends on how you read it. Forwards it says ‘Dog was star.'”

“So backwards it spells…”

“‘Rats saw God.'”

Waters, in his first official duty since signing our charter as club sponsor, supplied the G
.

This had to be a joke. Sarah wouldn't really do this to me, would she?

But here I was, lying on the couch, Allison spooned against my stomach, watching
The Right Stuff
—my sister's video rental choice—three hours on the heroics of our first space explorers. Danny and Sarah shared the BarcaLounger. A mixing bowl of microwaved Redenbacher's rested on the coffee table between us. Despite Sarah's original vow that our first double date would be our last, the four of us had ended up in similar positions on more than a few occasions. Neither Allison nor I were much for going out, plus, the more I got to know Danny, the better I liked him. He could make Sarah shut up. She was positively gaga for him. From what Mom said, Danny was the first boy for whom Sarah wasn't the puppet master. Mom, though she would never admit it, had grown fond of Danny. He almost charmed her into making an appearance at a “Skinheads Against Racism” rally he helped organize.

Good group chemistry alone, however, was not going to convince me to watch this movie.

“Is this the only thing you rented?” I asked rather pointedly when I saw the title come up on the screen.

“Yeah,” she said defensively. “You got a problem with that?”

“Didn't you get enough of this bullshit growing up?”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch…”

Now I was pissed. “You could have watched this on your own any day since you were first able to put a tape in the machine by
yourself. God knows it was made available to us. Didn't the astronaut put a copy of it in your Christmas stocking one year?”

“He put it in yours.”

Oh yeah.
“The point is, why do we have to watch it now? We've heard all these stories before. I'll bet you firemen's families don't go out renting
Backdraft
for kicks.”

Sarah used the television remote control to turn up the volume. The VCR control, however, was within my reach. I paused the opening credits of the movie.

“You are a son of a bitch,” Sarah said, now pissed. “Look, you've hardly talked to Dad in a year, and you won't have to see him until the wedding, which is still months away. Can't you just shut up and watch the movie?”

“I don't have to see him then, either. Who said I was going to the wedding?”

“He's asked you to be the best man,” she said incredulously.

“And I didn't say yes.” I sat up. I thought it important to look stern when I explained this to Sarah. “You were so young when they split up, and you see so little of the astronaut, you don't understand the man. He just wants me there to put on a show. It would look good. I don't know, maybe cute, or something, to have me standing there beside him. I'm not going to do it.”

Sarah lost it. She hopped out of her chair and began screaming at me and wagging her finger in my face. “You're the one who doesn't understand anything. You're the one who can't remember, or is too dumb to figure out, why they broke up. You just see what you want to see.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but Allison and Danny were obviously uncomfortable. Danny was looking out the
window; Allison inspected her palms. I had no desire to continue this in front of them.

“Fine, fine, whatever you say. Let's not get into this here.”

Then she reached across the coffee table and slapped me. When she spoke again, she was difficult to understand because she was sobbing.

“You are so stupid. You don't even see it, do you? You are just like him. You won't put up a fight because you're so afraid of being embarrassed, just like him. You are just as meticulous as he is. You expect everyone else around you to be perfect. You don't forgive anyone. You open envelopes like they're priceless. You make your bed like you're sealing food. You've probably even convinced yourself that you're not looking more and more like him each day. It's a good thing you wear those earrings so we can tell the two of you apart. Neither of you trust anyone but yourselves. No, that's not true. You trust Mom. Dad did, too, at one point, and look what it got him.”

I wanted to disappear, but what the hell did she mean about Mom? “What are you saying?”

“Haven't you ever wondered how Mom managed to meet someone so fast? Did you know she got married on the first day she legally could after the divorce was final? Did you know Chuck is from Cocoa Beach? You weren't the only one who listened at vents in that house.”

“Watch what you're saying, Sarah. You can't mean what…”

“Look, believe what you want, but just remember, you sat there grinning like an idiot at Mom and Chuck's wedding. You were so pleased, like somehow Mom was getting back at Dad for putting her through so many years of hardship.”

The VCR took itself off Pause after the long delay. The volume had been left at its previous deafening level. The sound of jet engines filled the family room. F-14s left white streaks across our big screen TV as they disappeared into the horizon. Sarah wiped her eyes. Visual display bars blinked off one by one as she brought the volume of the movie down to a decent level.

“You don't even call him your father. I am so sick of that.”

She sat back down with Danny. I just kept my eyes fixed on the screen. Allison grabbed my hand and pulled me back to my previous position on the couch. She pulled my arm around her and squeezed it hard against her body. For the next three hours I had to remind myself to breathe.

My entire second semester at Grace fell into a precise weekly schedule that varied only on the odd weekend that Dub would visit relatives in Shreveport or spend the night with Sylvia at the Rice dorms. Normally, I would pick Dub up for school. Walk her to her classes. Drive through Taco Bell or Burger King for lunch under the sycamore (lately called the Joshua Tree by GOD). Hang out at Dub's until it was time to go to work. On nights I had off, we rented movies or went swimming in the Pleasant Woods Estates pool after it closed. We would hop the waist-high fence and make out in the dark water. Every time she went partying with her sister, ultimately crashing at her place, I would pace the projection room at work and envision poetry-citing, acne-free college men offering my girlfriend mixed drinks and asking her what her major was.

“You should hook up with Doug after you get off. You're
usually out by eleven. Do something with your friends,” Dub would say.

“I don't want to. I want to be with you.”

“You're too cute,” she would say.

Besides, Doug was always in the same place—his garage, practicing with Veg and Bill. The Grippe was readying for stardom. The Chappell garage had become the center of the GOD universe; Missy and Rhonda, Samantha and Holly, Zipper and Virginia—they'd all drop in, report on parties, and fawn over the boys in the band. I didn't feel much a part of it.

The only topic of conversation around the Joshua Tree for two weeks prior to spring break was the Galveston condominium owned by Holly's family. Her parents told her that she and a few of her friends could use the condo over the break. Naturally, her parents assumed these friends would be female, but they had never specifically made that distinction. So when Holly invited all of GOD to spend spring break with Samantha and her, it set off a string of lies on my part: lies at work, lies to the astronaut. I managed to get three consecutive days off at the Cineplex for my “chemotherapy.” The astronaut believed I would be staying at the Whitesides' and that the parents would be with us. I couldn't, however, trade shifts on the first Friday and Saturday of the break. Dub headed to Galveston with Rhonda and Missy and without me.

I drove down early Sunday morning. Ivy answered my 10
A.M.
knock on the condo door. Beer bottles, sticky blenders, empty bags of chips, and comatose male bodies were strewn across the floor of the living room that faced the beach. Ivy was the only one awake. He had already scrambled eggs,
which he offered to share, and was eating in front of a muted TV. Cooler teenagers than us were frolicking in Daytona on MTV's exclusive coverage of spring break tan line contests. I asked him where Dub was sleeping, and he pointed to the appropriate door. All three musketeers—Dub, Missy, Rhonda—were sleeping on the king-sized bed that filled the room. Fortunately, Dub was closest to the door. Had she anticipated my Prince Charming intentions? I kneeled down beside the bed and kissed her on the lips. I tasted the stale, fermented tang of beer mouth. No, she had slept where she had fallen.