Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp (50 page)

“Leave him alone!” she screamed, pounding on Dad’s back and sore ear.

“I’ll teach you, you communist!” bellowed Dad, gouging his opponent’s nose.

“I’ll marry you off, you harlot!” gasped Mr. Joshi, presumably addressing his rescuer.

After ten hellish minutes, the combatants had been separated, threats of multimillion-dollar lawsuits had been hurled, I had been singled out for a slashing excoriation by you know who, and sweet Apurva had been dragged off and hustled into the Reliant. As Mr. Joshi roared off into the night, Dad clutched his injured eye.

“Did you get the fucking license plate number?” he demanded.

“Uh, no. Sorry.”

“Damn! Say, who was that girl?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “She said she was selling magazine subscriptions. Why did you attack him, Dad?”

“I spotted the asshole sneaking up the drive toward my car,” replied Dad, daubing his eye. “I’ll teach those union goons to destroy other people’s property!”

I decided under the circumstance it was best not to correct Dad’s misapprehension.

“Funny,” he continued, “I think I’ve seen that Mexican son of a bitch somewhere before. And why was he yelling at you?”

“Search me, Dad.” I shrugged. “I’m trying to stay neutral in these labor disputes.”

TUESDAY, November 13
— Feeling much better, but I decided to stay home from school anyway. I see no point to missing school only on days when you are too miserable to enjoy your idleness. As another labor Armageddon raged in the distance, I spent the morning giving Little Caesar a much-needed fall cleaning.

With that accomplished, I rode my bike past the ambulances and sheriff’s cars, and treated myself in town to a well-deserved donut break. As usual, I skipped the franchise donut palaces and gave my business to a small place downtown where the only thing older than the aged proprietress is the grease in the blackened deep fryer. Issues of rancidity aside, the donuts are varied, generous-sized, and breathtakingly cheap.

I almost choked on my second maple bar when I opened the newspaper to find a familiar spotted visage beaming out from page five. There, arrayed photographically across three columns, was Ukiah’s most distinguished teen—me. I read and reread every glowing word with immense satisfaction. What a lift to the spirits! So what if the article contained a few inaccuracies (I, for one, have never claimed to have an IQ of 195).

I gobbled down my donuts in a fog of pleasure, then raided a newspaper rack for all of its copies. Some I shall give to friends, some I shall put aside for future biographers, and some I shall mail anonymously to girls who have snubbed my overtures over the years. I only wish I could be there to witness their expressions of bitter self-reproach.

I got back home just in time to answer a noon call from Vijay.

“Did you see the article?” he asked excitedly.

“Yes, it was a tremendously flattering write-up,” I said. “I appreciate, Vijay, your refusal to be inhibited by the constraints of truth. You have a great future ahead of you in public life.”

“I do enjoy misleading the press,” he conceded.

“Perhaps this is why you are an active Republican,” I noted. “Speaking of reactionary impulses, how is your father?”

“He is quite upset, Nick. Is it true you have slept with my sister?”

“What does she say?”

“She says you were just talking. Father wanted to take her to a hospital last night and have her examined, but Mother finally dissuaded him. Well, go on. Tell me. Confess your crimes. What happened between you two?”

“Vijay, if your sister says we were just talking, I am certainly not going
to contradict her. That would be ungentlemanly. How is Apurva, by the way?”

“Quite distraught. Father was threatening to send her back to India. But now that he thinks you’re going, he’s changed his mind. He says he wouldn’t trust his daughter on the same continent with you.”

Now it was François’s turn to feel flattered.

“Tell Apurva I’m sorry that she got in trouble,” I said. “And tell her she’s welcome to drop by any time,” added François.

3:30
P.M
. I heard a noise like a 747 crashing and rushed into the house. Mrs. Crampton was lying on the kitchen floor in a dead faint. The telephone was off the hook beside her. Putting two and two together, I deduced that she had just received some bad news. Praying some tragedy had befallen her son, I set about reviving her to find out. No such luck. Today’s shocking news concerned her other loved one. Mr. Ferguson has been arrested! He’s in the county jail charged with inciting a riot, resisting arrest, and assault and battery on an officer.

“It’s … not fair,” complained Mrs. Crampton, when she came to. “Now…both my… menfolk… are in prison!”

7:30
P.M
. Dad has put his foot down and forbade my studying abroad. He says I am too young and am needed at home. We all know what is really needed at home—Mom’s monthly support check. If Dad were still writing those hefty checks, I’d already be working on my Pune tan.

Mrs. Crampton just phoned and asked for a loan of $15,000 for Mr. Ferguson’s bail. Dad refused and suggested she call the American Communist Party.

11:30
P.M
. We just watched Mr. Ferguson on the local news smack a deputy sheriff over the head with his riot shield. There was also a brief glimpse of Dad scattering some strikers as he roared through the gate with six tons of scab concrete. Everyone made the news except me. Why no mention of important scholarship winners? The press-bashers are right: the media has a deplorable bias against good news.

WEDNESDAY, November 14
— I’m a celebrity at school! Every teacher congratulated me in class, including Mr. Vilprang, who said he hoped I would be able to continue my woodworking studies in India.

Then in study hall I was interviewed for the school paper by a cute junior named Tina Manion. I gave her my entire life story (selectively embellished by François), a recent photo, and my phone number. Fuzzy told me later I was fishing out of my depth. He said Tina was going with a college guy and wouldn’t be caught dead dating someone from Redwood High—especially a
nonathletic, “scum of the earth” freshman. I said it was just that sort of pessimistic attitude that kept him alone on Saturday nights.

5:30
P.M
. Dad came home whistling suspiciously. I fear he may have flattened his first striker. He also appears to be acquiring some unexpected bulges under his shirt. Can he actually be developing muscles? A Twisp with a physique—what next!

Mr. Ferguson got sprung this afternoon, no thanks to his fellow travelers. He was obliged to put up the deed to his house as security for his bail. Mrs. Crampton has laid down the law: her fiancé has to choose between her and the picket line. What an argument against free will.

7:45
P.M
. Dad just got spiffed up and left the house. He has a date. With a woman!

Right after he left, Paul telephoned sounding uncharacteristically non-mellow. He reported that Lacey came out of work today to find that someone had jimmied a window on her Toyota and filled her austere vinyl interior with three cubic yards of rapidly solidifying concrete. She has given a description of Dad to the Ukiah police!

I can’t help but wonder if there’s some symbolism in this particular act of vandalism. Why concrete? Freudians ask. And what does he really wish to seal up?

10:30
P.M
. Sheeni just called in a mild panic.

“Nickie, my parents are totally ecstatic. They say you’ve won a scholarship to study in India!”

“That’s right, darling. You see, you’re not the only one interested in exotic foreign cultures.”

“But, Nickie, you can’t go!”

“Why not, darling? I have my passport and everything. I’ve been granted 10,000 captive rupees as my first year’s stipend. It’s the first time I’ve ever had 10,000 of anything—let alone captive rupees.”

“But, Nickie, if you leave Ukiah my parents will… I mean, I’ll miss you terribly.”

“As usual, Sheeni, the solution is in your hands.”

“What do you mean?”

“Leave that school, darling, and I’ll repudiate my scholarship—even if it creates an international incident.”

“Why don’t you turn down your scholarship, Nickie, and I’ll think seriously about coming back?”

“Sorry, Sheeni. I need more of a commitment than that. We’re at a crossroads, darling. These are momentous, life-altering decisions we’re facing. Who knows what wonderful prospects await me in India?”

“When are you leaving?” she asked sullenly.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “Possibly after Thanksgiving dinner at your parents’ house.”

“Don’t be silly, Nickie. I couldn’t possibly invite you.”

“That’s OK, darling. I’m already invited—courtesy of your hospitable brother.”

“Nick! My brother is an idiot. You are
not
coming to Thanksgiving dinner!”

“Sorry, Sheeni. I can’t refuse now after already accepting. That would be ungracious. Besides, I’ve promised to bring flowers for your mother.”

“Nick, my father has a loaded pistol in the top drawer of his bedroom bureau. He may be capable of extreme violence. I fear he is losing whatever slight grip he had on his reason. He appears to be obsessed with paranoid fantasies involving smuggled birth control aids. He just spent another 45 minutes interrogating me on the subject. Now he claims to have seen some sort of written confession by Trent.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked, thrilled.

“I refused to discuss it. I told him to take two aspirin and lie down.”

“Good for you, Sheeni. That’s the only tack to take with obstreperous parents.”

“Nickie, darling,” said Sheeni, shifting her magnificent charm into overdrive, “you won’t go to India or come to dinner, will you?”

“No, darling,” I cooed. “I promise I won’t be any more intransigent than you.”

“Oh, Nick! You are impossible!”
Click
.

I wonder if Mr. Saunders really has a loaded gun. I must keep my guard up. If he excuses himself to go to his bedroom, I shall exit immediately.

THURSDAY, November 15
— 3:30
A.M
. I was just awakened by a rude knocking on my trailer door.

“Who is it?” I demanded.

“Me, Nick,” answered D——e.

“Suck the gas pipe!” I replied, rolling over.

“It’s your pop!” he called. “He wants you on the phone.”

“Oh, all right!”

Expecting the worst, I followed the near-nude emissary back into the house. As usual, Dad did not disappoint.

“Nick,” he said, “this is your father.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“There’s been a slight misunderstanding. I’m down here at the police station. I want you to call up your mother and have her arrange for my bail.”

“What did you do, Dad?”

“Never mind that now.”

“How was your date?” I asked.

“Nick, just call your mother. Tell her I’ll pay her back right away.”

“OK, Dad. She gets up about seven. I’ll call her then.”

“Call her now, dammit! I don’t want to spend another minute in this stinking hole.”

“Oh, all right, Dad,” I replied. “Keep your shirt on.”

I dialed Mom’s number and my worst nightmare came true. Lance answered.

“Hi, Lance,” I said, pleasantly businesslike. “This is Nick, your putative stepson. Is Mom there?”

“This better be fucking important, dipshit!” the cop growled.

“Nickie, is that you?” asked Mom, sounding groggily alarmed. “What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”

“Not me, Mom. It’s your first husband. He’s in jail in Ukiah and wants you to bail him out.”

“He does what!”

“He wants you to spring him from the slammer,” I said, adopting the appropriate B-movie patois.

“What was the louse arrested for?”

“I’m not sure, but the charge may be malicious mischief. He’s allegedly filled his old girlfriend’s car with cement.”

“Nick, you tell that no-good philandering father of yours that as far as I’m concerned he can rot in jail. I wouldn’t spend ten cents bailing him out!”

“That’s how I thought you’d feel, Mom,” I replied.

“And, Nickie, if your father is in serious trouble, you get on the bus to Oakland. I mean it.”

“I will, Mom,” I lied.

Hanging up the phone, I looked around the kitchen for potential bail donors. I found only three bleary-eyed prospects, none from the affluent classes. One I rejected out of hand on moral grounds. That left two.

“Uh, Mr. Ferguson…” I began tactfully.

“Nothing doing, Nick,” he stated firmly. “You tell that rotten scab to call the American Nazi Party.”

“Mrs. Crampton?” I said hopefully.

“Sorry… Nick,” she replied. “I ain’t got…but six dollars…to my name…Your dad…owes me… three weeks’ back…pay!”

In the end, I had to throw myself on the bristling mercies of my sister Joanie. She bows to no one in her dislike of Dad, but finally agreed to wire a short-term, high-interest loan to save her only brother from Life with Lance.

I fear another financial crisis looms. What will happen to us if Dad gets fired from his scab job? How will I pay my monstrous phone bill?

4:15
P.M
. More bad news. Fuzzy took me aside in gym class to relate a shocking story. His mother, purportedly off ministering to a sick friend, arrived home in the middle of the night in a Ukiah police car. She had been detained on charges of public inebriation and disorderly conduct, after having been discovered at the Burl Pit tavern in the company of my father.

“Your mother was out with my dad?” I asked, flabbergasted.

“That’s what I understood from all the screaming,” whispered Fuzzy, earnestly pretending to be performing vigorous sit-ups.

“How in God’s pajamas did they meet?” I asked.

“I heard Dad accusing her of hanging around your dad’s truck,” replied Fuzzy.

“Your dad was pissed, huh?”

“Totally ballistic.”

“Wow, Frank, this is incredible!”

“Yeah, Nick. I guess this almost makes us brothers.”

“Yeah, well, at least your side of the family has money,” I said bitterly. “Now Dad’s sure to be fired!”