Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [70]
Adam was busy looking for page 11. He didn’t even look up.
“I said, I’ve been to the zoo. MISTER, I’VE BEEN TO THE ZOO!”
Tom’s voice was wet and throaty. His words were garbled and hardly intelligible. A few people in the audience tittered nervously.
Adam looked up from Shipley’s poem. He was pretty sure he’d only understood what Tom was saying because he knew the play so well. “Hm?…What?…I’m sorry, were you talking to me?”
Tom did his best to keep his eyes open. He couldn’t believe his parents were here. And Shipley, with her face showing and her body parts in all the right places. She looked sweet and unfamiliar, which would have added to her allure had he not been so completely out of his head. Ether was nothing like ecstasy. It was not a touchy-feely sort of drug. It did not arouse the senses. The only thing aroused in him was the screaming pace of his heart. He was alive—but barely.
He wiped the spit off his chin and waggled his head from side to side to keep from blacking out again. Honestly, the play gave him a hard-on every time he performed it. It was as if it had been written for him. He could feel it—he could feel it all over—and even though his mouth wasn’t quite working right, the audience was fucking in love with him, he could tell.
The boys roared through the first half of the play, easy. Adam kept his eyes on Tom, forcing himself not to look at Shipley. During the funny parts, he could hear his parents’ and Tragedy’s hooting laughter coming from way in the back.
Tom hawked up a big ball of phlegm and spat it out right there on the stage before beginning his monologue.
“ALL RIGHT. THE STORY OF JERRY AND THE DOG. What I’m going to tell you has something to do with how sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly….”
He went on to tell the story of how he, Jerry, had a problem with his landlady’s dog. Jerry lived in a crummy boardinghouse in Manhattan, and this dog, who was black, all black, except for his constant red erection, growled at Jerry whenever he came and went. First, Jerry bought the dog hamburgers in an attempt to win him over. When that failed, he poisoned the hamburgers. The dog got sick but he didn’t die, and their relationship actually changed for the better. Finally they understood and respected each other.
At one point during the monologue, Tom got to say the words “malevolence with an erection.” Saying it felt awesome, like there were fireworks exploding out of his teeth. He couldn’t believe he got extra credit for doing this. Extra credit for talking about erections out loud in front of an audience—fucking awesome.
From up high in his booth, Nick had a perfect view of the front row. He watched as Eliza picked the cuticles of both thumbs until they bled. She yanked at a thread in her black tights until it formed a large hole and then she picked at a scab inside the hole. She chewed on the ends of her dark hair. She clenched her fists together until her knuckles turned white. Sometimes she smiled. Eliza was a minor celebrity now that naked portraits of her were on display all over the art studio. Beside her Shipley looked very small and blond.
Tom was outrageously good. He stole the show, pacing and gnashing his teeth, spitting and gesticulating. Adam wasn’t bad either. He was the perfect example of the status quo—someone who doesn’t speak his mind and never steps outside the box. It was nice, how Peter was actually helping Jerry by sitting there, listening, just like he, Nick, was helping the creep who’d been sleeping in his yurt by not calling campus security.
First there was the pile of blankets and clothes. Then there was the book, Dianetics, which Nick had ignored. He was tired of seeking solace in platitudes. How could you get inner peace from an outer source? Then there was the stove Eliza had given him, which Nick had left unopened in its box. He preferred to eat in the dining