Fast Times at Ridgemont High

In the fall of 1979, the author returned to a high school he had attended briefly some years back. He registered as a student under an assumed name with the cooperation of the principal, who was the only one to know the secret. Because of his youthful appearance, he was never under suspicion and was able to mingle freely in the classrooms, the schoolyard, the students' homes and the fast-food parlors that were the focus of the lives of the kids in a typical town in California. The author has changed the name of the school, its location and the names of the students and teachers with whom he lived. The events and the dialog, however, are real.

Green

The Ridgemont Senior High School official colors were red and yellow. But those who had ever attended the school did not think of red and yellow when it came to Ridgemont. They thought of green.

The whole place was green. Green walls in the gymnasium. Green classrooms. Green bungalows. Even the blackboards were green. New graffiti? Roll on some green. Crack in the wall? Slap on some green. It was a Ridgemont High joke that if all other disciplinary measures failed, they called in the janitors and painted you green, too.

Standing by the A-B-C-D-E registration counter in the gymnasium, waiting to pick up his red add card on the first day, Brad Hamilton had the unmistakable aura of Important Man on Campus. He stood surrounded by four buddies, all of them dressed in the same ventilated golf caps with logos such as Cat and National Chain Saw on the front. They all nodded vigorously at everything Brad said. They all worked together at the same Carl's Jr. hamburger franchise on Ridgemont Drive, where Brad was head fryer. They had all attended Paul Revere Junior High School together.

Every June, Paul Revere Junior High held a graduation procession for the outgoing ninth graders. Several hundred of the 14-year-olds crossed Ridgemont Drive en masse, a symbolic passage toward higher education. Ridgemont High School upperclassmen usually launched water balloons at them from strategic locations. For them, the Paul Revere procession was like a dirty river about to empty into their back yard.

The kids from Paul Revere would find that things change quickly in high school. Suddenly, it was considered in bad taste to continue adolescent behavior into tenth grade. High school brought on new responsibilities and a whole new set of priorities. It was different from what it had been ten or even five years earlier. One of the most common phrases heard in high school was now: "I went through my drug phase in junior high."

Once in high school, a kid could drive, and a car necessitated a certain cash flow. An allowance from your parents was not only demeaning, it wasn't enough. It didn't take long for a kid to see the big picture—you were nothing unless you had a job. But well-paying teen jobs were scarce, especially since the abolishment of training wages.

Ah, but there was always one bastion of teen employment left. That one business where a guy like Brad was king.

"I'm in fast food," Brad would say with professional dignity.

Brad's job as chief fryer at Carl's Jr. was no trifling matter, but what was particularly (continued on page 130) Ridgemont High (continued from page 117) impressive was Brad's location. He worked at the Carl's Jr. at the very top of Ridgemont Drive.

Like most of his friends, Brad worked six days a week. School was not a major concern. Actually, it was fourth on his list, after Carl's and girls and being happy. School was no problem, especially this year. Brad could have graduated as a junior last year—he had enough units—but why do that? It had been a major task to reach a social peak in junior high and then work up again through high school. After two years at Ridgemont, Brad was on top. He knew practically everyone and he was well liked. For Brad, the best part of school was being with his friends and seeing them every day.

This, as Brad had been saying since last year and all summer long at Carl's, would be his cruise year. He had selected only four classes—mechanical arts, running techniques, advanced health and safety, and public speaking. He wanted to enjoy the year, take it easy and not rush things.

"Hi, Bradley!" It was his sister, Stacy, a sophomore.

"What are you so happy about?"

"Sor-ry," said Stacy.

"Who do you have fifth period?" Brad asked.

"U.S. history. Mr. Hand."

"Hey-yo," said Brad.

"Hey-yooooooo," said his friends in the ventilated golf caps.

"You'd better get to class," Brad instructed. "The show begins after the third bell."

After Stacy left, one of Brad's friends turned to him. "Your sister is really turning into a fox."

"You should see her in the morning," said Brad.

Mr. Hand

Stacy Hamilton took her seat in U.S. history on the first day of school. The third and final attendance bell rang.

He came barreling down the aisle, then made a double-speed step to the green metal front door of the U.S. history bungalow. He kicked the door shut and locked it with the dead bolt. The windows rattled in their frames. This man knew how to take the front of a classroom.

"Aloha," he said. "The name is Mr. Hand."

There was a lasting silence. He wrote his name on the blackboard. Every letter was a small explosion of chalk.

"I have but one question for you on our first morning together," the man said. "Can you attend my class?"

He scanned the classroom full of curious sophomores, all of them with roughly the same look on their faces—there goes another summer.

"Pakalo?" It was Hawaiian for "Do you understand?"

Mr. Hand let his students take a good long look at him. In high school, where such crucial matters as confidence and social status can shift daily, there is one thing a student can depend on. Most people in high school look like their names. Mr. Hand was a perfect example. He had a porous, oblong face, just like a thumbprint. His stiff black hair rose up off his forehead like that of a late-night-television evangelist. Even at eight in the morning, his yellow Van Heusen shirt was soaked at the armpits.

And he was not Hawaiian.

The strange saga of Mr. Hand had been passed down to Stacy by Brad. Arnold Hand, Ridgemont's U.S. history instructor, was one of those teachers. His was a special brand of eccentricity, the kind preserved only through California state seniority laws. Mr. Hand had been at Ridgemont High for years, waging his highly theatrical battle against what he saw as the greatest threat to the youth of this land—truancy.

According to Stacy's brother, you had to respect a teacher like Mr. Hand. He was one of the last teacher teachers, as Brad had put it. Most of the other members of the Ridgemont faculty subscribed to the latest vogue in grading, the "contract" method. Under the contract system, a student agreed to a certain amount of work at the beginning of the year, and then actually signed a legal form binding him to the task. The contract teacher argued that he or she was giving the student a lesson in real life, but, in fact, it was easier on the teacher. Grades were given according to the amount of contract work done, and such things as attendance didn't matter to the contract teacher.

Mr. Hand wanted no part of the contract system. The only thing worse than a lazy student, he said, was a lazy teacher. Even the hard-core truant cases had to agree. The last thing they wanted to see was somebody up there looking for loopholes just like them. For them, Mr. Hand was one of the few surviving teachers at Ridgemont who still gave a shit about things like weekly quizzes and attendance slips—who gave a shit, period. That's what Brad had told Stacy.

Mr. Hand's other favorite activity was hailing the virtues of the three-bell system. At Ridgemont, the short first bell meant a student had three minutes to prepare for the end of the class. The long second bell dismissed the class. Then there were exactly seven minutes—and Mr. Hand claimed that he personally fought the Education Center for those seven minutes—before the third and last attendance bell. If you did not have the ability to obey the three-bell system, Mr. Hand would say, then it was aloha time for you. You simply would not function in life.

"And functioning in life," Mr. Hand said grandly on that first morning, "is the hidden postulate of education."

At the age of 58, Mr. Hand had no intention of leaving Ridgemont. Why, in the past ten years, he had just begun to hit his stride. He had found one man, that one man who embodied all the proper authority and power to exist "in the jungle." It didn't bother him that his role model happened to be none other than Steve McGarrett, the humorless chief detective of Hawaii Five-O.

First-year U.S. history students, sensing something slightly odd about the man, would inch up to Mr. Hand a few days into the semester. "Mr. Hand," they would ask timidly, "how come you act like that guy on Hawaii Five-O?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

It was, of course, much too obvious for his considerable pride to admit. But Mr. Hand pursued his students as tirelessly as McGarrett pursued his weekly criminals, with cast-iron emotions and a paucity of words. Substitute truancy for drug traffic, missed tests for robbery, U.S. history for Hawaii, and you had a class with Mr. Hand. Little by little, his protean personality had been taken over by McGarrett. He became possessed by Five-O. He even got out of his Oldsmobile sedan in the mornings at full stand, whipping his head both ways, like McGarrett.

"History," Mr. Hand had barked on that first morning, "U.S. or otherwise, has proved one thing to us. Man does not do anything that is not for his own good. It is for your own good that you attend my class. And if you can't make it ... I can make you."

An impatient knock began at the front door of the bungalow, but Mr. Hand ignored it.

"There will be tests in this class," he said immediately. "We have a twenty- (continued on page 140) Ridgemont High (continued from page 130) question quiz every Friday. It will cover all the material we've dealt with during the week. There will be no make-up exams. You can see it's important that you have your Land of Truth and Liberty textbook by Wednesday at the latest."

The knock continued.

"Your grade in this class is the average of all your quizzes, plus the midterm and the final, which counts for one third."

The door knocker now sounded a lazy calypso beat. No one dared mention it.

"Also. There will be no eating in this class. I want you to get used to doing your business on your time. That's one demand I make. You do your business on your time, and I do my business on my time. I don't like staying after class with you on detention. That's my time. Just like you wouldn't want me to come to your house some evening and discuss U.S. history with you on your time. Pakalo?"

Mr. Hand finally turned, as if he had just noticed the sound at the door, and began to approach the green metal barrier between him and his mystery truant. He opened the door only an inch.

"Yes?"

"Yeah," said the student, a surfer. "I'm registered for this class."

"Really?" Mr. Hand appeared enthralled.

"Yeah," said the student, holding his all-important red add card up to the crack in the door. "This is U.S. history, right? I saw the globe in the window."

Jeff Spicoli, a Ridgemont legend since third grade, lounged against the doorframe. His long dirty-blond hair was parted exactly in the middle. He spoke thickly, like molasses pouring from a jar. Most every school morning, Spicoli awoke before dawn, smoked three bowls of marijuana from a small steel bong, put on his wet suit and surfed before school. He was never at school on Fridays, and on Mondays only when he could handle it. He leaned a little into the room, red eyes glistening. His long hair was still wet, dampening the back of his white peasant shirt.

"May I come in?"

"Oh, please," replied Mr. Hand. "I get so lonely when that third attendance bell rings and I don't see all my kids here."

The surfer laughed—he was the only one—and handed over his red add card. "Sorry I'm late. This new schedule is totally confusing."

Mr. Hand read the card aloud with utter fascination in his voice. "Mr. Spicoli?"

"Yes, sir. That's the name they gave me."

Mr. Hand slowly tore the red add card into little pieces, effectively destroying the very existence of Jeffrey Spicoli, 15, in the Redondo school system. Mr. Hand sprinkled the little pieces over his waste-basket.

Spicoli stood there, frozen in the process of removing his backpack. "You just ripped up my card," he said with disbelief. "What's your problem?"

Mr. Hand moved to within inches of Spicoli's face. "No problem," he said breezily. "I think you know where the front office is."

It took a moment for the words to work their way out of Spicoli's mouth.

"You dick."

Mr. Hand cocked his head. He appeared poised on the edge of incredible violence. There was a sudden silence while the class wondered exactly what he might do to the surfer. Deck him? Throw him out of Ridgemont? Shoot him at sunrise?

But Mr. Hand simply turned away from Spicoli as if the kid had just ceased to exist. Small potatoes. Mr. Hand simply continued with his first-day lecture.

"I've taken the trouble," he said, "to print up a complete schedule of class quizzes and the chapters they cover. Please pass them to all the desks behind you."

Spicoli remained at the front of the class, his face flushed, still trying to sort out what had happened. Mr. Hand coolly counted out stacks of his purple mimeographed assignment sheets. After a time, Spicoli fished a few bits of his red add card out of the wastebasket and huffed out of the room.

Mr. Hand had made his entrance, just as Brad had said he would. But the strange saga of Mr. Hand wasn't the only item Brad handed down to his sister. He had also passed her a fairly complete set of Mr. Hand's weekly quizzes. Mr. Hand did not change them from year to year, a well-known fact that rendered him harmlessly entertaining.

"So," said Mr. Hand just before the last bell, "let's recap. First test on Friday. Be there.Aloha."

Lunch Court

Finding the right spot at Ridgemont High's outdoor lunch area was tougher than getting the best table at the finest restaurant. It was a puny swimming-pool-sized courtyard dominated by a stocky oak tree in the center, and it was always packed with students. Even by the first day, they had sectioned off into cliques and staked out their lunch-court territory for the year.

All this for a 26-minute lunch period.

The closer one looked at lunch court, the more interesting it became. The object had always been to eat near the big oak tree at the center, and in the beginning at Ridgemont, it was the surfers and the stoners who ruled this domain. Several years later, they had moved to the parking lot and the cafeteria (which was twice the size of lunch court but tainted with a reputation as an underclassmen's hangout).

Now, each group clustered around lunch court was actually a different contingent of Ridgemont fast-food employees. Lunch-court positions corresponded directly with the prestige and quality of the employer. Why, a man was only as good as his franchise.

Working inward from the outskirts of Ridgemont High's lunch court were the lowly all-night 7-Eleven workers, then the Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King crowd, the Denny's and Swenson's types, all leading to the top-of-Ridgemont-Drive-location Carl's Jr. employees. And at the center of lunch court, eating cold chicken under the hallowed oak tree, was Brad Hamilton.

Brad was popular around Ridgemont. In the world of fast food, once you had achieved a position of power, the next sign of influence was to bring in your friends. Brad had paid his dues. He had loaded his Carl's Jr. with buddies. And why not? He even helped train them.

"No friend of mine," Brad once said, "will ever have to work at a 7-Eleven or in a supermarket."

And for that, Brad's friends admired and respected him.

Carl's Jr. was at the top of the Ridgemont fast-food hierarchy for several important reasons. Because of its fine location at the top of Ridgemont Drive, anybody headed anywhere in Ridgemont passed that Carl's Jr. It was clean, with a fountain in the middle of the dining area and never too many kids on their bicycles. Brad, like the other employees, even went there on his off hours, and that was the ultimate test. By evening, Carl's would be crawling with Ridgemont kids.

But why Carl's? Why not some other fast-food operation? Why not Burger (continued on page 226) Ridgemont High (continued from page 140) King? Why not McDonald's? Or Jack-in-the-Box?

The answer was simple enough, as Brad himself would tell you. Their food wasn't as good. And places like Burger King were always giving away glasses and catering to small kids who came whipping into the restaurant on their bicycles. McDonald's was McDonald's. Too familiar, too prefab, too many games. McDonald's was good only if you had no other choice or if you just wanted fries.

Jack-in-the-Box was suspect because all the food was precooked and heated by sun lamps. It was also common knowledge that the whole Jack-in-the-Box franchise was owned by Ralston Purina, the well-known dog-food manufacturer. Kentucky Fried Chicken was too boring and Wendy's was too close to Lincoln High School.

The top-of-Ridgemont-Drive Carl's Jr., on the other hand, had achieved that special balance between location and food quality. At Carl's, the burgers were char-broiled. That crucial fact not only meant that the meal was better but it returned a little bit of the fast-food power to the kid behind the counter. A guy like Brad felt like a real chef.

"Hey, Brad," people were always saying to him, "your fries are even better than McDonald's."

"You know it," Brad would say, as if they were, in fact, his fries.

Brad had his own method, and at it he was the best. Working the fryer at Carl's was a system governed by beeps. One high beep—the fries were done. One low—change the oil. But Brad didn't even have to go by the beeps. He knew when the fries were perfect. He knew when to change the oil and he knew his fryer.

Being the main fryer at Carl's meant that everybody had to be nice to you. The other workers depended on Brad for their orders. The only real problem came when company sales were down and the franchise added a "specialty" item, such as a cheese steak or The Gobbler (sliced turkey breast on a freshly baked roll with mayonnaise and butter). Forget it. That stuff took forever to make. And some recreation-center clown with a whistle around his neck would always come in and order 15 of them.

But Brad was the calmest guy in the building.

"I need eight double cheese, Brad!"

"No problem."

"I gotta go. Can you bag them?"

"Go ahead and take off."

When Brad was a sophomore, he wanted to be a lawyer. His parents were delighted. His school counselor set him up in an apprenticeship program with a local law firm. He was there three weeks and became disillusioned. He'd gone to a criminal-law defense attorney and asked him a question: "If you got a guy freed on a little technicality, even though you knew he had committed a murder, wouldn't that be on your conscience for the rest of your life?"

"Why don't you try corporate law?" was his answer.

Brad spent the next week with a woman lawyer from Redondo Beach Gas and Electric. It was so boring that he'd taken up drinking coffee. He had decided not to think about what to do now that his "lawyer phase" had ended. Right now, Brad was the best fryer at the best location around, and that was what was important at Ridgemont High School—especially for his senior year—and things like lunch court.

•

The topic of conversation at the center of lunch court today was the Mr. Hand–Spicoli incident. Three periods later, it had been blown into enormous proportions.

"He almost pulled a gun on Mr. Hand," said Brad. "Spicoli had a piece on him. He came right over to mechanical drawing and told us."

"Hey, Brad," said one of his Carl's friends, "did he say 'Dick off' or 'Suck dick'?"

"He just got right in Mr. Hand's face," said Brad, "and he goes"—Brad contorted his face as he re-created the moment—" 'Yoooou fuckin' dick!' And Mr. Hand didn't do anything. Spicoli said if he'd tried anything, he would have pulled the gun. He was going to blow Mr. Hand away. But he came over to mechanical drawing instead."

"Whoa."

"He ain't coming back here," said Brad.

But Spicoli would be back with a new add card the next day in all his glory. The lure of lunch court was too great even for him.

On the outskirts of lunch court sat Linda Barrett and Stacy Hamilton. Not too close to the inner sanctum, not too far away. Linda, cheese sandwich in hand, casually pointed out some of the Ridgemont personalities to Stacy.

"See over there," she said. She nodded to a frizzy brown-haired boy accepting cash from a small crowd of students around him. "That's Randy Eddo. He's the Ridgemont ticket scalper. He probably makes more money than both of our dads put together."

"Really? A ticket scalper?"

"He says he's not a scalper. He says he provides a service for concertgoers. And that the service costs extra money."

"I see."

Linda went on to explain. Although Led Zeppelin was still king of the Ridgemont parking lot after ten years, each new season brought another band discovery. A new group then influenced the set lists of the Ridgemont school dance bands, and usually one main-focus rock star dictated the dress code. This year that star was the lead singer of Cheap Trick, Robin Zander, a young man with longish blond hair cut in bangs just above his eyes. This year in Ridgemont lunch court, there were three Robin Zander look-alikes.

"None of them talk to each other," noted Linda.

A couple, arms around each other's waists and oblivious to everyone, walked past her and Stacy.

"Now, that," said Linda, "is Gregg Adams and Cindy Carr."

The school couple.

Gregg Adams was equal parts sensitive drama student and school funny guy. He looked like a contestant on The Dating Game. Gregg's jokes never got too dirty, his conversation never too deep. He just strode down the hallways, said hi to people he didn't know and methodically wrapped up all the leads in the school drama presentations. Everyone, including Gregg, was sure he would be famous one day.

Cindy Carr was a clear-complexioned, untroubled Midwestern beauty. She was a cheerleader, coming from a part of the country where cheerleaders still meant something. She did not leave her room in the mornings until she believed she compared favorably with the framed photo of Olivia Newton-John on her wall. She was a part-time hostess in a Chinese restaurant where a singer named Johnny Chung King sang nightly.

Both Gregg and Cindy were masters of the teeth-baring smile. That, more than anything else, was the true sign of a high school social climber known as the sosh. The teeth-baring sosh (long O) began as a glimmer in the eye. Then the sosh chin quivered, and then the entire sosh face detonated into a synthetic grin. Usually accompanied by a sharp "Hi," it was an art form that Gregg and Cindy had taken to its extreme.

The Gregg Adams–Cindy Carr story was thick with tales of overwhelming devotion. When one was sick, the other spent every in-between period on the pay phone, talking to the one at home. Every day, they paraded across lunch court, cuddling and holding each other. They were the king and queen of the public display of affection, or P.D.A. Every lunch period, they would take their prescribed seats in lunch court and gaze longingly at each other for whatever was left of the 26 minutes.

"If there's one thing that never changes," commented Linda, "it's a cheerleader."

"Think they're actually doing it?"

"No way they can't be doing it."

"I just can't picture it," said Stacy with a shrug. "They're too much like my parents."

"They've got to be doing it," said Linda, "or else Gregg would be blue in the face by now."

"I see a little green but no blue."

Linda bit into her cheese sandwich. "Everything starts to look green around here after a while," she said.

The Attitude

It was one of the cruel inevitabilities of high school, right up there with grades and corn dogs. After 13, girls tended to mature two to three times faster than boys. This led to a common predicament. Two kids were in the same grade. The girl was discovering sex and men. The boy, having just given up his paper route, was awakening to the wonders of Gothic-style romance. High school could be murder on a guy like Mark "The Rat" Ratner, 16.

He was not blessed with the personal success or the looks of a Brad Hamilton. To junior Mark Ratner, high school girls were mystical, unattainable apparitions. So close and yet so far away.

"I am in love," said Ratner. He clutched his heart, spun in a circle and landed on his buddy Mike Damone's bed. It was after school, three weeks into the school year. "In looooove."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah," said Ratner. "This girl is my exact type. It's her. It's definitely her."

"It's definitely your momma," said Damone distractedly. He was in the middle of his after-school ritual. Every day, Damone went home, set his books down, mixed himself a tall Tia Maria and cream and blasted Lou Reed's live Rock 'n' Roll Animal album on the family stereo.

"Damone, you gotta listen to me." Ratner turned serious very quickly. In high school, everyone had a coach. For Ratner, this was Damone, and Damone wasn't even paying attention. "Come on, Damone."

They were both juniors and both lived in Ridgemont Hills, but Ratner and Damone were nothing alike. Mark "The Rat" Ratner, a pale kid with dark hair that tilted to one side like the leaning tower of Pisa, had lived in Ridgemont all his life. He had lived in the same house and gone to the neighborhood schools, of which Ridgemont High was one. Ratner was even born in University Hospital, just across the street from his house.

Mike Damone was darker, with longish black hair parted in the middle and a wide, knowing smile. He was a transfer from Philadelphia, "where women are fast and life is cheap." Damone and The Rat had a perfect relationship. Damone talked and The Rat listened.

"All right," said Damone. "All right." He straddled a chair in his room facing The Rat. "Tell me all about it."

"OK," said The Rat. "It started out just a typical day. I had to go to the Associated Student Body office to get my student I.D. I was thinking about other things, you know, and then I saw her. She was incredible! She was so beautiful! She's a cross between Cindy Carr ... and Cheryl Ladd! And she works right in the A.S.B. office!" The Rat shook his head in awe. "This is going to be such a great year!"

Damone sat listening to the story, waiting for more. There was no more.

"Is that it?" said Damone. "You didn't get her name or anything?"

"No. It's too soon."

"It's never too soon," said Damone. "Girls decide how far to let you go in the first five minutes. Didn't you know that?"

"What do you want me to do? Go up to this strange girl and say, 'Hello! I'd like you to take your clothes off and jump on me!'?"

Damone nodded his head. "I would, yeah."

"Fuck you."

"I can see it all now," said Damone. "This is going to be just like the girl you fell in love with at Fotomat. All you did was go buy film; you didn't even talk to her."

"What do you do, Mike? Tell me. You're in a public place and you see a girl that you really like. Do you just stand there and give her the eye? Or do you go up to her and make a joke or something? I mean, you're a good-looking guy, you know these things."

"OK. OK." Damone sighed, but he loved it. "Here's what I do." He got up and began pacing his room, an orderly little cubicle with one huge speaker, a large poster of Deborah Harry and a newspaper photo of a mortician's utensils. "Usually, I don't talk to the girl. I put out a vibe. I let her know. I use my face. I use my body. I use everything. It's all in the twitch of an eye. You just send the vibe out to them. And I have personally found that girls do respond. Something happens."

"Yeah, Damone, but you put the vibe out to thirty million girls. You know something's gonna happen."

"That's the idea," said Damone. "That's the attitude."

You hear about it under a multitude of names. The knack. The ability. The moves. The attitude. In any language, it is the same special talent for attracting the opposite sex, and Damone appeared to have it.

They had met at Marine World, the famous marine amusement park outside Orange County. Ratner had gone in, applied for a job, and they had given him Dining Area Duty, an auspicious-sounding responsibility that consisted of scraping the birdshit off the plastic outdoor tables. He didn't think it was that bad, though. It was fun for Ratner at Marine World and there was a real spirit among the young workers. All the employees got together for functions like beer-keg parties and softball games, and everything would be just fine until someone asked The Rat what his department was.

"Hi. I'm Leslie from the Killer Whale Pavilion. Who are you?"

"I'm Mark from Dining Area Duty."

"Oh." And the same look would inevitably come over the other Marine World employee's face, a look that said, So you're the guy they got. "Well, Mark, uh, I'll see you over there sometime. Bye!"

The Rat always had trouble recovering after that. Making new friends, it seemed, was not his particular forte. Girls had been out of the question most of his life.

It seemed to The Rat a matter of fate when Marine World personnel dropped Damone into Dining Area Duty as his new partner. On the first day, The Rat didn't speak to Damone and Damone didn't speak to him. On the second day, The Rat broke the ice.

"Hot day today."

Damone looked up from the table he was scrubbing and smiled. "Sure is."

Then his eyes glazed over. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Damone turned pale and fell over backward, landing on a lawn area. He appeared to go into shock, beating his head on the grass and making tongue-less noises with his mouth. Several customers gathered around.

"Someone do something!"

"He's having a fit!"

"Can anyone help that boy?"

Ten more Marine World visitors arrived to gawk at the young worker flailing on the ground. The Rat rushed over to Damone's side and bent down to ask how he could help. And then, just when Damone had a huge audience, he popped back up again. He was the picture of complacency.

"I'm just not myself today," he said. It was Damone's special stunt.

Damone was fired after only three weeks at Marine World, but not before he had made fast friends with Ratner. To The Rat, Damone was a one-of-a-kind character. But it was beyond the Twitching Man act that Damone used on occasion to rip up whole restaurants and shopping malls. To The Rat, Damone was someone to study. He was a guy with a flair for living life his way, and that particularly fascinated Ratner.

What was his secret?

"I'll tell you what it is," Damone said. "It's the attitude. The attitude dictates that you don't care if she comes, stays, lays or prays. Whatever happens, your toes'll still be tappin'. You're the coolest and the cruelest. You've got to have the attitude."

To Mike Damone of Philadelphia, everything was a matter of attitude. Fitting into a California school was no problem for him. Once you had the attitude, Damone said, success was never again a matter of luck. It was simply a question of whether or not you behaved as if it were yours already.

The attitude. The Rat and Damone had been sitting in fourth-period biology a couple of days into the new school year. Damone leaned over. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Starved," said The Rat.

"Wouldn't you love a pizza right now?"

"Don't torture me."

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the front door of the classroom. Mr. Vargas had been giving a lecture. He paused to answer the door.

"Who ordered the pizza?" asked an impatient deliveryman for Mr. Pizza.

Damone waved his hand. "We did back here."

The class watched in amazement as the deliveryman took his steaming pizza to the back of the class and set it on Damone's desk. Damone paid for it, even pressed 50 cents into the deliveryman's hand. "This is for you," he said.

Mr. Vargas looked on, bewildered, while Damone and The Rat began eating pizza.

"Am I the only one who thinks this is strange?" Mr. Vargas asked.

The attitude.

Damone had put on a classic display of attitude the day after hearing of The Rat's dream girl at the A.S.B. counter. Ratner chose to watch from behind the bushes on Luna Street while Damone cruised by for an official check-out.

He had meant only to look, but Damone went right up and said hello to the girl. The Rat's girl. She and Damone had a three-minute conversation that The Rat couldn't hear. Then Damone had tapped his hand on the A.S.B. counter once and turned to leave. He walked back over to The Rat.

"She's cute," said Damone, "but she doesn't look like Cheryl Ladd."

"Fuck you, Damone."

"Her name is Stacy Hamilton," he said. "She's a sophomore, and she's in beginning journalism. What more do you need to know?"

"She just told you that?"

"Sure."

"I'll tell you something," said The Rat. "I really think something could happen between this girl and me."

"You ought to meet her first, you wuss."

(Wussy was a particularly expressive word that had sprung up in Paul Revere Junior High and taken a foothold in the Ridgemont lexicon. It was the handy combination of wimp and pussy.)

The next day, The Rat had it all planned. He waited until the period he knew she would be working at the A.S.B. office. He walked slowly over to the 200 Building, down the hall to the corner office. It was a green counter, with a glass window in front.

And there she was! Stacy Hamilton. Both she and Mike Brock, the football jock, were finishing up with two students. There was only one other kid in front of The Rat. It was a 50-50 chance. A crap shoot!

Brock finished first, and the other student went to his window. Fantastic, The Rat thought. Then Stacy finished and looked at him.

"Next."

But just as The Rat stepped up, Stacy's A.S.B. phone rang. She picked up the receiver and held a single finger up to Ratner. It was a call from the front office, and the conversation stretched on. The third attendance bell rang, but The Rat stayed.

Brock finished with the other student. "Over here," he said.

And what could The Rat say? No, you thick asshole. No, you stupid jock. I'm already being helped, you penis breath. No. The Rat didn't say any of those things. He chose the wussy way out.

The Rat shrugged and went over to Brock. He asked Brock something ludicrous, some lame thing off the top of his head.

"I was wondering where the Spirit Club meets," he mumbled.

"I don't know," said Brock. "You oughta look on the big bulletin board."

"Thanks," said The Rat.

He turned to go.

"Oh, sir?" She had gotten off the phone and called out to him. "I think the Spirit Club meets on Tuesday after school in room four hundred."

"Thanks," said The Rat. He turned around again. "See you later."

She called me sir! He was overjoyed. The way The Rat figured it, she would never have done that if she wasn't interested in him.

•

Damone shook his head sadly as he heard the whole story, incident by incident, over Cheetos in lunch court. "Is that it?"

"It's better than yesterday."

"Yeah, Rat, but you just opened the door a little bit. And then you let it slam back shut again. You gotta talk to the girl."

"Tomorrow!"

"You can't do it tomorrow," said Damone. "Tomorrow makes you look too eager."

"I know," said The Rat. "I know. I've got to have the attitude."

But for a guy like The Rat, the idea of waiting another two days was criminal. He felt there was nothing he could possibly do to fill the dead time. What was good enough on TV? What was interesting enough down at Town Center Mall? What record or book could ever be interesting enough to take his mind off her?

In Spanish class the next day, someone offered The Rat a vocabulary-lab headset. He was a zombie.

"You know what?" said The Rat. "I don't give a shit what happens to Carlos y Maria."

The Lear Jet is Waiting

Two days had passed and The Rat awoke, bathed in the attitude. Today was the day. He knew it.

The first three periods of the day flew by. By now he was getting to know Stacy's whole schedule. The last bell rang and The Rat strode out the door of Spanish class, down the halls to the A.S.B. office.

And there she was. Except she was talking with five other guys. They were all standing around, leaning over the counter, smiling at her. The Rat took it in stride. He was all form. He took a swig from the nearby drinking fountain, very casual. They were still talking with her. She was smiling back.

Then it hit The Rat. What if a lot of guys asked her out? What if muscle-bound jocks hit on her all day long? Worse yet, what if she went out with Brock? Maybe The Rat wasn't even good-looking enough to try.

He felt the cold fear of rejection spread through him. It sank the attitude like a harpooned beach toy. He turned and walked to his next class.

Later that week, The Rat and Damone went to the first school dance of the year.

"Have you seen Stacy here yet?"

"I don't think she's coming," said The Rat. He kicked at the sawdust that was covering the gymnasium floor. "She's probably not the type who goes to dances."

The Rat had combed his hair into submission. Damone was carefully arranged so that he appeared ultracasual—tennis shoes and sweater. He leaned against the side of the bleachers, listening to the cheesy high school band performing its version of Take It to the Limit.

A beautiful young Ridgemont girl walked by them. The Rat acted like he had been punched in the stomach. "Did you see that girl? Jesus."

"You are such a wussy with girls," said Damone. "Come on. They're just ... girls."

"Yeah? You ought to hear my sister and her girlfriends talk sometime. You'd never call one a girl again. They talk like truck drivers."

Damone rolled his eyes and ignored the remark.

"That girl was so cute. Look at her over there!"

"Where?" said Damone.

"Over there by the metal chairs."

"Well, do something about it," said Damone.

"Like what?"

"Just what I said, do something about it. You think she's cute? Do something about it." Pause. "You wussy."

The Rat stared at Damone. His eyes glazed over with a sense of purpose.

"Don't let them fool you," said Damone. "They come here for the same reason we do."

The Rat draped his fatigue jacket over his shoulder like a French film director. He began to swagger toward the girl.

"Rat," said Damone. "Ace the coat, OK?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. Give it to me." Damone took it. "Now you look OK."

The Rat walked straight over and sat down heavily on a metal chair two feet away from the girl. She was watching the band.

"You," said The Rat. The girl turned around. "Sit." The Rat tapped the aluminum chair next to him with the palm of his hand. The attitude.

The girl shivered, as if the night air had given her a bad chill. She scurried over to some friends at the other end of the gymnasium.

Damone went over and sat on the chair. "It's a start," he said.

•

By Monday morning, The Rat had a plan. Not another day was going to slip by without his meeting Stacy. He sat grimly through all his classes, preparing for the attack. Then came fifth period, her A.S.B. period on Mondays. The Rat headed down to the A.S.B. counter.

She was all alone. Doing nothing.

"Hi," said Ratner.

"Hello."

"Listen," he said. "I have two questions. I was curious...." He felt the beginnings of the same old cold panic but barged through with his rap, anyway. "What do you do with the old combination locks around here? I left mine on before we switched lockers...."

"We cut them off," said Stacy.

"So they're gone."

"Well, no," she said. She reached under the counter and pulled out a bucketful of old locks. "They're here."

"I'll never find it in there."

"Some people do."

"It's cool," said The Rat. "It'd take too much time." He chuckled to himself, as though he had too much attitude to be bothered with such smalltime stuff as locks. He affected a look that said, The Learjet is waiting.

"Well, OK," she said. She returned the bucketful of locks under the counter.

"My second question," said The Rat, "is ... what's your name?"

She smiled. "Stacy."

"Hi. I'm Mark." He stuck his hand through the hole in the window. "Nice to meet you, Stacy."

A Bitchin' Dream

Jeff Spicoli had been having a dream. A totally bitchin' dream.

He had been standing in a deep, dark void. Then he detected a sliver of light in the distance. A cold hand pushed him toward the light. He was being led somewhere important. That much he knew.

As Spicoli drew closer, the curtains suddenly opened and a floodlit vision was revealed to him. It was a wildly cheering studio audience—for him!—and there, applauding from his Tonight Show desk, was Johnny Carson.

Because it was the right thing to do, and because it was a dream, anyway, Spicoli gave the band a signal and launched into a cocktail rendition of AC/DC's Highway to Hell. When it was over, he took a seat next to Carson.

"How are ya?" said Johnny, lightly touching Spicoli's arm.

"Bitchin', Johnny. Nice to be here. I feel great."

"I was going to say," said Carson, "your eyes look a little red."

"I've been swimming, Johnny."

The audience laughed. It was a famous Spicoli line.

"Swimming? In the winter?"

"Yes," said Spicoli, "and may a swimming beaver make love to your masticating sister."

That broke Johnny up. Spicoli re-crossed his legs and smiled serenely. "Seriously, Johnny, business is good. I was thinking about picking up some hash this weekend, maybe go up to the mountains."

"I want to talk a little bit about school," said Carson.

"School." Spicoli sighed. "School is no problem. All you have to do is go, to get the grades. And if you know anything, all you have to do is go half the time." "How often do you go?"

"I don't go at all," said Spicoli.

The audience howled again. He is Carson's favorite guest.

"I hear you brought a film clip with you," said Carson. "Do you want to set it up for us?"

"Well, it pretty much speaks for itself," said Spicoli. "Freddie, you want to run with it?"

The film clip begins. It is a mammoth wave cresting against the blue sky.

"Johnny," continued Spicoli, "this is the action down at Sunset Cliffs at about six in the morning."

"Amazing."

A tiny figure appears at the foot of the wave.

"That's me," said Spicoli.

The audience gasped.

"You're not going to ride that wave, are you, Jeff?"

"You got it," said Spicoli.

He catches the perfect wave and it hurtles him through a turquoise tube of water.

"What's going through your mind right here, Jeff? The danger of it all?"

"Johnny," said Spicoli, "I'm thinking here that I only have about four good hours of surfing left before all those little clowns from Paul Revere Junior High start showing up with their boogie boards."

The audience howled once again, and then Spicoli's brother—that little fucker—woke him up.

Braking Point

It was always a special treat for Stacy to round the corner of the 200 Building and see the blinds drawn in health-and-safety class. It meant that Mrs. Beeson was showing a film. It meant a break from the regular clock-watching routine.

The next question, of course, was, How long is this film? And that was answered easily enough on this day with one look at the spool. Today's film was popping off the end, it was so full.

"Let's all settle down quickly," said Mrs. Beeson. "This is a long driver's-ed film. It's been a few years since we had it on campus. It's called Braking Point. Carl? Would you get the lights, please?"

Mrs. Beeson had gone through almost every title in every audio-visual catalog. She had seen them all, several times, and once she got a film rolling in her class, she usually spent the period in her cubicle at the back of the room.

More than a few students in health and safety had mastered the technique of checking the film spool, waiting for Mrs. Beeson to retreat into her cubicle, then slipping out the door only to return minutes before the film ended. Mrs. Beeson would be happy—her class was always refreshed and invigorated when the lights came back on after a film.

Sometimes even the hard-core truants stayed in class if the film was interesting enough to them. The last health-and-safety film had been a vintage antidrug movie narrated by Sonny and Cher. It was called Why Do You Think They Call It Dope? In the dramatic high point of the film, Sonny and Cher appeared as themselves and addressed the camera.

"You think marijuana is harmless?" asked Sonny, as the picture grew fuzzy and nondescript. "How would you like it if your doctor took a smoke before operating on you? How would you like it if your mechanic smoked a joint before working on your car? How harmless is it then?"

When the lights came back on, a few guys from auto shop were deeply affected.

"Hey," one of them said, "Sonny had a damn good point."

•

Braking Point, like so many public-service films for high school students, had a celebrity narrator. Desi Arnaz. The film began with a typical suburban street scene, as seen through the front window of a slowly traveling car.

"Driving is an important part of each and every one of our daily lives," Desi began in his Latin accent. The car in the film accelerated. "It's a responsibility like no other, and it's a matter of life and——"

A ball came bounding out onto the street. The driver in the film braked but failed to turn his wheel to the right. The film freeze-framed the face of the terrified child about to be splattered.

"Death."

There was a swell of music. It was somehow hard to take seriously a driver's-ed film hosted by Ricky Ricardo.

"They have found The Braking Point."

Back to the serenity of a quiet suburban street scene.

"The driver here," continued the narration, "has had just two drinks. Just two drinks at the home of a friend."

"He's fucked up, Ricky!" someone shouted.

"Get him out of the car! He's a fuck-in' drunk!"

Continued the narration: "And although this driver thinks he's driving well, he may be doing OK, but he forgets to perceive what's really going on...."

In the film, another car came barreling in from the left, running a stop sign and exploding into the side of the two-drink goner.

"Adiós muchachos!"

Braking Point continued in this ascending-scale-of-bloodshed fashion so popular in driver's-ed films. The class got rowdier and rowdier. When an entire family was maimed and a woman decapitated, the audience reached a peak.

"So gross!"

"Fuck it! I don't want to drive!"

"Help! Ricky!"

Mrs. Beeson emerged from her cubicle at the back of the classroom. "Carl," she said, "do you want to get the lights, please? I think we've all had enough today...."

The lights came back on in Mrs. Bee-son's health-and-safety class. As usual, a quarter of the class had sneaked out.

"Where is Stacy Hamilton?" asked Mrs. Beeson. "And where is Sid Bartholomew? What happened to Tony Brendis? Where did all these people go? And where is...."

The Rat Moves In

A student could mark his time by certain events that passed during the school year. First there was homecoming, then the world series, then Halloween and Thanksgiving, all working up to that coveted 14-day Christmas vacation. Like any other school, Ridgemont High made a big deal of the Christmas season. The classrooms were decorated in tinsel, the windows frosted with spray snow. Some teachers brought in trees. It all meant two things. First, it was a season to rejoice. Second, the race to vacation was on.

The Rat sat in biology watching the clock. Only three more periods until Christmas vacation; three more classes until he was sure Stacy would be lost forever. He made the decision sitting in Youth and Law. Today was the day.

After class, Ratner walked by the A.S.B. office and there she was, working side by side with Brock. As usual.

Her eyes. She had the greatest eyes. And her hair! It was just great the way it fell onto her shoulders....

Stacy finished. "Next," she said.

"Hi," The Rat mumbled.

"Hello. How are you doing today?"

"Pretty good," said Ratner. His glance turned directly downward. It was as if nothing, nothing in the world could get him to look up at this girl with confidence. "I was wondering when basketball tryouts started. I missed it in the bulletins."

"Let me check," said Stacy cheerfully. She shuffled through some papers. "Monday. They start Monday in the gym."

"During vacation?"

"I guess," said Stacy. "Are you going away?"

Ratner looked up. "Maybe," he said. It was a well-known fact that cool people never hung around during Christmas vacation. "How about you?"

Stacy gave a sour look. "I don't know," she said. "I think I have to stay here in Yuktown."

If ever there had come a time for the attitude, The Rat figured, it was now. "Hey," he said, "how about if I give you a call over Christmas vacation?"

"Sure," said Stacy. "That would be fine."

"Great," said The Rat. He watched as she tore off a piece of an envelope, wrote her phone number on it and pushed it through the hole in the window. Take it slow.

"Good luck with tryouts."

"Thanks," said The Rat, all attitude. "And maybe I'll talk to you over vacation."

The Rat nodded a cool goodbye, turned the corner and banged into a trash can.

College Orientation Week

The last week in April was College Orientation Week. For five days, representatives from city, state and junior colleges came to the Ridgemont campus to speak to the students. Afternoon assemblies were held in the gym, mandatory for seniors and optional for underclassmen.

Brad filed into the Thursday assembly titled "The Advantages of Higher Education," sponsored by the University of Southern California. He took a seat in the bleachers with the rest of his period-four English-composition class and watched as David Lemon, one of his old Carl's buddies, tested the podium microphones.

All year long, Brad had delayed making any decisions about his life beyond senior year, though somehow he knew he would end up in college. To him, the thought was like a dentist's appointment or a visit to a crotchety relative—he could always put it off another month. This, after all, was to be his cruise year, and he had intended to consider life beyond high school only after he had a maximum amount of fun. Now everyone was going around talking about college applications and essay questions, and Brad hadn't even gotten his cruise year into gear. College Orientation Week made him nervous.

The presentation began with Principal William Gray. "Now, I realize," he began, "that it's getting near prom time and the end of the year——" The audience of seniors laughed and cheered, interrupting his prepared speech, and Brad joined in. Somehow, Principal Gray had uttered the magic words prom time and end of the year.

Principal Gray smiled and acknowledged the cheers. "High school is about having fun," he continued, "but it's also about preparing yourselves for the crossroads of life...."

The laughs and cheers died out.

One thing about Principal Gray, Brad thought, he sure knew how to kill a good time. He talked for several minutes about the importance of college and mentioned that many students, such as Cindy Carr and Steve Shasta the school's soccer star, had already been accepted by the college of their choice.

Then coach Hector Ramirez took the podium and, looking as though he had been lobotomized for the afternoon, said that "even big-time sports takes a back seat to big-time education."

Halfway down the bleachers from Brad, a group of guys started laughing and nudging one another. Brad knew them from, mechanical arts. They were another group from the outskirts of lunch court, the construction workers. They drove Datsun pickups and their common refrain was, "Construction is where the bucks are." You could bet they weren't headed for "big-time education," Brad thought.

The main speaker of the afternoon was a red-haired woman, 40ish, wearing a smart, peach-colored suit. She was the head career counselor from USC and the first thing she said was, "Don't believe the jargon about Ph.D.s' driving taxis—a great education will get you a great job.

"It's easy," she went on, "to ignore the issue of college while you're having fun in high school. But going to college, especially a school like USC, is like making a big investment. There's a lot of work involved, but the dividends you reap are enormous. And who's to say we can't make college fun for you, too?"

Brad sat there, listening, and in the back of his mind he realized what was bothering him about College Orientation Week. It was one long parade of adults, and the thrust of all their presentations was, Yeah, we know high school's one big party, but now it's time to get serious. Didn't they understand how tough it was to work, to go to school, deal with teachers and then with assistant managers, with parents and with customers, and then with the lunch-court crowd, too? Hey, he felt like saying, who's having fun? Life isn't like Happy Days.

"The important thing," the woman from USC concluded, "is to fall in love with your work. There's always room at the top for the best. You'll suffer for your vocation, but you'll be happy."

Now, that made Brad feel better. He was already several weeks into a new job, and even though it wasn't the best location in Ridgemont, it was at least a job that gave him fryer duty. That was his specialty. That was what he did. He was a fryer, and he was the best!

Still, after College Orientation Week, Brad began to get a nagging image in his mind. In it he was 40 years old, wearing an apron and working in a burger stand. He was surrounded by junior high school kids, telling him his fries were still the best.

A Late-Night Phone Conversation

Linda and Stacy had already been on the phone more than an hour.

"Linda," asked Stacy, "what makes a great lover?"

"A style."

"Gentleness?"

"In some guys," said Linda. "That's Doug. Doug's tender. He's very gentle. He really is. He goes for your neck and your mouth ... you just go, 'Ohhhhhh.' "

"What other styles are. there?"

"Aggressive. Like Bob, who used to work at Swenson's. Remember him? He attacked me in front of Jack in Jack's Camaro. He tried to get Doug mad by giving me a hickey."

"You never told me this."

"He never gave me the hickey."

"Did Betsy know about that?"

"Betsy doesn't know about half the shit Bob does."

"I don't know," sighed Stacy. "I think I want to find somebody funny. The guy's gotta have a sense of humor. And be well built...."

"And good in bed."

"You never can tell that."

"Hey," said Linda, "whatever happened to that Mark Ratner?"

"Nothing. He's around. He's real nice. His friend is pretty cute."

"High school boys," said Linda. "No matter what they look like, they're still high school boys."

Blow-Job Lessons

A new girl from Phoenix, Arizona, had transferred into Stacy's child-development class. She looked a little scared standing at the front of the class. When Mrs. Melon placed her at Stacy's table, Stacy decided to make friends with her.

Her name was Laurie Beckman. She was a doctor's daughter. She wanted to raise horses. She was a friendly girl, if a little shy, and she wore braces.

Stacy had introduced her to Linda Barrett and the three had taken to eating lunch together. It wasn't long before Laurie realized what a gold mine of sexual expertise was sitting before her every lunch period. Within two weeks, she was already into the hard stuff.

"Did you see that movie Carrie?" asked Laurie. "Do you know when John Travolta gets that girl to give him a blow job?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Do you do that?"

Stacy looked at Linda.

"Of course," said Linda. "Don't you know how?"

"No. Not really." Pause. "They don't talk about it in sex ed."

"It's no big deal," said Linda. "Bring a banana to lunch tomorrow and I'll show you."

•

The next day, Laurie brought a banana to school. The three girls sat down together on the very outskirts of lunch court. Linda peeled the banana and handed it back to Laurie.

"Now, what you've got to do," she instructed, "is treat it firmly but carefully. Move up and down and hold it at the bottom."

"When am I supposed to do this?"

"Do it now."

"Give it a try," said Stacy, in fine deputy form.

Laurie looked casually to the right, then to the left. Then she mouthed the banana.

"Is that right?" she asked.

Her braces had created wide divots down the sides of the banana.

"You should try to be a little more careful," said Linda. She watched as Laurie tried again, with similar results.

"I have a question," said Laurie. "What happens?"

"What do you mean?"

"What happens ... I mean, I've never asked anyone about this—right?—and ... and don't laugh at me, OK ... ?"

"Just say it, Laurie."

"OK, like when a guy has an orgasm...." Laurie sighed heavily. "Youknow ... I've always wondered ... how much comes out?"

Linda leaned forward and stared Laurie in both eyes. "Quarts."

"Quarts?" Laurie's eyes popped.

Stacy slugged Linda. "Don't do that to her."

"OK ... not that much," said Linda. "You shouldn't worry about it. Really."

Laurie looked relieved as she stared down at the peeled banana still in her hand. From the two opposite ends of lunch court, Steve Shasta and Mark Ratner watched the blow-job lesson. The Rat had no idea what was going on. Shasta had a wide grin on his face.

It's up to you, Mike

Stacy caught up with Mike Damone on his way to the bus stop. "Can I walk you home?" she asked.

"I was going to take the bus."

"Let's walk."

"OK," he said. Might as well give her a taste of the Damone charm, he thought.They made some small talk about how all the sophomore guys blasted K-101, the lamest station in town. Then Damone just said it point-blank:

"You know Mark Ratner really likes you, don't you?"

"I know," she said.

They walked on.

"Do you like him?" asked Damone.

They arrived at Stacy's house. "I like you," she said. "Do you want to come in for a second?"

"Do you have any iced tea?"

"I think we have some."

"OK." He was just going inside for an iced tea, Damone told himself. "You know Mark's a really good guy."

They stood around in the kitchen while Stacy fixed two iced teas.

"I really like Mark, too," said Stacy, handing Damone the tea. "He's really a nice boy."

"He's a good guy," Damone said.

"You want to take a quick swim?"

"Well.... "

"Come on. Brad probably has some trunks you can borrow. I'm going to my ' room to change!"

She's going to her room to change.

"I think I better go," said Damone.

"Don't go! You don't have to shout! You can come back here to my room!"

She's asking me into her room while she changes.

Stacy was standing there in her bikini.

"Let's go to the changing room and see if there are some trunks," she said.

"I think I better go," said Damone.

"God," said Stacy, "you're just a tease!"

"I ain't no tease," said Damone.

"Good!" said Stacy. Things were working out just as she and Linda had planned.

They went into the changing room and Stacy locked the door behind her. "Are you really a virgin?" she asked.

Damone could feel his legs starting to shake the slightest bit. "Come on.... "

"It's OK." Stacy walked over and kissed him.

"I feel pretty strange here," said Damone. "Because Mark really likes you. He's my friend."

He kissed her anyway. Standing there, feeling Stacy in her bikini, feeling her kiss him, Damone felt some of his reservations slip away.

"You're a really good kisser," she said.

"So are you."

"Are you shaking?"

"No," said Damone. "Are you crazy?" But he was. The last time Mr. Attitude had gone this far on the make-out scale with a girl had been with Carol back in Philadelphia. Carol had let him reach into her pants and touch her, but just for a second. That had been enough back then. That had been enough to make him feel like he and his brother, Art, could really talk about women. But this ... this was The Big One.

"Why don't you take your clothes off, Mike?"

"You first."

"How about both of us at the same time?"

And as if that made it emotionally even, they both stripped at the same time. Stacy unhooked her top and stepped out of her bikini bottom. She went to sit down on the red couch in the changing room.

She watched Damone hopping on one leg, pulling first out of his pants, then his Jockey underwear. Then he caught the underwear on his erection and it slapped back into his abdomen. He sat down next to Stacy, expressionless.

"Are you OK?"

"I'm OK," said Damone.

She reached over and grabbed his erection. She began pulling on it. The feeling of a penis was still new to her. She wanted to ask him about it. Why did it hurt if you just touched it one place and not at all at another? But later she would ask him that. For now, she just yanked on it. Damone didn't seem to mind.

"I want you to know," said Stacy, "that it's your final decision if we should continue or not."

"Let's continue," said Damone.

As Damone lost his virginity, his first thought was of his brother, Art. Art had said, "You gotta overpower a girl. Make her feel helpless."

Damone began pumping so hard, so fast—his eyes were shut tight—that he didn't notice he was banging the sofa, and Stacy's head, against the wall.

"Hey, Mike," she whispered.

"What? Are you all right?"

"I think we're making a lot of noise."

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." He continued, slower.

What a considerate guy, Stacy thought. He was kind of loud and always joking around other people, but when you got him alone ... he was so nice.

Then Damone stopped. He had a strange look on his face.

"What's wrong?"

"I think I came," said Damone. "Didn't you feel it?"

He had taken a minute and a half.

They were unusual feelings, these thoughts pooling in Damone's head as he lay on the red couch with Stacy. He was a little embarrassed, a little guilty ... mostly, he just wanted to be alone. He wanted to get the fuck out of there.

"I've got to go home," said Damone. "I've really got to go."

•

Stacy called Linda as soon as he left.

"Where did it happen?" Linda answered her phone.

"On the couch. In the changing room."

"Bizarre."

"I left it up to him, Linda. I could have made the final decision, but I left it up to him. I said, 'It's you, you make the final decision.' And he said, 'Why not?'"

"Did you talk afterward?"

"A little. He said he was relieved."

"So are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend now?"

"I don't know," said Stacy in a singsong.

"How do you feel?"

"Guilty." She laughed.

"Did he call you yet?"

"Lin-da. He just left."

"You know, Stacy, that when someone asks him on his deathbed who he lost his virginity to, he'll have to say you. He'll remember you forever!"

A Late-Night Phone Conversation

"So," said Stacy, "he says all these sweet and wonderful things to me when we're alone. But when anyone else is around, he's Mr. Cool."

"Did you talk to him last night?" asked Linda.

"Yeah."

"What did he say? Did he call you?"

"I called him. I just called him and said, 'Guess what?' He said, 'What?' I said, Tm reading our English assignment and I just realized we're all going to die someday...we're all dying.' I said, 'Do you realize that, Mike?' And Mike goes, 'So what?' I said, 'Doesn't it bother you that even if the nuclear reactors don't react and kill us all, we're still going to die? Doesn't that bother you?' He goes, 'No.' He says that pain is what bothers most people, not death. And pain doesn't even bother him. That's what he says."

"Wow," said Linda, "I didn't know he was that deep."

The Rat Finds Out

It was just a feeling that Ratner got. There had been a bunch of them sitting around at a cookout down on Fiesta Island. It was a group that was forming—Stacy, Linda, Damone, Ratner, Doug Stallworth, Randy Eddo and Laurie Beckman. They had been having a good time, but there were little hints that The Rat didn't quite understand.

Damone got up to leave. "I gotta get to work on some chemistry," he said. "Come on, Mark."

The Rat got up to leave with Damone. He heard an odd conversation behind him.

"That Damone sure works hard," cracked Eddo.

"He gets to play a little, too," said Linda. "Doesn't he, Stacy?"

There were knowing giggles. Giggles that made Ratner think. When he reached the car, he mentioned it to Damone.

"Hey, is there anything between you and Stacy?"

Damone shook his head. "No."

"Really?"

"No. Not really."

"What do you mean, not really?"

"Let me tell you something, Mark." Damone sighed. "Sometimes girls just go haywire. I went over to Stacy's house to go swimming once—I've been trying to think of a way to tell you ever since, 'cause you're my bud—and we started messing around and...." Damone shrugged. "Something happened. It's nothing serious, and it's all over."

The Rat said nothing.

"I don't like her as a girlfriend," said Damone.

The Rat said nothing.

"I don't even like her as a friend that much. She's pretty aggressive."

The Rat started shaking his head. "No, Damone. I don't understand."

"She wasn't really your girlfriend," mumbled Damone.

"Hey, fuck you, Damone. There are a lot of girls out there, and you mess around with Stacy. I can't believe you. What have you got to prove?"

"I'm sorry," said Damone. "Jesus."

"I always stick up for you," said The Rat. "I always stick up for you. Whenever people say, 'Aw, that Damone is a loudmouth'—and they say that a lot—I say, 'You just don't know Damone.' When someone says you're an idiot, I tell them they just don't know you. Well, you know, Damone, maybe they do know you pretty good. And I'm just finding out...."

"Fine," said Damone. "Get lost."

Ratner walked away and vowed never to speak to Damone again. It didn't make sense to him. For all the time The Rat had spent talking and dying over girls, he would never consider ruining his friendship with Damone over any one of them. Friendship—wasn't that what it was all about? Apparently not to Damone.

Ratner kept to himself at school for the next several weeks. His first social appearance since the Damone incident was a dance for Marine World workers held at a local hotel. The Rat wore his green Army fatigue jacket and sat in a corner.

Two Marine World co-workers stood at another part of the dance. "Where's Mark Ratner?" asked one.

"He's over there," said the other, "looking like he's going through Vietnam flashback or something."

War Games

There had been a poll taken in the Reader earlier in the year. The question had been, "Would you be willing to go to war to defend American interests in the Middle East?"

Overwhelmingly, from liberals to reactionaries, the basic student response was, "No way. I wouldn't go to war unless America was attacked."

But you had to wonder just how sincere that was when Mr. Hand began his most popular class exercise, the five weeks in January when his class played War Games.

War Games was a Mr. Hand invention, built as a large-scale version of the popular home game of world domination, Risk. Each player-student was allotted a number of armies, and his own method of strategy, combined with the occasional luck of the die, led them on their course of conquering the U. S. history class.

War Games brought out the maniac in some students. This was a time when the kids who carried briefcases to school reigned. They could barely wait until U. S. history, when the moves began again.

"How are you doing?"

"OK. I've got Bulgaria. I'm going for the entire continent today."

"Are your armies in good shape?"

"Are you kidding? I'm going to blow their heads off, eat their flesh and drink their blood!"

"OK, Delbert, see you at lunch."

"Yeah."

Spicoli was, naturally, one of the first players to lose all his armies and sit doodling for the rest of War Games.

"What is your problem?" Mr. Hand had demanded of him.

"Boredom," said Spicoli.

"Mr. Spicoli," said Mr. Hand, "the next world war will be fought out of boredom."

A Late-Night Phone Conversation

"There's one thing you didn't tell me about guys," said Stacy. "You didn't tell me that they can be so nice, so great ... but then you sleep with them and they start acting like they're about five years old."

"You're right," said Linda. "I didn't tell you about that."

The After-Prom

It was an uphill battle all the way,but Evelyn and Frank Hamilton had finally given in on this one. For Brad. The kids wanted to have a prom party at the house and the Hamiltons agreed to stay in their upstairs bedroom.

Brad had thought ahead to spike the pool with Wisk, and by the time kids started arriving at one o'clock, the whole pool was one big steaming bubble bath!

It turned out to be one of the hottest after-prom parties. Everyone was there.

There were some—the shy ones—who stayed in the kitchen. I'm watching the pizza. I don't want to go swimming. But most went for it on prom night. They stripped out of their carefully chosen gowns and Regis Sevilles and Regencies. Even Shasta took off his exalted mist-blue Newport II. Everyone put on a bathing suit and dove in.

Graduation time brought in nameless faces from all over. Jerome Barrett, Linda's brain brother, arrived from USC, chain-smoking joints. Then there was Gloria, Linda's best girlfriend from grade school. She'd come in from Chicago for a few days. And there were the usual types you saw only at parties.

Damone and Ratner were also at Brad's after-prom party. They hadn't been speaking since last April, but tonight ... hell.

"Hey, Rat," said Damone. "I'm really sorry about what happened. I know I shouldn't have done that to a buddy. I'm really sorry."

"I understand," said The Rat. "You can't help it. You're just lewd, crude, rude and obnoxious."

They laughed, shook hands.

•

Eventually, the 20 kids crammed into the Hamilton Jacuzzi. Then Brad, who had finally convinced his date to shed down to her bikini, reached into a bush and withdrew two bottles of rum from Mesa De Oro Liquor.

"All riiiiiiiiight!"

The first bottle was passed around the Jacuzzi, and before long the glow of teenage drunkenness—however faked or real—came over the cramped little Jacuzzi party.

Damone felt something. Someone had grabbed his dick! He scanned the faces in the Jacuzzi. It wasn't Stacy! Not only wouldn't she do that to Damone, not again, but she was in the kitchen watching the pizza.

Who was it?

"I'm going under," said Damone. He feigned a drowning man. "I'm dying ... blub."

He slipped underwater, a daring move in the overcrowded Jacuzzi, but he was looking for clues underneath the bubbly water. Who had grabbed his dick? No clues.

He popped back up again. "I'm alive!"

Someone grabbed his dick again.

Later, everyone retired to the living room for coffee and making out to a soundless TV. Before long, Brad had passed out by the stairs, rum victim number one.

Damone had gone out by the pool to look at the night sky.

"Hi, Mike."

He turned around. It was Brad's date, Jody. She was still wet, hugging herself to keep from shivering.

"How are you?"

"Pretty good," said Jody. "Brad passed out by the stairs."

"I know."

She stood next to him, breathing softly and saying nothing in the way girls do, Damone knew, when they wanted you to kiss them. It was Jody! It had to be Jody he felt underwater!

He thought. She was great-looking. Should he go for it? He sure wanted to.

"I'm going to go inside," said Damone. "And check on the pizza."

•

Later, the few who were still awake went to nearby Mt. Palmer to watch the sun rise. It never rose on that foggy morning, and nobody seemed to mind.

"You wait till our prom," Damone told The Rat. "We'll have an even better time."

"Yeah. That was pretty nice of Brad to throw a party. He's probably going to have to clean it up himself."

"When he wakes up."

"Hey," said The Rat, "let's go to Seven-Eleven and get some coffee."

"Great idea," said Damone. "Let's take the Prickmobile."

Damone and The Rat rolled down the hill in Damone's scratch-marked car. It was that magical hour when the mist was still out and the sky was turning deep blue.

Aloha, Mr. Hand

It was nearly the end of the line. The awards were about to be announced, mimeographed caps-and-gowns information had gone out to the seniors, along with Grad Nite tickets. The annuals were almost ready. Spicoli was counting the hours.

Since Spicoli was a sophomore, an underclassman, there weren't many graduation functions he could attend. Tonight was one of the few, and he wasn't about to miss it. It was the Ditch Day party, the evening blowout of the day that underclassmen secretly selected toward the end of the year to ditch en masse. Spicoli hadn't been at school all day, and now he was just about ready to leave the house for the party out in Del Mar. He hadn't eaten all day. He wanted the full effect of the special hallucinogenic mushrooms he'd procured just for the poor man's Grad Nite—Ditch Night.

Spicoli had taken just a little bit of one mushroom, just to check the potency. He could feel it coming on now as he sat in his room, surrounded by his harem of naked women and surf posters. It was just a slight buzz, like a few hits off the bong. Spicoli knew they were good mushrooms. But if he didn't leave soon, he might be too high to drive before he reached the party. One had to craft his buzz, Spicoli was fond of saying.

Downstairs, the doorbell rang. There was an unusual commotion in the living room.

"Who is it, Mom?"

"You've got company, Jeffrey! He's coming up the stairs right now. I can't stop him!"

There was a brief knock at the door.

"Come in."

The door opened and Spicoli stood in stoned shock. There before him was The Man.

"Mr.... Mr. Hand."

"That's right, Jeff. Mind if I come in? Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Spicoli," Mr. Hand called back down the stairs. He took off his suit jacket and laid it on the chair. "Were you going somewhere tonight, Jeff?"

"Ditch Night! I've gotta go to Ditch Night!"

"I'm afraid we've got some things to discuss, Jeff."

There were some things you just didn't see very often, Spicoli was thinking. You didn't see black surfers, for example. And you didn't see Baja Riders for less than $20 a pair. And you sure didn't see Mr. Fucking Hand sitting in your room.

"Did I do something, Mr. Hand?"

Mr. Hand opened his briefcase and began taking out lecture notes. He laid them out for himself on Spicoli's desk. "Are you going to be sitting there?"

"I don't know. I guess so."

"Fine. You sit right there on your bed. I'll use the chair here." Mr. Hand stopped to stare down last month's Playmate. "Tonight is a special night, Jeff. As I explained to your parents just a moment ago, and to you many times since the very beginning of the year, I don't like to spend my time waiting for students in detention. I'd rather be preparing the lesson.

"According to my calculations, Mr. Spicoli, you wasted a total of eight hours of my time this year. And rest assured that is a kind estimate.

"But now, Spicoli, comes a rare moment for me. Now I have the unique pleasure of squaring our accounts. Tonight, you and I are going to talk in great detail about the David Amendment ... now, if you can turn to chapter forty-seven of Land of Truth and Liberty...."

"Would you like an iced tea, Mr. Hand?" Mrs. Spicoli called through the door.

Jeff was still orienting himself to what was happening. Was he too high? Was this real? He was not going to Ditch Night. That was it. He was going to stay in his room tonight with Mr. Hand ... to talk about the David Amendment.

"I'd love some iced tea," said Mr. Hand. "Whenever you get the time...."

Now, Mr. Hand had said they'd be there all night, but at 7:45 he wound up with the battle of Saratoga and started packing up.

"Is that it?"

"I think I've made my point with you, Jeff."

"You mean I can go to Ditch Night after all?"

"I don't care what you do with your time, Mr. Spicoli."

Spicoli jumped up and reached to shake Mr. Hand's hand.

"Hey, Mr. Hand," said Spicoli, "can I ask you a question?"

"What's that?"

"Do you have a guy like me every year? A guy to ... I don't know, make a show of. Teach the other kids lessons and stuff?"

Mr. Hand finished packing and looked at the surfer who'd hounded him all year long. "Well," he said, "why don't you come back next year and find out?"

"No way," said Spicoli. "I'm not going to be like those guys who come back and hang around your classroom. I'm not even coming over to your side of the building. When I pass, I'm outa there."

"If you pass."

Spicoli was taken aback. Not pass? No thumbing up the Coast, meeting ladies and going to Hawaii for the dyno lobster season? Summer school? "Not passing?" he said.

Mr. Hand broke into the nearest thing to a grin, for him. It wasn't much, of course, but it was noticeable to Jeff. His lips crinkled at the ends. That was plenty for Mr. Hand.

"Don't worry, Spicoli," said Mr. Hand. "You'll probably squeak by."

"All right!"

"Aloha, Spicoli."

"Aloha, Mr. Hand."

Mr. Hand descended the stairway of the Spicoli home, went out the door and on to his car, which he had parked just around the corner—always use the element of surprise. Mr. Hand knew one day next year he would look to that green metal door and it would be Spicoli standing there. He'd act like he had a million other things to do, and then he'd probably stay all day. All his boys came back sooner or later.

Mr. Hand drove back to his small apartment in Richards Bay to turn on his television and catch the evening's Five-O rerun.

"He had been waging his theatrical battle against the greatest threat to the youth of this land—truancy"

"Spicoli awoke before dawn, smoked three howls of marijuana and surfed before school."

"Brad was the best fryer at the best location, and that was what was important at Ridgemont High."