The Longest Trip Home: A Memoir Page 15

  “Zip it,” Cavin ordered.

  What seemed to rankle him most was the letter we printed in full from our beloved and highly respected humanities teacher.

  Linda Miller Atkinson had turned me on to Greek architecture and Roman sculpture. She helped me see the beauty in the drib-bles of a Pollock abstract and the blurry watercolors of a Monet.

  She began each class by turning off the lights and playing Stra-vinsky’s Rite of Spring. Now she was leaving in frustration and disgust—and she had slipped us a copy of her scathing resigna-tion letter. Innervisions had an exclusive.

  “You had no right to print this,” Cavin said, his voice tensing in a way that let me know our goal of wounding the enemy with well-aimed words had worked. “This is privileged workplace correspondence.” He then began rattling off a long list of school district policies we had violated: unsanctioned activities on campus, soliciting funds without authorization, use of profanity, promo-tion of illegal activities, defamation of character, and the catchall

  “portraying students and faculty in ways not in the best interest of the school district.” He ordered us to cease and desist immediately and to turn over all unsold copies.

  If we wanted to produce future issues of our publication, that was fine with him, Cavin said, but with two stipulations. We would have to give it away for free. And every word would have to be preapproved by the administration.

  “So more censorship,” I said.

  “You know, boys, freedom of speech is a big, big responsibility,” he said. “Bigger than you understand. You’ve shown you’re not capable of grasping that responsibility.”

  He warned us that if we didn’t comply we would face serious disciplinary action. “I won’t have this crap in my school, do you

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  understand?” he said. Then, pausing to look each of us in the eye:

  “And I will be calling your parents.”

  The heady experience of a free press had lasted exactly four hours. We handed over the remaining copies we had on us and filed out. We quickly found out, however, that being hauled to the principal’s office for a stern upbraiding was not without its rewards.

  Throngs of kids—including girls who had never before deigned to acknowledge our existence—gathered around us, asking for every detail. We gladly obliged, embellishing with abandon our martyr-dom on the altar of an unfettered press. For the first time since arriving at West Bloomfield, I was at the center of attention. I had rattled the establishment; I had made waves. I had gotten people talking and thinking. Right then and there, I decided my future calling. I was going to be a journalist.

  When Dad arrived home that evening, I greeted him at the door with our customary handshake, then handed him a copy of Innervisions. I handed one to Mom, too. Cavin had not called yet; I figured I was better off breaking the news to them myself. Besides, the community weekly newspaper had interviewed us for a story it was running on the new unauthorized student publication, and I knew from experience that there was no hiding the paper from Dad.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Just something I’ve been working on the last couple months,”

  I said. “I’d like you to read it.”

  He and Mom sat at the kitchen table and began reading in silence, and I stood in the next room, waiting for what seemed forever. When they called me in, they didn’t yell or threaten to send me back to Brother Rice. They asked a lot of questions, and I told them the whole story, starting with the principal censoring our student paper.

  “You came up with this all on your own?” Dad asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “And no one helped you put this together?”

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  “Just us.”

  He paged through it once more. “I don’t agree with everything you say in here,” he said. “Not by a long shot. But I respect what you’ve done. You stood up for what you believe. That’s important.”

  That’s when I saw it on his face, a look I had seen before but not often. A look that told me what he couldn’t bring himself to say, not without undermining the principal’s authority, yet his expression was as clear to me as the written word: a parent’s pride. My conservative, buttoned-down, play-by-the-rules father was proud of his son for breaking rules and speaking out against a perceived injustice. He was proud of me, I imagined, for finally finding the gumption to undertake something, anything, that required focus and discipline. Probably more than anything, he was proud of me for believing strongly enough in a cause to fight for it, even if it was not the cause he had hoped for.

  “If you ask me, that principal got what he had coming,” Mom said. “Covering over that girl’s story without even telling anyone.

  Why, the nerve of him!”

  “Can we eat dinner now?” I asked.

  “Heavens, yes,” Mom said. “Go wash your hands.”

  If Innervisions was all the buzz at West Bloomfield that week, Pete Grunwald’s big party was the only topic on anyone’s tongue when classes resumed after the weekend. Pete was a charter member of the Stoners and Potheads and never passed up an opportunity to party. When his parents decided to head off to a heating-and-cooling convention and leave Pete alone for the weekend, he went into high gear.

  By the time Tommy, Sack, Rock, and I arrived, cars lined both sides of the street for blocks in either direction. The yard was filled with teens, many of whom I did not recognize, smoking and drinking beer from plastic cups. Inside, the place was a sardine

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  can of sweating, shoulder-to-shoulder humanity. Marijuana and cigarette smoke choked the air, and Led Zeppelin blasted from the stereo. The legal drinking age in Michigan was eighteen then, and Pete had enlisted a group of seniors to buy kegs of beer, which sat on ice in the laundry room.

  The house was trashed. How he was going to hide this from his parents when they returned, I couldn’t imagine. But when I finally bumped into him in the crowd, he looked up from taking a long hit off a joint and smiled beatifically like he had not a care in the world.

  I made it to the keg and poured a beer, and when I turned around I saw I had lost Tommy, Rock, and Sack. I also noticed couples peeling off and heading upstairs. Despite a nonstop series of crushes and infatuations, I still had not so much as kissed a girl. Until recently, I had been able to find consolation in the knowledge that no one else in my inner circle had, either, but over spring vacation, Sack had finally overcome his shyness enough to have his first make-out session—and the girl was a year older, which made his good fortune all the more enviable.

  I watched the couplings at the party with a combination of envy and heartache.

  “Hey, Mr. Editor Man,” I heard in my ear, and when I turned around, there stood Lori, Sue, and Anna, as always clustered so tightly together as to appear singular. They had worked hard on Innervisions, uncomplainingly taking on many of the most tedious tasks. I was grateful to them, and had grown close to all three of them.

  “Lorisueanna! Hi,” I said. We tried talking over the blaring music, but it was nearly impossible.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Anna shouted, and we squeezed our way toward the door. Pete’s house overlooked a large pond lined with cattails, and we walked down to the water’s edge where a couple of dozen others had gathered. A kid who had taken it upon himself to play host wandered through the yard, filling beer glasses

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  from a pitcher. We stood and drank and talked. Then, as if by some mysterious, preordained signal, Anna and Sue disappeared.

  One instant they were there, the next they had simply vanished.

  It was the first time I could remember the three of them not being together, and I half expected Lori to fly into a panic, but when I looked at her, she didn’t seem concerned at all.

  A canoe lay overturned at the water’s edge, and we sat on it and looke
d up at the stars. In the moonlight, I had to admit she looked lovely. As we made small talk, I studied her upturned nose, delicate neck, and round cheeks. The magnitude of the moment was not lost on me. Here was a girl sitting right beside me in the dark—with her coterie dismissed. And she was acting like there was no place on earth she would rather be. I reached up and touched her hair spilling like a waterfall down her back.

  She leaned slightly into me and let out a purr. I moved my arm behind her until I had it around her waist. Holy Christ, I thought, this is it! In slow motion, our faces inched closer until our cheeks brushed; then we turned our heads and let our lips touch. I kissed her once gently, like you might kiss your grandmother. Twice. On the third peck, Lori wedged my head in her hands and shoved her tongue into my mouth. I had spent the last five years imagining what French kissing would be like, but I never imagined it could come on so abruptly. I always thought it was something you worked up to, over weeks and months. Lori’s tongue was a fearsome thing, lashing and licking and darting about. Her teeth were more fearsome yet. They gnashed and clacked and nipped at my lips and tongue. This wouldn’t have been an issue except that Lori was an orthodontist’s early retirement dream; she had enough metal in her mouth to clad Old Ironsides with plenty left over for the Monitor and the Merrimack. French kissing with Lori was a little like French kissing with a power tool. I spent half the time marveling at my amazing luck and the other half trying to prevent serious injury.

  Lori was a lioness. We smashed our mouths together, clacked

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  our teeth, and banged noses. Our hands roamed freely over each other. But as the night stretched on, I found myself feeling increasingly . . . restless. Restless and trapped. I found myself opening one eye to peer over her shoulder, looking for an excuse to break away.

  Finally I got my break. Tommy’s voice boomed down the hill.

  “Hey, Grogie,” he yelled. “If you’re coming with us, get your ass up here.” I hastily excused myself from Lori, gave her a few just-for-Grandma parting lip pecks, and raced off to rejoin my friends, who grilled me for details the whole way home. I was giddy at my conquest, even if it was not exactly the earth-moving experience I had dreamed of.

  The next morning I awoke late. When I walked downstairs, Mom and Dad were already home from Mass, drinking coffee and chatting at the kitchen table. The instant they saw me they went silent. They stared not into my eyes but at a spot slightly above and to the right of my upper lip.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Dad replied.

  Then Mom, in her don’t-ask-don’t-tell voice: “So how was the party last night?”

  “Pretty good,” I said.

  “You had a nice time?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Nothing special.”

  “Did people dance?”

  “No, Mom, no one danced.”

  “Then what did everyone do all night?”

  “Just stood around and talked,” I said.

  They continued to gaze at the spot above my lip, their heads cocked quizzically.

  I excused myself and headed to the bathroom. In the mirror, I saw what had so intrigued them. Just above my upper lip, my skin was missing. Lioness Lori had gnawed a nickel-size piece of my face off. The wound was a brilliant red and oozed a clear liquid. I

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  was certain it was visible from outer space and could tell it would take weeks to disappear. There was no mistaking the injury. I had been mauled either by a rabid raccoon or by an overzealous make-out partner with braces. Mom and Dad knew better than to ask. My parents would spend the next three weeks dutifully pretending they did not notice the giant scab above my mouth.

  My real dread was returning to school the next day. The only one who would be more humiliated than I was the girl whose dangerous teeth had inflicted such injury. The one every boy in our class would henceforth know affectionately as Ole Razorblades.

  Mom tapped on the door. “Honey, hurry it up or you’ll miss the eleven o’clock and have to wait till the twelve-thirty.”

  Oh shit. Sunday. Mass.

  “Be right out, Ma,” I called. At least there would be no one to see me where I was heading, across Commerce Road to the shores of Orchard Lake and the Church of Tim and John.

  Chapter 16

  o

  My upper lip eventually healed, and Lori and I sur-

  vived the taunts of our classmates. They could

  tease us all they wanted; what they couldn’t do was

  take away the notoriety we now enjoyed as one of the school’s hot make-out couples. “They’re just jealous,” Lori said to me one day in the cafeteria, and I was quick to believe it. Still, she didn’t seem any more impressed with my kissing prowess than I was with hers. Neither of us initiated a repeat engagement. But I wore my lip scab with pride until the day it finally fell off—proof positive that the awkward kid with the big hair and big glasses had finally been kissed.

  As the school year wound down, my cohorts and I managed to put out a second issue of Innervisions, but it wasn’t the same.

  The excitement and passion of the first issue were gone, replaced by a sort of dull, dutiful tedium. We toiled away with all the joy of taxpayers preparing for an audit. Our main motivation was pride. We didn’t want Cavin and the school board to think they

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  had bullied us into submission. More important, we didn’t want the teachers and our fellow students to think it.

  Work on the second and, as it would turn out, final issue was marked by apathy and bitter infighting. Many of our contributors drifted away, and those who remained turned in lazy ramblings not much edgier than the dross running in the Spectrum. The only one still cranking out copy at a furious pace was Justin, and it was more juvenile and offensive than ever. I hated all of it, but with the dearth of copy from anyone else, nearly all of it made it in. Mom and Dad were vaguely aware we were working on a second issue, but I knew they weren’t expecting this.

  We couldn’t buckle to Cavin’s demands, not if we were to retain a shred of credibility, but we also knew we couldn’t openly defy him. He was watching now, and he would swoop in and seize all our copies within minutes of us carrying them onto school property. In the end, we decided to produce and sell the paper completely off school grounds, safely beyond his reach. The big gamble was whether the students and teachers would leave campus to buy a copy at one of several locations nearby where we would have hawkers waiting. In a front-page editorial describing Cavin’s demands and our decision to move off campus, I wrote, “Please don’t allow this inconvenience to prevent you from going out and buying a copy. It’s a small hassle for a large amount of information and entertainment.” But very few made the effort.

  By midmorning, we had sold barely 200 of the 1,000 copies printed, and most of those were in the half hour before school started. Once classes were in session, sales dropped to a trickle.

  If we didn’t come up with a new strategy soon, we faced a humiliating defeat and a big financial loss. We huddled and debated, and by late morning we abandoned the off-site selling locations and sneaked the unsold copies onto campus, where we quietly began peddling them in lavatories and locker wells. Sales by this

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  method were slow, painstaking, and risky. Hundreds of unsold copies remained.

  Over lunch, Justin came up with an idea even I had to admit was brilliant. The Spectrum was also on sale that day, and each of us on staff was expected to walk the halls hawking it. “We’re out there selling the Spectrum in plain sight, right?” Justin said over lunch. “Is anyone thinking what I’m thinking?” A few minutes later we were back in the Spectrum office surrounded by piles of the approved paper and piles of Innervisions. “Start stuffing,”

  Justin said.

  We spread out across school peddling the Spectrum with new-found zeal. “
Get your Spectrum! Come on, people, support your student newspaper! Spectrum! Get your Spectrum! Only a quarter!” At one point Mr. Cavin passed me and, sounding sincerely impressed, said, “Now that’s the spirit, Mr. Grogan.” What he did not know was that each time one of us snagged a customer, we would quietly ask, “Interested in a copy of Innervisions with that?” If the buyer was, he would add a dime to the purchase price and receive a copy off the bottom of the stack—with Innervisions tucked inside.

  We felt like drug dealers pushing our dope under the noses of administrators, but the plan was working. At least until the president of the school board, a humorless man named Robert Carter, arrived on campus and stopped to buy a copy of the Spectrum on his way in. I watched from across the courtyard as he approached one of our double agents, an underclassman who had no idea our school district even had a president, let alone what he looked like. No, please God, no, I whispered. Carter reached into his pocket for a quarter. I held my breath as the unsuspecting volunteer accepted the change. Off the top of the stack, I prayed.

  Take it off the top. I could see the kid’s lips moving and knew what he must be saying. Then I watched as the board president reached in his pocket and produced another coin. Oh no, oh no,

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  oh no. From the bottom of the stack, the student handed him a paper.

  Fifteen minutes later all four editors were back in Mr. Cavin’s office, and this time Cavin sat quietly while Mr. Carter did the talking. He could barely contain his anger. Little flecks of saliva hit my face as he spat out a string of threats. But they were mostly hollow. We had only a few days left of school. Suspending us for the rest of the year was meaningless. They knew it and we knew it. The president tore up his copy of Innervisions and threw it at us, green paper fluttering down like confetti. “You’re done.

  This is over now. Do I make myself clear?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” we mumbled and filed out of the office past Cavin, who gave us a look that said, See what you’ve done? Now I’m in trouble, too. Quite honestly, we were done. We did not have any more fight in us. We were tired; we were worn down; we just wanted to join everyone else out in the courtyard soaking up the sun and signing yearbooks. A free press, I was learning, involved nine-tenths thankless tedium and one-tenth glory, and then only on a good day. As ordered, we delivered the 500 unsold copies of Innervisions to the principal’s office to be destroyed.