is the motto of the ITS, taken from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man.
I won’t presume I’m gonna get the “Thespy,” but I am President of Troupe #4443, so I know I’m in the running.
But first things first…
“Top 25.”
I can’t say everybody shares my attitude. Especially my Best Friend, Jack Paterno. Perhaps I should say, my other Best Friend, considering I already referred to Max Wilson as filling that spot. Jack spends sooo much time worrying about what other people think of him. In fact, he even dropped outta Band this year because he was sick of being called a Band Fag.
Or so he said.
Like Carrie Johnson, I met Jack in 7th grade Varsity Band over at Webb. Well, we didn’t really meet in Band, we met in the cafeteria during lunch. Jack was sitting with Carrie and Ava Reese and Katy Griffin (the girl I think might be a lesbian), going thru some stupid Sign-In Book: “Calvins or Jordache?” Well, I walked right up to the table, sat myself down, and was all like, “Fuck those! I like Sergio Valentes better ’cause they make your ass look hot!”
At least that’s what Jack says I said.
I seriously doubt I’d say something like that—not in front of a group of girls. Of course, knowing me, if I did say it, I was trying to get a rise outta Jack…Talk about a Persnickety-Persnick!
If it wasn’t for our junior high Band teacher, Jessica Clark Putnam, encouraging us to attend Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp the following summer, we would’ve never become Best Friends. I remember us bragging to all the other Band Fags about how cool we were and how swanky the whole thing was gonna be. Twelve days in the lap of luxury at an exclusive Summer Band Camp.
Or so we thought.
Imagine the expressions on our faces when Jack’s parents dropped us off in the middle of the woods in Bum Fuck Muskegon. Boy, were we surprised!
What the fuck?
I remember this being my first thought as me and Jack stood there, clad in our regulation robin’s egg blue BLFAC polo shirts and navy blue shorts, mouths totally agape.
This is what you get for $300?
Nothing but dirt roads and trees for miles…So much for being exclusive!
You should’ve seen poor Jack when we checked in with our counselor over in the Broadway unit at Cabin Cabaret. Try saying that three times. Right next door to Brigadoon, Carousel, and Okla-homo!—I mean, homa!
“Where are the walls?” he wondered, suitcase and pillow in hand.
“Maybe they can’t afford them,” I guessed, even though we were paying a shitload of money to be standing there. Somebody at BLFAC must have thought exposed beams were all the rage in early ’80s décor.
I realize when you’re little time goes by a lot slower, but they were the twelve longest (and poop-free) days of my life. Up at the butt crack of dawn for breakfast. Followed by Band practice. Followed by lunch. Followed by sectionals. Followed by dinner. Followed by whatever damn evening activity they had planned for us.
This one time they brought in this guy, Slim Goodbody, to put on a show. He wore this skintight bodysuit, painted to look like his skin was removed so you could see all his organs…Bogue!
Nobody wanted to sit and listen to good old Slim sing these stupid-assed songs about “Food is Fuel” and “Healthy Habits” and “Bones, Bones, Bones.” All the guys in our cabin thought Mr. Goodbody was a Total Fag, you know what I mean? Including me and Jack.
That was the one thing I noticed most about being at Blue Lake. Back at Webb, we had a tendency to get picked on—nothing major. We never got our asses kicked in the parking lot after school or anything, but people (guys mostly) would call us fag, just because we were friends with girls and liked to dance at the Fun Nights. Yet the entire twelve days we spent at BLFAC, the guys there were totally cool to us.
Even this one guy, Greg, who elected himself cabin leader.
“Hey, Dick Shine!”
Greg picked on everybody in Cabin Cabaret. He came from Kalamazoo, played alto sax, and was a year older than me and Jack. I’ll never forget he had bangs that hung in his eyes and hair on his legs…God, he was cute!
“Who, me?” asked Paul, a cellist from Southfield. He kept a stash of apricot nectar buried beneath his bunk. Greg nicknamed him “Berf.”
“No you, Faggot Ass!” Greg scowled at “Scooter.”
“What did I do?” Scooter wanted to know. His real name was Jay. He wore thick glasses, played baritone, and hailed from Milford. Or did he go to school at Mumford? I forget.
Scooter—I mean, Jay—was hilarious! Somewhere, I got a photo I took of him drying his tube socks with a blow dryer on the steps outside Cabin Cabaret. He had this totally nasal voice and he used to crack all of us up with the dumbest jokes.
This one was my favorite: “So there’s this lady, see? And one day, she sends her husband and kids off on a hunting trip…”
“Why, Jay?” I’d interrupt, even though I already heard him tell it a dozen times.
“Because,” Jay would answer. “She’s had enough.”
“So what did she do?” I’d prompt.
Causing Greg to yell, “Shut up, Dick Weed!” before he tossed a pillow at my head from his bunk beside mine and Jack’s.
“So,” Jay continued, “she makes a spot of chamomile tea, and she sinks herself into a hot tub. Just as soon as she’s all relaxed, there’s a knock at the door…”
Knock knock!
“The lady’s like, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t come to the door, I’m in the tub.’ And the guy at the door is all like, ‘Telegram…It’s important.’”
Meanwhile, I’m about to pee my pants!
“So the lady says, ‘Well…Could you just sing it?’ And the guy says, ‘But lady…’ ‘Sing it!’” (pause) “‘Dum dum dum dum dum dum…’ (singing) ‘Bob and the kids are dead.’ The End.”
Anyways!
Wanna know what Greg’s nickname for me and Jack ended up being?
“Brad the Nad” and “String Sucker.”
Wanna know why?
Well, Brad rhymes with nad, and Greg swore up and down he woke up in the middle of the night and caught Jack sucking on the strings of his sleeping bag in his sleep. But I didn’t believe him. By that point, I knew Jack for almost an entire year, and not once did I ever know him to suck on anything.
I don’t know why, but being picked on at Blue Lake never felt the same way as it does here in Hazeltucky. At BLFAC, if somebody called you fag, it was like a badge of honor. It didn’t mean they really thought you were one, even though I totally was—I mean, am.
You know I’m gay, right?
As in I like boys.
Just checking.
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
“So for once in my life
Let me get what I want…”
—The Smiths
Today’s the big day!
Basically what happens is…Around 12:30 PM, two representatives from the Junior class come into the Choir room with ballots containing the names of all two hundred eighty-three Seniors of the HPHS Class of ’88 so that we members of Chorale can cast our “Top 25” vote.
“How have you been?”
One of the girls, Tracy Cardoza, I’m happy