Chapter Six
Helen Interviews
Nell
assigned Helen the responsibility of putting up posters advertising an effort
by The Radical Students of the
Helen
fired up her word processor at home, and created something that would go easy
on the ink:
DID THE UNIVERSITY SCREW YOU?
DID THEY FORCE YOU TO PAY FOR AN EXTRA CLASS
THAT’S
ARE YOU PISSED?
If so, please e-mail me your story at:
[Helen’s new e-mail address]
Helen
showed Phil a demo copy. Phil thought the poster was immature.
“Isn’t this over-the-top? People will think that this is a
joke.
“No,
they won’t. You’re overreacting to the ARE YOU PISSED part of
it. That’s just to grab you. The stuff at the top clarifies
it for them.”
“I
wouldn’t respond to this poster.”
“You
didn’t even tell me you got in trouble in the first place!”
Phil
turned around, and started walking to her front door. She ran in front
him and blocked his exit. “You’re not going anywhere!”
“Why
are you doing this?” whined Phil.
Helen
didn’t answer, because the only thing that she could come up with was
“’Cuz Nell said so.” She didn’t want to say
something that would make Nell smile, nor have that woman in Phil’s head
any more so than she already was!
She
walked back to her computer, and sat down in front of it. “Phil,
unless you have an alternative, I’m going to set this to print off as
many copies as my printer can handle.”
“Can’t
we go to a copy place and save your printer?”
“No.
I bought this printer because Consumer
Reports gave it the lowest cost per black-and-white page. Six
cents.”
“Fine…fine.”
Phil
looked towards her couch, and made movements to walk over there.
Meanwhile, Helen set forth her printer to create a few hundred copies of the
one-page eight-and-a-half by eleven poster. The printer came to life, so
Helen turned her attention to Phil. “What do you think about
this? Really.”
“This?
You mean your poster?”
“That,
and Nell’s—the paper.”
“Your
poster still turns me off. I wouldn’t come forward, but maybe
people at school are more vocal than I would be.”
“Yes,
they would. Anyway, I’m just going to get their stories down onto
tape, or on notes. We need something solid.”
“OK. That’s good,
but…I don’t see what the point of this is.”
“For
the twelfth time, to expose-”
“I
know that part, but why now? All of us graduate this semester, God
willing. I’m hardly trying in any of my courses…”
“Every
senior does that. Their GPA is set in stone, they’re more focused
on job interviews…speaking of which, how’s Cullen?”
“Cullen?”
She
glanced at her printer to make sure it had paper. Then she got up and sat
next to Phil. He reached for her hand, and she accepted. They
stared at blank TV screen. “So, how’s Cullen doing in the
real world?”
“He’s
only been at work for a month.”
“Do
you want me to ask, how’s the real world doing with Cullen?”
“You
don’t trust him at all, do you?”
“Barely.
It’s like…he’s smart, he knows more INFORMATION than we do,
but…”
“He
misses out on the big picture.”
“Right,
but also…he doesn’t do people very well.”
Phil
looked straight at her. “I don’t do people well.”
She
looked back. “That’s not true. You can live.
Cullen…”
They
turned back to the TV. Phil scowled. “Why are we talking
about him?”
“I
think some of Zaid’s bitching has rubbed off onto me.”
“You
two do spend a lot of time together.”
“Yeah,
but Zaid is obsessed with Cullen.”
“Obsessed!
What, why--?”
“I
don’t know. She has these ‘great plans’ for him.”
“God,
it sounds like she’s married to him.”
“That’s
not even funny. Don’t
encourage her.”
Phil
began shifting around on the couch. “Agreed…where’s the
remote?”
Helen
sighed, “There’s nothing on at 9:00 pm.”
“There’s
that station that shows the news at 9:00.”
“Yeah,
for a whole hour! Do you want to watch the weather twice?”
“No,
I just want to see what’s on.”
Helen
leaned back on the couch, and closed her eyes. “Don’t say I
didn’t tell ya that nothing’s on.”
Phil
found the remote and turned on the TV. The President was on, talking
about some bombing. Phil scratched the back of his neck.
“Wasn’t the State of the
“I
don’t know…I never watch that kind of stuff.” Helen was
now almost lying down on the couch.
The
President was in the middle of one his trademark run-on sentences, so Phil
couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. Instead, Phil
concentrated on the scrolling nuggets of text that translated whole paragraphs
into unfinished clauses:
---
[Arabic name] targeted for strikes---terrorist hostages at
refineries---analysis after speech---
Phil
already began to get tired. “Regular shows were canceled for
this?”
Helen
said nothing. Phil looked over at her, and saw that her chest rose, and
sank, slowly. She breathed through her noise gently. Phil turned
off the TV, and leaned over on his side of the couch.
Helen’s
neck hurt, and so she woke up. The lights were still on, the TV was off,
and the printer had a blinking light. She sat up right, waking up
Phil. He jerked awake, so Helen apologized, “Hey, sorry.”
Phil
shook his head, and then began rotating it around. They both got up and
stretched their arms out. Phil asked, “What time is it?”
Helen
looked around her living room, and saw her wall clock. 4:52 am. She
said as-a-matter-of-factly “It’s way early in the morning.”
“It
is?”
“Yep,
around 5:00.”
“Crap!
I need to get home!”
She
shrugged her shoulders and walked over the printer. “Why not hang
around and just take a shower here?”
“I
can’t show up to school wearing the exact same clothes that I wore
yesterday!”
Helen
pulled out some more sheets of paper from a packet. “How is anyone
going to know? Just keep your
jacket on.”
“I
would know!”
“So
you’re the lon, nol, egh…talk Helen. You’re the only
one who’s stopping you.”
Phil
opened his mouth, and made some noise like he was about to talk. Helen
continue doing what she had started by loading more paper into the printer, and
pushing the button that told the printer that it was OK to keep on
printing. She got up from hunching over the printer and yawned.
“Don’t be stupid. Take a shower here, eat some breakfast, or
go back to sleep. There’s no point in you going all the way back to
the
“My
parents will-”
“Will
be relieved that maybe their son isn’t the cooped-up little shy guy that
he’s been forever?”
Whether
it was Helen’s aggressiveness, or just the logic of the situation, Phil
remained. He rode in her car on the way to school, and it came to him
that just driving to her house, and riding with her to school didn’t seem
like such a bad idea. It did grate his sense of manliness to be
constantly driven by a woman. He could hear Nell and Cullen snickering in
the back of his mind.
They
arrived at school early in the traffic jam, around 7:00 or so. By the
time they left her apartment, traffic had come to a crawl on
Before
they got out of the car, Helen told Phil, “Here’s half of my
stuff. You comb your end of school. I’ll do mine.”
She
plopped a stack of papers in Phil’s lap, weighing a couple of
pounds. It startled him. “But…but…”
“Shut
up. Get out of the car, and get moving.”
He
realized that his first class wasn’t until Noon. She knew this, and
resisted smiling from having tricked Phil into coming. He was there to
lighten her load.
He
got out, and carried the stack with him. He wished that a wind would blow
through the garage and scatter papers everywhere. He would pretend to be
shocked at such of thing, and maybe create a distraction…
He
said to her, “Honey, you know, I think that I’ve been hanging
around too much with Nell and Cullen and Zaid.”
She
took the compliment. “Really! That’s so nice!”
“Err…”
“I’ve
been thinking the same thing, too. Let’s eat lunch together and
plan the rest of our week!”
Our
week. It was Tuesday and his schedule was already filled. He
actually looked forward to understanding how a TV control room worked, or
whatever it was that he was supposed to be learning.
They
entered one of the garage-to-school entrance corridors. It was a square
in section, ten feet by ten feet. The surfaces were all concrete, which
cracked and stained. People had all
but covered the walls, floor, and parts of the ceiling in spray paint.
These people had particularly gone after the light bulbs. The bulbs
filled the room with red, blue, and purple light. The floor felt sticky
with paint, and Phil could almost smell the fumes. He didn’t worry
too much about poisoning his brain, because the cracks were wide enough to
admit cold February air. They clutched their papers.
Phil
pulled open the fire doors, and they entered a carpeted gathering area, with
tables, chairs, potted plants, bill boards, and stairs, elevators, and other
gathering areas leading to other parts of the campus. The warm
sixty-eight degree air hit Phil with a comforting aura. He wanted to
pause and just absorb the room. He had been hanging out with Cullen too
long.
Helen
turned to him, said bye, and walked off to her side of the school. Phil
looked at the first billboard, and wondered how he was going to put these
things up. Then, he noticed that there were two push-pins left, all by themselves,
holding up nothing. He looked at them, and wondered why anyone would
leave them behind. He began to feel wrong for thinking about using them,
but it’s not like Helen left him any choices. She would take a walk
down his part of school, and become livid as she realized that Phil had not
done his job.
He
used the pins. He collected other stray ones, and put them in his coat
pocket. He put up a flyer on each billboard. He started with the
Economics Department, then veered away Business Department (Helen was busy with
that one), and worked his way to the
The
He
saw some people sitting, facing away from the walking space two feet above
them. He hoped that they didn’t notice him putting two flyers up,
on opposing billboards. He remembered never seeing anyone actually put flyers
up. When did they do this? Midnight?
He
covered the Mall in the few billboards that it had. He was quick, walking
amid the chain eateries and the cafeteria. He thought about going the
level below, with the career center, barber, barbeque joint, and arcade.
No. Up to the Org Rooms. Three billboards. Three flyers.
And,
so it went.
Helen
finished her side of the school before her first class, so she felt deserving
of coffee. The extra caffeine bit back when there was a special lecturer,
which meant there was going to be on test on whatever the speaker was
saying. She wished that she could sleep, but she was too buzzed.
She waited until the lights went out, and then leaned forward. While
looking down at the floor, she pulled out her cell phone, and began web
surfing.
She
checked her e-mail, and noticed that there were a few messages pertaining to
her flyers. She didn’t expect a quick response. She opened
the first message, then second, and on down. None interested her. The
sixth one did grab her:
The
University fucked me over and I’m not even in school yet. U know
how the new sat test’s are in computers? I took on two weeks
ago. My score came in last week, but the school won’t take scores
electronically!!! They wanna get it in paper, sent from the testing place
directly!!! No print outs, no official papers or whatever. Theyre
looking for something with a return-postage thingy with the testing
place’s address. Howz that for being screwed up the
ass!?!?!?!?!? By the way, my annoying “friends” saw your
poster (he’s in something special for high school seniors…hate
him), and thought of me (how nice), so he texted it to me. I e-mailed you
proper because I don’t know if your e-mail would think my phone is
spam. That happens a lot, y’know?
Emily
Santiago
2101-2669-0645
Helen
turned off her phone, and left class. When the door behind her closed,
she dialed Emily’s number. A woman picked it up. “Hey,
hello.”
“Hi,
my name is Helena Garza. I got a message from one Emily Santiago, in
response to a request for information about university…mess-ups.”
“Yup,
that’s me!”
“Great,
when would be a good time to meet for an interview?”
“Wow!
You wanna interview me!”
“Yeah…”
“Am
I gonna be on TV!?”
“Er,
no. This is for a newspaper.”
“WOW!”
“Heh,
yeah.”
“What
section am I gonna be in!?”
“Er,
I don’t know. We don’t really have sections…”
“Waddaya
mean? No sections?”
“We’re
a college publication.”
“Oh.”
Helen
knew that she wasn’t being convincing. How to appeal to a high
school senior… “Why not meet for coffee, on me, and you
just tell how the University messed up?”
“OK,
that sounds cool. My parents won’t care if I skip out on my
classes—I’m passing them all anyway.”
“Great!
Good for you!” Helen wondered if she should really be encouraging
kids to skip school. Well, it’s not like Helen dragged Emily
from…
“What
high school do you go to?”
“
“Great,
that’s in
“Yeah,
I guess. It’s on Eckhert.”
“Ah…”
“
“Oh,
OK.” Helen began to get the impression that they shared certain
commanding features.
“Why
not meet at a coffee place. My so-called friends actually found a cool
one that’s cheaper than the one that’s on every block.”
“Yeah,
sounds cool. When’s a good time?”
“I
can leave right now.”
“Oh,
er, OK. I have a class from 2:00 until 3:30, so we can meet up really
quick, or meet around 4:00.”
“Four
o’clock is cool. I may learn something today!”
Helen
laughed. “Yeah, maybe. Well…I’ll give you ring
when I’m ready to leave, OK?”
“Yeah,
sure! Bye-bye!”
“Bye.”
She
felt exhausted, and looked for a place to sit down. Since classes were in
session, there were ample seats to lie down in. She picked one and
propped her feet up on a table. Holding the cell phone in her hand, she
stared at and just felt even more tired. Before nodding off, she got up
and walked to the library for a nap.
Three
hours later, she felt her back aching. It hurt one way when she woke up
with her face partially buried in her coat. It hurt another way when she
turned her head to look straight down. It hurt yet a different way when
she slowly sat up. The thought of rolling her neck around, crossed her
mind, but she quickly discarded the idea.
She
did wonder what was in the coffee. First she felt like she had all energy
to best Cullen’s late-night work-binges. As soon as she was done
talking to Emily…crash. That girl just sucked everything out her
and then some.
Helen
looked at her watch. 2:09. Oh, well. Feeling refreshed, she
decided to take on Emily. She got up, left the library wing, and entered
the noisy central corridor. She looked around briefly to find any quieter
areas. The central corridor had a vast middle are that attracted nobody
but people crossing it directly. Even then, the noise bounced off the
walls and ceilings. She needed to get outside, and remembered that Cullen
had led her to spot near a parking garage.
Helen
walked through the central corridor, south to the parking garages. A
half-mile later, she walked into one of the faculty parking garages, and looked
for an elevator to ride down. A couple minutes later, she walked out to
the grass lawn facing Fredericksburg Expressway. The cars generated too
much noise for a phone call, so she walked along the edge of the parking
garage, until she found an area where two garages meant, ungracefully.
The wedged corner only had faint echoes of car traffic.
She
dialed Emily’s number. The phone’s screen showed a little
moving graphic of stars emanating from a similar-looking phone that she
had. The phone beeped three times, and she saw that the screen displayed
a message:
THE
PERSON THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH HAS RESPONDED USING TeXt. WOULD YOU
LIKE TO START A CHAT CONVERSATION?
1
YES
2 NO
Helen
had never used this feature before, but pressed 1 anyway. The screen
turned all white, then text appeared:
HELLO
She
slowly typed in a response, using the menus and everything that she knew about
sending messages over her phone.
HELLO
---------------------------
HI
THIS IS
The
conversation proceeded.
HI
THIS IS
---------------------------------
THANKS
FOR CALLING
---------------------------------
NO
PROB. CAN WE MEET
---------------------------------
YES
WHERE
---------------------------------
THE
PLACE THAT U TLKD ABOUT
---------------------------------
Y
---------------------------------
WHERE
IS IT
---------------------------------
WHERE
U COMING FROM
---------------------------------
---------------------------------
FROM
FRED EXPWY, L ON HUEB, 1 MILE, ON R IT CALLED CAFÉ DU FROG
---------------------------------
CAFÉ
DU FROG?
---------------------------------
Y
---------------------------------
WHAT
IT LOOK LIKE
---------------------------------
HAS
BIG
Helen
stopped typing. A “BIG
HAS
BIG
---------------------------------
CAN
I SEE FROM ROAD
---------------------------------
Y
NEAR THE FAST FOOD SIGN
She
thought that this place must be new. She would have seen a hundred-foot
tall turkey from the road at least once.
Y
NEAR THE FAST FOOD SIGN
---------------------------------
OK
I LEAVE NOW
---------------------------------
OK
BYE
---------------------------------
BYE
The
thought that this girl was jacking her, crossed her mind. But, if she
drove up and down Huebner Expressway, and saw neither frog nor turkey, she
would just go home and respond to her other e-mails.
Twenty
minutes later, about a mile down Huebner, on her right. She saw
it—the turkey.
It
was thirty feet high, inflatable, and looked like that it was a chicken at one
point. Someone painted it brown and attached a red cloth that was
supposed to be the little dangly thing that hung from a turkey’s
beak. Someone had also bought or stole a sign from the local TV station,
the one that used an abstracted bird as its symbol, and placed the multi-color
wreath of feathers behind the inflatable chicken/turkey.
She
saw two pickup-trucks, a motorcycle, and a bicycle. Nothing very strange,
but the turkey had filled that position. She parked her car near the sign
that read, well, CAFÉ DU FROG.
She
got out of the car, and walked to the door, fearing that what awaited her was a
horror-filled scene of Hell, not unlike that of Cullen’s house.
The
smell of coffee and eggs greeted her. The café was an arty place, rare
for a business located on Huebner Expressway. The walls were covered in
deeply-hued paints. The dark reds, oranges, blues and purples created gyrating
patterns, like the painter had taken a hallucinogenic and painted the walls to
match his visions. Alternating bright yellow and mint-green lines
bordered each of the main dark brushstrokes. Their highlights stood in
bright contrast to what was an otherwise dark room. The glass front stood
opposite to the mirrored rear of the eating area. The affect was to make
the room appear much larger than it otherwise was, and solve some of the glare
issues of having natural light come in from only one side. The ordering
area looked cut out from the mirrored wall, which jarred Helen’s look-see
of the place. An elderly Hispanic woman stood at a register, while a man
of similar age and background worked over a stove. The place reminded her
of the taqueria just north of the University of San Antonio, only Café
du Frog had no art displays; no painting, no sculptures, no alternative
magazines lying around, no couches, none of that. It was like an ordinary
taco dive that had been attacked by a crazed painter.
The
Café’s lone patron was a young woman, a teenager. She had
very wavy hair, almost curly. It was blonde with strands of brown here
and there, darkening the overall effect. Her eyes and nose seemed bigger
than average, but they matched proportionately with her forehead and mouth, so
maybe her head was just plain big. Her forearms supported tight hands,
clutching a book like mechanical claws. She wore a simple blue jacket
over a shirt that looked like it had been done by the same artist who did
Café du Frog’s interior.
Helen’s
walking on a tiled floor in hard-soled shoes made enough noise to alert this
sitting, book-reading woman, and make her look up. Helen smiled.
The woman looked distracted.
“Hi.
Are you Emily?”
The
woman’s face lit up immediately. “Yes, you must be Ms
Garza!” She got up and reached out to shake Helen’s
hand. Helen was caught off guard by much of this, but she shook her hand
anyway. Emily didn’t stop. “Did you find the place
OK? Have a seat! Are you hungry! They’ve got really
cheap tacos and great fajitas!”
Helen
noticed that Emily’s voice didn’t sound much like it did over the
phone. On the phone, she sounded like a bubbly teenage girl. In
person, her voice had just a little bit of gravel in it, like maybe she smoked
or was from
“Oh, yeah. I just took the Babcock exit, and there I saw…the
Big Turkey.”
“Yep!
Isn’t it cool!”
“Yeah,
well, it’s very noticeable.”
“That’s
why I like it. It’s like a whole broadcast to the whole town: come
here to Café du Frog!” She said it like “café
duh frog”, and spread out her hands quickly in Helen’s direction
when she did the “come here” part.
“Ah!
I see…well, how much is their coffee?”
“I don’t know. Go ask!”
Helen
felt like Emily was actually pushing her to go to the counter. She got up
slowly approached the counter. She looked for some kind of menu, then saw
that it was under Plexiglas. Looking it over, she found coffee for $1.55,
free refills.
She
knew that she was going to visit the Frog from now on.
Armed
with her coffee mug, and a visit to the large coffee pot, she was ready to
interview. She sat down at the table, facing the mirrored wall.
Emily faced the windows, and looked at her expectantly.
“Are
you ready to begin?”
“Sure!
Are you going to tape this?”
“Yeah.
Let me pull it out.”
Helen
pulled out a cheap tape recorder that she had bought at office supply
store. She laid it on the table, facing Emily.
“Ready?”
Emily
nodded. Helen pushed record.
“Hi.
I’m speaking with…”
“Emily
Santiago.”
“Who
is currently enrolled at…”
“
“Great.
OK. Since you’re in high school, how did the
“Well,
you know how SATs are now over computer?”
“I
didn’t know that, but go on.”
“Well,
it was the first time
“How?”
“Well,
all the computers were different. They didn’t have enough
machines. So, right after New Year’s, the school sent
us—everyone—a letter asking if we could bring our own
computers. We were like, yeah, sure, let us take our own personal
computers, and bring them to school. Some of us didn’t have
computers, others didn’t want to bring a desktop, some didn’t want
their laptops to get stolen, and some of the hacker-freaks wanted to download
some SAT-cracker program so that they could get even higher scores.”
“What
did you do?”
“Nothing.
I was like, ‘it’s your problem that you signed up for the
computerized SAT, and didn’t have enough computers to do the
job’.”
“OK.”
“So,
on test day, I had no computer. I got sent to do my test in the
library.”
“Why
the library?”
“They
managed to fix one of the library computers to be able to administer the
test.”
“Oh…”
“So
I sat, surrounded by books, almost no supervision, except for the librarians,
who had their backs to me. If they turned around, all they would see
would be my back.”
“Were
you alone?”
“Yep.”
“So,
you couldn’t cheat.”
“Not
by looking at other people’s computers, no. Besides, they told us
that the questions were randomized. The people next to you would have a
different section to answer.”
“That’s
how it was when I took the SAT. They alternated rows of packets…A,
B, A, B, and so on.”
“Right,
well, since it’s on the computer, they somehow had to register
everyone’s…connection…number…thing…so that the
people sitting next to each other would have different sections.”
“How
did you know all this?”
“I
saw it in the little information packet thing they sent us.”
“OK,
so how did the test go?”
“Boring.
I stared at a computer screen for five hours, answering questions.”
“Didn’t
you get a break?”
“Yeah,
the teachers were supposed to tell you when to not click to load the next
section.”
“Ah!...so
no teachers were there to tell to you pause for a moment, eat something.”
“Right.
I kept going and going and going until the program told me that I finished it
all.”
“That
sucks. Did you daydream, stare at the wall, check to see if any
librarians were staring at you?”
“A
lot, yeah, so maybe I took a whole lot of little break, but what was I gonna
do? Roam nearly empty halls? Find a book to help me? You know
what those questions are like.”
“Yeah,
lotsa math, lotsa…English.”
“Right,
and reading Moby Dick ain’t gonna help me answer stupid stuff like,
“If an elephant is to a desk what an orange is to a cloud, then a tree is
to a highway what a girl is to…whatever.”
“Right,
weird stuff like that.”
“So,
I was like, staring at these questions a lot of the time going ‘what the
fuck’. I guessed on nearly all of them.”
“So,
how did the University play into all of this?”
“Well,
way earlier in the school year, like October, we registered to take the SAT and
they asked us which schools we wanted to send our scores to. You know,
the usual, SAC,
“Yeah,
so you chose
“Right,
and after I took the test, I went home and waited for my scores to be e-mailed
to me.”
“Did
they?”
“Two
weeks later.”
“What?”
“Yeah,
it took them two weeks to send me back my scores.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,
and I’m like ‘whoah, did the school get them?’ So I
called up the University, and they didn’t get them. They
didn’t even have me down as someone who was supposed to send them scores
in the first place!”
“Wow.”
“Yeah!
So I asked them, like uh, what I am supposed to do? They said, register
for the SATs, put us down, blah blah blah. And I told them that’s
what I did! They were like, well, we got no record of you.”
“Dang,
that…”
“Really
messed up! So I called up the testing people, and wanted to know why the
messed up. They said, ‘we sent your scores to all the schools that
you wanted’. I was getting really angry, so I called up UTSA, and
they were like ‘yeah, we got your scores. Good job
yakkity-yak. So then I think, a-HA! The testing people did OK,
‘cuz UTSA got the scores, but
“Then
what did you do?”
“I
called USA back up, told them the situation, and they said that I could hand in
my score sheet as proof that I registered, put USA down as a school, took the
test, and so on. So, I printed the e-mail, then they’re like: Oh
NO! We CANNOT take E-MAILS! They are SO easily FAKED!”
“What
the…”
“Yeah!
And I’m like: what did you say? I took the fucking test! What
do you want!? They said that they gotta see something really
official. I’m like: be more specific. They wanted something
like a real paper sent by someone from the testing place, and I’m like
fine. I call up the testers, tell them all that’s happened, and
they said that they will send out two copies: one to
“That’s
really cool.”
“Yeah,
because, it makes them look bad if a school didn’t get the scores!”
“But
UTSA, and presumably SAC, got them.”
“I
know, but since I was the only one that I knew of that had this problem, I
couldn’t build a case that it was
“Did
you ask your friends?”
“I
did. They were like, ‘oh yeah,
“Why
did you want to go to
“It’s
cheap. I mean, it’s like halfway from UTSA’s prices to
SAC’s prices. It’s super-cheap for a four-year
university.”
“Yeah,
well, you see what you get for your money.”
“But
I didn’t give the school any money! So, I can’t argue,
‘well, it’s a shitty school because it’s dirt cheap, and
doesn’t know how to receive e-mail.’ Besides, I was the only
one who had this problem. No one else did, or knew anyone who did.”
“Why
not just give up? You sound like you spent a lot of time trying to get
them to take your scores.”
“I
know I did.”
Emily
was silent for a while. Helen asked, “Is everything OK?
Should I turn the tape off?”
Emily
shook her head. “No, leave it running. There’s more to
the story. I just…hate it when people get screwed over.”
“I
see.”
“It’s
not like people who run red lights, then get run over by a semi.
That’s what you get. But people who pay money to have something
done, then someone else won’t hold up their end. It’s like
buying a house, only to find the plumber, for whatever reason, just can’t
install toilets. You know?”
“Yeah,
well, you can always take them to court, or refuse to pay, but…”
“But,
I never paid the school anything, and it would be the school’s loss to
not have me go there, but Jesus, I didn’t want to pay UTSA’s
prices.”
“There’s
always student aid.”
“Yeah,
if your parents aren’t too busy fighting and trying to destroy each other
by lying on the other’s tax forms.”
Now,
it was Helen’s turn to be silent. She felt like she had entered a
whole world of messes surrounding Emily. She chose her next words
carefully.
“How
did you ultimately solve the problem?”
“When
I get home, I’m going to check the mail to see if I got some paper scores
in. The testing center has been pretty good to me. My scores should
be in by the end of the week, and I when I get them, the day after, I’m
going to march up to the jerks at USA and demand that they tell me that I
didn’t do everything right.”
“Wow.
So, this is still in development.”
“Yeah,
but I hope that it ends this week. It’s been such a long
month!”
Emily
surprised Helen by not coming across as whiny. Granted, the whole
delivery was in the tone of a high schooler, but still…Emily tried, and
kept trying. She blamed the school, which Helen didn’t disagree
with—that was the whole point of the interview!
Emily
said, “Your coffee’s getting cold.”
“Oh!
Free refills. I don’t care.”
Emily
smiled and looked out the window. Helen could see Emily’s
reflection in the mirror. The younger woman sighed, “It’s
getting cloudy, and dark. It’s gonna rain.”
Helen
turned to see the sky getting darker. It was like the sun was setting at
4:00 in the afternoon. “Yep. Don’t like the
rain?”
“It
makes me nervous when I drive my bike.”
“You
have a motorcycle?”
“Yep!”
“Wow!
That’s so cool!”
Emily
beamed in Helen’s praise. Helen couldn’t believe that an
eighteen-year-old would be allowed to drive a motorcycle. “Why did
your parents let you…if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Oh,
they saw my reason.”
“Which
was…?”
“Gas
money. I get like 60 mpg or something. It’s not as good as
other bikes, but it’s way better—and faster!—than any car
getting that high.”
“True,
but isn’t it dangerous?”
“It’s
only as dangerous as you let it be. There are no accidents; only
carelessness.”
“But
what about other people?”
“I
make it such that they have no excuse for hitting me.”
“I
don’t understand.”
“Ride
with me, sometime.”
Helen
laughed. “No thanks! I’ll just believe you!”
Emily
held a glass to her lips. “Taking the easy way out?”
Helen
shrugged. “Maybe.”
“That’s
cool. Say, where do people like you hang out?”
“Hang
out?”
“Yeah,
like, not clubs, but just places, kind of like this.”
“Oh,
well, there’s a taqueria near the school, but it’s not as cool as
this.” Helen looked around the place. “I gotta come
here more often, and tell my friends.”
“What
are they like?”
“Oh,
well, I have a boyfriend. Phil. He’s conservative, I mean,
restrained. Totally unadventurous.”
“That
doesn’t drag you?”
Helen
shook her head. “Nah. I sympathize totally. He’s
like a more…quiet…version of myself.”
“Ah,
so you’re the outgoing person, he’s the at-home person.”
“Well,
no, but in terms of personality, yeah.”
“That’s
cool. Anyone else?”
“Well,
I have two girlfriends…one’s kinda weird. She’s friends
with this other guy that Phil also hangs out with. I don’t
understand her or her guy friend at all.”
“What
are their names?”
“Well,
the kooky girl is Nell. She hangs out with Cullen, or rather,
they…conspire with each other.”
“Cool.”
Emily dragged out the word.
“Weird
is more like it. They are like this…parallel thing.
It’s like they are in a separate world, and I enter that world whenever
I’m with them.”
“Why
don’t you like it?”
“I
don’t dislike it, but…” Helen found herself thinking
that she would like Nell and Cullen more if she could (1) predict their moves,
and (2) somehow influence them. Helen felt like a spectator to the
bizarre game that featured Nell and Cullen versus Planet Earth.
Emily
waited for her answer. “But…?”
“I
like them, because they are cool, but I don’t understand them.”
“I
think I get it. You like them, but not sure why? It’s like
the opposite of barely meeting someone, then really not liking them for a
reason that you don’t quite get.”
“Yeah,
exactly.
“That’s
cool, so where you guys hang out?”
“Oh,
Nell and Cullen dragged me, Phil, and this other girl Zaid with them to a place
called Second Saturdays, at a place called
“I
think I’ve heard about it.”
“It’s
a big art-show thing. Lots of important people show up. It’s
the leading art show. It’s like
“That’s
way cool.
“You
know Klub Komrade?”
“No…”
“That’s
the actual listing in the phone book. I don’t have precise
directions to get there. You get on
“Wow.
Why haven’t I heard of this place?”
“Because
the place is constantly in chapter eleven or thirteen bankruptcy. All the
money is spent on getting artists to put their stuff up. Artists live at
the place for next to nothing, because it’s an abandoned beer and bread
factory.”
“That
place sounds more cool the more you talk about it.”
“Yeah,
well, it has something for everyone. Only Phil doesn’t like it
all. He doesn’t get art, doesn’t like large crowds,
doesn’t like mass emotional experiences, and so on.”
“Yeah…he’s
your at-home guy.”
“Sure.”
“Second
Saturday…that’s this week. I should show up, and bring a
friend of mine.”
“Yeah,
so tell me about your friends.”
“Well,
I have so-called friends in high school. They like me more than I like
them. They somehow adopted me into their little ‘all things are
wonderful’ clique. It’s really gay. My real friend is
this guy, who works at a car dealership, near
“Is
he your boyfriend?”
“No!
He’s like, forty-two.”
Helen’s
pulse stopped for a moment. What’s a teenager doing hanging out
with a man her father’s age?
“Forty…two?”
“Yeah.
We met because it was really crowded in her one time, and he had no place to
sit, so he was like, ‘can I sit here’? And I was like,
sure. So he sat down, and thanked me, and that he was surprised to see
adults here in this place.”
“What?”
“Yeah!
He thought I was like twenty-five or something. I know a lot of girls
would get angry to be mistaken for being older, but I’m like
whatever. He meant it as a compliment.”
“That’s
funny. When I was in high school, girls wanted to look twenty-one, so
they could buy beer.”
“Beer’s
easy now. No one cares about the drinking age.”
“Yeah,
being sixteen didn’t stop anyone.”
“No.
Kidding. So, this guy, right? He likes trying new things, safe
things, because he’s getting up there in the years, and isn’t
married, and doesn’t think that being a swinger or whatever is a good
idea.”
“Smart
man.”
“Yeah,
and so I asked what he did, and he said that he sold cars, and I was like
cool. I wanted to see what he did, so he invited me up there, and promised
not sell me anything, since we were becoming like friends now and
everything.”
“That’s
sweet.”
“Isn’t
it? So, we get to talking. I come clean, and tell him that
it’s cool. Thanks for the tour. He’s like, well, see
you later at the Frog. I was like, THAT IS COOL, because he’s just
so laid back. It’s like, why make a big fuss? So, we’re
friends now. Totally platonic. No sex. No sleeping
together. Just talking and walking and seeing movies and stuff.”
“Forgive
me saying this, but he sounds like your surrogate father.”
“I
wish! Why didn’t my parents just give me to this man when I was
born! I would be so much happier!”
“You
seem happy, now.”
“Yeah,
because I make myself happy. It’s only the rational thing to
do.”
“Emily…”
“Please,
call me Emmy. It sounds less Victorian.”
“OK,
and you can call me Helen. I’m only twenty-two, so it’s not
like I need to be called Ms or Mrs. Tyb-”
“Mrs.
Tib? I thought your last name was Garza.”
“It
is, but Phil’s last name is Tybalt.”
Emmy
froze, then blurted, “You’re married!”
“No!
Not yet! After school. Phil wanted it like that.”
“That
is so…sweet.”
“Yeah,
that’s what you get for dating the most conservative young man in
town.”
“You
don’t know how lucky you are.”
“Yeah.”