of their own accord. This was not their pleasure, but their punishment, and once it was over they would make it a point to avoid me. Rumors would spread that I had slipped something into their Cokes, that I had tried to French Brad Clancy, that I had stolen five dollars from Walt's pocket. Not even Mrs. Winters would wave at me, but all that would come later, in a different life. For now I would savor this poor imitation of tenderness, mapping Scott's shoulders, the small of his back, as he shuddered beneath my winning hand.
Consider the Stars
EVERY NIGHT before going to bed, Hugh steps outside to consider the stars. His interest is not scientific — he doesn't pinpoint the constellations or make casual references to Canopus; rather, he just regards the mass of them, occasionally pausing to sigh. When asked if there's life on other planets, he says, 'Yes, of course. Look at the odds.'
It hardly seems fair we'd get the universe all to ourselves, but on a personal level I'm highly disturbed by the thought of extraterrestrial life. If there are, in fact, billions of other civilizations, where does that leave our celebrities? If worth is measured on a sliding scale of recognition, what would it mean if we were all suddenly obscure? How would we know our place?
In trying to make sense of this, I think back to a 1968 Labor Day celebration at the Raleigh Country Club. I was at the snack bar, listening to a group of sixth-graders who lived in another part of town and sat discussing significant changes in their upcoming school year. According to the girl named Janet, neither Pam Dobbins nor J. J. Jackson had been invited to the Fourth of July party hosted by the Duffy twins, who later told Kath Matthews that both Pamand J.J. were out of the picture as far as the seventh grade was concerned. 'Totally, completely out,' Janet said. 'Poof.'
I didn't know any Pam Dobbins or J. J. Jackson, but the reverential tone of Janet's voice sent me into a state of mild shock. Call me naive, but it had simply never occurred to me that other schools might have their own celebrity circles. At the age of twelve, I thought the group at E. C. Brooks was if not nationally known, then at least its own private phenomenon. Why else would our lives revolve around it so completely? I myself was not a member of my school's popular crowd, but I recall thinking that, whoever they were, Janet's popular crowd couldn't begin to compete with ours. But what if I was wrong? What if I'd wasted my entire life comparing myself with people who didn't really matter? Try as I might, I still can't wrap my mind around it.
They banded together in the third grade. Ann Carlsworth, Christie Kaymore, Deb Bevins, Mike Holliwell, Doug Middleton, Thad Pope: they were the core of the popular crowd, and for the next six years my classmates and I studied their lives the way we were supposed to study math and English. What confused us most was the absence of any specific formula. Were they funny? No. Interesting? Yawn. None owned pools or horses. They had no special talents, and their grades were unremarkable. It was their dearth of excellence that gave the rest of us hope and kept us on our toes. Every now and then they'd select a new member, and the general attitude among the student body was 'Oh, pick me!' It didn't matter what you were like on your own. The group wouldmake you special. That was its magic.
So complete was their power that I actually felt honored when one of them hit me in the mouth with a rock. He'd gotten me after school, and upon returning home, I ran into my sister's bedroom, hugging my bloody Kleenex and crying, 'It was Thad!!!'
Lisa was one grade higher than me, but still she understood the significance. 'Did hesay anything?' she asked. 'Did you save the rock?'
My father demanded I retaliate, saying I ought to knock the guy on his ass.
'Oh, Dad.'
'Aww, baloney. Clock him on the snot locker and he'll go down like a ton of bricks.'
'Are you talking tome?' I asked. The archaic slang aside, who did my father think I was? Boys who spent their weekends making banana nut muffins did not, as a rule, excel in the art of hand-to-hand combat.
'I mean, come on, Dad,' Lisa said. 'Wake up.'
The following afternoon I was taken to Dr. Povlitch for X-rays. The rock had damaged one of my bottom teeth, and there was some question over who would pay for the subsequent root canal. I figured that since my parents had conceived me, delivered me into the world, and raised me as a permanent guest in their home, they should foot the bill, but my father thought differently. He decided the Popes should pay, and I screamed as he picked up the phone book.
'But you can't just. .call Thad's house.'
'Oh yeah?' he said. 'Watch me.'
There were two Thad Popes in the Raleigh phone book, a Junior and a Senior. The one in my class was what came after a Junior. He was a Third. My father called both the Junior and the Senior, beginning each conversation with the line 'Lou Sedaris here. Listen, pal, we've got a problem with your son.'
He said our last name as if it meant something, as if we were known and respected. This made it all the more painful when he was asked to repeat it. Then to spell it.
A meeting was arranged for the following evening, and before we left the house, I begged my father to change his clothes. He'd been building an addition to the carport and was wearing a pair of khaki shorts smeared with paint and spotted here and there with bits of dried concrete. Through a hole in his tattered T-shirt, without squinting, it was possible to see his nipple.
'What the hell is wrong with this?' he asked. 'We're not staying for dinner, so who cares what I'm wearing?'
I yelled for my mother, and in the end he compromised by changing his shirt.
From the outside, Thad's house didn't look much different from anyone else's — just a standard split- level with what my father described as a totally inadequate carport. Mr. Pope answered the door in a pair of sherbet-colored golf pants and led us downstairs into what he called 'the rumpus room.'
'Oh,' I said, 'this is nice!'
The room was damp and windowless and lit with hanging Tiffany lampshades, the shards of colorful glass arranged to spell the wordsBusch andBudweiser. The walls were paneled in imitation walnut, and the furniture looked as though it had been hand-hewn by settlers who'd reconfigured parts of their beloved Conestoga wagon to fashion such things as easy chairs and coffee tables. Noticing the fraternity paddle hanging on the wall above the television, my father launched into his broken Greek, saying 'Kalispera sas adhelfos!'
When Mr. Pope looked at him blankly, my father laughed and offered a translation. 'I said, 'Good evening, brother.' '
'Oh. . right,' Mr. Pope said. 'Fraternities are Greek.'
He directed us toward a sofa and asked if we wanted something to drink. Coke? A beer? I didn't want to deplete Thad's precious cola supply, but before I could refuse, my father said sure, we'd have one of each. The orders were called up the staircase, and a few minutes later Mrs. Pope came down, carrying cans and plastic tumblers.
'Well,hello there,' my father said. This was his standard greeting to a beautiful woman, but I could tell he was just saying it as a joke. Mrs. Pope wasn't unattractive, just ordinary, and as she set the drinks before us, I noticed that her son had inherited her blunt, slightly upturned nose, which looked good on him but caused her to appear overly suspicious and judgmental.
'So,' she said. 'I hear you've been to the dentist.' She was just trying to make small talk, but because of her nose, it came off sounding like an insult, as if I'd just had a cavity filled and was now looking for someone to foot the bill.
'I'llsay he's been to the dentist,' my father said. 'Someone hits you in the mouth with a rock and I'd say the dentist's office is pretty much the first place a reasonable person would go.'
Mr. Pope held up his hands. 'Whoa now,' he said. 'Let's just calm things down a little.' He yelled upstairs for
