Coven

“Pardon me, Dad?”

“The bullshit ends here. I will not permit my only child to devolve into the biggest failure in the history of higher education. I’ll give you till next December to raise your GPA to 2.5.”

“Say again, Dad? That’s a mathematical impossibility. I couldn’t pull a 2.5 even if I got straight A’s in the fall semester.”

“I realize that, Wade. So to give you a fair shot, you’ll be attending both summer semesters.”

Wade had laughed. “You’re joking, right?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Dad never looked like he was joking. But…Wade smiled. “Tough luck, Dad. The registration deadline has passed.” Whew!

“I called the dean this morning,” Dad informed him. “An exception has been made. Classes begin in a week; your schedule is waiting for you. Dean Saltenstall took care of it all.”

Oooo, that motherfucking suckface gay bar loitering dean! “Come—on, Dad! That’s not fair!—Everybody knows you have the dean in your pocket!”

“You’re goddamn right, and I will take advantage of that fact every chance I get. You will attend the summer semesters.”

This was serious. “Look, Dad, I can’t go to summer school. It’s, like, against my principles. What would my friends think?”

“Your friends are shiftless idiots not fit to pick the pebbles out of my tires. I don’t care what they goddamn think.”

“But I have a reputation to maintain! I’d never live it down. Summer is for partying, the beach, girls, that sort of thing.”

“There is no excuse for you, son. You’ve been in college six years and you’re scarcely closer to getting a degree than the day you stumbled drunk out of high school. All you do is drink beer, drive fast, and carouse with women of questionable morality. You’re smearing the family name, my name, and I won’t have it.”

This wasn’t going well at all. If Wade had to go to summer school, he’d be the laughingstock. Time for a little of the old B.S., he concluded. “Okay, Dad. Let’s make a deal. You let me have the summer off and I’ll give you my word, as a true St. John, that I’ll hit the books like you’ve never seen. I’ll become a virtual dynamo of diligence, discipline, and scholastic vision. My GPA will be up in no time, and there’ll be no more D’s and F’s, you can bank on it. That’s my promise, Dad, and I mean it with all my heart.”

Dad’s poker face remained as unchanging as a bust of Genghis Khan. “Son, you’re so full of shit you need a toilet brush to clean your ears. The matter is settled. You will attend the summer sessions. Period. And to add further incentive, I’m canceling your credit cards and terminating your $500 per week allowance.”

Wade’s mouth locked open. He was going to be sick.

“It’s for your own good, son. No money from me till those grades come up. From here on, you’ll earn your money. You’ll work a part time campus job.”

Wade was mortified. “A job? Me?”

“Yes, Wade, a job. You. I realize you’ve never worked in your life, but it’s time you started. The dean has made all the arrangements, as a personal favor to me.”

Wade ground fist into palm. So help me God I’ll bury that motherfucking dean up to his neck and SHIT ON HIS HEAD! “What is this, Dad? A conspiracy? National Let’s Screw Wade Week?”

“It’s for your own good, son. One day you’ll see that.”

Wade closed his eyes, tried to simmer down. “Okay, okay. I can understand. So what’s the job? I know you’d never stick me with some shitty bottom of the barrel job, right?”

“You’ll be working several nights a week at the sciences center.”

Doesn’t sound too bad. But— “What will I be doing?”

“Nothing too taxing, just a few hours a day. It’s a fine job, son.”

“Yeah, Dad. A fine job. But how about answering the question? Like what…exactly…will I be doing?”

Dad hesitated and very nearly smiled. “Cleaning toilets.”

Wade was beside himself…with horror.

“Along with assorted other janitorial duties. It’s time you learned to do a little honest work. That’s what made America, son.”

“Cleaning college shithouses is not what made America!”

“It’s honest work for honest pay.”

“Yeah? Exactly how much honest pay are we talking about?”

“Why, minimum wage, of course.”

By now, Wade could barely stand. He knew his flaws, sure. He was a nut-chase, a loaf, and a bullshitter. He used his looks, his car and his father’s money to skate through life. He could even admit that punishment for his ways was in order. Punishment, yes. But this was too much.

And with that thought, something very dangerous happened. Wade St. John, for one split moment, cast his good judgment aside.

“I’m not going.”

“What did you say?”

“I’m not going. I’m not doing any of it. I’m not going to summer school, I’m not giving up my credit cards, and I’m not going to clean toilets for minimum wage. How do you like that, Dad?”

And Dad had smiled a great big warm fatherly smile as he grabbed Wade by the collar and raised him a full foot in the air. Like a fish eye lens nightmare larger than life, Dad’s lips were huge in Wade’s face. “You will go to summer school. You will complete your assignments, you will study every night, and you will clean as many toilets as they tell you to clean. And you will raise your GPA to 2.5 by next December. Because if you don’t, you’re on the street. You lose the stocks, you lose the trust fund, you lose the car. You’ll be out of this house, out of this family, and out of my will. Now, how do you like that, son?”

Wade made the sheepiest of grins. “Gosh, Dad. Can’t you take a joke? Classes start in a week. I guess I better start packing, huh?”

—

CHAPTER 2

Penelope wished she could be a horse. She knew, of course, that wanting to be a horse was not exactly normal—it circumscribed the growth of her socialization. The psychiatrists called it reclusionary concept  image fantasy, and they were always harping about “socialization,” whatever that was. “To actualize your individuality, you must develop a collective affirmation, Penelope. A sense of positive function in your interpersonal dynamics. That’s socialization.” And horses? They didn’t like horses. “Your fantasy to be a horse is merely an emotional reaction to your introversion.” Right. It was all poop to her. Daddy was paying $250 per hour for this, so she didn’t care. “Your fermented preoccupation with horses,” the shrinks said, “is actually the result of a malnourished, unidentified sexuality.” It astounded her how intensely Freud’s bullshit dominated modern psychology. It was all about sex.

Penelope was a virgin, and her virginity was something she could somehow never conceal from the psychiatrists. It was the “base” of the “indisposition,” they’d tell her. “It” was the cause of her “problem.”

“A problem of this nature, Penelope, is a commonplace emotional by product of a restrained sexualization.”

“What is?”

“The aberrational equestrian fantasy.”

“Huh?”

“Your wanting to be a horse. And no doubt a further derivational root to your overall amotivational symptoms, your unfocused state of esteem, and your failure in general to be socialized.”

The assholes. It all sounded like horseshit to her, Freudian pun not intended. Were they trying to tell her that