Charmed Thirds

  “You've been talking about how you want to be more politically active!” she said, waving a flyer in my face. “Here's your chance!”

  “I don't have $250 to get in the door,” I said.

  “You don't need it!” Dexy said, speaking even faster than usual. “I've got two tickets already. Remember that guy I shagged last week?”

  I didn't—it was impossible to keep track—but I nodded anyway.

  “Well, I was supposed to go with him, but he got Yankees tickets so he's going to the game instead.”

  I should mention that the event was being thrown by Beautiful People Against Bush, one of the tongue-in-cheek-yet-totally-serious political action committees that have popped up around town now that bashing Republicans has become fashionable. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that my 18-to-24 demo is getting involved in the upcoming election, but too many of these events seem to be less about the Democratic Party and more about the party party. I mean, swilling “blue state” martinis (21⁄2 oz. vodka, 1⁄4 oz. blue curaçao) isn't exactly comparable to standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square. And knowing what you know about me and social events in general, you can see why I was reluctant to go.

  “Come on, J! Let's go! It's free! It's for democracy!”

  Then she broke into song.

  “Well I'm proud to be an American . . .”

  “Okay! I'll go if you stop singing!”

  Her voice is a violation of the Geneva Convention, I swear.

  And so, while Dexy effortlessly assumed the guise of a young urban politically active hipster (low-rise Rock & Republic jeans, THE ONLY BUSH I TRUST IS MY OWN tank top), I agonized over my inability to so mindlessly do the same. There's always so much pressure to have the right look in this city, especially in the downtown cobblestone territories, and I never feel like I get it right. After more time than I'd like to admit, I borrowed silver kitten-heeled flip-flops from Dexy to go with a cutoff denim miniskirt and the Jacksons' Victory Tour '84 T-shirt that I've had since high school, which I thought could be interpreted as a political message, only one that wasn't so in-your-face obvious.

  As we stepped into the elevator, we had a bipartisan clash with Mini Dub.

  “What are you ladies doing tonight?”

  “Meeting Democratic hotties!” Dexy chirped.

  “Be careful,” Mini Dub warned, with a smirk and a twitch of his eyebrow ring. “It's no coincidence that the Democratic symbol is the jackass.”

  And then the doors shut, leaving his snickering visage behind. This was a good thing because the only comeback that had popped into my head was, “Well, uh, you're the jackass!” which really wasn't very good. I hated getting faced like that, especially by a fascist.

  Dexy crooned. “Forbidden love . . .”

  “Oh please,” I said, wincing. “There's a better chance of me hooking up with Saddam himself.”

  “You won't have to!” she gushed, wrapping her arms around me. “There are a ton of hottie liberals! Enough to get your mind off The Gay Cowboy!”

  We had recently started referring to Marcus as The Gay Cowboy. Humor, Dexy assures me, is a helpful way to get over someone. That, and having sex with someone else. This was her mandate for tonight. One of us would surely fulfill our duty, but I doubted it would be me.

  The Beautiful People Against Bush party was held at Moonshine, an upscale lounge designed to look like an old-fashioned speakeasy, complete with lack of signage marking the entrance. The only indication that a hipster haven was on the other side of the nondescript wooden doors was the wall of bouncers keeping the desperately underdressed on the wrong side of the velvet ropes. It's in the meatpacking district, which is a misnomer now that boozing has replaced butchering as its industry of choice. (Insert meat/meet market joke here.) Moonshine is the type of place that I've read about on Page Six, the type of place frequented by the staff of True, the type of place that normally wouldn't let the likes of me squeak past the bouncers. But tonight I had the golden $250 ticket. And quite honestly, I'm not sure how I felt about that.

  But democracy is alive and well, as long as there's an open bar. The place was packed with young, artfully dressed-down creative types who were drinking heavily and talking loudly over the music.

  “What did I tell you? Hotties!” Dexy's pupils dilated with what I've come to know as her I'm-gonna-get-laid look. “Let's circulate!”

  And then she crashed her way through the crowd, too quickly and expertly for me to keep up. But it was okay because it wasn't long before I found more interesting company. The DJ was spinning REM's “It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” when I heard a male voice over my shoulder ask, “Have you ever noticed how people pretend to know all the words to this song?”

  On cue, the crowd shouted, “LEONARD BERNSTEIN!” then quieted down to a murmur for the tongue twistier lyrics.

  I turned around to confirm that the person who had made this astute observation was a very familiar Democratic hottie in a form-fitting I LIKED BUSH BETTER WHEN HE WAS A SMACKHEAD T-shirt.

  “If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were hitting on me!” I said, laughing.

  “It's a good thing that you know better now,” Paul Parlipiano replied.

  “So where's your boyfriend?” I asked.

  Paul's face actually brightened when he said, “We broke up.”

  “Oh! I'm so sorry!”

  “I'm not,” he said, grinning. “We had different priorities. He wanted to go clubbing. I wanted to overthrow a corrupt administration.”

  “Oh.”

  “He accused me of being more devoted to the DNC than I was to him. And you know what?” he asked, pausing to sip his martini. “He was right!”

  If someone had told me four years ago that I would be tipping back martinis at a Democratic fund-raiser in a tragically hip Manhattan zip code with the out-and-proud Paul Parlipiano, my high school crush-to-end-all-crushes, gay man of my dreams and obsessive object of horniness, I would have bent over to launch those winged space monkeys out of my butt.

  Elvis Costello wailed, asking what was so funny about peace, love, and understanding.

  I ask myself: Is all hope lost? / Is there only pain and hatred and misery?

  “You probably don't know this,” he said. “But you really turned my head around.”

  “Really? How?” I couldn't imagine how I'd possibly influenced him.

  “Remember when you came to that PACO meeting, before you got into Columbia?”

  Remember? How could I forget? I wasn't interested in becoming one of the People Against Conformity and Oppression. I only went because I had this sick fantasy about becoming the hag to Paul's fag. I lasted about five minutes before I pissed everyone off by pointing out that by protesting everything, they accomplished nothing. Paul saw the same events in a different light.

  “You made a solid point about PACO, about how we had no focus. We scattered our energies on too many causes. You helped me realize that voting is the most effective form of protest. We have to focus on elections and getting leaders in office who can help us with the causes that are so important to making the world a better place.”

  “You know,” I said, feeling brave, “you had a significant effect on me, too. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have applied to Columbia. I wouldn't be here right now.”

  He clasped his hands together and brought them up to his lips. “It's interesting, isn't it?”

  “What is?” I asked.

  “We hardly know each other, and yet have made a big difference in each other's lives.”

  “It's kind of cool,” I replied.

  “The power to change is very cool,” he said.

  And we both drank to that.

  “You inspired my stepsister Taryn, too,” he said. “Your high school editorials made her want to be the writer she's become.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “She's a writer?”

  “You haven't read her political blog?”

  “Uh . .
. ,” I stammered. “I'm not really into blogs . . .”

  “You haven't heard of Punkwonker?”

  I shrugged apologetically.

  “It gets 250,000 hits a day! She's even been asked to cover the conventions! I'm so proud of her . . .”

  A quarter million hits a day??? Wha—? I'm the one who's supposed to use my way with words to right the world's wrongs. Taryn Baker is fulfilling my destiny. It was such a visceral, vicious irony, that I needed to steady myself against the wall, accidentally ripping down a Fermez la Bush poster in the process. I used to be down on bloggers, thinking that they're just as bad as public masturbators. But there's something to be said for believing in your convictions so completely and confidently that you put them out there for anyone to see. I'm so unconvinced by my own opinions that I can't even bring myself to reread what I write in this notebook.

  Paul didn't notice my near-fainting spell because he was already in the midst of one of his typically long-winded speeches. I couldn't really hear much over NWA's “Fight the Power!,” but I watched his lips and nodded whenever I made out a distinct word or phrase.

  “Activism has replaced apathy . . .”

  (Nod.)

  “Crossroads in American history . . .”

  (Nod.)

  “I want you to meet someone . . .”

  (Nod.)

  And before I knew what was happening I was being led by the hand to be introduced to the woman who, according to Paul, had made the night possible.

  “This,” Paul said proudly, as we approached a petite woman with perfect posture and jet-black hair cropped in expensive face-framing chunks, “is Cinthia Wallace.”

  Well, I'll be goddiggitydamned. They say politics make strange bedfellows, but I couldn't imagine a more unpredictable threesome than Paul Parlipiano, Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, and me.

  She floated toward me on the gossamer wings of her red-white-and-blue cashmere cobweb poncho.

  “Hey there, Jess.” Her smile was more dazzling than the diamond chandelier earrings shooting off fireworks under the lights.

  “Hi, Hy,” I said. “Uh, I mean, Cinthia. Small world.”

  Hy embraced me warmly.

  “But I wouldn't want to paint it,” I added, backing out of her arms.

  “Huh?” said Hy and Paul.

  “Uh,” I replied. “My grandmother Gladdie used to say that. Uh, because the world is small, but it's still pretty big.”

  I can always be counted on to say something corny at the precise moment it's required of me to assume an above-it-all air.

  “My mother says that if the world seems small, it's because your world is small.”

  Hy's mother, it should be noted, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet.

  “Did you know that Hy wrote a book about Pineville High School?” Paul asked. “How wild is that?”

  What? How could Paul not have known?

  Then I remembered: When the news hit, I was only a junior, still gasping from the social stranglehold Pineville High had on me. Paul was about to start at Columbia, about to come out of the closet, about to embark on his new identity as a social activist. He had already put petty Pineville life behind him. Basically, Paul has been so busy acting globally that he's had no time for thinking locally.

  Hy clenched her jaw, not in anger, but as if to prepare herself for whatever I might say in response. Her book, as embarrassing as it was when it first came out, had little effect on my life now. How could I still harbor a grudge all these years later?

  “I know,” I said, finally. “It was pretty good, too.”

  Hy groaned. “No, it wasn't. They should have a law against seventeen-year-olds publishing novels. It was just so . . . uninformed.”

  When she said that, I suddenly realized that Hy had dropped the round-the-way-girl dialect immortalized in her novel and was talking in plain English. I had never had a conversation with this person before.

  “Would you want your thoughts at seventeen read by the world?”

  I shook my head as I recalled the journal from my own seventeenth year, the one I shredded because I didn't want anyone to read it, myself included.

  “I'm lucky Miramax is tanking,” she said. “The film will never get released.”

  “Was it that bad?” I asked.

  Hy held her nose. “A stinker.”

  Bridget will be so disappointed that she'll never get to see it.

  “The irony is,” she said, “now that I have something important to write about, publishers don't want anything to do with me! I pitched a book about inspiring political activism in young adults, and the editors were all, like, ‘Will you pose naked, draped in an American flag for the cover?'” She shrugged in that fatigued way that beautiful women do when they are only wanted for their bodies, not their minds. Bridget shrugs like this a lot.

  “So how's Columbia?” she asked.

  “Awesome,” I replied, like I always do.

  And then she told me that she'd love to talk to me more but as the founder of Beautiful People Against Bush and the organizer of the party, she was expected to mingle. As the collegiate cochair, Paul was obliged to do the same. I was sure they were blowing me off. But then Hy squeezed my hand in an unexpected, sincere way.

  “I really hope our paths cross again, Jess.”

  “You know, they almost crossed once before,” I said.

  “I'm sure they have. But when?”

  “We almost overlapped at True.”

  “Really? I never knew you worked there.”

  I sheepishly looked at the floor. “I never wrote anything.”

  Hy laughed. “Neither did I! Tyra wanted me to do this piece about guido culture that was just so derivative of my badly written book. I turned her down.”

  “Hm,” was all I could say. I thought the idea had been swiped from me. Hy thought the idea had been swiped from her book. Considering the important issues people like Taryn tackle daily, the world is a better place without either version—hers or mine.

  “Anyway, I hope our paths legitimately cross again soon.”

  “Me, too,” said Paul.

  I really believed them. But not enough for me to go out of my way to stay in touch. It's better this way, leaving things open-ended. Because if I actually did e-mail Hy or Paul and they ignored me, I would know that tonight was a fake after all, and I'd rather not think that.

  I left the party not too long after that conversation, after I caught Dexy slipping out the door arm in arm with a masked man in a blue satin cape emblazoned with a huge rhinestone donkey. I'd find out later that he's known in downtown circles as Democracy Man. But at the time, I thought about what Mini Dub had said about the jackass and how he was more right than I would ever admit to his face.

  the thirteenth

  Bastian and I could see the commotion from several blocks away. A crowd was gathered in front of the entrance to the dorm, and several police cars were parked in the street. An ambulance was pulling away slowly, without its siren wailing. As we got closer, I noted that most of the students were touching their faces in some way—hands rubbing foreheads, hands covering eyes, hands clasped over mouths as if in prayer—all gestures of shock, of disbelief. Everyone was speaking in hushed tones.

  “Something bad must have happened,” I said to Bastian.

  “Muy malo,” he said, too concerned for English.

  I approached a Japanese girl in pigtails, platform boots, and a Little Bo Peep pinafore. Her Gothic Lolita ensemble gave a surreal edge to an already strange scene.

  “What's going on?”

  “Some guy was found dead in his room,” she said.

  I must admit that when I first heard this news, I was comforted that it wasn't a terrorist thing. Some guy was found dead, I thought to myself. What a relief.

  “Who was it?” Bastian asked. “Was it a suicide?”

  She shook her head. “I don't know,” she said. “They won't tell us anything.”

  “I heard it was someone on the
fourth floor,” said a chunky, curly-haired guy wearing a business suit and a yarmulke.

  “Oh my God!” I cried, instinctively bringing my own hands to my cheeks. “That's my floor!”

  “J!” I heard a hysterical scream. “Jaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy!”

  I turned toward the voice and saw Dexy barreling through the crowd. Her stricken face looked all wrong with her outfit, a chipper, pastel swing dress.

  “It's Mini Dub!” she gasped. “William!”

  And that, so they tell me, is when I passed out.

  When I came to, I was lying on the sidewalk, the new subject of the crowd's attentions. I caught bits and pieces of their commentary as I tried to open my eyes.

  “Is she his girl?”

  “Dunno . . .”

  “We can check the facebook . . .”

  “Aw, shit. Homeboy's dead but the facebook lives on.”

  “That's fucked up.”

  It was all very fucked up. And as I got the facts, it proved to be even more so.

  He didn't attend the mandatory meeting for all RAs about “racialization” last night, didn't show up for class today or pick up his paycheck. But when he didn't bring brownies to the Columbia College Conservatives Club (Anti) Affirmative Action bake sale this afternoon, his friends got worried. They contacted the head RA, who keyed into William's room and found him on the floor, unresponsive.

  Dead.

  There was no bloody razor blade. No noose made out of a bedsheet. No drugs or any other evidence of “a suicide situation” or “foul play” as the police put it. The preliminary medical examination has ruled his death to be from “natural causes.” According to the Dean of Student Affairs, William last swiped into the dorm on Thursday afternoon after his lab. Dexy and I might have been the last people to see William alive, outside the elevator. So he'd probably been lying there, dead and undiscovered, through the night and into the day. In retrospect, I probably should have noticed the absence of his annoyance.

  But I didn't. Not at all.

  The CCCC wants to have a candlelight memorial on the steps of Low Library. F-Unit is talking about dedicating a study carrel in the engineering library in his honor. Dozens of his facebook “friends” have designed online shrines. Grief counselors have descended on the dorm, and on our floor in particular.