“I know you’re not driving, Alan.”
18
THE SWEET CLOUD OF TOGETHERNESS
DOUG’S DATE with Sejal had, somehow, become a group thing.
“How did this happen?” Doug asked Jay after lunch. “This is unacceptable.”
“You asked Sejal what movie she wanted to see,” said Jay, “really loud. You know you did—you wanted everyone to hear.”
“I did not say it ‘really loud.’ I said it loud ’cause it’s loud out there.”
“Actually”—Jay sniffed—“I remember it being quiet and uncomfortable because you’d just told everyone about that time I threw up horseback riding.”
“What, are you mad about that? It was funny.”
They were nearly to the door of English class when Victor and another guy rumbled by.
“Hey, Victor,” Doug said, quietly. Victor didn’t respond.
“Dude,” said Victor’s friend as they walked away. “Did Poncho Villa just talk to you?”
“C’mon,” Doug said to Jay. They went inside.
“Are you and Victor friends now?” asked Jay.
“I don’t know. I don’t care if we are or not, he could at least say hi when someone says hi to him.”
They took their seats, wrote an in-class essay on The Metamorphosis, then broke into groups to plan their oral reports.
“It’s understandable that maybe Cat would come along,” Doug said to Jay. “They live together. And maybe Sejal wants a chaperone on our first date—I don’t know how Indians do things.”
“I’m Indian,” said Kyle, their third partner. “I don’t need a chaperone on a date.”
Doug rounded on him. “Sejal’s Indian Indian, Kyle. You were born in Scranton.”
“We’re supposed to be talking about ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’”
“Just…fft…go make an outline or something and give us two minutes, okay?”
“Asshole,” Kyle said, and moved to an empty desk.
“What really pisses me off,” Doug told Jay, “is that Adam’s inviting himself along. How did that happen?”
“I think he maybe likes Sophie,” said Jay. “I think he’s going because she’s going.”
“That figures. She’s his type—not as smart as him and at least two years younger. I don’t even remember how she got invited.”
“Sejal invited her. After she invited Ophelia and Ophelia said no. Look, maybe I can distract them all and get you some time alone. Or we can figure out some plan to get you sitting together.”
“How are you going to do that if you’re not there?”
Jay’s forehead tightened. “Cat invited me.”
“Cat can’t invite you on my date! My date! And I thought you didn’t even like hanging out with this crowd.”
Jay shrugged. “I don’t mind so much.”
“Also, I don’t think this is your kind of movie.”
“If you don’t want me there, fine. Just say so.”
“No, no, you can go if you want. What difference does it make now that half the Masque & Dagger club is going.”
“I won’t go.”
“No, go.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Maybe,” said Doug, “maybe you could even help distract everyone else a little. Keep them busy. Create a diversion.”
“Yeah, that went superwell last time,” said Jay.
They both smiled, lips drawn tight to restrain laughter that chuffed out through their noses.
“No needles this time,” said Doug, and they laughed some more.
“I hear laughing,” said Mr. Majors, “so I know you’re not talking about T. S. Eliot.”
The Rocky Horror Picture Show was a cult and cultural institution. It was a decades-old campy sci-fi horror rock-and-roll comedy musical that was almost certain to be playing at midnight, somewhere in the world, on every day of the year. Even Christmas. Especially Christmas.
“I think it’s gonna be really weird,” Doug told Jay in the car. “I’ve heard things. I should have researched it more online.”
“Which house is Cat’s again?” asked Jay.
“On the left, with the basketball hoop.”
Jay pulled into the driveway.
“Should I honk? Or are you going to go up?”
“I should go up, right? I’ll go up.”
Doug went up, his guts slithering. It was exciting having something real to do on a Friday night, and it gave him a feeling of almost limitless expectations. He rang the doorbell. It was like anything could happen. It was like this door could open onto the whole rest of his life. And a moment later the door did open on a round, curly-haired woman in a fuzzy yellow sweater set, like a big baby chick. Like a really obese baby chick.
“You must be Doug,” she said with a reluctant, simpering look, like she was trying to smile her way through a bad cookie. Doug would have taken it personally, but he’d seen Cat’s mother before and was pretty sure she always looked like this.
“Yes,” he said. “Hello.”
“Here for our little Sejal, then.”
“Yes,” Doug answered, then nodded slowly and deliberately as if his head might come off otherwise. This wasn’t really his area, and he wondered if there was something he was supposed to say or do to produce Sejal faster. He was suddenly anxious he might have to solve a puzzle.
“Mom!” a voice shouted from behind the yellow, and Cat appeared, squeezing herself and Sejal through a gap in the doorframe. “I told you not to answer the door!”
“I don’t remember you saying that—”
“It’s a blanket rule. Bye, now. Going to a movie. Won’t drink or smoke or shoot heroin. Promise not to kill Sejal. Good-bye.”
“Hello, Doug,” said Sejal as Cat pulled her past and down the path to the driveway. Doug gave chase. When he reached the car, they were already climbing into the backseat.
“Oh, hey, you can have shotgun, Cat,” said Doug.
“Naw, you go ahead. Back here me and Sejal can talk in our secret girl language.”
“It’s mostly hand signals, no?” said Sejal.
“Hand signals and telepathy,” said Cat. “Hey, Jay.”
“Hi.”
They pulled out into the road and a clammy silence fell over the car.
“Has anyone seen this movie before?” asked Jay.
“No,” said Sejal, “but I have heard about it. And I like Tim Curry.”
“Is that, like…a spicy dish?”
Sejal laughed. “It is a spicy man. An actor.”
Now Doug was jealous of Tim Curry. He didn’t even know who that was.
“Ophelia’s told me about it,” said Cat. “And I think Abby has been. People shout stuff at the screen, throw food…I put the music on my player—can we listen to it in the car?”
“Yeah,” said Jay. “Pass it up here.”
“Can that program you wrote really clean up my music files?”
“Only if you’re running Linux. You’re not running Linux, are you?”
“No,” said Cat, “but I totally want to. Open-source everything. You wouldn’t be willing to set it up for me, would you? I’ll buy pizza, it’ll be like a really lame party.”
Jay laughed. “Sure.”
The music played, and Doug twisted around to look at Sejal, gave her an eye-rolling smile. “Finally, someone will use one of Jay’s little programs.”
“Lots of people use my programs,” Jay said faintly. “My vlog widget’s been downloaded twelve hundred times.”
“Vlog widget,” said Cat.
“Vlogwidget,” Sejal answered.
“If I ever start a band,” Cat said, “I’m naming it Vlogwidget.”
They pulled into the theater parking lot, where Abby met them dressed like a syphilitic French maid.
“Oh my god,” said Cat as they spilled out of the car. “Look at you.”
“Yep,” said Abby. “Look at me! Get a good long look, children. You have my permission
.”
“Yeah, well…I don’t think it would matter if we didn’t,” said Doug. “You don’t dress like that to blend in.”
Abby smirked. “You guys are such virgins.”
All the supposed virgins shared confused looks as Abby led them up to the ticket line, which contained a second and third French maid, a bald-capped hunchback, a man in fishnets and a pleather bustier, another wearing a nude body stocking with muscles drawn in puff paint, and two long-legged girls in glitter-gold Rockettes outfits. Lots of hennaed hair. Also about a dozen other teens and twentysomethings who looked as unremarkable as anyone.
“Abby!” said the boy in the body stocking. They hugged like it had been ages, like the wall had finally come down between France and Nudistan.
“He’s fake naked,” whispered Jay.
“Fayked,” said Doug. Sejal tittered.
“Are these virgins with you?” the fayked boy asked Abby.
“Why do people keep saying that?” whispered Jay.
“What makes you think we’re virgins?” asked Cat.
“Oh, you just have that look about you. Don’t worry about it. I’ll personally see to it that you all lose your virginity tonight.”
A rip-cord laugh buzzed Abby’s lips, while the fayked boy air-fucked their personal space. With each pelvic thrust he chanted, “Group sex, group sex,” until everyone but Abby felt the need to take a step backward. Abby feather-dusted his crotch.
It turned out the only virginity the Rocky Horror regulars were concerned with was the kind you lost simply by watching the film in a theater, preferably with a live cast. And there was a live cast here, dressed in the same peculiar ways as the line waiters outside.
“They act out the movie while it plays on-screen,” said Abby as Doug and the rest took their seats. “They’re good. I’m second understudy for Magenta, which pretty much means I never get to do a show.”
“And you are understudy for the boy there in his underwear?” Sejal asked Fayked.
“No. Why?”
Their row went Fayked, Abby, Jay, Cat, Sejal, Doug. Jay was supposed to sit on the other side of Sejal to cut her off from the others, but when the time came, he failed to stake his claim. Then Adam and Sophie arrived and sat in the next row. Adam turned around.
“Pretty crazy, huh?” he said to no one but Sejal.
“It’s about what I expected,” she said.
“Really?”
A toilet paper roll sailed over their heads.
“Hey! Hey!” one of the cast scolded. “No premature ejaculations!”
Doug leaned into Sejal’s armrest. “So…do they do this in India?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “There are a billion people there, so I think the safe answer is yes.”
“Maybe after this is over, you and I can—”
“Oh!” said Sejal. “Ophelia made it!”
Ophelia was swishing down the aisle like it was a red carpet, with another wisp of a girl closely following.
“I’m here!” Ophelia sang with a flourish. “Start the show!”
“I thought you had a date with a waiter,” said Abby, looking suspiciously at Ophelia’s companion.
“Make room next to the birthday girl!” said Ophelia, in what was clearly some kind of coded reference to Sejal. Doug scowled but moved two seats down, and was reassured when Sejal moved down as well. Now she had Ophelia on her right, and the new girl between Ophelia and Cat. Cat tried to introduce herself but was met with stony silence.
“All right, you lucky bastards!” shouted a cast member. She looked out of place next to the decadently costumed actors around her. If anything, she was dressed for tennis. “You’re about to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Do you feel lucky?”
The audience shouted, “YOU’RE LUCKY, HE’S LUCKY, I’M LUCKY, THE BANNISTER’S LUCKY!”
“Jesus,” muttered Doug. “What the hell was that?”
“I can see from the frightened and bewildered faces out there that we have some virgins here tonight!” said the girl. “Virgins stand up!”
Doug hadn’t planned to volunteer any information, but Ophelia took to loudly outing all the first timers in their group, so when Sejal stood, Doug did, too. Two cast members stalked the center aisle and examined the crowd like they were selecting a lobster.
“Ooh, you’re cute,” said a top-hatted girl to Adam as she took his hand. “You’re coming with me.”
A boy wearing nothing but gold hot pants motioned to Sejal. “I like the looks of you, honey. Come down here.”
“You don’t have to,” said Doug to Sejal, but she was already leaving.
Adam and Sejal were made to stand side by side and face the audience. They were loudly married by a tall boy who wore a nun’s habit over his garter belt and corset. The recitation was much like a regular wedding service but with a greater emphasis on ass play than Doug thought was customary.
“Now then,” the nun boy purred, “do you promise to love, bone her, and fellate—whoops! I mean love, honor, and obey, as long as you both shall live?”
Sejal and Adam each muttered their I dos.
“You may lick the bride!”
Most of the audience showered the theater with rice, which they’d apparently brought from home. Adam and Sejal looked at each other with brittle grins, until Sejal presented her forehead and Adam gave it a kiss.
The rest of the virgins were marked with lipstick V’s and had to give the cast pantomime blow jobs.
When everyone was seated again, the movie started. A faceless red mouth appeared, and the theatergoers shouted, “LET THERE BE LIPS!” The lips sang, the credits played, then the first scene opened on a little church. On the screen, and among the live actors down below, there was another wedding scene. More rice was thrown. The hero of the story, Brad, proposed to the heroine, Janet. Every few seconds the crowd shouted something funny, offensive, or offensively funny. Doug couldn’t make it all out, but the word “asshole” cropped up a lot.
Doug turned to Sejal, tried to smile at her in a wow, what a show, who could doubt that we two are the only sane actors on this crazy stage called life sort of way. But her eyes were fixed on the screen.
There was a lot of singing. Even now Brad and Janet approached a castle in the rain, singing hopefully about their prospects there. The theatergoers waved flashlights, covered their heads with newspapers, and fired squirt guns into the air. Ophelia shrieked, though she arguably should have seen this coming. Her friend hid under her jacket. Sejal giggled, but Doug turned to glare at some kids he didn’t know a couple rows behind him. He was certain they were shooting their pistols directly at the back of his neck. His turned head earned him a squirt right in the glasses.
He whispered, “Asshole.” Exactly at the same time the rest of the theater shouted it, as it turned out.
Sejal turned her head and smiled at him. Had she heard? He tried to look like he was having a good time. In truth, the evening was giving him the same feeling of anxious dread he got whenever he passed a couple of guys tossing a football around, or a Frisbee. You never knew if it would suddenly come your way, and you’d have to show that you couldn’t catch or, should you somehow manage to catch it, throw. This theater was swarming with existential Frisbees.
But then everyone was made to stand and do a dance called the time warp, a dance that was thoughtfully described on-screen, and Doug began to wonder if he might be enjoying himself after all. There was a sweet cloud of togetherness that is perhaps inevitable when a hundred people are pelvic thrusting at the same time.
“They should do this at the United Nations,” Doug shouted to Sejal. “World peace!” And she laughed and nodded, because in that moment she knew exactly what he was talking about.
The drag queen mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter joined the scene, a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania.
“Is that Tim Curry?” Sejal whispered to Ophelia. Then, to Doug, “That’s Tim Curry!”
Tim Curry looked un
comfortably like Doug’s rabbi, but in heels and lingerie. Like Rabbi Bartash was the new Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. Doug wanted to say this out loud, but it was a comic book joke, so Jay would probably be the only one to get it. Maybe Adam. Doug’s blood rose when he thought of Adam. Now that he was fake married to Sejal he better not get any ideas.
By the time Doug took notice of the movie again the location had changed. Brad and Janet were in white bathrobes. Tim Curry was wearing a green smock and pearls.
“I think my mom has that dress,” said Doug. Sejal stifled a laugh. “I think my mom and Marge Simpson and Tim Curry all shop at the same store.”
Now Sejal really laughed, and Ophelia and Cat, too. A boy behind them shushed.
“God, look at that tux with all the turquoise,” Doug said, a little louder. “I’m totally wearing that to prom.”
This last comment was somewhat drowned out by the snapping of a dozen rubber gloves all around them, but Sejal heard it. Ophelia leaned in and asked Sejal to repeat it, and after she did Ophelia passed it down the row.
On the screen Dr. Frank-N-Furter revealed his creation, an artificial man in a tank. He ordered switches to be thrown and cranks to be turned, and called down a red metal apparatus from the ceiling, hung with multicolored nozzles. The doctor tapped each, and they ran with a rainbow of liquids.
“It’s like he’s milking a gay cow,” said Doug.
Everyone laughed. A boy behind them, maybe the same one, shushed him again. Another said, “If you’re not going to say the real lines, shut up.”
Abby turned and whispered, “There’s no right or wrong thing to say. You shut up.”
A tense silence followed, or what passed for a tense silence in an auditorium full of people shouting, “SLUT.”
In the movie, the artificial man was revealed to be a muscular golden boy under his bandages. Dr. Frank-N-Furter swooned. The boys behind Doug weren’t shouting lines with the theater crowd anymore. They were reading from an entirely different script.
“If he doesn’t know the talk back, he should be quiet and learn,” said one of them.
“He should stick to chess club,” said another. “He should stay home and play on his computer.”