have the power to cancel my entire program for another year, if they want to, and substitute their own. They could sign me up for Home Ec and World of Fashion, if they wanted to. The law says they can do it. But no law says they can make me pass what they pick."
That brought it home to me—the distance he had gone, I mean. How could that old clunker of a car have come to mean so much to him so damned fast ? In the following days that question kept coming at me in different ways, the way I've always imagined a fresh grief would. When Arnie told Michael and Regina he meant to have it, he sure hadn't been kidding. He had gone right to that place where their expectations for him lived the most strongly, and he had done it with a ruthless expediency that surprised me. I'm not sure that lesser tactics would have worked against Regina, but that Arnie had actually been able to do it surprised me. In fact, it surprised the shit out of me. What it boiled down to was if Arnie spent his senior year in VT, college went out the window. And to Michael and Regina, that was an impossibility.
"So they just… gave up?" It was close to punch-in time, but I couldn't let this go until I knew everything.
"Not just like that, no. I told them I'd find garage space for it and that I wouldn't try to have it inspected or registered until I had their approval."
"Do you think you're going to get that"?"
He flashed me a grim smile that was somehow both confident and scary. It was the smile of a bulldozer operator lowering the blade of a D-9 Cat in front of a particularly difficult stump.
"I'll get it," he said. "When I'm ready, I'll get it."
And you know what? I believed he would.
4 ARNIE GETS MARRIED
I remember the day
When I chose her over all those other
junkers,
Thought I could tell
Under the coat of rust she was gold,
No clunker…
— The Beach Boys
We could have had two hours of overtime that Friday evening, but we declined it. We picked up our checks in the office and drove down to the Libertyville branch of Pittsburgh Savings and Loan and cashed them. I dumped most of mine into my savings account, put fifty into my checking account (just having one of those made me feel disquietingly adult—the feeling, I suppose, wears off), and held onto twenty in cash.
Arnie drew all of his in cash.
"Here," he said, holding out a ten-spot
"No," I said. "You hang onto it, man. You'll need penny of it before you're through with that clunk."
"Take it," he said. "I pay my debts, Dennis."
"Keep it. Really."
"Take it." He held the money out inexorably.
I took it. But I made him take out the dollar he had coming back. He didn't want to do that.
Driving across town to LeBay's tract house, Arnie got more jittery, playing the radio too loud, beating boogie riffs first on his thighs and then on the dashboard. Foreigner came on, singing "Dirty White Boy."
"Story of my life, Arnie my man," I said, and he laughed too loud and too long.
He was acting like a man waiting for his wife to have a baby. At last I guessed he was scared LeBay had sold the car out from under him.
"Arnie," I said, "stay cool. It'll be there."
"I'm cool, I'm cool," he said, and offered me a large, glowing, false smile. His complexion that day was the worst I ever saw it, and I wondered (not for the first time, or the last) what it must be like to be Arnie Cunningham, trapped behind that oozing face from second to second and minute to minute and…
"Well, just stop sweating. You act like you're going to make lemonade in your pants before we get there."
"I'm not," he said, and beat another quick, nervous riff on the dashboard just to show me how nervous he wasn't. "Dirty White Boy" by Foreigner gave way to "Jukebox Heroes" by Foreigner. It was Friday afternoon, and the Block Party Weekend had started on FM-104. When I look back on that year, my senior year, it seems to me that I could measure it out in blocks of rock… and an escalating, dreamlike sense of terror.
"What
That brought it home to me—the distance he had gone, I mean. How could that old clunker of a car have come to mean so much to him so damned fast ? In the following days that question kept coming at me in different ways, the way I've always imagined a fresh grief would. When Arnie told Michael and Regina he meant to have it, he sure hadn't been kidding. He had gone right to that place where their expectations for him lived the most strongly, and he had done it with a ruthless expediency that surprised me. I'm not sure that lesser tactics would have worked against Regina, but that Arnie had actually been able to do it surprised me. In fact, it surprised the shit out of me. What it boiled down to was if Arnie spent his senior year in VT, college went out the window. And to Michael and Regina, that was an impossibility.
"So they just… gave up?" It was close to punch-in time, but I couldn't let this go until I knew everything.
"Not just like that, no. I told them I'd find garage space for it and that I wouldn't try to have it inspected or registered until I had their approval."
"Do you think you're going to get that"?"
He flashed me a grim smile that was somehow both confident and scary. It was the smile of a bulldozer operator lowering the blade of a D-9 Cat in front of a particularly difficult stump.
"I'll get it," he said. "When I'm ready, I'll get it."
And you know what? I believed he would.
4 ARNIE GETS MARRIED
I remember the day
When I chose her over all those other
junkers,
Thought I could tell
Under the coat of rust she was gold,
No clunker…
— The Beach Boys
We could have had two hours of overtime that Friday evening, but we declined it. We picked up our checks in the office and drove down to the Libertyville branch of Pittsburgh Savings and Loan and cashed them. I dumped most of mine into my savings account, put fifty into my checking account (just having one of those made me feel disquietingly adult—the feeling, I suppose, wears off), and held onto twenty in cash.
Arnie drew all of his in cash.
"Here," he said, holding out a ten-spot
"No," I said. "You hang onto it, man. You'll need penny of it before you're through with that clunk."
"Take it," he said. "I pay my debts, Dennis."
"Keep it. Really."
"Take it." He held the money out inexorably.
I took it. But I made him take out the dollar he had coming back. He didn't want to do that.
Driving across town to LeBay's tract house, Arnie got more jittery, playing the radio too loud, beating boogie riffs first on his thighs and then on the dashboard. Foreigner came on, singing "Dirty White Boy."
"Story of my life, Arnie my man," I said, and he laughed too loud and too long.
He was acting like a man waiting for his wife to have a baby. At last I guessed he was scared LeBay had sold the car out from under him.
"Arnie," I said, "stay cool. It'll be there."
"I'm cool, I'm cool," he said, and offered me a large, glowing, false smile. His complexion that day was the worst I ever saw it, and I wondered (not for the first time, or the last) what it must be like to be Arnie Cunningham, trapped behind that oozing face from second to second and minute to minute and…
"Well, just stop sweating. You act like you're going to make lemonade in your pants before we get there."
"I'm not," he said, and beat another quick, nervous riff on the dashboard just to show me how nervous he wasn't. "Dirty White Boy" by Foreigner gave way to "Jukebox Heroes" by Foreigner. It was Friday afternoon, and the Block Party Weekend had started on FM-104. When I look back on that year, my senior year, it seems to me that I could measure it out in blocks of rock… and an escalating, dreamlike sense of terror.
"What
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