After School Special
The Falls Coffee Shop was a little out of the way and a little odd. There were photos of Three Sisters Falls in Thailand, Angel Falls in Venezuela, James Bruce Falls in Canada, Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, Iguazu Falls in Argentina, and many others. The back wall was a fair painting of Niagara. At its bottom and to the side were tiny figures in yellow rain slickers watching from observation platforms and sightseeing boats. Regular customers savoring lattes while studying the painting were rewarded with special discoveries: hidden and near-invisible daredevil figures — extreme devotees of extreme sports, wannabe Evel Knievels and Ripley Record Breakers and people who plain old wanted to die by their own hand, but spectacularly. There were four tightrope walkers, at least three barrels (presumably bearing people) tumbling in the foam, a kayaker trying frantically to row against the current and away from the edge, a hang-glider weaving through the mist, two or three divers, and one jumper encased in a transparent capsule like a casket of glass. Next to the mural was a fireplace. During the wintertime there could be no better place and better activity, Liza swore, sipping hot chocolate and warming numb toes while in search of the daring or the dashed. Even better, because of its location in the back of a mostly evacuated mini-shopping strip, The Falls was always close to empty — the perfect rendezvous point for students joined in something, Liza put it as “beyond mere cliquishness.” Their beyond was a study group for Mr. DeGref’s “20th Century History Through Film.”
Liza produced a silver hip flask from inside her coat and poured what it held into her coffee. Bridey sniffed sharp scotch on the steam. Liza offered it to Travis and Madeline. Both waved her away. They’d both gotten hot chocolate, “Already fortified.” Neither offered to explain with what. Liza turned to Bridey.
“You?”
Bridey shook her head. Liza shrugged and went out for a smoke. Madeline dug in her bag and produced a notebook. “I found the most perfect DeGref quote. Listen to this. From some guy named Gaston Bachelard: ‘Sometimes, a lovingly fashioned casket has interior perspectives that change constantly as a result of daydream. We open it and discover that it is a dwelling place, that a house is hidden in it.’ Isn’t that the fucking best?!” Short and muscular, Madeline walked with a loping low center of gravity that maybe grew out of her roller derby on the weekends. That and tattoos made Bridey think of Popeye. Travis was the most feminine and vulnerable of the three. Bridey didn’t sense gayness as much as a pre-sexual or asexual airiness. He reminded Bridey of their old cat Gandhi, who responded to the roughest handling with a flaccid, sweet indifference. She saw the same unflappable composure in Travis when Liza and sometimes Madeline tousled his hair, hung on his narrow shoulders or threatened to pick him up and flip him like a battered rag doll leaking saw dust. Yet he had no fear of the bigger, louder Rajeed. Bridey saw knotted muscles in Travis’s arms, and his hands were callused and big.
Liza came back smelling like weed. She gave the mural a “where did this come from?” stare. “It’s like Find Waldo for manic depressives.”
Travis drawled, “I think the correct term is now ‘bi-polar?’”
Bridey warmed her hands against the fire and sank into a leather chair. “I don’t get why nobody comes here.”
Bridey got a cup of hot chocolate, paid and returned to Liza, Madeline and Travis. The warmth and spit of the fire worked its druggy charm. All three looked asleep, but Madeline sat up and gestured to share some of her hot chocolate with “special vitamins” into Bridey’s cup. Bridey nodded yes with relief.
In front of the fireplace was a low coffee table topped with glass. Madeline put out several piles of typed pages — short essays of two or three pages each. Madeline said, “I wanted to know your opinion. You don’t have to read them now if you’re not into it. And don’t worry about having to write a certain way. Mr. DeGref wants you to find your own voice.”
“I’d like to find that, too.” Bridey leafed through the essays. Some of the titles were: “The Analysis of Ridicule: The Strange Case of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and This Island Earth.”
“Id-Id-Id-Id-Id! Walter Pidgeon’s Secret Embrace of Gay Hollywood as Invisible Monster in Forbidden Planet.”
“Secret Codes and Fatal Documents: The Play of Writing in Forbidden Planet, Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Manhunt, Bataan and Ministry of Fear.”
“Fritz Lang’s Architecture and the ‘Characteristic Arch’ of the Krell: A Study in Fate as Form in Forbidden Planet and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.”
“6 Suicides: 50’s Science Fiction, 40’s War and Noir and 30’s Supernatural Weimar Mise en Scene.”
The papers shook in her hands. Bridey was sweating and swooned over the words. The fireplace ate the air and she almost tumbled into the table. It was only a moment, but she saw the words as things, little cavorting machines tooled in metal, plastic, leather and glass. She’d known this kind of hallucination before, during or after one or another kind of high, a not disagreeable companion to her stress-induced synesthetic spells until it got too real.
Bridey looked from one to the other. Liza took a swig of her flask and shrugged. “This is the world of DeGref.”
Madeline said, “He is too cute, in a beat-up, Christopher Lloyd kind of way.”
Liza said, “A short Christopher Lloyd.”
Travis said, “A little taller John Hurt.”
Bridey said, “Who’s he?”
Madeline said, “The first burst-chest victim in the first Alien film.”
All of them found the bits and pieces of their conversation hilarious and mysterious. Bridey decided they were all variously high on something and wanted some more, maybe just a taste more of whatever it was, so she could feel just a little stupid without doing anything stupid. She said, “Can I have another hit of your hot chocolate?” Travis gave her his cup to finish.
He said, “The others, Rasheed and Donna and all the rest, they hate books, they hate ideas. They hate art. And they hate Mr. DeGref. But they’ll all get accepted to good schools. Because they’re Harmon. And their fathers were Harmon. And probably their grandfathers. Then there’s us. We actually like writing. Literature. Ideas. We’re all here on scholarships. We’re not supposed to be here. We don’t have any money. We have to fight to get into a good school.”
Travis said, “I’m applying to Columbia. Or Brown. Or Harvard. On a scholarship.”
Bridey said, “I’m on a scholarship, too.”
Madeline said, “We know. We’ve got a mole in the office. We thought — maybe this is naïve — we thought, maybe we should all watch out for each other. Have each other’s backs.”
Liza said, “Where have you applied?”
“Nowhere.”
The three traded looks. Travis said, “It’s time. Past time.”
“I don’t want to go to college. I want to write. Just write.”
Liza said, “You’ve got to have connections to get published. A good school and writing program are where you meet all those future writers and editors and anthologists. You can’t just ‘just write’!”
Bridey just stared at her. Liza groaned. She stepped around Bridey to the couch and emptied most of a pint bottle of Famous Grouse scotch into her flask. She said to no one in particular, “There’s a liquor store around the corner.” She took a sip and then got up again. She stood behind Bridey and massaged her neck. Her fingers were strong. Liza breathed into Bridey’s ear. “Oh yeah. You’re the one that doesn’t like to be touched.” An electric charge coursed up and down Bridey’s spine. She would have fallen on her face if she hadn’t been sitting. Liza finally went back to the leather couch and sat on the arm, blowing Travis’s hair. He swatted her away.
Liza slid back into Travis’s lap and pulled him down to her to kiss. Travis struggled free and dumped her on the floor where she thrashed with hooting laughter. The barista was busy reading on a stool. There was no one else in the place to complain. After a while she recovered and sat back on the couch with a sober look at Bridey.
Bridey closed her eyes and sat back to let the high carry her up and over everything. Studying the waterfall and the many figures dotting its spray, she felt the serenity of standing before a Brueghel painting, “Hunters in the Snow” or “Children’s Games.” Even the community of suicides and/or Guinness World Book record-breakers felt reassuring — she and Travis and Madeline were high on a tiny bit of ecstasy. Liza’s scotch and grass were remembered with a passing nostalgia that quickly soured into regret over wasted time and wasted friendships. Her eyes and head got heavy. She dozed. When she snapped awake it was dark outside and The Falls was closing. They dressed and headed back into the snow. It was falling again in fat dark flakes, trees and traffic lights swaying to sorrowful blurs in the darkening night. Bridey went in the opposite direction from the others. She watched them fade into the haze of falling snow, so like the mists of Niagara bathing the watchers and the jumpers.