By Amber Dermont
After busting the Andro Boys for scoring an ounce off of Downtown Homeless Pete, we retreated to the roof of the Octagon to smoke the evidence. Sammy Chatterjee — Business and Economics — packed the bowl while Regina Racela — Video and Film Production — described how the buffest offender had offered her a bribe: “Promised me a sit-down with Ridley Scott. Claimed his mother was a studio head. Little juicer didn’t realize I’d read his file. His parents own a Day Spa in Phoenix.” I smiled and seized the pipe, inhaling the loamy smoke, proud of Video and Film Production’s superior research and recon skills. In my four summers at SURPASS, I’d never worked with a faculty this talented, this committed to learning imperatives, this willing to oversee conflict resolutions and this devoted to illicit consumption. A superior crew of educators, we were all known by what we taught. They called me Gender Studies.
The drug sting and anticipated expulsions were unusual for SURPASS but necessary for us to maintain command over our unruly charges. As faculty, we were advised by the administration to mostly turn a blind eye to controlled substances and promiscuity. SURPASS was, after all, an accelerated Pre-College Edu-tainment Program dedicated to introducing adolescents to the challenges and choices of adulthood. Parents sporked over $12,000 (plus supplementary charges for snacks and excursions) for their teenaged wastelands to enjoy six weeks worth of college-level seminars, world-class international social networking, superior managed-fun, and almost limitless freedom. This was high-concept experimental pedagogy. We weren’t running a summer camp.
The job paid well, but the pressures of being on-call and in charge of over two hundred over-privileged evildoers with superior test scores and inferior self-control often necessitated external motivation. Earlier in the day, Brad King — Philosophy and Ethics — had warned us that our own supply of marijuana, which Philosophy and Ethics himself had secured from Uptown Homeless Pete, was dwindling into seeds and stones. “If we want to blaze tonight, we’ll need a human sacrifice. Take out those hippie midgets hopped up on growth hormone. Pot will stunt them silly.”
Every July SURPASS rented out the entire New England campus of this impressive Top Ten Liberal Arts College. The school’s octagon tower housed our classrooms and overlooked the muddy construction site of a new war memorial. A Famous Alum had recently donated the marble and bronze in honor of his first-born who’d had his legs, arms, and torso blown off in Fallujah during a breakfast run. While delivering bagels to a hungry colonel, the Famous Son drove a bulletproof-less jeep into a hailstorm of rocket-fire. The unfinished monument resembled a giant poppy flower with a series of sundials and obelisks resting on an elevated starburst. As he smoked, Alex Pratt — Revolution and Anarchy — saluted our fallen heroes.
We took turns inhaling deeply. Philosophy and Ethics waxed on about the strong mossy overtones and caramel top notes of what he identified as Nicaraguan Zero-Zero Coastal Herb. “We might have to switch our supply chain from Uptown to Downtown Pete.” We groused and whined about our evening dorm duty, quieting as we heard The Director scale the rickety wrought iron fire escape. As he landed on the trembling tarpaper roof, he announced, “The Andro Boys aren’t going home.”
“But we have evidence,” Video and Film Production held up the baggie of pot. “One of my students took a Super 8 of the bust.”
“I watched the rough footage. Nice close ups.” The Director raised a silver flask and tipped it back to his lips. He blotted the sides of his mouth and said, “The ringleader’s step-mother is a major campaign contributor. Our power to expel has been suspended.”
SURPASS began as the brainchild and cash cow of Gerry Progress, a local state assemblyman who was currently gearing up for a run at the governor’s mansion. Boss-wise, Progress prided himself on his hands-off administrative approach. At the beginning of every session, Progress gave the same speech to the faculty before escaping to his family’s Nantucket compound. Progress liked to emphasize SURPASS’s commitment to innovation: “You are here as progressive educators, subversive role models. I want you to tear down the boundaries between students and teachers. Just don’t fuck any of the kids, okay?”
Business and Economics unbuttoned the bulky pocket of his cargo shorts, pulled out his own metal and leather flask, took a tug and said, “I understand the numbers game during an election year, but word has already spread that these kids are going home. If we grant them a Mulligan, how will the rest of the camp react?”
“This isn’t a camp. It’s an accelerated Pre-College Edu-tainment Program.” I unscrewed the top of my coffee Thermos and took a belt of tequila. “We need to have a community meeting. We must address our concerns and allow the Andro Boys the opportunity to apologize. If we spin it like we’re benevolent dictators, the cherubs won’t realize we’ve been castrated.”
“Gender Studies has a point.” The Director briefly massaged my shoulders before pulling his bony fingers away.
Though we’d flirted these past four summers, The Director and I had only recently begun sneaking and sexing around. His overcompensating masculinity — his love of rugby, his constant desire to go bouldering, his fascination with Robert Mitchum — made me suspicious of his sexuality, but he trimmed my split-ends and did my laundry so his possible love of cock failed to hinder our romance. Teaching Second Wave Feminism, Queer Theory and the performative nature of gender made me more open to the fluidity of human sexuality.
Revolution and Anarchy suggested we lodge a formal complaint against Progress’s fundraising practices and donate a percentage of our salaries to the Socialist party’s gubernatorial candidate. No one ever paid attention to Revolution and Anarchy.
The Director asked us to retire to our dorms and put the children to bed. We retreated down the fire escape, our glassy eyes vibrant as stars.
* * *
When The Director came to my suite that night, he looked ashen and contrite. He played with the brushes on my bureau, fixed his wavy brown hair in my mirror then said, “Progress insisted I fire Regina.”
“Video and Film Production?” I asked.
“She’s packing her cameras as we speak.”
According to The Director, it wasn’t enough for the Andro Boys to stay. “The parents wanted blood. They threatened a civil defamation suit.”
“But the boys were buying weed — a lot of weed. In the real world they’d go to jail.”
“Only poor people get paddy-wagon-ed for cannabis.” The Director took a Mason Pearson brush from my bureau and began grooming my long auburn hair.
“If they can fire one of us, they can fire all of us.” I worried about faculty morale, worried about losing my own job. I needed this summer gig so I could afford not to work in the fall. I still had to finish my dissertation: “Chicks with Dicks: A Study of the Influence of Transvestites on American Culture.” I’d completed the chapters on J. Edgar Hoover, RuPaul and Janet Reno but the book was still missing something. I needed to draft and revise a longer section on the phenomenon of gender-swapping that seemed to exist historically within nearly every indigenous population. If there weren’t enough men or women within a tribe, young children were often chosen and raised as the opposite sex. Native Americans called them Berdaches, South Pacific Islanders referred to them as May Mays, the good people of Papua, New Guinea labeled them Landies, the Egyptians had a special half-bird, half camel hieroglyph, while the Aztecs built impressive ziggurats to honor their jaguar skinned cross-dressers. Gender swapping had the ability to heal these often warring cultures, to bring relief and even love.
“Our best bet is to let the kids run wild. We can’t restrain their nouveau riche entitlement.” The Director began pining up my hair into a tight French chignon. “You know with your bone structure, you really could have modeled.”
“Could have?” I asked.
“You still could. I mean. . .”
Before he had a chance to finish his statement, I unpinned my hair and pointed to the door. “It’s been a long day,” I said.
“No cuddles?” The Director asked.
I rolled my eyes and went to sleep.
Part Two
At breakfast the next morning, Business and Economics kept repeating the phrase, “Nutella blowjob.” He’d been doing the rounds in the boy’s dormitory when he heard giggling in the Multi-Purpose room. “I walked in on five naked girls giving Frenchy McFrench-A-Lot and Chi-rish some oral tradition.”
“The international students always score the most tail.” Linda Adler — International Studies — folded a large piece of waffle into her small mouth chewing as she spoke. “What did you do?”
“Followed standard protocols. Told the maidens to get dressed and return to their rooms. Threw throw pillows over the offending penises. Frenchy’s on his way back to Versailles. Chi-rish is either exiled to Beijing or heading off to his summer home in Dublin.”
“What’s Nutella?” Philosophy and Ethics asked.
“It’s a delicious chocolate hazelnut spread,” I said. “Sort of like a classy peanut butter.” I asked if the girls were also going to be removed from the program.
“Probably,” Business and Economics answered. “We’re not kicking them out for the sex, just for breaking curfew. This should make up for the Andro Boys.”
* * *
During that morning’s Gender Studies seminar, I attempted to lead the class in an analysis of Monique Wittig’s abhorrence of the feminine pronoun. My students, all of whom were female, only wanted to discuss the recent slate of scandals.
“Is it true that Business and Economics was running a prostitution ring?” Sally Mantooth chewed her hair as she spoke.
Joy Walker nodded, shaking her double chin, “I heard one of the girls has syphilis.”
Sally agreed, “I know for a fact that two of the girls have breast implants. I’m not naming names but all of the ladies have eating disorders and the bulimic ones spent the night purging Nutella.”
“What’s Nutella?” Syreeta Pritchett turned her doe-eyes at me.
I smiled and said, “I think this is what dumb people call a teachable moment.” I hopped up onto the desk and sat cross-legged. “Why do you imagine it is that women always say disparaging things about other women? Are we our own worst enemies?”
“Look,” Sally said, “sluts give all of us a bad name.”
Vera Fuller, one of the few scholarship students, raised her hand. “If all language is patriarchal then aren’t all women at the mercy of our failed linguistic system?”
I nodded and asked my students if they could think of other negative terms describing females. The girls had fun shouting out words as I wrote the list on the board: whore, bitch, crazy bitch, gold digger, skank, ice princess, tramp, twat, trim, bimbo, hooker, prostitute, snatch, tramp, dyke, diesel dyke, lesbo, lipstick lesbian, rug muncher, spinster, stripper, Barbie, loose, virgin, Lolita, dragon lady, frigid, cocktease, super freak, nasty girl, the other woman, chickenhead, cougar, cum bucket, seductress, boob job, black widow, wench, slit, gash, hole, Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart, Jennifer Aniston, step-monster, JAP, jezebel, Bridezilla, diva, old maid, prima donna, geisha, witch, wench, sucuubus, shrew, Pollyanna, brat, bubble-head, ho, muff, mommy dearest, dominatrix, dumb blonde, bambi, bunny, beaver, doll, ballbuster, nutcracker, thunder thighs, harpy, man-eater.
I added trollop and said, “We’re forgetting the most important one.”
My students looked at one another then shouted out in unison, “Cunt.”
I stood back from the board admiring our litany. “Now,” I said, “let’s brainstorm a list of negative words for men.”
“Bastard,” Raquel, a svelte Long Islander coughed out.
“Well,” I said, “Isn’t that word really still pejorative against the mother. I mean, you only have a bastard child if the father doesn’t marry the mother.”
“What about Pussy?” Vera asked.
“You’re still just really making fun of women,” I argued.
Syreeta whispered, “Cock and prick.”
I pointed out that both terms were still a celebration of the phallus.
Sally Mantooth said, “I think the worst thing you can call a guy is a,” she lowered her voice, “a fag.”
“Right,” I said, “the worst thing you can do is question his masculinity.”
“But most words for male slut are like totally cool and funny.” Raquel rattled off her own list, “Gigolo, player, pimp, Don Juan, man whore, Casanova.”
“Excellent point, Raquel.” I liked my students best when they held forth. “You ladies are totally becoming third-wave feminists.”
Sally said, “I’m not a feminist, but I think if we appropriate the language, if we call one another bitches and hos, it’s like the words lose their power.”
“Well,” I said, “we seem to have come full circle.”
“We have some questions for you.” Vera looked around the room as her classmates nodded for her to continue. “Why weren’t the Andro Boys kicked out? And what happened to their pot?”
I assured Vera that the boys were contrite and that the controlled substances were safely controlled. “We always contact the proper authorities when disposing of any illicit materials.” As I lied, I realized that I hadn’t taken a shower that morning. I could still smell the sticky icky smoke in my hair.
Sally said, “I heard the Revolution and Anarchy class is organizing some sort of civil liberties protest. Maybe we should plan a protest, too.”
“What would you like to demonstrate against?” I asked.
“You’re the teacher,” Sally said. “Why don’t you think of something for us to be angry about?”
* * *
After class, I went to The Director’s office to apologize for being a bitch and to search the infirmary cabinet for stray Percocets. The Director asked if I wouldn’t mind serving on a “Mild Suicide Watch.”
“One of the Nutella Girls is threatening to cut herself. We need to take precautions.”
“Does her file confirm she’s at risk?” Though I took every warning seriously, a number of our students were quick to blackmail.
“Red flags everywhere. History of self-mutilation, shoplifting, pyromania she’s a classic ‘After-School Special.’ Poor kid was a hysterical mess this morning during Revolution and Anarchy. I haven’t been able to reach her parents. The other girls seem fine. I guess oral sex has really lost its stigma.”
“You’ve got to admire their creativity,” I said. “When I was their age, I had no strategy for transforming a blowjob into a yummy snack treat.”
“Where do you come out on the five-to-two girl/boy ratio?”
I gazed down into The Director’s tinsel blue eyes. Though he wore his hair tall to compensate, The Director was a good three inches shorter than me. I said, “I guess, I’m conflicted. As a feminist, I resent having the patriarchy literally shoved down the not-so innocent throats of five of our students. The Marxist in me admires the division of labor, while my horny teenager side thinks Frenchy McFrench-A-Lot is a real hottie. I’m sorry to see him go.”
“It looks like he’s staying.”
It turned out that Frenchy, Chi-rish and all the girls would remain in the program, while Business and Economics had already taken the turnpike home. The Director explained that the girls felt violated — Business and Economics had walked in on an intimate act.
“He followed protocol.” I shook my head.
“Ethics and Philosophy has also been escorted from the premises. He made a joke during his morning class. ‘Nutella: a hundred uses. Now, a hundred and one.’ Apparently someone in his class taped him on their cell phone, posted the clip online and emailed the link to Gerry Progress. It’s too bad because Ethics and Philosophy was supposed to MC tonight’s talent show. Now I’ll have to put on my tuxedo and act like I’m really in charge.”
“The inmates,” I said, “are running the goddamn asylum.”
The Director stretched his arms out and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Where does all your beauty come from?” he asked. “Your mother’s side or your father’s?”
“Seriously,” I shrugged off The Director’s hands. “What crime do these criminals have to commit before we can kick one of them out?”
“Progress told me not to call him unless someone burns down the camp.”
“It’s not a camp,” I protested. “It’s an accelerated Pre-College Edu-tainment Program.”
The Director asked me if I could teach Aristotle or if I knew anything about Aristotle Onassis. “We’re going to need coverage on courses.”
“I thought I was on a ‘Mild Suicide Watch’.”
“That’s right. Take the keys to Ritalin and drive Blowjob to the mall. I’ll give you the corporate credit card. Buy her anything she wants.”
Part Three
As I piloted our mini-van, Blowjob twisted her blue-and-gold dreadlocks and informed me that she didn’t want to visit the mall. “My stylist buys all of my ready-to-wear.” Instead she wanted me to set up a meet and greet with Downtown Homeless Pete. “I hear he’s selling these transcendent mushrooms. I need something to take the edge off. Something to palate-cleanse the bitterness of hazelnut.”
I put Ritalin in reverse. Every year we christened our fleet of mini-vans. My first summer, we named the vehicles after Supreme Court Justices. When I got into a minor fender bender on a field trip to an AIDS hospice, I had the pleasure of telling the Director, “Antonin Scalia got rear-ended.”
This year’s decision to nickname the vans after popular prescription drugs was probably a mistake. The kids loved taking Viagra to the sports fields and Vicodin to the amusement park but they were less interested in riding in Prilosec or Boniva. Nobody liked Lipitor.
Ritalin was the fastest and sportiest van — red with black racing stripes. Blowjob sat up front in the passenger’s seat and pressed her bare feet against the glove box. Her fingers and toes were painted to match her hair—turquoise with gold seahorses decal-ed on each nail.
“Did you know that male seahorses actually get pregnant?” I asked.
“Look, Gender Studies, are you going to cop for me or not?” Blowjob had cushiony lips and large veneered teeth.
“I really don’t think I can buy you psychedelics.” I sounded firm yet reasonable.
“Didn’t the Director tell you that I’m at risk? I mean, I might throw myself from a moving vehicle.” Blowjob bared her horsy teeth at me.
“Maybe you need to go home,” I said.
Blowjob explained that she couldn’t go home. She had no home. Her mother was in the process of getting hitched and moving to Abu Dhabi. “She’s marrying an Emir. My sexy presence might destabilize their dynasty.”
When I asked about her father, she rolled her eyes. “Arms dealer. All I know is he’s somewhere in the sub-Sahara pedaling Kalashnikovs and fucking Berbers.”
Blowjob suffered from extreme parental alienation. Goldilocks with fake dreadlocks. I suspected that she was the Nutella ringleader, her promiscuity a result of having been abandoned by her father and rejected by her mother. I understood her pain only too well but there was almost nothing I could do for her. With her voluminous mane of blue blonde hair she resembled Hélène Cixous’s metaphorical Medusa — a woman burdened by her own powerful sexuality. I needed to see Blowjob smile.
“Let’s brainstorm something positive.” I beamed. “We could go for ice cream or find a place that does those temporary henna tattoos or maybe you’d like to go see a summer blockbuster or take a walk around the lake.”
“I’m lactose intolerant, henna tattoos are like total cultural tourism, I refuse to support Hollywood’s exploitation of women and if I even glimpse water I might be tempted to Virginia Woolf myself.”
Blowjob was no dummy. She couldn’t be purchased for a song or easily entertained. I noticed she had her tongue and eyebrow pierced. Each earlobe held two small gold hoops with plenty of skin left over. Body modification required a parental permission slip but I figured her mom and dad weren’t in any position to offer or deny approval. Blowjob wore tight plastic bangles on either wrist that probably hid a row of self-inflicted scars. If Blowjob really was a cutter then maybe the answer to her pain was more pain.
“How about,” I looked over my shoulder and changed lanes. “We both go and get our ears pierced?”
Blowjob pulled at the stud embedded in her eyebrow. “That might work,” she considered my proposal. “But not at the mall. We need to go to a legit piercing parlor. I know a head shop that uses Aboriginal needles. It’s downtown, right by the sushi bar. Afterwards, we can get maki rolls and numb ourselves with hot sake.”
* * *
I’d never noticed the head shop before. Blowjob and I edged past a dumpster-lined alley and down two sets of stairs until we reached an unmarked door. Blowjob knocked three times. An older white-haired woman with a thick grayish beard answered, gave us the once over and escorted us inside.
Despite its subterranean location, the head shop was immaculate. Hand-blown glass bongs cast red and purple shadows on the white cinderblock walls. A row of cushioned examination tables sat sheathed in wax paper. The sharp sterile scent of rubbing alcohol hurt the air. In the corner, a young man tattooed his own wrist, the buzz of the needle stinging the metal fillings in my mouth.
“What would you like?” The Bearded Lady folded her arms.
I surprised myself by saying that I wanted my nose pierced. “Just a little silver stud.”
The Bearded Lady nodded and turned to Blowjob. “And you?”
“I’m thinking about it.” Blowjob eyed the tattoo artist. “My sister can go first.”
My heart swelled a little to hear Blowjob call me sister. Sometimes, I imagined that I’d chosen to work with children because of my own lost and lonely childhood. A fatherless only child, I’d spent my summers toiling at one job or another desperate to please my suffering mother. To most people, I came off as tough, cold even. Only I knew the depths of my vulnerability. Happily, I played along with Blowjob’s sister lie asking my false sibling if she’d hold my hand during the piercing. Wax paper crinkled beneath me as I stretched out across the hospital bed. The Bearded Lady snapped on plastic gloves before prodding my nose.
“Which side?” she asked.
“The left, I guess.”
“Good choice,” Blowjob stared down into my face. “You know with your cheekbones and skinny bod you could totally model. Maybe not like print or runway but like an artist’s model.”
* * *
The last thing I remembered before blacking out was the warm feeling of blood spreading over my left cheek. Perhaps I tried to sit up too soon or maybe, I was light-headed from not having had lunch. When I came to, I heard loud sirens and found the tattoo artist at my side holding a cold cloth to my forehead.
“Happens all the time,” he said. “I’ll get you some orange juice.”
I took small sips and slowly sat up. The tattoo artist handed me a mirror and promised that the swelling would go down — eventually. “Could take a half hour or a week or three months.” My face didn’t need a nose stud. I knew instantly that I’d remove the piercing later that night, praying that the hole sealed itself. I heard more sirens. Their noise amplifying my own emergency. Looking around the room, I noticed that Blowjob was nowhere to be found. The tattoo artist must have seen the panic in my eyes.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Your sister’s in our private room getting her nipples pierced.”
* * *
The hot sake relieved the throbbing pain in my left nostril. I checked out my stainless steel reflection in Blowjob’s plump metal teapot. My skin appeared red and blistery, clearly allergic to the silver ball impaling me. With seahorses dancing across her fingernails, Blowjob squeezed her right tit and moaned, “It felt amazing. I wish you’d let me get the other one done.”
Despite my dizziness, I’d managed to interrupt nipple-gate. Once I explained to the Bearded Lady that Blowjob was not only under-aged but also not my relative, we were asked to pay for our jewelry and instructed never to return.
While I wrapped a piece of pink ginger around my tongue, Blowjob complained, “I’m all asymmetrical. Might as well kill myself. Can’t I at least have some rice wine?”
I poured myself more sake ignoring Blowjob’s request. “You now have something to look forward to. You have the rest of your life to get your other ta-ta harpooned.”
Part Four
I insisted on walking off the effects of the sake before getting back into Ritalin. Blowjob and I window-shopped the tacky boutiques of Main Street. We ducked into the pharmacy and charged some antiseptic soap and hydrocortisone to the corporate card. On our way back to the van, we strolled by Downtown Homeless Pete. He waved his heroin arm at us, offered up some wholesale hashish and inquired about the terrorism.
“What terrorism?” I asked.
“Up at the college. I heard the Octagon got blitzed.”
* * *
We arrived on campus just as the firemen were rolling up their hoses. The Octagon had lost four of its sides. The charred interior of the building exposed like an open-faced doll’s house. Blowjob and I raced up the hill. A police officer tried to hold us back but I flashed my faculty ID just in time for a stocky firewoman to request I remove Sally Mantooth and Chi-rish from the roof of her lime yellow fire truck. Sally and Chi-rish licked and suctioned each other’s necks as the engine idled. The recent series of teacher firings left me vulnerable. Interfering with their passion might be grounds for my own dismissal. I glanced at Blowjob and asked if she wouldn’t mind intervening.
“No problem,” she said climbing up onto the ladder.
The firewoman stood in front of the wounded War Memorial, the bronze and marble littered with debris, the poppy flower missing its petals. I needed to know if there were any fatalities. The Director was nowhere to be seen. The firewoman examined a small metal box that looked like the detonator switch to some sort of bomb. As she turned the object over, I noticed a decal glinting on one side of the box. The afternoon sunlight caught the familiar shimmering silhouette of a golden seahorse.
The firewoman pointed to Blowjob who was busy flashing her new piercing at Chi-rish. “We were missing one, but is she part of your camp?”
“It’s not a camp,” I said. “It’s a juvenile detention center.”
The firewoman squinted at me and I asked about the adults hoping no one had been hurt.
Several faculty members awaited treatment at the hospital for smoke inhalation. The Director, who’d been in the building when the explosion occurred, was at the police station dictating his statement. Revolution and Anarchy had been arrested.
“Looks like you’re in charge.” The firewoman paused, stared and asked, “Did you ever model high-class swimsuits?”
I assured her that I’d done nothing of the sort.
“We have an old Pirelli calendar hanging up at the station. I could have sworn you were January.” She pointed up at Sally, Chi-rish and Blowjob who were smoking cigarettes on the roof of the fire truck. “Please, get those little pagans off my vehicle.”
* * *
While I struggled over whether or not to drop a dime on Blowjob, I decided the best way to distract the students and keep them far from the scene of the crime was to wrangle all of them into the Auditorium for that evening’s talent show. Standing at the front of the stage, my infected nose stud itching like hell, I passed around a sign-up sheet, hopeful that the children would manage to entertain one another until some executive decision was reached. There was no way the program could continue. I just hoped I’d be paid for the full summer.
“Wait a minute,” Blowjob grabbed the sign-up sheet away from Frenchy McFrench-A-Lot. “Shouldn’t the police be waterboarding all of us? There’s a terrorist in our midst and you want us to tap dance?”
Though I had legitimate suspicions, I also had protective instincts — ones Freud would wrongly label “maternal.” I wondered if Blowjob wanted to get caught. If she’d acted alone or if her terrorism had been sanctioned by Anarchy and Revolution. Maybe the entire class was to blame and maybe there had even been some sort of exchange: Blowjobs for Bombs. But what I couldn’t understand was what it was exactly that these children were protesting. Perhaps their own privilege and freedom.
“I minored in arts therapy,” I projected my voice over the low rumble of adolescent malaise. “Trust me, a little song and hip hop can go a long way toward healing a trauma.”
Chi-rish rushed the stage and chirped, “None of us has any talent.”
Sally Mantooth called out to me, “Why don’t you entertain us? You’re the hired help.”
At that moment I understood the impulse to hide a bomb in a building, knew the desire to hit detonate. I was a chapter away from my Ph.D. and being ordered to amuse an elite coven of ne’er-do-wells. This was familiar territory. I’d always been the hired help. When I modeled for Versace — under the stage name Anima Animus — Eileen Ford instructed me to study acting and find out if I could carry a tune, “You won’t be young and pretty forever.” Gianni (may he rest in peace) and Donatella (what the hell happened to her face?) never imagined that my starved fifteen-year-old frame might one day offer insights into the commodification of the female body, might reveal meaningful truths about the fashion industry’s compulsion to outfit women in gowns that would best fit a narrow-waisted and hipless twelve-year-old boy. The strangest gender swap of all. Back then everyone adored Anima Animus because I gave good face. Now I was forever cursed to be half-recognized, my beauty half-praised. If my mother/business manager hadn’t mismanaged my funds and bankrupted me, I might be the wealthy parent of one of these students all of whom were busy chanting, “Entertain, entertain, entertain us.”
I was the last adult standing. The father of them all. There was only one thing I knew how to do.
“Why don’t you all go back to your rooms,” I said. “Return with your best clothes and we’ll put on a fashion show.”
The students cheered. They agreed that while they lacked the necessary talent to compete artistically, they excelled at the business of sartorial consumption. Everyone but Blowjob raced from the auditorium eager to get outfitted. Blowjob stayed back. Pulling on her dreads she challenged, “That was a cheap move. I expected more from you.”
“Fashion’s a powerful motivator,” I replied. “Especially in a time of crisis. Did you know that on the afternoon of September 11th thirty-two different women phoned Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan and ordered the same Alexander McQueen striped batwing blouse?”
“Of course I know that,” Blowjob smiled. “My mom had me speed dial for her.”
“I saw your seahorse on the mercury switch. Am I your alibi?”
Blowjob backed slowly up the stairs, “I assure you,” she said, “I’m not Patty Hearst. I know nothing about Astrolite explosives or Ammonium Nitrate or Thermite Bombs.”
“What’s your motivation?” I asked. “Is your father really an arms dealer? Is your young life really so bad?”
“My daddy always says that as a girl, I’m powerless to do wrong.” Blowjob reached the landing and performed an elegant pirouette. “Don’t worry. I’m a revolutionary not a martyr.”
“I wish you’d taken my class.” I sighed and rubbed my face twisting the metal scarab lodged in my nose. “You know I’ll have to turn you in.”
“I’m glad someone has the guts to.” Blowjob blew me a kiss and said, “Just give me a head start. Twenty minutes to pack and order a cab before you contact the police.”
I admired her blond snakes of hair, her beauty turning me to stone. “It’s a pity,” I said. “No one ever suspects a girl.”
“But don’t you realize,” Blowjob smiled. “That’s our greatest weapon.”
Part Five
While I programmed the auditorium’s sound system, adjusted the lighting, the Director returned and explained that he and I were the only remaining faculty.
“Gerry’s hoping we can hold out for a day or two. He wants to minimize refunds.” The Director touched my nose ring. “Is that shrapnel? Were you hit?”
The Director acknowledged that while Revolution and Anarchy neither built nor hid any explosives, he did assign “The Anarchist’s Cookbook” to his students. “We’re pretty sure one of the kids tried to blow up the place. Gerry convinced the college and the police not to press charges. The Octagon should have been condemned years ago.”
I said, “I know who did it.”
The Director nodded his head. “It’s best if you keep that information classified. Knowing the truth might weigh on my conscience.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “These kids can terrorize the school and nothing happens to them?”
The Director ran his fingers through my split ends. “They’re untouchable.”
“Do me a favor,” I asked.
“Anything,” he said.
“Wear a dress for me.”
* * *
When the students returned to the auditorium with their Thom Browne button downs, their Zac Posen tube dresses, their bespoke suits and Bagley Mischka ball gowns, I explained that we were going to do things a little differently. “This morning my class requested that I organize a protest. I’ve decided that in honor of gender inequality we’re going to launch a Drag King and Queen show.”
I pulled back the curtain to reveal the Director’s devastating lack of décolletage, his calves taut in my green patent leather platforms, his round ass bulging the seams of my Hervé Léger bandage dress — contraband from my modeling days. The director struck a pose then ordered his charges to swap their clothes.
The children responded surprisingly well. They wanted to be told what to do. As Sly and the Family Stone celebrated the need for everyday people, Chi-rish strutted svelte and pretty in an off-the-shoulder Nicole Miller. The Andro Boys pranced androgynously across the stage in suede mini-skirts and fishnet stockings. My Gender Studies Babies made me proud in their Paul Smith jodhpurs, their Gucci tuxedoes. While the music so on’ed and so on’ed and scooby dooby doo be-ed, I listened for the echo of mortar fire, confident that Blowjob had more felonies to commit. More scars to self-inflict, more landmarks to tear down. It was a crime that she’d gone unnoticed for so long. Her gold, aqua matted hair, her piercings roared out for attention. She was on the lam and running not from the cops who I hadn’t called, nor toward her parents who didn’t care. Had she stayed she would have upstaged us all in a Comme des Garçons flak jacket and fatigues. Her body armored against future pains.
I looked pretty good in my wife-beater and Prada fedora. Almost as stunning as my infamous cover pose for the 1997 Pirelli Calendar. In the photo all the viewer sees are the muscles and curves of my naked back and ass. With my short cropped hair, I could be a girl or a boy. Either way, I’m devastating. When the summer finally ended maybe I’d drop by the firehouse and autograph my month. The firemen and firewomen thrilled to see me in the flesh. Perhaps an arson or two had blazed a little longer all because some station chief was busy stroking himself/herself at the sight of my tan lines. Maybe my beauty had burned down a few buildings.
The Director and I laughed and applauded as our children promenaded up and down the aisles. Like proud parents, we watched our boy/girls and girl/boys marry themselves, catwalking into their futures, surpassing our every hope. Within hours their real parents would need to alter their vacation plans and travel here to fetch their privileged progeny. Though I missed my colleagues, though I feared the loss of my summer stipend, though I wondered where Blowjob would seek shelter, despite all of my dread and misgivings, as I soaked up my front row view of Frenchy McFrench-A-Lot striding along in a mermaid hemmed Carolina Herrerra, I never felt more powerful. Here was the final chapter of my dissertation.