The Crew

Untitled Part 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

Steering into St. Andy's, the grand gate was wide open, campus reeling with activity. I entered, rocking the Citation down the river rock past the Administration Building. The crunch of asphalt and pebbles filled the air as dust rose behind me. It was beyond strange driving Johnny's Citation into campus, as if some creature from another universe were infecting the polite, conventional world usually barring people like Johnny and Bone.

Sarah. That was the only thing I could think about. I still longed for her, wanted her, needed her so desperately. She seemed in another dimension now, in some uncharted region, a place in which no matter what I did or said I could not find her. That truth alone made me want to bury my head in the depths of the earth and die. But I couldn't even do that. I had to go to this stupid, unfair meeting. If for nothing else, I had made a promise to my mother. I hadn't honored anything else she'd requested so I figured if there was anything, it'd be this.

I couldn't prevent the wild, lurid thoughts from attacking me: Sarah, handing me the note that night; her room after the Ventura Theatre show, our talk, our sex, her feminist statement about the two posters; making me promise to never hurt her, never double-cross her; waking me early the next morning, that wet, deep kiss; our plans to run away together.

And now, it seemed it was all over. Finished. Our plans destroyed. Why?

Sophia. Cannon. D.D. It had been a ploy, a trap, a set-up. A coup de etat.

Driving past the economics and civics buildings, there was the old English Lit building where Mr. Bry taught the young minds of St. Andy's how to think for themselves. I followed the path, turning past the volleyball area and stopping by the gymnasium in the lower parking lot, the familiar spot where we normally parked.

It occurred to me that this was the very place where I'd originally bumped into D.D. that fateful day. This was where it had all started. And this was where it would end.

I had a sudden impulse to go find Cannonball and D.D. and Bear—everyone—as if this was a nightmare and if I could reach them the clock would reverse and we'd have it all back again.

Reality faced me like a wall I could never possibly climb. It stretched up to Heaven.

I began walking toward the Admin building, students rushing to their cars and friends, trying to find the fastest way possible out of St. Andy's Prep, which they would do by graduating. I was about to fight for my right to stay in. It didn't completely add up—of all people, I was trying to remain in what The Crew and I saw as existentially defunct.

The Crew and I? There was no more Crew and I. I'd been booted.

It was a paradox of biblical proportions.

Opening the massive, castle-like double doors I entered the unknown. Inside it was cold and musty and spacious. Dust motes swirled around shafts of sunlight streaking through plate-glass windows. There was a hard wooden church bench along one wall. The secretary, an old woman with white hair and small outdated glasses, eyed me as I walked in. Her blotchy skin paralleled all the authorities I balked against, a face without any conviction that wasn't required in a contract.

"Take a seat, Mr. Donnigan. Mr. Watson is expecting you. I'll let him know you're here."

I nodded and walked over to the bench seat—an old church pew—and sat. The old lady disappeared, returning and sitting back down in her swivel chair.

The anticipation, the anxious dread, spun inside of me like an electric current, some live wire spurting sparks. My stomach churned. It was like standing at the edge of a diving board, about to perform a tricky maneuver, not knowing how it'd go. It was the moment right before you leap. I just wanted to get it over with already. There had been too much buildup. A mountainous level of building tension. I felt that tension in my gut, as if Mohammed Ali had punched me in the solar plexus. I was potentially going to be crucified, and for what? For wanting real friends? For trying to break free from my mother's rules? It wasn't fair. But another part of me believed I deserved it, every inch of it.