“Ohmygod,” said Mimi, reaching across Bettina again, this time to show Charlotte the watch on her wrist. “Your lifeguard is too much. Look at that. Who is that stupid little frostitute?”

“What’s a frostitute?” said Bettina.

“You’ve never heard frostitute?” said Mimi. “You know ‘frosh,’ like freshman?”

“Hmm, I think so,” said Bettina, “I guess so…”

“Frosh…frostitute,” said Mimi.

Charlotte tried to be the picture of nonchalance, but it wasn’t going well. She had to turn away from both girls. There was no way they wouldn’t see how close she was to crying. She couldn’t believe this, and yet she could, which made it worse.

Ohmygod, all the bodies…it was soooo hot…The smoke from other people’s rotten lungs burned her rhinal cavities. The Buddha drummer was walloping everything he could reach with his sticks. He obviously thought he was putting on a great show.

You…bastard! Sharp intake of breath—she had never used that expletive before, not even in her thoughts. Hoyt had done this just to torment her! Comes over as if to see her and veers off to some little…slut! Never even thought that word before, either…or had she once, about Beverly…A ray of hope: if he went to all that trouble to torment me, then I must really be on his mind. Fog rolled in: or maybe he was heading for me and then saw something better, a little…frostitute…fresher fresh meat, which is all he cares about, obviously…Or maybe he never saw me at all…That was possible, wasn’t it, in the darkness, in the stench, the heat, in all the Buddha noise…

Dream on, Charlotte…Look at it any way you want. He disdained me, hurt me, humiliated me…He betrayed me, right under my nose! In front of my friends!

The caramel-colored singer’s head was still way back.

“You, mon, can bring down the house—

Very sen-si-tive-lee…

And wo-mon can bring down the house—

Very sen-si-tive-lee…”

Charlotte was conscious of the way Mimi was staring at her; Bettina, too, less obviously. They wanted to see how she took in that. She shrugged and tried to be insouciant. “He was a Good Samaritan. That doesn’t mean he has to—”

She didn’t complete the sentence. She didn’t want to get caught trying to put into words what she wished he had wanted to do. She would merely reveal how hurt she felt, and she knew Mimi—damn you, Mimi—would enjoy, in her tarantula way, every second of that.

19. The Hand

Welcome, O sage of Athens,” said Buster Roth. Coach was reared back in his swivel chair with his fingers interlaced behind his head and his elbows winged out on either side. “What news from Marathon?”

“From where?” said Jojo. Coach had a big friendly smile on, but Jojo detected mockery in the air.

“Marathon,” said Coach. “Twenty-six miles and change from Athens. Big battle going on, and there’s this runner they got. It was in the A—uh, the time of Socrates. Old Socrates—” Coach broke off the sentence and made a gesture as if he were shooing flies. “It don’t matter. I was just kidding, Jojo, just kidding…So here we are…I’m liable to get used to these mystery visits of yours. I hope you got better news than last time.”

With those few words Coach’s demeanor changed. His eyes narrowed, and Jojo had the uneasy feeling that Coach looked upon him as a specimen to be studied. He gestured toward a fiberglass bergère. “Whyn’tcha have a seat?”

“I’m—” Jojo had thought out what he was going to say this time, but it was all breaking up and slipping away. He lowered himself into the chair, stared at Coach, exhaled laboriously, and finally managed to say, “It’s not about Socrates, Coach. It’s not—it’s not good. In fact, it’s bad, Coach. I got my—I’m in a jam.”

Coach narrowed his eyes even more.

“The thing is,” said Jojo, “I’m in this American history class. Mr. Quat.”

Coach took his hands from behind his head and put them on the arms of the chair and turned his head and let his eyes climb the wall, and he cut loose with a big sibilant sigh that came out as “Shiiiiiiiit…” Then he turned back and hunched forward in the chair and uttered another noisy sigh. “Okaaaaay…let’s hear it.”

So Jojo began recounting the story, all the while studying Coach’s face for some nod or wink or God knows what that would indicate that he, Coach Buster Roth, monarch of the Buster Bowl and the Rotheneum, would take care of it, would protect his boy. From time to time Coach interposed a question. “When did you remember? Did you say mid night?”…and a few moments later: “Whaddaya mean, had to get him to help you?”

“Well—you know—I needed a lotta help, it being so late and everything.”

“Whaddya mean, a lotta help? And spare me the bullshit.”

“I gave him a sort of a rough outline.”

“What’s a sort of a rough outline supposed to mean, for Christ’s sake?”

“I told him what it was supposed to be about.”

“You told him what it was supposed to be about.”

“Yes…”

“And that’s all you told him?”

“About all…I guess.”

“About all, you guess…Well, I’d call that one rough fucking sort of a rough fucking outline, Jojo. Wouldn’t you?”

Coach swiveled ninety degrees in his chair and let his eyes climb the wall again. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said to the wall. Then he spun about and ran Jojo through with his eyes. He began softly. “Jojo…first you come in here and you tell me you’re no dumb jock, you’re fucking born-again Socrates, and you wanna take Philosophy 306 and rationalism and animism and a whole load of other shit…and now you come back here and inform me, as if no one would ever guess, that you’re a…FUCKING IDIOT! A MORON! AN IMBECILE! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU MEATHEADS, ‘WE’RE HERE TO HELP YOU BUT KINDLY DO NOT ABUSE THE SYSTEM!’ WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE WORD ‘HELP’ YOU DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND! ‘HELP YOU’ AIN’T THE SAME AS ‘DO IT FOR YOU,’ YOU SIMPLEMINDED SHIT! SOCRATES! HOW DARE YOU COME IN HERE AND BREAK MY BALLS ABOUT SOCRATES WHILE YOU’RE HAVING A TUTOR WRITE A FUCKING TEN-PAGE PAPER FOR YOU?”

Jojo was abashed—and then he sensed that Coach was already inventing an I-told-him-so defense in case this thing blew up into something serious. But that merely made him feel hopeless on top of abashed. He was aware of sounding almost babyish as he whined and squeaked out, “But that was before, Coach—”

“Before my ass.”

“—before I made my turnaround, Coach! I wrote—that paper was back—”

“Turnaround.” Sarcasm dripped from the word. “THE ONLY WAY YOU NEED TO GET YOURSELF TURNED IS INSIDE OUT! I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE…”

“Coach! Please! I’m begging you! You gotta listen to me, Coach! That was before…”

Coach returned to the soft, menacing voice: “What the fuck difference do you think ‘before’ makes? You think I can intercede with this guy Quat and say that was before old Jojo said, ‘By the moons of Minapoor’”—he thrust his right hand upward mock-dramatically—“ ‘Behold! You now see Socrates before you!’ Do you by any chance remember me telling you about the pricks on the Dupont faculty? DO YOU?”

Jojo, six feet ten, 250 pounds, nodded as contritely as a second-grader.

“NOW do you know what I’m talking about?”

Nod, nod, nod. A first-grader.

“Somebody made a mistake with this Quat. Somebody—I know who, but it don’t matter. Well, welcome to Prickdom. HE’S A FUCKING PRICK! Curtis was complaining about him. Curtis wanted to twist his head off and shit down his windpipe. You didn’t hear the way he treated Curtis? You skipped that class or something?”

“I know,” said Jojo. “I was right there, Coach. I swear to God! But I wrote—uh, the paper—that was before—”

“SAY THAT ONE MORE TIME, JOJO, AND I’M GONNA SHOVE ‘BEFORE’ DOWN YOUR THROAT UNTIL IT COMES OUT YOUR ASS! Your balls are on the frying pan, in case you don’t know it, and ‘before’ don’t mean shit.” Coach dropped the look of contempt and began to eye Jojo shrewdly. “Did you actually confess to Quat and say, ‘Yeah, the tutor wrote it for me’?”