CALVIN

thirty-three: the bona fide club

I got my prescription from Marc behind the music wing. That same day I was high in class and Marc had to intercept me in the hallways, before lunch. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean what am I doing? I'm going to get a goddamn brötchen."

He snapped his fingers in my face - rude. "You're high. The fuck, Elias? After what I did for you?"

"You sold me these drugs."

"Not for you to use in class. I got you out of the kitchen once, Elias, once. I can't do it again, not without your parents being members. Understand me?"

"Members of what?"

"I told you to have them call us."

"Okay," I said, trying to shove him aside, "whatever."

"If you get caught," he said as I walked away from him, "I'm not going to help you again. I just won't."

...

"If I were ruler of the world I would abolish religion."

"Good luck nuking the Pope."

"Nuclear weapons generate destruction which follows through generations," said Pat, twiddling his pen in his fingers. "Babies in Hiroshima are still being stillborn."

"Your point?"

"Nuclear weapons are an unnecessarily expensive and wasteful way to ensure biological destruction and permanent damage to ecosystems -"

"I mean about the religion thing. Your point about the religion thing."

"Oh." he put the pen down. "People base reason off religion, instead of fact. By the way," stuck the tip of the pen between his teeth, looked at me. He was apprehensive. "You never explained..."

"Explained what?"

"Not properly, anyways. Not... sufficiently." he paused, then said, "Should I be... worried?"

"I think it's you who needs to do the explaining."

"What was Ms Vecoli doing in your pants?" I stared at him for a second - it'd been weeks on weeks. I'd thought he'd forgotten, or at least moved on. "I mean... Elias? I want to know whether I should pat you on the back or call the cops."

"Can we just agree that you didn't see anything?"

He wheeled his desk chair closer to my bed, where I was sitting. "How long has it been going on? How often do you guys do it?"

I scowled. "Do what? Nothing is going on Pat. It was a long time ago."

He shook his head. "I remember when you were a wee little lad. Now you can't go 24 hours without creaming all over someone."

My cheeks flushed with heat, remembering Tim last night, and Calvin before that, and Ana and Ms Vecoli and that guy in Corfu and Maddy and Roman and those guys in Zurich.

"That's disgusting. And that's not what happens."

"What happens, then? When you go to Ms Vecoli's apartment, what do you do with her? Do you... help her grade English papers?"

"I never go to Ms Vecoli's apartment."

"Then where are you all the time? You're never around anymore."

"I'm around."

"You never come to the dining hall. You only come to the room right before fluegelzeit. You don't come to town with us anymore."