Fast Times at Ridgemont High - A True Story

A School Night

When Stacy Hamilton arrived home from school, her brother, Brad, was in the driveway washing his LTD sedan. He called the car his Cruising Vessel. Some went for a sporty domestic like a Camaro, others went straight for a Datsun or Toyota. Brad liked to drive to work at Carl’s in a nice big clean American machine, even if the car ate up most of his fast-food money. It was a small price to pay for style, as far as he was concerned.

“So how do you like high school?” asked Brad.

“Some pretty strange teachers,” said Stacy.

“You’ll get used to it.”

Stacy stood there for a moment, watching Brad lovingly polishing the windows of his car.

“Brad,” said Stacy, “how come I never see you with Lisa anymore?”

“Jesus,” said Brad. He threw a chamois rag onto his windshield. “Everybody wants to know about Lisa. Everybody is such big friends with Lisa . . .”

“Sorry I asked.”

“You got some flowers,” said Brad. “They’re right inside the door.”

Stacy went inside. There, sitting on the living room coffee table, their fragrance cascading throughout the Hamilton home, was a summer floral arrangement. Stacy read the attached note, marked “personal”: Memories of You, Ron Johnson.

Stacy’s heart quickened. This was a perilous situation, one that set off all her inner alarms. This involved her mother, the notorious Evelyn. For Mrs. H., the word strict was weak. First she had refused Stacy a bra, then, two years later, she wouldn’t let Stacy out of the house without one. She banned any mention of alcohol or drugs in the house. Allowing rock music in the Hamilton home was enough of a battle. Once Evelyn threw away a copy of AC/DC’s If You Want Blood album because there was blood gushing from the lead guitarist’s mouth and chest on the cover. She wouldn’t even consider discussing the subject of dating until Stacy had reached the age of sixteen.

Evelyn also had a nose like a foxhound. Once, when Stacy had come home from her first concert (a major fight), her mother even sniffed her clothes.

“I smell marijuana smoke! I smell it all over you!”

“No you don’t, mother. You’re crazy.”

“Don’t call me crazy, young lady! And don’t you ever come home smelling like a marijuana factory again. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, mother. But there was no marijuana smoke around me. You’re wrong this time.”

But, of course, Evelyn was right. Marijuana had been all around her, all night long. Stacy did not relish the act of lying to her mother, that much she knew. In fact, she had made a private pact with her conscience that called for a moratorium after her sixteenth birthday on white lies and sneaking out. Until then, however, it was a matter of survival.

Stacy gathered up the floral arrangement and headed back outside to her brother. She fanned the door a few times. “Brad! Have Mom or Dad seen this?”

Brad was concentrating on his chrome job. “Not home yet.”

“Brad,” said Stacy, “what would you say if I asked you to just put these flowers in the trunk of the LTD and get rid of them at work?”

“I’d say,” responded Brad, “who the hell is Ron Johnson?”

Stacy had expected her brother to give her a lot more trouble about their both attending the same high school. But Brad had been supportive, almost helpful. Brad, his little sister had decided, was in the “I’m an adult” phase.

Growing up, they had argued a lot. Almost every fight had been over The Phone. When Brad wanted to use The Phone, he wanted to use The Phone. He would make Stacy give up the line by the crudest of methods—by listening in on her conversation. Stacy would yell, threaten to go to Mom and Dad. Then Brad would sing into the extension, hum, laugh, anything to destroy the conversation entirely. When Stacy ran to complain to their parents, Brad would simply use the phone, just like he wanted to, while everyone else fought.

Evelyn and Frank Hamilton were easy on Brad, the oldest child. It had been their philosophy that the male should be fully prepared to go out into the world and provide for a family. How this had translated into the family chores, Stacy was not sure. Brad “the provider” didn’t have to do the dishes. Or his own sewing. Or clean the floors. No, all her parents had asked Brad to do was “the man’s chore.” Taking out the trash.

“You’re a wimp,” Stacy would tell her brother. “How come when you were fifteen, Mom and Dad never even cared what you did on a school night?”

“ ’Cause I’m not going to get raped,” Brad would respond.

“You can say that again.”

Once Brad had started working at Carl’s Jr. Stacy noticed an immediate change in her brother. He started with bad weekend hours, a busboy making $2.90-an-hour wages. But even Stacy could see he loved the whole idea of going to work, clocking in, getting paid, and rolling home still wearing his Carl’s name tag with a few bucks in his pocket.

Not long after that Stacy spotted Brad with a bus station paperback called Power with Class. She noticed he had made graphs of his hours and wages and taped them to his closet door. Someone taught Brad how to work the fryer at Carl’s, and there was no looking back. It was the classic example, as she wrote Linda in a note last year, “of a guy finding his niche.”

They hadn’t squabbled much about The Phone lately. Stacy had taken to asking Brad first, before she even picked up the receiver.

“Do you need to make a call, Brad?”

“No,” said Brad. “I use the phone at work.”

There was a muffled knock at Stacy’s bedroom door late that night.

“Who is it?”

“Brad.”

“Come on in.” He looked tired from a night at Carl’s. “What’s going on?”

“I got rid of those flowers for you.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” said Stacy. “That was pretty embarrassing.”

“What did you do? Die?”

Stacy looked at the rug. “It’s just some guy from Swenson’s. You don’t know him.”

“Does he go to our school?”

“No. You don’t know him.”

“I don’t care if you tell me or not,” sighed Brad. “I’ve got something else on my mind.”

“Is everything okay at work?”

“Oh yeah,” said Brad. “Oh yeah. Work is fine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Lisa,” said Brad. “That’s what’s wrong.”

“Are you going to break up with Lisa again?”

Brad got up and started to pace. Lisa had been his girlfriend for the past year and a half. They’d met in typing class. She was pretty. She was friendly. Too friendly, Brad was always saying. He had no idea how popular she was until scores of Lisa’s girlfriends starting coming up to him every day, passing notes, telling him, “Lisa likes you.” They went out once; they started going together. They’d been together ever since. Brad had gotten her the intercom job at Carl’s, and now her hours were almost as good as his. She was even an excellent student. All in all, as Brad once told Stacy, Lisa was the kind of girl who “makes friends with your parents.”

“I’ve been with her almost two years,” said Brad. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. It’s a new school year. My last high school year. I think I want my freedom.”

“Why? Because she won’t sleep with you?”

Brad glared at his younger sister. After all, it was he who had the sticker on his car that said Sex Instructor.

“Where did you hear that?”

“I’m just guessing.”

Brad shrugged. “It’s true.”

“What do you mean?”

Stacy felt Brad study her face. Everything about him said this is serious. He continued in a tone of voice that was meant to cut across the years of brother-sister squabbles.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “We’ve gotten close, but she always says that she ‘can’t go any farther.’ She has this thing about sex. She doesn’t think it will feel good or something. We make out for a while, and then she always goes, ‘I don’t want to have to use sex as a tool.’ She says that all the time. You know, and I say, ‘Tool for what? We’ve been going together almost two years!’ Then she says she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, because that ruins everything, and she’s out of the mood, anyway. It kills me! I go to school and everyone goes, ‘HEY HEY HEY, how’s Lisa? She’s such a fox!’ ” Brad shook his head. “And I’m thinking, ‘Tool for WHAT?’ ”

“Maybe you just need to give her some time. She’s so nice, Brad. That girl really loves you.”

“Everyone loves Lisa. Everyone loves Lisa. But everyone doesn’t have to be her boyfriend.”

Brad and Stacy talked for several hours that night. It was one of their first meetings on equal turf. They knew that it wasn’t usually wise to entrust a family member with information that could later be used against them, but on this night Stacy and Brad broke the rules. Stacy had waited for the perfect time, and then she popped the big question.

“Hey Brad,” she said, “are you still a virgin?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I was just curious.”

Brad grinned. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

“You’re not a virgin!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But your face did!”

They laughed.

“Are you still a virgin?” Brad asked his sister.

“Maybe yes, maybe no.”

“Don’t give me that shit! I know you’re still a virgin!”

Stacy kept smiling, and changed the subject back to Lisa. “What are you going to do, Brad?”

“I’ve made up my mind,” said Brad. “I’ve got to break up with her. I’ve got to do it once and for all. There’s a world of girls out there. When you’re young you have to play the field.” Sometimes Brad stayed up and watched late-night “Love American Style” reruns. Stacy had noticed the dialogue cropping up in his speech. “I’m a single, successful guy, and I’ve got to be fair to myself.”

“Just do it in person,” said Stacy. “That’s the right thing to do. Lisa is so nice.” She caught herself. “This is weird. I’m supposed to have an older brother telling me stuff. Here I am giving you all the good advice.”

“Give me a break,” said Brad. “It’s not like I’m asking you the meaning of life.”

There was a parental rap at Stacy’s door.

“Whatever the meaning of life is, it can wait.” It was Mr. Hamilton, turning out the houselights. “Do you kids realize it’s past eleven on a school night?”

“Okay, Dad.”

Brad smiled at his sister and padded down the hall to his room. Stacy thought about their talk as she turned off the lights and listened to her clock radio in the dark. In the maturity sweepstakes of life, she felt as if she had begun to overtake her brother.