Fast Times at Ridgemont High - A True Story

A Night at the Mall

It was a boring school night. Jeff Spicoli decided to head up to Town Center Mall and check out the action. He passed through the living room unnoticed by his father, who was engrossed in television. He even made it past the kitchen, where his stepmother didn’t nab him for any chores. Spicoli made it out to the street with no interference.

He reached Rock City, the mall’s pinball arcade, just after 8:30. He recognized only one face, an eighth grader, a little black kid he knew named L.C. L.C. was playing Space Invaders.

“What’s going on?” asked Jeff.

L.C. stole a look and returned to the game. “What’s going on.”

After Space Invaders, they went out to the alley behind Rock City and smoked a couple bongfuls of Colombian.

“Well,” said L.C., “I’ve got a car tonight. Let’s go cruise. See if there’s any ladies happening.”

“You can’t drive.”

“Then you drive.”

“Whose car is it?”

“My brother’s.” L.C.’s real name was Richard. They called him L.C., short for Little Charles, because his brother was Charles Jefferson.

“Where is your brother?”

“At a running clinic in Yuma, Arizona. He ain’t comin’ back until tomorrow morning.”

The desire flickered in Spicoli’s eyes. “Let’s go check the car out.”

They went out to the parking lot to inspect the car—a nice Mustang with a tape deck.

“Look at the tires,” said L.C.

“Smooooooooooth.”

“I think the word is bald.”

“Well,” said L.C., “you want to cruise or not?”

Spicoli’s California driver’s license had been revoked two months after his fifteenth birthday. Spicoli had decided one night to shake loose a cop who’d thrown a light on him. The chase had ended in a cul-de-sac, where Spicoli had tried to get away by driving up onto the pavement around what were by then three police cars. He had ruined a row of lawns and two station wagons.

“Let’s cruise,” said Spicoli.

They pulled out of the TCM lot, to Mesa De Oro Liquor, where L.C. hopped out and returned a few minutes later with an eight-pack of Budweiser. L.C. handed Spicoli one.

“Guy in there told me about a party out in Laguna. Two kegs. I got the directions and everything.”

“We’re out of here,” said Spicoli.

They took Interstate 5 up the coast.

“See the new Playboy?” asked L.C.

“Naw. Any good?”

“Suzanne Somer’s tits.”

“All right.”

“I like sex,” said L.C. He said it like he had just figured it all out the day before.

They were headed for the Laguna kegger, down a lengthy stretch of road, listening to the tape deck, when a pair of headlights appeared half a mile behind them.

“Hold your beer down. I think it’s a cop.”

Spicoli slowed down; the car behind slowed down. They continued like this for another two miles. Then the car behind them pulled closer, within “busting distance.”

“This is definitely a cop,” said Spicoli.

Then the high beams of the car behind them switched on.

“What the fuck is this guy doing?”

The car behind them advanced to the point where it was almost touching the back of Charles Jefferson’s scholarship Mustang.

“What the FUCK is this guy doing?”

The car behind bumped the back of the car.

“He’s gonna scratch my brother’s car!”

The phantom car pulled back a moment, then passed Spicoli and L.C. on the left. It was a carload of laughing jocks in a Granada.

“A bunch of jocks!”

“They’re just fuckin’ with us!”

The drivers of the two cars eyed each other, both with heads tilted to the right. The classic competition pose. With an imperceptible nod of the head, Spicoli accepted the challenge. Both cars roared down Plymouth Road, toward the party.

“DIE, GRANADA JOCKS!”

“L.C.,” Spicoli yelled in the heat of the race, “you wanna roll up your window?”

“Why?”

“It messes your hair up,” said Spicoli, “to have one window down.”

“I like the air. Why don’t you roll yours down. Then you’ll get a crosswind . . .”

Spicoli shrugged and rolled down his window.

The Mustang tipped eighty and passed the Granada, even passed the exit for the party.

“EAT MY DUST!” Spicoli was grinning. He turned to L.C. “You know the thing I love about Mustangs? The steering wheel.” He fingered the bubbles in the wheel. “You can negotiate a hairpin turn with ease, my man.”

On the word ease, Spicoli had intended to show his further driving prowess behind the wheel of Charles Jefferson’s car. He curled a finger into one of the Mustang wheel bubbles and whipped it clockwise. The car screeched off Plymouth Road, onto a side street. The idea had been turn around and go back to the party.

But at the moment of the hairpin turn, L.C. had been attempting to switch the tape in the tape deck. He was thrown against Spicoli, who crooked his finger farther into the bubble than he expected. The car swung in a complete circle. Their path also included a fire hydrant, which ripped the side of the car open like a can of tuna.

“Are you okay?”

“. . . . .”

The Granada jocks flew past them, laughing.

“Are you okay?”

“My brother,” said L.C., “is going to KILL you.”

“It’s your fault, too.”

“MY BROTHER IS GOING TO KILL YOU.”

“Just be glad you’re all right, you little wimp.”

“MY BROTHER IS GONNA SHIT.”

“Make up your mind,” said Spicoli. “Is he gonna shit, or is he gonna kill us?”

“First he’s gonna shit, then he’s gonna kill us.”

It was another one of Spicoli’s dark moments, the kind that were getting all too familiar to him in his high school days. Sitting there in the battered car of the noted mauler Charles Jefferson, he waited for the screams of the police sirens.

But there was no screaming siren. The bashed Mustang started again with a death rattle. Then Spicoli and L.C. puttered back into the Ridgemont hills, where Spicoli put his mind to work.

He came up with a beauty. All he needed was a little help from L.C., and some of the soldering tools in his dad’s television repair kit. Once they had the car back up at Ridgemont High School, it took exactly twenty minutes to perform the entire deed.

The next morning, students were met with yet another curious sight. The steel letters were still gone from the green brick vanguard, but this was something else. Charles Jefferson’s Mustang had been wrecked and welded to the front flagpole. Spray-painted on the side: LINCOLN SURF NAZIS.