The ongoing formatting battle continues. Here is chapter 5 of a very old book that got written for a grade.
Let's see if I can link to Chapter 4.
Chapter 5
Tuesday, April 20, 1999
Lulu beckoned and Ethan awoke. Seeing Deborah sleeping deeply warmed his soul. Because he had no food in his refrigerator, he went upstairs. His parents had left that morning for Dallas. They left a note on the kitchen table that read: be back Thursday. Here are the keys for the car. Love Mom and Dad.
Ethan walked downstairs with a leftover pizza. Deborah slept on her side, her face calm and serene. Ethan opened the door and dropped the open cardboard box onto the ground.
Lulu ate happily.
Ethan went back to bed.
About ten in the morning, Ethan awoke to the sounds of Lisa Durch knocking on his sliding glass door. In one hand, she held a paper shopping bag.
He opened the door and soaked in the beautiful morning.
"Ethan, you're naked."
"Nothing you haven't seen before," he said, stretching.
"Anyway, these are Deborah's clothes. Tell her not to worry ‘cause her father didn't call."
"Cool."
"You better call in for her or something."
"Why? She's eighteen and she's an honor student. No one will punish her."
"Ethan, I wanted to tell you… Deborah… she's," Lisa Durch scrunched her little face into a tight ball. Her cherubic cheeks looked like Play-doh.
"What?"
"She really likes you and-"
"And I really like her. Don't worry. She will leave with her heart in tact."
"Good," she kissed Ethan on the cheek and left.
Ethan made himself a pot of coffee. He watched Deborah sleep as he slurped his hot coffee. She slept like the physical embodiment of innocence. Her hands were just underneath her precious face as she slept on her side. Ethan Lee didn't think anyone actually slept like her except angelic cartoon characters.
At around ten thirty, possibly cringing from Ethan's thirty minutes of staring, Deborah Van Klein awoke.
She stretched and smiled.
"Hey, Ethan."
"Good morning, Deborah. Want some coffee?"
"No, thank you," she rose from the bed and stretched her naked body.
Ethan embraced her, kissing up and down her cheek, her neck, her chest and anywhere else she would let him.
"Whoa," she said, a little overwhelmed. "I need to use the bathroom."
"Lisa brought by your bag."
"Oh, great. I've got my toothbrush and stuff in that."
She grabbed her bag and went to the bathroom.
Ethan sat down in his recliner and began turning circles in his head. He wouldn't be able to stop unless he asked her.
"Are you ready?" he whispered to himself. "Are you ready to give up the other women, to hand off the lifestyle you know and love for one woman, one beautiful, sensitive, caring, intelligent woman?"
A vain thought occurred to him: If she says no then I really don't lose anything. He shook it out of his head.
Deborah's head popped out of the bathroom door.
"You want to shower with me?"
Indeed, he did.
As Deborah brushed her hair in the mirror, she cursed herself.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought. Sleep with him after the first date. Why don't you just write slut on your naked breasts in big black letters? He probably thinks I do this all the time, like I was Orange City's village bicycle.
Truth be known, Deborah's sexual encounters had been limited to two boyfriends before Ethan.
After she dressed in her Lee Jeans, Hanes cotton T-shirt and her Ked shoes, she went and sat on the sofa, where Ethan sat smoking a joint.
"Hey, Sexy," she said. "So, um, you seem to know a lot about sex. Most guys aren't that experienced in the shower."
Ethan tried to sound coy. "I know a few things," he shrugged.
"I want you to know," she said. "That I don't often do things like that-I mean, on the first date like that."
"That's fine," he said. "I've never been on a date before. That was a lot of fun."
He kissed her on the cheek.
Now or never, he thought.
"Deborah, after last night, I've come to the conclusion that…"
Deborah's heart skipped a beat. Oh no, she thought, here comes the dumping.
"I would very much like you to be my girlfriend, like my only girlfriend."
"Oh my God, Ethan that's great," she wrapped her arms around him.
They kissed so passionately that Ethan felt an erection despite being only ten minutes removed from morning intercourse.
"I hope you're not planning on doing anything today," Ethan said as he and Deborah sat on the couch watching daytime talk shows.
"Why's that?"
"Four Twenty."
"What the hell's that?"
"A bunch of people sitting in my house smoking as much marijuana as possible today until four twenty one PM."
"Okay," she rolled her eyes.
Joe Corolla opened the sliding glass door.
"Hey Ethan. Hey Deborah. Four Twenty."
Ethan raised his coffee cup into the air. "Four Twenty," he said.
For different rumored reasons, many stoners smoke marijuana at four twenty in the morning or afternoon. Some say 420 is police code for a marijuana arrest. They are wrong. Others say that four twenty represents April 20th and site that date as the first day Jerry Garcia ever tripped acid. They are wrong. Many smokers say that 420 is written on clothing first made popular by people in California. They are right, but no one can be sure if the code came before the clothing or vice versa.
Whatever the case, whenever a Luther S. Dunby High School student would invite another Luther S. Dunby High School student to a marijuana circle in different surroundings, the proprietor of the intended marijuana buzz would often whisper, ‘four twenty' in said stoner-student's ear. Despite the implied camaraderie, such action is only undertaken to exclude other people from the act of copping a good buzz-usually due to a limited supply of marijuana.
For Ethan Lee, April 20th was a relaxing day. No one went to school. No one went to work. Everyone called in sick, went to a friend's place and sat around getting high. The greatest thing about April 20th is the fact that no one could be quite sure what, if anything, they were celebrating, not that anyone ever stopped to care. As Atwood Nash (a friend of Ethan's with a gift for summing up situations with accuracy and expediency) once said, "April 20th is a cult holiday, like the death of Buddy Holly or something."
Joe, Ethan and Deborah smoked kind bud from a two-foot glass bong that Ethan rarely used. The bong was special. A friend who years ago retired from smoking marijuana had given it to him. Casey Tramore, the friend in question, had said, "she is now your bong. Treat her right and she'll treat you right."
Ethan had heard (via the rumor mill) that Casey was a grade school teacher in Colorado.
As the music of 311 filled the room, so did the people. The first to arrive was Jim Morrison-not the famed Jim Morrison of the sixties. Jim was a simple soccer player whom Ethan had known since their days at bible school. He brought a case of beer and a small bag of commercial weed.
"Morrison," Ethan hugged him.
"How's Red Fern treating you?"
"Great man. Beats Dunby by about a million percent."
Red Fern, an alternative school with more freedoms than most public high schools and a limited, yet open curriculum, played a large part in graduating those who suffered under the stress of the heavily regimented public school system.
Ethan introduced his long time friend to Deborah, using the words, "my girlfriend" to describe her.
"Girlfriend," said Jim, pushing his curly, brown locks away from his face. "No way."
"Way," said Deborah.
Joe and Jim embraced.
"A long time," said Jim.
"Too long," said Joe.
By two o' clock, pizza boxes, crushed beer cans and the stagnant stench of marijuana smoke occupied the room. Ten women and eleven men had been added to the Four Twenty party.
Ethan had made it very clear to all his guests that Deborah was now his steady girlfriend.
"You, with a girlfriend," said Darby. She looked over at Deborah. "Girl, are you in for one hell of a ride."
Deborah did not know how to take that comment, so she sat silently and smiled.
Ethan kissed her on the cheek
"I've seen that look before," said Elizabeth Reich. "That's love."
"Okay, enough with the mushy shit," said Jim. "Let's play some cards."
"You know," said Aaron Tremor, a former LSD High School defensive lineman. "Today is Hitler's birthday."
"No fucking way," said Morrison. "Four twenty is Hitler's birthday."
"Yes fucking way," said Ethan. "Four twenty is Hitler's birthday."
As his party progressed, Ethan Lee went outside with Joe. The duo sat on his patio chairs drinking rum and smoking a joint.
"Girlfriend," said Joe. "So I guess the sexcapades are done, huh?"
"Over and done," said Ethan.
"Wow, Man. What made you decide on that?"
"I discovered intimacy man, if you can believe that, and it's great. It makes sex this like, I don't know, this emotional experience, and like the emotions are more than just primal."
"Intimacy," said Joe after wheezing. "I ought to give that a try."
"It's the little things."
"Fuck you, Ethan."
The sliding glass door opened and Atwood Nash, who held the Luther S. Dunby High School hockey record for penalty minutes said, "You guys have got to fucking see this."
Ethan and Joe walked inside.
"It's like this on every station," said Lisa Durch as she flipped through the channels on the television.
On television, it appeared that a group of terrorists had taken over a high school. Mobs of escaping students were crying, screaming and telling reporters about the deaths they had witnessed.
Ethan heard student sound bytes:
"And then, they shot the black kid ‘cause he was black."
"They killed everyone, everyone with a high school hat on."
"They kept asking people if they believed in God. Then, when they said yes, they'd kill them."
"It's crazy in there. They have guns. They're shooting."
The television mediator then went on to describe, not a terrorist attack, but the work of two students.
The party quieted.
The cameras revealed students running into the open arms of police, desperate parents lined up outside the school, smoke rising from one end of the school, the tears, the voices and the desperate faces of students who had just narrowly escaped death.
"Holy shit," said Jim. "On four twenty."
Ethan began laughing uncontrollably.
"That's damn insensitive of you, Ethan. These kids are being held hostage in their own school," said Deborah.
"Maybe it is damn insensitive of me, but we're looking at the future and I can't help but to laugh."
"Fuck off," said Nash.
"What da' ya' mean, the future?" asked Joe.
"The future, man. Tomorrow at school we're gonna' have discussions about this in all our classes. The governments gonna' blame it on something like television, radio, video games. You know, probably the Internet, too. Schools are gonna' keep on restricting and restricting and we're just gonna' see more and more of this. That Oklahoma high school shooting was just the beginning."
"Damn," said Jim. "Our generation is one fucked up group of kids."
"In one fucked up world," added Steve Shermer before pulling a two-foot hit from the glass bong and coughing a yellow wad onto Ethan's gray carpet.
On television, a young girl with tears in her eyes screamed for the loss of a friend. Police moved in on the school as if it were a terrorist headquarters in New Jersey. The entire landscape seemed coated in the deep reality of children gone insane. For Ethan, it was as if a prophet of the highest sense had finally delivered his message to adults: change the school system or your children die.
Ethan sat down, grabbed his bong and packed a fresh bowl. His mouth open, his mind reeling, he barely noticed the slamming of his sliding glass door as Gene Davis showed up after a day of school.
"Hey," said Gene.
No one said a word.
"What is this?" he asked.
The television told him, "Apparently these two young men who call themselves the Trench Coat Mafia have killed themselves after murdering what we believe to be thirteen children. Details are pending at this time, but police have informed us that the situation is neutralized because of the suicides of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris."
The camera posted pictures of what Ethan saw as two ordinary looking young men.
"The two men, armed with shotguns and gym bags full of weapons stormed the school around noon. They walked inside and began firing their shotguns in the cafeteria. They progressed further, through the halls and into the library. Afterwards, police say the young men killed themselves only after taking the lives of an estimated thirteen individuals. Details are still sketchy at this point."
"Wow," said Darby.
In Ethan Lee's basement, an entire generation had awakened to its own potential. They now understood what could be done with the power of their skyrocketing emotions.
Life was scary and very real.
After staring into the flickering representation of the power of their generation, Jim Morrison came up with a great idea.
"Let's play football," he practically sang.
The mood in the room, one of stoned moroseness, uplifted easily.
"Good idea," said Joe Corolla.
For the next half-hour, approximately twenty American high school children played an hour-long game of touch football (boys vs. girls) under the humble beauty of a Middle Western sky. Laughter emanated through the back yard, bounced off the trees and the hills and reverberated throughout the small neighborhood. The sounds of glee, innocence and enjoyment met up with the floating strains of a baseball game beginning at the ballpark below them.
"Do you hear that sound?" Ethan asked Deborah as they lied in the grass and stared up at the sky.
"Yes," she said.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's freedom and possibility and love."
He kissed her so strongly that for five minutes he forgot exactly who and where he was. And when the breath of conscious awareness found him staring in the eyes of a loved one he came to a conclusion the likes of which his overeducated mind could have never conceived without the bliss of new experience: he didn't care who or where he was.
From this point on all Ethan Lee cared about was Deborah Van Klein, love and the power of dreams.
For his part, he hoped he'd never wake up.