When Marty’s sophomore year started, he learned that the school paper was looking for a cartoonist and illustrator. Oddly, his school was named after a privateer, and the mascot was naturally a pirate. The newspaper was called The Jolly Roger, and it flew the skull and crossbones on its masthead. The school was supposed to be a place where local families sent their teenagers to learn about life, Marty mused one day; stoned again at the bleachers. So how come they chose a pirate and slave trader as a role model? Many schools were named after honorable men and women like scientists or presidents… but his high school paid homage to a thief and a brigand. The esteemed Sir Francis Drake supposedly landed out in Pt. Reyes in 1579, and claimed the territory for England by leaving a brass plaque. He didn’t find any booty (except perhaps the local native wenches), so he resumed sailing up the coast after repairing his ship, which was loaded with gold from a recent, successful raid on a Spanish treasure galleon off the coast of Peru. He never returned to the coast of Marin. The whole thing is just a gimmick, Marty’s cynical cartoon brain concluded: a ruse of branding.
Anyway, he submitted a few examples of his work to the journalism teacher, Mr. Agar. The tall, scholarly man was also the editor, and was thrilled to have any student drawings in the paper. He tolerated Marty’s quirky sense of humor, which focused primarily on what he knew best: the social hierarchy, party behavior, and sordid underbelly of the student body. Even though he wasn’t officially in the journalism class, he provided humorous articles to go with his offbeat cartoons, and they were a big hit on campus. He resembled an investigative reporter, doing an undercover exposé of scandalous high school student behavior… except that was his real life, too. Rich kids who had never spoken to him before now approached to tell him how much they liked his Nertz comic strip, or the article he wrote with William, his friend from Lagunitas School, who was also a newspaper prodigy. All the older journalism students were from the front pages of school society, but they tolerated Marty as the token freak — as long as he sat in the back where they couldn’t see him. (Those artists are always a little eccentric, you know.)
In a shocking social development one day, Marty was making his way out to the bleachers for lunch, when a pretty blonde approached him in the hall. He wondered if he was bleeding, or jaundiced, due to the compassionate look on her pretty face as she stood in front of him. Jenny was one of the cute cheerleaders he had admired during his football days. She was flanked by her two vinegary friends, who always dressed the same and followed her everywhere. Her huge blue eyes were unusually bright as she gushed with perkiness, “That was a totally hilarious cartoon you did about cheerleaders!” Marty thought she was pulling his leg, because the sketch wasn’t very flattering – being a cartoon, and all – but she was serious. He took ten deep breaths in an instant.
“Thank you,” He gurgled smoothly, grateful for any excuse to exchange pleasantries with an attractive girl. Her companions were snobs, however, and glared at Marty impatiently, as if they were waiting for their philanthropic friend to finish giving alms to a beggar.
“Oh, I’m Jenny,” she blushed for forgetting her manners, “And this is Trish and Tiffany.” Her twin cohorts flipped their fluffy bangs, and glared at Marty suspiciously.
“Yes, I knew that,” Marty tried to sound casual, while his heart was jumping out of his shirt. “I know the names of all the pretty girls at school,” he lied, Jenny blushed, and the Bobbsey Twins rolled their eyes.
“I’m sorry you’re not on the football team anymore.” Jenny’s heavily penciled eyebrows scrunched upward; pupils dilated in her huge, planet-blue eyes, exuding a mock sympathy that somehow seemed real – or was she acting, just to tease her friends?
Marty was flummoxed, and could only drone, “So am I,” as in a dream. The crowd in his head was going crazy, as if the home team had just scored the most impossible touchdown to win the game.
Her friends sensed it was time to break up the impromptu flirtation before it got too serious. “Come on, Jenny, we’ll be late for class!” They forcibly pulled her away in an abrupt manner, as if Marty was hazardous material, and not healthy for long-term exposure. Jenny glanced over her shoulder at him with what he imagined was wistful longing, but it was probably just pity – the way kindhearted girls will pine over a scruffy street dog. “Did you see what he was wearing?” He heard one of them whisper as they turned the corner. It was a cool day, so he was wearing his coffee brown sweater with the thick cowl …the one he got from raiding the Goodwill truck in Fairfax. He self-consciously tucked in the loose yarn on his cuffs, and walked with a purpose, on soft, pillowy clouds, to the bleachers. He needed to be safe in his home territory, in order to process what just happened.
Needless to say, Marty was instantly smitten by the fair young maiden! He thought of nothing but Jenny the rest of the day, and scribbled notes about what he could remember of her classes and practices. He decided to increase the chance of another encounter by bravely venturing into Spirit Land. That was the delusional domain of a phony type of circus cult, where “school spirit” was proselytized with zealous dogma by airhead clowns with greasepaint smiles. For some reason, it made him think of the “Downunder” scenes from the movie based on Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog, where everyone displayed a masquerade of happy faces that hid a sinister agenda. For a grungy bleacher creature like him, that would be like infiltrating another world, as Ali Baba dared to venture into the enchanted cave of the genie.
Spirit Land centered on the gymnasium, where corn-fed rallies were held before football games. The Junior Varsity cheerleaders practiced their routines on the girls’ basketball court every day after school, because the main boys’ gym was for the Varsity cheerleaders. Status and privilege were everything in Spirit Land. Jenny was one of the Yell Leaders: the lowest float in the pride parade, who practiced in the smaller, darker facility. Marty girded his loins to venture forth, sketch pad and pencil in hand. His artistic subterfuge served as both an excuse for intruding, and a magnet to which female curiosity would surely be drawn; as a cat is fascinated by a toy.
He sat on the bench and sketched cartoon cheerleaders in typical poses. His assistant, William, held high a reflector he ‘borrowed’ from the photography class. This device was supposed to shed more light on Marty’s drawing surface in the dark gym, but was chiefly meant to call attention to their antics. Jenny’s sour friends did their best to keep her distracted, but she couldn’t resist looking over, no doubt dying to know what that enigmatic artist boy was drawing! She finally brushed them off and trotted over in her white outfit with the green trim, and teasingly asked, “Are you spying on us?”
“I’m on assignment,” Marty said mysteriously, “I can’t talk about my work until it’s published.” He’d already developed a good vernacular of the newspaper world, especially as it pertained to cartoons. “But I can let you have a sneak peek at my first draft,” he offered with too much magnanimity. William winced, but Jenny went along with the gag, as if she was in the theater.
“Oh, am I really worthy?” She placed her palm on her chest and beamed her best Broadway smile, and Marty’s heart melted like a flash bulb. “These are cute.” She was leaning over his shoulder in a way that made her hair brush against his. She smelled of bubble gum, shampoo, and rubber sneakers, and exuded nectar from her very skin; as intoxicating as a magnolia. Marty tried to remain still and make the moment last as long as possible, but she quickly said, “I gotta get back to practice. Bye! I can’t wait to see those in the next paper!”
Marty remembered to breathe again, and Jenny trotted back to where her friends stood waiting like anxious hens, scolding her about dangerous liaisons with scruffy roosters, as they ushered her back into the safety of the flock. But she had such lovely breasts and drumsticks… William slapped the reflector on his head playfully. “Hey lover boy, you’re drooling on the court.” But he was too far gone. Marty had stepped off lover’s leap, not realizing he was still alone.
That night, in the deep, dark silence of the redwood forest, Marty thought way too much. He racked his brains for a suitable pretense on which to ask Jenny for a date, but every question became an impossible illusion. How would I pick her up, he admonished himself. I have no car, and I can’t drive. What would I wear? I have no nice clothes. How can I get rid of this acne that’s driving me to distraction? A million things went through Marty’s lovesick mind, and most were negative. Because of his affinity for poetry, music, and lyrics, his ego sought refuge in the extravagant images of words. He played all his most sentimental records, seeking a song that best described his feelings for Jenny. If We Try by Don McLean was a cute, fresh tune with deeper-than-average lyrics about infatuation, but for Marty it became a heartfelt expression of profound longing. The fact that all his depth of feeling developed without really having a conversation, or getting to know the object of his affection, was completely lost on him at the time. He was happily drowning on dry land; capsized in an empty tidal wave of fantasy.
“You’re walking a different direction from most people I’ve met.
You’re giving me signs of affection I don’t usually get.
I don’t want you to pledge your future, the future’s not yours to give.
Just stand there a little longer, and let me watch while you live.”
— Don McLean
Marty wrote the entire lyrics to the song in his best script on a piece of binder paper. After much angst-ridden deliberation, and a small pile of crumpled drafts, he signed it “On Assignment,” so Jenny would certainly know who it was from. He slipped it into her locker early the next day. He hung around before the first bell to see what her reaction would be; ready to catch her in his arms and swing her around like two lost souls who finally found one other. Images of her delighted face flickered in his mind’s eye, like flipping through the pages of a travel brochure. When he didn’t see her, and came to suspect she wasn’t coming to school that day, he was dumbfounded by the anticlimactic letdown. It was Friday, and he was hoping they could go out on a date that weekend somehow, but now he had to wait for Monday. The worst thing was that there would be nearly three full days of torment, during which he’d have far too much time to worry about what might happen. Would she laugh in his face? Would she tell all her friends and make a fool of him? That certainly didn’t fit with his fantasy of a benevolent, angelic being sent down from heaven to rescue his heart from its loneliness. Would she cry? Would she ignore him? An entire season of soap opera drama played on the TV screen of his mind in just one weekend.
Monday finally arrived, with the deliberation of a glacier, and by then Marty had worked himself into such a state of amorous anxiety that he couldn’t eat breakfast. He fussed over his clothes, and tried different ways of brushing his long hair to cover the pimples on his forehead. Soon, he would know if his love would be requited… or merely a requiem. Mike was aware of everything his little bro was going through, and asked Annie to come over during the weekend and speculate about what Jenny might do. She didn’t have any insights into the minds of cheerleaders, and wound up making out with Mike in his bed all night instead. That did nothing to boost Marty’s sense of confidence, but served only to reinforce what he was missing.
Marge dropped him off behind the bleachers as usual, and he approached his first class with trepidation, as it led right past Jenny’s locker. She wasn’t there, and all through American History he wondered if maybe she was sick, or emancipated, or in suffrage. When class was over, he finally saw her: standing at her locker, laughing and reading the lyrics he’d copied on folded binder paper. Her eyes were wide with mirth, and her lovely hand covered her mouth! Her twin acolytes tittered with glee. Marty ducked back inside the classroom in a panic, searching under his desk in a desperate ruse, as if he’d forgotten his books. “Lost something?” asked a familiar, grating voice. It was Mr. Dorward, the short, acerbic history teacher with the imperialistic bald spot that was seeking its manifest destiny.
“Um, no, it’s right here.” Marty had to leave, because the next period’s students were already arriving. He exited in the direction away from Jenny’s locker, and peeked to see if she was still there. She was having an animated discussion with several friends gathered around her locker, cackling like hens that had found a nest of worms. Uh oh, he thought to himself gloomily, and slunk around the corner so as not to offer a target for their derision. All throughout English, he was sick to his stomach, and moaned in silence: what was I thinking? Now I’m going to be the laughingstock of the school!
All day in the halls, Marty watched from the corners of his eyes for vengeful gangs of cheerleaders seeking to chase the monster out of Spirit Land, but no mobs with torches and pitchforks came to hunt him down. There were no jostling packs of reporters, taking pictures of the freak who dared to woo a cheerleader. He briefly entertained the notion of reappearing at practice with his sketchpad again, just to find out what happened and put himself out of his misery, but he didn’t have the courage. At the end of the day, he saw Jenny in the hall with her friends, and she blushed shyly, with the warmth of an iceberg. Her fluffy friends flared their ‘oh-no-you-don’t’ eyes at him, and that was all Marty needed to know. At least they didn’t laugh at me, he consoled himself. He quickly scuttled back to the bleachers to fight for scraps with the other bottom feeders.
Gee whiz, Marty puzzled, with the cluelessness of Beaver Cleaver, why won’t somebody love me? At school he often observed fine babes scoping out the local dudes with speculative glances, but no encouragement was ever sent his way. When he sought to make eye contact and start a conversation, the young ladies would just look away, and make as if they suddenly had something important to do elsewhere. There were other poor saps at school who were avoided with the same female aloofness: the geeks, the stoners, and the fat guys. He reasoned that he wasn’t fat, so he must be labeled as either a geek, or a stoner… or both.