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JOHN DOLAN
aware of my hidden depths. In the silence between machine-gun bursts, we look into each others' eyes. I speak softly: "Before we die, Leigh ... I just wanted you to know that I've . .. always loved you, dearest, my beloved, always, with all my heart." A tear falls from her eyes. Another machine-gun burst prompts us, reminds us of how little time there is to consummate our love. I was a litde vague on anatomy, so "consummate" was elided in the narrative; I went for the kiss. I whisper, "May I kiss you?" And she doesn't laugh at all; she smiles and nods. We kiss. She's naked, of course; they would have stripped us so they could make soap from our clothes. And there would be no embarrassment about being naked, because we were going to die right afterwards. The guards motion us along. The crack of whips. Shouts and sobbing. We shuffle forward a few paces closer to our deaths. Bliss! And healthy, too: no slave-girls. All love and victimness. I was so proud of having merged with the sensibility of my hippie peers that I would have told the death camp fantasy with pride. Luckily, there was no one to tell. I had to leam the hard way to stay in the Dark Ages. By trying to carry my pubescent mythos into Pleasant Hill, with predictable results. Cut to: the last day of the school year, Pleasant Hill High School. A blank-faced boy with glasses has been asked to carry some papers to the Principal's office—he's popularwith teachers, if not students. On his way out of the room he awkwardly slips a folded note onto the desk of a beautiful hippie girl. Thinks he's being very suave, very James Bond. Of course everybody in the room sees it and the note is quickly grabbed—I like to think Leigh herself had no part in the transfer—and passed to Corey Hass, class clown and designated hitman of the dominant clique. It's a perfect venue for Corey: last day of the year, cookies, red punch in dixie cups, carnival. Mrs Zemke has allowed the students to wander free. They gather at the back of the room, reading the note with an avidity which naturally makes their English teacher very proud. Corey begins reading the note, falsetto. Close-up of thenote: we see that it's written in what attempts to be Gothic script. It doesn t look much like Gothic but to be fair, it doesnt look at all like normal writing. Styli ed pine trees extend from the first letter of 2
PLEASANT HELL
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the first word and the last letter of the last word, to enwrap the
