The Henley High Poetry Club Read online

  My favorite part of my bedroom’s layout was the small French balcony that one of my windows opened onto. The bay breezes came rolling in at night and I would inhale them, imagining that I was inhaling the secrets of art, philosophy, love, and greatness. I hoped that it was working.

  I took my soda out onto the balcony, admired the view of greenery below and sky above, and thought.

  Mom and Dad’s news was a lot to take in all at once. Firstly, this poetry club. I had been looking for something like this for a long time, and it hadn’t existed—until now. I felt that I was a good writer, and I was getting better even, according to Ms. Reese. I consistently received good marks on written assignments, particularly the creative ones. In freshman year, Ms. Singleton had even taken me aside after I read aloud my story called “The Fourth Gun” to tell me that I “had a voice”—a powerful creative voice in my writing, she meant. I couldn’t stop writing then, even outside of class assignments—short story after short story—and I had even tried my hand at a novella (current status: temporarily cast aside due to length requirements).

  But by writing like a madman, I became an even better writer. And that was what I wanted to be. I wanted to get psyched up about the writer’s life, the artist’s life. To know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life felt pretty cool. But it also made doing some other things—things that were required of a high school junior in the United States such as myself—a bit annoying. SAT practice tests, for one thing.

  One of the best aspects of being a writer was this: no experience, however mind-numbingly tedious, was ever wasted on me. Every event that occurred, every feeling that I felt, were all potential material for my future stories, my future books.

  Now despite this history of praise—you know, of my “writerliness”—I was relatively inexperienced in writing any sort of poetry, especially the kind that I wanted to write (basically Bruce Springsteen lyrics without the musical accompaniment.) And the idea of a “club” with auditions suggested exclusivity to me—which still could be okay, if not for the involvement of Wren Cooper. If there was any one person in the universe in front of whom I did not want to embarrass myself, it was her.

  Wren had moved to Berkeley from Los Angeles halfway through sophomore year. She lived with her dad, a music professor who had been transferred here from UCLA. I had never met Wren’s dad but he was known by the Berkeley crowd as a post-hippie genius; he had apparently dated singer-songwriter Carly Simon during the mid-80s. Carly was one of the great loves of my life too, so I automatically assumed that he was a cool guy even though I had never met him. Mom and Dad had run into him once or twice at faculty parties but would never divulge much information about him when I asked—only that he was entertaining and told great stories.

  It made sense then that Wren would be this way too, and she was, but with an added lightness. She was a nature girl, frequently wearing magnolia blossoms in her ebony-colored curly hair, even when they were out of season. She had a smile that was so incredible it made me borderline uncomfortable. This reaction was quite out of character for me. I was usually, even around ladies of high interest, a paragon of coolness.

  Not with Wren. She did this thing where she turned my brain into a useless blob. And my brain was one of my favorite body parts so it really was a shame.

  Physically speaking, I was tall—so tall that I had to hunch over to use the Henley High gym showers, which resulted in occasional and annoying neck aches. My hair was dirty blonde and long enough to hit my shoulders; I could almost tie it into a ponytail now. I wore thick-rimmed glasses due to my near blindness without them, and I wore the same lace-up utility boots that musician Neil Young basically lived in during the 70s. I knew this because Wren had told it to me last month. It was our first authentic exchange with just the two of us involved.

  I had first seen Wren coming out of Cal’s Doe library the day before she started at Henley High. It was like a moment from a film, a slow-motion moment, in which the protagonist—that’s me— experiences a turning point in his own life that will alter the course of his future. There was even music playing from a nearby food truck: “Sugar Magnolia” by the Grateful Dead. This classic song would always remind me of Wren but I didn’t care; the moment was classic too.

  It was a sunny and cool Tuesday afternoon in March and I saw Wren as I was leaving through the library’s front doors. I had rushed there after class at three thirty to find a copy of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the best adventure story ever written. The short story that I had been working on then was an underwater version of The Swiss Family Robinson, where this mer-people family was traveling through the Pacific on an underwater vehicle and it ended up crashing into a coral reef. The family had to reestablish its life in this new uninhabited part of the ocean, and antics ensued. Since this kind of event had never happened to me personally, research had most definitely been in order.

  The main library at Cal had a much better selection of texts than the regular public libraries in Berkeley and was accessible to anyone, so it was usually where I borrowed my books from. The UC Berkeley campus truly was my second home. I loved its rolling green hills and many tan-colored buildings, each housing different academic departments. They were physical representations of knowledge found and yet to be found, and nerd that I was, they’d always inspired me. I’d been inside most of the buildings at one time or another with my parents over the years. I definitely wanted to go to college there when the time came, majoring in English, with a minor in Creative Writing.

  So, on this afternoon last March, I had been leaving the library with the Jules Verne book under my arm, all set to take it out to my French balcony with Sal on his favorite red leash. This had been until I ran into Wren—literally.

  I had momentarily looked over my shoulder to take a last glance at the library’s roof, the most beautiful part of its structure. The next thing I knew I was tripping over the steps and falling flat on my face, my book flying several yards in the air. I was ready to tell the idiot who I had bumped into a thing or two when I looked up into the face of perfection: Wren’s hazel eyes and wide smile and her outstretched hand to help me up. I took it and got to my feet as she apologized.

  “I’m so sorry, man, I did not see you!” she said. “I was distracted by the truly beautiful architecture of this building. We just moved here yesterday and I’m giving myself a tour of the campus. Are you all right?”

  It had been difficult to respond. Firstly, I was in pain. Secondly, I was spellbound by this girl. She continued to talk because I couldn’t.

  “My name is Wren, Wren Cooper. My dad is Professor Cooper in the Music department. He just transferred from UCLA.” She paused and eyed me nervously. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I pulled myself together and reassumed my natural air of coolness.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s fine. My name’s Hunter. Welcome to Berkeley. I always liked that roof too.”

  Was that a great response or what? I put on my shades, smiled slightly, and strutted off à la Steve McQueen, star of my favorite film The Great Escape. I wished that I could’ve looked back to see if she was still looking at me, but it would have ruined the effect.

  After that I didn’t see her for a month. Then, one afternoon in mid-April, I saw Wren again in the hall at school. She recognized me and said hello. I asked her how she liked Henley High so far. I hadn’t realized that she even went there; since we met I hadn’t seen Wren and had assumed that she was a freshman at the university.

  “I like it fine. Everyone’s ultra-cool and friendly here. I really dig Ms. Reese’s class.”

  “I have her, too. You’re in the second period class?”

  “Yeah, but next year I have it first.”

  “Me too. You like Lit, then?”

  “Oh yeah. I love writing, poetry especially. Do you write at all?”

  “Yeah, I do—short stories mostly. Heard of Vonnegut?”

  “He wrote sci-fi, Slaughterhouse Five, r
ight?”

  “Yep. He’s my main man.”

  “I’ll have to read some of his stuff soon. Hey—I figured out who you reminded me of! Wow, it’s been bothering me since we met,” she said.

  Wry smile, raised eyebrow, the whole bit. I was intrigued by the idea that she had been thinking about me since then. I had been thinking about her, too.

  “Oh yeah? Who might that be?” Such sexy dialogue had never before been spoken! I was batting a thousand so far.

  Wren smiled. “Neil Young.”

  This momentarily took the sexiness wind out of my sails. I loved Neil, I loved Crosby, Stills and Nash, all those 1960s rock groups—but this was not what I had been expecting. I was pretty sure that Neil was in his seventies by now.

  “What?”

  “Yeah. When he was younger, of course. You walk just like him. And you have the same shoes. My dad’s always watching old concert footage of him, so I know. Your hair’s not long enough though.”

  She reached up and touched my hair, pushing it away from my face. It felt amazing. Wren smiled and started to continue down the hall. She paused and looked back at me for a moment.

  “You know something? You’re cuter than Neil was.”

  As she smiled and walked away I had to sit down to regain my composure, cross-legged, right in the middle of the hall. I was lucky it was mid-period, otherwise I would’ve been trampled by flocks of Henley kids. What an awful way to go.

  This fall semester we were in the same Lit class, so I saw Wren every day. We usually didn’t get to talk much, only sometimes before or after class for a second or two, because Lit was first period and Wren was always late. It didn’t help that I had to rush out at the end of every Lit class because my second period was Health, in another building all the way across the lawn.

  Now there was an actual chance to spend some quality time with Wren, assuming that I could pass whatever kind of audition process was involved in this poetry club of hers.

  I walked back in from the balcony and closed its door. Sal had awoken again and lay biting the pages of my Vonnegut story lazily. I picked him up and put him on my shoulders—one of our favorite and most-loved-by-crowds routines. He purred loudly as I paced the room, thinking.

  My Physics homework still needed to be done. The essay for Ms. Reese’s Lit class was due tomorrow—in approximately twelve hours—and thus needed my immediate attention. But all I could think about was the poem I was going to write, the one that was going to get me into the poetry club. The one that would make Wren see how I was the only man for her. It had to be masculine, meaning it had to emphasize do-the-right-thing-ness and express confidence at the same time. It had to be tough, cool, slick. It had to be seductive. It had to incorporate all the wisdom in the world—my knowledge of art, my grasp of history, my prowess in literary style.

  It had to be the best poem ever written.

  Sal jumped down from my shoulders and I opened my bedroom door to let him out into the apartment. Most likely he was heading to nose around the study, after noshing on a midnight snack from the organic, super healthy, longevity-boosting and intelligence-increasing dry cat food that Mom kept in constant supply. As if Sal’s intelligence could possibly be increased. He was the brainiest Siamese cat that I had ever come across. I swore that he could even read.

  I could still hear Mom and Dad’s records playing on the turntable. They had abandoned Shostakovich and switched to Borodin’s string quartets. I decided to leave my door open and let the aural inspiration drift into my room, too.

  It was eight thirty on a Sunday night and I had an essay to write that was due the next day. I had to get into that poetry club. My fates as a literary legend and the future boyfriend of Wren hung in the balance.

  I had some major tasks ahead of me, including that stupid Physics homework.

  I was having the most awesome dream of all time when my alarm clock went off. In the dream, I had been sharing ginger ales with Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise at Vesuvio. Sal (Sal the cat’s namesake) and Dean were the main characters in Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road.

  It was seven o’clock on Monday morning and I had stayed up way too late the night before, till nearly one o’clock, finishing that essay for Ms. Reese. I shut the alarm off and reached for my glasses. I had to leave in half an hour if I wanted to make it to first period on time.

  A shower, teeth brushing, and toast-and-coffee later, I was out the door. Before I left I was sure to grab my favorite jacket from the hall closet, the green army one that I had snagged for three bucks at a vintage store in Oakland last year. I ran down the complex steps into the morning chill and stretched out on the dew-grazed lawn to await Carmelita. It was seven-thirty and I was right on time. If things went as they usually did on Monday mornings, she would be five minutes late. I decided that I would take advantage of this and look over my essay for Ms. Reese’s class to take note of any necessary last-minute edits—though obviously I didn’t believe in edits, not really.

  I believed that every draft was a final one, a belief that I debated tirelessly with Ms. Reese. As a high school Literature and Composition teacher, she believed the opposite—that the writing process was made better by drafts and more drafts, brainstorming sessions, peer-review groups, and read-alouds. I had accepted long ago that to succeed as a student and a writer at Henley High, I would have to jump onboard with the department philosophy and partake in all these rules-and-regulations antics. So I did, but I didn’t enjoy it. First thought, best thought, like the Beats, was the only true way for me.

  The work I had done the previous night read just as well this morning; I was pleased. Henley High operated on a routine daily schedule, and Ms. Reese’s eleventh grade Honors class met during first period. Junior year English was devoted entirely to intense analysis of American Literature’s greatest hits, my favorite bunch of novels and plays. Given that it was only mid-October and Ms. Reese’s syllabus traversed chronologically, we were only up to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. But I consistently pined for twentieth century authors—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, James Baldwin, Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Zora Neale Hurston—all of whom would make appearances during the second semester. Despite this preference for more modern stuff, I felt that I had done a stellar job on last night’s essay, the focus of which had been the risks of societal conformity in Puritan life. Should it be read aloud today in class, it would receive a standing O.

  Suddenly Carmelita was there. She descended the complex stairs in a blue jean skirt, red flannel shirt, and sneakers, topped off by her reflective aviator shades. Car’s signature red down vest dangled from her right hand, her Allen Ginsberg tote bag, full of schoolwork, from her left. As she came forward to meet me, my gaze landed on a morning sunray where it hit her bare leg. More and more lately I had been noticing the girled-out elements of Carmelita. As she drew in closer she caught my eye, stopped abruptly, and frowned, hand on hip.

  “What are you staring at, Ziv? We are later than late this morning, yet you prefer to lie in the grass and ogle gorgeous girls as they walk by?”

  I felt my cheeks flush a bright red. Man, I really had to work on controlling that reaction! My cooler-than-thou rep at Henley High—a rep that came naturally but had most definitely been consciously promoted by me since freshman year—could and would not be taken from me. Carmelita, why couldn’t you stay as you were, as you had been? It felt like elements of our life scene were changing and I didn’t like it. I wished she would stop wearing that skirt at least; it would make it easier for me to stay friends with her. Just friends.

  I stood up, stuffed my essay into my bag, and started walking in the direction of school. I trusted that Carmelita would follow.

  “Hey wait up! I was only joking, mon amie,” she called.

  Car ran up behind me, threw her arms around me, and kissed my cheek. Just friends—right. We had momentarily paused midway at a crosswalk on Telegraph Avenue and a car honked a
t us to stop blocking traffic. I pushed Carmelita’s arms away.

  “Quit it, Car. Stop. People’ll get ideas about us. Plus, we’ll cause traffic accidents.”

  “Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

  We were silent for the next few blocks. Then suddenly I remembered my dream, the one I had been having before it morphed into the one with Sal and Dean at Vesuvio.

  Carmelita had been in it.

  I suddenly felt my face turn red again. This reaction was starting to become part of my ongoing behavior, which I was not a fan of.

  I quickened my pace and decided that I would reflect upon it later, when I was no longer in the presence of Carmelita. Third period Physics would be a good time to do it. Mr. Robertson had promised to show us a Bill Nye the Science Guy episode that had something to do with this week’s topic. I had seen every episode of that fantastic show years earlier.

  We passed Weir’s Weird Ice Cream Shop and I got a sudden and strong hankering for a scoop of their famed Cedar Sage Chocolate flavor. I made a mental note to go straight there after school ended. I needed to get myself together. The news of the impending poetry club, a potential increase of Wren-dom in my life, and now my unavoidable shift in Carmelita-vibes, were all a lot to deal with. Oftentimes Weir’s was the only place to go to sort everything out.

  Car knew me well. She saw me eyeing Weir’s and asked, “Wanna grab a cone later?”

  I couldn’t look her in the eye to respond but shrugged my shoulders and replied, in an attempt at nonchalance, “Dunno, maybe.”

  We were a block away from school now and had become part of the throngs that approached Henley High’s front entrance from all directions. Most students walked, like us, or rode their bikes to school. As we got closer, I saw Wren chaining her bike up to the main bike rack. Her bike was a sky-blue color, with neon flower designs hand-painted all over it. She rode it to and from school and her home in North Berkeley Hills, a swank section of town with killer bay views. Rumor had it that she and her dad lived in this hippie dream house with a record collection that rivaled that of Napoleon’s Record Shop on University Avenue.