Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

She was, in fact, impressed. She even gave him a small smile. “Wow…You’re getting brave, Jojo. You know about the Symbolists? Baudelaire? Mallarmé? Rimbaud?”

“No, but that’s the point. I will know. I haven’t told anybody, not even my roommate, Mike. And Coach—no fuh—freaking way! He’s never gotten over Socrates. And that’s the other thing.”

He stared at her with wide eyes and the expectant grin of a child, lips slightly parted, and Charlotte couldn’t help but want to play the expected part.

“What is?”

“I got a C-plus in the Age of Socrates! I just saw it online!”

“Congratulations,” said Charlotte. The word came out flat, because the news had given her a start. “Grades are posted?”

“Yeah, this morning.”

Charlotte frowned without knowing it. She would have to go confront her own…news…on the computer…the one in her room, the one Momma and Daddy scrimped and saved and slaved over, Buddy also, to give her for Christmas. Oh God, how could she have let what had happened…happen?

Jojo misinterpreted her expression. “You don’t think that’s good? They all thought I’d crash and burn!”

“No, you just reminded me of something. My grades must be posted, too.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to worry about grades! I do. Coach’ll still be piss—uh, he’ll still be mad at me. He don’t wanna know about the Age of Socrates. He still calls me—”

—still says “He don’t,” doesn’t he—

“—Socrates, Fuh—Freaking Socrates is my full name. But I’m gonna tell him anyway. I got a C-plus, Charlotte!”

For Charlotte—sheer gloom. C-plus was pathetic, given the grade inflation at Dupont and everywhere else. But she would consider herself fortunate beyond all hoping if she got a C-plus in neuroscience…after that paper, that test, and that horrible wreck of an exam—

“And I wrote my own course paper, too. Nobody helped me, nobody. ‘The Ethical Life: Socrates versus Aristippus and the Post-Socratics.’ I blew ’em up with that one, dude!” He looked about and started zipping up his North Face jacket. “Muh-thuh-fuh—damn! It’s getting cold out here. Come on over to Mr. Rayon.”

“I don’t—”

“I know, you don’t have any money. It’s on me. Don’t tell anybody about that, either. Guys think you’re a pussy—sorry!—they think you’re some kind of a…a…a wuss or something, but that don’t matter. Come on!”

Jojo was in a very good mood—him and his wonderful C-plus. He’d take her to Mr. Rayon…Charlotte had the sort of feeling a girl tries to keep from becoming a full-blown thought…Maybe she should take Jojo up on it. In her mind, her breakfast with Adam at Mr. Rayon this morning made an announcement to…everyone who mattered. Here she was, a vain and foolish little girl who had lost her virginity to a notorious playa at a formal, and the playa, in classic playa form, had let the world in on it. Poor little proto-slut! Her reputation was so ruined, she was now reduced to hooking up with random dorks like Adam. But if she reappeared with the cool-by-definition Jojo Johanssen…

“Okay,” she said, “but I really don’t have any money.”

It being late morning by now, Mr. Rayon was not quite half full. Jojo chose the BurgAmerican line; and as he and Charlotte slid their trays down the stainless-steel cafeteria rails, people came over to say hello to Jojo as if they really knew him. Jojo got an Everything bagel, as it was called, encrusted with God knows how many kinds of seeds and bits of this and that. Charlotte got some oatmeal with sliced strawberries on it. Jojo looked at the oatmeal dubiously—and then began to lead her to that same old corner, next to the Thai section and the salmon-colored LithoPlast divider, but Charlotte balked. “Not there, Jojo. How about over here?”

Whereupon she led him to a table—a table for four out in the middle.

“Kinda noisy,” said Jojo.

“It’s not noisy now.”

Jojo shrugged, and they sat out in the middle. Noisy here or not, Jojo remained in an excellent mood. “I got a C-plus! A C-plus in the Age of Socrates! A three-hundred-level course! I did it! Can you believe it?”

Charlotte congratulated him all over again and continued eating her oatmeal while it was still warm. The strawberries weren’t much. They were out of season. A cloud stole across Jojo’s face. “But I’m not gonna kid myself,” he said. “I still got a problem. I got two problems. Coach and the President—I’m talking about the President of the whole fuh-reaking university, Cutler—yeah!—they both went to see this muhthuh—this bastard—well, I’m sorry, that’s what he is, a real bastard!—Quat, and he won’t budge, the little fat…” He decided not to supply a noun. “If I have to go through a…” He decided not to supply an adjectival participle. “…a hearing or whatever they call it…well, I mean…shit! I’m sorry, I’m sorry—but it makes me so damn mad. I mean, here’s—”

Charlotte cut him off. “You said two problems.” She didn’t feel like listening to a rant about Mr. Quat, especially since Mr. Quat happened to be right.

“Yeah,” said Jojo with a long, sad sigh. “You gotta help me on both of them, Charlotte. I told you how I’m taking French 232 this semester. I’m proud of myself. Frère Jocko French and all that stuff…” He gave Frère Jocko French and all that stuff a dismissive flip of the hand. “But now I got a problem. Miz Boudreau—I don’t know what the woman’s saying! She teaches the class…in French! I’m a new person now, and I’m proud a that. But I don’t know what the fuh—what the hell she’s saying! You know what I mean? I can read the poetry. I don’t mean I can read it exactly—I’m in the dictionary about eight fuh—about eight times more than I’m in the book…but I can read it, I can get through it. Right now we’re reading Victor Hugo. That old dude—the world must have been way different back in the day…”

“Victor Hugo? I didn’t even know he wrote poetry.”

“See? Now I know something you don’t!” He stared straight into Charlotte’s eyes. “But you gotta help me! If you don’t, I’m fuh—I’m screwed.”

“Help you how, Jojo?”

“I passed the Age of Socrates, and nobody thought I could do it,” said Jojo. “Now, if I can do okay in real French and this other philosophy course I’m taking this semester—I didn’t tell you about that—Religion and the Decline of Magic in the Seventeenth Century—yeah!—if I do okay in that too, the bastards’ll have to have microprocessors instead a hearts not to give me a break on this other thing. You know?”

Monotonously: “Help you how, Jojo?”

Jojo said, “Well, the way I figure it is, you know French. The way you were reading that book in Mr. Lewin’s class that time—I can’t remember the name of the book—I mean, people were looking around at each other—”

“Madame Bovary,” said Charlotte.

“Yeah! That’s the one. If you hadn’t said what you said that time, I’d still be—what did you call it?—‘playing the fool.’ That’s what you said, playing the fool. You know that stuff. So I figured the only way I can save my—save myself is if I take a tape recorder to class, and then I come back and you tell me what she said. Maybe you could help me with some of the poetry? I mean, I can do it…but you know metaphors and all that stuff? Sometimes it’s…you know…hard.”

Charlotte said, “You know what they call people who will do that for you?”

Jojo, tonelessly distrustful: “No. What.”

“Tutors.”

“No!” said Jojo. “I told you! I’m finished with all that stuff! I’m going—” And Jojo was off on an explanation of why if Charlotte helped him, it would be different…