Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

“Come on up, babe. Time to rock!”

Her tiniest voice yet: “No.” She shook her head slowly.

“Up we go!” said Mac, and in that same moment he clamped his big hands on either side of her waist and lifted her off her feet as if she were nothing more than a vase, up toward the grizzled guy and the monstrous glans of his toy penis.

“PUT ME DOWN! TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!”

She was frightened—and affronted. She was rising toward the grinning face and outstretched arms and impudent faux-phallus of the grizzled ape.

“Come on, Mac, put her down. She doesn’t wanna.”

Harrison. Charlotte could get a glimpse of him only in peripheral vision.

“Fuck off, dick. You know what you are? A pussy. You know how you fight? You wanna know what I think of you, Harrison? You’re a little girl.”

“Dude…put her down. She doesn’t wanna play.”

“Oh—you—pussy,” said Mac, trying to put Charlotte up on the truck bed and keep track of Harrison at the same time.

Harrison lunged, threw his arms around Mac’s waist, and started jerking him backward, away from the truck. As Mac shuffled his feet to get his balance, Harrison kicked a leg out from under him. Mac began falling backward, still holding on to Charlotte by the waist. The moment seemed to stretch out stretch out stretch out in the most languid slow motion. Charlotte wondered almost idly, out of curiosity, what was going to happen to her. Mac let go of her waist and thrust his hands behind him to break his fall. Charlotte landed on top of him, sprawled across his chest and midsection. She flipped herself off, rolled on the asphalt, scrambled to her feet, catching a glimpse of Bettina and Mimi looking on, bewildered. Bettina! Mimi! But no time! Mac was upright, too…groggy…He moved toward her, staring…His gaze went over her shoulder…In the next instant Harrison threw one arm around her and began pointing at Mac with his other hand.

“What the fuck, Mac? LEAVE HER ALONE! Use your fucking head! She’s not a groupie! You got the skanks on your case already! You wanna get fucking thrown outta school?”

Mac said, “The fuck—” but the rest degenerated into a growl. He gave Harrison a stalking tiger stare and began a stalking tiger creep. Harrison let Charlotte go and got in a crouch. Mac was much more powerful, but he was also far drunker. Harrison began feinting one way and another and another and another with his shoulders. Mac lunged, and Harrison spun out of the way. Mac stumbled but managed to regain his footing and came after his adversary again. Quite a spectacle…Their shorts were lower than ever…You could see the gulleys that ran from the ilial crest down toward the groin…They were sweating…The sun threw their muscles into glistening swells and dark depressions. Mac was wary this time—stalking…stalking…

Gawkers were already crowding around, eager for loosened teeth, bloody noses, cut flesh, swollen eye sockets. In no time they had formed an impenetrable ring. Sheer adrenaline pumped cheers and animal cries out of their throats. All was uproar and pounding hearts…You couldn’t hear the crunk singer anymore…The ring didn’t leave Harrison room to use speed to any real advantage…Now Mac had Harrison backing up toward the truck with no place to retreat. Mac began closing in for the kill…from about twenty feet away. Fuck that! Harrison stopped retreating…He ran straight at Mac. Mac hesitated…Harrison dove…left his feet completely…hit the giant’s knees from the side with the full momentum of his body. Mac fell like a tree. Both hit the asphalt.

“What the fuck’s going on over there?” said Vance, who was standing on the truck bed of Julian’s pickup. Not only could he hear all the giddy yammering and shouting of a crowd, but he could also just make out their heads, many of which were popping up in excited attempts to see better.

Hoyt, who was sitting on the floor of the truck bed with his back propped up against a side wall, drinking his fourth—or was it his fifth, and did it matter?—beer, said, “Beats the shit outta me. Sounds like a fight. Same old shit show.”

Must have been his fifth beer, because he was trying to convince himself that it would be a more productive use of time to remain in this comfortable, contented position and get wasted than to go watch somebody fight.

Just then a huge collective groan welled up from over there in the midst of all the shouting. Another mass groan, louder yammering and cheering. Hoyt struggled to his feet, which was harder than it would have been if he could’ve used both hands. Right now he couldn’t. Getting wasted, even in defeat, still had a grip on the big cup of beer.

“I’m gonna go see,” said Vance. His blue eyes were flashing with anticipation. Boo-man, who had been diligently manning the keg for ten or eleven Saint Rays and their girlfriends, had stopped pumping and was craning his neck to try to spot the action. Even the Saint Rays and the girls down on the asphalt, who couldn’t see a thing, were looking in the direction of the ruckus.

Hoyt was dizzy from drink and from standing up while drunk. But curiosity soon revved up his blissfully demolished willpower, and he clambered down from the truck bed with Vance and Boo-man.

The three of them were far from being the only students tramping through the beer and cups and converging on the fight scene. Once they got there, they could see that penetrating the crush of gawkers would be a tactical nightmare. But Hoyt, especially while drunk, saw no reason in the world why a Saint Ray should obey the rules of the mob, such as first come, first served. He began knifing through the gawkers with his most imperious, superior self on display. “Coming through…coming through…Hey! Coming through! Move! I said coming through!” In the case of the occasional jerk who wanted it known that he couldn’t be fucked with, Hoyt would give the guy a certain accusing stare he had mastered, a veritable laser beaming undiluted blame, and say, “Don’t dick around! I got the plasma!”

In no time he was in the first row of the ring. Holy shit…No wonder such a mob…Out in the middle of the ring were Mac Bolka and Harrison Vorheese…Mac Bolka and Harrison Vorheese! They were pumped, pumped!—and fighting for real. Right now they were both crouched, circling each other…breathing hard, pouring sweat…Their hides were covered in friction burns, cuts, and dirt. A stripe of bright red blood ran from Harrison’s nose straight down to his mouth…He kept trying to block the flow with his lower lip…Mac Bolka’s eyes looked like flashlight bulbs down in dark craters. They were both on their last legs, if Hoyt knew anything about it…

He leaned in close to the ear of some skinny dork who was standing right next to him. “What’s all this about?”

“It’s over some girl,” the dork said without taking his eyes off the contest.

“What girl?”

“That girl over there on the edge.” He gestured vaguely, eyes still pinned on the action. “The one in the dress.”

There was only one girl in a dress amid the wall of gawkers. It was hard to make out her face, because she stood there hunched over, her hands pressed flat against her cheeks, her lips parted, her brow contorted, her eyes terrified, her cheekbones wet and glistening…Wait a minute. It was her, that girl—what the fuck was her name?—that little freshman, the one who gave him a hard time that night…But it was only that, a blip of random thought. Only one person was on his mind—Harrison, who was a brother. A brother! A Saint Ray! Not only that, but a lacrosse player…although he didn’t actually think that thought in so many words. He felt it, that thought, as if he were wired to a circuit. And Saint Rays were those who take no shit. That thought he did think in so many words. If Harrison needed any help, any help, against that big ugly bear, he was going to get it. He, Hoyt Thorpe, was a warrior!—and took no shit where Saint Rays were concerned.