In books and movies, there’s always a reason for the time travel—some lesson to be learned, some tragedy to prevent. I doubt I’ll be learning much from the ’80s, but I’ve already met a tragedy-in-the-making and the thing he lacks—the ability to be comfortable in his own skin—is the one thing I still have in spades. Assuming I don’t whisk back to my real life in the next minute or two, that boy is going to have a friend he can be out to and out with. I’ll show him how to be confident in himself, how not to take crap from het-monsters, and help him see that his future’s so bright, he’ll have to wear shades (pink, naturally, with crystal frames). We’re gonna be rainbow besties, and I will personally see to it that he makes it to prom.

I get it now.

I’m here to save Chaz Wilson.

Mash Note from a Mystery Man

Mash Note from a Mystery Man

There are certain advantages to having Ernie Gale as your roommate. For one thing, he’s so glad to have company that he’s eager to please. Do I want one of his extra ramen cups? (Yes. Ramen is time-travel-resistant.) Would I like to pick the music on the radio? Do I want to look over his chem notes?

He’s also giving me the tea on the school social structure, which he has mapped out intricately. Ma Elena and Gordo, along with Gordo’s cronies and their girlfriends, are at the top of the strata: good grades, good looks, good relationships with teachers. (Gordo?) By his own admission, Ernie Gale is closer to the bottom, a rung he shares with a twenty-two-year-old senior and a girl who wears her fat wallet on a heavy metal chain, kids who perpetually zig when everyone else zags.

Forget the messy bathroom and array of random posters for a minute. I’m human, and now I feel a little sympathy for the guy.

Ernie groups everyone else in clusters: band, choir, praise team (praise team?!), basketball (the school’s only sport), ham radio club, and categories of his own designation like the Keeners (which I gather has something to do with grades), the Attitudes (self-explanatory), and the Others. By “Others,” he means my lunch table: Leeza is not only not religious but unconcerned with school spirit or winning over anyone; she came here from Queens, not knowing a soul, and bonded with Chaz the moment she arrived. Now Chaz is with Tawny, pulling Tawny along into their unit through no fault of her own. Ernie says no one dislikes the Others, but no one quite gets them either. He actually envies them, says they have the best position: no pressure from being on top, no drama from being on the bottom. They’re the neutrals, the no-man’s-land. He makes it sound dreamy.