Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas Read Free Book Online

true dadaist.”
    â€œI suppose dadaists wouldn’t pose for yearbook photos either,” Dub said.
    Touché.
    â€œI know about your bet with your parents. I have friends in Skate or Die. I respect the lengths you’ll go to to win, I really do, but don’t sermonize about the rules of dadaism when your motives are impure.”
    I was floored by the onslaught. Doug handled it gracefully.
    â€œA yearbook photo is different from a parade. We’re subverting the system by appearing in a book they want exclusively for homecoming queens and football stars. A float only serves as further glorification of the status quo.” Doug shook his head in a most fatherly no as he spoke his last sentence. He mistakenly thought he was having the final say.
    â€œWrongo,” Dub said. Dub sat at one end of the tables we had pushed together. Doug sat at the other. The rest of us were forced to rotate our heads in tennis spectator fashion in order to follow the action. “You are assuming our float would be like the floats of the student council and the Key Club and the German Club. That’s where you’re mistaken. We wouldn’t put a giant buccaneer on the float. We wouldn’t sit up there and grin like idiots. Our float would be a giant rolling sample of dadaistic art. We would be subverting the system. Think about it—a giant rolling carrot or maybe just a flatbed truck with nothing on it but a six-pack of generic cola.”
    â€œOr how about the word ‘elbow’ spelled out in carnations?” said one of the males of the group sitting next to me.
    â€œOr maybe we could get a bunch of people lined up on the float dressed and acting like they were watching a parade,” offered one of Dub’s friends. “That way the people watching the parade could see how ridiculous they look.” Icould tell we had a budding performance artist.
    â€œThat would be more surreal than dadaistic,” Dub suggested to her friend. Dub turned her attention back to Doug. “Anyway, there are a million good ideas for the float, but my overall point here is this: We should participate in every cheesy event the school lobs up to us. But every time they do, we put our own spin on it. I don’t want to be in a club just to get my picture in the yearbook; we should produce dadaistic art. We should open our own Cabaret Voltaire where we exhibit our art, and anyone else’s for that matter. We should lead the cultural revolution at Grace.”
    Dub had accomplished with Doug what it had been infinitely easier to do to me: She left him speechless.
    Doug and I discussed the ramifications of the meeting on the ride home from the Hut.
    â€œThat sure didn’t go the way I planned it,” Doug said.
    â€œI must say I admire how you took control in there,” I said. “Now, which committee did Dub put you on? Are you in charge of refreshments?”
    Doug was missing the humor. “Maybe I should resign.”
    â€œShut up! You are such a big wuss. What’s bothering you the most here? That she was right? Or was it that she took charge?” Sometimes Doug’s need to lead got the better of him.
    For the twelfth time during the last hour, Doug took off his John Deere cap, removed the rubber band from his long blond ponytail, and shook his hair out, letting it fall in front of his face; pulled his hair tightly back into a ponytail, re-rubber-banded it; and weaved it above the adjustable straps of his cap.
    â€œEither that or laziness. Do you want to spend your free time working on a float?” he said.
    â€œWith nine girls? Yeah, I do.” It was an easy decision for me. “Look, you’re an idea man. You haven’t lost control of the club; you just need to rethink your goals a bit.”
    â€œThat girl is something else, isn’t she?” Doug said.
    â€œFrightening.”

    As my chemistry teacher lectured, I began casually changing the