I heard some dogs out barkin' on my way back to the campus, off in the distance, so I went the long way 'round and avoided 'em. When I got back to McCarter the concert was over, and there were like tw enty ambulances out front, and people were gathered around 'em all, crying-- a lot of 'em didn't have clothes on, or anything.

I asked somebody what'd happened.

"Dude." He said. "People got trampled."

"Really?"

"Yeah-- it's pretty messe d up. They weren't breathing. Someone had a gun."

"Are they gonna be OK?"

"Most-- except for the old dude who got a heart attack."

"Cool."

"We'll see-- there's an alumni party inside. But they're kickin' everyone out."

"It's like a ten kegger." A girl about my age said. She was wearin' no shirt. "And wine."

Three police men manhandled some dude on by us. He was kickin' and puttin' up a serious fight, and like this one cop kept kickin' his legs out from under him, so like the y were pretty much draggin' him.

The girl like laughed. "They got the offender."

"What'd he do?" I asked.

"He was sexually harassing me."

I went on in. It was a different theater than what it was this afternoon. And there was Windy, standing at the back. I saw her, looking like a cat in the headlights of an oncoming car, standing next to a pile of uprooted seats. And the people were all milling out on by her. There went a bunch of those older costumed reunions people, all their sh irts soakin' on through, as it must've been over a hundred degrees in there. All the sounds and voices were muffled in that post-concert way. Well I felt bad for Windy, the way it looked she was about to break down and cry, and I went over to talk to he r. A bald man in a suit and tie made it over to her just as I did.

"Are you Windy Meadows?"

"Oh God-- I'm sorry. I didn't know." She started crying-- almost. "I know it sounds--"

"The club president, right? What are you doing next year?"

"I'll pay-- I'll work for it." She was like holding back a reservoir.

"Well we need new talent scouts, and we need Preppy Death." He handed her a card. "International Creativity Management. I'm Richard Head. Pleased to meet you."

"Are you serious?" She looked at the card, then back at him, then back at the card.

"If you are." "Richard Head? Oh my God-- you signed that next catcher in the rye-- that-- I forget his name. And you want me? I can't--" She smiled. "I mean you like d my show?"

"Oh, no no no." He shook his head and laughed, holding up his hand. "But the kids are gonna love it."

And all of a sudden there was a fountain of champagne being sprayed on Windy, and she was boosted on the cast's shoulder and escort ed up to the stage where they were bringin' out kegs and tables with meats and cheeses and cupcakes and everything, and bottles of wine and everything else-- all for the alumni party. There were businessmen in suits surrounding Riff and Clay, sweatin' li ke a glass of ice water sittin' out in July. Riff had a bottle of Jack Daniel's and was hidin' behind his hair and looking at the floor, so Clay was doin' all the talkin'. They all had pens out, but Clay smiled and announced there'd be no signin' tonigh t.

They brought a piano out on the stage, and some old guy who used to write Broadway shows got up on stage and everyone was yelling at him to perform some song called "Little Lionel," which he did-- but I couldn't hear it too well, 'cause I was lik e deaf, still. And some guy who used to be in the Triangle club way back long ago who'd gone on to write like Rubber Ducky after he'd graduated got up on the stage, and sang the songs, and then some dude who wrote Schoolhouse Rock got up there and sang i t-- you know, like "conjunction junction, what's your function?" and all the other childhood classics we got educated by. And you could see how Princeton deserved to be called the cultural training grounds of the universe, like how Cliff did-- I mean bot h of the authors had come from there.

"Say, where's Windy?" Clay an arm around Cliff and I.

"I dunno."

"I saw her headin' down." Cliff said.

"Let's get her, man. She needs to get drunk."

"I saw her headin' down-- probably to find Ri ff."

"Riff's locked in the dressing room with like chicks."

"Maybe she's in line."

So we went down under, and split up to explore the catacombs, and I found her in the props room, sitting on a suit of armor which'd fallen over. She had her ar ms crossed over her knees, and had them drawn up to her forehead. I could tell she was crying.

"Windy." I whispered, and she didn't say anything. "Windy."

"What?" She kind of sobbed.

"What's wrong?"

"Who cares?" She asked. "Who cares ? You know? I don't care anymore."

"What's wrong?" I put my hand on her.

"How old are you?" She looked up and asked me. "How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"No-- you're twenty. By the time you're fifteen in this world you're twenty." She said. "And by the time you're my age you'll be forty. And you'll still be acting like a kid." She was staring straight ahead, all her long black hair swept over one shoulder. "They sold our childhood for a convertible Porsche. This whole culture-- it 's over. Rock's dead. Did you see the irnoy of the show? Did anyone see? And the show that followed." She swept her hair aside, and looked me in the eyes. And like the way her brown eyes were thinkin' of rain-- like it sunk deep inside of me. "It wa s like some divine being commanded that executive to walk up to me. I knew it was but a charade, he knew it was but a charade, yet somehow it's all supposed to be done in the name of freedom of speech. We're supposed to be free to rape a child's soul, a nd somehow that's art. Somebody, somewhere's got to stop the pernicious yesterday's victim, today's perpetrator cycle, before--" She covered her hand with her mouth. "Look at us. Look at our generation. Nobody trusts anyone, nobody adheres to anyone, anything. Everyone's just dying, and nobody seems to notice-- there's no form. We were raised in a moral void, our only guiding principle being to get more money than the next guy-- even the hippies did it, all the way 'til they dead. Is it any wonder we're cynical? They drilled it into us the God was evil, that structure was evil, that morality was evil, and that love ain't nothin' if it ain't free. They told us that freedom was just some people talkin', and then they took away the sacred. I mean our heroes are all in Hollywood with their liberal "feel good" "save the trees" agenda. But who's consuming all the world's resources? Who's vane enough to want to be on all the magazines? Who is it that wants and wants? Who emphasizes all the superfi cial elements of the human and murders the soul? And they show up and lament that everyone's on drugs, that nobody reads, and demand government grants to fund lesbian performance art. They fund the problems they seek to solve so that they can justify ta xing us to fund them. I'm tired of worshipping heroin addicts, and empty models, and these actresses who think they can capture my essence up there in two dimensions. #%$& them. Rock'n roll's shadow's nowhere to grow-- we need light. Everything's dead , except for all that's dying."

"Drake's alive."

"It doesn't matter--" She put her head back down. "The only death that we care about is Preppy Death." She shrugged. "It's nothing new; it's just our turn to get dressed and clean up the party o ur parents threw-- the party where we were conceived at. We're the lab rats that they're tryin' all their social experiments out on. Raise 'em in a moral void and spend all their money so that they'll never be free from some bureaucrat's debt. There's no such thing as free love." She looked up and laughed. "I was conceived at a Kinks concert-- can you tell? Probably to Lola. Rock's dead-- it's a memory that lingers on in the aging executive's minds-- born upon a freedom, but it was their freedom, a nd they spent it, and ours too, so we've inherited freedom's debt. It's all just a documentary, now-- rockumentary. Freedom needs a context, and order from which to spring, just as structure and order needs a chaos from which to spring. And you know? I wouldn't want to sign rock bands for a living-- which wouldn't even happen if I wanted, 'cause it's over. But even if it was the sixties, is what I'm saying." Her lip trembled. "I'd trade it all-- I'd trade my honors degree in psychology, I'd trade the job at ICM, I'd trade getting a 48 on the LSATS tomorrow. I'd trade it all for one tiny little thing which got trampled on in the mad rush for tickets to some concert-- decency. You know? Let me see your hands, Timber." She took my hands. "I love that name-- Timber. I'm gonna name my kid Timber, if I ever have one. Look--" she looked down at my hands. "You're innocent yet, but wait 'til the record company gets done kickin' your mind down into their adolescent nihilistic slough. Irresponsible temptresses. We should burn 'em all. They don't give you anything 'til you've murdered something sacred, and then the liberal press makes you the paragon of humanity-- you've got to swallow the truth and lie if you want to get invited to the requisite M TV parties."

"I dunno, it doesn't have to be that way."

"But you have nowhere else to go. Don't you see? You can study hard and go to Princeton, but then you'll only be used by some smiling economist to give his transcript dealership the pretens e of being an academic institution. College is a joke in a nihilistic culture-- the teachers know it and the students know it, so like you ask yourself, 'Why am I here?' And it's because it's this culture's religion. And by religion I mean something yo u accept on faith, a child's faith. It's the mandatory stepping stone into society."

"But they train doctors and lawyers-- and you get to do shows like this."

"Oh, I know. Maybe I'll look back someday, and laugh. My mind's turning itself inside out-- there's something not there. There's nothing keeping anyone honest, or good or true-- we're told there's no such thing. So then what? Money and drugs-- just feel, for thought ties you down in a nihilistic environment. They took away all our mea ning, told us Thomas Jefferson had slaves, Cristopher Columbus spread disease, Newton was a bastard to his wife, and they gave us pot. Then they moved in and gave us a pretense of good, behind which they gouge us for money-- for truly, that is the last m otivator. It just depresses me, the superficiality of the idolatry that we're given as religion. They thought they were being smart by tempting the masses. They thought they were being brilliant. First they sold us their decadent music, born by drug a busers, forced schools upon us in which fashion is more important than thought, and then they made us take out college loans to support their nihilism-- the liberals thought they were the supramen, beyond good and evil. These were the religions marketed to us. From the time we're born they tell us our whole lives that if we listen to our teachers we'll do good. And that if we listen to John Lennon, we'll find peace. But that's bull#@!% . The moral foundation that that premise was built on has long ag o eroded. The love of knowledge! Ha! No-- not here. Princeton stands for the love of eradicating knowledge to obtain money, for knowledge itself is an utterly useless thing, except to the poets and artists who eat it to survive. They never want the m oney nor gaudy respect, nor glamour-- they follow the truth because if they didn't, they would die, and like that breeds a respect for it in 'em-- you know? They're after spiritual wealth. Poets don't prostitute their children. There was this lady who came to our high school, I'm about her age now, I guess; and she said that Princeton was looking for people who knew how to disturb the universe."

"Yeah." I said. "She came to ours too." That was when Cliff got the forms to send away for applicati ons.

"Before I came to Princeton I thought that it might be composed of such people-- I was sure it would be, of not geniuses nor scholars, necessarily, but of great men of character. I thought Princeton would be a place where people engaged in conv ersations about books they read. But they make sure that doesn't happen by forcing everyone to read different books. And they've taken character out of the contemporary works, like along with plot, as those were evil, patriarchal devices which oppressed reality by making sense of it." She laughed, sort of sadly. "And after four years of taking out college loans, and draggin' my ass five mornings a week to provide 'em all with jobs and an audience, it would be nice if someone'd return the favor. This society takes you and pits you against everyone else-- your husband, your kids, your neighbors, your teachers, your friends-- I mean the incidental people you end up rooming with, and everyone. And like lying and kniving and brown-nosing and selling your body and pornography is all great stuff, because we worship the economy. But where can you buy a two parent family? Who is rich enough to purchase trust? Is Walmart sellin' promises? I was slippin'. The way I was treatin' other people, the things I th ought were cool-- it gets inside of you. But our only religion is capitalism, and it worked OK back when some sort of a hint of a belief of God was yet around, but like science has shown otherwise, and like liberal economists have capitalized on the sent iment and created songs like that one 'But would she go down on you in a theater?' And that's supposed to be like a virtue. Like that's supposed to be a reason you'd go out with somebody. Oh my God-- I'm saying like like you." She laughed. "And nobod y like cares about like anything intrinsic, like the deep and subtle things. That which is immortal, like the Truth. It doesn't matter like who you lie to, like who you use, like who you cheat on, or like who you hurt. Because words don't mean anything . Hell-- like you just do it to your own family if ever they get in the way of the things you want. 'If you want some, get some, bad enough, take some.' Character doesn't exist where there's no moral standards. It's considered rude to have it, as you 'll be oppressing liberals who're only trying to help out humanity and everything. It's just me, me, me, me-- you've got to lie to be respected at honest, you have to cheat to appear fair, and you have to take to give. Axl captured it in Welcome to the Jungle-- I heard it last night and I listened for the first time; 'You can have anything you want, but you'd better not take it from me' That's the attitude, that's the way, and I think we're all growing a bit tired of it. All the flesh and vulgarity o n the screen that we grew up with has atrophied our souls. But I mean we're still people, and like there's a piece of us which is sleeping in this impenetrable darkness. Our moral imagination. The part of the spirit that needs a reason, that needs a re ligion, a promise of truth-- the part that needs the written word, by which thought is born, from which blossoms the soul. For like without it, all is but feelings, and what use have we for feelings when there's no skeleton of belief to support them? We end up as just a puddle of self-pitying greed and base animal desires, buying the CD of the month. I know everyone's afraid of where logic and order led us last-- it's like we live in this huge shadow of World War II, where the supposedly most educated and well-read society began throwing people into ovens in the name of science and Darwin, and everything. Somehow that's become a permanent light house stationed upon the rock of reason and order, and so we remain cast away at sea, out here, warned that if we should ever touch rational land, we shall bring down a deepest night. But it wasn't logic and order that did it-- no, it was the lack of God. It was people clinging to the nihilistic fashion of the day, to the fad, marching to the same drummer-- it was just humans trying to do it on their own, without God. Then the flower children rebelled against the patriarchal authority or whatever, and so we learned to rebel against them in the way that they taught us to, so we rebel ever more to the left, a nd further left. The empty horror of what the scientific priests taught us about ourselves. That we are but chemical reactions programmed to seek order, to fight one another 'til death, so that the stronger might prevail. That that is the fabric of whi ch our aspect is woven. That God is dead. The fabric turned itself inside out, and the mind that evolved to allow one to feed, and breed, reached a critical mass, and became conscious-- conscious enough to stand outside of itself, and perceive the horro r by which it was fabricated-- the pursuit of perfection. And today, out of the fear that we might employ science to seek this arbitrary perfection of our form, we retreat into the void, and become nothing-- again perfection. Science was the star that f ell to this earth and gave us the key." Windy laughed. "We are trapped. At both ends of this fleeting dream there is the void. Both law and order and utter freedom pave the way to the abyss. We can accept this paradox, or refute it, but either way it is the same, for that is the nature of paradox. But all that has happened will happen again, as the circle begins wherever it ends-- it's happening now. Where do we go now-- where do we go?" She sang. "More cable channels might do the trick. Well I guess I've got some serious loans to pay back now, and here I am, in the basement of McCarter Theater-- #%$& with me." She shook her head. "Has it always been like this? I don't think my grand-parents dealt with this. Now everyone goes around with eve ryone else, and nobody really believes in a truth; nobody really believes in a God, nobody really believes in right and wrong. But I think that what no one can see is that even if these things don't exist, we've got to make them. Oh God-- but then you'r e starting a war. I mean these days you date someone-- I mean hookup, because it's impolite to date somebody. Because you'll only end up hatin' 'em and havin' grudge sex. And you do everything that you should really wait for when you're fifteen, and th en you're off, and you've forgotten them, off to score on someone else. Nobody gives a crap, and we're taught not too. But you get hurt, and you hurt people, and everyone just grows numb. What'll it take to make people behave decently? What a waste Pr inceton's been; it's void of a moral soul, and if you want the empty prestige, they make you give yours up. But it's not worth anything to me, nor anyone else-- not today." She laughed. "Education's not worth so much when they're teachin' you nothing's true."

"Yeah, but you must've learned something. At least you learned all that-- I mean what's up. And like I think a lot of people are thinkin' it. You should like write it--"

"Yeah." She smiled. "I guess that's all I really need-- it's al l one ever gets, I guess, anyway. But you know what would've been really nice?" Her chin trembled. "You know what would've been really nice? Do you?" She wiped her eye and bit her lip-- she looked like a little girl, sitting there, with those freckle s speckled across her nose. I put my hand on her shoulder.

"If my dad and mom would've come to see my show tonight-- that would've been really nice." She nodded. "But she's in Japan on business and he got married today." She rested her head back d own, on her knees, and I sat down and put my arm around her. "You should see him-- he's bald. He's kind of cute." She sniffed and laughed. "But he doesn't care-- he doesn't care anymore."

"It's OK Windy." I said. "We can do whatever we want-- yo u know? I mean we don't have to be like 'em."

"She's a year older than me." Windy said. "My God! How can men do that? Is that what it's all about? I'm never getting married-- how can anyone? They pass out condoms everywhere and tell us to exper iment and experiment, as if sex was a chemistry lab or something, but I hate talking about it-- and then they tell us to look out for sexual harassment. Well when you're getting #%$&ed from behind in fifth grade, what the hell?" She threw up her arms. "Our parents take pride in acting like adolescents-- but it's not honest adolescents. For the young want the Truth-- it's just that they're allowed to change their minds. To figure things out. But then there comes a time where you've got to take a stan d, 'cause you've got children. To grow up is to volluntarily subjugate your freedom to responsibility, because you've learned that without responsibility freedom is worth nothing. It's like the hippies just want the buzz without the burden. My dad want s to be a kid, and I want to grow up. I want at which is conceived by our immortal love. I want to have kids. They told me to be thin, they told me to be fat, but they forgot to tell me to be virtuous or anything. Nothing's sacred anymore. Nobody eve r told me." She started crying pretty hard. "Nobody told me. How can men do that? Don't they love?" She grabbed my face in both her hands. "Is that what you're all about? It's not! I know it's not! But it's how the ugly cast you."

"Windy Mead ows?" A voice boomed, and there was a policeman in the doorway!

"Yeah?" She looked up. Her eye-liner had run all down her face. Clay and Cliff suddenly ducked around in the doorway.

"You're under arrest."

"What?" Windy stood up.

"Yo u have the right to remain silent." He whipped out some handcuffs. "You have the right to an attorney. Anything you say can be held against you."

"What? What for?"

"The assault and murder of Tucker Stevens-- we lifted your prints off the fire poker."

"I didn't do it!" She screamed. "I didn't do it!" She started totally bawling.

He grabbed her and slapped the cuffs on, and she was screamin' and bawling as they led her out and up, right in front of all the alumni up there, partying on the stage, and they all kind of looked down as she was dragged on by, crying. The ICM dude sort of frowned, and rocked his head back and emptied his glass. They took her out, shoved her in the car, and took off.