“Yeah, I’m a Satanist,” she said one day when I asked what her upside down star necklace was about.
“Why do you worship the devil?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Don’t you believe in God?”
“If there was a God, he wouldn’t have taken my father.” I didn’t know how to argue with that one so I didn’t. I decided we could be friends as long as she didn’t want to drink my blood or try to get me to convert. Even though my life was far from roses I still considered Jesus my homeboy and I wanted nothing to do with black cloaks and animal sacrifice. But there was something trustworthy about Gwen. She was the only person who always looked out for me. Plus, who knew? If things got any worse at home I might need her to cast a spell of some kind. I just knew she would if I asked.
I’m not sure what Gwen saw in me. Perhaps she liked having a fan club with one member. Many people, well, girls in particular, didn’t care for her. She was intense and intimidating if she didn’t like you. Dana worked with us briefly but left because she and Gwen fought constantly. I had never witnessed it but Gwen told me that she had been in her fair share of cat fights and I believed her. I also believed she never lost a single one.
One night Gwen and I were driving down Main Street when she pulled into the local gas station. I thought for sure she was stopping for smokes. It didn’t matter if she was underage, for some reason she never got carded. She got out of the car and popped the trunk. In a flash Gwen had grabbed a wooden bat and started beating the old blue truck next to us. She really went to town, busting out headlights, tail lights and both side mirrors. She cracked the windshield. I sat there stunned, as she just kept at it. I had never seen her so wild-eyed.
Not sure of what else to do I lit a cigarette and stared straight ahead as I knew better than to interfere in any way. I cracked the window for air but also to be a little closer to her, seeing as how the truck was parked on my side. When she had sufficiently beaten it to death she calmly put the bat back in the trunk, then hopped in the driver’s seat.
“Okay, Sparrow, where to next?” she asked as if nothing had happened. We screeched out of the parking lot.
“What was that all about?” I was confused, yet impressed. The girl was strong.
“That was Darren’s truck, the mother-fucker who cheated on me. Fuck that prick,” she laughed. I was too cautious to laugh, wondering who had witnessed what just happened. The Main Street cops were always driving around looking to bust teens for any little thing.
“Gwen, there are cops everywhere, what if someone saw you?”
“Oh, like this cop?” she giggled and she pulled into the rival Handi-Mart across the street and a few blocks south. There was a police car parked off to the side of the store. “Come on, follow me,” she said as she parked the car and darted out. I was still struggling to get my seat belt off when she opened the rear passenger door of the cop car and jumped in. Trusting her completely, I got in next to her, thinking I had to be in an alternate universe. Am I really getting into a cop car? I had spent my whole life hating “pigs” thanks to Frank. I remembered when a cop came to the house because Frank had gone to the dump after business hours and had left our garbage bags neatly stacked outside the gate.
“Young lady, are your parents home?” the rather heavy officer said.
“Mom, another cop is here,” I yelled as I went to my room, leaving him standing at the door. I left my door cracked so I could eavesdrop, like always. The officer had gone through the trash and traced it back to our house. On top of a fine we also got the garbage back. I think that was the day when the huge trash pile on our deck first appeared.
“Farley, this is my friend Sparrow,” Gwen said as she introduced me to the officer in the driver’s seat.
“Hiya Sparrow.” Farley had a reputation for busting my friends on a regular basis. I hated his name but what I hated more was how people with a Maine accent said it, though I hated how Mainers said everything. The accent was like nails on a chalkboard to me, and what was worse was you never knew who would have it. Farley’s accent was hideous, but all cops were hideous anyway so it really didn’t matter.
“Whatcha ladies doin’ tonight? Owt ridin around, eh?”
“Ayuh, lookin’ for a pahty,” Gwen said, slathering on the accent and lighting up a joint. Oh my fucking word is she really smoking weed in a cop car? She handed it to me and for the first time ever I declined. I wasn’t quite ready for juvie yet. There were too many boys to date. Farley didn’t say a word about the spliff and after bantering for a few minutes we were back in Gwen’s car and on our way. If she wasn’t my hero before she definitely was after that encounter.
“How do you know that cop?” I asked.
“I know lots of people in this town, Sparrow,” was all she would say. I wondered if she had slept with him but I didn’t dare ask. Sometimes she would share intimate details and other times not. She did tell me once, “I never kiss on the lips. It’s too personal.” I thought that was strange since I loved making out with boys. “Fucking is fine but never kissing. It’s so gross!” she said, making a face that looked like she had just sucked a lemon. I thought lips were way sexier than dicks but all you had to do was step into Gwen’s room to tell she disagreed.
Chapter 15
Growing up in the sticks it became harder and harder to find role models. Sure I worshiped Cindy Crawford, Demi Moore and Molly Ringwald, but they weren’t really teaching me much about how to be a strong, confident woman. I did learn how to dress impeccably and how to chase boys, but I was looking for more.
That all changed when I came home from school one day to find Mom watching something called the Oprah Winfrey Show. I don’t recall exactly what the show was about but I was captivated. This woman was strong, passionate, caring and smart. She knew how to command an audience and really challenge people. I was instantly hooked.
I started making it a routine practice to grab a snack and plop in front of the TV after school for Oprah time. I didn’t know much about her personally, but I had a feeling she had to work hard to get her own show. I just knew she probably had to fight off a perverted uncle or two herself. She seemed to have a personality that said, “I’m nice but don’t fuck with me” and I could relate. I found out Ms. Winfrey didn’t have any kids, and I thought about how much fun it would be if she adopted me. I bet she didn’t chain-smoke, or take pills to get through the day, or check out when things got stressful. I knew she handled things like a boss, and I wanted to be like her. Mom liked her too, but Mom didn’t show any desire to get her shit together. Instead, she was content plugging into someone else who had it together for an hour a day.
It wasn’t long before I was dressing more like Oprah and less like a wannabe supermodel. Well, at least some of the time. I got my hands on a few power suits and wore them to school on occasion. My skirt hem got longer and longer. I even started doing more homework. I decided I could be successful one day and needed to act the part.
Not too long after I discovered my new hero I went to visit Mom’s parents for a few days. Even though I was a teen I still enjoyed being there and eating Grandma’s French toast, but diabetes was slowly taking Grandma’s eyesight and she’d often mistake the oregano for the cinnamon. When I complained she would dismiss it and tell me to pretend it was pizza.
One afternoon I was flipping through the channels and happened to find Oprah on. Score! I was only a few minutes into the show when Grandpa walked in and noticed what I was watching.
“Get that jungle bunny program off my TV!” he yelled, waving his hand in the air, swatting those hornets again.
Oh no. Here comes that rage I try so hard to keep down. In an instant I was transported back to that moment with the little girl on her pink bicycle who wanted to play. I didn’t know how to handle that back then but I was older and wiser now and let’s face it, a whole lot angrier.
“What did you say?” I yelled, standing up from the couch and moving toward him.
I can’t explain what happened next, except to say that perhaps Grandpa Johnny was on the receiving end of my wrath for everyone who ever had ever hurt me to my core. It was one thing to pick on me, but another to defile someone I was so fond of.
“Excuse me, do you think you’re white or something?” A voice came out of me that was dark and growling and sounded like a cross between a demon and a troll. I sounded just like Larry.
“Have you looked in the mirror lately? Because you’re not!” Grandpa Johnny prided himself on his dark complexion and spent hours in the sun tanning during the summer months. He even doused himself with pure baby oil so he could get extra dark and crispy. No one would have thought him Caucasian.
“Guess what, Asshole? Most people would mistake you for a sand nigger!” Grandpa froze. So did I. I couldn’t believe I had just said that, but then again I could. I don’t recall where I had ever heard such a derogatory term, though I had heard Dad say the n-word on more than one occasion. In all honesty it’s possible a ghost or spirit entered my body and hurled those deplorable words. All I knew was I didn’t regret them.
I had never seen Grandpa Johnny so stunned or speechless. Typically it was he who yelled insults at everyone. I had never once seen someone truly stand up to him. He looked right through me and left the room. I don’t know where he went but he didn’t come back for a long time.
Oddly enough Grandma was absent through all this. I’m sure she heard every word since the house was small, but she never brought it up. I quietly resumed my spot on the plastic-covered sofa and continued watching my Oprah show, feeling a newfound strength and unexpected calm. I vowed to never put up with that kind of bullshit ever again. Even if he was someone I loved so much, he still crossed a line and it wasn’t okay.
* * *
Grandma’s spare room had built-in bookshelves on two walls that were crammed with every paperback romance novel ever printed. Nearly all of them had some scantily clad man and woman on the front in a desperate embrace and the covers were creased and well-worn since Grandma folded them over when she read them.
I never read Grandma’s books because I always had my own and they had never appealed to me anyway, which didn’t make sense since I liked boys so much. I think I was turned off by the cheesy covers and I wasn’t at all attracted to long-haired Fabio types wearing billowy pirate shirts. I didn’t read much fiction anyway, especially since Jess had insisted I read Pet Cemetery which gave me nightmares for six months of every animal I had ever owned that was dead. No thanks.
Once when I was getting ready to go home after visiting my grandparents Grandma noticed I had finished my book and wouldn’t have anything to read on the nine-hour bus ride. “Wait a sec,” she said, disappearing into the spare room. When she returned she was holding a thick book with a white cover. “Here you go,” she said as she tucked it into my backpack. “It’s a little steamy but I think you can handle it.” I wondered what kind of book it was since there weren’t two people about to have sex on the cover. Grandma also packed a few crossword puzzles for me which I loved ever since she taught me how to do them. Plenty to keep me busy, though I didn’t mind the long ride unless I sat next to some drunk guy who fell asleep and leaned his head on my shoulder, which had happened more than once. I was always too timid to push them off and so I would just sit there and let them use me as a pillow even though they sometimes drooled or smelled like cheese.
I was lucky on this particular ride as I had the row to myself so I took my shoes off, got comfy, and dug into the book. Chances, by Jackie Collins. Right away it was a page-turner. The book was about a gorgeous, Italian lady boss who wore Vogue-worthy clothes and told people what to do. I was instantly hooked. It was riveting and made time fly by as I was learning about the main character, Lucky, and her family. I’m meant to read this book, I thought. And then I got to the “steamy” part. Oh. Ooh. What...? People do that? And that too? Grandma was wrong. It wasn’t steamy, it was scandalous. I had no idea even fictional people behaved in this manner. I was so shocked I don’t think I blinked for four pages, and I was blazing through those pages on a mission. This was my first true birds and bees lesson. I thought I’d learned a lot in eighth grade health class when I was taught about ovulation and had to feel the fake boob to try and find the lump, which I never could find. This made that stuff feel like baby talk. This was X-rated.
I read and read and never did get to those crossword puzzles. I was a good two-hundred pages into the book before I arrived home. I realized later that I had creased the cover page just like Grandma did because I didn’t want anyone to see the title and know I was reading smut, at least I was pretty sure that’s what it was called. I was intrigued by the book but a little disappointed in Grandma. This woman, who hummed while she cooked and sewed clothes for me was reading this stuff. I refused to relegate Grandma to my growing list of pervs but I was more than a little disenchanted.
* * *
That was the year to stand up to grandfathers. Punky wasn’t close to Mom’s parents but she was close to her grandparents on Frank’s side. Arthur and Lorraine still lived in that old house in New Hampshire and came to pick her up for the weekend every few months to spend time with her. Mom liked it because they would buy her things she needed like school clothes or toys for her birthday and that was more money Mom could spend on cigarettes or send to Jesus.To be fair, I think Mom had stopped sending money to the televangelists because one (or more) had well-publicized affairs and she had recently become a feminist because she had to read some book called The Women’s Room for a college class she was taking. I think she started donating money to some organization she was in called the Coalition. She had taken us to one of their meetings but it turned out to be a potluck event and I never determined what their oh-so important cause was.
I decided I hated feminism, not because I loved boys but because it gave Mom a great excuse to stop doing the tiny bit of housework that she did. In addition to all the terrible things that happened in her past Mom had to take anxiety pills and smoke cigarettes because she was an oppressed woman in today’s society. Some of this she would tell me outright, and some I would overhear during her coffee time with her friend Peg. They spent many a morning man-bashing both ex-husbands and current husbands.
I did a bit of research and wondered why, if Mom and Peg were such feminists, neither of them had jobs? Why were they both dependent on men for financial support? Larry earned a decent living but was by no means rich. Mom had decided to continue taking classes at the University of Maine but had quit her job at Mixed Doubles as soon as we moved in with Larry and hadn’t worked since. She wanted to stay home “with the kids” and have a new baby— then she became a feminist. And in addition to oil painting she had started writing poetry. She frequently read us her poems after dinner as if they were masterpieces. Half the time I didn’t understand them but I laid on the compliments because I could tell she really needed them.
I liked to write too but I never wanted anyone to see my stuff. It wasn’t pleasant, anyway. Once Mom went searching and found my journal because she wanted to see if I was on drugs. She was disappointed when she found it was written in French and she couldn’t understand a word.
One Sunday I was in my room reading when Punky knocked on the door and came in. By that time I had my own room upstairs and she shared a room with Katie in the basement. Katie had moved to her Mom’s and just came to visit here and there, much like Mikey, so usually she had the room to herself. “Hey,” she said as she sat on the bed. Punky was quiet and kept to herself. It was rare that she came into my room without being invited and I was happy to see her, especially with her having been gone all weekend.
“So…uh… this weekend… when Grandma was in the bathroom, Grandpa took my hand and shoved it in his pants,” she blurted out.
You gotta be fucking kidding me, I thought to myself, feeling part of me break off and die.
�
�Did he make you touch his dick?” Maybe not the most sensitive question to ask a nine-year-old but I quickly went into protector mode. I probably should have hugged her instead but I was the opposite of present and all I could think of was making sure it never happened again.
“I have to tell Mom,” I said as I got up from the bed. How could this have happened to sweet little Punky? She was always so pleasant and would never hurt a fly. She didn’t deserve to be abused. I had to make it right.
“Mom, Mom, I need to talk to you.” I tugged at her sleeve to get her attention. She was painting a landscape and smoking in the kitchen at the breakfast bar. I saw the jug of turpentine and worried for a quick moment that she could blow up the house like the time she lit the couch on fire, but decided Punky’s issue was more pressing. “Mom, Arthur made Punky touch his dick.”
“What? Oh, come on.”
Christ, lady, why would I make this up?
“Mom, it’s true. He did it when Lorraine was in the bathroom.”
“Send your sister out here,” Mom said, still working on her brushstroke.
Mom asked Punky a few questions and concluded she needed to call Frank to let him know his dad was a pedophile. I was so happy she wasn’t letting this go. Maybe she really gets it, I thought. But I didn’t trust her completely. I needed to make sure that sonofabitch never hurt my sister again.
It took a while to reach Frank because he had taken to train hopping which meant he could be anywhere in the country and she had no idea where that anywhere was. He called infrequently, mostly to talk to Punky, but sometimes he’d go for months and Mom thought the situation needed immediate attention. She made a few calls to his best friend in Florida, a man named Flap. I never knew why everyone called him that, but I knew he was a Hell’s Angel, super fat, and a buddy from ‘Nam.
Riding Standing Up Page 14