Meeting Alex’s mom deepened the connection between Alex and me. That night back at his apartment I decided to go all the way with him. If I didn’t I thought I might always regret it. And after the whole Egg Face incident I needed a do-over.
I pretended being with Alex was my first time. I was totally present and nothing about Alex and the experience made me want to leave my body. He was gentle and really took his time. I had messed around with boys before but this was different—Alex felt like a man to me. Grown up, mature, with his own apartment and even a Corvette. Who cared if it kept overheating?
Alex spent lots of time looking into my eyes and brushing the hair back from my face. He played his Guns N’ Roses CD and put the song “Patience” on repeat. I lost my virginity for the second time to one of the best songs of all time with the best guy I had ever met. Could this get any better? Maybe even God thought I needed to be plucked properly. How else can I explain the perfection of that moment?
After that evening I wanted to be naked with Alex every day until I had to leave. He seemed fine with that and so began my Intro to Sex 101. I learned how to be on top, how to flex my Kegels, how to master the art of oral pleasure, and on and on. He was an amazing teacher and I was an eager learner. He gave wonderful compliments and feedback that boosted my confidence tremendously. We even showered together which was daunting at first but very intimate. I decided I liked it and I didn’t care if my hair got wet or my makeup ran down my face. I was in love.
On our last night together my heart weighed a thousand pounds. I couldn’t believe I had met the most amazing guy and I had to leave him. He was equally bereft. Our minds raced as we tried to figure out how we could keep what we had going. Could he fly to Maine? Could I come back? We could talk on the phone each week, write letters, send carrier pigeons.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, tearing up a little.
We hugged and I could feel how much he cared about me. The only other person who had ever hugged me like that was Grandpa Johnny. This was more intense. This was raw.
When we were finally able to tear ourselves away from each other Alex reluctantly got into his car and I watched him drive off. My heart was heavy, like cement. I swallowed my tears because I didn’t want to be a downer for Jess. I’m sure she was disappointed that I had spent so much time with Alex. “Let’s walk down to the beach,” I said as I went over to her and grabbed her arm. I had gotten some pot from Alex who was an occasional smoker and I wanted to get high and numb out. We copped a squat close to the water, smoked the whole blunt and got high as hell. I was relieved to have made most of the pain go away. I went from feeling like crawling under a rock to almost laughing. Luckily it was late and the beach was empty because I’m sure people could tell we were high from a mile away.
We made our way back to the condo because Jess was hungry. We tried hard to act normal but we were both still crazy high and Jess had started hallucinating. “Sparrow, look, my arms are floating away!” she shrieked, sounding alarmed yet laughing at the same time.
I couldn’t see her arms floating but I did see her face grow and shrink a few times. I hate it when I smoke too much, I thought. But once you are high there is nothing you can do except wait for the stuff to wear off. The only other time I had gotten this high was at a Great White concert with Gwen. She smoked all the time and had this incredible tolerance. I tried to keep up with her which was a terrible mistake. There I was, standing in the crowd at the show when I blacked out, which is bad enough, however I was still conscious and awake (although extremely high) yet I couldn’t see. I was completely blind.
“Gwen! I can’t see!”
“Get on someone’s shoulders!”
“No, Gwen, I’m blind! I can’t see!” I’d been through a lot in my short life but I had never lost my vision. I was trying not to panic but it was getting scary. Gwen didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed my arm and dragged me off the floor and over to the side where there were seats.
“Sit here and relax. You’ll be okay.” She rubbed my head and hugged me. She was the best. And she was right. In about ten minutes my vision returned and we were able to enjoy the rest of the concert. I had never been so relieved. We even got back on the floor. I was still high and completely paranoid; I was sure someone’s lighter was going to set my hair on fire. That was big hair era and my giant, crunchy hair was probably highly flammable.
One would think I would have learned my lesson and steered clear of any more marijuana but far from it. I was careful not to smoke too much for the most part, but tonight was an exception. I didn’t care if I lost my eyesight again because I couldn’t see Alex’s sweet face anymore. What was the point of having eyes?
When we got back to our room Jess found a bag of chips and we dove in.
“Girls, I need you to come down here, please,” said a voice over the intercom.
“Oh no! Who was that?” I said.
“Did you hear that? Oh my God it’s my mother!” Jess said as she choked on her chip. She jumped up and went over to the intercom.
“Mom, we’re busy, what do you need?”
“I just want to check in with you and go over details for tomorrow,” Mrs. O’Toole said, annoyed. Jess was able to think on her feet and I realized she had probably been in this type of situation before. I was paralyzed with fear.
“Mom, Sparrow’s sick and I’m helping her. We can’t come down now. We’ll see you in the morning.” Wow, great save. Will she buy it?
“Are you ok, honey?” Mrs. O. asked me.
“Yes, I just have a stomach ache.” I didn’t like lying, but there was nothing else I could do.
“Well, get some rest. See you in the morning.”
Off the hook. Thank God! We giggled over that one for what seemed like an hour before we passed out.
Alex and I kept in touch as much as we could after I returned home. My heart ached for him and it was like having a ton of weight on my chest. I never cried but I was depressed. We tried to call each other weekly but we had to be careful because it was expensive to make long distance calls back then and Larry was pissed each month when the phone bill came. After several months our calls gradually decreased until it was mostly Alex making them, and just on major holidays. We never saw each other again.
Chapter 17
That summer Jess and I were bored and since she was always looking for a thrill it was never hard to find one. She had been getting into some heavier drugs and I wasn’t at all interested. She had the luxury of killing brain cells since her parents were rich and would probably leave her millions. My family wasn’t leaving me shit and so I knew I would have to make my own way in the world. There was no way I was going to string myself out on LSD or cocaine. A few kids at school talked about some fancy drug called “crystal” that they had tried on the West coast but I wasn’t interested in that either. I was good with the occasional blunt, rolled in my favorite hot pink, leopard print rolling papers because even then I was a bit of a diva.
Jess used to drive her mother’s dark blue Audi but she crashed it, so for a while she drove a brown van with stripes we called the PV (party van). It was fun because we could fit a ton of people in it and Jess would drive, totally fucked up, as we partied in the back. Needless to say she crashed that car too by hitting a giant buck in the middle of the road at 2am. Her parents learned their lesson and bought her an old, green Ford LTD that was a total tank. We nicknamed it Lurch. There was no wrecking that thing. Surprisingly Jess wasn’t at all embarrassed to drive it, even though it was a beater and the interior was worn to shreds. It just meant it was no big deal if someone spilled beer or puked inside it.
Jess would pick me up in Lurch and we’d drive to Portland where the real mall was. It was a good hour away but the clothes were more stylish and sometimes it was just nice to get out of the sticks. The clothes were more expensive but it didn’t matter because we stole them all anyway. I hated stealing because it made my adrenaline soar but I loved having cool new cloth
es so I decided it was worth it. We had started stealing small things like makeup and stuffed animals, but then Jess showed me how to take more expensive things like Guess jeans and fancy dresses. It was easy. All you had to do was take items into the dressing room to try on, remove the tags, and then put the clothes on underneath the baggy clothes you wore to the store. We stood up on the bench, lifted up a suspended ceiling tile and shoved the tags and hangers up there. This way there was no evidence. We typically hit the big department stores and usually there was no one around to check us into the dressing rooms. Most days there weren’t sales people on the floor at all. It was effortless.
Jess decided it was better for us to rent a locker in the mall so we could take more so we would bring bags, go to the bathroom to unload, then put the bags in the locker before we hit the next store. At the end of the day we would add up how much we had stolen (retail value) based on memory and see who was able to pilfer the most. My record day was five hundred dollars. I was ecstatic with only a twinge of guilt. I rationalized it because my parents hardly ever bought me clothes and I felt too good to be walking around in rags just because they were miserly.
I had a reputation of having good taste in clothes at school and I needed to keep it up. It all started in eighth grade. I had begged Mom to let me pick out my own school clothes after the seventh grade fiasco when she did it for me. She gave me one hundred fifty dollars and told me that was all I was getting. I scoured the mall all day and found the best deals for the coolest items and that whole year my classmates raved about my clothes. I finally felt like I was significant in some way and there was no way I was giving that up. In fact, I took it to the next level which is when I began stealing.
I may have been a thief but I had a harder time being a liar. Before long Mom noticed my outfits, as I’m sure I looked like I’d stepped out of Seventeen magazine.
“Where are you getting all these nice clothes?” she asked one day.
I was wearing a blue-knit top that hung off the shoulder and expensive faded-denim shorts. I was surprised by her question because Mom never noticed much about me. She wasn’t the kind of mom who would ask to see my report card, (which wasn’t great those days), and she never noticed when I did something different with my hair. Why was she noticing my new clothes?
“I stole them. Because you don’t buy me anything,” I added. Not only did Mom or Larry hate spending money on me, they also had forced me to quit my part-time job at the umbrella store because they refused to drive me when there were times I was scheduled without my friends and no one was available to take me.
I hated having no money, but there was no place close to get a job. There was one store at the end of my street called Wally’s. Wally’s General Store, to be exact. It was a small, metal building with chipped blue paint. Inside, which was incredibly dusty and old, there were jars of pickled pig’s feet on the shelves that dated back to the sixties and cans of green beans that were pre-WWII. I had no idea how the place even stayed in business, except that it was the only store around for miles. I think they did most of their business in gasoline and beer, and the junk food that my friends and I purchased. My favorite things to get at Wally’s were the Fortune Bubble bubble gum which had a fortune in every piece and the dill pickle potato chips. Mikey’s favorites were Bomb Pops and ketchup chips, no doubt a reminder of his earlier years of gorging on ketchup sandwiches. I would have died before working there.
“Well, please stop stealing, Sparrow,” Mom said. I could tell she was taken aback a bit by my honesty. And let’s face it; I was probably trying to make her feel bad, suggesting she was reducing me to thievery because she wouldn’t spend money on me. I was surprised she didn’t yell or try to lecture me. Normally Mom would throw out some Bible quote and tell you what Jesus thought of stealing, but this time it was surprisingly dropped and I counted my blessings.
Several months later Mom was mad at me for talking back and arguing with her because I wanted to go to a friend’s house. She must have been in the throes of PMS because she got a crazed look on her face and said, “I’m turning you in for stealing.” Mom knew how to twist the knife if you rubbed her the wrong way. I’m sure I started it with my smart-ass comments but she caught me off guard. These two incidents were totally unrelated but Mom wanted to win this one.
“You don’t even know where I got the stuff.”
“Well, I know you must have gotten the Guess jeans from Porteous. I’m calling them.” Porteous (pronounced Porch-iss) was one of the stores I stole from on a regular basis. Mom went to find the cordless phone. I wonder if she is bluffing. Shit, what if she really turns me in? Would she do that to her own daughter? I waited to see if she would follow through and to my surprise she sure did.
Driving up to Porteous was worse than uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to let it show. These people can’t break me, I kept thinking to myself. Mom had filled Larry in on my new hobby and he was more than happy to drive me an hour one way to turn my “prima donna” ass in. To show any shame or remorse would have been admitting defeat, and that wasn’t going to happen.
When we got to the store Mom asked for the manager. I can’t remember his name but she had spoken to him on the phone and he was expecting us. I had two articles of clothing with me: the denim shorts and that cute knit top that hung off the shoulder. Mom had no clue about how many things I had taken and I couldn’t remember what came from which store so we settled on those two items.
I was surprised when the manager came out. He was in his early thirties, tall, well built, and dreamy. He had kind eyes and a disarming smile as he introduced himself to us. Punky and Doodie were with us too, and we all followed him into his posh office. It looked like something out of Horse & Hound with the dark wood, built-in bookcases and forest green wing-back chairs
“Have a seat, everyone,” dreamy manager said. When we were all seated, Dreamboat turned to look at me. Any walls I had up were melted by his warm, blue eyes.
“So, young lady, I hear you’ve been stealing from my store. Is that correct?” How did he make accusing me of theft sound so warm? I was expecting a stern lecture and lots of threats. I was prepared for it. I had planned on sitting stone-faced and not saying a word. Instead Dreamboat found my wall’s kill switch and I started talking.
“I’m really sorry for stealing. My parents made me quit my job and I haven’t had any money lately.”
“Oh, that’s a bummer,” he said. “Where were you working?”
“I was working in an umbrella store. It was okay but not that exciting. They were paying me four-fifty an hour though, better than minimum wage.” We were actually having a dialog. I was able to have a meaningful conversation with an authority figure, which I could not remember having in eons.
“I’m sorry you’re no longer working, but how come you didn’t ask your parents to buy these clothes for you?” For a moment I had forgotten there was anyone else in the room. I was looking at Dreamboat and he was looking at me. Not through me, at me. And he was interested in my life.
“Well, my step-dad always reminds me that I’m not his kid and he doesn’t want to pay for things for me. He tells me to ask my real dad, but he lives far away and only sends money on my birthday. Plus, I feel bad begging. He sometimes has money problems.” Dreamboat’s eyes softened. He could tell I was telling the truth. I wasn’t meaning to throw my family under the bus, but maybe I was. It didn’t matter though because I was telling the God’s honest truth. That was my reality.
“I’ll tell you what,” Dreamboat started. “I’m not going to call the police or press charges. Normally I would, but if you promise me you will never steal again I will forget this ever happened. Can you promise me?”
Are you kidding? I would promise you my firstborn right now.
“Yes, sir, I promise I will never steal again.” I was relieved and also proud of myself for not crying. I smiled. It was a moment to capture.
“Of course, I’ll need your parents to pay for these
clothes. Without tags I can’t take them back so you should keep them.” Mom and Larry were stunned. Dreamboat motioned for us to follow him and then led my parents to the counter so they could pay for my outfit. Eighty-six dollars later and a hug from Dreamboat and we were on our way. Best trip to the mall. Ever.
Driving home the ride was silent up front. I was giddy and playing with Doodie, singing her songs and telling her stories. I was delighted that Larry’s big plan to shame me backfired. What an epic fail. Maybe that was his bad karma for killing a piece of my soul in that New York mall a few years back? I was relishing the fact that they couldn’t break me. I was a bad ass.
“You know, I’m sick of your cavalier attitude!” Larry yelled, startling everyone. “You have no remorse! It’s my job to teach you a lesson! We’re going to Wally’s and you’re confessing to stealing those wine coolers!” Larry had the rage thing going again. His face was beet red and he was banging his fist on the steering wheel. He must have been stewing the entire ride because we were just a mile away from Wally’s which was less than half a mile from our house.
To back up two years prior my friend Jamie had stolen a bunch of wine coolers from Wally’s while I was the lookout. We drank them in a tent we pitched in her barn but she was naive enough to save the bottle caps and her mom found them later. Jamie was so drunk she pissed in our tent. I only drank a few and even though I was buzzed pretty good I wasn’t tanked like her and I never would have pissed on anything for obvious reasons. We ended up having to sneak into her house to sleep since everything was soaked.
Riding Standing Up Page 17