Mary Jane

by Jessica Anya Blau

  “Onion and . . .” I tried to remember exactly what we added to the hamburger for meatloaf.

  “Onion, diced celery, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.”

  “Okay, I can do that.”

  “And fry the potatoes in Crisco, not butter. They’re better in Crisco.”

  Izzy loved helping with dinner preparation. She sat on the kitchen stool and stirred the meatloaf filling in the frying pan. She whisked the buttermilk ranch dressing and arranged the cut tomatoes over the iceberg wedges. She salted the potato wedges as we fried them in Crisco. And she assembled the Nilla Wafer flowers in the sherbet bowls, which we made ahead of time and then kept in the newly roomy freezer.

  While the meatloaf was cooking, we went to prepare the dining room. The table was so heaped with things, there was no visible surface. “Let’s do this methodically,” I said.

  “What does that mean?” Izzy put a hand on each hip, just like me.

  “Let’s be organized in how we put away all this stuff.”

  “Should we do ‘bad/good’ again?”

  “Yes, that’s a great idea. Get a trash bag.”

  Izzy disappeared into the kitchen. I was starting to understand that one of the values of having a kid around was that they could always do things like run off and fetch a trash bag. I did things like that for my mother and now Izzy was doing them for me.

  Izzy returned with a trash bag and two pairs of gloves.

  “I don’t think we need the gloves.”

  “Maybe we do?” She put on a pair. They were floppy at the ends, the fingers drooped like melted candlesticks.

  “When I hand you books, put them in stacks in front of the bookshelves in the living room. Any dishes or kitchen things go to the kitchen counter.”

  “And trash goes here.” Izzy shook the garbage bag.

  “Yes. But you can’t hold on to the bag. You have to be willing to run stuff around the house. Clothes can go on the steps to take upstairs later. Shoes, too. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Izzy looked at me with an intense little stare. Like she was going to be graded on this task.

  I circled the table and gathered books, which I handed off to Izzy in stacks of three or four. Each time she returned from dropping them off, I gave her another pile. When the books were gone, we started in on the trash: empty take-out containers, receipts from the grocery store, candy wrappers, old newspapers, two empty pizza boxes, and lots of junk mail. I found the matching flip-flop to one of the two that had been in the entrance hall, and also Izzy’s orange bathing suit she had been wanting the week before when we went to the pool one afternoon.

  Finally all that was left on the table was an unplugged record player, a dozen records, and a large collection of Izzy’s arts and crafts projects. I picked up the records and shuffled through them. Three of them were Running Water records, all of which had a picture of the entire band, Jimmy always in the middle. On one cover, his shirt was open to the top button of his pants. On the other cover, he wasn’t wearing a shirt at all and it looked like he wasn’t wearing pants, either, though the photo ended before you could really know. He stared the viewer in the eye, the way he had stared at me this morning during breakfast. Like he was daring you to look away. Like he was asking a question with his eyes. Like you should know what the question was and be able to answer it with your own eyes. But I didn’t know how to answer any questions with my eyes. I didn’t even know people could stare like that. Until I met Jimmy.

  “Should we play a record while we finish cleaning?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Izzy put her fist below her chin as if it were a microphone and began singing a song that was vaguely familiar. Maybe I’d heard it on the radio at the twins’ house?

  “You pick.” I held up the Running Water records. Izzy pointed to the one with naked Jimmy.

  “While I’m setting this up, you pick up all your art projects and divide them into two piles, one pile we can keep in the TV room and one pile can go in storage in the basement.” I wouldn’t dare suggest that some of Izzy’s art projects be thrown away, but that was what I was thinking. It seemed like one or two samples from each category would be fine. Did we really need five ceramic pinch pots, each one looking like the crumpled glazed shell of a spiny tide pool animal?

  Izzy climbed onto a ladder-backed dining room chair and reached around for her paintings, drawings, tinfoil and macaroni art, and the pinch pots. I put the record player on the floor and went into the TV room, where I had seen two unplugged speakers, each the size of a cash register. I brought the speakers into the dining room and plugged them into both the wall and the record player. Between the speakers, I stacked the records, like books between bookends. I had seen other records around the house. Maybe tomorrow Izzy and I would do a scavenger hunt for the house’s record collection.

  I threaded the record hole onto the silver prong, lowered it, and turned the knob to 331/3. I lifted the needle and blew on it only because I’d seen someone do that once in a movie and then I set the needle down on the outer edge of the record. The music startled me when it started—I hadn’t realized the volume was so high. I didn’t turn it down, but instead backed away from it and took Izzy’s hand as if to steady myself. After the twangy guitar sounds, the song erupted with Jimmy first shouting and then singing in a voice that reminded me of walnuts mixed in maple syrup: both crunchy and sweet. Izzy sang along. She knew all the words.

  Jimmy grumbled out, “Thundering shudders from my head to my—oooh baby, yeah—to my head. . . .”

  I loved the thumping of the music, like a heartbeat on the surface of my skin. And I loved that raspy-sugar sound of Jimmy’s voice. It was like the way he spoke but more forceful, more alert, like he had woken up from a death nightmare and just realized he was actually alive.

  I figured out the melodies pretty quickly, and started humming harmony to every song. I nudged Izzy and we continued singing as we appraised and then put away her art. Next we sorted through the remaining things: Sears and JCPenney catalogs, Chinese food take-out menus, instructions to assemble a shoe shelf I’d never seen, and costume jewelry that I assumed belonged to Mrs. Cone.

  Once the table was completely bare, Izzy and I stood facing the turntable as Izzy belted out the last song on the A side of the album. She sang directly into her fisted gloved hand, her tiny hips jerking around. I moved my body a little, following the music, pretending I was someone who danced.

  When the song ended, I lifted the needle, flipped the record, and started the B side. The first song was slow and quiet. Izzy wasn’t singing along. “Izzy, below the sink in the kitchen is lemon Pledge. Bring me that with those dusting rags we made.”

  “Lemonplige?”

  “Lemon Pledge. It’s a yellow spray can. I bought it at Eddie’s last week, remember?”

  “Yes. You said we were going to clean wood.”

  “Exactly. But first we had to find the wood to clean it. And look.” I stood and pointed to the dusty and dull wooden table. It was big enough to seat ten or twelve.

  “Got it.” Izzy ran out of the room and returned seconds later with the Pledge and a stack of cleaning rags I had made from an old ripped Brooks Brothers shirt Dr. Cone had thrown in the trash.

  “You’re going to love this.” I handed Izzy one of the rags. “I spray, and then you rub the rag in circles on the spot where I’ve sprayed. The table will shine and it will smell so good, you’ll want to lick it.”

  “Can I?”

  “What?”

  “Lick it. Can I lick the table after I wipe it?”

  “No. It’s probably poisonous.”

  Izzy’s eyes popped wide. “Do you think the witch wants to poison us?”

  “No. I bought the Pledge, not the witch. And I think the witch is good. She put the cherries in the fridge.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Izzy squinted, then started growl-yelling the chorus of the slow song.

  I waited for the chorus to end and then sprayed. Izzy climbed onto a chair, leaned
over the table, and wiped. I sprayed a new spot. Izzy lifted her knee high, as if she were crossing a stream rock to rock, and stepped onto the next chair. She wiped. I sprayed; she moved down to another chair and wiped again. In this way, we circled the table, with Izzy singing and me humming the whole way. We were just at the end of the table, or at the beginning—we were where we’d begun—when Jimmy and Dr. Cone walked in.

  My hands started shaking. I worried that Jimmy would be angry that we were listening to his record. But he just smiled, and then he took a step toward me, took the Pledge from my grip, placed it on the table, and started dancing with me while singing along with his own record. Izzy clapped and screamed and jumped into her dad’s arms. He, too, sang, Izzy hanging on his chest as they danced. Jimmy held my hands and pulled me toward him, and then away, and then around. At the last line, Jimmy dipped me down and hovered over me. I’d taken lots of ballet and could easily arch so I was like a lowercase letter h one foot on the ground, the other kicked in the air. I could smell the sugary treats and coffee on Jimmy’s breath. I could smell his skin, both sweet and musky, like something warm, maybe melted candle wax with wet autumn leaves. I had a strange urge to bite into him. The words sex addict sex addict sex addict swirled like an eddy of letters in my brain.

  When that song ended, a faster song came on. Dr. Cone, Jimmy, and Izzy started fast dancing as if it were no big deal. I stood, leaning forward as if I were about to take a step but couldn’t. I’d never danced to rock and roll before. I watched the others, my mouth open with a half-nervous, half-happy grin. Dr. Cone bounced up and down, his head hanging like a bird with a broken neck, like when the Peanuts characters danced. Izzy flung her arms around and jumped as if she were trying to fly. Jimmy swayed his hips a little, forward and back, as if he were dancing inside a phone booth. He never used both the top and bottom halves of his body at the same time. Each movement was isolated, on beat, with the flow of the music. Izzy grabbed my hands and pulled me into the circle of the three of them.

  “MARY JANE, YOU HAVE TO DANCE WITH ME!” She shook my arms until I moved on the other side of them. I glanced over at Jimmy and tried to mirror him. He looked straight at me and nodded. When he moved more broadly, I moved more broadly. Izzy still had one of my hands and was as wild at the end of my arm as a scarf blowing off a neck. I followed the pace of Jimmy’s steps and shoulder shakes. I sensed he was directing me with his eyes.

  The longer I danced, the more I got used to Jimmy eye-directing me, the less I thought about dancing. And the less I thought about dancing, the more I danced. Eventually it felt right. Like it was something I already knew how to do that was coming back to me.

  We kept on dancing as the next song came on. Izzy screamed at the opening chords and then started singing along, louder than the record. Jimmy laughed and then he sang too. Dr. Cone sang during the chorus. I figured out the words pretty quickly and desperately wanted to sing at the chorus too, but I was afraid to sing aloud with a famous professional singer—the person on the record, no less!—within hearing distance. At the final chorus, Izzy put her face real close to mine and was hollering along with the record. Right then, before I lost my courage, I started singing the harmony. Quietly at first, but then I went a little louder, because I knew I had it right. When the chorus picked up, I went louder still, almost as loud as Izzy and Jimmy. Finally I stopped dancing so I could really sing. I shut my eyes, let the words fly, and I heard my voice vibrating along with Jimmy’s like intertwined electrical currents that were creating a stream of sparks.

  The song ended and Dr. Cone and Izzy clapped. Jimmy nodded, smiling. He clapped his hands three times slowly and then said, “Well, fuck me, Mary Jane, you got some pipes on you!”

  The fuck me part of that sentence caught in my brain like a piece of cotton in a briar patch. I finally said, “I sing at church,” but I don’t think anyone heard, as the next song was playing and Sheba and Mrs. Cone were dancing into the dining room. Sheba was blasting her voice so beautifully that I felt goose bumps from the roots of my hair all the way to my toes. Her voice was pure and solid, and sounded like an instrument I’d never heard played before.

  Jimmy snaked his arms around and danced over to Sheba. She did a circle in the streamers of his arms and then they went hip to hip. Sheba jumped into harmony while Jimmy stayed on melody. Izzy was still outsinging everyone volume-wise, and Mrs. Cone was singing along too. Everyone danced together in a big bouncy circle, smiling, moving, swaying, singing, smiling, laughing, singing, dancing. . . . As the song got faster, Sheba started spinning in circles. Izzy threw her arms out to the sides and spun too. Sheba unfastened her wig and threw it up in the air. Dr. Cone caught the wig and placed it on Izzy’s head. Izzy climbed onto a chair, and then onto our freshly polished table. She stood on that table in her dirty bare feet, wearing Sheba’s wig, and she hollered out the song like she was onstage in front of a stadium. Everyone laughed and danced and kept singing, and no one—no one!—told her to get her dirty feet off the table.

  In the background, I heard a faint beeping. I ignored it. I couldn’t stop dancing, couldn’t stop singing. Though I tried not to stare, I couldn’t pull my eyes away from Sheba and Jimmy. How could anyone look away from them? How could anyone shut their ears off to them? How could anyone not stare at these shimmering, gyrating people who created a power of sound that ran through my body and filled me up so I was laden with it? Sated with it. Happy.

  When the song ended, I could hear the beeping more clearly. It was the kitchen timer. The meatloaf was ready.

  5

  I’d never heard so much conversation at a dinner table. Mrs. Cone told everyone about her first kiss, and then Sheba told everyone about every boy she’d dated up to Jimmy. Jimmy told a story about a rock star friend (Dr. and Mrs. Cone knew who he was, but I only barely recognized his name) who’d joined him on his last tour. The rock star cried and played sad songs on his guitar every single night because he was heartbroken over a woman Jimmy and Sheba swore was a real live midget who was mean as anything. Izzy was very interested in this story and had lots of questions about midgets, the first one being if a midget could drive a bus. Then Sheba, right there on the spot, made up a song about midgets that was so good and catchy, everyone sang the chorus the second time she hit it. The opening line was Midgets, they’re just like us, / they drive in their cars and they can sure drive a bus. . . . I was a little worried that people were being mean about midgets, but the song made it seem like the grown-ups, or Sheba, really, wanted Izzy to know that the only difference between most people and midgets was their height. When we were done singing, Dr. Cone explained to Izzy that just because that particular midget was mean, it didn’t mean all midgets were mean. She was an aberration (and then Dr. Cone had to explain the meaning of aberration). Every now and then Sheba—who was sitting beside me—reached out her hand and squeezed my shoulder or arm, as if to make sure I knew I was included.

  When it was time for dessert, Izzy and I put all the sherbet bowls on a blackened cookie sheet as a tray (I had tried but failed to unblacken it). I carried the cookie sheet and circled the table as Izzy pulled off a bowl and placed one in front of each person, saying Madame or Monsieur as she did so. I had taught her how to say this when we were getting the dessert out of the freezer. She only had to repeat it three times before she had it memorized.

  Over dessert, the conversation shifted to Jimmy’s treatment, with Sheba recapping what he’d gone through and what the future might bring. Izzy was deep into her sherbet and no longer paying attention. I was rapt, as I’d never heard anyone discuss a private issue so openly.

  “Richard,” Sheba said, “I just think if he’s going to eat so much sugar, which can’t be good for him, he should be allowed a little Mary Jane as well.”

  My back stiffened. My heart pounded and I felt burning in my cheeks. I looked from Jimmy to Sheba to Jimmy again. What did she mean?

  Jimmy glanced over at me. I felt like his eyes were shooting lasers
at mine. Then he burst out laughing. Everyone looked at him.

  Jimmy dropped his head over his sherbet. He couldn’t stop laughing. Izzy said, “Jimmy! Why are you laughing?”

  “Mary Jane!” Jimmy gasped at last.

  Sheba looked at me. “Oh, Mary Jane! Did you think I was talking about you?!”

  “Is there another Mary Jane?” I asked.

  Sheba leaned over her chair and hugged me. She smelled like lemon and lilac. My heart calmed. The heat left my face. “It’s another word for marijuana.”

  “Oh!” I laughed nervously. Was Sheba actually asking a doctor if her husband could smoke marijuana? What about the law? Wouldn’t Jimmy go to jail if he got caught? Didn’t Sheba worry about Jimmy doing something that was against the law?

  Dr. Cone said, “Some people find marijuana relaxes them, Mary Jane. It isn’t the terrible drug your school may have made it out to be.”

  “Oh okay,” I said automatically. I must have looked confused, because Sheba patted my leg as if to comfort me.

  She said, “It’s illegal, but the government doesn’t know best about everything. Marijuana can be a lifesaver for someone like Jimmy, who needs to find some way out of his whirly-twirly-creative-genius brain.” Sheba spun both her pointer fingers in the air, like sign language for Jimmy’s brain.

  I nodded. It had never occured to me that something that was against the law might actually be okay to do.

  “It’s better than lithium,” Jimmy said. “The lithium makes me feel like my head is stuffed with wet cotton batting.”

  Dr. Cone looked at Jimmy. “Maybe we can try a control test. You can’t do it alone.”

  “What do you think, Mary Jane?” Sheba asked me, as if I should have an opinion. As if I knew anything about marijuana or drug addiction or getting sober. As if I’d ever even heard people discuss marijuana outside of the don’t-do-drugs talk at school once a year.

  “Uh.” I felt a little shaky, but everyone was looking at me so kindly, I knew there couldn’t be a wrong answer. “I trust Dr. Cone. But, also, I just think it’s strange that marijuana is called Mary Jane. My name.”