by David Amsden
And right now I was kissing her—
She was very forward and direct—you could tell it was sort of her thing. And today after school she had come up to me like—
“I’m into your car. You should give me a ride.”
She was sort of contrived, I admit, like an eighties movie. But I didn’t care.
“Where?” I asked.
“I don’t care,” Liz said. “To the courthouse, to a graveyard.”
I was only eighteen, so I thought this was about the most amazing thing anyone had ever said to me. I didn’t take her to any courthouse or graveyard though, not right away at least. I went out Falls Road, because it was sort of countrylike and peaceful, driving fast, all show-offy around the curves, downshifting like I was some NASCAR expert, the low branches of the trees pretty much slamming against the windshield.
She was from Texas, San Antonio. She told me this during the ride. She was just here for a year, because her step-father had to do some work in Rockville, something like that. It’s not like she had that accent or anything, but I now attributed some of that strut and that spunk of hers to being from Texas.
After whipping around through Falls Road, I came back out where we started, right at our high school. Drive on a lot of the roads in Rockville and it’s a funny thing: you just end up right where you started. I drove across the street where there was this church, like over a hundred years old, with a cemetery behind it.
“A graveyard after all,” Liz said, her arm wrapped through mine, like we were about to get married as we walked over to the graves.
Everything Liz said was interesting. You know what I mean? Like she could have said hello, and you’d be like I can’t believe a girl who looks like you says hello like that. She could have wiped something from her cheek, and you wished you had a video camera, so people would believe that you were once out with a girl who wiped something from her cheek like that. I mean, you just expected her to turn into a cloud of smoke and be gone. You were waiting for it. I think that about pretty much every girl I meet that I’d consider marrying. That they’re about to turn into a cloud of smoke and vanish at any second.
“This place is fucking great,” she said.
“You gotta see this one grave,” I said. “It’s pretty funny.”
“Jesus,” she said when we got to it. I realized it was dark out now, because Liz’s face, the way it was silver all of a sudden when I looked at her, meant the streetlights were all on. I barely knew her, but already I liked to gauge pretty much everything around me using her face. “He’s really famous. What’s he doing buried here?”
“We read his book in English sophomore year,” I said.
“Yeah, so did we.”
“Everybody in the world does, I think. Like, really everybody, like in Japan even, millions,” I said. “I didn’t really like it.”
“Whatever,” Liz said. “I never read the fucking books in class. What’s it about?”
“I guess that’s what I meant,” I said. “I didn’t read it either.”
I now realize how hysterical it is, that he’s buried in Rockville of all places, because I’ve read his book since and get the joke now. I mean you’ve got to understand, Rockville’s an old town, but unlike all those little shady hamlets you’ve got polluting New England, no one ever cared about preserving Rockville, so every ten years since the beginning it’s been plowed over, reinvented. By the time I was ever alive this just meant redoing the facades of the million stripmalls lining Rockville Pike so they’d look fancier, because people kept getting richer. We watched Congressional Plaza, Richie Center, Wintergreen, all once gaudier than a heavily made-up corpse, get turned into these pastel-colored structures that were very soothing to stare at. It was like whoever designed them knew that families would spend their lifetimes in these parking lots, going in and out of these stores, and wanted to create a building so fantastically boring that no one noticed it was really there. That way, when they tore it down, and put up another, no one would get sentimental.
But at the start of the Pike, before all this, there’s this one little section, where this church was, where you could see that Rockville did actually exist before 1975, that it was actually once a quaint little place. And then you get to this grave, and you see that F. Scott Fitzgerald, of all people, is stuck rotting under this ground, right across the street from my high school, in the shadow of this mammoth chain furniture store called Marlo, which I swear is listed in Guinness as carrying the world’s chintziest sofas. Start at the other end of the Pike, and in only ten minutes you’ll drive past three McDonald’s, two Roy Rogers, a Bob’s Big Boy, four 7-Elevens, nine Foot Lockers, one Bennigan’s, the T.G.I. Friday’s across the street, the Ruby Tuesday next door, all these plastic signs, and at the end of it you get to this skuzzy graveyard and F. Scott Fitzgerald, a guy even illiterates recognize as a famous writer. I’m not even kidding. You should really go and see it because I guarantee one day soon they’ll plow right over it. Like I said, they’re always plowing over things like this in Rockville.
“Why are there all those packs of cigarettes and bottles of liquor around his grave?” Liz was asking.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think because he was a real drunk and now that he’s dead people love him for it.”
“That’s so typical. My real dad’s a drunk, but he’s still alive.”
“Yeah, mine is too, but I never see him anymore.”
“Maybe that’s better,” she said. “Do you drink?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Not that much, though.”
“Well, we should come out here some night, to this grave, bring a bottle of vodka.”
“Sure,” I said. I mean, it seemed like a fine idea. I’ve never been too big a drinker, because of Dad and all, but it’s not like I’m against it either. “Wanna get out of here?”
So we get in my car, and like three minutes later, we’re parked up in front of her house, this little townhouse development, and we’re kissing. The way she was sort of crazed, kind of frantic—it made her one of these girls who sort of laughs while kissing you. Normally I hate that, because you never know what the hell they’re finding so funny, but I didn’t mind at all with Liz.
And then, like I had bit her or something, she suddenly pulled away.
“Hey, tell me something that happened to you this week,” she said, all urgent. But she could say something like this and it seemed normal still.
“Okay,” I said. “My Dad just got some woman pregnant and wants to name the kid after me.”
“That’s fucking hilarious,” she said.
“I know,” I said. I loved her for saying this. It was right when she said it that I knew she’d go away. No real girl would ever say something like that and stick around. “My Mom lost it,” I said. “She called him up and threatened to sue, because he hasn’t paid child support ever. She was so pissed.”
“I love it!” she said. “Your mom sounds amazing.”
“Oh, she is,” I said. “Yours?”
“She’s not so brilliant,” Liz said. “Better than my real dad, though. He used to beat the shit out of me!”
“What was the worst thing he ever did?”
It’s funny, how absurd these kinds of conversations seem all of a sudden. Especially when you realize that you were having them all the time.
“I don’t really know,” she said. “Let me think. He used to do this thing where he’d make me kneel on uncooked rice, with my arms sticking out. It kills your knees.”
“That’s fucking sick.”
“Like Jesus at a wedding, right?” she said.
“Jesus.”
“He’s really not that bad,” she said. “Only when he’s doing that shit. He’s just always doing it, so I never see him.”
“My Dad was just always asleep,” I said. “I barely knew him.”
“You’re lucky,” she said. “Trust me.”
“He changed the name, my Dad did, of the baby,” I said. “My le
gacy’s shot now, huh?”
But instead of answering me she just wrapped her hand around my neck, her fingers running up into the back of my hair, her lips coming at me now like nothing in the world was funny anymore, like every single joke had been told. I think I told you how I had started to dislike girls touching me, how it made me feel like they just wanted me to start telling them lies. But Liz seemed lost and crazy enough not to care about what lies I had to tell.
She pulled away again, looked at the clock, its red digital numbers the brightest thing in the car, looked me right in the face now.
“Fuck,” she said. “I gotta run.”
“I knew it,” I said.
“We need to get this over with, and soon,” she said. “Tell your mom I say hi, okay?”
I don’t think it completely registered, what she meant by this, not until the next night, when at two in the morning Liz snuck over to my house and we were in my room, mouths lit up and burning with vodka, and she was on her back on my floor, laughing, her teeth flashing glossy and white, and I was kneeling, sliding her jeans off.
It was the first thong underwear I’d ever seen that wasn’t in a magazine. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but with the vodka making knots out of the veins that go to my brain, I didn’t really care. I mean, I had been naked with a girl before, but never in a way that I expected to actually have sex. It’s funny. I’ve had sex since, and I’m still always shocked it’s really happening.
But like I said, my head loose like it was, I wasn’t too hung up on any of this right now. Probably because I was so sure Liz was an apparition of sorts, probably because I thought I was making her up. She was just so unreal, it was pretty much like I was all alone—
“Hold on,” she was saying. She was always saying something all suddenly like that. “I have to run to the bathroom, to do something.”
Based on how quick she was in and out of the bathroom, I could only deduct that she had removed a tampon. This didn’t bother me at all. I don’t get all disgusted by stuff like that.
“Okay,” she said. “Sorry about that.”
I pulled her to me, turned her around, because I wanted to see her back. I loved looking at girls’ backs, still do. Liz was part Latina or something, the way everyone’s part something these days. Her skin had that maize color. Even though the lights were off you could still see this, especially where her scapula bone jutted out. I kissed the back of her neck, her shoulders, right there on her scapula, down her spine to her lower back. I even got into this kind of silly position and kissed behind her knees. She was laughing. I was laughing. I pressed up against her now, still behind her, could feel her hand between my legs now. I was still in my boxers, and she was pulling them down, just enough. She pulled her underwear over to the side, was pulling me closer to her now. Her whole ear was in my mouth, half the hair on her head in my palm, me sort of pulling on it, just barely, not like I wanted to hurt her or anything like that. I just wanted to help her in pulling me closer.
I’d never done this before. I mentioned that, right? This was it. The only thing I was sort of freaked out about was how we weren’t using a condom or anything, but to tell you the truth, once we started I wasn’t really thinking about any of that. They say the best thing about no condom is how real it feels, but that’s not true. It’s that without a condom it’s much easier to convince yourself that none of it’s really happening in the first place.
“Hey, you wanna see something cool?” she was saying now. She was on top of me. We were still on the floor, even though the bed was right there. I was lasting a lot longer than expected, even though I had to keep pushing her away to avoid losing it.
“Sure,” I said.
She was still in her bra and underwear, her underwear all stretched off to the side, useless now. I hadn’t taken her bra off because I think I mentioned how breasts sort of freaked me out. Even though hers were small, the way I liked, I was still fine with the bra staying on.
But apparently she had a different attitude, because she was taking it off now. What she wanted to show me was her left nipple, which was dark, almost purple. She wanted me to see the bright silver barbell she had pierced through it.
Here is where I’d like to tell you that I held some sort of ideal of Liz as a lost, fucked-up girl, and that it was this barbell running through her nipple that cemented all this. I’d like to admit here that she works well in my memory like that, and I’ve shortchanged the real woman here, degraded her or whatever. Like in reality she was a well-rounded girl, the kind you probably grew up around, and that I’m ruining her for you. But the fact is she did become a stripper, just so you know, dropped out of high school to be called Nikki as she danced half naked up in a neon thong on the stage at Gentleman’s, that club on Wisconsin Avenue in D.C., Georgetown sophomores leaving their Jesuit dorms to spend a night drooling all over her toes. Last I heard she was back in San Antonio, married with a one-year-old son, age twenty-one and looking thirty-five. Just so you understand. Just so you know these people really exist.
But that’s all irrelevant, especially right now as I was saying—
“That’s cool. Does it hurt?”
“Oh, look,” she said. “Are you nervous?”
“What?”
“Your forehead,” she said. “It’s so sweaty.”
“I can’t see it.”
“Look at mine then,” she said. “I’m pretty much you right now.”
“Does that thing hurt?”
“No,” she said. “You should pull on it.”
I wasn’t complaining. I gave it a little pull, and she made this noise, something right between a laugh and a whimper. She told me pull a little harder, and I listened. She started moving her hips now, moving them all slow. She was making that sound, that laughing and crying sound, and I had no idea what to do with any of it. I didn’t care if she’d been with a thousand other guys. I didn’t care about anything. You could forget me tomorrow, and I won’t care.
I glimpsed down, saw the blood on the tops of my thighs. I didn’t mind. I had my hand on the left side of her hip. Her hips were so trim, almost boyish.
“Okay,” she was saying. “Come on, pull even harder.”
If she was going to keep saying things like this, if she was going to keep picking up speed like she was doing, I knew I didn’t have all that much time left. I mean, it was my first time. And that whole thinking-about-baseball thing—well, let me tell you, it’s bullshit.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m gonna—”
“Do it inside me,” she said. “Do it inside. Please.”
She started moving all fast now. Looking at her, at that look in her face, eyes shaking under the lids, cheeks all flushed, I felt lonely all of a sudden. It was like she wasn’t even with me anymore, even though she was right there, right there touching all of me—
“Are you sure?”
—touching me in this way where I would have paid someone to cut me open, just so she could look right into me, if you can even get that. Just so you could see me, all of you. Just look at me please. Please. I want all of you to see everything—
“Yeah yeah, it’s fine,” she was saying.
“Jesus.”
“It won’t matter. Not now. Jesus. Because I’m you right now,” she was saying. “I’m you. We’ll do it at the same time,” she was saying. “Oh God. Yes. Just pull real hard now. Yeah. Come on just pull—”
Yeah, yeah. It doesn’t matter. It does not matter. I’m you. Yes. Jesus. I am you. I am you. I am you. I am you. Please. Please. Just like that, just like that, just like that.
I think the thing is, about me, is I just feel bad for pretty much everyone. I don’t mean it condescending. For example, after Mom flipped out about Dad wanting to name his son after me, and I realized how pathetic this was, I just felt horrible for Mary, of all people, sorry that now Mary had to live with this man, have a son with him. I thought of her looking at that one picture, the one at Easter from forever ago, wi
th me and Mom and Dad looking like petrified mannequins, like figments from some haggard imagination. I remembered her flipping out. And even though I now got that Mary had been losing it because she was pregnant again, and about to piss it away, it still meant something. Dad wanted to name her kid after the one in the photo, the one that made her insane. I was the one driving her nuts, but, still, I couldn’t help feeling pity for the woman.
Also, I realize I haven’t mentioned any of my friends from high school. I don’t know why. Just know I had some close ones. There were some who, for a year—junior year—I was always high with, but then I got bored with drugs and just know that they’re still high wherever they are. And then there’re the people I’m still in touch with, people with names and faces and all that. People I’m sure you’d love, really, but they’re too precious to be mentioned here.
It’s that I’m thinking about Dad now, and when I think about him pretty much everything else goes away. I don’t mean in some romantic way—it’s just because he’s not really attached to any of it. I only saw him like three times through high school, only once since, which I’m about to tell you about. It’s funny. When you think real hard about someone who has nothing to do with your life, you just end up forgetting about everything else, the things that matter. Say you’re sitting on a bench with a cool girl, a girl you’re actually obsessed with, but you just end up looking at all the strangers around you instead of saying anything to her. Wondering all obsessive-compulsive, what’s their story? Eventually, the girl’s going to get up, and join them. Trust me.