Where Jen was petite with chocolate skin, brown eyes, and dark brown hair dancing around in beaded rows, Jane was tall and blonde, with long, straight hair also worn in beaded rows. They both had slender, athletic builds and sometime in the last year or so, had mystically gone from gawky to intriguing. They had recently gotten out of braces, so I was sure that explained some of the transformation.
“Wait!” Jen called as the two of them hurried over to the car.
I told Dave, “Hang on a second.”
Jen bounced up and asked, “Hey, are you guys going to Frankies?”
“Yep.”
“Can we come with? We don’t have any other way to get there.”
“Well we’re pretty crowded…,” I began.
“No,” Gregg said, while Dave quipped, “Sure, get in! Find a lap and let’s go.”
“Awesome!” Jen opened the door farther and plopped herself down on my lap. She looked at Jane’s dubious expression. “Come on, Jane! Go round and get in.”
“I don’t know…”
At that point, I lost track of the conversation as a whole slew of pleasant and disturbing sensations assaulted my brain. Acutely aware of her weight in my lap and the curves I felt through my jeans, I closed my eyes and took in her scent. She also smelled nice, like lilacs or lily of the valley over an indefinable spiciness. Her hair tickled my face where it escaped from the beads. At the same time, several thoughts spun through my head in no particular order: This is little Jen. She’s Gregg’s sister, for crying out loud. God, I hope she can’t feel my erection. How embarrassing. Mmm, she smells yummy.
Jen motioned Jane around to the other side of the car. “Come on girlfriend, get in! Jeff's lap is free.”
“You know what? I think I'm just going to go home, okay?”
To my dismay, I felt Jen prepare to get up. “Okay, I'll walk home with you.”
“No, don't worry about it. You go have your pizza. Have fun!”
It didn't take much to convince Jen. “Okay, see you later this afternoon?” She shifted her weight back and leaned against me. If Jane had a response, I didn't catch it.
Frankies was just minutes away, but I don’t remember a time before this that I had been hoping so fervently that we would hit every red light and, if God was listening, a traffic jam. Jen sat somewhat sideways on my lap, watching the road ahead. Her beaded hair made soft clicking sounds when she turned. The soft fuzz of dark-brown baby hair at the nape of her neck struck me the most with the way it gently swirled up into the main mass of her hair. That little intimate detail was profound. I hadn’t had an opportunity to be that close to an unrelated girl before; no way could Disney Land ever have been more magical than that car ride.
All too soon, we arrived at Frankies and piled out of the car. Jen hopped away from me, and I followed a little slower to give things time to adjust.
We slipped through the front door from the bright, warm daylight to the dark, cool space of the restaurant. Franky had recently redecorated the place and had taken out the booths and put in round tables with candles and red-and-white checkered tablecloths. The entire right wall sported trellises filled with fake grape vines. The buffet table at the back looked like the side of a barn, made with old, distressed wood. The whole effect presented itself as somehow Italian, or at least what us white-bread almost-rural Ohioans thought of as Italian.
We found an empty table and crowded around it. I carefully timed it so I sat next to Jen. She seemed happy with that, which in turn made me happy.
Glenice, the daytime waitress at Frankies, saw us sit down and came over with a pitcher of Dr. Pepper and a second one of Coke. She put them on the table for us with a stack of glasses.
“Hi, boys! Hi, Jen!” she chirped.
We all answered her as she started passing out the glasses. We all liked her. In a tradition, first started by Alan and continued by unspoken but unanimous consent, we tipped her what seemed like outrageous amounts—outrageous to us poor high school students, anyway.
“I’ve got two pepperoni and two works coming out,” she said briskly. “You just sit right there, and I’ll bring them around.” With a flash of white teeth, she bustled away to serve another group of teens just sitting down.
That puzzled us, and we looked at each other, wondering if she meant what she had said. Waiting in line for pizza to come out from the kitchen was the biggest downside to the pizza buffet at Frankies. Franky and Glenice worked heroically to keep pace, but it wasn’t easy keeping up with a ravenous horde of hungry teenagers, especially during the first rush. We found that if we got there early, we could get a good place in line for the first batch of pies and then nurse them along for the half hour it took for the kitchen to catch up with the demand. After that, the line shortened quite a bit.
Good to her word, Glenice came out of the kitchen with a pan and brought it to our table. The faces of the kids standing in line as we helped ourselves were priceless. It made us feel like kings looking down at a rabble of envious peasants just waiting for our scraps.
I turned to Glenice, concerned. “Aren’t you going to get in trouble with Franky for doing this?”
“Naw, he liked the idea. You kids are always such a pleasure. You’re polite, friendly, and never cause any trouble—unlike some of the zoo animals from your school. So you just go ahead and help yourself.”
Everyone grinned and said, “Thank you!” as she walked away with the remains of the pizza and set it on the buffet. That was the coolest thing ever, and Dave said as much. We all agreed as we stuffed our faces and enjoyed the looks of disbelief and jealousy of our peers at the tables around us.
After Glenice had brought the second batch around, we chowed most of our way through it before Jim interrupted our conversation and feasting. In a low, stiff voice, he growled, “Uh-oh, here’s trouble.” Then he pointed his chin toward the door behind me.
I turned and, of course, Erik Parmely and three of his shaven-headed thugs entered the room.
A pit opened in my stomach, and the pizza fell into it with a thud. I whipped around to face our table and tried not to hunch my shoulders.
“Maybe he won’t notice us,” I said with little conviction.
“Be cool, bro,” said Gregg. “We still got your back.”
Of course, Erik saw us and headed straight to our table with his sauntering, confident gait.
“Here he comes,” announced Dave in a loud whisper.
I fought my instinct to hunker down and pull my head between my shoulder blades. I didn’t want to look cowardly in front of my friends. Okay. Who am I kidding? I don’t want to look cowardly in front of Jen.
I waited, tense, until Jim said, “Relax, Finn, he’s sitting down.”
To my unending joy, he sat at the table behind us. We continued eating, and as nothing happened, I started to relax. Maybe he’d gotten in enough trouble for fighting and wasn’t looking for more. Yeah, right.
Glenice came out with a sausage pie and offered us slices all around.
Erik called from behind us, “Hey, sweets, why don’t you come over here and lay some of that on us?”
She glanced at him and smiled a wan, tired, tight grimace. “Sorry, boys. You’ll have to get in line for the rest of this.”
“What the hell? Why are you serving them?” one of the others demanded.
“You watch your mouth, young man,” she warned. “I’m serving these gentlemen because I like them. You can go stand in line.”
“Yow!” said Dave, “You go, girl!”
I pleaded to Dave with my eyes. We so did not need to antagonize these guys any more—usually, I ended up paying for it.
“Shut up, dork breath,” snapped another of the gang.
Instead of retorting, Dave only grinned at him, picked up a slice of pizza, and took a big, slow bite. The back of my head tingled. I just knew something heavy had a date with my skull.
But much to my relief, the back of my head got stood up. The pack rose and went to get their pi
zza. As they passed us on the way back to their table, plates loaded, I accidentally looked their way and locked eyes with Erik.
He smirked and hissed as he walked past, “Hey, Morgenstern, nice to see you taking your kikes and monkeys out to lunch.”
That one threw me. Kikes and monkeys? Huh?
Gregg roared in outrage, threw his chair back as he got up, and rushed toward the still-smiling Erik.
Whatever kikes were, the word set Gregg into a frenzy. I stood in Gregg’s path and put out my hands to stop him.
“Easy, bud. He’s just slime.”
“Hey, Morgenstern, you need to put a leash on your pets if they can’t behave themselves in public.”
Gregg tried to sidestep me, so I wrapped my arms around him to stop him. Everyone else at our table stood as well. Dave put his hands on Gregg’s shoulders, trying ineffectively to calm him down as I tried to hold him. I suppose it would have been a scene out of a goofball comedy—“Hold me back, Ethyl!”—except for the real, writhing hatred in his eyes.
From across the table, Alan said, “Just get the hell out of here, Parmely.”
Erik ignored him and instead escalated his attack.
“Hey, your little girl monkey is much better behaved today! It’s so cute how you’ve done her hair to look like Raggedy Anne! That’s so kinky; pedophilia and bestiality all in one package.”
“I’ll kill you!” screamed Gregg. He slipped from my grasp and surged past me, then dove at Erik.
Erik didn’t have any maneuvering room, but got one good shot in on Gregg before the two of them went down with the clatter of Erik’s plate of pizza.
The other kids in the room got to their feet, hurried over, and chanted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
I’d like to say that I dove in and broke it up, but I just stood there, afraid, with no idea what to do.
A bellow rang out behind us. “What the hell is going on here?”
Suddenly, Franky arrived and yanked the two boys apart. Franky is large and strong and could be the poster guy for a mafia thug—broken nose and all. Once he told me that if the pizza joint hadn’t worked out, he’d have been a boxer. I could see why as he lifted Erik off of Gregg. He held the nasty twerp in the air by the back of his shirt. Erik tried to take a swing at Franky, but the big man stopped him without a problem.
“Let me go!” yelled Erik. “He attacked me!”
Franky turned to the six of us; we had frozen at his arrival. “Boys?”
“Don’t ask them! They’re all his friends!” Erik whined.
I had no idea what to say, but fortunately, Jim took the lead anyway. “We’re sorry, sir. Gregg was provoked beyond tolerance. Parmely made some nasty insinuations about Gregg and his sister, Jen. He was trying to get Gregg to take the first swing. This is the culmination of months of provocation.”
The big man looked impressed with Jim’s eloquence. It impressed the hell out of me, too. Maybe joining the Speech Club would have been useful after all.
Franky turned back to the subdued teen in his hand. “Yer the little twerp that wore the swastika on his head to the prom last fall, aren’t you?”
“It’s a free country,” snapped Erik with a surly scowl. At Franky's glare, he added, “Besides, it was just a joke.”
“Yeah, some joke. I bet everyone laughed. You and your trouble making friends are not welcome here anymore. Get your stuff and leave.”
“But…,” started Erik. “You can’t—”
“Yes, I can. It’s a free country, after all.”
At this point, he gave Erik a shove toward the door. The jerk turned before leaving and pointed at me. “You!” he mouthed, and then left.
One thought ran through my mind: Why the hell are you mad at me? I didn’t do anything!
Parmely’s friends followed him. The last one out was Stib, who wasn’t a bad sort when he was away from the pack. He smiled at Franky while shoving a piece of pizza in his mouth. Through his full cheeks, he said, “Fanks fo va piffa,” and ran out the door.
I helped Gregg up from the floor where he had been nursing a bloody mouth.
Franky looked around at the other kids in the restaurant who had been chanting, “Fight!” He announced, “After today, students will no longer be welcome here for the lunch buffet, so don’t even bother stopping by.”
We received a range of nasty glowers and discontented mutters from our peers. The tone of the mutters ran from shocked, to angry, to ashamed. That much attention made my skin crawl. I tried to ignore them as we got Gregg’s mouth taken care of.
Gregg looked up at Franky from behind the napkin on his lip. “Shorry, Franky.”
“Doan worry about it. That kid’s a definite prick. That student ban doesn’t apply to you boys. You’re welcome anytime.”
We gave him ragged thanks in response.
He nodded and stomped back to the kitchen.
Glenice hustled over then with a glass of ice and a clean, white rag. She sat Gregg down and gave both to him. “Here, you take care of that while I clean up.” She bent down and started wiping up the mess on the floor.
I turned from Glenice to Jen. Her eyes had puffed up from crying. My heart joined the pizza at the bottom of my stomach. I touched her shoulder. “Jen, are you okay?”
She turned to me, wiped her eyes with her hand, and then spat, “That loathsome, vile, pissant, dirt bag, asshole, dick pustule! I just want to tie him down and kick him till he bleeds.”
My mouth hung open.
Her scowling eyes met mine and then crinkled up as she made a weird choking sound. I started feeling defensive.
“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
The anger on her face dissolved into a smile. “Oh, you should see your face!” A short laugh escaped her. “I’m sorry, Finn! I didn’t mean to assault your virgin ears. I didn’t know you could turn so red.”
“That’s not it! It’s not that, I…”
Dave joined her laughter, followed by everyone else. “Loathsome, vile, dirt bag, asshole, dick, pustule? Damn girl! That was awesome!”
It was Jen’s turn to blush. On her mocha skin, her blush was harder to spot than mine, but her cheeks turned rosy nonetheless.
The laughter did its trick, and we got back to some semblance of normal.
Alan asked, “One question. What’s a kike?”
I’d forgotten Erik had said that. I was not ready to admit my ignorance. That could lead to an avalanche of scorn.
Jim gaped at Alan and said, “Seriously?”
I had been right to keep my mouth shut.
“Seriously,” Alan replied.
“It’s a derogatory name for someone who is Jewish. He was aiming it at Jeff.”
“Oh,” said Alan, probably wishing he hadn’t asked.
I blurted out, “Jeff is Jewish?”
Everyone’s eyes bugged out at me like I had two heads. So much for discretion.
“You have got to be kidding,” said Dave.
I shook my head. I’d had no idea Jeff was Jewish. “How should I know?”
“The name Goldstein didn’t tip you off?” asked Gregg.
Dave tapped the side of his nose. “Or his honking huge nose?”
“Hey! My nose isn’t that big!” he protested.
“Are you kidding?” asked Dave. “If you had a hard on and ran into a wall, you’d break your nose!”
“At least I don’t wear my dick on my head like you!”
“Hey! Hey, guys!” interjected Gregg relaxing a little. He leaned over to me and put his hands on my ears. “You don’t want to hurt Finn’s virgin ears!”
With that, everyone chuckled, and we all started eating and trying to forget what had just happened.
After lunch, we piled back into Dave’s car. This time, Gregg insisted that his sister sit on his lap, and I ended up in the front. The front was usually the choice seat, but this time I was sorely disappointed to be sitting there. There was little conversation breaking the uncomfortable silence on ou
r way back.
Life after Frankies
I spent the rest of that day with a hard, uncomfortable knot in my stomach, and it wasn’t the pizza. I kept going over what had happened in my mind. The hatred and violence of the confrontation, as well as my own poor performance, shook me.
My brain had an annoying habit of ignoring problems all day, and then chewing on them when it was time to go to sleep. As soon as I closed my eyes, the showdown at Frankies started playing through my head. I second-guessed what I could have or should have done. I shouldn’t have just sat there like a deer caught in the headlights. I should have jumped up and popped Erik in the face again. On second thought, maybe that wouldn’t have worked out better, but I should have had some comeback to his asshole comments. I couldn’t believe that it had taken me so long to understand his insult. Jen saw me just stand there, with my thumb up my butt, while Erik mortally insulted her and Gregg. And “Jeff is Jewish?” Come on, Morgenstern, how dense can the human brain get! I am such a dork…
Of course, none of those thoughts would change things, but at that point, I spent a lot of my life looking backward, thinking about what I should have done—usually as soon as my head hit my pillow. I guess this is called teen angst. My friends and I called it, “Fear” and “Self-Loathing in Newark, Ohio,” and everyone acknowledged me as the undisputed champion.
Like usual, my brain started running nowhere in its little hamster wheel. What awaited me in dreamland would be way better than reality, but sleep remained depressingly distant.
It took an hour, but once I finally managed to drift off, my dreams didn’t disappoint. I won’t go into the details of this dream, because even now, I find it embarrassing. I admit that I spent the fantasy in intoxicated by its promise. My self-consciousness didn’t follow me into my dream, and I had a great time. Imagine the sappiest, most absurd, chick-flick love story ever written, filled with Meaningful Looks, Hand Holding, Prancing, and Galumphing, and Slow Motion Beach Scenes. You name it. Now, take out the self-conscious mockery and somehow make it head-popping erotica, and you’ll get the idea. It still makes me smile and makes my heart ache, but there is no way it will translate into words without sounding ridiculous.
The Dryad's Kiss Page 8