by Rob Rufus
5. Everclear—“Sparkle and Fade”
6. Screeching Weasel—“Hey Suburbia”
7. Face to Face—“Ordinary”
8. Lagwagon—“Brown Eyed Girl”
9. The Ramones—“I Want You Around”
Each song wasn’t my favorite, but every song had a place. I tried not to overdo the love songs. I spaced the whiny songs between heavier ones. I added a couple of tracks about feeling like an outcast. I even added a few songs about doing drugs, just to be safe. I wanted a lyric, a hook, something to grab her, the same way that it had grabbed me. I knew that it wasn’t a perfect group of songs, but I hoped it was perfect for her.
I wrote Ali’s Mix on the label.
5
It took until Tuesday to muster the balls that were needed to give her the tape. She seemed excited—but as the days went on, she never mentioned it again.
It took a whole other week to finally get a date with her—on a Thursday night. She said that her weekends were all booked up.
She was hard to read or I was bad at reading. Either way, she hadn’t distanced herself from me yet. We met every morning at the lockers, there in front of my class. Ali stood a little closer to me now, and a little was all that I needed.
It was close enough for me to feel the heat coming off her body. It was close enough for me to smell her hair—the mixed aroma of cigarette smoke and apricot shampoo.
* * *
I was painfully nervous about the date. I’d only been on one other date in my life, and it was a total fucking disaster.
The girl’s name was Danielle Maraquin. She had just transferred into our eighth-grade class from Wayne County. She was ethnic looking in a nondescript way—her skin was dark, her arms were covered in black hair. One of her front teeth was oddly missing.
But Danielle already had tits. And her jeans were tight. And she liked me—sort of. Not a lot, but enough to let me take her to the movies.
We met at the theater, where she chose some Ethan Hawke flick I didn’t want to see. But I bought our tickets and a large popcorn.
She wanted to sit in the very back row. She knew that I was nervous. She even laughed about it. But then the previews started up, and we sat in silence.
About an hour into the movie, she asked if I wanted to kiss her.
I said yes.
Danielle ran her hand down my cheek. I turned my face toward her. Sparks lit through my legs and guts. The colors of the movie reflected in her eyes. She looked almost beautiful in the darkness, her missing tooth now only a shadow in the projector’s flickering dreamglow.
She led me toward her lips. I leaned in and closed my eyes. My lips puckered, searching for hers.
And then she burped—right in my goddamn face.
The word burp doesn’t begin to describe this disgusting, malicious popcorn belch. Worst of all, my surprise caused me to inhale—sucking her buttery stomach acid in through my lips.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?” she cackled through her insane jack-o’-lantern smile.
She grabbed my face and jammed her lips onto mine. I felt the wet nub of her tongue dart in and out of my mouth, shooting from side to side as though it were locked in a trunk.
* * *
I couldn’t shake the memory of it. I mean, I didn’t know much about Ali, but I knew that at the very least, she had all her teeth. I was so out of my depth that it was hard to breathe.
Can I hold her hand? Can I kiss her? Can I should I could I dammit fuck shitshitfuckshit! I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
I’d been sitting in Ali’s driveway for fifteen minutes, agonizing over whether I should even go through with it. Maybe I should save us both the trouble and bail.
I put on music to clear my head.
I searched around for something good. I’d borrowed Mom’s car for the date, because I feared a van might make a kidnappy first impression. But the only CDs she had were Rod Stewart and Mary Chapin Carpenter. So I flipped on the radio.
It was on 97.9 Golden Oldies—man, I hadn’t listened to that station since I was little. Dad used to blast it—mood music, he always said.
“Cupid” by Sam Cooke was playing. I turned it up.
I know between the two of us her heart we can steal
Help me, if you will . . .
I took it as a sign, from Cupid himself, or some black, well-dressed rock ’n’ roll God in the sky—it had to be. I mean, Sam Cooke would never let inexperience stand in the way of a fine-ass girl like Ali, would he? Not a chance.
“Fuck it,” I said out loud.
I checked my look in the rearview, popped in some gum, sucked in my gut, and strutted up to her door.
* * *
Ali’s older sister Liz answered. She was a year ahead of us, one of the senior girls who I was scared to even look at. Liz was taller than Ali, and her hair was the almost-red of burning leaves—but otherwise, the two of them looked nearly identical.
“Hi Roooobbb!” she said. She was smiling Ali’s smile.
Then she hugged me—tight.
My hello got trapped between her cleavage. I tried not to drool, or accidentally lick anything. She finally let go and held me at arm’s length, looking me up and down.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said.
“That’s a scary thought.”
“Is that him?” a voice yelled from the stairs behind her.
“Yes, Mom, Jesus!” Liz yelled back.
A squat woman came charging down the stairs like a boulder. She looked like she’d spent the entire 1980s inside a tanning bed.
“I told you not to use the Lord’s name in vain, dammit,” she snapped. Then she looked at me. “So you’re the musician?”
I nodded.
“You know who Frankie Valli is?”
“Sure,” I said.
She smiled. “Where I grew up, Frankie was bigga than Elvis. He was an angel. I lived right near his house and when my friends and I would walk by, he’d come right out on the porch, and—”
“Mom,” Ali yelled, rushing down the stairs, “please shut up.”
She pushed through my welcoming committee and moved right past me. She wore tight gray pants and a red flannel peacoat. Her lips looked darker.
“We’re leaving—now,” she said. “Quit bugging him. Come on, Rob.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
The mom and sister laughed.
“Byeeeee,” they sang, mockingly sweet.
I followed Ali to the car. I opened the door for her.
Once she got inside, she leaned back and took a deep breath.
“Sorry,” she said. “They always do that. It drives me fucking crazy.” She turned to me. “Can we go? I have another sister, three brothers, and a dad who’ll be coming down any second if we don’t leave.”
“Shit,” I said. “Yeah . . . don’t worry—your getaway driver is here.”
I turned over the engine.
The radio jolted alive. The McCoys were in the middle of “Hang On, Sloopy.” Hang on, I thought to myself. I shifted into reverse, gunning the car down her driveway backward as gravel crunched beneath us. I cut the tires at the edge of the road so hard that they squealed. Dust blew around us.
“My hero.” Ali laughed.
She turned the radio louder as we drove into the dark.
* * *
We sat in a back booth at Chili Willi’s Mexican Cantina. The place was so empty, it seemed like we had the whole restaurant to ourselves.
As far as I could tell, the night was going okay. Ali was laughing at my jokes, and I’d managed to keep her talking, but now that we’d finished our burritos, the conversation started to lag.
I was getting nervous, and drummed on the table awkwardly as I waited on the check. The opening riff to “Blaze of Gl
ory” sounded from the radio at the bar.
“I love this song,” Ali said.
“Really?”
“Uh, duh. Mom’s from Jersey—she forced Bon Jovi on us.”
I thought of that day Nat burnt our Bon Jovi albums, in his alleyway sacrifice to the punk rock gods.
“I dig Jovi too,” I said.
“Really? I thought they might be too normal for you.”
I shook my head. “No way—I like all different types of music.”
“Yeah? So what’s the best Bon Jovi song?”
Luckily, it didn’t matter how much I loved or hated a band, record, or song—when it came to music, my memory was on point.
“Probably ‘I’ll Be There for You.’ ”
“Not ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’?”
I shrugged. “Isn’t that one a little normal?”
Ali smiled. “Okay, ‘Bad Medicine.’ ”
“I like ‘Always.’ ”
She threw a tortilla chip at me. “You pussy. Maybe you should listen to ‘Let It Rock’ or something.”
“What about ‘Wild in the Streets’?”
“I like ‘Bed of Roses,’ ” she said.
“Jesus, and I’m the pussy? Shit! ‘Never Say Goodbye’ is a better slow jam than that.”
Ali didn’t answer me. Our waiter came back with my change.
“I’m sorry. Did I say something dumb?”
“No, you’re fine. It’s just, that song makes me sad. It’s like—we are graduating in a year and a half. Then what? Do we end up like the people in that song? Wishing we were in high school forever? It’s just depressing.”
She took a sip of her Diet Coke.
“I never thought about it like that.” I hadn’t.
I leaned in closer. “It’s cool you heard all that in the lyrics. Most people don’t ever pay attention to what songs are trying to say, even if it’s one of their favorites. No one ever cares.”
Ali just shrugged. She stood up and put on her coat.
“Okay,” she said, “one last good Jovi song before we leave—‘Lay Your Hands on Me.’ ” She winked.
She fucking winked.
I opened my mouth to reply, but there was no point—the song was over now, the bar radio was playing the Eagles. Our moment was gone.
* * *
She asked if I’d swing by the park before I drove her home.
Ritter Park was halfway between my house and hers. It had tennis courts and a rose garden, muddy hiking trails and a playground, but the park itself was barren. Nothing but an occasional pine tree or pile of dogshit occupied the otherwise empty stretch of green.
When she asked me to take her there, I wondered if she really did want me to lay my hands on her. I ran five red lights on my way to that fucking park, but as we got closer, Ali said that she only needed to pick something up.
“What’s there to pick up in a park, in the middle of the night?”
“Uh, weed, pills. You know—drugs,” she said, shaking her head.
I laughed nervously.
“Is that okay?” She touched my arm. “I thought you said you were my getaway driver.”
“Uh noyeah yep yeahyeah it’s totallyfinetotallycool,” I sputtered.
I ran another red light.
* * *
The park was empty. Ali directed me to the back of the lot beside the playground. It was empty too.
Less than a minute after we parked, a black sedan pulled in slooooooowly. It stopped at the opposite end of the lot. No one got out.
My eyes darted in all directions. I was ready to floor it at any second.
“Be right back,” she said cheerfully.
She walked across the lot. A black window rolled down, and a black arm reached out as Ali’s reached in. She stuffed her hand into her pocket and walked in my direction. The sedan pulled out of the lot with its headlights off.
When she rapped on my window I jumped, and my hand hit the horn. She started cracking up. I laughed too, relieved that the deal was done. I cracked the window.
“All good?”
“Yep,” she said.
She pulled her cigarettes from her other pocket. She put one between her lips and leaned in toward my window as she lit it. She stepped back and blew smoke into heaven.
“Feel like keeping me company while I smoke this?”
“You know it,” I said.
* * *
We walked through the deserted playground, past the rusty swings and the slide. Somewhere near the sandbox, she let me hold her hand. Beyond it was a bench swing that faced outward, toward the rest of the park.
We sat down on the cold wood.
We rocked slowly back and forth, our toes scraping the ground. Ali smoked her cigarette. We held hands. We didn’t talk.
The park stretched into the darkness, until the shaded green landscape joined with the night and the stars. I couldn’t see the houses and I couldn’t see the street. There were no cars. All was quiet. We were staring out at a secret ocean.
“You don’t get high, do you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“How come?”
“I dunno, really. I just don’t. I don’t drink either—I mean, I don’t care if you do—I’m trying to stay focused on my band, and I get scared that doin’ that shit would cloud my mind.”
“Well, yeah—that’s the whole point,” she said.
“Ha, right. I guess it is.”
She tossed away her butt and immediately took out another cigarette. I held my hand over her lighter until the flame caught.
“It helps me with my anxiety,” she said, “ya know? Helps me get outta my own head.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking into the dark, “I gave up on getting out of my head. At this point I just focus on getting out of this town.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded. “Totally—shit, at least there’d be some good concerts.”
“What do you mean? I just saw a great show! Some punk band, I wish I could remember the name, but they did have this really cute drummer.”
“Hm. Who knows.”
I smiled inside. We sat and rocked a little longer.
“Y’all really are awesome, Rob. You guys will get famous, I bet.”
“Nah, not here, at least.”
“You don’t know that,” she said.
“Yeah—I really do. No bands even tour through here, unless you count stopping for gas. Every record company is pretty much in LA or New York.”
“So what are you gonna do?”
I shrugged. “Tour to LA or New York, I guess. Try to get their attention.”
“You just better not forget about your number one fan when you’re all famous, drummer boy.”
“Hey. You might be a lot of things, but forgettable isn’t one of them.”
She tucked her head underneath my arm.
“Do you really think Huntington is that bad?” she asked.
“What—you mean Shitsville, USA? Um, yes.”
She laughed. “Shitsville. That’s good. I always call it ‘The Great American Pit Stop.’ ”
“Sounds about right.”
“I dunno. I joke about it a lot, but I don’t think it’s so terrible.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mumbled. “Life looks a lot different at the cool kids’ table.”
Ali winced. Her hand slipped away from mine.
Fuck! Moron!
“Oh man . . . shit, Ali . . . I didn’t mean anything by that,” I pleaded. “Sorry . . . shit, seriously—I’m sorry . . .”
“You don’t think I’m already used to hearing that? Rich bitch, cheerleader cunt—whatever. Like, there’s no chance that maybe things aren’t so great for me here either? Maybe things suck for me . . . but so what, ri
ght? No one cares. Forget it, I’m used to it.”
I took her hand back. “Come on. That isn’t true. I care—seriously.”
She stared at the ground and pushed the swing faster.
“What do your parents do?” she finally said.
“My dad’s a CPA and teaches at the college. My mom works at the refinery, over in Ashland. What about yours?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Dad works—worked—for the lottery, but he lost his job a few months ago. His boss got indicted for embezzlement, or something. They fired my dad too, even though he had no idea.”
“Holy shit.”
“He got royally fucked. It’s just . . . it’s all really fucked up. Like—fuck—you know what I mean?”
I forced a smile. “Yeah, but come on—your dad must be super smart if he worked for the lotto. Right? He’ll get a new gig soon.”
“Rob, you don’t get it.”
“No, I guess not,” I said.
“You know the worst part? My friends are already making plans for college—UK, OSU—it’s all they fucking talk about. I just have to sit there like an idiot. I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford to go to college at all. I’m stuck here, Rob. Stuck in Shitsville—stuck.”
“Maybe you could get a scholarship?”
She laughed.
“Yeah—right. My grades are horrible. I barely go to class.”
“What about a cheerleading scholarship?”
“I quit.”
“Really?”
“Last week. I haven’t told the girls yet.”
“How come?” I asked.
“Because I need to make up a reason. I think I’ll say that I hurt my ankle.”
“No, I meant why’d you quit?”
“Don’t laugh,” she snapped.
“Who could I ever laugh at?”
She sat up and brushed the hair from her face.
“I quit because I don’t have time to cheer anymore. I quit because I got a stupid fucking job at the Frostop on Route 60, because the stupid fucking lottery fired my dad for no reason and everyone is freaked we won’t be able to pay our stupid fucking bills now.”
Frostop—damn. I couldn’t even imagine Ali eating at that place, let alone serving food to all those miners who stopped in between shifts.