New Jersey Me

by Ferguson, Rich;

  Mom dismissed my comment with the wave of a hand. “She isn’t even in the ladies club. She’s not rich enough.”

  When I insisted it was Jimmy’s mom’s car, and that he’d give me endless shit about modeling for Mary Kay, Mom pulled over alongside the road’s narrow shoulder, shifted the Caddy into park. She turned in her seat to face me. “Even if it is her car,” she said, “and Jimmy does find out, so what? He’s got nothing on you.”

  Ever since I’d been in fourth grade, up until Mom left home, she’d met Jimmy on numerous occasions—when he’d visited for weekend sleepovers, or had needed my assistance with homework. From those meetings, Mom had formed a very specific impression of him. She let me have an earful there in the car. “His dark curls,” she said, “and his big brown eyes like a young Sal Mineo. Plus, practically all he talks about is Stevie Nicks this and Stevie Nicks that. Don’t you think that’s a little odd?” Then as if it wasn’t obvious enough as to where she was headed with all her insinuations, she held up an arm, let her wrist go limp.

  Sure Jimmy had messed-up tastes, I realized. But he’d always thought the same about me. There was also that night when I’d stayed at his place, when he’d flashed me that Mother Hen Morse code while we were sitting around our makeshift Christmas tree. But no way had I chalked that up to him being gay, so much as way too overly concerned about my well-being. “Look,” I said. “Let’s just go to the next customer.”

  Mom didn’t see it that way. She checked both mirrors, dropped the Caddy into D, then eased back out onto the road. Though barely moving faster than a drugged bug, she clutched the wheel as if she were doing ninety. The customer’s driveway—with scattered patches of grass growing up in-between the concrete cracks—drew closer and closer.

  That day I’m sure there was a breeze blowing off the Second Lake and through the trees. I’m sure there was a raucous opera of warblers and chickadees playing full blast in those trees. But all I heard in my head was Jimmy laughing his ass off, calling me every name in the book. His taunting grew louder and louder as the driveway grew closer and closer. That’s when I reached over, grabbed the wheel; veered us away from the customer’s home, and across the road toward the lake’s edge. It was a truly ass-headed move on my part. At the time, however, a car crash seemed far more appealing than taking Jimmy’s shit.

  Mom slammed on the brakes. We sat there in the middle of the road, struggling for control of the wheel.

  “Stop it!” Mom screamed. “You’ll get us killed!”

  Maybe she truly feared for our lives, but I think she was more worried about the Caddy. Truth be told, that “free” Mary Kay car wasn’t so free. If Mom didn’t meet her minimum monthly or quarterly production, she’d have to make copays that exceeded its true value.

  Mom’s black pump slipped off the brake. The Caddy lurched forward, straight toward an oncoming car. The siren-red Mustang swerved sharply to the right, momentarily going off the road, into the dirt and low-lying shrub area bordering the lake. Then it deftly shot back out onto pavement, sailing off behind us, barely missing a beat.

  That was so Blackwater. While many of the town’s hot-rodders had failed out of high school, their driving skills were A+.

  Mom managed to get her foot back on the brake, then hissed: “I should’ve had my head examined for wanting to help you.”

  I let go of the wheel. “What’s that mean?”

  Mom delivered the perfect KO: “You’re just like your father.” She got us back over to the side of the road, jammed the Caddy into P. Then she sat there, head bowed, like she genuinely felt bad about what she’d said. Just when I thought she was going to apologize, she reached over, threw open my door. “Get out,” she snapped.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  “Get out!” Mom repeated, with bite times a thousand.

  “You see,” I shot back. “I knew you never wanted to be with me. All you needed me for was your faggot Mary Kay crap.” I jerked my tape from the cassette player, seized my cap, and leapt from the Caddy.

  Mom peeled out, leaving me alone and without pay until further notice.

  The rest of the week I spent in a blur. Beer and weed at Jimmy’s, going to third base with Callie in the woods near her house. At home: episodes of Cheers, Twilight Zone, and Friday Night Videos. Those were the things I filled my head with instead of all that Mary Kay nonsense, like how plum lipstick, not red, was best suited for pink-complexioned women, or how exfoliation was the step most people skipped in their skincare routine.

  Come Sunday, Mom phoned me. “Well?”

  “Well what?” I said.

  “I think we owe each other an apology.” Mom’s voice lacked its usual Mary Kay confidence. She sounded frail and far away, like she’d downed one too many Bloody Marys before phoning.

  “You first,” I said.

  “I’m sorry I said you were like your father. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  The two of us fell silent. All we could hear was a distant hum over the line. Then came Mom’s voice, a little less distant than that hum. “We don’t have to work together, you know. We can just try being mother and son.”

  That would be a tough one, I thought. The closest I’d ever felt to her hadn’t been in the real world, but in the wonderful world of Mary Kay. “Here’s the deal,” I said. “I think we can make this working together thing work.”

  “Think so?” said Mom.

  It didn’t take long to answer that one. Just like Mom had always been a natural when it came to selling Mary Kay, I figured that to be the time to close my own deal. “Absolutely,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

  That next day, and for the next number of days, I was back in my groove. In fact, I was better than ever. Instead of doing the usual—partying or Twilight Zoneing in my off-hours—I was doing massive amounts of homework. Armed with various Mary Kay brochures and samples I’d swiped from Mom’s place before she’d canned me, I was locking myself in the bathroom for hours on end, either reading brochures on the crapper, or standing in front of the mirror, modeling products. Through it all, I learned how the men’s facial bar cleaned and buffed the skin while reducing the visible signs of aging, the woman’s Moisture Rich Mask Formula Two could remove environmental elements that clogged pores, the all-in-one mascara formula could deliver long, thick lashes without clumping. And while there were times when my old man would bang on the door, wondering what the hell was going on, while my face was slathered in Balancing Moisturizer Two for oily skin, I never let up.

  All my hard work was paying off. Mom and I began spending quality time together outside of Mary Kay—sharing an occasional dinner, attending church. Her once grim-smelling kitchen became filled with all her old, wonderful cooking smells. Her living room was even bearable.

  But one day at her place, while she was making us lunch—Philly steak sandwiches—I sensed a sudden chill in the air. Maybe it was a breeze drifting in off the Barnegat Bay, and sailing through the back screen door. Or much worse, I feared, Mom was brewing up another leaving storm. So I swiped her key ring from her purse, and called out, “Gonna take a quick walk around the block to check out the neighborhood.”

  I Speed Racer’ed to a hardware store I’d seen by my bus stop. Got her house key copied. When I returned, I snuck the keys back into her purse, and strolled into the kitchen, sporting a huge grin.

  “What are you so delighted about?” Mom asked.

  What I told her was that I was just happy to be in her life again. What I didn’t say was that she’d left me twice, it could happen again. If it did, next time I’d have the key to her magic kingdom. More specifically: her medicine cabinet. And if she did, indeed, leave me again, I’d at least have a little bit of her, and all her downers, rushing through my blood.

  Chapter 12

  Not long after rejoining forces with M
om and Mary Kay, I’d not only earned enough to put away some cash in the bank, but to also buy a beater—a Chevy Vega—from the Asbury Park Press.

  About that car.

  It had sweet pinstriping, chrome-plated wheels, and blow-your-eardrums-out Kenwood speakers. Back then, I thought those were the things that made a car go. Really go. But what the owner didn’t tell me was that the radio would cut out when it hit potholes. Also had a slightly warped aluminum-block engine. Was a real oil-burner. Had to carry around a case in the back because I’d go through a quart just pulling out of the driveway. But by the time I’d learned that one from the guy at NAPA Auto Parts who sold me my first case of Valvoline, it was much too late to get my money back.

  Since tunes were key, I bought one of those AM-FM cassette jobbers. Quad stereo speakers. Even paid to get it installed. As for the case of oil in the back, I grabbed some sheets from the linen closet—a couple colorful, shiny ones my old man had bought at Gimbels after Mom left home—and tossed them over the box. I tried passing it off as a damned expensive piece of equipment: the subwoofer for my kick-ass car stereo. But that shit-for-brains charade didn’t last long. Just a few days later, while cruising Blackwater with Jimmy—Hoodoo Gurus’ Mars Needs Guitars! cranked loud—he totally busted me; said speakers didn’t leave oil stains on sheets.

  I officially christened that Vega by taking Callie out on a proper date.

  It was a Friday night, early August. The humid air was sugar drunk with Summersweet. Crickets, bullfrogs, and mosquitoes sounded their rackety symphony. Night hung over the sky like a black sheet riddled with holes, allowing tons of starlight to shine through. Amidst it all, Callie was waiting for me at our usual meeting spot. She emerged from the shadows just beyond the streetlight’s glow, and hobbled toward the car.

  For a while, I’d had my doubts as to whether another car date would ever happen. There’d been that knuckle-headed stunt I’d pulled when cruising with Callie in Mom’s Caddy. Plus, her parents had become extremely overprotective due to a recent spike of tourists crashing into Satan’s Tree that summer. Nonetheless, I’d begged, pleaded. Told Callie I’d been working all kinds of jobs to earn the money to take her out in style. So she lied to her parents, told them she was spending the night with a friend that was willing to cover for her.

  She stuck her head in through the open window. Instead of giving me shit like she’d done after seeing Mom’s Caddy, that trademark wobbly smile of hers crept across her face. “Nice,” she bubbled.

  Her voice was as effervescent as her outfit: a black Madonna “Live To Tell” T-shirt, a long flared polka dot skirt, equally polka-dotted Keds, white knee-high socks, and an unzipped pretty purple sweat jacket.

  I hopped out. “Bonne soirée, mademoiselle,” I said.

  Callie let fly a small curtsy. “And a good evening to you, too, sir.”

  I opened her door. Helped to ease her sidesaddle into her seat. She swung her good leg around; then carefully eased her right leg inside.

  Once back behind the wheel, I reached behind my seat, produced a red-rose bouquet.

  Callie gushed, snuggled them to her chest, and breathed in their potent scent. Then she scoped me out. “Looking good.”

  That night I’d gone out of my way to win her approval. Not only was I wearing my freshly washed Cult Love T-shirt, brand-new Converse high-tops, and my one-and-only pair of unripped jeans, but over the last couple months, all the Mary Kay products I’d been modeling had made my skin clearer, eyes brighter. I told Callie she always looked good.

  We leaned in, shared a shy kiss. Never mind that we’d already gone to third base out in the woods, it was strange being in a car again. Callie glanced out the front window. Not so much noticing the patch of streetlight hitting the pavement just in front of the car, but quietly contemplating something only she could see. Then she turned back to face me. That sweet smile of hers had gone into hibernation. “You’ll be careful, right?” she asked.

  This time I didn’t offer any lame lines. I simply told her absolutely. Then I motioned toward her seatbelt. Once we were fastened in, I asked: “Where to?”

  Her smile came back out of hiding. “How ’bout the beach?”

  I made a beeline for the Garden State Parkway. Once there, I inched the Vega up to sixty-five. Seeing as I’d dumped in a few quarts of oil before leaving home, the normally rackety engine purred. All the mile markers—from the seventies up into the eighties—blurred by.

  I grabbed one of my favorite tapes—The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle—and slapped it into the deck. “Rosalita”—with its bright sax riff, driving beat, and Springsteen’s urgent vocals—filled the car.

  Spread out now, Rosie, doctor come cut loose her mama’s reins / You know playin’ blind man’s bluff is a little baby’s game.

  I inched the car up to seventy. Windows down, the boisterous, pine-scented wind whooshed through the car, transforming Callie’s long silky hair into that brilliant array of sparklers that had dazzled me on our very first date.

  Dynamite’s in the belfry, baby, playin’ with the bats / Little Gun’s downtown in front of Woolworth’s, tryin’ out his attitude on all the cats.

  While I hadn’t been able to bust Callie and me out of Blackwater on our first date, that night was different. Well, sort of. Forget trying to imitate that Springsteen pose, which I could never cop anyway. For those glorious seven minutes and four seconds—the length of “Rosalita”—I imagined Callie and I were living that song. We were on the run, escaping the swamps of Jersey, heading out California way, trying to find a peaceful place where guitars played night and day.

  Then the chorus kicked in.

  Rosalita, jump a little lighter / Senorita, come sit by my fire / I just want to be your lover, ain’t no liar / Rosalita, you’re my stone desire.

  Recalling that moment, maybe Callie was also living my escape dream. She was bobbing up and down in her seat, beaming. Gave me a smile so sweet and tart it was like she had the juice of Pine Barrens blueberries running through her blood. Gone her sad, watery eyes. Gone the forehead creases she’d sometimes get when thinking too much about her fake leg or her mom. There were no vacancies in her shine hotel. Everything about her was electric and alive. I pressed my foot a little deeper into the gas. The engine revved, hummed. Sounded better than it ever had before. I cranked the stereo louder.

  Parkway trees blurred by. Ditto with the occasional deer grazing by the side of the road. Callie was weightless. So was I. We sailed through all the trails of taillights and headlights from passing cars as if they were dazzling liquid streams.

  But once the song ended, it was as if we’d suddenly lost that buzz of our lovers-on-the-run electricity, and had been dropped from a great height back down into our regular lives. I clicked off the stereo. Callie and I sunk a little heavier into our seats.

  We sat there quietly. The only sounds: that whoosh of wind rushing in through open windows, and my Vega. No longer did it hum like a finely tuned high-performance engine, one you’d hear about in a Springsteen song. Instead, the aluminum-block’s valves were back to their tapping. I eased my foot slightly off the gas; crossed over into the slow lane. I glanced over at Callie. A crease or two had bloomed back across her forehead. I gave her hand a squeeze. “You okay?”

  She nodded, squeezed back. “It’ll be nice to see the ocean.”

  At Exit 82, we headed east toward Seaside. As we crossed the bridge connecting Toms River to the barrier island, Barnegat Bay’s musky, marshy stink gradually eased into the clear scent of sea salt as we drew closer to the beach.

  We ended up in Seaside Park—dilapidated beach houses, fleabag hotels, meth-head surf punks. It was the twisted stepsister to the neighboring, way-too-glitzy and touristy Seaside Heights boardwalk. Still, it possessed a certain charm. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, Seaside Park’s blinker traffic light was changed to a regular traffic light. Th
e population would jump from 1,800 to 18,000. Certain shops and stands would only open for the summer. Sweet corn and Jersey tomatoes, miniature golf and arcades everywhere. Come winter, though, the place was a ghost town.

  Callie and I cruised the chaotic streets until we discovered a fairly remote portion of town. Armed with a huge blanket I’d brought from home, we walked out onto the beach. A slight breeze sailed in off the ocean. That ocean: a shimmering, semi-slumbering beast whose steady hum reminded me of that final sustaining chord in the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” I took off my Cons, helped Callie remove the shoe from her good foot; the other sneaker, she kept on. I tied all the laces together, slung the shoes over my left shoulder. And while Callie had been taught over and over in physical therapy how to walk, fall down, and safely get up, I slipped my right arm around her waist, drew her close. She shivered briefly, then rested her head against mine. We walked through the sand, careful to avoid the occasional broken bottle and crushed, jagged beer can.

  Waves continued their working song against shore. The apparitional strains of arcade music and roller coaster screams floated over from the Funtown Pier.

  Like she’d done so many other times, Callie motioned toward the night sky. She singled out three bright stars. “There’s the Summer Triangle,” she said. “Lyra the Harp, Aquila the Eagle, and Cygnus the Swan.”

  Since I’d brushed up on my stargazing skills since my last Callie date, I was able to tell her a thing or two. I pointed to the right of that triangle. “There’s the Big Dipper.” Then I pointed to a red giant star amidst a cluster of other stars just bellow the Summer Triangle. “And there’s Scorpius the Scorpion.”

  Callie kissed my cheek and told me she’d been reading up on music, said we should quiz one another.

  I started easy. Some music I’d heard earlier drifting over from the pier—music that reminded me of Jimmy—gave me my first question. “Who sings ‘Nightbird’?”

  Callie squeezed my waist. “Way too easy. Stevie Nicks.”