As he drove down Roscoe Boulevard heading ever closer to my house, to my mother who would doubtless be overcome with drunken concern and righteous anger, he started talking about his girlfriend. I looked out the window as restaurants, car dealerships, houses, apartments, became a smear of lights. Strong, nauseating smells of grease and hops filled the air and I wished I was walking, somewhere unknown, somewhere far away. My mind flashed on the grove of trees we’d parked under and I wondered if I would ever see them again, if they were on any map I might ever come across.
He parked at the gas station. I opened the door without rolling the window back up. Before he could pull away, I leaned in on the window ledge and my eyes met his.
“I must have set myself up for heartbreak. I knew the whole deal with your girlfriend was inevitable,” I heard myself say. I felt like I was standing nearby, watching myself, amazed that I could say such a thing, the unspeakable. I flashed forward in my head to the next phone call, when I might have to apologize, or rationalize my candid remarks, and a new lump lodged in my throat.
He leaned across the seat and held my gaze, his mouth open ever so slightly.
“If you tell me you never want to talk to me again,” he said slowly, “that will break my heart.”
He turned and stared out the windshield of his car for a moment, and I wondered if he was looking for his own reflection until he spoke again.
“Can you promise me we’ll still be friends years from now?”
I turned and looked down the street. The stoplight turned green. Cars careened by, people going on dates, stereos happily vibrating the joys of Saturday night. My legs felt like the asphalt the cars were treading on—heavy, fissured, at some breaking point.
“You can’t, can you?” he said finally.
I shook my head, my cheekbones twitching under the pressure of keeping my face from crumpling. He looked down at the seat for a moment, then rolled up his window.
I began the walk home. It was eleven at night. I knew it was possible I’d have some explaining to do when I walked through the front door, which seemed a sick, ridiculous fate.
LATE FALL
1987
One Saturday of many I arrived at his house. I timidly peered through the dusty screen.
“Come on in!”
I opened the screen door and saw him. My attention, my intuition, my conscious, my unconscious seemed entirely in service to this relationship as I stepped through the doorway. I became focused on Jeff’s movements, the words that came out of his mouth, what I felt or heard between the lines of conversation until I walked out the screen door again, hips purposely swinging, back to the boulevard.
“Bus stop Wendy, she’s here calling,” Jeff sang at me to the tune of a song on the oldies station. I stepped into the living room and smiled.
“Well, this time I hitchhiked,” I offered by way of conversation.
“You what? You what? What in the…”
His hands, which had been packing a tight little wad of pot into a slim pipe, suddenly stopped. I watched the scene unfold, still standing in his living room, letting my backpack drop to the carpet.
“The bus was…”
“No. No. No.” He paused. “You know what?” He looked down at the floor, then up at me. My face turned red, a heat I couldn’t control traveling from my cheeks and forehead to the tender parts of my ears. My mouth was open, readying for protest, but nothing came out.
“If you need to hitchhike to get here, I’d rather you not come over.”
I closed my mouth and swallowed quietly. I moved to pick up my bag. I felt my nostrils flare.
“No, no, wait a minute. Just stay.” Jeff’s face changed, and he patted the sofa seat next to him. “Here, look, I found a little something in this vial. You want some water? Wanna stay a bit?”
I threw my bag down and sat in one of the dining room chairs, far from the couch he was sitting on. I could see a scar on his knee, his leg hairs creeping out from underneath his shorts.
“Over here,” he sang apologetically. He went back to loading the pipe. I sighed loudly and moved to the couch. He set the pipe down and tipped a few drops of water from a glass into a small amber vial that sat on the table.
“Drink it,” he said. “It’s just a little coke. Probably won’t do much.”
I took the tiny vial and with the swiftness of a shot of hard liquor I tossed it back. The granules burned my throat. After two hits of pot, I was soothed, though my heart pounded. The anger I’d felt dissipated. I was intent on following the conversation, whether it was about cars or psychiatrists as portrayed on television or the writing of cheap romance novels or hiking the Santa Monica Mountains, the random and mysterious breadth of our conversations while high.
I never took in the details of each room in his house. I rarely ventured into the bedrooms: the risk of being in a room with him not in line of sight of the front door or window was too dangerous.
Once, we ventured into one of his housemate’s rooms, where he pointed out a stack of pornography that made me wrinkle my nose even as I wanted to thumb through the pages without anyone else around. We converged in his tiny bathroom, my hands gripping the sink as he entered me, our faces glistening and panting in the mirror on the days when his roommates had all-weekend alibis. I secretly harbored a weird pride that we were the first to “break-in” the rental house, when it was naked and open, void of furniture, like an empty carpeted canvas that we could stain. The house, which was far from being mine, already contained secret memories of our relationship.
I was a guest in his house. Sometimes I was one of many guests, such as the coaches from Oakcrest and Louis the maintenance man. I was expected to come into the house, make myself comfortable, get my own water from the kitchen, and yet I was always rooted to the couch or the chair. I suffered from a strange immobility upon arriving, as if any slight movement would remind Jeff I was really there, only fourteen years old, and therefore must leave. The pendulum then swung in the opposite direction: I moved about, especially if we were alone, in order to maximize the impact of my cut-off shorts, my flimsy white t-shirt with lace bra underneath. I’m here! I wanted to remind him, even as I wished for invisibility. The room often felt pregnant with the reason why I was there, the need.
I now recognize the amalgamation of furniture common to those in their twenties who collect furnishings from garage sales, Dumpsters, their friends’ or parents’ living rooms. There was a large, bland sofa and a glass dining room table reminiscent of the 1970s, with four matching chairs. There was a mantel holding candles, souvenirs from places traveled, a framed photo of his girlfriend, and a black and white photograph of me, unframed, taken by a yearbook photographer at a junior high school dance.
The living room also featured a built-in bookcase that I often stood in front of, fingering the spines of the paperbacks and hardcovers it held. Its location behind the front door functioned as a place to caress, grope and squeeze, the door wide open, our bodies writhing in view of any person approaching the front steps through the miniature windows of the door hinges. Silent except for the sound of birds chirping outside, he could grab me around the waist with his thick palms and press himself against me as I lay my hands on his forearms, absorbing the energy, the distinct flame of power and arousal between us. If a car pulled up, the flame was doused as quickly as it was lit. I returned to fingering the books on the shelf, situating my mind and my clothes nervously, while he dashed to the other side of the kitchen counter. The sounds from outside had the power to put out the flame that left me aching, ready to start anew, while Jeff was anxious and fidgety, ready to smoke a bowl or do another line.
✵
A chilly afternoon passed in fits and starts. One of his housemates had been holed up in his room, thwarting any plans Jeff and I might have had to press ourselves against each other. I knew Jeff’s girlfriend lurked in his pres
ent life somewhere, but he had stopped mentioning her, only to touch my skin, kiss my mouth, then pull away, saying, “No. I can’t.”
“Will you give me a ride home?” I asked petulantly, expecting another “no.”
I was still surprised as we drove down Van Nuys Boulevard, the sidewalks heaving with people in the midst of the winter holidays. We passed the thrift stores I shopped at regularly, and the Thrifty’s drugstore where I bought makeup, and the head shop I had plans to visit. At the stoplight he leaned over and kissed me deeply, once, twice, three times, his free hand touching my cheek, until I could only stare at him in surprise as he returned to the wheel. It was as if his paranoia vanished, replaced with a vulnerable passion I had never seen in him before.
“I’m shopping for your Christmas present,” he said.
I couldn’t help but beam. “You don’t have to.”
He smiled.
Kisses in front of the three men who were standing at the bus stop. More kisses goodbye as I left his car, stepping out onto the blacktop of the gas station. The men hooted at our display. I sauntered home, dreaming, tripping occasionally on the buckled sidewalk.
NOTES ON AN EXCAVATION:
1993–2001
Thank gods for the experience of college and the life of the town surrounding it.
I am forever indebted to the radicals, queers, faeries, activists, tough girls, strong girls, butch girls, strippers, writers, painters, photographers, and dreamers I came into contact with. It was when I was running with this crowd that I learned the most about my worth.
In college, I met women who wanted to photograph me nude because I wasn’t perfect. I met and shared beds with people committed to fighting injustice in smart and sexy ways. I would meet women who had been subjected to the worst kinds of treatment and survived and made their experiences into art.
I learned about love that was not like the love I had been taught in my relationship with Jeff.
Those college years were less about excavation and more about preservation. They were about assessing all that I contained and what could be burnished to the full beauty of its potential.
In therapy rooms around downtown Olympia, Washington, I contemplated the eventual excavation, and later, when it began, I was able to use my brain, my eyes, my hands. I got dirty with the tools and plunged body first into the experience.
And I learned to not let the dirt swallow me whole.
OCTOBER
1987
Saturdays felt like worlds I created once I left the space of my mother’s house.
Coming down from a spectacular high that lasted all afternoon, we were rooting around in Jeff’s garage. He was pointing out items to me, items of sentimental value that had found a temporary home in the garage before they could be sorted and arranged in the house. Jeff’s Siamese cat languidly walked in and around the piles of stuff—junk in my estimation. Her fur touched our legs in small caresses while I tried to concentrate on Jeff’s voice, wanting to appreciate his junk as much as he did.
A car pulled up. I felt my head slowly turn and my mouth open, wanting to alert Jeff, who was still on a monologue about another old treasure in a dusty corner of the garage. He heard the car as soon as my head turned.
“Hey, it’s Fara,” he said calmly.
She got out of the car. I was planted in the cement.
We were introduced.
Fara appeared trim, manicured, hair gelled into place. Her skirt and short-sleeved pastel-colored blouse were well-fitting, bordering on tight. I eyed the gold necklace that hung around her neck, and the wispy bracelet on her wrist, aware that these were gifts.
She smiled and took my hand, said hello in a courteous manner.
My cut-off jeans felt stiff against my thighs, my knees locked and naked but for the rough spots that were newly scabbed from rubbing against the carpet in ecstasy. My chest caved in a little, my breasts suddenly feeling pointy and odd in the presence of her filled-up blouse. I noticed I was taller than her. I stood in my tie-dyed Converse high tops across from her white pumps for a few minutes, until it felt safe enough to leave.
“But you don’t have to leave,” Jeff said, moving next to her and taking her hand.
“No, I do. I’ve gotta go. Thanks, for everything,” I said, moving backward. “Oh, my backpack,” I remembered aloud and pointed to his screen. “Can I go in and get it?”
They stood there staring at me. Jeff’s face twitched and he said, “Yeah, Wendy, of course. Sure you have to go so soon?”
I caught his drift. Make it seem like I just got there, perhaps.
“Yep, gotta go. Bye. Have fun.” My high tops beat a path out of the suburban world, back to the boulevards and buses that might take me somewhere completely different.
✵
I managed not to call him that night or the next. My mother complained about the incessant ringing of the phone, and I explained it was probably Abigail, whom she knew I was spending less and less time with. In disgust, I finally unplugged the phones.
When I inserted the plugs back into their square homes, I listened to the messages collect on my answering machine. In one, Jeff’s voice called out, “Hello, this is the fuckhead. Call me back.” My finger hit the button. Erase.
I finally picked up the phone a few days later.
“I was so worried.” I heard a desperate tone in his voice that I liked, a tone that made my hips feel like they were opening up. “That day you took off, Fara and I had to go to dinner in Anaheim and I was nervous and jittery the whole time. Worried about you. Why’d you run off like that? We almost went out looking for you.”
I didn’t answer. I wonder what story he created about me, his former student, about why I was standing around in his garage with him on a Saturday, a day when other kids are out with their parents, or watching television, or playing soccer. I imagined a little pity party of him and his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Jeff’s hands still had my scent on them, my cigarettes left behind on his coffee table.
I realized my words were something he was not entirely interested in hearing.
“Oh, Wendy,” he finally said. “I just see this wall between us, and I wish you would talk to me.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. I pulled the receiver away from my ear for a moment and noticed it was due for a cleaning. I thought of the pungent smell of rubbing alcohol and the security of a small, white cloth. I switched the receiver to my other ear.
“I care about you. A lot. I know you may find it hard to believe, but it’s true.”
I held the plastic receiver away from my face for a moment, wondering if I should continue listening. I brought it back to my ear and sighed heavily again, exasperated.
There was a marked shift in his voice.
“But I have to tell you, she’ll be living in town for a while, and we’re going to try to make it work. So you need to know, my energies will be focused elsewhere.”
Energies will be focused elsewhere.
My stomach went from warm to ice cold. My hips felt like a jaw slowly closing. My forehead tensed and my face began to tremble.
I knew I would not eat the rest of the day.
Later, he told me about how his girlfriend had been cleaning his house and how she put the photograph of me back up on his mantel. How she remarked on my presence.
“She seemed so troubled that day,” she had said. “But she still had a look about her.” Then she returned to dusting.
Hearing this, one part of me laughed and laughed.
His girlfriend, me, him: a sick triangle that she wasn’t completely aware of.
Another part of me slept all weekend, dreamt the slow, ocean dreams that came from several tiny blue sleeping pills.
FALL
1987
Football games, freshman dances, and Mass.
In the mornings I pulled
on my skirt (gray wool or sky blue cotton), buttoned up my blouse (white or sky blue) and scrunched my socks down on my ankles. I slipped my penny loafers on and turned off the radio. Grabbing my bag, I headed out the door, glancing at the window across the street. The curtains were closed, but the light over the easel glowed.
I stepped over every buckle in the sidewalk, and walked past the house with the assortment of cacti in the front yard, the yellowed lawns, the electrical towers, and the sight of the Hollywood Freeway. It might be a shortened day to accommodate a special afternoon Mass, replete with incense and the hum of incantations; a half-day so the teachers could have an educational retreat; or a full day with the prospect of a dance held in the school’s gymnasium at night.
I went to four dances in my four years of high school. The first two were in freshman year.
I went, stood uncomfortably in lines to get pictures taken with my friends, all of us dateless, or I danced with abandon, hoping to catch the eye of Dennis Monroe or any other cute boy who knew that women were multi-orgasmic.
I took early buses home. I opened my journal and refreshed my memory.
My lover was a twenty-nine-year-old man. He had a knee injury. He had shoulder aches and caught colds often. He was a sports fan, not a player, and his body was beginning to show it. He got winded during sex and sometimes couldn’t reach orgasm.
When I felt especially academic, I opened up my pile of overdue library books or I turned on the television and tried to concentrate on the cable news broadcast. I found myself staring past the talking heads into the scenes behind them, the whirring computers and people walking back and forth, holding papers and talking into headsets. I opened my journal and considered the finer points of socialism, a topic I looked up in my encyclopedia set. I took notes in thin blue ink, messy, touching the tops and bottoms of the college-ruled lines in a special notebook for such matters.
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