Excavation: A Memoir

by Wendy C. Ortiz

  ✵

  I could not imagine turning fifteen could be any better than this.

  My mother left weekend evenings to go to parties with people I didn’t know. I didn’t ask questions.

  I moved around the house, opened the curtains wide, pulled up blinds, opened windows and bolted the front door.

  My hands sorted through the growing stack of records until I found Cream, or Led Zeppelin, and the house began to pulse with sound. After a few phone calls, my friend Danny arrived with Veronica in tow, sometimes with videos to watch: Altered States, or cult classics like The Trip. We played haphazard games of Quarters with my small stash of wine coolers and Danny’s baggie of weed, creating elaborate rules designed to get us completely drunk and high within an hour.

  I listened to strangers speak of orange sunshine acid while they passed joints to me and Abigail in the darkness at a Pink Floyd concert. I put lubricated, ribbed, or colored condoms on the flat white counter of the drugstore at the mall along with my money, and no one blinked an eye. I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder, colorful patches multiplying on its canvas. I looked forward to the vodka I confiscated from my mother’s bottle. I snorted miniscule amounts of cocaine with a crisply rolled dollar bill off the smooth, pink surface of Abigail’s thumbnail. Veronica rolled perfect joints in the bathroom of Chuck E. Cheese’s and handed me ten tokens so I could waste time until her shift was over. We went to parties with her group of friends, punks and skinheads, and the whirlwind of parties regularly attended by the LAPD began for me. After the first couple of times, I grew to expect them, their black uniforms approaching on the lawns of houses in neighborhoods I was not familiar with. Hiding in strange bedrooms or bathrooms in complete darkness and silence became a common occurrence; that, or dispersing, my legs moving underneath me, following Veronica, as we ambled down sidewalks in search of the closest bus stop or a friendly driver that might offer us a ride elsewhere.

  I used my allowance to buy tickets to an all-day reggae show at the Greek Theater in Los Feliz, where I bought my first water pipe, my first hippie poncho. An hour after we stumbled into the amphitheater, a woman walked onto the stage and announced that we needed to evacuate, that a fire was threatening the nearby mountains.

  “This a joke?” I slurred at Veronica.

  After some indignant yelling of obscenities and general contempt for the fire and the loss of our tickets, we walked down the stone steps sober-like, trying to give meaning to the term “evacuation.”

  After some Frisbee on the grass while waiting for the slow line of cars to begin the descent down the hill into Los Feliz, we went to Ben Franks for coffee to sober up a little. After Ben Franks, we rode the freeway to the Valley. We were dropped off at Nicholas’s house. He and I might have been on the skids, due to the rumors I was hearing about him seeing other girls, but his house was somewhere to go.

  I called out a greeting to his parents in the living room, who waved in response, and opened the door to Nicholas’s bedroom. He was playing drunken host to many of his similarly drunken friends in the cramped quarters of his bedroom. We joined the game of Uno already in progress.

  ✵

  “Why are you leaving? You were here all afternoon!” Jeff cried one day as I picked up my backpack and put my shoes on.

  Because I’m getting smarter, I thought to myself.

  It was not fair for him to have an orgasm, and then beg paranoia to have us stop what we’re doing, me orgasmless. I threw out a couple of phrases, beginning with “frustrated” and “pissed off” and he kept repeating the reasons he couldn’t get me off, ending with “Why won’t you look me in the eye?”

  I started on the long walk down to the bus stop, checking my pocket for quarters that might connect me to someone on the restaurant pay phone. Jeff followed. His Siamese cat on her fast-moving, coffee-colored legs followed him close behind.

  “Hey!” he yelled as I continued past the halfway mark towards Van Nuys Boulevard, stopping he and his cat in their tracks. “Hey! Are you going to see that movie we talked about tonight? Will you call me and let me know if it’s any good? Or call me tomorrow! Hey! We can always say that I owe you one! Don’t be mad! C’mon, Wendy!”

  Owe you one, my ass, I thought, not bothering to turn around. I kept walking.

  ✵

  I wrote about every sexual encounter in the pages of my journal. Canoga Park is where I often slipped off my shirt at night, with Nicholas’s hands reminding me that I was attractive, worthy of kisses after we stole away from his friends so we could be alone against the rocks, dust rising in the air, resting on our jeans.

  When I wrote of my body it often seemed like a separate entity I was watching, like there was only partial ownership involved in my own skin. My back may have been jammed up against large, graffiti-covered reddish rocks, my thighs positioned to cradle the pelvis of a boy with the same intent as me, but it was like I was watching from a few feet away as a girl let her hands caress a boy’s neck as he unbuttoned her pants and helped her lift her shirt off in the moonlight.

  And even without ownership, there was an awareness—like the stars we can’t discern because of the streetlights, although we know they’re there—of beauty. Mirrors lie, as do men, but intuitively, I looked down and saw a body, my body, and I liked what I saw. My skin saw the sunlight more. I saw the veins through the hairless, pale parts of my skin; I had emerged from showers, dripping, my steamy image in the mirror something of daydreams. But there it was, reality, as my fingers touched the glass, rubbing until the image came up clear and different from the fourteen-year-old I had seen not that long ago.

  Glasses fell by the wayside. I tried contact lenses, beginning with hazel that really appeared yellow, graduating to clear so that my brown eyes showed through, then forays into hair bleach, black dyes, until I knew my real shade of dark brown was the most attractive decision. These changes didn’t fall perfect like dominoes in formation, but came into play like mistakes I had to sort through and rethink.

  Beauty would never be a static place for me, but it would become more of a belief, a train of thought I rode more consciously, purposefully. Sometimes I only found it in late-night trysts in public parks, or cars, or bedrooms; anywhere my clothes might find a temporary place to land so that my body could be free, seen, explored, enjoyed by myself and others.

  ✵

  One afternoon I met a British man down the street from Chuck E. Cheese’s. I clearly saw the ploy, the devices he used cunningly. Bus stops between places, I was most vulnerable. He kept at me to go get a drink with him, when instead I was really on this errand to take the bus home (safe), get some new clothes (smart), then ride the bus back to meet Veronica when she got off work so we could get some pot (Danger. Jackpot.) The word instead rang between each thought.

  Instead, I chose to let this man buy me drinks, because I knew that with him, no one would card me. My wine coolers came in heavy pint glasses with thick, curvy handles. Sauced, pretending I was twenty-two (and trying to remember I have to be twenty-two), he began asking me if I was “daring.” I felt my lips curve into a smile.

  He unbuttoned the top of my denim shirt in the middle of the empty restaurant. I stumbled to the bathroom, almost puking, and re-buttoned my shirt. I returned and slurred that I needed some air. He suddenly offered that his apartment was nearby, and on the street, he put his lips on mine.

  “I have to meet my friend. She’s getting off work soon,” my mouth said. I wondered how I would explain being wasted at three o’clock in the afternoon to Veronica. I looked forward to the laughter and the ride back to her parent’s house, where I could chill out on her bed and watch her smoke cigarette after cigarette in her room. Safe.

  Instead, this man followed me to Chuck E. Cheese’s. I had birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese’s. I was leading him to a place where children played, where Veronica would be getting off her shift any minute. I couldn’t be
lieve he was following me. When he cornered me in a small doorway off the street and started unbuttoning my shirt, I knew I did not want a man with gray hair pushing himself on me in the street. He flicked my nipples through the denim and told me I was beautiful.

  “Would you go to my place with me?” he asked. “I want to put it in you.”

  When I shook my head, staving off nausea, he started pulling money out of his billfold. I saw at least one one-hundred dollar bill.

  Years later, I think of the moment when my eyes caught the image of this one-hundred dollar bill, the way it had been folded, then unfolded, and held out to me. It became something to think about intermittently, when I felt suffocated in my room at my mother’s house, her voice slicing into me and the scent of vodka permeating my door. The fold, unfold, offer up: when I was telling Jeff on the phone of the previous weekend’s exploits. The fold, unfold, offer up: later, when I was a college student, counting out change for the bus to go to school to pick up my student loan check.

  Instead, I left the man on the sidewalk and stumbled to Chuck E. Cheese’s, where Veronica and Abigail were standing in their red work shirts and red visors, asking, “Who the hell was that!”

  “Instead” was the operative word of fourteen, fifteen.

  ✵

  One afternoon I walked into Jeff’s house. Jeff and Jesse sat at the dining room table talking. I pulled out a seat and sat down with a sigh after a few moments of standing awkwardly in the living room, wishing for an invitation. I slipped off my sandals and let my feet touch the carpet.

  “So,” Jeff began, looking at the glass tabletop, “how’s Bus Stop Wendy?”

  “Fine,” I said, looking from his face to Jesse’s. Jesse smiled broadly at me. We met on one of the numerous Saturdays I happened by, records in hand, wishes blooming in my chest.

  I looked at my lap. “But I didn’t ride the bus here,” I said, picking up my bag and looking inside for a lighter or some matches. “I hitched.”

  Jeff looked at the table, sighed sharply, stood up. Jesse watched him and then looked at me and shrugged. I could tell Jesse was attracted to me. He made it obvious. I looked away nervously.

  “I’m going to explain this once, and once only.” Jeff left the room and returned with two pairs of knee-high stockings. I made a face when I saw them, my lip curled, because I was reminded of my mother’s wardrobe, the drawer that held such strange items as knee-highs and pantyhose, tan, limp pieces of fine mesh.

  “Why do you have those?” I finally laughed, finding my voice, and I looked at Jesse.

  “Yeah, man, what are you doing with those ugly things?” Jesse asked.

  “Wendy, sit back in that chair.” I looked up at him and tried not to laugh. I settled deeper into the chair and he used a hand to push my chest back, straight, flush with the chair back.

  “So. Let’s say you’re out there in the world, and you’re hitchhiking.” Jeff talked in a singsong voice I immediately didn’t like. I stared at him as he lengthened one knee-high stocking in his hands and threw the other three on the table.

  “And some guy picks you up and you tell him where you wanna go, but he takes you somewhere else. Someplace you haven’t been, and don’t want to be.” Jeff began tying one of my ankles to the chair leg with the hosiery. “Too tight?” he asked, looking up at me. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, his breath coming out in short, hot grunts I felt on my skin.

  “A little,” I answered, my eyes wide, trying to form a casual smile that wouldn’t quite come.

  “Good.” He took the second stocking off the table and tied my other ankle to the chair. “If it were someone else, they might use rope. Or electrical tape. Or a cord.”

  “What the fuck, Jeff,” I finally stammered as he bent one of my arms back and tied it behind me to the metal arm of the chair. I couldn’t look at Jesse; this suddenly felt private and insane, a flaw in Jeff’s composition, something I had always wondered about, but could never put my finger on.

  When both of my arms and legs were tied to the chair, my chest artificially jutting out, I said again, weakly, “What the fuck.”

  “Oh, wait, one more thing.” Jeff scurried to his bedroom and returned with a bandanna.

  “I get it, already,” I began, resting my eyes on Jesse. He sat there watching, his brown arms folded across his chest, shaking his head, a slight smile playing on his lips. He couldn’t look me in the eye anymore.

  “Jeff, man, she gets the picture,” Jesse said, taking his eyes off my tied ankles for a moment. Jeff raised one finger at him. He turned back to me.

  “Okay, Wendy. You hitchhike, and this is but one possible fate. Do you know there are people out there who will do this to you and any other girl that’s out on the street looking to get from one place to another? I mean, how can I make you understand? Look, I have a fucking hard-on here,” he said, smacking his crotch through his pants with an open palm.

  I didn’t look at his crotch. I looked down at the smoke-scented bandanna on my mouth and felt sleepy. My nostrils flared like they do right before I start crying.

  “You don’t want to get raped. You don’t want someone to do this to you. But when you get into their car, you don’t know who you’re fuckin’ dealing with. Some asshole, maybe? You’ll never know.” He paused dramatically and stood back to admire his work. He untied the bandanna from around my mouth and I pretended not to gulp the air in relief. He was sweating, nearly panting.

  “Tell me, Jesse, did it not turn you on to see a pretty young thing tied up like that?” Jeff said, turning to Jesse matter-of-factly as I shook my arms and legs out, the stockings falling to the carpet like small, shed skins.

  “Oh, Jeff, man, she understood, she understood,” Jesse replied. He turned to me. “Why are you friends with this guy?” he laughed.

  My tongue ran over my lips.

  “Can I have some water?” I asked, already hating the demure tone I used.

  Jeff moved into the kitchen and got a mug from a cabinet. He let the tap run and filled it. He returned, handing it to me with both of his hands, touching mine as I received it. I drank. My heart slowed, beat faintly in my chest.

  “Don’t hitchhike to get here, okay? That’s all I ask,” he said to me after sitting back down in the empty chair. A lock of black hair fell on his broad forehead. He gave me a playful kick under the table. I kicked back, stung, speechless.

  “Let’s have a smoke, shall we?” he said after a moment.

  I licked my lips again, wishing for more water. Soon a joint was being born on the glass tabletop, and all, it seemed, was forgotten.

  SUMMER

  1988

  Jeff wasn’t home when I called him. But Jesse answered.

  “Hey!” I screeched into the phone. Veronica, who was sitting next to me on the bed applying her make-up, shushed me though I could see she was holding back laughter.

  “Guess what?” I said into the receiver in a whisper. Veronica patted my hand and put out her cigarette in the glass ashtray. I looked back at the phone and its keypad looked like a strange, otherworldly instrument I’d never seen before.

  “What?” Jesse said, playing along.

  “I’m on acid and you get to be my ride today!” I exclaimed. Veronica shook her head at me and moved to pick up her purse.

  “Where to?” he called out. This was the answer I was looking for.

  Half an hour later, his truck was sitting in idle in front of the house. I waited out front where Veronica had stationed me. She was on her way to get some pot, and I had to busy myself for an hour or two while she went out to score. It was summer and the air was thick with heat and her parents were at work. She feared bringing me along on her errand in my hallucinogenic state, especially after I chewed a sheet of aluminum foil in my mouth and insisted on taking some with me for the ride. “Like chewing gum,” I explained.

&nb
sp; I rode around with Jesse, the stereo blaring, both of us singing “Hotel California” at the top of our lungs. I hummed to myself absently and let my finger trace the fabric interior of the truck, mystified. Jeff crossed my mind, but since he hadn’t answered the phone, I didn’t want to think about him.

  Jesse returned me to Veronica’s and for the next eight hours Veronica and I laughed a lot, traveled by bus, made charming small talk with my mother, winked at each other behind her back, watched television, made mashed potatoes we couldn’t eat, stared at the bubbling cheese pimple on a slice of pizza we microwaved, and before sleep arrived at six a.m., I came down on the floor of the bathroom, trying to bring myself to orgasm, tense, full of strychnine and the speed it brought, silent but for my breathing.

  Decision-making became secondary to back-to-back experimentations with acid and Ecstasy. We filled halves of capsules with honey to dilute this strange white powder I read about in my freshman health book under the heading “designer drugs.” Our hostess, the friend of the drug dealer, rubbed my open palm with her fingertips and said, Wendy, you just exude sex, and I beamed, quite taken with this description, my tongue lazily circling the warm, soft insides of my mouth as the Ecstasy took hold. It deposited me in a world where I could hold my friend’s hands, stare into their eyes and tell them how much our friendship meant to me as my feet dug into the carpet with sensual abandon. A week later, we lied to our parents so we could kneel together in a strange house with many other people our age, parents conveniently missing, our mouths open, tongues stretched out in wait for the hit of acid to be deposited, ingested, experienced. Communion, we called it, our eyes blazing.