The exchange was absurd.
“You were with Dee when I said I wanted to leave.” There, I said it. “And I was going to get my coat, right?”
“Nope, didn’t hear that. I waited to say goodbye, and when you didn’t come down, I came up. When I opened the door to the bedroom, I heard muffled screams. I know a struggle when I hear it.” Michael’s fingers strangled the steering wheel. “I was too worried to even think about finding the light switch. If I had, we might know who it was. I wanted to kill him, seriously.” His eyes turned toxic “I can’t believe the sonofabitch slipped through my fingers.”
Staring directly at him, my shoulders flattened against the passenger door. His explanation wasn’t a confirmation that he had been or hadn’t been with Dee. Where was Michael?
Just then, Stevie’s car whooshed by, and Michael restarted the motor. After coming to Candy’s, he shouldered the door and walked around the truck to help me out. His hand was toasty in mine.
“Are you going to be okay?” he said in a hushed whisper.
I watched the girls staggering out of Stevie’s car. “No. Not really.” I’d evolved into a discombobulated head case. “Michael, I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing for you to say.”
“Thank you...forever.”
His brow tweaked with a perplexing expression. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. Then, he withdrew and issued a curt wave to Stevie and the girls. Without a backward glance, he headed to the driver’s side and drove away.
Candy ran to me and flopped her arms over my shoulders. She looked done in, and like me, her mascara played havoc on her face. “Mary, I can’t believe you passed out,” she said, full of excitement as if she was praising me on getting wasted. “When Steve saw Michael carrying you outside, he freaked. Michael’s claiming innocence. He said he found you like that. But we want to hear the truth. The real truth.” She gave an awkward wink before Dee drew near.
Michael’s claiming innocence? Innocent about what, and what exactly did he say to my brother?
“Yeah, Mary.” Dee’s scorned scowl spoke volumes. “How’d you happen to pass-out in Michael’s arms?”
A sloppy Gwen groaned, “Can we go to bed.” Her gray eyes sagged. “Let’s get inside and then you guys can bullshit.”
“I went looking for my coat.” We shambled to the house and I realized my brain was tainted and woozy. “The last thing I remember was sitting down to get my head together.”
“Oh, really,” said a terse Dee, “until you woke up in Michael’s truck?”
“Shush,” Candy whispered. “Don’t wake my mom.”
We shucked our shoes on the stoop and padded to Candy’s bedroom. Gwen fell asleep as soon her head touched the pillow. Fully clothed, I tunneled into a prepared sleeping bag. Candy and Dee began rehashing the night. My eyes felt gritty, and keeping them open wasn’t happening. Their trace whisperings slipped by my ears while I fell into a nightmarish slumber.
My closed eyelids lightened with the dawning day. I stretched with a mouth-wrenching yawn, and detached myself from my cocooned sleeping bag. The girls were still sound asleep. Slipping past Candy’s mirror, I abruptly halted. Patches of black and blue had manifested on my neck. Pilfering Candy’s foundation from the dresser, I dashed into the bathroom.
I dribbled the liquid into the palm of my hand and spread a generous coating over the telltale marks. And in doing so, I noted abrasions on my wrists. I stripped off my sweater and upon further examination, finger limned bruises had formed on my upper arms. Then, checking my thighs where the pervert had twisted the shit out of my skin, I found appalling purplish swellings. I stashed the cover-up in my pocket until I had a chance to buy some of my own.
CHAPTER 7
October 4, 1969. My sixteenth birthday.
On Monday morning, Mom found me on the floor in the bathroom, wailing like a baby. I’d had an awful night of relapses and felt icky all over as if the guy had permanently invaded my brain. I told her it was my time of the month. She believed me.
It would’ve been a silver badge day if not for the memories of Putnam’s party. I couldn’t shake the mauling from my mind or my body. And, above all, I didn’t want anyone to know. I burrowed into my robe to hide the bruising.
“I’m so happy to see you’re finally wearing the robe I got you for Christmas last year.” Mom said.
Instead of a response, I raised the lapels to shield my throat.
“I hope you have a good birthday, Mary.”
“It’d be a fabulous birthday if I could stay home from school.”
“Don’t start that monkey business, young lady.” She gave me the motherly eye that meant I’d better get dressed and catch the bus.
Slogging into school, I walked into a hotbed of gossip, and it orbited around the party. Controversial topics such as Steve Monroe and Pete Weiler breaking Greg’s door had been awarded the best fight. Scandalous tales of break-ups, make-outs, and cheating, including who got to first base, second base, and all the way on the grungy mattress.
“If only that mattress could talk,” Greg crowed, making the boys laugh.
Kids clustered around Greg between classes. Most of them were poking fun at Katy Milligan. How she’d hogged the upstairs bathroom barfing her brains out.
“The only way I could get her out of the house was to put her head into a pail.” Greg bashed poor Katy. “I told her to keep the pail.”
Greg’s pretty-boy eyes surfed eager faces and came to rest on mine. His mouth bent into a loutish grin. “All girls should be more like Mary.”
Heads pinged toward me.
“She just passes out and gets a knight in shining armor to drive her home.”
I felt moronic and detested him. The bell rang—Thank you, God—and we were all late. The gathering dispersed in haste as we ran to our classrooms. I was thankful I didn’t stay home. With nothing to do, I would’ve reenacted the assault and blown my brain out of proportion. I hoped the monotony would keep me grounded and sane.
In English, Mr. Carlson praised my recent paper. I had recommended that the United States government should furnish handicapped veteran’s returning from Vietnam with new housing and modern handicapped facilities. Maybe my birthday wouldn’t be so rotten after all.
“Mary, I especially like this part,” Mr. Carlson summed up. “All veterans should be exempt from paying taxes throughout their lifetime.”
I had Mom and Dad to thank for that phrase. Because of their inexorable grumblings, taxes were a bane to them.
After English, I purposely evaded the usual haunts. Listening to further gossip in regards to the weekend would only rekindle what I wished to forget. Then, shaking my head, I thought, that’s preposterous. I will never forget. I wanted the revolving nightmares that plagued me each night to go away, to stop. One day at a time became my motto. As an alternative to yakking it up in the corridors, I slipped directly into science class. I thumbed through the textbook, and I was sure that impressed Mr. Juliano.
As he scribbled on the blackboard, he said, “Pop quiz today, Mary. Page one forty-four is interesting.”
I nodded. Since flunking the last test, he was giving me a heads-up, which was rare and thoroughly appreciated. The section was about space exploration. And the quiz was easy-peasy, only ten questions. Afterward, we had a class discussion. My classmates proved to be a bunch of dunderheads. Who in their right mind would’ve missed Apollo 11 landing on the moon the previous summer?
Mr. Juliano asked, “Who was the first astronaut to step onto the moon?”
The class was divided in their answers. Mr. Juliano called on me, even though I hadn’t raised my hand.
I answered, “Neil Armstrong said, ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’” My know-it-all nerdiness was hard to quell. “The broadcast was live on television fro
m the moon. Didn’t everyone watch?”
The buoying of heads and murmuring rounded the room as if they had known the answer all along.
The day had been rainy and miserable. It drained my spirit which was already in the dumpster. My mood brightened when friends wished me a happy birthday and promised to celebrate that weekend. I strolled home from the bus stop with a change in attitude. Stevie’s car was parked in the garage, and soon I’d be slicing into the chocolate cake Mom had baked last night.
“You’re making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, right?”
“After sixteen years, I think I remember your favorite meal.”
She wouldn’t let me lift a finger. It was my day. She puttered in the kitchen while I sat on the floor with Lucy, playing with her toys and waiting for Dad to get home.
Mom was getting antsy as she paced back and forth, from the kitchen to stir the sauce and into the living room. Her eyes kept skidding to the clock. “While we’re waiting for your father, why don’t you open one of your presents?” She handed me a flat package.
I smiled and accepted my gift, already knowing what it was. I unwrapped the Beatles’ new album, Abbey Road.
Between six and seven, we lounged on the couch and tuned into the world news to watch a painstaking and demoralizing special segment recapping the Vietnam War.
The inception of the conflict seemed debatable as the narrator talked about how the U.S. had taken over the advisory role from the French. The United States fully entered into combat in 1965.
Sheesh, I was barely twelve-years-old.
When live footage of warfare started rolling, my belly turned upside down, but my eyes were glued to the screen. They showed soldiers in fatigues as they huddled in sloppy trenches, fully armed battalions with rifles pluming smoke, blazing fires set by napalm bombs, and pictures upon pictures of emaciated corpses warped in death. The most horrendous images were of poor, innocent children fleeing for their lives—mouths opened wide in an everlasting cry. Why do we have war? What does it prove? What is it good for?
Mom handed me a tissue. I’d been snuffling and hadn’t realized tears drenched my eyelashes.
By seven-thirty, Mom said in a conceding tone, “Your father must’ve had to work overtime. Let’s eat.”
The hearty sauce had thickened, and it was delectable. Scraping my plate and consuming the last forkful of noodles, I detected a light streak by the window. The smell of liquor reached my nose as soon as my dad cracked the door.
He gamboled in, garbed in his work uniform, smiley and as happy as a lark while singing Happy Birthday. A shadow crossed his handsome face, eyes narrowing. “You couldn’t wait for me to eat?”
“Willard, it was getting late,” Mom said. Using his full name was an indication of her annoyance. “And the kids were hungry. I thought you were working overtime.” She spared him with a legitimate excuse, if he chose to use it.
“I work my ass off to put food on the table, and you can’t wait for me one night?”
Before my eyes, the transformation took shape.
He stomped over to Mom and grasped her collar with his fingers, hauling her to her feet. “I’m the man of this house,” he snarled into her face. “You got that?” Dad propelled her backwards, and she hit the cupboard.
“Will, sit down,” she said with self-control, laboring to keep peace. “We’re still eating.”
Didn’t she realize peace escaped the house the moment Dad waltzed in? She piled spaghetti and meatballs on a plate and set it at the head of the table.
“Asshole,” Stevie mumbled softly.
Oh God. No. Not today.
Dad’s hand lashed out and pitched his plate into the living room. Noodles, sauce, and meatballs splattered the wall and streamed to the carpet. It looked like blood.
“Willard!” Mom cried. “What’s your problem?”
“You have no respect.” He pointed a condemning finger at Stevie. “You live in my house. You follow my rules.” He turned on me, face contorted. “And you. So you’re sixteen. That doesn’t mean a damn thing. I don’t want boys calling this house. Do you hear me? You’re too young for that crap.”
“But...” I should’ve known better than to talk back. “You and Mom said I could date when I turned sixteen. All my friends have been dating for years.”
“All your friends are tramps. We don’t want you gallivanting around street corners.”
“No one hangs on street corners, and my friends aren’t tramps.”
Dad swerved to the counter and seized the cake container. He supported it on his hip and marched to the back entry. Mom, Stevie, and I raced to the window to see where he was going with my cake. He swung open the door and flung the container like a Frisbee. My supreme chocolate birthday cake plopped onto the grass, and instead of exploding into a zillion crummy fragments, the two-layer cake shimmied twenty feet across the frosty grass.
Slamming the door, he came back, eyes flaming. “I don’t want you dating any boys. You’re too young.”
“She’s old enough, man,” said a querulous Stevie. “She’s not a baby anymore.”
“You stay the hell out of this.” Dad glared at him, fingers curled at his side.
I waited for the swat on my brother’s head.
“It’s none of your damn business,” my father yelled
Stevie rose.
Dad and Stevie were chest-to-chest, nostrils flaring. I didn’t want this. Not on my birthday. Not ever. Mom had faded from sight—probably putting Lucy to bed, so she wouldn’t be involved in the upheaval.
“Stevie,” I beseeched. “Please leave. Please go out...somewhere.” One mouth-off, one swear word, one wrong move, and fists would fly. My relief came from knowing that Stevie was sober.
He looked at me.
“Everything’s fine.” I promised him with pleading eyes. “I’m okay. Go.”
He took a step toward the hall closet.
Dad stopped him by pressing his arm on Stevie’s chest. “Get the hell outta my house, you pot smoking junkie.”
“I’m getting my coat.”
“I paid for that coat,” Dad taunted as if he wanted his son to brawl. “It’s mine. If you wanna go, get out now and don’t come home.”
No, no, no, no. Don’t say anything. “Stevie, please,” I quietly begged.
Stevie shoved the chair and clomped to the exit. “You’re such a prick.”
He banged the door closed, but Dad didn’t chase him. He frowned and dropped into a chair and looked at me with his bloodshot eyeballs. As the anger and fight dissipated, his body seemed to shrink.
“Mary, you’re not like other girls.” In the third stage of his drunkenness, my father becomes philosophical.
I’d heard that declaration one time too many. What was I if I wasn’t a girl? Was I genetically engineered? A top-secret species? Did my parents unearth a mangled spaceship from a crater in a cornfield? What the heck?
“It’s that music.” He blinked his soupy looking eyes. “That druggy music is turning young people into freaks. Boys with that disgusting long hair, and girls wearing those weird clothes and jewelry and dancing like wild apes.” He paused to smack his lips, acting as if he had a case of dry mouth. “I’m not an imbecile. I know Stevie’s doing drugs. What can we do?”
“Music doesn’t make a person do drugs.” I moped.
“You’re the sensible one. Always had a good head on your shoulders. We trust you to watch Lucy and never had to worry.”
Sensible. I’m the levelheaded, sensible one. Sixteen years old and Dad expects me to be matronly. Errgg. What would he say if I enlightened him on my recent exploits of smoking—and not only legalized cigarettes—drinking, partying, and being a minute from getting raped. His jaw would clunk to the table, and then he’d have an embolism.
“You need to have a serious discussion wit
h your brother.” His words came out gruff as if his throat was raw. “How drugs will ruin him and eat away his brain. He’ll listen to you.”
There’s the topper. “Dad, I have homework.”
Belatedly, Mom stepped into view with a pail and rags to clean up Dad’s chaos.
“Happy birthday,” Dad said.
I forced a smile.
CHAPTER 8
Only dweeby-nerds get to class well before the trilling of the bell. I know because I’d been one of them. My new friends had taught me the art of delaying until the final minute, and it was our prerogative to hit the best place to chat and smoke—the lavatory. I remained an amateur smoker, so the cigarette felt like a foreign object between my fingers and stale breath plagued me throughout the day. Lately, I’d resorted to lots of gum chewing.
Candy and I preferred to blend in at the farthest section of the lav. A tactical location if the Dragon Lady happened to march in because we’d have a chance to ditch our smokes.
“Omigod, Mary,” said a wonderstruck Candy, “you have a hickey.”
“What?” I tugged the collar of my shirt to my jawline. I owned two turtlenecks—one I’d worn on Monday, and the second I’d worn on Tuesday. The shirt I had on wasn’t cutting it, and the foundation I’d applied must’ve rubbed off.
Candy fingered my shirt to locate my alleged hickey. Batting her fingers, I again pulled my collar like a turtle going into his shell.
“You were with someone at the party, weren’t you? It was Covington, wasn’t it?” she stressed louder than I appreciated and stopped fingering my shirt. As if the hickey would supply her with what she was seeking, her eyes kept frisking my throat. “Upstairs, in the bedroom? That’s okay, you can tell me. I won’t tell Dee.” Appearing eager for sizzling gossip, she crossed her heart. “Promise.”
The name Covington caused the packed lavatory to noticeably quiet. My fellow classmates were more than conspicuous as they veered to stare at me as if taking inventory of my puny self. Or, I’d become oversensitive. Candy developed a menacing taper to her almond eyes as she spun toward the eavesdroppers and spouted, “Get the hell outta here, you nosy bitches!” She touted a knuckled fist, and they fled like ruffled birds. Her malicious features reverted back to a normal poised grin as she turned to me.
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