I hate this feeling. I miss my dad. I blink back tears because I don’t want to get laughed at by my brother. I focus on this morning and hiding in the storage room. I think of blue eyes and sweet kisses. I try to remember how it felt to be full and there and real.
“I have many crosses to bear,” Mom prays. “Help me, Father, for I cannot bear them alone.”
{3}
Davy presses his transistor radio to his ear, closes his eyes, and lets his feet rehearse choreography. We’re on BART, heading for San Francisco. We audition today for The Nutcracker; Mom’s driving over later to watch.
Davy can do whole dances in his head, tapping his feet, twitching his body, practicing without even standing up. People can’t tell what he’s doing. They don’t even notice, but he wouldn’t care if they did. “Tough shit,” he’d say. I like that about him. I wish I could stand up and be loud. I actually like my brother a lot; besides my dad, he’s my best friend. We spend the most time together because of dance.
Now, as we head down through the tunnel that goes under the Bay, just in that moment of darkness before the tunnel light flickers on, I smile—because I have my brother, because it’s Saturday, and mostly because now, boys like me. Some kind of secret beacon switched on in me after Jonathan. Boys who never even glanced my way now speak as we pass in the halls; boys who’d ignored me in class send messages with their eyes across the studio as we work at the barre. Boys I admired but never talked to sit with me to chat at break. I don’t even care that Jon likes someone else now. Michael likes me, and he’s even cuter.
I live for Saturdays. It’s what I think about when Hugo Leone and Ralph Conifer make me climb behind the lockers in the seventh grade hall and wait there until they leave. This started the first day we went to St. Anne’s. I never did anything to them.
“You get outta there before we’re gone, you know what happens,” fat Ralph Conifer says.
“We put the trash in the garbage can!” Hugo Leone chants. “Oh yeah, we put the trash in the garbage can.”
I know they will, they’ve done it.
“You gotta fight back,” Marianne told me once when she came to pick me up and I was brushing the junk off my school uniform. “You got to stand up for yourself. They’re just bullies.”
I think it’s easier to put up with it. They don’t really hurt me, but they might if I argued back. If I call Dad, he’ll talk to their parents and who knows how bad it could get then. Mom would report it to Sister Mary Margaret, and Sister likes them way better than she likes me. I get on her nerves, I can tell that by how her face tightens when I come into English. Besides, if I tell Mom, Marianne will get in trouble for not protecting me. So I just put up with it and wait for Saturday.
Two things happen in this audition. Teachers figure out who stays or moves up a level, and this year’s cast for The Nutcracker is chosen. Almost all the parts are already decided, but parents come anyway, to watch, hope, and cheer their kids on.
The crowd of mostly moms is packed into the viewing area at the end of the big studio, politely smiling and nervously pushing at each other to get nearer to the front. Except our mother. She stands out, partly because she looks absolutely stunning in her pink dress, mostly because she’s the only one who isn’t paying attention. She smokes a cigarette, reads her novel, and every once in a while glances toward us.
Davy tells me to go across the floor with him. Instead of doing the leaps and turns we’re all supposed to, he wants us to walk, do a single châiné, and make a big ending pose. Kids bust into laughter. Davy winks at Madame Nevonski, who shakes her head at us—well, at him—and smiles. She adores him. We don’t go across the second time.
Davy heads off with Isabelle and I go stand with a group of boys. I’m laughing at something Michael’s saying when I notice Mom stomping toward me. She walks right into the studio and yanks me to one side.
“Don’t you ever embarrass me like that again,” she says. “Do NOT.”
“But, we were just—”
“Are you talking back??”
“No, Mom, but Davy—” I want to say it’s all right, it was planned, he knew we’d be cast anyway.
“I will deal with your brother separately. You are on restriction, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” But I don’t.
She might as well have slapped me. My face burns from shame and I don’t even know what I did except follow her precious Davy.
I ditch afternoon classes. I’m not up to dancing or even hanging out with Michael; I go downtown. It’s loud and dirty, filled with people who remind me of Jacques Cousteau’s sharks circling around, looking for blood. Not what I need. Some other time, maybe, I’ll come back and watch all the weirdos, but now, I have to think. I head up Market Street, past the Safeway. I figure I have three hours before Davy will look for me to go back home. I have money in my pocket to get lunch; I’ll just find a good place to eat and this will all seem—I round a corner and freeze.
Am I still in San Francisco?
Or is this a movie set?
It has to be—nothing’s this perfect. Everything on the entire street seems placed just so, clean and colorful. Trees decorate the sidewalks and skinny Victorians stand side by side like brightly painted little soldiers. Flower pots brighten restaurant windows. The air is clean, the street framed by a hint of fog.
But it isn’t just that. It’s the people.
They’re beautiful. They walk together, holding hands, kissing, liking each other—right out in the open. Squeaky-clean faces in fresh clothes, strolling with arms linked, sitting at tables on the sidewalk, leaning in to smile at each other, holding hands over glasses of wine and tea, having conversations. Laughing. Listening. Everything lovely, normal, good.
No one gives me a second glance as I wander down the sidewalk to check it all out. I realize I’ve actually heard lots about Castro Street, but I never expected it would be like this: perfect, a separate magical little village. I want to live here. I want to be one of the beautiful people who talk to each other, smile and laugh and pat each other on the back. I want to go to the outdoor cafes, shop in the stores, sit on the benches, and look at the trees.
The afternoon flies by and too soon, I have to get back. I know I won’t be able to stay away. Maybe I’ll bring Michael here, or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just save it for myself. I’ll walk around. I won’t talk to anyone, since I don’t really live here, not yet, but I’ll look. Listen. Soak up all the good energy and light. I’ll try on clothes in the shop around the corner. I’ll sit at an outdoor café and order tea. I’ll move and sway to the music that floats out of the lounges. I’ll sniff the cologne the guys are wearing. I’ll tingle and laugh and feel grand.
{4}
Davy got Fritz. Fritz is major. Fritz dances in the third act, and people who dance in the third act get paid. My mother cannot stop smiling. She’s already called her friend Gladys and our grandparents.
“Be sure to tell Joe,” she instructs Grandpa. “My son is the youngest dancer ever to get Fritz.”
At dinner, the rest of us are expected to be happy for Davy, so we are. We congratulate him. We are impressed that he had his picture taken today for a newspaper article in the Chronicle. At some point, Marianne asks what I got.
“A soldier,” I say and smile. “At least you’ll see my face.” Last year I was a mouse and the costume covered me completely. We skip evening prayers to go for ice cream. Mom orders a big bowl of five different flavors and we crowd into the booth in the back corner, each with our own spoon.
“Sit up!” she orders and we do. “Use your napkins.” She smiles at my brother. “To Davy,” she says, holding up a spoonful of Chocolate Mint. I hold up my French vanilla and smile. I hate Davy right now. It’s so easy for him to be adored. I watch his every move and can never figure out what he does that makes her love him best.
In silence, we eat.
“Hey, Mom?” Kaitlyn blurts, “what did Uncle Bobby get arrested for?” We j
erk our heads toward her; she barely talks these days.
“Don’t, Kait,” Marianne whispers.
Mom sits up straighter, if that’s possible. “Don’t be rude, Kaitlyn. We’re celebrating Davy.”
“I didn’t know Uncle Bobby got arrested,” I said.
“Shhh,” Marianne says.
“Yeah, well, this girl at school is telling everybody he molested a bunch of kids.” Kait pops her spoon in her mouth, speaks through green pistachio ice cream. “I just wanted to know if it’s true.”
“Keep it up, young lady,” Mom says, standing, glaring at Kaitlyn. “You’ll find yourself living with your father.”
“I wish,” Kait mutters; only I hear. The ice cream’s not finished, but we’re all standing up now, putting on our coats, going home. We don’t talk all the way there. Davy pouts; he had a whole scoop left. I’m glad.
* * *
“I thought Uncle Bobby moved away,” I say. Me and Marianne are sitting on the couch. She’s doing her nails. Mom’s talking on the phone in the kitchen. Kait was sent to her room. I have no idea where Davy is and I don’t really care. I angle myself so Jesus can’t see me.
“Nope. Arrested.”
“For what? Smoking pot?”
She shoots me a funny look.
“Well, he didn’t exactly hide it. Was that it?”
“Nope. Polaroids.” She hands me the nail polish bottle. “Hold this.” It’s the same bright red as Mom’s. I wonder if it is Mom’s.
“Of what?”
“Naked kids. Gross, huh?”
“Did you see them?”
“No, but I heard. Daddy found a shoebox full.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Bummer, huh? Our uncle’s a pervert.” She dabs the brush in the bottle, starts on her other hand. “But then, Grandma’s a nutcase. Remember how she called the fire department?” I nod. “Well, she kept calling them—for weeks. They took out a restraining order. Grandpa had to put a lock on the phone.”
“Jesus.” I glance at the statue, whisper “sorry.”
“Yep. That’s when Mom got religious.” She stops painting to stare at me. Really stare.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing, never mind.”
“No. What?”
“Paul was in the pictures. So were you.”
“I was not.”
She goes back to her nails, like she’s not listening.
“That’s stupid, Marianne. Don’t you think I’d know?”
“I guess, whatever.” She dabs on her second coat, wipes a smudge with the side of her thumb.
I don’t like the feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Why do you think that? You said you didn’t see them.”
“I heard Mom talking to the cops. And Paul told me some stuff.” She waves her hands back and forth to dry her nails. “It’s why he ran away, you know. Daddy yelled at him for letting it happen.”
It’s suddenly hard to breathe, like on the Halloween when I wore a nylon stocking over my head. I keep looking at my sister. I don’t remember cops at our house, except the ones that brought Paul home. I sure as hell don’t remember any Polaroids.
She blows on one finger, touches it gently to her lip to test if it’s dry. “This family is so messed up.” She takes back the polish bottle and screws the cap on, snags a cigarette from her purse, stares at me once more, chuckles. “All of us, we’re crazy.” She glances toward the kitchen, scoops up matches from the table. “Get me before she comes back in.”
I nod and she slips out to the front porch. Jesus stares down at me and all of a sudden, I feel very small.
* * *
The Nutcracker goes up; Davy’s amazing as usual. I do okay and I have a great time on the tour. Mom gives us each flowers on opening night. I get to miss two days of school when the show goes on tour. Nobody mentions Uncle Bobby again, not even Kait.
Christmas Eve, we have our usual procession. We dress up in robe costumes and march from the backyard to the front. We go from oldest to youngest, so Marianne’s first, carrying Mary and Joseph, since Paul’s not here. Davy has the cow and the lamb. I get stuck with the palm fronds. Kait’s got Baby Jesus. Mom waits in front, by the empty cradle.
We’ve done this for years. It used to be fun.
“Everyone else puts the whole scene up at the same time, Lori,” Dad would tease, back at the old house.
“Everyone else is wrong,” Mom would say, laughing. “Mary didn’t get there until after dark.”
That’s when we march. Except here, in the new house, we’re on a busy street, not a secluded yard like before. “This is so embarrassing,” Kait whispers.
“Shh, just get it over with,” Marianne mumbles, as we go round to the front yard.
“I knew I shoulda burned the stupid statues,” Davy whispers.
“They won’t burn, dummy,” Kait hisses.
A guy in a truck going by honks his horn. “What are you all supposed to be?” he yells out, then laughs.
Mom’s lips tighten. I look back at Kait. She shakes her head slightly. Marianne stares at the ground. Davy’s eyes have gone completely blank. Each of us takes our turn to place our pieces in their proper positions. Marianne sets down Mary and Joseph, Davy does the cow and the lamb, and I lay the palm fronds in the center of the cradle. Kaitlyn, eyes scary with anger, puts in the baby.
We stand in a line, clasp our fingers together, and bow our heads as our beautiful mother prays to a plastic Baby Jesus.
Late 1977
THREE YEARS BEFORE
LOS ANGELES COUNTY
{1}
I start my band the summer before ninth grade. Glenn plays bass. I sing. Roy can’t do shit but he’s got his dad’s guitar so we let him be the guitarist. Glenn shows him some chords and he learns to play them—real fast and real loud. This guy Craig has drums. I buy all the music I can afford: Black Flag, the Clash, Sex Pistols. More Punk Rock’s coming out every day.
Finally! Something in the world that I can relate to. Punk Rock. It means: No rules. It’s made for me and everybody else who doesn’t fit in. I grow my hair like Johnny Ramone and start writing songs. Now all that poetry I used to do has a place to go. Words pour out of me. Everything that used to feel crazy makes sense. I make sense. I have a direction. I have my music. It’s what I’m going to do with my life—be a Punk Rocker. Say something important. Make it big. I won’t even have to graduate from high school.
It’s wild.
I’m wild, getting wilder.
On Saturdays, the band rehearses inside an old elementary school that’s been boarded up for years. We pry the wood off the back windows—it snaps easy, rotted. We drag in Craig’s drums and set up in the multi-purpose room, which, for some reason, still has electricity. We can play as loud as we want; nobody is anywhere near around.
Our third time there, we decide to decorate. We spray paint obscenities all down on the walls in the main hallway, RAMONES and BLACK SABBATH on the blackboards in the kindergarten room. Glenn tries to spray paint a naked girl but he starts with the tits and it looks really stupid.
We work on our own songs and practice covers from any band we can think of. On our break, we drink the beers Roy scored from his dad. Glenn goes back to trying to spray paint tits. He’s on his third pair when Roy interrupts him.
“Gimme that,” Roy says, pointing to the can of spray paint.
“Just wait, I’m almost done,” Glenn said. Roy snatches it anyway.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“Watch.” Roy pulls a rag out of his pocket, sprays it and drops the whole thing into a plastic bag. He holds the bag over his mouth and nose, sucks in the fumes, and gets this shit-eating grin on his face.
“Oh man oh man oh man!” He holds out the bag.
I don’t let myself even think; if Roy can do it, I can. I grab the spray paint and do exactly what he did. My mouth floods with a chemical taste then, BAM!! My heart jumps right out of my chest and I swear my whole brain slams
into the back my skull.
“SHIT!” I manage.
“Yeah.” Roy laughs. “Huffing, dude. Huffing. Punks do it all over in England.”
“I want to,” says Glenn. Roy sprays the shirt again. Glenn huffs. He whoops. We turn to Craig.
“Nah, that’s okay.”
“Chicken?” Roy says. Craig stares for a second, then slowly reaches for the bag. We watch as he huffs.
“Dude, that was bogus,” I tell him. “Do it again.”
“Nah, that’s all right.”
“Pussy,” Glenn says. Craig shakes his head no.
“You can die from that shit, man. I saw it on a TV program.”
“You can die from life, dude,” I say, and huff again.
We start getting gigs! They aren’t much, just some other bands that let us play a set at a yard party here and there. People have yard parties all the time now, all over the Inland Empire, down in Orange County, out in Venice. Punk Rock is coming into its own. It’s not the Punk the British have; our Punks aren’t poor. In America, it’s the middle class that’s messed up. Before Punk, we had nothing but greed and hypocrisy. Now we got a way to fight back, say who we are, stand out.
I start pegging my jeans real tight. I buy a plaid shirt from the Salvation Army and sneak my dad’s engineer boots from the back of his closet. Kids at school try to make fun of me, but I don’t even listen. I don’t listen to anything I don’t want to hear. I don’t care that there’s only one other Punk in my grade. This is not about popularity; I’m just being who I am. I’m tired of faking it. I’m tired of wasting time worrying about somebody else’s bullshit. We’re all gonna die sooner or later—more likely, sooner, so who cares? The world is in chaos. I know this. I don’t need shit from anybody. I do my music. I make my own chances.
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