“What do we do if the quarterback shows up with last year’s football heroes?” I asked.
“Would you get over that,” Tracy barked. “Those losers wouldn’t dare fuck with us because they know we’re not afraid to fuck with them.”
“We’re not?”
“No, we’re not.”
The first people arrived around 9 P.M. and it was like a trout stream steadily thereafter. I stood at the door for a while but hardly recognized anyone. There were a lot of people from last year and the year before that, all my brother’s underworld friends. It wasn’t long before the backyard was full of slouching nobodies toting twelve-packs. David’s bug zapper kept a crowd of stoners entertained. They stood in silent reverence for hours watching insects get toasted.
The party went its usual course. We were out of beer in about ten seconds. Cars lined the cul-de-sac, the house filled up with smoke, someone broke a glass in the kitchen, and then David’s band kicked in and the house shook like a truck driving over a rickety bridge. It took one phone call from an irate neighbor and there were instantly men in blue uniforms on the front porch peering through the window. Word spread through the crowd like there was an Ebola outbreak. People slipped out through the sliding-glass doors and disappeared into The Field, doubling back to collect their cars. The cops were creeping around the yard with flashlights, probably planting evidence like they did to O.J.
David was buried in the mobbed basement experimenting with deafening feedback and distortion. Sergeant Drexler gave me about five seconds to find the fuse box and drain the juice on David’s petri dish and send all the rejects home to the safety of their parents’ absent love. I smiled ear to ear and played the honor roll student, blamed the noise on the delinquency of today’s youth and the lack of alternatives, i.e., a recreation hall where teenagers could mingle on Friday nights under the guidance of supervisors and sip punch and talk about conservative issues, like more cops and more jails. But then Drexler told me to shut up or I’d be spending the night in one, so I did, but only as a silent protest. I knew my rights and nobody had read them to me. Once the music was off, the cops cooled down and suddenly seemed anxious to get back to their doughnuts, coffee, and radar patrol on the backroads of suburban nowheresville.
The party was over before it got started. We were lucky nothing got wasted, considering how many empties were left behind. Tracy and I settled in the living room listening to one of my dad’s old Astrud Gilberto records. We were both pretty wasted. David burst into the room and accused Tracy of inviting too many people.
“I did not!”
“You did so!”
And so on.
Some of David’s friends made themselves at home and eventually crashed wherever they got comfortable. Tracy waited up half the night but never got the invitation she was hoping for. I found her in my bed sound asleep still wearing her white Mary Janes.
LAS VEGAS REDUX
THE next day I awoke with a vicious hangover and a severe dose of paranoia. Mom was coming home, which meant, among other things, that she was married, broke, or maybe both. Vegas was one of those towns in the back of my mind that flickered like an all-night movie. A dreamy world of lights and sensuality, of passion and heartbreak, a place where men are gangsters, women are whores, and the drinks are free.
Mom got out of the taxi wearing sunglasses as big as pancakes, looking like Jackie O. the morning after. She darted for the door as if she were weary about cul-de-sac headlines. I heard the key fit into the slot and the door suck open. Mom dropped her bags at the foot of the stairs. I had a feeling there was trouble. She came home at a strange time and in a strange car. Her footsteps into the kitchen did not hold the weight of true love and happiness. The refrigerator opened and closed. She shuffled through the mail.
“Is anybody home?” she yelled.
I didn’t answer her. The house was quiet as a spider’s web. The wind rattled the windows, and it looked like there was some serious rain charging out of the west. I wasn’t very interested in dealing with one of her moods but felt hopelessly drawn by a scorching curiosity about her weekend, so finally I went downstairs to find out what happened.
Mom was outside picking up pears out of the yard. I could hear them plopping into the bucket. Each thump made me feel a little more uneasy. The trees were so old they shed fruit all year long. The pears weren’t edible unless you were a squirrel. Mom used them for her compost. I couldn’t tell whether she was working out aggression or just stretching after a long flight.
I opened the screen door. “Welcome back!” I shouted. I could tell a mile away Mom was upset. Her moods were as subtle as a car alarm.
“Need some help?” I asked.
“Sure.” She tossed me an empty bucket. “Did you guys have a party while I was gone?” She immediately put me on the defensive.
“Of course not,” I said. “Why?”
“I found beer bottles in two different places, the grass is matted down, there are cigarette butts everywhere. What was going on here? Woodstock?”
“Must have been those rotten little kids down the street. How was Vegas?”
“All right.” She sounded suspicious.
“Was the hotel nice?”
“It was fine.”
“Did you win any money?”
“Not really.”
“And the drinks were free?”
“Depends on your point of view.”
“Did you get married?”
“Dan took me to a party and turned into Hugh Hefner. He got it in his head that the bunnies were interchangeable.” Mom threw her hair back away from her face, as if she were swatting it all away. “I took a taxi to the airport and left on the next plane.”
“You just left him there?”
“The man got so drunk he fell in the pool.” She bent over and picked up another pear, dropped it into the bucket. “I should have never gotten mixed up with him. He’s got some serious problems. I went through all this with your father. I’m not interested in reruns.” Mom reached down, picked up a pear, and dropped it into the bucket.
“Men are about as predictable as the weather,” I said. “One minute they love you and the next minute you’re in the way.”
“Wait a minute.” She leaned up. “Since when do you start consoling me about men? Don’t you have any homework?”
“I always have homework.”
“Then you should be upstairs studying.”
“I’m taking a little break.”
Mom picked up some more pears. I could almost hear the arguments going on in her head. She seemed more frustrated than angry, as if she had lost the marathon after training for years and years.
“So what are we going to do for your graduation? Should we have a party or did you already take care of that?” She picked up a cigarette butt, flicked it into the pail, then sat on the rocks outlining the garden. “Sit down.” She patted a rock beside her. “I want to discuss something with you.”
I took a seat and prepared for the worst.
“First of all. I want you to know how proud I am that you’re graduating from high school. I know we’ve had some disagreements on our way to the finish line, I just hope you won’t hold them against me, okay? I’ve always wanted what’s best for you kids, but sometimes I slip up. I just hope you learn from my mistakes. Have you heard from any colleges yet?”
“A few,” I lied.
“I hope you get in. Stay around here and you’ll end up like all the other mailboxes. Soon the highlight of your day will be scanning the newspaper for coupons.”
“You’ve never clipped a coupon in your life,” I said.
“All right, so maybe I’m a bad example, but you know what I mean.”
SMOKE
DOOMSDAY strikes. Finals. The algebra test. With the added luck of multiple choice and the fact that we are being graded on the curve, I should definitely be able to slip by with a C or a D. The classroom was hushed in all-out brain fever. You could smell the synaps
es burning. I stared out the window, trying to remember the formulas of several equations—which seemed to be tangled together or linked backward or forward or worse—when all of a sudden the fire alarm sounded and a big cheer resounded through the hallways.
“Turn in your test unfinished!” Ms. Carson yelled.
I jumped up and set my test on the front desk, then hurried out of the classroom before anyone changed their mind. I couldn’t wait to get outside and have a smoke. The weird thing is I could kinda smell smoke in the hallway, and I wondered, could this be for real?
The stairwell was packed and some rowdy boys were trying to exascerbate the hysteria. I went outside and parked on the lawn, watching the fire trucks roll in one after another, their sirens wailing full tilt like it was the Towering Inferno or something. It was so beautiful outside I wanted to kiss whoever pulled the alarm and saved me from that mind-frying torture. I lit a cigarette and leafed through my math book, looked up some formulas for the algebra questions, then scribbled them on my wrist with a black pen. Math sucks. Trigonometry should be left to specialists. Why does everybody have to learn the formula that makes triangles? Unless you’re planning on doing something totally irrational like riding on the space shuttle, there was very little need for big math.
We got beached in the grass for half an hour because apparently there was a small fire somewhere in the building. When the firemen retreated and the student body was finally allowed to return to their classrooms, I got clipped from the crowd by Vice Principal O’Leary. He led me into his office for questioning. O’Leary was a big man. Intimidating. He smelled like military aftershave. His office was so anal, even the photos on his desk were in formation. It looked like some kind of interrogation room; there was a black vinyl chair and a small white rug, but no coffee table or magazines. The only other furniture was a lamp at the edge of his large black desk. It was like the biggest desk you’ve ever seen.
“Listen,” I said. “I was taking a test, check it out, it wasn’t me.”
“Yes, but it was your locker. Tell me, who would do such a thing and why would they do it to you?” He looked the other way, as if to make it easier for me to confess.
“What do you mean?” I was mortified, started sweating, trying to remember what was in my locker, wondering if there was anything in there that shouldn’t have been.
“The fire started in your locker.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Did you light your books on fire as some sort of practical joke?”
“I told you I was in math class taking a test,” I said.
“Maybe you had a timer device?” He leaned over the desk.
“What am I? The Unabomber?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” he said.
“Ever heard of random violence?” I kept my cards close to my chest. O’Leary was anxious to hang this incident on my neck.
“Young lady, you are in very serious trouble. We are talking about the destruction of government property.”
“I didn’t do it!”
“I’m asking you who did!”
“How should I know?”
“Disgruntled boyfriend perhaps?”
“I wish.”
“Then who?”
I knew a thousand who’s but wasn’t exactly sure which one.
“You’re the detective,” I said. “You tell me.”
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady! I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“Can I see my locker?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. We’ll walk up there together.” He led me toward the door. The receptionist stared at me like I was Charles Manson or something.
There was a small circle of gawkers pointing at me as I arrived with escort at the crime scene. My locker was history.
It’s amazing what a shot glass of gasoline and a match will do to four years’ worth of memorabilia. Everything was reduced to one soggy smelly blech, because what the fire didn’t destroy, the firemen did. The door was only hanging by a single hinge, everything else was spilled onto the floor.
“Why was there a car battery in your locker?” he asked. “Were you trying to make a bomb?”
I didn’t want to be connected to any car batteries. “It wasn’t there this morning, sir. Those are my notes.” I pointed to a bunch of charred papers. “Why would I do that?”
“I’ve heard every excuse imaginable from students trying to weasel their way through exams.” He rubbed his forehead, then pointed at me. “If you fail your exams you will be back here next September.” Mr. O’Leary turned and shuffled back to his office. “I can’t help you unless you help me.”
I pillaged through the wreckage. There wasn’t anything I wanted anyway.
Tracy came running up with her camera. “Hold it right there,” she said.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
LUNCHROOM
TRACY and I parked ourselves as far away as possible from everyone in the cafeteria. Strictly a playground of freshmen and sophomores, it was a good place to lay low. All the cool people usually drove to McDonald’s or one of the other cowfrys. It just seemed like a good day to ground our usual flight.
“What if the world were to end today?” Tracy asked.
“Then all this would be meaningless. You’re just looking for a way out of finals,” I said.
Tracy unwrapped her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I squirted some mustard on my veggieburger to give it a little flavor.
“Did you pass your history test?” I asked.
“I have to go to my teacher’s office for some extra credit,” she said.
I shot her a look.
“I’m just kidding.” She rolled her eyes, acted unapologetic, as if she was sleeping with him anyway, and aren’t I such a prude to have my nose so high in the air. “Any new clues as to who firebombed your locker?”
“What I want to know is how come I got torched and you didn’t?”
“You obviously hang out with arsonists,” she said. “Maybe the Magic geeks cast a spell on your locker, or maybe it was instantaneous combustion. I saw this special on Mystery Theater about it.”
“This was not a divine event, Tracy.” I sipped my milk carton. “You know exactly who would leave a car battery in my locker.”
“It might have been somebody you don’t even know: a sophomore with a crush and a few minor psychotic tendencies.”
“It’s a bad omen and you know it.”
“Listen, it’s finals, we’re under a lot of stress, everyone is prone to be a little hysterical.”
“I am not being hysterical!” I shouted.
“What about the curse?” Tracy asked.
“What about it?”
“Have you heard anything?”
“Can we please talk about something else?”
“Like what?”
“Like what we usually talk about. I don’t care. Pick a topic. Men. Movies. Music. What about hair? We haven’t talked about hair in a long time.”
“Will you get real? God. You are so bent out of shape. It was just a prank, lighten up will ya? Or I won’t share my good news.” Tracy dug around her purse until she pulled out a newspaper clipping and handed it to me. “Have you seen this?” It was an article from the Downers Grove Reporter about the Miller 100. “Guess whose name is listed in the entries?”
“He’s racing tonight?” I glanced over the article, scanning for Bobby’s name.
“I think it starts at eight.”
“When can you pick me up?” I whispered.
“Excuse me?”
“Please,” I begged.
“Well.” She paused. “I’ll have to take a shower and—”
“That could take hours.”
“Or years if you don’t shut up.”
The buzzer rang and it was time to go take another final.
“I’m still grounded, so let’s do a Patty Hearst at the mailbox at seven. Okay?”
“Whatever you say, Tanya.”
BAD VIBES
&
nbsp; AFTER school I went home, laid on my bed, and tried to do some studying, but was too distracted by the day’s events to concentrate, so I cleaned out my drawers and sifted through my memorabilia instead. Whenever I’m depressed I tend to spend hours trying to make sense of my life by putting it in some sort of chronological order. Organizing photographs in a time sequence helps me estimate whether I’m overdue for some climactic change like a broken leg or another doomed love affair. I found a picture of Mom when she was in high school during the sixties. She was doing a flower child number: miniskirt, beads, and rose-tinted glasses, wearing the same mysterious glare she does today. I wondered if Dad took the picture. Mom rarely talked about any of her other old boyfriends.
I looked out the window and saw her picking weeds out of the sprouting garden. I always wondered what Mom was thinking when she was all alone. I wanted to be inside her head and know everything about her, but it was impossible, because I was me and she was she and after so many years the boundaries were built to last forever. It’s so weird that I’m old enough now to feel both the pain of her struggle and the radical impulse to avoid all her mistakes.
Mom was once a local beauty queen and did some regional modeling, but apparently all that did was attract a lot of trial and error, like my father. Dad was just back from Vietnam and they swung through the boogie-fever seventies celebrating life from the edge of a coke spoon. Their marriage was a dance that ended just as confused as it began. Without a dowry or a husband Mom charmed her way back into society using old connections from her pageant days and quickly snagged some part-time employment from the museum downtown. It’s actually more like an old house stuffed with a bunch of junk you’re not allowed to touch. Mom says the dust is giving hell to her allergies. Anyway, she bumped into the astronaut at one of the museum’s functions, and it’s been ground control to Major Dan ever since.
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