Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me

by Gae Polisner

  She shakes her head and puts it down on the table.

  “Mom?” I watch her slim back rise and fall, swells of turquoise waves. “Mom, did something happen? Is everything okay?”

  She shakes her head and gets up, walks to the cabinet, and rifles for some tea, ultimately tossing two open boxes to the floor, before slamming the cabinet shut. “Where the hell is the orange pekoe?”

  “Mom?” She looks over at me.

  “He’s not coming home,” she says.

  “What? Why? Did he say that?”

  “Six more months, apparently. Plus, the two remaining.” She pulls a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, and practically slams a wineglass down on the counter. I wait for the shatter of glass. “They rented him his own fucking apartment in Malibu.”

  “Seriously? Why didn’t he tell me last night?” Tears spring to my eyes. I fight them back because Mom can’t handle me crying, too. She shrugs and uncorks the bottle. “It’s barely noon, Mom,” I say, but she glares at me, so I shut up. After another minute I ask, “It’s okay, right? I mean, he’s doing what he needs to do?”

  She swallows down her wine and pours another. “It’s only been four months,” she says, “and I don’t even recognize him anymore.”

  Remember when he came home for that visit, Aubrey? You were shocked by how different he looked, too. Only a few short months and already everything had changed. His ponytail gone, beard shaved, and every last tie-dyed T-shirt traded in for khaki pants, a polo shirt, and those god-awful sockless loafers.

  But I kind of liked him better that way. It was as if he were suddenly a normal dad, one I could be proud of if he showed up at school. More like your parents. Like everyone elses.’

  But my mother, she hated him for it. She wept and pummeled her fists against his chest like a child, begging him to come home and make everything the way it used to be. And now it would be eight more months instead of two.

  I had called him that night, told him what a mess Mom was, asked him if there was anything he could do.

  “Things change, Butterfly. The world changes,” he had said. “We all need to change with it. Why don’t you both come to LA? The schools are good. At least spend some time out here and see.”

  But I didn’t want to go to school there. I had just started high school. We had. I didn’t want to leave you. Not then.

  After, I’d gone to my closet and dug out the dumb old starter habitat Dad had bought me four months before, left on my bed with a note taped to the box:

  Jean Louise,

  My favorite butterfly,

  Something to distract you until I get home.

  Love, Dad.

  P.S. Send photos! Let me know how it goes.

  I felt happy how he remembered my fourth-grade teacher had hatched Eastern Tiger Swallowtails in our classroom, how I had hatched them on my own after that. Our class had waited and watched for weeks, until finally, a dozen or so black-and-yellow-winged beauties emerged like fragile miracles. It was the week before Father’s Day, so that Friday she’d invited all the dads to come in. We had cupcakes with butterflies on them, and released the Swallowtails out into the playground. All of them flew away except for one that took up residence on my shoulder. Dad and I stood there, amazed, as the butterfly just stayed and stayed there, its wings quivering, as if preparing to take flight, but changing its mind.

  “Well, I guess it takes one to know one,” Dad had said, delightedly taking photos of me to send Mom. That butterfly must have stayed on my shoulder for fifteen whole minutes before Katy Meisler got jealous and tried to cup it in her hands, chasing it away.

  I raised that first round last spring, and a second later that summer, each cycle marking time, like that first quivering Swallowtail on my shoulder, until my father would come back home to us.

  But, of course, both rounds of common butterflies had come and gone, and even the Tropicals had hatched without seeing his return.

  It took me coming here, to finally bring him home.

  Now, he says we’ll go home together and face Mom.

  But here’s the thing, Aubrey: he doesn’t know what I’m about to tell you.

  And, those letters? They were only the beginning of it all.

  MID-APRIL

  TENTH GRADE

  When Mom goes to sleep, I watch the butterflies, the splinted Jezebel I still can’t believe I helped. When it’s late enough that Dad might be home, I move to the living room couch in the soundless blue glow of the television, my homework untouched, and dial him again, missing the days when I was excited to talk to him, when every conversation wasn’t laden with an overwhelming dread.

  It rings five times before he picks up. I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t; I have a bad sinking feeling in my gut.

  “Hey, Butterfly.” He sounds winded, distracted. “Let me turn down the music. I’m on the treadmill.” Joe Cocker, or some other guy with a Joe Cocker–like gravelly voice, blares, then quiets in the background. “Oh shit! Be right there. I forgot I had something on the stove.”

  The phone muffles, then clanks down, and I hear Dad curse some more in the background. At least he must be alone, so that’s a good thing.

  My eyes shift to the coffee table, to the large glossy book, The Beat Generation, with Jack Kerouac’s face plastered all over the black-and-white cover. Repeating images of him in different squares, collaged around a larger one in the center. There’s one in the top right corner that if you added a little scruff to it, I swear would look just like Max.

  I stretch my leg, using my bare toes to shove the book to the corner, then off the table, altogether. It lands on the rug with a satisfying thud.

  I hate that dumb book. The letter writing started right after Nana gave it to Mom, and told us all her old stories again. She and Nana are always going on about the guy, some long-dead author who no one cares about anymore. Just because Nana met him once when she was young.

  The Kerouac letters weren’t the only sign of my mother being crazy, though. There was the constant crying, the sleeping, the heavy drinking, and recently the talking to herself or, more accurately, the conversations she started having with my dad when he wasn’t there. Calling him by name, laughing with him all flirty and weird, when it was clear they weren’t on the phone.

  I’d walk past her bedroom and hear her talking to him, but when I peeked in, there was no phone in sight, no laptop open. Only Mom, alone, sitting on the edge of her bed staring at the wall.

  “JL? You there? I’m really sorry, hon. Did you hear what I said?”

  Dad’s voice drifts back to me. When did he pick up again? And why is he apologizing?

  “No.” The word sticks in my throat. I want to hang up. I shouldn’t have called. He barely checks in anymore. Not really. Not unless he has bad news.

  “They extended the contract, sweetheart … nothing I could help. They have the right … two options … practically begged me … end of August, latest … swear … come out … stay the summer here.”

  The room reels. I don’t want to hear the rest of his words.

  Instead, I count on my fingers. It’s the same deal as last time. “But that’s four more months, Dad, and Mom isn’t doing so well.” I stop, swallow back more tears. Telling him will only make him want to stay away longer.

  “I know, honey. I feel awful. This is the absolute last extension I have to honor.”

  But I’m not listening anymore. I’m lost in the collage of Kerouac’s face, staring up at me through the glass square of the coffee table.

  EARLY APRIL

  TENTH GRADE

  I drop the stack of bills and Mom’s letter in the box, right as Benny drives up, my favorite mailman. He’s been delivering our mail since I was little.

  “I’ve got those!” he calls from the curb, his hand stretched out the open mail truck door. I walk over, smiling, and place them in his hand. He quickly sorts through them and frowns.

  “You sure about this one?” He hands it back to me, the let
ter Mom gave me to mail, a sympathetic look on his face. “The addressee,” he says.

  I read the name, my brain only partially registering:

  Mr. Jean-Louis Kerouac

  7 Judy Ann Court

  Northport, NY 11768

  I blink, confused, not only by Kerouac’s last name, but also by the familiar letters of my own first name—Jean Louise—preceding it. When I manage to look up, Benny says, “It’s not the first one. All last month. They kept on coming. Letter after letter to the same address.”

  He disappears below the window like he’s retrieving something from under his seat, and reappears with a rubber-banded bundle of envelopes, all stamped Return to Sender.

  “It would be a federal offense for me not to mail them, but once they come back … Well, I was hoping to maybe catch your mother in person.”

  I take the stack reluctantly, and thumb through them.

  “Wait,” I finally say. “Are these all to him? Jack Kerouac?”

  Benny shrugs. “I wasn’t sure at first myself. Never read the guy so I didn’t realize from the name, had only ever heard of him referred to as Jack. But the address … well, most of us older folks, we know the famous addresses along our routes, you know? They ring a bell. So I asked around…”

  I nod, wondering how many people at the post office now know my mother is insane.

  “My route sub, Shauna, she grew up nearby, and recognized the address immediately.” He nods at my hand clutching the letters. “Turns out anyone from around here knows Kerouac lived over there. Same as we know Billy Joel comes from Hicksville, or Alec Baldwin hails from the South Shore. You know how it is.”

  I nod again, even though I don’t know. I don’t know anything except that I’m holding some messed-up letters from my mother.

  “Yeah,” I say, forcing my gaze up to Benny’s. “Thanks for this. These. Thanks for not telling anyone.”

  “Hey,” he says, trying to turn his voice hopeful. “Maybe that’s not who she meant to send them to? Maybe they’re meant for some sort of relative? But, rest assured, there is no one at that address by that name. Not anymore. I could talk to her. But maybe it’s better if you do.”

  “Yeah, better from me,” I say. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  After he leaves, I sit on the stoop, my heart sinking, and tear open the first envelope, the one she was mailing today. Maybe there’s a logical explanation. Maybe Nana knew him better than she let on. Maybe Jack Kerouac is really my grandfather! Maybe there’s some dark family secret I’m not aware of.

  But if that were true, Nana would have told me. She wouldn’t have kept it from me so many years after Pop-pop died.

  I unfold the letter, and force myself to read.

  After a few brief lines, it becomes more than clear.

  He wasn’t my grandfather.

  It isn’t about Nana.

  My mother is writing love letters to a dead man.

  LATE APRIL

  TENTH GRADE

  Max lies under me, one arm folded behind his head like a pillow, my long brown hair falling over us like a curtain, shielding us from the world. I wanted him to come see the Jezebel. A few days later and you can barely tell the splint from her wing.

  I lean down and kiss his eyelids and he smiles. We’ve been dating nearly two whole months already.

  I think this, but don’t mention it. We’re already taking things way slower than he wants. No need to point out how long. Everyone knows Max isn’t a virgin, but I’m hoping to hold out until I turn sixteen. Sixteen seems reasonable. I know other girls who have lost their virginity at sixteen. So, it can’t be that slutty or Jezebel-like, not that I give a crap what Aubrey thinks. Even Nana says sixteen is when a girl becomes a woman.

  And, not that Max is complaining. Not directly. Not yet. But I can tell he’s losing patience.

  “Mmmm,” he says, grabbing my ass and pulling me tighter against him, as if reading my thoughts. He kisses me hard and shakes his head. “God, you’re—” He stops, and motors his lips, his whole body shuddering, like a dog shaking off freezing water. He reaches down, under me, and adjusts himself through his jeans. “Breaking me,” he finishes. “You’re absolutely fucking killing me, Jailbait.”

  So maybe he is complaining.

  “I am?” I shift my weight off him, concerned, but he pulls me back against him, so that even through his jeans I can feel him there, hard and pulsing beneath my pelvic bone.

  “No, it’s fine. Stay. It’s just … See what you do to me? Think you’d be willing to finish me off?”

  “Like—?”

  “Hand. Mouth. Dealer’s choice. Just so you don’t leave me hanging here like this.”

  “Oh,” I say, my face flushing warm.

  “Never mind,” he says fast. “It’s okay. You stay here, and I’ll do it.” He closes his eyes and slides me up and down against him, up and down. I close mine, too, lost in the motion until I’m aching, feeling like I might be on the verge. If only I didn’t need to wait. “Is this all right?” he whispers.

  “Yes,” I say, “yes,” and I mean it. After all, we have our clothes on, and I like the way it feels, Max hard against me, urgent and wanting me so bad. I’m lost in the rhythm, trying to imagine what it would be like if we did it right this second. It sends a thrill through me. What if I actually am ready?

  “I want you, too,” I whisper back. “I swear I do. I just need a little more time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Max, I do. Really.”

  “Shhh, it’s all good.” He moves me faster, and one of his hands slips down my skirt, down the back of my underpants. I let him keep it there, trying not to think too hard about any of it. But what if my mother comes home?

  “Don’t stop me, okay?” Max moans and grunts a little, which makes my stomach swirl, so there’s no way I’d even dare.

  Instead, I lower my mouth over his, and let our tongues mix, and lose myself in the motion, until he shakes hard once, then again, like a series of little earthquakes are moving through him.

  “Oh man, shit, sorry,” he says, sitting up. “I’ll be right back,” and he jumps up and disappears into the hall.

  The bathroom door closes.

  I stare at the ceiling, and smile. I did that for him. With him.

  When he returns, he lies back down and rolls toward me. “You’re beautiful, you know that?” he says.

  My heart soars. “And what else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Earlier, you said I am something. Besides killing you, that is.”

  He thinks for a second. “Besides killing me, is there anything good left to be?” He smiles his big, cheesy smile, but I shake my head like that’s not good enough, so he says, “Okay, how about this? You’re a ‘bud of love,’ Jailbait. ‘By summer’s ripening breath.’ ‘A bud of love.’”

  “Huh,” I say, satisfied, even if I have only the faintest idea what he’s talking about. He’s quoting something. A sonnet. A poem. Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson, or someone.

  “Shakespeare,” he says, not waiting for me to guess and get it wrong.

  I lay my cheek on his chest, and listen to his heartbeat. “Tell me more.”

  He strokes the side of my cheek with his thumb. “Okay, fine. How fares thee, my JL? ‘That I ask again; For nothing can be ill, if she be well.’”

  I smile, my cheek warm under the touch of his thumb. “What’s that from?”

  “Guess.”

  “Romeo and Juliet?”

  He nods. “Very good! Butchered pretty bad, but still. Jesus, don’t you kids read at all anymore?”

  I kick him playfully, and roll away from him, onto my back. “I read,” I say. “Plenty. Just not Shakespeare. Yuck. Can’t understand a word of his.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I say. “Who even needs to?”

  “Everyone, Jailbait. Do you know how many modern musicians sample Shakespeare or retell his stories in song? The Beatles. Radioh
ead. Iron Maiden. Metallica.”

  “Who?”

  He shakes his head. “Okay, here’s one more your speed: Taylor Swift.”

  “Does not.”

  “Does too. ‘Love Story.’ Total rip-off of Romeo and Juliet. And I think a few others of hers, though I’m not really a Taylor Swift fan.”

  “Oh, you’re right,” I say. “I remember the video now. You sure do know a lot about Taylor Swift for a biker dude.”

  He laughs, and rests his hand on my head, his fingers tangling with my hair. On the ceiling above us, there’s an X-shaped crack. I reach up and follow it with my finger as I’ve done a hundred times before, this time taking it as a sign: X marks the spot where I’m here with Max Gordon. Just like I’m supposed to be.

  “How do you know all those poems you quote?” I ask. “The plays. All the stuff in Hankins’ lit class?”

  He shrugs. “Not all of it. Barely anything, really. But I will one day. I’m on a quest to read it all.”

  “You are?”

  He untangles his fingers, rolls onto his back, and pulls me decisively on top of him. I must look concerned, because he says, “Don’t worry, I just want to talk to you. Not do anything. But, yeah, Jailbait, I’m on a lot of quests, and, I won’t lie, you’re one of them. But in a good way. I like you. A lot. So, I want to touch you. I want to feel you. And, yes, I want to sleep with you—make love to you.” He makes a face at his words. “I want to be inside of you because I want to know every inch of you there is to know.” My stomach lurches, but he quickly adds, “Don’t worry. I don’t mean now, this second. But I’m a big boy, and you’re a big girl, right? And the things I want to do with you, they’re natural. They’re fun. I promise you that. And, it’s just skin. Fingers. Body parts. I want mine on you. In you. I want to make you feel good.”

  His words take my breath away, make my cheeks burn, my heart race, and my insides melt and float away.

  “I want that, too, Max,” I say, but who knows if he hears me. That last part is barely even sound.