by Amy Bryant
I thought I might get teased about the note at the lunch table, but even Adam neglected to ridicule me. Instead he ridiculed the band that opened for Dag Nasty. Mike sat in his regular seat next to Adam, nodding at everything Adam said.
“You weren’t even there, Mike,” I said, after he agreed that it was lame for the opening band to play an encore.
Mike didn’t answer me. He had buttoned the top button of his flannel shirt, which gave him a boyish look that I found adorable.
The Saturday of the Verbal Assault show, I deep conditioned my hair and took my time shaving my legs. I wore my coolest outfit—blue-and-green-plaid miniskirt, black tights, combat boots, and my black hooded sweatshirt. Carrie came over early so she could trim my bangs and help me put eye makeup on. She was an expert, thanks to her strict parents. She could apply eyeliner while she was driving.
Verbal Assault was playing at an old church in southeast D.C., in a black neighborhood we hadn’t been to before. I saw him as soon as we got inside. He was behind a folding table, handing a shirt to a skater kid who looked about twelve but for the hairy legs sticking out of his baggy shorts. Sick with fear, I followed Carrie and Lyle and Theresa in the opposite direction. I was glad Adam and Mike weren’t with us.
We settled near the front of the stage. Beside us three heavily made-up skinhead chicks stood in a knot, casting dirty looks this way and that as people filled in the spaces around them. I hoped they weren’t in the mood to fight, or at least not in the mood to fight us. The skinhead guys were violent, but the skinhead chicks were worse. The skinhead chicks beat up people and took their leather jackets and Doc Martens. They reminded me of the grits at school, single-minded and predatory, waiting for the opportunity to punch someone. Only the grits at Herndon didn’t hit girls.
“Was that him selling shirts?” Carrie asked. She craned her neck to get a better look.
I glanced over. Now he was talking to a girl with long, blue-black hair. He bobbed his head from side to side and waved his hands in front of him. Maybe he hadn’t seen me yet.
The first band wasn’t any good, so we went back to Carrie’s car to drink the six-pack of Michelob that Theresa had stolen from home. I was careful not to look over at the T-shirt table as we filed out.
“You’re gonna regret it if you don’t talk to him,” Theresa said once we had settled back into the car. She handed me a beer.
“Maybe I should wait for him to come up to me,” I said.
“Polly, please,” Carrie said. “Just get it over with.”
A police cruiser swung into the parking lot. “Five-Oh,” Lyle said. We scrambled to hide our beers at our feet. After a cursory circuit of the lot, the cop car pulled back out onto the street and we picked our beers up again.
“I can’t just go up to him,” I said.
“If you drink enough you’ll be able to do it,” Lyle said. “That’s what I did with Carrie.”
“That’s sweet. I didn’t know you did that,” Carrie said.
Once we were back inside I just did it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I let the others get ahead of me and then turned around fast and rushed over to the T-shirt table.
“Hi,” I said, clutching the edge of the table. I was out of breath.
He beamed and stood up while I panted in front of him. “I thought I might see you here,” he said. His voice was different than I expected. Nasal and high-pitched.
“I was just wondering if you had any Verbal Assault shirts,” I said.
Behind us Government Issue started to play, and he gestured for me to lean toward him.
“Verbal Assault sells their own shit,” he shouted into my ear. “I just got Government Issue shirts tonight.”
“Oh!”
He straightened up and pointed at an empty folding chair beside his. I shrugged and walked around to his side of the table, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. I sat down and smoothed my skirt out on the chair.
“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced.” He held out his hand. “I’m Joey.”
I could barely make out what he was saying over the music. “I’m Polly,” I said. His hand felt warm but not sweaty. Some people came up to the table and Joey got up to help them. I fished around in my sweatshirt pocket for my cigarettes and lit one. Joey’s black, shapeless pants were cinched around his waist with a silver-studded belt, and he had rolled up the cuffs so that they rested at the top of his combat boots. He looked like a punk-rock Ronald McDonald.
Joey sat down and put his hand on my knee in one smooth motion, like we’d been going out forever. I yanked my leg up and he took his hand away. Seething with embarrassment, I watched a fat guy wearing one of Joey’s Government Issue shirts in yellow play air guitar by the bathroom. I wanted Joey to put his hand back on my leg, now that I was expecting it.
I turned toward him and he shocked me again, this time by kissing me lightly on the mouth. He kissed me without his tongue, the way a friend of my mother’s might greet me. Before I could respond more people arrived at the table, and Joey stood up again. I wished Government Issue would hurry up and finish so we could talk.
Just then Todd Wilson appeared before me, squinting and sneering, and I felt my chest get tight. I hadn’t seen him since he’d humiliated me at Lyle’s. Adam came up beside him, an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
“What’s up?” I yelled.
Adam looked over at Joey and rolled his eyes, and I screwed up my face in what I hoped was a hostile expression. Todd grinned. His lower front teeth were crooked, but in a good way.
Adam pointed at my lighter and I handed it over. Todd kept right on smiling at me, like we were in on a joke together. I supposed we did share an inside joke, in a way. The inside joke of Jason. Once Adam got his cigarette lit they wandered back into the crowd. I glanced over at Joey, but he was still waiting on customers.
When he sat back down I was ready. I leaned in close to his ear.
“So, how’d you get into the T-shirt business?”
“Just one of those things, I guess,” he shouted.
I smiled and pulled my chair closer to his. I wanted him to see that I wasn’t afraid of him.
“I guess you might say I turned being a punk-rock kid into a career,” he continued. “One minute I was seventeen, seeing as many bands as I could, and the next thing I know I’m twenty-two, with an apartment full of T-shirts and equipment.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Government Issue had finished, and a crowd instantly assembled at the table. Joey was up on his feet again, running this way and that, taking money and handing out shirts. I had to move my chair out of the way twice to let him get to a box of shirts at my feet.
“Thanks, sweetie,” he said the second time I had to move. He gave me a wink. He was officially the most forward boy I had ever met.
I stood up. Joey was negotiating over a stack of shirts with a guy with a tangled mohawk, so I slunk away without saying good-bye.
I found Carrie and Lyle and Theresa in front of the stage. Carrie had Lyle’s leather jacket balled up under her arm, and all three of them were sweating.
“So, what happened?” Theresa said.
“He kissed me, and he’s twenty-two!” I said. Theresa’s mouth went round.
Verbal Assault ran out onstage and started up. Everybody began knocking into one another. The four of us were pressed into the stage. The singer also played bass, and was alternating between jumping up and down in front of the microphone and leaning out over the crowd. I got that feeling I loved, of being anonymous but part of something at the same time. My body felt loose and fluid. I didn’t think about Mike or Joey or Todd or my parents or anything else. Just the wham of the music going through me.
I made it through four songs before my adrenaline ran out. Carrie and Lyle had left the pit a song before me and Theresa wanted to stay up front, so by myself I worked my way through knot after knot of sweaty guys. I tried to ignore the feel of their slimy skin against mine
as I squeezed past them.
The crowd thinned, and I squatted down in a relatively empty space at the back of the church. I tried to imagine what the room would look like with pews and a pulpit where the stage was. It was hard to picture. I unwrapped my sweatshirt from around my waist and felt in the pocket for my cigarettes and lighter.
Just as I realized that Adam still had my lighter, I felt a tap on my head. Joey was standing beside me. I stood up. I had forgotten how tall he was. He cleared my five-seven by almost a foot.
“I got somebody watching the table,” he shouted into my ear. “Let’s go check out the band from the balcony.”
He took my hand and led me over to a wide, curving staircase that I hadn’t noticed. Near the top of the stairs we dropped hands and stepped around a girl with multiple ear piercings on both sides. She was studiously rolling a joint in her lap.
“I hope she doesn’t get caught with that,” I said.
“Nah, the bouncers don’t come up here that much,” Joey said. “There’s too much shit going on downstairs.”
It wasn’t nearly as crowded in the balcony. I leaned over the railing and watched the sea of bodies in front of the stage. The guitarist had stopped playing for this part of the song, and he was jabbing his fist out over the crowd. A hundred fists jabbed back at him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Joey’s narrow wrists on the railing next to mine. I wondered if he was ever teased like I was for being too thin, or if that didn’t happen at his age.
When the song ended I turned away from the railing to ask Joey if this was his first time seeing Verbal Assault, but before I could speak he bent down and kissed me. For real this time. I raised my hand to the back of his head. His hair felt like cotton between my fingers and he had a smell of sweat and leather mixed with something faintly chemical.
When we stopped kissing Joey placed his hands on either side of my face and smoothed my hair back. His expression was serious, almost quizzical. I couldn’t help smiling.
“What?” I said.
“I know I’m too old for you but I can’t help it.”
I started to scoff but then stopped myself, realizing how girlish it would look.
“You’re not too old,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him how old I was. Not yet.
Joey took his hands away from my face and led me down the length of the balcony to a corner where there was a different, shorter set of stairs. They led down to a room that was too dark to see into. There was a chain across the head of the stairs with a DO NOT ENTER sign hanging from it. Joey stepped over the chain. Then he reached back and lifted me over. The ease with which he lifted me sent a dull thrill through my body. He was stronger than he looked.
“I didn’t know these stairs were here” was all I could think to say.
He led me down a few steps, until we were in relative privacy, and then he carefully leaned me against the wall, like I was an expensive painting he had just brought home. We kissed some more. The roar of the band below pounded around us. I put my arms around Joey’s waist and moved them up until my hands were between his shirt and the inside of his leather jacket. I liked the smoothness of the jacket’s lining against my skin, and the way he felt pressing against me. I was vaguely aware that downstairs a song had ended and another had begun. Still kissing, we lowered ourselves down until I was sitting on the stairs and he was kneeling in front of me.
“Wait a minute,” he said.
Joey slid his leather jacket off and wadded it up in his hands. He tucked it between my back and the stair behind me before leaning into me again. It was too dark to see him clearly; he was just a figure flashing before me. His hands seemed not to touch me exactly but to flutter around me, inside my shirt and on my legs and up my skirt. It was exciting, being hidden away on these stairs with him. He was a stranger, older than me, capable of any number of thoughts and urges that were beyond my grasp.
He helped me undo his pants and pulled them down partway. He wasn’t wearing any underwear, which gave me a queasy sensation that I managed to put aside. I didn’t want to think too much about what I was doing.
Joey kissed me, and then he guided my hand to his penis. I shut my eyes and pressed my face into his shoulder while I moved my hand up and down. I was grateful that he didn’t try to take my skirt off, didn’t try to have sex with me, even though I knew that if I were older he probably would have. After he came Joey kissed me again, and I wiped my hand off on the inside of my skirt. I had that feeling I got when a boy came because of me. Kind of like triumph but not exactly.
Joey pulled his pants up. “Do you have a boyfriend?” he said.
I laughed. “Isn’t it a little late for that question?”
I started to stand up but Joey pulled me back down and kissed me again.
“Come over to my place,” he said.
I lowered my head. “I can’t. I have to go home,” I said. The rest came out in a rush: “I’m in high school. I still live with my parents.”
Even though he couldn’t see me that well, I rolled my eyes, as if to tell him that I, too, thought my age was tiresome.
“I figured you were in high school,” he said. He smirked. “How old are you exactly?”
“I’m seventeen, but I’m a senior,” I said, as if that somehow made me older. “I’m graduating this year.”
He nodded, kissed me again. “Are you sure you can’t come home with me? Tell your parents you’re at a friend’s?”
I giggled. “Yes. I’m absolutely totally sure I can’t come home with you.”
We stepped back over the chain. Verbal Assault had finished, and more people were coming up to the balcony. Joey took my hand, and I felt the new scrutiny of having him beside me. I jutted my chin forward as I walked, a smile playing across my lips. I wanted Todd Wilson to see me now.
The black-haired girl I had seen Joey talking to earlier was sitting at the T-shirt table.
“Thanks a lot, Joey,” she snapped as we walked up. “You said you’d just be a minute.”
“This is Tiffany,” Joey said, dropping my hand and grabbing a pen off the table.
“Hi,” I said. Tiffany glared at me. Her nose was slightly hooked and she had small eyes, a combination that, along with her hair, gave her a witchy look. But a pretty witch, saved by a wide, full mouth.
“I better go find my friends,” I said. I knew Theresa and Carrie would be looking for me by now, and I didn’t want to make introductions.
“Hold on a minute.” Joey tore off the edge of a flyer that was sitting on the table and looked up at me expectantly. “Tell me your number.”
He wrote my number on one half of the flyer and then scribbled his on the other half.
“Will you come over to my place soon?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
He called me Sunday night.
“Hi, Polly. Guess who,” he said when I answered.
“Hi, Joey.” There was no mistaking that high, nasal voice.
“I bet you weren’t expecting me to call this soon.”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.” I settled myself on my bed, propping a pillow at my lower back like Joey had done on the stairs with his jacket.
“Are you in your bedroom?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“On your bed?”
“That’s right,” I said. “And are you at your apartment?”
“Uh-hunh. What are you wearing?”
“You sound like an obscene phone caller.”
“I am an obscene phone caller. When are you coming over to visit me?”
A wave of panic passed over me. “I don’t know. Maybe after school one day.”
“It’s cute that you’re still in high school,” he said.
“I’m glad you think so. I find it demoralizing.”
“And are you going to college soon?” He said this like college was something amusing a toddler might do.
“Yes. I don’t know where yet, though. I’m still waiting to hear.”
“So you’re a good student. That’s cool.”
“Pretty good.”
“So when can you come over? I’m dying to see you.”
Joey called every night that week. At school I felt newly confident. I breezed by the cheerleaders and the jocks without looking at their jeering, snotty faces. I didn’t care about them. Joey was part of my life now. Joey who was dying to see me, Joey who thought I was beautiful, Joey who had nothing to do with high school, nothing to do with Reston. I thought of Joey making T-shirts in his apartment—which I pictured as Lyle’s basement minus the band equipment—waiting for me to get home from school so he could call me.
“I hope he’s not some sort of weird stalker guy who’s going to end up killing you or something,” Theresa said at the lunch table.
“He’s not,” I said, immediately worrying that he was.
Mike looked over at me like he’d just now remembered I existed, and then he went back to his tuna sandwich. It was all I could do not to stand up and cheer.
Saturday morning I told Mom I was going to the mall with Theresa. I had to take a bus and a subway to get to his apartment. It was my first time going into the city by myself, and I was excited. Joey had given me careful directions, so I didn’t have any trouble finding his place, but it still took me twice as long as driving. His apartment was in the basement of a modest brick town house, in a better part of town than I expected. He had his own entrance around back. I checked the address in front and walked back down the driveway, my footsteps louder than I wanted them to be on the loose gravel.
There were two cars parked in back. One was a green sedan, and the other was a beat-up brown station wagon that looked like it hadn’t been started in years. I wondered if one of these cars was Joey’s and, if so, why he hadn’t offered to drive out and pick me up. Not that I was anxious to introduce a twenty-two-year-old man with dyed red hair and a studded leather jacket to Mom and William.
I tapped on the door, and a moment later Joey stuck his neon head out.
“You’re late,” he said. He was all eyebrows and sharp limbs and clown hair, and I suddenly felt shy.