Call me Jane (The Oshkosh Trilogy)

by Anthea Carson

  One other thing that stood out in my mind about her was her reaction when Lucy Bachus came running down the hall shouting, “Ziggy likes you! Ziggy likes you!”

  “What?”

  “I told him.”

  “You told him what?”

  “You know,” she said. She had her mouth open in one of those expectant smiles. Her eyes were all lit up.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I told him you like him.”

  I stood there confused, and then I remembered what I had told her to throw her off the scent of me and Paul.

  “And do you know what he said?”

  Again, I just stared at her.

  “He said he likes you.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes! And he was really excited. He said, ‘Jane likes me?’ He was smiling. I asked him if he liked you. He said, ‘Yeah I like her,’ I said, ‘No, I mean do you like her.’ He said, ‘Yeah I like her.’” Lucy stood in front of me, grinning from ear to ear.

  Then Potty Mouth turned to me. “You mean that guy who got Sid Vicious elected homecoming queen?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled, but I wasn’t really smiling. It was like one of Raj’s smiles. About to fall off my face any second.

  “Oh God!” she winced.

  Then I winced.

  But at the same time, I felt tentatively happy. I did find myself thinking about him.

  “He’s ugly!” she said.

  I just blinked at her. I wanted to go back in the art room and throw pots with Mr. Simon.

  “But that parachute suit is cool!” she added, with a hopeful smile.

  I loved that shipwrecked painting I did. After Mr. Simon cleared it out of his case to make way for the next display, my dad put it in his office, down at the university.

  Potty Mouth wanted a ride home, so I gave her one. She loved speed. She called them Black Beauties. She offered me one, and of course I took it. I grabbed a few extra too, and put them in my pocket for Krishna. I dropped Potty Mouth home; she lived behind an ugly building and had to take the fire escape upstairs.

  “Black Beauties,” I told Krishna, when I made it to her room. I held out my hand. They were black, I think.

  “Sure I’ll take one. I’ll take two.” Krishna grabbed them and popped them in her mouth without a thought. She didn’t even need to wash them down with her half cup of cold coffee that stood on her desk by the red phone.

  I sat with my feet up on her dark, wood coffee table. She had so many candles, and they were all so interesting. She had that great big ashtray painted psychedelic colors.

  “Hey,” I said. “Did you make that in Mr. Simon’s class?”

  “Yeah!” She flashed her teeth about this for some reason, and then blew a cloud from her Marlboro’s. Not in a clove mood.

  “Would these help me in basketball?” Gay asked, grabbing the last one.

  “I don’t know, I’ve never taken them before,” I said. “Have you?” I asked Krishna.

  “Yeah, once. I don’t know if they’ll help you with your basketball game,” she continued, but broke into a giggle. “Who the fuck cares about your basketball game?”

  “I do!” Gay said, still holding the little black capsule in the palm of her hand.

  “Oh God,” Krishna rolled her eyes. “Just take it. But don’t take it to improve your stupid game.”

  “Jesus, why does everyone put down my playing in sports?”

  “Because,” I said, “you’re a fake. You’re a jock one minute and a druggie the next.”

  “Well maybe I should take lessons from you. Maybe I could be a druggie one minute and a paranoid druggie the next,” Gay said, and rolled her eyes out the window. “What’s wrong with being a jock?”

  “Nothing. Mellow out. Take the speed,” Krishna said, laughing, trying to light one of her candles. “Or don’t, I don’t care.”

  “Hey, what is that candleholder? That’s an arm!” I said.

  “If I’m supposed to mellow out, how is taking the speed going to help?”

  “Where did you get that?” I asked.

  “It’s Ames’s arm. I made it from a cast of it. Isn’t that great?”

  It held a red candle that dripped down the arm.

  “How did I not notice that before?” I asked.

  “I just put it there now,” said Krishna, sitting down at the coffee table.

  “Give me a cigarette,” Gay said, and Krishna stood back up to find her one.

  “Are you gonna take that speed?” I asked Gay.

  “I don’t know yet, maybe I’ll take it just before practice,” she said, and put it in her pocket. “And I don’t want one of those fucking clove cigarettes,” Gay said as Krishna was unpacking them from a gold case on top of her dresser.

  Krishna giggled at this. She loved to smoke her cloves, and loved it even more that nobody else could stand them.

  “Those awful things make me choke,” I said.

  “It’s like smoking incense,” Gay said.

  “Yeah, I know, it’s great!” said Krishna.

  “And speaking of being a jock, why do you keep getting straight As?” Gay asked Krishna. It would have to be Krishna, because I sure as hell wasn’t making straight As. I barely ever went to class.

  There were two classes I went to. Well, three if you counted pot throwing, which I didn’t. I went to Mr. Dalton’s algebra class, partly because I sort of liked it even though I couldn’t understand it, and partly because Krishna loved Mr. Dalton. Mr. Dalton’s wife had been my favorite teacher in elementary school, and so I found him intriguing as well. He was just pure logic. I liked that. The math made sense on the board as he did it, and I liked that too. But when I tried to do it myself, it was just hopeless. The other class I liked was Mrs. De Muprathne’s English class. All of us loved Mrs. De Muprathne. She was short, loud-mouthed, and one of the only teachers there that knew as much as the professors we had for fathers (those of us who had professors for fathers, that is, which was most of us). Not Gay though. I don’t she even had a father, I mean, not one at home. I never asked her about it, but I don’t think she did. I remember my mom asked her once, “Gay, what does your father do?” Gay answered, “Anything he can get away with.”

  “It’s true,” I echoed Gay and turned on Krishna. “Why do you bother getting As in Algebra, English and Physics—in everything for Christ’s sake. There is just something wrong about that.”

  “I don’t know, I just don’t care enough not to I guess.”

  That made no sense, but it threw me and Gay off for a while, had us staring out the window at her glorious backyard. Or maybe it was the speed kicking in, or the red pipe we were passing, or a combination. Krishna lit her incense, and Gay threw a fit. Krishna moved it over by the window.

  Gay had hated incense ever since the time she had saturated a red bandana with incense smoke. She had come running into my car telling me how great it smelled. Then after complaining of nausea for half an hour, she screamed, “Let me out, it’s the bandana! It’s the bandana!” And she ran into the woods, threw up, and then threw that red bandana into the trees as far as she could hurl it.”

  “What’s even the point of the incense even being lit at all over there?” I asked. “You can’t smell it with the window open anyway.”

  Krishna continued trying to light it, but the breeze kept blowing out her flame.

  “So, I have practice at five,” Gay began hinting, “but they said I can’t go unless I’m at my two-thirty class.”

  We both just stared at her.

  “That’s my chemistry?”

  It was twelve thirty right now. We had skipped our afternoon classes, and weren’t planning on going back.

  “So, I really need to be at that practice tonight.”

  We just stared blankly. One thing I loved about the Stones. That heavy beat.

  “Do you think you could give me a ride to my two-thirty class?”

  “What, you can’t miss one practice?” I asked.

&nbs
p; “If I miss the practice, I can’t play this weekend in St. Claire.”

  “Like I care,” I said.

  “Uhhhg! Please? Come on!”

  “I’m so sick and tired of getting used by you for my car!”

  “Uh, paranoia will destroy ya?” Gay said.

  “You act all friendly with me, then when you see me with those jocks you act like you don’t know me.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes you do,” Krishna interjected. She had been pretty much keeping out of it. Krishna didn’t have her license yet, so Gay couldn’t beg a ride from her, and Raj, well, there was no way.

  Gay dropped the subject for about a half an hour, but then started to drop hints about it again.

  “Oh God you’re not going to stop this are you! Okay fine,” I shouted, “I’ll give you a ride!”

  “Wait for me.” Krishna had to take a shower, and then for some reason she started putting on all this loose eye shadow that kept sprinkling gold dust down her cheeks so we were stuck another half hour. We still had a little time.

  “So what are you gonna do; are you gonna take that speed?” I asked.

  “What’s it doing to you?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “It mellows me out actually.”

  Gay went over to Krishna’s record collection and pulled out the Kinks. The Stones had finished, and there were a few strange moments of silence. Krishna was still messing with her face. She never did that. Well, that’s not true, she sometimes did, but only if we were going to a concert or something.

  Gay pulled out the Kinks, and began singing along, “So tired, tired of waiting,” then she began shouting the lyrics and stood right outside the bathroom, arms folded, foot tapping, which finally caused Krishna to stop her nonsense and come along.

  I pulled up to the school.

  “You taking that speed?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, take it now!”

  “Why?”

  “Cause I gave it to you!”

  “Christ!” she yelled, and popped it in her mouth.

  “I bet you didn’t swallow it!”

  “You wanna inspect inside my mouth?” She opened her mouth, stuck her fingers in, pulled her lips to the side, and stuck her face in mine. “God you’re worse than a–you’re like a cop in reverse!”

  I pulled up on the grass, right on the grass.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled.

  Krishna started laughing back there, rocking to and fro as she tried to fill another bowl, all that glitter coming off her eyelids in tiny clouds like gold dust. I was driving right on the grass, over the hills of the campus of the school, right over the curb. Everyone was looking at us, clutching their book bags and hurrying by. I had totally lost it, they thought.

  I pulled right up in front of Gay’s class, outside the window.

  “Is that your class?”

  Krishna was in hysterics in the backseat; I’d never heard her laugh this loud.

  “Yeah,” Gay said.

  “Then get out right here.” I pulled right in front of the window and honked my horn to make sure they all saw my car.

  “Um,” Gay hesitated.

  “If you don’t get out right here I’m not stopping. You’ll have to jump out while I’m moving.”

  Gay left the car in front of her class.

  SIXTEEN

  So because Gay had basketball practice that night, she was practically the only one not there. I didn’t know where we were going, Krishna just said, “Turn left here,” and “Go right now, right!” And I screeched my tires till I pulled up at Walter Owens’ house. You could hear the music from outside the house. We went downstairs to Walter’s basement. Everyone was there.

  Those who weren’t sitting on the couch were on the floor gathered around a small black-and-white TV.

  The movie hadn’t started yet, but in those days, if a movie came on TV that you wanted to see, you better jump on it. You weren’t going to have another chance.

  Ziggy was the most excited about it, but everyone was.

  “Ow!” I screamed over at Dave, who sat to my right. He was the drummer for the band. He always wore that black-leather jacket with chains all over it. His hair was spiked, he had very black hair, and it didn’t really look like he had to put any kind of gel in it. Dave was short, and had high cheekbones like an Indian.

  “What’s wrong?” he screamed back.

  “My ears hurt!”

  “Oh yeah, I have to get mine waxed every month!”

  “What?”

  “I have to get mine waxed once a month!”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I have to have the wax removed! By a doctor!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. Right then there was a break between songs. So he was screaming this and everyone looked over at him.

  “How do you get your hair to stand up like that?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Your hair? How do you get it to do that?”

  “Egg whites!”

  Yep, he was punk. Anyone who would put egg whites in their hair was punk.

  “Doesn’t it seem like we just passed this?” Dave was to my right. He passed me a beer, and a joint.

  I passed it to my left. Ziggy was sitting there in his green parachute suit. Where was Paul? I looked around. Wait a minute. No Lucy, no Paul! That’s who else was missing.

  “It’s ten, turn that stereo off!” Ziggy went over and turned on Walter’s TV.

  Someone else tried to sit next to me, and Ziggy butted them out of the way. He practically sat on them.

  “Where’s Lucy,” I yelled.

  “Lucy?” someone answered. “I don’t know. She’s probably with Paul.”

  “No,” someone said, “Paul’s not with her tonight, I don’t think.”

  “Where is Paul?” It was Walt who asked this. Thank God someone asked. I froze, straining to hear the answer.

  “Paul?” Dave shrugged, passing me the joint again, tapping my knee so I’d snap out of my stupor and grab it. “Isn’t he coming over?”

  “No.” Tom Hughes said this. He was the bass player for the band. When pressed as to where he was, he managed to successfully avoid the question with long cigarette drags, a look of confusion about where his beer was, and finally an announcement to the crowd that it looked like the movie was starting. Even more lights were turned off, which I didn’t think was possible. Ziggy scooted over to me, which caused Dave to look over at me with a sort of half grin, half question on his face.

  “Do you need more room?”

  “No, no,” I said, “I’m fine,” but my beer had spilled on both him and me, and I was trying to smoke a cigarette with the other hand and not burn Ziggy, who seemed insistent on scooting closer and closer and closer. He was shoving me into Dave, and so Dave finally put his arm around me. Ziggy grabbed it and threw it off my shoulder and replaced it with his. The movie started.

  The words MOTEL HELL appeared on the screen and everybody cheered. As soon as the credits came up on the screen, everybody laughed. Raj started making wry, witty comments, and he had a real smile on his face, one that didn’t look like it could fall off any moment. Ziggy laughed and laughed and hooted that fat-woman’s laugh that he had. He wasn’t speaking to me or looking at me. Other than pressing himself up against me, you’d think he didn’t know I was there. Maybe that’s why he was pressing against me, because he thought I wasn’t there.

  I kept watching for Paul, and he kept not showing up. The drunker I became, the more I thought I saw him, dimly, from across—from very far away in—the room.

  No one was watching that stupid movie. Everyone seemed to be yelling through the whole thing. They told some great jokes while watching, but I couldn’t believe how gross that movie was. It was disturbing. I was horrified. I kept wincing and looking away, which caused both Ziggy and Dave to tickle me randomly. Krishna sat right on the floor next to the TV, smoking and laughing. She thought the whole thing was
great. Every butchering received howls of laughter from her. I was the only one squirming. And Ziggy was shoving me into Dave, smothering me, taking away any retreats. Somewhere around midnight, I vaguely remember him shoving his tongue down my throat.

  Okay, I thought, and at first when I returned home I was pretty happy about it. I wasn’t thinking about Paul, at least for the moment. I had this weird fantasy about Ziggy. I don’t know why. These feelings didn’t feel right though. These feelings felt like … I don’t know. I lay down on my folded-out-couch bed. My mom had made it for me. She always did. The sheets were folded back in a triangle.

  “He makes me feel… I don’t know, I guess I’ll figure it out later,” I said to the room, and then I crawled into those soft, cool sheets. I kicked my feet around and made myself comfortable.

  I could see my maple tree outside, with its branches scraping against the big picture window. I could feel a cool breeze from the open side window. I could read, if I wanted to. There was a little bedside lamp to read by. I loved to read by that light, and then click it off when I grew tired, but I didn’t read that night. I turned it off and fell asleep to a strange feeling.

  SEVENTEEN

  For some reason, everyone was ending up at the Burger King. It wasn’t like we planned it or anything. First it was me, Krishna, Gay, and Chrystal. Usually we would have just gone through the drive-through, but that night we went inside and just kept hanging around. We were stoned, of course, and the dope we had was really good. Everyone was acting very strange. For example, Chrystal and Gay kept trying to order in rhyme. They were trying to say “I’d like a Coke, medium size, and a large order of fries,” but they kept breaking into laughter and having to start over. The clerk behind the register waited with patience but no smile. Then Krishna was being very out of character, or maybe it was her character. She kept yelling like a drunken loudmouth that someone should provide her an ice-cream cone, extra large. If there was anyone else in the place, they had to have been staring at us.

  The lights in those Burger Kings are so bright. Or it least it seemed that way. I was too stoned and laughing too hard to be thinking about Paul or anyone else, but at some point Ziggy and Dave and Raj arrived, and a few minutes later Tom—the bass guitarist—showed up too. They came lumbering in, seeming just as loud and fun as we were, and joined us at our table. Krishna was still yelling her order for an extra-large ice-cream cone, and Gay and Chrystal were still trying to put their order in rhyme. At some point, a loud burst of laughter indicated that they had succeeded, and when they received their food they rushed back to tell us all about it. Krishna complained that they hadn’t given her an extra-large ice-cream cone and then someone—I think it was Krishna herself—went and bought her one. Then Ziggy decided to butt whoever had been sitting next to me out of the way and come put his arm around me. It made me feel really uncomfortable and like a spectacle. That’s when I noticed Paul’s car through the window and saw Lucy climb out the passenger side.