Saved By The Music

by Selene Castrovilla

  Everyone thought I was going to be something big and important, but I knew I’d probably wind up alone in the forest talking to chipmunks. It was ironic. Because it was such a damn effort to play the game, to put on a front all the time. I wanted to let loose the real me—insecurities, phobias, and all—and let them all know the truth.

  And let’s face it, the only thing that was going to be big was my fat lump of a body, which no guy in his right mind would ever want to touch. My stupid diet wasn’t working… .

  Enough! I had to get these toxic thoughts out of my brain—before I threw myself overboard. So I did the only thing I could do to drown out the dark: I slid on my headphones and hit play on my iPod. Closing my eyes, I let my version of a lullaby, the deep tones of Jim Morrison—my favorite singer—do their job.

  * * *

  I hate my mother.

  I woke up in the dark with a stiff neck and that thought in my head. I hate my mother.

  She ditched me.

  I stumbled over the crap on the floor and turned on the lamp. Was it day or night? Who could tell? The steel room looked exactly the same. My cell.

  I lay back down, trying again to bunch up the cushion and make it bearable. Hopeless, just like everything else.

  Why couldn’t I stay home this summer? I’d been alone since second grade, ‘til eight or nine o’clock every night. On weekends, I’d put myself to bed. I didn’t complain. I didn’t cry. So why couldn’t I be home now? I would’ve stayed out of her way. All I had in this world was my room, and now I didn’t even have that.

  All because of Steve.

  “Morning, love,” Aunt Agatha sang from behind me, shaking me out of my thoughts. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Sure,” I lied. I turned toward the back of the couch and swiped at my eyes. Then I faced her.

  “You slept through my practicing. That’s tough to do.”

  “I was tired.”

  “Let’s get some coffee and get to work.”

  “I don’t drink coffee, Aunt Agatha.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I’m fifteen.”

  She looked puzzled. “I drank coffee at ten, darling. You don’t know what you’re missing. But fine, you can have hot chocolate and a buttered roll from the coffee truck.”

  “No, thanks. Do they have carrots?”

  “Carrots?”

  “I mostly eat carrots for breakfast. I’m on a diet.”

  She looked me up and down. “Darling, you don’t need a diet anymore. You’ve lost too much weight. You look like a rail.”

  Who is she kidding? I looked more like a railroad. “I’m on a diet, and I eat carrots for breakfast,” I said.

  “All right. After I have my coffee, I’ll head to the supermarket. Make me a list of what you’d like.” She sat next to me. “Listen, kiddo. Maybe you don’t want to be here, but here you are. I’m not such a bad guy, you know.” She rapped me on the shoulder.

  I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat.

  She left, and I put my music on again. I never thought I’d want to be home, but I would’ve given anything to be back on my bed, staring at my huge poster of Jim Morrison. His shaggy, reddish brown hair was just short of long. His face had substance. It was strong, powerful, daring. His muscular arms were outstretched, reaching for me, offering something I just couldn’t grab. And his eyes… . In his eyes, I saw poetry. The poster said “An American Poet.” And that’s what he was.

  * * *

  I’d found the poster two years before in my cousin Doug’s basement, in a pile of stuff of past lives. His mom was trashing it. “Who’s Jim Morrison?” I asked, impressed by the hunk I’d unrolled.

  “The lead singer for the Doors,” he answered.

  “Who are the Doors?”

  He stared for a moment, then said, “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Your mom’s into opera and junk like that.” He gave me a sympathetic look through his oval-rimmed glasses. “They were a band from the sixties. Mom was big into them. Come upstairs, and I’ll play you one of their albums.

  He played me a song called “Break on Through.”

  I was captivated.

  Not by the music, which included a redundant organy sound. (I soon discovered that the organ was their trademark instrument.)

  Not by his voice, which, though powerful, could have stood some training.

  It was his words. They hypnotized me. They were the truth. In fact, “Break on Through” eerily described that “inside looking outside” feeling I carried with me.

  We listened to Jim Morrison and the Doors all afternoon. Doug told me all about Jim, how he was this brilliant, tortured soul. Jim died mysteriously in France when he was only twenty-seven. Some people thought he’d faked his death. This was all very exciting.

  On my way out, I clomped down the basement stairs and saved Jim from a trip to the garbage dump.

  The beginning of a beautiful relationship.

  * * *

  I checked out the back-door exit from the room. It led to a rear deck, which looked the same as the front deck: brown rust.

  I stared at the other boats. They seemed so content, bobbing along out there. There were yachts, sailboats, cabin cruisers… . How did I end up standing on a filthy, ugly, god-forsaken barge?

  Closing my eyes, I choked back the scream inside me.

  When I opened them again, I saw him.

  4

  People Are Strange

  He stood on the outer ledge of a sailboat called Perchance to Dream. Long straggly hair fell across his slumped shoulders. Standing outside the boat’s rail, staring into the water like he was about to jump, he was a dead ringer for the dead Jim Morrison.

  A teenage Jim.

  He had that same deep-eyed, hollow look that stared back at me from every Doors album cover. A lost look.

  Wow, something heavy is sure on his mind.

  He noticed me. Studied me. I freaked.

  I ran back inside the barge, stubbing my toe against a big black metal thing in the way. Sucking in my pain, I shoved the thick door closed and leaned against it, my heart in overdrive.

  * * *

  Aunt Agatha dropped a ten-pound bag of carrots on the crate that was her coffee table. “That ought to hold you,” she said, handing me a peeler. “I’ll get the rest of the supplies later.”

  I wondered how she’d managed getting everything across the plank, but not enough to ask.

  “Are you ready to work?”

  I shrugged.

  “Love, I could let you sit here and sulk, but I want to teach you how to enjoy life.”

  “Enjoy life?” I scoffed. “Fat chance, in here.”

  “When you create beauty, that’s enjoying life.” Aunt Agatha beamed.

  Yada, yada, yada. “Whatever,” I said.

  “Besides, the time will go faster if you occupy your mind.” She winked and headed to her “work table,” two sawhorses with a piece of plywood balanced across them. Lying on top was a long, skinny piece of wood. It was a nauseating green, not unlike the original color of my room. “What do you think of this?” she asked.

  She didn’t want to know. “What’s to think about? It’s an ugly piece of wood.”

  “Is it, love?” She grabbed a thick paintbrush, dunked in it a can, and spread clear, thick glop over the green. Then she traded the brush for a flat-bladed tool. She scraped away the paint, sliding it down the long strip until it was a sticky clump on the floor.

  “Behold … beauty!”

  I had to admit, the wood was a beautiful mix of brown and cream. But so what?

  “Paint remover, dear heart. It’s that simple.”

  Too bad I couldn’t remove Steve from my house with that stuff.

  “Imagine, all this mahogany entombed under someone’s idea of decor. It came from the old Staten Island Ferry. They were going to throw it all away!” She grabbed up another piece and glopped it up. “And now, we’re excavating it.”

  Good lord. Who did she think she was, tha
t Howard Carter guy who dug up King Tut.

  “Here’s the plan,” she continued. “You’re going to strip the wood. I’m going to stain it. And Craig is going to … ”

  The metal door squealed open, interrupting her. “Yooooooo …” echoed through the chamber.

  “Ah, Craig. I was just telling my niece Willow about you,” Aunt Agatha said to a tall guy in a torn red T-shirt covered in paint splatters and frayed cutoff jeans in the same condition. His long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore black sunglasses—like he had to be cool at all costs.

  Those shades looked asinine in the dimness of the room we stood in. Schmuck.

  I had to admit, though, he was hot. His biceps, triceps, quads, or whatever the names of arm and chest muscles are, all screamed “squeeze me.” He was raw, rough, ready.

  Why did all the hot guys have to be such punks?

  “Yo,” he said.

  Nice command of the English language.

  He nodded at Aunt Agatha, then turned to me, lowering his sunglasses to give me the once-over with his big brown eyes. Real smooth. “Yo,” he said to me, eyebrows raised.

  Terrific.

  This was the kind of guy who paid attention to me. I was not a person to him. I was a potential lay.

  Other guys talked to me, sure. I actually got along better with them than girls. But I was just their friend. No, I was their advice columnist. “Dear Willow.” They all came to me with their problems with girls and everything else.

  “Willow, this is Craig Culligan.” Aunt Agatha introduced us. “Craig, Willow Moon.”

  “Charmed,” I said.

  “Yo,” he said.

  Did he know any other words?

  “He’s the boy from the yard I told you about. Starting tomorrow, he’s going to be hanging mahogany strips on the walls.”

  “Across the whole room?” I followed the long length of steel panels, horrified by the amount of days it would take. Days of me and Craig stuck together.

  “And across the floor. Pieced together, like a giant mahogany jigsaw puzzle.” Aunt Agatha beamed at the thought.

  Craig leered at me. It was going to be a long, long summer.

  * * *

  Aunt Agatha headed to her workstation on the other end of the barge. She had a pile of “excavated” wood waiting.

  I could tell she thought she was doing me a favor, leaving me alone with this guy. Like I needed companionship or something. As if.

  I put on my headphones and started chipping and stripping away. Of course, Mr. Wonderful suddenly wanted to talk. Apparently, he had nothing to do but hang around. Imagine that.

  I tried to ignore him, but he got in my face.

  So close I could smell the testosterone wafting from his pores.

  Mental face slap! Hold out for a guy who doesn’t throw the girl out with the condom, I told myself.

  He said something. I pointed to the headphones. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” I shouted.

  He yanked them off. I didn’t know what to say.

  “So, where you from?”

  I’m from a place where we form complete sentences. “Long Island,” I answered, as clipped as possible. I stared at the strip, avoiding eye contact.

  “Whadaya think a Rockaway?”

  “Well, I haven’t had the pleasure of exploring the neighborhood yet,” I said, putting my finished strip aside and starting another, longer one. “But I was impressed by the burned-out, boarded-up buildings I passed along the way.”

  He didn’t say anything. Probably took a few minutes to process that many words.

  “Yo,” he said finally. “Ya gotta be careful ’round the ’hood.”

  Yeah, I kind of got that.

  “I’ll take ya out for pizza, show ya ’round,” he continued.

  “I don’t eat pizza.” I shoved at the gunk hard, pushing it down, down, down.

  “Huh?” I guess in his world, pizza was a dietary staple, like rice in China.

  “How ’bout Mickey Dee’s?”

  How about no?

  “Look, Craig,” I said. “I’m not allowed to go wandering around unfamiliar neighborhoods.”

  “Why not?”

  I slammed the scraper against the wood in exasperation. “I’m fifteen.”

  “So? My sister’s twelve. She goes wherever the hell she wants.”

  Super.

  Actually, I could go wherever I wanted at home. I was about as supervised as an alley cat. There were no rules. But all the other kids had them.

  “Well, back in the Five Towns, parents like to check out where their kids are hanging out. Crazy, huh?”

  Another strip done. I pushed at my sleeves and gunked up another one.

  He looked confused. “I’ll protect ya.” But who would protect me from him?

  I tried something else. “You look a little old for me.”

  “I’m twenty.”

  “Did you not hear me when I said I was fifteen?” I dropped a huge pile of green gook onto the floor.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Hmmm … fifteen, twenty. Anything wrong with that?”

  “We’re not gettin’ married, just havin’ some fun.” That’s what I was afraid of.

  “Oy vey,” I sighed.

  “Huh?”

  I forgot I wasn’t looking at him, so I looked up. “That’s what the Jews say, instead of ‘Jesus Christ.’” God, those glasses were annoying. Like speaking to someone in a motorcycle visor.

  He moved in closer, examining me like I was an alien. Testosterone alert. “You Jewish?”

  “No.”

  He scratched his head. “Then why you talkin’ Jewish?”

  I shrugged. “Almost everyone else in the Five Towns is Jewish. You just pick it up. Like you picked up your stunning vocabulary.”

  He blinked at me. Again, I’d loaded too many words on him at once.

  “So what are ya?”

  What am I? Good question.

  “What I am is tired. And I have a headache. So, see ya!” I gave him a curt wave with my spatula.

  “We’ll head out tomorrow after work,” he said with a wink. Is he a brick or what?

  I just turned and walked away.

  * * *

  I sat on the front deck and stared at the garbage floating at the edge of the deck. More scraps.

  Talking about religion sent me right back to my elementary school gates, facing out of those tall metal bars that are supposed to keep kids safe.

  In no time, I’m there. Standing in the playground, shuffling my Keds in the dirt, in this new place. A new beginning.

  It’s the first day of second grade. We just moved from Woodside, Queens. From a project where incinerator smoke always clawed my throat. Where the drug dealers were waiting on the playground.

  It’s exciting, being in this new place, the Five Towns. Aunt Agatha lent Mom money for the house in Atlantic Beach. The town’s tiny, smaller than the massive maze of dirty brick apartment buildings we came from.

  Atlantic Beach is so small, there’s no school there. We have to ride the bus to Lawrence, across the bay.

  There are no drug dealers by the fence at recess.

  But there is a group of kids waiting for me. Different heights, looks like a few could be in fourth or fifth grade.

  “So, what are you?” a really tall boy asks.

  “What?”

  “Jewish or Catholic?”

  He could be speaking French for all I understand. I don’t know what to say.

  “Well?” a medium-sized girl in ponytails asks.

  I still don’t know what to say. “What’s Jewish and Catholic?”

  They all stare at me. The tall boy says, “You don’t know your religion? What are you, a moron?”

  Okay, I don’t know what that word means, either—religion, not moron. I want to cry, but I don’t.

  “You celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah?”

  “Christmas.” What was Hanukkah? Didn’t everyone get presents under their Chr
istmas tree?

  “Catholic,” yells a short girl.

  “Really?” I ask, relieved.

  The tall boy isn’t convinced. He continues, “You go to church?”

  “No.”

  “Temple?”

  “No.”

  They start shooting questions at me from all sides. About Jesus and God—words I know only from grown-ups yelling.

  Jewish or Catholic, I have to be one or the other.

  I’m nothing.

  I ride the bus home, watch TV, and try to forget about my first day at the school I was so excited to go to.

  When Mom comes home, when she finally comes home way after dark, I ask her what I am.

  “Tell them you’re agnostic,” she says.

  But that wasn’t one of the choices.

  When I go back the next day, I tell everyone I’m half Jewish, half Catholic.

  Nice try, but a little late. That was my first attempt to fit in with everyone. I could have used some advance warning to figure all this out. Turned out most of the kids were Jewish, so that would have been the better choice. But who knew?

  The Catholics were a tight, tough little bunch.

  I wound up fitting in with no one. I ate lunch alone that year, at the last table in the cafeteria. In the corner. The beginning of the story of my life.

  Back on the playground in second grade, I learned I couldn’t fit in religion-wise, the same day I learned what religion even was.

  Now I had another plan.

  I needed to ditch my virginity.

  ***

  That night I lay on the couch, thinking. I was sick of being a virgin. Forget about virginity, I’d never even kissed a guy.

  I just knew things would be better if I wasn’t a virgin. I wouldn’t feel so apart. I saw the girls who “did it.” They were popular, always laughing, always part of the big crowd. Never alone.

  Never.

  I reviewed my options for de-virginization. There weren’t many.

  Actually, there was one. One leering, crude imbecile.

  But Craig was hot, so why not? It wasn’t like we were going to get married, like I’d be stuck with him. What was the problem?

  The problem was, I couldn’t stand guys like Craig. They were users. But they were also the only guys who paid attention to me.

  The problem was, I kind of wanted someone to want me for me, not just for what they could get from me.