One wintry March night, having gone to bed, I was awakened after midnight by Jef. “Your friend Flip is here …” he whispered through the open crack of my bedroom door. I woke up groggy, but managed to get up and slip a robe on over my pajamas.
I staggered to the living room, my eyes out of focus. Jef tiptoed back to his room and closed the door.
Flip was standing, with one foot on the fireplace hearth. He was wearing a woolly coat over his jeans and shirt. “Hey ya” he smiled, awkwardly.
“What’s going on?” I asked. I was always happy to see Flip -- even in the dead of night. “Oh, not much” he shrugged, nonchalantly. “Just thought I’d come by.”
Apparently, he had been in a fight. He had been down at St. Andrews with some of the Sids and a rival gang -- the ABA, or American Beer Allies -- had started some shit with his friends. ABA were a bunch of silly, partying punks with no ethics or honor. Just a bunch of idiots who loved to stomp around at concerts, shouting “Oy!” like sheep. Even their rivalry with the Sids was manufactured and for show. Flip and his buddies had departed St. Andrews and were heading around the rear to the parking lot. At that moment, several ABA’ers were leaving the dance club in the basement of St. Andrews and decided to pick a fight.
Flip had been drinking (and was likely still intoxicated when he arrived at my house). He fought back and at some point during the melee, got pushed down. When he stood up, he noticed his jeans were ripped open at one of the knees and he spied a broken thermometer lying on the ground, not far from where he had fallen. He had gotten in his car and driven north out of the city, driving by The Generals house first. When he noticed all their lights were off, he drove to my place.
“I think I might have gotten mercury in my knee…” he mumbled. I stepped toward him. “Let me see …” Flip got on bended knee, and raised the other toward me. I looked at the knee carefully. I didn’t see any flecks of blue or gray, although his knee was definitely bloodied. “Well,” I shrugged. “Let me get my clothes on and drive you to the emergency room.” I hoisted myself up from the hearth.
“Wait” he said. “That’s not necessary.”
I was already at my bedroom door. “Better be safe than sorry … You don’t want to monkey with mercury poisoning. Give me a minute.”
I closed my bedroom door and quickly threw a pair of jeans on over my pajamas, found a pair of thick socks and opened the bedroom door.
Flip was gone. He had bolted out the front door. “God damn it” I muttered. I slipped into my shoes and ran outside. His car was still parked in my driveway. “Where the hell are you?” I looked all over the front yard. He was hiding, the bastard.
I stood in the front yard and shouted, at two in the morning, “Come out here, damn it, Flip and face me like a man!” My arms akimbo, my breath frosty in the night air. I couldn’t believe he was hiding from me, the little weasel!
Embarrassed, he popped up between his front bumper and Jef’s rear bumper where he’d been crouching. He came toward me, his shoulders hunched up. “Sorry. But really, I’m fine. My knee is fine. I don’t need to go to the hospital. Let’s go back inside.”
We walked into the living room and sat on the sofa, by the front picture window. He then proceeded to tell me why he was really there.
The sister of one of the Sids needed help. She had been physically and sexually abused by her husband. She managed to sneak out of the house one day and get to her family for help, but had to act quickly and was unable to take any of her belongings. She asked her brother if he might gather some of his buddies and go over to her ex’s house to collect what they could. Flip was one of the friends who volunteered to help.
Flip was calm when he confessed “I have a feeling that the husband will probably have some of his buddies there, too. I think, maybe, there might be firearms involved …”
I put my hand on his arm. “Don’t go, then!”
He looked at me like I had grown a second nose on my face. “I have to go” was all he spoke. And he was right. Flip had to go -- he was asked. Flip was the epitome of honor. If you needed him, he’d be there. All I could say was “Be careful, please.”
He stood up then. “I will. I just wanted to tell you that if anything should happen to me, to please tell Nancy that I really did love her.”
He gave me a hug and a classic Flip smirk and then out the door he went. Jef poked his head out his bedroom door. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“I think so” I replied, trying to process what Flip just told me. Too tired to figure out what it meant, I went back to my room, slipped out of my jeans and fell asleep.
Flip never met an acquaintance, you see. If you knew Flip he counted you as a friend. He’d have done anything for a friend. I always felt safest around him, and not just because he was a big guy who could throw a solid punch. I remembered that conversation with him in Ann Arbor, four years before. He just had a solidness, a surety about him. He meant what he said, always. He was a man of honor.
I told Nancy about the conversation, a few weeks later, swearing her to secrecy. Flip had been drunk and either wouldn’t remember what he told me or might be a little embarrassed about what he had shared. I knew Flip would be fine and, despite my own feelings for him, I wanted to be a force for getting him and Nancy back together. My friendship with both of them meant so much and I knew that it would only get better if they found a way to forgive and reconnect.
Old Hat New Tie…
As I approached the one-year anniversary of signing my lease on the Ferndale house, Nancy suggested that we find a place together. She had now lived at No Bev for nearly six years and she and Jen, while they got along, were no longer close. She and I spent more time together and we had been inspired by the loft that Chuck had moved into earlier in the year. We decided to start loft-hunting downtown.
We found a space on West Lafayette, south of Mexican Village and the old Tiger Stadium. The loft was a five hundred square foot open space, with exposed ceilings and pipes traversing back and forth above. There was a small bathroom, a long closet near the front door and a small finished kitchen leading into the wider space. Half of the west wall was occupied by steel-encased windows. The previous occupants had built two platforms -- one at either corner -- and suspended them to the wall with chains and with stairs leading to each. I made my bedroom on top of the platform to the left, placing my dresser and typewriter and other personal items underneath. Nancy put her bed underneath her platform and put her dresser up top.
We signed the lease and prepared to move out of our respective homes. Jef was moving to an apartment in the New District. Jen found an apartment and new roommate in the city. She embarked on a career as an actress in community theatre.
Nancy and I moved into the loft, which housed a lot of actors, musicians, artists. The son of one of the Temptations lived in the building. Two gay guys had a loft painted entirely black. We painted the platforms in plum and the waterworks in green. I hung my own artwork -- paintings and photos -- on the walls. We tie-dyed a few sheets in plum and used them as slipcovers for our sofa and as curtains around our bedroom areas.
Friends came to ooh and ahh at our new space. We were near a sketchy part of town, which made us only more impressive. The Thunderbird Motel was around the corner from us, and the old train station. There were liquor stores and fried chicken shacks. We weren’t in some lily-white neighborhood. We were living in Dee-Troit, baby.
I quit my job at Gale a month before we moved to the loft. I took some odd jobs here and there and then, as we moved downtown, I got a job as a courier for a travel agency. I had to shuttle documents to their Windsor, Ontario office. I would take a few phone calls while I was in Windsor, but otherwise just dropped stuff off and reported to a guy out in East Detroit. I mostly would walk over the bridge, but often Nancy would loan me her car. She had been working for the past year at Bill Knapp’s, a family restaurant on the east side. Bill Knapp’s was famous as the restaurant where you got the percentage of a d
iscount off on your birthday meal reflective of the age that you were. So, needless to say, Bill Knapp’s was where the oldest and cheapest people went to eat. She made decent tips, but not what she could have made at a nicer restaurant. The people she worked with were sort of low class, I thought.
One of her coworkers though became a very close friend. Anne and her husband had three little boys and both Nancy and I often spent time on weekends with their family. Picnics and barbeques. Anne’s husband built us a huge wall-mounted bookshelf that ran from a few feet down from my bed platform to the windows.
Sandy and Deanne came over frequently. Sandy was as fun and bubbly as ever. She was attending Oakland University for Computer Sciences and was working part-time at a bank as a teller. Deanne was still involved with her brother’s glass shop and we used to hang out on Sundays and listen to Sid Mark’s Frank Sinatra radio show. Deanne also introduced me to the music of Tom Waits, who became a favorite of mine. The Colors were out of town on a tour that summer and I found Deanne easier to hang out with when Patrick wasn’t in the picture. We had made our peace, but we were reluctant to talk about him with one another.
When the courier job proved less lucrative than expected, I added a second job working at a vegan restaurant in Royal Oak. I walked east downtown and took the Woodward bus north to get to that position.
I was also talking, several occasions each month, to Chad -- Van’s friend. Chad had been stationed for a few months that winter at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. He sent me a beautiful Buddha statuette from there as a gift. We were talking about taking a road trip together. It felt like the beginning, possibly, of a relationship.
I was smoking heavily that summer, and feeling very stressed out. I think the anxiety was stemming from my dreams. I was having repetitive nightmares about a strange creature lurking in the shadows, stalking me. The nighmares felt oppressive and daunting, like a heavy weight on my shoulders. They felt like death, frankly.
I remember dropping a glass that July and accidentally cutting my foot, badly. I sat in the kitchen with a tea towel wrapped tightly around my left foot and for some strange reason, sobbing uncontrollably. And then I remembered: the date was July 13th. The five year anniversary of Scott’s death. That moment in time came flooding back to me and sobered me. Now I felt doomed and endangered. Everything felt so weirdly dark.
Michèle and Van came to town in July and I was eager to see my friend. I only had the chance to spend some brief moments with her, however. Family usurped the week they were in Michigan. I remember hosting a little party at the loft while they were visiting. Jef came and Deanne and Tony and Flip.
At the very end of the evening, as nearly everyone had left, I looked over at the sofa. Nancy and Flip were sitting together, his arm around her. They looked not just cozy, they looked right.
Finally. They had gotten beyond what happened five years ago. Their connection had been building in the past year or two and I felt like I had contributed. My close relationship with her and my frequent visits with her to The Generals House and gigs brought them again into one another’s lives. I was so happy to see them together. I knew that they both still loved each another. I knew I had made the right choice to ignore my crush on him and try to work them back together. I could never have lived with knowing I broke up a beloved friendship for a guy that she belonged with much more than me.
Nancy had been dating a young guy that summer. Come to think of it, Nancy always dated younger guys. She predated the “Cougar” era by decades. The guy that summer was kind of a dud -- he left her spinning in circles. Flip had recently begun seeing someone named Lisa, who lived in Ann Arbor. But you could see, with him and Nance, that it was just a matter of time and they’d be back on track. The anger and bitterness had faded. Nancy and Flip -- they kinda belonged together, eventually.
Meanwhile, Chad got out of the Navy and went to Iowa to see his family. He called me each week as we began to foment our plan. To see how things went and then perhaps that fall to take a road trip. He had a VW bug that was being shipped back to him from Hawaii.
He arrived in July. He looked… different. He was about twenty-five pounds heavier than the past October. His hair was long and unkempt and he looked grubby. Nancy had cleared out for the night so that we could be alone, but sadly, I just didn’t feel attracted to him. I felt sad about my lack of interest in Chad, but I didn’t see the chance of a relationship and I knew it, immediately. I did take him out to St. Clair Shores to meet my folks. My mom and stepdad were welcoming and treated us to dinner at the A&W on Gratiot where all the classic car drivers go on Saturday nights.
He stayed with Nancy and I a few weeks then moved in with Jef. We were amicable, not close.
The summer was a disappointment. There would be no road trip, I felt like I was perpetually broke and my romantic life had, once again, fizzled out. My dreams were haunting me and I had a strange, pent up energy. Plus, both July and early August had been strangely cold, rainy and dreary. I had writer’s block and was chain-smoking. But I wanted to believe that there were still exciting things ahead.
Sun Goes Down…
On Saturday, August 17th, 1991 I woke mid-morning in the loft. I could feel the sun beaming through the windows, casting a rhombus of hot yellow across the wood floors. Nancy had gone to Chuckie Cheese with Anne’s family. That day was their youngest son’s third birthday. Nancy loved kids -- she wanted to have a whole gaggle of them.
I got up and poured myself a glass of orange juice. The loft was warming up quickly. Nancy would be home around one that afternoon, after the party. I had plans with Deanne, perhaps to see a movie. I put on the radio.
Might as well jump in the shower. I finished my OJ and headed for the bathroom.
I turned on the water, got the water nice and warm. Slipped out of my tank top and bikini bottoms and stepped into the bath. I began showering -- washing my hair first, my back to the shower head and steaming waterfall.
The phone rang. We had an answering machine, so there was no need to get out of the shower and yet … I turned off the water. My hair still had suds in it. I flicked the towel from the rod and slipped it around me as I darted to the living room to catch the phone before the fourth ring.
“Hello?” The caller was Tony, from The Generals. “Lisa, I have some bad news. I’m sorry to tell you -- but Flip was killed last night in a car accident …”
I don’t remember the rest of what he said. I began screaming. Soap ran into my eyes, blinding me. I don’t remember hanging up the phone or how I wound up in bed, wet and tangled in damp sheets. I don’t recall returning to the shower some time later, although I did and finished rinsing my hair. I dressed, but I don’t know how I managed that. And then I went to the phone and called Sandy.
She was at home, with her parents. I swallowed my tears and told her to come over right away. I didn’t tell her why, although she knew something was wrong.
Thirty minutes later I heard footsteps running up the hall. Sandy came inside.
I told her the terrible information. She began to cry. As her tears subsided, and she sat across from me on the opposing couch, we looked at one another.
“When is Nancy due home?” she asked, drying her tears with a tissue.
“About two, I think.” It was around noon at that time. We sat, almost stony in silence. Deanne called around one o’clock, at which point I told her the news. “Do you want me to come there?” she offered. “No, we’re waiting for Nancy to get here.”
Nancy called a little after one o’clock to say she was leaving the party and soon heading home. I answered “okay” and not much else. I rushed her off the phone, knowing that if we lingered, I would say something. I didn’t want her to learn this news by phone.
She came in, around a quarter after two, with a bag full of party favors. Plopped down on the couch beside Sandy. “Oh, look at this and look at that …”, showing us the goody bag. She was in a good mood, but vaguely tired after a long day romping with lit
tle kids.
I looked at Sandy and suddenly, I knew she couldn’t do it. Sandy was Nancy’s sister but I saw her look down and away from me. She couldn’t tell her.
God, I didn’t want to! How do you tell someone that the love of their life is dead? I sucked in my breath, “Nancy, we have some bad news.” She looked at me. “Last night, Flip was in a car accident. I’m so sorry -- but he didn’t make it …”
She stared at me, then at Sandy, then glanced away. She started to fidget with the favors she brought home, and started going through her purse. Then she started to talk about the party that morning. Who came, what presents were brought, what games the kids had played. She went on for several minutes.
“Nancy, are you okay?” I asked, leaning forward.
“No!” she shouted. And then she broke down, bawling and wiping her tears away. There was nothing we could do. She didn’t reach out to us for comfort. She seemed to push away from us, although she was right there. I had never felt so helpless.
It was the worst day of my life. The phone began ringing. People wanted to talk to Nancy, to me. Nancy took a few of those calls. She tried her best, but finally just left with Sandy to their parents’ house. I was alone, and so I called Deanne who came over and spent the night with me.
The details began to emerge. The Generals had a gig that Friday night. After the show, Flip drove to Ann Arbor to see his girlfriend. On the way, someone driving the wrong way hit him, head-on. He died instantly.
The wreck was on Godforsaken Road.
As I learned more about what happened, that crazy night three years before in Ann Arbor began to pop in my mind. The headlights. The car going the wrong way. The possums … I thought of all the occasions Flip had told me “Heaven must be missing an angel if you’re down here.”
And, of course, I thought about the night just a few months before when he came to me with the feeling that something bad was about to happen to him. And that I needed to tell Nancy that he loved her, should anything happen to him. Oh, my God.
The Laws of Gravity Page 12