David and Karen are patient but poor and very skimpy with any offerings of food or help. They assume that I will help out by taking care of Jamie when he’s not in school, and I’m more than willing. John comes by every day and evening dropping off stashes of pot for them and leaving money to help with food. He often lies on the floor with me until early morning, when he quietly gets up, kisses me on the forehead, and goes home to his cottage. He is my savior. Gradually, I come to see that John has provided almost everything in David and Karen’s house. From the mismatched furniture, to the food, carpet, shelving, pot, cigarettes, and, obviously, clothes, John is the one who supplies.
A couple weeks have passed, and I still have no luck finding work. John arrives early one afternoon, sits down next to me in the beanbag chair, and pulls out his corncob pipe. Taking a big toke, he passes it around the room.
“I gotta leave for about a week.” He chokes back his hit.
“Where you going?” David tries to hold the smoke in as well.
“France.”
“France!” My heart hits my stomach. “When?”
“Tomorrow. I just found out.” He gives me a squeeze and kisses me on the cheek reassuringly.
David looks blank. “When is that apartment opening up in the back?”
“End of the month.” John pinches my thigh.
“But I don’t have a job yet.” I worry I won’t get the place, though John has already cleared it with Sharon.
“Hey, why don’t you try signing on at one of the convalescent hospitals?” David offers, acting as if he has a brilliant idea. “They always need someone, and they will train. I’ll bet if you tell them you’re eighteen, they won’t check. John can ask Sharon for some pointers. Can’t you, John?”
John stays silent. He studies the pipe, his jaw clenched tight.
“Okay.” I’m uncertain about what David is saying, and I’m not sure why John looks angry. I feel like I’m going to throw up. I excuse myself and get up to go to the bathroom for a moment of privacy. From behind the door, I hear the harsh words of an argument.
“You don’t have to be so fucking rude, David. She’s already scared.” John’s angry voice shoots out.
“What are you? Her father or her fuck?” David doesn’t back off, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“FUCK YOU!”
CRASH! BLAM! The front door vibrates from the blow.
“What’s happening?” I race back into the living room to see the screen door hanging from its hinges and David unfolding a pile of wadded money in the middle of the bed. He doesn’t look up.
“Where is John?”
“He left.” David continues coldly counting the money.
“Is he coming back?” I’m panicked. I don’t want him to leave for France without saying good-bye.
“I don’t know,” he mumbles, not really paying attention to me. “God damn it!” he says, looking up at the broken door.
I don’t like David.
I sit on the front steps of David and Karen’s cottage, leaning against the railing and staring blankly at the few pebbles at my feet.
“Ahhh! Ahhh! AhhhhHHH!” The wailing noises come from inside the house. Karen is having another orgasm; that’s what John tells me it’s called. It sounds unnatural, and it sounds throughout the entire courtyard. You can probably hear it down the street. The king-sized bed beckons them from the middle of the living room floor to come have wild sex. It is always a show, and if I don’t walk outside in time, they have no problem starting in front of me.
“Whooooooh! Whooooh! AhhhhhHHHHH!”
Ugh, I think, they’re not done. I lay my head in my lap and put my hands over my ears. My hair hangs limp and stringy around my face, and I am starving.
John’s trip has been extended another two weeks, and there is no food in the house. I am still wearing one of the nurse’s uniforms that John brought me before he left for France. One of Sharon’s old ones, I guess. He stuck his head in David’s door for a quick second the evening before his flight and called me outside to say good-bye. Pulling me around to the side of the cottage, he picked me up and hugged me tightly, kissing my entire face.
“I’ll try and call you while I’m gone,” he said softly. “I love you.” He stroked my hair and cradled me.
“I love you too, John.”
“Here. These are from Sharon.” He handed me a bag of nurse’s uniforms. “She said to tell you that if you need any help to let her know.”
“Wow. Really?” I’m amazed and wary of her gift.
“I’ll be back soon, baby. I’ll miss you. Be good, okay? For me?” His words feed my aching heart. I don’t want him to go. I’ll be scared without him here, and I’ll be sad like I was in Riverside.
“I will, John. I promise. Call me! Please!”
The next morning, I apply at the nearest place looking for a nurse’s aide. Royal Oaks Convalescent Hospital on Verdugo Road is only two miles away. The place is a dump, a sad place where people go to die, so shorthanded that they hire me on the spot. When the application asks my age, I lie and write 18. No one questions me. I have a job! my heart sings. Now I can have my own place. John will be so proud of me.
Still I have to wait for my first payday, and suffering another two weeks with David and Karen feels unbearable. They are mostly into themselves. I am invisible to them, and when I am noticed, I feel like I’m in the way. John calls, as he promised, and that is some relief. But David and Karen don’t have him there to supply them with their normal treats, so they are grumpy and the kitchen cupboards are literally bare. It is obvious to me that they are doing John a favor by letting me stay there but can’t wait for me to move out. Hanging out on the front steps keeps me sane.
“Can’t stand that howling either, huh?” A wry voice shoots out from across the courtyard.
I look up. Sitting in the shadows, Sharon is smoking a cigarette on her porch steps. Spotting her I laugh, realizing she can also hear Karen’s wailing.
“Are you hungry?”
“Who? Me?” Now I am embarrassed. Can she tell?
“Yes, you. Have you eaten lately?”
“This morning. Toast or something.” I can’t remember.
“Wait here.” She gets up and goes into her house. A few minutes later, she returns carrying a steaming plate of meat loaf and potatoes.
“Here you go. Eat it while it’s hot, and hurry before they see you.” Her cigarette dangles from her lips as she hands me the mouthwatering meal.
“Thanks.” I feel awkward and have a hard time looking at her.
“You wouldn’t think an Italian could make meat loaf, but it’s the best I ever tasted if I do say so myself.” She is smug and proud of it.
“Mmmm. It’s delicious.” I shovel large spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into my mouth. “I found out I have malnutrition. The results of my physical came in today. They gave me some vitamins at work. Ha. No wonder I can’t stay awake,” I blurt out for no reason other than that I know she’s a nurse. I inhale my meal.
“I could have told you that. Look at you…you’re just skin and bones,” she says matter-of-factly. “How’s your new job?”
“Fine. I’ll have the rent for you next Friday, if that’s okay.” I want her to know I am still being responsible even though things look bad at the moment. “Thanks for the uniforms.”
“You’re welcome.”
We sit for a while on the steps of the opposite cottages, Sharon finishing one cigarette after another and I scraping the last bits of food from my plate. In the quiet, I listen for any signs of animosity. Any hint of anger or jealousy. It isn’t there. I don’t think so, anyway. Instead, I sense a paralyzing, acute cautiousness.
Breaking the spell, I walk over and hand her the empty plate. “Thanks. That was good.”
“No problem.” She butts out her smoke and disappears unceremoniously behind her screen door.
Moving day arrives, and I am ecstatic. I carry my few things in quickly and stand in the narrow hal
lway that is now my new living room. Karen packs a bag of canned goods to start me off, but she won’t come down to see my new apartment. It is a simple bachelor pad: a ten-by-ten bedroom with crude burlap walls, an L-shaped hall on the far side for the kitchen, a small bathroom, and a living room. The apartment door is nestled between two garages. A bed, table, and sofa come with the place, and nothing is finer in my eyes. With a huge smile on my face, I pay Sharon, thanking her for renting it to me. John will be home soon too. Oh, how I miss him. These days at his brother’s without him have been hard on me. But now, things are looking up.
Lying on my new bed, I stretch out luxuriously like a cat with a full tummy. I hear a knock at the door, my first guest. It is Sharon.
“Oh, hi!” I’m surprised to see her. She looks nervous standing outside the screen door, wringing her hands.
“Have you eaten?”
“No. I was going to heat up some beans that Karen gave me, but I’m too tired to get up.”
“I thought so. I’ll be right back.”
In a few minutes, she returns with a casserole dish in her hands. “Here. This ought to fill you up for a couple meals.” She hands me the hot dish. “See ya later.” Again she turns and leaves abruptly.
“Oh, thanks…” My voice trails off before I can ask what kind of casserole it is. That was a little strange. It seemed as though she wanted to talk to me at first and then changed her mind.
As I open the lid to the savory smell, I am touched at Sharon’s kindness and insight to my needs even if she doesn’t want to get too close. I say, “Thank you,” to her disappearing shadow loudly enough for her to hear me. On my newly acquired sofa, I devour the creamy meat-and-potato mixture till my stomach aches.
The days pass until it is time for John to come home. I can think of nothing else. My gut churns as I wait for time to move forward, dreading that another call might come to tell me he will be gone even longer. That call never comes.
He barges in—John does—flinging the door open wide in a grand entrance. Grinning from ear to ear, he takes long strides to greet me on the couch.
I’m still pretending to flip through a magazine that I quickly grabbed when I secretly saw him drive up. “Oh. Hi!” I try to fake surprise, but my heart pounds like a hard, steady bass guitar as he approaches.
Sweeping me off of my feet, he carries me into the bedroom and tosses me onto the bed. He positions his body above mine, spreads wild, passionate, longing kisses over my face, neck, breasts…makes a few swift, deft moves, and, in a flash, has me undressed…my panties torn on the floor. He makes love to me…fast and furious.
Tousled and spent, he caresses me till he catches his breath, letting our bodies slowly return to normal. He takes my hand and runs it through his hair, takes the other and places it between his legs. “You can touch me, you know.”
Stiffly I comply. I feel embarrassed and juvenile. I hope he doesn’t think I’m not good at lovemaking.
John remembers something all of a sudden, jumps up, grabs his pants up off the floor, and starts digging in the pockets. He elaborately searches, pretending to have lost something, then rummages through his other clothes until he finds several folded pieces of paper.
“Here, babe.” He tosses the papers onto the bed. “These are for you. But wait…You can’t open them now. You have to wait until I’m gone.”
I notice how his hair has grown quite long and curly these three weeks away. A halo of dirty blond waves circles his head as he stands above me. “Okay.”
Fumbling through his clothes one more time, John grabs something small and turns his back toward me.
I get excited. He usually does this when he has a ring.
He takes my hand. “Let me see your ring.” He twists the small diamond-chip ring off my finger.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“There.” He turns toward me and proudly smiles.
I gasp. “Oh, it’s beautiful!” On my hand is a new, thick platinum band lined with three large diamonds.
John puts the old ring on my other hand. “I wanted you to have a nice one, baby. I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too, John.” We rock in each other’s arms till my body is stiff. I don’t want to move ‘cause I know this is what he likes right now, and I wait until I fall into a sweet, exhausted sleep. When I wake, he is gone.
On the bedside table is the stack of folded papers he gave me earlier, topped with a small metal replica of the Eiffel Tower. Carefully, I open them…one by one. It is poetry. Beautiful poetry, and the first one is titled “Early Morning Dawn.” It is about the night we first made love and how I fill his heart. Wow. He’s a good poet. I nearly start to cry. There are other poems too, about the days we spent together, verses about his innermost thoughts and how much he missed me while in France. Lying next to the poems is a hand-carved, heart-shaped wooden box with a note underneath that says, I love you, his elaborately scrawled signature, and John C. Holmes printed below. A giant heart circles the message. I gather the poetry gingerly and bring it back to my bed to carefully read again while admiring my new ring. Wow. This is special, I think happily. This is real now—the real thing. The wheel of time has turned. John is no longer courting me; I am his.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
Sleepily, I inch the front door open enough to see it is Sharon.
“Are you going to work today?”
“Yeah. What time is it?” The bright sky hurts my eyes, and I blink. Across the parking lot, the sun peeks over the trash bins by the Jehovah’s Witness building.
“Ten after seven. I’m headed to the grocery store, and I remembered I didn’t see you leave at your normal time this morning. Thought I’d come by to see if everything was all right.”
“Oh my God! No, I overslept!”
“Okay. All right. Calm down. You just get dressed and I’ll get my keys.” She heads for her house.
Sharon is ready in a flash; she has the car warmed up and waiting. I scramble into a crumpled uniform from my laundry basket, pull my long hair back into a ponytail, and grab my sweater and bag. The door slams shut, and I race for the poised Malibu.
“Thanks.” I’m panting as I struggle with my sweater.
“No sweat. I’ll have you there in a sec.”
“Thank you so much. How did you know I wasn’t up?”
“I’m always up early. Five. Five thirty—sometimes earlier. When your light wasn’t on, I wondered if you had slept in. Then, when you didn’t leave at a quarter of, as usual, I waited a few minutes and then decided to come by. I figured your alarm hadn’t gone off.”
“I guess not.” I shake my head. “Thanks.”
“Really, it’s no problem. I know it’s a long walk from here to Royal Oaks, and I need to do my grocery shopping anyway. Don’t worry about it.”
I gaze out of my window and focus on adjusting my workday, my mind a million miles away. Damn. I forgot my name tag. Suddenly, I remember my new ring and start to hold it up but stop myself. Will that disrespect her? Instead I sneak an admiring look at the sparkling diamonds in the morning sunlight. A warm glow envelops me as I remember the homecoming the night before, and my whole being smiles. Sharon glances over. Quickly I conceal my hand in my lap and direct my attention to the passing landmarks outside. “Two miles,” I mumble, thinking out loud.
“What?”
I have forgotten for a second where I am. “Two miles. It’s exactly two miles from work to home. Karen gave me a ride to work one day and clocked it.” I’m still not sure what Sharon thinks about me. She acts like a very nice lady, easygoing and all, but I don’t want to give her any reason to ask me questions. John always said Sharon lives her way, in her world, and he in his. He is adamant about how to treat her. No matter what, we are to always respect Sharon and never insult her. And she never asks any questions.
John delivers all kinds of furniture for my apartment, odds and ends that he has stored away. Some antique pieces need refinishing, so he se
ts up the shop in his garage and strips and revarnishes them, teaching me the fine art of sanding and applying linseed oil along the way. Back and forth from his place to mine he brings bundles of towels, sheets, and comforters—items Sharon is handing down from her carefully stocked shelves. Boxes of food come next, with mixes of silverware, plates, and bowls. I am speechless. The way the boxes never end, it is like a good Christmas morning. John sneaks a kiss and a squeeze every chance he gets, even throwing me onto the bed a couple times. But when he thinks Sharon might be turning the corner, he heads right back to the garage to seek out something new to bring over. “We can’t let her see us too close,” he tells me when I try to stop him from leaving. “It would be rude.”
John L and Buttons run happily back and forth alongside John and Sharon, stopping occasionally to sniff the edge of my couch and inspect every piece of laundry on the floor. Finally, it is evening and time to call it quits.
“How about a pizza?” Sharon offers as she enters the lacquer-smelling garage, jingling her big ring of keys. She’s wearing a pink and gray paisley print muumuu.
“Sure.” John’s voice is muffled behind the carpenter’s mask. He is sanding a drawer at his workbench, teaching me the right way to work the wood grain. The muscles in his arm bulge with each stroke of the sandpaper as he holds the drawer down with his body weight.
“Cheese, okay? I got a coupon.” With cigarette in hand, she happily waves the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor coupon like a flag.
“Great!” I watch her step away, dark blue fuzzy slippers on her tiny feet, carrying her broad-strapped, multipocketed handbag firmly under her arm. I think she looks much older than John, especially with her long, gray and black hair.
She’s kind of like a grandma—very old-fashioned and wise.
“Dawn,” Sharon calls from her car. “Can you get the dogs, please?”
The Road Through Wonderland: Surviving John Holmes Page 18