“What? How do you know this?”
“She said she needed to talk to me last night, and she dumped that on me.”
“Oh my God! She doesn’t even know me!” I cry, shocked. “What did you say?”
“Basically, I told her to mind her own business. No, I was polite. I said, ‘Thank you for your concern, but Dawn is in this family by choice and no matter if that makes sense to you or not, it is our decision.'”
“Our…what do you mean?”
“Well, she pulled John into the conversation.”
“She did? What did he say?”
“The same thing. It wasn’t her business and would she kindly butt out, in not so many words. She didn’t take it very well.”
I am stunned. Both John and Sharon stood up for me. Now I can’t wait for Mary and Julie to leave. She doesn’t even know how her son feels. I stop trying to make polite conversation and decide to keep to myself. Sharon says they aren’t worth it, and now I believe her.
John keeps to himself also, walks puffed up and tall past his mom, avoiding her eyes. I suspect he is doing lots more coke and getting angrier.
Mary’s anger also grows…and grows. She doesn’t like the tables turned on her in her son’s house. She doesn’t like it one bit. But how can she make John and Sharon see what she knows is an obvious abomination? Bible in one hand and finger pointing toward the heavens with the other, she storms into the house to confront me as we watch television one evening.
“You! You, you devil!” She pokes her finger wildly in my direction. “You don’t belong in this house.”
John gets up from his chair and stands between us. Sharon sits like stone.
“Mother. Mother! Enough!” John’s voice commands.
“Get out! Go!” she yells, her face covered in angry red blotches.
“Mary!” Sharon snaps.
“You mark my words, John. She will bring this house down. Can’t you see it?” Mary teeters; her arm presses up to her brow. Dizzy, she falls back into a nearby armchair, out of breath, a clammy sheen of sweat glazing her forehead.
I gape at her, unbelieving. Does she know how nasty and mean she is being? Why does she want to hurt me? That’s not Christian.
“Dawn…” John starts to apologize.
“No. It’s all right.” I feel my throat constrict with that familiar feeling of hot tears on the verge of eruption. “I have to feed Thor anyway,” I lie. I can’t reach the door fast enough. On the cold concrete steps outside, in the harsh December sunlight, my internal volcano explodes and I break down. So this is what it’s like to be the devil. Huh. It doesn’t feel very powerful…or scary, I think, feeling the sting of Mary’s cruel judgment run down my cheeks like an unexpected slap across the face, the kind I got as a child by my own mother. Great. Now I’m unwanted, here, in the place I call home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When the Bough Breaks—Snap
John stumbles home late and kicks off his boots. I have been waiting up to talk but have fallen asleep. The familiar thud wakes me from my dozing on the couch; I open one eye and watch him. He heads straight for the refrigerator and guzzles milk from the cold metal pitcher, saying nothing. I hear the toilet flush and the soft sound of socks on linoleum brush past; a blanket falls over my chest, and he shuffles to bed. I pull myself up and glare into the dark doorway of his room. I wish he would have wanted to wake me. I miss him.
After his mother and niece leave to go home to Ohio, I move back into my room at John and Sharon’s. Soon after, I enroll in a typing class to sharpen my office skills. John acts supportive at first but becomes jealous of my time in school and the countless hours of homework. “It takes time away from us,” he complains. Not that he spends much time with me lately anyway.
In short order, John continues to break his own promise. I suspect that he’s doing lines of coke again; it isn’t hard to figure out since he leaves remnants of his use, mirrors laced with the fine dust of coke on the bathroom tile and empty vials rolling at the bottom of his briefcase. Although he is doing his best to maintain an appearance of normality, he can’t hide the dramatic Jekyll and Hyde changes taking over his personality. He stays out late, not telling anyone where he’s going. There is only one possible explanation: He’s out to get high.
In only a few weeks, John’s behavior grows darker and darker. When he is home he heads directly for the bathroom, holing up for hours, sitting naked on the toilet, briefcase splayed at his feet erupting paraphernalia, cigarettes, and scribbled bits of paper. Water rushing to fill the tub is a good sign. It means John is ready to come down and his mood will be safe again, goofy and sweet.
The bathtub is also where John gets honest. Scrubbing the dirt and sweat from his body and his soul, he talks about the dogs, asks about the neighbors, and curses porn as he scours his skin red. “Those fucking assholes. They’ll ride you hard and put you away wet. Have no morals. They’d sell their mother if they thought it could get them a buck and laid.” He laughs at his own irony.
I sit next to the tub and listen to him purge and belittle his profession, glad that when he finally feels clean he will be ready for bed. John and Sharon have stopped communicating altogether. He is avoiding her, and she has nothing to say to someone who “lives” in the bathroom.
“Dawn!” John shouts crossly from the bathroom on an afternoon when Sharon is at work.
“What? What’s the matter?” I run from the back office. John’s anger flares at the drop of a hat these days, and I don’t want to give him any reason to explode.
“Get in here,” he orders.
I slip into the bathroom, squeezing past him on the commode, and take a seat on the small step in front of him. His briefcase is open, and on the edge of the bathtub rests a delicately balanced mirror with four lines drawn.
“Here.” His voice is gruff as he shoves the mirror and a rolled-up twenty-dollar bill for me to snort the lines in a hurry. I haven’t seen the Tiffany’s white gold straw for a couple months now.
Snnnuuff, snuff. I inhale quickly, feeling the instant burn bring tears to my eyes.
John hastily snorts and shakes his head wildly. He keeps his face down, staring into the trashed-out briefcase as if deep in thought. “So, uh, where you been?” he asks, running his fingers through his curls, purposely trying to keep his voice calm.
“What do you mean?” I answer casually, my throat and tongue numb as I feel the effects of the drug.
“You know what I mean!” John’s tone is venomous, his eyes large, his chin jutting at an accusing angle.
I’m confused. “No, John, really. What are you talking about? You know everywhere I go. Here. The cottages. School. Here mostly,” I stammer.
“David told me.” He acts as if he knows something.
“Told you? Told you what? David doesn’t know anything about me. I hardly see him anymore. He goes to that locksmith school all the time.”
John’s head stays glued to the ground as I defend myself. He picks up a piece of white lint from the corner of the floor and throws it down. Sounding hurt, he asks in a quieter tone, “You sure you’re not checking out some young stud from over there in your class?”
“No! John! No! I would never do that to you. I love you. You’re everything to me, baby.” I walk over to him. “Awww, baby…” I cautiously reach over to stroke his shoulder.
He grabs my hand and pulls my arms around him, his head still down. Rocking in my embrace, he mumbles, “Just checking.”
I am touched that he is vulnerable at the thought of me leaving him. Aww. He still wants me. A glimpse of his fading tender side sputters, a flame on candle wax, reminding me for a moment of the good John.
The doorbell rings.
“That’s David. Go and answer the door for me, will ya, babe?” He gives me a quick kiss and shoos me out the door. As I shut the door behind me, I catch a glimpse of him reaching for the mirror again, and the tender moment is gone, replaced with the vision of a robot of a man.
David stays in the bathroom for over an hour before he steps out, wiping his reddened nose, and smiles. “So, you ready to get to work?” he says smugly as he heads to leave.
“I already work, David,” I reply defensively. David likes to boss me around as he thinks John does. But I don’t love David.
John falls out of the bathroom hopping from foot to foot, pulling on his heavy Frye boots. I can see why he avoids me; his eyes are bloodred, his face drawn and pale. His head whips from side to side as he pats down his pockets checking to make sure he has everything. “A business,” John says loosely, looking around the room and still patting his pockets. “Oh. Ha.” He laughs awkwardly, finding his smokes in his jacket pocket—a pocket he’s already checked several times.
“Business, yeah. How would you like to help us open a locksmith shop?” David holds the door open, smiling, his lips liver purple and thin.
“Yeah, uh, we’ll talk about it later.” John pulls a long drag off of the True Blue. “Finish up what you gotta do around here and, uh, come down to David and Karen’s.” He is gesturing wildly with his hands. “Oh, uh, I love you.” He hops over to kiss me, then leaves.
How much coke has he done today? He’s acting way messed up.
David has scoped out a small corner shop for his locksmith business next to a liquor store on Pacific Avenue in Glendale. He will be graduating shortly and has everything ready for John to finance the location and buy the equipment. “I’ll have it all back to you within a year. Including tuition,” he promises. John approves, and David is in hog heaven.
“I agree on one condition,” John tells Karen and me. “Dawn works with him.”
“What?” I snap.
“Hey, you’re my girl and, besides, I need you to look out for my interest.” He scratches his head nervously and smiles.
David throws him a hateful look from across the room and thinks for a moment. “I can teach her to cut keys, I guess.” He shrugs his shoulders and exhales an endless stream of tobacco smoke.
I’m stunned. After John’s earlier comment in the bathroom about David telling some lie about me, David is the last person I want to be around. He needs to stay in John’s good graces; that is obvious. The way he depends on John for everything makes me nervous. I can see why Sharon calls him a user. David also knows John loves me. As Sharon has warned from the beginning, John is a jealous guy. He wants to know every little thing I do, so anything David can offer up on me, even lies, will gain him favor in John’s eyes. And favor, to David, means more drugs. Now I understand another reason Sharon doesn’t like him. “Two-faced,” she calls it.
“John?” I ask on the walk back to the house. “You know the three of us don’t get along. What are you doing?”
“I need you, baby. To make sure he isn’t fucking off and using me. He’s a fucking cokehead. You gotta let me know how much shit he does and where he gets it from.” He is serious; he wants me to play the middleman. “I think the motherfucker’s lying to me.”
“Well, I know he’s lying if he has anything to say about me!” I don’t mention anything about how much coke John himself uses. Good. He knows what David is like, I assure myself. He won’t believe him anymore. John swings a comforting arm around me, staggers slightly, and walks me up the steps.
Keyways Locksmith Service Ltd. opens its doors for business in the spring of 1980. It takes only one month for John and David to notice it isn’t doing any business.
“You gotta give it some time, John,” David insists, sniffing back a long white line John has handed him on a mirror from the bathroom of the shop. “We need to get established.”
“How much time, David? We can’t afford this shit without any money coming in.” John holds up the mirror and plastic straw in his hand. Clear, viscous snot runs from his nose, but he sucks it up hard and does another line anyway.
The only thing that has been established is John’s routine of coming into the shop and using the bathroom to get high. No announcement, no hello, he sneaks in without a peep. Like a specter materializing, he spooks me. How long has he been in there?
John’s paranoia is growing. He wants to know what is going on when he isn’t around and tries to listen through the walls while hiding in the bathroom and getting high. I catch myself paranoid too, jumping at every noise or movement to lean my ear toward the bathroom, fully expecting to hear John tapping and snorting in the back.
David and Karen know he has drugs when he shows up, and they want some. So do I.
John takes turns calling us each into his porcelain shrine to sit at his feet like begging, starving puppies to do a line. Each of us is giddy when he calls us one by one.
When it is my turn, John carefully, intentionally takes his time. “Where did you go today?” His voice is stern, not showing any hint of softness. Again, he acts as if he has inside information.
Tap, tap, tap. The white nuggets crumble under the sharp razor’s edge.
I twist my hands nervously around each of my fingers, stomach tightening, eyes glued to the crystals on the mirror. “Nowhere,” I answer truthfully. I hate that he dangles the drugs like a carrot in front of my face. It makes me want them more, and I know where his questions are leading. “Here. That’s all, baby.”
Tap, tap, tap. He keeps on.
I get anxious. He’s pressuring me to falsely come clean. I know what to do. To prove I am faithful, I recite my exact steps from waking this morning to sitting now on the floor at his feet. He has to believe me if I tell him everything.
“Yeah, right.” He is not satisfied.
I don’t know what else to tell him, but I beg him to believe me.
John pulls back his cheek with his thumb to clear his sinuses, dives in, and snorts the large, fatter line. “Here.” He shoves the mirror at me with the thin, small line and dismisses me.
I hate how John is acting. I hate how I am acting. He is cold and angry and growing more and more distrustful of me. He is scaring me; my fear is covered by the high of cocaine. Why? I ask myself. I know I’m faithful. I do everything to be trustworthy. He knows that. He’s gotta know that! I rack my brain trying to figure out why John is so irrational and suspicious of me. It has to be David, I think angrily.
“We’re adding on,” John yells, surprising me by barging into the front of the shop one afternoon.
“What?” I’m shocked to see his upbeat entrance. “Hi. Hey, you’re happy for some reason.” I run over to hug him.
“You betcha! We’re gonna have two businesses. A secondhand store in the front, perfect with a locksmith shop in the back. You and me, baby! We’re gonna be in business and in charge of the front. Can you do it?”
David’s trailing behind him and heads straight for his desk in the back. They are both high as a kite.
“Yeah, I can do it. I’d love it. We can resell all our finds from garage sales.” I am hesitant about the idea but like it much better than being under the constant scrutiny of David and Karen. I resent working under David’s thumb cutting keys, and I distrust him every time he watches what I’m doing. He’s lying about me to get drugs from John, my gut tells me. I just know it.
John, Sharon, and I sit down for what is now a rare evening dinner together. It is another of John’s weak attempts to hold on to his rapidly declining personality. He hasn’t slept for at least three days, and his eyes are bloodshot, his skin pale, his mind spacey.
“What should we call the new business, John?” I ask, trying to get him to participate in a mealtime conversation.
He shrugs, barely interested, and makes a feeble nod toward Sharon. “You two think of a name.” It looks like his high is wearing off.
Sharon loves the idea: a brain challenge. She stops for a minute to mull it over. “Mmmmm, let me see. Aha! The Just Looking Emporium!” I can tell her enthusiasm is an attempt to bring John out of his sullen mood.
“Yeah! I get it,” I join in. “You mean name it so people won’t be pressured to buy, but once they come in and see something
so cool, so unique, they’ll have to buy it.”
“Exactly!” Sharon is pleased with herself.
We begin the renovation with dedication. At least I do. John’s enthusiasm is fueled by the speedy effect of the drugs. When he shares with me, together we are a frenzied team. Sharon stops by after work to drop off boxes and supplies while John and I design and build brick and wood shelves for the front windows, hanging plants to dangle and absorb the full sun. Days turn into nights as we race to get the Just Looking Emporium open for business. John sparingly issues lines of coke to help me keep up with him, but I know he is sneaking more when he disappears into the back. We paint and hammer into the wee hours of the morning, stopping when the rising sun streaks through the windows and burns our tired eyes.
Gathering inventory is easy for us. Our collection of yard sale booty has been growing for years. It’s simple enough to stock the shelves with knickknacks and still-worthy pieces of dismantled treasures salvaged from the depths of John’s garage. Outside, on the redbrick north wall of the shop, John and I paint a massive arched rainbow and Just Looking Emporium in bold colors underneath. Beneath the rainbow and tucked in the back corner is a conservative black and yellow Keyways Locksmith Service logo, which seems out of place against our giant psychedelic hippie sign.
Proudly I stand admiring the shine on the glass display case John and I have arduously placed in front of my large oak desk. Where is he? I worry. He promised to be here for the opening.
“Just have to pick up a few more things for the store,” he told me on the phone earlier, but now he is nowhere to be found. He’s like a noisy ghost who has suddenly evaporated, leaving a gaping hole of nothing where it once haunted. In my heart, I know he is out scoring drugs. Still, I try to believe he is telling me the truth. I want to believe in him.
The business opens uneventfully. A few stragglers wander in to browse through the store. Perhaps there is a sale or two, but my mind is only on John. I’m hurt that he hasn’t shown up on this special day, the opening of our business.
The Road Through Wonderland: Surviving John Holmes Page 25