by Paul Zindel
I mean, this was turning out to be the party of the year. The house was a great pleasure palace, it really was. And there wasn’t that much damage being done. Somebody dropped a drink down the stairs, and a cigarette burned a small hole in a throw rug. Only one lamp went over, and that was during this frenzied dance when everybody was on the floor.
Angel, baaaaaaaaby…
It’s just like heaaaaaaaaven….
I waited until about ten thirty before I put my roller skates on and came tearing onto the dance floor. Melissa Dumas dug Lorraine’s pair out of the closet, and she and I did this dance you wouldn’t believe.
“Are you enjoying my roller skates?” Lorraine asked.
“I didn’t know they were yours,” Melissa chirped.
“You never bothered to ask either.” Lorraine stormed back out to the kitchen, and her face was pink with jealousy.
“Saaaaaay, John” I heard Jane Appling’s voice screeching across the room. She was waving her hand like a buxom basketball player. “Where did you really get this house?”
Around ten thirty Norton Kelly arrived, and the party was in full swing. He was furious about not being invited—sort of like the witch at Sleeping Beauty’s ball. I didn’t want any trouble, so I met him at the door.
“Norton, baby, how are you?”
“So you’re having a little party, eh?” His mouth twisted like he’d just slammed a car door on his thumb.
“I’ve tried to get in touch with you all night.”
He looked carefully at me to see if I was lying or not. Anyone else would have known I was lying.
“I’ll bet you did.”
“I did, really. Everyone’s been wondering where you’ve been.”
“Who?”
“Do you want wine or beer?”
“How could you let that girl use my skates? Tell her to get them off!” Lorraine interrupted, shooting a dirty look at Norton and then dashing off again.
“Wine.”
After I took care of him, I went back on the floor and did another skating routine, but I kept watching Norton out of the corner of my eye. He just stood quietly over on one side of the living room, sipping, but you could see him casing the joint like crazy.
“How was I supposed to know they were her skates?” Melissa said, whirling about.
Lorraine looked worried at first when she saw Norton there because she knows how he always goes ape at parties, but eventually she and Helen Kazinski went up to the bedroom to put on some of Conchetta’s clothes. Lorraine had the same outfit on she had worn that other night, with the feather in her hair, and Helen Kazinski had this faded yellow dress on, which she couldn’t zipper up the back because she’s so fat. Helen also found a mangy fur stole that looked like it was made out of four hundred Angora alley cats so, needless to say, she was quite the sight coming down the stairs.
But Lorraine looked beautiful again. Even Melissa was starting at her.
“Don’t rip the dress, Helen,” Lorraine kept saying.
“I’m not ripping it!”
“I think we’d better take the clothes off, Helen. You’re going to ruin that dress.”
“Saaaaaay, Lorraine, are there any more Cokes? I need one to wash down those delicious miniature chocolates.”
By now the band was blasting like nobody’s business, and the usual confusing things happened. Jack Brahn came to the front door and demanded to see Janice Dickery, even though he refused to come in. Melissa Dumas and Chicken Dee, who plays bass, were making out on the porch, and she still had the roller skates on. If Gary Friman, who goes steady with Melissa Dumas, ever found out, there’d be blood on the floor.
About a half hour after Norton arrived, I noticed he had disappeared. I skated through the downstairs, and then I got a little worried. I mean, like I said, he’s the type of psycho who’d set a house on fire if he felt like it.
“Did you see Norton?” I yelled to Lorraine, who was running around emptying ashtrays.
“I saw him go upstairs,” she called back, blowing a strand of hair away from her face.
I went up with my skates still on—clomp! clomp! clomp!—and Deanna Deas and Janice Dickery were rushing down in costume.
… just like heeeeeeaven…
dreeeeeeamin’ here with
yooooooooouuuuuuuuuu….
My heart started pounding like crazy because I knew if I found what I thought I would, I’d really blow my lid. At the top I opened the door on the left, and sure enough there was good old Norton putting the guts of this junky old oscilloscope back in its case and getting ready to cart it out of the house.
“Hi there, Johnny-boy,” he said. Then he broke into a little smile as he went on with what he was doing.
“Leave it alone.”
“Leave what alone?”
I tensed, ready to punch him.
“Oh, you don’t want to be rude to your friends, Johnny-boy, now do you? Share and share alike.”
“I don’t have any Marshmallow Kids for friends, you 3@#$%!”
“John!” I heard Lorraine yell from the foot of the stairs, and the split second in which I turned my head gave Norton the chance he was waiting for. He drove his fist into my stomach and knocked the wind out of me. I don’t think I would have fallen down if I hadn’t been wearing the roller skates, but Norton just picked up the oscilloscope and beat it. It was a piece of garbage, and if that got him out of the house, I would have felt lucky. But when I got to the top of the stairs, I saw him ducking through the crowd toward the back of the house.
Angel baaaaaaby… baaaaaby angel….
I clomped down the stairs, which were draped with bodies by this time. The band was still clanging away, and Lorraine was motioning like she was going to drop from fright.
“There’s a car outside, John. I think it’s a taxi!”
I remember thinking that it couldn’t be the Pigman. He wouldn’t be coming home at night. He wasn’t the type who would get a crazy idea like just checking out and coming back to us and his pigs because he didn’t feel like spending another night in the hospital. They wouldn’t have let him, I thought. Of course not.
When I got into the dining room, I heard the sound of things breaking. The noise was coming from the room with the black curtains. The pig room.
“John!” Lorraine screamed. “Someone’s coming up the front steps!”
I pushed the curtains open, and there was Norton holding a large white pig, which he brought down suddenly on a table edge, knocking its head off. He looked inside and then threw it against the wall where it blasted to pieces. Several other broken pigs were laying all over the floor, and the only thing I could think of at that moment was the proud and happy look on Mr. Pignati’s face when he had shown us the pigs that first day. I felt like killing Norton as I plowed into him, punching his face like it was a sack of flour. After I got a couple of good blows in, he dug his elbow into my ribs and kicked the skates out from under me. That gave him a chance to pick up the oscilloscope and head for the door like a scared rat.
I went racing out of the room and noticed the band had stopped playing. I knew the place was emptying, and suddenly I realized what Lorraine was saying.
“The Pigman’s here!”
A second later my hands grabbed the back of Norton’s neck, and I pushed him forward with so much force he must have traveled the length of the living room before we both fell to the floor. The oscilloscope shattered right near the front hallway, and when I saw the blood pouring out of Norton’s nose, I was so happy I began to laugh. But then it was quiet.
Finally I managed to lift my head and saw Mr. Pignati at the door. He was just standing there looking down at me, and there was no smile on his face. No smile at all.
That’s when I passed out.
14
A policeman with a beer belly helped me get John into the patrol car—roller skates and all. Two nuns were walking on the other side of the street, and they watched us so closely one of them almost fell on the i
ce.
“You’re just lucky the old guy isn’t going to press charges,” the cop said, practically slamming the door on John’s foot and then getting into the driver’s seat. I tried to get John to come alive, but he was motionless in the back seat next to me. The police had pulled up just as I was getting him off the floor, and everyone else had gotten away.
“Okay, let’s go,” the other policeman said, coming out of the house and getting into the front. He was so much taller and thinner than the other one that the two of them together looked rather incongruous.
“Is Mr. Pignati all right?” I asked. The last I had seen of him was when he climbed the stairs with one of Conchetta’s dresses over his arm—the one Helen Kazinski had ripped—and I just didn’t know what to say to him.
“Could you let me see him a minute?”
“No, he’s upstairs—”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s crying, if you really want to know. The old guy’s crying.”
I sank back in the seat and started to tremble. It was cold and I didn’t have a coat, but I wasn’t shaking just because of that. I tried to pinch John so he’d come to, but it was no use.
“John, wake up!”
“He’s out for the night,” the fat cop said, adjusting his hat.
“I want to see what kind of parents you kids have,” the skinny one added, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke into the back seat. “Do they know you go over to that old man’s house? We’ve seen you hanging around there before.”
I looked at John crumpled and twisted in the corner, the roller skates pointing every which way. I couldn’t find his shoes or my clothes in the excitement—and somehow the laces on his skates had knotted and frozen so I couldn’t untie them anyway. The thought of my mother seeing me in the ruffled dress terrified me, and I hated John at that moment for having gotten me into this. I hated him more for being drunk when I needed him.
“This where you live?”
“Yes… please….”
“Do you kids always get your kicks picking on old people?”
“Please just let us go. I promise we won’t do anything like this again. We won’t go over there anymore.” I was ashamed of myself because I was beginning to plead.
“Let’s just talk to your family a minute,” the skinny one said, opening his door. I burst into tears as the cold air rushed into the car.
“Not one cent for tribute!” John suddenly mumbled, leaning forward, laughing, and then falling back unable to hold his head up. He was hopelessly drunk, and I slammed the door of the patrol car. The policeman took me up the steps.
“My mother’s going to beat me.”
“You should’ve thought about that a little earlier, young lady.” He rang the bell.
I knew it would take a minute while she peered out one of the front windows, realized who it was, and then put on a bathrobe. When I heard her footsteps coming, my heart seemed to be beating in time with them until the door opened.
“Where are your clothes, Lorraine?” was the first thing she said, standing in the shadow of the doorway, looking at the policeman and me. Her hair was down, and she pulled the blue robe tight around her.
“This your daughter, ma’am?”
“What’s the matter?”
“She and a few of her friends had too much to drink tonight at some old man’s house on Howard Avenue. They almost wrecked the place.”
I couldn’t look at her, and as soon as my eyes went down she knew I was guilty.
“Where are your clothes, Lorraine?” she repeated slowly, reaching her hands out for my shoulders. She pulled me closer to her. “Look at me, Lorraine.”
Her eyes burned into me.
“What are you doing in this dress?”
I opened my mouth and tried to get the words out but couldn’t speak. Tears began to roll down my cheeks, and she raised her hand and slapped me.
“No, Mother,” I screamed, and even the policeman jumped and looked sorry he had brought me to the door.
“Get inside,” she ordered, and her voice had switched from the hysterical to the commanding, like I’d often heard it do when she was working as a nurse. She always had the ability to deal with doctors and policeman if she was forced to.
I had just enough time to get out of the dress, wash the smeared makeup off my face, and put on a pair of pajamas before I heard the front door slam—which I knew was for my benefit. A moment later she was in the doorway, looking at me, the expression on her face somewhere between disbelief and disgust.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said slowly, unsure of what her next move would be. I wanted to scream the thoughts that were flashing through my mind at her. I wanted to tell her how she didn’t know anything about me—how she hadn’t noticed that I happened to be a human being myself… that I wasn’t still the little girl that waved from the window when she stood at a bus stop. Look at me, I wanted to yell, can’t you see I’m growing up and that I’ve got to have friends? That I want to have friends—that I need other people in this world besides you!
She came toward me, and I backed away until I was cornered by the wall. Then she raised her arm and slapped me once more across the face. She tried to hit me again, but my arm went up and blocked her.
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You lied.”
“It was only a party. You wouldn’t have let me go.”
She broke down crying and turned away, putting her hands up to her face, and I knew she wanted me to run after her to beg forgiveness. I won’t, I thought. For the first time in my life I’m not going to. It’s the Pigman who has to forgive me—not you!
She was sitting at the kitchen table, crying—a slightly exaggerated crying which seemed to make our relationship even more artificial.
You’re the one who’s wrong, I wanted to tell her, not me.
Then I remembered all the times I had wakened up years ago. I’d wake up, and she wouldn’t know it—and I’d get out of bed and peek in the kitchen. Sometimes I’d be able to see through the keyhole or a crack in the door, and she’d be sitting at the table, crying. But I wasn’t supposed to hear it then.
“Mother?”
Her crying lowered just a little, and I went to the table and hugged her.
“I’ve tried to do the best I could… I’ve worked night and day to keep a roof over our heads… you think it’s easy raising a kid by yourself….”
Once that stage was over, I began slowly to explain to her what I’d been up to—Mr. Pignati and John and me. Of course, I edited it considerably for her benefit, and she seemed to take it well, now that the emotional raving was over. There were a few moments of minor relapses, like when I told her I had never belonged to the Latin Club, but on the whole she took things better than I thought she would.
Finally we went to bed, and just as I was feeling better because I had been relatively honest with her, just as I started to think she understood a little and recognized that she had given birth to a human being with a normal-sized brain, I heard this voice in my ear: “You’re sure the old man didn’t try anything with you?”
“What?” I mumbled, not turning toward her.
“Sexually,” she whispered.
“No, Mother.”
“Those old men have ways, Lorraine. Sometimes they touch you, and you may not even notice what they’re doing.”
“Good night, Mother,” I said, rearranging myself with finality, knowing that she could never really understand.
I felt tears rolling down my cheeks onto the pillow as I remembered the condition of Mr. Pignati’s house. Would he think we had forsaken him and deliberately ripped his wife’s clothes—viciously broken the pigs? I wanted to phone him and say, Mr. Pignati, we didn’t mean things to work out like that. We were just playing.
Playing
Play.
I couldn’t get the word out of my mind. I remembered a cat playing with a rubber ball somewhere… a k
itten a girl friend had gotten for her birthday… and it was hiding behind a chair leg eyeing the ball… stalking it. The kitten knew what it was because it had been toying with it all along, but now it attacked, claws drawn, trying to sink its teeth into the soft rubber.
“Look at the kitty playing with the ball,” the girl’s mother had said.
The cat attacked the ball as if it were a living thing. I remember thinking it was practicing for when it might have to kill to survive. Play was something natural, I remember thinking—something which Nature wanted us to do to prepare us for later life.
“I am a handsome European businessman, and you are in love with me!”
“Stop it, John.”
“Come to me, my darling, one kiss is all I ask!”
“Please stop….”
“You look beautiful!”
“Do you mean it?”
A boy with a moustache, a girl with a feather.
Then I fell asleep.
“Lorraine” I heard my mother call. I opened my eyes just enough to see her standing over me in her white uniform. The morning light was painful.
“Those nylon stockings you brought home—”
“What about them?”
“You didn’t do anything bad for them, did you?”
“No, Mother,” I said, burying my head in the pillow and wondering at just what point that little thought had come to her. She came in and out of the bedroom several times, and I pretended to be asleep. Just before she left for work she said loudly, “Don’t think I’m through with you yet. You get this house cleaned up, and I’ll want to talk to you when I get home.”
John gave the one-ring signal about eleven o’clock, which was much earlier than I had expected because I thought he’d still be unconscious. We met at the corner. He looked very disheartened.
“My father says I have to go to a psychiatrist.”
“He’ll forget about it in a day or two,” I reminded him.