by Mick Foley
“Um, ma’am,” I began with a completely straight face, knowing that the consequences of my next words would be heavy, but that I was more than willing to pay them. “I do believe that the sin of Onan is not about touching one’s self, but about the act of coitus interruptus.”
Bam! I caught a slap in the face.
I looked at the class, and they were howling. Even Richie Majors and Mel Stolsky, who only a few days later would attempt to forcibly sodomize me, seemed to be enjoying the moment.
I waltzed down the stairs a clean man, in body and conscience, despite what the nuns would have thought of me. Tietam Brown was waiting for me with a smile and another blue three-pack. He slipped the rubbers into the shirt pocket of my green-and-black plaid flannel, laughed a big fake laugh, and said, “What took you so long in there, kid?”
I thought I would die.
“Getting extra clean?” he said with playful sarcasm.
“I guess so, Dad.”
“Or were you doing something just a little naughty in there?” with the last four words spoken in a singsong voice so that they were extra painful.
I said nothing, but looked for a spare hole in the middle of the living room that I could dive right into.
“Hey don’t be embarrassed, kid, we all do it, even ol’ Tietam, just to keep my bald-headed champion in fighting condition.”
I haven’t really enjoyed a boxing match since.
Then, as I was headed out the door, where I hoped the crisp October night might kill some of the heebie-jeebies my dad had just let loose on me, ol’ Tietam let fly with some helpful advice.
“Don’t take the dice down this time, son . . . Women love them.”
I hopped in the car and took the dice down immediately, but as I did so I thought of him calling me “son” for the first time, and realized that I liked it.
Eight hours with Terri, I thought, and it was going to be awesome. More like seven hours by this point, but still plenty of dancing to do. It was going to be a special night.
A special night deserves a special song, and I didn’t want to get caught unprepared with only Barry Manilow to celebrate with . . . even if, as I’ve mentioned, “Mandy” and “Could It Be Magic” do still hold up well. But with all due respect to Barry, he had to go.
I looked in the eight-track player and saw that Barry had been replaced by KC & the Sunshine Band. I contemplated its possibilities. Nope, it wouldn’t do. Then again, “Do a little dance, make a little love” was not bad advice.
No, wasn’t right.
I opened the glove box with my good hand and pawed through the selections. Village People. Nope. Paper Lace? What the hell was that? ABBA? Was my father caught in some type of time warp or what? This was 1985, not 1975. Only two selections left. I reached in again and pulled out Manilow, who I believed might get the decision by process of elimination. Then, with hope fading, I pulled out the last of the ancient eight-tracks, and bingo! Springsteen. Born to Run. No offense to Born in the U.S.A., which was all over the radio in ’85, but Born to Run was, is, and always will be the Springsteen album to have.
I backed out of the drive, saw my father waving to me, and wished that I’d left the fuzzy dice up until I was at least out of sight.
By the time I heard the piano on “Thunder Road,” I was over it. I took a slight detour en route to Conestoga High, opting to cruise past Terri’s house for a little added inspiration.
I was handling that Fairmont like a pro, and had my right arm draped over the passenger seat, wishing my fingers could move so I could stroke Terri’s imaginary hair, while I carried on an imaginary conversation complete with imaginary laughs. When it came to imaginary conversations, I kicked ass big-time.
Suddenly I had a premonition, and took my hand off the wheel to press the forward button on the stereo. In an instant I heard Bruce Springsteen singing my life story. “One soft infested summer me and Terry became friends, trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in.” I didn’t really know what that breathing-the-fire thing was all about, but that part about me and Terri was perfect.
I knew as I barreled past Terri’s house one last time that this was meant to be our song, even if we’d never actually done the things that Bruce and his Terry had done, such as sleeping in an old abandoned beach house and getting wasted in the heat. I listened again as I passed by Terri’s house again, this time being the last for real, but couldn’t really get all that much of it, partially because the Fairmont’s speakers shook anytime the volume was up past 5, and partially because, well, honestly, Bruce sounds like he’s singing in a cave on that one.
It was eight-thirty by now, or about six and a half hours left, when I stepped into the high school gym. I looked around for Terri and saw instead a jumbled mass of about a thousand bodies, moving seemingly in unison to a song I can’t quite remember. Actually I can’t quite remember anything, except that my heart was pounding, and that I was possibly the most hated guy on the planet, or at least in Conestoga High at the time.
I saw a bright glow of red and tried to focus, which worked, and was relieved to see that it wasn’t so bad, it was just Baskin’s skin, attached to his face, which was asking Terri to dance. What the hell! Asking her to dance, gesturing at the dance floor with his big arms, his tight satin shirt nearly ripping at the seams. Terri was shaking her head, and she was looking around. Looking for me, but I didn’t quite dare make myself seen.
Baskin was resilient, but still Terri declined, and for a split second I stepped forward, so as to approach and say, “Excuse me, the lady’s with me,” and escort her to the floor. But instead I felt weak and sat down, looking out in amazement at all the mullets surrounding me. They were everywhere. Those short-in-the front, long-in-the-back, shaved-on-the-side horrible mullets. All around me. I saw a quick flash and imagined myself smack-dab in the middle of the Michael Jackson “Thriller” video, and it was horrible. I mean that video is always horrible, and Michael Jackson by himself is pretty scary, but instead of being surrounded by corpses and ghouls, he was surrounded by Conestoga High football players in mullets. And right in the front was Coach Hanrahan, with the most frightening mullet of all.
The flash went away, and so did the horror, and I looked for my Terri and saw her still looking. Looking for me. I wanted to just run to her, take her in my arms, and spin her around. And you know what? That’s exactly what I was going to do. Just as soon as I went back to the car and listened to “Backstreets” one more time . . . for motivation.
I unlocked the car, hopped in, and played the song one more time. This time I thought I heard Bruce saying something about trying to walk like the heroes he thought he had to be. The song ended, and I decided I was ready to return to the gym. Almost. I checked out a different song.
I heard the opening chords of “She’s the One,” and I swear it was like music to my ears. Wait a second, that’s got to be the dumbest analogy I’ve ever heard. Of course it was music to my ears. But when Bruce started singing, I felt that magic, and knew he was singing for just me and Terri once again.
Once again the Fairmont’s speaker system didn’t shed much light on just what Bruce was talking about, but by the time I made out “with her long hair falling and eyes that shine like a midnight sun” and Bruce launched into the Diddleyesque guitar solo, I found myself right outside the Lincoln Theater, where for some reason that will never quite become apparent to me, I took in the last hour of Rambo.
“What do you want, John,” Colonel Trautman asked Stallone as I tried to figure out just what “eyes that shine like a midnight sun” might look like.
“Just one time,” Rambo/Stallone replied, “for our country to love us as much as we love it.”
I got goose bumps. What a great line. Last time, I’d been too busy worrying about the rubbers in my pocket to fully appreciate it. My heart went weak. Those damn rubbers—they were in my pocket again! Quickly I threw them down to the sticky concrete where, chances are, they might still be today. Then I w
alked out of that theater, no longer simply motivated, but glad to be an American too. I fired up that Fairmont, opened the windows so that the fortyish or so air could further invigorate me, drove directly to the Conestoga High gym, walked into the gym with purpose, and immediately panicked again.
I was just about to bail out again when I heard Terri’s voice.
“Andy, Andy, it’s me, over here.”
She ran to me with outstretched arms, hugged me tight, and kissed me three times in the cheek-to-temple area. She sighed deep and said, “I’m so glad you’re here, are you okay?! I was so worried.”
It took a second to answer, as I was trying to figure out if we had technically just had our first kiss. When I did answer, I wished I hadn’t.
“Sure, sure, I just went to the movies.”
“The movies,” she said, somewhat taken aback. “Why would you go to the movies when you knew that I wanted to see you here?”
“Well, I did show up earlier—”
She intercepted, and said, “And you didn’t see me so you left?”
With that interception she had given me my out: if I just agreed, I would be out of hot water, and better yet, I could place the blame on her for not being there for me. I told the truth instead. Damn.
“No, I saw you, but—”
“But you left anyway?”
“Well,” I mumbled, “kinda.”
“Andy, how do you think that makes me feel?” she said with both hurt and anger apparent in her words.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really.”
“What did you see?”
“Rambo.”
“Rambo?”
“Rambo.”
“Andy, that’s our movie.”
“I know.”
“So.”
“So?”
“What were you thinking?”
At this point I officially began to whine.
“Terri, I don’t feel comfortable here, can’t we just go somewhere?”
“No, Andy, I can’t just go somewhere. I’m the head of the Superdance committee. I have to be here.”
“But Terri.”
“But Terri what?”
“But.”
“Yeah.”
“I just, well, I just, you know, I just, um, don’t think a lot of people like me here.”
“Well Andy,” she began in a loud voice that was near a yell but then settled down to a softness that could barely be heard above the throng of Superdancers and the sounds of KC & the Sunshine Band. Honestly. “Boogie Man.” “Andy, you’re going to have to decide for yourself, what’s more important? Those people liking you”—she pointed to the mass of dancers—“or me.”
I looked at her features continue to soften, and then she smiled.
“Look,” she said, pointing my attention to Mr. Hanrahan, who was serving as a chaperone, and at the moment appeared to be getting a little too close with one of Terri’s cheerleading associates. “There’s your buddy. Do you want to hang out with him . . . or me?”
I smiled.
“Or him,” she continued, and pointed to Clem Baskin, who now had his shirt off, so that the acne on his back stood out like a cluster of small red mountains amid a sea of white flesh. “Do you want to hang out with him?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll tell you what I want you to do, Andy. I want you to go home now, because I have a lot to do here without baby-sitting your emotions. Go home and think about what you really want. And if you decide that what you want is me, then we’ll move on. And Andy . . .” She paused a moment and continued, “One of these days, you’re going to have to kiss me.”
My heart started pounding, and the watermelon returned in my throat, bigger than ever. I tried to read her mind. Was she trying to tell me to kiss her now? Did one of these days mean today, right now? I thought it did, decided to act, then saw the thousand strong in the Conestoga High gym. What if “one of these days” didn’t mean today? Was I man enough to face a rejection right there, in front of so many witnesses? I decided that, no, I was not ready, and meekly, without the slightest hint of intestinal fortitude, said, “Don’t worry, I will.”
“Bye,” she said.
“Okay, bye.”
And while the speaker played “I’m gonna keep on lovin’ you, ’cause it’s the only thing I want to do,” I slunk out of the high school gym, looking back once to see Terri waving, thinking that even from that distance, I could see a small tear in her eyes. Her eyes that shine like a midnight sun. Whatever the hell that means.
I got into the car and pulled Born to Run from its slot. Bruce, you’d let me down, man. Let me down bad. Slowly I opened the glove box and put the Boss away. I closed my eyes, pulled out another eight-track, and slid it in, sight unseen. Then, as I pulled out of the lot, I pushed it in with the palm of my right hand.
“Macho, macho man—I want to be a macho man.”
I stopped the car. Ejected the tape. Opened the door. And threw that SOB as far into the woods as I possibly could.
Silence, I decided, was what I needed to hear.
October 30, 1985 / 11:57 p.m.
I was in urgent need of a man-to-man talk. A talk with someone who could understand my feelings, with someone who knew about life and all the mysteries tucked away inside its many wrinkles. I chose instead to talk with my dad.
I walked inside our little home, kept oddly neat for a single man and his teenage son. The living room was bare, with not a painting adorning its walls or even a television to gather round. Indeed the room served only as my father’s all-nude workout room, the deck of playing cards and a few dozen empty Gennys the only reminder that life actually transpired within its walls.
“Dad, Dad,” I called, “I’m home.” Silence. I gave it another try. “Dad, it’s Andy, are you home?” Nothing. I knew that my father often spent hours on end inside his bedroom, the place he went to do his “work,” which he often spoke of in the vaguest terms possible. So, with a heavy heart and a giant question mark for a brain, I headed up the stairs, nursing the tiny hope that Antietam Brown IV could shed some light on the last few hours of clouds that had formed over my life.
I knocked lightly and received no response, then again, and heard the faint sound of papers rustling from seemingly far away. I had never been in my dad’s bedroom, as it was strictly off limits and kept most of the time under lock and key. “This is where the magic takes place, Andy,” he’d once said. “And a good magician never reveals his secrets.”
“Dad, it’s Andy, are you in there?” I said, and I heard a door shut and footsteps approach.
“Andy?” he asked through the door.
“Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”
“What do you want, kid?”
“Well believe it or not, I just want to talk to you.”
“I’m pretty busy here, Andy.”
“It won’t take too long, Dad . . . promise.”
“I don’t know, kid, like I said, I’m pretty . . . well what do you want to talk about anyway?”
I was hoping to maybe ease into the subject gently. Maybe with a little small talk. But small talk wasn’t easy with a guy whose only real interest seemed to be his penis. I couldn’t talk sports because he didn’t watch them, couldn’t talk business because it was, like his bedroom, off limits to me. I didn’t even attempt to discuss school-work with him, because that might actually require thinking; a demand that might threaten his standing as the world’s shallowest man. But what the hell, who was I going to talk to, Hanrahan? Mrs. Sugling? I gave Tietam Brown a shot.
“Uh Dad, I um, wanted to ask your advice on girls.”
Instantly I had an answer. “I’ll be right down.”
I walked downstairs and waited about half a second before my dad came vaulting down the steps, two at a time, grinning from ear to ear, as giddy as a schoolboy. For a minute I thought I might have sold the old man a little short. Maybe everyone has got a special talent, and this subject would prove to be his. Maybe he would
be my love doctor.
He sat down on the couch, relaxed but alert, clearly relishing the opportunity to help and looking like he might, just might, be able to.
I didn’t know what to say, and for a moment I looked at my dad and thought about the push-ups, and the beer, and the Pussycat, and the rubbers, and thought I must be crazy. Then I closed my eyes and fired away.
“Dad, I’m having girl problems.”
He resumed his dinner-table Thinker pose and stroked his chin. He squinted a little and then closed one eye, a study in concentration. Surely he was weighing all the options, drawing inevitable conclusions, and would momentarily come bubbling forth with a sparkling nugget of knowledge that could transform my life in an instant. Then again, this was the same guy who’d used the term “bald-headed champion” only a few hours earlier. What had I been thinking?
His initial analysis of the situation surprised me.
“Well Andy, taking into account that all women are by nature different, and taking into account that you have yet to introduce me to your friend Terri, I would have to first warn you that forming a specific game plan for your specific situation could prove somewhat difficult.”
He sounded smart. My dad sounded smart! I could almost feel those clouds dispersing.
“With that in mind, there are some generalities, some strategies if you will, that do appear to be effective with most women I’ve encountered.”
The anticipation was killing me. Sure my dad had his share of somewhat odd idiosyncrasies, and yeah, maybe he didn’t do things that other dads did, but women did like the guy, and there had to be a reason. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t the fuzzy dice. He opened his mouth. “Well Andy, whenever possible, get them to lick your ass.”
The clouds in my mind that had seemed to disperse accumulated en masse and rained all over my parade. I waited for a big laugh, and then a pat on the back to let me know that I’d been had. We would share a good chuckle over the whole thing, and then he’d tutor me on the lessons of love.
Except he wasn’t laughing. Or smiling. Not even a little. As a matter of fact, I’d never seen him quite this intense, not even when talking about the Suglings’ scarecrow.