One Friday, I cash my two caddy stubs, ready to go home and spin records and hope to stay awake long enough with Rocket to watch the Friday evening shows—Benson, The Dukes of Hazard, Dallas. Bobby Walton signals me with a snap of his fingers. “Hey, Ford, do you want to do a nine-hole double?” The golfers I caddied for didn’t spray the ball too much, so my legs feel strong enough, and by now nine holes is practically nothing. “Sure.”
By the end of the round, my ankles hurt from the bag scraping them as I lugged them around. But I make it just the same and began to enjoy working at Kensington Country Club. Virginia’s proselytizing about the virtues of hard work and habit turn out to be true. The more you do something, the easier it gets.
iven Tuesday afternoons means Ladies Day at the club, Owen Rooney and I agree to skip out on a second loop. (Ladies play slow as syrup.)
We arrive at my house, and Owen combs through my record collection. “You don’t have many albums. Nuthin’ mod at all. Mods’re s’posed to hate rock, but I like it all.”
So would that make you a Mocker? I keep my little joke to myself.
“No one ’round ’ere cares anyway, everyone playing that silly post-punk post-disco synthesized mishmash.”
“I don’t have the money to buy new records every day.” I have pretty decent music taste compared to most kids, but Owen’s ahead of the curve because almost all of the great music travels to America via England.
“Why don’t you just ask your old man for some money?” He scans through some more albums. “No Bowie? The Clash? The Kinks?”
“He’s not exactly into funding my music tastes.” No one gets it. I want to tell him not every kid in the Hills can afford to buy albums every day. I get most of my music from J.J. and the Morning Crew and Arthur P on 101 WRIF—my radio heaven. That’s why we have music stations on the radio. I do have something to show off, though. “I just got a cassette tape player. A Sony.”
He bends down and pushes the bass boost button. “That’s mint.” I rip out two live albums to impress him with my musical tastes. Foghat Live and KISS Alive! “Jesus. I got some work to do.” He stands straight and drags his fingers through his thick black hair. “Springsteen. Okay. I can live with that.”
Good.
He stops at a Cars album. “How much did you pay for this album?”
“’Round eight bucks.”
“Rip-off.” He pretend throws the Cars disc out the window and returns the vinyl to its jacket. “I know a place where you can get records for practically nuthin’. It’ll blow your mind. Let’s go.”
We ride the bus to Sam’s Jams, not far from the Palms, but to Hills kids it might as well be the world’s end. On the trip down, Owen writes up a list of bands for me to find in the store. An ocean of records greets me in Sam’s, and it’s like I’ve gone to vinyl heaven. Owen tells me Chrysler used to make motor boats here.
We hunt through the stacks of records for gems, coaxing the vinyl records out of their plastic jackets to inspect for scratches. Records with deep nicks might as well be Frisbees. Faint spiderweb scratches don’t skip. A decent Who or Zeppelin disc is impossible to find unless you’re willing to shell out $10. If that’s the case, I might as well just buy it brand new uptown at Vinny’s Hi-Fi.
I pluck Owen’s number-one pick, “The Kids Are Alright” by The Who, from a sale shelf labeled Greatest Hits Albums. A steal at only $4. I finger the disc from its wrapper and notice a light scratch curving across songs four and five—“Magic Bus” and “Long Live Rock.” After selecting a few more albums from Owen’s list, I hunt in a colony of 45s and notice through the donut hole of “Teenagers from Mars” by the Misfits, a green country club mesh shirt covering a pointed white bra.
That pinball girl. Gigi Arnold.
The front of her shirt is tied short at the bottom, exposing her belly button. I pretend to scrutinize the vinyl quality, but then she notices I’m ogling her innie with my eyeballs peering over the edge of the record at her.
“Are you staring at me, pervert?” My veins became Minute Maid frozen lemonade. “Are you a mute?”
I raise my chin and cough out a nervous laugh. “No, I can talk.”
“Do I know you from somewhere?”
“I’ve seen you at Kensington Hills.”
“Yeah, I switched over from Rottenville.” Owen had told me Roddenville Country Club is chopped liver compared to Kensington Hills Country Club, and the course isn’t even on the Evans scholarship list. “They’re real cheap bastards over there. Only three-fifty for eighteen. I ain’t nobody’s slave.” She carries a hard, tough edge to her, like she’s itching for a fight.
“They sound like jerks.”
“Completely. And the course sucks.” She raises her thumb high in the air, then slowly turns it down to the ground. “They put sand on the greens and only water the fairways twice a week.” She looks me up and down. “Let me guess, you’re a member at Kensington? Why are you hanging out this far down Woodward?”
I shake my head. “No. I live in Kensington but caddy at the country club, too. Only five more loops and I get my captain’s badge.”
“Good for you,” she says in a mocking tone, “but I’m already a captain.”
Her flat blonde hair isn’t sprayed and curled up high at the ends like a typical Hills girl. She comes around to my side of the aisle, inspecting the five albums I’ve discovered from Owen’s pick list: Quadrophenia (Owen’s a black-haired dead ringer for the mod motorcycle rider Ace Face in the movie), The Kids Are Alright, two Bowie albums: Space Oddity and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and The Kinks’ self-titled debut album. I turn over a Bowie album and notice the song “Moonage Daydream.” Space music. I can dig that.
She holds out her hand. “Let me see what you got there.”
I hand over the albums.
“Bowie’s ace,” she says. “I’d looove to meet him. Do you think he’s bi? That’s what I heard.”
“Probably.” Don’t know or care.
We exchange names but not phone numbers. Like a dork, I stick my hand out for her to shake. She offers her small, soft hand in return. Her skin is smooth compared to her gruff voice, and she has thick, pouty lips that are irresistible. Owen comes over holding a stack of records, including ones by The Doors and Small Faces, and shakes my arm. “Let go of ’er before her hand falls off.”
She shakes out the vinyl from the Space Oddity jacket. “It’s in great shape.” Her eyes light up and fixate on Owen. “Hey, do you guys want to go to my house and listen to these records?”
Lucky Brit. I hate being the third wheel.
Owen speaks up for both of us in his most noble fake King’s English. “It’d be our pleasure”—he sweeps his hand in front of himself and curtsies—“to accompany such a fine lady to her castle for an evening of song with Mr. Morrison.”
“I have a friend for you at home,” Gigi says, nodding to me.
Don’t care about any girl but Cleo.
We wander a few streets from Sam’s to a row of bungalow houses all stacked next to each other, sharing driveways on small square lots. Next door, a tire swing hanging from a large oak tree drifts in the wind. A junked car sits in the backyard with its hood open.
A girl with knobby knees and cut-off jeans eats a Twinkie on the concrete porch. “Thought you’d never get here.” The girl, skinny as a pole with frizzy brown hair and thin lips above a pointed chin, stands and shoves the last of the Twinkie into her mouth.
“This here’s Betsy.” We enter the house through the front door and its peeling white paint. Loud, throbbing music booms upstairs. “I’ll take these guys downstairs. Betz, go grab some weed from my brother upstairs.”
Smoking cigs is one thing, but I’ll be out of my element with pot. I read Helter Skelter last summer and know getting high can lead to mass murder, or in Billy’s case, a who
le lot of nothing.
The bass guitar from upstairs thumps down into the basement. Gigi stretches her tan legs out on the length of a brown couch and throws her long hair back out of her face. I wonder how many guys she’s taken down to the basement. The walls are painted purple. A velvet Ted Nugent poster hangs crookedly from a nail.
“Where’s your mum at?” Owen asks.
“She’s working at the Gas ’N Go over on Ten Mile.” She picks up the Doors album Owen bought and places it on her turntable. The room fills with the haunting voice of Jim Morrison, which skips every few seconds to “Light my Fire.”
Betsy comes down the stairs with a plastic baggy in her hand. Gigi slides to the floor. Her blue jean shorts push up to reveal a small brown mole on the inside of her thigh. We form a circle while Betsy rolls a joint as casually as a wet burrito.
“Who’s got a light?” she asks.
Owen clicks off a flame from his Bic for Betsy. He’s one of those survival kids who always carries things in his pocket—a Swiss Army knife for cleaning golf club grooves and fixing divots on the green or a white rabbit’s foot clipped to his belt loop, which he rubs for good luck.
Betsy sucks in, and the tip glows red. “How’d ya get that cut on your neck?”
Owen arches his neck, and you can tell he wears the scar proudly, like one of the mod pins on his parka. “Just a dust-up with some manky rockers back home.” Owen had confided in me that he’s from a rough neighborhood near London where they fought the rockers or teddy boys every other day like the rival gangs you hear about in New York. Cuts, bruises, and brawls are nothing to him.
Betsy passes the joint to Gigi who inhales smoke, holding her lips tight and crossing her eyes. Her anxious face melts away, leaving a relaxed smile, and her head sways to the pulsating rhythm of the music. My turn. I’ve never smoked a thing, not even a cigarette, let alone a joint, but I don’t want Gigi and Owen to think I’m a total nerd, so I inhale, and the smoke forces its way back out of my throat.
Gigi laughs and squeezes closer to Owen while holding the joint in my mouth. “Breathe in really deep, like you’re holding your breath underwater.”
The smoke pierces my lungs. I pass the joint to Owen.
After the joint comes around a second time, Owen puts his hand on the inside of Gigi’s thigh. The combination of the carnival-like music of The Doors and the pot makes me feel drowsy and nauseous. Gigi and Owen loop their fingers together, and the joint comes around again.
“This thing’s spent,” Gigi says, eyeing the withered joint. “Roll another one, Betz.”
“We need more paper.”
“Go ask Terry upstairs.” She google-eyes Owen. “And take Ford with you.” Gigi unhinges her fingers from Owen’s, gets up, and flips the record on the turntable. The basement’s submerged with the sound of an approaching thunderstorm: “Riders on the Storm.”
By the time I reach the top of the stairs, Gigi has switched the lights off, because the basement goes coffin black. Lucky for Owen.
“Stay here,” says Betsy. “Terry gets pissed when he’s stoned.”
The kitchen sink is full of piled, rotting dishes. The music ceases upstairs between songs. A phone rings on the kitchen wall. Four rings. Nothing. Seconds later, Betsy’s footsteps come pounding down the stairs. “Red’s coming over. We gotta get you guys out of here.”
“Who’s Red?”
“Gigi’s old man.” We stumble down the dark stairs, and Betsy flicks the light on in the basement. Gigi and Owen have become one soft SuperPretzel of limbs on the couch.
“Red’s on his way.”
“Shit,” Gigi says and shoves Owen off her lap. She drags us by the elbows upstairs and pushes us out the door into the blinding sunlight.
The northbound bus comes steaming up Woodward Avenue. I spot Gigi racing toward us. “You forgot these, Ford.” She hands me an armload of albums. “I’ll see you guys later.” I watch her strut back down the sidewalk.
“Snap out of it, Quinn. She’s mine.” A red welt has grown on the side of Owen’s neck.
“Owen, Gigi pasted a raspberry on your neck.”
He pulls off his silver belt buckle and eyes the reflection of his hickey. “Her lips’re like a toilet plunger.”
I give his neck closer scrutiny. “Your mom might notice.”
“Mum? She’s too tired from scrubbin’ bubbles in motel room toilet bowls to keep track of us after two o’clock.” Owen peels off toward home.
I board the bus with seconds to spare, wobbling my way to the farthest back seat. The bus passes a row of ugly brick apartment buildings on Woodward Avenue. I think of rain showers and Gigi on that couch with her belly button showing below her green-mesh shirt. I wonder why even guys like Rocket and Owen make it with girls without even trying.
What do they have that I don’t? Guts and guile, I suppose. Boy, I wish I could get a dose of whatever the hell it is they have, or I’ll end up an old, lonely bitter pill like my uncle Fred, who had a huge falling out with Pop for some unknown reason before he died.
fter what seems like eons, they finally release Cleo from the hospital. I’m dying to see her, but her mother doesn’t want visitors. I figure her mom probably still hates my guts even though my dog practically saved her daughter’s life. She’s become untouchable to me, like the incubator boy in the movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, only she’s a girl. A week later, I receive in the mail from Cleo the mixtape I’d given her along with a mixed message.
Dear Giff: Thank you for the tape. I’ve listened to this so many times that it reminds me of the hospital. (It makes me sick!! Just kidding!) They did things to me at the hospital that were quite shocking, but at least I’m better now. Anyway, thought you might want your tape back. Talk to you when I can. Cleo.
No, I don’t want the tape back. I just want to see you again, Cleo. My fingers pinch the tape from the plastic cassette, and I unfurl the ribbon before stuffing it into my garbage can.
Torrential rains strike the Hills the following week, which forces the groundskeeper to close down the golf course—they can’t risk ruining the course with the PGA Championship coming to town. Since I can’t caddy at all, I just lay on the couch in the TV room all week, watching the Phil Donohue Show and loads and loads of drama at Johnny’s pub in Ryan’s Hope—Kate’s precious soap.
By Friday, the dull rain stops, the clouds scatter, and the sun blazes hot. Theo and Kate are folded on the couch, watching Ryan’s Hope, which makes me want to puke. I take my dog outside to get some fresh air in the backyard when Dr. Clark appears on my driveway. Chimney lifts a hind leg next to the big boulder in the corner of our lot.
Dr. Clark pulls her black cat-eye sunglasses down her nose. “Ford, I need to talk to you about Cleo.”
Perhaps she wants to play match-maker. I ask her when I can see her.
“She’s feeling better, but she’s not quite fixed yet.” What the hell does that mean? You fix a broken bike; you cure sick people. “She’s in a very delicate mental state but doing well. We can’t risk you upsetting her.”
“I wouldn’t upset her, trust me.” Adults are fools if they trust teenagers, but she can trust me with regard to Cleo. She’s the last person I’d upset.
Chimney sniffs Dr. Clark’s sandals. “People like her think they are sick when they aren’t. She doesn’t think she is sick anymore. We have to keep it like that for her sake. Do you understand?”
No. “Okay.”
“She’s eating again. Everyone thinks Chimney saved her life, which is kind of true because she did find her skin cancer, but she’s stilling feeling really down about herself.”
Out of sheer desperation to see her again, I think of something to get Cleo out of her funk. “Hey, can you at least give her a present from me?”
“Sure, Ford.” She smiles. “How thoughtful of you!”
“Wait here a
minute.”
She brushes Chimney’s coat with the back of her hand while I run into my house and grab one of Virginia’s well-worn self-help books written by Osmond P. Peabody. She has scores of his books littered around the house like Fluffy’s hairballs. From a shelf in the den, I grab the paperback titled Live Now! Take Charge of
Your Life with Mensa-Netics. Virginia’s constantly harping that all you need is a better attitude in life rather than a psychologist’s couch. Maybe that’s all Cleo needs. Just a little motivational “kick in the arse” as Owen would say—or in her case, the cranium.
I give Dr. Clark the book. “Oh, are you sure you want to give her this? It’s quite superficial.” A sympathetic smile radiates fake from her lips, and I wonder if the doctor knows she’s just insulted Virginia’s gospel. “I suppose it can’t hurt.” With that, she disappears with the book around the hedge separating our two driveways.
I grab a football and kick it on top of our garage roof, pissed as hell I can’t see Cleo. I know it’s her mother’s doing. The hell with her! Maybe there’s another explanation for her depression. I reread Cleo’s note to me, and a word sticks out like a comet shooting across the sky: shocking. Is it Cleo’s way of sending me a hidden clue? I’ve heard about people getting shock therapy and wonder if they used the treatment on Cleo at the psych ward and she’s afraid to tell anyone. I picture Cleo’s hair standing on end, her fists banging on the lab door to get free like R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Perhaps these shock treatments have numbed her emotions, and she’s forgotten her true feelings for me. If she had had any in the first place, that is.
Round fifteen loops later (counting days has turned into counting loops), I learn through the Hills grapevine that Cleo is telling everyone that Chimney found her melanoma just in the nick of time. That is true, because I’ve heard melanomas can grow like mushrooms after a hot summer rain and spread to your bloodstream faster than the Six Million Dollar Man jumping over a barbed-wire prison fence to save Jaime Sommers.
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