Chapter 13
In the days that followed I kept waiting for Joe to say something about what happened that night but he never did. It was like he had amnesia or like it never happened at all. After Ma and I had our backyard picnic, Dan and Beth returned from the A and Dub with a jug of root beer and a set of mugs that Beth had convinced the carhop to sell to her. It was just like Beth to buy something that the rest of the world stole. I think that afternoon spent with Beth was one of the highlights of Danny’s life. Even years later she’d still talk about it like they had gone on some really great trip together. She’d pull out the two photographs that Beth took of her at the A and Dub with this big dopey grin holding a root beer mug up in the air like it was a trophy and then in the toy department of Sears surrounded by stuffed animals like they were taken at some resort in Mexico. She’d tell you every detail of their afternoon from the moment they left Beth’s house until they returned triumphant with mugs in tow, even how she made it to the washroom at Sears just in time. Danny was such a sweet kid and seeing how much it meant to her, it was hard to get mad at her for telling the story over and over like I’d never heard it before.
Harold dropped in every night just to see what I was up to but Beth stayed away. At night I took off to the creek to think and during the day I just hung out in my room or in the backyard reading The Catcher in the Rye, a book that Beth had given to me because “it was the best book ever written” and that I “needed to read it.” She didn’t say I should read it or that she highly recommended it but that I needed to read it like my life depended on it. The weird thing was that when I read the book I went into this other world, this Holden Caufield place that seemed just as real as the world of my family and friends. I didn’t want to leave—I wanted to just stay there with Holden. A book had never done that to me before. I mean I wasn’t a big reader and there I was so engrossed in this book that I couldn’t put it down. I guess because I could really relate to Holden and what he was going through that he seemed more real than my own family. I kept thinking that once I was finished I was going to emerge a different person, that a transformation was taking place within the pages of the book. It wasn’t, of course, but it was just something I thought might happen like I might become a better person.Why else would Beth say I needed to read the book? On the third evening of my self-imposed exile, Beth finally made an appearance. She just showed up in my bedroom and as usual with a plan, another scheme that would no doubt lead to trouble.
“There’s a “be-in” down at the park tomorrow. A bunch of bands are playing. It’s going to be so groovy. Remember the guy from the beach. Miles. He was telling me all about it. It sounds so groovy. We have to go,” she said as she giggled and moved all around me like she was doing some Indian tribal dance. It was actually kind of creepy. Or maybe it was that I had been alone too long reading the book and I was getting paranoid like Holden. “What’s a be-in?”
“Are you kidding? A be-in! A love-in! A love fest baby!” She started to laugh again like she was drunk only I couldn’t smell alcohol on her breath so I think she was just real excited. “No you’ve got to be kidding. What is it—one of those crazy hippy things? Count me out baby,” I said sarcastically just like Holden might have and turned my attention back to the book. She grabbed it from me and started waving it around. I jumped up and tried to grab it from her. She was really starting to get on my nerves.
“Give me that,” I screamed. “Give me back my book!” She tore out of my room, waving the book over her head like a flag. That was just the thing I needed to get my Italian blood boiling. I leapt off the bed after her like a bull after a toreador but by the time I caught up to her she was already in the back yard doing her crazy dance thing again. God, I was out of shape. I could hardly breathe. “Give me back my book,” I screamed again. Actually it was more like a gasp because I was panting and felt like I was going to faint.
“No Baby! Not until you say you’ll go!” She laughed right in my face, this goony, irritating kind of laugh.
“I’m not going!” I shouted. “Now gimme my book. I’ve got better things to do.”
“Like what huh? Sitting in your room moping. When the sun’s shining and there’s love in the air. Come on Baby. Let’s check this thing out. What can it hurt?”
“God, I’ve gotta stop eating those cookies,” I said, flopping down on the grass. “I’m out of shape.”
“What do you say Jo-Jo? What can it hurt? We’ll go for a couple of hours. If you don’t like it we can leave.” She stopped dancing and lay next to me with her arm stretched over her eyes shielding them from the sun.
“One hour. I’ll go for one stinking hour.”
The next day Beth and Harold showed up around eleven. Beth was wearing this long dress with yellow and blue flowers; around her neck she had strands of multi-colored Indian style beads, the kind the hippies wore, not her usual yellow-and-black thing. She had a sunny yellow bandanna twisted into a headband with a couple of seagull feathers stuck in the side. Her feet were bare and white except for her toenails, each one painted a different color. She looked beautiful. Harold was wearing one of those tie-dyed tee shirts, jeans so faded and torn they looked like he had rescued from his mother’s rag bag and these buffalo sandals that I had never seen before except maybe on pictures of Jesus. He had a couple of strands of those beads around his neck too. And I realized that Harold hadn’t had a haircut all summer either; his hair was actually growing over his ears and down the back of his neck. They both smelled funny.
“I didn’t know this was a costume party,” I said. “What stinks?”
“It’s patchouli oil. Here put some on,” Beth said as she reached into her crocheted bag pulling out this little amber colored vial, “and I have these for you too. They’re love beads.” “No way. That stuff stinks!”
“Come on Jo,” Harold pleaded. “It’s cool. Put some on. You won’t smell it after awhile. It just feels, you know, groovy on your skin.”
“It just feels groovy?”
Before I had a chance to mock Harold properly for sounding like such a fool Beth was dabbing behind my ears and my arms with the oil and draping me in love beads. As we were leaving Beth got Ma to take a picture of the three of us in front of Sally wearing our love beads and patchouli oil. This was Beth’s latest thing—taking pictures of our every move.
“For posterity,” she said.
Poor Ma holding Beth’s camera—she looked terrified, like she was holding the Crown Jewels and something bad was going to happen. Like everything else Beth owned it was expensive, one of those Nikon deals with the big phallic looking lens that zoomed in and out. Ma followed Beth’s instructions and took our picture. Actually she took a few pictures as we changed positions—first me and Harold out front with Beth sitting on the hood of the car behind us flashing a peace sign, then Harold and Beth together giving Ma the peace sign and me on the hood frowning into the sun and then one last one with all three of us sitting on the hood flashing Ma the peace sign. By the last photograph Ma was sounding like a real pro.
“Smile Jo,” she said all giggly with nervous energy. “You’ve got the scowl again. Say cheese!” So I smiled to please Ma and flashed her the peace sign but instead of saying cheese the three of us automatically said “peace” so naturally you’d think we had planned it but it was just one of those things we all thought of at the same time. That kind of stuff was starting to happen to the three of us. “Oh I just love the victory sign,” Ma said, “reminds me of when I first met your father. He greeted everyone after the war with it—was still doing it three years later when we met.”
“We’d love to take a trip down memory lane with you Ma but we gotta go.” I didn’t want to tell her that it no longer stood for victory and burst her bubble like that. It was nice to see Ma smiling and happy again.
“Thanks Mrs. Fasano,” Beth said taking the camera from Ma. “I think you might have found yourself a new career!” “Oh no!” Ma blushed, but I could tell she was flattered. “A new career! I never even had an old one!” she laughed. “Hey Ma. You got a career. Domestic Engineer!” “Yeah! People—mostly men—don’t think raising a family is a career because you don’t get paid and you have to stay home to do it. But it is. It’s the most important job in the world Mrs. Fasano. Always remember that. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.” Beth spoke with such fierce conviction she could have put Gloria Steinem to shame. Any chance she got to jump on her women’s lib soap box and preach about equality between the sexes she took. “I’ll remember that Beth. You kids have fun. Try not to be too late Jo,” Ma said anxiously, part warning, part reminder of the consequences if I angered my father again so soon.
“I’ll get her home at a decent hour Mrs. Fasano,” Beth laughed. “Yeah, don’t worry about her Mrs. Sano.” It had been a long time since Harold couldn’t pronounce our last name. When he was little he couldn’t say Fasano so he called my mother by the abbreviated version. Because everyone thought it was “so cute” Harold continued to call her Mrs. Sano long after he had gained full control of the English language. Like the rest of the world, he always called my father Joe. “She’s in good hands eh!” he said climbing into the front of the Mustang. It occurred to me that Harold had taken possession of the front seat, that we no longer took turns sitting in the preferred position next to Beth.
“Yeah, just like Allstate,” Ma said with a wink as she handed the camera back to Beth.
We all laughed at Ma’s joke and took off in Sally and headed for the love-in. About a half-mile from Waverly Park, Beth pulled over and parked the car.
“How come you’re parking here?” Harold asked. “The park’s like a million miles away eh.”
“Somehow I don’t think it would be too cool to show up at a love-in in a brand new Mustang convertible. You know what I mean?” she said, turning off the engine and getting out. No we didn’t. We’re talking about Sally—the Mustang of all Mustangs!What Harold and I didn’t realize at the time was that Beth was embarrassed by her family’s wealth around certain people, in particular, poor hippy people. “Let’s go!” she ordered. “It’s time for making love, baby!”
By the time we got to Waverly Park the love-in was in full swing. The first group was just setting up in the band shell and clumps of longhaired hippies were spread out on the grass all over the place. It reeked of patchouli oil and marijuana. It was weird. Although I had kind of admired the hippies from afar, fought their case with Dack the Mack and everything, I wasn’t so sure I was ready to hang out with them, even for a day. It wasn’t fear exactly but more this low-grade anxiety that hung in the pit of my stomach that started the second I stepped into the park. Beth wove her way through the crowd, saying hi and flashing the peace sign to everyone like they were all her best friends, with Harold and I trailing behind her like self-conscious shadows. I kept thinking that this was such a bad idea, but I had promised Beth I would stay for at least an hour and I could stand anything for an hour. We were sitting next to a group of people that were probably a few years older than us—three guys and two girls. They looked like they hadn’t bathed in months, their feet were filthy and they were all smoking, except one guy who stood out from the sea of hippies, not so much because he was good looking but because he just had something about him that was special. Had Joe been with us he would have said, “charisma was his middle name,” like he did whenever someone with “the quality” came into the bakery. He had shoulder-length dark brown hair, almost black, deep brown eyes and this huge smile that almost took up the bottom half of his face. Although he was sitting down I could tell he was tall and his body had substance, not big and muscular but not lean like Harold either. He was sitting in a lotus position and swaying back and forth even though the music hadn’t started. Everyone in the entire place seemed to know who he was. And as usual, once we got our spot set up he directed his attention to Beth.
“Peace,” he said. “I’m Josh.”
“I’m Beth and this is Hank and Jo-Jo,” she said, touching his knee. Harold and I smiled and both mumbled a self-conscious hi at Josh.
Beth and Josh were busy talking up a storm while Harold and I surveyed the crowd. I was looking to see if there was anyone I knew which was a ridiculous thought since none of my friends from school would come to something like this.
“I’m starving,” Harold said, turning to me as if I was a vending machine. “Did you bring anything to eat?”
“Gum?” I asked reaching into my pocket for my packet of Juicy Fruit. Harold took a stick, unwrapped the silver paper and stuffed the gum into his mouth.
“Thanks,” he said as he rolled the wrapper into a ball and flicked it at my head.
“Cut it out, you juvenile!” I snapped. “Quit being such a goof for once.”
“I’m not. You’re too touchy. It was just a piece of paper for God’s sake. Loosen up man. I wonder when the band’s gonna start.”
“What do I look like a clairvoyant? How should I know? God, I think everyone in this place has that patchouli oil on. What are we doing here anyway?”
“Listening to music. Hanging out. It’s cool.”
“Ah jeez, Korkala. You are such a jerk sometimes. What’s with the ‘it’s cool’ crap all of a sudden?”
“Whadoya mean?”
“What do I mean? A week ago you were this normal, well almost normal guy, and now suddenly everything’s mint-groovycool, that’s what I mean.”
“That’s ’cause it is. People change you know. Hey, the band’s starting. The Runagates. I love those guys. Got anymore gum?” “I hate change,” I mumbled under the screech of feedback as the band started their first song. I handed Harold the pack of gum. “Keep it!” I screamed over the music.
All around us people started to move to the music. Small groups here and there stood up and began to dance. Beth and Josh stood up too and got into this thing that wasn’t exactly dancing, more just abstract movement, swaying back-and-forth into each other, swirling, twirling, in, out, back-and-forth, around and around. Song after song they went at it. Maybe it was the music or maybe it was their dancing or the smell of all that patchouli oil, but whatever it was, I went into this trance, mesmerized by all the stuff going on around me. I think Harold was too. He was swaying back and forth to the music, with his head down like he was sleeping. I turned to him and asked him to dance, which was a clear indication that I had to have been out of my mind. “You wanna dance Korkala?”
I leaned into him and without answering he was up on his feet, grabbing my hand and pulling me up. We started doing the same free-form thing that Beth and Josh were doing and then the four of us started doing it together and before I knew it Josh’s whole group was up and dancing with us. We formed this big dancing circle that wove in and out of each other, enmeshed like one big organism breathing, moving all together, in, out, up, down, back and forth. Nobody was actually dancing with anyone in particular, nobody touched or held anyone although our bodies did glide and graze against each other like the fish in Harold’s aquarium.
Song after song we danced. It felt like the sun was burning a hole in the top of my head and my brains were going to spill out all over the grass. Sweat was pouring down my entire body; my hair was sticky and stringy next to my scalp and my heart was pounding so hard inside my chest I thought it was going to explode. I looked over at Harold to see if the heat and the music and all the dancing was having the same effect on him but he looked downright euphoric. He was weaving his way in and out of Josh and Beth and Shar who was the girlfriend of Josh’s cousin Don, the oldest of the group. Don had to have been at least thirty. In fact, Josh looked a lot older than us too, in his twenties or maybe even his thirties like his cousin. Joe would have said “the guy had experience written all over his face” which wasn’t exactly a good thing, but Beth and Harold could care less, both were too busy grooving to the music to notice something like that. Somewhere around two the Runagates stopped playing and there was a break so another band could set up. By this time I was seconds away from fainting from the heat, the music, hunger and the stench of patchouli oil but unlike me, the whole thing jazzed Beth and Harold. They were engrossed in conversation with Josh and his gang; rapping about the band and how they sounded just like the Rolling Stones when they did Satisfaction, which was impossible because no band even on their best day could come close to sounding like the best rock band that ever lived. No one noticed as I left the group to check out the scene; actually I was hoping to find some food and something to drink. I circled around the crowd, through a sea of unfamiliar faces. Everyone pretty much looked the same, smelled the same. There were couples everywhere I looked making out—right in front of everyone like it was the most normal thing in the world. It took every ounce of self-control I had to keep my legs moving and my eyes from staring. There were a few little kids running around barefoot and dirty, blowing soap bubbles and laughing; they looked like miniature hippies. There was a small crowd gathered around a green wooden stand painted with daisies where a woman with long gray hair braided to her waist was selling vegetarian food. She looked older than Ma and the guy with her could have been her son except he kept patting her on the rear and kissing her right on the lips as they worked side-by-side doling out food to the starving crowd. A hot dog and Coke were nowhere to be found so I chose this vegetable medley thing that came in this weird bread they called a pita and feeling inspired I picked a freshly squeezed orange-carrot-papaya cocktail to go with it. I found a spot on the edge of the crowd and sat down to eat and watch everyone. The vegetable medley thing turned out to be really good. I must have been starving because ordinarily any sandwich without a hunk of salami or ham or at the very least bologna was inedible. I had a clear view of Beth and Harold as they sat animated in conversation with Josh. Beth was a real chameleon in that she fit in anywhere, with anyone. There she was in the middle of this group of complete strangers laughing and talking as if she knew them all her life. I wished I could have been more like her because there I sat on the outside of the crowd eating a vegetable medley all by myself. It wasn’t that I wasn’t having a good time; it was just that I felt like an outsider, like I had crashed this really great party and at any moment someone was going to realize it and give me the boot or call the cops or something.
The group after the Runagates was called The Sharks. They were gorgeous—even Harold had to admit it. Beth and Harold and I left Josh and his followers to go sit right in front of the band where we could see the sweat on the lead singer’s upper lip. It was our first groupie experience. Beth and Harold sat swaying to the music while eating the vegetable medleys I brought them. I was completely mesmerized by the band and the lead singer in particular, in some kind of trance that Beth would later describe as my “altered state.” I was a love-in virgin, a concert-going novice, a liveband-watching rookie and I was hooked on the experience worse than any big city junkie on heroin. The lead singer was so cool with his long hair and thick sexy lips that wrapped around the microphone when he sang. I know it was just my imagination, my music addicted brain misinterpreting reality but I swear there were times when he was looking right at me when he sang, that he was singing at least one of his songs directly to me.
During the break we went back to our spot with Josh’s crowd. By this time it was late in the afternoon, almost five and I thought about calling Ma just to check in but then I got into this deep conversation with Shar, who didn’t look all that much older than Danny when you were right up close to her. She even reminded me of Dan with her big dark eyes that took over her face when she talked. She started telling me all about her and Don and how they had just met the week before but were madly in love and having sex all day long. In fact, Shar was “so horny she just wanted to do it right there.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said. “I mean there’s people all around and stuff. And cops. You might get arrested for indecent exposure or something. I think there’s some kind of law against it.” People had been making out all day but no one actually had full-blown sex like Shar was talking about. “Who cares? It wouldn’t be the first time I ended up in the can!” she said with such pride it was pitiful. “Well, don’t you think you should at least wait till it gets dark?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she laughed, “but look how cute Donny is. Don’t you just want to ball him?” “Jeez, God!” I gasped.
“What? Don’t you think he’s cute?” she asked, the corner of her mouth turned down just slightly when she spoke. “I think he’s kinda old,” I said.
“Old? He’s only thirty-one,” she said a little too defensively. “Thirty-one! Are you kidding? He could practically be my father. And yours!”
“Get out! Trust me, my father’s nothing like Donny. We’re on the same wavelength, same vibe so age means nothing. It’s all just numbers. Donny and me are soul mates. Know what I mean?” “Not really,” I said. “I mean Donny and I were connected in a previous life. We’re cosmic twins. We’ve been together through eternity.” “That’s a long time,” I said, my sarcasm completely wasted on Shar.
“You bet it is. We’re on this spiritual journey together that’s been going on forever.”
“I thought you said you just met last week,” I said.
“Yeah, in this lifetime we did. But we’ve been going around together for centuries, maybe even since life as we know it began. We’re both a couple of old souls. The second, I mean the very second Donny and I laid eyes on each other we knew.”
“Knew what?” I asked.
“Knew we’d been together before. Knew each other in a previous life. We just looked into each other’s eyes and there was this recognition. Like I knew him and he knew me. Truly, truly knew each other. So nothing else matters. Our age difference means nothing because we’re connected. Spiritually. Forever.”
“Wow. That’s heavy.”
“He’s a mystic. Both Josh and Donny are. That’s why they’re so special.”
At first when Shar started talking about this past-life stuff I thought she was weird—very weird—but the more I listened to her the more sense it all made. In a way it could explain a lot of stuff about people and relationships. I don’t know maybe it was the music and the affects of inhaling too much patchouli oil that deepened my interest in the things Shar was saying, but before I could ask her more about it she grabbed Don by the hand and was dragging him off somewhere, probably to ball him since she was so horny and everything.
Two other bands played during the evening. The whole night was like this dream. It was like this magical thing was happening to everyone, that to this day I couldn’t properly describe even if I tried. As the sun went down the air was still warm but a gentle breeze cooled our skin. Around seven someone from Josh’s group left and came back with vegetarian burgers and beet chips for everyone. Beth, Harold and I dove into the food like it was our last meal. Shar and Don were feeding each other the chips while Josh was staring into this other girl’s eyes without speaking or eating. It was like he was meditating. She just looked back at him; the only thing moving was her mouth as she chewed her vegetarian burger. Beth, Harold and I sat in our own little group giggling insanely as we stuffed ourselves.
“These vegetarians burgers aren’t half bad,” I said. “Yeah eh, considering they don’t have any meat in them,” Harold said which made us howl even harder. “They’d be really good if they had some meat in them,” Beth snorted through laughter. She sounded just like a pig.
“Yeah, they could use a little grease too,” I said, “I mean, what’s a burger if it isn’t dripping in grease.”
“Oh my God,” Beth gasped.
“What?”
“Isn’t that one of the guys from The Sharks?”
“Where?” I squealed.
“Over there. Next to that guy and girl with the long hair.”
“Which ones?” I asked. “Everyone’s got long hair.”
“The ones with the really long hair, down to their waists. The guy wearing the beaded headband. Next to him. Oh my God. I think it is. The lead singer. No wait. The drummer. They both look the same. I wonder if they’re brothers.” Beth kept going on and on like some star-struck fan. You’d think the guy was Mick Jagger or Elton John or someone else real famous like that.
“It is!” Harold said. “The drummer. It is him. He’s carrying his sticks. Oh my God. He’s coming this way.”
“Oh my God! He is. I’m going to be sick!” I heard myself saying the words but it was like they were actually coming out of someone else’s mouth. I really was a groupie. “I’ve never been this close to a rock musician before. Oh my God, he is gorgeous. Almost as gorgeous as the lead singer. And he’s almost as gorgeous as Mick Jagger.”
He wasn’t coming to talk to us but for a few heavenly seconds the thrill of the possibility was beyond belief. We all must have been holding our breath as he walked by because as soon as he slipped into the crowd we exhaled at once which set off another round of uncontrollable giggles. Bits of vegetarian burger flew everywhere.
“Isn’t he just the sexiest guy you have ever seen,” Beth said, stuffing what was left of her burger into her empty cup. “Yeah. He was pretty cute,” I agreed. “But I think the lead singer is just a littler cuter.”
“I agree,” Harold said. “He’s definitely got better hair too. You gonna eat that,” he asked, pointing to Beth’s burger, “’cause if you’re not I’ll finish it. I’m starved man.”
“Jeez. That’s gross,” I groaned. “Yuck!”
“What’s gross about it?” Harold asked like he didn’t have a clue.
“Beth’s already thrown it out,” I said.
“No she hasn’t. It’s just in her cup. It’s not like I’m digging it out of the garbage or anything.”
“God, you two. Do you ever give it up? Here Hank,” Beth said handing him the cup full of burger and shaking her head. Later that evening when the last band The Snails were playing, Josh who had disappeared with that hypnotized girl, returned all kind of excited. It was around ten-thirty, the band was in the middle of a Cat Stevens tune Hard Headed Woman, and Beth, Harold and I were lost in the song.
Josh’s group did a little huddle around him and the girl but we kept singing and swaying to Hard Headed Woman. I could smell the pot but I had smelled it off and on all day so I wasn’t too freaked out. Right in the middle of the chorus Josh leaned over to Beth and handed her the joint. Beth took a drag like she did this sort of thing every day and passed it to Harold who did the same and then Harold passed it to me. At first I hesitated and thought Joe would kill me but then I thought Joe tried to kill me last week for less so I took the joint from Harold and took a drag. I started to cough— choke actually—as the smoke burned its way down my chest. I handed it back to Harold who took another drag before passing it to Beth who also took a drag and passed what was left back to Josh who sucked the last little bit of it and then popped the butt into a pouch he had inside his jeans. By this time all three of us were coughing and choking and laughing so hard I thought I was going to wet my pants. Everything anyone said seemed funny—the way the lead singer held the microphone was funny, the way Shar and Don kissed looked funny, the way the crowd danced looked hilarious, suddenly Harold’s hair looked ridiculous and Beth’s nose looked goofy, my toes looked weird, everything, absolutely everything looked strange. Then the band started playing The Doors, People are Strange and we belted out the song with such intensity you’d think we were Jim Morrison himself. We held pretend microphones and played air guitars.
We sang and then burst into such great fits of laughter. We rolled and tumbled on the grass like children, carefree and happy. It was like the world suddenly turned sweet without any bad in it at all—only wonder and joy and silliness.
About an hour later we were hungry again. The band was playing the last song of the night, In The Midnight Hour. It was kind of a tradition at our high school dances for the band to play it as their last song. All the couples would get up for one last dance and grope around the dance floor while everyone else headed toward the door, stealing backward glances at the cute guy you had a crush on dancing with an equally cute girl, fantasizing that maybe someone really cool would come up to you and pluck you out of the crowd of losers and ask you to dance and then maybe take you home or to the A and Dub where your status could be instantly elevated to a “chick of interest” instead of wallflower nerd.
“Oh I just love this song!” Harold screamed and then began to sing along with The Snails.
“I’m famished,” I shouted over Harold’s singing.
“Me too,” Beth shouted, rubbing her stomach as she stood up.
“Feel like pizza or Chinese?”
“Pizza,” I shouted back.
“Sounds good,” she agreed. “Let’s go Mr. Midnight Hour. The ball’s over and it’s time for Cinderella to get pizza pie!” Harold continu