Chapter 16
The next morning I woke up to the sound of some commotion outside my bedroom window. At first I thought it was another of those nightmares I had been having where I’m being chased by this crazy man carrying an axe like it was a rifle; in my dream he was chasing me through Glenn Park because he was ordered to kill me by this voice inside his head that he said was God. Eventually we’d end up at my high school where he’d corner me in the Physics lab and I’d get away by throwing a test tube full of acid in his ugly face, he’d melt in a puddle on the floor only to reappear another night and start chasing me all over again. Anyway, that’s what I thought it was when I heard this noise. I opened my eyes and listened trying to make sense of the sounds. I could hear Ma saying something to Joe but I couldn’t make out the words because on top of her voice all I could hear was this steady thumping sound.
When I realized what it was I jumped out of bed and stuck my head out the window. Below was Joe chopping away at the tree. He wasn’t even doing it properly, not that I was an expert in tree chopping but I could tell by the way he was hacking at it Joe wasn’t either.
“Ma! What’s going on?” I yelled. She looked up with this look on her face that was a cross between terror and sadness. Before she could speak Joe started yelling at me.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” he said. “I’m chopping the damn tree down.”
I flew down the stairs and out the door.
“Stop that!” I pleaded. “We’ve had this tree all my life. You can’t just go chopping it down!”
“Like hell I can’t,” Joe shouted.
“Stop it!” I screamed as I lunged at Joe. Ma started crying and tried to pull me off Joe’s back. I was pounding him on the back screaming at him to stop. Joe wasn’t a very big man but he was muscular and had a lot of strength. He threw me off like I was an annoying housefly. Ma and I both landed on the grass a few feet away. Joe went back to chopping down the tree like we weren’t even there. I stood up and started screaming at him again. “Stop Joe! Stop!” I pleaded but Joe just kept on chopping. “Why the tree?” I was crying by then. Then Joe stopped, turned and pointed the axe at me like it was a gun—just like the guy in my dream. “Your sister comes home from the hospital today. There’ll be no more climbing out of this tree in the middle of the night. I know what you do Jo. In the middle of the night. Running off by yourself like some whore. Going down to that creek. I know everything. Everything that goes on in this house I know about. Now get outta here.”
I stood there frozen in horror. Joe had said some pretty mean ugly things to me in the past but most of the time he was drunk so I didn’t hold it against him but this was the first time he ever called me names, bad names. I could feel Ma tugging at my shirtsleeve to go back in the house with her but I couldn’t move. It was like I had been hit with a bullet that didn’t kill me but left me paralyzed. By this time a few of our neighbors had gathered around the Fasano family spectacle. Over the last few days we had become their prime source of entertainment, which was doubly hard on Ma because she was so private. It was bad enough to have all this terrible stuff happen but to have it witnessed by the entire neighborhood was a humiliation she could not bear. “Go on in the house Jo! Go on!” he screamed, all the while shaking the axe at me.
“Come in Jo,” Ma whispered. “Come in. I’ll make tea and white toast.” That was Ma’s solution to everything that hurt. Tea and white toast. If you had a headache. Tea and white toast. If you had the stomach flu, the first thing you got after a night of vomiting. Tea and white toast. If you had a bad day at school. Tea and white toast. Your father calls you a whore. Tea and white toast. Your father blames you for your sister falling out of a tree. Tea and white toast. Your father chops down your beloved tree. Tea and white toast. Some things were so simple in Ma’s mind. Either that or everything was simple. Nothing could ever be so bad that a little tea and white toast couldn’t fix. Or maybe it was that in Ma’s mind nothing could ever be that bad. I went in with her and had a cup of tea and white toast. Afterwards I went up to my room, looked out my window at the tree lying on the ground like a corpse then went into the bathroom and threw up.
Ma and Joe brought Danny home after lunch. They rented a wheel chair from the hospital; the first thing she wanted me to do was wheel her over to Beth’s to see Sam. I think she missed the dog more than anything else. Sam was in their back yard snoozing under the tree. Beth was nowhere in sight. Danny called Sam and he came running, put his front paws on her lap and started licking her face. Sam loved Danny almost as much as she loved him. “Atta boy. I missed you so much Sammy. I’ll never leave you again.” Danny was crying into the dog’s neck she was so happy. Why do girls do that? Ma said it’s because it’s the only safe emotion for a woman. People, meaning men, “don’t like an angry woman or one that’s too sad or even one that’s too happy so no matter what we’re feeling there’s a good chance we’ll cover it up with tears or slip into them like comfortable pajamas.”That’s just what Ma said. It didn’t make sense to me when I was a young girl but as time passed and my emotional range broadened I found myself crying more and more. Danny learned early I guess. Poor Danny. She didn’t realize dogs weren’t like people in that they didn’t live real long lives and that one day and maybe even one day soon old Sammy wouldn’t be around any more. But I wasn’t going to tell her, instead I watched my little sister toss Sam’s favorite ball across the yard so he could chase it and bring it back to her all slobbery and wet. They played their little games all afternoon while I watched. Dan was a little like Ma in a way. Simple things could heal anything. Just before dinner Beth and Harold showed up; they had been at Boulevard Lake all day swimming. I was probably just being overly sensitive but for a moment when they told me where they had been without me, I felt left out and sad.
“Hey Danny! How’s it going?” Beth asked, as she patted Dan’s head like she was the dog not Sam.
“Good,” Dan said as she clung to Sam like she was afraid Beth was going to take him away.
“Those are pretty cool looking casts,” Beth said. “They could use a little color though.”
“I guess,” Dan said.
“Yeah. One time when I was a little kid about six or seven, I was walking along this fence like it was tight rope. I was pretending
I was in the circus and I fell off, broke my leg in three places and had to wear a cast the whole summer.”
“Just like me,” Dan said.
“Uh-huh. Just like you. Anyway I hated the thing so my Mom suggested I draw and color on the cast to make it look nicer,” Beth said. She was on her knees examining Danny’s casts running her fingers up and down them like a blind person reading Braille. “Did you like the cast after that?” Dan asked.
“No. But I liked the way they looked a whole lot better. And it was a fun thing to do,” Beth said.
“Oh,” Dan said.
“Would you like me to fix up your casts so they look better too?” Beth asked. “You can help. It’ll be fun.”
Danny was really enjoying the attention showered on her, not just by Beth but also by everyone. Beth went into the house and came back with a box of art supplies, a tin of kid’s watercolor paint, felt marker pens, crayons and stickers. Beth, Harold and I gathered around Dan’s cast and began to create. Dan just sat there like the queen with Sam’s head resting on her lap as we transformed her legs into two psychedelic works of art. She was a living Peter Max poster. By the time we were through the casts were covered in pop art, daisies, peace symbols, abstracted portraits of all of us including Sam.
“Jo-Jo, I had no idea you were such an artist?” Beth said, after
I finished one of my portraits.
“Yeah, call me Picasso,” I said as I added another daisy to Dan’s cast.
“Seriously. Have you thought of going to art school?” Beth asked, forming a square with her thumbs and pointer fingers and putting them around my daisy like a frame. She squinted at it from different angles like she was some serious New York art critic. “Is this another one of your crazy schemes for my life? You’re the same person who thought Harold and I could act remember,” I said, signing my name with this big curly J and F that wound around to form another flower.
“Come on Jo.” Harold, who had been pretty quiet while we were drawing, jumped into the conversation, “you’ve always been able to draw. She’s really good at doing those cartoons eh. Even when we were just kids she could draw anything.”
“Go on! I’m not that good. It’s just doodling. Fooling around. I do it when I get bored. Don’t go building a career out of it eh,” I said pretending to be annoyed but secretly flattered that Harold and Beth thought I had artist potential.
“It’s not like the acting thing,” Beth said. “I admit that was a bit of a miscalculation on my part.”
“See! Did you hear that Harold. We are not good actors! She admitted it!” I said.
“I knew that,” Harold said. “We were just having some fun Jo.
You take everything so seriously all the time.”
“I do not! I definitely do not!” I argued.
“Suit yourself,” Harold said.
“Suit yourself,” I said, making a face and rolling my eyes. “Suit yourself, suit yourself. You’re so brilliant Korkala. Suit yourself. Is that all you can say?”
“Shut up Jo!” Danny screamed out of the blue scaring the bejesus out of us. “Stop fighting. Everybody’s always fighting.”
“Hey! We’re not fighting squirt,” I said in the most reassuring voice I could muster. “Harold and I are just talking. We’re not fighting.”
“Yeah Dan,” Harold agreed. “This is just me and Jo talking.
Nobody’s fighting. We’re okay.”
“Why don’t we take Dan for a little ride now that she has wheels of her own,” Beth said as she took the handles of Danny’s wheel chair and started wheeling her out of the yard with old Sam in tow.
“We should be heading home for dinner,” I said.
“Just for a short ride Jo?” Dan put on her famous sad sack look that made it impossible for me to say no.
“Okay. But just around the block and then we gotta go home or Ma will be worried. That’s all I need is to get us both in trouble on your first day home,” I said.
Ma had all Danny’s favorite foods for dinner that night— spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread and chocolate ice cream for dessert. We sat around the dinner table like your typical happy family, chatting about the day. My parents raved on about how Danny’s casts were works of art and how we should save them when they came off. No one mentioned the tree. No one knew the hatred I harbored in my heart for my father.
Later that night Beth and Harold came to pick me up to go to this “thing” at Josh’s place. My parents and Danny had already gone to bed. Neither of them so much as raised an eyebrow when I told them I was going out. I think we were all a little defeated; none of us was up for another fight. We had extended our fight quota for the week.
The “thing” at Josh’s took place in the basement of his cousin Don’s house, not that far from our neighborhood. There was another row of wartime houses that fringed the old wealthy part of town where all the doctors and lawyers lived. These wartime houses must have been built for a slightly better class of military man because they were more stylish than the ones we lived in or maybe it was that some of the wealth of the next street rubbed off making them seem nicer. I could smell pot and incense the second we opened the door to the basement. Music was playing and people were sitting around cross-legged, some were smoking cigarettes, everyone was grooving to the music while they laughed and talked. It was a little like the scene at the love-in. Donny and Shar were there holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. Josh was sitting with a couple of girls; I recognized one of them from the love-in. The Doors were playing on the hi-fi. My first thought only in Ma’s voice was “Jo turn around and leave. Leave now before anything bad happens.” I was scared but Beth and Harold were already right into the scene and before I could run a guy came up to me and took my hand and brought me into the circle on the floor. I followed him silently, my eyes quickly scanning the room for Beth and Harold. They had already made their way next to Josh. The guy introduced himself as Robert. I could barely breathe or speak but I managed to tell him my name.
“You have beautiful hair Jo,” he whispered, as he touched my hair and brought a strand up to his nose and started inhaling deeply. He closed his eyes and breathed in my hair again before letting it drop to my shoulders.
“Thanks,” I said, completely disarmed. God, what do you say after a total stranger smells your hair? I was in Kooksville for sure. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said, staring just a little too close for comfort. I could feel his warm breath on my face.
“Thanks. You do too.” I didn’t know what else to say. I was worried he was going to work his way through all my body parts. We were only at my head and he was already touching me. What happens when he reaches my breasts? Or lets say he gets past the breasts and we’re at my stomach or legs. What then?
“What’s your sign?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your sign?” he asked again.
“What?” I repeated. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
“Your astrological sign. I’m a Gemini.” Seeing my confusion,
Robert asked me when I was born.
“August ninth. I’ll be sixteen.”
“Leo,” he said like he just made everything perfectly clear.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re a Leo. Excellent man. You’re a pretty good match for a Gemini. I could have guessed you were a Leo by the hair and eyes.” He started to smell my hair again and said, “your hair, definitely Leo. A beautiful mane. Just like a lion. I bet you’re fierce like one too.”
Good God. This guy was nuts. But I had to admit I was intrigued. This was my first encounter with someone foreign, someone outside of the neighborhood or school who was actually interested in me. In some kooky way I was flattered by Robert’s attention. Is this how it happens? Is this how women end up with men who are all wrong for them? They get sucked in because some idiot in a dark and pot soaked room tells them they have beautiful eyes and hair. Had this been another time or place, like at school for instance, Robert would have definitely fallen into the nerd category. In some ways he was even nerdier looking than Harold, if that was possible. He had sand colored hair, light brown eyes and black horn-rimmed glasses not all that different from Harold’s. His teeth were just slightly bucked with a space big enough to pass a dime between them, his lips were full and his skin was so pale you could almost see through it. He was also older, in his twenties like Josh. He was very tall, well over six feet and slender but he did have a sexy confident body. In some crazy, goofy way I was attracted to him. I swear this is how it happens. Men flatter stupid women and they fall in love. Robert was talking to me but I really wasn’t hearing what he was saying. It was like I was in this bubble that filtered out only the words I wanted to hear, the ego-building things like how pretty I was and how great my tan looked and what a great body I had. It was weird because when he asked if I wanted to go outside for a walk it seemed such a natural thing to do. I looked over at Beth and Harold. They were engrossed in conversation with Josh’s circle of followers and didn’t even notice when Robert and I got up and slipped away. I could have been walking to my death with Richard Speck, that guy who killed all those nurses in their apartment in Chicago.
As soon as we got outside Robert pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. He paused for a second at the end of the driveway to light it and then we headed towards Hillcrest Park overlooking the city. Silently we walked towards the park, Robert involved with his cigarette and me without a word to say to this tall stranger.
“You from around here?” he asked finally.
“Yeah. I live just about a mile away. What about you?” I asked. “Toronto. I’ve been here a couple of weeks,” he said, taking a drag from his cigarette and blowing tiny smoke rings skyward towards the moon.
“Are you friends of Josh’s?” I asked.
“Just met him a few days ago in the park. He invited me to crash at his place so I might stay the summer. Who knows?” he said.
“Where were you headed when you met Josh?” I asked. “West. I just got on my motorcycle two weeks ago and just started heading west. Thought I might go right out to the coast. I’ve never seen the ocean. Thought that might be cool. But this is pretty cool. Josh’s a pretty decent guy.”
“So you just hopped on your motorcycle one day with no particular place to go and just started riding?”This thought fascinated me. He was the first person I had ever met who had ever done something like that. Like Jack Kerouac out On the Road. It was one of those romantic notions you just read about in books but didn’t actually know people who did it.
“Yeah. I was fed up with school and my life back there. My old lady and I broke up and I thought why not? Why not take a road trip, see a bit of this country and see what happens.”
“You go to school?” I said as though that was the most shocking news I had ever heard.
“Physics. U of T. In my last year. If I go back I’ll be working on my thesis but I can’t think about that right now. It all got to be too much with my old lady and school. I don’t know maybe.” We got to the park and sat on the stone wall overlooking the old part of the city, the part where both my parents grew up and met. In the daylight you could see the Sleeping Giant languishing across the water and the grain elevators that stood guard over the harbor and where half the men in town worked their entire lives. Robert pulled out another cigarette, offered me one again. I shook my head no and he shrugged his shoulders. We sat quietly side by side, each in our own thoughts and watched the city below. The air was still warm from the day; a gentle breeze was blowing off the water, cooling our skin. He was an odd guy but familiar like Harold so I wasn’t afraid to be with him. Ordinarily this was the kind of situation that would have made me paranoid; this was one of those things that Ma had warned me about. Never talk to strangers and for God’s sake don’t take walks with them to deserted parks in the middle of the night. Don’t be crazy Jo. But Robert hadn’t even tried to touch me, not even to take my hand and considering the way he was carrying on at Josh’s I had to admit I half expected him to, wanted him to. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I must be going crazy. Given the events of the summer, Beth and all the weird things we did I had to be going over the edge. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, everything in my world was turned upside down and backwards. Not much of it made sense. “Do you want to walk downtown? Go for a coffee?” Robert asked softly, breaking the silence.
“No, I don’t think so. I should be getting back to my friends. They’re probably wondering about me,” I said.
“I doubt it. By now they are probably completely under Josh’s spell and didn’t even notice your absence. But that’s okay. Let’s go.” Without protest, he slid off the wall and took my hand to help me down and dropped it once I had my bearings. We walked back to Josh’s in silence. It was like we came into each other’s life for this very brief and bizarre moment, fell in love, said all that we had to say to each other and broke up under the watchful eye of the Sleeping Giant. That was that.
Back at Josh’s he took me to see his motorcycle and asked,
“You wanna go for a ride?”
“I’ve never been on a motorbike before,” I said, nervous and excited all at the same time.
“So. Get on.”
Before I could even think about the consequences I was on the back of Robert’s bike with my arms wrapped around his waist. We sped off into the night, not entirely like Romeo and Juliet but it was thrilling and in some quirky way, at least in my adolescent mind, painfully romantic. We rode around the city, to all the familiar places but from the back of the bike it was like I was seeing everything for the first time, all new and exciting. Across town and back we rode like Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, around Boulevard Lake and out to Current River and back around the city, passed the grain elevators, through the old parts of town and up Red River Road and past the high school. I clung to Robert and could feel the warmth of his skin beneath his cotton shirt. My hair was flying all around my head like Medusa and every cell in my body was alive and set free.
Back at Josh’s place we sat on the bike for a few minutes clinging to whatever it was that was happening between us. He straddled the bike with his long denim legs holding it in place as I rested my head against his back for a few minutes and then as if on cue I hopped off.
“How was it?” he asked.
“Amazing!” I laughed.
“Good. It should always be amazing your first time.”Then he sped off. Just like that. Leaving me standing there slightly bewildered, with my thumbs in the pockets of my shorts and a burn from his muffler on my leg, which was starting to sting like crazy. When I went back in the house I found Beth and Harold still sitting with Josh. Robert was right; they hadn’t even noticed I was gone. I joined their circle around Josh. They were either stoned or brainwashed or both. I had read about cults where the leaders have complete control over their followers’ minds. I was worried this was happening to Beth and Harold.
“Hey Jo!” Harold said. “Isn’t this the grooviest man?”
“Oh please,” I said.
“What?” he asked all confused and stupid.
“You’re stoned again,” I said in my most self-righteous voice.
“Am not,” he insisted. “Just grooving to the music man.”
“Quit calling me man. I’m not your man,” I said.
“It’s just an expression Jo. Lighten up eh,” he said.
“It sounds so stupid coming out of your mouth,” I said, “anyway I have to go.”
“No you don’t. Who was that guy you were with?” he asked. “Just a guy. I think his name was Robert or something,” I said in this fake casual voice.
“Right on.”
“Jeez. I gotta go.” I felt this sudden urge to flee. Maybe it was the smell of pot, the thick smoke, the black light posters or the strobe light but I had this immediate urge to barf.
“Don’t go.” That’s all Josh said. He looked at me with those dark brooding Heathcliffe eyes and the first thing I know I’m sitting back down staring right back at him. It was the first time since that day in the park that he had actually spoken to me directly and I saw the attraction. I saw clearly why everyone was drawn to him. Like everyone else I wanted to be with him. “We were just rapping and grooving,” he said. “Stay with us,” he whispered in my ear. His lips touched my skin softly as he spoke and this tingling sensation went through my body like gentle electricity, not painful, nor fiery just sensual and irresistible.
I was powerless. I sat there staring back at him. Beth and Harold became this little blur at the side of my head; the only person in the room was Josh. The conversation continued around me but I was still locked in this strange freeze frame. I just wanted to be with Josh, for everyone else to leave so he and I could be alone forever. I sat there mesmerized for what seemed like hours listening to the world around me with a dispassionate ear focusing my attention on Josh who said very little but smiled a lot. Finally, what had to have been hours later, Harold nudged me with his elbow. “Oh my God!” he shrieked. “Look who just walked in the door?” I looked up and watched as The Sharks descended the stairs like four movie stars at the Academy Awards or the Beatles in all the film footage when they got off the plane the first time they landed in America. I thought I was going to die. Or that I had died and gone to heaven after all; God hadn’t held all the events of the summer against me, had forgiven my sins and placed me in the arms of The Sharks for eternity.
“My God, it’s them,” I choked. “What are they doing here?” “I know,” Harold said, squeezing my hand. “This is so unreal. I can’t believe we’re in the same room as them.”
“I can’t believe we’re actually breathing the same air,” I said, my body betraying me as it trembled with excitement revealing just how un-cool, un-hip I really was. “I could just die!”
The lead singer of the band came over and kind of shimmied his way in beside Josh and Beth. Josh nodded hello and then closed his eyes in this kind of meditation thing so the lead singer guy started talking to Beth. The other three members stood outside the main room talking to a few people who were hanging out there. Harold and I were speechless. What do you say to someone like that anyway? We were so far out of our league it was pitiful. I finally closed my eyes and pretended I was doing a meditation like Josh. Every few minutes I’d peek out of the corner of my eye to see if he was still there. All around me were hushed voices, flashing lights, music and pot. It was intoxicating. I didn’t need drugs; the room was drug enough.
“Jo-Jo,” Beth whispered and Harold nudged my side again. “Jo-Jo, this is Erik.” I remember saying something completely brilliant like “hey there.” Harold was equally articulate. “Erik’s with The Sharks,” she said, like we didn’t already know. Did she honestly think I could ever forget a pair of lips like that? A pair of lips that were one hundred times sexier close up. It was true, Harold, Beth and I were in rock-and-roll heaven; maybe not the main part where all the big stars were but we were definitely in some room where all the local celebrities hung out. There we were hanging out with the coolest of the cool in town. Sometime over the summer Harold and I had been reborn or metamorphosized like caterpillars into these really cool butterflies like Beth. I mean she really was the ultimate in cool. She actually belonged in that other part of heaven with the big stars; that’s how cool she was.
Robert never re-appeared that night. Josh never opened his eyes from his meditation, not even to say peace when we finally left. Harold and I sat cross-legged and silent watching Beth and Erik chat intimately and that was thrill enough. The rest of the band never did join us. They stood talking outside Josh’s room with three girls who clung to them like leeches. When we finally got up to leave it was four o’clock in the morning, my body from the waist down was needles and pins from sitting in a cross-legged half-lotus position for four hours. I rode in the back of the Mustang draped across the seat rubbing the needles out of my legs. None of said a word on the ride home. Ma and Joe were asleep when I got in. In another hour or so Joe would be up getting ready for work. Twenty minutes after that Ma would be up making his coffee and breakfast of bacon and eggs, two pieces of white toast with marmalade. It was a smell I loved to wake up to. It comforted me. But this morning I would sleep right through. I would fall peacefully to sleep and dream about Robert and Erik and Josh and all the coolest guys in our town and a little piece of heaven in a basement not far from home.