Chapter 6
I don’t know what it is about me that sometimes I could be so mean spirited towards my sister. Like after that incident with Beth and Harold, I scared Danny to death by telling her she was adopted and that her real parents were murderers and they were going to come back and get her. Ma was furious. She told me to apologize to Danny but I knew Dan really didn’t expect me to. There were two things I never ever said to her: one, I love you and two, I’m sorry. The truth is, she knew I loved her and that I was always sorry—for everything, all the time. We just had this unspoken thing between us that whenever I did something to hurt her, she forgave me even if I didn’t deserve it. We both knew that she was a far better person than I was or ever would be.
“Why are you always tormenting your sister?”
“I ain’t.”
“There’s no such word as ain’t. And you do. I think you take pleasure in seeing her cry.”
“I don’t. Can I help it if she cries over every little thing.”
“You’re forever teasing her. You know how sensitive she is. Try to be nice for once.”
“I am nice. As nice as nice can be.”
Ma sighed like she always did whenever she went to battle with me. She just wanted things to be nice and I had an innate problem with the concept of niceness. It wasn’t in me and trying to make everything in our lives nice wore her out. I regretted being so difficult but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry, but the words got stuck in my throat. That’s just the way it was with Ma and me.
The next day was rainy and full of gloom—the sunny carefree life of the day before washed away like it never happened. I kept thinking about Beth and wondered what it was like to be her, rich and beautiful, smart and talented. What was it like to have it all and that not be enough?
I was draped across my bed and reading comics when Danny came into the room with two Pepsi’s, a big bag of Cheezies and a Fudgsicle for each of us. It wasn’t a peace offering or a bribe. Danny wasn’t like that. It was just Danny being generous, thoughtful and sisterly. I took one of the Fudgsicles and rubbed my hand over the mouth of the Pepsi bottle before I took a drink. Danny opened the bag of Cheezies and placed it strategically between us on the bed so that neither of us had to strain to reach it. She poured her drink into a glass and was methodically dunking her Fudgsicle into it, and then licking the pop off the ice cream expertly with her tongue, she carefully shaped the chocolate into a tidy point. If it had been anyone else I would have been disgusted but Danny did this with such finesse and artistry that it was more fascinating than revolting. Danny and I had different styles when it came to eating crap. While Danny was an artist, I was a seagull. I took a Cheezie in my mouth, licked the Fudgsicle and washed it all down with a gulp of Pepsi. We spent the afternoon reading comics and eating junk, occasionally grunting or laughing out loud at something we read, and belching up Pepsi, chocolate and fake cheese. Sometimes Danny knew exactly what to do to make me feel better. She was pretty smart for a little kid.
The phone rang around four-thirty. Clark Kent was just about to change into Superman so he could pull stupid Lois Lane out of yet another jam, when Ma called up from the bottom of the stairs.
“Jo, it’s that nice girl from across the street. Mr. Luoto’s granddaughter.” “Tell her I’m asleep.”
“I can’t tell her that. It’s the middle of the afternoon for goodness sakes!”
“Tell her I’m sick.”
“I’ll do no such thing. I won’t lie. Now get down here Jo Frances and talk to this poor girl,” Ma shouted impatiently. I had this ability to exasperate my mother beyond reason. I stomped down the stairs, and yanked the phone from her with such force it startled her. Her face grew red and her eyes widened and I think that if she had been the hitting type she would have slugged me with the phone right there and then. Instead she shrugged and went back to her sink full of dishes. With silent rage, she ran the water at full force so I could barely hear Beth when she spoke. “Hey Jo-Jo,” she said brightly as if everything was normal between us. I was beginning to think I was losing my mind. “Yeah. What’s up?” I said, trying to sound bored and disinterested, all the while my heart was racing so fast I thought it was going to run right out of my chest.
“Hank and I had this brilliant idea. We’re going to do a play. Something sort of Off-Broadway. An offbeat take on Shakespeare. Something completely different, completely original.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Us!” she gushed. “Hank, you, me. Danny maybe. It’ll be fantabulous. We thought a modern day Romeo and Juliet would be fun.”
“Yuck! You’re not serious?”
“Dead serious. What’s the problem Jo-Jo?”
“First of all, I’m no actor and neither is Harold if you haven’t noticed. And second of all, who are we doing this for? And trois, what are you thinking? And last but not freaking least, why in the name of God would we ever want to do something so absolutely, positively asinine?”
“You are. And so is Hank. Everybody in the whole world is. Everybody, everyday acts. I wasn’t thinking—I was inspired darrrling. And last but not freaking least, we’ll do it because it’ll be fun. You know fun, Jo-Jo? F-U-N. That scary three-letter word that you don’t seem to know anything about? Any other questions?”
“You think you know everything don’t you? You think you know all there is to know about Harold and me. Like you can blow into town in your red Mustang with your yellow dog and take over. Like Harold and I are supposed to become little actors in your goofy play! And quit calling me Jo-Jo. My name’s Jo—just one freaking Jo!” I screamed into the phone.
The kitchen began to whirl around me. In slow motion, I could see my mother turn away from her dishes with a look of horror on her face. I could see Danny peeking fearfully around the doorway. I could see my old man put his coffee cup down and look up from the sports section of the News Chronicle. My face was on fire and my ears were ringing, the taste of sour cheese welling in the back of my throat. I let the phone drop, dangling like a hanged man, bobbing up and down, Beth on the other end calling my name. I ran out the back door and hopped on my bike, tears blinding, head throbbing, throat raw with anger.
At Hobo Creek I found peace. I always did. There, I was Jo Fasano, not Jo-Jo, some airy-fairy actor in some dumb Shakespeare play—just an ordinary girl from an ordinary town with a simple, uncomplicated life. I didn’t need some hot shot chick from New York or Minneapolis or wherever she was from telling me how to have to live and I especially didn’t need her to tell me how to have fun.
The rain had stopped and the creek bank was soft and silky. I picked up handfuls of the warm muck and tossed it into the water. I kicked off my thongs and dug my long toes into the ground, the sand oozing deliciously around them. The air was rich with that after-rain lushness, where everything looked unreal like I was inside one of the paintings in the art gallery next to the library. I used to go in there sometimes not because I was a big lover of art but because there was something about the paintings and the sculptures that reminded me of the world outside. It was a little glimpse into something bigger, something beyond. After the rain everything was brighter, more intense and purer, closer to God’s intention. Hobo Creek was the closest thing to paradise that I knew. Not for all the reasons you’d expect but for all the little surprises it possessed. It wound its way silently through Cherkover’s field like a giant garter snake swelling at the swimming hole to form a bellylike lagoon. The water was as warm as soup, shallow and filthy but it was the best place to escape in the middle of the summer. It was quiet most of the time too except for the occasional hobo or drunk. Most of the parents in the neighborhood forbade their kids to go near the place because they were afraid something horrible would happen. I was personally more afraid of those snot-nosed kids than I was of some old bum sleeping under a tree. Anyway their fear was my good fortune because I pretty much had the creek to myself most times. I used to bring Danny there to hunt for pollywogs until she cut her foot open on a broken beer bottle.
I warned her not to take her shoes off but she liked the feel of her feet sinking into the spongy black bottom and wouldn’t listen. The first thing I knew Danny was screaming and dancing around like a maniac, blood and mud squirting everywhere. I carried her out of the water and wrapped my sock around her foot. I thought I was going to be sick but I hid my revulsion from Danny long enough to get her home. I’ll never forget the way she clung to that bucket full of pollywogs as I pulled her home in the old red wagon, her face streaked with tears and mud and snot. Ma threw a fit and blamed me as though it was my beer bottle for God’s sake. After that she said I couldn’t bring Danny anywhere near the place. It took six stitches to close up her foot. Ma wouldn’t let Danny bring the pollywogs into the house no matter how many stitches she had so she kept them in the tool shed out back. She named them all like they were a litter of kittens. It was pitiful.
He staggered up from behind me, the smell of booze, vomit, stale cigarettes, body odor and urine preceding him like a cloud and slid down next to me in the mud. A scream caught in my throat, not because I was frightened but because I thought I was alone and he unnerved me for a moment. I hadn’t noticed any of the usual tenants under the trees when I pulled up on my bike. “You got a smoke chicky?” he slurred, his face distorted and twisted from the alcohol, his mouth smeared across the bottom half of his face like one of Danny’s crayon drawings. His Levis were covered in mud and his black tee shirt was skintight with the sleeves torn off. Except for the mud stains his cowboy boots looked new. His long blonde hair dropped over his shoulders in greasy clumps and his dark eyes rolled back lazily into his head like he might pass out at any second.
“Don’t smoke,” I said.
“Bummer man,” he said. “I could really use a smoke.” He looked up at me and started to laugh. Everything I had ever been taught, everything I had read in the papers or heard on the news told me that I should be terrified of this man, and that I should run for my life. But I wasn’t afraid. For one thing, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me and for another, at that moment I didn’t care. “You find that amusing?” I asked
“Wadya mean?” he slurred, his tongue all twisted up inside his mouth.
“Nothing,” I said. “You were laughing.”
“Wadya doin’ out here all by yourself chicky?” he asked, peering through the strands of his greasy hair with this idiotic lopsided grin.
“Who wants to know?”
“The FBI,” he said and then chuckled, obviously impressed with his own quick wit and repartee.
“What a comedian. You should be on Ed Sullivan.”
“Right on man, you think so. Got a smoke?”
“I told you. I don’t smoke. Anyway I gotta go.” I was starting to get anxious and figured it was time to make my exit before this loser wanted something more than a cigarette. I had two things on my side: his reflexes, as Ma would say, “were as slow as molasses in January” and I still had enough pent up fire inside of me to melt it and get out of there before this guy could get serious about getting a cigarette or anything else he might have in mind.
“Hey chicky! You don’t gotta go,” he said, grabbing my ankle as I stood to leave.
“Yeah man. I gotta leave. Now let go of my foot,” I yelled, as I hauled off and kicked him with my other foot.
“Ouch. That hurt. Hey, that’s not nice chicky. I’m just trying to be your friend.”
“Do I look like I wanna be your friend?” I kicked him again and ran barefoot to my bike leaving my thongs in the mud beside him. “Loser!” I screamed. “Stupid drunken bum!” I screamed again, looking back over my shoulder to see if he was following me. I sped through the path, the branches of the trees slapping my face and stinging my eyes as I raced through the bush to the street and safety.
“Crazy chick!” I heard his miserable cry echo through the trees. At least he got that right.