Chapter twenty nine
Loni sits on the bridge with a joint hanging out of her mouth. The fact that at any moment a cop could drive by doesn’t appear to concern her.
Loud enough to shake pavement, Candy Lyod called her a slut in the Pizza Zoo parking lot the week before, and Loni just laughed.
“And proud of it,” she had shouted back, shaking her head in Candy’s direction.
She’s one of a kind. Of course I wasn’t inside her, but from the outside it looks easy to be Loni, or I should say Loni makes life look easy.
I study her as we sit on the bridge, encouraging old memories of the two us to resurface. Though it’s only been two years, one of my favorite memories of Loni took place during science class back in sixth grade.
We were seated at the same table, waiting for our turn to go up and touch the Electro static ball. A group of us were eating Jell-O out of the package, licking our fingers and dipping them into the powder, then sucking the Jell-O off.
We were admiring our bright red fingers when Loni—blonde hair, parted in the center and not quite clean—held up her fist and said, “My knuckles are as hard as a piece of wood and I’ll punch anybody in the face who doesn’t believe it.”
I watch her as she inhales on the joint, and shake my head. She looks over at me and grins, as if she can read my mind.
On these chilly fall days we make a point of hanging out on the bridge with the older kids. They don’t seem to care if we’re around. They often invite us over if they see us sitting on my front step.
There is nothing worse than being younger I’ve decided, and wish there was some way to speed up my internal clock. Loni is fourteen but I have four months until my fourteenth birthday.
Loni turns and straddles the bridge, as if she’s riding a horse. She hollers and yips, letting the joint cling to her purple lips, like Clint Eastwood with a cigar. Her Levi’s crease with every movement of her hips. I occupy myself by reading graffiti on the bridge.
“Do bongs” and “M.R. 76,” (which is Mick’s Masterpiece), “Barb was here!” and “sex is great,” among other sayings, are visible.
I laugh at some of what I read. A few blurbs I can’t understand, but no matter what else happens in Honuwka, I hope nobody ever paints over the bridge. As far as I’m concerned, the poetry of the bridge-sitters is going to make history someday.
We split the joint with Chris Rugby and Antose Barnes. Chris has a tendency to turn into a rock star when he gets high. I saw him on acid once and it wasn’t pretty. “Goddamnmotherfuckingcocksuckingsonofabitchingpud.” Chris jumps up onto the top rail and sings, his feet slipping.
“Get a grip, Chris.” Loni backs off the curb and wipes her runny nose with the back of her hand. Chris begins air guitar playing as we walk away.
“He’s such a Dick-wad.” Loni whispers, as we head down Main Street. “I hate getting high with him. He belongs in a fuckin’ mental hospital.”
We’re off to Timble’s to steal candy, make up, and Binaca breath spray. Stealing is probably a bad thing, I think, hopping over a gutter. As a matter of fact I know it’s bad. But somehow, it’s become a pattern, like brushing my teeth or washing my face. It’s a hard habit to break. It seems to me that it isn’t a matter of if I’d stop stealing, but when.
“Ang,” I hear Loni say, from what sounds like the sky. “When we get there, I’ll block you while you steal the Binaca.”
“Me? I took it last time!”
“No, I did, remember?” Loni’s words sound like they’re coming from the inside of a cotton bin. “It was my turn last time. I remember because I thought Mrs. Timble was following me through the store, and I panicked and ended up buying a trial hair spray just to make it look good. Don’t you remember?”
“Okay.” I surrender, mainly because I can’t remember what she’s talking about and it seems too hard to try.
We pass the Hess station, where Anthony Ruffy worked before he stole money out of the cash register and got canned, and I start thinking about the bagel I had that morning, and how the cream cheese looked. It was very pretty the way it swished around in semi-circles, like a mini painting done with whip cream. My mouth waters. I’m hungry and scared because it’s my turn to steal the Binaca.
Stealing Binaca, in case you’re wondering, is a tricky process. The Timble’s keep it in the toothpaste aisle. Anyone with half a brain knows there’s no earthly reason for a teenager to go in that aisle without looking suspicious. And to make matters worse, Binaca—in its little white aerosol can—sits on the fourth shelf, which is a major stretch for anyone under five foot-five.
Being as high as I am, however, I plot out an elaborate plan. “Okay, here’s the plan,” I whisper to Loni. ”When I get inside Timble’s, I’ll say out loud that I have to remember to get a toothbrush for my sister, or my mom will kill me.”
Mrs. Timble is a nice enough lady. I bank on the fact that she probably wouldn’t want me killed. Plus, I don’t think she knows me well enough to know that I don’t have a sister.
“This way, it’ll look like I have good reason to be in the toothpaste aisle.” I look to Loni for approval but she seems to be drifting off somewhere else.
“Then after I snag the Binaca,” I continue, “I’ll say—out loud again—that it looks like they don’t have the right Mini Mouse toothbrush for Sally (my kid sister), who is very picky about her toothbrushes. See this way I won’t actually have to buy a toothbrush.”
“Brilliant,” Loni says, licking her lips.
“I’ve top myself,” I answer, so excited about trying it out that I don’t notice the yellow convertible VW bug cruising along side of us in the parking lot. Loni is already over by it, talking to the driver, who happens to be none other than Pier Bonham.
My legs go out from under me, and I stumble over the curb in front of Timble’s. My toothbrush idea suddenly loses its flare.
Usually the loss of muscle control, and complete mind-drain, is exactly the sort of affect Pier has on me. And although I have an immense crush on him, I avoid him at all costs, choosing instead, to admire him from a safe distance.
Loni hangs in his car window like a beggar. I can tell by the way her eyes are gleaming that she’s thrilled with the prospect of hooking us up. She’d told me more than once, that she was sick of hearing me blab about him, especially when I refused to “go for him.”
“Hey Angie, come here.” Pier looks at me with his piercing dark eyes and smiles. He is so evil looking, my bottom lip quivers.
I am not at all sure how long I stand on the curb in front of the store. As a matter of fact, I am not sure I am even standing at all. I may very well be lying flat on my back.
Loni grins her best “look what I caught,” grin. I want to kill her—wrap my fingers around her pale stringy neck and squeeze—but I’m tired suddenly, and find myself standing at the driver’s side window smiling in at Pier.
“Hey pretty lady, what’s up?” Pier holds up a Miller beer. “Want a sip?”
I take the beer and sip it. It tastes like cardboard. God, please don’t let me dribble this beer down the front of myself. Don’t let me puke, talk too much, or pass out. Fart, or say something asinine. Just let me get through this alive.
I can not think of one word to say. Weather is not a suitable topic for someone of Pier’s caliber, and he could care less about the fact that I’m hungry, or that Loni just got a new hair cut, or that I can remember sixth grade with more clarity than I’d like. I sure as hell don’t want him to know that I’m on the verge of stealing Pixie Sticks and gummy bears like some kid.
“I need some Binaca; that’s why we’re here,” I blurt, then immediately regret it.
Like he cares. Like Pier Bonham gives a rat’s ass about Binaca, or why I’m at the store. God I hate this.
“You want to go for a ride?” Pier again, looking right through my clothes.
Loni’s already in the back seat, popping open a beer, before I can part my lips. The coolness of the beer penetrates my hand, while I climb in the passenger seat, sending a chill straight down the back of my neck.
It’s so quiet in the car I can hear Loni swig on her beer. The air closes in on me and the dashboard waves hello. I take a deep breath, and catch the scent of pot, pine air freshener, and leather.
“Where’d you get the chipped tooth, Loni?” Pier drives slowly through town, shifting gears with a gentle tug. I crack my window open.
“My old man.” She hurls a breath-cloud on the window then draws a heart inside of it with her finger. “He tripped me in the yard when I was ten. He was shit-faced and don’t even remember doing it. I landed on a rock.”
I look at Pier to see his reaction but there doesn’t seem to be one. He slides one black eye in my direction and winks.
Pier begins talking again, but this time to John Testa, parked on the other side of us. One of John’s buff colored eyes has a piss yellow circle surrounding it—a left over bruise from some brawl. In his hand, hidden in a cast, is a half-empty beer.
I have no memory of arriving at the beach, or of how long we’ve actually been parked here. And it seems to me, as I look at John’s dirty fingers that he’s appeared out of thin air.
Picking away at the label on my beer bottle, I try to pull the paper straight off down the middle. I was informed once by Loni, that if I ripped the label anywhere outside of the two ll’s on the word Miller, it would mean I was horny. Horny. Horny. What a weird word. To be safe, I peel very slowly and deliberately, holding my breath with each tug.
“Give me some!” Loni’s voice, loud enough to jerk me out of my peeling marathon, hammers across the beach. I look in the back seat, but she isn’t there. I glance over Pier’s head, and see her standing near John’s truck, grabbing at his beer.
God, I’m alone with Pier Bonham in a very small car. His car. The car. The very one I watch drive through town, from my bedroom window wishing I were in it. Now I am. What if there’s something hanging out of my nose. What if, and this would really be the end, that zit on my chin is leaking? When did Loni get out of the car?
Pier adjusts the volume down on the Doobie Brothers, while I continue to pick at my beer label. The paper is wet from bottle-sweat and sticks to my fingers like snot. I try to wipe if off on my pants but it refuses to let go.
“You aren’t thirsty, Angela?” Pier points at my beer.
“No, yeah, I don’t know.” I take another sip, and give one last ditch-effort to lose the wad of soggy paper.
“Angie, Angie, Angie,” he sighs, “why do you always run away from me?”
His question makes me give up the battle with the label. I sit back and let the wet paper cling to my ring finger any way it likes.
He brushes my hair out of my face. A bolt of something more powerful than God, shoots through my legs. I grab the door handle.
“I don’t run from you.” I look out the window, planning an escape route. There is nothing out there but beach and grass and Loni. I squeeze my bottle so hard, it should crack. I want to go home.
“Yeah you do Angie.” He pulls my hand over and wraps it up in his. “It’s like you see me and you take off. Do you hate me or something?”
“No!” Hate him? Hate Pier Bonham? That’s a good one. “No. I, no. I, well, I’m shy.” I suck in on my lip and wait for him to kick me out of the car.
“Shy? Hmm. I like that answer.” His fingers slide across my knuckles.
I can hear Loni’s bark-like laugh rip through the atmosphere. I look past Pier to see John, playfully twisting her arm behind her back. She rolls over the hood of his car and smashes his cigarettes.
“Ah man, you smashed my butts.” John’s voice floats over Loni’s high pitched giggles, and sits somewhere in the back of my ears. I glance at Pier’s fingers.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Pier purrs in my ear.
“The lake,” I lie. “I was wondering why it turns itself over in the fall.”
“To clean itself; I guess.” He shrugs, trying to look in my eyes. “That’s what I like about you Angie, you notice things. I want to kiss you.”
Kiss me. Kiss me. He wants to kiss me. My mouth feels like an old sock. OH, SHIT.
“Yeah?” What a stupid thing to say.
“Yeah. Can I kiss you?” Pier runs his finger across my chin. “Yeah.” My legs shake as he licks my teeth. He tastes like beer and pot.
“What’s going on in here?” Loni’s face fills up the window. She laughs and simultaneously drags on a cigarette.
“I need some air.” I internally thank Loni, and leap out of the car.
Loni throws a pebble at me and wiggles her eyebrows. I take hold of my ring finger, pinch the wet paper off, and flick it at her forehead.
“Shh,” I hiss at her. “Do not say one word.”
It’s hazy over the lake, appropriately, since nothing feels clear. I’m surprised to see the raft floating out in the swimming area. Usually, at this time of year, it’s laid to rest on shore by the pine trees. The red and blue ropes surrounding it bob around in the waves. The raft, itself, looks lonely.
Pier stands next to me, carefully sipping his beer, and looks out at the few boaters left, whizzing across the water. John lights up another joint and passes it to Loni, who snatches it up and sucks hard. I pass on it, knowing that as it is, I am going to have a hard enough time convincing my mother that I’m straight.
A police car lurches around the corner, and heads down the road toward us. It travels relatively quickly, kicking up gravel behind it. We ditch the beer under the car, toss the joint in the lake, and start to walk along the shore. The trooper slides up behind us and opens his door before he comes to a full stop.
“What’s up, folks?” I hear him yell, as he waddles toward us. His car door is left open and I can hear his radio. My heart starts racing, even though I don’t really believe anything will happen. It never does.
“Not much,” Pier says nonchalantly, “just enjoying the day.”
“Just enjoying the day, eh?” The trooper—whom I recognize as the infamous Trooper Belcher—grins. He pulls his belt up around his stomach.
“Not giving these two young ladies any alcohol are you?” I look at the place where his eyes should be, but can’t see anything in his mirrored sunglasses, except a distorted image of myself.
“These two?” John announces, waving toward Loni and I with a swing of his filthy cast. “Nah, they walked up on us. We were already here, shooting the breeze; we didn’t invite ‘em.”
I look at the lake and bite my lip so hard I nearly yipe. Pier says nothing. He intermittently kicks sand with his black boots.
“Okay then.” The trooper rearranges a wad of tobacco to the right side of his cheek, and smirks. “If that’s the case, just don’t throw any trash around.”
“Have a good day, officer” John waves. “Ya fucking asshole,” he whispers under his breath, as Belcher lowers himself back into the driver’s seat.
Belcher backs the car silently out of the driveway and waves one fat hand out the window. I watch the taillights as they disappear up Beach Road, forcing myself not to run after them.
Loni heads over to the car, presumably to get another beer. She acts as if she hadn’t heard John’s remark about us not being invited.
And when I brought it up to her later that night, her only remark was, “Ah, he was just saying that so the cop wouldn’t think he was giving us any beers. Men are a bunch of fuckin’ chicken shits. They’d rather pretend they don’t know you than admit to what they really want.”
Her sneakers make small slip-tracks in the mud, as she walks toward the car. She leans in the back seat to snag a bottle, and shouts something over her shoulder. Her butt is in the air, on display, in case anyone is interested.
“Angie, will you go out to dinner with me sometime?” Pier grabs my elbow as we walks toward the VW. I stare at Loni’s footprints and the broken glass from John’s beer. “You know, a date.”
“I’m not allowed in cars yet.” I continue staring at the ground, as if he’d only asked me for the time.
I can’t go out to dinner with Pier. He’s Mick’s age—out of high school one whole year already—and besides, I’ve never been on a real date before. I can’t eat in front of Pier. I’d spill stuff down the front of my shirt, knock over my water glass, and say stupid things like, ‘boy this is good steak.’ My stomach would start hurting and I’d get diarrhea and spend the whole night in the bathroom. I’d have to lie to my mom in order to get out of the house at dinnertime, and since I’m not allowed in cars, where would Pier and I go? The Pizza Zoo? My mom would have a cow if she found out and ground me for the rest of my life.
“Well, maybe we can work something out.” Pier looks at John and makes some kind of “older guy” eye-signal.
“I gotta go.” I know I’ve blown it and I just want the humiliation to cease. “My mom will be wondering where I am.”
“I’ll drop you off at the bridge.” Pier opens the car door.
“No, that’s okay. I can walk.” I back away.
“Get in the car, Angie. I want to drive you home.” Pier snatches my sleeve, and pulls me toward the car.
“Better make it the gas station then, otherwise my mom might see me get out of the car.” I force a lump the size of a grapefruit down my throat and slide in the car, wishing that I could just shut up about my mother.
“I’m gonna ride with John, so he’s not too lonely,” Loni grins, leaping into his truck without even glancing at me. I will her to look at me, but all I see is her mouth moving through the windshield of John’s truck, as he steers toward the road.
Pier is incredibly quiet on the ride back to town. I sneak a glance at his profile. He is dark, long, muscular, and terrifying. Half Italian, half Cherokee, his thick hair is so black it’s literally blue, like the illustration of Superman’s hair in the comic strip.
He pulls into the driveway of the Hess station and shifts into neutral. I work up the guts to look him straight in the eyes. Wrapping his long fingers around the gearshift, he smiles, and kisses my cheek.
“Stay out of trouble, Angie. I’ll be around.”
“Okay.” I stumble out of the car, and numbly walk to my front door. Okay. Okay? What a stupid-ass thing to say. Okay?
****
Lenny and Dana have reunited. And aren’t fighting. In celebration, Jim and I smoke a joint with them, split a six pack, and loiter around Main Street. The nights are getting pretty chilly, which is rather disheartening; since winter is a drag.
The pot smells wonderful mixed with the cool night air, and I inhale deeply as I walk toward the church. Lenny is virtually silent, as usual, while Jim chatters constantly, about the Violet incident, which happened the day before at school.
We were standing on the hill near the gas station after school, when Violet and Jim’s twin brother Jon—who have become an item—came up to join us. Jon decided, out of nowhere, to stick his hand down Violet’s shirt and fiddle with her tits. I was talking to Jim and when I turned around, Jon had his hand half way down Violet’s shirt, practically tweaking her belly button.
“What the hell are you doing?” I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Jon didn’t answer me. He just grinned and giggled, like a little kid who’d just found something he wasn’t supposed to have. Violet didn’t even flinch. He almost knocked her over trying to get her bra off, and she just readjusted her stance so they wouldn’t tumble down the hill.
“Violet, why are you letting him do that?” I screamed.
Violet shrugged. Lights on but nobody home.
“Jon, knock it off,” Jim said, his face rearranging color.
“Mind your own business, shit-head,” Jon said, tickling Violet in the stomach until she finally made a slight grunting noise. “She don’t care so why should you?”
“I care,” I said.
“Why?” Jon’s hand caught in Violet’s collar.
“Because it’s rude and disrespectful.” I wanted to punch him in the face so badly, my hands burned.
He shrugged again, but took his hand out of Violet’s shirt, and dragged her over to the store. I watched them cross the street, hand in hand, like the “All American couple.”
“Yeah, I still can’t get over that,” I say to Jim, as we come up on the church parking lot. “It’s like your brother was someone else.”
“He’s an asshole.” Jim snorts. “Everyone thinks he’s the nice, goody-goody twin, but the truth comes out eventually.”
“Fuck it.” Lenny flicks an ash off the joint. “If she lets him, she lets him. It’s none of our business.”
Lenny lives in a world where nothing really matters. He never invites anyone over to his house, or in to the space he occupies in his mind. To me, he’s like a flower garden surrounded by barbed wire. I told Dana that if she were especially lucky, there might just come a day when she could touch a petal, without getting her hand ripped apart.
Out of nowhere, Lenny picks up a rock and throws it through the church window, shattering one of the saints to shreds. I watch glass fall out onto the blacktop and crumble down in through the broken window. All I can picture is colored glass scattered inside all over the pews, like the windshield of Kevin’s car, and wonder what the minister will say when he walks in and sees it Sunday morning. I feel someone grab my arm.
“Come on Ang, move!” Jim and I run like the wind up Main Street.
We lie on our stomachs under the bushes near Lenny’s house, and watch for cop cars. Headlights stream by and we wait to see if any of them stop.
“What’d you do that for?” I ask Lenny, who rolls onto his back and stares up at the stars.
“Seemed like the best thing to do at the time.” He blows his warm breathe out into the frigid sky.
“Great.” Jim is still prone on his stomach, peering through the branches. “Next time, think of doing something that won’t get us busted, will ya?”
“I’m high,” Dana giggles from under Lenny’s arm.
“Good for you,” Jim says, “so am I.”
“How long have we been under this damn bush?” My neck hurts from trying to look through the branches, without being assaulted by a twig. I sneeze brutally. The leaves smell like frogs.
“I haven’t the foggiest,” Dana says, in a fake British accent, “perhaps hours but certainly not days.”
On the way home, which seems to last forever, Dana and I cut through backyards to avoid being seen out on the street.
The sky is pitch black, and neither one of us has our glasses on. Dana slams into a garbage can in the back of the post office.
“Shh. Jesus, Dana,” I turn to find her, holding onto her stomach, in silent, hyperventilating laughter.
I smack into a small structure of some sort, behind the house of someone I don’t know. I try desperately not to swear out loud as sharp stabbing pain shoots through my shin bone. I think I’ve run into an outhouse, and am about to ask Dana why someone would still be going to the bathroom outside, when I hear a growling noise near my feet.
There, directly below my legs, sits a black dog with brownish spots near its nose, and gunk around its eyes.
I head straight out onto Main Street—directly out under the street lights—and run until I land on my front porch. Dana laughs behind me, and pleads with me to slow down, but I don’t stop to wait for her.
“Now be quiet PLEASE. Stop laughing. I don’t want my mom poking around asking all kinds of questions,” I lecture Dana, as we slide in the shop. She giggles and trips over furniture.
We make a break for the stairs, and head to my room, where I hope to sober up. The best case scenario would be if my mother never came up at all, and we just shut off the lights and went to sleep.
My mom’s ears are like those of a search and destroy police dog however, and within five minutes, we hear her creaking up the stairs.
“Go sit on the bed and open a book.” I grabbed Dana’s arm and pulled her toward the bookshelf. “And don’t laugh.”
I browse through my albums, concentrating on putting them in alphabetical order. This should look normal.
“Hi, girls. How was your night?” My mother balances her elbow against the doorframe.
“Fine.” I glance at her, and coolly walk toward my record player. Having picked out 10CC, I gently place it on the turntable, letting the needle hover over the record before placing it down.
My hands don’t work. I knock the needle straight across the album, and it makes a noise similar to the one Mr. Parsons’ makes when he tries to clear the flem out of the back of his throat after dinner. To make things worse, I accidentally knock the volume button up with my palm. My spine tingles as the room rocks with music.
Dana giggles as I fumble around with the volume. And instead of just giving up and sitting down, I keep at it, skipping the album again. Dana explodes with laughter.
“Angela, would you come out here a minute please.” My mom backs out of the doorway. Shit, I’ve only been in my room for five minutes and already I’ve blown it. I glare at Dana.
Out in the hall, my mom doesn’t look at me. Instead she leads me into the bathroom and flicks on the light.
“Why are your eyes red?” She nudges the door out of the way and it bangs against the wall.
“What do you mean?” I look in the mirror. They are redder than the blood dots we spattered on the glass slides in science glass this year to study under the microscope.
“Look at me,” she says, and as I do, I lose my balance and stumble near the toilet. I decide the safest thing to do is lean against the sink, and as I do, I notice a little black curly hair stuck to the soap.
It looks like a backwards c. Revolted by it I glance over my shoulder to the shower, hoping to find something more pleasurable to concentrate on. My bottle of “Gee, your hair smells terrific,” shampoo, seems to waver—as if I am viewing it through intense heat.
“Are you high, or drunk?” My mom crosses her arms.
“High? Come on!” I look at her, then at the floor, catching sight of a black blob near the toilet. A scream starts at the back of my throat, and I feel the urge to leap up onto the toilet seat. It’s just a bobby pin however, and giggles rise in place of the scream. I bite my lip very hard and close my eyes.
“You’re acting weird, Angela.” My mom watches me intensely.
“I’m just really tired. Lenny drove me crazy tonight and I just need to sleep.” I stare her straight in the bluest part of her eyes.
“You can barely stand up, Angela. I think you’re more than just tired.” She looks disappointed. I want to crawl in a hole and rot. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on, Mom. Look I can stand up just fine. I swear to God.” I step away from the sink and drop my arms. Look Ma, no hands. “I’m fine. I promise. I’m just really tired.” I jiggle my fingers against my bare thighs. I long to climb into bed.
I might cry, and I might not. It’s hard to say. I don’t want to be sad. I don’t want to feel anything as a matter of fact. I just want to laugh. I want to be happy. I want to sleep.
“I know something’s up, Angie. You’ve got me really worried,” she walks away.
“Well don’t worry,” I say to the back of her head. “Nothing’s wrong. Ma!?”
Chapter thirty
Football season is rounding down. I’ve seen snow flakes and I can’t even remember what the sun looks like. The final game of the B football team is being played in a town called Levon. Honuwka doesn’t measure up to Levon in size, but their record is equal to Levon’s in wins. Honuwka is Levon’s last challenge.
Since Honuwka is too small to have a regular team, boys from ages fourteen up to nineteen are teammates. Pier Bonham is one of them. On a Friday night at Jim’s house, he walks right over to me, just as I am taking a big swig of Kool-Aid, and asks me to watch the Levon game with him and Mike Moran.
Disregarding the fact that it is going to take an act of God and a few good lies to get out of the house the day of the game, I say yes, wait for him to walk away, then spit my Kool-Aid on the ground.
As luck would have it, my mother is occupied with old friends the day of the game, which gives me ample opportunity to disappear with little suspicion. Over toast, I tell her that I am going to Jim’s to watch TV and hang out.
“Well have fun then,” my mom kisses me on the cheek and resumes filling out her grocery list.
I will not, under any circumstances run away, hide in the bathroom, or vomit on Pier’s sneakers. I will be an adult, I repeat to myself, as I head toward the school, where I am to meet Pier.
My stomach cramps when I round the Cherry trees and see him standing in the parking lot, surrounded by other players. I swallow once very hard, to keep my breakfast from walking up my throat, and talk my feet into moving.
Pier smiles when he sees me and waves toward Mike’s car. Mike has a black Trans Am, and I am going to ride in it all the way to Levon. Very cool.
“Hey, Angie-girl,” Mike nods. “Ready for some football?”
“Yeah,” I shove my hands in my pockets, and catch site of one of the other football player’s smirk at Pier.
Jim waltzes over to see me off. He stands a little ways off from the group, smoking. He grins at me, whenever I look at him, and wiggles his eyebrows.
“Knock it off.” I shove him.
“What?”
“You know what.”
“It’s time to move.” Pier comes up and pinches the sleeve of my jacket.
Jim waves, winks at me once more, and walks off toward his house, flicking his cigarette ash on the muddy ground. I want to run after him.
I get in the front seat with Pier and straddle the gearshift to avoid sitting on his lap. I can hear him breathing and the sound of his coat rubbing against mine. When we drive through town, I remind them that I need to duck when we go past my house. Mike fiddles with the radio and tells me my mother is paranoid.
I see the blue trim of my front door and am about to duck, when Pier leans over and blocks me with his body. His eyelashes are as dark as my bedroom at night.
I look down at his legs and stop breathing. Because he is wearing his football uniform, from the calf down, his legs are bare. Muscular, tan and hairy, they look like a man’s legs. He is at least six foot two—larger than Phil or my father—and there isn’t a single boy-like quality about him.
The ride to Levon is about thirty minutes and it is the most heavenly drive I’ve ever been on in my thirteen years of existence. Mike turns the radio on low and he and Pier talk about football and try to make me laugh.
“Treat her nice, Pier.” Mike frowns, pitching a beer cap at Pier.
“Just drive.” Pier pinches my side.
The sun is out and the sky is as blue as Loni’s eyes. I can’t wait to tell her about this. I figure I have her on this one. She’ll have no choice but to be proud of me.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Pier’s breath tickles the hair in my ears and I shiver.
“Nothing.” I smile.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing very exciting, just that I hope you win.”
“No problem,” Mike intervenes. “We’re gonna kick some ass!”
When we pull into the driveway of Levon Central school a group of people mill around the parking lot. Laurie Velps, Ellen’s oldest sister, stands near a huge tree with her boyfriend Heath, who also plays football for Honuwka. Sue Long stands next to her, smoking. Sue’s dating Rob Elmer, though I doubt it would last.
Glancing over Sue’s halo of blonde hair, I see Rob, sitting on the rear bumper of someone’s car, holding onto his helmet by its facemask. I run over to him the minute Pier helps me out of the car and grip his hand.
“Man, I’m glad to see you,” I say, not wanting to let go.
“Why? What’s wrong? Rob looks terrified. I forget how easily he worries.
“Nothing. Sorry. Just, well, you know. It’s good to see a friend…” I feel like an ass, so I let go of his hand.
When the players head over to the field to start the game, Laurie, Sue, and Amy Nichols go to sit in Heath’s car. I stand behind Mike’s car not knowing what one does at a football game when one’s not a cheerleader. I stick my hands farther in my pockets, and jiggle my feet around, looking for a coffee vendor.
“Come on, Angela. Come sit with us. It’s too damn cold out.” Laurie opens the driver’s side door of Heath’s Buick, and pulls the seat up.
Everyone smokes except me. From my point of view, Sue, who’s about eight inches to my right, has become nothing more than a hazy profile. Laurie tells incredibly funny stories from the front seat, glancing at me in the rear view mirror, while putting on make-up.
“I gotta pee.” Sue pushes one last puff of smoke out through her long thin nostrils. Her wild hair reminds me of the matting I saw once in a taxidermy shop, that they use to stuff dead animals. I stare at her and wonder if Rob likes her because of her uniqueness, or if he just thinks he’ll get to have sex.
“Me too.” Laurie smashes her cigarette out in the ashtray.
“I do, too.” I’d been crossing my legs for about twenty minutes.
We hadn’t been watching the game at all. Heath’s car is facing the school, not the field, and as I get out of the car, I see Pier for the first time, way out near the goal post. He looks enormous, looming over some of the other players. The game is half over, and I won’t have any idea what to report back to him if he asks.
“What!” Laurie pulls hard on the Levon Central school doors. “Well, shit! They’re locked! What jack asses thought it’d be a good idea to lock the school doors when there’s a football game! Don’t they know people gotta pee!”
Laurie walks around to the back of the school to search for an open door, while we wait in a pile near the metal fence.
“My back teeth are floating.” I lean against the fence and stomp the frozen ground. Laurie comes back around the corner, shaking her head.
“Nothing’s open!” she shouts.
“GREAT.” I look at Sue. “What’re we going to do now?”
She points at a building near the field, about the size of a garage, and painted the most hideous shade of green I’d ever seen.
“Oh, no way.” I glance around and see the players at Levon’s goal line, way at the other end of the field.
“There way out there,” Sue says, “and besides, we got no choice.”
I groan and quickly drop my pants. Squatting along side of Laurie, I can hear nothing but her laughter and the sound of a vicious stream of water gushing from underneath her.
“I always manage to pee on myself whenever I do this,” she giggles. “And for once I’d like to drive home without a soaking wet leg.”
Suddenly I hear yelling. Both teams have arrived on our side of the field, and they’re standing directly in front of us. I can’t tell if they have a clear view of us or not. Chances are pretty good they do though, since I have a clear view of them. I cut off the urine mid-stream, pull up my pants and race to the car, leaving Laurie and Sue laughing behind me.
“Game’s over.” Laurie crushes out another cigarette, and grabs the keys.
I turn around, and glance out the back window. The whole football team walks toward us. I hadn’t seen a thing. Pier is covered in mud—his helmet slung over his shoulder and his mouth guard swung in the wind. He is so beautiful, my throat closes.
“Hey, nice peeing.” Rob grins at Sue and slaps her on the rear end.
Oh my God. They saw us peeing, I say in my head; so many times I start to say it backwards.
“Came down the field and boom—there you guys were—butts everywhere!” Rob’s eyes are red. “What a nice sight after such a long game.”
God, why don’t you just take me now?
Everyone starts cracking beers open to celebrate. Honuwka won 20-12. I had no idea. Cigarettes and joints light up all over the parking lot. As the sun sets, the sky is on fire. Red, orange, and pink stripes streak across the horizon.
“Whatcha looking at?” Pier’s hands are dirty from the game and he moves them around in circles over the trunk of the car we’re leaning against.
“The sunset. It’s pretty.”
“Yeah, it is pretty.” Pier hands me a beer.
When we get back to Honuwka, Mike drives right past my house, a bit fast, and what seems to me, very determinedly.
“Where are you going?” I twist my head around just in time to see my house disappear behind me.
“Just to finish celebrating,” Mike smiles as he drives through town.
I swallow. A detour wasn’t part of my plan. I assumed I was going home right after the game. What do I do now? Mike swings into the Loon’s parking lot, and stops near the store. He turns off the ignition, fiddles with the radio, and lights up a joint. Relax, Ang. They just want to get you high. If anything happens, you can scream and the Loon’s will hear you. If they were planning on raping you, why would they bring you to Jim’s house?
Jim’s bedroom light is on, and through the kitchen window, I can make out the soft haze of the stove light.
Each time the joint is passed to me, I inhale the tiniest amount, pretending to take in more. Mike and Pier talk about the game and the lake and the winter. The conversation is loose but empty, and I wonder if they’d be talking differently if I weren’t in the car.
It dawns on me, as Mike changes the radio station for the tenth time, that maybe they’d rather be out doing something different, with girls who understand football games, really love to get high, and aren’t 13 and a half years old. But they don’t take me home.
“We should go get some beers and park at the lake,” Mike says. “Stare at the stars, talk, ya know, celebrate. We won after all. We should party down!”
“What time is it?” I frantically stare at the dashboard for a clock.
“Around eight.” Mike shows me his watch.
“Don’t tell me you want to go home.” Pier winds my hair up in his fingers. “It’s so early.”
“It’s just that I’ve been gone all day, and my mom will wonder where I am.” I tug on the emergency brake and feel Mike tense.
“You think she’d get mad if you stayed out just a bit longer? Won’t she just assume you’re out with a friend?” Mike sticks his bottom lip out in a pout, and runs his hand over the ashtray, slamming it shut.
“My mom? No way. She’ll assume I’m dead, or out doing something I shouldn’t be doing. You know I’m not allowed in cars.” I need to shut up but can’t. ”She’s gonna get real worried pretty soon.”
“Should we let her go?” Mike glances at Pier, who shrugs. They’re not going to let me go. They’re going to keep me here. I want to go home. GOD, PLEASE HELP ME.
“Maybe,” Pier says. “Maybe not. It won’t be the same without her. Maybe we should keep her.” I look past him to the door handle. It’s miles away.
“Angie, I’m just kidding. We’ll take you home right now. I’m not gonna DO anything to you. I just don’t want you to go yet, that’s all.” Pier tilts his head at me.
“I know.” I lick my lips. “I mean I know you’re just kidding.”
“You scared of us?” Pier pokes my nose.
“NO.” I stared at the dashboard. The radio dials are lime green.
“Then why are you shaking?” Pier takes my fingers and holds them up. He turns on the overhead light. My fingers are in front of my nose. They’re raw around the nails and slightly chapped at the knuckles.
“I’m not shaking. I’m just not that steady. You should see me try to do Calligraphy in art class. Mrs. Rorden thinks I drink coffee all day long.” I pull my hands away and look out the windshield. I can feel Pier’s smile.
“You’re a party pooper, young lady. You sure you won’t reconsider?” Mike turns off the light, and glances over my head toward Pier.
“I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with you, but my mom…. It’s such a drag, ya know?” I glance once more at the door handle and let out a sigh.
“Yeah, okay. Pier and me will just go off together all alone and celebrate all by our poor little selves.” Mike sticks his lip out again, knocks me in the shoulder, and starts the car.
“You’re always running off huh?” Pier puts my fingernail up to his mouth and chews on it.
“I’m sorry.”
Mike pulls into the library parking lot and does a three sixty, pointing the front of the car toward the bridge. He parks where there are no lights, so my mom won’t be able to see me get out of the car.
“Did you have fun?” Pier rubs his thumb across my knuckles. “Yeah, I did. Thanks for taking me.” My voice doesn’t even crack, which makes me happy for the rest of the night.
“Then I’ll be seeing you.” Pier purrs in my ear. “Real soon I hope.” And he kisses me on the cheek.
“Okay, yeah, good. Bye. Bye Mike.” I leap out of the seat, and onto the black top.
“See ya, Ang,” Mike says, and I turn around to see Pier leaning against Mike’s car with his chin in his hand, staring at me as I walked.
“I love you,” he sing-songs after me.
“Don’t lean on the caaaar!” I hear Mike say, as I step up on to the curb of the bridge.
*****
The cops come back; this time to inspect the contents of our barn. They say they’re searching for something, though at first, they refuse to disclose any details. I can see the rear end of one of them, as he digs through my mom’s boxes of art supplies. He comes up with a small slip of paper, looks it over very carefully, and shoves it in his pocket, as if it were the treasure he’d been searching for his whole life.
From the dog fence, we watch them scrounge through our belongings like a bunch of greedy old women at a garage sale. It takes them quite a while to get through all our stuff. My mom collects everything under the sun.
I believe my mother must collect things for security purposes. She’s worried, I think, that if she gives anything away she’ll be giving part of herself away.
There are stacks of picture frames in all shapes and sizes, bits of colorful fabric, broken mannequin parts, boxes of Christmas ornaments, half fixed lamps, shelves of china, carved wooden wall decorations, figurines, old toy trucks, furniture, glass vases, assorted plates and tea cups, weird old lady looking jewelry that was ugly as sin, but supposedly collectable, books, and drawing paper to last a life time
To add to the odds and ends, are Mick’s car parts, electrical widgets, and discarded record albums cluttered at one end of the barn. Phil’s fishing poles, lure boxes, guns, traps, and ten speed bike line the far wall, while my own cubby-hole near the stairs, is filled with boxes of old dolls, stuffed animals, letters, and journals.
Mick leans against the fence, patting Banetta’s head through the wire. Phil seems only vaguely interested, and only perks up when one of the cops accidentally knocks over a box of photographs, full of serious looking people taken at the turn of the century.
My mom looks tired. She holds the search warrant the cops handed her when they came whizzing into the driveway like a bunch of lunatics—nearly running Phil over as he stood near the barn stretching out his fishing line—and crumples it between her fingers.
Out on the street an audience has gathered to watch us watch the cops. They talk among themselves and get comfortable. The Andello’s sit on their porch and stare over at us, most likely whispering to each other about how much trouble we’ve turned out to be as tenants.
When the cops finally come out of the barn—a mere forty minutes later—they’re wheeling Phil’s ten speed bike. They stand the bike up on its kick stand, and tell my mother that they suspect her of being the ring leader in a series of stolen bike escapades.
“What did you say?” I think my mother is going to explode.
“You’re our prime suspect in the explosion of bicycle thefts that have happened over the last six months. We’ve been staking your house out for weeks. I wouldn’t consider leaving town anytime in the near future, if I were you.” The holds up a strip of pink paper (a receipt for paint) and shakes it.
“I can’t believe this.” My mother’s hands are beginning to shake. I’d seen this happen before and it wasn’t a good sign. “I can’t believe you’re standing in my driveway, holding onto my son’s bicycle, and telling me I’m a thief.”
“Well that’s what we’re telling you. You can believe it or not.” The cop swings his Billy club over to one side of his hip, and straddles the bike.
The cop’s theory, as we learn later, runs something like this: my mom sent my brothers and their friends out during the day to comb the streets for bikes. They’d hit the apartment complexes first, then rummage around the near-by side streets, to see if any unsuspecting little twerp had left his bike out. Then at night they’d go back out to the locations they hit during the day, and bring back any bikes they found to the barn, where we then all gathered together as a family, to repaint them for resale.
Supposedly my mom had a good thing going too because the cops said there was an astronomically high number of stolen bike reports—more than they’d ever witnessed before.
The cops questioned my mom about recent purchases she’d made, advised her again not to leave town, told her to call a lawyer, and drove out of the driveway as quickly and as crazy as they drove in.
By nightfall the rumor has spread all over town, and starting around dinnertime, the phone begins to ring off the hook. Mr. Letty, Jason’s father, who’s a local politician, tells my mom to sue the police station. He says they don’t have a leg to stand on. After all, he reminds her, a receipt for a can of paint—out of the house of an artist—and a bicycle, aren’t enough evidence to convict anyone, even a serial killer. She nodds as Mr. Letty talks, but I can tell she’s really upset.
It is a few days before she leaves the house. She seems to go on a vacation indoors. I come home from school and find her rifling through closets, boxes, old papers and photographs. Dressed in her sweats, she sits on the floor and throws out nearly everything she comes across.
“Ma,” I say, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, sweety. I’m just tired.” She smiles and sips her tea, while I tug at my eyebrows. “It’s just finally time to off-load some of this junk!”
“No one cares about what the cops say. I mean they dropped the case didn’t they? They didn’t have any proof. Ma, no one thinks you’re guilty.” I wait until she smiles again before I take a breath.
“I know honey. Don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong, really. I’m not worried about the cops.” Patting my arm, she resumes her purging, and asks me how my day was. I eventually wander out into the kitchen and stare at the refrigerator, wishing I never had to grow old.
