All the Wild Children (12 page)

“Smooth move ex-lax.”

“I didn’t, um, crap, Kat, you um... shit.”

“I got it, here Kat, a nice frosty.”  Strange thing is, she takes the beer from him, but never stops looking at me.  She tilts her eyes down at the wet shirt, smiles and cocks an eyebrow.

“You maybe should get out of that wet shirt.”  Her eyes are actually twinkling.

“Good idea, thanks, um…  be right back.”  Her face falls a bit as I leave the room.

Dumb fucking dumb fucker.  I am pounding my head against the wall in my room to the beat of my stupidity. 

I build a fire, we sit and drink brandy watching the flames.  Kat moves up next to me.  Tomas excuses himself to sleep.  Peter excuses himself to sleep.  Jonathan moves in on the other side of Kat and all night we sit like that.  I never even get to kiss her.

She drives away.  Lark loads up his hotrod to take my friends home.  I can’t even look at Jonathan. Toma
s
hit
s
my shoulder and gives me a wink. 

“You two in the back, Jonathan you ride bitch.”  Riding bitch, front seat passenger.  He is in for a ride.  Lark takes off in a rooster tail of gravel and dust.  12 miles of twists and turns down the mountain and Lark never lets up off the gas once.  Going down Pagemill the passenger is on the cliff side the whole way.  The passenger has a perfect view of where he will go if the driver screws the pooch, or over cooks the brakes.  Lark has been driving this road for years.  He is flying.  He is four wheel drifting down the hill.  Jonathan is sheet white.  Fighting to control his bowels.

“Slow the hell down.”  A guy asks you to slow down, he might as well give you his balls.

“Can’t hear you.”  The tires are skidding madly.

“Please slow down.”  Jonathan’s voice is a high pitched squeal.

“Fuck no, you treacherous son of a bitch.”  They tell me Jonathan went a lighter shade of pale when Lark really got on the gas.  Fuck him.  Fuck with one, you fuck with the clan.

DATE 2 - Thursday of the next week I’m in class watching Kat do a scene with Randy, tall, handsome, football player.  It’s a romantic scene and she is heating up that stage.  She’s going out with him.  I blew it. 

“You’re an idiot.”  At least she’s smiling.

“You’re not going out with Randy?”

“Yes I am going with him.  I asked you to my house Saturday because I want to be the baloney in a Black and White sandwich… kidding.”

“OK, so you still want me to come over?”

“Yes... will you?”

“Yes.”

“Good... hey JJ.”

“Yeah?” 

“Before you get all the way out that door, you might want to come back and get my address.”  She dangles a piece of paper from her fingers.  Long delicate fingers.  Girl fingers.

I pound my head into my locker three times before Tomas stops me.

“What’d you do this time?”

“She asked me out, in, to her house.”

“Then?”  He points at the locker.

“I’m happy.”

“You know that makes no sense, right?”

“I do.”

“Cool, wanna get stoned?”

“Does the pope shit in the woods?”

“I think he might.  Let's roll.” 

Saturday I am a mess.  I change my clothes fifteen times.  I finally settle on a Rolling Stones mouth T-shirt and a pair of sprayed on Sticky Finger jeans, and my red patent leather platforms.  Hair is blow dried back, falling into a shag to make a rock star proud.  I’m over six foot before the platform shoes.  I wear a size 29 x 36 jeans.  I am one skinny tall White boy.  I wrap a long red silk scarf around my neck and pull on my Superfly jacket.  Rock and roll meets the ghetto.  Lark and I have our own personal style, Glitter-Fly.

I am 14.  My brother has to drive me.  “Go on, I’ll be back in an hour or so, bring Jaz and some Rum.”

From the curb to the front door, about a hundred miles, or ten feet I can't tell which.

“You look good JJ.”  She leans in, kissing my cheek, she smells musky and sweet with a hint of cinnamon.  “Is Lark coming in?”

“He has to pick up ummm.”

“Jaz?”

“Yeah Jaz.”

“You are staring.”  She is right.  A sheer black shirt and black bra.  Short black tap pants.  I was looking.  Yes I was.  Until she spoke, and then I was looking anywhere else.

“I'm sorry... I...damn it.”

“I like it, you looking, that’s why I put it on.”  She takes my hand and leads me in.

They have a sunken living room with white shag carpet deep enough to need a lifeguard.  We kick off our shoes and dive in.  She has martinis chilling in the wet bar.  She hits a switch, the lights dim and music comes on. 

KSOL, Marvin Gaye.

Stop beatin' 'round the bush.  Let's get it on.  Let's get it on.  You know what I'm talkin' 'bout C'mon, baby.  Let your love come out. 
I look at Kat and start to redden. She laughs and turns it up.

Flipping a valve she tosses a match into the fireplace.  It roars to life.  It is all so James Bond.  We sit drinking martinis, looking into the propane flames dancing over stone logs.  When we are done, she tosses her glass into the fireplace, I do the same.  We laugh.  She leans into me, her eyes on mine.  I kiss her without reservation.  She pulls me down on top of her, our lips never leaving each other.

Lark returns to find us flushed and groping on the carpet.  With him is Jaz Slocum, yes that’s her name.  Yes, we ride her about it.  Yes, it’s true, Lark tells me. 

Afte
r
a few more cocktails we head for the bedroom.  All of us in the master bed.  Lark wants to be there in case I have any beginner problems.  Now that is having my back.  Every one starts stripping.  Fuck.  I am wearing tighty-whities, the worst possible choice.  1- commando, 2- boxers, 3- a speedo.  Never tighty-whities.  I take off my shirt and socks.  Hoping for a miracle.  Kat presses her naked body against mine, kisses me and pulls my pants down as she kneels.  She is too interested in what is inside to notice what underwear I have on.  Seconds later I too stop worrying.  We make it on the bed, and th
e
floor
,
and leaned over a chair.  In the midst Jaz finally cums, loud and violent.  They fal
l
asleep
.
  We keep going.  Until we both are raw.  Then we lay very still, her on me.  Me still inside her.

I wake to the smell of coffee and an empty bed.

It is Easter morning and my mother wonders why we are late.  Wonders why I can’t stop smiling.

I don’t see Kat for a week.  Lark’s band is playing Saturday in a local park, Annabelle Lee is their name, but today they play with my father singing, this is called Love In the Asylum.  All the cool party kids are there.  Kat is there, I see her and move across the crowd trying to get to her.  The kids are dancing and bouncing.  Kat dips in and out view.  I catch a glimpse, Tanner is leaned in talking to her.  That’s nice of him to entertain my girl.  I am ten feet away.  With an unobstructed view. 

He whispers in her ear.  She laughs. 

Their eyes lock. 

I stop walking.               

They kiss. 

There is no mistaking the moment she slips her tongue into his mouth.  I turn and walk slowly away.  Out of the park.  Down the street.  I am ten blocks away before I let myself cry.

The next week Lark seduces the girl Tanner is in love with.  He tells Tanner about it. The score is even.  Fuck with one, you fuck with the clan.  Blood runs deep.

I am 50, and thinking back over my life with women.  I can see a pattern of my youth.  I have always related to Scorsese’s vision, I never really knew why.  I work in film because of Mean Streets, when I saw that, it was a revelation.  You could make a movie about our lives, about thugs and baby wannabe gangsters, without glorification, without lying.  Man, I was hooked on Scorsese, De Niro and Keitel. 

When Lark and I went to see
Taxi Driver
we were so blown away we made our dates sit through intermission and watch it again.  Why those lovely young ladies wanted to stay, and sleep with us after, is still an amazement to me. 

As an added bonus to the
Taxi Driver
experience, Tanner is there with us.  He is kicking heroin by shooting coke.  I know.  It’s a junky thing.  He keeps getting up and going to the men’s room.  Then one time, he just doesn’t come back.  We aren’t worried.  Odds are he has gone home... or met a chick or decided to cop.  We never would have guessed the truth.

When Tom Scott blows the final line of Bernard Herman's haunting score, we stand up.  Walking out Lark and I are chattering away about the cinematography and fucking De Niro, who is that Foster girl, damn.  Why are there police cars in the middle of the street?  Fuck they are surrounding that drug store, rifles pointed.  They are going in with dogs and shotguns. 

“Tanner.”

“That would be my guess, little bro.”  We stand around watching.  After about ten minutes they come out leading a limping and cuffed little man with a shag hair cut.

“Fucking Tanner.” 

“You know that guy?”  The cop is tall round and Black.  We both shake our heads and walk away.  The teflon junky doesn’t need our help to skate. 

The next day Tanner shows up with an ankle high plaster cast.

Do you remember Leggs stockings, they came in egg shaped cartons?  Their displays were tall and rather phallic looking?  OK, got that picture?  Now Tanner hears a junky rumor, on the wind, like El Dorado, or the fountain o
f
youth
:
That drug store, on California Avenue, they have clinical grade heroin, and no alarm system
.  OK, a sober person can see instantly the problems here.  For starters, “clinical grade heroin” doesn’t exist, it’s called Morphine.  Second what drug store doesn’t have an alarm?  Come on.  Junkies are like conquistadors I guess, they want it so bad that they put morals and logic on hold while they chase the dream.

So our wild lad goes in through the skylight, which was not alarmed.  He falls fifteen feet and lands on a Leggs display, breaking his ankle.  Poetic right?  And he sets off the motion detector.  The alarm company calls the Palo Alto P.D. and our boy goes down. 

How he beats the rap is anyone's guess, my money is on there being one or two less dealers on the street.  But that is just conjecture.

Sex and Scorsese, connect the dots JJ. 

I am 50, I’m looking back and I see, Scorsese’s running theme is the age old Catholic tale of all women being either Virgins or Whores.  He is smart enough to know this is crap, but it’s the crap all his early films are dealing with.  For years I wondered what this might have to do with me.  I was mulling this over, driving across Hollywood, past strip cubs and sex shops.  And then it occurred to me...

I am 15, in my first real relationship.  Ingrid, a mass of wild golden curls, round of face and body, full.  A Norwegian mother and Italian father, she is amazing.  5’4”, all attitude and spike heels.  She is two years older than me.  I woo and win her.  I give her a picture of a baby with curly hair.  What our babies would look like.  I’m fif-fucking-teen, and I want to have babies. 

After my childhood that seems odd at best, psychotic at worst.  I have only felt this way about three women in my life.  One of them I married and had children with.  OK, 3 I want to have children with.  And how many just sex?  7 maybe, not more than 12.  All of them, with the exception of my best friend Tad’s girl.  Who I slept with because Tad was getting Tom’s girl.  Tom was drunk, I said I’d handle it.  Walked up to Tad’s gal pal at a party and said, wanna make it?  She smiles and said yes.  She’s pissed at Tad, and we are friends, why not.

It is the seventies, modern rules don’t apply.

Take her out of the tally and you still have a preponderance of women I would sleep with but not consider having children with.  I didn’t think of them as whores.  They were lovely girls and loads of fun.  Just not the kind I would have a baby with. 

But isn’t this just another version of Scorsese’s dilemma? 

Casting women into only two sects seems very limiting when I look from the outside in.  I did have a third category, friends.  I always had many girls for friends, some I wanted to sleep with but our friendship outgrew the attraction.  Some wanted to sleep with me, some of those I fell into bed with and wrecked the friendships.  The fundamental difference in Scorsese’s view is that he feels that the mother of your children shouldn’t really be into sex, girls who are really into sex in his world are whores.  Me, I think there is nothing sexier than the rolling curves of a pregnant woman.

I am 15, in Indiana painting houses to scrape together enough scratch to buy my first junker.  I miss Ingrid.  I miss the laughter.  I miss the sex.  I miss having someone think I’m special and worthy.  The grandparents never will.  I remind them of my father.  He reminds them of their daughter’s defection to the Quakers and peace movement in Cali.  They are always civil to me.  But never proud.  So fuck ‘em.  I got my sibs.  I got Ingrid.  Fuck their narrow minded views.  Fuck Indiana.