Call Me Jane (14 page)

“It won’t go up anymore,” said Krishna.

“Yes it will, pull it in the car,” Paul suggested.

Krishna was up in the passenger seat. For once we weren’t in my car, but for the life of me I didn’t know whose car we
were
in. My car was there at the drive-in too, but it had a bunch of other people in it. Some were sitting on top of the car. Others were wandering around like zombies.

“Those guys look like
Night of the Living Dead
,” I said, and pointed out the window. Ziggy looked out there to see what I meant and laughed.

“They do,” he said. “Maybe someone will take a bite out of you soon,” and he tickled me in the side, causing me to squirm around on his lap.

“Oh God,” I gasped, “I am so ticklish.”

“Shocking that you would be ticklish,” he whispered, close to my ear.

“Hey,” Paul shouted, “are you sure you can’t get that sound to go up anymore?”

“I tried,” Krishna said. She pulled the speaker into the car and started banging it on the dashboard.

“You are so drunk, Krishna,” I yelled. “Stop banging that thing, you’ll break it. And this movie is freaking me out.”

“How can you hear it enough for it to freak you out? Besides, stop freaking out over everything would you, Janey Lou; just chill the fuck out,” said Krishna.

“That guy is keeping a pet chicken in a tiny bird cage. That is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said.

“You mean scarier than the fact that they are cooking people in the back and serving them to the customers?” Ziggy asked with a mocking smile.

“Yeah, scarier than that.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It’s so–I can’t explain. It’s worse—”

“Worse than cooking people?” he asked.

“Yeah, because—”

“Hey you two, we can’t hear,” Dave shouted.

“Well, it would help if Krishna hadn’t broken the speaker,” said Paul.

“You told her to keep fucking with it,” said Dave.

This made Krishna burst out laughing. She was just completely drunk. She left of the car, slammed the door, and broke what was left of the speaker. She stumbled over to Walt’s car and demanded drunkenly to be allowed in “to the sanctuary,” as she put it, very loudly.

“She busts the speaker in here and then demands to be let in over there,” I shouted.

“Let’s just pull the car over to another speaker. There’s one over there,” said Ziggy.

There was an empty parking space diagonally from us.

“There’s one not being used, can it reach over?” asked Paul.

“Just pull the car over,” Ziggy said.

“Good idea. Someone do that,” Paul said, and then he put his arm around me and started kissing me and I lost all interest in the movie, in spite of how scary it was. Some one started the car and started trying to move it.

“Who’s driving?” I said.

“Hey,” shouted those on top of the car. “Watch it, we’re up here, what are you doing driving?”

“Don’t worry! I’ll go slow,” shouted the driver out the window.

“Who is that driving?” I said to Paul between kisses.

“That’s Tom,” Ziggy answered between Paul’s kisses.

TWENTY EIGHT

Paul didn’t have his car that night for some reason. I couldn’t imagine why, and I was too drunk to ask him why. I was scared all the way home. For some reason my terror didn’t hit me till I was on the road. I had to drive out past that graveyard.

“I’m too scared to leave.” I hung onto Paul’s shoulder.

“You’ll be okay,” he said between kisses.

“No, I won’t!” I said. “I’m terrified. I can’t leave.”

“You’ll be fine. Just be brave.”

I started crying.

“No, I’m so scared, I can’t go.”

“You can do it. I know you can do it.”

He gave me one last kiss and I backed out of the driveway. He stood waving in the driveway in the headlights. The crunch of the gravel under the wheels, and then I backed out onto the main road. Now I couldn’t see him. He must still be standing there in the dark. I was so terrified, I could barely drive, but I knew I had to drive fast. That chicken was too fat and too big for that cage. It couldn’t even move. Who would keep a pet like that? Well, I recalled Ziggy saying, the same people who would cook people and serve them to their customers.

I pulled forward and turned on the tape real loud to drown out the fear and sang along. “Put pennies on your eyes,” I sang, “if you intend to die. Cause I’m the Taxman,” I passed that graveyard as fast as I could, then sped through a stoplight and then another stoplight onto Highway 45.

Then I heard the siren and saw the flashing red lights in my rearview mirror.

“Oh thank God!” I said to the officer.

“Miss, are you aware that you just drove through two stoplights?”

“You’re not going to believe this, Officer, but I was too scared to stop at that stoplight.”

“What?”

“I just saw the movie
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
, and I was too scared to stop at that stoplight.”

“Just a minute,” he said and walked back to his car.

Oh no, he was going to leave me alone.

He came back with his partner.

“You’ve got to hear this one,” he said.

I told him and then he said, “See, I knew you had to hear it for yourself.”

“
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
is playing on the other side of town.”

“I had to drop my boyfriend off. He lives right down there.”

“What’s his name?”

“Paul Collins.”

He paused for a moment. I didn’t care what he decided. I almost wished he’d arrest me for something so I didn’t have to drive home alone. But he didn’t.

“I don’t believe you, but it’s the most creative thing I’ve heard all day.”

He let me off with a warning.

TWENTY NINE

“Why are we going here?” I asked. “Why here? After we just saw that movie? Why?”

We were on our way home from a party on the farthest edge of the woods, east of Paul’s farm. I was very drunk. Ziggy had said the perfect mix was a fifth of vodka and two beers drank all within the space of one hour.

“That part is very important,” he said, “the amount of time you take to drink it.”

He was there that night, smashed in my blue Chevette. Legs were literally sticking out of the windows this time.

The party had been on a spooky farm. There had been a bonfire.

I’d been to other bonfires—one at the school for homecoming parade in which everyone made floats—but this bonfire was different. It was beautiful. The flames leaped high into the night. It crackled and popped way up at the top of it. It generated heat clear out to where Gay and I were sitting, about twenty feet or more. We had found a girl with long, tangled, reddish hair. She wore a flannel, red and grey shirt and jeans. She was cool. She was really cool. Gay and I became totally fascinated with her. Mesmerized. In fact, it was as if our mutual infatuation with this girl had bonded Gay and me. We drank, stared, and took turns flattering her.

“Janis Joplin?” I said like a question, turning to Gay, holding up my cold bottle as if to toast her.

“Janis Joplin,” Gay’s eyes widened as she nodded, and toasted me back.

“Could you do something for us?” I asked.

“What’s that?” she asked. She sat with her knees up and her feet together, knees to the side slightly, supporting elbows and a beer hanging from one hand.

“Could you just sing ‘Me and Bobbie McGee’?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah!” Gay nodded with me, toasting me again. “Please?” she said.

“How’s it go?”

We didn’t care that she didn’t know how it went. We would teach her the lyrics, slow and patient.

We taught her and then, smiling and nodding, leaned back on our arms. “Busted flat in Baton Rouge...”

“Busted flat in Baton Rouge?”

“That’s right, waitin’ for a train, and make your voice crackle a little bit.”

“Oh she doesn’t even have to try.” Gay frowned over at me, but it was a frown that said,
I’m not angry, I just can’t believe we found this girl
.

We sat with her all night, telling her stories, making her laugh, and when it was time to go we were barely aware of the people who grabbed us by our shirt collars and stuffed us into our vehicle.

I wouldn’t be driving. I don’t know who was, but I damn sure know it wasn’t me, cause after seeing that movie so recently I would never have stopped on the way back to Oshkosh at the abandoned farmhouse we then proceeded toward.

“Why, why, why?” I said. “Why do we have to go in there?”

Ziggy reached out and with two fingers smoothed a lock of my hair back. Then he yanked his hand back, startling me.

“Don’t worry,” Paul reached his arm over me and whispered right next to my cheek. “You won’t be scared. I’ll hold on to you.”

“We’re not really going in here; we’re not really going in here.”

“You want to wait in the car?” Paul said.

“No, oh no!” I exclaimed.

“Wait in the car with her,” Ziggy suggested.

“I want to see the farmhouse,” said Paul.

So we went in there, by God, yes we did.

“How come no one else is scared? Are you all crazy?”

“Why are you so scared?” Krishna asked.

“It’s that chicken,” Ziggy said.

“What chicken?” Krishna asked. “What is he talking about?”

“There was a chicken in that movie we saw the other night,” said Ziggy.
 

“I just know I’m going to see that chicken in that house and it’s going to be in a birdcage!” I said.

We were partway in the side door now. The outside of the house glowed in the moonlight. We squeezed ourselves through a narrow pathway, scraping ourselves on a scraggly, leafless tree.

“If I see that chicken I am going to have a heart attack.”

Paul grabbed me, startling me, and then held me tight around the waist to keep me from bolting.

“It is actually very dangerous in here,” Krishna observed, from just inside the door.

Raj had a flashlight.

“Janey Lou,” Raj called from just behind Krishna. “Guess what I see!”

Ziggy was right behind me and making bawking sounds.

Paul held me very close, so I did feel kind of safe, but any minute I was ready to bolt.

“Oh my God, this place looks just like that movie so far. How can you guys stand this? Am I the only sane one here?”

“Well, actually,” Raj started. “We were planning to cook you later and serve you to customers, but you’ve been so noisy we may have to off you now.”

“Hey,” Krishna yelled. She was all the way in the living room.

“Ow!” Gay shouted. “Goddamn it! What the fuck was that? I just scraped my leg on a nail or something.”

“Have you had a tetanus shot lately?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I doubt it. And there are probably rats in here.”

“Better than chickens,” I said.

I kept hearing scraping sounds, and whispering and giggling in complete darkness. Every now and then something would fall. I could not see anything, but he shone it right into my eyes at one point, while nobody made a sound. I could only see Raj’s face. He was smiling. His eyes had a sinister twinkle.

“Janey Lou,” he said, “look what we’ve found.”

Suddenly he clicked the flashlight off. I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t see. I started feeling behind me.

“Knock it off; where is everyone?”

It was totally silent.

Then Raj’s voice came out of the silence again, “Jane, look what we’ve found!”

And suddenly I heard the flapping sounds, and was blindsided by the flapping wings, but it wasn’t a chicken, it had to have been a bird, flying right into my face. I waved my arms at it and was able to actually grab hold of it and hurl it as hard as I could into something, must have been a wall. It smashed against the sides, flapped around, and then Raj turned the flashlight on it. It was still alive, but I had injured it.

“Oh my God,” I screamed, “it’s a bird and I killed it.”

“No you didn’t,” said Paul, “it’s not dead.”

“It might as well be,” said Raj, “it’s too wounded to live.”

“We could take it home,” I suggested.

“We can’t take it home. Its neck is broken. You can tell by the way it’s thrashing around,” said Ziggy. “But it’s going to take awhile to die, and in the meantime, it is going to suffer. Why did you have to hurl it at the wall?”

“It scared me.”

“It wasn’t her fault,” said Raj.

“We can’t just leave it here to die.” I said.

“We have to kill it,” said Krishna.

“Do you want to be the one to kill it?” asked Raj.

“I am the one that killed it,” I said.

“No you’re not,” said Krishna.

“Someone has to kill it,” Ziggy said. “We can’t leave it here like that.”

“Then I will,” Gay said, and before anyone could stop her, she smashed it with some large random, metal thing she had grabbed. The thing, which looked like it had been one of those antique metal chairs with stairs that fold out of the base of it, had bent in the process. None of us except Ziggy could watch as she hit it several times till it stopped moving.

Gay threw the chair against the side of the wall and something fell.

“Turns out Gay’s braver than any of us,” said Krishna.

Raj shone the flashlight in her eyes and she knocked it out of his hand.

“Don’t shine that fucking thing at me. Let’s just get the fuck out of here,” she said.

We left. None of us spoke, so all you could hear was the sound of us trying to make our way out of there without tripping and falling.

I climbed in the back and lay down, putting my head on someone’s lap. All the way home I listened to the sound of Ziggy, Raj, and Krishna talking about the ugliness of what Gay had to do. Gay said nothing; she just smoked a cigarette and stared straight ahead. If I hadn’t wounded the bird, she wouldn’t have had to do it. I did what I could to avoid the feeling by sipping from a bottle of wine we passed around.

THIRTY

I can’t remember how I found out. I don’t remember if I overheard it, heard it as a rumor, or if she told me this herself. I was avoiding her, so I skipped my favorite class, Mrs. De Muprathne’s class. Because Glinda had promised that if she saw me face-to-face, she was going to kick my ass. Even though I felt more curiosity than fear, I did have a sick, horrible feeling about it. Rumor had gone completely around the entire school that Lucy was pregnant. I was learning about it myself from everyone I talked to. It was the whisper of the school, and somehow they knew exactly who the father was.