Call Me Jane (9 page)

“I don’t know, I just don’t care enough not to I guess.”

That made no sense, but it threw me and Gay off for a while, had us staring out the window at her glorious backyard. Or maybe it was the speed kicking in, or the red pipe we were passing, or a combination. Krishna lit her incense, and Gay threw a fit. Krishna moved it over by the window.

Gay had hated incense ever since the time she had saturated a red bandana with incense smoke. She had come running into my car telling me how great it smelled. Then after complaining of nausea for half an hour, she screamed, “Let me out, it’s the bandana! It’s the bandana!” And she ran into the woods, threw up, and then threw that red bandana into the trees as far as she could hurl it.”

“What’s even the point of the incense even being lit at all over there?” I asked. “You can’t smell it with the window open anyway.”

Krishna continued trying to light it, but the breeze kept blowing out her flame.

“So, I have practice at five,” Gay began hinting, “but they said I can’t go unless I’m at my two-thirty class.”

We both just stared at her.

“That’s my chemistry?”

It was twelve thirty right now. We had skipped our afternoon classes, and weren’t planning on going back.

“So, I really need to be at that practice tonight.”

We just stared blankly. One thing I loved about the Stones. That heavy beat.

“Do you think you could give me a ride to my two-thirty class?”

“What, you can’t miss one practice?” I asked.

“If I miss the practice, I can’t play this weekend in St. Claire.”

“Like I care,” I said.

“Uhhhg! Please? Come on!”

“I’m so sick and tired of getting used by you for my car!”

“Uh, paranoia will destroy ya?” Gay said.

“You act all friendly with me, then when you see me with those jocks you act like you don’t know me.”

“I do not.”

“Yes you do,” Krishna interjected. She had been pretty much keeping out of it. Krishna didn’t have her license yet, so Gay couldn’t beg a ride from her, and Raj, well, there was no way.

Gay dropped the subject for about a half an hour, but then started to drop hints about it again.

“Oh God you’re not going to stop this are you! Okay fine,” I shouted, “I’ll give you a ride!”

“Wait for me.” Krishna had to take a shower, and then for some reason she started putting on all this  loose eye shadow that kept sprinkling gold dust down her cheeks so we were stuck another half hour. We still had a little time.

“So what are you gonna do; are you gonna take that speed?” I asked.

“What’s it doing to you?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It mellows me out actually.”

Gay went over to Krishna’s record collection and pulled out the Kinks. The Stones had finished, and there were a few strange moments of silence. Krishna was still messing with her face. She never did that. Well, that’s not true, she sometimes did, but only if we were going to a concert or something.

Gay pulled out the Kinks, and began singing along, “So tired, tired of waiting,” then she began shouting the lyrics and stood right outside the bathroom, arms folded, foot tapping, which finally caused Krishna to stop her nonsense and come along.

I pulled up to the school.

“You taking that speed?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, take it now!”

“Why?”

“Cause I gave it to you!”

“Christ!” she yelled, and popped it in her mouth.

“I bet you didn’t swallow it!”

“You wanna inspect inside my mouth?” She opened her mouth, stuck her fingers in, pulled her lips to the side, and stuck her face in mine. “God you’re worse than a–you’re like a cop in reverse!”

I pulled up on the grass, right on the grass.

“What are you doing?” she yelled.

Krishna started laughing back there, rocking to and fro as she tried to fill another bowl, all that glitter coming off her eyelids in tiny clouds like gold dust. I was driving right on the grass, over the hills of the campus of the school, right over the curb. Everyone was looking at us, clutching their book bags and hurrying by. I had totally lost it, they thought.

I pulled right up in front of Gay’s class, outside the window.

“Is that your class?”

Krishna was in hysterics in the backseat; I’d never heard her laugh this loud.

“Yeah,” Gay said.

“Then get out right here.” I pulled right in front of the window and honked my horn to make sure they all saw my car.

“Um,” Gay hesitated.

“If you don’t get out right here I’m not stopping. You’ll have to jump out while I’m moving.”

Gay left the car in front of her class.

SIXTEEN

So because Gay had basketball practice that night, she was practically the only one not there. I didn’t know where we were going, Krishna just said, “Turn left here,” and “Go right now, right!” And I screeched my tires till I pulled up at Walter Owens’ house. You could hear the music from outside the house. We went downstairs to Walter’s basement. Everyone was there.

Those who weren’t sitting on the couch were on the floor gathered around a small black-and-white TV.

The movie hadn’t started yet, but in those days, if a movie came on TV that you wanted to see, you better jump on it. You weren’t going to have another chance.

Ziggy was the most excited about it, but everyone was.

“
Ow
!” I screamed over at Dave, who sat to my right. He was the drummer for the band. He always wore that black-leather jacket with chains all over it. His hair was spiked, he had very black hair, and it didn’t really look like he had to put any kind of gel in it. Dave was short, and had high cheekbones like an Indian.

“What’s wrong?” he screamed back.

“My ears hurt!”

“Oh yeah, I have to get mine waxed every month!”

“What?”

“I have to get mine waxed once a month!”

“What does that mean?”

“I have to have the wax removed! By a doctor!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. Right then there was a break between songs. So he was screaming this and everyone looked over at him.

“How do you get your hair to stand up like that?” I said.

“What?”

“Your hair? How do you get it to do that?”

“Egg whites!”

Yep, he was punk. Anyone who would put egg whites in their hair was punk.

“Doesn’t it seem like we just passed this?” Dave was to my right. He passed me a beer, and a joint.

I passed it to my left. Ziggy was sitting there in his green parachute suit. Where was Paul? I looked around. Wait a minute. No Lucy, no Paul! That’s who else was missing.

“It’s ten, turn that stereo off!” Ziggy went over and turned on Walter’s TV.

Someone else tried to sit next to me, and Ziggy butted them out of the way. He practically sat on them.

“Where’s Lucy,” I yelled.

“Lucy?” someone answered. “I don’t know. She’s probably with Paul.”

“No,” someone said, “Paul’s not with her tonight, I don’t think.”

“Where is Paul?” It was Walt who asked this. Thank God someone asked. I froze, straining to hear the answer.

“Paul?” Dave shrugged, passing me the joint again, tapping my knee so I’d snap out of my stupor and grab it. “Isn’t he coming over?”

“No.” Tom Hughes said this. He was the bass player for the band. When pressed as to where he was, he managed to successfully avoid the question with long cigarette drags, a look of confusion about where his beer was, and finally an announcement to the crowd that it looked like the movie was starting. Even more lights were turned off, which I didn’t think was possible. Ziggy scooted over to me, which caused Dave to look over at me with a sort of half grin, half question on his face.

“Do you need more room?”

“No, no,” I said, “I’m fine,” but my beer had spilled on both him and me, and I was trying to smoke a cigarette with the other hand and not burn Ziggy, who seemed insistent on scooting closer and closer and closer. He was shoving me into Dave, and so Dave finally put his arm around me. Ziggy grabbed it and threw it off my shoulder and replaced it with his. The movie started.

The words MOTEL HELL appeared on the screen and everybody cheered. As soon as the credits came up on the screen, everybody laughed. Raj started making wry, witty comments, and he had a real smile on his face, one that didn’t look like it could fall off any moment. Ziggy laughed and laughed and hooted that fat-woman’s laugh that he had. He wasn’t speaking to me or looking at me. Other than pressing himself up against me, you’d think he didn’t know I was there. Maybe that’s why he was pressing against me, because he thought I wasn’t there.

I kept watching for Paul, and he kept not showing up. The drunker I became, the more I thought I saw him, dimly, from across—from very far away in—the room.

No one was watching that stupid movie. Everyone seemed to be yelling through the whole thing. They told some great jokes while watching, but I couldn’t believe how gross that movie was. It was disturbing. I was horrified. I kept wincing and looking away, which caused both Ziggy and Dave to tickle me randomly. Krishna sat right on the floor next to the TV, smoking and laughing. She thought the whole thing was great. Every butchering received howls of laughter from her. I was the only one squirming. And Ziggy was shoving me into Dave, smothering me, taking away any retreats. Somewhere around midnight, I vaguely remember him shoving his tongue down my throat.

Okay
, I thought, and at first when I returned home I was pretty happy about it. I wasn’t thinking about Paul, at least for the moment. I had this weird fantasy about Ziggy. I don’t know why. These feelings didn’t feel right though. These feelings felt like … I don’t know. I lay down on my folded-out-couch bed. My mom had made it for me. She always did. The sheets were folded back in a triangle.

“He makes me feel… I don’t know, I guess I’ll figure it out later,” I said to the room, and then I crawled into those soft, cool sheets. I kicked my feet around and made myself comfortable.

I could see my maple tree outside, with its branches scraping against the big picture window. I could feel a cool breeze from the open side window. I could read, if I wanted to. There was a little bedside lamp to read by. I loved to read by that light, and then click it off when I grew tired, but I didn’t read that night. I turned it off and fell asleep to a strange feeling.

SEVENTEEN

For some reason, everyone was ending up at the Burger King. It wasn’t like we planned it or anything. First it was me, Krishna, Gay, and Chrystal. Usually we would have just gone through the drive-through, but that night we went inside and just kept hanging around. We were stoned, of course, and the dope we had was really good. Everyone was acting very strange. For example, Chrystal and Gay kept trying to order in rhyme. They were trying to say “I’d like a Coke, medium size, and a large order of fries,” but they kept breaking into laughter and having to start over. The clerk behind the register waited with patience but no smile. Then Krishna was being very out of character, or maybe it was her character. She kept yelling like a drunken loudmouth that someone should provide her an ice-cream cone, extra large. If there was anyone else in the place, they had to have been staring at us.

The lights in those Burger Kings are so bright. Or it least it seemed that way. I was too stoned and laughing too hard to be thinking about Paul or anyone else, but at some point Ziggy and Dave and Raj arrived, and a few minutes later Tom—the bass guitarist—showed up too. They came lumbering in, seeming just as loud and fun as we were, and joined us at our table. Krishna was still yelling her order for an extra-large ice-cream cone, and Gay and Chrystal were still trying to put their order in rhyme. At some point, a loud burst of laughter indicated that they had succeeded, and when they received their food they rushed back to tell us all about it. Krishna complained that they hadn’t given her an extra-large ice-cream cone and then someone—I think it was Krishna herself—went and bought her one. Then Ziggy decided to butt whoever had been sitting next to me out of the way and come put his arm around me. It made me feel really uncomfortable and like a spectacle. That’s when I noticed Paul’s car through the window and saw Lucy climb out the passenger side.

I had that nervous, twittery feeling. I hadn’t seen him since before the night we all watched
Motel Hell
. When they came in, they joined us and didn’t order right away. They had to sit at a table near us, because there were too many people at ours. I could feel Paul watching me with Ziggy’s ape arm draped over my shoulder. I just wanted to stand up and wrench his arm off of me. I started smoldering underneath it. I noticed Lucy was eyeing me too, probably wanting to make sure I did indeed like Ziggy, so I couldn’t move too much or escape from him.

Then I noticed Krishna.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

She giggled, and continued licking and biting her ice-cream cone: sculpting it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Everyone started staring, including people not at our table. A middle-aged couple averted their eyes and nervously left the area.

At first the guys were laughing outright.

“Stop doing that,” Raj said, and tried to slap it out of her hands. She giggled. “That’s disturbing. Especially watching my sister do that.”

She licked up and down her ice-cream sculpture, stopping at the tip to lick around it, creating a helmet shape at the top, and running her tongue lightly up and down the groove.

“Don’t you dare stop her,” said Dave.

Paul stared with his jaw dropped. Lucy put her hand in front of his eyes.

“Ever seen one of those?” Ziggy tickled me on my side with his other arm. I know I blushed, and I saw Paul instantly glance over at me.

“Janey Lou? I doubt it, unless Ken dolls are fully anatomically accurate,” said Gay.

Everyone laughed at this, except for Paul. Ziggy tickled me some more and whispered an offer to show me a real one.

“And you? You will never look at one of those,” I snapped back at Gay, “because you don’t want to.”

There was a tense moment of silence, then Gay replied, “You just better watch yourself, Blondie, because Lord knows you want everyone else to watch you.”