Tietam Brown (20 page)

December 31, 1985 / Evening

I spent three days in New York with Eddie Edwards, seeing the sights and helping out with the homeless. On New Year's Eve, I caught the 5 p.m. Greyhound heading back north, where an uncertain future lay waiting for me. I thought of my father, and whether he cared that his only son had been gone for over four days. I'd left a short message on our new answering machine, just to let him know I was fine. I did not mention Eddie. I just said I was fine.

The kid next to me, from New York to Middletown, had long hair and drank beer, and lent me some tapes to help pass the time. Zebra, I think, and some Blackfoot too. And a band, I forget, with a real ugly singer who sang “We're Not Gonna Take It,” which made me think of punching my dad.

He offered me pot, which I politely refused, and much to my amazement, no one said a word, as cannabis hung inside of that bus like thick cumulus clouds.

I gave back his tapes when his turn to leave came, and I sat back and enjoyed what I later realized was a good contact high as the snow blew by my window at an ever-quickening pace.

When that bus pulled into Cortland and I stepped into four new inches of snow, I was high on life and secondhand weed, and was raring to go. Which was a good thing for me, as I had quite a bit of walking to do. A walk that would take me through the last twenty minutes of 1985 and into the New Year, which I hoped to befriend.

I passed by Frank 'n' Mary's and gave a wave as I went. I put my head down, and my collar up, and thought of Bob Dylan in an old picture I'd seen. Something about “freewheeling,” except he'd been in New York, with a girl on his arm, and I was in Cortland, and my arm was free.

Funny how quiet it was, without the college kids there. Just a few happy drunks ringing in the New Year. The Dark Horse was near empty, not like those times when I walked home from work and saw lines snaking outward, into the night. Lines of drunk students hoping to meet the girl of their dreams, at least for one night.

I'll never know what made me look there, for I seldom did. Pontillo's Pizza, the best slices in town. But look there I did, and once I did, I just stared. At Clem Baskin and Terri, the two holding hands and sharing a Coke with one glass and two straws. I should have just left, but I was unable to move, as if the sky had dropped big globs of white glue instead of powdery snow. And I saw her look up, and her green eyes met mine. And my heart, my poor heart which just one week earlier had been broken in two, was now smashed to dust by the mere sight of her face.

January 1, 1986

I came home that night about twenty to two, feeling as lonely as a boy can get, thinking of forgiveness but finding it an empty concept I was unable to believe in. I saw a red light flashing on the answering machine.

I pressed PLAY, and heard her voice. Terri. Compassionate, yet determined. Soft, but not weak. Saying, “Andy, it's me. I know you're hurt, but you've got to understand. Clem is a Christian. He and his parents gave themselves to the Lord on Christmas Day. I need that right now, for me and my family. Andy, I've asked God to forgive you . . . and maybe one day I will too . . . Good-bye.”

I refused to cry. After a ten-year absence, I'd cried too much. Tears of joy and tears of sorrow—far too many of each, in too short a time. Why had my father come along? I was doing fine in Virginia. I wasn't good, wasn't happy, but I was fine nonetheless. No hopes to be snatched, no heart that could break, no father to hate. I longed for those times when every day seemed the same.

January 2, 1986

God, I dreaded January second, the first day of school. Dreaded the thought of seeing Terri and him. But my mind was made up—I just wouldn't cry. I'd get through that day, and my eyes would be dry.

I entered the school to a few brief hellos. Hellos brought on by my dad, the town's Nativity hero, who had made me his Joseph, which I guess earned me respect. Respect enough, at least, to make saying hello a socially acceptable part of the day.

God, give me the strength to shut off my heart, to keep me from feeling, I thought to myself as I walked down the hall. Because to see her with him would be too much to bear. Her hand in his, it didn't seem right. That hand that had fit so well in my own was now someone else's, and no, that didn't seem right.

But I didn't see Terri before opening bell. Or the bell after that. I heard Baskin's voice, but he wasn't with her. Just he and his friends, talking about what was new in their lives.

“Did you do it?” one said. “Yeah tell us about it,” said another. One after another, their voices rang out, each one talking about “it,” those two scary letters that for high school boys could mean only one thing.

Then I heard Baskin's voice. His cocky high voice. Saying words that still haunt me to this very day. “Yeah, I did it,” he said, proud as can be. “I fucked her. Fucked her last night, in the Lincoln's backseat.” Words of congratulations, hand slaps and hugs. They all seemed a blur as his words drove a stake through what was left of my heart.

“I fucked her.” As simple as that. The F word. Used as a verb, a powerful verb. Hateful and ugly.

As I stood in a daze, Baskin passed by, his four or five lackeys all beaming with pride. “Hey Annie,” Baskin called. “Yeah you heard me right. I fucked your girl, and she loved it, begged me for more.” His lackeys cheered wildly as Clem the good Christian shot his arm in the air. And then just when things looked like they couldn't get worse, they did. Did indeed. “Hey Brown, Annie Brown,” Baskin said with a smirk. A smirk that spoke of great hatred, which he then dispensed with great joy. “Oh yeah, she loved it, 'cause I did it so good. Not just one touch and a squirt like you, little boy . . . Hey that's it,” he continued, “your new name . . . One Touch Annie Brown.” With that he was off, explaining the name's origin as he walked down the hall. The origin of my new name, One Touch Annie Brown.

The seconds ticked by, each one slower than the one before, it seemed. Each minute a lifetime, until the bell rang for lunch. I tried to sit in the courtyard, which once had offered such hope, and I thought of Terri, back when she was mine, chasing me with her breasts as the fall leaves swirled around. But I was ushered inside by a teacher, who I guess didn't care about things like young love. Inside meant the cafeteria, that cavernous hall where kids ate fried food and tried their best to put down other students who weren't doing as well as themselves. And on January second, I was at least pretty sure that everyone was doing a whole lot better than me.

Still no Terri, which seemed rather odd, but Baskin was making some loud noises up front. Kind of like he was onstage, so that everyone looked as he held a grapefruit quarter aloft with one hand.

He was quite far away but I made out the words as he said, “Come on, kid, give me your best shot.” The kid sat still with the other math nerds who frequented that table on a regular basis. But hey, at least those kids were good at one thing, their math, which was one thing more than me on this horrible day.

“Come on,” Baskin taunted, “just give me a punch. I'm not gonna hurt you, unless you don't do as I say.” So the math nerd got up, rather timidly so, and looked at Clem Baskin, all muscled and hard. “Give me a punch,” Baskin said one last time, then let out a roar and bit down on his grapefruit, like Ali in Manila.

He egged on the kid, through clenched grapefruit teeth. “Come on, ya wuss, let me see what ya got.” So the nerd let loose with a feeble right hand that made scarcely a noise as it hit the wedge in Clem's mouth.

“Aaaghh!” Baskin yelled out as he withdrew his wedge. “You are denied, now sit down, you geek.” Then he ripped off his shirt and stalked his next victim, his body still white, his back acne still red. “Hey, how about you?” he said to a kid, who I saw was Bill Bradford, the soccer goalie from class, who now ran winter track.

“Whatya say there, Bradford, how 'bout testing your strength.”

“I'd rather not, Clem,” said the boy, who looked poised to throw up.

“Well now, you've got a choice. Hit me . . . or I'll hit you. What'll it be? It's all up to you.”

Bradford tried to decide, but Clem made his own choice and blasted the boy with a powerful slap. When the kid went down, a hush fell over the room except among the lackeys, who were ten or twelve strong. Those lackeys applauded, and chanted Clem's name. His good Christian name. Clem the good Christian, and his disciples of love.

“All right, who's next?” Baskin said with great malice as he picked a new wedge from his table. Then, with one wicked glance, he came toward me. I put my head down, but it was already too late. He'd already seen me alone at my table, alone in the world, with nowhere to escape. I looked at the cafeteria aides, hoping for mercy, or just some sanity in that insane world. They just stared blindly ahead. Had eyes but couldn't see. But they might as well have been spectators at the Coliseum in Rome, with their thumbs signaling down to Baskin the Gladiator, and his weapon, a fruit.

He said, “Hey there, One Touch, how's everything? Think you might like to give me a punch? Or you gonna cum in your pants, just like old times?” His football friends roared, and the rest of the room gave a courtesy “Oohh,” even though I doubted they knew what he meant. “Yeah, One Touch here shot his load as soon as he touched Terri Johnson's big tit!” I guess they knew now.

God, this couldn't be happening. Not here, not now. Or anywhere, anytime, because it just was so cruel. But yes, it was happening, was happening there, was happening then. And the kids in the cafeteria were chanting his name. “Baskin, Baskin, Baskin,” just like in the big games, and just like in those big games, Baskin basked in the noise.

He yelled, “Come on, One Touch, get out of that seat. Show me your stuff, give me a punch.” And he stuffed the wedge into his mouth, bit down on it hard, and offered the room a big yellow smile.

I started to panic and thought of my dad, a real-life hero of sorts, maybe he'd save the day. But alas, he was no hero, just a piece of shit who destroyed human lives.

By now Baskin was flexing, shouting through citrus flesh. “Get up, One Touch, or I'll come after you.” Of those two choices, I thought, I'd settle for number two. It would be better to sit there, just get my shot and go home. I really was ready to just pay the price. Ready to sit there and get smacked in the face. But then the grapefruit came out, and he opened his mouth.

“I know all about her, your mother the whore . . . yeah you heard me right, One Touch, your mother's a whore.” And then for the benefit of all in the room, he spread the good news like a disciple of old. “His mother's a whore. She's in porno magazines.”

The laughter rained all over me. Stained me with its ugliness, its bitterness, its bile. But while the room was swallowing me whole, I thought of another mother. His. Amanda Baskin, the sad married drunk. I'd seen her breasts, had heard her words through the wall. Had heard her lick my . . . that was it. My father was right! He was right after all. She had licked my dad's ass, and now I'd tell the world. How she'd wormed that tongue, how she'd . . .

I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. Because I had given my word. Her sad, lonely voice making me promise. I was tempted, I was. I had broken my word only one time before, and I'd lost someone I'd loved. The memory of Mrs. Delanor, who I for too briefly called Mom, wouldn't let me give in. Because I knew if I did, somehow I'd pay. In my soul. I would keep Mrs. Baskin's promise forever, and I would keep it today.

So I said not a word, which wasn't the case when it came to Clem Baskin, who was reaching even lower into his cruel bag of tricks. And reaching into his pocket to pull out a page. A page just like the one I had pulled from our tree. A page of poor Holly, and two men with no faces.

“Look at this,” Baskin yelled, “his mother in action. Look at her face, all covered with—”

That last word never got out. It couldn't get out, for his mouth became full. Full of my fist, clear up to my wrist. I hadn't planned on snapping. I just did, that's all. Inside a split second, I had gone into a rage. I don't remember grabbing my quarters, but I must have, I guess. Because over a dollar was pumped from his stomach. Along with three pieces of teeth, and a whole one as well.

For a moment I thought my fist was stuck there for good. But I got that fist out, and just stood and stared. At the pieces of teeth lodged deep in my knuckles. Over one thousand miles and sixteen years from that night in Atlanta, but I just couldn't stop thinking, Like father, like son.

Then I was down. Down on the floor of the cafeteria, where a nonstop barrage of knees, feet, and fists made solid contact until the whole room went black.

January 2, 1986 / Evening

My hand was throbbing. That was my first thought, as I returned to the land of the conscious, after a seven-hour delay. The teeth that had been lodged in my knuckles were gone, but the damage had been done. Not just to Baskin's mouth, but to my hand as well, which ached despite what I guessed was my pretty heavily medicated state.

I guess there was a certain sense of satisfaction in having lodged my fist into Baskin's big mouth, but the rage that was triggered was so fierce and so quick that I saw it more as a devastating setback. Giving in to demons that had already made my life hell. Kind of like David Banner on
The Incredible Hulk,
saying, “Don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.” I wondered if Clem Baskin liked me when I was angry.

It was my hand. Despite the throbbing, that hand felt alive. Warm, wonderful . . . loved. I don't know if the human mind is prone to premonitions when the body is pumped to the gills with intravenous pain medicine, but I knew without knowing, what that loved feeling was . . . Terri, my Terri, holding my hand.

I tried hard to focus, but it all was a blur, and I tried hard to speak, but the effort was fruitless.

“Andy, Andy, are you awake?” she said. Her voice was hoarse, her nose stuffy, as if she'd been crying for a very long time.

“Andy, Andy?”

I squeezed her hand as best as I could, and opened my eyes so as to take in her hair, and her skin, and her eyes.

She smiled at my squeeze, and got out of her chair. Got down on her knees, put her cheek on my hand. She said, “Can you . . . forgive me . . . Andy please. Can you forgive me?”

Forgiveness? I knew about that. I didn't know much, but I knew about that. Eddie Edwards had taught me about that. But forgiveness, I knew, ran much deeper than words. It had to come from the heart. And my heart was gone. Crushed by this woman, who now held my hand. So, could I do it? It certainly seemed like a lot to forgive. But old Eddie Edwards came back to my mind. Opening his Bible to Luke 6:37.

I closed my eyes and gave her a smile. A goofy, doped up, but wonderful smile. Then using all of the strength that morphine hadn't yet borrowed, I squeezed her hand and pulled it toward me. Put it on my bruised cheek, and then gave it a kiss. Hoping that my message would be clear as a “yes.”

Apparently so, for she got up from her knees, her hand still in mine, and covered my face with soft kisses.

Then she looked into my eyes, and said, “Thank you,” those two simple words, that we hear so much every day that they've stopped meaning much. But those two words were special, incredibly so, for they came not from her lips, but straight from her heart.

I then saw the glow, the beautiful glow. A glow from the light streaming in from the hospital's hall. Light that caused her to look, in my narcotic state, like an angel of mercy, sent down from above. Sent down, just like Holly, to help a lost soul, and just like Holly, I knew that soon Terri would be gone. Out of my world, but not out of my life, where she'd live forever, inside of my heart.

To this day, when I think of my Terri, which I do every day, I think of her first and foremost as that angel of mercy. And then I think of black lingerie, and her bare beautiful breasts. But first, the angel. The angel always comes first.

“Andy?”

I gave her a wink, to let her know that I heard.

“I did something wrong, terribly wrong.

“I thought he loved God, but he just . . . wanted . . . me.

“I kept saying no . . . but he was so mad . . . and so strong . . . I just couldn't stop him . . . and I . . .”

Her words just trailed off, and were replaced by her sobs. And I thought back to lunchtime, and my hand . . . and his mouth, and now thought that I liked it. I liked it a lot.

Terri took her head off my chest, which was now damp with tears, and this time when she spoke, she got all of it out.

“I stayed home today, Andy, I was just so, so, so sad, and I couldn't bear to see you, I was just too ashamed. And then when I heard what you did, I was glad. Really glad, Andy, but then really sad. Because I heard you were hurt, and my father said ‘Good.' That you got what was coming, and you'd end up in jail. Then I told him to shut up; yes I actually did. I talked back to my father, and said he was wrong. Then I told him about the punch, you know, the Hanrahan punch, and what kind of a man the coach really was. Still, my dad tried to defend him, so I took their dumb picture right off of the wall. I said if he kept it, I wouldn't come home. I blamed him for you, and then I told him about . . . what happened. And I thought my father would care, I thought he would love me. His eyes watered up, and I thought he would hug me, but he reared back his hand and he slapped me instead.”

I wanted to leap up out of that bed, to protect her, to hold her, but the drugs in my body had taken over my will, and I just lay there instead.

“The slap wasn't so hard, but it hurt me so bad. Not in my face, but here, in my heart. And while he was calling me names, and putting all the blame on me, I suddenly saw him for what he really was. I saw him the way you did last week at my house. God help me, Andy, it took me seventeen years to find out what you did in one day.

“And Andy, at a time when I needed help most, all he could think of was himself. Saying, How will this make him look, how will this make him feel. I hated him, Andy, and I told him that, too. I told him I was coming to see you and that's when he said he was . . .”

Her voice faded out in a trail of small sobs, and she tried several times to continue, but the words seemed caught in her throat and drowned in her sorrow. She placed her head back on my chest for several moments, then tried again, and this time when she spoke, she got all of it out.

“He said he was sending me away. To a school far away, where I couldn't humiliate him, to a place where no one would know that his little girl was a slut . . . That's what he called me, Andy . . . a slut. He tried to stop me, but I ran past his raised hand and out of the door, and even while I was pulling out of the driveway he was quoting the Bible and damning my soul, and wouldn't you know it, Andy, he got the verse wrong.”

The thought made her smile, and I tried to smile, too, although I'm not sure if it registered, for I was fading real fast.

“I drove over here, Andy, but they said I was late. That hours for visiting were already over. But I begged, and I cried, and they let me come in. And I just want to come back, if you'll let me, I guess. I'm leaving tomorrow, I don't even know where, but I just want to come back to your heart . . . if you'll let me back in.”

God, I wished I could talk, to let her know she was already there, that she'd been firmly entrenched since she first held my hand.

“I'll write to you, Andy. And I'll wait every day for you to write back. I'll understand if you don't . . . God knows how I've hurt you . . . but I'll wait every day for you to reply.”

Then she sat in her chair and just held my hand. She stroked my hair and my face, and what was left of my ear. And held on to my hand.

I don't think that a single day has passed that I haven't thought of that moment, her hand holding mine. Maybe I think about it more than I should. But to me, it meant much more than just human hands touching. For no matter where life might lead us from there, I knew then that she loved me, and that she always would.