Call Me Jane (8 page)

As I drove away from her house, I remembered something Krishna once said. “Have you ever been inside her house?” she had said.

I said, “No, have you?”

“Yeah, once,” she said. “There was trash all over the place. I mean a lot of trash. Up-to-your-ankles type thing. It was gross.”

“Wow, really?” I said, and tried to imagine it in there.

Gay always ran in, she never walked. And she never entered by her front door. She went up the unkempt, gravel drive, turned the corner, and was gone. The house was a long, yellow, one-story rectangle, with the square end facing the street and disappearing into the distance, into the lake. Lake Winnebago, which encircled all of our properties, or, I should say, we encircled it.

FOURTEEN

Gay and I sat, stoned in the afternoon as usual, at Krishna’s coffee table and stared out at the beautiful backyard. Things always looked so much prettier when you were stoned.

Krishna put on a Beatles album, for once. We were all singing along.

“I just don’t understand,” I said. “How can anybody say that anyone is better than the Beatles?”

“Of course the Stones are better,” she said matter-of-factly. “In fact,” she continued, “why are we listening to four mop-topped morons?” Whenever she used this imitation of what Raj said, she giggled. She reached for a Stones album instead, and fairly tore the Beatles off the stereo.

“Hey,” yelled Gay. “Watch it! Don’t destroy a Beatles album.”

Gay grabbed for it and put it away. Krishna put on “Sympathy For the Devil”. “Ahh,” she said, “much better.”

I was very stoned, so I started to think maybe this was a hidden reference to me. Maybe I was a mopped-top moron.

“I don’t even know why I am over here,” I said.

“Ugh!”

“You couldn’t possibly hate the Beatles and like me.”

“Oh God!” and then she started giggling.

“Smoke another bowl,” Gay said. “Let’s get a little more paranoid.”

“No! It’s true! The way you feel about the Beatles is the way you feel about me!”

“You’re insane.”

“You use me for my car.”

The phone rang. It was Lucy, and she needed me to pick her up from her house and take her over to...

I couldn’t even hear Raj yelling up the stairs over Krishna and Gay’s laughter. It was loud. It was rude. I picked up my purse and my keys to go.

“Hey wait a minute,” I heard on my way down the stairs. No way. I wasn’t waiting. I was getting out of there before they could jump in my car. At least Lucy loves the Beatles like I do.

I passed right by Raj in the living room. I could hear Krishna’s mom in the kitchen putting away dishes. Krishna’s dad was home; he was in the back office, or was it a bedroom? I must have looked upset because Raj made a comment about how maybe the dope wasn’t working. “Isn’t that stuff supposed to mellow you out?” Oooh, how I hated Raj sometimes.

“I heard a rumor that you like Paul. Do you like Paul?” Lucy asked as soon as she was in my car. She didn’t insist on driving, so I should have known something was up, and she had no particular destination.

“Oh, no,” I said. “The truth is, Lucy,” I was quick on my feet when I wanted to be, “I’m a little freaked out by this, but the person I keep thinking about is–you’re never going to believe this.”

“Tell me!” Her big eyes grew bigger.

“It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“I don’t care.”

“It makes me wonder what’s wrong with me.”

“Tell me.”

“You promise not to tell anyone?”

“I swear.”

“You promise not to think I’m weird?” Was this believable yet?

“I already know you are weird.”

“It’s just that he’s so ugly. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

“Ziggy?”

I nodded. And it wasn’t a total lie. I did think about him.

“Let me drive, you drive like shit,” she said, so I pulled over. We had only gone about three blocks past her house. And once she was in the driver’s seat, we had some very clear destinations. One was Bill Taylor’s house. He had apparently called her up with an urgent request to pick him up. And plus, he had dope.

It was almost sunset, and by the time we reached his house, it was dark. He lived in a two-story, dark-green house by the railroad tracks toward the south end of town. I know it was south, because Lake Winnebago was on the north. Lake Winnebago was not in the middle of town; the town stopped right at its tiny shores. There were towns all around the lake though, and I’ve heard that Oshkosh is really now called the Fox River Valley, and that all those little towns have merged.

This wasn’t the first time we’d gone to Bill’s house by any means. We drove by there several times a day for Lucy to beep the horn. She always smiled when she did that. There was a little hill near his house; the hill went right over the railroad tracks, and sometimes we just went around and around his house, beeping the horn. She would speed up so that we could all have that little thrill when the car went over the hill. Sometimes Krishna would be in the backseat, and what she at first thought was funny would become so annoying that she would insist on either being dropped off at home, or at Adam’s, or Ames’ house. But everyone was used to this, and knew right away what she was planning the minute she went south on New York Street.

Only once or twice before had we left the car or actually picked him up for any reason.

Bill was short, only about an inch taller than Lucy. He had dark, wavy hair and really nice green eyes. He was kind of quiet. He wasn’t a punk;he was a freak. He wore things like black T-shirts with REO Speedwagon or Led Zeppelin—only he didn’t call them Led Zeppelin.

They talked a lot about Freddy whenever they were together: Lucy and Bill. Bill was really proud of him. He made lots of comments about how this or that wasn’t going to happen to his son, and this or that wasn’t good enough for his son. He had a very slight mustache just beginning to form.

Whenever Bill was in the car, Lucy insisted I ride in the back. Once we had taken a car trip out to some beautiful quarry in a forest, and Bill had blown the cigarette lighter out. He was using it for a charger and plugging a huge, loud boom box into it.

“What happened to my cigarette lighter,” my mom might have asked, had she smoked. She might have been furious, except I doubt she ever knew.No, but she did blow a fuse when we completely lost the part that plugged in and with which you lit your cigarette.We didn’t know where it was. It had lit its last cig anyway, since Bill blew the thing out. So who cares? My mom just didn’t like anything incomplete. It drove her nuts, and she would nag you about it until it drove you nuts too.

We waited a few minutes, and honked the horn a few times until Bill finally came out the front door. He was carrying something folded up in a black sweatshirt or coat or something. I moved to the back; he crawled in and shut the door, looking all around.

“Drive!” he shouted.

“Where?”

“I don’t care! Anywhere! Drive to the lake! No, not a left here, not that lake. Go to the other one!”

Lake Oshkosh, where there was a bridge with a stone railing. I remember as a kid we used to see groups of men at night fishing over the side of that bridge all the time, and the sidewalk would be lined with buckets.

“Pull over!” he screamed.

Lucy screeched to a halt.

He threw something off the bridge that was folded up in that sweater, and then asked to be dropped off at a Pat’s Tap on Main Street.

FIFTEEN

There was a girl in my pot throwing class. I nicknamed her Potty Mouth. Potty Mouth was a freak, not a punk. Freaks and punks had a crossover section, if you imagine a Venn diagram. She wore REO Speedwagon tees, and tried to convince me to name a shipwreck scene I’d painted “Riding the Storm Out.” This was every freak’s favorite song. I nicknamed her Potty Mouth because of a joke she told me one day while I gave her a ride home from pot throwing class. It was the filthiest joke I’d ever heard.

Potty Mouth had long straight dark hair and a Kewpie-doll smile that didn’t go with her freak T-shirts.

One other thing that stood out in my mind about her was her reaction when Lucy Bachus came running down the hall shouting, “Ziggy likes you! Ziggy likes you!”

“What?”

“I told him.”

“You told him what?”

“You know,” she said. She had her mouth open in one of those expectant smiles. Her eyes were all lit up.

“No, I don’t.”

“I told him you like him.”

I stood there confused, and then I remembered what I had told her to throw her off the scent of me and Paul.

“And do you know what he said?”

Again, I just stared at her.

“He said he likes you.”

“He did?”

“Yes! And he was really excited. He said, ‘Jane likes me?’ He was smiling. I asked him if he liked you. He said, ‘Yeah I like her,’ I said, ‘No, I mean do you
like
her.’ He said, ‘Yeah I
like
her.’” Lucy stood in front of me, grinning from ear to ear.

Then Potty Mouth turned to me. “You mean that guy who got Sid Vicious elected homecoming queen?”

“Yeah.” I smiled, but I wasn’t really smiling. It was like one of Raj’s smiles. About to fall off my face any second.

“Oh God!” she winced.

Then I winced.

But at the same time, I felt tentatively happy. I did find myself thinking about him.

“He’s ugly!” she said.

I just blinked at her. I wanted to go back in the art room and throw pots with Mr. Simon.

“But that parachute suit is cool!” she added, with a hopeful smile.

I loved that shipwrecked painting I did. After Mr. Simon cleared it out of his case to make way for the next display, my dad put it in his office, down at the university.

Potty Mouth wanted a ride home, so I gave her one. She loved speed. She called them Black Beauties. She offered me one, and of course I took it. I grabbed a few extra too, and put them in my pocket for Krishna. I dropped Potty Mouth home; she lived behind an ugly building and had to take the fire escape upstairs.

“Black Beauties,” I told Krishna, when I made it to her room. I held out my hand. They were black, I think.

“Sure I’ll take one. I’ll take two.” Krishna grabbed them and popped them in her mouth without a thought. She didn’t even need to wash them down with her half cup of cold coffee that stood on her desk by the red phone.

I sat with my feet up on her dark, wood coffee table. She had so many candles, and they were all so interesting. She had that great big ashtray painted psychedelic colors.

“Hey,” I said. “Did you make that in Mr. Simon’s class?”

“Yeah!” She flashed her teeth about this for some reason, and then blew a cloud from her Marlboro’s. Not in a clove mood.

“Would these help me in basketball?” Gay asked, grabbing the last one.

“I don’t know, I’ve never taken them before,” I said. “Have you?” I asked Krishna.

“Yeah, once. I don’t know if they’ll help you with your basketball game,” she continued, but broke into a giggle. “Who the fuck cares about your basketball game?”

“I do!” Gay said, still holding the little black capsule in the palm of her hand.

“Oh God,” Krishna rolled her eyes. “Just take it. But don’t take it to improve your stupid game.”

“Jesus, why does everyone put down my playing in sports?”

“Because,” I said, “you’re a fake. You’re a jock one minute and a druggie the next.”

“Well maybe I should take lessons from you. Maybe I could be a druggie one minute and a paranoid druggie the next,” Gay said, and rolled her eyes out the window. “What’s wrong with being a jock?”

“Nothing. Mellow out. Take the speed,” Krishna said, laughing, trying to light one of her candles. “Or don’t, I don’t care.”

“Hey, what is that candleholder? That’s an arm!” I said.

“If I’m supposed to mellow out, how is taking the speed going to help?”

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“It’s Ames’s arm. I made it from a cast of it. Isn’t that great?”

It held a red candle that dripped down the arm.

“How did I not notice that before?” I asked.

“I just put it there now,” said Krishna, sitting down at the coffee table.

“Give me a cigarette,” Gay said, and Krishna stood back up to find her one.

“Are you gonna take that speed?” I asked Gay.

“I don’t know yet, maybe I’ll take it just before practice,” she said, and put it in her pocket. “And I don’t want one of those fucking clove cigarettes,” Gay said as Krishna was unpacking them from a gold case on top of her dresser.

Krishna giggled at this. She loved to smoke her cloves, and loved it even more that nobody else could stand them.

“Those awful things make me choke,” I said.

“It’s like smoking incense,” Gay said.

“Yeah, I know, it’s great!” said Krishna.

“And speaking of being a jock, why do you keep getting straight As?” Gay asked Krishna. It would have to be Krishna, because I sure as hell wasn’t making straight As. I barely ever went to class.

There were two classes I went to. Well, three if you counted pot throwing, which I didn’t. I went to Mr. Dalton’s algebra class, partly because I sort of liked it even though I couldn’t understand it, and partly because Krishna loved Mr. Dalton. Mr. Dalton’s wife had been my favorite teacher in elementary school, and so I found him intriguing as well. He was just pure logic. I liked that. The math made sense on the board as he did it, and I liked that too. But when I tried to do it myself, it was just hopeless. The other class I liked was Mrs. De Muprathne’s English class. All of us loved Mrs. De Muprathne. She was short, loud-mouthed, and one of the only teachers there that knew as much as the professors we had for fathers (those of us who had professors for fathers, that is, which was most of us). Not Gay though. I don’t she even had a father, I mean, not one at home. I never asked her about it, but I don’t think she did. I remember my mom asked her once, “Gay, what does your father do?” Gay answered, “Anything he can get away with.”

“It’s true,” I echoed Gay and turned on Krishna. “Why do you bother getting As in Algebra, English and Physics—in everything for Christ’s sake. There is just something wrong about that.”