Punk Like Me (32 page)

After I put the phone back on the cradle, I found my books and started to do my homework while I ate my well-done dinner, and by the time I was Þ nished with both, still no one was home.

Okay, I was going to bed. This had been the longest day in creation, and I had deÞ nitely had it—and there was still the rest of the week to get through yet. I left a little note on the table. “We won!” I wrote in

• 207 •

extra-large letters with a smiley face. I passed the cable clock on my way to the stairs—it was nine o’clock.

I thought Nicky would have been back with Kerry already, but maybe they had gone to hang out at Universe. Unusual for a school night, yes, but it seemed the rules for Nicky were different than the rules for me. Whatever. I didn’t know where my parents were, but maybe they had gone to a parent-teacher night for Nanny. I left it at that—I was going to bed.

I got to my room and undressed in the dark, throwing my stuff in a neat little pile into the basket that I shoved back under my bed.

Sometimes, okay, most of the time, I like to sleep in the buff, it’s just more comfortable, and that’s what I was doing this night. The cool cotton sheets were soothing on my skin, especially after a meet like this one had been.

I lay on my side, just thinking. What had happened to Kerry on Sunday with Jack? Was she okay? Was she fucked up about it? She seemed okay, she hadn’t said word one about anything on Monday.

Damn, then there was the ß ip side of that: was Jack or Joey lying?

Was Kerry? I shied away from that. Tremendous pain was involved if I went that route, and I didn’t want to start doubting Kerry or being suspicious. Joey or Jack, or even both of them, was potentially lying, and I was Kerry’s friend before I was a friend to either of them, literally and chronologically.

Okay, well, at least I’d managed to end it with Joey, a minimal amount of bloodshed involved. I winced inwardly thinking about that. I hated hurting people, but I knew it was the right thing—for both of us.

And then, Þ nally, there was Samantha—beautiful and real, and intense. I loved that about her, the honesty, her realness. I spent a bit remembering that feeling of true homecoming that I’d had for those brief shining seconds. I had a friend, a real friend, and that was a good thing to have in life. I’d learned something, at least. I smiled to myself.

I had a sudden thought: I was going to have to talk with my parents, though, and soon. I’d tell them about me, how I was feeling, all the stuff that was going on. They’d help me make sense of it all. After all, I was their child, the “product of their love,” as they always said. They’d be okay. They’d always said that we could tell them anything, anything at all, no matter what it was, and that they loved us. Okay, so they were tough on us, and sometimes they went a little nuts and even slapped us around, but it would be okay. I would tell them, maybe tomorrow,

• 208 •

PUNK LIKE ME

maybe Friday. I’d Þ nd the time. That settled in my head, I Þ nally fell asleep.

It seemed as though only seconds had passed before I heard Nanny speaking to me in a loud whisper. “And then they took me ice skating, and then me and Mom and Dad had dinner with Nicky and his new girlfriend!”

I rolled over and cracked an eye open. Light was streaming in from the hallway, but otherwise, it was deÞ nitely still night. Which meant it was still time to sleep. “That’s nice, Nanny,” I mumbled, “I’m glad you had fun,” and I turned back over, covering my head with my pillow. I returned to the land of Nod. It seemed like only another few seconds before I heard someone calling my name.

“Nina. Nina Jameson Boyd, your father and I want to talk with you.”

It was my mother, and her voice was very serious, serious enough to use my entire given name. I rolled over and opened my eyes. Oh my God, I thought, they know, and I panicked, then let it go. How could they know anything? I hardly knew for myself yet, and besides, they were my parents; they’d love me. It’s not as if I was a drug addict or a criminal or something.

“I’m coming,” I called out in a stage whisper, and reaching under my pillow for a T-shirt and shorts, I pulled them on and swung my legs out of bed.

As I tried to quietly leave the room, Nanny picked her head up.

“What did you do now?” She sounded sleepy.

“Nothing.” I racked my brain just in case there was something.

“Nothing I can think of. Don’t worry about it,” I tried to reassure her.

“Go back to sleep.”

“’Kay,” Nanny yawned back at me, then settled down.

I made my way down the hallway, the only light coming from the TV in front of their bed, and as I stepped into the room, my mom and dad were both sitting up, my dad under the blankets on his side, my mom on the edge of hers.

That was weird, I thought. My dad had a book in his hands, but it didn’t seem like there was that much light to read by. Whatever. I dismissed it.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” I yawned. “What’s up?” I was sleepy, but my guts were shaking and that didn’t make any sense to me at all. It’s okay, I told my guts. They’re my parents, they love me.

• 209 •

“What’s this…” my mom said, then paused and started again,

“what’s this we’re hearing about that you might be bisexual or gay or…” She let it hang.

Relief washed over me like a bucket of ice-cold water. Stupid gut.

Parents know everything. I didn’t have to Þ gure out how to talk with them after all; they were going to open a dialogue with me. How great was that? But my insides wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Oh, wow, I’m so glad you know,” I said. “I didn’t know how I was going to—”

“So it’s true?” my mom interrupted, shock writ large on her face.

I started to nod in conÞ rmation when my father’s book ß ew across the room, hitting the bridge of my nose, and then my mom was on me like a ß ash, the combined force of her hand and the rings on them sending me backward onto a long, low dresser. I smashed my back on its edge, sending electric shocks through my stomach and up and down my arms and legs, then fell to the ground.

Oh…my face…hurt. I raised a shaking hand that still tingled to my nose to feel it and found that it was so tender, I could hardly touch it.

My lip felt wet, and I looked at the ß oor and couldn’t help but wonder, why am I drooling? The gem on one of my mother’s rings had caught on my lip, and I was bleeding to beat the band.

I was deÞ nitely in shock. I’d never expected this from my parents, I mean, not really. My dad, well, he said stuff, sure, but he always qualiÞ ed it, like he didn’t mean it, at least, not that way, I thought. I thought wrong.

Something was sticking in my throat, and I couldn’t breathe. I coughed and blood sprayed out. My nose was bleeding; it was fuckin’

broken, I realized, and I was swallowing the blood coming down on the inside.

I looked up to see my mom standing there, legs splayed and Þ sts curled, staring at me with an expression on her face I’d never seen before. “Mom?” I choked out, spitting out more blood.

She rushed over and was on me like the Furies, slapping and punching and kicking. I curled into a ball to protect my head and bleeding face, and she pulled my hair to expose it, raking her nails across my cheek. I curled tighter. “Don’t you ever,” she spat out between blows and kicks, “call me that again!”

My mother. Who told me that she had waited her whole life to meet me, her Þ rst child, had loved me before I was born, and reminded

• 210 •

PUNK LIKE ME

all three of us that we were blood of her blood and bone of her bone. My mother who called me “morning songbird,” or “morning bird,” or some variation of that every day, because she said I’d started every day of my life singing, even before I could talk, that even when I’d hurt myself or was sad or scared as a little one, I wouldn’t cry, but sang instead, and still did. My mother, Mom, Mommy, the Þ rst name children ever know for God, for love. Gone.

“Everything we’ve done for you,” she cried, “all the sacriÞ ces we’ve made,” she kicked my back and ribs, “the ballet and the schooling,” she sobbed, “all for nothing.” With both Þ sts she pounded on my hands, which were covering my head, and my forehead bounced on the wood ß oor. I could hardly hold my arms up anymore, I ached everywhere so badly.

“The bright child, the golden child, the best of the best, and all that talent, that brain, that brilliant mind, wasted, wasted, wasted!” she screamed and emphasized each “wasted” by grabbing my hair and dropping my head on the ß oor. I had no energy left to even try to prevent it anymore.

Finally, an aching, bloody, eternity later, she stopped. I lay on the ß oor, just simply breathing, swallowing blood, and I Þ gured that was a good sign. If I could still breathe and still bleed, then I was still alive.

Then again, I hurt so much, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing.

Cautiously, I wiggled my Þ ngers and toes. Still attached, still working. That was a good start, if I was going to be a member of the land of the living.

I heard my mother’s footsteps retreat, and using my arms to help me, I forced myself to sit up and look at her, my mother. I set my face in the blankest expression I could muster and, never taking my eyes off her, slowly, painfully, I got to my feet and stood on my own.

“I had an interesting call from our neighbor Kathy, late last night,” she started, then stopped. Right then and there, I knew that whatever came out now would be a lie or, at least, partly one.

The same neighbor who had ratted me and my friend out for smoking, Kathy was, like—no, she actually was the village troublemaker. If there was a truth and then an exaggeration, Kathy would take the truth, the exaggeration, and her imagination to create a plausible, but false, tale. For example, the smoking thing? My buddy and I were lighting cigarettes and then watching what happened when we stuck a liquid soap bottle Þ lled halfway with water to the Þ lter and

• 211 •

made it “inhale.” We wanted to see if the water changed color. Kathy told my parents that
I
was inhaling and shoving the cigarettes up my friend’s nose—no joke. Of course, no one believed our side of it. Who believes kids, anyway?

But no one ever called Kathy on that or anything else, because at least once a year, whether she had to or not, she told the truth, and even her lies had truthful elements, so you were never really sure which would come out of her mouth: the truth or her truth. But she and my mother were good friends, so it wouldn’t do any good to contradict anything the “wonderful friend” Kathy said. They were so close, her and my mom I mean, that we had to call Kathy “Aunt Kathy.” Get the picture?

She’d gotten us, meaning Nicky and Nanny and I, into trouble many times before, and only once had it been an unvarnished truth.

“Nanny overheard a conversation you were having with a friend about being a bisex, or a gay or a…a les…” she almost gagged but forced the word out Þ nally, “a lezzie, and she’s afraid of you, that you might do something to her one night. So she told Kathy because she didn’t know who else to tell out of fear that if you found out she told us, you might kill her or something.”

“What? Are you crazy?” I asked in disbelief. “How can you possibly believe that? I would never, ever,
ever
do
anything
to hurt Nanny. I love her!” I was beyond shock.

“I spoke with Nanny when we went to dinner tonight, and she told your father and me very clearly that she
is
afraid of you.” Oh my God, Nanny was afraid of me? Why didn’t she just talk to me, ask me? Maybe my mother misunderstood, maybe Nanny was afraid for me, or maybe she was afraid of the way I liked to dress. Why didn’t she talk to me? We’d never had problems like that before, even if we did squabble from time to time. She asked me everything, and I shared everything I could with her.

She was my baby sister. I had been the Þ rst one, before grandparents or aunts and uncles or family friends even, to hold her when my parents brought her home. They, meaning my parents and the baby, had walked in the door the whole family had crowded around, laughing and smiling, and had asked that I be put in this big plush armchair in the baby’s room. And while everyone asked to hold the baby, my mother shook her head no and smiled, carrying the little blanket bundle over to the chair I’d been placed in.

• 212 •

PUNK LIKE ME

“Nina,” my mother smiled at me, her big beautiful smile, “this is your baby sister, Nancy,” and she put her in arms I hadn’t realized I’d already stretched out.

“Nanny,” I repeated as best I could, and I looked down at the tiny little face and the delicate lashes over apple-bright cheeks. “Nanny,” I said again, liking the way it sounded, easier than Nancy. She smelled nice.

“Here, Nina.” My father came over and crouched next to me, handing me a small baby bottle Þ lled with what I thought was water, and with him guiding my hand, I helped and witnessed Nanny’s Þ rst meal at home.

“Come here, Nicky.” My mother reached for my brother, who had hidden under the crib. “Come meet your little sister Nancy, help Nina feed her.” And before I knew it, Nicky’s hand was next to mine, and it was just the two of us, my father letting us do this on our own.

“Nanny,” Nicky said softly, and gently reached to touch the little half-moons of the baby’s eyebrows with a tentative Þ nger.

“Oh no, don’t…” someone started to say, but my mother shushed them. “It’s okay, Nicky, it’s your little sister.” Nicky gently smoothed the tiny little brow in peace, then looked up at our father. “Boy?” he asked hopefully, and everyone laughed.

“A little girl.” My father smiled at him. “A beautiful baby girl.”

“Brother,” Nicky said Þ rmly. “Boy.”

“That’s right,” our mother came over and said, “you’re a big boy and a big brother now, just like Nina is your big sister. Nina, you’re not just a big sister anymore, you’re the oldest now.” My eyes widened, and I looked up at my mother, wondering what she meant.

“You have to love and protect and care for your little brother and baby sister because they’re smaller and younger than you. They are blood of your blood and bone of your bone,” and my mother gently stroked my arm to illustrate, “and you’re my big girl, okay?” she explained gently, and I nodded solemnly. This was a big thing, and I wasn’t really sure what it meant, but if Mommy asked, I would do it, because I loved Mommy and Daddy and Nicky and baby Nanny, who was tiny and couldn’t take care of herself.