Punk Like Me (38 page)

“Thank you, for helping me out today,” I told her softly. “I will always appreciate this.”

Samantha caught my hand in hers again and kissed it. “I will always be there for you,” she swore, and we gave each other one last

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PUNK LIKE ME

long hug before I got out of the car and trudged to the door.

I didn’t even look back because if I did, I was afraid my resolve to see this through one way or another would break, and I couldn’t bear the look in Samantha’s eyes. I could feel her watching me.

You want to know what happened next, right? You’re probably thinking, hey, she dumped that Kerry chick on her ass and had it out with everyone, then everything settled back down to something resembling normal, because Nina decided she couldn’t live without Samantha, and the deities intervened, and they lived together forever and ever, amen, and they got wonderful jobs in some wonderful company and bought a house that they live in and have hot monkey sex when they’re not busy being heroes and saving the world from evildoers.

No. Wrong.

Although I like the hot-monkey-sex part. And the deities (such as they are) remain uninvolved. And heroes are people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, or even Joan of Arc, and people who are everyday people trying to be better, make it all better, no radiated spiders giving anyone special powers or swords to be swung, Joan notwithstanding, of course. But—and this is important—she burned at the stake rather than deny her own truth. That’s a powerful thing, truth. Now
that’s
punk.

And heroes are those, big and small, who strive every day just to live, to be themselves and make the world a little better just by being around. You know these people. They’re friends. Teachers. Doctors.

Lawyers. The nice lady at the insurance company who goes out of her way to help you out, even though you don’t know her mother is sick, her kids are driving her mad, and she just discovered her division is being outsourced. And the guy at work who tells the boss he didn’t appreciate a bigoted joke that was made. These things only seem small, but they aren’t—they require goodness of heart and bravery—and the effects of these actions ripple outward. These are the people that are heroes, and if you really think about it, you might be one too.

That night, after a silent dinner (which I made, by the way) and a few hours of homework and guitar playing, deep in the dark of the night when everyone was asleep, I got dragged out of bed by the hair compliments of my former incubator and thrown on the ß oor again, though this time it was in the hallway and under the bright light that hurt my not-fully-awakened eyes. She and the sperm donor pulled my hair and shook me around, trying to rub my face into the top steps

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because I hadn’t completed some household chore.

Quite honestly, I don’t even know what it was—I was still out of it—but when macho man lifted me by my shirt and threw me against the wall right by the top of the steps, I was suddenly aware of something. I had both arms up having blocked a punch coming for my face and had just stopped my foot from smashing the source of my origin—namely, his balls. The cotton of his pajama bottoms was warm on my bare foot, and I could just feel the weight of his pride. Yuck, actually.

I was horriÞ ed, my father, Daddy, I’d almost hit Daddy. God, Daddy, and we all froze in shock. My father’s face was bewildered, my mother’s scared, and I was terriÞ ed at this capacity I had discovered within myself.

They both kept screaming at me about their disappointment. They were disappointed with me? They were the disappointment because they lied. Love was conditional, acceptance was something done at a distance, removed from the immediate environment, and brutality was evil, unless they practiced it. They wanted me to be just like them. It was enough to make me weep.

And despite everything, they were my parents, and I loved them. I couldn’t stop that, couldn’t help it. Daddy, who had taught me to swim and to Þ sh, how to ride a bicycle, who used to just swing me up in the air and put me on his shoulders so I could see the parade or the Þ reworks or touch the leaves from the trees and who had given me my Þ rst microscope and chemistry sets, had played with me, laughed when my little Bunsen burner set the table on Þ re or I’d exploded something—again. Daddy, with his strong arms and warm hugs, who said we’d never be too big for him to cuddle. I’d almost hit him, and I hadn’t meant to—how could I hit Daddy?

I was furious with them, furious with myself, and I realized I grieved, too, because I couldn’t understand how it had all come to this, screaming and ß ailing in the hallway in the middle of the night, a family of strangers.

I lowered my leg to the ground and stood up straight against the wall at the top of the stairs, arms and Þ sts in a defensive posture, as tears of rage and frustration poured out of my eyes. I could feel the rush of blood in my head and neck, could taste it in my mouth, and I realized another cut had broken open again.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Daddy. Don’t make me do this,” I begged my father, my voice thick and harsh. “I don’t want to do this, I don’t.

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PUNK LIKE ME

You’re my father, I don’t want this,” I cried, while the tears ß owed hot and fat down my face, and I hated that, because I couldn’t stop them, because I hated doing it, and grief and fury combined are too powerful a force to be halted.

Nanny came out of our room; the commotion had woken her up.

“I hate you, Nina. You’re ruining this family!” she screamed at me from our doorway.

My mother said nothing, just watched me and my father with frightened eyes, and I turned to look at Nanny. “That’s not—” true, I had started to say, but my father’s left hand caught my face, and my shoulders spun as my head snapped to the side. I caught myself before I went headÞ rst down the stairs entirely, one foot on the landing, one down the Þ rst stair.

I heard the door to Nicky’s room open, and I turned my head. I thought I saw his face as my mother screamed, “Roger! Don’t!” but too late, he swung again.

Faster than it takes to tell, my right arm was up and blocking, and I grabbed the wrist and twisted, bringing it down and behind him, while I threw the left side of my body up and in, my shoulder crashing into his sternum, the momentum carrying us into the opposite wall, away from the stairs. I quickly shifted weight from one shoulder to the other, my right hand still holding the twisted wrist, my thumb digging into the pressure point and drew my left arm back.

“Nina, don’t!” Nicky whispered from the door, and my Þ st came to a full-force stop less than a centimeter before his nose.

The angle we were at had his face level with mine, and I looked into his eyes forever. I refused to take my gaze off the man who had just tried to send me ß ying down a ß ight of steps.

“Stay out of this, Nicky,” I told him from the corner of my mouth where the blood ran freely again. “Macho man, beating on girls,” I hissed into this stranger, my father’s face, contorted in surprise and anger, with an expression in his eyes I’d never seen before, not more than Þ ve inches from my eyes. “Touch me like that again, old man, and I will fucking kill you,” I growled. “I will be only too fuckin’ happy to stab you in your goddamned fuckin’ sleep.” My blood spattered a little onto his face. Blood of my blood. I hated that too, hated that he was half of who I was.

“Who’s gonna fuckin’ stop me, you little piece of shit bitch?” he hissed back. He tried to move, but I jammed my shoulder harder into

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his. He grunted when he hit the wall again.

“I will,” I told him very evenly. I released him and took a step back, nodding my head up and down as if I suddenly had a clue.

Free, El Testostero rubbed his pained wrist, while my eyes swept the hallway.

Nanny was crying, “I hate you, Nina, I hate you,” in the doorway of our room, but Nicky had come out to stand next to our mother as she stood and stared at me; I read sorrow on her face.

My father just glared up at me, wishing me incinerated and gone with his gaze.

I stood up straight, while Nanny closed the door to our room. “Try that again, and see what happens. I’m not just some defenseless little girl,” I told him. “You made sure of that.” I walked past my mother to my bedroom door. “Oh, by the way?” I said conversationally, as I put my hand on the doorknob—I noticed it had been practically destroyed in the unlocking—before I turned to look at them both. They hadn’t moved from their positions at all, except for their eyes, which were following me. “If I don’t show up at school tomorrow or any other day? It doesn’t matter if you call or not. If there’s no contact with me directly, the cops will come here.” I opened the door and started to make my way in.

“Cops’ll come and get you, bitch, and then you’ll go to fuckin’

juvie hall where you belong,” my father threatened.

The door was wide-open and in the light that ß ooded in to the room from the hallway, I could see Nanny sit up in her bed. I stopped and turned around in the entrance. “Look at me, look at my fucking face,” I said with strength. “See this?” and I lifted up my shirt, so they could see the dark splotches on my ribs. I heard Nanny gasp as she saw them, and Nicky winced and turned his head. I didn’t blame him. “You tell them what you want, and I’ll show them the truth. I’ve got evidence on my side—what have you got?” I challenged, lifting my chin.

“I’ve got Kerry, you twisted little shit,” my father spat out in angry triumph.

My mother gasped and went pale as I dropped my shirt and took a step forward, hands knotted at my sides. “You’ve got nothing,” I hissed back, “nothing. You forget, I have friends, too, and they tell a different story,” I reminded him. “And I’m sure there are plenty of people who can vouch for my character, my honor. Who’s going to vouch for a

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PUNK LIKE ME

man,” and my mouth twisted with disdain, “who allows or causes his own ß esh-and-blood child to be harmed like this?” I spread my arms to indicate my body, “or would rather see his child beaten and raped than possibly be gay? What honor do you have?” I asked him contemptuously.

“And all because you’re afraid of what the
neighbors
,” I emphasized the word with heavy sarcasm, “might say.”

“You little…” he started and took a step toward me.

“Now wait a moment,” I cautioned him. “I can’t really tell what I’m capable of doing in self-defense. I’m feeling a little edgy, a little crazy now.” I started to bounce, just a little on the balls of my feet, and it was true. I was feeling a little out of control, and energy was curling in my stomach the way it did before a game or a swim meet.

I was trying to handle it, but the force was bouncing wildly in my chest and arms and legs, like a caged tiger leaping at the bars of its cage and smashing its head over and over again against my heart, pushing to the breaking point so it could burst free.

“You know, those judo classes, they just ingrain themselves in you somehow, just like you said they would.” I had a responsibility for the outcome, I told myself over and over; warn your opponent, warn your opponent.

He stopped in his tracks and just watched me.

“Here’s the deal,” I said, pausing to look at him and then my mother. “I will follow your rules, I will comply with your ridiculous demands. However, I will not change who I am or lie to please you or anyone else. You
will
respect me. Touch me again, and I swear you better make sure you kill me, hide the body, and tell everyone you sent me to boarding school in South America, because I have people ready to call the cops on both of you. That’ll look great.” I smiled grimly.

“You’ll get arrested for child abuse. You can explain that at the next PTA or block association meeting.”

My mother’s face went blank, and she looked at me in a way she never had before. Well, I guess it was just a week of Þ rsts, all around.

She was actually taking my measure.

I turned back into the doorway. “And one more thing.” I paused and turned again. “No, wait. Two more. First, Dad,” and I laced the word with heavy sarcasm, “I think you lied. I think at most maybe Nicky said something about how Kerry and I get along, or maybe something along the lines of how you’ve picked the wrong Boyd she’d be more likely

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interested in, and you just twisted it up.” His face was angry still, but his mouth became a thin ß at line—

and I knew then, for sure, not just that gut surety from the night before but with his own face as proof—that he had stretched a truth for his own purposes. That was the only time he had that expression.

“And the second thing? I don’t know if you were right or not, father of mine, about Kerry being a dyke.” Oh hell, that was for her to say, not me; I wasn’t in the business of outing people. “But I can tell you this with absolute certainty: I am. You’ll have to deal.” I paused again, making sure I pinned him with my gaze. “You shouldn’t be so fucking jealous.”

And while my mother’s mouth dropped open in shock, she turned to stare at him. Asshole. As if I couldn’t tell that he didn’t know what bothered him more: that my mom was heartbroken because of her perceived amputation from me, or because he thought the girl I might be dating was hot too. Now he knew that I knew, too. I went into my room and slammed the door.

Nanny said not a word to me, and I Þ nally got the sleep that I had earned, without further word or interruption from anyone—for a few days.

The next night, Nicky had been given a new room—the entire basement, complete with a lock on the door and its own entrance, because a “man needed his privacy.” And Nanny inherited his old room—which already had a lock on it.

For the Þ rst time in my life, not counting the year I spent in a crib, I had a room to myself, but I had no lock. The doorknob had to be replaced, and I was no longer allowed to lock my door. Whatever.

I took all the money I had and divided it into piles of not much—

diddly divided by squat, in effect—one for school now, one for college, one for the nebulous “future” when I’d have to pay rent, and I did go talk with Sister Clarence about my tuition.