Punk Like Me (39 page)

We worked out a deal, Sister Clarence and I, and yes, all that experience I’d already had polishing and dusting came in very handy.

My tuition was reduced, though I did pay Sister some money every month that I’d earned collecting cans, and though my gym bag smelled like a brewery, not a word was said about swim fees to me for that year or the next.

My uniforms, well, they looked ratty enough until a neighbor said something to my mother, and my parents actually purchased new ones

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PUNK LIKE ME

for me—didn’t want to look bad, you know.

I Þ nally talked to Jack one day when he waited for me by the train station after school. I had sort of dropped off the face of the planet, what with school stuff, chores, and my odd jobs, and I rarely had a chance to use the phone. No one knew what was going on, and Joey, Kerry, and Jack just assumed it was because of the story Joey had told me.

Anyhow, that’s how I found out the whole Jack-Kerry-Joey thing was a lie—Þ gures. Kerry and Joey sent Jack to talk with me because they Þ gured he was the one I’d be least likely to be mad at. Anyhow, it so happened that Joey and Jack had ended up making out that night after we’d gone to the city together, and while Jack did go to Kerry’s that night—and not only am I still unclear on what happened, I don’t care—Joey came up with that story to reinforce their machismo or some such stupidity, and they both Þ gured Kerry would go along with it to protect all of their collective images, since they went to the same high school. And by the way? She did. What fuckin’ bullshit. I’ve no respect for that.

Oh yeah, and Nicky and Nanny cornered me one day to tell me that they admired what I had done, but they wouldn’t let what happened to me happen to them. “I’ll lie, I’ll tell them whatever they want to hear.

I’m just gonna use them, get the money for school, and then I’m so fucking far out of here, they won’t even be able to imagine me,” Nicky swore, and Nanny nodded with him in agreement. They felt bad for me, and they felt our parents weren’t being fair or right at all, and I had their silent support, but there would be no real help from that quarter.

I have to admit, I was shocked, disappointed even, by Nicky’s reaction. I hadn’t really expected anything different from Nanny. I guess I can’t really blame them, though. I didn’t want them to go through that either; I’d just hoped that it would be easier for them to do their own thing if they knew my parents had practiced parental indignation on me Þ rst, ya know? Oh well. So much for trying to lead by example.

And Nicky told me he had mentioned to my father he wasn’t the Boyd Kerry would want when my father had teased him on their way to the men’s room during dinner—see? I knew it, I just knew it!

Nicky was sorry for all the trouble his remark had caused. He’d told me he’d had no idea that our parental units would react that way—

and it was stupid, anyway. “You know, how, like, the units always tell us we can talk to them about anything?” Nicky asked. “You think they knew what they were saying?”

• 253 •

I considered the question seriously. “Naw, Nicky, when they told us we could talk with them about anything,” I grinned, “they meant we could talk about drugs, not sex.”

Nicky laughed and smiled at me. “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll just save all those questions for you. You’ve probably got a better handle on it anyway.”

I blushed and chuckled with him. It felt good to share a laugh with my brother, to Þ nd the humor in everything that had happened and smile anyway.

Afterward, Nicky sobered in tone and expression. “Uh, Nina, um, are you, ah, going out with Kerry?” he asked me softly, looking me directly in the eye.

I just stared at him, not knowing what to say. Kerry and I, well, we had hung out, even made out a few times since things had gone down, but things were different, very different, and not just because of the sex thing, which we hadn’t really done again—close to it maybe, but not really, just some make-out sessions that got a little outrageous, resulting in extra workouts and guitar practice for me. At least I was starting to improve as a guitarist.

Kerry ran hot and cold with me, playing the come-here-go-away game, and I, knowing she had been willing to play a part in Jack and Joey’s story, wasn’t very trusting, just occasionally hormonal, I guess. It was weird. We’d have these moments where it seemed like we couldn’t wait to get away from each other, or at least, it seemed that we both felt like that, and other times, we were all over each other. But that weirdness would come back into play again, where we were so damned awkward with each other that we’d either say good-bye or start making out again.

And that wasn’t really comfortable either, the making out or the hanging out. Every time I closed my eyes in Kerry’s arms, trying to regain some of the feeling that we had shared, a memory of warmth pulled me away from the moment, and I would Þ nd myself thinking of Samantha and the clear blue of her eyes, or the way she smiled, or how her entire face showed the intensity of what she was thinking or feeling.

Were we dating, Kerry and I, I mean? In the world the way I understood it, you generally were dating people you made out with, and on the other hand, you actually went
out
with people you were

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PUNK LIKE ME

dating, and except for occasional trips to the Village, we didn’t really do anything else.

It wasn’t like I had time to hang out or anything, anyway. I was now working part-time at Universe when I wasn’t in school or practicing or studying, and I knew Nicky and Kerry had been hanging out together a lot since I wasn’t around. I sighed. Might as well bite the bullet and answer the question. I looked at my hands again and took a deep breath.

“I guess, we’re, ah, sort of seeing each other, I guess, I mean, we’re not—” I stopped suddenly, understanding dawning on me as I watched Nicky’s face. He liked Kerry, I could see it, and he was asking me for permission to ask her out. But this wasn’t just a friend asking me, it was my brother, and I could never be jealous of my brother.

Besides, I didn’t own Kerry, just as she didn’t own me. I had no right to allow or deny anyone their own personal feelings or growth, and I suspected that maybe Kerry wanted to explore herself more.

Nicky and I were so alike; we were like male and female bookends.

Maybe Kerry wanted to comparison shop—or kiss.

“Go for it, Nicky,” I grabbed his hand and told him. “If you really, really like her, ask her. It won’t make me mad.” I put my other hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. We don’t own each other, me and Kerry, I mean,” I explained to him, “and I wouldn’t ever want to come between someone and what’s in their heart.” I smiled at him, and I meant it.

It was weird, but I was totally okay with the whole concept. I mean, Nicky was a good guy, and if he wanted to date Kerry, and she wanted to date him, well, it would be a good thing, for Kerry anyway.

I had my reservations about whether or not it would be okay for Nicky, but I kept that to myself for the moment. I’d handle that issue in my own way, later.

“I, uh, didn’t want to step on your toes or anything like that,” Nicky said. “I just, well, I guess I was wondering if it’s, like, a serious thing between you or if you both see other people.” And that’s how Nicky and I ended up dating the same girl at the same time, for a little while anyway. After he asked her out, about a week or so later we were all out together at the movie theater (and no, this time we weren’t going to see
The
Rocky Horror Picture Show,
and yes, I had a date who was meeting me there—a friend, really, well, sort of—but that’s not important right now, so don’t worry about it). I took

• 255 •

Kerry to one side by the concession stand and told her bluntly, “Break his heart, and I’ll break your face.”

Kerry stared up at me in surprise. “Getting really butch, huh? I heard about what you did on the bus,” she answered archly, and reached up to play with the collar of my jacket.

With the weather getting warmer and all, I’d stopped wearing my checked coat and starting wearing an old leather jacket, sort of an old-fashioned bikers’ jacket that I’d picked up at a Salvation Army sale.

Since I couldn’t really get detentions anymore, and I’d stopped caring anyway, I wore it all the time, even with my uniform. I’d also started carrying a knife, but let’s not get into that either.

One particular day about a week before, I’d decided to take the bus home instead of walking to the train, and I was sitting in the back, smoking illegally out the window on the crowded bus Þ lled with students from schools all over Staten Island, which meant that there were more than a few rival schools all together on one public transportation unit—sort of like the United Nations, but without the fancy clothes or the funding.

Voices were loud and raucous as usual, and I ignored most of them until I heard a nasty tone and words ß oat above the usual hubbub. “Look at this Hill kid—what a faggot, with that uniform and all those stupid books. All that red hair—you must be a ß aming faggot, aren’t you, froshie?” a girl’s voice sneered out. “What are you reading, a million and one ways to be a geeky dyke?”

I threw my cigarette out the window, and without truly thinking about it, I was out of my seat and leaving my books behind. I stomped over to the source of that nasty, annoying voice. Right before the rear doors of the bus, I stood behind a girl with dark hair, sprayed way too high, who didn’t see me between the crowd around us and her struggle to take a book away from the freshman she was torturing—who just so happened to be Betta.

I tapped the nasty on the shoulder. “Hey, why don’t you stop now you’ve had your fun?” I asked her politely as she turned around, book in hand.

Betta looked up at me with big eyes, and I nodded at her with a little grin to let her know it was all going to be okay.

The chick before me had hair that was higher in the front than it had seemed from the back, and in pop-fashion cropped denim jacket and raccoon-eyed mascara, she glared at me.

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PUNK LIKE ME

“And what are you gonna do about it, dyke?” she sneered back at me, and poked my shoulder.

“Well, Þ rst I’m going to ask you to give her back her book,” I said blandly, nodding in Betta’s direction.

We all lurched a bit as the bus pulled into a stop.

“Don’t listen to the dyke, Gina,” someone called out; and Gina, I guess that’s who she was, started to laugh. “Oh, that’s rich. You’re gonna ask me to give her book back,” she drawled. “What if I just…” and she swung at me.

Oh, no way, man. You don’t swing at me, and you especially don’t swing at my face. There was a new fucking world order going on here, and I do not—ever—take kindly to bullies. I blocked and caught her wrist in my hand, using it to twist her around. “Oh no, honey. You give her the book back,” I growled in her ear, “and you apologize.” I waited while Gina stood silent. “Now!” I hissed at her, and gave her wrist a slight tug to emphasize our positions, in case I hadn’t been clear before.

“I’m not a freshman you can fuck around with.” Gina craned her neck over her shoulder to glance at me. “Geez, you Hill girls have no sense of humor. I was just joking with the little twerp.”

I let her go and she handed the book back to Betta.

“Sorry. I was just messing with you,” she told Betta, who took the book back and quickly tucked it securely into her book bag.

“It’s cool,” Betta said shortly, and looked down at her bag as I nodded my head.

“Cool,” I said, and turned to ease back to my seat.

Catcalls went back and forth across the bus. “She got you, Gina.

Yeah, Gee, prissy little schoolgirl showed you, girl,” and so forth, so of course, you know, she couldn’t just let it go.

“You and me, we’re not done yet,” Gina said to my back, and she grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around for an openhanded smack.

Didn’t we just go through this? Sometimes people just don’t get it.

I ducked again, but this time, I brought my shoulder into her sternum, grabbed her shoulders, and shoved her the two feet over to the exit, down the three steps to the door. “Grow the fuck up,” I told her as she leaned her back against the doors, breathing heavily and spitting Þ re.

She lunged back up at me again, but that’s when the doors opened so I did the only logical thing: I shoved her through them. She fell backward onto the grass lining the bus stop, right on her ass.

• 257 •

Someone handed me a book bag, and I threw it at her chest.

She caught it and glared up at me. The doors to the bus closed in her face as she stood. “Fuck you!” she screamed at me.

I smiled my biggest and brightest, then waved to her through the glass with my best beauty-pageant imitation as we pulled away. I turned and climbed back up the steps through utter silence. Everyone suddenly seemed to have found interesting things to look at either on the ß oor or out the windows.

“You okay?” I asked Betta as I passed her.

“Yeah, thanks, Razor,” she answered, her face almost as red as her hair, and she gave me a small grin and a thumbs-up.

“No problem,” I answered with a small quirk of my mouth. My plan was to get back to my seat, bury myself in a book, and not come out of it until we hit my bus stop by Universe, where I was working that afternoon.

“I’m going to call your principal,” a snotty voice piped up behind me, just as I reached my seat.

I’d heard that before. In fact, there probably wasn’t a student at the school who hadn’t, and believe me, people did—call the school, I mean—telling the principal we’d been smoking, or rolling our skirts up, or wearing our sweaters without the blazers.

I turned around and found the source of the voice, another pop-crop denimed raccoon-eyed girl, and I looked her up and down. “You be sure you do that.” Funny—wasn’t she the girl who had handed me Gina’s books? I turned back to my seat and sat down. A thought struck me, and I leaned forward in the girl’s direction. “Oh, by the way? It’s Boyd.