Chapter One is linked here.
I hear the blat of horns in the marching band two miles away from my house as I get ready. I’ve tried every Stussy and Mossimo shirt and Guess jean combination in my closet and nothing feels right. My roots are growing out too quickly and the concealer I’ve patted over two pimples on my chin is a shade too light so it calls attention to itself. I stare at my waist-length mirror in disgusted resignation.
The deep throated rumble of combustion from Dave’s two-door, sapphire blue Mustang purrs up our rock gravel driveway. Knowing my parents are home, he puts it in park and rings our doorbell instead of honking. My dad lets him in and he stands in the hallway with his dark hoodie and loose fit jeans. Dave has three things going for him. First, he’s not handsome—he’s very thin and his eyes are blue slits set wide beneath bushy, unkempt eyebrows. Second, he’s not my boyfriend, just a friend. And third, he’s here to pick me and my brother up. These things put my dad at ease, as does the fact that Dad has privately charged Jake with looking out for me at all times. Which is ironic since Jake is my OG corruptor. Yet in my Dad’s words, With boys you only have to worry about one penis while with girls you have to worry about all the penises.
Be back by 11, Dad says. We acknowledge this and duck out the door, then cram into the car where Jeremy, Chip, and Kristi (sitting on Chip’s lap) are already piled in. Dave turns the ignition, smiles into the rearview mirror, and cranks up “Machinehead” as we roar out of the driveway fueled by gasoline and teen bravado.
Our high school is ensconced by the Franklins and sits under the imperious gaze of a bird-shaped patch of red rock that spans the mountain range. From it we take our school mascot, the Thunderbird. (This is shorthanded to T-Birds or if you’re our rival, B-Turds.) We enter Thunderbird stadium obliquely, able to see the football field but not the crowd. Mega-wattage stadium lights bathe the entire spectacle with cosmic brilliance and in my fourteen-year-old mind the stage is reversed and the bleachers, not the field, are where the drama takes place. There, cheerleaders dressed in blue and gold shell tops and flutter skirts shake razzle dazzle pom poms and smile eternally, while cowbells clang and the announcer drones loudly about the latest plays and playmakers.
Kristi and I peel off from the guys, telling them we’ll meet up at halftime. Then we ascend the stadium steps together. This moment happens in slow motion each time I go up to my seat or leave to go to the bathroom or hit the concessions stand. It’s as if the clamoring of the crowd is tamped down to a whisper and the stadium lights pivot their beams towards me and surge with a higher wattage. I flip my hair, square my shoulders, and suck in my waist, holding my breath the length of the walk to our section (which is just shy of 100 yards so I feel slightly hypoxic). The crowd’s stare bores in on me, or at least I imagine them drinking me in. Whatever the case, I keep my eyes on the path in front of me, don’t dare to look up at the bleachers and find out if it’s true or if I’m largely ignored and the fantasy of being on display is a projection of my ego.
I feel my body cross each groups’ viewline—the Juareńos who register under their tío or tía’s American address, the jocks whose coaches require them to attend and support the football team, the arts & drama club nerds who look longingly at the jocks when they’re not goofing with each other, the chollos and chollas come to tag the bathrooms and do secret gang shit underneath the shadows of the high rise seats at halftime, overbearing parents here and there trying to remain distant enough from their kids but still close enough to watch their every move, and adults who inexplicably find a high school football game a worthwhile way to spend a Friday night.
I need them to see me, loathe myself for needing it, and hope that what they see is pleasing, all simultaneously. This is the only reason we came here. This moment. And, of course, the excuse that we were going to the game so Dad would let us out of the house.
I’ll think about this ritual for decades to come, wonder at my desperate need to be on exhibit and my blunt refusal to gaze back and discover if I’m actually seen at all.
Kristi and I are completely oblivious to what happens on the field, and when the game is tied 3 - 3 at halftime and the marching band heads out to perform its painstakingly rehearsed set, we walk across our stage one last time and meet up with the guys at the Mustang.
When all of us are crammed into the car cheek by jowl, Jeremy cocks his head towards Dave and takes a parental tone, Now, drive like a responsible adult, David. Mind the speed limit.
We laugh but agree because we don’t want to draw any attention from roaming police. Dave plays along, keeping his hands at ten and two and signaling for far too long before making any turns. Just before we pull into the Chevron, Jeremy reaches over and turns the blaring volume down on “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Dave throws it in park, walks through the dirty glass door, and grabs six 40-ounces of Schlitz malt liquor and a six-pack of Zimas. At the checkout, the middle-aged clerk asks him for his ID and holds it up to the light, looking at both sides for signs of forgery. He peers at Dave, and Dave gazes at him with his slit eyes, rocks back on his heels a bit, and smiles slightly as if it were a game. The guy hands him the ID back and rings up the drinks, and Dave points behind him at a pack of Marlboro Reds, too. Dave gives him the cash and out he comes to the car.
He hands the brown paper bags to me and Kristi in the backseat and slides into his seat saying, I’m telling you—those Mexicans downtown have had a lot of practice making fake IDs. Best one-hundred bucks I ever spent. He slams the door, Jeremy cranks up Nirvana to ear-bleeding levels, and we peel out, heading towards our favorite drinking spot.
***
Our favorite drinking spot is an arroyo directly behind the complex of townhouses my mom is living in now that she’s separated from James. The townhouse belongs to Barbara, who’s largely subsidizing Mom’s rent, groceries, and all other living expenses.
We park Dave’s car just a few spots from Mom’s place and walk quietly along a cracked sidewalk that leads to a grassy area on the lip of the gully. Chip, who’s been quiet the whole night, suddenly perks up and begins to act like a woman. He lights a cig and holds it with his pinkie in the air, then delicately sits down on an ornate, white spray-painted bench that overlooks the deep cavern. He looks utterly ridiculous with his baggy-jeaned legs crossed and lumberjack boots tucked to one side. What a marvelous evening it ‘tis, he says in a falsetto British accent.
Shhhh, I hiss, stifling a giggle. Do you wanna wake the old people?
He smiles and drops the act. Then he takes a long drag, blows a ring of smoke, and heads down the side of the gorge in wild abandon as if he’s jumping off the damn thing. I hate seeing Chip smoke because he’s an extraordinary swimmer. In the pool his body moves like a blade slicing through the water. If he only took his talent more seriously, if his mother wasn’t so mentally ill and didn’t harass him like she does, he could be an Olympian someday. But all he wants to do is smoke and listen to Pearl Jam, and I do nothing but stand by and watch the desert swallow him whole.
Following his lead, the rest of us schlepp the beers, a boombox, and some blankets down the decline. The earth is dry but underneath the top crust is soft sand with little root structure to anchor it. So we actually slide more than we step down the fifty-yard descent, all the while trying not to crack our tailbones on the outcroppings of limestone. At the very bottom, Jake sits down and empties clods of dirt out of his hightops before cracking open his Schlitz and passing the brown paper bags to Kristi.
Oooh, Zimas, Kristi coos.
Yes, Zimas for the gentlewomen, Chip says, resuming his former affect.
She passes me one and we twist off the tops, and Dave sets the music player down on a rock. We lay our blankets out in the cool dirt beside it and pass around the Marlboros.
Jake lights Kristi’s and she turns to me to pass it on, kissing the tip of my cigarette with her salmon-colored ember. The boys are all watching and Jeremy quips, God, that turns me on, and we all chuckle, including us girls, because we’re hungry for attention, and a compliment—even a depraved one—is a bite to sustain us.
I turn to Chip and kiss him with fire, too, and for a second it’s bright enough that I can stare deeply into his sad, hazel eyes. He holds my gaze beyond what’s necessary to light his smoke, then pulls away, passing his cig to Dave on the left.
Crank up that shit, he says to Dave, and Pearl Jam’s Vs. album fills our amphitheater, an invocation for Bacchus to join us.
***
I dooon’t think I can, I slur.
Dooo it!!! Everyone yells at me, throwing dirt clods in my direction.
Okayyyy, okayyyy, I say. I tilt the beaver brown bottle in the air and take another slug of warm beer. I hate beer but the Zimas are long gone.
Alright, well done, Jeremy says like he’s the activities director. Now proceed.
Fuzzy duck, I say to Kristi on my left.
Fuzzy duck, she says to Chip.
Does he? Chip asks Kristi.
Ducky fuzz, Kristi says, swinging her head towards me.
Ducky fuzz, I say to Dave.
Does he? Dave asks me, reversing the direction again.
Fucky duzz, I say, and immediately the peals of laughter ring out at my transposition. Shit! I crow. I can’t drink anymore. I can’t!!!
Drink it, drink it!!! They chant again.
I obey, but feel my stomach clench in protest. And suddenly, out of nowhere, a thought pierces through my addled mind. Jake, what time is it? I ask.
Jake spins his watch around and curses. It’s 10:50, he says. We’re never gonna make it home in time.
My gut lurches inside because if we got home before 11, Dad would just say Hey as we walked in, not wanting to get up from the comfort of his bed and the hypnotic blue glow of the TV. But getting home late will mean a face to face conversation, and he’ll smell the beer breath over my peppermint chewing gum.
You should just stay at your mom’s, Dave says quietly, a brilliant idea that never crossed my mind until this very moment.
I look at Jake questioningly, But what about Dad?
He hesitates then says, I’ll talk to him. He’ll be fine. And I want to believe this, so I do.
Okay, but I wanna go home now, I say, tossing the almost empty beer bottle into the dirt. The watering in my mouth has begun and I fear that in the near future I’ll face a reckoning at the foot of the porcelain throne.
Grumblings emerge but everyone else concedes that this is the end of our night. So we dust off our pants, get the blankets and boombox, and leave our trash right there like careless teenage losers.
After he stumbles, Kristi and I try to help Chip up the hill, each of us taking his arm over our shoulders. Cig still in his mouth, he spits out the lyrics of “Daughter” as we three pitch and lurch in the sand:
Don’t call me daughter, not fit to
The picture kept will remind me
Don’t call me
She holds the hand that holds her down
She will rise above…
In every respect, our climb is the antithesis of my catwalk on the bleachers. The meager quarter moon is no match for the stadium’s glow, and Chip’s warbled singing departs from the uptempo pomp of the marching band. I don’t hold my breath or try to present a graceful image. And the only audience is the stars. Yet stumbling up the arroyo I am what I truly am: a little girl growing up too soon, spent and dizzy with no true compass, and dreading the feeling I’ll have in the morning when I look in the mirror.
At her place, my mom holds back my hair as I wretch and swear I’ll never drink again. She’s delighted that we’ve come to stay with her on a night that’s not a part of the custody plan. Chip decides he’ll stay the night with us too, and after I finish vomiting he asks to take a shower in the same bathroom.
Sure, honey, my mom says, so she, Jake, and I lay next to each other on the pullout futon bed in the adjoining bedroom, staring at the fan ceiling while Chip turns on the water.
Around us on the bookshelves are Grandma’s frames, vases, and statuary, all purchased at the finest furniture stores. Over the decades, she and Grandpa bought so many homes, moved to so many places to retreat from his demons of alcoholism, that they have an overabundance of furniture and decor, much of it housed here in one of their many properties. Which is good since Mom sold most of the furnishings she and James bought together in a yard sale after their separation, shedding all the layers of their New England fantasy like a diamondback does its own skin. She plays with my hair while my head spins; I’m sick from the same poison that drove Barbara’s accretions, nice things that dress up Heidi’s love-starved nomadism.
Why did Grandpa drink so much? I ask her.
With a far off look in her eyes and her fingers still running through my hair she says, Because he was painfully shy.
Really? I ask, incredulous.
Well, not with the ladies, she admits with a boys-will-be-boys grimace.
Before I can respond we hear an enormous thwack in the bathroom, as if someone’s picked up Chip’s 175-pound body and dropped it on the shower tiles. Then there’s a brief silence, followed by ‘Wicked’ from his voice, and a long, gravelly chuckle.
Relieved that he’s not dead, we three laugh uproariously at his wipeout. And afterward, as I’m drifting to sleep, I wonder if he’s a lot like my grandfather was, a terrified kid from a troubled home with raw athletic talent and nothing but booze to calm his nerves.