When Stephen and I were in high school and applying to colleges, we only applied to places that were at least a thousand miles away from Boston, no East Coast schools. I couldn’t go anywhere that was within easy driving distance of Weymouth – Stephen and I planned to live together, and I couldn’t risk any surprise visits from my very prudish parents. We both applied to the same places – one of us would not go without the other – so when The School of the Art Institute of Chicago accepted both of us, the decision was already made.
I was getting good at lying, or at the very least, keeping things from them at this point. Growing up in their house hadn’t been easy, but certainly wasn’t as bad as a lot of the homes I knew of – Stephen’s being at the forefront of that list. My parents argued constantly – I swear it was every minute of every fuckin’ day! They would argue about everything, they would argue about nothing – I honestly don’t remember what the arguments were about, but by the time I met Stephen at 15, I was dying to get out. Stephen provided that escape, that relief from the constant turmoil at home. Yet, as I began to spend time at his house, his parents furnished me with a first-hand view of what a truly fucked up family looked like.
I now remembered all the warning signs; all the things I ignored at 15, 16 and 17, flashed back in my mind – I knew there was no way I was going to repeat that shit in my life. One minute his parents would be together, then his mother, Virginia, would get pregnant and have another kid, and then the next minute his father would get drunk, upset the kids and take off again. I wanted some stability, consistency – some happiness. Because of his mostly absent status, I never got to know Stephen’s father very well, but from what I heard, I was not missing anything. His mother bounced from one self-made problem to another; as far as I could see, she used people, even her children, mostly to connive money out of one person or another since she was always broke. ‘Boyfriends’ would come and go; Virginia dumped anyone who didn’t put enough cash in her hand. There was no way I wanted anything to do with a life like that.
No, no, my parents are like saints compared to his, I thought. Why the hell can’t I just talk to them, they’d understand. No, not now… After all, I truly didn’t know what was happening. Stephen had certainly never admitted anything; maybe what Bernie had seen, and what Joe had told me, was all some kind of bullshit. If I could just talk to Stephen, without arguing, maybe there was some way we could work it all out. When I got married it was forever, at least in my mind, and I wanted that life back. Why tell them something I wasn’t absolutely positive about. Besides, what if my parents blamed me? They knew me – they’d see it was somehow my fault. No, I couldn’t go home now – I needed more time, staying in Chicago for Thanksgiving was the right thing to do.
~~~~~~~~
Stephen had been back in Chicago since the beginning of October, almost two full months now, but he still had not tried to contact me. Where the hell was he? What is he doing? Who is he staying with? No one has seen him except for Bernie… What is going on? Ever since Bernie told me he was here, I had been like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof. When the phone rang, I was petrified it would be him; then when it wasn’t, I was upset that he hadn’t called. I tried to force all thoughts of him out of my mind, but the only time I was successful was when I was stoned or in bed with Michael. And Michael: Christ, what would I do without him, and what am I going to do with him. He knew I was an emotional train wreck, just one short track from plowing over the edge and bursting into flames… a head rush; that’s what I was… I was a popper waiting to be snapped into some unsuspecting soul’s nose. My nerves were shot.
Actually plunging over the edge may have been a relief… at least it would be over. As it was now, my life was like one long, continuous, slow motion train wreck with a new car running off an unseen cliff every day, forming a multi-car pile of rubble in the valley below. I couldn’t control my thoughts; my thoughts were controlling me. The Jackie I thought I knew was unrecognizable, even to myself. I was just waiting – waiting for what, I had no idea, but whatever it was, it terrified me. I hated every waking second of my life.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and if I was being perfectly honest, no one wanted to talk to me either – at least not when I was straight. Why would they? I was miserable, grouchy, sarcastic, critical of everything and everyone and totally self-deprecating. My memories all seemed to be conspiring against me, pulling me down into a hole filled with nothing but emptiness. I could push that blankness, the hollowness of the chasm in the depths of my gut, away with grass or Quaaludes. When I was stoned I could accept that I was somehow to blame without feeling the pain of it being all my fault. When I was stoned I could push away all the random thoughts of being alone for the rest of my life. No one would love me – I was just a bitch who drove her husband into the arms of… men. When I was stoned, I didn’t question myself as much about why I hadn’t known what was happening. When I was straight, I couldn’t come to terms with my thoughts. If he had been having an affair with a woman, then maybe, just maybe, I could compete. But how the hell was I supposed to compete with a man?
I would lose myself screwing Michael – there were no pretenses with him, no holding back. Sometimes it felt like he was as desperate as I was, trying to escape demons of his own or maybe just help me slay mine. He had always been a bit of a chauvinist, making decisions for me, suggesting what I should and should not do… the more morose I became, the more possessive he became. I would wake in the morning feeling him pushed, hard, against me and slowly make love to him without ever fully waking. Then a few hours later, as we settled in for the night, he would take me with a fury that lit both our souls on fire, like he had to somehow own me. It was as if he was determined to pull me out of the darkness I was digging deeper and deeper into every day. Michael was being wonderful. I knew he wanted me to talk more, to let him know what was going on inside my head, but the problem was… I didn’t know myself, and none of the feelings I could express made any sense – everything was contradictory, every thought hurt. So since he couldn’t get inside my head, he settled for being inside me physically.
Right now all I wanted oblivion – I kept pleading with my mind to please, please go blank… begging it for some peace. Michael couldn’t provide true peace, but he could provide oblivion, and he made sure I got exactly that, but not too much. He was my lover, my friend, my dealer and my self-appointed protector – all roles I allowed him to play. I appreciated being ‘protected’, but Goddamn it, I could handle myself. Not only was I trying to sort out having a gay husband, it felt like I was being pulled apart by time too… independent ’70s feminist by day; ‘50s woman pretending to be helpless by night… except that I really did feel helpless in this battle with myself. I felt a certain degree of safety when I was with Michael or was at The Canteen. Part of me knew it was an illusion, that it could, and would, all fall apart as soon as I straightened up the next morning, but, for those few hours, I could pretend – I could hide in plain sight, standing in front of the world, and no one would be the wiser, not even me.
School didn’t help. I forced myself to stay straight long enough during the day to make it through classes. I tried to immerse myself in my art work, to express whatever was going on in my head, but fashion design and textiles didn’t lend themselves well to exploding brains hanging from the ceiling, and fantasies of overdosing on the street corner. Nothing inspired me, nothing distracted me. I spent my days lifelessly going through the motions just waiting for the next car on the train to topple over. My marriage to Stephen had ended in the spring of my sophomore year. I have no idea how I managed to complete that second year of school successfully, but the way I was going now, I wouldn’t make it through the third.
Chapter Eight
Thanksgiving
Michael and Rick had grown up on the same street just off Cermak in an old Polish south side neighborhood. It was a typical working class area of the city, full of identical looking, two-story frame homes. Rick was ac
tually a friend of Michael’s older brother, Keith. All three of them were into motorcycles –no, not just motorcycles, Harleys, as they so often informed me – and all three of them were small time drug dealers. ‘A family business,’ I sometimes teased Michael. He certainly made more money dealing than he did as a mechanic repairing cars and bikes. It was some kind of motorcycle-drug related fight Keith had gotten them all into that caused Michael to be knifed when he was 18; he didn’t seem anxious to share the details of what actually happened, and I did not push.
In 1969 when the Vietnam War draft lottery was held for men with birthdates between 1944 and 1950, Keith’s May 3rd birthday drew #40, so in early 1970, he was promptly inducted into the Army and shipped overseas. Michael, Rick and some other guys from the neighborhood were keeping the business going until he got back. Clearly Keith had been the ringleader of the group, the one who wanted to get them deeper into the game. Keith now had access to some extremely potent marijuana over in Nam, and the three of them were trying to figure a way of smuggling the seeds back into the States without getting busted. Thankfully, Michael kept me away from most of that business so I didn’t know much more, except, wherever the current supply was coming from, it was always the best stuff around. I never had to worry about running out: grass, Quaaludes, Valium, speed, acid – whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it.
Thanksgiving came and went. I spent it with Michael’s family. His mother, Shirley, actually seemed to like me, always calling me ‘sweetheart’ without the slightest tinge of sarcasm to the term. She was nice enough to invite Mary Beth for the Thanksgiving festivities this year when she heard that she too had no relatives in the area. In fact, at various points during the day, it felt like everyone in their neighborhood had been invited (I even got to meet Rick’s parents – he was shacking up with some girl for the weekend somewhere else) as the house ebbed and flowed with a stream of people, all bearing covered dishes of traditional or ethnic holiday food, or bottles of booze or wine. Michael, Mary Beth and I, along with Michael’s younger brother, Tom, were pleasantly stoned; his mother had an alcohol buzz going, and his sister, Candice or Candy for short… well I’m not sure what his sister was doing, but she was feeling no pain.
We had a great day eating all the traditional American Thanksgiving foods. I had my first Perogies – stuffed dumplings, absolutely delicious served with butter, onions, sour cream and bacon; my first Piernik – a type of Polish honey cake stuffed with layers of raspberry jam and covered in chocolate; and my first Rum Baba – another fantastic dessert of yellow cake and pudding topped with pecans and a rum glaze. Mary Beth became the focus of attention as several of Michael’s friends took turns trying to pick her up; she played the game perfectly drawing them in and then shooting them down one by one.
We spent the day eating, smoking, drinking, watching TV, and listening to Michael, Tom and some other guys from the neighborhood play their guitars, keyboard and drums. They all joked about their one and only gig when they briefly had dreams of becoming a famous rock n’ roll band – evidently their drummer was so wasted he tripped over something coming on stage, and went head first through the bass drum knocking the rest of them over, and effectively ending the gig before it started. The stories went on and on, and generally began with “Mike, do you remember when …?” Good-naturedly taunting each other about all the stupid things they had done over the years – most of the truly dumb or dangerous stuff were stunts led by Keith. Sometimes I wanted to know more about Keith, meet him myself, but most of the time, I was apprehensive about what things would be like if he were here. So for the moment, I was content with hearing the old stories.
Mary Beth and I listened to all this in amazement – our high school experience had been a whole lot more subdued than theirs that was for sure. We didn’t have gangs or fist fights at school. And our extra-curricular activities only extended to occasionally smoking pot on Boston Common, or going into the city to watch a band playing at The Tea Party, a hippie club in Boston, even telling about Janis Joplin falling off the stage drunk or how the room was spinning when Hendrix played, or the mellow sounds of Joni Mitchell at some little hole-in-the-wall joint in Cambridge, didn’t put us in the same league. These guys had something totally different going on.
“Hey Jackie, has Mike ever told you about when we ‘borrowed’ the Boreckis’ car and wrapped it around that telephone pole? It was a gas!” his best friend Jeff asked grinning from ear to ear.
“No! I didn’t know you guys were into ‘borrowing’ cars,” I replied, eyeing Michael, and returning Jeff’s playful grin. “I thought you just fixed them.”
Michael was shaking his head, “Yeah, well we were only 16 at the time and Jeff here was trying to nail at least one of these twins he’d met out in Schaumburg…”
“Me?” Jeff interrupted. “You’re the one who told me they were stone cold foxes man, and wanted to take one of them off my hands!”
“Just trying to help ya’ out man; if you’re going to tell her the story, at least tell it all – admit you really wanted to keep them both for yourself.” Turning to me winking he added, “He’s greedy.” Then turning back to Jeff, “And tell her it was you who drove off the road when they both rejected you… What were those girl’s names Jeff? Don’t you have them tattooed on your ass, one name on each cheek?” Michael taunted.
“Hell no,” Jeff slammed back, “I thought you tattooed the taller one’s name on yours!”
“Well then, since I’m very familiar with Michael’s ass, and I know there aren’t any tattoos,” I said beaming at my momentary ability to say something salacious without turning ten shades of red, “I’m gonna have to believe his side of this story – sorry Jeff.” They all jeered and laughed as Michael pulled me over to him planting a passionate kiss on my lips to another round of hoots, cat calls and applause.
“Whooo! I like your old lady Mike – you need to keep this one around,” Jeff whooped slapping Michael on the back as he made his way out of the room to get another beer. “Want another one Mike?”
“Absolutely, and bring the bottle of Southern Comfort for ‘my old lady’ and Mary Beth while you’re at it,” he laughed, winking at the two of us while he strummed his guitar.
“‘Old lady,’ I’m not sure I like being called that. Does it have a meaning I don’t know about?” I asked, catching something different in his tone at the use of this term.
“Hmph, you have no idea, babe, no idea at all.” he said kissing me again, still laughing.
~~~~~~~~
I was intrigued by the fact that these people seemed content to live out their lives just as they currently were. They had grown up in this neighborhood, and it sounded like they intended to die in this neighborhood; these families had a sense of comradery. Although that was a foreign concept to me, I found it strangely comforting. They liked each other. Hell, I had been best friends with Mary Beth for years but our parents never even spoke, let alone celebrated a holiday together, and here these people were all interacting as if they belonged together. I soon relaxed… really chilled out – not just the kind of relaxation that comes from a mild high –and I smiled freely for the first time in weeks, no, months. Stephen barely entered my mind. It was a good day followed by a great weekend lazily doing nothing of significance except making love and bumming around the city shopping, going to see ‘The French Connection’, eating out and talking… as if magically, all my worries, self-doubts and anger had disappeared.
Chapter Nine
Room 312
The Monday after Thanksgiving, the phone rang. Michael had returned to his place to meet some guy who needed help finding an oil leak on his Shovelhead. I laughed when he said ‘shovelhead’ telling him that was a silly name for a motorcycle, and him informing me that Harley also made Panheads, Knuckleheads and Flatheads. I only had one class that day, and enjoyed working on an assignment to design a pantsuit using a double-knit polyester fabric. The uncomfortable haze I had been living under had lifted; I fel
t good.
When the phone rang in the late afternoon, I answered without dread, thinking it might be Mary Beth or Michael. It wasn’t – this time it was Stephen. All the feelings, all the sensations, the questions that were buried by the weekend broke back through to the surface in a flash as I felt yet another railroad car speed down the tracks and go crashing over the cliff.
I froze; my mind congealed, my breath stopped. “Are you there, Jack?” he asked, “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I managed to reply.
His voice sounded friendly, but it was his turn to hesitate… “I… I came back to Chicago… ahhh… a few weeks ago. I ran into Bernie, did he tell you?” Again silence on my end of the line.
“Are you sure you can hear me… Do we have a bad connection?” he asked. More silence. “Jackie? Could you answer me please?”
Clearing my throat, I answered, “Yes, Bernie told me.” I could feel the absolute terror rising in my gut; my hands were shaking and my mind, now in full gear, was racing out of control.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call before this… I just thought… well, since we haven’t talked for a while, I thought you might still be mad, and I didn’t want to upset you.” His voice sounded sincere, but my anger flared – I was having none of it.
“You thought I might be upset?” I broke in. “That’s why you haven’t called since you got back or… or since last spring when you left for that matter. What kind of horse shit reason is that?” I bellowed, my voice becoming louder and stronger with every word. “You did say ‘might’ – right? I mean what the fuck do I have to be upset about? No, wait, don’t tell me – maybe the fact that you left the city without telling me, or no, no how about the fact that you’ve been lying to me for God only knows how long, and you threw our marriage away! But why the fuck would I be upset about any of that? Asshole! And now you call as if nothing’s wrong at all. Of course I’m UPSET!”
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