by Julie Barton
I understood, as I drove, that my father was telling me this story so that I might know that he and my ancestors had suffered too, and we all deal with emotional pain in our own ways. The solidarity I felt with my father’s and grandfather’s pain was more consolation than anything I’d felt for years, but still—the nagging fact remained. They were sad from death; I was sad from life.
My grandfather had endured unimaginable hardship. His mother told him he was unwanted and kicked him out at age nine. He lived on the streets, worked odd jobs for food, just trying to survive. He fist-fought other homeless boys. A lot. He delivered newspapers in the dead of an Illinois winter with shoes that had holes in them. A woman inside one of the fancier houses on his paper route gave him her daughter’s old heeled lace-up shoes. He accepted them with gratitude, not caring that he was a young boy wearing girls’ shoes. He was just glad his feet were covered. He never forgot that thoughtful woman.
Despite everything, somehow my grandfather began to learn how to navigate difficult times with love. He understood that focusing on all that was kind and gentle, empathic and wise, would give him strength. His strength turned out to be a gift that would last our family for generations. But I feared it had skipped me.
As we drove through the forested plains of southern Québec, my father tolerated my playing endless amounts of Ani DiFranco. We were in the middle of nowhere, the only car for miles, when he asked, “Can I tell you the story of when my father died now?” I squeezed the steering wheel and nodded.
My grandfather was stricken with lung cancer around 1978. My dad was thirty-three; I was five and my brother eight. My father was already immersed in his legal work, and I wonder now if focusing on work helped him not miss his mother so much. Perhaps his job was a perfect diversion from his loss.
In August 1978, as my grandfather’s cancer progressed, it became clear that he had only a matter of days left. So my father left his office and drove alone to the hospital in Canton, Illinois, to sit next to my grandfather’s bed. After only a few days, it was clear the end was near. As my grandfather struggled to talk, the nurses warned that he might not make it through the night. Grandpa was having great difficulty breathing; his skin was damp and gray. All night, my father sat next to his hero, the man who always told him how loved he was, how talented he was, how he could do anything if he worked hard enough. “One more breath, Dad. One more breath,” my father begged. It became a plea. “Please, Dad. One more breath. Please.” My grandfather was laboring terribly, and my father held his hands, clutched them with fervor, the last remnant of his immediate family quickly slipping away. As dawn approached and the top of the sun touched the horizon, my father started reciting the 23rd Psalm. “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want . . .” He recited the final stanza, his throat constricted with emotion. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.”
After my father spoke these final words, my grandfather passed. This last breath brought blood, lots of blood, out of his mouth, and my traumatized father walked right out of the hospital room. He told me about how he walked outside just after sunrise, like he didn’t know how to go on. But then he remembered his father’s drives to Ithaca, and he continued walking. He walked the entire length and breadth of Canton, Illinois, devastated. The sun reached the top of the sky at noon, and he was still walking, unsure how to continue with this day and all the days that would follow. I wonder now if he decided during that walk that work would be his consolation. Work was constant. It would not die. It would not ever go away. It would sustain him, and even provide for his wife and children.
Our car sped along the two-lane Canadian road, and my father cried. His chest heaved with sobs. I struggled to focus on the road, considered pulling over, but could tell that he didn’t want me to stop. He wanted me to keep driving, to keep moving, to keep listening. He wanted me to know that I wasn’t the only one who had felt devastating pain.
He told me that his father taught him about kindness, unconditional love, family, and persistence. He’d given him the gifts of music and nature and sports. He’d taught him how to express himself wholly and completely, and the morning his father died, my dad walked along the weedy sidewalks, patchwork fields of soybean and corn in the distance, with a hollow in his chest that he hoped would be filled some day by the love of his new family and cherished memories of his mother and father.
I cried too as I drove, blinking to maintain visibility. The thought of losing one parent when I was twenty-four and the other at thirty-three terrified me. How did my father survive this? I began to understand more deeply his love for my mother, for her steady nature, her ability to wake up each morning with a smile.
We shared a silent few miles, my hand in his. I loved so very much that I had a man in my life who was not afraid to cry. My dad embraced emotion. He felt it deeply. Up surged a pang of regret that when I was a young child, feeling so much, he wasn’t home to tell me that my sadness wasn’t a sign of weakness. I felt this discomfort, then shut it down. He was trying so hard to help, and there was no way I could tell him now how much his absences had affected me.
Our first morning at the lakes, we rose early in our little brown cabin at the water’s edge. As I’d hoped, the loons were calling. It was hard to see them, but their mournful cries resonated deeply. It was as if they were saying, “Come. Come onto our sacred waters. Bring your sadness. We will take it from you.” My dad prepared the rods and lures, grabbed the map, and held my hand as I stepped into the boat. We were pulling away from the dock as the sun poked the edge of the horizon. He steered the boat out to the narrows between Beauchêne and Little Beauchêne, the two main lakes. The water shone like glass below us, teeming with fish we couldn’t see.
We fished without much success, but we didn’t care. Our rods resting on the boat’s edge, I told him about Brian, my first college boyfriend, and many of the feelings that still swirled around in me about that first love. I told him about Will and about how our relationship had seemed so hopeful before it fell apart. Eventually, I told him about the miserable way I had lost my virginity at age seventeen. I saw sorrow in my father’s eyes, and I felt him struggling to understand.
After we ate lunch from the cooler, the warm sun sparkled on the water, and we were lulled into a peaceful slumber in the palm of the lake. We woke up when the boat drifted into a large fallen tree limb. The hull bumped hard against the branch and we were both so startled and confused by the echoing sound that we shot upright. His hair was sticking straight up, his sunglasses crooked on the end of his nose. Who knows how odd I looked; I hadn’t showered since Ohio. We found the sight of each other hysterically funny and laughed until our sides ached. Later, after more fishing, we sped back to the dock, hungry for dinner in the main cabin. In the rush of wind and oxygen, I remembered for a quick moment what happy felt like.
• • •
Based on a wisp of a story that the breeder told us, we can piece together that right about the time I was docking that boat, Bunker was experiencing his own rush of wind, water, and oxygen. All of the puppies, now about six weeks old, had escaped out the unlocked laundry-room door. They’d taken off through the woods beyond the farmhouse, down to the river. The nice lady didn’t notice until dusk, when she came home from the grocery store, noticed the quiet, and opened the door to discover an empty whelping room. Not one dog to be found.
The breeder told us that all the dogs had followed Bunker’s father, like he was the damned pied piper, down to Raccoon Creek, across the road, and down the steep hill to the spot where the older dogs sometimes romped while the nice people in the house took a swim. This was an unauthorized trip, though, and soon the nice lady was stomping through the woods, her flashlight beaming a jump rope of light through the trees. “Hunter!” she yelled at the papa dog. “You get your butt up here!” Hunter raced toward her. The puppies followed, most of them, and she c
lipped them all onto leashes. Two pups lagged behind. She had to wade ankle-deep into the muddy water to gather Bunker and his bigger brother. Those two, she said, were too busy to obey her commands, romping in the gloaming, covered in mud and giddy with discovery.
RHYTHM IS GONNA GET YOU
FALL 1988
Clay attended the all-boys high school in Columbus. It was the school with which my all-girls school had dances, proms, parties, and football games. Clay was popular; I was not. The popular girls at my school always found it strange that my brother and I were related. That is, until our first high school party. Another brother-sister pair with the same senior-freshman split was hosting and invited us both. Lots of the popular girls from my class would be there—and I desperately wanted to be part of that crowd.
My parents forced Clay to let me come with him so I teased my permed hair to unadvisable heights, carefully lined my lips with red liner before adding shimmery light-pink gloss, then donned my acid-washed skinny jeans with the exposed buttons and my red, blue, and yellow chunky striped sweater. I slid on some penny loafers (with shiny pennies inserted) and was ready. Clay was waiting for me in the car, honking at me as I rushed to jump into the passenger seat. Dad let us take his awesome sports car, the maroon Mazda RX-7.
My stomach twirled as we pulled up to the party. Clay walked into the house ahead of me, heading to the kitchen and high-fiving his buddies. I stood in the entryway, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, not sure where to go.
A bass beat emanated from downstairs. Down the half-dozen steps was a sunken living room with a couch and chair facing the television and stereo. The far wall of the living room had sliding glass doors that led out to a patio. There sat a hot tub, the hot water twirling steam into the cool night.
The popular girls from my school stood in the corner, huddled like hair-sprayed football players. They turned to me, and said, “Oh, hi!” They gave my outfit the once-over and I did a half wave with my elbow pinned to my body. I approached, which could’ve gone terribly wrong, but they pulled out of their huddle and gave me half-body hugs. Kathy, our school’s richest and most popular girl, asked if I was excited about coming to the party, like I was a five-year-old. I smiled and nodded, like a five-year-old.
The stereo was blasting 97.9, WNCI. That was my station. I knew just about every song they played. I had danced alone in my room for hours to their music, went jogging with my Walkman tuned to only that frequency. Once, I even called in and was the 97th caller, and won tickets to a Prince concert, the Lovesexy tour. As the girls chatted, I smiled and tapped my toe to “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship.
Two of the senior boys came down the stairs and walked outside, then stripped down to their boxers and stepped into the hot tub. Kathy walked to the sliding glass doors and yelled out to them, “You guys! We’re not supposed to get into the hot tub until we’re smashed! You can’t already be drunk, can you?” She laughed as they lowered themselves into the steaming water, nodding and smiling.
“Oh, my god,” she said, grabbing my forearm. “Those guys are hammered and it’s not even nine o’clock!” I couldn’t believe that the popular girl was touching me, laughing with me at a party.
“They could drown!” I said, and she looked at me, her eyes wide, laughing. I smiled like I’d meant to make a joke. The radio was blasting a commercial, then the DJ said something unintelligible before we heard the unmistakable cowbell-synthesizer beat that begins George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex.” The girls started screaming and jumping up and down and Maddie grabbed my hand and we moved out to the open space in the living room and started dancing.
I barely danced, afraid the boys were watching us. Clay was still upstairs with his friends, and the boys in the hot tub weren’t paying attention. So I laughed and smiled as the girls hopped up and down with their eyes closed. Maddie and Kathy were good dancers, but Diane and Renee looked ridiculous. I was astounded, both by their lack of rhythm and by their apparent lack of self-consciousness.
“C-C-C-C-C-C’mon!” We all sang together. I felt my body loosening up. Someone turned off the lights and all the girls screamed. I relaxed a little and did a few of the moves that I’d practiced in my room—some serious hip shaking followed by a tip of the toes twirl. When I finished, all the girls yelled, “Go, Julie! Woo-hoo!” I laughed, feeling half embarrassed, half thrilled. I kept going and soon it was like I was alone in my room, dancing with the lights low and the music blaring. Except I was with friends, actual friends, who loved to dance just like me.
Thirty minutes into the dancing, I was thinking that if this was what high school parties were like, I was in. I knew all of the words to these songs, and the other girls watched me lip sync, watched my moves, and tried to imitate them, and it was as if I could feel my social status rising with each shake of my hips.
When the station played Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” we all sang the first few lines as loud as we could. “Ooh baby, do you know what that’s worth? Ooh, heaven is a place on earth. They say in heaven, love comes first. We’ll make heaven a place on earth!” I was breathless with laughter, dancing with abandon. I couldn’t remember having this much fun. Ever. In my entire life.
Soon, the boys from the hot tub came in and started dancing with us, their boxers dripping. I thought that was great. I had no concept of sex yet. I had no idea that things on dance floors could lead to anything but the need for an ice cold lemonade and a snack. As far as I was concerned, everything was great. The whole world was an amazing, wonderful place because of this half-lit living room with the popular girls (and me!) dancing along to Belinda and George and Whitney. Soon the dance floor was the place to be, and I was dripping with sweat. We all were. I wanted to dance all night. This was so easy, so amazing. Sometimes a girlfriend and I would hug and jump up and down, hold hands and try to do the same move. Sometimes a boy would put his body against my back and we’d sway together. I loved the way this felt. Something beautiful was awakening in me. I did my best Axl Rose interpretation (which was spot-on, by the way) and laughed so hard I nearly cried.
At one point, during Duran Duran’s “Notorious,” I noticed Clay standing across the room watching me. I waved at him and motioned for him to join us. He looked away, then turned his back toward me. Whatever. I didn’t care. “No-No-Notorious!” We screamed. I felt beautiful. I felt like I belonged. I noticed some of the boys watching me dance, and for the first time in my young teenage life, I honestly thought I might be pretty.
I had to pee during Madonna’s “Open Your Heart,” so I trotted up the stairs to find the bathroom. Clay followed me and grabbed my wrist and said, “Let’s go. We’re leaving.”
“Why?” I asked. I checked my watch. It was only 11:30. We’d been there for less than three hours. Our parents told us to leave at midnight. “We don’t have to leave for another half-hour.” I was out of breath, giddy from dancing, and eager to get back downstairs.
“Well, I’m going,” he said. “And I’m your ride. So come on.”
“Please?” I said. “Can we stay just a little bit longer? I love this song!”
“You are ridiculous. Godammit!” he yelled. “Come outside and get in the fucking car right now.”
“But I have to pee,” I said, ignoring his foul mood and pondering letting him leave without me.
“Hurry the fuck up, then,” he said, holding the front door open.
“Okay! Okay!” I said, my hands up in surrender as I sidled into the powder room. I peed and sang, “I’ll hold the lock and you’ll hold the key. Open your heart to me-e-e,” then came out into the foyer and asked if I could go say good-bye to my new friends.
“No,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
I heard George Michael’s “Faith” coming on and said, “Oh, man. Please? One more song? Can we stay? Pleeease?”
“I’m leaving,” he said, walking out the doo
r. He slammed it hard. I didn’t know how I’d get home without him, so I followed him outside and got in the car. I should’ve been mad, but I was still too happy from the great party, out of breath, damp with sweat.
We sat in the car for a while, and he didn’t put the key into the ignition. He had his hands on the steering wheel, and he was looking down into his lap. I was about to ask him what he was doing when he began speaking through clenched teeth.
“You . . . looked . . . like a fucking hobag.” Spit flew out of his mouth with those last two words. I had no idea what a hobag was. I wondered if he meant hobo.
“What?” I said.
“What the fuck do you think you were doing in there?” he said. I was scared now. He was a senior, had been going to these kinds of parties for at least four years, and he knew how to act. Clearly I’d done something uncool.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to sound strong.
“You are so full of shit. You do too.”
“No. Honestly. I don’t.”
He paused, squeezed the steering wheel, and then said, “You looked like a big, huge whore. A slut. I am so fucking embarrassed right now. I can’t fucking believe what you were doing in there. You should be glad I got you out of there before you made a complete and total ass of yourself. God!” he screamed. He banged the heels of his hands on the steering wheel.
“But I was just dancing,” I said, my voice a child’s. Weren’t we all having fun? This was my first party, sure, but I was taking cues from the other kids. It wasn’t like I was out there dancing alone. But Clay made it clear that I’d just gone to my first high school party and made a complete mockery of myself.
