The Tribes of Palos Verdes

by Joy Nicholson

  I climb over the gearshift onto his lap, kissing him back, smelling licorice chapstick on his mouth. His hands cup my hipbones, then travel up and down my back, impeded only by the strap of my bra. The air is hot in the Mustang, but we can’t crack the windows because of the smell outside.

  “Take it off,” I say, my voice very loud in the stillness.

  He looks at the neighbor’s lighted window, nervous. I tell him not to worry about it, everyone in Palos Verdes thinks I’m a slut anyway.

  “Maybe we should fuck on their lawn, really freak them out.” I laugh. Then I tell him I’m tired of having sex in the cramped car.

  “We can’t even roll around,” I say, rubbing against him. “It would be more fun in a bed, free.”

  “We could go to my room,” he says. But he tells me it can’t be tonight, he has to study again. “We have to wait until finals are over.”

  I warn him we better do it soon, we don’t have too much time before he goes away. I tell him he’s going to have lots of older college girlfriends and forget me.

  I tell him I’ll never forget him, though.

  * * *

  My father misses his next two calls, so I leave a message with his service to call me on Thursday. I stay home all evening, sitting near the phone, but the warm dry winds knock the phone lines down.

  At midnight I’m chewing my nails, looking out the slats of the venetian blinds at the waves of flame that consume dry brush above. The newest fire is close to a group of houses on Crystal Cove. The firefighters evacuate terrified citizens and hose down the horse stables with foamy flame retardant.

  “No way,” Jim says, tears springing to his eyes. “Not the horses!”

  All night he sleeps in a sleeping bag on the floor in my room.

  My mother sits down, half inside my door, strangely mellow, staring at him for a long time. Her eyes are wide like a doll’s when she looks at me.

  * * *

  One of the bottomfeeders stops by the next day, introducing himself to my mother, casually asking if Jim’s around. My mother lies.

  “Jim’s not here right now, Josh, is it? But I have a question for you.”

  She asks if Josh has noticed anything strange about Jim lately.

  Even though he’s a bottomfeeder, Josh is polite to a mother.

  “No, nothing, nothing strange,” Josh says.

  “What a frightening boy,” she says to me when Josh leaves. “He isn’t your Valley boyfriend, is he?”

  * * *

  “Tell Jimbo he owes us,” one of the bottomfeeders calls as I walk past Pratt Point. They’ve been living in a green army tent, six or seven of them, two hundred yards from the water, smoking heroin, waiting for the tide to subside.

  I creep near the mouth of the tent, cringing at the smell, afraid. The bottomfeeders are lying together on the floor of the tent in a pool of sand and garbage, laughing together, pointing at a sandcrab running in circles on a paper plate.

  “Come in, Medina, maybe we can work something out. Your brother owes us, big time,” Josh says, picking dead skin from his feet, flicking it at the corner of the tent.

  “Yeah,” Doogie says, “we could give him a discount, or something.”

  He rubs his crotch, like he’s itching it, and lunges for me, but stumbles and falls against Damian, who pushes him off and screams.

  “You asshole, you broke my fucking leg.”

  As I run from the tent, I hear a scuffle and laughter, and a moan when someone hits someone else on the head with a stick.

  * * *

  Janie Tricot started going to Pratt Point last year. All of a sudden she had long hair on her legs. Then she started in with the rambling Jesus speeches. After her escape from Palos Verdes Hospital, the cops found Janie in a bus, curled in a fetal position, stoned out of her mind, in possession of heroin. She scratched the first cop who tried to walk her off the bus. She stabbed the second with a barrette. The Tricots settled out of court, Janie went through rehabilitation. Her parents paid a ten-thousand-dollar fine.

  Now Janie walks with her mother each afternoon at four, her eyes dulled with lithium, her mouth slack like a hound’s. Mrs. Tricot always smiles at the neighbors.

  “Just fine,” she calls as she waves at them pleasantly.

  * * *

  “Oh come on, grouchy, smile,” my mother says to Jim. “I have a surprise for you.”

  Five new packages have arrived today on Via Neve, each addressed to Mrs. Phil Mason.

  “Open that one, Jimmy.”

  Jim raises his fist, punching the air, not moving. He is sarcastic.

  “Go on, Mom, you open it. Take the bastard to the cleaners.”

  “But they’re for you, that one’s good, open it.” My mother points, nodding.

  But Jim knows who they’re really meant for.

  “Get every last cent, Mom,” he says, forgetting to smile.

  * * *

  There’s a present for me, too, in an elongated box next to my bed. Pinprick airholes are punched into the cardboard. I hear rustling sounds coming from inside.

  At first I don’t see the tortoises. Then I notice a brownish lump pressed against the far end. It has brilliant stains and markings on its back, some star-shaped, some abstract. Its head is gone, terrified, in retreat from the light.

  LIVE ANIMALS—HANDLE WITH CARE is stenciled on the right side of the box. I open the other end and see the other tortoise. Scooping the smaller one into my hand, I smell its musty odor and pet its cold shell, cleaning its droppings with wet newspaper. I hold it close, bringing it to the living room to show it to Jim.

  My mother is looking out the bay window, her eyes narrowed, shredding a tissue in her fingers. Before I can leave unnoticed, she turns around.

  “Thank you for the tortoises,” I say, wary.

  “They’re from Jim,” she says. “It was his idea.”

  I turn to leave, hoping to escape quickly, but my mother’s voice stops me at the front door. She tells me Jim’s been distant and increasingly strange to her lately. Laughing inappropriately, ignoring her when she talks.

  Moving slowly, she comes toward me and warns me not to try to turn Jim against her. Then she touches my arm. “Promise me you won’t. Please, Medina. I’ll buy you a new wet suit.”

  For the first time in years she looks straight at me. I pull away.

  * * *

  After dinner on Thursday, Jim lights up a cigarette in the den, tapping the ashes into his third-grade soccer trophy.

  “I don’t want smoking in this house, Jim,” my mother tells him softly.

  “Aye, aye, captain,” he says, going outside.

  Jim takes the red-and-white package of cigarettes to the pool. He sits on the step in the shallow end of the pool, lighting match after match, throwing them into the far end. I watch, hesitant, leaning against the rail on the edge of the stairs. He lights a cigarette with his last match. He doesn’t inhale exactly, he sucks at the filter, half-swallows the smoke, then loudly forces it out of his nose.

  “If you’re gonna smoke, do it right,” I call out, teasing him.

  He looks up at me, moonlight illuminating his face. His eyes are sunken, ringed with black, like a skull. With his shirt off, I can see the protruding ridge of bones across his back, the splotchy bruises on his arms, how thin he’s become. He lays his head on his board, and begins sobbing, a low, steady rumble.

  “Oh my God, what’s wrong with you,” I say, running toward him, wading in with my clothes on.

  “Dad wrote a secret letter to Mom. She wasn’t supposed to tell me about it yet.”

  He twitches, trembling in the nervous air, whacking the water in rage.

  “They’re dividing us up. You’re going to be living the lux life with him soon. He says he doesn’t want me.”

  He looks up at me, haunted, his jaw clenched tight.

  “Dad thinks I’m exactly like Mom.” Then he tells me he doesn’t know who he’s like anymore.

  * * *

 
; “Give me Dad’s letter,” I tell my mother, wet, fists clenched.

  “I’m not sure where I put it,” she says vaguely, not looking up from her movie magazine.

  I upturn the trash can in the kitchen, searching frantically through tuna cans and refried beans stuck to wet plastic. Then I kick over the trash cans in the living room and the foyer.

  “Where did you throw it?” I scream at her.

  “Stop making such a mess,” she says, calm.

  I use a garden shovel to tip the huge mechanical trash bin on its side in the front yard, waving away flies and moths, gagging. I say “Hola” to the maid who watches from the neighbor’s window and pull plastic bags over my hands while I furiously dig.

  I come in empty-handed to face my mother.

  “I don’t believe Dad wrote any letter,” I tell her.

  “Ask him,” she says, calmly flipping the page.

  Something clatters outside. Then she looks up. Jim emerges from the pool, creeping past the back stairs, sneaking down the trail that leads to Pratt Point. She’s too slow to catch him.

  * * *

  It’s Saturday night. My mother looks me up and down, arching an eyebrow.

  “Look at you, whoo-weee, a black dress with pearls. Elegant, girl. Your father would like that.”

  She points at my face.

  “There must be a very special boy in your life, if there’s lipstick involved.”

  “He’s just a guy, Mom. A nice guy.”

  “Is he a surfer? One of those young boys from below?” She gestures at the ocean under the window. “Is he the tall one with long hair?”

  “No, Mom, he has short hair. We’re only friends.”

  My mother peers intently, smacking her lips.

  “Lipstick isn’t just friends, little girl, and neither is that outfit you’ve got on tonight.”

  Jim walks in, pupils very large, sniffing the air.

  “Toilet water?” he says, grinning weakly.

  As he settles into the couch, clicking to a war movie on the television, I try to catch his eye.

  “Stop winking at your brother,” my mother says.

  Jim twitches. “Mom, lay off her, okay?”

  My mother comes toward him, but he steps back as if in pantomime. She starts to protest, but he turns up the volume on the television. Heroic military music fills the room as German soldiers lie in wait for a young American GI on the screen.

  Suddenly Jim jumps at me, knocking over the magazine rack, sending National Geographics flying through the air. As we begin to wrestle, my mother pouts.

  “Stop it.”

  I’m laughing, unsteady on the high heels. Jim trips me, pinning me to the floor, easily holding me down, tickling me wildly as I writhe.

  “Try to get away,” he repeats over and over, pressing too hard.

  My mother is pretending to join in, laughing as she tries to separate us with her hand. Jim slaps out at her playfully, knocking her down.

  “We’re just clowning around, Mom. Don’t get jealous.”

  The hairs rise on the back of my neck. My mother sucks in air. We all stop laughing. The only sound comes from the blaring television, where a battle is now in full swing.

  The Germans have captured the American soldier. As he looks for an escape route his eyes dart back and forth.

  “I’m not jealous, Jim,” my mother says, wounded, backing up on her hands on the carpet.

  He rises, staring into her eyes, gritting his teeth. “Yes you are, you’re jealous of anyone who comes near me.”

  “Jim!” she cries out in surprise, her eyes round black Os.

  A few uncomfortable seconds go by.

  “Mom, I can’t stay with you all the time. I want to go out and have some fun with my sister.”

  My mother turns very white. She starts to choke and fan herself with a magazine.

  “I thought we were having fun together. You said we were.”

  She clutches at her heart, gurgling all of a sudden. “I, well, Jim…”

  Jim takes her fluttering hand, holding it limply, his eyes flickering with rage and defeat. My mother smiles uncertainly, then puts her hand over his. We all watch the television as the GI is airlifted away.

  My mother freezes, a smile rising and falling. She says she wants us all to stay together tonight. She says it’s high time we had a family night. She clicks the channel changer.

  Jim suddenly drops her hand and runs out of the house.

  A horn sounds.

  * * *

  “You look beautiful,” Adrian says in the car. “Wow.”

  I kiss him, brushing carpet fibers off my dress, smoothing my hair.

  “Let’s go somewhere special tonight. Finals are over,” he says.

  “I know just the place.”

  My father’s house is cavernous, the ceilings are arched like a medieval church. I tiptoe through his white living room, his Chinese lacquered furniture. I sit down at an oak table for twelve.

  “Did my dad say anything about me coming to live here?”

  “No.”

  “He hasn’t called us in two weeks. My mother says he wants to split me and Jim up.” I glare at the shiny silver candlesticks.

  Then I say, “I’d never live here,” but I’m thinking of the shabby furniture at the house on Via Neve, the corduroy couch, thick with dog hairs, the rickety rattan, the scratched tables.

  I run a paper clip over the smooth antique table, leaving a scratch.

  Adrian sits close, watching for a moment, then takes the paper clip and smiles. He draws a thin line next to mine.

  “Now it’s official,” he says.

  “Some maid will buff it out. Now for the fun part—where’s the master bedroom?”

  “You’re crazy,” Adrian says.

  We climb the spiral staircase to my father’s bedroom; I jump on his mountain range of pillows, pulling it apart, ripping it.

  “They’ve got a beautiful bed.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are there millions hidden under the mattress?” I ask, laughing carefully.

  “No,” he says. “They hide money in a fake cantaloupe in the refrigerator.”

  I giggle with him and punch the rose silk bedspread. I throw Turkish pillows against the wall until the feathers eddy on the air-conditioned breeze. I kick over the table, shattering a glass vase.

  “This is fun,” I say, “isn’t it?”

  “Sure,” he says, uneasily.

  “My father won’t want me now,” I say.

  I pull him on top of me, kissing him. We roll around for a few minutes, running our hands over each other’s bumpy, hot clothes. Then he turns over, lights my father’s candles, switches off the lamp. Looking me in the eye, he pulls my sweater over my head, but the buttons gets stuck in my hair. I tell him to close his eyes. Then I strip down, naked.

  “Okay, open them,” I say, turning around slowly so he can see. He looks at my body, biting his lip. Then he strips, too, and stands in front of me.

  “I like your arms,” I tell him, feeling the smooth tricep muscles with my hands.

  When we lie down on my father’s bed, Adrian takes my hand, guides it down. I tell him I’ve never done oral sex before, but I want to try it on him. I tell him I’ll go slow, not to move.

  “I won’t,” he promises, closing his eyes, waiting. I kiss his stomach, laughing when his muscles quiver, feeling his body rise up.

  I look at his face to see if I’m doing it right. His eyes are wide open, his mouth moving, hurrying me on. When I choke he slows down, grabbing my hair, pulling it hard. The candles flicker in a sudden rush of air and I see a framed photograph of my father in Hawaii on the nightstand. Looking at it, I pull my mouth away. I sit up, pulling in my elbows, covering my breasts with my arms.

  Adrian looks up, noticing me look at the photograph. He’s breathing hard, then he rolls onto his stomach away from me.

  He tells me to turn the damn photograph over.

  We listen to a siren mov
e past.

  “Let’s go to your room,” I say, breaking the silence.

  * * *

  Adrian drops me off at eleven. There’s a beach towel hanging over my brother’s window so I can’t see in. I throw pebbles at it until he opens the window just a crack, then tells me the bottomfeeders are harassing him for the money he owes. They’re coming to his window, rattling it, making threats.

  At midnight, the bottomfeeders are lying in the army tent in a cloud of smoke. There is loud music coming from the corner, metal thrashing sounds. I hover a few feet from the opening of the tent and call out, “Hey, Simm, how much does Jim owe?”

  “I can’t hear you,” Simm says. “Come in.”

  “I said,” I shout, “how much fucking money?”

  Josh comes to the mouth of the tent, pulling his long hair from his eyes.

  “Look, it’s Medina Mason.” He makes a sarcastic face. “How do you do?” Then he laughs, and says, “I know how you do, I’ve heard you’re pretty good.”

  “Here.” I throw sixty dollars in tens and fives into the tent, and then step back.

  Josh comes out, looking at the cash, spitting at my feet, thrashing around to the music, singing. Spitting again. “Punk rock is cool,” he says and laughs.

  “You’re a homo, Josh,” Simm says. “Sixty isn’t gonna cut it, Medina, he owes at least one fifty.”

  “Please leave Jim alone. I’ll bring more later, but this is all I’ve got saved,” I tell him.

  Simm looks at my legs. “That isn’t all you’ve got.”

  * * *

  There are no fires for a few days. Life goes on as usual.

  My mother tags the family furniture, plastic sheets it for removal. She happily signs the waivers, releasing it. After a week, a van pulls up with new furniture—light oak, Italian marble. New rugs are softly wheeled in. My mother signs and signs.

  “It’s almost perfect now,” she tells Jim. “We’ll have a beautiful house, better than his.”

  “I’m not going to steal from Dad anymore,” Jim says.

  “I can’t hear you,” she says, shushing him.