by C. D. Payne
Because of the heat, the library smelled even worse than usual. I wish some wealthy philanthropist would endow a foundation to distribute Right Guard to the homeless. In the library bathroom a bookish-looking gentleman about 30 glanced at my sunglasses and asked me if I wanted to go out for coffee. I said no, I was too young for dating. He seemed disappointed. I’m glad that in spite of my zits and incipient baldness at least one person in this world finds me attractive. If only he were a cute 16-year-old girl. But then what would she be doing loitering in the men’s room?
I sat in the periodicals room for a few hours reading computer magazines. This always fills me with extreme hardware lust. Unrequited, of course, like all my other passions. My bankroll is down to $72 and falling fast. At the opposite end of the table a short fat girl about my age was reading Atari magazines. She kept looking over at me. Finally, she got her fat composed in a friendly expression and asked me if I had a computer. I didn’t want to encourage her, but out of politeness I said yes I had an IBM AT clone. She said she had an Atari ST and loved its color graphics for games and drawing. I said I used my IBM mostly for word processing and “other serious tasks.” That took the starch out of her sails. She was going to reply, but fortunately a librarian shushed for quiet. When Ms. Atari got up to get another magazine, I sneaked out.
After dinner tonight, we heard a semi-tractor hiss to a stop out front. It was the assless Don Juan back from his Iowa assignations. Jerry pretended nothing was amiss and feigned surprise when my mother lit into him. He disavowed any knowledge of the incident and said if a woman answered his phone (which he doubted) it must have been the maid bringing more toilet paper. What a feeble and transparent liar! To my shock, Mom bought it. She even kissed him!
As Mom fixed Jerry a much better dinner than she had served me, she asked him what he intended to do about the deceased camouflaged hulk in the driveway. Jerry viewed the matter with cool detachment. He said as much as he would like to move the car, he could not—because, of course, it was someone else’s private property. He suggested Mom call the city and have it towed.
What about the angry sailor and his $900?
Jerry said if the sailor came back, Mom should simply remind him he had purchased the car with Jerry’s standard guarantee: “Thirty days or thirty feet. Whichever comes first.”
“I’m in the right,” announced Jerry, carving his steak. “That $900 is already invested in my new car. I pick it up tomorrow.”
“What did you get this time, honey?” asked Mom.
“A slab-sided Lincoln,” said Jerry. “A cherry ’62 convertible. Like the one Kennedy was shot in. Only this one’s white instead of black.”
With Jerry, that stands to reason.
THURSDAY, August 16 — When I got up, the big tractor truck was still parked outside. Thinking it would be fun to have extra guests for breakfast, I sneaked downstairs and called the sailor in Alameda (I found the number in Mom’s purse). He was very happy to hear Jerry was back.
At 8:12 we had three sailors at the front door and two at the back door. When the doorbell rang, Jerry was slumped in a kitchen chair trying to wake up enough to swallow coffee. He perked right up when Mom yelled the fleet was in. He turned white, hissed at Mom to get rid of them, and ran upstairs. The sailors cornered him in Joanie’s closet. (They hadn’t stopped to chat with Mom.) When they grabbed him, Jerry went limp like a house cat caught with the missing family hamster. Two big guys with bad haircuts held him off the ground while the erstwhile Chevy owner went through his pockets. They found $63 and change. Jerry said that was his entire life savings. The sailor poked him hard in the beer gut. Mom whimpered, “Don’t hurt him!” I was shaking with excitement. The sailors were breathing hard. Jerry looked like he was trying to climb out of his body.
“Honest, guys,” said Jerry, “that’s all I got!” The sailor hit him again. Jerry lost his coffee down the front of his shirt. Mom screamed. I felt like screaming. Jerry started to cry. They carried him downstairs and dragged him outside to go through the cab of the truck. Mom yelled at me to call 911, but one of the sailors said, “Touch that phone, kid, and I’ll slice your balls off.” I didn’t have to be warned twice. In the truck they found Jerry’s jacket with his credit cards and bankbook. So all five sailors and the rumpled truck driver piled into a Navy van (“For Official Use Only”) and drove off to wait for the bank to open.
Mom didn’t go to work. She spent the morning crying in the kitchen. I feel terrible for ratting on Jerry. But what a stimulating way to start your day!
1:30 P.M. No sign of Jerry. Mom is frantic. The big question: if they murdered him, am I an accessory?
3:20 P.M. Jerry pulled up in his big white Lincoln. He had put the top down, changed into his nice (for him) clothes, and was smiling from ear to ear. He took us for a ride. What a beautiful car! The interior is as cherry as the outside—all chrome, plush carpet, and white leather seats.
Driving down to the bay, Jerry told us how he had outsmarted the U.S. Navy. In the bank, when they found out he didn’t have any money in his account, the sailors made him get a cash advance of $836.72 on his Visa card. Jerry agreed, but asked the teller for a cashier’s check instead of cash. The sailor was pissed, but took it anyway since it was a bank-guaranteed check. Then, when the sailors let him go, Jerry called up Visa and reported his credit card had been stolen. The night before! “Boy,” chuckled Jerry, “is that dumb sailor going to get a surprise when he tries to cash that check!”
FRIDAY, August 17 — Mom and I are going to Clear Lake for a week with Jerry. We leave early tomorrow. The arrangements are being made sort of suddenly. Don’t ask me why. I’m never consulted about these things. All I was told is we’re going to be staying in a cabin on the lake owned by a friend of Jerry’s.
I packed my grip. I’m taking my sunglasses, my harmonica, my zit salve, three books: Bleak House, Atlas Shrugged, and The Function of the Orgasm (by Wilhelm Reich), four F.S. albums, my favorite issue of Penthouse taped inside a portfolio of harmonica sonatas, and some clothes. I couldn’t decide whether to take my baggy swimsuit or my skimpy, form-fitting trunks. The baggy suit looks dumpy, but the tight, form-fitting trunks don’t have enough bulging forms to fit. So I packed both. Maybe the lake air will revive my dormant growth hormones.
I let Mom pack the cooking gear and sleeping bags. This always makes her a bit touchy. Right before she and Dad split up, he went on a four-day fishing trip to Lake Shasta with the guys. Later, when Mom was putting away his camping gear, she found a brassiere (size 42D) in the bottom of his sleeping bag. Ever since then, the sight of ripstop nylon or a Coleman lantern always puts Mom in a bad mood.
Lefty came over to say goodbye. He was acting kind of jumpy. I suspect vitamin poisoning. Martha has stopped tormenting him with Joe Cocker and has switched to their parents’ old Barry Coma records. We both agreed that is hitting below the belt. Lefty threatened to tell their parents about the diary revelations, but Martha has burned the evidence and says they’d never believe him. Until he gets some leverage over her, his life will remain a living hell.
SATURDAY, August 18 — I’m on vacation! Believe it or not, I’m actually writing all this down in longhand on a legal pad for transcription later into the computer. What a tedious process. I suppose, though, back when the pencil was a new invention people must have thought it was a marvelous labor-saving device. Then some genius thought of adding an eraser and everyone had to upgrade.
We hit the road right after breakfast. The phone rang steadily from 6 A.M., but Mom was under orders from Jerry not to answer it. I called Lefty before we left to check on battle casualties. His mom answered and said he was still asleep in the back yard. He had pitched a tent and was now camping out. “I hope the damp ground doesn’t aggravate his condition,” she said. I said probably not if he slept on his back. She wished me a good trip and I said I’d send them a postcard.
We took the Lincoln, of course. Jerry insisted on driving with the top down. He had on bag
gy Bermudas, a TRUCKERS DO IT IN OVERDRIVE tee shirt, and a hat made from Coors beer cans. Mom wore a halter top that looked like an advertisement for Droop City. I was a bottle baby, so don’t blame me. She also had on short shorts to show off her legs, which are nice if you like bulging blue veins.
I sat in the back-seat wind tunnel. The whole four hours up to Lakeport I was smashing bugs with my face at 70 miles per hour. After a while I looked like Jeff Goldblum about an hour and ten minutes into the movie The Fly. A couple of unidentified specimens dive-bombed my mouth and were swallowed reflexively, leaving behind the lingering taste of brackish bug. Yuck.
As we passed trucks and motor homes, Mom waved to the drivers like she was Miss Corn Dog of 1954. Just as we were overtaking a Greyhound bus, Jerry went into a prolonged session of crotch rearrangement. Even through the glaze of bug slime, I could feel the passengers’ curious stares.
Finally, the blue waters of Clear Lake came into view. Jerry wanted to stop for lunch, but Mom was all for driving straight through to the cabin. It took us 45 minutes to find the address—which turned out to be not a private residence, but the Restless Axles Trailer Park! Six busy, motel-clogged blocks from the lake.
Our trailer is a long, green, turd-shaped vehicle from some time in the Truman administration. It has a little patch of grass with a wagon wheel and some concrete dwarves, a dusty canvas awning over a small cement patio, and a decrepit picket fence with a sign that reads: “My Green Haven.” Mom looked like she was going to cry, but Jerry said it was “real cute” on the inside.
He was right. Inside was kind of dim and cool and cluttered and musty-smelling. Lots of old polished dark wood and 3-D religious art. Everything was in miniature. Up front was a miniature kitchen. Then came a compact living room, followed by a condensed bathroom, a long closet with bunk beds opposite, and then a tiny master bedroom with a shrunken double bed flanked by little built-in tables with milk-glass lamps topped with rose-covered shades. It was real cute.
Mom perked right up after she got the windows open. She resumed her reign as Corn Dog Queen and waved to all the curious neighbors as we unloaded the big Lincoln. After washing my face in the toylike sink, I unpacked my gear and put Frank on the tiny record player while Mom fixed lunch. After hot dogs, potato chips, and iced tea, Jerry scratched his balls, checked out Mom’s low-slung halter, and suggested I go look at the lake. I got the message.
I took my sunglasses, zit salve, sun block, beach towel, and Atlas Shrugged. This book weighs about five pounds and should come with a fold-out handle and wheels. I lugged it along in hopes it might impress any literary chicks I met on the beach.
I circled through the trailer park on the way toward the water. Most of the trailers were old and looked like they had retired from the call of the open road. A few trailerites were about—mostly old folks in their 30s and 40s. No kids my age, unless they were all at the beach.
I walked past the drive-ins and motels toward the lake. It was awesomely hot. Lots of high school kids in souped-up cars and cute girls in skimpy bathing suits. The beach was noisy and crowded, but I found a vacant spot in the shade under a tree. There was a bit of a breeze off the lake, which is several miles wide at this point. Mt. Konocti rose, brown and sunbaked, above the distant shore.
I read my book for a while, but kept getting distracted by the passing bikinis. What a fantastic invention! All those enticing curves wrapped in small bits of thin fabric. Here and there the teasing outline of a nipple or a faintly perceptible furrow in that softly swelling vee below the navel. I got a killer T.E. (Thunderous Erection) beneath my weighty book and could feel the sticky warmth of lubricant oozing optimistically from the tip. In the shallow water beyond the sand, tanned couples wrestled and splashed, pausing in their noisy games to touch with their bodies and lips. I need a girlfriend!
After my T.E. subsided, I toured the town in the late-afternoon heat—the local idle youth eyeing me suspiciously. Not even a bookstore or movie theater. What am I going to do here for six days?
When I got back to “My Green Haven,” Jerry was kneeling on the cement patio with his shirt off trying to light the propane water heater. His beer gut bobbled and hopped with each cuss word. No luck. We could hear the hiss of gas, but the pilot refused to light. Six days of cold water loom ahead.
The Corn Dog Queen has mastered the abbreviated kitchen and made a great dinner of fried chicken, potato salad, and corn on the cob. Rhubarb cobbler for dessert. Jerry guzzled Coors and rhapsodized at length on the nomadic life. He is hot to buy a trailer he can hitch to the Lincoln. “Just big enough for the two of us,” he said to Mom. They exchanged a sloppy kiss, while I sat there feeling like an unexpected guest on a honeymoon cruise.
I was welcome to do the dishes. While I battled chicken grease with cold water, Mom tweezed hairs out of her legs and Jerry scanned the local paper for trailer ads. We were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was a thin, ancient lady in white gloves and a flowered dress. She introduced herself as Mrs. Herbert Clarkelson, our neighbor, and invited us to a prayer meeting. Surprise! This is a church-run trailer park with its own meeting hall. They have services every day. Mom declined the invitation, but said maybe we’d come tomorrow. I can’t wait.
We went to bed to the sounds of hymn singing in the distance. Mom pretended that the issue of sleeping accommodations had just occurred to her and suggested I take the bunk bed while the “adults” took the back bedroom (as if they hadn’t been flogging the mattress back there all afternoon). I agreed. Everyone flossed, brushed, peed, and climbed into their tiny beds. What trailers lack in space they make up for in lack of privacy. As soon as I switched off the lamp, my afternoon T.E. reasserted itself. I was all for putting it out of its misery, but any sort of vigorous arm movement shook the entire trailer. I went at it anyway, and just as I was about to blast a hole through the ceiling, Jerry kicked the wall and yelled, “Hey, kid, you wanna beat your meat go outside!” I told him I was scratching my foot.
Just wait ’til that jerk wants some privacy. I’m going to stick to him like glue. Meanwhile, I hope I don’t get terminal blue balls.
SUNDAY, August 19 — This may not be very coherent. I got about two hours sleep last night. Interruptions included returning churchgoers chatting about Armageddon timetables, barking dogs, Jerry’s snoring, Mom talking in her sleep, Mom and Jerry trooping past me to the bathroom, trucks roaring by on the highway, and Mrs. Clarkelson knocking on the door at 6 A.M. to announce that early church services began promptly at 7:15. Donuts would be served.
Since our trailer shower had no hot water and was only big enough anyway for bathing a penguin, I put on my robe and walked sleepily over to the park rest room. This turned out to be an austere cement shed with three dripping shower heads and no privacy walls. A fat bald man was toweling himself off when I arrived. I brushed my teeth (for about 10 minutes!) while he slowly dressed. Finally he left and I disrobed and turned on the shower. Ten seconds later, Jerry entered, stripped, and stepped under the shower next to mine. Guess what? The guy has more hose than a nervous fireman. No wonder ladies go for him. If Jerry had been my father, I’d be dumb, happy, and have a penis length in the 99th percentile. I’d also stand to inherit a nifty Lincoln convertible. Still, would I make the switch if I had the choice? I wonder!
Jerry is a very athletic showerer. He hopped around, splashed, gargled, spit, belched, and warbled truck-driving songs. I cut short my ablutions and left as soon as I could. As I walked out, red and damp, I passed a cute girl about my age going in the women’s door. Garbed in a modest but nonetheless alluring flannel robe, she had chestnut shoulder-length hair, pretty blue eyes, and an aristocratically chiseled nose. She smiled at me! I panicked and returned a philosophical scowl. As we passed, she whispered softly, “Your robe’s open.” Flustered, I looked down. No winkie in sight. That was a bald-faced tease!
After breakfast, I walked through the trailer park hoping to run into her again. No luck. I figured she must be having donut
s with God like the rest of the residents. Then, when I got back to our row, there she was—sitting on our patio drinking coffee with Mom. She now had on sandals, yellow shorts, and a white blouse just sheer enough to reveal the shape of her bra. She was thin, but interesting developments were in progress. As I walked through the gate, she looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Hi, stuck up.” I stammered an incoherent reply. Mom said, “Nick honey, meet Sheeni.”
Sheeni had to go to the grocery store, and invited me along as her bearer. I would have carried a Volkswagen. As we walked into town, my panic started to subside. I can actually talk to girls!
She is 14, is one of two intellectuals living in Ukiah, California, and is an atheist. This causes terrible fights with her Bible-thumping parents. She refuses to go to church and now the entire trailerite congregation is praying for her salvation. Her father is a big-time lawyer in Ukiah. I told her I never heard of a born-again lawyer. Sheeni said yes and he’s prepared to sue for Christ.
She has been reading the existentialists this summer—Camus, Sartre, and other guys I never heard of. She said Ayn Rand is deplorable and will damage my “inchoate mind.” She promised to draw up a study list of books for me to read. When she’s 18 and free of “parental bondage” she wants to go to Paris and study philosophy. She is the only person in Ukiah studying French-language tapes.
