Hairstyles of the Damned

by Joe Meno

  Tonight’s meal at Gretchen’s looked iffy. I mean it looked bad. Like meat. But not meat maybe. Something brown and black on the white plate with something green on the side. To me, the whole kitchen was out of date and worn-out looking, like it was from the ’70s. The dull yellow light overhead made everything look gray, sad, somber, much worse. Like the faded blue in the crisscross kitchen wallpaper and the brown from the tile floor, whatever was on the plate looked drab and totally unappetizing.

  “It’s imitation steak,” Mr. D. said. “We’re trying to market it. It’s called Imi-Taste-Y! Try it.” Mr. D. was in advertising or marketing or something—a white collar job, my dad called it—and he drove downtown into the city every day and back home to make sure he had dinner with his girls every evening.

  “I’m not hungry,” Gretchen sighed, folding her arms in front of her chest.

  “Well, what do you think, Brian?”

  “I think it’s sensational, Mr. D. In fact, I think you’re pretty sensational,” I said.

  He nodded and gave me a wink.

  “Well, then, what about this in-school suspension, young lady?” he. asked. “Have you been making amends?”

  “It’s no big deal,” Gretchen said. She hung her head low and pushed her fork into the mysterious black mound then withdrew it slowly.

  “No big deal? One more and they said they’ll have to toss you out,” Mr. D. mumbled, blinking behind his glasses nervously. He was still wearing the blue flowered apron, the front of which read, “Kiss the Cook.” He was short and nervous-looking, his eyes big and twitchy. After fourteen years of wearing a mustache, he had decided to shave it recently. His face looked empty without it, even if you had never seen the mustache. He had been single for two years and he had shaved the mustache to seem younger, more attractive, since his wife, Gretchen’s mom, had passed away from lung cancer. Gretchen’s mom was the best. I mean it, she was the nicest and the most fun and she smoked and played video games with us; I dunno, I had grown up wishing my mom had been like that. The kitchen smelled the way I remembered Gretchen’s mom smelling; the yellow outdated wallpaper held a hint of her brand of Virginia Slim menthol cigarettes and I hoped they’d never change it.

  “Like I said, it won’t happen again, Dad, I promise,” Gretchen said, taking his hand and shaking it as a pledge.

  “That’s what she said before, and the time before that,” Jessica chimed in. Jessica was known as a slut, but she was super, intergalactic hot. She had a reputation for making out with other girls’ boyfriends, you know what I mean. I had seen her do it a few times at the parties she would throw when Mr. D. would go out of town on business. At one of those parties, I overheard her say this to some other girl:

  “Duh, he’s such a nimrod, he doesn’t even know how to fuck.”

  Which to me meant Jessica did know how to fuck and since then I had these elaborate fantasies about her, you know, teaching me. Also, she was a sloppy kind of kisser and didn’t care who she made out with, which is what got me. There was a rumor she had given gonorrhea to Mike Estevez, who almost died because of it. What had really happened was Mike Estevez was dating Katie Camden and Jessica decided she liked Mike and made out with him at a party and Mike got mononucleosis from some other girl named Tricia a few weeks later and he lost like thirty pounds and had to go to the hospital and so everyone blamed Jessica and made comments to her like “cocktease” and “tramp.” But it didn’t matter because, like I said, Jessica was hot. She was a year older, a senior, short like Gretchen, but thin. She was hot because she was petite, with big green eyes, hot like a cat hot, and a sharp chin, like a hot Dungeons and Dragons princess elf. Boys found her very hot. Men found her very hot. I found her extremely hot. I masturbated thinking about her a lot. She was one of the few girls around who would actually put out, or so she said anyway, and did not make you beg for it and then act like you were married or cry afterwards about it, maybe. Or so I had heard. Or so she had told Gretchen. She also said she liked sex and was not afraid to admit it. Another time, she told Gretchen that she would become a hooker if she could. She shaved her legs every day just in case, that was the rumor. Also, Jessica had a secret—or what she thought was a secret—she sold pot to her boss at the Yogurt Palace. She also had had sex with him. Twice. His name was Caffey and he was married with three kids, all beautiful blond boys which Jessica said would someday be hers. That’s what she told Gretchen anyways. Until recently, Jess had been a member of Key Club and in French Society and a football cheerleader, then out of the blue, she quit all the activities she was enlisted in and started buying dope off of our friends to sell to all the adults she knew. The worst part of it all was that she wanted nothing to do with me, no matter how I tried, even when I was like a foot across the table. I did everything I could to get her notice, and then I just gave up and decided I would just worship her from afar, maybe.

  “More Imi-Taste-Y, Brian?” Mr. D. asked.

  “I’m cool, Mr. D.”

  “I just want to say Mom would never put up with Gretchen’s lousy behavior at school,” Jessica announced, nodding her head. “It’s pathetic.”

  “Fuck off,” Gretchen hissed.

  “Language,” Mr. D. stammered. “Let’s watch the language.”

  “I’m done anyway,” Gretchen said, standing up slowly. I watched her stand and made no move to follow.

  “What about dinner?” Mr. D. asked.

  “I’ll eat something later.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Jessica said.

  “Fuck off, cunt-head!” Gretchen shouted.

  “Language,” Mr. D. whispered.

  “Fuck off, yourself,” Jessica replied. “That comment doesn’t even make sense, sewer tramp.”

  “Language! Let’s have some respect here. Gretchen, I want you to know I’m serious about this. No more trouble at school, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Come on, Brian.” As Mr. D. looked down to scoop up his imitation hamburger, Gretchen flipped off Jessica, who only smiled back. I felt a small pain of sadness, thinking about my older brother, as they both eyed each other and laughed. I hadn’t talked to my brother in a few weeks, it seemed like anyway.

  After that I followed Gretchen up to her room and I laid down on her bed as she began doing her chemistry homework, sitting crosslegged on the floor. I loved the smell of Gretchen’s room, like vanilla incense, even though it was a typical fucking mess: clothes all over, shoes, boots, notebook paper strewn around with the names of songs to make mix-tapes with, homework half-finished, boots without laces, record albums, broken cassettes, a bottle of glitter nail polish left leaking beside the bed. There was a Ramones poster and Misfits poster on opposite walls and then a poster of two cute cats in which she had put X’s over the eyes of the poor animals, knives and bullets and nooses encircling them in a ring of panic and flame. On another wall were all kinds of photos—from her junior high Math Team days, from her older sister’s parties, photos of her and Kim, of her and her mom, who was thin and beautiful, and like I said, the nicest lady ever—all of the photographs taped or glued directly to the wall. Then there were all kinds of horror and monster movie stuff, like masks and fake butcher knives and videotapes of almost every Hammer film ever made, including a rare Dracula 1972 which she had ordered from the back of Fangoria. The best part of her room was her bed, which was big and white and soft and which smelled kind of like baby powder and kind of like her. I might have literally made out with her pillow if I had been given the chance.

  I thought about asking her right then, like just blurting out, “OK, so do you want to go to Homecoming with me or not?” but I couldn’t because I still didn’t have the guts. I turned on my side and began staring at her—her soft round face, her small ears, the tiny pursed lips that mumbled words as she read to herself—and the more and more I looked, the more and more I realized I really, really liked her, not like other girls, you know, like Kim or Jessica, because I knew the only reason I liked them was
because they looked hot, and, well, I could just stare at them and imagine boning them. I liked Gretchen as like a person and it was killing me that I couldn’t say anything and she looked up just then and said, “What? What is it?” getting all selfconscious, straightening her white school blouse, brushing some blond strands of hair out of her face. “What?” she asked again. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. You just look nice.”

  In a minute, her face went bright red and she got all uncomfortable and flipped me off. “Well, just stop staring at me, you fucking freak.”

  “I wasn’t staring. I was just, you know, looking at you.”

  “Well, don’t you have to go home at some point? Don’t you have homework to do?” she asked, sitting up, stretching out her legs. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced up her soft, plump thigh toward the spot where her plaid skirt began, searching, searching for that dark shadowy spot … but she crossed her legs and starting talking again. “Well, don’t you?”

  “I was thinking I could just tell all my teachers that my parents are getting split and I’m too, um … bereaved to do anything.”

  “Bereaved? That’s when someone dies, douche-bag.”

  “Well, then whatever I am. Upset or whatever.”

  “Are you upset?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. I think I might even be happy about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because both of them are fucking miserable and maybe it’s better if he splits.”

  “Maybe,” she said, looking down at her notebook. “It’s cool you’re not pissed at him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you pissed?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I will be later.”

  I climbed off the bed and sat down beside her. I could hear her breathing and me breathing and I was feeling all clammy and I tried to swallow but my mouth was all dry and I was kind of getting an erection and I turned and stared down at her ample breasts and I could see her flowery bra through the spaces in between the buttons of her blouse and I didn’t know if I should try to hold her hand before I asked and just then Jessica barged in, blowing my big fucking chance.

  “What’s going on here, fuckers?” she asked, lighting a cigarette as she soon as she entered. “You guys making out? Smooch-smooch kiss-kiss.”

  “Fuck off,” Gretchen said, standing, pulling the pack of cigarettes from her sister’s hand. She slipped a single cigarette out and lit it, then exhaled a long drag.

  “Listen,” Jessica whispered, shutting the bedroom door. “I need you little fuckers to do me a favor.”

  “What? What is it?” Gretchen asked, annoyed. “We’re busy.”

  “Can either one of you guys get me a dime bag?”

  “A dime bag? Of what?” I asked.

  “Of what? Of weed, you spaz,” Jessica said, laughing, shaking her head.

  “Right, yeah, weed. No problem,” I replied.

  “No problem?!” Gretchen said with a snort. “Where are you getting a dime bag, Mr. Asshole?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll get it, no problem.”

  “He doesn’t even know what a dime bag is, for fuck’s sake,” Gretchen said.

  “Is that true?” Jessica asked, standing over me. “You’re just fucking with me?”

  “I know stuff,” I said, and pretended to be very involved in reading Fangoria magazine.

  “Thanks but no thanks, losers,” Jessica said, closing the door and shaking her head. I turned to Gretchen and she was looking at me funny like I was an idiot and not funny and I didn’t like it so I grabbed my coat and said, “See you later, losers,” even though it was just her and I thought I had pretty much blown my chance, right about there.

  I was riding the bus, then, and I got scared in a weird way because the bus was all empty and alone, and I started worrying if anyone would be there when I got home, and my mom was asleep already and my older brother was gone and I thought about going to talk to my little sister, but she might think I was high or something, and so instead I chickened out and went down to the basement and saw my dad there on the couch sleeping, so I didn’t talk to anyone about anything. I sat on my bed and wondered what the hell I was doing and what I should do and then I got the greatest idea ever:

  I’d make Gretchen a mix-tape. And then she’d fall for me. And then she would fall for me.

  fifteen

  The only other friend I had in the world beside Gretchen and Kim was a kid named Rod, who was black and maybe even a homosexual, I didn’t know. I did know that he had the largest record collection of anyone I knew and was like retarded about music. I met him in my chemistry class at the beginning of the year because he sat next to me, and right away you could tell he was not like the other black kids in school. He was nervous, kind of glancing around the room, folding his arms across his thin chest. He always had the look of a very scared rabbit, maybe. Also, the way he dressed was very white: white dress pants and a white button-down shirt, and he always wore this red, button-down cardigan sweater. And he was white-acting, what other black kids called an “Oreo”—you know, black on the outside but white on the inside—because he was in honors classes and hung out with all the nerdy white kids who were very into role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, and also he stayed after school to participate in the Young Scientists Club. He was the kind of friend I’d hang out with after school, when other dudes weren’t around. He had this thing about him, and that thing was that he was an even bigger pussy than me, maybe.

  The first time I met him he sat down next to me and then he said, “I like to walk in cemeteries alone at night.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “I am a ghost. Only you can see me …” he whispered, scary like a ghost.

  “That’s cool,” I said.

  “Don’t you think that’s weird? That I walk in cemeteries at night? That I think I’m a ghost?” he whispered in the ghostly voice again.

  “No,” I said. “It seems like you’re the kind of kid I’d hang out with.”

  After school the next day, we went to his house and you could see why even though he was black he had turned out white. His mom had long, black, straightened hair and his dad wore a very clean business suit and tie and they all spoke with perfect white-people English and the sight of them made my dad look like a real slob who had dirty hands and used the word “jag-off” at the dinner table all the time. Well, these people ate dinner at exactly six and there was absolutely no swearing—or Mickey-Mousing around, as my dad called it. Rod had the perfect family and when he introduced me to them, you could see his mom’s eyes light up. Here her boy had made a white friend and she couldn’t be happier.

  Mostly all Rod and I did was listen to records. Sometimes we’d go to the mall or video arcade, but mostly we went to different record stores looking for old vinyl. On Saturdays, we’d go to the flea market and he’d search for some obscure soul album like Curtis Mayfield or some ABCO Rolling Stones title and I’d go there to try out the Chinese stars and butterfly knives. Rod was very into music, all kinds: pop, R&B, rock, even jazz—which, for a high school kid, was weird. I mean, I always figured it had to do with his dad, who had this immense record collection. You saw it as soon as you walked into their living room—the living room which looked like it belonged on a television show, with white curtains and yellow furniture and all of it was perfectly clean with plastic on the sofa cushions and lace coasters under everything—and there, set inside wood shelves all around the room like a library, were hundreds and hundreds of vinyl records—blues, ragtime, modern jazz, bebop, soul—and his dad would be sitting in his soft red chair with a cardigan sweater and black slippers on, smoking his pipe and nodding his head and listening to Don Cherry. And Rod would walk in and say he’d found some B-side of a Marvin Gaye song and his dad and him would high-five each other, and then gently, like parents of a newborn baby, they’d lift the record out of its paper sleeve and place it on the hi-fi to play. Rod would take a sea
t on the couch and I’d just stand there, wondering, Who exactly are these people? and then the music would come on—a song like “Underdog” or “Living for the City”—music I had never heard before in my life, and yet after just a few notes, they were songs so simple and pure and full of joy that they’d make their way into my heart. Me, a dumb white kid humming Motown and not caring, and I’d sing them all, one after the other, on the bus ride home, maybe.

  Once we walked into the house and Rod’s dad, who insisted I call him Burt, was sitting in his red chair with his black slippers on, and said, “Boys, boys, listen to this one,” and just then the needle met the small vinyl grooves of the record and “Time After Time” by Chet Baker began playing, the strange haunting voice of a man that to me sounded like a woman, so that I asked, “Wow, who’s this lady?” and Rod’s dad nodded and laughed and said, “That’s Chet Baker, son, the trumpet player,” and I said, “He sounds spooky,” and Rod’s dad said to Rod, “This was the first song your mother and I ever made love to,” and I thought that was a little strange for him to say, but I didn’t say anything. I just listened, and the more I heard that ghostly, quiet, nighttime voice rising, the more I was thinking about Gretchen and kissing her to a song like that, and then it was over and we were all standing around silent and Rod’s dad said, “That’s how you should feel after you hear a good song. Like a brand new man,” and I said, “Burt, I know what you mean,” and we walked off into Rod’s room, still kind of listening.