by Lee, Terry
She and Allison continued being roommates even after the BAGs freshman year in the dorm. They didn’t seem to get in each other’s way, and well, she hated to admit it, but Allison was as close to a best friend as she’d ever had. Of course, Allison didn’t have a clue about this, but none the less…best friends, as far as Regina was concerned.
Chapter 11
Janie – 1972
Janie. Janie. Janie. People laughed a lot around her. Not at her, mind you, but with her. As far as the dynamics of the BAGs, Janie would most certainly be the mascot. She drank too much too often, would stand in the garbage can after curfew holding nightly roll call, and entertained the BAGs with impersonations. Her favorite was Shirley Temple from “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” A close second was an eerie portrayal of the dreaded dorm mother, Mrs. White. Janie always proceeded with “She has to be Miss, because Mrs. would imply at some point there was a Mr.,” and then followed with the finger-down-the-throat gagging motion, which always had everyone howling.
Being known as the female version of George Carlin around the dormitory’s ground floor filled Janie’s need to entertain. Her plan, methodical…as long as she could make people laugh, she felt like she fit in. And that’s how she pulled it off. She had her own stand-up routine about her balloon body shape, and even created a theme song for the BAGs and called it “The Ground Floor Whore Corp” to the tune of Sam Houston’s fight song. Janie couldn’t find a degree plan that catered to comedy routines, so she fell back on what she knew best…drama. What could she do with a drama degree? Hell if she knew, but since she’d perfected the skill of being a lifelong over-reactor, why not? Add comedy to the mix and who knew? She could be the next Joan Rivers.
For real?
“Oh shut up,” she’d bounce back to her tacky other self.
College life suited Janie. She dodged daily phone calls from June, deciding she’d talk to her mother every other day. God, the woman needed a life. Except for the occasional emergency call due to lack of cash flow for late night pizza delivery, Janie rarely called home. Besides, all out-going, non-campus calls had to be made collect. What a plus.
Mother/daughter lunches were restricted to once a month. Her terms, not her mother’s. June would make the hour drive on either a Tuesday or Thursday, which were doable lunch days for Janie’s schedule.
She found her mother’s visits rather embarrassing, especially when June insisted on a quick peek at their dorm room. Once she pulled a surprise inspection by showing up unannounced at their door, and nearly melted into a heap like the Wicked Witch of the West after being doused with water. She stepped into their dorm room to see day-old pizza boxes, Snickers wrappers, and empty Coke cans desecrating the burnt orange shag rug. From then on, Janie made sure her mother’s arrival times were specified. Then she’d alert the masses of the time and date for the inspection so they could decide to be present or MIA. Fair warning was also issued: Any BAG who happened to be in the dorm at the appointed hour, by mistake or not, would forcibly be dragged to lunch. Of course, June paid, but nothing was free.
“What’s the deal?” Frannie asked one day. “You and June go way back. I thought you liked your mom.”
“Don’t get me wrong.” Janie sat at the small dressing table in her room, wrestling to wrap wads of red frizz around orange juice cans. “I like her. No…let me rephrase that. I love my mother. I just don’t always like her. She treats me like I’m twelve. I’m thinking she has issues.”
“We’ve all got issues.” Dena walked through the adjoining bathroom to Frannie and Janie’s room with a Tab in her hand. She took a swallow. “So, what’s up? June Bug forget her pearls?”
Janie wheeled her orange juice can head around and dramatically touched the back of her hand to her forehead, as if she were Miss Scarlett and her corset had been tightened to the point of her fainting. “No…pearls shrouded her little neck.”
“You’re such a drama queen,” Dena said.
“Oh…if I could have tightened those pretty pearls just a tad.” Janie’s words poured from her mouth as slow as honey on a snowy day.
“Hey!” Frannie laughed and sat cross-legged on the floor. “That’s not bad.”
“We’re studying To Kill A Mockingbird in drama. I’m an understudy.” Janie extended her drawl. “Too big for Scout…or Atticus for that matter.” Janie huffed. “Not to mention wrong gender.” She leaned over and nudged Frannie. “Hey, maybe I’ll be a director. You think those canvas chairs come in extra-extra-large?”
“You fucking crack me up.” Dena finished her diet drink and tossed the can at the wastebasket for an easy two-point shot. “So, how’d the visit go today?”
“Very interesting, actually.” Janie dug through the side drawer of the dresser and pulled out a Snickers. “Piper went to lunch with us.”
“Wait. Piper? Piper went to lunch with you and June Bug.” Dena pulled a bottle of red nail polish from her pocket before dropping across Frannie’s bed. “Go ahead. This has gotta be good.”
“Well, you know I think Piper is a little weird.” Janie drew out the weird. “Not as weird as Regina, but, you know. Weird.”
“I could say something tacky,” said Dena.
“Not that it’s ever stopped you before, but hold your barbs,” Janie said. “Otherwise you’re wasting good material.”
“Nicely said!” Dena carefully raised the palm of her hand for a high-five, protecting her wet nails. “I knew there was a smart-ass in that comedy act of yours.”
Frannie did a serious high five eye roll. “So…what about lunch?”
“Well, I mean, for all of Piper’s wildness, sometimes there’s just something sad on her face, you know? She’s hard to read.”
“And then…geez Janie, spit it out.” Dena always knew how to cut the crap, as she would say.
“Okay, okay, keep your shorts on. So June took us to that new little diner on the square.” Janie consumed the rest of the Snickers and wiped her mouth with a tissue. “And, as you know, there’s little talking required when June gets on her jag about me not being there every second.”
“Good thing it was Piper instead of Regina.”
Both Frannie and Janie shot Dena a glance that could have burned a hole through sheet metal.
“They’d be fighting for airtime.” Dena shook her hands, obviously tired of the blowing. “Sorry,” she laughed, “couldn’t help that one.”
Janie and Frannie exchanged all-too-knowing “yeah-right” smirks before Janie continued. “She’s doing her little sob story, and I keep thinking…it’s only lunch, it’s only lunch…when I notice Piper. Her shoulders were all hunched down and her eyes got real squinty. She eyeballed my mom like she’d never seen her before.”
“Did June notice?” Frannie asked.
“Pffff.” Janie waved her hand. “Are you kidding? She’s in her glory days when the camera is rolling. But later, after Mom left, I asked Piper if something was wrong.” Janie used her index finger to push up under one of the OJ cans and scratch her head. “She said the strangest thing.”
“Most things Piper says are strange, but go ahead.” Dena returned from a quick trip to her room with a bottle of top coat.
“She said she was just trying to picture what it would be like to have her mother spend time with her. Then she said it was her stepmother. Called her step-monster.”
“Monster?” Dena carefully used a finger to rub her chin.
“I didn’t know she had a stepmom.” Frannie tented her hands in front of her face. An uncomfortable feeling moved around the room, making it a tight fit for the three.
“I asked….” Janie cleared her throat. “If her mother was, you know…around.”
“Is she?” Dena sat still for a change.
Janie shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“At all?” Dena continued to blow between questions.
“Well, first she sat on the bed and pulled out her cigarettes.” Janie found another itchy spot to scratch
at the nape of her neck. “Then out of the blue she said she’d help me iron my hair sometime.”
“Iron your hair? What did you say?” Frannie’s brow wrinkled.
“I said, ah…sure, that would be great. Man, it was so awkward. I ended up rambling about how my hair has a wayward mind of its own. Then I looked in the mirror to smooth out some of this mess, and there she was, standing right behind me.”
“Wow. Then what?” Frannie started to bite one of her cuticles.
“She pushed the cigarette back into the pack and lifted the hair off my shoulders.” Janie rested her arms on the back of the chair. “She said ‘yep, we could iron this sucker out. I do it all the time’.”
“Wow.” Frannie said again, pulling herself up off the floor.
Nothing further was ever learned about Piper’s mother or her step monster.
~~~
Janie’s dating never really took off her freshman year, which did not surprise or upset her. There was a guy, now a senior at her high school, who she dated occasionally when she’d go back to Houston for the weekend. Robert was a decent guy and overweight also, which gave her a pass on her Snicker-a-day ritual. The other boatload of bad eating habits would have to find their own buy out. At least for now.
Trips to Houston coincided with Dena’s urge for a road trip. Although Janie’s parents continued to balk about Dena having a car at college, they didn’t seem to mind too much when she showed up for a weekend visit.
No one except Frannie and Dena knew Robert was still in high school. Even the other BAGs thought he went to college in Houston…U of H or even Houston Community College. And she never made an attempt to correct them.
As much as June knew about Janie’s yo-yo history with her weight, she never failed to send her back to Huntsville with a care package.
“Share with your friends now,” was the phrase Janie realized relieved June of any personal guilt she might harbor about contributing to the weight issue. And finals week? OH.MY.GOD. The care packages arrived every other day, courtesy of the good old USPS. The deliveries became ridiculous, even to Janie, who never turned down snacks. June was out of hand and definitely needed to get a life.
The only problem Janie had with college was a lack of direction. Going to Sam gave her a way out of the house, but as far as anything else? Well, that was where the “eh” came in. Dena knew she wanted a degree in flower design; Allison–criminal justice; Frannie–English; Regina–Miss America. Suzanne and Denise both had their sights set on some science degree. Piper was majoring in the fly-through-life-by-the-seat-of-her-pants program, which seemed suitable for the wild child. That left Janie. Janie, Janie, Janie. What to do with Janie? What does Janie want? What does Janie want for the rest of her life? Good question. She never really saw herself as an adult…you know, someone with a career, paying bills, going to work every day, stopping at the store on the way home to pick up a few quick items…all those adult things.
Sometimes she still thought about Buddy. Back in high school life had been fun. All those concerts. The good old days. In fact, she’d thought about this recently, and had concluded that adulthood was way overrated.
She was at the end of her teen years. Buddy had crossed that hedge a year or so ago. Vietnam must have really screwed him up. Sad. On a recent weekend trip back home she’d stopped by the gas station his uncle owned. Uncle Bob said he hadn’t seen or heard from Buddy in a while.
“He was never right after he came back from Nam.” Buddy’s uncle wiped his hands with a grease-filled rag.
They had talked for over an hour before she checked her watch and stood to leave.
Uncle Bob held up a finger. “Hey, wait a minute, will you?”
She sat back down in the uncomfortable folding chair in the front of the garage.
“There’s something….” His voice trailed off as he moved into another area of the garage.
She waited for close to ten minutes before he returned.
“I didn’t know if I still had this or not.” Whatever he had uncovered he held in the wadded, dirty rag, working it over as if to somehow make it presentable.
“I found it after he took off. Thought you might like to have it.” He handed over Buddy’s military dog tags, still on the plain issued chain.
“What about his parents? Shouldn’t they have these?” She rubbed her thumb over his name and ID number.
“They’re gone. Died not long ago. Within three months of each other.” The older man grazed his fingers across an unshaven chin. “Always hated that happened before Buddy got his shit together. Hell, he might be dead too, for all I know.” He shook his head. “My brother was a hard-headed son-of-a-bitch. Just like Buddy.” His eyes fell to the linoleum-squared floor of the dank office. “Damn shame it went down that way.”
PART TWO
Thirty-Something
Chapter 12
1992
A lot had changed in the past twenty years. Listening to music had gone from vinyl, to 8-track, to cassette, to CDs. Cable TV had become a staple in most homes, as were VCRs. The Beta vs VHS war had ended, leaving VHS the clear winner. The first Blockbuster Video Rental opened in Dallas in 1985, which, for the first time, gave the box office a run for their money, no longer earning revenue on “reruns” at the theaters.
Microsoft released Windows 3.1, AT&T showcased their first video telephone for $1,499, and the Gameboy hit the scene. Telephone answering machines became a huge hit, allowing people to return home to a blinking light waiting for them with a message, hopefully not from a bill collector. Also, most homes now sported at least one cordless phone, granting freedom to roam the house while engaging in conversation. Almost everyone had a pager, and portable phones were about the size of a shoe box.
The NBC Nightly News hosted Tom Brokaw, the ABC World News Tonight audience was entertained by Peter Jennings, and Dan Rather greeted viewers of the CBS Evening News.
On May 22, 1992, at the age of sixty-six, Johnny Carson stepped down as host of The Tonight Show with Bette Midler his final guest, singing One For My Baby. His farewell signoff was a major media event. NBC handed the role of host to Jay Leno, who soon became a strong competitor with David Letterman, who owned the nighttime entertainment spot on CBS. Popular TV shows at that time included 60 Minutes, Roseanne, Home Improvement, Murphy Brown, Murder She Wrote, Coach, Cheers, Full House, and Northern Exposure.
Out of Africa, Steel Magnolias, and Pretty Woman had been out for a while, and a majority of women across the nation could most likely quote lines from one, if not all three. A larger preponderance of women, particularly Southern women, could not only repeat lines, but entire scenes from Steel Magnolias. One of the favorite lines being, “You got a reindeer up your butt?”
Marky Mark Wahlberg and Fabio were the heartthrobs, and quotes like “You can’t handle the truth!” and “There’s no crying in baseball!” were born, as were Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Taylor Lautner, Demi Lavato, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Marano, and Nick Jonas, to name a few.
Bill Clinton became president, defeating George Bush, Sr., Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida on August 22, TWA declared bankruptcy, and two of the strongest earthquakes ever to hit California struck the desert area east of Los Angeles. The FDA urged stopping the use of silicone gel for breast implants, and the nicotine patch was introduced, while the largest mall in the country, Minnesota’s Mall of America, was constructed spanning seventy-eight acres. Rioting broke out in Los Angeles over the beating of Rodney King, and Willie Nelson’s tax dispute with the IRS ended with Willie forking over something between $6-9 million.
The Oscar winner for Best Picture went to Unforgiven, while other top-dollar movies were Aladdin, A Few Good Men, The Bodyguard, A League of Their Own, Batman Returns, Sister Act, Home Alone 2, Lethal Weapon 3, Basic Instinct, and Wayne’s World.
Some of the well-known musicians included Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Peter Gabriel, R.E.M., Boyz II Men, Madonna, U2, Genesis, Kiss, Mariah Carey, Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Def
Leppard, Metallica, Michael Jackson, and Whitney Houston. Lollapalooza, an annual music festival (1991-1997) featured popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock, and hip hop. In its second year the festival brought bands and individuals to center stage such as Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, Depeche Mode, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cure, and Lady Gaga.
A genre of music had been “reborn” over the last twenty years. Country music had come to stay with names like George Strait, Garth Brooks, Vince Gill, Randy Travis, Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire, Clint Black, Trisha Yearwood, Wynonna Judd, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Alabama…again, too many to name.
In 1992, the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series against the Atlanta Braves, and the Washington Redskins beat the Buffalo Bills 37-24 in Super Bowl XXVI. The NBA champions were the Chicago Bulls, while Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf triumphed in the men and women’s individual finals at Wimbledon. The Alabama Crimson Tide captured the NCAA football championship that year, and Duke claimed the honors for basketball. Tom Kite won the US Open in golf, while a sixteen year old Tiger Woods became the youngest PGA golfer in thirty-five years.
The Winter Olympics were held that year in Albertville, France with Kristi Yamaguchi winning gold in the Women’s Figure Skating.
Woody Allen, age fifty-six, and long-term partner, Mia Farrow, split after she discovered his secret affair with her adopted daughter, age twenty-one. Princess Diana and Prince Charles separated and later divorced shortly after his affair with long time love Camilla Parker-Bowles was revealed. And sadly, comedian Sam Kinison died when his car was hit by a drunk driver.
The cost of a new house in 1992 averaged around $122,500, while incomes ran about $30,030. An average monthly rent was $519, and the cost of a gallon of gas was $1.05. The average cost of a new car hit $16,950 and a pound of bacon was $1.92. A first class stamp could be purchased for twenty-nine cents.
