Ballads of Suburbia

by Stephanie Kuehnert

  I got some pot from Stacey to ensure that we had the ultimate outdoor music experience. Shrouded in late evening shadows, we smoked up at the top of the hill at the New World Music Theatre. My brother nodded and smiled his way through his first joint, blissfully stoned. I liked pot, but I liked anything that gave me a buzz: beer, cigarettes, razor blades. Pot would become Liam’s escape of choice, and even the first time he got high, it made him introspective, not silly like it had me and Stacey.

  He squinted at the dyed, pierced, and tattooed masses milling around the lawn and concluded, “If these people went to my school, I’d have friends.”

  I played with a hole in the worn canvas of my sneaker. “Some of these people probably do go to my school and I still don’t have friends.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not like I haven’t tried. I go places with Stacey, but you know…”

  I trailed off, thinking about a party that Stacey had dragged me to on the north side of Oak Park. I’d followed her and her metalhead boyfriend into some stranger’s basement toward a keg of cheap beer. It was a hot evening and the room so packed that everyone dripped with sweat even though the air conditioner ran full-blast. Guitars screeched from stereo speakers mounted on the wall, but a blue-haired boy’s voice was audible over everything. He shoved through the crowd, screaming “Penile augmentation!” like some cracked-out town crier. Stacey giggled, reaching for him, telling him she loved him, because of course she knew him. He probably went to my school, but she knew him. The combination of beer, humidity, and the loud strangers who all knew one another-who, in fact, knew so many people that they didn’t need to know me-made me sick to my stomach and I went home after half an hour.

  “I have all these leftover insecurities from grade school, I guess,” I told my brother. “I automatically assume people won’t like me, so I don’t talk to them unless they approach me first. I can’t become a part of a crowd because I can’t get past that feeling that I don’t belong.”

  Liam nodded sympathetically, but before he could say anything, the people around us rose to their feet, signaling that the band was about to come on. We followed suit, but couldn’t even see the giant screens that flanked the stage, we were so far back. Over the deafening roar around us, Liam bent down and shouted in my ear. “You need to conquer this crowd thing. Literally. Crowd surf with me!”

  “No way!” I shouted back. At the shows we’d been to, I’d hung out in the balcony while he braved the mosh pit.

  “I’m gonna do it and I don’t know how I’ll find you later.”

  Though I was unnerved by his threat, I continued to shake my head.

  Then he said what I, as the older sibling, should have said to him back when we first moved to Oak Park, and later on in life, too: “Come with me. I’ll protect you.”

  Reassured by his simple words, I let him take my hand and we waded into the writhing masses. Liam tapped a big dude on the shoulder and said, “Help me lift my sister.”

  They hoisted me into the waiting hands of others. At first I was tense, afraid I might be dropped, but eventually I realized that passing me around was part of the fun for everyone else. I relaxed and let myself enjoy the experience. It was exhilarating, like riding a roller coaster made of people. I gazed up at the starry sky and sang along with the crowd. Liam followed my path, weaving through the audience so that he could be there at the end of my ride.

  I shouted, “I wanna go again!”

  Liam laughed. “See, you fit in here just fine.”

  6.

  FITTING IN CONCERTS WAS COOL, but when the music ended, so did the camaraderie. You’d see familiar faces at the next show, maybe even say hello, but you wouldn’t hang out every day or form a permanent circle of friends. And though I liked going to shows with Liam and was pretty content just sitting on the couch watching TV with him, part of me still wanted a group. That’s why I went with Stacey to Scoville Park when she asked me to at the beginning of sophomore year.

  Scoville was a few short blocks from my high school. It was the hangout for anyone who didn’t play sports or join clubs or fit in with the popular crowd. Metalheads, stoners, hippies, punks, ravers, indie rockers, skaters, and those really weird kids who seemed to elude all categorization-those were the people you found at Scoville.

  When school got out, they all met up at the main entrance of the park, a small concrete plaza with a couple of benches, an ornamental water fountain that no one used, and a much more popular pay phone-one of the few in town that could still receive incoming calls. (No one had cell phones back then, but all the dealers and wannabe dealers had pagers.) After lingering for fifteen minutes, everyone wandered into the park, dividing into small groups, generally according to subculture.

  The hippies played Hacky Sack in the sun. The punks chain-smoked near the bushes by the entrance. The stoners retreated into the deep shade in the southwest corner and smoked pot on top of a shit-brown wooden sculpture that had probably passed for some version of modern art in the late sixties.

  The skaters trekked up the hill to a huge statue, its base blackened from years of skateboards grinding against it. This abused monument divided the grassy part of the park from the tennis courts and playground. It consisted of three soldiers-one dressed in navy uniform, one army, one air force-and an angel who looked out over their heads, as if keeping watch over the rest of the world, but ignoring the park at her feet.

  The first time Stacey and I went to Scoville, we accompanied her drug-dealing boyfriend on business. We returned twice more when Stacey was trolling for new guys. She migrated toward the stoners and the metalheads. It wasn’t really my scene, but Stacey wasn’t up on the punk and indie bands I listened to. Boys had taken priority over music for her.

  Even though I hung back the way I always did when I tagged along with Stacey, I knew that Scoville was supposed to be my place. The key was finding the right person to go with, and halfway through sophomore year I finally found her.

  7.

  CHEMISTRY CLASS, TWO DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS break: I zoned out in my usual spot in the back row by the cabinet of beakers, chemicals, and lab equipment. Like everyone else, I was thoroughly disinterested in the long chemical equations that Ms. Bartolth scrawled across the blackboard, her flabby arms jiggling with each stroke of chalk. Instead, I watched Maggie Young and Alexandra Kennedy play with their hair. They repeatedly let it down and twisted it back up into a stylishly disheveled bun, which somehow stayed in place with the aid of a mere pencil.

  I wondered if my hair would’ve been capable of that if I hadn’t recently given myself a jagged bob with the kitchen scissors. Stacey had reluctantly helped me bleach the front of it white-blond and dye the rest black. The whole time she muttered that it would look a lot prettier if I got highlights and let her even out my cut. No one appreciated my new look as much as I did. Maggie and Alexandra nicknamed me “Skunk Girl,” so I spent chemistry fantasizing about experiments gone awry that would leave them bald.

  Suddenly a voice drifted into the classroom like cigarette smoke, interrupting Ms. Bartolth’s drone: “Hey, is this chemistry with Ms. Bar-tolllll-th?”

  Everyone turned to look at the waifish girl in the doorway. She only stood a couple inches over five feet, but her flame-colored hair made her appear bold and big enough to challenge even Ms. Bartolth.

  After a moment of infuriated silence, Ms. Bartolth responded, “Yes, can I help you?”

  The girl stuck a crumpled schedule in the back pocket of torn jeans covered with black ink sketches. The holes in the knees were so big that they exposed her legs from lower thigh to mid-shin. She wore black fishnet tights beneath them and a faded Ramones T-shirt. “I’m Maya Danner. Just moved from Florida and assigned to your class.”

  “Take a seat,” Ms. Bartolth replied, her mustached lip pulling tightly around her teeth in a fake smile. “Talk to me after class, so I can catch you up.”

  Maya waltzed to the back of the classroom, slouching into the seat besid
e me. As she approached, I saw that she was as stunning as her fiery hair. She had perfect china-doll features that Alexandra and Maggie would envy, but she wore her makeup like mine, eyeliner smudged across her thunderstorm gray eyes. Maya smiled at me, indicating my purple-and-black-striped tights and giving me the thumbs-up.

  When Ms. Bartolth finished explaining the lesson of the day and told us to pair up for lab, Maya turned to me and asked, “Wanna be my lab partner?”

  “Sure,” I agreed quickly. Pairing up for lab was often as humiliating as gym class. I always got picked last. “My name’s Kara,” I added as we carried our equipment to an open lab table.

  “Lucky for you, Kara, I’m a whiz at chemistry,” Maya informed me.

  It proved to be true. She chatted away while effortlessly mixing chemicals. “Your hair is fucking awesome. And I love your tights. If you let me borrow them, I’ll bring you some Manic Panic to color your bangs. I have purple, blue, and red, of course.”

  “Cool, I’d love to try the blue.”

  “I’ll bring you the jar tomorrow.” Maya put a few more drops of something into our beaker and it began to smoke like it was supposed to.

  “Good job, girls,” Ms. Bartolth said approvingly. “Now you can start on your homework.”

  Maya rolled her eyes as our teacher trotted off. “Pfft, that’s what study hall’s for. So,” she asked me, “do you like the Ramones? They’re my favorite band.”

  “Definitely, and PJ Harvey’s my favorite.” I pointed to the sketch on the left leg of her pants, where she’d written “50ft Queenie” in pretty lettering beneath a sketch of the songstress wearing a crown. “Those jeans are a work of art.”

  “Wanna see my sketchbook?” Maya asked enthusiastically, pulling it out of her backpack before I could reply. We flipped through pages of lizards and sorrowful mermaids and beach scenes, Maya pointing out the ones she was most proud of.

  Then Maggie and Alexandra approached our lab table. “Oh, look, Skunk Girl made a friend,” Maggie taunted. Turning to Alexandra, she added, “Do you think we should warn New Girl that Kara’s, like, the biggest loser in school?”

  My face flushed as red as Maya’s hair and I rubbed my scabby arm through my sweater. I wished that for once I could think of a witty retort to put Maggie in her place.

  Maya came up with something for me. “My grandmother has a saying for girls like you.” Her lips curled into her signature smirk. “No brains, no headaches.”

  “Yeah, that’s the truth.” I laughed.

  Maggie huffed and muttered “bitch” before flouncing away.

  As the bell rang and Maya walked to Ms. Bartolth’s desk, she promised, “I’ll bring the dye tomorrow.”

  “Can’t wait!” I replied, and practically skipped to my next class.

  When I got up the next morning and tucked a few pairs of tights that I thought Maya might like into my backpack, I was excited to go to school for the first time since Stacey’d moved. I wished that Maya and I had more classes together or shared a lunch, but at least chemistry was a double period.

  Over the next few months, Maya and I acted as not only lab partners but partners in crime. She brought out my mischievous, goofy side the way Stacey once had. But while Stacey and I had always avoided Maggie and her friends, Maya and I antagonized them: “Is that mixture supposed to be turning pink?” Maya had asked Maggie, interrupting the story Maggie was relating to Alexandra about some kegger in Thatcher Woods. “Let me go get Ms. Bartolth for you.”

  Before Maggie and Alexandra could screech a synchronized “No!” Maya and I shouted “Ms. Bartolth!” and relished the dirty looks we got as the teacher hovered over them for the rest of the period.

  But as much fun as we had, we didn’t actually hang out outside of the classroom. I had no idea how to broach the subject. Should I invite Maya to my house? What would we do there, watch MTV with my brother? I quickly concluded that I was too socially awkward to have a real friend and forced myself to forget about it, but apparently it simply hadn’t dawned on Maya yet.

  One afternoon in mid-April as we were sneaking a cigarette between classes, Maya slapped her knee and declared, “Oh my god, Kara! Why haven’t we hung out? Why don’t we even call each other? I mean, we have so much fun in class, don’t we?” A look of doubt darkened her perfect features.

  “Yeah, we do.” I grinned, as surprised by her insecurity as I was by her outburst.

  “Let’s do stuff, then. You want to come over after school?”

  “Okay.” I rubbed at some ash that drifted onto my gray corduroys, trying not to act too exuberant. I didn’t want her to know I had no life.

  “I live at the Write Inn. Do you know the place?”

  I nodded, a little confused because the Write Inn was a hotel. Not like a Marriott; they didn’t have those kinds of hotels in Oak Park. The rooms at the Write had kitchenettes and the feel of a studio apartment, but still, it was a weird place to live.

  “It’s only temporary,” Maya explained. “My dad’s searching for the perfect house, but his job started in January and I guess he thought it would be easier to stay at a hotel than rent a place. I’ve got my own room, so it’s almost like living alone, which has its perks.” She flashed me her patented troublemaking grin. “Like we could go there, smoke a bowl, and then meet up with Harlan, this kid from my art class. He’s always talking about the park down the street from me.”

  “Scoville?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Does that sound fun?”

  “Sure,” I told her, because if there were good times to be had at Scoville, Maya would be the person to have them with.

  8.

  MAYA AND I CUT THROUGH THE tennis courts at the north end of Scoville Park. There were quite a few people on the other side of the hill, but Maya easily spotted her friend Harlan near the main entrance.

  “There he is, with the purple hair.” She pointed to a kid in an orange jumpsuit, not unlike something a prisoner would wear.

  Even though he now had violet liberty spikes instead of shaggy blue hair, I recognized him as the “Penile augmentation!” guy from the party Stacey had dragged me to. This made me slightly nervous, but that evaporated once we were properly introduced.

  Harlan threw his arms around Maya like they had known each other for years. Then Maya pushed me forward. “This is Kara. Kara, Harlan.”

  I waved hello, but that wasn’t Harlan’s style. He screamed, “Kara, welcome to the park! Maya talks about you all the time,” and enveloped me in a big bear hug. Harlan’s personality was overwhelming but endearing. I appreciated the way he immediately accepted me. He kept one arm around my shoulder, confiding, “Okay, the main reason I’ve been trying to get Maya to hang out with me is because I want to introduce her to my friend Christian. I think they’d make the most adorable couple.”

  Maya sighed, shaking her head, and a blond girl standing beside Harlan rolled her eyes. “You and your matchmaking. I wouldn’t send any girl near Christian. Mary wants him. She and Jessica will destroy anyone who gets in her way.”

  Harlan dismissed the girl’s concern. “Pfft, she’s been trying to hook up with him all year. He’s not interested.”

  Harlan’s friend extended her hand to Maya. “Hi, I’m Shelly. Excuse him, he’s crazy.” Shelly’s blue eyes shone with laughter as she turned to me. She studied me quizzically. “Weren’t you at one of my parties last summer? I live on Kenilworth.”

  “Maybe.”

  She had to be talking about the party Stacey had taken me to, but I didn’t remember seeing her there. Normally a girl like Shelly would stand out—she was drop-dead gorgeous, with dirty-blond curls that spilled out of a purple bandanna—but her house had been packed with at least sixty kids. I’d been stuck with Stacey and her metalhead friends. Shelly and Harlan definitely weren’t part of that crowd. I’d only noticed Harlan because—well, he made sure he was the center of attention.

  He threw his other arm around Maya and pleaded, “Come on, won’t you
at least meet the guy?”

  Maya patted his spiky head. “I’ll let you introduce us because it means so much to you, but like I’ve told you a million times, I don’t want a boyfriend.”

  “We’ll see what you think after you meet him. Or maybe Kara will like him.” Harlan gave me an exaggerated wink. I just shrugged as he led us over to a circle of kids sitting on the dead grass near the bushes. But when Harlan said “That’s him,” gesturing to a boy wearing a ratty thrift-store cardigan, my stomach flip-flopped.

  I’d seen him before on one of my trips to Scoville with Stacey. We’d stopped at the Amoco station along the way because the clerk there didn’t card for cigarettes. Christian stood in line behind us, noticeable immediately with his scruffy, apple-red dye job, which stuck up around big, black headphones. While the clerk had his back turned to get Stacey’s Marlboros, Christian grabbed a carton of Winstons that someone had forgotten to finish stocking. He grinned at me as he stuck it inside his leather coat and tossed me a pack before running to catch up with his friends.

  “He likes you!” Stacey teased.

  My cheeks grew hot. “Shut up, I don’t even know him.”

  “Christian Garrickson. We had history together in eighth grade. According to his T-shirt collection, his likes include Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and the Cubs. According to his performance in class, his dislikes include history and homework.”

  “I hate the Cubs” was all I told her, though I mentally dissected the way Christian looked at me for days.

  Much to Harlan’s disappointment, Christian barely nodded at Maya and me, though this could have been because Mary was hanging all over him, trying to distract him. When Christian looked up at us, she sullenly crossed her arms over the enormous boobs that dominated her bony frame and scowled in such a way that it emphasized her underbite. Meanness spoiled all of her features. She didn’t even fake a smile when Harlan introduced us to her.