Call me Jane (The Oshkosh Trilogy)

by Anthea Carson

“Ziggy? Yuck, he’s ugly. But that parachute suit he wears is really cool.”

  “A parachute suit? You mean that suit that makes him look like a garage mechanic?” I visualized that outfit again.

  “No, that’s a parachute suit. Isn’t it cool?”

  Raj called again between the time he asked me to go to the concert and the night we were supposed to go. I would drag the phone into the dining room and stretch the chord as far as it would go and lie on the living room floor twisting it around as I talked to him. We talked about bands, which ones were good and which ones weren’t. I kept saying I was punk because I liked the Cars, and he said, “No, the Cars are not punk. They are new wave.”

  Every now and then Krishna, who it turns out was his sister, would pick up the phone from the other room and sound totally disgusted that he was tying up the line.

  He picked me up for the Beatles concert in a very nice, white car with red-leather seats. As soon as I sat in it and shut the door, he said, “Siegfried figured out where we know you from.”

  “Where you know me from?” I asked, startled. “You know me from somewhere? I don’t know either you or Ziggy from anywhere. I just met you both.”

  “Oh yes, you do know us. Both of us,” said Raj. “I knew you were familiar.”

  “Well, where then? Maybe the Y dances?”

  “No, I never went to those lame dances, and neither did Ziggy.”

  “Krishna did, though, and so did Glinda.”

  “I know,” Raj said. He had already pulled out of my driveway, turned left, and was driving down Bowen. I noticed he did everything as a driver perfectly. He signaled just the right amount of time before the turn. He checked both his rearview mirror and looked over into his blind spot before he switched lanes. He signaled before switching lanes. “Krishna and Glinda both used to go. We used to make fun of them for going.”

  “Well, where did you know me from then?”

  “You are Janey Lou from the chess club at the library on Wednesday nights,” he said, smiling and watching for my reaction, which was odd, because he rarely smiled.

  I stared at him for a moment. Then I had that odd sensation where you flash back and realize you do recognize the face, and have recognized it all along, both his and Ziggy’s. Only back then everyone called him Siegfried.

  “Oh my God!” I exclaimed, cupping both my hands over my mouth. “That’s right! That was you!”

  Way back. Way before the 8 grade dances, my dad used to take me to the chess club on Wednesday nights.

  The club was held upstairs at the library. We had to walk up a wide, spiral staircase with black, metal railing. There were spaces between the steps, and I remember thinking at the time that they looked very modern. I would bend down with my head near my feet to look through them, my dad holding me by the hand to keep me from falling. He would take me into the room, which was lit with bright, florescent light that reflected off the long, white tables. Chess sets lined the tables. There were mostly adults there, but I remembered Raj and Siegfried—both of them about age thirteen—and I was ten. I went there for a long time, and so did they. I saw them every week.

  Both of them were chubby. Both of them were completely disgusting. Raj had long, black hair down to his shoulders, and so did Siegfried. Siegfried’s was tangled and curly. Raj’s was curly too, but not as curly as Siegfried’s and nowhere near as tangled. They looked very similar to each other in their manner of style and dress. They acted the same. They both were very sarcastic and made fun of how I played chess. They both wanted to play me, and always won. They both loved KISS and the Beatles, and argued all the time about which was better. Siegfried preferred The Beatles. They became pretty heated about this, and it seemed to be an ongoing debate between the two of them that was never quite settled.

  In fact, one particular night at the chess club stood out in my mind. I wasn’t playing either one of them. I was playing a kid from my school, actually. A kid from St. Mary’s named Vladimir. Vladimir and I had fun playing at the chess club, and used to giggle during our games. We never spoke to each other about the club or about anything else at school though. We never even acknowledged each other. No one would ever have known we had this whole secret world at the chess club. Anyway, Vladimir and I were playing, and somehow I had gained Siegfried and Raj’s attention that night, big time. I had brought a purse, for one thing, and it was full of all kinds of things that I kept bringing out. Things like combs to put in my hair, and at one point I put a comb at the top of my head, gathered up all my hair and stuck that comb in it so that I looked extra ridiculous. I modeled my new hairdo for Vladimir and he laughed. Then I turned to Raj and Siegfried to make sure they saw it too. The both immediately pointed at me and said that I looked just like Gene Simmons of KISS. This made them start again on their argument about KISS. The argument went on during my entire chess game with Vladimir, which in and of itself was going on and on and on. We each had a few pawns, a king, and rooks on the board, and were just moving randomly, which kept causing Siegfried to lean over and make some mocking comment about how bad both our moves were, and that neither of us should win the game.

  “Move the rook,” Raj said to Vladimir when it was his turn.

  “Stop giving him advice,” I said.

  “What else have you got in that purse?” Siegfried asked, and grabbed my purse and began looking through its contents. I stood up from my chair, knocking my king over, and reached over to grab my purse back, but he held it way up in the air, laughing.

  “You knocked your king over,” Vladimir said with excitement, pointing at my white king lying on his side. “That means you resign.

  “That doesn’t count,” I told Vladimir. I stopped fighting Siegfried for my purse and stood my king back up.

  This was too much for the club director, a distinguished-looking man who my father had told me was a chess master. He looked sternly at me and said, “Janey Lou, you need to be quiet at the chess club. People are thinking.”

  “It’s him,” I said, pointing at Siegfried. “He grabbed my purse.”

  Siegfried set my purse back in front of me slyly, so that you couldn’t quite tell that he did, and focused straight ahead on his game. He used to make fun of my name. With his name being so ridiculous, I couldn’t believe he’d even dare, but he did. And his name really bothered me, too. It sounded like Egg Fried. That’s what he looked like too, in my opinion, just a fried egghead. And Raj was just like him, like his sidekick.

  “That was Ziggy? That was you!” I shook my head again in disbelief.

  Raj laughed too, and shook his head. “I know, isn’t it weird?”

  “You look totally different.”

  “So do you.”

  I stared ahead at the road in shock.

  “You were such a brat, and so bad at chess,” Raj said.

  “Oh yeah, want to play me again? I’ll kick your ass,” I said.

  Raj laughed, and pulled up in front of a house on some street on the north end of town. It was nearing dusk.

  “Why are we stopping here?”

  “We’re picking up Siegfried,” he said.

  He stood there in the yard the same way he’d stood at the party the other night. He had his arms folded, and when he saw our car, he walked over to it immediately, opened the door of the backseat, and climbed in without saying a word. It was completely dark outside now. When he stood there by the tree, he again looked like a dark silhouette. Even though Raj and I had just been talking about him, I said nothing about it, and neither did Raj. In fact, we drove in complete silence for about the first ten miles after Raj entered Highway 41, which would take us to Appleton.

  Highway 41 was a dangerous road. It only had two lanes, but the speed limit was 55. There were plenty of turnoffs, and they weren’t exits off the road, just sharp turns. If the car in front of you put its blinker on and stopped, you could rear-end it at 55 mph if you weren’t paying attention.

  That wasn’t going to be an issue with Raj. He paid at
tention to the road and nothing else. Nothing distracted him. He acted like an adult.

  I stared out at the darkness, out at the fields of snow that raced by, and the leafless trees. Raj reached out and put on a tape of the Beatles. Siegfried, who had been hugging the door with his arms folded while staring out the window, immediately sprang to the center and put his elbows on the backs of both our seats. He pushed his elbow right up just behind my head. I wanted to push it away.

  He started talking excitedly about the concert. He talked about this particular imitation Beatles band and how good they were supposed to be. I wondered vaguely how he knew that, from where he was receiving his information. But the question wasn’t formed in my brain fully, only unconsciously, so I didn’t ask it. Then one of my favorite songs came on, and I reached over and turned it up.

  “I love this song,” I said.

  “This is the worst Beatles song ever written,” Siegfried said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me that you would even say that. It’s a great song,” I said.

  “Even John Lennon said it was the worst song ever. He said his one regret is that he wrote that song,” said Siegfried.

  “His one regret? His one regret?” I was fuming. “Don’t you think getting shot might be a regret he had?” Siegfried immediately laughed a scoffing laugh. I knew that I was saying something ridiculous, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “I doubt he had much time to regret that; besides, that wasn’t exactly his decision,” said Raj.

  The next song came on and I went back to staring out the window, only now I felt gloomy, and the bleakness of the frozen fields didn’t help. Raj and Siegfried continued talking about music, but I tuned them out. Then, after a while, Raj surprised me by reaching over, putting his arm around me, and scooting me over close to him. When he did this, Siegfried immediately stopped talking, took his elbows off the seats, and slid back over near the door. I glanced at him over my shoulder. He had his arms folded and was staring out at the fields.

  SEVEN

  I took this pottery class. I loved to feel the wet, malleable clay in my hands. It was called throwing pots. I loved the idea of something being called throwing pots. I always imagined picking up pots–which meant my mom’s clay flowerpots—and hurling them across the driveway. Watching them break against the cement and shatter into a million shards. Maybe someone would cut their foot on it and there would be blood. It might even be my blood, but I didn’t care.

  I loved to feel my hands around it. I loved the foot petal you used to make the wheel spin. You pumped the pedal, not like in a car where you just shoved it to the floor. It was a whole-body art. I never knew it would be like this.

  “You have to take this class,” Krishna told me, and she was right. “You will love Mr. Simon.”

  She was right.

  I loved Mr. Simon. He was very tall, with a paunchy belly, and wore paint-covered, blue overalls. He had curly, frizzy, unmanageable, grey hair with paint in it. He never lectured me or yelled at me like all the other teachers. He smiled a lot, and laughed when I said something funny. He put my artwork on display, even though I don’t think it was any good.

  I was returning to that class from the bathroom, carrying a hall pass, when Lucy walked up to me with a whole tray full of brownies, smiling, and offered me one. Krishna walked with her. No. Krishna didn’t walk. That wasn’t walking she was doing. She was zigzagging, giggling and sliding. She wore raggedy jeans with the threads dragging along the smooth linoleum. Laughing to herself, wearing a (was that really calico?) shirt that hung down. Why did she always dress like a hippie and then denounce them?

  “Eat some of these!” Lucy commanded.

  “They’re pot brownies,” Krishna whispered behind her, as a few students passed and turned their heads, books clutched to their chests.

  “Here,” Lucy gingerly scooped one out with a spatula, and I heard metallic scraping sounds. She looked just like Betty fucking Crocker.

  Lucy’s hair was dark, dark brown and perfectly straight, which made a good contrast against Krishna’s loose, black curls. I don’t know what she wore, and I don’t think she did either, but I do think it was brown. It was slinky, though, and accentuated a feature or two about her. But all else paled in comparison with those eyes. She could say anything with those eyes, and she could make me eat those brownies.

  Which I wasn’t totally sure I wanted to do.

  I’d already smoked pot several times now, but for some reason it scared me to eat those brownies.

  “Oh no,” Lucy shook her head, but her curls didn’t bounce cause she didn’t have any. “You have to eat one,” and then she began nodding. She held it up to my face. “You will eat one.”

  “Oh,” I said, and accepted it into my hand.

  After all, accepting it into my hand didn’t mean I had to eat it.

  But it did. Because Lucy stood there insisting I take a bite. She wouldn’t take her eyes off me, and behind her Krishna was still doing whatever that dance was, as if she were at a Grateful Dead concert there in the middle of the Oshkosh North hall, near the library, sliding on the linoleum floor (I looked it up).

  I took a small hesitant bite.

  I could taste the twigs and leaves and seeds.

  I made a face.

  “I know, it tastes great,” Lucy said, like she didn’t need the compliment.

  “It has seeds in it!”

  “That’s why it will make you really burnt out later, so watch out! Now finish it!”

  “I will, I promise,” and I did. I finished it on my way pottery class. I returned the hall pass.

  I sat down at my wheel.

  Well, apparently pot brownies didn’t work. I wasn’t high.

  I started pumping the wheel, felt the squishy feel of the clay and how it spun wet in my hands. Slippery. I stared into it. Wow.

  What I was doing began to strike me funny for no reason at all, and I giggled silently over the clay. I felt like I was at one with the clay. I would be at one with the pot I created in the end, even after it was glazed and baked in that big red-hot oven behind Mr. Simon and baked.

  Baked.

  That was the word for it. If the pot was Columbian you might be high, and then be too burnt out. If it was Jamaican you might be stoned, really stoned. But with these brownies you were just plain baked.

  I walked out of that class like I was dancing out of a rock concert.

  “See ya Mr. Simon.” I waved behind me.

  If I took a right now, I would be on my way to Algebra. “No waaaay.” If I took a complete left, it would put me in the main hall. I might run into Mrs. Hayden. No. If I took a left and then veered right immediately, it would put me smack dab in the middle of the library, and that’s what I did. And that’s where Ziggy stood, leaning against the librarian’s main desk, arms folded, wearing his army parachute suit. That’s where they were all congregated. There was Raj, in a spiffy, white, Spaulding tennis shirt. That’s where Krishna was, and Lucy, holding her tray of brownies, and Paul in a simple, white T-shirt—refreshing. Paul stood apart from them, smiling and watching me enter the library. I felt like I was entering the Academy Awards, and if there’d been a red carpet I’d have smiled and waved. They all watched me come in the room. Ziggy was the first to speak. “Look at her!” He grinned ear to ear, and laughed so loud passing students, a few teachers, and some library staff stared at him. He pointed straight at me. “She’s stoned!”

  He was wrong. I was baked.

  Ziggy looked like he owned that library. He leaned against the big reference desk, his arms resting on it behind him, the heels of his hand propping him up. He half sat on it. He talked as loud as he wanted to, about whatever he wanted to—dope, music, Sid Vicious.

  Punk was really about one thing. Yeah, we argued about whether it was the music, the look, or the attitude, all-important facets of what it means to be punk. There were new-wave bands, bubble-gum punk like the Ramones; there was this look and that look. The nuan
ces of punk. New wave was a little more slick, a little more polished, frankly a little more Raj. But there was one essential essence, one unspoken agreement. Sid Vicious.

  Sid Vicious died before I ever heard of him. His death was the stuff of legends. Sid and Nancy, Sid and Nancy. They went down like true heroes, though there were no heroes in a punk universe. Some kind of suicide, heroine-overdose pact between them, I don’t know. I don’t think the details are all that important. But Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten were the core of what it means to be punk.

  The fact that they couldn’t sing made it all the more hilarious. Krishna laughed and laughed whenever she talked about how they couldn’t sing. It crossed my mind again, how Ziggy had elected Sid Vicious homecoming queen. I imagined them announcing it over the loudspeaker in the halls. I imagined Ziggy laughing that laugh he had that sounded like a fat woman’s laugh. Standing in the library, baked like I was, I couldn’t take my eyes off him that day.

  Paul stood enough apart from the group that his good looks didn’t distract and I was able to focus just on Ziggy, and imagine how he must have campaigned. It must have been hard. I heard nobody liked him. He was a complete unknown, unpopular. None of his sister’s popularity had rubbed off on him. And he really was ugly, which made it that much more difficult.

  He had a lower lip that stuck out about two inches from his teeth. He had acne, and acne, and acne scars. The tangled mess of hair that came down to his shoulders covered up his ugliness more than enhanced it, but it did both. I imagined him with his hair short and shook my head no. He needed the hair. And there he was, king of the library, smiling and pointing at me because I was stoned.

  I’m not stoned. I’m baked.

  But Paul, from off to my right, pulled my attention away from the library king the minute he spoke.

  “You tried her brownies, huh?” He smiled, looking as good to taste as honey poured from a pure-white pitcher. “I helped her bake them,” he said, still smiling.

  Lucy needed a ride home, Paul told me, because she needed to return home before her mom left for work so someone would be there with Freddy. “I can’t take her,” he said. “I have a two o’clock class.”