Call me Jane (The Oshkosh Trilogy)

by Anthea Carson

  “Janey Lou,” he said, “look what we’ve found.”

  Suddenly he clicked the flashlight off. I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t see. I started feeling behind me.

  “Knock it off; where is everyone?”

  It was totally silent.

  Then Raj’s voice came out of the silence again, “Jane, look what we’ve found!”

  And suddenly I heard the flapping sounds, and was blindsided by the flapping wings, but it wasn’t a chicken, it had to have been a bird, flying right into my face. I waved my arms at it and was able to actually grab hold of it and hurl it as hard as I could into something, must have been a wall. It smashed against the sides, flapped around, and then Raj turned the flashlight on it. It was still alive, but I had injured it.

  “Oh my God,” I screamed, “it’s a bird and I killed it.”

  “No you didn’t,” said Paul, “it’s not dead.”

  “It might as well be,” said Raj, “it’s too wounded to live.”

  “We could take it home,” I suggested.

  “We can’t take it home. Its neck is broken. You can tell by the way it’s thrashing around,” said Ziggy. “But it’s going to take awhile to die, and in the meantime, it is going to suffer. Why did you have to hurl it at the wall?”

  “It scared me.”

  “It wasn’t her fault,” said Raj.

  “We can’t just leave it here to die.” I said.

  “We have to kill it,” said Krishna.

  “Do you want to be the one to kill it?” asked Raj.

  “I am the one that killed it,” I said.

  “No you’re not,” said Krishna.

  “Someone has to kill it,” Ziggy said. “We can’t leave it here like that.”

  “Then I will,” Gay said, and before anyone could stop her, she smashed it with some large random, metal thing she had grabbed. The thing, which looked like it had been one of those antique metal chairs with stairs that fold out of the base of it, had bent in the process. None of us except Ziggy could watch as she hit it several times till it stopped moving.

  Gay threw the chair against the side of the wall and something fell.

  “Turns out Gay’s braver than any of us,” said Krishna.

  Raj shone the flashlight in her eyes and she knocked it out of his hand.

  “Don’t shine that fucking thing at me. Let’s just get the fuck out of here,” she said.

  We left. None of us spoke, so all you could hear was the sound of us trying to make our way out of there without tripping and falling.

  I climbed in the back and lay down, putting my head on someone’s lap. All the way home I listened to the sound of Ziggy, Raj, and Krishna talking about the ugliness of what Gay had to do. Gay said nothing; she just smoked a cigarette and stared straight ahead. If I hadn’t wounded the bird, she wouldn’t have had to do it. I did what I could to avoid the feeling by sipping from a bottle of wine we passed around.

  THIRTY

  I can’t remember how I found out. I don’t remember if I overheard it, heard it as a rumor, or if she told me this herself. I was avoiding her, so I skipped my favorite class, Mrs. De Muprathne’s class. Because Glinda had promised that if she saw me face-to-face, she was going to kick my ass. Even though I felt more curiosity than fear, I did have a sick, horrible feeling about it. Rumor had gone completely around the entire school that Lucy was pregnant. I was learning about it myself from everyone I talked to. It was the whisper of the school, and somehow they knew exactly who the father was.

  Of course in Glinda’s mind I went around squawking like a chicken, telling anybody who would listen. Though I highly doubted that she would be there, the Beatles-Stones-off was scheduled for tonight. But there wasn’t a pregnancy. Not anymore. I found this out sitting on the steps of Krishna’s house, at the party.

  “She was bleeding. There was blood running down her legs,” Ziggy said, a mixed look of anger and confusion on his face.

  “Yeah, she got the sympathy she was looking for. She wore those white pants just to emphasize it. Totally for effect,” Krishna said.

  “Is a girl supposed to bleed like that after an abortion?” Ziggy asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so, and she probably knew it. She could have worn pads,” Krishna said.

  “That was a lot of blood,” Ziggy said again.

  “Yeah, and she made damn sure we all saw it,” Krishna said.

  Later on that night I heard her say the same thing again; sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking through her Stones Collection. I had my set of Beatles albums next to it, ready and waiting.

  Paul sat in a corner of the dining room, off to the left of the living room where the party was. He was huddled over his guitar. I had seen him earlier at school. He had only shaken his head at me and looked away.

  Paul, still only looking at his guitar, started playing a song in the corner.

  Raj was in the kitchen making Long Island Iced Teas, and announced they were ready. They were made out of seven different kinds of alcohol.

  I had seven tall kitchen glasses before I lost count.

  We started the contest.

  Gay was late for the party. She had practice.

  “How’d you get here?” Krishna asked.

  “Betsy Mann dropped me off,” she said. She still strutted, but her strut had a curious twist to it. I don’t mean like the strut itself was curious, I mean she looked curious about something as she strutted in.

  “Did you guys see Lucy today?”

  Ziggy sat on the chair just outside the kitchen, arms folded, long legs crossed, and he looked at Gay as she walked in the door.

  “And Jane, you better not run into Glinda anytime soon,” she added.

  I pretended to ignore her and sat near Krishna looking through my Beatles collection.

  “Is everyone ready to start?” I asked.

  “Did you see her? There was all this blood!” Gay said.

  Paul looked up briefly from his guitar out of the corner of the room. More people were arriving.

  “What?” Gay asked, looking at Paul, as in ‘what are you lookin’ at.’

  “You go first, Jane,” Krishna said. “Shut up Gay, we’re starting. The drinks are in there,” she said and pointed to the kitchen.

  I picked out my first selection and turned around to see Ziggy’s squinting, thoughtful eyes on me, and then he quickly looked away, out the beautiful window at the evening over the lake. His jaw moved back and forth in thought.

  Paul still continued playing his guitar, even though I put the first selection on. I was already feeling so drunk I could barely see. More people were arriving. It was turning out to be a huge party. I lost track of who was there.

  It seemed like Ziggy was going to sit there like that all night. Arms folded, staring either out the window, or around at the people. I hadn’t even seen him holding a drink. Gay was like me. She had about five or more before she even started drinking. And Krishna sat right there, focused like I’d never seen her focus. Each selection I made was like a personal challenge or a test question for a test she actually cared about passing. And she was good. She was really good. Everything she picked was perfect.

  When I picked “I Want to Hold your Hand”, she picked “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” When I picked “It’s Only Love”, she picked “Satisfaction.” When I picked “Let it Be,” she picked “Let it Bleed,” and she received laughs from the entire crowd. Even Ziggy, who seemed reluctant to even be in the room, had to laugh at some of her musical picks. He would shake his head, staring at both of us, from one to the other. I was becoming so drunk I didn’t really know what I was saying anymore, and Paul hadn’t left his corner. And he hadn’t stopped playing the guitar. Some of the guys—Walt, Dave, Tom—went over there and sat by him. They talked quietly. They didn’t really seem like they were participating in the contest, and when votes were taken they didn’t vote. Raj never left the kitchen. He made drinks in there like the hired bartender, all night long. />
  The pot that we smoked that night didn’t even take effect. When you drink enough alcohol, it puts the effects of pot to shame.

  The party turned into fragmented moments in time punctuated by loud laughter every time Krishna made a response selection. I guess people voted with their laughter. At least that’s how it seemed. Krishna stayed by her stack of Stones records. She wore a Stones tee, of course, and a pair of ratty jeans. She looked like Ziggy’s twin over there, because he was also in his ratty, ripped-up jeans. They were ripped like no other jeans I’d ever seen. I don’t even know how they stayed on, and they matched his Converse high tops that were held together by Band-Aids.

  For some reason it didn’t seem like Krishna and I were going against each other in this contest, it seemed like she and Ziggy were. I can’t explain it, but that’s how it seemed. For a moment I felt like his minion, putting on songs he would have selected, like a puppet. He wasn’t saying anything, but maybe with his arms folded, and his legs crossed and stuck out into the middle of the room, not moving to let people by, making them step over him without so much as a budge, and his eyes going back and forth all night from me to her, he was actually controlling my selections.

  His eyes followed me to the record, to the needle placed on the stereo for “Hide Your Love Away,” then he would listen, then wait, then Krishna would play “Cocksucker Blues,” an imported, pirated version he had actually bought for her in New York, and then he would laugh in acknowledgement, and I would actually see her eyes burning right on him.

  “God damn it!” I shouted.

  He looked at me like I had lost my mind. And over from the corner so did Paul.

  Paul! Oh no! What did I do! Why did I tell Potty Mouth!

  “Paul!” I said.

  “What?” As in what are you looking at?

  Things were starting to turn upside down. The trees outside were turning upside down, those beautiful trees so dark in the moonlight.

  I went into the kitchen to grab another drink, but I tripped over Ziggy’s feet.

  He reached out to help me up.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  “No!” I screamed and hit his arm, and hit it again and again. He tried to grab me and hold my arms so I’d stop hitting him.

  “You bitch!” I screamed across the room at Krishna.

  I clambered up and untangled myself from Ziggy and stumbled into the kitchen.

  “Don’t give her anymore alcohol!” Ziggy yelled into the kitchen.

  “Give me some!” I screamed.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I heard someone say, maybe Chrystal or Jennie, I couldn’t tell for sure.

  “Ziggy thinks you’ve had enough,” Raj said with an ironic smile.

  “I don’t care! Give it to me,” I yelled at him, and I bared my teeth.

  I reached out and grabbed his drink away from him, spilling some on his spiffy punk shirt.

  I stumbled through the dining room, which put me right in front of Paul, because if he was in the left corner of the living room, he was in the right corner of the dining room.

  Krishna’s house was like a dollhouse. Every room was like a miniature. Paul sat on a miniature stool, like he was on stage. He sat right in front of Krishna’s staircase, and the door was open. I could hear Krishna’s loud laughter all the way around the house over everyone else’s, amidst random questions of, “What’s wrong with her?”

  She’s going to win if I don’t stop her, I thought.

  What can I play? What can I play?

  “Paul,” I said to him.

  He refused to look at me. He just kept playing his guitar like I wasn’t here. Like no one was here.

  “‘Hey Jude’,” I said aloud, even though I was just thinking it. He finally looked at me for two seconds, and the look said, “I don’t know you.”

  I stumbled back into the living room and practically fell over Krishna, who said, “Oh man, she is so wasted.”

  “Hey Jude”. That would work. It was already established that it was the best song ever written. My brothers had told me this when I was little. It would have to work.

  I fell into my record collection, which caused another outburst from the crowd. Madly I looked; where is it, where is it, I had to find it before her goddamn selection of “Cocksucker Blues” imported, pirated version bought for her by, “God damn you, Ziggy,” oops, I think I screamed that out loud.

  Ha, ha, ha, ha!

  “What did he do?” someone asked.

  “He bought it for her!” I screamed, and this made Ziggy howl with laughter over there with his goddamn arms folded. Why wouldn’t he move? Where was his drink? Everybody else was drinking! He was always drinking! What the fuck?

  “Here it is,” I exclaimed when I found the album it was on. I tore it out of its case and slammed it on the stereo, practically tearing the other one off.

  “Hey,” Ziggy screamed from across the room, “don’t break that,” and he finally stood up.

  “Oh,” I screamed. “So you can move! Look! The statue’s walking.”

  He grabbed my arm. It was probably a good idea, because I wanted to snap that record in half. I hit him away, and held on to both records, his “Cocksucker Blues” import, pirated version and “Hey Jude” in the other hand. Now Paul was watching me.

  I looked over at him in the corner with his guitar.

  “You bastard!” I screamed at Paul. “I didn’t tell everyone! Why did you do this to me?”

  “Why did you do this to me?” he said back, but his voice was quiet, and I think the only ones who heard him were me, Krishna, and Ziggy, because we were closest to him. Except Raj was over there on the other side of the hall in the dining room and he heard it too.

  “Hey, Jane, I think you better calm down,” Raj said, and he had a look on his face I can’t describe. It was like a half smile that said, Okay enough, even though this is kind of funny, it’s gone far enough. It was one of Raj’s most real smiles.

  Ziggy managed somehow to take “Cocksucker Blues” away from me without breaking it, which took a lot of grace, and though I put on “Hey Jude” successfully, it wasn’t successful, because nobody—including me—could remove Mick Jagger’s screaming voice from of our heads, “Hey, where can I get my cock sucked...” Even I thought it was funny, and before I acted like a lunatic, I laughed like one, I’m sure. It probably took a minute to sink in just how bad I was losing this stupid game, and how angry I was becoming. Ziggy went back to his seat by the door to the kitchen, having pulled his “Cocksucker Blues” out of the hands of an angry, screaming Beatle maniac, and I went and sat on the staircase in front of Paul, strumming on his stool.

  I stared at him over there, not looking at me. Won’t look at me, won’t look at me, won’t look. Suddenly I was sick of “Hey Jude” and went back over to the stereo and took it off. This caused an enormous burst of laughter. Even the Beatle maniac couldn’t take the Beatles anymore. I ran into Raj’s room and found the Sex Pistols. It didn’t take me long. Raj had all his damn records alphabetized. The laughter was still going on and Krishna shouted, “Hey, should I put on a response to ‘Hey Jude’, or was your taking it off response enough?”

  Outburst of laughter.

  I came back with the Pistols and put on “Bodies”, and the lyrics blasted out. “She was a girl from Birmingham, she just had an abortion,” and I started screaming along to the lyrics, and I don’t know why I wasn’t screaming this toward Paul, but I wasn’t. I was screaming it into Krishna’s face. I mean I was screaming, and I started screaming, “You are an abortion, you are a fucking, bloody mess.”

  Oh wow, everyone was crowded around us now, and Krishna and I were standing in the middle. Krishna was laughing, everyone was laughing. Paul was still over there in the corner paying no attention to any of this. I could hear, Gay’s maniacal giggle, Richard P’s “No waaaay,” Ziggy’s wild, fat-woman’s laugh, and at one point, I was later informed, I lay down on the floor and started doing the Worm. A dance you di
d on the floor.

  I had gone totally insane. I couldn’t take this anymore. I walked out into the street in my bare feet. I didn’t even look for my car; I didn’t have my keys and was so drunk I forgo that I even knew how to drive a car. I didn’t even look at my car sitting in Krishna’s driveway.

  I walked out into the night. The grass felt soft under my feet in Krishna’s yard. I walked into the middle of the street, and headed toward Menomonee Park.

  There was Menomonee Park on my left. There was a feeling of being pulled toward that dark lake. I walked up to the shore, near the rocks. The crabgrass and rocks didn’t hurt my feet at all. I went close to the water, right up to the edge. It felt like I was being sucked into the water.

  I could still hear the noise of that bright, loud party on that dark, quiet street. I turned away from the lake and felt a cold breeze on my face as I began running down New York Street, toward my house. The pavement felt cold on my bare feet. As I moved farther, away the sound of the Sex Pistols blaring through the night grew dimmer and dimmer, and I heard the astonishing sound of loud silence.

  There were no cars. The cold, hard, grainy cement felt strangely comforting on my feet. I walked right in the very middle of the road. It curved around the lake, and then it veered away from the lake onto New York Avenue.

  I was peaceful. On the one hand I was frantic, as if I were running from something. I kept imagining Glinda chasing me; I kept turning around, expecting to see her there. I kept imagining Lucy, standing there bleeding down her white pants, out in my peripheral vision. When I would turn to see her, she wasn’t there.

  I looked up at the stars. There were so many of them sprinkled up there on the black, velvet background. New York Avenue. New York. That’s where Ziggy bought the pirated import copy of “Cocksucker Blues”.

  I crossed Bowen. There were cars on Bowen Street, but I didn’t watch for them, I just walked right out in front of them, which turned out to be no big deal.