The Laws of Gravity

by Lisa Ann Gallagher

  Laughing, Patrick said, “Have Lisa call them. ‘Hi, I’m Lisa and I’m a dropout, too …”

  Dickhead. Of course, I didn’t drop out. I finished every day of my senior year despite the fact that I was told in advance that I would not graduate. “Let’s go” I snapped at Melissa and we drove home.

  I was at the Stout house about a week later and sitting in the living room with Tony, when Kevin came in and whispered, “Hey Lisa, come here for a second?” I got up and followed him down the hall. I should have known what he wanted. Yes, I had sex with Kevin. Everyone, eventually, had sex with Kevin. You know what? Worst lay of my life! I was in shock. How does somebody have sex that much and not, like, perfect it? Sex with Kevin was sloppy and painful and awkward. He had no rhythm. He just kept banging on top of my hip bones. Thankfully, he had his orgasm within ten minutes and passed out, drunk. I got up, grabbed my clothes and dashed to the ‘loo.

  I got a job two weeks later at Gale Research, a publisher downtown. Since I didn’t have a car (I had sold mine to my mom) I took the bus down Woodward Avenue each morning. I hated my job. My boss, Lucy, was a serious career lady who wore red pantsuits. I sat by myself at a desk all day, creating reports and staring at my cubicle walls. The job paid decently, but I started at an awkward time with the pay period. I had to wait nearly four weeks before I’d see my first check. I had an Amex but that was due every month and I was reluctant to rely on the credit card. I told Melissa, who had a complete conniption. I warned her she might have to front me on a utility bill or two, but I’d be able to pay her right back. She flipped out, stormed out of the house and didn’t come home until the next day. Then, she announced she was moving out – though we were both listed on the lease. She said she was moving in with Quinn and his girlfriend, April. They had a house nearby in Ferndale. She was gone by mid-July.

  I would later learn that she was using heavy amounts of recreational drugs, particularly LSD. She’d always been a pothead, but perhaps her strange behavior had something to do with the acid. The last few weeks she lived in the house she sat on the couch, stoned, watching old Red Hot Chili Peppers videos.

  My own drug use was, and has always been, minimal. I don’t think I smoked pot until I was either nineteen or twenty. I used acid a few times -- and didn’t care for it. I thought my house was falling down on me during a bad trip. I tried cocaine twice while in Chicago. A coworker, Peggy, gave me a couple little bumps. I got a terrible, tense feeling in my stomach and I thought, “People pay money for this shit?” I certainly didn’t need any kind of uppers. Alcohol would do just fine.

  So, Melissa moved out and I managed on my own. I kept my expenses low that summer until the paychecks started rolling in steadily, but otherwise made my bills. I couldn’t buy a car but I could afford to go to shows, pick up albums and otherwise live fine, financially. I cancelled the Amex to avoid the temptation.

  Flip had introduced us to a friend of his from Kalamazoo. Chuck was our age, short with dirty blond hair that he bleached platinum. He and Nancy dated, briefly and casually that summer. Chuck was like an instant extra member of The Generals. He had seen the band at a show, developed a bromance with Flip and moved to Detroit. He dated a girl in Kalamazoo pretty seriously, and after he and Nancy stopped seeing one another, his ex moved out to Detroit to join him. They rented a loft in the meat-packing district. We remained in touch with him and saw him at shows.

  We met others through The Generals that summer. Their friend Margot was a mainstay at shows and a close personal friend of the band, along with her fiancé Ivan. Jimmy Doom was the lead singer of the Almighty Lumberjacks of Death (or ALD). The Sids, and Flip, were frequently at ALD shows. Jimmy was an amiable boozer with punk rock tattoos and a leonine blond mane. He was a bit rough, rowdy. His brother Robby was also in ALD. Also about town that season was Pistol Pete, a bass-slapping guy in the Twistin’ Tarantulas, a local rockabilly trio. Pete was white-hot with a blond pompadour and a slick attitude.

  In late summer The Generals moved out of the Stout house and into a larger two-story home with a basement down on 8 Mile Road, across from the state fair grounds. They also took on a lead guitar player, dropping Kevin to rhythm guitar/second vocals, to round out their sound. Everyone from the band lived there -- except Flip, who continued to live with his parents in Birmingham. The Generals were going for a bluesier sound those days and were preparing to release their first album, You’ll Eat What We’re Cooking. Nancy, Sandy, Chuck and I often went to their shows together. In their set, their original songs included “Somewhere Your Mother is Down on her Knees” and “You Weren’t Much of a Lady” and they often performed covers of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” and The “Mahna Mahna” song from the Muppets.

  Tony hadn’t dated anyone seriously since he and Jenny broke up at the end of the summer I moved to No Bev. Compared to Kevin, the pussy magnet, Tony seemed almost sad and pathetic around girls. I’d witness him develop a crush on a girl, only to watch forlornly as Kevin, inevitably, would score with her. Tony chopped his flowy blond hair short and put on a beer belly. But he was a great organizer and the success of the band seemed to be strongly attributed to his ability to promote them.

  I didn’t see The Colors much those days. They weren’t playing any gigs until their new bassist got up to speed. They had released their third album, Settling for Less, before Dave quit.

  Our Gravity bands had disassembled, dissipated and dissolved. Eric from The Mangos was living in Indiana, married and with two toddlers. We would visit him during trips to Chicago. Jen and Nancy lived together still, but didn’t hang out much together. I had left and come back. Others like Katy and Laura and Dave were M.I.A., in school or parts unknown.

  We would meet new friends during this time and find interest in new bands, although things felt slightly fractured, less unified. I had longed to return to Detroit and Gravity, with newfound wisdom and confidence, only to acknowledge that Gravity wasn’t what the scene once had been. The situation I returned to conquer had evolved as much as me. I had left and homesickness had driven me back. Might as well stay and make peace with it.

  You Weren’t Much of A Lady…

  That summer, Michèle announced that she and her boyfriend, Van, were engaged. She planned a big church wedding at St. Thomas the Apostle in Ann Arbor. She asked Deanne to be her maid of honor and Nancy and I as bridesmaids, along with two other girlfriends. Their wedding was planned for late October -- around Michèle’s twenty-first birthday. I thought they might be rushing things -- she and Van had dated less than a year, but who was I to question their choices?

  Deanne thought differently, however. She had decided, by early August, that since she hadn’t met Van and didn’t know that her best friend was making the right choice in marrying so young and so quickly, that she shouldn’t condone their decision by participating as a member of the bridal party. Michèle was stunned and very hurt by this. She asked one of her other bridesmaids, Jennifer, to step in as matron of honor. Deanne was still invited to the wedding, but not in the wedding party.

  Michèle asked if I would host a co-ed party, so that our friends would have the chance to meet Van and the guys he was bringing with him. I was the only friend of hers who knew Van and I was happy to have them at the house and celebrate with them and mutual acquaintances.

  We held the party the Saturday night after they arrived in town. I had invited everyone that Michèle and I both knew. Nancy, Jennifer and Sandy. The Colors. The Generals. A buddy, Jef, I met through Deanne, Michéle and Amy came as well.

  The party was great fun and about forty to fifty of our acquaintances attended. Since I was living alone, I didn’t have a lot of furniture in the house. There was a loveseat and a couple chairs in the living room. A small table in the corner of the kitchen. There was no furniture in the second bedroom -- I had turned that into an art studio and had tacked photographs, sketches and my American Flag on the walls.

  We played the music we all loved and everyone squatted where
ver there was room -- on the loveseat, the hearth, the floor, a window seat or propped against walls. Nancy brought folding chairs and a card table from her parents. I was in the kitchen most of the time -- I had recently bought a second-hand pasta maker which had a pizza dough attachment. I stood in the kitchen, making hand-made pizzas. I must have made at least a dozen. I got raves all night, but also repeated requests from Michèle to come out to the living room and socialize more.

  I had joined everyone in the front room and was sitting on the floor, in front of my stereo system. I had put on The Nils eponymous album -- Nancy and I were still obsessed with their amazing, guitar-scratching brilliance. I noticed that over the course of the next hour or so, everywhere Deanne went Patrick seemed to follow. Was he flirting with her? They were both single at the moment. I can’t say that I had invested any thought or energy into hooking up with him again, nor could I properly say I was over him either. Something didn’t sit right with me, especially since this was happening in my home.

  During the party I spoke to Jef, who told me he was looking for a place to live. Jef worked for Northwest Airlines. I wasn’t desperate for a roommate, but I was lonely living there alone and if I didn’t have to manage the rent and utilities all on my own I was all for it. And I liked Jef -- he had a wicked sense of humor and we had gotten to know one another quite well when he had visited Amy in Chicago a year before. We arranged for him to move in around year-end.

  The Bachelor and Bachelorette parties were planned for the following Friday, the day before the wedding. Deanne picked me up and we headed to our friend Wendy’s apartment, where everyone would meet. We would be joined by Nancy, Sandy, Tanai and the matron of honor, Jennifer, as well as Michèle’s younger sister, Monique.

  During the drive, I asked Deanne, “So, I noticed during the party last week that Patrick seemed like he was flirting with you. Maybe I’m prying, but what’s going on?”

  She was quiet for a moment, then responded “Yes.” She told me that they had recently been talking and that they did like one another. I was really hurt by this, I cannot deny it. I had confided in Deanne as a friend, particularly while we had lived together in Chicago. She knew I wasn’t quite over Patrick even though I wasn’t pursuing him. In fact, was rather angry with him.

  I also knew they both had a right to date who they wanted. I felt uncomfortable, but I tried to brush off my feelings of hurt. I just wished she would have said something to me, before they were both in my home and getting cozy with one another. Might have stung less, I suppose.

  During our night out, Deanne and Michèle made peace and Michèle re-invited Deanne to be her maid of honor. Deanne accepted, and Jennifer graciously stepped aside. Meanwhile, as we had our Bachelorette party, Tony hosted a Bachelor Party for Van. His friends and brother had come in from Hawaii and Chicago in the past few days since the party. I don’t know where they went or what they did that night, but Tony – a most sensible host – planned a night full of proper pre-nuptial mayhem. The guys were crashing at The Generals house and Tony sent each man to bed with a glass of water and two Tylenol. He woke them the next morning with a glass of water, two Tylenol and an Egg McMuffin. A proven cure for the hangover blues.

  In Ann Arbor, we found Michèle, her mother and sister in the vestibule of the church. Michèle was in her dress, looking absolutely lovely. She was setting her apricot-colored hair in hot rollers and beginning to apply her makeup. She was also smoking like a fiend. I’ve never seen anyone suck through cigarettes so fast. She chain-smoked two packs during the time she sat there, prepping herself.

  Nancy and I dressed and put on our makeup. We joined Tanai and Jennifer and Deanne and followed the procession down the aisle.

  It was a lovely wedding, and a beautiful location. The light streamed through the stained glass windows above us. Michèle’s dress was reminiscent of Scarlett O’Hara’s, in “Gone With The Wind.” The groomsmen, including Tony, wore grey and white and looked dapper. The one hiccup -- the best man was still so wasted from the evening before that he literally had to bolt out the side door in the middle of the vows to throw up in the bushes, before returning, sheepishly, to Van’s side. Apparently, he was the only one who declined Dr. Tony’s hangover cure.

  The groomsman who had accompanied me up the aisle was a Navy buddy of Van’s named Chad. Chad was originally from Iowa and a real sweetheart. He had short, dirty blond hair and a bashful smile. We started flirting. He told me he was getting out of the Navy the following summer and trying to figure out what to do with himself after that.

  Van’s family were pure, South-Side Chicago White Trash. His mother was missing her front teeth and wore a gold lame shirred dress. Someone had whispered, during the reception, that Van’s dad cheated a lot on his mom. His brothers sported mullets.

  Otherwise, we had enjoyed a nice week of celebrations and new friendships. We saw Michèle and Van off on their honeymoon and headed home, to finish the weekend resting and recuperating.

  Deanne and I would have to work on our friendship. She had a one-bedroom apartment not far from me and we were together often. She had become interested in fashion design and had bought herself a little sewing machine. She was making cool clothing -- vest suits and halter dresses -- and often I would be her sewing model.

  That Fall I had a falling out with my mom. I felt so frustrated and angry that she never seemed to express any interest in what was going on with me. Every conversation was about her and what was happening in her life. My resentment had come to a head and we had stopped speaking, sometime in late September. By Thanksgiving things had become awkward among the family and I received a voice mail message from her. She was crying. She told me that she did love me and wanted me to come for Thanksgiving Dinner. I did, but we didn’t discuss further why I had become so upset.

  I was a little out of control those days. This is when I tried dropping Acid and I started smoking, too. I picked up the cigarette habit because I couldn’t stand the smell of smoke on me after the club. So sickly sweet, I had to shower and wash the stench off of me and out of my hair before going to bed. But Nancy had clued me in that if you have just a single hit of a cigarette the smell wouldn’t bother you. She was right – but I quickly got hooked. Took seventeen years before I’d be able to finally stop completely.

  I hated my job and felt reckless and creatively stalled. I hooked up with a couple guys I knew peripherally.

  At Christmas, Jef moved into the second bedroom. He was a great roommate. We hung out on weekday evenings, but also had our own interests. I was spending a lot of time with Sandy. She had such a childlike whimsy about her. She was never too serious, never grumpy. We had a running joke, the two of us. We both couldn’t stand G.E. Smith, the band leader on “Saturday Night Live.” His constant mugging and obnoxious guitar solos bugged the shit out of both of us. If we were watching “SNL” when he came on, we would race to scream at the other “Your boyfriend!” I called her “Sandra Ann Amanda Salamander” -- a nickname Jen had coined for our delightful, funny friend.

  My niece Celia was born Christmas Day of 1990. Debi and her husband now had two little ones and I enjoyed being with them. Laura and her boyfriend often spent time at my place. She had cropped my hair short -- a la Jean Seberg -- that fall and dyed the color a dark cinnamon shade.

  Deanne and Patrick were dating seriously by New Year’s and although she and I frequently hung out with one another, I rarely saw him. Theirs was a relationship, I gathered, that seemed to require lots of alone time together. They weren’t going to shows, or joining us for movies. The Colors were practicing, but had no live gigs since Dave left. Patrick had always included Heidi in band activities so perhaps he felt that some separation would benefit his new relationship with Deanne.

  My friendship with Deanne would take another blow that winter when she confessed that she and Patrick didn’t start seeing one another the previous fall, during Michèle’s wedding. Rather, they had already been dating for six months at that point,
when I observed them flirting.

  Six months? You’re fucking kidding me. Deanne didn’t understand that I was angrier with her than I had been at Patrick. How could she not have told me? She was one of my most trusted confidants. They were already seriously involved by the time I moved back from Chicago.

  That Spring I remember going to see “Silence of the Lambs” at the theater with Jen, Nancy and Sandy. During the scene when Buffalo Bill tucks his junk, all four of us girls screamed out “It’s Pat!”

  I felt a weird sort of self-consciousness about the Deanne/Patrick situation. I think I kept myself in her orbit that Spring to prove I didn’t still have feelings about him. But, in truth, I did. They were feelings of resentment and not of romance, but he was a hard habit to break.

  I developed a crush on Deanne’s ex, Al, who was a dollface and very flirtatious. But I didn’t want to date someone out of retribution – or be suspected of doing so. I even had a crush on Flip -- although there was no way in hell I could have pursued him.

  I kept acting out, but in strange and mostly private ways. On a Saturday afternoon, Deanne and I went to a friend’s and wound up smoking pot. Later that evening, I had a seizure. I couldn’t see straight. Poor Jef had to trounce my ass into the tub and run the shower over me. We figured I had gotten pot laced with PCP.

  In retrospect, that winter and spring felt like a rather decadent time in my life. I was cooking really rich foods, drinking a lot, using drugs casually, fooling around. I was at the bar every weekend. I was diagnosed with a pre-ulcerous condition and had to go on medication. I felt that my responsibilities were a burden and I longed to throw caution to the wind. Ultimately, my behavior shows that I was unhappy and crying out for help. I wanted rescuing but everyone was busy, managing their own calamities.

  Is It a Dream…