The Road Through Wonderland: Surviving John Holmes

by Dawn Schiller

  Wayne keeps a silent seat crouched behind the heavy drapes at the dining room window facing the front of the house. He wears no shoes, cutoff shorts, and a tattered T-shirt. His sun-streaked blond hair badly needs cutting and hangs raggedly into his large chocolate eyes. The eight-foot-long body of his favorite boa constrictor is wrapped around him, and he holds its head close to his face. “Queen,” his prize possession and guardian, is the one thing he can’t wait to proudly share with Dad.

  Mom shocks us all when she emerges in a full-length red negligee and matching see-through robe. That’s so gross, I think to myself as she poises herself at the front door, blocking my sister and me from being first to open it.

  “Go over derr,” she directs, her German accent still thick after all these years. “I vahnt to open da doorr vehn he gets herr,” she announces. She is determined to see her husband again and show him exactly what he has been missing all these years. Mom knows she is still a babe, damn it, and she is still in love with him.

  Like a recurring dream, Dad’s car pulls up in front of the house. There is no snow on the ground as there was in New Jersey when he came home from Vietnam, but there is a strange sense of déjà vu in the air. Time is motionless until he finally steps out of the car, a long-haired stranger wearing bell-bottoms, a tiedyed shirt, and sandals. “Dad’s a hippie. Cool!” Tentatively, my father’s oddly familiar shape walks toward the house. Beside ourselves with excitement, the three of us kids simultaneously race to the front door, fling it open, and fight for first position, squeezing Mom unceremoniously out of the way. Dad cracks a small smile at our reaction to his arrival, pretends not to notice, and continues up the walk. I see a tiny opening and take it. In an instant I manage to break free and dash out and away from the others, run with all my might, and jump into his arms. I hug him tight, not believing this moment is real. I don’t say anything, only a few mumbles that are supposed to convey how glad I am that he is home. My brother, sister, and mother follow right behind me, crying and hugging him too.

  Mom and Dad head into their bedroom after only a short while in the house. My impression that things aren’t going as Mom planned comes from the tearful face and the change of clothes she wears when they emerge only a few minutes later. Dad comes out and sits with us in the living room as Mom storms silently into the kitchen to make sandwiches for dinner. I can hear her crying through the clinking of mayonnaise jars and knives as the refrigerator opens and closes. Finishing, she places the platter on the dining room table and disappears into her room, leaving Dad, Terry, Wayne, and me to eat the light meal together at the heavy octagon table. We feel the awkwardness and tension of their reunion, and even with a thousand things to say, we find it difficult to make any conversation.

  “How’s school?” Dad asks.

  “Fine,” we lie, and an uneasy silence again fills the air.

  “Sorry to hear about Grandma,” he adds, embarrassed and looking genuinely saddened.

  We nod and hang our heads. There is more silence as we watch time pass. The setting sun casts its shadow through the curtains of the sliding glass door, and before the light disappears completely, Mom, eyes swollen and red, comes out with a handful of blankets and a pillow. She lays them on the couch without saying a word and returns to her room. We still say nothing.

  The next day it is announced to us that Mom and Dad are divorcing. From what we witnessed the night before it doesn’t really surprise us, but the news is still depressing. This isn’t what any of us expected. I feel desperate, thinking this might mean that we will lose Dad again. Angry with Mom, I blame her again for him wanting to leave. Dad is “cool"; Mom is mean and doesn’t understand us. There is a bitter, heavy silence in the house for the next few days after their announcement, a silence louder than any explosion can be to a child. It is the end of the family we long ago briefly knew and had spent most of our lives hoping and fantasizing to be once again. The fireflies are gone forever. What now? I wonder. What will happen to us now?

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Man in the Box

  In the days that follow, Dad gets up early, sits at the dining room table, lights a menthol, and shuffles his deck of cards. Frrrruuuttth, click, click. Frrrruuuutttthhh, click, click, click. The cards smack the table with a sharp snap.

  “You drink coffee, Dawn?” he asks me, as I stand watching.

  “No, but I can make some.”

  “Ahh…yeah,” he says as if he is drooling. “Cool, man.”

  I shuffle into the kitchen and pull out the instant coffee that has been hidden in the cabinet for a forgotten number of years, boil some water, and mix a strong, black cup.

  “Two sugars,” he calls, hearing me stir the heady brew. Carefully, I walk the hot cup out to him and place it on the table. “Sit down,” he says, not looking up from his cards. Pleased to be near him, yet nervous that he might notice that I don’t know what he is playing, I do as I’m told. “Do you play solitaire?” he asks, already knowing the game is lost to my understanding.

  “No. I don’t think so. What is it?”

  “Ahhh! Never mind! You’ll find out about it later,” he teases, waving his arm and dismissing me. I stand, unwilling to leave. Dad ignores my hovering, continuing his game and chainsmoking. I begin to feel bored, but I’m curious about him, so I dash to my room and return with my macramé. I am making a roach clip and it is going to be a nice one. Suddenly, the corner of Dad’s eye lifts. “What’s that?” he asks with a pleased, curious lilt to his voice.

  “What’s it look like?” I answer, smiling at the fact that he’s showing some interest. A tingle of excitement sits me up straight and quickly I want to sound like I know what being cool is all about.

  “Don’t mess with me, Dawn,” he says, shaking his head. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” I tease. I had sensed it all along.

  “Well? You got any?”

  There is a long pause before I decide to answer. Is my father asking me for a joint? I can’t believe my luck. Man, he is cool. This is soooo cool! I dart back to my room and pull out my box of stash from under my bed. An old cigar box, torn and dirty along the edges, holds a couple packs of Zig-Zag rolling papers, several books of matches, and a plastic bag with a few roaches, ash, seeds, and a sprinkling of sticky yellow leaves. I race back to the table and proceed to roll up my best Jamaican Gold bud. Dad’s eyes light up, and he is smiling big.

  Thick smoke fills the air, and we are stoned before we are halfway through. I am what my friends call a lightweight, and never really inhale more than two tokes at a sitting. The rest I fake, but I am playing tough so I can hang with Dad, and instead finish sucking back the entire joint with him.

  “Oh shit”—pop—“a seed, look out!” We both giggle stupidly, snorting while holding our breath.

  “Ah, I knew you were cool, Dawn, the minute I saw you,” Dad says with a half grin as his eyes glaze over.

  “I knew you were cool too, Dad, as soon as you got out of the car,” I ramble, and my body gets heavier as my high kicks in.

  “Groovy, man.” He nods and takes another long pull from the joint.

  Damn, I am stoned. I have trouble holding my head up, and the air in the room makes a weird whirring noise in my ears, but I am determined to hang. I send a glazed look over toward Dad, who doesn’t look like he is feeling high at all and I worry that he will think I can’t handle my pot. My thoughts mellow, and I relax when he asks, “You got any tunes?” Relieved to break the silence, I pull out my favorite Led Zeppelin album, and we drift off on the band’s haunting version of “Stairway to Heaven.”

  So pass the days with my father while he waits for Mom to initiate the divorce proceedings. Every day I roll Dad a joint before I go to school, and get stoned with him afterward. By the time Mom comes home from work, we make sure the house is aired out and everything is put back in its place. Mom does not approve, and if the house isn’t straightened up before she gets here, she will hit the roof, and n
either of us wants that kind of interrogation. Dad and I are getting acquainted with each other, and pot is our median; it helps ease the tension of all the unanswered questions that lie between us. We crack jokes and listen to the latest Cheech & Chong record that leaves us rolling in tears of laughter. Man, this is far out! None of my friends can believe how cool he is, and they all want to come over to meet the dad who smokes pot with his daughter.

  Slowly Dad begins to talk about where he has been all these years while we waited for him in Carol City. He unravels exotic stories of Bangkok, India, and Kathmandu that captivate me. He talks about backpacking his way through Asia “on a shoestring,” and the times he spent as a monk in northern Thailand, begging for alms every morning before sunrise with a shaved head and eyebrows. He tells me the story of being in Bangkok when Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died. The Thais, he says, were so upset that they staged a mock funeral procession down Sukhumvit, a major road in the large, tangled city.

  He speaks to me about Thai culture, making it very clear that I understand the head is the highest part of the body and it must be given absolute respect. The foot is without a doubt the lowest part of the body, and never, never should the foot come near the head in any way, at any time, ever. This is considered the greatest of insults, especially if done intentionally. He speaks Thai to me and teaches me the words I inquire about. “You got a good ear, Dawn,” he compliments, and I feel good about myself. Not once do I ask him why he didn’t come back to us or stay in touch instead of traveling the world. Not once do I hold him responsible for leading Grandma to believe he would come back before she died. He seems kicked back and mellow, and he gives the impression he has no responsibilities—and I don’t see it either.

  But Dad has a few secrets. One in particular is a mysterious form of meditation he practices in the early morning hours. Daily he sends me to the local store to purchase candles, fresh flowers, and incense. He picks cumquats and limes from the backyard and takes them discreetly into the bedroom. On the dresser in Mom’s room, after she has left for work, Dad ritually positions a small box, then the candles, fruits, flowers, and incense we have gathered, in a specific pattern. Some of the time he places next to the box a small shot glass of whiskey or Scotch from the cabinets where Mom has stashed it away for special occasions. Dad is very protective of the contents of his little box, and he keeps its mystery hidden—so of course I am very, very curious.

  I am not only curious; I am fascinated, but I get no response from Dad when I ask prying questions about his secret treasure. I keep my eyes on Dad, hoping some clue will be revealed, and on a morning after he has slipped into the bedroom for his “meditation,” I seize an opportunity to stand at the door. Pressing my face close to the threshold for what seems like over an hour, I strain to listen inside. I hear nothing for a long, tense time except my own slowed breathing. The smell of incense drifting up from the bottom of the door is the only evidence of any movement. Then something happens. I hear a muffled voice, low in tone and in a language I recently learned was Thai. It sounds like a kind of conversation. Is that two different voices? I wonder. I press harder into the door, my ear at the jamb, trying to hear more. Suddenly, the voices stop, and I am overcome with the distinct, uneasy feeling that it is known that I am listening. Scared of getting caught, I pull carefully back from the door and race into the living room. With my heart pounding, I pick up my macramé and shakily try to thread a bead. Dad emerges a few minutes later. He seems distressed, not like his usual mellow self. He says nothing that day or for the next several days, and I feel miserable. I don’t want to blow our newfound friendship, but I am driven and want to know what he is up to, so I wait it out.

  To my relief, it takes only a few days before Dad opens the subject. “So…what did you hear, Dawn?” he asks matter-of-factly as he shuffles his deck of cards.

  “What, when?” I put on my best blank look.

  “You know!” His tone is sharp this time.

  “A—a—at the door the other day?” I stammer. “It sounded like you were in there with someone; speaking Thai.”

  He gives me a long, hard stare, scaring me even more, and then looks down into my eyes. “You can’t tell anyone!” he says seriously. “You have to promise!”

  “I…I promise, Dad. What was it?”

  Concern furrows his brow, and he repeats, “You understand? No one!”

  “I promise!”

  Dad seems satisfied, nods to himself, and slowly leans back into his chair. He takes a few moments, breathes in deep, and begins. “Several years ago, in Bangkok, I met a lady. Her name is Pen Ci. When my passport was stolen and I was thrown in jail, she helped get me out by bribing the police and the judge. After my papers were miraculously recovered”—Dad’s hand sweeps the air as if he is waving a magic wand—“she took me to the northern part of Thailand to live with her in her village.”

  Her name is, I think, making a mental note of Dad’s curious use of the present tense.

  Dad catches his breath and continues. “She’s considered a holy woman in her village, and she helped me out of a, well, er, a bad spot. We spent a lot of time together, and, uh, you know, we fell in love.” He keeps his gaze focused on the heavy red drapes, avoiding my shocked expression.

  “What happened?” I press him.

  “Well, that’s when I did the monk thing I told you about. To prove, you know, my love for her, I, um, had to become a Buddhist monk.” Dad begins to fidget. “I needed to respect their religion and gain merits with the Buddha. Eventually, we got married.”

  “Got married!”

  “Yeah, it’s not legal as far as the States are concerned, but it’s legal in Thailand,” he says, still averting my surprised gaze.

  What about Mom? I think. And what does this have to do with the talking box in the bedroom?

  “We had a son,” he pushes on.

  Now I am numb. This is a wilder story than I imagined. Does this mean I have a new brother?

  “His name is Jack, and, uh, they’re waiting for me to send for them.”

  I can’t stand it. “Where are they?” I find myself blurting out.

  With an intense flash of his light blue eyes, Dad finally looks at me directly. “In a village in the north of Thailand.” His arm points up as if to indicate north. “As soon as this divorce thing is over with, I’m gonna send for them and meet them in California.”

  I stay silent for what seems an eternity. I have so many more questions. Surging emotions threaten to explode in ebbs and flows of both fear and rage, and I want to scream, “What about us?” But instead I am quiet. My head hangs low and my shoulders are slumped at the years of rejection. I want to burst into a flood of tears. I am immobile and struggle to find some hope. Then I begin to understand that Dad trusts me with his truth. As messed up as it is, it is his truth, and our continuing relationship hinges on how I will react.

  “It’s just the way things happened, Dawn,” Dad speaks up, acutely aware of the long silence and my pain. “After Vietnam, things were just different between your mother and me. I was—I am different…,” he continues. “Things can never be the same again between us. I mean, I love you and Terry and Wayne, but it’s all just different.” He is rambling, explaining his side of things awkwardly, unable to find the right words.

  “So, you’re moving to California?” I ask shyly, still not looking up and scared to death that he is going away again.

  “Well…that’s the plan.” Dad breathes a heavy sigh, then shuts down. “Why don’t you roll us a joint, Dawn, and let’s toke one?” I get up to retrieve my stash box and roll a fatty. My fingers are shaking and it takes me a while, but I finally manage to piece together a loose “pregnant” one and light it up. Dad and I take a few turns pulling drags from the joint before it starts to fall apart and he drops it in an ashtray. For a long moment we both sit and stare at the brown walnut finish of the dining room table.

  “What about the box in the bedroom, Dad?” I remind him, and re
alize my stomach is churning. “What’s in there?” I am overwhelmed and anxious with all this latest information, but very aware he hasn’t finished explaining everything.

  “Ahhhh, yes…the box in the bedroom.” He leans slightly into me; his tone is low, mysterious. “Well, now here’s the story about that.”

  My eyes widen with excitement, and I manage to settle my hands in my lap and listen intently.

  “Up country, in northern Thailand,” Dad begins, “me and this other guy, a Thai guy, were planting rice in the paddy fields when we hit something in the dirt with our plow. We thought we broke it and were pissed off. So we pulled the dirt back to clear it out and saw a, uh, kind of a faint green light coming out of the ground.”

  “Far out!” My mouth drops open, and I nearly jump from my seat, but Dad refuses to be interrupted.

  “We went to check it out and found these two round stones lying in the hole, green light all around them.” Again, Dad gestures wildly. “We pulled them out and a guy, or well, uh, what looked like a guy, really old looking…you know, with the long white beard and hair thing, and he kinda came glowing out of the stones and spoke to me and my friend.” Dad’s hair falls into his face as he stops, avoiding my gaping expression, but I catch him steal a glance my way from the corner of his eye.

  “What did he say?” I ask in absolute amazement. My body is stiff and my hands clench tight as I hang on his every word.

  “You ready for this?” Dad turns to look me straight in the eye.

  “Yeah.” Now I’m holding my breath.

  “He said he was a spirit who lived a long time ago. He said he had been hidden for many years. He said we were lucky, that he was a gift to those who found him—and now, we could speak to him whenever we wanted, that he would guide us.” After a long pause he adds, “Then he told us our future.” Dad hangs his head lower and glances from side to side before continuing. “He told me how I would find my fortune and that coming back here to the States was where I would find it. It’s something I had to do. At first we didn’t believe it, but he told us that the stones, one for each of us, couldn’t be destroyed. He dared us to try and break them.”