The Road Through Wonderland: Surviving John Holmes

by Dawn Schiller

“Yeah, she’s cool. She’s kind of a missionary. Sally’s been running the youth group for over a year. You’re okay, girl. You got lucky. This is no place to be left on the street.”

  “Yeah…sure. Sounds all right. Thanks.” I relax and let out a long, steady breath—so much that even my bones feel deflated. I let my mind adjust to the sharp change of my new environment, and I feel as though I’m being wrapped in a soft, warm blanket, my tears wiped dry.

  Where is John? I worry.

  Sally smiles and turns up the Christian tunes on the radio. “Let’s get to work! Hope you know how to paint.” She hums, content, like a mother bird blessing her nest with her song.

  The second day with Sally is ending, and I am exhausted. I joined her and her crew on their painting job to have a safe place to stay while I save money to go back to Oregon, but secretly I am hoping to hear from John. Sally lives on the second floor of a plain, two-story apartment complex adjacent to a wide, busy street in Studio City. After my long afternoon of painting the day before, Sally did as she promised and brought me to her apartment to let me crash on her couch for the night.

  “Can I use the phone please? I’d like to try to call my boyfriend’s answering service. In case he’s in trouble or something…”

  “Uh, yeah…you sure about that, Dawn? I thought you said he left you.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know why! I’ve just returned from Oregon. We got back together and he was only going…” I let my voice trail off. “He was supposed to come right back. He’s never let me get kicked out of a place before. I’m worried. Something’s wrong!”

  Sally sighs. “Well, if you really think you should, the phone’s over there.”

  I leave several messages for John in the evening, letting him know where I am, and again the next morning. In the past, sometimes John has left me a message with the operator at his answering service, but nothing is waiting this time. By late afternoon the next day, there still has been no word. Tired from the day’s physical work, Sally and I grab some takeout.

  Sally is a true Pentecostal Christian and speaks passionately of the Bible and the perils of Satan. I don’t feel I fit in with that way of thinking, but think she will not like me if I don’t pay attention. Politely but distantly, I listen as she drones on about her religion, never connecting any of it with me. The Bible is confusing, and religion’s Satan scares me worse than what I already know. The phone rings.

  Sally answers. “It’s for you, Dawn. He says his name is John.”

  “That’s him! That’s my boyfriend!”

  “Hello! John? Where have you been? I got kicked out, John!” My voice cracks. “I’m at this nice lady’s house in Studio City. I’ve been painting houses with her, and she let me stay. Okay. You got the address. Are you okay? Yeah, he’s fine. Hurry. I love you too.” “I take it that was him.” Sally looks down her nose at me. “Yeah! He’s coming to pick me up. He says to say thank you.”

  John arrives a few hours after calling, much later than expected. It is well past dark and, thinking he may not even show up, Sally has already settled in for the night. But I have been restless and worried. There’s a tapping at the door just as we’ve turned out the lights, and Thor starts barking. I throw off my covers and run to look through the peephole. Sally is up, following closely behind.

  “John!” I whisper with relief. “Come in. Sally, this is my boyfriend, John.”

  “Hello there!” he says with a grin as wide as the state of California. It is dark, but he pulls off a pair of mirrored sunglasses and slides them up over his curls. “I’m John. John Holmes.” He reaches out forcefully for a handshake.

  “Well, uh, hi. Shh! Let’s keep our voices down please. Come on in.” Sally is nervous the neighbors will hear. “I found Dawn sitting in front of that motel in Hollywood. She had been kicked out with no place to go. So I let her stay here.”

  “Yes. I know. Thank you. Uh, thank you so much. I was, uh, delayed beyond my control and I, uh…” John’s eyes are red, and his head is twitching. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a huge wad of cash, peeling a hundred off the top. “Here, uh, ma’am,” he drawls in his John Wayne impression. “Here’s for taking care of my girl. I, uh, appreciate that.” John winks at her as though she is special.

  Sally welcomes the money and blushes. “Well, uh, I can’t…”

  “No. No. I insist.” He flirts with her harder, in his sexy porn style. “Uh, do you mind if we use your bathroom? We have to talk.”

  John doesn’t wait for a response. Placing his sunglasses back on his face, he smiles his grinchy grin and drags me down the hallway with him. “Baby, baby!” He brings his lips to my ear, still grinning from the other side of his face. He locks the bathroom door behind us.

  “Where were you, John? I got kicked out! The guy wouldn’t let me stay! Are you all right? Is everything okay?” I have seen the money and can tell he is really high but in a very good mood.

  “Fuck that asshole. He coulda made himself a bundle. Wait. Look at this!” John opens his briefcase. Taking up nearly the entire bottom of the case is the cutoff corner of a black plastic garbage bag stuffed full with the largest brick-sized block of cocaine I have ever seen.

  “Whoa! Oh my God! Is that…the deal?”

  “You got it, baby. This is it! We are outta here, and this is our ticket!” He is as giddy as a child on Christmas morning.

  I can only stare. My thoughts are mixed with fear and excitement as John reaches in and presses me into a long, deep kiss. “I want you,” he breathes hotly into my neck. Then, opening up the bag, he stops to admire his score, picks up a tarot card of the devil that is floating among the wreckage of his briefcase, and lays out four fat, thick lines on the back of a magazine from a shelf under the sink.

  Snnnnuffffff. Snnnufffffff. His head snaps back. “Here.” He coughs as he holds a cutoff red-and-white striped straw under my nose.

  Strangely mesmerized, I pull my gaze away from the ominous, dark-horned tarot and take my turn inhaling the bitter, white powder. John doesn’t let the terrible burn stop him from his raw, impulsive urge. Instantly he pulls his clothes off and desperately strips mine away in turn. He seals his tall frame, vacuumlike, onto my small, bony form. Our bodies turn instantly hot, reeling, on fire. We’re unable to hear anything but each other’s heavy breathing and frantically pounding hearts—and unable to really feel, numb because of the drug.

  “Hey. Are you two okay?” a woman’s voice calls from outside the door. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  John starts giggling. “Yeah. Okay. Just a minute.” Quickly we put on our clothes and open the door. A different woman waits in the hallway.

  “Hi. I’m Pam, Sally’s sister!” She introduces herself flirtatiously to John. She is much slimmer than Sally, and she wears makeup and thick perfume. Sally is standing behind her, nodding acknowledgement.

  “Oh.” Sniff. “Hi! Uh, sorry! Uh, we’ll be out of your way in just a minute.” John looks her slender figure up and down and decides she is cool. “Uh, you two don’t happen to want a wake-up call, now, do you?”

  Pam’s eyes bug out. She watches John lay down two large lines with the very same tarot card, number thirteen, the devil. “Sure!” Pam is excited. Sally declines. I gather Thor to wait for John to follow. He never emerges.

  Hours pass. The couch, a velour explosion of multicolored flowers, is a quiet place I wait holding Thor and chewing my fingernails. Immobilized by the coke that filters through my system, my mind stays blank, unable to ask questions like why? or how? I am in another world, detached, and the fact that John is still in the bathroom with Pam just doesn’t matter to me.

  Sally brews some coffee and paces the kitchen, intermittently storming down the hall to coax her sister out of the bathroom. She doesn’t like this one bit, and she is getting impatient and snappy.

  “Can you go check on them?” she asks. She is antsy, the edge of her worry unraveling and fraying like a snag in a wool sweater.

  I br
eak out of my private head space. “John. John. What’s going on?” My tapping is featherlike, barely making a sound.

  The knob turns; the door pushes ajar. John is sitting on the toilet with his briefcase on his lap, rummaging through the assortment of junk that floats at the bottom. The garbage bag is no longer there; I assume he stashed it somewhere else. Pam is on the floor leaning against the tub, leafing through the magazine used earlier as a table for the cocaine. They are both acting nonchalant—too much so—and I can tell they’re extremely high.

  “John. What are you doing? Sally is getting mad. We need to get out of here.”

  Pam’s clothes are slightly disheveled and the side of John’s neck has a cluster of red blotches.

  “Oh, uh, yeah, baby, uh, sure…I, uh…” His mind drifts from the massive amount of raw drugs that swirl inside his head, and he focuses on some stray topic, as if I’m not there.

  “John?”

  “Huh? Oh yeah. I’ll be right out, babe.” He flashes me a pasty, dry grin that looks like a discarded Mardi Gras mask. Pam stays glued to the magazine, unnatural and mannequinlike.

  “He said he was coming right out.” I tell Sally the news, the bathroom announcement, and resume my spot on the couch.

  Mumbling something under her breath, she stomps away to her room.

  The sun makes brighter and brighter patches on the beige shag carpet, marking the end of a rigid night with no sleep. The coke is wearing off, and my body aches from the cramping tension in my limbs even though I lie on the couch trying to sleep. Sally is up and in the kitchen again. True fatigue sets in now that the many hours of the night have passed without rest, and my mouth, sticky and dry, calls out for water. Exhausted, I drag myself up to talk to Sally.

  “Hi.”

  “You need to get your boyfriend out of my bathroom!” She is furious.

  “Where’s your sister?” I ask, not liking the accusation in her voice.

  “Get him!”

  Almost as if John has heard her, he saunters into the living room stretching, yawning loudly, and smiling. “Good morning!” he bellows. “Anybody want some breakfast?” Briefcase in hand and face washed, he tries to diffuse Sally’s anger. “What can I get ya then. Sweet rolls? Orange juice? How ‘bout you, babe? Come on. Let’s go get something to eat.”

  “Sure,” I say flatly, but I’m seething with anger. Still, I’m relieved to see him out of the bathroom. We head out the door as Sally marches back to finally have a private word with her sister.

  “Back! Get back, ye Satan!” Sally is screaming at the top of her lungs off the balcony of her stucco apartment complex. Marching, soldierlike, back and forth, mumbling, singing, waving a massive white flag that bears a red cross and crown as her staff of protection. “In the name of Jesus, I cast you out!”

  “What the f—?” John and I stare, our jaws dropped.

  Grocery bags in hand, I call up to her. “Sally? Sally?”

  “I know who you are! I saw that tarot card! Be gone, Satan!” She is in a religious frenzy; she breaks out singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Shrill and thunderous, she drowns us out.

  “You gotta be kidding!” John almost laughs, unbelieving, then stops himself. I remember the devil card and her sister, clothes rumpled, in the bathroom. Sally is very serious.

  “Okay, Sally, please! Just let me get my dog and my stuff, okay? I’m coming up, okay? Please just let me have my dog.”

  Sally stops marching and points the flag out in front of her like a shield. “Meet me at the elevator!”

  In the lobby, amid passersby and gawking tenants, John and I wait as the solid elevator doors roll open. Sally rushes forward, thrusts my duffel bag and a shivering Thor into my waiting arms, her face sweaty and aflame from her hollering and singing. She brushes imaginary cobwebs from her arms and legs, spitting and cursing, calling on protective Bible verses to purify her tainted spirit. Incredulous and emotionally wounded, I am speechless. Feeling scared that I have lost a friend, I shake my head while the doors close to hide her accusing face.

  “Oh my God! Was that weird or what?” John tries to deflect my attention from his role in the bathroom scene and to gain my forgiveness.

  I am hurt. Sally took me in when I was on the street; I never wanted to make her feel afraid.

  “Can you believe her, babe? Thank gawd I got you out of there.”

  John always has a way of shifting the blame. It confuses me when he fast-talks, and I know it’s useless to argue.

  “I thought she was going to keep Thor! That was scary!”

  We are tired and hungry. The effects of the coke have worn off enough that we’re in the mood to get some rest. We travel back into Hollywood feeling like vampires whose skin will burst into flame by the sun. John pulls into another run-down motel and checks us in, paying for a full week in advance this time. We eat noisily, unwrapping fish and chips from the Long John Silver’s down the road, smoke a cigarette, and draw the drapes to block out the sun. “Let’s get some rest, baby.” John gets naked and pulls me tight. “Tonight’s the night! The big one!”

  I know he means he is going to sell the coke. I know that is where the money for our getaway will come from. So when we wake around dusk that evening on the last day of June, few words are spoken. John throws away the paraphernalia and puts the money in his boot and the coke in his briefcase. His attitude is all business as I hand him his jacket and pack of True Blues. The drug is only a commodity now, not for consumption. The big one! This is to be our new beginning…fresh and clean.

  The walls of my motel room move like willowy ghosts from the shadows of the headlights of parking cars. The entire night, John is gone. My sleep is restless and stiff, and when I finally doze off, nightmares jolt me awake. Thor is spooked too, his ears perked as he listens to the noises and movements outside, anxious to hear the familiar engine chug of the Malibu. The streets are damp, heavy with fog and eeriness. The darkness is an ominous and lurking thing. I jump up to look out the window at every noise. Once morning comes, I worry once again.

  Light fills the horizon in pink and gray tones even as the sun rises. The marine layer still cloaks the sky. I hear the unmistakable popping of the Chevy’s engine as John pulls into the parking space out front.

  “He’s here!” My heart races as I pull the curtain back.

  John is still inside the Malibu, his head laid back against the headrest. Stiff and slow, he gets out of the car and takes a sweeping look around. His shoulders slumped, his skin pasty and pale, he circles around to the trunk, opens it, and peers inside. He seems to be searching for something but comes up empty-handed. He drops the trunk lid closed and limps up to the door of our room.

  Oh no. I run to the door and unlock it. John’s eyes, bloodshot and blank, don’t acknowledge me. He walks by zombielike, the living dead. He’s wearing different clothes, I register. In slow motion he drops down on the bed, hesitates, then digs in his pockets for some change.

  “Can you go get me a Coke?” His words come out weak and emotionless.

  “What happened, John?”

  “Hmm? Nothing…baby, please?”

  I disappear and get his soda. He sounds so hurt and lost. I want to comfort him.

  Still frozen in the same slumped position on the edge of the bed, he digs deeper in his pockets and downs a few ten-milligram Valiums he has wrapped in cigarette cellophane. Where’s his briefcase? I wonder, feeling uneasy. Sapped of all his energy, he stands unsteadily. His clothes drop at his feet, and he crawls under the covers. As I cover him with the blanket, words stick in my throat when I see his arms and neck streaked with deep red scratches and marks. Thor rolls around on the bed, kicking and playing, trying to get John’s attention, but John ignores him and turns his back, cold, like a deathly shroud.

  “John? Are you okay?” I ask as I snuggle in next to him. He offers nothing. He’s different, I think. Something’s changed…broken inside of him. Devoid of spirit, a shell, empty and hollow, he lies pale and still,
as if he were lying in his own coffin, and falls asleep.

  John is restless, tossing and turning throughout the night, kicking and pushing me to all corners of the bed. He groans and whimpers muffled screams, squeals, makes unnatural grunting noises like a deaf-mute calling for help. Sweat soaks his skin, drenching the sheets and my own nightshirt. His nightmare is fierce, a battle…for his life.

  “Blood! Blood!” He thrashes side to side as if he wants to run away. “There’s so much blood!”

  “What, John?” I try whispering into his ear, but he is deep in his terror and moans and tosses on his side. John quiets for a moment, sprawled over the entire bed. Thor and I can’t sleep and get up to pee. Daylight touches the curtains in a soft, glowing halo, and I turn on the television bolted to the wall at the foot of the bed. I light a cigarette and turn the volume low. A five o’clock news flash plays across the screen:

  “Four bodies were found bludgeoned to death on Wonderland Avenue this morning in the Hollywood Hills with one survivor. Stay tuned for news at five.”

  My head snaps up, and I gasp. That house! That street! I know that place. That’s John’s connection! Oh no. God! I hold my breath for ten full minutes, it seems, afraid to exhale. Every ounce of my being knows undoubtedly: This is bad. The little things are adding up in my head: John’s return with different clothes, his missing briefcase, the red marks on his arms and neck, and most especially the lifeless way he acts—then the dreams. I start to get scared that something has gone very wrong with the sale of the coke. I swallow hard. It is five o’clock.

  On the news, police are gathered outside of the house on Wonderland Avenue overseeing the removal of mummy sheet-clad bodies from the three-story home and loading them into a coroner’s van. A reporter, somber outside with a microphone in hand, recounts the gory details asking for anyone with any information to call the police.

  A slight movement behind me makes me jump. John is up. Leaning against the faux wood headboard, he lights a cigarette.