“I feel bad,” I said. “I can’t even explain how bad I feel, and I know it’s all my fault, and I’m willing to pay for my mistakes.”
“Save it for the jury. I’m your mother, and I don’t want to hear your sob story. What you did tonight went way beyond you and your selfish little concerns. You and all your reckless adolescent stupidity killed someone, and it brought me into the mix as well.”
So, that’s what she was really upset about.
“If you think this isn’t going to come down to the fact that I’m a bad mother, that you come from some single-parent home skating on the thin ice of poverty, that your circumstances have destined you for a future no greater than the one you demonstrated tonight, then you are completely naive. Because the second that woman went hurtling to her death it became something much bigger than just some kids acting young and stupid. It became a tragedy, and behind every tragedy there’s someone who takes the blame. Suddenly where you come from is very important. Suddenly the critical eye is on me. How could you do this to me?”
My mother had begun to cry. I knew there was nothing I could say. So I chewed the inside of my lip and examined the individual threads that made up the nap of the towel on my legs. It would have been easier on my mother if I’d died in the accident. It would have spared her the scrutiny that frightened her so much. It would have made me the victim rather than the perpetrator, but that wasn’t how it worked out. Although she didn’t exactly wish me dead, that’s what I heard, and I considered it. I’d fucked up badly, and I didn’t really see any way to make things right again, except, maybe, suicide. I thought about it, but decided that at this point it would only make things worse. If I killed myself now, my mother would be taken to task not only for raising a daughter capable of vehicular homicide, but also for raising the cowardly sort of daughter who would take the easy way out rather than facing up to her own mistakes.
This Summer
All the lights except the kitchen ones were off when I got to Willow’s. I thought she might not even be home, but she was. I found her at the kitchen table with a bottle of Captain Morgan and a pile of money. I thought at first she’d raided Randy’s glove compartment.
“That pile’s yours,” she said, pointing at the other end of the table. “Care to join me in a drink?”
“Sure,” I said and sat down.
“Parents are out for the night, and Randy’s hard at work feeding the hungry.”
Her voice had an edge to it. I figured it was the alcohol. I cut my rum with flat Coca-Cola, but she drank hers plain.
Beneath the kitchen’s enormous fluorescent light, Willow looked like crap. She’d lost weight. Her face looked tired and old.
“So, how is Randy?” I asked. “I’ve barely seen him all summer.”
“Oh, cut the crap,” Willow said. She stared at me with eyes like gun barrels. I stared back. My palms began to sweat. “You make me so fucking sick.”
“What’s this about?” I asked.
“Just shut up! Just shut the fuck up!”
“I don’t know what your problem is.”
“Stella Delaney saw you,” Willow said. She waited, but I didn’t have the power to speak. I didn’t even know what Stella saw, but whatever it was it could not be good. “At the park-and-ride with that cop.”
“I—”
“Look, just shut up. Whatever you say is just going to make it worse. She saw you, and she knows he’s a cop because he busted her boyfriend’s younger brother at Roxbury in June.” She sighed. She looked like she wanted to cry. In a whiny voice she mimicked, “Remember that guy in the Hawaiian shirt? He’s just some guy Joe Bullock paid to freak me out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I said shut up.”
She didn’t say anything else for a few seconds. I’d never realized how loud the hum was on the fluorescent light.
“We could have both been killed, you know. If Craig or any of his associates found out, we’d be dead. Were you fucking him? Jesus. I thought I knew you.”
“I thought he could help me,” I said. “It was stupid. I don’t expect you to understand. And he already knew about Randy anyway.”
“Randy’s my brother. He may be a dirtbag, but he’s still my brother. And he likes you. He cares about you, and I guess I kind of thought you felt the same, but apparently not if you’re narcing him out to some sleazeball cop.”
“I’m going,” I said. I stood up. I looked down at the pile of money on the table. It made me feel ill just to look at it. “You can keep the money,” I said.
“Oh, thanks. I’m saving up for a new life.”
“Willow, I never meant—”
“Get the fuck out of here!” she shouted. She hurled the nearly empty rum bottle at me. I ducked. It hit the cabinet and shattered. “Now!”
I had my hand on the doorknob, but it turned from the other side. Midge and Mr. Jenkins stepped in. They stared at the money on the table, at the broken glass, at Willow, at me.
“Hi Scilla,” Midge said cheerily.
“What in Christ’s name is going on?” Mr. Jenkins demanded.
“Scilla is just on her way out, aren’t you?” Willow said.
I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“Have you girls been drinking?” Midge asked, still chipper.
“Have you lost all olfactory powers?” Mr. Jenkins snapped at her. “Of course they’ve been drinking.”
“Oh girls,” Midge said. “You know you really shouldn’t.”
“You’re out of control,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Maybe you should both get locked up for a little while. Maybe it will straighten you out.”
“If she gets her way, I will be,” Willow said.
So I left. I had to push my way past Midge and Mr. Jenkins, but I didn’t care. I needed to leave. Outside, I sucked air into my lungs as if I was on the verge of suffocation. Then I started walking as fast as I could, practically running. The tears began to fall as I walked.
Why did I always fuck everything up? Every bad thing that had ever happened to me was entirely my fault. What was wrong with me?
August
You can blame the media or dirty fighting or loose lips or some sort of government conspiracy, but really, when the chips are down, maybe you need to take a good look inside yourself. Maybe it’s time you acknowledge that you might be the source of every crappy thing that’s ever happened to you. Then, who knows, you might get so pissed off you go ballistic. So pissed off you pull a Sherman, just lay waste to everything in your path. Maybe.
I didn’t have the benefit of a West Point education. I didn’t have an army at my disposal. I didn’t have crap. So I did the next best thing. I moped around and felt miserable for myself. I found a bag of old, mildewed paperback books in the basement. It was nothing but romance novels, their covers illustrated with swooning maidens and bare-chested men. The books were awful. I read them anyway.
When the phone finally rang after days of steamy love scenes, I burst off the couch and grabbed it. It was Andrea. It surprised me how disappointed I was to hear the sound of her voice. I’d been hoping for Willow.
“So, I bought this new bikini on clearance at the mall,” Andrea said. I wouldn’t say my disappointment completely vanished, but it was hard to see it too clearly what with the mental image of Andrea showing off her wares in some itty-bitty polka-dot number. “And Dan O’Rourke’s friend’s friend is having this pool party at his house and I think he lives in Sparta.”
“Cool,” I said, because it felt like I should say something. I didn’t understand why she was calling me and telling me this. I secretly hoped it was because she wanted someone to come over and help her tie her bikini straps. “Are you going to the party with Dan?”
“Well, that’s the thing, Dan is kind of dating some sophomore girl, but he told me about the party and I want to go, but I don’t want to go alone. So I was wondering if you wanted to go?” I knew she wasn’t asking me on a date—this was Andrea we’re talking
about. However, she’d just asked me to go to a pool party where she was going to be wearing a bikini. Was it any wonder that I practically screamed the word “yes” into the phone?
I never did get to see Andrea in her bikini. She took off approximately two minutes after we got to the craptastic party with some guy I’d never seen before in my life. So I sat with my bare feet dangling in the pool, watching sloshed preppy kids stagger around the patio. A preppy guy with an alarming amount of curls on top of his head came running out of the house and raced over to his friends all in a panic. I guessed this was his house. I heard him say something about calling an ambulance. His friends shook their heads, told him he was crazy.
“But she’s really passed out,” I heard Curly say. He was so upset he was practically crying. “I think maybe she OD’d.”
“She probably just drank too much,” one of the other preppy guys said. “Just let her sleep it off.”
“She’s fucked up,” Curly said. “She’s really, really fucked up.”
It made me think of Willow. I missed her. If Willow was here, I wouldn’t be sitting all by myself watching preppy kids in crisis for fun. Then I realized that if Willow was here she would probably be focused on escaping this plane of existence with an unhealthy mix of drugs and alcohol.
A couple of seconds after I realized this, I yanked my feet out of the pool, grabbed my shoes and socks, and went running into the house. It wasn’t like Willow was the only girl in the history of the universe to overdo it at a party, but somehow I knew that she was the source of Curly’s panic attack.
At first all I saw was a pair of teal suede sneakers attached to two perfectly tanned and toned legs. Except these legs belonged to a girl who was at least sober enough to be standing on her own two feet, and there was another nearly identical girl beside her. Only when I looked past them did I notice there was a third girl in the room, a girl who was clearly not standing on her own two feet. I caught sight of a strand of dirty-blonde hair. Were the other girls trying to wake her up? I was about to take back every bad thought I’d ever had about obnoxious preppy kids, but then realized these were not Good Samaritans.
“What the hell is going on?” I said. I was surprised and a little bit scared by the fury in my voice. What was I doing? I was outnumbered, and I was on their turf.
“Who are you?” the one girl asked in her whiny, snotty voice.
“Get the hell away from her,” I said.
“This doesn’t concern you,” the other girl said.
I didn’t bother to respond. I grabbed the Sharpie marker from her hand and shoved her out of my way. I was taking the chance that the two pretty things would be too worried about messing up their hair to want to fight me for it. I was right.
“Now it won’t even make sense,” one of them said.
“Were you even invited to this party?” the other one asked. I turned around and glared at them. They rolled their eyes, but mercifully left me to survey the damage.
The letters S-L-U had been written in marker on Willow’s forehead. I slapped her and shouted her name in her ear until she finally woke up. When she did come to, she made a half-hearted attempt to tackle me. Maybe she thought I was trying to kill her. Maybe she just hated my guts.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. She shrugged and let me help her get up.
“What are you doing here?” she mumbled.
“Rescuing you from preppies with permanent markers.”
“You’re my knight in shining armor.”
“You’re hardly a princess.”
Andrea wasn’t happy about having to leave the party early but I begged, and either that or Willow’s sorry state made her cave. I saw her glance back over her shoulder as we walked across the front lawn.
“I like it here,” Andrea said. “It’s classy.” On cue, Willow let out a loud, foul-smelling belch.
When we got to Willow’s house, I walked her to the back door while Andrea waited in the driveway with the engine running. Willow leaned on the doorknob for support. I wondered if she would be able to make it upstairs to her bedroom on her own.
“You okay?” I asked. She nodded. I started to walk back to the driveway but she said my name. I turned around.
“Uh, you know, thanks,” she said.
“Don’t mention it.”
“You’re a good person.”
“Not really.”
“Want to a go to a Davies Pauliny concert? I got an extra ticket. I don’t know anyone else who’ll go with me.”
“Sure,” I said. Did this mean we were friends again?
“Cool,” Willow said.
When I got back in the car, Andrea said, “You know, I think maybe hanging around with you guys is ruining my reputation.”
Seriously?
“Willow’s not that bad,” I said. “You don’t really know her.”
The Davies Pauliny concert was over at the Waterloo concert field, only a few miles from home. It was a sober and cleaned-up Willow who drove me to the show. The night was hot and humid, the air so dense with moisture you could feel it against your skin. We made our way through the admission gates, where the press of bodies felt vaguely sinful, and into the field where the crowd thinned out and the moist air enveloped us.
Life is a series of moments, of brief instants that burn themselves forever into our consciousness and can be called up by any number of sensual triggers. Will the combined scent of sweat, patchouli, and beer forever remind me of standing in the middle of a grassy field with my best friend as we and the entire crowd teetered on the brink of our future, its black-hole mouth agape and threatening to swallow us whole?
“We should pick a meeting spot,” I said, “in case we get separated.”
“Did your mother tell you that?” Willow asked.
“No, I just thought … we’ll never find each other in this crowd if we get separated.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Willow asked.
At the bottom of Lake Mohawk, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
“Third Porta-Potty from the right,” Willow said pointing. I looked at it, not sure what I was supposed to see until I realized that Willow had just declared it our meeting spot.
“Right,” I said, nodding.
“In fact,” Willow said, “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes or so. There’s something I’ve got to do.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
“Third Porta-Potty,” she repeated.
She disappeared into the crowd. I stood motionless. It seemed that if I just stood there without moving, she would come to her senses and return, laugh off her weird behavior, make a joke about it. Instead, she had treated me with an unusual amount of coolness, and I realized that things had in fact changed. I was no longer her best buddy, her faithful sidekick.
I stood stiffly by myself in the field while other concert-goers milled around me, an island in their endless river. I tried to look natural but felt only awkward. At last I made my way to the refreshment stand and purchased a soda. The paper cup sweated in the hot air and I relished its coolness as it chilled my hand.
“Hey,” someone said. I turned around and found myself staring at Bill. “I kind of expected to find you here,” he said.
Was I that predictable? Or had Bill worked out some magical formula to determine people’s future behavior? How could anyone expect to find another person in this crowd anyway?
“How are you?” I said by way of making conversation. I genuinely didn’t care how he was.
“Oh, well, as good as can be expected, I guess. Are you here with … ?”
“Willow Jenkins,” I supplied. “But she kind of ditched me.”
“Bummer,” he said. “But also not unexpected.”
“Do you have calculations that tell you that? Would you care to enlighten me on how the rest of the evening will turn out? The rest of the summer?”
“Oh, it will suck, but we’ll survive.”
“There’s this guy you ough
t to meet. The two of you could go into business,” I said, thinking of Pablo.
“Always it comes back to capitalism.”
“Are you here for the music or do you have some sort of subversive activities planned?”
“Curiosity, really. Take a look, Scilla. This is the future of the nation.”
I looked. The crowd was mostly teens and people in their early twenties. They wore dingy clothes, concert garb that imitated the Woodstock-goers of another era without quite getting it right. A good majority of them were heavily drugged; the others merely acted like it. They may have been the future, but no one had bothered to tell them that. Everyone seemed firmly rooted in the now, unaware or merely apathetic to the fact that time would push them forward despite their best intentions.
There was a reason Bill and I stood outside this throng. We didn’t have the ability to live completely in the present, without regard to the past or future. We were aware. We were overly aware.
“I’ve got to go over by the Porta-Potties,” I said.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s enough to make you sick.”
“No, I’ve got to meet Willow. That’s our meeting spot.”
“Right. Well, see you ’round.” He gave me a sad little wave.
Willow was standing by our designated Potty when I got there. I had not expected that.
“Can I have a sip?” she asked, looking at my soda. Her forehead glistened with sweat. I handed her my cup and she took a long gulp. “I heard from someone that they oversold the show,” she said. “Traffic on 80 is backed up for ten miles.”
I looked over to where Waterloo Road, the only road in and out of the venue, snaked along the side of the field. The trees and bushes were so lush it was hard to see the nearly endless line of cars stopped in either direction.
Once, several years ago, someone had died during a Phish concert at Waterloo. It was a big deal, and for a while after that there were no shows. The problem was that the field was too isolated, with only the one country road going in and out. There was a hospital just a few miles away, but the ambulance couldn’t get to the guy who’d fallen off the back of a pickup truck. The gridlock was so bad, and there was no shoulder to drive on.
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