by James, Jesse
I shoved the photos back underneath the stack of McCall’s and left the garage, face burning.
——
Joanna left awhile after that. It had nothing to do with my discovery.
“Dad?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“Where’s your wife?” About a week had passed with no trace of my stepmom. We had eaten dinner alone together for several nights running, mostly in silence.
He took a long, slow look at me. “Joanna doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Uh . . . where does she live?”
“Don’t know,” my dad admitted. After a second, he laughed shortly. “Try asking the guy she ran away with.”
I didn’t quite get it, but later I concocted a theory that Joanna and my dad had been “swingers.” It was the right era, and that would explain the racy pics. My dad was always a real ladies’ man, with a silver-tongued kind of charm. Maybe the photographs were meant to be sent off to swingers’ magazines, so on weekends they could ride out to Bakersfield or San Bernardino, taking part in wacky wife-swaps and oiled-up orgies. Of course, I had no evidence of this, but hey—I was in high school and I had a vivid imagination.
He’d posed her like a plastic love doll, but never in his wildest dreams could my father have predicted that his obedient and sedate wife of four years would suddenly spring to life, bouncing off over the Fresno horizon with another guy. Who the hell understood women, anyway? And so, just a few years after she’d entered my life, Joanna was gone.
So began a brief, cautiously happy era. It was just me and my dad at home together, like a couple of bachelors. I would cook or he would. I’d watch TV and he wouldn’t care what it was. I was staying up late and he didn’t seem to mind. Dishes got done haphazardly. But peace reigned in the James household.
“Jess!”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Need you to work tomorrow for me.”
“I have school, Dad. Tomorrow’s Friday, remember?”
“Then you’re just gonna have to be sick. I’m going to Pasadena for a big job, and I need you to help me out.” He grinned at me. “Your old dad’s getting feeble. He needs the young blood to step up and do its part.”
I flushed with pride. “Hell yeah.” It didn’t matter to me that I had a test the next day in algebra.
The next day we both woke up at six and ate breakfast together. “You want coffee, Jess?”
“No, thanks.”
He laughed. “Come on, kid. Live a little. Try coffee the way I do it: plenty of sugar and plenty of cream. A coffee made the right way can be a whole meal. Give you vitamins you need for the rest of the day!”
I grinned. “Okay. Just a little bit.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” my dad bellowed. He reached out and pounded me in the chest twice. “My son is a walking beast, goddammit!”
In his better moments, my dad seemed to me like the perfect combination of Redd Foxx and George Carlin. He could make me laugh without even trying. I remember literally crying, tears running down my face, listening to swap-meet stories of his that I’d heard a million times before.
I loaded up his trucks like a madman. I tossed mattresses every which way, stacking boxes of books and antique tables next to refrigerators next to dinettes next to racks of chairs.
“Careful, careful!” my dad warned. “You’re wasting room, Jess! No, no fucking way! Let’s start this over. Don’t half-ass it. Unpack the whole thing. Start over from scratch.”
Turning around on a dime, I started unloading the truck. Just like on the football field, I attacked any physical task with enthusiasm and a kind of animal rage. I was going to be the best in the world at packing up junk trucks. No one would do it faster or better or meaner than me.
My dad just watched, a bemused look on his face.
“Much better. Fuck, kid,” he said, laughing, “I should keep you out of school every day. My life just got ten times easier.”
The swap meets became my home away from home, and molded me into an even weirder teenager than I already was. Besides Bobby, I just didn’t have that many friends my own age. My peer group wasn’t really kids, they were my dad’s friends, Rick and Joey and Paul and Ronnie, sleazy pimplike dudes who were constantly running game, smoking cigarettes, and cutting deals, wearing three-quarter-length leather trench coats with floppy denim hats and loving every minute of it.
“Look at the milkers on that one,” Joey would say, motioning toward a young blond California mom pushing a stroller.
“Watch the mouth, Joe,” Rick would go, laughing and motioning to me. “The kid isn’t used to that kind of language.”
“Hell he isn’t! He’s seen a pair of tits before. You know what a good rack looks like, dontcha, Jess?”
“Sure do,” I bluffed, puffed up with my own newfound machismo.
“Yeah, but do you know what to do with ’em? Jesse, tell you what, how about you go over there and put those in your mouth, huh, kid?” He made a sucking sound with his lips and teeth. “Milk ’em, is what I say!”
They were good-time guys, the original dirty rotten scoundrels. Fun for them was breaking a jar of mayonnaise on the supermarket floor. One well-timed slip-and-fall later, and they were suing the store for negligence. They fascinated me and made me feel sick to my stomach at the same time. I remember going out to find Joey in the parking lot one time, because he had an interested buyer for a lamp of his. He hadn’t been near his booth for about half an hour.
I craned my neck, looking for his green Thunderbird in the vast parking lot.
“Hey, Joey! Where you at?” I stretched my neck in vain. “Joey!”
Finally I located his car. I saw him sitting behind the driver’s seat and ran up to the window, knocking on it with my knuckles.
“Hey, Joey, someone’s looking . . . oh, sorry!”
A woman’s blond head was moving over his lap with a rhythmic tempo.
He glanced up and gave me a triumphant grin. “Little busy right now, kid.” His right palm rested lazily atop her crown of mussed golden hair. “Gimme five minutes.”
They were shitheads, creeps; I knew that. But they were my dad’s world, and I’d been given a ticket to the main show. As long as I pulled my weight, worked hard, and made sure everyone liked me, I’d be allowed to stay. That’s what mattered to me.
The year I spent alone with my father was unlike any other part of my childhood. It was exciting and gratifying. The most compelling moments came when my dad would take odd, brief fits of interest in me. One night over dinner, as he sipped from his Coca-Cola, he regarded me with a curious kind of look.
“Do you even like girls?”
“What . . . what do you mean?” I said, blushing.
“I mean just what I say, kid. Do you like girls, or what?” He chuckled. “Not that complicated.”
“Sure, I like girls,” I said defensively. “Of course I do.”
“Ya ever DONE anything with one, though?” he said, picking up a thigh from the take-out box of fried chicken that lay there between us. He gazed at me with a kind of intensity.
“I mean . . . there’s a girl at school who I kind of like.” That was true. Her name was Rhonda. She was the prettiest girl in the whole high school, as far as I could tell.
“You like her, huh?” My dad had an evil grin on his face.
“Yes,” I said protectively. I didn’t like the way he was smiling.
“Why don’t I ever see her over here, then?”
“Because, well . . . we’re not even together or anything. She doesn’t even really know I like her, in fact.”
My dad sighed. “Say no more,” he said, holding up his hand. “I get it.”
“What do you get?” I said angrily.
“You’re a goddamn virgin,” he said.
“Whatever.” I reached for some potatoes, awkwardly scooped a huge portion onto my plate.
My dad continued watching me for a second.
“Hey, it’s fine. You’re
just a kid. No hurry.” Then he frowned, adding, “Christ, you eat like an ox, kid. Did you realize that? Leave some for your old man. You’ll eat both of us right into the poorhouse.”
I didn’t think much of our conversation until about a week later. It was late afternoon. I carried my book bag over my shoulder. There’d been no one to pick me up from school, so it had been the bus for me. Another long ride.
I opened up my front door and let myself into my house. The house was quiet, as usual. I dropped my bag and went into the kitchen, where I opened up the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of juice.
“Mind if I have some?”
I jumped, startled.
“Who are you?”
A girl extended her hand to me. “My name’s Tracy.” She was about nineteen or twenty, and pretty. She was slim with a fair complexion.
“Oh,” I said, not sure of what to say next. “I’m . . . um . . . Jesse.”
“Hi, Jesse.” She smiled widely. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Did you . . . did you want some juice?” I asked.
“I’d love some.”
Carefully, I opened up a kitchen cabinet and searched for a clean glass for her. My dad had all kinds of vintage glassware, but like I said, we weren’t the best housekeepers, so it took a moment. Finally I found a passable tumbler. I reached into the freezer, unstuck a few cubes of ice, and plopped them in the glass. Then I poured some from-concentrate orange juice into the glass and handed it to the strange girl who was in my kitchen.
“Thank you,” she said pleasantly. She sipped from the glass and smiled at me again. “Yum.”
I shifted uneasily. “Uh . . .”
“Yes?”
“Who are you?”
“I told you. I’m Tracy.” She giggled. “I’m a friend of your dad’s.” She spooled some of her pretty hair around her fingers and played with it coquettishly.
“Is he home?” I asked.
“Nope.” She giggled again. “You are, though.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I just stared at my feet. Tracy sipped at her juice, looking at the framed posters my dad had put up on the walls as she walked around my kitchen. Then, decisively, she strode toward the living room. I followed. She plopped down on our couch and motioned to me.
“Come sit down, Jesse.”
I did what she said.
“So, how old are you?” Tracy asked. She appeared to be poring over me in a way I couldn’t quite interpret.
“Fifteen.”
“Wow.” She laughed. “You look way older than that.” She reached over and stroked my arm gently. “You’re pretty strong, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. I didn’t know where to look.
“Do you have a girlfriend or anything?”
“No,” I mumbled. “I’m too busy . . . football.”
“Oh, that’s crazy. A boy as cute as you should have a girlfriend. I mean, that’s really crazy.”
“Well,” I said, awkwardly. “Thanks.”
“Jesse?” she said. “I just had an awesome idea. Do you want a massage?”
“Uh . . .”
“It’ll feel great, I promise! I’m super good at massage.”
“I guess so,” I said.
“Come here.” She reached for my shoulders and started to rub them very gently. I was still sitting bolt upright.
“How does that feel?” she asked.
“Nice.”
“You could give me a massage next, if you want.” She giggled. “I bet you’re really good at it.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I really like your body,” the girl whispered. I could feel her hot breath on my neck. Her hands strayed from my shoulders. They grazed my sides and came to rest on my thighs.
I didn’t say anything. My whole body tensed.
“What do you think of my body?” she whispered. “Do you want to see more of it?” Her lips came so close to my ear that I could feel how wet they were. “Do you want to see me . . . naked?”
Abruptly, I stood up. “I gotta go.”
Tracy looked at me, startled.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m sorry. I just—I really, really gotta go.” I raced up the stairs to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me.
A couple of minutes later, I heard the front door open, then close. Tracy, who I guessed was a teenaged hooker my dad had hired to deflower me, had left the building.
——
“I would give my left nut for that girl,” Bobby moaned.
“You’d give your nut for any girl,” I said.
“Yeah. But I’d give my left for Rhonda Clark, and my left is my special nut.” He stared at me. “It’s the low hanger.”
Rhonda Clark was tan and dark. She was so gorgeous that everyone always seemed to be staring at her. But she wasn’t the kind of girl who went out of her way to talk to everybody.
“Bobby, just to let you know,” I said, “you might have some competition there.”
“You got your eye on Rhonda?”
“She’s amazing,” I admitted.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“Sorry,” I said.
Bobby snorted. “Well, good luck, is all I can say, James. I mean, come on, man—that girl is far too fine for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Frankly, a girl like Rhonda would be a lot more comfortable on the arm of someone with a touch of class.” Bobby looked at me pityingly. “Which would be me, naturally.”
I patted Bobby gently on the back. “Let’s not fight over someone who probably doesn’t even know either of us exist.”
“Get your hand off of me,” Bobby said. “Whoa. Don’t seduce me, James, you sick freak.”
I never expected even to talk to her. So I couldn’t even believe it when Rhonda started looking back at me when I shyly stared at her in the halls. She smiled right at me.
“Hey, come over here,” she commanded one afternoon.
“Who, me?”
She giggled. “Yes, you.” Rhonda crossed her arms over the books she was carrying. “You keep looking at me. What’s your name?”
“I’m . . . uh . . . Jesse,” I said, finally.
“Don’t you play football or something?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I heard you were pretty good,” she said.
“I’m okay,” I said.
“No, I heard you were really good.” Rhonda smiled. “Is there anything else you’re good at?”
I thought for a second. “Swap meets?”
She looked unimpressed, and I hated myself for being so lame. I racked my mind to think what was cool about me: What could I boast about to impress this pretty girl who, against all odds, was talking to me in the La Sierra hallway?
“Well, I know a little bit about cars,” I said, finally.
“Oh my God!” Rhonda squealed. “You know how to fix cars?”
“Sure,” I said, delighted I’d stumbled on to something that this girl actually cared about. “I mean, it depends. But I can fix a lot of stuff.”
“My mom’s Chevy has been broken for three weeks!” She shifted the books in her arms, displaying casually a little bit of her rockin’ bod. “I don’t suppose you would want to take a look at it for me?”
“Shit,” I said, “I’d love to. I mean . . . sorry. I didn’t mean to say—”
“What?” Rhonda giggled. “Look, Jesse, if you fix my mom’s car, then you can say ‘shit’ all day and all night.”
“That’s not what I want,” I said.
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah,” I said. I looked at her. “If I fix your mom’s car, then I want you to go out to the movies with me.”
“Oh really? What movie?”
“I . . . really don’t care,” I said honestly. The whole school throbbed and moved around us in the halls. I ignored everyone. It was just me and her, locked in a gaze. And it felt like the best thin
g ever.
She stared at me for a really long time, then finally broke out into the most gorgeous smile I’d ever seen. “Yeah,” she said. “That sounds good.”
Please note: I fixed the living shit out of that car.
——
Soon Rhonda and I were an item. Her perfect teenaged scent pervaded every aspect of my being. It was all roses and hair spray and cheerleader pom-poms and white cotton panties twisted up in a ball on the floor of my car.
Not to be outdone, my father embarked upon a romance of his own. Nina was a cocktail waitress at a bar in Long Beach. She boasted stringy hair that hung down from her forehead, moplike.
“So pleased ta meet you,” she sneered, the first time she came over to the house. The way Nina talked, it was like there was an invisible cigarette hanging from her bottom lip. I could almost see the butt moving up and down.
My dad was never one to beat around the bush, so before long, they’d gotten hitched, and I had a new stepmom. One day, she arrived at my house smacking gum like it was her job, her skinny, weather-beaten hands on her hips, and a household of possessions thrown haphazardly into a dented Ryder truck behind her. Two kids stood by her side, staring at me hostilely.
“Jesse,” came my dad’s voice, “unload the truck for Nina.”
I knew this action would officially end my time alone with my dad, and the realization put me momentarily beyond words. Had anybody thought to ask me if three new people could move into my house? Would they really be allowed to invade the first taste of happiness that I’d been trying to cultivate for my whole life?
“Well?” Nina said. She jerked her chin. “You gonna do what your dad said?”
With no other choice, I put my head down and walked slowly toward the truck.
“Don’t break anything,” Nina snapped.
Nina was a better homemaker than Joanna: she could actually cook a little bit. But she was not what you would call a stellar conversationalist.
“Hey,” I said. “I think your kids stole some money out of my desk.”
No response.
“Excuse me,” I repeated. “Did you hear what I said? I had ten bucks in my desk. Now it’s gone, and I think one of your kids stole it.”
