Tietam Brown

by Mick Foley

  “Young man, I want you out of this house. You have brought shame to my home. I will say to your face what I’ve told my daughter for weeks. She deserves better than you. Much better by far. She deserves a Christian and an athlete as well.”

  I looked over at Terri, thinking that surely she would come to my rescue. Instead she did nothing. Just looked at her plate.

  I stepped outside into the cold, snowy night, and walked off into the darkness. About two hundred yards down the street, I heard her. Terri. Yelling. Yelling my name and running as fast as her heels and the weather would allow. In her arms she held something. My coat. Thank goodness. And I knew that my arms would soon hold something too. Her body. Real close.

  I met her halfway, and hugged her hard. Wrapped my arms around her and didn’t let go. I kissed her, and kissed her again, waiting for the heat of her tongue to melt the ice in my blood. That tongue never came. Instead she yelled, “Stop, Andy, stop,” and burst into tears. I tried to hug her again, but she pushed me away.

  She put her head down and wiped at her tears. How I wished she would have let me wipe them myself. Slowly she looked up and regained control.

  “Look, Terri, I’m sorry, but—”

  “Shut up, Andy, shut up. It’s my turn to talk. You’ve said enough for one night, don’t you think?” She paused for a while, and took several deep breaths, as if breathing in courage for what she’d say next.

  “Put your coat on, Andy, I don’t want you to freeze.”

  “Why don’t you wear it, Terri, you’re—”

  “Just wear it, Andy, I’ll be safe at home much quicker than you. What I have to say won’t take long.”

  I feared for the worst . . . and got it.

  “Andy, I had three things in my life that I loved. My God, my family, and you. You disrespected the first two and now I can’t have the third. Do you understand?”

  “He led me into it, Terri, he—”

  “Shut up, Andy. You came to my house drunk. You humiliated my father. I love you, Andy, but I can’t see you anymore.” She brushed at new tears, and I just stood frozen, unable to move, unable to believe that she and I were no more.

  “But Terri,” I said, “can’t you forgive me? I’ll make it up to you, I’ll—”

  “God will forgive you, Andy . . . But I won’t. Goodbye.”

  I watched her get smaller as she walked toward her home. She never looked back as she mounted her steps. Never looked back as she opened her door, stepped inside, and disappeared from my life.

  I stood still for a minute, maybe more, then looked at the sky, at stars that were no longer spinning, at a world that no longer turned. And very clearly I felt my heart break in two.

  December 24, 1985 / 11:25 p.m.

  Emptiness consumed me as I made my way back home. A home that was filled with love and the Christmas spirit. I imagined the millions of children who, as Nat sang, “would find it hard to sleep tonight.” Children who knew that Santa was on his way. With lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh. I wondered if Santa had anything for me on that sleigh, like a new heart. I looked up at the sky, as I had for so many years as a child, hoping to hear the faint jingle of bells signaling St. Nick’s imminent arrival, but realized that Santa, like love itself, was just a figment of my imagination, an ode to a more innocent time. Like maybe an hour ago.

  Well, I thought as I trudged through the mounting snow, at least I have my family.

  An hour’s walk turned to two as I slowly retraced the route that a few weeks ago had been filled with such hope. She had wanted me to kiss her. Yeah, I guess she had, but that seemed like a long, long time ago. Now, she just wanted to never see me again.

  How does a kid comfort himself in times like these? Well, it’s pretty damn hard. My only shot was to try to think of something negative about her. Let’s see. What could I dig up on Terri? She was beautiful. She was kind. She was funny. She was a good kisser. She had beautiful breasts. Damn, like I said, this was hard. Then I thought of looking at her after sharing my thoughts about the virgin. How I’d looked to her for backup and she’d given me none. She’d picked her father over me. Well, it was not much to go on, but I decided it would have to suffice as I walked the last horrible yards to my house.

  Gloria Sugling was outside on her lawn, looking sad and somewhat older in the glow of plastic snowmen and Santas.

  “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Sugling,” I said with as much holiday enthusiasm as I could muster.

  “Hi Andy,” she said, without a whole lot of Christmas spirit on display in her voice.

  “Mr. Sugling working again?”

  “Yeah, but he’ll be home by morning, in time to open our presents.”

  “That’s good, well, uh, good night, Mrs. Sugling.”

  “Good night, Andy.”

  Then, as I was walking up the drive, she spoke again.

  “Sounds like they’re making up,” she said, with a motion to my father’s bedroom window.

  “Excuse me,” I said, a little confused.

  “Well I heard some pretty loud voices a few hours ago. But it sounds like everything is fine now . . . Good night.”

  “Good night.” I walked up that drive slightly confused, and a little bit sad for Mrs. Sugling, all alone on this night. She didn’t fit the profile of a Tietam Brown strike, but perhaps her living next door and being married to a cop made up for the fact that she wasn’t rich. The old Tietam Brown would have liked that a lot. As I got closer, I could hear thumping coming from my father’s room. Which meant . . . well I’ll be darned, my dad and Holly, in the throes of passion.

  I could feel the stairs vibrating as I made my way up, into my room, where the wall between my room and Tietam’s had never seemed thinner. It was like listening to one of those movies in Sensurround, with the headboard and the box springs threatening to land right in my lap. And the language. Whew. Holly knew her verbs, or at least one of them, real well.

  I’d enjoyed the sounds of them cuddling a whole lot more than this particular scene, which didn’t seem to fit the promise of “the most beautiful thing in the world” that Holly had predicted.

  Still, I tried to excuse my dad’s rather graphic performance next door. After all, he’d been saving up his urges for almost a month, which had to be almost a month longer than he’d had to save up before, so who was I to begrudge him his fun, especially on his special night.

  All the same, I didn’t feel like listening, partially because I didn’t like what I heard . . . and partially because I did. And I didn’t want to think of Holly that way, especially when I heard the faint sound of my dad’s voice saying, “Worm that tongue, baby, worm that tongue!” Didn’t want to think about her that way at all. No, when it came to Holly, I preferred to think of her with a halo, not my father’s ass, surrounding her face.

  Luckily, I still had Nat in my jacket, and I summoned him to the rescue. With the help of a couple of batteries I found in my desk drawer, Nat’s kind, caring voice was soon doing its best to both soothe my sorrow and drown out the acts taking place in Tietam Brown’s bed.

  A few minutes later, silence prevailed in the room next to mine and Nat was singing about “the dear Savior’s birth.” God it was so beautiful, even without the scratches and pops of my mother’s old album, that I felt myself fading off to sleep, despite the events of the evening.

  I didn’t hear the door open. I only saw a small flash of light. Light from my father’s room that cast him in the darkest of shadows as he stood in my doorway. I caught the strong scent of alcohol and sex as my tired eyes strained to capture details in the darkness. A bottle of whiskey in my father’s right hand, a red Santa hat perched on his head, and a smile I didn’t like glued to his face. The Santa hat was all he wore.

  A sudden movement to the right side of my bed, and then I wasn’t alone under my sheets. My dad was now laughing and I felt something strange. A mouth on my penis.

  I guess it’s strange how the brain works in times like these. When the whole
world seems to freeze for just a moment or two, just enough time to squeeze out a thought. Those thoughts can be strange in times like these. And my thought? Hey, she’s doing more than just tucking me in.

  I turned to my side, away from that mouth, shut off my tape, and heard Tietam laugh. The laugh of a sadist watching a fish on dry land, gasping for air, flopping in vain.

  But that mouth was persistent, and it stalked its weak prey until I turned on my stomach and it gave up the chase. Then the figure slid out and threw up its hands, and a voice I’d heard only that night filled the small room’s tense air.

  It said, “I give up, the kid’s way too scared.” But then Tietam’s laugh stopped, and then his voice was heard stabbing the night with cruelty and hate. He grabbed at an arm that was still raised in the air, gave it a turn, and I heard a sharp scream. And in the dull glow, I knew her face and placed her voice as Tietam Brown yelled, “Suck that dick.”

  Then, with a push, the Virgin Mary was free, a Mary now trembling with fear and with pain. I could hear her small sobs as she crawled under the sheets, and Tietam’s laugh filled the air as I lay silent in bed.

  I don’t know why I didn’t try to stop it. I wish that I’d tried. At the very least, I could now say that I tried. But I can’t, because I didn’t. I just stayed there instead and rolled onto my back, with a body that, to my great shame, had become greatly aroused.

  When her mouth took me in, I instantly thought of the dual nature of man. Just for a moment, I thought of my father, who’d gone from hero to hated in the course of one minute. And his son, who was experiencing both the best and the worst feeling of his entire young life.

  Did I want it to stop? Yeah, part of me did. But I knew I was helpless, so I just didn’t fight. What I wanted to stop was my father’s cruel laugh, so with a push of my thumb I made that laugh stop, and let Nat King Cole try to take me away. It didn’t take long, I didn’t outlast the song, and my whole body shook with both pleasure and shame. And I tried to hold on to that pleasure for as long as I could, for I knew that once it ended my new life was done. That nothing I loved would ever love me again.

  I saw Tietam’s face as whiskey dripped down his chin, which he backhanded away before swigging again. A face of contempt and smug satisfaction. As if he’d proved that the world was his after all. The king back at his castle after a brief detour in love.

  The Virgin Mary just lay there, hugging my leg as if it was the last respite before returning to hell. My right hand gently stroked her, as best it could, and though I could feel nothing, I hoped that she did.

  Then she finally let go and slipped out of my bed, still cloaked in the robe she’d worn on our lawn. In a manger that was meant to give hope to the world. A world that seemed hopeless from inside my sad, tiny room.

  I saw the clock turn to twelve, Merry Christmas to all. Mary walked out, with a sad final glance. In fact, I saw nothing; but I didn’t have to: I knew. Sadness hung from her like a rusted steel chain. I could sense that she wanted to walk downstairs and leave. Away from that house, and that street and that town. But a snapping of fingers and a point toward his bed let her know with no doubt that her night wasn’t through.

  His bedroom door closed, and then I heard him walk down, where he turned on a light and staked out his claim to a world that revolved around the cracking of beers, the flipping of cards, and nude push-ups and squats on the Lord’s day of birth.

  December 25, 1985

  I heard my father leave the house at a little after nine on Christmas morning, the last of many sounds he had initiated since closing the door to my room and shutting out hope from my world. Sounds of bedsprings, and headboards, and small sobs, and loud cries, and cruel laughs, and hurried shameful steps, and a car’s engine, and tires burning rubber on a cold winter night. But most of all, I heard my conscience scream, begging me to do something, anything, to make the madness stop.

  Instead I did nothing. Just lay there in the darkness, cursing my cowardice and mourning my memories of happiness. I almost drifted off at 6 a.m., a time when overeager children would be waking up, tugging on their dads’ pajamas, getting an early start on the best day of the year.

  Sleep, however, didn’t come. For as the first rays of Christmas morning came peeking through the window, I heard my father sobbing.

  Three hours later, he was gone, in his crappy car with its music blasting, its dice hanging. Leaving me alone in a house I couldn’t stand, in a world I couldn’t change.

  I took a shower in the hope that soap and hot water could wash off the sins of my father. It didn’t work. I emerged from my room and took the steps in timid fashion, hoping against hope that it all had been a horrible dream, and that Tietam and Holly would be there, by the tree, with presents all around.

  At least I was somewhat right. Presents were all around the tree. Still wrapped, waiting to be loved. All except my special gift from Holly, which was no longer there. Pictures hung from the tree. Pictures from a magazine, of a blond-haired girl, with a pretty but not beautiful face, having odd deeds done to her. Graphic things.

  Oh my God, the girl was Holly. A few years younger, a whole lot blonder, but Holly nonetheless. And then it hit me. Where I’d seen that face. The Pussycat Cinema, where my feet had stuck to the floor.

  Vomit came forth in violent bursts. Splashing the presents. Splashing the tree. Catching a letter beside a special delivery envelope. I picked up the letter, looked at it hard.

  “Dear Tietam,” it read, “tell me what I’m doing to you . . . and tell me you love it.”

  No name was signed, but no name was needed. Mrs. Baskin had sworn vengeance and now vengeance was hers.

  I covered the three miles to Cortland in near record time. I’d wanted some music, but was in no mood for Nat. As a matter of fact, Nat and I would part ways for quite a long time. For the tape made me think of Holly, which I wasn’t ready to do, and my mother’s old album, well, I’ll get to that soon.

  But on this Christmas Day, I did think of Holly. Her saying “people can change” and “I’m living proof.” Confessing her past and declaring it dead. But sometimes old ghosts don’t die as easy as that. Skeletons that bang on the closet door until they’re let out. Because I know old bones sometimes follow me still.

  As for Terri Lynn Johnson, I thought of her too. How just one day before, our love seemed so strong. Capable of conquering anything, except for the truth. If I’d just shut my mouth, she still would be mine. If I’d just nodded my head at the good reverend’s words, we’d still be together—she’d be mine, I’d be hers.

  I blamed myself for a lot of that night. Four drinks before going there—yeah I’ll take the blame. Sporting a hard-on in front of her mom—guilty there too. But when it came to her father, well I’d just had to speak up. I just couldn’t let him continue to foul the air with his words. So I’d spoken up and was glad. I had done the right thing. But when I looked at Terri for help, she just wasn’t there. I had been right and she had been wrong.

  That thought was of small comfort, but it would have to suffice. Besides, I hoped and I prayed that she might still come back. We’d see each other in school, and she’d fall into my arms. And we’d be back together, we’d be back in love.

  What now seemed oddest of all was that when things were at their worst—at Terri’s house, that is, because things certainly went downhill from there—I had thought of my dad. Like he was going to come riding in on a white horse and save the day for Andy. But maybe Andy didn’t need to have his day saved. Maybe Andy could have saved it himself. He could have just gone into a rage and saved it himself.

  I grabbed hold of my quarters and pictured the scene. Throwing my left with the change and the rage. Making beautiful contact with the reverend’s big mouth. Seeing those white caps fly like pieces of Chiclets. Watching his wig fly off into the fireplace. Causing his wife to break into wrinkles that no surgeon could fix.

  Now those were thoughts of comfort. And comfort me they did, to the point wher
e I was actually smiling when I made it to work. Where no one was there except Mary and Frank. Who made me a waiter for the very first time.

  A one-handed waiter, but hey, I did my best serving up Frankie specials and lots of desserts. A one-handed waiter with a crooked smile and a broken heart, gorging himself on slice after slice of Mary’s homemade pumpkin pie.

  I got off ten minutes early, with a ten-dollar bonus from Frank and a ride from a new Cortland teacher named Thompson, who dropped me off at the Seven Valley 12 after telling several stories about some guy named Bochco.

  I bought a Coke and some popcorn, and took in Rocky IV amid families and young lovers, a group that only one night earlier I had been a proud member of. I was watching Stallone, but it just wasn’t the same. He was once again fighting for democracy, but still, it wasn’t the same. What was missing was Terri and her hand in mine.

  I arrived home around midnight. A few cars were driving down my street, obviously looking for just one more evening of Nativity magic to celebrate the Lord’s birthday. But the manger was empty.

  I opened the door to find the Christmas tree still adorned with the various images of Holly. I looked once again at the empty place under that tree where her special present had been, and then I looked at the couch where only one night before, she had glowed with such beauty.

  But now the living room was void of all the love that had, for too short a time, made the small house a home. In love’s place there were beer cans and the fresh scent of sweat mixed in with new sex. But intermission was over and a new act had begun. An act that seemed almost tranquil when I got to my room.

  I briefly considered playing the tape of Nat, but that would have made me think of Holly, which would have been too painful to bear. Maybe my mother’s album. No, maybe this just wasn’t a night for Nat. Not that I didn’t appreciate “the dear Savior’s birth.” I did. I just didn’t know if I would feel like celebrating it ever again.

  The tranquil act gave way to harsher things: the sighs that seemed vaguely familiar turning to labored grunts, my father’s questions becoming demands. Amid this scene, I tried to sleep, but my conscience kept me up. I thought I heard some choking, then an anguished cry of “Stop,” and now my conscience screamed. My heart pounded, my adrenaline raced, and I realized I had to make a stand. I could not stay still while this scene played out. Could not just die inside while a braver man begged to be set free.