The Stardust Lounge (19 page)

I am faxing you the deed for 101 Blue Hills Road, a house for which your company has the mortgage. Because the house was originally in my former husband's name, it has been difficult for me to correspond with and/or receive responses from you.

Yesterday I spoke with a woman at your establishment who told me if I faxed this document to you, this information would allow me to speak about the financial status and the mortgage status of this residence.

First of all, see letter and insurance document also faxed regarding
‘s overcharging me for house insurance I already possessed with
. As a result,
overcharged me over a thousand dollars, money that I wanted to put toward my September house payment.

I received a letter from
stating that they had indeed overcharged me, and that this money had been put in the escrow account. Because the house insurance was in my name and not my former husband's, I suppose my request could not be acted upon. Now I am hoping that this will change.

Secondly, while I was at work, a certified letter from
arrived. I suspect this is some kind of warning, though I could not pick up the letter at the post office because I am not Stanley Plumly.

Thirdly, I sent off the November payment for the house on the 7th of Nov. and
has not yet received it. I suggested to the woman on the phone yesterday that perhaps I should stop payment on that check and send you another. She advised me to wait a few days.

In any case, I hope that this deed/divorce settlement which deeds the house IN MY NAME will allow us to get everything straightened out regarding my mortgage status and that in the future we can speak directly about said property.

Sincerely…

Dear Steve,

While I am away I am putting you in charge of several things.

1. Feeding and medicating of animals AT NIGHT. This means giving Buster a diazepam at dinner, and then REMEMBERING to give him one about 9 o'clock at night.

2. VERY IMPORTANTLY YOU MUST DEPOSIT MY PAYCHECK ON WED. Carol Ann is sending it FedEx on Tues. and I am asking you to take it through the drive-thru window at the bank and get it IN the bank as soon as possible.

You can do this quickly on Wed. after school after you have checked the mail. The deposit slip is in an envelope on the kitchen table.

If you are not sure what to do, just ask the lady at the window. Tell her you want to deposit this in your mother's checking account. She will help you!

3. You will be in charge of feeding cats each evening. Split one can of cat food on two plates with a handful of dry, and also give them a big bowl of half-and-half.

4. Late in the week I am putting you in charge of doing one or two loads of towels so that you will have some! Just wash, dry, and fold, put in linen closet.

5. Be prompt for Joanne. And VERY IMPORTANT
—
get to school on time!

We have used up all goodwill at ARHS. Let's get through these last weeks, okay??? Good!

Stardust / Photo by Stephen Digges

Today is Stephen's eighteenth birthday. Some time ago he twisted his thick blond hair into dreds. When he grew tired of the look, he asked me to help him comb it out, but no amount of detangler or cream rinse would loosen it.

The only thing to do was to shave his head. Now, a year later, his hair is long and full. He pulls it back in a pony-tail.

Stephen loves to sun himself. Even in late autumn, wearing his Walkman, his thermal underwear, coat, and boots, he'll sit out on the patio with his homemade reflector—a double album sleeve covered in tinfoil—and soak up the rays of the weak New England sun.

“He's crazy,” says Trevor as we sip coffee in the kitchen.

“A little,” I offer. “He was born in Southern California.”

In build and gesture Stephen resembles his father. He's
about five feet ten and slim, muscular. By his eighteenth birthday he has recovered the energy and dimension that marked his childhood. He is boyish, temperamental, magnetic in his happiness and forbidding in his anger. His is a dynamic presence. He can slam a door like no other member of our household. Or he swoops in to pick me up and whirl me around the kitchen as he relays some happiness.

He is committed to our animals, whom he embraces and talks to and kisses without self-consciousness. He has an affinity and patience for the dogs and cats that do not always translate to humans. His play and affection for them is engaged and concentrated, and when he is finished, he is finished.

“Go see Mom,” he says with feigned enthusiasm as he slips away and heads down to his room in the basement.

Stephen hates television, popular music, brand-name clothing, affectation. He has a keen discernment of the gestures and speech in others, and bitterly attacks them when he senses that they are behaving, as he says, “phony.”

At school he does best in classes whose teachers he likes. It really doesn't matter what the subject is. And he does poorest when he suspects a teacher is condescending or coddling. In these cases he is too good at bringing them to bay, angering and exhausting them.

Stephen loves his body, loves working out alone— though not at a gym. Rather, he does pull-ups on the thick branch of the white pine out back. He has set a ladder against that tree and lashed it so that it will not give way. He climbs up high, then slips his legs through the rungs, and from a hanging position pulls himself up, his arms across his chest, his ponytail flying while below him
the dogs circle, barking, and the cats perch on various rungs or on a tree limb, as if to lend him support.

He loves being clean and carries out lengthy rituals of skin and hair care, uses specified deodorants and colognes the rest of the household is not to touch. And by eighteen he has come to love to clean his room, loves to dust and vacuum and scrub. There is a sign on his door that insists that anyone entering must remove shoes. It is not a joke.

Stephen loves his camera, an old Pentax that his brother gave him. Using black-and-white film, he sets up for himself different projects, carries them out and develops the film in his darkroom. At a garage sale he found an enlarger, and the necessary pans, bins, and chemicals. He is unequivocal about not being disturbed, disappearing for hours to reappear with photos of the sky and clouds, train tracks, abandoned barns and warehouses, or various and prolific studies of weeds in winter. He says his subject is “light.”