Freaks and Revelations (12 page)

“Dirty stinking hippie,” Jack says, and dukes the asshole in the passenger seat. His head flops and Rosie squeals. Jack hits him again. Mark kicks in the window in the backseat and gets one more good punch in before the light changes. We sprint back and jump in our car, ready to go around again at the next light except the chickenshits make a left at the corner.

“That’ll teach them,” Mark says. “They’ll watch their mouth next time they come to Hollywood.”

“
If
they come,” Jack adds.

“Damn straight, man,” I chime in. “It’s our town now.”

The Whiskey’s got a line around the block but we go direct to the front door. We’re here a lot and the skinhead bouncer gives us a nod. We sail on past some wannabe punk types and slide on in. I like being known. I like the skinheads. They don’t take crap from anybody. Clubs hire them when Punk Rock’s playing because so much wild shit happens. It’s just how Punk is. People need to release. The more damage you do, the better you feel. No pretense. No posing. Pure aggression, that’s Punk.

The second the inside door opens, the volume triples. My heart rate jumps to keep time with the music, which is inside and outside all at the same time. I’m filled up and surrounded, safe. I feel all of my body, down to my fingertips. I know who I am, what I can do, where I’m going, how to get there. I know something else too. I’ll be here one day, playing my music. Saying my words. Being in charge. Like coming home.

A kid with tattoos all down the side of his face leaps on the stage. The bass player shoves him off. He scrambles up again, this time with a friend; a skinhead bouncer steps forwards, swings them back to the floor. The drummer kicks off the set. The guitars join in. A circle forms. Mark slips in and hunkers down, elbows pumping, starting to skank. Rosie hangs out by me. The circle grows bigger. Girls usually don’t skank, it’s too rough. Only the tuff bitches get in the pit—then complain how some guy grabbed their ass or tits or something.

I want to jump in but never have. Too damn dangerous. Stupid even. A guy goes down. His buddies reach in to get him on his feet. Fine. But what if there’s no one you know? What happens then?

“Hey.” Rosie elbows me in the ribs. I bend down to hear. “Over there. Check her out. She’s been staring at you for five minutes.”

I straighten to see an outrageous Punk chick across the room. Bleached blond hair, with that wide girl-style Mohawk, black-rimmed bright green eyes. She nods and purses her lips, looks back at the band. Rosie nudges me with her foot; she’s watching Mark in the slam pit, pretending not to be with me. I hate how I’m stupid with chicks, unless they’re my friends, but cross the floor anyway. I stand next to her and pull out my flask, gulp some and hold it out to her. Without taking her eyes off me, she accepts it and drinks. I don’t talk. I turn back to watch the band. The singer’s jumped onto the crowd. Three punks are up on the stage.

In between songs, she nudges me and points at herself.

“Stacie!” she yells up at me.

“Doug!” I yell back.

She grabs my hand and for a second I’m confused, until I figure out she’s slipping me a pill. I wash it down with my whisky. Almost immediately my heart rate jumps even higher. Speed. Not usually a good choice for me, but too late now. I go with it. We hang out the rest of the night, until just before two, when we head outside. Mark and Rosie are already there, talking to people. The bouncers start moving us out. We head down Sunset.

“Hey,” Mark asks, grinning, “anybody feel like a snack?”

“I need a pack of cigs,” Stacie answers, her eyes twinkling.

“Let’s do it,” I say. The four of us and a Punk named Gene cross the street over to the Danny’s Liquor. Me and Mark go in first. The chink at the counter flicks his squinty eyes back and forth, presses his lips together. Only one other person’s in the store, an old man, checking out cough syrups. Counter guy can’t decide what to do. Mark gives him a friendly nod and I hear him sigh. We stroll back to the cold drinks section. Stacie and Rosie come in a few seconds later, laughing, shaking their heads.

“We are bloody lost!” Stacie announces, pretending an English accent. “How do you get to the 405?”

The old man finally picks his syrup and lines up behind them. Rosie asks for a pen to write directions; so counter guy has to duck down. His eyes keep darting toward us and she keeps asking questions. She scribbles his answers on a paper bag.

“C’mon, c’mon!” the old man mutters, and coughs. “I’m dying here. I ain’t got all night.”

Gene comes in. Lines up behind the old guy.

“Could we hurry it up, ladies?” he says.

“Bug off, man,” Rosie shoots right back.

“I need some smokes!” Gene says.

“C’mon, c’mon,” the old man adds, coughing more.

Mark and me start for the door. We’re packing beer and every kind of chip we could grab.

“HEY!” counter guy shouts. “Come back here. You got to pay!” He barrels around the counter and we all run. “HEY! You got to pay!” The old guy with the syrup steps up to the register. We fly across Sunset, dodging cars, and down Larrabee, boots thudding and chains jangling. A few blocks later, out of breath and laughing, we duck in the back of a carport behind an apartment complex. We crack open the beer. Talk about the bands. Laugh at how funny the chink looked.

“So where you from?” Stacie asks, later. She’s leaning against me.

“La Verne,” I say.

“No shit? I live in Pomona.”

“I used to live there,” I said, “Until the cholas took over.”

“What are you talking about?” Rosie asks, laughing.

“You know,
cholas
. Mexican girls. Bitches tried to beat up my sister and my dad freaked out, so we moved. The whole neighborhood was going down, you know what I mean?”

“I’m half Mexican,” Stacie says and I shut up, close my mouth. Mark starts to laugh.

“Way to go, Doug.”

“Teasing,” Stacie says, straightening her skirt as she stands. “I got to work tomorrow.” She holds out her hand. “Want a ride home?”

We hike back up to Sunset and over to Tower Records to her beat-up old Punk-mobile. I’m back to not talking. We hit the freeway and listen to Fear. I find out she’s twenty-one and has a job at 7-Eleven. That she thinks I’m sexy. I finish my flask. We exit and end up in a not-so-great area of Pomona. She parks in the alley behind a wooden apartment building. An argument is going on somewhere in Spanish. I check around, but don’t see anyone. Mexican music blasts out of a car parked on the street.

I follow her up an outside flight of stairs and down the walkway. Her apartment’s at the end. Inside, a surfer-looking chick is curled up asleep on the couch. “My sister,” Stacie explains and leads me down a short hall to her room. Punk posters are all over the walls—the Germs, Sex Pistols, the Plugz, the Bags, Black Flag, and more. Mattress on the floor with a sleeping bag open on top. She lights incense and puts a Black Flag tape into the ghetto box on the dresser.

“I’m about to have a nervous breakdown
—
my head really hurts…”

“How old are you?” she asks, slipping off her leopard vest. She’s not wearing anything underneath.

“Nineteen.” Shit. Am I actually forming words?

She snorts. “Uh-huh.” She drops her skirt and stands there in boots and panties. Boom—I’m hard. “So are you a virgin?”

“Of course not. Are you shitting me?” Fuck yeah I’m a virgin.

She drops her head forward and smiles up at me. “It doesn’t matter. Come here.”

I do. She kisses me and starts unbuckling my jeans. Can this be happening? She keeps talking and moving, kissing, touching. I lose track of all that’s going on.

I don’t do so good the first time.

She kisses me after, anyway. We go again and I start to get the way of it.
Real sex
is not at all like making out or doing it myself. Real sex is like I’m talking to God. Running the Universe. Everything possible. No wonder they don’t want you do it—’cause after you find out about it, you don’t want to do anything else.

*   *   *

Stacie drops me off at school the next morning. Kisses me right there. I hear catcalls from the group of stoners and cheerleaders standing by the tree, preening like peacocks at the zoo in their ugly Izod shirts. I don’t give a damn what anybody says to me today. I got laid last night. Nothing else really matters.

“Tonight?” she says. “I get home around seven. See you?”

I nod. Get out of the car feeling bigger than life. Ignore the stares and comments from the jocks. Strut across the grass, past the tree that sits in the front of the yard, catch up with Rosie near the quad. She smiles. She can tell.

{5}

Me and Rosie pass the Barbies at the tree after school. It’s their spot. They congregate every afternoon to check out people leaving campus. Today, they’re in their little cheerleader outfits. Evelyn Anderson’s right up front. I still have fantasies about her tits. Rosie notices me staring and pokes me with her elbow.

“Sorry,” I mumble, but still look.

“Cute hair, Rose,” one says. “Love the color.”

“Yeah, what’s that called?” says her friend. “Puke?”

“Fuck you,” Rosie says.

“Oh! You rape my virgin ears!” Evelyn chirps. The Barbies bust out in giggles. Rosie rolls her eyes.

“Hate this school,” she mutters.

“I know.” I think about Evelyn in black leather. Dog collar around her neck. Me holding the chain.

“I’m gonna drop out, move in with Mark. Get high and do music. That’s all. That’s all I want to do.”

“Sounds good, until they arrest him and put you in foster.” I take the Marlboro Lights from my sleeve, offer her one.

“Not if we’re famous first.” She lights it, takes a deep drag and lets it out her nose. “We could be, you know. It happens.”

We walk and smoke, stop to finish before turning onto her street. She sighs, loud and long.

“Ready?” I ask. She nods.

We stub out the smokes and she hands me a piece of peppermint gum as we go round the corner and up the walk to her apartment. She lives on the ground floor of a two-story, just on the edge of the city. Her face pales as she sticks the key in the front door. I hear her take a long slow breath. It’s weird how many Punk girls I know have shit to deal with at home. Rosie’s mom’s okay, just never here, which is why Rosie’s real dad and his new wife got the twins, who are five. He wanted Rosie too, but she didn’t want to live in Sacramento, or leave her mom. The trade-off is the shithook stepdad, Frank. Who doesn’t have a job.

He’s in the living room when we open the door, reading a magazine, drinking a beer, getting fat. He grins when he sees Rosie; the grin fades when he notices me.

“Oh. Hey. Doug,” he says, slapping the grin back on. “Good to see you. Where you been hiding, big guy? Want a beer?”

“Nope.” As we planned, I settle on the couch as Rosie goes to change. She doesn’t even look at him. The silence gets awkward quickly.

“So, guy, how’s school?”

“Fine.”

“The band?” He’s still grinning.

“Good.”

“You guys playing anywhere?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Got any new songs?”

I nod, but don’t speak. I pull my switchblade from my back pocket and pick at my fingernails. He shifts in his chair. His mouth moves like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. His eyes dart around, he nods to himself, and with one last nod at me, goes back to reading the magazine. I stare relentlessly.

“What?” he asks, a few minutes later. I don’t move, just keep staring. “For Christ’s sake, Doug,” he blurts, slamming the magazine down. “What’s your problem today?”

“I have no problem.” There’s sweat on his upper lip. “You do. You have a big problem, Frank.”

I see him watching the blade. Getting still. “What are you saying?”

“You need to leave Rosie alone.”

Bright red spots appear in his cheeks. He sets his magazine down. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Plain English. Is that hard for you, Dumbass?” My father’s words. “Leave Rosie the fuck alone.”

He stands; I’m there before he can take a step, towering over him by at least six inches. With an open knife. He sits back down.

“Doug, really, if you’re implying… mean; come on, that’s just ridiculous—”

“Frank, Frank—do I look stupid to you?” My father again. I like how it feels.

“No, Doug, of course not. Not at all. But this is definitely some sort of a misunderstanding. I mean, come on, I would never—”

There’s a snort from Rosie as she appears at the end of the hall. Frank’s cheeks get redder.

“Good to know.” I pick out some dirt from under my thumbnail, flick it onto the rug. “’Cause Rosie’s got some crazy-ass friends.” I run the blade alongside my cheek, sharp edge on skin. “We don’t like to worry about her.”

Rosie steps into the room, comes to stand by me. I slip my arm over her shoulders.

“What do you think, huh? Frank? Should we be worried?”