Thin Ice (3 page)

The highway humming along underneath the tires lulled me.  I listened to the others chatter about music, watched empty beer cans being tossed out the windows, and thought about nothing but Paul.  The nothing where Paul was.

The pot pipe passed by me several times.  I smoked cigarettes one after the other, tossing the butts out the window with the beer cans.

“Why is Jane quiet?” Ziggy asked from the front seat.  He was sitting with
Krishna on his lap, and someone else was sitting in the middle, on the emergency brake.  “Jane, it’s not like you to say nothing.”

Paul wasn’t in the car with us. 

I knew it was over with Paul.  Nothing else would have kept him from accompanying us to Atom Records.  Everyone else was going to be there.  And music meant more to Paul than anyone. 

“Why isn’t she saying anything?” Ziggy asked again. 

No one answered him for a while, because nobody gave a damn.  Then Krishna said, “She’s thinking about Paul.”

I was thinking about the nothing Paul had left behind.

“Are you thinking about Paul?” Dave Mason asked.  When I didn’t immediately answer, he took off my shoes and brushed his fingers on the soles of my feet, tickling me. 

I ignored him.

Ziggy turned around and looked down at me.  Krishna was jostled from her seat, and fell into whomever was sitting on the emergency brake—and ultimately into Raj.

“Hey!” shouted Raj.  “Stay in your own seat.”

“I can’t help it!” shouted both Krishna and the one on the emergency brake.  “Ziggy, turn around; I can’t fit on the seat if you keep turning to look at Jane.”

“Don’t tickle her feet anymore; she’ll pee on me,” Gay said.  I was lying across her lap, along with several other people’s laps.

“I won’t squirm,” I said.

“She’s finally speaking,” said Ziggy.

“You’re not ticklish?” asked Dave.

“Yes, she is.”

“No,” I said, “I’m not.”

“That’s because she’s depressed,” said
Krishna.  “Because she’s thinking about Paul.”

This led to a philosophical/medical discussion about ticklishness: what caused it, and whether moods could contribute to it. 

Ziggy argued that tickling was a form of pain.  “You don’t laugh because it’s fun,” he said; “you laugh because it hurts.  And if it’s bad enough, it’s almost like rape.”

“Some people like to be tickled,”
Krishna shot back.  “Does that make it like having sex?”

Ziggy fell silent, contemplative.

I had fallen asleep by the time we reached Milwaukee.  I woke up grumpy and demanded coffee.

Raj tried to ignore me, but I insisted.  He finally stopped at a gas station.

I drank two large coffees and ate a box of donut holes.  When we were back in the car, Ziggy had moved to the back, so I had to sit on his lap. 

I wriggled down, leaned my head against the window, and imagined I was feeling Paul beneath me.  It could have been he who wrapped his arms around my waist like a surrogate seatbelt.

His warm breath tickling the hairs of my neck, Ziggy asked, “Are you sure you’re not ticklish?” and twiddled his fingers into my stomach.  Nothing.  He said, “I thought you would be.  I was sure you would be.”

“No,” I said, “I’m not.  But you had better not tickle me anymore, Ziggy.  And you better not bounce over any bumps, Raj.”

“It’s ’cause you drank that coffee,” said Ziggy.  “You’re grumpy, too.  Why don’t you have a beer and mellow out?”

“Why would coffee be more of a diuretic than beer would?” I asked. 

This caused a whole new discussion about different drinks, like coffee and beer and wine, and whether particular liquids made you need to pee more than others.  It became downright esoteric.

Nature’s call became very serious and urgent indeed.  I insisted that Raj stop somewhere.  He couldn’t, he told me.  I would have to wait.  We were stuck in traffic. 

Ziggy dug his fingers into my stomach again, tickling me, whispering, “Imagine that relief if you could just let go.”

“You better stop saying that, or you’ll be sorry,” I said.

He only laughed.

I turned around, grabbed him by the shoulders
, and looked him straight in the eye.  “I’m serious.  I will pee on you.”

“No you won’t,” he said.  He leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “But
I guess we all have to be patient sometimes.”

I pushed him away and turned around again, harrumphing.  Ziggy only wrapped his arms more tightly, and rested his chin on my shoulder.  Rain trickled down the windows.

Endless ages passed before Raj pulled up to Atom Records.  “Your wish is granted, Jane,” he said. “We’re here.”

I ran for it.

Ziggy spent over two hours finding the records he wanted.  Krishna found some records she liked.  Gay was the happiest of all, because she had found some obscure, used records from the 60s, all by bands I’d never heard of.  She came smiling up to me, holding up some bizarre, old copy of some record by some member of a band, before that band became famous.

I found nothing.

Loaded up with new records, we piled back in the car.  Raj drove.  Nobody thought twice about who would drive.  I suppose it should have been me, because I was the only one not drinking.  Raj drank beers and threw them out the window like everyone else, yet somehow he seemed the most responsible. 

I was lying on my back again, taking up as much room as I possibly could, and staring at the sky, which was nowhere near turning evening colors—although it had been such a long day, it felt like it should be.  My head was on Ziggy’s lap.  He kept pulling out his new records, fawning over them,
putting them in my face.

After I’d been silent a long time, Ziggy said, “What are you thinking about, Jane?”

I said, “I’m wondering if I would still be me if I wasn’t me.”

Everyone stopped talking.  Raj turned down the music.

“What do you mean?” Raj asked.

“I mean, if I was born someone else, would I still be me?”

Again there was silence, and then Krishna said, “No, you would be someone else.”

“No,” I began raising my voice, “
that’s not what I mean.  I mean, would I still be me?”

There was some confusion as many of the small conversations started back up again.

Ziggy brushed a stray hair from my face.  “What do you mean, would you still be you?”

“I mean, if I was born someone else.  Not if someone else was born someone else, but if I, myself, was born someone else.  I would be the other person.  But since I would be the one born into that other body, would I still be me?”

Ziggy and Krishna laughed and shook their heads.

“How could you still be you if you were a different person?” Raj said from the driver’s seat, without turning his head. 

“Grrr.  That’s not what I mean!”

More laughter, especially from Ziggy.  And then, “Then what
do
you mean?”

“You wouldn’t be you; you would have another set of memories.  You would be the other person’s set of memories,”
Krishna said.

“No!”

“No one else could be that person but that person,” Ziggy said.

“So I’
d be what?  No one?”

Nothing?

Gay said, “How come she is the most stoned person in this car and she hasn’t taken a single toke?”

“Maybe this is her natural state,” Ziggy said.  He kept stroking my hair, his touch gentle and lulling as the highway. 

The rain poured. 

Glinda was waiting for me on Ziggy’s porch.

“Janey
Lou,” she said, her voice soft and feminine, her eyes sparkling green like bubbly sodas, “hold it there.”

I froze.

Everyone else went inside, passing Glinda as if she weren’t there. 

I waited in the rain, not daring to join Glinda in the shelter of the porch.  “Yes, um, what?”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Should I leave?  I can leave.”

“No, wait there.”

She went inside, slamming the porch door behind her.

I didn’t move, not from fear but from indecision.  “Should I stay or should I go?” was the song playing in my head.  My little blue car was behind me.  I fumbled inside my purse.  Where were my keys?  Clutter, cigarettes.  I took out my wallet so I could fit my whole hand in my purse.  Nothing.  I pricked my finger on something, goddammit.  What was that?  A toothpick?

Raj!  Raj has the keys. 

Oh man, I have to go back up those steps and face her. 

Okay.  Here I go.  I’m not fucking scared of her. 

What’s she gonna do to me? 

“Look,” I’ll tell her, “Maybe you can’t relate to this, but I had real feelings for Paul.  I still do and frankly, it was you who
took him away.  Not Lucy.  You.  By fucking with me that day.”

I started up the porch.  Glinda opened the screen door.  I took a deep breath.  She had something dark and bulky folded in her hands.  What was it?  It was familiar.  Tiny, strange, checkers.  A material, not quite corduroy.  What was that material?  Dark green.  It was the alligator pants I’d seen her wear, the first time I went to a Transistors concert. 

“I want you to borrow these,” she said.

I took the pants, stood there in the rain, and watched her
climb in the car with her handsome date.  Then I went home to put them on.

If it had been any other of her outfits—if it had been her white, seal-fur coat—I wouldn’t have taken it.  If it had been those Beatles boots she often wore, which I secretly envied, or that purple, tailored jacket with the gold buttons and the boxy shoulders, I wouldn’t have taken it.  But those pants!

She was a little bit taller than me, but not so much that I couldn’t wear them.  They fit perfectly.  I stood in front of the distorted mirror on my yellow
, metal wardrobe.  They looked great.  I turned from side to side, and to see my back.  The pants puffed out strangely, like no other pants.  I certainly didn’t have any like them, and wouldn’t have been able to buy them, no matter how many shops I went to, how much I maxed out my parents’ credit card.  I probably couldn’t find pants like these even if I drove all the way to Milwaukee or Madison and went to the cool clothing stores on State Street. 

I didn’t have the right shirt to go with them, or the right shoes.  In fact, nothing in my entire wardrobe went with them.  These pants made the rest of my clothes look ridiculous.  Cheap, mismatching.  That’s how everything looked next to them.

But I didn’t want to give them up.

I wore the pants everywhere
.  I wore them to school.  People who normally wouldn’t give me the time of day started talking to me.  Jocks started asking for rides home, whereas before they wouldn’t have been seen with me.  And guess who else started talking to me?  That’s right, Paul.

“Hi,” he said.

We stood by the entrance to the cafeteria, which was quite large, full of picnic-type tables laid side by side along the halls.  Students carried lunch trays up and down the lines.  Cheeseburgers, big fat fries, a dollop of ketchup, little cartons of chocolate milk. 

“Are you eating here?” he asked
. 

I
didn’t eat lunch in that school cafeteria once, my entire time in that high school.  It was like Paul, Ziggy, and Gay went to this school, and Glinda too, because they ate lunch there in the cafeteria from time to time, but I never did. 

“No,” I said
. 

Besides, I didn’t want to spill anything on my alligator pants
.  Her alligator pants.

“Me neither
.” He glanced over at the metal, white-top picnic tables. “I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like what?” I asked, half
-thinking he didn’t like something about talking to me.

“The cafeteria food.”

“Oh, I know what you mean.”

We stood together not talking for an awkward moment or two
.  His gaze fell to the ground. 

Since h
e was carrying his Algebra textbook, I asked, “Do you have Mr. Dalton for that class?”

“
For Algebra?  Yeah.”

“I like him,” I said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“I can’t do it
, though.”

“Do what?”

“The math. I can’t do the math.”

“From smoking?”
He winked, putting his two fingers to his lips and pursing them in the way you do only when smoking a joint.

“Oh,” I
said. “I’m not smoking that anymore.”

“Really?” he said
.  His eyebrows went up in admiration, and he nodded.  God, he was gorgeous.  “Wow!” He looked me up and down.  “Nice pants,” he added.

“Thanks.”

“Where’d you get those?  They’re different.”

“Oh, um,” I hemmed and hawed
. “I don’t remember.”

“Hey
, uh, the cafeteria food sucks.  You wanna go have lunch somewhere?”

“Sure!” I said, fairly leaping out of my alligator pants.

On our way out, we passed Lucy.  If I had met her eyes, I am sure they would have burned holes in mine.  I knew those Lucy eyes.  I bet they had the same power as the magnifying glasses my brother held over ants. 

I took a sideways glance at Paul without lifting my head
.  He wasn’t looking at her either.  He kept his eyes on the ground.

“Slut,” I heard her say, once she was behind us.

He didn’t say anything, and neither did I.  It was odd to pretend we hadn’t heard it, added to that uncomfortable feeling we both had. 

We walked to
the parking lot.

“Do you mind if we take my car?” he asked
. 

We went to McDonald’s for lunch
, and lost track of the time.

When we
went back to the school parking lot, we immediately noticed that all four of my tires had been slashed.

I knew who’d done it
. 

I didn’t care
, though, because it meant more time with Paul, who skipped his class to help me out.  First, we drove to a payphone to call my dad.

Paul
waited with me in the car.  We talked shyly, neither of us broaching the subjects of Lucy, the party, the abortion, or any of that ugly stuff.  It never occurred to me that those were the most likely reasons my tires had been slashed.

After a while
, we left the car and went to sit on a nearby green mound.  It was as if we were meeting each other for the first time, Paul and I.

There weren’t many students around, just us, sitting, waiting on that green mound outside the classroom—the same classroom I’d driven Gay up to. 

We talked about music
.  Paul told me about the songs he was writing.  Explained chords to me.  At one point, he went into the trunk of his big, old, tan-colored boat to pull out his guitar and show it to me. 

It was around
then that Dad pulled up in his black, turtle car—Mitsy.  Paul packed up his guitar and put it back in the trunk.  He called out, “Hey, do you think you could pick me up later tonight?”

“Where, for what?” I asked
. 
I might not have a car
, I didn’t say.

“Aren’t you going to the quarry?”

“Huh?”

“Just pick me up, maybe at Walt’s
.  I can’t use my car, but you can drop me off there; it’s not far.”

“What time?”

“In about a half hour; that’s when everyone’s going, right?”

“I didn’t know anything about it.”

“Oh.  Well, just pick me up, then.”

Paul drove off as Dad pulled up.

“The tow truck is coming,” he said.  “I’m going to have them take it into the shop.”

He
climbed out and started inspecting the tires.

“I need to show you how to change a tire
,” he commented.  “I should have shown you already, although I suppose it wouldn’t have helped much, since all four are flat.  What happened, did you drive over something?”

“I’m not sure
.  I think someone slashed them.”

“
If that’s the case, it’s really going to cost us,” he said.

“
When will the car be ready?”

“Not for a couple of days.”

“I need the car for tonight!”

“What for?”

“I have a study group I have to attend,” I lied.  “If I don’t attend it, I will flunk the class.  My teacher already told me that.  He said, ‘If anyone doesn’t show up for this study group, they will flunk for sure.’  I don’t want to test him on that.  He’s pretty hardcore.”

“Oh,” Dad said
.  And then, “I guess you can use mine.”

“I need to go right now.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you need to go?  Isn’t the study group here at school?”

“No
!  It’s at one of the other student’s houses.”

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“No! I need to pick up a whole bunch of other people and you won’t fit in the car.”

“Oh
.” He hesitated for a moment, then handed me the keys.  While he was still clutching them, I grabbed them. “I’ll wait here for the tow truck; be careful not to be too hard on the—”

“Yea
h, yeah, Dad.  See ya later.”