On the way back home we stop at Subway in Decatur. Hans will eat two tuna-fish subs from Subway and throw up in the back seat. Coach pulls over on the side of the highway and puts on the emergency breaks. Coaches girlfriend follows us home and aerosol out the car with a spray Beano will swear is for Feminine hygiene.
“It’s pussy spray Dave, Dave, It’s pussy spray.”
Coach continues to ask me how my leg is feeling. I am tell him for the most part its fine. If I would have run the time I ran at Matoon vs. Notre Dame last week I could have eclipsed my cousin record. I would have seen my name planted on the record board in the hallway of the poll atrium.
It is early October. Somehow snow flurries scatter like kaleidoscopic constellations outside.
When Coach inquires how the leg is I tell him that it
hurts like hell. Coach looks down. He bites into his thumb.
“Best if you probably take a couple more days off.
Keep going to the pool every night. Keep icing it. Whatever you do don’t run.
Just take it easy. "
I nod. I hurt.
My father pick us up.
He smiles when he hears that I ran sub 17 minutes.
Dad smiles.
“I’m glad you ran son. I know it was hard. You’ve
really worked at it.”
Dusk applauds around 4:45 pm. I look at the half-collar clouds skittering overhead.
I tell myself I am fine.
***
The world is changing. Music is changing. It is
taking you places you have never gone before. It is asking you questions.
Would. Why go. Nevermind.. It grinds. It churns particles of airways into
wooden sheaving’s electric particles
sifting in invisible barges across the country Music is changing. The
electric-synth I wade in every time I arrive home is the equivalent of
hubba-bubba pop.
It is dark. Tilling ionized
soil in the clouds above. Cement barges floating pinging across airway
antennae, gnarling in purrs and grunts from the side of the radio, It is heavy.
It thrashes
Music is changing. It is
less melodic. It is a precipitated mass looming above the consciousness of jaded Americana youth like a portended tempest rage.
Renae has called me three times. The first person I
call is Dawn. It is Saturday evening at five. She sounds like she is just waking up.
“Dave, oh Dave. Oh Dave.”
She keeps on chanting the fourth vowel like a
mantra.
“Dawn you alright?”
I am concerned. Even with the status of my leg I can
call Hale up to have his sister drive us to the mall and the hoof to her house
on Big Hollow Road.
"No, my parents let me have it last night. Right now
I’m grounded. I have to be home every night at six, even when I have speech
practice.”
I ask her what’s wrong. She keeps saying my name
over and over again like a worn out round.
I want to tell her about my leg. I want to tell her
about the atomic dissolution of my dreams. I want to tell her how I just don’t
fit in at my high school and how I wish I would have lived on the north side of
town and gone to high school with her.
Instead I ask if she is oaky. She says my name again
and again and again.
My parents grounded me because I didn’t get home until 5 this morning and I was drunk.
I was drunk when I came home. I was plastered. My
mom was waiting in her house robe and hair curlers. She was pissed.
"Are you okay?"
Dawn says she was hanging out with her friends AJ
and Tad. Tad is a purported musician.
“I mean, we don’t really date. He has a been in a
three year relationship. He’s a really cool guy.
Dawn tells me that he has long hair and is a high
school drop out but is working to get his GED at the Alternative school here in
town. Dawn says Anyway.
“Anyway, I was over at AJ’s apartment and he handed
me a beer and I said I just had one and then next thing I knew I had six and
Tad needed a ride home since his license is suspended although its not his
fault,
She says the word anyway and then my name twice in a
row.
“So I arrive at his apartment and I lean over just
to give him a kiss and…”
Dawn is pausing. She says my name again.
“What?”
“I mean, Dave we started making out and I ended up…”
“Dave,”
“What?”
“I gave him a blowjob.”
***
The television planted in the center of the living
room is an electronic hearth. It is a double-chinned concave slate embedded in
a petrified stump of wood. Sunday night is the first of three debates in nine days, four if you include the pathetic Vice presidential puppets. For some reason NBC opens the 1992 first presidential debate with each candidate saying, “Let’s get it on,” as if they are listening to Barry White while trying to open up a packet of Trojans in front of a rather asexual looking first lady. Bush is still trying to ride heavy on the fact that he won a war against an Islamic tyranny who invaded a country fifteenth the size of the state I live in. Perot’s rhetoric flies. He is lampooned in the paper as being dwarfish with a bad comb over and ameliorated jug ears. Clinton is solid and for some reason, affable in a southern kind of way.
The debate is moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS. A single candidate is given a question with two minutes to answer. Each of the fellow two candidates are given a minute rebuttal. The debate is of historic significance since it is the first time three candidates shares the stage for a televised debate.
The debate is moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS. A single candidate is given a question with two minutes to answer. Each of the fellow two candidates are given a minute rebuttal. The debate is of historic significance since it is the first time three candidates shares the stage for a televised debate.
George Bush always looks like he is ready to make
Cats Cradle when he both palms every time he answers a query. Bill Clinton looks like he is pressing down on a vicarious
buzzer with his thumb and forefinger as of gesticulating for a Question in
Jeopardy. Clinton seems to cast jarts at Bush for raising the taxes on the
middle class. The colloquial 'American Dream' and 'tax on the middle class' seems prostituted and overused.
While my dad is watching the debate as he always
watches television, on the floor, with his pack propped up reclining on his
elbows, a ten liter of soda next to his left arm After Perot my father smiles. Ross Perot is charming in a rather Toulouse Lautrec with a rather poker maverick pan handle texas-hold 'em twang.
“You know, I would vote for him. I think I like him
the best. If he didn’t drop out of the race earlier I think I would.”
Mom says again that she is voting for Bush because
she votes pro-life. Dad says he is voting
for Bush too, still, Ross Perot doesn’t sound like he is politically grubbing. He
sounds like he certainly believes in change.
I want date her. I want to be next to her all the
time. I want to grow with her. I want to her to be the one.
***
***
It is Renae.
I tell Renae it is good hearing her voice.
“It’s so good to hear your voice.” I tell her. I can
feel the petals of her lips blossom above her chin.
She seems almost aloof on her end of the phone. I
think about the blonde headed girl I met during the fourth of July fireworks at
Glen Oak park.
I can hear her almost audibly swallow, like she is
giving head to the receiver.
“So, what have you been up to?”
***
I mean, I gave him a blow job Dave. A blow job. I don't do that. I mean, that's just not me." ***
I want to tell her that when I am not in pain I have
been thinking about her non-stop. I want to tell her that every time I see an
equation in Mrs. Peabody’s classroom some I always figure her smile being the
sum answer. I want her about my first CD
player and about Depeche Mode and Tori Amos. I want to tell her about Mr. Reents
and Coach Mannaoni and Coach Ricca and falling in love with the French
language once again. I want to tell her about how I was jipped out of the honor
roll because no one in Mrs. Peabody-Donaghue’s course got higher than a C plus
and that everyone in my Bio class is struggling because my teacher harvesting
the insipid toupee blatantly refuses to teach and utilizes the class period to
relay inane personal anecdotes no one cares about.
I want to tell her about how I stayed up late and
watched the college girls next door float between worlds behind the canvas of her illuminated windows and how, when she is tugging at her waistline changing, it looks like she is peeling into another world.
I wanted to tell her about race I was coerced into
sitting out and about the Gideon Bible that is perennially lodged in my right
pocket, my cock, brushing against it when I take my pants off and drop to my
knees in supplication praying before bed, praying before the inscrutable
silhouette of a Deity asking him to assuage the pain, to keep me strong, to
keep me more cognizant in my studies, to help me to grow.
I want to tell her about the conversations I am
having with Dawn Michelle. How she seems like she is an adult. I want to tell her how I get off on her
vocabulary, how she makes me want to spend all day lodged in the carrels of the
university library doing obscure research.
Instead I
tell her that I am fine.
“I’m doing fine. How are you?”
***
It is hard not to smile and laugh when Bob and Frank are around.
“Well Hey!”
They invite me in the house. They say it is always a pleasure to
see me. They let me hang out with them.
It feels like I have older brother and friends. They ask me about my limp. They
offer me a soda. When I tell them I’m drinking coffee because it is less
carbonated. Bob immediately says that he can’t start the day without drinking
about a pot. Bob insists on brewing me a pot, telling me that it is no big
deal. For some reason when he leaves the room Frank ploughs his hand down the
front of his pants. I’m not sure what he is doing. I think he has jock itch. He
pulls his hand out and sist down.
“We look in the sports section of the paper you bring
every day for your name whenever there’s a race.”
I tell them I missed a race last week with an injury.
“It’s a hairline stress fracture. I iced my leg
everyday for over a week. It is still
tender
Bob asks me if I take cream or sugar in my coffee. I
tell them both.
They are always jocular and happy to see me. They
always inquire about the status quo of my current love life. They ask me when
I’m not walking around pretending I’m lame what else am I up to these
days. I tell them about Renae from
Limestone how we still talk on the phone twice a week. I tell them about Dawn Michelle
from last summer and how I wish that I never would’ve dumped her because I
really enjoyed our conversation. I tell them that the girls at Manual pretty
much blow.
On screen they are watching a football game. I comment
that I didn’t realize they were into sports.
“We’re not really into sports, but those athletes have
nice buns.” Bob says taking a swig of coffee. Frank says yeah. They both laugh.
They sound like Renae Holiday talking about Brendan Frasier’s bare ass from
School Ties. Frank comments and says that he’d bend over and hike something if
he had a rear that nice in his face.
I laugh as well.
***
There is pain. All is want is to limp down to the crooked neon smile of Mr. Donuts and get a large coffee doused with copious amounts of cream and sugar. I start running again. My leg is gauzed. I am realizing that Mattoon was a mistake. I am realizing that I should have sucked it up and gone all out against Adam White and Notre Dame last Tuesday.
It is Columbus day. The last two years the Young Columbus nomination form was in the paper on Columbus day morning.
This was supposed to be my first semester of high
school and everything was supposed to be perfect.
And yet it’s not. At the moment I endeavored to ask
Angie Lighthouse out she completely sunk into herself. Along with the rest of
the class I can’t get enriched Algebra. Along with the class I am pulling a C
in Mr. Toupee class even though I am interested in the subject and he doesn’t
want to teach.
It is Columbus Day. I have the day off of school. I
am hurting. Coach applauded my time. I made up for the foibles at the Central
invite where I just couldn’t seem to move after the third mile.
I don’t have the balls to tell coach that my leg hurts
all the time.
When I get to the Columbus statue in Bradley park people are dancing around it. They look like Hare Krishnas. Some have beards. Some look like they haven’t taken a bath in three years. They are dancing as if celebration. They are pounding bongo drums. There is a protest of sorts. The video camera for the local news is forming. They are dancing around the cement plinth of the statue as if it is some sort of solstice ritual.
An oriental lady is next to me. She looks like she is affiliated with the media in some form.
“These people are walking from San Francisco as a protest.”
She says. My leg is hurting.
“They claim that Columbus appropriated this country.
They claim that he is a tyrant. They
claim that he pillaged the resources, raped the natives and almost
single-handedly was in charge of decimating civilizations.
A person with a Mohawk haircut is talking to the
oriental news reporter. He is telling her that we don’t want people to despise
Columbus, we just want to present people with a non-diluted truth.
I always stop and sit on the steps of the Columbus
statue in the middle of my run only today I can't. I am frozen.
From a distance it looks like they are casting
spells.
I turn around. It takes me over an hour to walk home.
Every part of me hurts.
I am sipping coffee with Bob and Frank. I am feeling like an adult. They keep pointing at rear-end of football players on television and making sounds. I am laughing. I am thinking of something else to talk about while not being rude.
“Oh, this semester I also got a new stereo with a CD player. I’ve never had a CD player before.”
“Well, hey if you’re into C D’s we have something for you.”
Bob leaves the room. Frank again slices his hand down the front of his pants for two seconds before removing his palm form his waistline. Bob comes back in with a box. Inside are 30 unopened CD’s. There is 10,000 maniacs and Fleetwood Mac and Boys roman numeral Men. There is plural Petera Gabriel and Beach boys and Eric Clapton on acoustic and the lead singer of Warrior singing duets with Don Henley.
“Here you go. We’re a member of this music club and they keep on sending us Cd’s we don’t want. You are more than welcome to help yourself. "
Cd’s you would see on the flimsy back of Parade magazine on Sunday morning beckoning you to oin some club for a 8 cd’s for the price of a penny. CD’s you see when you flipped through the jukebox at the Pizza but in Bartonville.
"It's not Depeche Mode. With the exception of Peter Gabriel and the new Harry Connick CD its not the kind of music I am generally into.
"You guys sure?"
Bob and Frank again say no problem. Frank slaps me on the back. He holds up the Harry Connick Jr. CD.
"Hey, this guy kinda looks just like you. I bet no one has told you that before."
I look back at Frank and smile.
"It's not Depeche Mode. With the exception of Peter Gabriel and the new Harry Connick CD its not the kind of music I am generally into.
"You guys sure?"
Bob and Frank again say no problem. Frank slaps me on the back. He holds up the Harry Connick Jr. CD.
"Hey, this guy kinda looks just like you. I bet no one has told you that before."
I look back at Frank and smile.
***
There is something about the manner in which Dawn Michelle says the word Blow job. Something that makes it sound like the genitalia of the paramour she just convivially went down on was shaped like a snorkel and that, when she unzipped his jeans the thanksgiving centerpiece of his anatomy sprouted up like a magic wand in a children’s pop up book before she sealed her lips above the top of the valve, took a deep breath, and blew like she was trying to hit a skirling note on the bagpipes during an Irish wake.
I am beyond stunned.
I am beyond stunned.
I have never heard a girl who confessed that she gave someone head before.
Dawn says I mean Dave Dave.
“I mean, Dave, I don’t do that. I mean. Dave.”
We pause. For some reason I picture Dawn bent over in the front of her '87 Buick station wagon and trying to lick an Ice cream cone in reverse, licking the graham cracker cylinder of the bottom of the cone first while some pimply faced-mullet haired unemployed paramour leans back and closes his eyes like a little kid pretending to learn how to fly.
I want to ask Dawn if he reciprocated. I want to ask Dawn if he exploded and left Rorschach blue-light deciphering ink blot on her blouse.
I want to ask if her returned to the favor. If he bent down and tugged at Dawn’s waistline. If he unbuckled the cyclopean orb of her waistline and reeled down her jeans, the interior white of her thighs resembling a serious vitamin deficiency.
Next door I see several lights flicking on cosigning that the college girls have just arrived home. It will only occur to me dank decades later that when I was out hushing my teammates for jacking an illicit porn Dawn was experiencing the real thing in her own way.
“Dave, I mean, I don’t do that,. I don’t do that. I just don’t.”
I never got a blow job from Dawn Michelle last summer.
I wonder what would have happened if, after we had our date at Northwoods Mall, we would have purloined a six pack and gone through a long walk in the woods of Bradley park.
I wonder if she would have entered the odalisque of flesh that is the center of my body.
I wonder if I would have exploded in tears.
***
“Anyway, the reason I am calling is because I wanted
to know if you wanted to hang out this Friday and meet everyone.”
“…..?”
“We’re all going to a hockey game. It’s the River
men vs. somebody and I was wondering if you wanted to join us. We’ll pick you
up.”
“Will David be there?” I inquire, meaning Best.
She says, maybe, probably no, we only have one extra
ticket.
It has been almost a month since I have last seen
Renae. In that month everything has happened.
“Yeah, the whole gang will be there. You’ll meet
Laura and Amy and Kristie. Lee and Tim will also be there. You’ll love it. You
get to meet all my friends.
Renae tells me that she has an extra ticket. That I don’t have to worry about paying or
anything like that.
She tells me that it would be just good to see me
again.
“I’m supposed to have Conference on Saturday but I
don’t think Coach will have me run because of my leg.
I pause before telling Miss Renae Holiday that everything
is go. She tells me that she will pick
me up at six.
ReplyDelete..the events chronicled above took place Oct 10th, 11th, 12th, 1992...