Chapter 12 Jessa #2
Upstairs, cross-legged on the floor with Bird’s Janis Ian CD cycling through stellar tracks, I look at the cacophony of glossy pages and try to think of anything that would possibly make for good reading.
My initial thought was music reviews, pictures of stars and albums and written columns, but the teacher stressed the “short form,” and reviews are rarely short—at least, mine aren’t.
Maybe a zine of lyrics, and images that echo them.
Maybe a zine about Y2K. Maybe I don’t do the damned zine and fail out of school and spend the next few months preparing for the societal overhaul. No school in an apocalypse, right?
With my luck, we would still be expected at our desks the day after all the lights go out.
Take our math tests by dumpster fire. I start cutting out a picture of a computer, one of those big blocky old gray ones.
Next I start to cut out a cornucopia and place it on the computer screen, but glue glowing numbers and letters from Wired over the bounty, all the digits and alphabet dumping onto the white page. It looks ridiculous.
If Dade hadn’t dropped journalism class to follow Kayla, then maybe we could manage something blending his love of movies with my critical ear for music.
He hasn’t even mentioned if his New School application went out, and nothing about looking for housing in NYC…
. I guess our plans must be on hold… and dropping this class will cut down on content for his college interview portfolio.
The fear that takes hold in me is icy, and something dark opens up with this new sense of despair I’ve gotten post-Kayla.
I have to push it out of my mind. These things can swallow you, Mack knows… .
Refocus.
I’ve taken journalism every year for the entirety of my high school existence.
It’s one of those bright lights for me. I get a regular music column in our school paper, the Bradfield Bears Bulletin, which Mrs. Rivera grants me with the agreement that I’ll cover other school events too.
Hence why sophomore year I somehow ended up at prom. Barf.
I have at least a dozen decent published reviews in the Bulletin. Dade has two movie reviews he submitted and something he’s been doing online called a blog with this Open Diary site that he thinks will take off and get him into college. I wonder if Y2K is gonna fuck that up for him too.
“Jessamine! Phone!” my mom hollers up the stairs.
I look down at my cell, no vibrations, no missed call, and I didn’t hear the personalized $2.99 ringtone of Blondie singing out “Call Me.”
“What?!” I yell back. “No one’s calling me!”
“Landline, Jessa!”
Who the fuck calls on the landline for me? That’s church lady territory.
“Fine! I’m coming!”
I run down the stairs, sliding a bit and catching myself on the banister. Falstaff sees my approach and starts jumping and barking, thinking we’re playing a game. I slide across the kitchen linoleum and grab the receiver from Mom, gasping into the phone, “Hello?”
“Jessa?”
It sounds like Bird, but it can’t be her.
“Uh, yeah?”
“It’s Bird.”
It is her.
“Shut up, Falstaff! Sorry, dog. How in the hell did you get this number?”
“Um, I looked in the white pages…. You know, let your fingers do the walking?”
She gets quiet, I think I was supposed to laugh. “Sorry, is this a bad time?” she finally says, more seriously.
“No, it’s okay. Falstaff, go away! So what’s up?”
“Oh, well, I was hoping we could get together today and maybe do some breakup planning.”
I twirl the cord around my finger, mummifying it in the cable. “Yeah, I’d be up for some nefarious scheming.”
I hear a loud clatter and a child’s cry behind her, then another child joins in. “Shh,” I hear her say, clearly muffled by her hand over the receiver. “So, I can’t meet here, and I don’t have a car….”
“My house is a no-go too, but I’ve got the perfect place,” I say, not having any idea where the hell I’ll take her, but I can’t risk Bird meeting Mack and stories hitting school about how I’m queer and from a fucked-up crazy family. “What’s your address? I’ll MapQuest it.”
“It’s 1813 Duchamp.”
I jot it down on a Blockbuster ad left on the counter.
“Cool, be there soon as I can.”
I hang up, not realizing until after that I didn’t even say goodbye and I didn’t ask for her number in return.
My anxiety is back, or is it something else?
I’m shaky, but something in me feels oddly light, like some sort of grand announcement or song could burst out of me.
I guess I’m super stoked to get my Dade Saturdays back.
With Bird’s assistance, of course. But what if it’s something else, that saccharine rush that comes with a manic high?
Shake it off, you idiot.
Searching my brain for somewhere we can meet (apparently her house is full of small screaming children?), I’m coming up blank.
It’s Saturday, so all the usually quiet weekday places will be slammed—and filled with potential listening ears that could overhear our plotting and toss it to the rumor mill.
Last thing we need is Dade and Kayla finding out what we’re up to.
Touchstone remains front and center in my mind.
I usually get there an hour or so before the doors open, and the lot is always empty.
If it’s cold, I can sit in the parking lot and hotbox it until I’m squinty-eyed and permeated.
I love music but not particularly people, so a mild inebriation is required for the pressed-in crowds.
When it’s still warm, there’s an outside area filled with wooden spools for benches and ratty picnic tables, all graffitied up with everything from anarchy symbols to the fancy S to some weird fad of Kilroy Was Here.
Band stickers all over most surfaces and a blend of gravel and half-dead grass spotted with cigarette butts.
Dade thinks the Touchstone before the crowd is eerie, I think it’s my kind of space.
Somehow empty but waiting to be full, a space that in its emptiness, I can be in without being stoned because the people aren’t there yet and I don’t need the additional courage.
I can just sit and listen to cicadas or the mourning doves that hoot out sadly, neither set of creatures audible once the music starts, but right around four thirty p.m., it’s just me and maybe Tuck and the bartender stepping out for smokes as they set up.
It’s the perfect place to plot the Dade-La breakup.
Hopping into the car with the MapQuest directions Dad printed off, I pop a mixtape in the deck and throw Betty the Buick in reverse.
Death comes at me all fuzzy bass and hard drums, protopunk-alicious.
This is my Punk Rock Confidential mix, which is actually a set of three tapes running from the roots of punk like the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” and the Kinks into classics like the New York Dolls.
Death is an addition from Dwayne, who opened my eyes to the all-Black trio of dudes who tackled punk before all the famous groups.
They had the sound in ’75 and never got more than a single with a B-side.
Two songs. They refused to change their band name to be more palatable to pop culture, and the label dropped them.
Now that is punk rock as hell. Dwayne taped a copy of his single, and I think “Keep on Knocking” has ended up on every mixtape I’ve made since.
I hope Bird likes punk, because it’s a perfect soundtrack for today.
Angry, uplifting, ready to destroy the establishment that is Dade-La.
I’m amped by the fast-running lyrics, clearheaded since I know Bird prefers I don’t get high around her.
When I pull into her drive, I see a split-level house that has probably seen better days, the lawn utterly littered with bikes, balls, chunky plastic toddler playsets, and in need of a mow.
Must be nice to not have to keep everything trimmed and perfectly clean like we do for Mom.
She’s on the stoop and races toward Betty as if she’s being chased.
Damn, those kids must be terrifying. Her rush brings some red to her cheeks, and the flush is mirrored in my own as I realize I’m following the lines of her face to her lips, then down the neck, to her chest and… why is she carrying a stack of books?
The door opens, she slides in smelling of sweet flowers and earthy perfume—Herbal Essences? Damn, now I’m thinking of her in a totally organic borderline PG-13 shampoo shower commercial. I dodge my eyes away from her and hope she hasn’t noticed. Instead she turns my music down.
I’d get angry, but it’s moved on to Sex Pistols, and Sid Vicious is an acquired taste. Still, I’m surprised I let her get away with it. Even Dade doesn’t screw with my volume.
“Are we gonna go or what?” she says, looking irritated, panicked, and frustratingly cute at the same time.
I slam Betty into reverse, pull her outta the driveway with a bit more squeal and fanfare than I planned, and jam her into drive—setting my sights on Touchstone.