Every Woman in Whitestone
Every Woman
in Whitestone
When Dane returns from the clinic, Diane retreats to some impossibly deep place in his soul. Dane covers the door with a brown contact lens and orders her to stay hidden and not make a sound. Like a switch being thrown, Diane goes silent.
Dane begins to consciously and systematically disassociate from his father. The abuse doesn’t stop. The beatings and humiliation and bodily inspections continue, but Dane goes far away at such times, telling himself it’s not important and will not be remembered.
This isn’t important.
He’s not important.
None of this is making memory.
This will be forgotten.
He depersonalizes his father, no longer thinking his name or the word father.
Even Sir is ditched, until (he) is reduced to a mere cardboard cutout, speaking lines through a tinny squawk box.
A decade later, watching South Park for the first time and taking in the two-dimensional characters with their horizontally split heads, Dane will sit up in rapt wonder, thinking, Holy shit, it’s what I did with (him).
Dane continues to obey one law he learned from (him): Always get in front of a situation. You have to rob your enemies of attack by attacking first. Acknowledge your oddity before anyone else can.
You have to be your own bully.
First day of high school gym class, Dane strides nude into the shower and the first sideways glance he counters with a friendly, but aggressive glare.
“Digging my one ball?” he says. “Want a closer look, freak?”
The next gym period, he’s confronted by a curious alpha male, “What’s this about you only having one ball?”
Dane whips off his towel. “Yep. See for yourself. There it is.”
“Hey, one-ball,” the boys call in the hallway.
“I prefer Uno,” Dane calls back.
When teased or jeered, he joins in the fun. He doesn’t mind the below-the-belt humor because it keeps the focus off his mutilated chest. But he’s got a good line for that situation.
“Nipple cancer,” he says. “One day you’re minding your own business, the next you’re bleeding out your chest berries.”
His peers exchange looks, not sure if he’s serious.
“For real?” one says.
“I could’ve nursed a vampire. Then the shit got into my lungs. Nasty-ass time in my life. I look like a Ken doll, but better than being dead, right?”
He gets so far ahead of the potential hazing, he laps it.
Soon his physical oddities become uninteresting.
He can turn his back in the locker room to change, or create a screen with an open locker door, even pull a curtain in the communal showers, and barely anyone notices.
Those who do and attempt to give him shit get nowhere.
Weak becomes Strong.
Diane stays safely hidden inside.
These are Dane’s two laws in high school. Almost everything else he learns from Paul Goldberg.
Paul is in charge of Dane’s diet, gym regimen, homework, meds and appearance. The academic load at Hunter is vigorous, and Dane isn’t allowed any extracurricular activities except Mock Trial, Model UN, Speech and Debate, Congress and FBLA Parliamentary Procedure.
In between schoolwork and gym workouts are a plethora of life skills.
How to get around New York City—first by mass transit, and after Dane learns to drive, how to navigate by car in and out of the tri-state area.
There are lessons in classic fashion. Seminars in etiquette.
And sometimes, judiciously, discreetly, things (he) might not approve of.
A day spent working in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Museums. A movie. Avery Fisher Hall.
Paul also teaches Dane the basics of personal finance. He dispenses a cash allowance from (him) at the start of every month, and teaches the boy how to budget so it lasts.
“You have your own bank account?” he asks one day, as he’s administering one of the slow-push injections in Dane’s thigh.
“No,” Dane says, breathing through the burn.
“You should.” Paul’s thumb on the syringe grows still and above it, his cat-like eyes look into Dane’s, managing to be both distanced and dangerous.
“You’re going to want a bit of your own money.
Personal money. Private money. But you’re not hearing this from me.
” Ever so gently, he moves the needle buried in Dane’s quadriceps with an expertise that’s suddenly terrifying.
“I’ll tell you how to do it, but you’re on your own to keep it a secret.
Statements will come by mail and you’ll have to intercept them.
Or open a post office box. Establish a line of credit and telemarketers start calling the house.
Your father will know why. He’ll ask me and of course I will deny any knowledge of what you’ve been doing. ”
The ache in Dane’s thigh intensifies. Behind his left eye, Diane is crying wordlessly but Dane’s face mirrors Paul’s composed, aloof expression. He calmly fights the urge to blink and says mildly, “I understand. You can finish now.”
Their eyes continue to hold as Paul depresses the plunger to the bottom and withdraws the needle.
“Most banks won’t let you open an account without a deposit,” he says. “Usually between five hundred and a grand.”
“No point in it, then.”
“I can lend you the money.”
“I couldn’t pay you back,” Dane says, taking the shirt Paul holds out. “What are you always telling me—be impeccable with your word and your money?”
The corners of Paul’s mouth barely move yet he definitely smiles. “I know one way you can make some cash. You move in the right circles.”
Dane looks up from his buttons, brows wrinkled.
“Private school boys are always looking to get high.”
Dane knows this is true in theory, but in practice, his only experience with hard substance has been with Paul. Another of the discreet lessons (he) would not approve of is an occasional, supervised joint or line of coke.
“You should know the limits of your tolerance,” Paul says.
Dane’s limits are exceedingly narrow. The frenetic, teeth-grinding high of blow is horrible, making his already tight-strung personality morph into electric anxiety.
His brain explodes. Diane screams and screams and Dane can’t get down fast enough.
Being thoroughly stoned is just as disturbing.
Now his brain implodes and the boundaries of his body seem to disappear.
He has no edges. He’s reduced to a pair of mismatched eyes, floating lost in space, looking in two different directions, unable to gain purchase on anything.
He experiments carefully, and finds he likes the comfortable, dependable buzz of two drinks.
Any two will do. Three hits on a joint or bowl is just enough to make him feel cozy without leaving the confines of his existence and wandering around the astral plane.
It’s either pot or booze. Never both together.
“I don’t want to get high, I want to get medium,” he quips.
Up until now, he’s been a chaperoned participant in heightened reality. Is it possible he could be the event coordinator? And make money doing it?
“The risks are higher than opening a little bank account,” Paul says.
“I’m not just talking about your father.
It’s a top-down game and you’ll have to be more than impeccable with your word and money.
You need to be immaculate. Screw a dealer and you could wind up with a broken arm, a knife in your back, or dead in a vacant lot.
Your father finds any of your stash or cash, he’ll beat you into next month.
Get caught possessing on the street and you know where you end up. ”
His head moves imperceptibly in the direction of Riker’s Island.
“And of course, I will deny all knowledge of what you’ve been up to. Implicate me, and there will be consequences.”
“I understand,” Dane says. Not for the first time, he asks his strange governor, “Why do you work for him?”
Paul doesn’t answer. He never does. The Sphinx hardens to sandstone. “Finish getting dressed,” he says smoothly.
Dane drifts toward seventeen, rising and falling on waves of aggression and passivity.
Maintaining the perfectly masculine appearance and demeanor his father demands.
Shrewd and scrupulous in his secret financial dealings.
Utterly lost in his heart. Behind his left eye, Diane doesn’t dare to speak, but she cries all the time.
She ceases only when Dane takes the most dangerous risk of all and slips into his sister’s bedroom.
Marizabet, I come your room.
He can’t fit into his sister’s old clothes anymore.
To acquire new ones, he craftily combines a few of Paul’s life lessons.
He copies his minder’s confident manners to engage a sales clerk at Saks Fifth Avenue.
He charms her with a smooth cover story about a chronically ill girlfriend invited to a party.
He gives measurements, orders a simple black dress and heels, and has them shipped to the post office box where his secret bank account statements go.
Within two weeks, the elegant outfit hangs in Marizabet’s closet and all the packing material is carefully brought to the dumpsters in back of Hunter Academy for disposal.
He repeats the process at Victoria’s Secret and again at a small wig boutique. Yet when dressed in the new clothing, padded, made up and coiffed, Danelaw Strong looks in the mirror and sees the thing he dreads most: Danelaw Strong.
Diane peers over his left shoulder. She puts her cheek against his and shakes her head. It’s a kind rejection. She’s profoundly grateful he tried. She doesn’t mind if he does it again. But it isn’t what she wants.