6. October 1995“Ready for me to ruin your childhood?”
OCTOBER 1995
“READY FOR ME TO RUIN YOUR CHILDHOOD?”
T o William’s dismay, female voices filtered out to him as he ascended into the living room. It had been a brutal day; his Foodservice and Hospitality Management professor had marked his most recent exam with a big red F. And then tempers had flared at the Act the Maggot rehearsal because they wanted him to be a permanent band member, and he didn’t.
Instead, he was going to have to put his nose to the grindstone. The last thing Julia needed to hear about him from her dad or anyone else was that he flunked out of college. He had been psyching himself up all afternoon to come home and study. And now it looked like he’d have his sister and her friend rattling around in his brain all night, instead.
When Kelly’s bedroom door swung open, the voices got louder. They were saying something about slutty Halloween costumes, and how no one would be surprised to see them dressed as dykes.
An Amazon warrior princess emerged in a black leather corset, a breastplate, and a fringed miniskirt. Whoever she was, she dwarfed Kelly, nearly unrecognizable in a blonde wig, brown miniskirt, and dark green sports bra.
Kelly froze to find William there with the guitar slung over his shoulder. Her friend’s enormous dark eyes locked on William.
Kelly snorted with laughter, and made the introductions. “Will, Xena. Xena, my brother Will.”
“William,” he corrected. “Your name is Xena?”
“No, you idiot,” Kelly scoffed. “She’s dressed as Xena. Can’t you tell?”
He gave her a blank stare.
Kelly sucked her teeth in dismay. “Xena? Warrior Princess?”
“It’s a TV show,” explained Xena. Draping her arm around Kelly’s shoulders, she added, “And this is Gabrielle, my trusty sidekick.”
“Nice to meet you, Xena,” said William, and she humored him with a short laugh. Her sleek dark hair fell halfway to her waist. “What’s your real name?”
She lifted her chin, tossed him an impudent look. “Marisa.”
Her legs below the miniskirt stretched for a mile. “Have fun tonight, Marisa,” he said casually, already moving toward the kitchen.
Lucky Kelly, he reflected privately as he retrieved a beer from the fridge. He had always half-suspected that his sister was a lesbian, and now he knew. He would have to congratulate her on her excellent taste.
He closed the refrigerator door, and flinched as he nearly ran smack into Marisa. She said, “I wouldn’t mind having one of those.”
To his astonishment, she stood nearly at eye-level with him. He only noticed because he was so used to looking down on women – literally. But even without her boots, Marisa must have been six feet tall. She could have been anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five.
He said, “Aren’t you a bit underage?”
“Aren’t you ?”
With a smirk, he used the kitchen counter as leverage to knock the cap off the bottle, then held it out to her. She took a swig, and he could tell by the way she grimaced behind the cover of the bottle that she wasn’t used to drinking beer .
She said, “I hear you have a fake ID.”
“You can tell Kelly I’m not making a beer run.”
“Fair enough. How about a Boone’s Strawberry Hill run?”
“Fruit-flavored piss? I couldn’t do that to a friend of my sister’s.”
She stuck her tongue out at him before rejoining Kelly in the living room. He watched her go, with those legs, then retrieved another beer for himself.
Downstairs, he stowed his guitar case in the bedroom, then spread his textbook on the coffee table in the den. Introduction to Foodservice and Hospitality Management . He opened his binder to take notes, but his attention wandered to the muffled voices of Marisa and his sister upstairs. He drank his beer, and listened carefully to see if he could discern any of their words.
An image intruded into his consciousness of Marisa and Kelly lying naked in bed together. His response to the image was visceral, and involuntary. Disturbed with himself, he shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought.
He got up and went into his bedroom again. Retrieved the bong from the lower shelf of the dresser, and reached into the box where he stashed his weed. But he only scraped up seeds and stems.
Kelly and Marisa spilled downstairs, past the in-law unit and out the front door. He listened to their voices fade down the street and into the distance. No doubt off to some illicit shindig somewhere. Perhaps in St. Francis Wood, at the home of some Holy Cross kid’s unsuspecting parents.
Just like the party he had attended, two years ago.
Against all reason, since he knew there was one and only one place he kept his stash, he scrounged a bit more in the bottom drawer. He slammed the drawer shut with a huff of frustration when, of course, he still came up short. He went to lie on his bed and stare up at the ceiling a while.
Two years ago today.
He went upstairs and eyed his father, already passed out on the couch. As per the usual routine, his mother had already plucked the burning cigarette from his hand, covered him with a blanket, and cleaned up the liquor he spilled. William stepped into the hallway leading to his parents’ bedroom. No light escaped from underneath the door.
So he found the key to his father’s liquor cabinet. It wasn’t a state secret – Mike had once showed him where it was hidden. He unlocked the cabinet, and as his father sawed logs on the sofa, William helped himself to a bottle of Jameson.
Downstairs again, sufficiently warmed, he opened the drawer of his bedside table and retrieved his address book. Thumbed to the T section.
Temkina, Serafima.
He lifted the receiver, and dialed Haze’s number. Listened to the ringback tone – once. Twice.
It was Halloween. There was no way she was home.
“Hello?”
“Oh. Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Silence. “Ah – this is William.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Really?” Silence. “I didn’t think you’d be home.” So stupid. Maybe she didn’t want to be home alone on Halloween, and there he was, rubbing it in. Or – maybe she wasn’t alone. “Hey. Uh – can I come over?”
“Sure.”
She hadn’t said, “Sure; come through.” She had just said, “Sure.”
He tore out of the Sunset on his motorcycle, dodging trick-or-treaters along the way. Took a roundabout way to the Mission District in order to steer clear of the Halloween shenanigans in the Castro. The Mission District, though already festooned for Día de los Muertos, was relatively quiet tonight. At the moment, his souped-up motorcycle was the most raucous thing in the neighborhood.
Once again, Haze’s front door swung open, this time even before he had finished swinging off the motorcycle. And this time, she didn’t deride all of its noise .
“Where is everybody?” he wondered aloud, glancing up and down the street as he ascended the front steps.
She cast him a wry smile. “Give it a couple of hours.”
He followed her into the living room and once again found the scale and the stash box already on the coffee table. He assumed his usual seat. This time, her black T-shirt had a white torso skeleton on the front – ribs, spine, collarbone – all corresponding in placement to her own. She wore slouchy ripped jeans with the cuffs tight-rolled halfway up her calves. A couple of inches of skin above her Doc Martens bore evidence of more tattoos.
She removed her black bowler hat, mussing her hair in an appealing way, and tossed it aside. “How much, this time?”
He felt a stab of disappointment. All business, again. “A half-ounce, I guess. How much is that again?”
“One-forty.”
He retrieved the cash from his wallet while she measured out his half-ounce. He struggled in vain to think of something to say. Anything at all. With a half-ounce, he wouldn’t have a valid excuse to return for two weeks. But he couldn’t ask for less than a half-ounce, either. That would be too obvious.
She took the money, and handed over the bag. As she gathered up all the supplies, she said, oh-so-casually, “Hang out awhile. I have a little something different I’ve been saving for you.”
“Sure,” he said quickly.
He watched her carry everything upstairs. He finally noticed that she had been playing music on her stereo, at very low volume.
He hoped that was a good sign.
He got up, and went to inspect the LP cover beside the stereo. Nico, Chelsea Girl . The androgynous German voice sang, “I had a lover / I don’t think I’ll risk another these days.”
He hoped that wasn’t a bad sign.
He was so nervous he was sweating. Atop an old rolling bar cart near the stereo, he found, among other things, a basket full of those tiny airplane-sized bottles of liquor. It was obvious her guests were meant to help themselves to whatever they found there .
He heard the floor still creaking in her bedroom just overhead. He helped himself to four mini-bottles of vodka and chugged them as fast as possible.
When she returned, she carried her bong and another, different little box. She set the bong on the table and brought the box over to him. She opened the lid and held it under his nose.
He smelled grapefruit. “Wow.”
“Yummy, isn’t it?” She closed the lid and handed him the box. “Pack the bowl. I’ll get food.”
She had already filled the bong with water upstairs, so he got down to work. When she returned from the kitchen, she was carrying a tray with some exotic-looking stuff on it: black bread, she explained, and a sort of Jewish cookie called mandelbrodt.
“It’s like biscotti. My grandmother used to make it for me in Russia, but I never learned how.”
“You’re Jewish?”
“Well, that depends on who you ask. My father is Jewish, but I’m Ivanov po materi – ‘Ivanov by mother,’ as they say. As ethnic Russian as they come. So according to Israel, I’m not a Jew.”
He had finished packing the bowl, so she gestured to it, inviting him.
“Ladies first,” he offered.
“I am not a lady,” she quipped. But she lit the bowl, and sucked back for a few seconds. He watched as the white smoke passed through the water, into the chamber. She lifted the slider, and inhaled. Held it a few seconds and exhaled, obscuring her face in curls of white smoke.
When the smoke dissipated, he said, “How often do you do this?”
“Not very,” she said. Passing the bong to him, she added, “It’s been a couple of years.”
“Really?”
“I don’t enjoy smoking it alone. And I have to feel comfortable with whoever I’m with, or else it makes me paranoid.”
She felt comfortable with him. She hadn’t felt this comfortable with anyone in a couple of years. At least, not comfortable enough to smoke a bowl with them. Which maybe wasn’t saying much.
Nevertheless, to conceal his pleasure at her disclosure, he lit the bowl. The aroma and flavor of grapefruit filled his senses. By the time he exhaled, a floating sensation had already hit him right behind the eyes.
“Oh. Wow .” He took another rip. “What is this?”
She smiled. “It’s my little secret.”
The floating sensation spread down his body. No couch-lock. Colors were vibrant. The gender-ambivalent German singer? He knew her life story already; she didn’t have to tell him. He already knew the notes of her wistful song by heart, and if Haze handed him a guitar right now, he could start playing it right away.
And if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
It's just that I've been losing so long
After a minute, he reached for the bong again. She put her hand on his.
“Take it easy with this.”
The closest he had ever come to anything like this had been when he was thirteen, when he tried shrooms with Mike. But this wasn’t a scary trip, like that had been. This was a pleasant, albeit mind-blowing, little jaunt.
They ate the black bread with salami and butter on it – real butter, from the Russian market; not that space-age crap that Julia’s father served at Dunphy’s.
Haze got up, reached into the cabinet below her television, and popped a tape into the VCR player. She turned her head back and said, “Are you ready for me to ruin your childhood?”
“Yes.” He had no idea what she was talking about, but it didn’t matter. He was ready for it.
For a long time – William wasn’t sure how long – they sat there eating mandelbrodt and taking bong rips and watching It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
Snoopy, atop his flying doghouse. The oscillating background colors; the pitch and dive of the engine. The staccato of the gunner.
William said, “Wait. Go back. I want to see that again.”
She smirked, leaned forward and retrieved the VCR remote from the coffee table. They watched the scene again, the colors strobing their faces like flashing neon signs.
“This is definitely not ruining my childhood,” he observed.
“You’ll never see it the same way again, though, will you?”
About halfway through the second viewing, the sensation of her hand sliding over his reverberated peculiarly through his nervous system. His sense of touch seemed mysteriously wired into his visual cortex, and her fingertips set off colored Fourth of July sparklers.
There was nothing unusual about her hand except, perhaps, for the little occult-like symbols that adorned her slender fingers in lieu of rings. Otherwise, it was a normal, feminine hand, the skin just a shade darker than his own. The fingernails unpainted.
He flipped his own hand over and allowed her fingers to settle between his.
A few minutes later, they lay in her bed, naked. Turned on as he was, he felt no great urgency about the matter. Neither, apparently, did she. It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! still played downstairs, but barely registered in his consciousness anymore.
They faced each other on their sides, and she allowed him to explore the images on her body. What he had mistaken for more animals peeking over the top of her neckline were actually three cupolas of a Russian Orthodox cathedral, flanked by a pair of eyes. The rest of the cathedral spread itself down her torso, over her breasts.
He had no concept of how much time passed before he pressed into the warm velvet oblivion of being swallowed, squeezed. As he moved inside of her, he had a brief moment of detachment, just long enough to register –
The iridescent aquamarine mermaid tail. The rivulets of copper, swept over her left shoulder.
Two years ago, that very day.
He gasped, rolled away. Flopped onto his back alongside Haze, and stared up at the ceiling.
She propped herself up on her elbow. “Are you okay?”
He sat up. Put his head between his hands, massaged his temples. She sat up, too, and rubbed his back where his caged albatross was.
“I guess you were right,” he admitted. “I should have taken it easy.”
“I’ll get you a cup of water.”
She swung herself out of bed, and he caught a glimpse of the Madonna and Child on her back before she shimmied into a short white satin kimono. He heard the water running in the bathroom sink, and a moment later she returned with the cup.
While he slowly sipped, she rubbed his back some more. He felt suddenly, acutely embarrassed at his failure. He blurted, “Sorry.”
“No, not sorry,” she said. She took his hand, pressed it against her lips.
He kissed her, and after making out with him for a while, she said, “I have a suggestion.”
“Okay?”
“Next time, save the vodka for after you light up.”
He couldn’t help laughing. “How could you tell?”
“I’m Russian. You breathe oxygen. I breathe vodka fumes.” She took his hand. “I noticed the missing vodka bottles when I went to the kitchen. I was going to make a drink later.”
“Oh.” He felt keenly embarrassed again. “Sorry.”
“Get dressed. I’m taking you somewhere.”
It was just before midnight. As Haze had predicted, the streets of the Mission District were just now getting into full swing. As nervous as it made William to be walking there at this time of night, she didn’t seem remotely concerned. Come to think of it, everyone gave them a wide berth. Someone hurled the word bruja after her, and he turned to see who had said it, but no one was looking at them.
Well. It was Halloween .
She led him all the way to Valencia Street, to a dark and shuttered storefront. It looked pretty firmly closed and locked to William, but she took him right to the front door. She startled him by grabbing the chain around her neck, and using it to pull a set of keys from between her breasts. He had thought she was only wearing a necklace. He looked up at the sign above the door: Haze Tattoo and Piercing.
“Um…”
“Don’t worry; no tattoos tonight. Only a sketch.” She opened the door, flipped on the lights. Closed and locked the door behind them. “I like to leave work at work. And sketching is still work.”
Unlike the comparatively sedate colors in her house, the vibrant studio had lots of red and black and white on the walls, and pops of turquoise splattered here and there, and display cases full of jewelry. Flash hung on the walls and there was more flash in binders for the customers who needed a bit of inspiration.
She led him to a room in the back where she consulted with her customers. She had him sit across a table from her there, and took up his left arm.
The receiving arm, she had said.
“Sitting on the rocks, looking out at the water,” she said. “Her hair swept over her shoulder, revealing her slender back.”
She got out the art supplies, and began to sketch.