No Lifeguard on Duty Page 3

  You’ll never amount to anything. That’s a father’s love for you.

  The next day, when I came home from school, he was lying in wait. He sucker punched me the moment I walked through the door and kicked me when I fell to the floor. “How’s the rabid dog?” he said. “Feeling any friendlier?”

  He was standing over me. A giant. His freckled fists looked as big as baseballs.

  “No,” I said. So he stood on my stomach till I peed myself.

  It didn’t end there. This went on for weeks and months and years. I never knew what to expect when I came through the door, and the uncertainty was crippling. He knew it, too. For him, it was entertainment.

  One afternoon, after a particularly vicious bout, Ray disappeared into his room and came back with his favorite gun: a .357 Magnum. In a way, I was praying he would use it. Instead, he told me we were going hunting.

  We drove out to the Everglades. Just the two of us. En route, he did most of the talking, and it was mostly about Alexis. “What do you think that little whore does with her boyfriend?” he asked, his lips curling with disgust. “You think she takes it up the ass? You think she’s a backdoor girl?”

  I was eleven years old. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what he meant.

  When we got out to the Everglades, I told him I didn’t want to hunt. That was fine with him. He made me climb into the trunk of the car and locked me in. I lay there in the dark and peed myself again. It was getting hot, and I had trouble breathing, and at some point I passed out.

  When I regained consciousness, hours later, I found myself on the ground, next to the car, his big face hovering over mine—full of concern. It was the first time I’d seen him worried over my welfare. And the reason was obvious.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “I thought you’d gone and died on me!” He slapped me. “You crazy little punk. You ever do that again, I’ll kill you.” I am not making this up.

  Not to put too fine a point on it, but I was a fucking mess. I’d go over to Eric’s house and get stoned. When we were bored, we’d go to the music stores in town. I was a great little shoplifter. Eric would wait outside, trying not to panic; then we’d run home with the stolen LPs and drink and get high and crank up the volume and dance.

  Eric was a great dancer. He was gay and knew it by the time he was thirteen. Nova Junior High, in Fort Lauderdale, was crawling with cute boys, and Eric loved pointing out the ones he liked. “I’d do him,” he’d say with false bravado. He didn’t even know what “doing” someone meant. Neither did I, really. Well, okay—we had a fair idea, but we were both virgins.

  I liked this boy called John Burnett. He was always smiling, like he didn’t have a care in the world. I look back on it now and realize it was all about self-confidence—something I could have used in spades. Whenever I saw him, in the hallway, between classes, or in line at the cafeteria, I’d hide. I know it sounds corny, but I felt such intense longing for him that it would bring tears to my eyes. I was starving for affection. I had heard all about love—it was out there somewhere—and I wanted it pretty bad.

  AT SIXTEEN WITH TWIN BOYS WHOM I LOVED THEN BUT CAN’T REMEMBER NOW.

  Unfortunately, I was pathologically shy. Or maybe—having seen what I’d seen at home—I was terrified. Every time John came over to talk to me, I’d run off in a panic. He finally gave up, of course. I was crushed, in a funk for weeks. I thought I was worth fighting for. To this day, John has no idea how much he hurt me. But of course it wasn’t him; it was me.

  The following year, at the ripe old age of fourteen, Eric finally entered the world of sex. All of a sudden, he was doing all these cute guys, and every last one of them was straight. He loved straight guys. He once told me that one of the great tragedies of being a gay man is that you aren’t really attracted to other gay men. “It’s real men you’re after,” he explained. “And if you keep after them, they’ll fuck you. But they won’t stick around.”

  Eric loved sex. He claimed to give the best head south of the Mason-Dixon, and he enjoyed describing his technique in detail: This is how you hold the shaft. This is how you flick your tongue. This is how you keep things nice and wet.

  I would get hot just listening to him. But I was confused. I’d seen that done in my own home, and it didn’t look like fun.

  One afternoon, both of us stoned and lying half-naked by his pool, I almost told Eric about my father. But I was afraid—more for him than for myself. Eric was oddly brave. He didn’t take shit from anybody. And he was very fair-minded, as if he understood morality at a very early age. He always knew the right thing to do. Which is exactly what frightened me: I could imagine him picking up a gun and going back to my house and shooting my father dead. Talk about confrontation! Suddenly, I really wanted to tell him. “Eric…” I said.

  “What?” he said.

  I looked at him for a beat. “Nothing,” I said. “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

  My two best girlfriends in high school were Maria Romano and Jill Jensen. We would drive up and down the Florida coast, hanging out at the lesser-known surfing beaches, listening to Hendrix, the Stones, the Doors, and going through endless packs of Kools. I dropped my first Quaalude with those two, and I was hooked instantly. I liked ’ludes a lot better than pot. I liked the way they took the edge off life, mellowed you out. Life became bearable under their influence, and I always felt a little blue when the effects began to wear off. I also did a couple of half-hits of acid with them, but I was wary. We’d all heard stories about kids who thought they could fly, or thought they were turning into orange juice, and—bad as things were—I wasn’t ready to check out.

  Still, one afternoon, sitting on the beach with Maria and Jill, the three of us nursing beers, watching the surfers go by, waiting for our LSD to kick in, a strange thing happened. As I brought the beer to my lips, I saw my reflection in the can. Only it wasn’t me staring back at me. It was my mother. I know it was just the drugs, but still…

  That’s when I decided I had to buy a car. Behind the wheel, I could put a lot of miles between me and the rat bastard. He’d never find me. I could drive clear across the country, maybe go to Monterey and hook up with Alexis and her boyfriend. I’d stop now and then to wait tables for gas money and sleep in my car if I had to. It wouldn’t be so bad. I could get to work early and wash up before my shift. There were Laundromats everywhere. I knew I could make it. I’d be free! I’d be safe!

  I got work, locally, the following week. I lied about my age—I used Alexis’s ID—and got a gig making pizza at the Orange Bowl. It didn’t take long to figure out Rule #1 of the food-service industry: the shorter the skirt, the better the tips. Needless to say, I made out like a bandit. Men! When a guy thinks he might get lucky, he’ll put his paycheck on the table.

  Eric used to come in with this friend of his, Vinny Mangione. He was a poor man’s Jim Morrison. He had that swagger, that coolness. One night, when the boss was out running errands, Vinny bet me twenty bucks that I wouldn’t get up on the counter and dance. He lost. All the guys in the place started cheering and throwing money. I cranked up the music. One fat guy started yelling, “Take it off! Take it off!” And the others took up the chant. I’ve gotta tell you, I was tempted. But then I looked over at Eric. He shook his head from side to side, almost imperceptibly.

  Bobby McCarthy used to come in a lot, too. He was eighteen and had just graduated from high school, and he had his heart set on becoming an FBI agent. Don’t ask me why. He was smart and wonderful and had beautiful blue eyes, and I think he was in love with me. He was a good kisser. We would kiss for hours, but that’s as far as it went. Sometimes he’d try to force my hand toward his crotch, but I refused to touch him there. (I couldn’t even say the word penis in those days!) He’d get pretty pissed, but that didn’t change things. He wasn’t going to get lucky. Not just yet, anyway. I wasn’t giving it up at fourteen. I wasn’t thinking about sex in those days, anyway. At least not with any joy.

  What I wa
s thinking about most, to be honest, was getting the hell out of Florida. I was miserable and Bobby knew it—though of course he didn’t know why. And I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell anyone. At one point I remember thinking that maybe the Dickinsons were normal; that this went on up and down the streets of Every City, U.S.A.; that all fathers were entitled.

  It was right around this time that we heard the rumor about Jim Morrison. He was coming to South Florida. By the time I had scraped enough money together for a ticket, they were sold out. I was crushed.

  A few nights later, Bobby came by on his motorcycle and gave me a ride home. I was so depressed I didn’t even feel like necking. I told him I’d had my heart set on seeing Jim Morrison, and I began to cry. I know, I know. It sounds pathetic. But of course it wasn’t really about Jim Morrison, but about what he represented.

  So Bobby came through for me and we went to the concert and I had my weird out-of-body experience or whatever the hell it was, where Jim and I were the last surviving beings on Planet Earth. And I remember thinking, The only thing standing between Jim and me are his leather pants. And then I emerged from my altered state to find that things had taken a nasty turn. Morrison was drunk and getting drunker. He became increasingly antagonistic. He started shouting obscenities at us, his fans. The people who loved him.

  Then the fans began shouting back and he got really pissed. He pulled those leather pants down and exposed himself. Next thing I knew, the cops were on stage, dragging him away in handcuffs.

  It was so fucking confusing. This was my hero? This crazy hostile motherfucker represented hope?

  CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC

  I spent most of that summer on a float in Eric’s pool, with the music cranked to the max. I loved loud music. Loud music drowned out all the voices in my head. It kept the demons at bay.

  Mangione would come over in jeans so tight you could read Braille through them. Yeah, it was pathetic, but I kind of liked him. He was an incorrigible flirt. He was always telling me how much he wanted me. And he said he’d wait because I was worth waiting for. Girls like to hear that kind of shit. Especially if they’re as fucked up as I was.

  That was the summer I met Pam Adams, who possessed all the security I lacked. I think she was related to John Quincy Adams. She had milky white skin and freckles and the most gorgeous hazel eyes, and I found her irresistibly beautiful. So did most of the guys at Nova Junior High. And she knew it; she’d slept with plenty of them. She did everything I wouldn’t do. “I wish you had a cock, Janice,” she told me once. “You’d make a great boyfriend.”

  She met Mangione and liked him. And one afternoon, at Eric’s place, with the sun hot and high in a clear sky, and the place crowded with neighborhood kids, and my courage fueled, in part, by Pam’s approval, I asked Eric what he thought of Mangione. Eric looked over at Mangione, who was lying in the shade, stoned. We had a head-on view of his prominent crotch. I was dead curious about that thing. I was curious about what it would feel like inside me.

  “I would love to wrap my lips around that big cock,” Eric said. He’d been trying for years, apparently, but it wasn’t happening. He knew why, though. Or so he thought. His theory was that guys who know they’re gay are always too afraid to get it on with other guys, because they realize there’s no going back. “Once you’ve had me,” Eric liked to say, “you’re hooked.”

  By sundown, only Mangione, Eric, and I were left by the pool. Most of the other kids must have had real families. I didn’t feel like going home. My father was away at sea again, and Mom was working the night shift.

  Darkness fell, but the heat just wouldn’t quit. Still, it was a sexy kind of heat, the kind of heat you see in movies: you know, the whirring fan, white curtains billowing in the breeze, the blue-green Caribbean visible beyond the deck. Languorous heat, I’d guess you’d call it. I know that’s how I was feeling. Languorous. And I guess Mangione was feeling it, too. Only he’d probably call it horny.

  When Eric went into the house, Mangione turned to look at me. “You have the sweetest, tightest little ass I’ve ever seen,” he said.

  My Little Flower tingled. I called it my Little Flower because that was the name of the Sunday school I’d been packed off to when I was still too young to protest. They talked about God being inside you. I wondered how He got there. I used to think maybe He crawled in between my legs. So I’d put my little hand between my little legs and hold it there, tight against my damp Little Flower. And it felt good: God-like.

  “That’s right,” I said. “And it’s my ass.”

  Mangione just smiled.

  Eric emerged from the house. He’d been watching us flirt for years and years and he must have thought we were pretty pathetic. But at that moment our unrequited passion was the last thing on his mind.

  “What?” I asked.

  He held up three tabs of windowpane acid. “Look what I found in my mother’s stash,” he said. We looked at each other. It was one of those moments. Do we go for it? And we did. (Parents, please note: Take your kids to the movies once in a while, especially on Saturdays. Most girls lose their virginity on a Saturday. And don’t leave your fucking drugs where your kids can find it.)

  The next thing I know, dawn is about to break, Jimi Hendrix is wailing on the stereo—“Crosstown Traffic,” I think—and Mangione is wailing on me. On top of me. Inside me.

  And let me tell you, it was not fun. Getting your cherry popped while peaking on acid is definitely not the ticket, girls. Trust me. I felt like my insides were being hacked apart with a machete. I was screaming, all right. But not for joy.

  Mangione didn’t quite get it, though. He thought he was giving me the time of my life. He was up there pumping, beaming, proud. Take it all, bitch! He thought he was taking me places I’d never dreamed of going. And he was right, but they were the wrong places.

  You’d think the experience would have soured me on sex, but I knew sex couldn’t be that bad. So from time to time, almost reluctantly, I tried again—usually with guys who looked a little like Jim Morrison. Things improved, sure—there was less pain, for starters—but where was the magic?

  One night, the latest Morrison wanna-be took me down to the Hotel Diplomat to a B. B. King concert. I loved B.B. King. I had every album he’d ever made. I loved plenty of other musicians—the Doors, Otis Redding, Aretha, the Allman Brothers, Michael Jackson—even some of that nyaa nyaa nyaa music, but B. B. King ruled. It was an awesome show, made that much more electric by the piano player. He was this intense guy, the only white guy in the band, and the way he played turned me on something awful. That’s it, I thought to myself. That right there is what I call passion.

  We went backstage after the concert. My friend didn’t want to but I got all pouty and manipulative and used my considerable charms to get past the security guard. In a heartbeat, I was introducing myself to the piano player. His name was Ron Levy, and he looked a little like Morrison, a Jewish Jim Morrison. Okay, call me crazy. But it’s the truth. He looked more like Morrison than the guy I’d come with—and he looked a lot like Morrison.

  Ron Levy shook my hand and wouldn’t let go. I went all ga-ga. That fair skin, the baby fuzz on his chin, the Kool dangling from those moist, kissable lips. “Hey,” he said. He looked me in the eye when he talked. And his voice was gentle and tender. “I’m glad you enjoyed the show,” he said. “What’d you say your name was? Janice—I love that name. You from around here, Janice? You have time for a drink, Janice?”

  There was nothing I wanted more than to run off with Ron Levy and have a drink and listen to his dulcet voice and fall into his bottomless green eyes. But I wasn’t that trashy. I couldn’t do that to my date. So I went back to Hollywood with my friend and pretended he was Ron Levy. It was nice, but I still didn’t know squat about the Elusive Female Orgasm.

  Back on the home front, it didn’t take long for Ray to figure out that I was getting laid. The thing is, I wanted him to know—wanted to taunt him with it. You know the old joke: W
hat’s the difference between a slut and a cunt? A slut puts out for everyone. A cunt puts out for everyone except you. So, yeah—I wanted Ray to know that I was out there doing things that he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  It pissed him off. And the violence escalated.

  One night I got home after curfew; I was supposed to be there at 10:30, but it was storming like crazy and I could barely see to drive home.

  “You’re late,” he barked. It was a few minutes after eleven.

  “Look out the window,” I said, unable to bite my lip. “That sound you hear is thunder.”

  Wham! He hit me in the face and broke my lip. He’d always been smart about that—no visible marks, no blood. But he got a little carried away, and suddenly there was that locked-in-the-trunk fear in his eyes again. He moved toward me and began to stammer.

  “Get the fuck away from me,” I said, snarling. “I’ll go to the police.”

  He backed off. He was terrified.

  By the time Mother came home my lip had started to swell. She couldn’t help but notice, and all at once she began playing nurse. She took me upstairs and sat me on the edge of the tub and dabbed at the cut till it was clean. Tears were streaming down my face, but they had nothing to do with the torn lip. And she knew it. I mean, Christ—you’d think a normal mother would ask what happened. But she didn’t ask. Because she didn’t want to know; because she already knew.

  After she finished what she was doing, we sat there in the bathroom, face-to-face, quiet, saying nothing for the longest time. Finally she broke the silence. “I never noticed how amazingly beautiful you are,” she said. “You are much more beautiful than any of those girls in the magazines you’re always looking at.”

  It was the nicest thing she had ever said to me. And I just fell apart.