All the Wild Children Page 9

  I wake to the smell of coffee and an empty bed.

  It is Easter morning and my mother wonders why we are late. Wonders why I can’t stop smiling.

  I don’t see Kat for a week. Lark’s band is playing Saturday in a local park, Annabelle Lee is their name, but today they play with my father singing, this is called Love In the Asylum. All the cool party kids are there. Kat is there, I see her and move across the crowd trying to get to her. The kids are dancing and bouncing. Kat dips in and out view. I catch a glimpse, Tanner is leaned in talking to her. That’s nice of him to entertain my girl. I am ten feet away. With an unobstructed view.

  He whispers in her ear. She laughs.

  Their eyes lock.

  I stop walking.

  They kiss.

  There is no mistaking the moment she slips her tongue into his mouth. I turn and walk slowly away. Out of the park. Down the street. I am ten blocks away before I let myself cry.

  The next week Lark seduces the girl Tanner is in love with. He tells Tanner about it. The score is even. Fuck with one, you fuck with the clan. Blood runs deep.

  I am 50, and thinking back over my life with women. I can see a pattern of my youth. I have always related to Scorsese’s vision, I never really knew why. I work in film because of Mean Streets, when I saw that, it was a revelation. You could make a movie about our lives, about thugs and baby wannabe gangsters, without glorification, without lying. Man, I was hooked on Scorsese, De Niro and Keitel.

  When Lark and I went to see Taxi Driver we were so blown away we made our dates sit through intermission and watch it again. Why those lovely young ladies wanted to stay, and sleep with us after, is still an amazement to me.

  As an added bonus to the Taxi Driver experience, Tanner is there with us. He is kicking heroin by shooting coke. I know. It’s a junky thing. He keeps getting up and going to the men’s room. Then one time, he just doesn’t come back. We aren’t worried. Odds are he has gone home... or met a chick or decided to cop. We never would have guessed the truth.

  When Tom Scott blows the final line of Bernard Herman's haunting score, we stand up. Walking out Lark and I are chattering away about the cinematography and fucking De Niro, who is that Foster girl, damn. Why are there police cars in the middle of the street? Fuck they are surrounding that drug store, rifles pointed. They are going in with dogs and shotguns.

  “Tanner.”

  “That would be my guess, little bro.” We stand around watching. After about ten minutes they come out leading a limping and cuffed little man with a shag hair cut.

  “Fucking Tanner.”

  “You know that guy?” The cop is tall round and Black. We both shake our heads and walk away. The teflon junky doesn’t need our help to skate.

  The next day Tanner shows up with an ankle high plaster cast.

  Do you remember Leggs stockings, they came in egg shaped cartons? Their displays were tall and rather phallic looking? OK, got that picture? Now Tanner hears a junky rumor, on the wind, like El Dorado, or the fountain ofyouth: That drug store, on California Avenue, they have clinical grade heroin, and no alarm system. OK, a sober person can see instantly the problems here. For starters, “clinical grade heroin” doesn’t exist, it’s called Morphine. Second what drug store doesn’t have an alarm? Come on. Junkies are like conquistadors I guess, they want it so bad that they put morals and logic on hold while they chase the dream.

  So our wild lad goes in through the skylight, which was not alarmed. He falls fifteen feet and lands on a Leggs display, breaking his ankle. Poetic right? And he sets off the motion detector. The alarm company calls the Palo Alto P.D. and our boy goes down.

  How he beats the rap is anyone's guess, my money is on there being one or two less dealers on the street. But that is just conjecture.

  Sex and Scorsese, connect the dots JJ.

  I am 50, I’m looking back and I see, Scorsese’s running theme is the age old Catholic tale of all women being either Virgins or Whores. He is smart enough to know this is crap, but it’s the crap all his early films are dealing with. For years I wondered what this might have to do with me. I was mulling this over, driving across Hollywood, past strip cubs and sex shops. And then it occurred to me...

  I am 15, in my first real relationship. Ingrid, a mass of wild golden curls, round of face and body, full. A Norwegian mother and Italian father, she is amazing. 5’4”, all attitude and spike heels. She is two years older than me. I woo and win her. I give her a picture of a baby with curly hair. What our babies would look like. I’m fif-fucking-teen, and I want to have babies.

  After my childhood that seems odd at best, psychotic at worst. I have only felt this way about three women in my life. One of them I married and had children with. OK, 3 I want to have children with. And how many just sex? 7 maybe, not more than 12. All of them, with the exception of my best friend Tad’s girl. Who I slept with because Tad was getting Tom’s girl. Tom was drunk, I said I’d handle it. Walked up to Tad’s gal pal at a party and said, wanna make it? She smiles and said yes. She’s pissed at Tad, and we are friends, why not.

  It is the seventies, modern rules don’t apply.

  Take her out of the tally and you still have a preponderance of women I would sleep with but not consider having children with. I didn’t think of them as whores. They were lovely girls and loads of fun. Just not the kind I would have a baby with.

  But isn’t this just another version of Scorsese’s dilemma?

  Casting women into only two sects seems very limiting when I look from the outside in. I did have a third category, friends. I always had many girls for friends, some I wanted to sleep with but our friendship outgrew the attraction. Some wanted to sleep with me, some of those I fell into bed with and wrecked the friendships. The fundamental difference in Scorsese’s view is that he feels that the mother of your children shouldn’t really be into sex, girls who are really into sex in his world are whores. Me, I think there is nothing sexier than the rolling curves of a pregnant woman.

  I am 15, in Indiana painting houses to scrape together enough scratch to buy my first junker. I miss Ingrid. I miss the laughter. I miss the sex. I miss having someone think I’m special and worthy. The grandparents never will. I remind them of my father. He reminds them of their daughter’s defection to the Quakers and peace movement in Cali. They are always civil to me. But never proud. So fuck ‘em. I got my sibs. I got Ingrid. Fuck their narrow minded views. Fuck Indiana.

  We don’t paint houses on Sunday. Sunday I swim in the lake, or fish or lay in a hammock writing Ingrid long love letters. My grandmother wants me to try and be more normal. My shaggy long hair, too tight jeans and earrings are already too much. She invites the kid next door to come over. I wake up looking at his bulging leopard print Speedo. It is already 105 degrees on the sleeping porch. Sweat is rolling off my brow. His crotch is at eye level. He bounces on his feet. “Wanna go swimming?”

  “Hell yes.” And we do. Out to the raft. We lay on our backs feeling the dry wood on our backs and the sun on our chests.

  Jimmy is on his elbows staring at me. I open my eyes, squint up at his pursed lips. And roll off into the water. I swim to shore and avoid Jimmy. I hope he will make it to NY or San Francisco. But his intense closeted desire is more than I can handle. Ingrid and I go dancing at The City, a huge SF gay disco. I love it, they let us in because we're cute. My friends there flirt with me, but never with need and intent. Jimmy is screwed in the head, I didn’t know how to help him decompress and I don’t want to be around when he snaps.

  Walking back down the road, I feel like an asshole for ditching Jimmy. A bunch of lake boy jocks cruise in a convertible Pontiac. “Hey kid, you get high?”

  “Hell yes he gets high, look at them earrings.”

  “I heard you was from California.” I climb in. They pass me the roach and a Budweiser.

  “Is it true all the girls out there wanna do is fuck?” The pot is almost as bad as their conversational skills.

  “So
is it true?”

  “No... Mostly they like to suck cock while shoving baby pacifiers up your ass.”

  “Ohhh, noo, ewww...”

  “Each to his own I guess.”

  “That is fucking sick.”

  Ahead of us three girls are walking, wigglingtheir bikini clad asses as we drive by. The boys stand and scream and grab their crotches. “Whoa baby I know you want a taste of this kielbasa.” “Whooeeee! Baby! Want some fries with that shake?”

  I want to crawl under the seat. I want to jump out and apologize to the girls. I peek over the door and notice the girls are smiling at these troglodytes.

  Ingrid, I witnessed the mating rituals of lake loonmoronica today. It seems to involve lots of demeaning talk followed by roaring away in a cloud of dust. I wonder if the dust holds their semen, perhaps this is how they impregnate the females. It will need further investigation.

  Love you, Josh

  The next Sunday I go for a ride with the boys. Grandmother Smith is so happy. Finally I’m out with normal guys, maybe their normality will rub off. The fuck it will.

  “Your dope is shit.”

  “Oh like you can get better.”

  “I give my dog better pot than this.” I fill my lungs to bursting with the vile stuff. Hold it as long as possible, then just a bit more. At least they have plenty of beer. And I can smoke around them. I now know their one and only rut of a routine. Circle the lake looking for chicks to harass, I mean, um, impress. Three joints and as many Buds, I am getting loose.

  “Oh manny o man, check that out, ummm.” The meatheads all follow my eyes towards the beach. There is a fine looking young woman, as she turns they can see she is very pregnant. “Yes, boys that right there is what I’m talking about. Ummm yeah.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “He’s fucking with you Boon. Right JJ, you’re fuckin with ‘em.”

  “No. She was hot. Did you see the curves on that babe?”

  “There’s something wrong with you.” And that is the last time the meat squad takes me cruising. OK, I was screwing with them. But I also kinda thought the woman was hot.

  From 50 I look down the line of women I have loved or at least lusted, looking for my type. You would think a type would jump out seeing them all in one place. Unconventional beauty sounds patronizing, like what you say to a non-beauty to make her feel better. But when you put Jody Foster and Uma Thurman into that category you see what I mean by it. Ingrid was round and luscious, big tits and hips that could bear a herd of children. She was older and wilder than me. At first she tried to palm me off on a friend of hers. She liked to hang with me, but it wasn’t going to get romantic.

  She always dated older guys, guys with money. Guys who took her to fancy places.

  I was not that guy.

  Clearly.

  My sophomore year I went to Paly, a very White and respected school across the Embarcadero from Stanford. Mostly it was a school where no one was trying to shoot me.

  I still dressed like a glitter rock pimp. I wore the first platforms they had seen off a stage. I wore eight foot long scarfs and way too tight jeans. I went commando. Myfirst day, Ingrid came up to me and took me to the parking lot and showed me where to smoke. She was a stunner in a fur lined sweater and ruby lips that matched her ruby FMP's. By the end of week one I had five friends, all girls, combine that with the couple of Black kids who transferred from Ravenswood and called me by my nickname.

  “Yo, Pimp, what it be?”

  “Alright Pimp, looking right, Homes.” The jocks and granola crowd took this name literally. I didn’t correct them. A little fear was always a good thing when you’re at a new school and your brother is in the wind.

  The sum total of sex education I got was a book, Boys and Sex, my mother gave it to me. Ingrid and I read it in bed and laughed. The only fact I retained was that four out of five farm boys lose their virginity to animals. Cows, horses, sheep and chickens. CHICKENS???

  Oh come on boys, chickens, really?

  Never having fucked an animal this information did me absolutely no good. Stay clean, stay healthy? I never heard any of that. It was the 70’s and for all we knew the worst case was a trip to the free clinic for some penicillin. Birth control? Wasn’t that her responsibility? Isn’t that why they invented the pill?

  As far as information on building and maintaining a healthy relationship? We got the big goose egg, zip, zilch, nada. Like the generations that came before us, we were left to battle it out in foreign territory without any plans or back up.

  Driving back from Santa Cruz with my mother and her man friend, it is cold. Ingrid puts a blanket over us. Unzipping my pants she takes my cock out and gives me my first hand job. All thewhile Ingrid engages my mother in conversation and tries to lead the conversation to me, so I will have to speak and try to modulate my voice. Later I laughed my ass off. She was a wonder.

  She helps me study Shakespeare in a new technique involving small amounts offellatio for every right answer. Having an older and wiser girlfriend really is a plus. All is as well as can be expected until she goes to college.

  My junior and last year of school I am still involved with Ingrid. We are in what she thinks is a monogamous relationship.

  I am 16.

  I am male.

  I am finally hot for being more than Lark’s little brother.

  I am unfaithful.

  I am a lair.

  I am guilty.

  It doesn’t stop me.

  Gabrielle is a freshman with translucent skin, I can see fine blue veins on her cheek. She adores me, looks up to me. I know she has a massive crush on me. And she is smart and funny. But she is the same age as Shaun.

  Gabrielle is a virgin. I know this because she tells me as I unzip her pants. I have never made love to a virgin. We are in bed, her jumper up over her head, I am kissing her small budding breasts, she is pulling me to her.

  Then it hits me. I sit up.

  The first man she sleeps with should be a better man than me. She deserves so much more than me. They all do.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Driving you home.”

  “Was I doing it wrong?”

  “No, I was.” And that was it.

  Hannah, I meet her on a date at the drive-ins. She is friends with one of Lark’s girls. I’m sure I am a disappointment, wanting to watch the film. I don't mean it as a slight, but when a good film is flickering on the screen I can’t turn away. At sixteen, a movie theater was as close to church as I got.

  Hannah is amazing. Smart and wild, she is my age. We are always the youngest in the punk glitter crowd.

  The film ends. We drink hard. We fuck hard.

  “Honey, wake up.” The sun is burning a hole in my retina. I am in my bed. Covered in a monstrous fake fur comforter. My mother is speaking. My mouth tastes like a slightly over cooked gym sock.

  “Honey, do you know a Hannah?”

  “Ahhh... ” I try to get any cells to fire. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m Hannah.” A tiny voice comes out of my comforter.

  “Your mother is on the phone.”

  Who could have imagined we would be friends and make love off and on for as long as I stayed in Palo Alto. We even hooked up in London and visited Bath together.

  Whatever it was that made women forgive my transgressions I can only say, thank you lord. Because I had many clumsy moves in my time. I often said the wrong thing, made the wrong move. I thought at the time they dug me because I was a bad boy. Could drive fast and fight hard. Bullshit. A woman told me years later, “Oh Josh, we hated that macho crap, we put up with it to be with you. Not the other way round.”

  Marilyn is four foot eleven. She is Jewish. She is a good girl. She has the cutest rabbit teeth. I am 17 and going to Foothill Junior Collage. We meet in Theater class. She pursues me, and then I pursue her. I take her to lunch at a deli. I tell her about Ingrid, as if that makes it OK. I am being honest, right? Just not with Ingrid.
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br />   I am 17 and Marilyn invites me to see Blondie opening for Iggy Pop with Bowie on keyboards. We go to the after party at the Mabuhay Gardens, a tiki bar punk club. We wind up kissing. We wind up in my bed. Marilyn and I are electric. We do things that I am sure are illegal in at least seven states. We laugh a lot and kiss for hours. She lays on my skinny pale chest, content.

  It is five in the afternoon and we stink of sex. Marilyn puts her hair in pigtails and puts on a Mickey Mouse tee shirt that makes her look all of eleven. Like this we go to Lyons for coffee. When I French her they freak. At seventeen pedophile jokes are funny.

  I am 17 and it is Saturday night at a teen club my brother and sisters and I open. Ingrid is in town, by now she is going to Berkley. Marilyn is at the club and I leave her alone. I let her see me and Ingrid. I am a bastard.

  Tanner sees a petite Jewish knock out, with sad eyes, and he swoops down. He will teach her to use drugs, he will take her down to his dark places, he will make the sparkle in her wild eyes dull. Paint it any way you want, truth is Marilyn paid the freight for a ride I put her on.

  MARILYN May 5 at 1:24pm

  Josh, I met Tanner at my-o-my the night your girlfriend came home to visit. I think her name was Ingrid. You and I were seeing each other. I was sitting alone and Tanner took advantage of the situation. I did become sort of involved with him. It was the biggest mistake of my life. He was like a vampire and held some kind of dark fascination for me. He got me into the hard drugs. I was not strong enough to resist. Thank God I never became an addict. You know the cliché, good girl falls for evil guy. I wish I had never met him. He would not let go of me and I kept going back on and off for a few years. Then he suddenly dropped me for a fellow junkie. She died a few years later from drugs. I don't know what happened to Tanner and I really don't care.