KooKooLand (37 page)

Now and then I wondered about Susan and how married life was treating her.

One day, I found out.

Jimmy and I had stopped off at the drugstore on our way home from a movie. Jimmy went through a fist-sized container of tranquilizers every month and was there to pick up a refill.

Susan was getting a prescription filled too. She was in her second year of medical school and looked pretty worn out.

“Jesus, Susan, you look like hell,” said Jimmy, who never ceased to let a person know if they were not looking their best.

“Hi, Jimmy,” Susan smiled weakly. Then she noticed me. “Wow, you're so grown up.”

“Hi, Susan,” I mumbled, feeling that familiar shyness come over me.

“She's the same old Dracula,” Jimmy said, waving his fang fingers in front of his face.

“And you're the same old Jimmy,” she said. She turned back to me.

“So what grade are you in now?”

“Ninth. I'm finally in high school,” I said, hoping that might impress her.

“She wanted to go where you went, Central,” Jimmy piped up. “But those pencil pushers said it was out of our district. They didn't want a little project kid in their North End school. Well, nobody tells me where my kid goes. I checked around. My old lady's place made it into their goddamn district, just barely. So I told 'em my kid's living there, screw you.”

Susan looked happy for me.

“So, you're living with your grandmother now?”

“Nah, she's still under my roof,” said Jimmy.

“So she's supposed to lie and not get caught for four years?”

“Hey, she's my daughter.” Jimmy laughed. “I taught her everything I know.”

“I hope not,” quipped Susan, and changed the subject. “So you been in the winner's circle lately, Jimmy?”

“Ah, I'm mostly outta the game. I had one great horse and there'll never be another like him, so they can keep all those other nags.”

The truth was he was broke and couldn't afford another nag, but that was another story.

“Racing's gone to hell anyway,” he added. “Did you hear Big Brother's forcing us to have girl jockeys?”

“Girl jockeys, girl doctors. What's the world coming to?” replied Susan.

“Don't get wise, kiddo,” said Jimmy. “I know you're a damn good rider, but trotting down country lanes, la-dee-da-dee-da, is not racing. Racing's dangerous. And having dames out there is only gonna make it more dangerous.”

“Danger, Will Robinson, danger,” Susan intoned, imitating the robot in
Lost in Space
.

“You think it's funny? Those girls're gonna get some good men killed.”

“Well, I hope not,” said Susan, becoming more serious. “There're enough good men getting killed already.”

“So you're still a bleeding heart? Your old lady musta drummed that into you, 'cause it sure as hell wasn't Hank.”

Susan suddenly looked morose.

“I've got to get going,” she finally said. “I've got a gazillion things to do.”

Jimmy put his arm around her.

“You work yourself too hard. Don't let becoming a goddamn doctor make you sick. You don't wanna crack up again, do you?”

“I could use the rest,” she joked.

Jimmy lowered his voice.

“Your old man told me that no-good husband of yours smacked you and threw you out of a car or something.”

Susan looked away.

“I can't remember what happened exactly,” she said. “When the police found me I was unconscious. I was bruised up pretty bad.”

I was stunned. Jimmy hadn't said anything to me about Susan getting roughed up.

“I'll get somebody to teach that joker a lesson. Just say the word.”

“Jimmy, no! We're getting a divorce, so—”

“I don't like him gettin' off scot-free.”

“Well, two wrongs don't make a right.”

“Hey, don't gimme that turn-the-other-cheek baloney. I've had it up to here with those suckers. I'd like to teach 'em all a lesson. Sucker Punch 101.”

“Whoa, easy,” said Susan, patting him like he was a skittish horse. “You don't want to crack up too.”

“Yeah, well, there's enough jerkos out there to drive you crazy. Enough to fill the goddamn
Titanic
and take you down with them.”

Susan looked like she'd had enough of the conversation.

“I've got to go,” she said again. “You steer clear of the icebergs, Jimmy.”

“Yeah, you do the same, kid,” said Jimmy.

He opened the container of tranquilizers and slipped a few in her pocket.

“Just in case you need to take the edge off.”

“Thanks,” she said, surprised. “Thanks a gazillion.”

“C'mon, Dracula, don't lollygag,” he barked at me.

“Bye, Susan,” I said quickly.

She surprised me by giving me a hug.

“Say hi to Central,” she said, as if it was a person and she missed it.

“I will,” I promised.

Not long after that, I heard Susan was back in the hospital. Not the loony bin, the normal kind. Something was wrong with one of her kidneys and they had to yank it out. Jimmy read up on her condition in his medical books and said she was gonna be OK, a person could get by just fine with one kidney.

Hank went to visit her after the operation. They were giving her morphine for the pain. He told her to just tough it out and have a drink instead. He offered her a slug of what he had in his pocket, but she didn't take him up on it.

After several days Susan got released from the hospital. She had to take a leave of absence from medical school to recuperate. She moved back in with Hank. I didn't think that was such a hot idea, but I reminded myself of what all those headshrinkers had said. Hank wasn't ever gonna murder anybody again.

And, anyway, I had my own life to worry about. I was determined to get good grades at Central and prove to Jimmy I was no dummkopf. I studied hard and didn't get too friendly with anyone. I didn't join any clubs or put myself in situations where kids or teachers would start nosing around my life. I didn't want to have to come up with excuses why I couldn't invite anyone over to my place. If anyone asked what my father did I said he was a doctor. It didn't seem like that much of a stretch.

Meanwhile, Jimmy and Hank found other clubs besides the Greek's joint to hang out at, places where the women weren't so picky and didn't mind a quickie with a guy who had ventilated his ex-wife. Hank played the field. He didn't want another ball and chain.

Hank had more free time now 'cause he wasn't running his own business. The state wanted to put an on-ramp to the highway smack in the middle of where his store was and made him shut the place down. Jimmy said he oughta fight the goddamn pencil pushers, but Hank insisted he didn't want the goddamn responsibility anymore.

Hank couldn't just live the life of Riley, though. He'd blown a lot of dough on the shyster. Not to mention his goddamn kids. So he took a job in another guy's boat shop. But that didn't mean he was gonna toe the line. If a customer rubbed him the wrong way, he'd still blow cigar smoke right in the numbskull's kisser. Sometimes, when his boss was out, he'd even have S-E-X right on the guy's desk.

At least that's what he told Jimmy and what Jimmy told me.

Virginia was having a lot of S-E-X of her own. But hers was married S-E-X, which she didn't think was as F-U-N.

By then, Virginia was living with Wayne in military housing in North Carolina. She called home whenever Shirley sent her a few extra bucks. If we were lucky, she called when Jimmy was gone.

“Wayne wants a bunch of brats,” she groaned to me over the phone.

“It's 'cause he's Catholic,” I said, being an expert on that subject.

“I keep tellin' him we oughta live a little first. I've never even seen the Stones, for cripes' sake.”

“Wayne hates the Stones. He's never gonna take you to see 'em.”

“I could go by myself.”

“Fat chance.”

“Well, I'm not havin' a kid. I'm just not.”

She lowered her voice, even though Wayne wasn't there. He was off training to kill some gooks, or so he said.

“I'm on the pill. He doesn't know. Keep it on a stone wall. Don't tell Mom and Dad.”

“I don't tell them anything, dummkopf.”

But by the next phone call, a few months later, Virginia had totally changed her tune. She'd gone off the pill, and was learning to cook and was trying to be a better wife. If Wayne went to Vietnam and got killed, she said, she'd never forgive herself for not trying harder to make him happy.

“I owe him a kid. And, anyway, what else have I got to do?”

“You could do a lot of things.”

“Like what. Waitressing? Whoopee-do.”

“You could become a stewardess. That way, you could fly back here all the time.”

“I'm too short. And my nose is too big.”

“Your nose isn't big. Daddy's is.”

“I got his stupid nose. You didn't. Thank your lucky stars.”

I didn't know what to say about that, so I changed the subject.

“So what did you make Wayne for breakfast this morning?” I asked her.

Wayne ate like a horse and Virginia was always entertaining me with stories of his food consumption.

“A dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, and half a loaf of toast.”

“You married Godzilla!” I squealed.

“No, I married a marine,” she replied.

A short while later, in the summer of 1969, Virginia came to Old Orchard Beach to see the family. Wayne was still training to go to Vietnam and couldn't come with her. We were up in Maine for Shirley's two-week vacation from the sunglass factory and were staying in the same apartment where I'd had my first taste of lobster. Jimmy's declaration of love for the place was still written above the door, though by now it was pretty faded.

I was trying to talk Virginia into going back on the pill.

“A kid's a ball and chain,” I said. “Like in that Janis Joplin song.”

“I hate Janis Joplin,” Virginia scowled. “She sounds like a hyena.”

I couldn't believe my ears. We had always loved the same music.

“Wayne's brainwashing you!” I shouted. “Next thing I know you're gonna be bad-mouthing hippies.”

“Well, somebody's gotta go fight for our freedoms and it sure ain't gonna be the hippies.”

“I suppose you don't believe in smoking pot anymore either.”

Her face lit up. “You got pot?”

Oh yeah, I had pot. Bruce, the lobster poacher who had put together our bunk beds while zonked out on glue had moved up in the world and was now a pot dealer. He had shown up a few days before with a stack of dough and a mountain of grass, both of which he had laid out on our kitchen table. He was trying to entice Jimmy into going into the pot business with him.

“All this could be yours,” he said, waving his hand over the drugs and dough like he was Monty Hall on
Let's Make a Deal
.

“Forget it,” Jimmy replied. “I don't want no part of nothing the goddamn hippies do. Besides, I tried that crap before those longhairs were in diapers and it don't give you a buzz like booze.”

“Try this stuff,” Bruce insisted. “It's strong, King Kong strong. They use a special, top-secret-type fertilizer.”

“Don't tell me about goddamn fertilizer, OK? I know how to grow a lawn greener than you, greenhorn.”

“Maybe you're too scared to get high,” needled Bruce, lighting up a joint. “Maybe you're an old geezer now like your pal Hank and you're more chicken than rooster.”

“I'll show you who's chicken. I'll bust your skull open and eat your Kentucky Fried brain on a spit.”

“Take it easy, Jimmy,” Bruce laughed. “I don't want to fight. I'm a lover, not a fighter.”

“OK, lover boy, I'll show you. Gimme a goddamn puff,” Jimmy barked.

Bruce passed the joint to Jimmy.

“Hold it in till your lungs feel like they're gonna explode,” coached Bruce.

Jimmy had no trouble doing that since that's how he puffed cancer sticks, dragging deep, sucking down every wisp of smelly smoke.

Jimmy passed the joint to Shirley. I could tell she was scared. Scared that she'd do it wrong and scared Jimmy would yell at her for doing it wrong and scared of what it might do to her. She took a drag and had a coughing fit.

“What a greenhorn,” Jimmy crowed. “Pass it back to Bruce. You're burning up dough. That wacky tobaccy ain't cheap.”

“Can I try it?” I asked, pretending I was a greenhorn too.

“Are you kidding? You're still a pip-squeak.”

“You got me drunk when I was ten.”

“You got her drunk?” croaked Shirley.

“I gave her a taste. Is it my fault she can't hold her liquor? Besides, booze'll never hurt you. In Greece that's what they give babies for medicine.”

“She's fifteen. Let her have a toke,” said Bruce.

“Butt out, hophead,” said Jimmy. “Her brain cells are still developing. You'd know that if you read a book once in a while.”

“I don't have time to read,” said Bruce, spitting a mouthful of Pepsi on the pot so it would look darker and sell for more dough. “I'm a businessman now. I got a complicated operation to run.”

“Yeah, you're such a big shot I oughta give you a big shot in your big fat head,” said Jimmy, getting up to make another highball.

Bruce winked at me and slipped me a big fat joint.

I saved it to share with Virginia when she came up.

Bruce was right. It was strong, King Kong strong.

Virginia and I laughed our heads off and got so hungry we could've outeaten Wayne. There wasn't much food in the fridge—no bologna, not even any bread. We made sandwiches using slices of American cheese as bread. We spread mustard on the cheese and used pickles as the filling. They were the best sandwiches we had ever eaten.