KooKooLand (40 page)

At first, she only gave massages. But it sure as hell wasn't easy money. It was harder on her wrists than carrying trays of leaden pancakes had been. On top of that, she had to fight off big, blubbery guys who wanted her to massage more than their blubber.

Before long, the money the blubbery guys offered her to massage their Down There was too tempting to resist. Pretty soon, she was only massaging their Down There. If some rube asked for a regular massage too, she told him she'd broken her hand in a car wreck and could only use it so much, doctor's orders. If the rube wanted a stupid body massage he couldn't have a Down There massage too.

He always chose the Down There.

After a while, she barely had to use her hands at all. She just lay on the massage table and let the guys squash her with their blubber and they paid her even more money. Of course, the scumbag who ran the joint took his cut, but it still left her with enough dough to rent a nice apartment, nicer than the crooked one. One with its own washer so she didn't have to go to the Laundromat and use a machine that some idiot had washed a bunch of shitty diapers in right before her.

Virginia also worked out a good arrangement for taking care of Dustin. The friend who had gotten her started at the massage parlor had a kid too and they staggered their shifts and babysat for each other.

“It's a perfect setup,” Virginia assured me, when I expressed misgivings about her working at the massage parlor.

“What if Jimmy finds out? He'll kill you for sure.”

“He's not gonna find out. I wear a wig, dummkopf. And sometimes I use a British accent. I tell them my name is Mary Quant.”

“But what if somebody like Hank goes in there? What if you have to do it with Hank?”

“I wouldn't do it with Hank,” Virginia snapped. “I'd draw the line at Hank.”

Virginia had a little blue suitcase that she took to work. Once, while she was getting ready to leave, I peeked into it. In addition to wigs, bikinis, and makeup, she had toothpaste, handcuffs, and a rubber Down There. She also
had several Hershey's bars. I was surprised to see them. Unlike me, Virginia never went in much for candy.

“Can I have a chocolate bar?” I asked.

“No,” she said, startled. She closed the suitcase with a sharp click.

“Don't be stingy,” I moaned.

“They're for work,” she snapped.

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind,” she replied. “What you don't know won't hurt you.”

I
had a big, fat problem.

To apply to Radcliffe I had to show up in person for an interview and Jimmy would be damned if he'd take me.

“Those tight asses just wanna give the Little Match Girl the once-over. Well, screw them. I'd like to light a little match up their tight asses.”

“They make everybody who lives close by go there, not just me.”

“If you believe that, I raised a gullible idiot and you belong at Dum-Dum University.”

“What if Ellen takes me?”

“Oh, you think if you pull up in her kraut car instead of my jalopy they'll say open sesame? Well, think again, Einstein.”

“I wasn't thinking about her car,” I said, but the truth was I wasn't too keen on pulling up with the
Aristotle Onassis
strapped to Jimmy's roof.

“Don't gimme that. You're becoming a spoiled teen-rager with your spoiled Jew friend. Well, I'm not letting you go. What if you get lost and end up in the Combat Zone without your old man there to protect you?”

“Ellen knows her way around Boston,” I argued. “She goes shopping there all the time.”

“I bet she does. But one wrong turn from Saks Fifth Clip Joint and you end up in Chelsea. And you know who's from Chelsea?”

“The Boston Strangler,” I said, “but he's locked up.”

“Hey, there's a lot more like him where he came from.”

“But if I don't show up for an interview, I won't have a chance.”

“You never had a chance,” he said. “I guess you still believe in Santa Claus too?”

He mimicked a bawling brat, rubbing his eyes with his hairy fists.

And I decided right then and there to shoot him.

I had nothing to lose. Nothing. If I couldn't go to Radcliffe, my stupid life was over.

So here was my plan:

I'd get him to take me hunting the next time he was going. I'd wait till he'd had a few stiff ones and wasn't feeling any pain. When he sent me out to retrieve a duck, I'd pretend I couldn't find it. He'd threaten to plug me and leap out of the
Aristotle Onassis
to go look for it. I'd grab his rifle and plug him instead—once in the back. With any luck, the bullet would lodge in his heart—assuming he still had one.

I'd make believe it was just a terrible accident.

I'd confess to being a nearsighted girl with no goddamn aim.

I'd cry, boo hoo hoo.

It'd make a damn good essay for a college application: “I'm a Little Match Girl with a Dead-as-a-Duck Father I Shot by Mistake.” Maybe it would get me into Radcliffe after all.

And I'm pretty sure the plan would've worked, but I didn't get to try it out 'cause Jimmy sucker punched me. He reversed course like the
Aristotle Onassis
caught in a squall. He told me we could probably swing by Radcliffe on the way to Suffolk Downs racetrack, just as long as I didn't make him late for the goddamn daily double.

The morning of the interview he went hunting. Lucky for him, I stayed home. I spent hours getting ready. I'd borrowed an outfit from Ellen that was a little droopy on top, but otherwise I thought I looked like a million bucks. As usual, Jimmy was running late. He had no time to change, not that he would have changed anyway. He was wearing a red plaid shirt with the elbows worn through, pants caked with mud from tromping through the marshes, and shoes with broken shoelaces that had been tied back together.

“You look like crap,” he said. “You got nothin' to fill that dress out. You're a beanpole like your Olive Oyl mother.”

“I hope we're not gonna be late,” I said, knowing my words would be a challenge to him.

“Hell, I'll get us there with time to kill,” he vowed, and stepped on it.

More than once on the way there he suggested we blow Radcliffe off and go straight to the track.

“I got better odds of winning the trifecta than you got of getting into that blue-blood finishing school.”

“I got good grades, I'm in the National Honor Society, I'm an editor of the school magazine. Like Susan, she—”

“Don't talk to me anymore about goddamn Susan. She's nothin' but a
disappointment to poor Hank, always tryin' to squeeze dough from him since she got back out of the nuthouse. She didn't even have the moxie to finish medical school. She wasn't so smart after all.”

“Well, I think I've got as much chance as anybody of getting into Radcliffe.”

“Oh yeah? Well, think again, dummkopf. You're gonna get your little life-is-fair heart broken. And I hate to see that happen. I hate to let those bastards do that to you, string you along. 'Cause you don't need them, remember that. You got me and your mother and your stupid sister and your goddamn cat. Screw them. Screw those bastards. Let's go right to the track, whaddaya say?”

“It doesn't hurt to try,” I insisted.

“Oh yeah it does,” he replied, his voice hardening. “It does hurt.”

All the way to Cambridge he proceeded to list all the reasons I wouldn't get in. I had a pimple on my nose. I had Dracula teeth. I had stringy hair. I was wearing a borrowed dress and they'd know it 'cause it didn't even fit me right. I had bitten-down fingernails. I hadn't read all the books he'd told me to read. I hadn't even read goddamn
Moby-Dick.
Hell,
he'd
have a better goddamn chance of getting in than I did. Maybe
he
oughta go in for the interview instead of me.

By the time we pulled up in front of the building, Jimmy had convinced me.

I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting in.

When we finally sat down in the waiting room—ten minutes late—there was only one other prospective student sitting there. A gorgeous black girl with a giant Afro.

Jimmy kept elbowing me in the ribs and motioning to the girl.

“What did I tell ya? She's gettin' your goddamn spot,” he hissed, loud enough that I was afraid the girl would hear.

I stared down at the plush Oriental rug. I tried to lean away from Jimmy in the hopes that people would think he was with somebody else. I pretended I had another father waiting in another car just outside. A car that smelled like a new cow, not an old fish. A car without
Aristotle Onassis
on the roof and Hitler in the glove box.

The beautiful black girl got called in before me.

“What did I tell ya?” Jimmy repeated louder. “They're takin' that Ubangi, not you.”

The tears I had been holding back all day all week all year all my frickin' life came pouring out.

A woman called my name. I could barely see her through my tears. But I could feel her glaring at Jimmy. I was convinced she'd heard what he said.

I followed the woman into her office like I was heading to the guillotine. She guided me to a beautifully upholstered chair. I sat on the edge of it. I didn't see the point of getting too comfortable.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked, her voice as cold and brittle as an icicle.

“My mother's sick,” I mumbled, the first thing that came into my mind.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” the woman said, her voice melting a little.

My nose was running and I only had my sleeve or the beautiful upholstery to rub it on. The woman handed me a tissue like she was trying not to touch me.

“Maybe we should reschedule your appointment for another day?”

“No, I c-can't c-come back,” I stammered. “This is my only chance.”

“All right, well then . . . tell me why you'd like to attend Radcliffe,” she said, like she was talking to the door I would soon be heading out of.

My mind went blank.

“My friend Susan told me to come here,” I managed to blurt out.

“Oh, is she an alum?” the woman said, seeming to perk up a bit.

“No,” I admitted. “She just told me about it.”

“I see,” the woman said.

The interview was over in ten minutes.

Jimmy shot up as soon as we appeared at the door.

“Let's blow this mausoleum,” he said

At least he wasn't late for the daily double.

But it would've been better if he was.

“Don't quit on me! Don't quit on me!” Jimmy shouted to a tired horse falling into the back of the pack while the jockey lashed him with a whip.

As I watched that horse get splattered with mud, I had only one thought.

I give up.

T
he thin envelope came and Jimmy said I told you so. I hid it in the garbage like a stinky mackerel so I'd never have to see it again.

When the thick envelope arrived I didn't give a shit. Bennington, the most expensive school in the country, was giving me what Jimmy called a free ride on the gravy train.

“They must not be too picky if they picked you,” he said before splitting for the track. He had landed a plum job in the spit box collecting piss from the horses after they raced to make sure they weren't being juiced. I didn't think he was the ideal person for that job, but I figured they must not know he'd been a juicer himself.

After he left, the telephone rang. It was Ellen's mother calling to find out about the thickness of my envelopes.

When she heard about Bennington giving me a scholarship she screamed so loud I thought my eardrum would explode.

“It's a school for weirdos,” I sulked, fed up with being an outcast.

“I'd give my right arm to have a daughter going there,” she said.

“I hate you, I hate you!” I heard Ellen shout, before she grabbed the phone to congratulate me.

After I said yes to Bennington, Jimmy said no to me. He said he wouldn't show up for my high school graduation no matter how much YaYa pleaded with him.

“What kind of man doesn't attend his own daughter's graduation?”

“A man who's gotta work for a living, unlike his big-shot daughter.”

“Well, maybe if you hadn't quit school like a bum you'd have a decent job. You wouldn't have to stand around in the mud waiting for a racehorse to make wee-wee.”

“Go ahead. Cut me down. Break my balls. That's all you've ever done. It's your goddamn fault I didn't amount to anything.”

“Holy God, what did I do to deserve you?”

“I know what you goddamn did,” he said darkly, still convinced she'd cheated on Papou.

I told myself I was glad Jimmy wasn't coming to my graduation, but it wasn't true. As Jimmy would say, it hurt like a bastard. As I stood in a sea of several hundred classmates, I kept looking for my father, convinced he'd pull a sneak attack and show up. I wanted him to kid me about being an egghead and dare me to go break a window. I wanted him to tell me I looked like a Greek priest in my cap and gown. I wanted him to ride me about only graduating fourth in my class and call me dum-dum.

But I really was a dum-dum for thinking he was gonna show.

Over the summer, I counted down the days until I could get the hell outta there. I got a job at a day-care center making jelly sandwiches and reading
See Spot Run!
to pip-squeaks. As my departure date got closer, Jimmy got madder. Once again he became convinced that Shirley was cheating on him. When he came home from the spit box, he put his hand on the couch to see if he could feel any heat where she might have been lying down with another man. Shirley begged him to call Dr. C to give him a shot, but he said he'd give her a shot—right in her cheating heart just like Hank had done to Doris. He said he'd dig a grave for her with his bare hands right next to Doris's. He said he'd plug me too like Hank shoulda done to Susan since she was a useless daughter too—a weak, useless daughter who was back in the nuthouse again.