Chapter 14 – Unhappy Girl

“Eric, I lack the courage to say this to you. I want to tell you that I hate it when you drink a lot. You turn into such an unfriendly person. I mean, I try to sympathize because all the things that hurt you most come out. First it’s Vietnam, then your brother, and then your dad and how he was angry over you not enlisting and avenging your brother’s death. It’s just crazy shit that turns into you criticizing me. I don’t want us to be mad at each other. I don’t want to end up crying or wiping away your vengeful tears. I hear your voice in my head. I know what you'd say in reply. Yeah, saying this to you would be hypocritical, after all, not all of my choices are natural. Drinking is such a hard way to get yourself to where you need to be. When I'm high, I'm happy. When you're drunk, you're down."

We both had our problems which surfaced at inconvenient times.

Already down about the summer heat, the remnants of happiness crashed like waves against the rocky coast. I was at work when I got a call from Diane. “Eric, you need to come home,” so it was “home” where we lived, “Jenny is really upset. She needs you here.”

“What’s wrong?” My eyes wandered through the store in case my boss came upon my conversation.

“I don’t know. She’s crying nonstop.”

“Can you put her on the phone?”

“I don’t think that’s very possible. Can you just get over here and take care of her?” Just like back home, I was being summoned to sneak off for some unknown reason by a female over the phone. And after begging and pleading (and lying), my boss let me leave.

When I got “home,” Diane told me Jenny was in the bathroom. After crying for so long, Jenny was throwing up. When I walked in, she was sitting on the blue and white tiles, slumped against the tub. Her face looked dreadful. Her eyes were bloodshot and what flesh was visible past the smeared make-up bore a splotchy reddish-white hue. Besides the tears and overflow from her nose, there were dried specks on the corners of her mouth.

She sort of looked at me as though in a trance. I got a wash cloth just damp enough so I could clean up the mess on her face. Her breathing got calmer and soon she settled down. I’m not positive I even asked her what put her in this state, and at the sight of it, I probably didn’t want to know. Perhaps she had relapsed into the use of old reliable.

Once clean, I sat beside her and handed her a glass of lukewarm water. Carefully, she took it from my hand and began to share the making of this ordeal.

“Your folks called and,” she clinched her face as to not cry, “told me my mom is dead.” Widening her eye lids, “She’s dead!”

“Shit.” I said it even louder in my head.

“She was readmitted to the hospital two nights ago. She had already gone into renal failure before she got there.”

“Fucking hell…I’m so sorry.”

As her hair stuck to the edges of her mouth, “All the selfish moments I wanted the old woman to just die. I can’t believe it actually happened.” I rubbed the cloth back over her face until she asked that I stop.

Tracing her fingers along the edge of the tub, “She’s finally out of her misery. No longer alone without my father, without me, or the life she lived when things were somewhat normal.” Pouting her lips, “That poor ol’ woman.”

Whatever front was made when Jenny usually spoke of her mother, or her father, their departure from life disturbed her greatly. For one, who is young, to see the people you’ve known the longest, regardless of how close or distant, disappear from your narrow existence…life seems defeating. Her heart and mind was so fragile. She just knew the wrong time to cave in and let her emotions grip the wheel.

After my folks broke the news, they were prepared to fly Jenny back home to attend the funeral. Strangely, I was not invited. Whether that had anything to do with her decision, I don’t know, except Jenny opted not to go. She barely spoke and would secretly let loose a tear when she thought I wasn’t looking (or listening). Twice a day, I’d have Diane call me at work to let me know Jenny was okay and still at the house. I cancelled all of my plans including another pool tournament to just sit with Jenny in silence and keep her from unhealthy distractions.

At 9 PM on the third night, we both got tired of the lack of communication. Looking away from me and taking a long exhale, “I have nothing left in this world except you.”

Admitting the raw truth of that statement and choosing not to lie, “I know.”

“My regrets are mine to worry about. I’ve lived my life as I saw fit and admit my mistakes, my flaws, and am thankful for what I have left: you!”

“You know what that means, right?”

“What?” now facing me.

“You can’t sabotage what you have left.”

Her facial features tightened, “What? Like I fucked my life up on purpose?”

Sigh… “No, you just have to…”

She screamed out, “I have to WHAT, Eric?”

I stared at her in disbelief, appalled that she would talk to me like that. “Jenny…”

“Don’t talk to me, Eric! And don’t ever judge me or my life or ever tell me what I can and can’t do!”

About knocking anything over in her way, she stormed out of the room and out the front of the house. Diane, who was in her bedroom, came back to mine.

“What the hell happened?” Her eyes saw the slight carnage of items across the floor.

“I don’t know.”

“You know you have to go after her, right?”

“I should…but I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because she had no right to yell at me like that.”

“Now I have two immature people in my house? Great.”

“If she wants to run off, let her do it,” I applied lack of concern in my damaged state.

“She’s going to get herself hurt. You can’t let her do this.”

But I did.

When I left Diane’s an hour later, I told her I was going to look for Jenny, but never did. Not really knowing why, I just didn’t care. Perhaps it was for once I saw Jenny’s point of view that she had disappointed me. My anger squinted hard, blurring the reality, and taking a selfish stance. If this was the life she really wanted, then who was I to stop her? But why did her outburst bother me so much? Mostly because I felt betrayed that the girl I loved would fly off the handle at me.

So I said fuck it and hit the bars.  

Common sense said if I wanted beer so bad, I should have bought some at the grocer’s. But sitting in my room drinking alone was lame. I avoided Diane and was quickly reminded why I enjoyed the bars, the pool halls, and other haunts because I had made friends there and was adopted into that world. Besides Keith, a memorable guy up there was named Bandito. He was a muscular Mexican with a stern look and black bandana over his brow. I was really afraid of him at first but when I got an introduction, he was cool. The pool halls attracted trouble and Bandito kept the lid on it. For that, everyone respected him. Ironically, he bombed at pool.

Being left to my own devices, the pool halls and shady creatures made me kinfolk. The back road racing I used to do was sort of dangerous and rebellious, but these dives felt edgier than James Dean could ever portray. My lonely evenings without Jenny would have been just that if I had sat at Diane’s with nothing to do. But the world I made shooting stick and knocking back pitchers eased my soured mind.

Staring down the length of wood, eying the strike of the cue ball, smoke from the cigarillos Keith introduced to me almost hitting my eye – I lived in that pose many times there. It sort of possesses you to the point that when you leave, you still smell like the pollution that you left behind those doors. Every thread of your attire absorbs its odd staleness. Its intoxicating aroma loops your mind as the beer and other liquors start loosening you up.

           I let the exposure get the best of me and a sick dose of emotion and sobriety turned me around the next day. I woke up in a seedy, dank apartment. Trying to undo the crick in my neck, I stumbled half naked through the garbage-filled halls trying to find out where I was. In the back bedroom were a sleeping Keith and some Puerto Rican girl, naked and posed diagonal on his huge purple bed. Gathering all my shit, I explored my way out of the apartment and realized I was near La Brea (having no idea how I got there).

In the parking lot was my car angled in an obvious drunken positioning maneuver. Thankfully, there were no signs of body damage to the Camaro. Off I went to all of Jenny’s haunts but came up empty handed. It had been twenty-four hours and was a legitimate missing persons deal, but Jenny would hate the fuss being made over her just because of this. My first instinct never included calling the cops.

Avoiding Diane’s seemed a better choice as I didn’t feel compelled to answer any questions about Jenny. Part of me didn’t even care if she came back and was alright. Really, I was too selfishly consumed by my damaged ego and not knowing what happened the night before. My recent memory seemed hazy. Keith later told me we were drinking 90 proof German vodka from the pool hall to his apartment. I didn’t make it too long at his place, but he and the tan prostitute found their ritualistic groove.

Slightly hung over, I went to work and sat in the back for five hours doing paperwork. Making up my lost hours from the other day and avoiding my realities, my isolation was supposed to allow me to push away the obstacles. My trouble was I couldn’t put the proper numbers together in my head to type into the adding machine. Mistakes, one after another, went line by line down the roll of paper ‘til I hit pink. It was apparent I was failing at my job that day, so I hit the floor and started stocking albums and tapes. Each one I put away that I knew Jenny had a copy of, I’d recall a moment when we had sat and listened to it together. So, depressed and blinded by all the exposed fluorescents, I left work.

“Having a band named Free and posting that word on your album cover seems like an open invitation to not pay for it.”

After getting some beans at Barney’s, I went northeast back to the pool hall. Keith was there with the same Puerto Rican girl I saw naked in the morning.

“Hey Eric, I didn’t hear ya’ leave this morning.”

“Sorry, man, I had to split.”

“No worries, brother.” Staring at two dudes, three tables down, “See them other there? They wanted to play us at the tournament. Since they didn’t, they got $50 that says they can beat us. What do you say we take these guys? Huh?” His girl smiled and nuzzled closer to him.

“I don’t know.” They looked like two dangerous individuals. Forget their billiard skills.

“Come on, Eric. Even if you haven’t got $25 to lay down with me, I got it covered, man. We can take these bozos.”

Hesitantly, I agreed to a best of seven contest. We won the break shot and the opening game as our opponents didn’t say much. They seemed to maneuver around the table like a unit, only changing form to adjust the toothpick in each of their mouths. After we then won the second and third game, their body language changed.

“I told ya’ Eric, we could take ‘em. We got one more set. It’s your break, brother.” I wound up making two mistakes but my opponent couldn’t capitalize due to where I had positioned the cue ball. At the end, he couldn’t sweep up the 8 & 9, so when he scratched, I won the game and the series.

Just as Keith went to take the money from the wooden barstool, the guy who had sat out my game grabbed Keith’s wrist, “I think you mother fuckers set us up. What do you think, Rodney?”

The other guy steps in, “Yeah. I think some white blood was trying to hustle us like we were a couple of dumb mother fuckers.”

Keith tried to pull his arm free, but even if he could, Rodney was flanking his left side. Keith pulled back a second time and was sucker punched by the one who wasn’t Rodney. With Keith on the floor clutching his jaw, the Puerto Rican girl flung herself on him. She turned to lunge at his assailant, but he backhanded her to the ground next to Keith. Now I was the only one untouched and they turned to me. Never backing down from a fight, I football tackled Rodney. As I pummeled on him, his buddy pulled me up by the back of my shirt, spun me around, and decked me across the cheek. The stars came out and flashed before my eyes.

When I caught my vision back from all that happened in an instant, I saw Bandito beating the shit out of both of them. Rodney had pulled a knife and Bandito cracked him on the knee with a cue stick, then straight up into his chin. After they hauled ass out of the joint, Bandito helped us up. Upon thanking him, I looked over and noticed the money was gone. Damn.

My face started to swell and throb on the way back to Diane’s. I hated to touch my cheek, but I was curious as to how much it had bulged from my face. At the grocer closest to my destination, I picked up some beer. On the way out, while holding a a cold one to my cheek, I just so happened to turn to my right and see Jenny at the pay phone, facing the other way. I got in my car and revved the engine. She turned to look, hung up the phone, and got in. I have no idea what she was originally started to blurt out, but she stopped when she saw my wound.

“What the hell happened?”

“I was in a fight.”

“Where?”

“The pool hall.”

“You poor thing.” She started to touch the knot but I stopped her.

When I got to Diane’s, she and Jenny were both playing doctor/mother, giving me ice, and asking how I got it. Caught up in the story, Jenny congratulated me on a billiard victory. Though I had two brunettes giving me attention, all of it delayed what I wanted to know: where had Jenny been the past few days? But finally the commotion simmered and Diane retired to her bedroom to read. Jenny and I stayed in the living room having a smoke. I purposely sat in the single chair, leaving her on the long sofa by herself.

“Now that you have me on the witness stand, I guess you’re going to ask me why I ran off like that?”

“That would be safe to assume.”

“I don’t know why, Eric. Really I don’t.” Interlocking her hands, “But I kept myself safe and didn’t get into trouble.”

“How so?”

“Well, when I left here, I hitched a ride and went back to work. One of the girls there, Teresa, allowed me to stay at her place that morning. As far as the next night, I stayed with Sissy while the guys were up in Topanga. When you saw me at the payphone, I was phoning Sissy to let her know I was almost home.”

“Why did you call from the payphone and not Diane’s?”

“Because I needed time to think and wasn’t sure what Diane would say once I got in.” She stuck an ice pack back to my aching cheek, “So, looks like you got into more trouble than me this time.”

“Yeah, a stupid way to make $25, that’s for sure. But on the bright side, I did see a naked chick this morning.”

She lowered the ice pack as her eyes got wide, “What?”

“Yeah, she was in bed with Keith. I woke up in his apartment and saw them sprawled out on his bed.”

“Was it at least worth the view?”

“Not as good as you, Miss Magic Woman Touch.” After I gave in and laid next to Jenny on the couch, I stupidly had to ask, “And during that whole time, did you take anything?”

“I smoked a little, yeah.”

“I guess that’s better than pills, right?”

“It’s organic. Settles ya' down. Sissy gave me one of Jerry’s joints.”

The wholesome image I had of Sissy was replaced by an enabler. I became angry at first, but then realized this probably wasn’t the first or last time this has happened. Why should I care though? I’d seen her smoke before.

“You seemed bothered that I told you.”

“I’m a little surprised I guess, but not upset.”

“There is a world I fit into when I spent all those months here by myself. The friends I found live unique lives, they do different types of stuff, and as I’ve said before: this is the scene, Eric. This is what people do.”

“You’re not in a band. You’re not a groupie. You’re a girl.”

“And I’m your girl, mister.” That calmed me temporarily. “I do these things because they’re fun. I don’t do it every day, I don’t really drink, and maybe you don’t know it, but that world I made with them I’ll never have with you. You don’t get high…”

“I think you’re confusing your friends for hippies.”

“I know they’re not hippies. We agreed about this before.”

“You’re right. And I don’t do drugs…”

“But you drink and you got your mini cigars.” I looked at Jenny, not knowing where to go from there. “Eric, you have your vices. So do I.”

Putting down my beer, “We should go out tonight.”

Enthusiastically, “Okay, where?”

“Where there’s memories.”

I gathered some food from Diane’s fridge, with the promise in my head I’d replace it, and we made a picnic at Hermosa Beach at almost 11 that night in honor of us, and for Kathy and Rick who were three thousand miles away.

“Eric?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

In the entry I cite below, Jenny is referencing a photo she kept in one of her notebooks. Though the photo’s lost, I remember that she was sweetly dressed like a Native American Indian, with her hair in braided pigtails, beaded headband, and long, tan gown for the 4th grade play. Beside her wide, dramatized smile are her mom and dad up on stage with her.

“I don’t know why I keep this photo except to remind myself of innocence. Ten years old and unable to understand the realities and terrors of life. My smile I adorned was honest, my mind still untampered with. Like a good little girl, I learned all my lines and participated in that stupid play to please my teacher and my mom and dad. I tried so hard to make them happy. Daddy gave me such a hard time because I played an Indian. I wanted to stay in costume even after the play, but he made me change backstage. He said he wasn’t going to parade an Indian in the back of his car and let the neighbors see. Even my braids had to come out. It just never made sense. He fought for this county in the Korean War, once admitting he enjoyed firing his gun into combat. I’m convinced he took as much pleasure continuing the war at home.

I’m not that little girl anymore. I wish I could say to Eric what my problems really are. Yes, plural: problems. And the problem is, I don’t know what all of them are. I’m sure someday there will be doctors better suited to handle people like me. Until then, I’ll continue to self-medicate.

Not to sound like a dike, but there are times I wish I was born a boy. Guys just don’t have as many problems as girls. And when they do, they handle their emotions so much better. I mean, some guys think with their cocks, but chicks bawl because of their eggs.”