Punk Like Me (13 page)

“So? How’re you getting home?”

“Ringo,” I answered a bit smugly. “I’ll walk with you, and then Ringo will walk back with me, and that way you won’t have to worry about my continued health and safety, see?” I smiled—at my luck for having avoided death and at my own cleverness.

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“Mmm, Hopey, you inspire me,” Kerry drawled out in an undertone and closed in to kiss me, but this time, I stopped her. Something had been kicking around in my head, and I needed to know something very important, well, important to me, at least.

“Hey, I want to ask you something,” I said softly, as she put her arms around my neck. “I want to know who you’re kissing,” she kissed my neck, “when you kiss me.” She kissed my throat.

“Who do you think I’m kissing, silly?” And she kissed my lips. I lost myself for whatever length of time, but I stopped her again. Kerry had put her glasses on again while I’d been in the house, and now I couldn’t read the expression in her eyes.

“No, really, I’m serious,” I said in a low voice. “Are you kissing Hopey? Or are you kissing me? Or are you Maggie kissing Hopey or me?”

Kerry wouldn’t look at me as she silently played with the collar of my coat. “Aw, Hopey, you always ask the hard questions,” she sighed into my throat, and I smiled grimly to myself. Fine. I’d been afraid of that and expecting it all along. So this was my little red wagon to play with, all alone, and not hers, then.

Kerry looked up into my stony expression and stroked my cheek again. “Oh, Nina, does it matter really? If you’re Hopey and I’m Maggie, or whatever? All that matters is these lips,” and she kissed me,

“on those.” She inched back and smiled. “Technically, that is.”

“I guess,” I got out through a forced smile. I was feeling pretty stupid, or actually S-T-U-P-I-D, nice and big and spelled out in capital block letters.

Ringo whined and his tail beat against my leg.

“We should get going,” I said shortly, and Ringo jumped up to drag me forward.

Neither one of us was really in the mood to talk much on the way back to her house that second time, although we did hold hands all the way to her front gate. We faced each other and stood there silently.

“Hey, have a good night, Maggie, okay?” I Þ nally asked softly and gave her a lopsided grin. This weight was growing in my chest, almost painful in its intensity. I felt my eyes get large and round, like I was going to cry but wouldn’t.

“You too, Hopey,” she answered me, and we leaned into one another for a kiss on the cheek. Suddenly, Kerry threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “Nina,” she whispered in my ear, “my best

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friend, Nina,” and she kissed my lips with a ferocity I didn’t know she possessed, and I responded in kind, that weight in my chest let loose into a bursting, searing pain, like burning arrows ß ying through me and into her, anchoring us, sealing us together.

Finally we broke apart, but the pain didn’t stop. It felt worse, like I’d taken my skin off and my rib cage was open, my beating heart steaming in the November air for all to see.

“Go,” Kerry said brokenly. She was at the point of tears. “Go before I don’t let you,” and she kissed me breathless again. “Go.” She was crying and I could taste the salt of it. “Go,” she ordered between kisses and tears and Þ nally, Þ nally, I drew breath enough to say, “I can’t. I just can’t.”

The wind was cold on my face before I burrowed it into her hair, and I realized I’d been crying all this time, too.

We held and looked at each other wordlessly, helplessly. Don’t ask me where this sudden sorrow came from. I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know now. Maybe we’d been really scared by those guys that chased us down from the subway, or maybe we both knew that we’d crossed a line and couldn’t go back, no matter what we did, and that nothing would or could ever be the same again. Maybe we were both really disappointed that we didn’t get to see Dayglo Abortions after all.

Maybe.

Ringo just settled himself quietly underneath the bottom railing of the fence and lay on the grass, alternately observing and drowsing.

Lucky dog, with no decisions to make, no people to answer to, no expectations on him. He didn’t care if people said he sniffed butts or licked his fun parts—it was all part of being a dog. Feed him, pet him, play with him, and walk him, and he was pretty darn happy. I wished I could be Ringo.

Somehow, we Þ nally said our good nights and good-byes, and exchanged a ß urry of hugs and kisses and soft promises, and eventually, I got home. I remember being about two blocks away from home and just staring at the sky, then Þ nally getting back to my front door in a daze. Bet you thought I’d never get there, hmm? Me either. I looked up at the house, now all dark and silent, and up and down the street where I lived, the very occasional car going by at high speed.

Sighing, I led Ringo inside, snapped off the leash, and took off my coat. I hung both up by the door and quietly made my way up the stairs, my doggie friend behind me the whole way. He let himself into

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the room I shared with Nanny, and I went to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, washed my hands and face, and stared at myself in the mirror.

I didn’t look any different, really. My eyes were a little red around the edges, my nose too. But it was still my face, the one everyone else would see. I just didn’t recognize it, from the inside.

I made my way to my room, undressed in the darkness, and slid beneath the blankets on my bed. As I settled in, I lay on my back, head on one hand. I brought the other to my lips, and I touched them. They were so very soft, I just couldn’t believe that I’d actually kissed Kerry, that we’d been making out, that, oohmuhgosh, it was a girl. I didn’t know who I was anymore. Was I Hopey or Maggie? Was I still Nina?

Was I still even a girl? Still human? Maybe it would all be obvious to me in the morning, I thought, but as I drifted off, I kept wondering, why had those guys called Kerry a dyke? It made me feel guilty.

It should have been me.

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• 90 •

PUNK LIKE ME

Thump. Thump. Thump. Crash. Rustle, rustle. Crash.

“Good-for-fuckin’-nothing kid, out with that punk-ass-faggot dyke friend to all hours. Piece of shit’ll probably die of AIDS,” drifted into my ears and woke me in the morning as my father got ready for work at Þ ve o’clock.

This was how I had been woken up every day for the last few months. I didn’t have to get up until six, but my dad, who had to leave by six, was up and at ’em or, rather, me early every day.

Some days I was “good-for-nothing,” some days I was a “fuckin’

bitch,” and others I was a “fuckin’ monster piece of shit” and a “fuckin’

loser,” and he couldn’t wait until I was old enough so I could “move the fuck out,” and he made damn sure (hmm…bitter…do I sound bitter?

Sorry. Not bitter, still a bit pissed, though) he was loud enough so I could hear him, since my room and the bathroom shared a wall.

I lifted my head and opened my eyes to see Nanny sprawled and still deeply wedged in dreamland. I squirmed and tried to settle myself back in and struggled to fall back to sleep for another half an hour, but then I realized, there was that “dyke” word again, and about Kerry, too.

God, that girl had so many guys after her, it could make you dizzy.

And she didn’t look anything at all like whatever it was a dyke was supposed to, not that I knew what that was, really, just some vague notion of gym whistles and sweatpants. And if those guys thought she was a dyke, and my dad thought she was a dyke, what in the world was I going to do when people like my dad realized it wasn’t Kerry but me? And what was a dyke supposed to look like, anyway? And why

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“dyke”? What the fuck did that mean, anyway?

“Homosexual,” I knew. “Gay,” I understood. “Lesbian,” well, it just sounded too damned strange, like either an appliance (like a refrigerator or a lawn mower) or a job title, you know, “I got my degree, and now I’m a practicing lesbian, got my own ofÞ ce and everything.” I know, I know, Sappho, Isle of Lesbos, yes, I know, but still, it sure as hell didn’t sound like it had anything to do with women loving other women, and “dyke,” well, yeah, dikes hold back water in Holland, and there was a Greek goddess or something like that named “Dyké” (she had something to do with revenge, opposite her sister, “Até,” who had something to do with altruistic/universal love), but beyond that, it didn’t make any sense to me.

Oh my God. I opened my eyes into the darkness while my father continued his monologue in the shower. I had better get some damn understanding double damn quick. I spent over an hour yesterday making out with my best friend, who was a girl like me, and I was pretty sure that it would make me at least one of those words, if not all of them.

At that realization, I got so cold I started to shiver, and I huddled myself into a little miserable ball with my legs pulled into my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs for warmth. I shook so hard my teeth rattled in my head and made even my eyes hurt.

By the time my father Þ nished his morning ablutions, left for work, and my mom came in to the bedroom to give Nanny and me good-morning kisses, my bone shaking and teeth rattling had made me sweat, even though I was freezing under the bedclothes.

Nanny’s bed was closer to the door, so that’s where my mom went Þ rst. “Good morning, good morning, good morning to you,” my mom sang to Nanny, who grunted and rolled as close to the wall as possible.

I heard the kiss my mom placed on Nanny’s cheek.

“Noooooo, leave me alooooone,” groaned Nanny. She was always a big grump in the morning.

“Rise and shine, sweetheart,” my mom answered gently. “The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the school bus is here in forty-Þ ve minutes.”

Nanny groaned and ß opped about again, and Þ nally got to her feet. “I’m not feeling shiny,” she grumbled as she made her way out of the bedroom, “and there’s no sun, and I hate birds,” she continued as

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she stumbled into the bathroom.

I stayed huddled in my little miserable self as my mom came closer and closer and Þ nally sat on the edge of my bed. “Hey, morning bird, you’re not singing today,” my mom said gently as she leaned down to kiss me and lay a hand on my face.

Her Þ ngers felt nice on my cheek, cool and soft.

“Nina!” she exclaimed in dismay, “you’re burning up! How do you feel? Does your stomach hurt? Is your throat scratchy? Is your head okay?” she asked me, all concern as she laid her hands all over my face and neck to see if I was warm everywhere.

“Head hurts a little, Mom,” I croaked out. “Little nauseous, too,” which was true, because thinking about what those words meant was giving me a headache, and knowing how my father would use them for me with such anger made the bile come up in my throat.

God, I wondered if Kerry was still my friend. Maybe last night didn’t mean anything, she was just being cool and punk; maybe it was supposed to just be a game, you know, playacting Hopey and Maggie, nothing to get hung about; maybe she didn’t want to hang out with me anymore because I wasn’t normal. Maybe she’d tell everyone and I’d lose all my friends, and it would eventually get back to my parents so they could hate me. Maybe she hated me, too. The wondering made me hurt everywhere, and I hugged my knees closer for comfort.

“Nanny!” my mom called, “bring me the Tylenol and a cup of water, please!”

I heard the cabinet doors slide open and Nanny rustle around in them as she followed Mom’s request.

“Oh, and the thermometer, too!” Mom added, her hand holding one of mine. She reached up to brush the hair off my brow, and I ß inched, imagining how quickly that caress could become a blow if she knew who her daughter really was. Don’t get me wrong. I know my mom loved me, but my dad could get her crazy, just wind her up like a top and watch her spin on whatever it was he was mad at, and he’d just watch. And it wouldn’t matter who was on the side of the angels, once Mom got going. She was hard, no, make that impossible, to stop.

I remember one time when my mom went to work on a Saturday, my dad had set us to do chores. He went after Nicky in the yard—poor Nicky had forgotten to clean something, most likely, since he’d only been eight or so at the time—and before you could say “oh shit!” the big

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guy had lifted Nicky by his striped T-shirt and bent him backward over the porch railing. As he started to rain punches on my brother’s ribs, I panicked and jumped on my dad, hanging from his neck, screaming how I hated him. Well, he stopped hitting Nicky and chased me for a little while until I got out of the yard and hid in the woods down the block.

I Þ nally got home just a little bit before my mom did, and when she walked through the door, late in the afternoon and tired from her sixth day of work that week, my dad jumped in her face and started ranting and raving at her about how terrible me and Nicky were, how he had no control over us, and how she’d better do something and do it right damn now because he’d had it and blah blah blah. All this, and she hadn’t even taken off her jacket or put her bag down. In fact, she wasn’t even fully in the house yet. Three guesses what would happen next. She’d try to say hello, she’d try to talk over him, then she’d be, well, just broken, I guess, and start screaming too, and then, time to get

“Suzy,” which is what we called the belt. Or if she was just too upset, it was time for the shoe toss. Ow, dammit.

Mom misread my ß inching for pain. “Poor baby,” she murmured and kissed my hand instead. “You stay home today and feel better, okay, little bird?”

“Okay, Mom,” I agreed and smiled weakly, because I really did feel like hell. I snuggled farther into my pillow.

Nanny came in at this and stood there in wide-eyed amazement.

“Hey, I don’t feel good”—cough, cough—“my head hurts,” she protested. “I should stay home, too.”