Summer Days and Summer Nights (15 page)

*   *   *

Because we would be leaving for college soon, that night at Phases was different from the other times we'd come. Even then, we were aware of the significance of this change. It made the lights shine bluer and gave the music an urgent, melancholy sound.

My friends and I were wearing our vintage Keds canvas sneakers with pointed toes that we had found at Cowboys and Poodles on Melrose. The shoes and clothing sold there were all from the fifties but, magically, still brand new. We wore the Keds with miniskirts and white cotton men's T-shirts, which we had altered by cutting off the sleeves and collar bands and writing on them with pink marker the words “Healthy Pleasure.” This was in direct response to the punk boy gang who hung out at the same club and wore T-shirts that said “Sick Pleasure”, written in black Sharpie.

We never spoke to these boys, but they fascinated us with their short, spiked hair and tattoos. We didn't know their actual names but M had nicknamed them Rat Catcher, Little Italy, Horse, Ken (for the doll), and Mohawk. They were hanging out in the corner, as usual, under the strobe lights, dumping little airplane-size bottles of vodka into their sodas and watching us with smirks on their faces.

We'd given them not only names but also histories. Rat Catcher lived with his single, alcoholic mom near Phases. He started going there when he was twelve. He started smoking and drinking then, too. At Phases, Rat Catcher met Ken and Horse, who were both older, taller, better looking. But Rat was smarter and became the leader. We imagined that Little Italy, who always looked somewhat disheveled, was homeless, and that the others took care of him. He was their mascot. We didn't try to make up a story about Mohawk. He seemed like he wasn't as close to the others, even sitting at a distance from them, arriving and leaving earlier. Mohawk was always well groomed, not a trace of stubble on his scalp, at least from what we could see in the dark, and he didn't wear the Sick Pleasure shirts either.

“Think Pink” by the Fabulous Poodles played, and my friends and I rushed the dance floor like wild things, skanking around, flailing our arms, tossing our hair. We knew the boys were watching, but we pretended to ignore them, as usual.

More songs: the B-52s, the Go-Go's, Blondie. Music is so powerful and mysterious because it can bring up emotions you've buried inside of you. Dancing is a way to experience those emotions and release them so they don't get stuck in your throat or stomach or chest. At that time it was the only thing that made me forget everything else. I became just a heartbeat, a part of the music. I was completely free.

When REO Speedwagon's ballad “Keep on Loving You” came on, we hurried off to sit on one of the shag-carpeted benches that surrounded the dance floor. Sometimes, if we were in the mood, we would dance by ourselves to the slow songs. Secretly, I found this particular song romantic, in spite of how cheesy it was and the guitar solo I hated, but I would never have admitted my affection for it to anyone.

I was leaning against M's bare, brown, bony shoulder, still warm from the sun. J was leaning her strong back against my knees, L sitting by herself on my other side. I was gazing up at the spinning disco ball when I felt a presence watching me and looked up. Mohawk was there, so close I could have reached out and touched his large hand. He smiled with crooked teeth under a big nose that had obviously been busted at least once. I was self-conscious about the bump on my own nose and was planning to have it shaved off as soon as possible.

“Hey,” Mohawk said. “Want to dance?”

Another slow song was playing, and I hesitated. M elbowed me. We all did what M told us to do. She was going to Yale in the fall. She was the fastest girl on the track team. And she had won best dressed in school, even though her leopard print, stretch Fiorucci pants, patent leather motorcycle jacket, and vinyl purse with two cherubs wearing sunglasses on it were way too out there to become trendy in the Valley. I stood up without thinking and followed Mohawk onto the dance floor.

He put one arm on my waist and brought me close to him. His breath smelled clean, not like alcohol as I had expected, and his eyes were warm and twinkled.

“Why don't you and your friends ever talk to us?” he asked.

“You don't talk to us either.”

He grinned, showing those rebellious teeth again. “Where are you from?”

“Studio City,” I said. This was a small suburb of the Valley, on the other side of a canyon from Hollywood. “You?”

“Calabasas.” That was a wealthy area farther north. This, like his breath and eyes, was also a surprise.

“Why do you come here?” I asked him.

“I love to dance,” he said.

“But you guys never dance.”

I felt his shoulder shrug under my hand. His voice sounded deeper. “Yeah. I watch you dance.”

He pulled me a little closer, so our hips were almost touching. “Get on,” he said.

“Get on where?” I wasn't sure I liked where this might be headed.

“My toes.”

I looked down and saw that he was wearing heavy black engineer boots.

“The toes are steel.” he said.

I stepped carefully on and balanced myself, clinging tighter to his back and shoulder. He moved with surprising ease, me on top of him like that.

M was waving at me from the edge of the dance floor. “We're going now,” she was saying.

I stepped off of Mohawk's feet.

“Hey,” he said. “What's your name?”

“I.”

“I'm A,” he said. And then I had to leave.

*   *   *

When we came back to Phases a few nights later, the Sick Pleasure boys weren't there. I felt a coldness sinking through my body, from the base of my throat to my pelvis. I'd wanted to see A. I'd spent the last few days imagining dancing with him again. The solid feel of his muscles under my hands. The light sweat that pressed his T-shirt to his back.

I danced with my friends, but I was forcing it. Without Sick Pleasure, especially A, watching, I didn't feel inspired by the music. The chill sadness crept through my body again and I couldn't shake it off.

The music changed. Hardcore punk. The Adolescents, “Creatures.” My friends and I left the dance floor. Then Sick Pleasure walked into the club. They stormed the floor, skanking and slamming into each other. The DJ cranked the music and my ears rang and the strobe lights were making me dizzy. Was A with them?

There he was.

I just stood watching, until he grabbed my arm and pulled me out with him. I imitated the movements of the boys but they ignored me, except for A, who backed up into me repeatedly until I finally grabbed his shoulders and he swung me up onto his back and danced with me like that. The room spun around and I shut my eyes and pressed my face into his sweaty neck. This is one way to leave your life for a while.

The song was over and another one played. “Wild in the Streets” by the Circle Jerks. And another. Dead Kennedys, “Holiday in Cambodia.” I knew the songs from listening to Rodney on the Roq's show on KROQ. Rodney was odd, with his mullet and whiny voice, but he knew his music.

I kept dancing with A. Then the music switched back to my familiar upbeat new wave and, panting, A and I collapsed onto one of the carpeted seats. He showed me this little Xeroxed pamphlet he'd made.

“It's a zine,” he said. I pretended to know what that was, but I didn't, yet. It had collages of ticket stubs and flyers from punk shows and ink drawings of a boy with a Mohawk, who looked just like A, skanking around the margins. There were reviews of record albums and lists of favorite songs and punk venues.

“You made this?” I asked.

It was the ninth edition called
Suburban Kaos
. I told him it was cool. I especially liked the drawings of the skanking boy.

He grinned with his funny teeth and warm eyes.

The DJ announced there was going to be a fifties dance contest the next night.

“Hey, we should enter,” A said.

I was surprised that he'd ask me in front of his friends. I said yes.

*   *   *

I found an old dress of my mother's. She'd worn it to marry my father at the courthouse downtown. It was both of their second marriages, so white wasn't appropriate, she said. Since they'd gotten married, my parents hadn't been apart from each other a single night.

The dress was gold silk damask with a full skirt. The waist and chest were a little too big and the hem was longer than it should have been because my mother had always been taller and more voluptuous than I am. I belted the dress tightly and put on a pair of her cream-colored leather pumps with pointed toes and pearl buttons.

At Phases, I found A sitting by the DJ booth wearing a pair of black jeans, a white short-sleeved button-down shirt, and black and white creepers with heavy black rubber soles. He knew how to swing dance; it was crazy how good he was. The only other people in the contest were a couple of heavy metal kids, who seemed drunk, and some punk girl with bleached skunk stripes in her dyed-black hair and a silver nose ring, who danced by herself while watching A out of the corner of her eye. He and I won. The DJ gave us a mirror that said “Phases” on it. My charming partner, A, let me keep it. M said it was a coke mirror. Sick Pleasure sat in the corner and ignored the whole thing.

“Do you and your friends want to come to a party at my house this weekend?” A asked before M told me we had to leave.

*   *   *

Calabasas was dark at night, with fewer streetlamps and more trees than where my friends and I were from. A's house was surrounded by huge hedges. That Saturday night, M, J, L, and I walked up the lit path to a three-story mansion and went inside through tall doors. Loud punk music was playing, so we knew we were at the right place. Kids with punk hairstyles and clothes were hanging out drinking from plastic cups of beer. I wondered what A's parents did to have a house like this.

Where was he?

Rat Catcher and Ken were sitting on leather couches in the main room with a girl on either side of them. Rat Catcher eyed us narrowly. I felt self-conscious in my pink-and-lavender striped stretchy Betsey Johnson minidress that I had been so excited to wear. The girls all wore cutoff jeans or plaid skirts and torn T-shirts adorned with safety pins; their hair was bleached and teased.

We went looking for the beer in the kitchen and J filled our cups. I'd never drunk much before, and the beer tasted sour, but I chugged it anyway, hoping it would fortify me against my self-consciousness.

Warm hands around my waist. I turned and saw A grinning.

“You came,” he said.

“Hey, nice house.”

He took my hand firmly in his. “Come on, I'll show you.”

M gave me the stink eye, L frowned, and J smiled as A led me outside through glass doors. The pool shimmered blue. Beyond it stretched dark gardens. The air smelled sweet, like jasmine, maybe, or roses, and crickets and frogs chirped and croaked.

“It's so cool here.”

“Thanks. You look cute.”

“Thanks. I thought maybe I wore the wrong thing.”

“No. You look good.”

We stopped and stared at each other. I was suddenly shy. I still hadn't even kissed a boy. Neither had J or L, but M had already had sex last year. She said it wasn't all that great but she did feel kind of different afterward. I asked her how and she shrugged and just said, “Mature,” and the way she said it made me feel like a stupid little kid.

“You're the best dancer of your friends,” A said. I wasn't used to being the best at much.

Once, the summer after junior year, M, J, and I had gone on a trip to our friend S's beach condo. L didn't go. Her parents wouldn't have let her, even if she'd wanted to, which she didn't. M, J, and I didn't tell our parents that S's parents would be out of town. My parents didn't even ask any questions about the trip; they trusted me.

M, J, S, and I went to the beach all day. Then we showered, put on tight jeans, and walked from the condo to a restaurant overlooking the water. Some older guys approached us and S flirted with them. The guys ordered us beers and oysters. They had a limo and offered to take us to their condo for more drinks. S said sure, and the rest of us nervously went along with it. The condo was decorated in silver and black with a mirrored ceiling. The guys lay back on the couch, watching us dance for them.

“Let's see. Yeah, you're the best looking,” the blond one had said, pointing drunkenly at me.

Then he'd passed out, his friend went to take a piss, and we left, giggling, and ran home. We had no idea, at the time, how dangerous the whole thing could have been. And all I cared about was having been singled out for once.

I worried about S, but I didn't know what to do or even how to talk about it. There was something about her dad. I didn't like the way he looked at S. I wondered about her painfully bitten nails, her nervous laughter, and her flirtatious ways. The fact that she sometimes went out of the house without underpants on. Eventually her parents divorced and she moved away. I wish I'd said something.

Now A said, “Like, you dance like you mean it. Like you
have
to dance or something.”

“I do,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because I feel depressed otherwise.”

“Why?”

I shrugged and tried to smile. I didn't want him to think of me as a depressed person.

“Let's swim,” A said.

He pulled off his T-shirt and jeans and jumped into the pool in his boxer briefs. I stood there watching him bobbing up and down, spitting water out of his mouth.

“Come on.”

So I finished my beer in a gulp, took off my pumps and my dress, and jumped into the water. It was cold, and when I started to shiver, A swam over and put his arms around me. His Mohawk had flattened out against his head. I wondered what he would have looked like with a full head of hair. In the dark I couldn't see his eyes, but I could feel the cool, smooth flesh of his arms and chest, and I could feel his heartbeat in the night. His dick pressed against my thigh and all my muscles loosened against him.