The Good Times, the Bad Times (a memoir)

Day in the life of a certain young man in high school

The Good Times, The Bad Times (a memoir)

            Ever since my parents got divorced, my Mom latched onto fads and activities in an effort to help her cope--things like yoga, vegetarianism, and repainting the inside of our house every six months. The latest fad was church. Mom had been dragging me to a Pentecostal Church she was first brought to by a neighbor. I hated it there. It smelled like mothballs and old people and reminded me of the retirement home in Florida where my grandma lived. The speaking in tongues really killed me, too. I mean, do these people really know what they’re saying? But Mom had embraced it�"she jumped and shouted and praised the Holy Spirit every Saturday night in the front left pew of Danville Pentecostal Church. The only reason I didn’t refuse to come was because I could usually talk mom into stopping on the way home for a triple scoop sundae at Dunkin Donuts and renting a Kung-Fu movie at the Blockbuster next door.

            On a particular Saturday evening, December 18, 1993, to be exact, guttural tongues and amens echoed within the dim confines of the sanctuary. The fiery preacher waved his arms as he exhorted us to accept salvation.  The yellowish walls sloped to a point far above my head, threatening to crush me and all other non-believers who sat among this faithful congregation. In an effort to stay awake, I was fantasizing about the red-headed cheerleader who sat in front of me in pre-calculus.

A tap on my shoulder pulled me out of my daydream. I looked back, expecting it to be the same ancient man who usually sat behind me. He always wore a shoestring tie and used one of those walkers with tennis balls screwed onto the bottoms of the legs. Every once in a while he would invade my comfort zone in the middle of service and offer me an old piece of candy he retrieved from among the lint in the pocket of his lime green pants. Despite the fact that the candy may have been laying entombed in his pocket for decades, I would take it anyway and give it to my little sister in exchange for taking out the garbage for me.

Instead, it was a girl who tapped me. When I turned around, she was already leaning forward to whisper something. Her mouth was inches from my ear and her breath smelled like cinnamon. It caught me off guard for a moment. I expected the Old Spice and TV dinner smell from the old candy guy.

            “Isn’t this s**t ridiculous?” the girl whispered. I knew she was beautiful before I even looked at her. Her voice was smooth and silky, yet had the slight texture of a smoker. I craned my head further over my right shoulder to reply to her blasphemous comment.

            The girl in the pew behind me had dyed black hair tied back in a ponytail, with a violet lock hanging loose down the side of her face. She was stunning. An assortment of piercings dotted her smooth, unblemished skin.  Her granite eyes examined me from within dark-lined eyelids. She wore a faded black Led Zeppelin t-shirt, the one with Icarus plunging to his death, and blue jeans held together decoratively with safety pins.

I could feel my face getting warm. It was probably turning red. I also get a rash around the back of my neck when I get embarrassed. One time in history class, a girl who sat behind me was talking about me and said, “he’s cute, but only “first cousin” cute, not “let him ravish me on prom night while I get drunk on wine coolers” cute”. I don’t think she knew I could hear her. But the jocks who sat next to her noticed my neck turning scarlet and they messed with me for the rest of the year.

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

            My mouth was still open in an attempt to say something more witty or attractive than my previous reply, but I was at a loss, completely unprepared for this moment. Then Mom elbowed me.

            “Cecil, turn around and pay attention,” she whispered, keeping her eyes on the pulpit.

            I was mortified. The girl stifled a chuckle with her dainty hand. She wore several dull gray, metallic, rings that were marked with Celtic symbols and other runes. After soaking up as much of her beauty as I could without tipping off my mom, I kept my head and eyes straight to the front for the rest of the service, but I had a hell of a time resisting the urge to gaze at the babe in the pew behind me.

            After the preacher finished his exhortations and the congregation filed out of the sanctuary, I followed the girl toward the coffee area of the fellowship hall. My mom grabbed my forearm and held me back.

            “Cecil, don’t forget to find Mrs. Lindsey and ask her when she wants you to pick up her mail and newspapers while they’re gone for the holidays.”

            “Mom, I talked to her last week, don’t you remember?”

Exasperated, I hurried ahead, but she called out to me as I tried to catch up to the girl.

“Honey! Help your sister get some lemonade!”

I acted like I didn’t hear. Then Mom was accosted by two old ladies who she played bridge with, so I was in the clear. The coffee area was really a ping pong table littered with assorted coffees, teas, bagels, and other “after church” selections. The table was wedged in between bookshelves that contained assorted religious pamphlets and tracts that were supposed to passed out to our heathen neighbors. The girl was standing in line behind Mrs. Armstrong, a cranky old woman with blue hair. Seeing them standing next to each other, it made me wonder, was artificially colored hair all they had in common? Could Mrs. Armstrong, who always made me uncomfortable the way she glared at me in the coffee line every Saturday, have been a fox who flirted with strange boys in the middle of church a half century ago? I felt like I was witnessing the before-and-after picture of the life-cycle of the female gender.

The thoughts subsided quickly, overruled by my hormones, which were urging me to continue the hunt. I silently assumed a place in line behind the girl. Her back was turned to me, so she didn’t notice my presence.

            “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” I asked, in a lame attempt at a pickup line. This is something my mom’s last boyfriend, Bruce, would have said. Bruce was an accountant who played Nintendo all weekend while my mom harassed him to mow the lawn.

            She turned to face me.  “Hi...Cecil,” she said with a smile. Great, thanks mom.  My first name’s Cecil, but I always tell people my name is Rex. That’s not even my middle name; I just think it sounds cool. “Sure,” she continued, “I’ll take mine with a shot of Amaretto.” Not sure what it was, I asked the old man behind the table if they had any Amaretto. The girl giggled and he glared at me like he thought I was being a smartass.

            After we got our coffee, we stood face-to-face, while the old farts stood around talking about their pensions or the upcoming elections or their bad hips or whatever it is eighty-year-olds talk about. The smell of the burnt coffee hung over our awkward silence. I stood trying to dissolve the stale, powdered creamer into my Styrofoam cup with a red swizzle stick. But the white chunks just swirled around in my cup in small clumps.

            “So...”

“So...?”

I had nothing to go on. I didn’t know what to say or do. My heart was thumping and I knew whatever I had to say would make or break this encounter. She was waiting for me to break the ice, like a female animal trying to figure out if a male suitor is adequate for mating purposes.

“Too bad Hendrix would destroy Jimmy Page in a guitar playoff.”

Her mouth gaped with exaggerated shock and she lightly punched me in the shoulder.

            “Yeah right, Cecil. If Jimi was so awesome how could he go and choke on his own vomit? He had so many good years ahead.” She shook her head in mock disappointment.

            “Well, if Jimmy Page is so awesome how come he would wear those stupid baggy pants that went up to his armpits with stars all over ‘em? He looked like he should’ve been in Disney’s Fantasia.”

            “Ok,” she said with a scoff, “I’ll give you that.”

            In an effort to avoid the uncomfortable silence that loomed, I decided to pursue more personal topics.

            “So, I’ve never seen you here before. Did you just move here?” I looked down at my brownish, scalded coffee that I didn’t intend to drink. I felt inadequate and didn’t dare look into her grey eyes.

            “No, my mom just moved here after she got divorced. I go to Delaney College. I just came down for the holiday break.” She paused to sip her burnt coffee, then stuck her tongue out in disgust and set the cup on the table behind her.

“My mom made me come to service with her, so I only came to appease her before I hit the town tonight.” As she spoke, she had this cute way of twirling her loose bunch of violet hair, while she had one leg slightly bent and her hip kicked out at an angle.

            All I could think was that I had hit the mother lode�"a gorgeous college girl talking to ME. Most people thought I looked older than I really was. I was one of the few boys in school that shaved on a regular basis. Standing at 6’5”, people sometimes thought I was in college instead of a junior in high school. There’s no way this girl would be talking to me if she knew I was still in high school. I didn’t plan on giving away that information.

            “So what’s your story, Cecil? Hardened criminal out on parole? Army vet just come back from killing Somali warlords? Youngest real estate mogul in the country?”

            In an effort to avoid having to explain that I actually ride the school bus to James Madison High School, I deftly parried the questions with a reply of “All of the above,” punctuated by a cool smirk I always wanted to try after watching James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause.”

            She laughed and rolled her eyes.

            “Wow, I didn’t know Danville was the home to such studly guys.”

            The ecstasy was unbearable. It was building to explosive proportions. I was afraid I would spontaneously combust, becoming an obscure footnote of world history, my short life ending in anti-climactic fashion.

            She continued. “Well, seeing as how you’re probably high in demand among the ladies of Danville, I’m sure you’ve heard of the club under the old meat packing plant? I think it goes by the name of “The Elbow Room”.” 

I’ve lived here my whole life and had never heard of such a place. I’d have to admit ignorance, but hopefully that wouldn’t cause her to see through my tough guy charade.

“No, uh-uh,” I replied while shaking my head.

‘Yeah, not too many people know about it--kind of a secret. Some of us are meeting up there tonight to party and have some drinks. You should come out.”

I was shocked that this girl was actually asking me to meet her and her friends at a club. She continued speaking about a password I would need to get in, but I couldn’t pay attention anymore. This was too much for me to handle. Up to now, I could barely land a homecoming date. This past fall my mom made me go with the daughter of the lady that cuts her hair. It was a disaster--all she did was sit and talk about her boyfriend in Wisconsin and she would spit a little when she said anything with an “s” in it. Then she had an allergic reaction to something we ate in the “Fish and Anchor” and I had to take her home early. I didn’t even make it to the dance.

“Got it?” she asked.

“Huh?” Her question snapped me out of my catatonic state.

“You’ve gotta remember this word or they’re not gonna let you in,” she said with a giggle, “it’s......”

Vital questions began to override my ability to further process any information. Where was I gonna tell my mom I was going? It needed to be an excuse that would enable me to stay out late. No way was I gonna tell a college girl at eleven o’clock that I needed to get home or my mom would lock me out.

“You got it?” She waited for an answer behind a tantalizing smile.

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

“OK, well, I’m gonna go home and chill before we head out. We’ll be there at about nine o’clock, OK?”

“Yeah, cool”

“Bye....Cecil,” she said, drawing out my name like a third grader who was teasing me.

She stopped a few steps away and turned back, still twirling the purple streak of hair. “And bring some cute friends if you have any.”

I didn’t have any. My closest friend in high school was a grossly overweight defensive lineman named Steve whose floor I had to clear of Star Wars memorabilia (still in original packaging) when I slept over.

I was left in a state of shock over what had transpired over the past half hour. I thought she could quite possibly be “the one”.  Her all-encompassing possession of beauty, wit, and taste made her “soul mate” material. The way she playfully teased me about my name made my head feel like it was floating away from a lack of oxygen.  THIS was the girl who should be making my macaroni and cheese every Friday night while I watched “American Gladiators”.  THIS was the girl who probably actually owned merchandise from the Victoria’s Secret catalogs that my mom kept in her bathroom. I had to consider December 18, 1993, as the night my wildest dreams would come true.

The rest of the evening at church, I had that cold feeling of anticipation in my gut. After eating a stale bagel and answering the same questions one of my mom’s bridge partners asked every Saturday about my grades, I went home and concocted the necessary lies to enable me to stay out all night. I would be spending the night at Steve’s. Steve and his dad were both participating in a Civil War re-enactment the next morning. Steve could easily be spotted in the military formation as quite possibly the largest confederate rifleman of the Civil War (both real and re-enacted). We would need our station wagon to help carry equipment, so that put car keys comfortably in my control. With the logistics out of the way, I got ready for my rendezvous with the girl.

-----------------------------------------------

            While driving to the club to meet the girl, the lousy DJ on the local classic rock station played Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” without playing “Living Loving Maid” immediately after. Even my eight-year-old sister knew those two songs should always be played back-to-back. That’s when I knew the night had a good chance of ending disastrously.

            Last time I heard this kind of mistake, the pop station didn’t play “Mediate” after “I Need You Tonight” by INXS, and I got food poisoning from some Chicken McNuggets afterward. Also, the night Queen’s “We are the Champions” wasn’t played after “We Will Rock You,” just happened to be the same night that I found out the girl in my chemistry class, who I was gonna ask to prom, was found in a hotel room by her parents with a thirty-two year old “sandwich artist” who worked at the Subway outside of our high school. Well, for the third time, music selection from a rookie DJ might ruin another night for me...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            Angry eyes glared at me, framed by the rectangular peep hole of the club door.

            “Well, if you don’t know the password, get the f**k out of here,” said the man from the other side of the door.

The eyebrows slanted more diagonally with indignation the longer he waited for me to reply. The password was there, I just couldn’t locate it in my scattered, seventeen-year-old memory. I glanced around the inner entryway as if the answer would be written on the torn, vinyl floor or the brick wall, looking anywhere except the mighty gatekeeper’s eyes. I excavated the inner recesses of my subconscious for the magic words, but they were beyond my reach. The patience of the man behind the door had reached its limit.

            “OK, goddamnit.”

The eyes disappeared as the metal cover of the peephole slammed shut, making me feel like even more of a douchebag. Behind the thick steel door, I could hear the man calling in exasperation for backup.

“Hey, Jojo, come get this a*****e out of here.”

I should have listened when the girl was telling me the password to get in. Like other teenage boys, I had the attention span of a gnat. Now she partied on the other side of the secret club’s door while I was about to get bounced by Jojo. It was time for me to leave before Jojo emerged from the riveted steel door to assist me in vacating the premises. I thought maybe I could remember the password outside, where there was less pressure.

            The frigid New England wind attacked me as I stepped through the outer doors onto the sidewalk.  The club was inside of an old meat packing plant, which sat in the middle of the abandoned industrial area of the city. The air that wafted from the doors behind me smelled of cold cuts and cheap perfume. Decrepit, obsolete buildings surrounded me, disapproving of my attempts to join in the merrymaking that burgeoned within the club behind me. The vibration of muffled bass pulsed inside my inner ears and chest cavity.

I shook my head in disbelief. Tonight could have been the best ever. What was the password? Why couldn’t I listen? In an effort to pull the vital, possibly life-altering, data from my brain, I retraced the events of that fateful evening.

As I stood, trying to re-construct my conversation with the girl while slapping myself in the forehead, two goth girls walked up to the doors of the club that I exited moments earlier. They were smirking, no doubt at this tall kid that was talking to no one and beating himself in the head. They both wore faded black jeans, black leather jackets, and black t-shirts with the names of rock groups on them that I’d never heard of before (SEX SPAWN and ALIEN FREAK FEST). The shorter of the two had dyed black hair that covered the left side of her face and she wore a nose ring that pierced her septum and looked like something a bull wears in cartoons. The taller girl had her hair all buzzed off and was swiveling on the toe of her Doc Marten in order to put out the remains of a cigarette before entering the club. I suddenly felt the urge to put on a momentary show of adulthood.

“Can I get a cigarette from you, please?”

Without looking at me, Crew Cut, still blowing the last of her smoke out of her nose, pulled out a Marlboro Light and handed it to me. Before they could enter, I stopped them with one more question.

“Can I get a lighter real quick, too?”

Noting the annoyance one their faces, I turned on the same cheesy, awkward smile I used on my mom when I wanted to stay up past my bed time on a school night. Nose Ring stopped short of the first set of doors and retrieved a red Bic lighter from the front pocket of her jeans and handed it to me. They both watched me with a slight smirk, ready to either laugh at my awkward attempts at playing grownup or beat my a*s for holding them up, or both. No way was I going to ask them for the password-- I probably just put my life in danger by asking for a cigarette.

I inserted the cigarette into my mouth and raised the lighter. Before I could attempt to light it, Nose Ring corrected me in a deep smoker’s voice.

“You might want to flip the cigarette around, stretch.”

I was about to light the filter. This was the first time I had ever tried a cigarette. My uncle Bernie gave me a puff on a cigar once, but this was my first unsupervised exposure to a real cancer stick. As I flipped the cigarette around, they both looked at each other, and then laughed in a way that made me feel like my pants just fell around my ankles.  But I was determined to leave here with some dignity intact. There was nothing to do now but forge on.

After correcting the cigarette’s position, I attempted the flick the Bic. After spinning the wheel then mashing the button three or four times, nothing happened. Crew Cut took the lighter out of my hands, like a mother taking a steak knife away from an infant, and lit it on the first try. Once again, both Goth Girls looked at each other and smirked. Nose Ring took the lighter from Crew Cut and slipped it into the pocket of her leather jacket.

“Thanks, ladies,” I tried to say in a mature tone, but smoke choked off the last syllable. Of course, I failed to inhale and stood coughing with watery eyes.

The Goth Girls looked at each other and then broke out into a full blown laugh. Their guffaws muffled as they entered the inner chamber and the outer doors shut behind them.

I stood outside, alone, slouched a little facing the wall in an effort to block the biting wind. I repeatedly flicked the Marlboro with my middle finger, like I had seen people do at school, but knocked the lit portion of tobacco out of the cigarette while only about a third of the way through smoking it.

I felt like a fool, standing in the cold, pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I was a blister when the skin comes off early--raw, unripe, not ready to be exposed yet. Tonight’s bungle proved to me that I had farther to go. I mean, I didn’t even think to ask the girl her name, for God’s sake!

I should’ve been studying for my AP History exam on Monday...

I should’ve been watching my little sister’s silly sock puppet routine...

I should’ve been getting ready for baseball season in the spring...

I should’ve been with Steve in his kitchen eating cheez-whiz right out of the can...

I realized that I reeked now and I was gonna have to come up with some excuses as to why I came home smelling like smoke, instead of being at Steve’s. But on the way home I heard “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” and “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2,” by Pink Floyd, played successfully back-to-back, just as the gods of rock intended. The night may not have been a total loss after all. I figured I would just flash my mom the awkward smile and see if she wanted to watch Saturday Night Live. She liked that. And that Chris Farley was something else, too.