At first I didn’t understand about my friend’s
mother. My high school friend, a shy,
petite red-head invited me over to the house one afternoon. I had nowhere better to be and I knew I could
smoke cigarettes. Halleluiah a parent
who let the kids smoke! I didn’t know
about the boys. Every day they were
there. Boys who no longer went to school. They were mystery boys. They worked on
construction sites, if they worked. They all had some type of hustle, legal or
illegal. No one talked much about the
9-5 grind. The girls went to
school. The mother stayed home. The boys came over. We waited for them as
they sauntered through the screen door one by one. I remember they were different, they spoke
their own language, and they were a little bit dirty. An exotic breed. It was a house for wayward
kids, and lost boys.
It took me weeks to realize that eventually the mother would
disappear and so would Pedro. I was
fifteen and completely self-absorbed. At
fifteen I didn’t possess a finally honed social radar. It wasn’t bad, but then again, there were so
many boys it was distracting. I was absorbed with Mike, therefore, not the entire picture
just one piece of it. Pedro was the
leader of the pack. Mike was
second in command. In my book the rule is if you
can’t have the lead singer go for the guitar player.
My radar was good enough to know I made the mom
uncomfortable. I was a fifteen year old
stunner. Shit, I caused a fender bender
just walking to the 7-11. Cut-off denim
shorts, halter top, 5”platform sandals, long, dark, curly hair, and curves
shaped by my partial Jamaican heritage.
BOOM! Those dudes couldn’t look
away. Whatever, I had a pack of
Marlboro’s to buy. Yeah, the mom spotted
competition the moment her daughter invited me into the den. She got revenge, she plucked my eyebrows to
the point where they never grew back, not to this day.
Every evening as dusk settled the commotion began. Get them out before the
husband comes home. Someone kept
look-out. It might have been the
daughter. She had her own boy. He was a boy.
Not one of the almost-men.
Smaller, cleaner, much less dangerous, she wasn’t looking for adventure.
She was following her mom’s lead, but in a smaller way, the way her tiny frame
dictated. The husband was a cop. His occupation made the whole business even
more corrupt. Being busted by a
cop! Visions of unspeakable violence
danced through my head. The scary truth,
my perception of the situation was nothing compared to reality. It took me too
long to figure out what was there all along. I was so naive.
I’d met the cop. He was nice. Gentle even.
A hard working man. Seemed to me
he was doing his best. Although,
sometimes best is never enough. Okay, yes,
they were the archetypal blue collar family. I had the sense to know I didn’t
belong there. In the unspoken caste system of suburbia I was middle class. But,
that’s exactly why I was there. Face it,
I was a lot like her, the dangerous type.
It comes at a cost. Mine wasn’t
as high. What was the mom looking for?
What did her husband do to deserve the daily locked door with a teenage
lover behind it? I sensed something vengeful
in her actions. She emanated an aura of “fuck you” whenever the husband came
home. I knew her daughter was
embarrassed by whole bit, but we never spoke of it. Funny how when things are terribly wrong
teenagers lose their voices.
Later on I realized that everyone knew. Maybe not the whole of the thing, but some
sordid detail of it. I mean the entire make-up of our section of suburbia, blue
collar, middle class and upper class, knew something of the tale. When almost every family knows something,
eventually even mine, her husband had to know.
I was fifteen. Denial was not in
my vocabulary.
For a while, even after I found out, I continued to make out
with Mike. I let him touch me in
places. Eventually, we went beyond the
couch and moved outside to his red van where no one could see him put his hands
down my jeans. That’s as far as it
went. Hands here and there. Blue balls.
Fantasies. A red van. The stench of stale beer. He had no real
home. Never told me the story. I offered solutions and full pouty lips. Mother Mary in tight jeans and a halter. Eventually I got bored. Truth told, I got disgusted. I couldn’t wipe
away the image of what he did, what they did. And as long as I allowed his
hands on me I was guilty too. I needed to get back to where I was safe, the
high school boys who lived at home, went to class and made out with me after
school in the parking lot. In the daylight. They would never hurt me. They would never do that thing he took part
in. Never.
The mom, one night, drove those boys, all of them, an
estimate of twelve or ten, too many, to
the parking lot of the high school. She
drove the family car. An old beat up 70’s station wagon. Something you might see on The Brady Bunch. I
think she knew what was going to happen, but what does a fifteen year old know?
Was this an unspoken assignation?
She knew the things they were capable of, and she was well schooled on the
libido of an almost-man, an eighteen year old.
But some say she didn’t. Back
door opened wide. Pants and panties
pulled off. Legs opened wide. I imagine her arms spread too, and nailed
down. Sacrificial. Crucified.
Maybe he started it, or maybe he stood aside, master of ceremonies,
master of puppets. One by one they
penetrated. They pulled out and came on
her belly, on her tits, on her face.
What was her expression? Some say
she played with their cum. Rubbed it in like
body lotion. Anointed herself. Saving them.
Saving herself. They approached her with flies unzipped. What was her expression? Shock? Fear?
Detachment? Delight? Some say she loved it, couldn’t get enough of
it. She’s thin, she’s deep, she’s
birthed babies; she could take it. Take
it. Take it. Take it.
Did they say that? Take it
bitch. Take it whore. You know you want it. You love it slut. Shut up and take it. Or were they silent? Cowards. All of them. Did she cry out for help? Or did she look at Pedro for approval? Is that all she wanted? His approval?
An affirmation from him that she was worth something? Or did she want an act of final and complete
revenge on her husband? Did it have nothing
to do with them? Did she want to do it?
What happened after?
Was there blood? Was she
hurt? Did she cry? Did she feel victory? Did she prove something? To those boys? To herself? She was just like them. Yeah, she could fuck too. She could fuck so hard she could out fuck
them. Did it give her dignity? Was that what her husband couldn’t give her?
Dignity? Was that what life as a blue
collar house wife stripped her of?
Dignity? In the dark, in the back of a station wagon, in a high school
parking lot did she find it? Dignity? A gang bang. Is that what a woman with broken dreams needs to do to find it? Dignity.
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