Dani smiled. “Think he’ll be all right if we go?”
“In a few minutes this place will be crawling with hunky firemen. So, yeah.”
Dani turned the key in the ignition. The car’s first blast of AC was a blessing. “IHOP?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I could practically taste the pancakes, sweet and sugary good. They tasted like the future. Dani gunned the motor and faced the road where the bulldozers slept. Through the Mustang’s windshield, the horizon was a vague impression of clouds and stars, a long line of pleasant darkness just waiting to take shape. It was still a long, long way from dawn.
It was the first night of summer vacation when my friends M and L and I piled into J’s VW Bug and drove to Phases, the teen dance club deep in the San Fernando Valley, to escape sorrow and find the thing that we were looking for.
The four of us had spent the day at the beach and were all sunburned, even M and L, who were naturally dark. Heat radiated off of us, and J’s car was saturated with the rich coconut-and-chemical scent of Bain de Soleil suntan oil. I was the palest of all us, and by the end of the summer there would be actual blisters on my chest from lying in the sun so often. Later, the blisters would scar. On the radio, loud new wave music played and we bopped in our seats and screamed the lyrics—about broken glass and summer and driving and lust and the beat—out the windows. As hot winds blew us along the 101 freeway, stars that had died long ago burned holes in the night with their brightness.
My friends and I were intent on burning brightly that night, too. We had just graduated from high school and would all be leaving for college in a few months. No more SAT scores or college applications to worry about. But a lot of other things.
* * *
I felt safe with J driving. As a little kid, when people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she’d say “a hero,” but she’d settled on training to become a highway patrol officer after she graduated from college. She had learned to ski when she was three and to skateboard like a pro at ten, so I always felt I was in good hands when she was at the wheel. Once, coming back from a Knack concert, her Bug broke down in the fast lane of the freeway. J stayed calm while the rest of us screamed as we looked out the back window and saw headlights approaching, watched them swerve away just in time. A CHP officer rescued us. Maybe that’s why J wanted to be one.
I’d known J and M since kindergarten. We’d met the first day. M and I were both drawing pictures when the teacher came over to look. I was used to getting a lot of praise for my artwork. But the teacher picked M’s drawing of a horse and held it up.
“This is wonderful,” the teacher announced.
In ballet, the same thing happened. I loved dancing in my living room to my mom’s records more than anything, but I couldn’t follow the steps in class. M could.
“What a beautiful turnout you have,” the teacher told her.
She had always gotten better grades, too.
M, J, and I met L in our “gifted” classes in middle school. L was so quiet and mysterious with her smooth, brown skin and hair, her placid face. Even her frown was pretty. With her tiny nose, high forehead, and small, pointed ears, she sometimes looked like a slightly vexed cat. She was one of those girls that everyone has a crush on, but she didn’t realize it and wouldn’t have cared if she did. Or maybe she would have just found it annoying and stressful.
L and I did a science project together. Science was L’s favorite subject, though she felt strongly about never experimenting on animals. She loved animals more than anything, probably more than people.
I went to L’s house to work on the project. Her parents were kind, rather strict Mexican Americans, and she had two brothers who loved baseball. L and I baked batches of chocolate chip cookies, ate them all, and went on long runs together to burn off the calories. Then M and L started to go horseback riding or ice-skating after school and on weekends. I wasn’t invited, so I hung out alone with J.
She took me skiing with her parents, who were old-fashioned Polish immigrants with a house full of tiny china figurines. While J skied the steepest slopes, I took a beginner lesson. It was fine while I was holding on to the waist of the cute instructor, but when I had to go by myself I lost control and fell, tumbling down the slope. I never tried it again. To soothe our sore muscles and my bruises, J and I took a Jacuzzi outside. Mist rose from the water and snow glowed around us as I felt myself start to relax.
Some skinny, long-haired boys in ski jackets were huddled by the pool, watching us. We smelled weed; they were smoking. J and I got out of the Jacuzzi and ran past them, through the freezing air, to the lodge, not even bothering to put on our clothes.
Later I wrote a poem about that night. The silvery pain of the cold, the way the boys’ eyes made me feel warm, like gold.
I couldn’t ski, horseback ride, or ice-skate well, but I had inherited a way with words from my screenwriter father and my poet mother. Maybe I wouldn’t be a hero like J, a scientist like L, or an artist like M, but I wanted to do something with my life that would make people feel better, somehow. Words were the answer, but I didn’t know it yet.
* * *
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 woul
d 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 an
d 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.