I guess you wonder where I’ve been
I searched to find a love within.   –Bobby Caldwell

I believed my life was one long movie, without commercials interruptions and would go on for days and days. My cinematic renderings resembled all minutes intact. It was a movie as long as the summer break- and in my film productions I found myself wandering in the tall shadows on Sunday afternoons-contorting my body to resemble one large eye with legs-the UHF Channel 56’s Creature Double Feature of horrific proportions. The Brain that Never Dies. There were dare devil stunts that brought delight to viewers-the time I nearly fell out of the passenger’s seat of my mother’s moving vehicle. Deidre, you forgot to shut the door. Deidre, you forgot to wear a seat belt. And sometimes there were Houdini-like moments-trying to escape a locked station wagon without pants. I peed myself at my brother’s little league baseball game. This is what happens, Deirdre, when you drink too much juice.

My mother was concerned that I spent so much time alone standing in a field inside my noisy mind. 

The Brain that Never Dies. 

So, she called her sister, Peggy Walsh, in Malden, Massachusetts and after a lengthy conversation- it was agreed that I would stay in the home of my cousin Cathy Moynihan during the month of July to get out of my small south shore Pilgrim town. Cathy was 16 years older than me since my mother had me when she was forty-three years old. I was “a mistake” (as my brother put it) or “surprise” (as my mother put it). 

Cathy was a schoolteacher and versed in the best pedagogical methods to deal with hermits like me and besides, oh besides she was lonely. Her husband, Jimmy worked consecutive nightshifts at Logan Airport in East Boston waiting on red eye flights-airplanes that eventually needed to be vacuumed and scrubbed. Cleaning out planes on runways, Jimmy found all kinds of illicit and peculiar junk: lost ballet shoes, discarded barf bags, ugly scarfs, a half-eaten tuna casserole-cocaine found in a Fruit Loop box.

This Malden vacation was something that eventually became a yearly North Shore excursion comprised of visits to the Boston Children’s Museum, tours of the Wheelabrator garbage-to-energy incinerator (the first in the country), the historical Saugus Iron Works and, of course, Zayre Department Store to look for back to school bellbottom and purple velour clothing. 

Then we drove to Revere Beach, which Cathy coined “The Ashtray” since people flicked their cigarettes right into the hot sand-poured their warm beer onto the rocks. And some afternoons, Cathy brought me to Jimmy’s parents’ house. They had an in-ground swimming pool near Route 1 where I could hear the traffic: trucks, sports cars, busses whizzing by making me feel like I was at a motel pool at a vacation resort in Florida. Exit ramps were my Hawaiian shores- an overpass (with weeds cutting through the concrete) was my Cancun. And, in this paved-over world, I kept my mental movie making alive- a trap door underneath the diving board. For each swim, there was Jaws- released rising up to claim me. The pool was red and dirty with my blood.   

Cathy cashiered and bagged at Shop and Stop picking up extra money in the summer since kindergarten teaching paid so little. Around eleven o’clock while she went off to her job at the supermarket, Peggy arrived at Cathy’s and Jimmy’s triple-decker apartment in her brown Buick Century. As I entered the car- closed the door, windows up, the interior became hermetically sealed. Aunt Peg smoked cigarette after cigarette forcing me to breathe into my shirt filtering out nicotine air within the fibers of my collar. You Light Up my Life, was blaring on the radio speakers which incidentally was just above the plugged-in cigarette lighter. We headed to Kowloon’s Polynesian Restaurant for a pupu platter or sometimes Alexandra’s Italian Buffet for cannolis or sometimes Frank’s Hilltop Steak House (with the plastic Holsteins in front which, according to my Aunt Peggy looked like very realistic cows). Peg bought her Manhattan at the lunchtime discount prices and eventually, we ended up at the VFW barroom. Here, she continued drinking but this time it would be plain: a gin neat or a Budweiser. 

“This is where your Uncle Johnny drank himself to death with his friends.” She pointed to an empty stool by the exit door. “God rest his soul,” Peggy teared up clutching a brown bottle-The King of Beers. 

But to me Johnny was just another mythological dead uncle. There was Patrick who died of a heart attack at forty, and William who ended up locked up in a psych ward after War World 2  and the deceased Sean, the loan shark, who perhaps had a legitimate real estate business that also helped smuggled in weapons for the IRA and then Declan who became deathly ill from his addiction to hording hundreds of feral cats in his basement in Dorchester. 

There were no other children at the VFW, and why would there be, yet it wasn’t unpleasant. The bar was cool and dry and usually, my aunt left me to roam throughout the great rooms. I leaned on the empty pool table and rub my hands along the dark green felt- its fur the color of Oscar the Grouch. 

I walked upstairs and tip toed across the social hall’s dance floor reenacting a scene-from Saturday Night Fever…burn baby burn.. and headed outside to play Bacci Ball with old men who spoke Italian. They let me roll a couple of times then shouted “va via,” pushing me out of the way. “Find something to do little girl.” 

Jimmy worked for seventy-two hours at the airport, he was off for the same amount of time giving him plenty of space to hit the VFW bar, recover, and, finally, head into work to clean planes sober after a hardy “weekend” of binge drinking. Cathy often threatened to confront Jim’s boss-forcing him to change her husband’s schedule.  One day on and one day off.  He just laughed and called her a nag- taking a sip of beer.

One summer, Jimmy took a beer break- as he called it. He drank only ginger ale with a little ice, which I found strange; after all, he had always sat in front of the television with a six pack of beer, or some wine or a vodka bottle screaming at the television whether it was the Red Sox, American Bandstand or Soul Train. But the following year he was right back to his beers, wine and vodka- he continued yelling at baseball, American Bandstand and Soul Train which he once watched while in the reserves during Vietnam. He showed me some dance steps- moving across the orange braided rug tripping over a rocking chair.

It wasn’t unusual to wake up and see Jimmy passed out in the hall- his long form in line with the vertical blue stripes of the carpet. His eyes tightly closed; still in his Allegheny Airline uniform-his work boots off resting in the corner. When I found him this way, the mornings became the medical drama: Coma. 

“Well at least he’s not a professional pilot,” Cathy whispered picking up his socks. “Thank God for that. He’d have us all killed.”

Stories. Jimmy once flew a private plane on tequila with his buddies and bought a leaky boat with all of Cathy’s savings that she earned at Shop and Stop. But, to my mother and Auntie Peg,  Jimbo wasn’t really flawed. Not really. He was tall with fine features, dark hair and honest eyes. A Vietnam Veteran…well he was only in the reserves… He was just someone who worked hard and drank a little too much. He never truly harmed any one, they told me when I asked about why Jimmy did the things that he did.

“I mean…he doesn’t hit his wife, Deidre. He never raised a fist to Cathy,” my mother explained when I told her about the basement filled with empty beer cans. “And he buys you nice things. Remember that gold necklace for your birthday?”   

“Jewelry found cleaning a plane,” Jimmy once snickered.

But as I grew older with each Malden Summer-everything just shifted. I started to know things about boys and girls and how bodies worked. I grew taller and grew breasts and curves and my face wasn’t flat and flabby anymore but now sharp and determined-my hair flowed dark and wavy down my back and because I developed early, I looked mature for my age. I was twelve, but people mistook me for a high school girl. 

I began to notice little changes. Little moments. One afternoon at the VFW, as Aunt Peggy scratched her way to victory one-lottery tickets at a time, I just played with my fingers-too old to wander through the halls of Veterans of Foreign Wars-a movie set closed for business. I felt bored adjusting the straps of my training bra, which dug into my shoulder bones. Jimmy decided to come along and went to buy another drink up front then looked my way above shiny black chairs, above the Oscar the Grouch pool table. His glaze lingered heavily on my face-the great expanse made us unrelated-just another man and girl flirting across the bar. He came back and brought me a drink. 

“A Shirley Temple,” he handed me the glass. “Someday you’d want that with gin.”

I watched how the cherry swayed in ice. 

Off to Jimmy’s childhood pool, and predictably, I heard the sounds of the erratic Route 1 highway-the musical score of my deep-sea water films recalling the sharks that had once chased me to my death behind the trap door. Although Jaws was gone, a fear remained. Jimmy, who never played with me when I was a little kid, suddenly performed a cannon ball off the diving board, his beer can at pool’s edge. He swam stealthily underwater as I bobbed by the latter. I waded in the shallow end of the pool the color of Maui- aquamarine. Immediately, his rough hands grasped my waist and suddenly he threw me forward. I flew high above the watermark landing abruptly face first against waves-chorine shot up into my nose burning the inside of my nostrils. Jimmy laughed and said I was putting on weight but it looked good-especially in the front, which forced me to cross my arms over my chest. I immediately ran out of the water to find my towel and grabbed a long t-shirt that claimed “Nowhere Else But Malden,” in iridescent white letters. I pulled the shirt over my bathing suit covering up the parts Jimmy recently admired.

The next morning, I woke up early. The hallways of Cathy and Jimmy’s apartment were empty. I was thankful that Jimmy had eventually passed out in his king-sized bed next to his wife. Free of human intoxicated debris, I made my way towards the bathroom. I was nosey for a kid and lately took up the habit of rummaging through other people’s medicine supply cabinets, drawers and bureaus usually looking for makeup, which my mother didn’t allow me to wear until high school. Deidre, do you want to look like a hooker? Closet trespassing gave me a sense of control. Something I lacked as my body puffed out in every direction- becoming womanly and too soft which got me into trouble. 

When I opened my cousins’ linen closet adjacent to the bathtub, what I saw inside was the usual bathroom paraphernalia: towels, tampons, cleaning spray. And there was Cathy’s purple makeup bag. I saw her putting eye shadow into it the night before. I grabbed this soft pouch but what was revealed behind its smooth shiny cloth were stacks and stacks of dirty magazines and not the “Playboy Bunny” ones which my dad unsuccessfully hid in his sock drawer but pictures with faces marked out with thick black bars. These magazines held images of young women with bleached hair. Women on all fours. The men held whips- dangerous and exposed. And this collection was extensive. I counted over two hundred magazines up against the back end of the closet. They were well worn and ripped in places, annotated and highlighted as if there was going to be a pop quiz on sadism later. 

It was at that juncture, I wished I could return to the minutes’ before. Before secrets. Before the before when I was safe and played movies inside my head-unrestricted. Complete. I put the magazines back and arranged everything as neatly as I could and pretended the stacks didn’t exist because in truth they did not or should not since I prowled around where I didn’t belong trying to take lipstick and eye shadow. More importantly, would Cathy and Jimmy know I saw the blocked-out faces? The weapons? 

My brother said dirty magazines made grown men go blind. What about girls? I held two fingers in front of my nose. 

How many fingers am I holding up?

I called my mother later that morning and asked her if I could come home early. I didn’t feel okay. It was my period. Everything was my period lately-when things went wrong and I wanted to get out of an event: dinner with grandma, a basketball game, a test, unfinished homework, or, in this case Jimmy’s eyes and hands and his magazines. My mother told me to just stay a little longer. They were all out of town visiting grandma for the weekend. “I’m sure Cathy has aspirin and good thick pads? You’ll survive,” she reassured.

Lightening hit. 

Aunt Peggy had an obsession with thunderstorms and grilled food. 

She thought lightening was her fireworks; thunder was her Fourth of July. Aunt Peggy planned barbeques parties at her house around weather reports. 

Today, she lit the grill on her porch away from the rain and placed a trash barrel of chipped ice by her green and white lawn chair- ready for the new cans of tax-free beer that Cathy and Jimmy were currently buying up in the New Hampshire Liquor store across state lines. Raw hamburgers and hotdogs were stacked on a plate as raindrops made puddles on the ground by the wobbly front stairs. 

After my discovery of the dirty magazines, all day, I was unable to fix my eyes on Peggy or, Cathy and especially Jim again using the menstruation excuse about why I couldn’t tag along to New Hampshire on a packy- run for Lowenbrau. 

Jimmy and Cathy returned carrying boxes and boxes of brew up the steps. Rain beat down on Cathy’s long black hair. Drops danced off her lips. Jim moved towards the grill and began placing the meat on the hot charcoal. 

The horizon was Magnet and Steel. 

My aunt clapped her hands to the electricity across the sky- bombs going off all around. Lightening flickered against broken up sidewalks.

Jimmy challenged the earth- he stated he would drink as many beers as lightning bolts and soon counted three- but he really wanted to reach a whole six pack by the end of the day since he drove all the way up north to get the damn drinks. He quickly drank another beer or “bolt” while Aunt Peggy grabbed a can and ripped off the clip at the top- drinking the cool liquid then collapsed into her lawn chair with a smoke in her hand acting as if she had done more today than-just stare at the sky or listen to the police radio in her kitchen wondering why someone spray painted “whore” against the library wall or stole a color television out of Mr. Garofalo’s basement apartment. Just another “Peggy” day. 

I headed inside. The Merv Griffin Show was on TV in the living room-one of my favorite shows in the afternoon. Luke Skywalker was answering questions about the Death Star. Cathy leaned against the entryway with a beer in her hand, asked if I felt okay since I was so quiet. My eyes rested on the tops of my light blue sneakers. I didn’t have the words to explain how it was my fault for Jimmy’s flirting, my fault for stealing and for finding pictures of girls in pain- crying on beds made of straw. 

I stayed in the living room while the thunderstorm raged on only hearing muffled voices from the porch in the downpour. I was thankful for the reprieve-minutes away from people. Moving pictures always made me feel better. It was the images that remained still that scared me. 

My hunger outweighed despair and as I walked outside onto the porch, I continued to cast my eyes downward towards the grey wooden boards thankful that I still had my vision. When I finally looked up, the rain had lifted. The sky cleared. The evening stars were above us. One Venus. One Jupiter. 

My aunt signed… saddened that her light show had ended. 

“I still got my knitt’n,” she comforted herself-holding up the half-finished sweater to Roman gods-those ultimately responsible for closing up her barbeque shop.

When the mosquitoes came out, Cathy swatted one against her arm and said we needed to head home to their apartment. Jimmy was smothering out the coals with stale beer-the end of another thunderstorm celebration. 

In the car, Jimmy sat in back next to me since Cathy didn’t want the police to see the beer in his hand, which he continued to sip slowly- discreetly. Cathy placed a life supply of paper plates and plastic cutlery in the passenger’s seat and in the trunk. “Well, my mom had extra,” Cathy told her husband when he complained of a shit load of Dixie and where the hell would they store all that crappy paper. 

Just dump your girly magazines into the town inclinator.

I tightened my grip on my knees, suddenly having the urge to beg Cathy for a seat up front. Move the disposable picnic ware! But, what would I tell her about Jimmy and me? How he acts when people aren’t around? What could I say?  How could I even think it? Or, my stomach sank, would anyone care?

As Cathy got on the freeway, she remembered she had to pick up her paycheck at Shop and Stop. So, she pulled off onto an exit ramp and parked their black Chrysler Le Baron into a nearly deserted lot. It was now near closing time for the supermarket. Everyone went home or was heading home. When Cathy shut off the engine and headlights- she said she would be right back and slammed the door. I heard her flip flops snap against the wet tar and watched her move along the parking lot one foot at a time towards the store. I hoped “right back,” meant really “right back” and counted the seconds by tapping my index finger on the palm of my hand. 1…2…3….

Jimmy leaned his head back; shut his eyes-took a long deep sigh-his last on Earth. I only dreamed. He slowly turned toward me opening his red eyes.  An amber glow from the streetlight hit his face cutting it in half- one side neon and the other disappeared into dark. 

Shadow Dancing

I held my breathe.

I held my breath every time I drove near a cemetery. I held my breath every time the light changed red- until I was lightheaded and passed out blue. I held my breath…

“You know, you’re beautiful, Diedre,” he frowned as if this confession was painful for him.  He opened his window just enough to throw out his empty beer can.  Leftover rain sprinkled my cheek.

Jimmy stretched his arm and rested his large calloused fingers on my exposed upper thigh. I wore shorts every day in the summer and loved the liberation it brought me. “How about we go parking?” He asked.

“We are parked,” I coughed-letting go of my bad luck breath then shifted one leg and then other against the sticky plastic seats.  His hand did not budge-just gripped the muscle tighter and tighter under my flesh. 

Invasion of the Body Snatcher.

“Oh, cute.” Jimmy smiled. “You don’t know what ‘parking’ means.” 

 I just shook my head “no” feeling the weight of my legs push down against the red bucket seats.

“Oh, just as well.” He lifted his hand off my thigh right as he spotted Cathy heading back to the car. “Oh, just as well.”

I stopped visiting Malden for summer breaks and just told my mother I wanted to sit in my room and read and go to the movie theatre alone on Saturday afternoons. We argued about my problem with introversion but she finally let me be when I threaten to smash her new Oldsmobile Cutlass with a baseball bat autographed by Carl Yastrzemski. An inspiration taken from the movie, The Bad News Bears Goes to Japan. I wasn’t a violent kid but then I wouldn’t go back. Because, Catholic girls don’t say things about Nudy magazines…or being beautiful to men.  My mother told my Malden cousins, I was going through a teenage readjustment period and wouldn’t be heading to the North Shore anytime soon and then donated my brother’s little league equipment to St. Vincent’s. Sadly, Aunt Peggy died of Cirrhosis of the Liver when I was in high school. She was well into her sixties at the time of her death. I didn’t go to her funeral. When I quit my Malden trips – I ceased most correspondence with Cathy and Jimmy and learned of Aunt Peggy’s deteriorating health from my mother who believed her sister was born with an inadequate liver glossing over the fact that Peggy had a serious drinking problem. 

The Christmas before my aunt died, I received a sweater in the mail. The deer’s antlers were backwards and twisted. 

*

I don’t make movies in my mind anymore; I write them down in my notebooks during my breaks, in between classes or on the bus home from work. The other day, I finished a new script about a DC-10 that gets hi-jacked by a group of angry mimes in rainbow suspenders out of Tallahassee. The premise: The world is filled with reprehensible people (the grotesque) who litter the Earth with hate-destroying the lives of quiet law-abiding citizens. In an act of symbolic retribution- players, with red hearts drawn carefully over white clown make-up, scatter trash along aisles and in the cockpit-throw square shaped airplane food up against emergency exits. Bob Fosse’s choreography applied. Vomit. There is lots of vomit. And leg kicks. I wouldn’t want to be the poor sonofabitch who has to clean this plane-is the last line of the film. Credits Roll and then a child sings- Abba’s Fernando high and breathy over gentle rhythm of a Peruvian pan flute.  

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