When they start playing “Do the Math,” Lou yells in my ear, Whose idea was the violin?
I go, Bennie’s.
Kid on bass?
I nod, and Lou watches Bennie for a minute and I watch him too. Lou goes, Not much of a player.
But he’s—, I try to explain. The whole thing is his—
Something gets tossed at the stage that looks like glass, but when it hits Scotty’s face thank God it’s only ice from a drink. Scotty flinches but keeps on playing, and then a Budweiser can flies up and clips Marty right in the forehead. Jocelyn and I look at each other panicked, but when we try to move, Lou anchors us. The Dildos start playing “What the Fuck?” but now garbage is spewing at the stage, chucked by four guys with safety-pin chains connecting their nostrils to their earlobes. Every few seconds another drink strikes Scotty’s face. Finally he just plays with his eyes shut, and I wonder if he’s seeing the scar spots. Alice is trying to tackle the garbage throwers now, and suddenly people are slam-dancing
hard
, the kind of dancing that’s basically fighting. Joel clobbers his drums as Scotty tears off his dripping T-shirt and snaps it at one of the garbage throwers, right in the guy’s face with a twangy crack, and then at another one—
snrack
—like my brothers snapping bath towels, but sharper. The Scotty magnet is starting to work—people watch his bare muscles shining with sweat and beer. Then one of the garbage throwers tries to storm the stage, but Scotty kicks him in the chest with the flat of his boot—there’s a kind of gasp from the crowd as the guy flies back. Scotty’s smiling now, grinning like I almost never see him grin, wolf teeth flashing, and I realize that, out of all of us, Scotty is the truly angry one.
I turn to Jocelyn, but she’s gone. Maybe my thousand eyes are what tell me to look down. I see Lou’s fingers spread out over her black hair. She’s kneeling in front of him, giving him head, like the music is a disguise and no one can see them. Maybe no one does. Lou’s other arm is around me, which I guess is why I don’t run, although I could, that’s the thing. But I stand there while Lou mashes Jocelyn’s head against himself again and again so I don’t know how she can breathe, until it starts to seem like she’s not even Jocelyn, but some kind of animal or machine that can’t be broken. I force myself to look at the band, Scotty snapping the wet shirt at people’s eyes and knocking them with his boot, Lou grasping my shoulder, squeezing it harder, turning his head to my neck and letting out a hot, stuttering groan I can hear even through the music. He’s that close. A sob cracks open in me. Tears leak out from my eyes, but only the two in my face. The other thousand eyes are closed.
The walls of Lou’s apartment are covered with electric guitars and gold and silver record albums, just like Jocelyn said. But she never mentioned that it was on the thirty-fifth floor, six blocks away from the Mab, or the green marble slabs in the elevator. I think that was a lot to leave out.
In the kitchen, Jocelyn pours Fritos into a dish and takes a glass bowl of green apples out of the refrigerator. She’s already passed around quaaludes, offering one to every person except me. I think she’s afraid to look at me.
Who’s the hostess now?
I want to ask.
In the living room, Alice is sitting with Scotty, who wears a Pendleton shirt from Lou’s closet and looks white and shaky, maybe from having stuff thrown at him, maybe because he understands for real that Jocelyn has a boyfriend and it isn’t him, and never will be. Marty is there, too; he’s got a cut on his cheek and an almost-black eye and he keeps going, That was intense, to no one in particular. Joel got driven straight home, of course. Everyone agrees the gig went well.
When Lou leads Bennie up a curling staircase to his recording studio, I tag along. He calls Bennie “kiddo” and explains each machine in the room, which is small and warm with black foam points all over the walls. Lou’s legs move restlessly and he eats a green apple with loud cracks, like he’s gnawing rock. Bennie glances out the door toward the rail overlooking the living room, trying to get a glimpse of Alice. I keep being about to cry. I’m worried that what happened in the club counts as having sex with Lou—that I was part of it.
Finally I go back downstairs. Off the living room I notice a door partly open, a big bed just beyond it. I go in and lie facedown on a velvet bedspread. A peppery incense smell trickles up around me. The room is cool and dim, with pictures in frames on both sides of the bed. My whole body hurts. After a few minutes someone comes in and lies down next to me, and I know it’s Jocelyn. We don’t say anything, we just lie there side by side in the dark. Finally I go, You should’ve told me.
Told you what? she goes, but I don’t even know. Then she goes, There’s too much, and I feel like something is ending, right at that minute.
After a while, Jocelyn turns on a lamp by the bed. Look, she goes. She’s holding a framed picture of Lou in a swimming pool surrounded by kids, the two littlest ones almost babies. I count six. Jocelyn goes, They’re his
children
. That blond girl, everyone calls her Charlie, she’s twenty. Rolph, that one, he’s our age. They went to Africa with him.
I lean close to the picture. Lou looks so happy, surrounded by his kids like any normal dad, that I can’t believe this Lou with us is the very same Lou. Then I notice his son Rolph. He has blue eyes and black hair and a bright, sweet smile. I get a crawling feeling in my stomach. I go, Rolph is decent, and Jocelyn laughs and goes, Really. Then she goes, Don’t tell Lou I said that.
He comes into the bedroom a minute later, rock-crunching another apple. I realize the apples are completely for Lou, he eats them nonstop. I slide off the bed without looking at him, and he shuts the door behind me.
It takes me a second to get what’s going on in the living room. Scotty is sitting cross-legged, picking at a gold guitar in the shape of a flame. Alice is behind him with her arms around his neck, her face next to his, her hair falling into his lap. Her eyes are closed with joy. I forget who I actually am for a second—all I can think is how Bennie will feel when he sees this. I look around for him, but there’s just Marty peering at the albums on the wall, trying to be inconspicuous. And then I notice the music flooding out of every part of the apartment at once—the couch, the walls, even the floor—and I know Bennie’s alone in Lou’s studio, pouring music around us. A minute ago it was “Don’t Let Me Down.” Then it was Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” Now it’s Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger”:
I am the passenger
And I ride and I ride
I ride through the city’s backside
I see the stars come out of the sky
Listening, I think, You will never know how much I understand you.
I notice Marty looking over at me kind of hesitant, and I see how this is supposed to work: I’m the dog, so I get Marty. I slide open a glass door and go onto Lou’s balcony. I’ve never seen San Francisco from so high up: it’s a soft blue-black, with colored lights and fog like gray smoke. Long piers reach out into the flat dark bay. There’s a mean wind, so I run in for my jacket and then come back out and curl up tightly on a white plastic chair. I stare at that view until I start to get calm. I think, The world is actually huge. That’s the part no one can really explain.
After a while the door slides open. I don’t look up, thinking it’s Marty, but it turns out to be Lou. He’s barefoot, wearing shorts. His legs are tan even in the dark. I go, Where’s Jocelyn?
Asleep, Lou goes. He’s standing at the railing, looking out. It’s the first time I’ve seen him be still.
I go, Do you even remember being our age?
Lou grins at me in my chair, but it’s a copy of the grin he had at dinner. I
am
your age, he goes.
Ahem, I go. You have six kids.
So I do, he goes. He turns his back, waiting for me to disappear. I think, I didn’t have sex with this man. I don’t even know him. Then he goes, I’ll never get old.
You’re already old, I tell him.
He swivels around and peers at me huddled in my chair. You’re scary, he goes. You know that?
It’s the freckles, I go.
It’s not the freckles, it’s
you
. He keeps looking at me, and then something shifts in his face and he goes, I like it.
Do not.
I do. You’re gonna keep me honest, Rhea.
I’m surprised he remembers my name. I go, It’s too late for that, Lou.
Now he laughs, really laughs, and I understand that we’re friends, Lou and I. Even if I hate him, which I do. I get out of my chair and come to the railing, where he is.
People will try to change you, Rhea, Lou goes. Don’t let ’em.
But I want to change.
No, he goes, serious. You’re beautiful. Stay like this.
But the freckles, I go, and my throat gets that ache.
The freckles are the best part, Lou says. Some guy is going to go apeshit for those freckles. He’s going to kiss them one by one.
I start to cry, I don’t even hide it.
Hey, Lou goes. He leans down so our faces are together, and stares straight into my eyes. He looks tired, like someone walked on his skin and left footprints. He goes, The world is full of shitheads, Rhea. Don’t listen to them—listen to me.
And I know that Lou is one of those shitheads. But I listen.
Two weeks after that night, Jocelyn runs away. I find out with everyone else.
Her mother comes straight to our apartment. She and my parents and older brother sit me down: What do I know? Who is this new boyfriend? I tell them Lou. He lives in LA and has six children. He knows Bill Graham personally. I think Bennie might know who Lou actually is, so Jocelyn’s mom comes to our school to talk with Bennie Salazar. But he’s hard to find. Now that Alice and Scotty are together, Bennie has stopped coming to the Pit. He and Scotty still don’t talk, but before they were like one person. Now it’s like they’ve never met.
I can’t stop wondering: If I’d pulled away from Lou and fought the garbage throwers, would Bennie have settled for me like Scotty settled for Alice? Could that one thing have made all the difference?
They track down Lou in a matter of days. He tells Jocelyn’s mom that she hitchhiked all the way to his house without even warning him. He says she’s safe, he’s taking care of her, it’s better than having her on the street. Lou promises to bring her back when he comes to the city next week. Why not
this
week? I wonder.
While I’m waiting for Jocelyn, Alice invites me over. We take the bus from school, a long ride to Sea Cliff. Her house looks smaller in daylight. In the kitchen, we mix honey with her mother’s homemade yogurts and eat two each. We go up to her room, where all the frogs are, and sit on her built-in window seat. Alice tells me she’s planning to get real frogs and keep them in a terrarium. She’s calm and happy now that Scotty loves her. I can’t tell if she’s actually real, or if she’s stopped caring if she’s real or not. Or is not caring what
makes
a person real?
I wonder if Lou’s house is near the ocean. Does Jocelyn look at the waves? Do they ever leave Lou’s bedroom? Is Rolph there? I keep getting lost in these questions. Then I hear giggling, pounding from somewhere. I go, Who’s that?
My sisters, Alice goes. They’re playing tetherball.
We head downstairs and outside into Alice’s backyard, where I’ve only been in the dark. It’s sunny now, with flowers in patterns and a tree with lemons on it. At the edge of the yard, two little girls are slapping a bright yellow ball around a silver pole. They turn to us, laughing in their green uniforms.
Safari
I. Grass
“Remember, Charlie? In Hawaii? When we went to the beach at night and it started to rain?”
Rolph is talking to his older sister, Charlene, who despises her real name. But because they’re crouched around a bonfire with the other people on the safari, and because Rolph doesn’t speak up all that often, and because their father, Lou, sitting behind them on a camp chair (as they draw in the dust with little sticks), is a record producer whose personal life is of general interest, those near enough to hear are listening closely.
“Remember? How Mom and Dad stayed at the table for one more drink—”
“Impossible,” their father interjects, with a wink at the bird-watching ladies to his left. Both women wear binoculars even in the dark, as if hoping to spot birds in the firelit tree overhead.
“Remember, Charlie? How the beach was still warm, and that crazy wind was blowing?”
But Charlie is focused on her father’s legs, which have intertwined behind her with those of his girlfriend, Mindy. Soon they will bid the group good night and retreat to their tent, where they’ll make love on one of the narrow rickety cots inside it, or possibly on the ground. From the adjacent tent she and Rolph share, Charlie can hear them—not sounds, exactly, but movement. Rolph is too young to notice.
Charlie throws back her head, startling her father. Lou is in his late thirties, square-jawed surfer’s face gone a little draggy under the eyes. “You were married to Mom on that trip,” she informs him, her voice distorted by the arching of her neck, which is encircled by a puka-shell choker.
“Yes, Charlie,” Lou says. “I’m aware of that.”
The elderly bird-watching ladies trade a sad smile. Lou is one of those men whose restless charm has generated a contrail of personal upheaval that is practically visible behind him: two failed marriages and two more kids back home in LA, who were too young to bring on this three-week safari. The safari is a new business venture of Lou’s old army buddy, Ramsey, with whom he drank and misbehaved, having barely avoided Korea almost twenty years ago.
Rolph pulls at his sister’s shoulder. He wants her to remember, to feel it all again: the wind, the endless black ocean, the two of them peering into the dark as if awaiting a signal from their distant, grown-up lives. “Remember, Charlie?”
“Yeah,” Charlie says, narrowing her eyes. “I do remember that.”
The Samburu warriors have arrived—four of them, two holding drums, a child in the shadows minding a yellow longhorn cow. They came yesterday, too, after the morning game run, when Lou and Mindy were “napping.” That’s when Charlie exchanged shy glances with the most beautiful warrior, who has scar tissue designs coiled like railroad tracks over the rigorous architecture of his chest and shoulders and back.