Tietam Brown (6 page)

I knew as I barreled past Terri's house one last time that this was meant to be our song, even if we'd never actually done the things that Bruce and his Terry had done, such as sleeping in an old abandoned beach house and getting wasted in the heat. I listened again as I passed by Terri's house again, this time being the last for real, but couldn't really get all that much of it, partially because the Fairmont's speakers shook anytime the volume was up past 5, and partially because, well, honestly, Bruce sounds like he's singing in a cave on that one.

It was eight-thirty by now, or about six and a half hours left, when I stepped into the high school gym. I looked around for Terri and saw instead a jumbled mass of about a thousand bodies, moving seemingly in unison to a song I can't quite remember. Actually I can't quite remember anything, except that my heart was pounding, and that I was possibly the most hated guy on the planet, or at least in Conestoga High at the time.

I saw a bright glow of red and tried to focus, which worked, and was relieved to see that it wasn't so bad, it was just Baskin's skin, attached to his face, which was asking Terri to dance. What the hell! Asking her to dance, gesturing at the dance floor with his big arms, his tight satin shirt nearly ripping at the seams. Terri was shaking her head, and she was looking around. Looking for me, but I didn't quite dare make myself seen.

Baskin was resilient, but still Terri declined, and for a split second I stepped forward, so as to approach and say, “Excuse me, the lady's with me,” and escort her to the floor. But instead I felt weak and sat down, looking out in amazement at all the mullets surrounding me. They were everywhere. Those short-in-the front, long-in-the-back, shaved-on-the-side horrible mullets. All around me. I saw a quick flash and imagined myself smack-dab in the middle of the Michael Jackson “Thriller” video, and it was horrible. I mean that video is always horrible, and Michael Jackson by himself is pretty scary, but instead of being surrounded by corpses and ghouls, he was surrounded by Conestoga High football players in mullets. And right in the front was Coach Hanrahan, with the most frightening mullet of all.

The flash went away, and so did the horror, and I looked for my Terri and saw her still looking. Looking for me. I wanted to just run to her, take her in my arms, and spin her around. And you know what? That's exactly what I was going to do. Just as soon as I went back to the car and listened to “Backstreets” one more time . . . for motivation.

I unlocked the car, hopped in, and played the song one more time. This time I thought I heard Bruce saying something about trying to walk like the heroes he thought he had to be. The song ended, and I decided I was ready to return to the gym. Almost. I checked out a different song.

I heard the opening chords of “She's the One,” and I swear it was like music to my ears. Wait a second, that's got to be the dumbest analogy I've ever heard. Of course it was music to my ears. But when Bruce started singing, I felt that magic, and knew he was singing for just me and Terri once again.

Once again the Fairmont's speaker system didn't shed much light on just what Bruce was talking about, but by the time I made out “with her long hair falling and eyes that shine like a midnight sun” and Bruce launched into the Diddleyesque guitar solo, I found myself right outside the Lincoln Theater, where for some reason that will never quite become apparent to me, I took in the last hour of
Rambo.

“What do you want, John,” Colonel Trautman asked Stallone as I tried to figure out just what “eyes that shine like a midnight sun” might look like.

“Just one time,” Rambo/Stallone replied, “for our country to love
us
as much as we love
it.
”

I got goose bumps. What a great line. Last time, I'd been too busy worrying about the rubbers in my pocket to fully appreciate it. My heart went weak. Those damn rubbers—they were in my pocket again! Quickly I threw them down to the sticky concrete where, chances are, they might still be today. Then I walked out of that theater, no longer simply motivated, but glad to be an American too. I fired up that Fairmont, opened the windows so that the fortyish or so air could further invigorate me, drove directly to the Conestoga High gym, walked into the gym with purpose, and immediately panicked again.

I was just about to bail out again when I heard Terri's voice.

“Andy, Andy, it's me, over here.”

She ran to me with outstretched arms, hugged me tight, and kissed me three times in the cheek-to-temple area. She sighed deep and said, “I'm so glad you're here, are you okay?! I was so worried.”

It took a second to answer, as I was trying to figure out if we had technically just had our first kiss. When I did answer, I wished I hadn't.

“Sure, sure, I just went to the movies.”

“The movies,” she said, somewhat taken aback. “Why would you go to the movies when you knew that I wanted to see you here?”

“Well, I did show up earlier—”

She intercepted, and said, “And you didn't see me so you left?”

With that interception she had given me my out: if I just agreed, I would be out of hot water, and better yet, I could place the blame on her for not being there for me. I told the truth instead. Damn.

“No, I saw you, but—”

“But you left anyway?”

“Well,” I mumbled, “kinda.”

“Andy, how do you think that makes me feel?” she said with both hurt and anger apparent in her words.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “Really.”

“What did you see?”

“Rambo.”

“Rambo?”

“Rambo.”

“Andy, that's our movie.”

“I know.”

“So.”

“So?”

“What were you thinking?”

At this point I officially began to whine.

“Terri, I don't feel comfortable here, can't we just go somewhere?”

“No, Andy, I can't just go somewhere. I'm the head of the Superdance committee. I have to be here.”

“But Terri.”

“But Terri what?”

“But.”

“Yeah.”

“I just, well, I just, you know, I just, um, don't think a lot of people like me here.”

“Well Andy,” she began in a loud voice that was near a yell but then settled down to a softness that could barely be heard above the throng of Superdancers and the sounds of KC & the Sunshine Band. Honestly. “Boogie Man.” “Andy, you're going to have to decide for yourself, what's more important? Those people liking you”—she pointed to the mass of dancers—“or me.”

I looked at her features continue to soften, and then she smiled.

“Look,” she said, pointing my attention to Mr. Hanrahan, who was serving as a chaperone, and at the moment appeared to be getting a little too close with one of Terri's cheerleading associates. “There's your buddy. Do you want to hang out with him . . . or me?”

I smiled.

“Or him,” she continued, and pointed to Clem Baskin, who now had his shirt off, so that the acne on his back stood out like a cluster of small red mountains amid a sea of white flesh. “Do you want to hang out with him?”

“No.”

“Then I'll tell you what I want you to do, Andy. I want you to go home now, because I have a lot to do here without baby-sitting your emotions. Go home and think about what you really want. And if you decide that what you want is me, then we'll move on. And Andy . . .” She paused a moment and continued, “One of these days, you're going to have to kiss me.”

My heart started pounding, and the watermelon returned in my throat, bigger than ever. I tried to read her mind. Was she trying to tell me to kiss her now? Did one of these days mean today, right now? I thought it did, decided to act, then saw the thousand strong in the Conestoga High gym. What if “one of these days” didn't mean today? Was I man enough to face a rejection right there, in front of so many witnesses? I decided that, no, I was not ready, and meekly, without the slightest hint of intestinal fortitude, said, “Don't worry, I will.”

“Bye,” she said.

“Okay, bye.”

And while the speaker played “I'm gonna keep on lovin' you, 'cause it's the only thing I want to do,” I slunk out of the high school gym, looking back once to see Terri waving, thinking that even from that distance, I could see a small tear in her eyes. Her eyes that shine like a midnight sun. Whatever the hell that means.

I got into the car and pulled
Born to Run
from its slot. Bruce, you'd let me down, man. Let me down bad. Slowly I opened the glove box and put the Boss away. I closed my eyes, pulled out another eight-track, and slid it in, sight unseen. Then, as I pulled out of the lot, I pushed it in with the palm of my right hand.

“Macho, macho man—I want to be a macho man.”

I stopped the car. Ejected the tape. Opened the door. And threw that SOB as far into the woods as I possibly could.

Silence, I decided, was what I needed to hear.

October 30, 1985 / 11:57 p.m.

I was in urgent need of a man-to-man talk. A talk with someone who could understand my feelings, with someone who knew about life and all the mysteries tucked away inside its many wrinkles. I chose instead to talk with my dad.

I walked inside our little home, kept oddly neat for a single man and his teenage son. The living room was bare, with not a painting adorning its walls or even a television to gather round. Indeed the room served only as my father's all-nude workout room, the deck of playing cards and a few dozen empty Gennys the only reminder that life actually transpired within its walls.

“Dad, Dad,” I called, “I'm home.” Silence. I gave it another try. “Dad, it's Andy, are you home?” Nothing. I knew that my father often spent hours on end inside his bedroom, the place he went to do his “work,” which he often spoke of in the vaguest terms possible. So, with a heavy heart and a giant question mark for a brain, I headed up the stairs, nursing the tiny hope that Antietam Brown IV could shed some light on the last few hours of clouds that had formed over my life.

I knocked lightly and received no response, then again, and heard the faint sound of papers rustling from seemingly far away. I had never been in my dad's bedroom, as it was strictly off limits and kept most of the time under lock and key. “This is where the magic takes place, Andy,” he'd once said. “And a good magician never reveals his secrets.”

“Dad, it's Andy, are you in there?” I said, and I heard a door shut and footsteps approach.

“Andy?” he asked through the door.

“Yeah, Dad, it's me.”

“What do you want, kid?”

“Well believe it or not, I just want to talk to you.”

“I'm pretty busy here, Andy.”

“It won't take too long, Dad . . . promise.”

“I don't know, kid, like I said, I'm pretty . . . well what do you want to talk about anyway?”

I was hoping to maybe ease into the subject gently. Maybe with a little small talk. But small talk wasn't easy with a guy whose only real interest seemed to be his penis. I couldn't talk sports because he didn't watch them, couldn't talk business because it was, like his bedroom, off limits to me. I didn't even attempt to discuss school-work with him, because that might actually require thinking; a demand that might threaten his standing as the world's shallowest man. But what the hell, who was I going to talk to, Hanrahan? Mrs. Sugling? I gave Tietam Brown a shot.

“Uh Dad, I um, wanted to ask your advice on girls.”

Instantly I had an answer. “I'll be right down.”

I walked downstairs and waited about half a second before my dad came vaulting down the steps, two at a time, grinning from ear to ear, as giddy as a schoolboy. For a minute I thought I might have sold the old man a little short. Maybe everyone has got a special talent, and this subject would prove to be his. Maybe he would be my love doctor.

He sat down on the couch, relaxed but alert, clearly relishing the opportunity to help and looking like he might, just might, be able to.

I didn't know what to say, and for a moment I looked at my dad and thought about the push-ups, and the beer, and the Pussycat, and the rubbers, and thought I must be crazy. Then I closed my eyes and fired away.

“Dad, I'm having girl problems.”

He resumed his dinner-table
Thinker
pose and stroked his chin. He squinted a little and then closed one eye, a study in concentration. Surely he was weighing all the options, drawing inevitable conclusions, and would momentarily come bubbling forth with a sparkling nugget of knowledge that could transform my life in an instant. Then again, this was the same guy who'd used the term “bald-headed champion” only a few hours earlier. What had I been thinking?

His initial analysis of the situation surprised me.

“Well Andy, taking into account that all women are by nature different, and taking into account that you have yet to introduce me to your friend Terri, I would have to first warn you that forming a specific game plan for your specific situation could prove somewhat difficult.”

He sounded smart. My dad sounded smart! I could almost feel those clouds dispersing.

“With that in mind, there are some generalities, some strategies if you will, that do appear to be effective with most women I've encountered.”

The anticipation was killing me. Sure my dad had his share of somewhat odd idiosyncrasies, and yeah, maybe he didn't do things that other dads did, but women did like the guy, and there had to be a reason. And I was pretty sure it wasn't the fuzzy dice. He opened his mouth. “Well Andy, whenever possible, get them to lick your ass.”

The clouds in my mind that had seemed to disperse accumulated en masse and rained all over my parade. I waited for a big laugh, and then a pat on the back to let me know that I'd been had. We would share a good chuckle over the whole thing, and then he'd tutor me on the lessons of love.

Except he wasn't laughing. Or smiling. Not even a little. As a matter of fact, I'd never seen him quite this intense, not even when talking about the Suglings' scarecrow.

“That way, Andy, no matter what happens after that, you've always got something over them.”

I tried to speak, but my jaw was locked in the open position, like one of those Dickens carolers, with their top hats and scarves. Ol' Tietam Brown, for his part, was beaming with pride. His great secret out, his seriousness left him and his demeanor became that of a buddy, a comrade, a pal.

“Andy, I can't tell you how many times I've been out on the town and I run into some babe who's had her three strikes, and you know what I'm thinking?”

My jaw was still locked, so Tietam kept the wisdom rolling without skipping a beat.

“I'm thinking, I know what she's thinking, and I sure as hell know what I'm thinking.” He gave me a wink and plowed right ahead. “And do you know what she's thinking, Andy?”

I tried to talk once again, and after a few seconds of stammering answered his question the only way I knew how.

“Um, uh, she's thinking that she licked your ass?”

“There you go, son. Now what am I thinking?”

“That she licked your ass?”

“You're damn right she did, Andy, you're damn right she did. But hey kid, just remember that there's an art to it, okay?”

“An art to the licking?”

“Well, actually yes, but that's not what I'm getting at. I'm talking about talking her into doing it . . . that is an art.”

“It is?”

“Sure, look, for me, I like to have had a good time, one, two, three strikes you're out, and then I have the comfort of knowing that I own them, but for you, you really like this girl, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Even better. Once it's done, she can't break up with you. She can't because you've got the power.”

“What power is that, Dad?”

“The power to tell people about it—it's the same principle that's kept our country safe since we blew those Jap bastards to holy hell to end the big one, World War Two. We had the bomb, we weren't afraid to use it, and everybody knew it. It's the same thing here. You've got the goods on her, you're not afraid to use it, and she knows it.”

“But Dad, aren't our butts gross?”

“Well of course they are, Andy, of course they are. But that's their problem, not ours, right? I mean, personally, kid, I find all asses gross, females' included. But some guys can't get enough of them. Like to take the Hershey highway, if you know what I mean. I had a buddy like that. His name was Masters, Luke Masters. But you know what we called him?”

“Uh, let me see, uh . . . Ass Masters, Dad?”

“Yeah, Ass Masters,” he laughed. “Ass Masters, that's a good one, huh?”

“Um, yeah Dad, it is pretty good. But all the same, I'm not so sure that I'd want Terri licking me . . . there . . . anyway. Do you have any . . . um . . . other advice?”

“Sure, sure, of course I do.”

“Well . . .”

“Well here goes, kid. Don't treat women like sluts. It's cliché. It's unimaginative . . . What you want to do is get them to treat themselves like sluts.”

“That sounds a little crazy, Dad.”

“Crazy, Andy, crazy?” my dad exclaimed. “What's crazy is all these people who think sex is about the body. It's not. It's about the mind. Once you own their mind, their body will follow. And the only way you can own their mind is to get the ladies to tap into the slut that's inside of each one of them.”

“Gee thanks, Dad.”

“Listen Andy, when I'm upstairs, how many times do you hear the F word?”

“Lots of times,” I said, thinking about a few particularly loud ones.

“But how many times have you heard it coming from me?”

I had to think on that one. For a while. And then said, “None.”

“Exactly!” my dad said. “I don't have to, because I lead them to the F word like you lead a horse to water . . . Always remember, son, the F word is a verb. A strong, powerful verb. Use it sparingly, but use it with force. It's not a noun or an adjective, understand?”

“Yeah.” And to tell you the truth, I thought that I did.

A strange look then crossed my father's face, a look of pride and knowledge. He put an arm around my neck and chuckled just a bit. He patted my head, then playfully grabbed me and gave me what kids used to refer to as “noogies.” Maybe still do.

“Andy, my boy, I think it's time.”

“Time for what?” I didn't have any inkling of what my father had on tap, but I knew it would be weird.

“Come on, let's head downstairs.”

Downstairs meant the basement, with which I was familiar. Our washer and dryer lived down there, where I did the family laundry once a week, making sure to wash his nasty sheets, all by themselves so that they wouldn't touch my undies. The basement also had a separate room, which was always locked. On several occasions, my dad had made it quite clear that my entry into that room was forbidden.

But on this night, the forbidden zone was exactly where we went. Tietam fumbled with his key chain for a moment, then unlocked the door, insisting that I close my eyes before he swung it open. He escorted me into the room and pulled a string that turned on a bare lightbulb. He granted me permission to open up my eyes, which on first impression revealed relatively little.

A weathered furnace. A pair of old dumbbells, collecting cobwebs on the concrete. A rusty ax leaned against the wall, casting a thin shadow on a large book, which lay unceremoniously amid two rattraps in the corner of the room.

I was disappointed momentarily. I had expected something more. Coming from my father, something much, much more. I turned to face my father, whose eyes were gazing upward. A happy gaze. A proud gaze. I decided that I too would gaze.

Within a fraction of a second, my disappointment disappeared. My expectations were surpassed. My faith in Tietam was restored.

Two ropes hung from the ceiling like an X, from which some clothes were hanging. Panties, hundreds of them, were hanging from these ropes.

“Not bad, huh, son?” said my father, sounding content and peaceful, bordering on serene.

I was unable to respond, my jaw being once again locked temporarily in Dickensian caroling mode.

“Andy, this here represents my hard work. Every girl I've Teitamized since I began collecting back in '76, our country's bicentennial. With the exception of a few who bitched so much that I let 'em have 'em back . . . Now, kid, what do you notice about these panties?”

Luckily, I had just concluded my silent carol, enabling me to offer up an astute observation. “Um, that there are a lot of them, I guess.”

“You're damn right there are,” ol' Tietam gushed, but then quickly became serious. “What else, son?”

I shrugged my shoulders, unable to absorb the deeper meaning of the panties. My mind was starting to wander away from the collection, as magnificent as it may have been, and I found myself thinking about the book in the corner, wondering what it was. The increasing urgency in my father's tone brought me back.

“There is quality in almost every pair. This stuff isn't cheap. Hardly any cotton in the lot.”

I nodded my head, but Tietam knew appeasement when he saw it, and it made him cry out in frustration.

“Ohhhh! Don't you get it? These aren't a bunch of strippers I'm banging here, these are high-class women. They're not sluts until I get them here, and then I turn them into . . .” His thought tailed off into the air, as if he saw that his cause was lost. Then a big smile filled his face and he shot a finger in the air.

“Never mind, come upstairs with me. I've got a better idea.”

He turned off the light, closed the door, and took the basement steps two at a time. I followed him, a good deal slower, thinking about the book, and the door no one locked.

Tietam ushered me into the living room and told me to sit down. “I'll be right back,” he announced, and he took off out the door. He sped off in the Fairmont to whereabouts unknown, and I thought about my horrible, wonderful, miserable, ridiculous dad.

Five minutes passed. Where had he gone? Tietam's couch was saggy. Kind of ugly. My father didn't strike me as a reader. More of a look-at-the-pictures guy. I thought about the book in the basement. Oversized and thick. Like a scrapbook, possibly. A book that might shed some light on my father's past so that I could better understand my own.

Five more minutes passed. The book was calling to me. Like Poe's “Tell-Tale Heart,” this book was a living thing; it wanted me to hear its stories, to see its ghosts, to share its secrets. I had to look. I took the stairs two at a time.

I pulled the bare bulb's string and followed the ax's shadow to the book. I took it gently from the floor, taking care not to disturb the rattraps as I did so. But the springs were snapped and caked with rust; their intended prey had taken refuge a long time ago. I brushed dust and rat poop from the book's brown leather cover. Old traps and new poop.