Rubyfruit Jungle (12 page)

Now it was my turn to be shocked. “That’s crazy. What do you think I do, run around panting at every female I see? I’m not going to leap on you like a hyperthyroid ape. Goddammit!”

“I know that I
know
that, but it’s in my head. It’s me, not you. I’m sorry. I really am sorry.” She swung her leg over and climbed down from the cockpit. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“No. It’s not far. I want to walk it.”

She didn’t look up. “Okay.”

That night Carolyn called and filled my ear with four thousand sugary apologies. I told her to shut up and I didn’t give a shit what she thought. She could take her prom queen tiara and shove it up her ass.

School was buzzing with the breakup of the gleesome threesome, but none of us spoke so the gossips had to concoct their own stories. One widely accepted was Missy Barton’s theory that Connie wanted to sleep with Clark and I wouldn’t stand for it. She explained Carolyn’s behavior by saying she was torn between the two of us. When
I regained my sense of humor, I thought it was pretty funny but it also made me green around the edges, people are so stupid. Sell them shit in a red cellophane package and they’d buy it.

I was becoming more and more isolated in the splendor of my office. It was a tiring little game once the glamor of being student council president wore off. I longed to return to the potato patch and raise hell with kids who didn’t know the difference between Weejuns and Old Maine trotters. But those kids grew up and wore tons of eye-makeup, irridescent pink fingernail polish and scratched each other’s eyes out over the boy with the metalflake, candy apple red ’55 Chevy with four on the floor. There was no place to go back to. No place to go to. College was going to be like high school, only worse. But I gotta go. I don’t get that degree and I’m another secretary. No thanks. I got to get it and head for a big city. Got to hang on. That’s what Carl told me once, you got to hang on. It would be nice to talk to Carl. God, it would be nice to talk to someone who wasn’t fucked up.

One week before graduation a colorful event rocked the school. Someone had snuck into the girls’ shower room before first period gym and unscrewed the shower heads, putting in powdered dyes. Sixty girls had first period gym and the first twenty or so in the showers came out red, yellow, green or blue. The stuff didn’t wash off either. That Saturday night as diplomas were handed out it gave me a certain degree of pleasure to notice that Carolyn resembled a consumptive movie-set Indian and Connie looked definitely blue.

When I was handed my diploma, I received a standing ovation from my constituency and a hug from Mr. Beers. When the noise ebbed, he said in the humming microphone, “There’s our governor in twenty years.” Everyone cheered again and I thought Mr. Beers was as silly or maybe as kind as Carl, who used to tell everyone at work the same thing.

Gainesville, Florida, is the bedpan of the South. Positioned in north central Florida it has scrub pines, Spanish moss, and blood clots of brick institutional buildings. It’s the home of the University of Florida. The only reason I went there was because they gave me a full scholarship plus room and board. Duke, Vassar, and Radcliffe offered smaller packages and having no money, my choice was determined by material considerations. Carrie and Florence put me on the Greyhound bus which pulled up behind the Howard Johnson’s and took off to pull up behind other Howard Johnsons throughout the state. The bus ride took twelve hours, but finally I arrived and took my first look at the dismal town. With my one suitcase sporting a Girls’ State sticker firmly in hand, I walked to the dorm.

The university placed me in Broward Hall,
known on campus as the Bay of Pigs, But it was free, so I endured it. On that first day I discovered my roommate, a pre-med from Jacksonville, Faye Raider. Since I had scribbled pre-law on my entrance forms, the administration probably thought it would be a good match. It was, but not for reasons of studiousness. Faye and I discovered a common bond for disruption and we lost no time in establishing a system of payoffs to the building guards, so we could get in and out of the basement windows after the dorm doors had been locked to protect our virginity from the night air. Faye pledged Chi Omega because her mother was a Chi O back in 1941 and I pledged Delta Delta Delta because they, like the university, promised to pay for everything—dirty rush. Faye said she pledged a sorority to please her mother, whose only joy in life was the Jacksonville alumnae association, and I pledged because campus politics demanded it. This way all my election costs would be footed jointly by the sorority and the party to which the sorority belonged, University Party. I ran for freshman representative and won. Faye was campaign manager, which Tri-Delta considered a stroke of political brilliance because it helped unite the houses of Tri-Delta and Chi Omega, who together dominated the remaining eleven sororities on campus. Faye and I laughed at the solemnity with which all this was greeted by our “sisters” and spent our free hours together crossing the county line for liquor, bringing it back to the dorm, watering it slightly and selling it at a higher price.

We both hated the university with its dull
agricultural majors, grim business majors, and all the girls running around in trench coats with art history books tucked under their left armpits. Faye confessed she didn’t really care about being a doctor, but she’d be damned if she’d sit in humanities courses with all those bubbling girls who wore circle pins on their round collars. Her father bought her a 190SL Mercedes to encourage her to study, and he had a habit of sending fat checks in the mail every two weeks. Faye was the spirit of generosity maybe because she didn’t know what money was worth, but I loved her for it whatever her motive. She cast one glance at my tiny wardrobe and marched me off to the best store in town and blew three hundred dollars on clothes. To spare my pride she announced she wasn’t going to be seen with a roomie who wore the same shirt every other day. I think I was a curiosity to Faye. She couldn’t fathom my ambition, but then Faye couldn’t fathom poverty.

It was against the rules, of course, but Faye had a tiny icebox hidden in her closet where she kept mixers, olives, and cream cheese. She hid the liquor in shoe boxes. I didn’t figure out that Faye was on her way to becoming a late adolescent alcoholic until the middle of October. I asked her why she drank so much but she told me not to go moral on her so I dropped it. Her grades began to sink, and she cut classes more and more frequently. Luckily for me, I never needed to study much to get my grades, because Faye would have no part of studying for herself or anybody else. At nine o’clock each night if we were still in the dorm, Faye would run out in the hall with a huge
cowbell, beat on it with a drumstick and yell, “Study, study all you brownnosers.” Then she’d sail back in her room and have another drink.

Chi Omega worried about their new pledge when Faye showed up at the dinner for President Reich and veered up to him mumbling, “Hi ya, prex, how ya hangin’?” In an effort to steer her toward the paths of righteousness, she had to have an hour-long heart-to-heart with her big sister, Cathy, once a week. Faye fumed that it was lay psychiatry and offended her new-sprung professional ethics. One Thursday after a session she came back to our room and slammed the door.

“Bolt, I blew it. I just fucking blew it. I told my Goddamn big sistershit that I’m pregnant and need an abortion. Her milk-white face curdled right in front of me. She promised not to tell anyone but I bet dollars to donuts she opens her yap. Will my mother be pissed!”

“Are you sure you’re pregnant?”

“Yes, I am Goddamn fucking sure. Enough to make you vomit, isn’t it?”

“Where can we get an abortion?”

“I know a guy in med school who will do it. But I have to give him $500. Can you believe $500 to scrape a tiny bit of gook from my insides?”

“Do you think he’s safe?”

“Who knows?”

“Well, when are we doing it?”

“Tomorrow night. You’re driving me there, cookie.”

“Okay. Did you tell Cathy you were going tomorrow?”

“No. At least I had sense enough not to spill that. I don’t even know why I told her in the first
place. It was on my mind and it popped out. Stupid.”

The next evening we left the dorm at nine and drove out west of the town. We pulled in the driveway of the med student’s trailer and Faye climbed out.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not. You stay here and wait.”

It seemed hours and I was so nervous I threw up. The whole thing was creepy and the Spanish moss in the night looked like ragged fingers of death coming to get me. All I could think of was Faye in there on some kitchen table with him doing God knows what. I thought maybe I should go in there, but then suppose I barge in at the critical moment and he punches a hole in her or something. Eventually Faye wobbled out. I ran out of the car to help her.

“Faysie, are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m all right. A little weak.”

As we neared the dorm I turned out the lights and pulled into the macadam parking lot. We walked slowly back to the basement window that was permanently unlocked at the price of ten dollars per week to the guard. I lifted Faye through because it was high up. As I dropped to the other side I noticed blood oozing down her leg. “Faye, you’re bleeding. Maybe we should go to a real doctor.”

“No. He told me I might bleed a little. It’s okay. Shut up about it or you’ll make me think about it.” We started up the four flights of stairs to our room and Faye was going painfully slow. “I’m so Goddamned weak this is gonna take a fucking hour.”

“Put your arms around my neck and I’ll carry you up.”

“Molly, you crack me up. I weigh one thirty-five and you must weigh about a hundred.”

“I’m very strong. Come on, this is no time to pull a weight watchers. Put your arms around my neck.”

She leaned on me and I picked her up. “My hero,” she laughed.

I cut classes the next two days to hang around the room in case Faye needed me. She recovered in record time and by Saturday was ready for another liquor-sodden weekend. “I’m going over to Jacksonville to raise hell.”

“Don’t be an asswipe, Faye. Take it easy this weekend.”

“If you’re so worried you can come along and play nurse. We can stay at my house and come back Sunday night. Come on.”

“Okay, but promise me you won’t pick up some stud and bust open your stitches or whatever you’ve got up there.”

“You crack me up.”

We started out at a bar near Jacksonville University, black walls, day-glo paint on them and a huge sea-turtle shell here and there. An enormous basketball player bought us drinks and insisted on asking me to dance. My nose hit his navel and I got cramps in my arches from dancing so long on my toes. We left there and headed toward the inner city. “I’m gonna take you to a wild bar, Molly, so gear yourself.”

The bar was Rosetta’s, named after the owner who walked around with a black lasagna hairdo teased up nearly a foot with chopsticks stuck in
it at various angles. Rosetta smiled at us as we came in and demanded our I.D.’s. They were fake, of course, but we passed checkpoint charlie and went over to a table in the corner. As we sat down, I glanced in the direction of the dance floor and noticed that the men were dancing with each other and the women were dancing with other women. I had a sudden urge to clap my hands in frenzied applause, but I suppressed it because I knew no one would understand.

“Faye, how’d you find this place?”

“I get around, Toots.”

“Are you gay?”

“No, but I like gay bars. They’re more fun than straight ones, plus there’s no jocks to paw at you. I thought I’d bring you here for a little treat.”

“Thought you’d shock me, right?”

“I don’t know. I just thought it would be fun.”

“Let’s have fun then. Come on, smartass, how’d you like to dance?”

“Bolt, you crack me up. Who the hell is going to lead?”

“You are because you’re taller than I am.”

“Wonderful, I can be a butchess.”

Once on the terrazzo dance floor, we had a hard time keeping our balance because Faye was laughing uproariously. Every two steps she mangled my sandaled foot. Then in a burst of concentration, she gave me a Fred Astaire twirl and made use of her cotillion training. As the final strains of Ruby and the Romantics died down, we started for our table to be intercepted by two young women on the other side of the dance floor.

“Excuse me. Don’t you all go to Florida and live in Broward?”

Faye volunteered the information. Then the short one asked us if we’d come to their table for a drink. We agreed to that and trotted back to our corner table to retrieve our drinks.

“Molly, if that little one tries to pick me up, you tell her we’re going together. Okay?”

“Instant marriage, is it? In that case, I’ll do anything for my wife.”

“Thanks, dearie, I’ll do the same for you. Remember we’re the hottest couple since Adam and Eve. Wrong metaphor—since Sappho and whoever. Come on.”

The women’s names were Eunice and Dix. They were in Kappa Alpha Theta and came here on weekends under the pretense that their boyfriends lived in Jacksonville but really to escape the prying eyes of their loving sorority sisters. Dix, the little one, was very busy cruising Faye. Faye was worth cruising. She had jet black hair and white porcelain skin that set off light hazel eyes—a Southern belle gone co-ed. I was uncertain about bar etiquette—I didn’t know if I was supposed to ask people to dance, buy them drinks or even ask them about themselves, especially since people only gave you their first names. Eunice offered that she was a physical therapy major and Dix was in English. They’d been going together for almost a year and a half.