At 16, Part 3

1988


Mom is panicked. William sits at the kitchen table, smirking as he reads a carefully folded letter. I’m dressed in my Pizza Tent clothes: brown polyester pants, sauce-stained white sneakers, brown and white shirt, mesh hat. A cockroach stares down from the ceiling, listening to our conversation, maybe hoping to learn about humans, maybe wondering why we hate his kind, maybe trying to find a way not to end up on the bottom of my shoe. I’m sitting at the table, scarfing down a bowl of Fruit Loops. I need to eat. Need my energy. A long night ahead of me. A night of scrubbing and socializing. An all-night cleaning session. Pizza Tent is dirty and needs to be sanitized. In so many ways.

"I can’t take this anymore," Mom says, waving her hands in the air. "Ervin, talk some sense into your brother."

"What do you want me to do?" I ask, milk dripping from my chin.

"They’re going to arrest your little brother. I already have one son in jail, and now I’m gonna have two. Am I such a bad parent? I work hard. I work sixty hours a week. Isn’t that enough? What do I have to do?" She turns to my brother and says, "Is that what you want, William? To go to jail?"

"They can’t arrest me, Mom. I didn’t do anything wrong. All I did was write a letter to someone who’s in prison. People do it all the time." William is ten years old. My baby brother. Forever a child in my eyes. Since he’s been born, I’ve always felt like William was my responsibility. I’ve been his primary babysitter. The sibling always left in charge of his well-being. The one who looks out for him. William has one bad eye, because he refused to wear an eye-patch like he was supposed to, and serious anger issues. He’s a smart kid, though. Smarter than I’ll ever be. But not an ounce of common sense. Kid can tell you all you want to know about philosophy, but can’t make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He can quote Socrates, but can never seem to remember where he put his glasses.

Mom shouts, "You wrote a letter to Charles Manson! Charles Manson the killer! What, do you wanna join his satanic cult or something? What’s wrong with you? Are you sick, William?"

"Actually, Mom, I don’t think Manson killed anyone himself," I add. "He always had people do his dirty work for him, like, his disciples. Also, he co-wrote a Beach Boys song."

"Ervin, you’re not helping," Mom says.

William holds up his much-cherished letter and says, "I can’t believe he wrote me back. Isn’t that awesome?" William grins proudly. This is his greatest achievement: garnering a response from a famous boogeyman. William is a fan of serial killers. Mom, understandably, is not thrilled with William’s fascination.

I wonder aloud, "What did he write?"

William scans the letter. "He pretty much just told me to keep my head up and not let anyone ever get me down. Charles says I can do anything I put my mind to. He says to block out all the negativity. Charles is really big on positivity. Charles Manson believes in the power of positive thinking."

"That’s sort of lame," I say. "I thought he might ask you to sacrifice a virgin for him. Or kill all the members of The Beach Boys. Or, I don’t know, poison New Jersey’s water supply."

My mother sighs loudly. "You can’t just write letters to people like...like that without someone noticing," she says. "They’re going to put you on some kind of list, a watch list. Now the government knows who you are. That’s just great. They probably already have the house bugged. I wouldn’t be surprised if the police were listening right now."

"Ahh, shut up, Mom." William folds the letter neatly and places it back into his pocket, then storms off.

I finish my cereal and toss the bowl into the sink. The cockroach on the ceiling darts away, disappearing into a crack in the wall. Mom wipes away tears.

"Why do you have to work this time of night?"

I kiss her cheek and say, "The district manager is coming for an inspection on Monday, so Ben decided to get everyone together for an overnight cleaning session. It’s overtime pay. Time and a half. That means I’ll make, like, five dollars an hour. I can’t turn down that kind of money."

"Are you saving for college?" Mom asks.

"I’m not going to college." The words come out without any thought. I hadn’t even considered going to college. My grades are mediocre at best. I have no money to pay for college. All I really want to do is keep working at Pizza Tent while I try to get laid. I like to keep my goals reasonable.

"I don’t like you working all these weird hours. You’re still in high school. Don’t they have child labor laws anymore, or did they get rid of those?"

"Yes, Mother, I believe that laws exist to protect children in the workplace. You’re right about that. But you wrote that note saying I can work late, that I have your permission, remember? You gave my boss the authority to use and abuse me. Anyway, what else am I gonna do until school starts? Sit around here and kill cockroaches? It’s good for me. I like the people. They’re nice to me. They’re the only people in the world who think I’m awesome besides you."

She sighs and halfheartedly says, "Well, I still think they’re taking advantage of you. When I signed that letter, I didn’t think you’d be working all the time."

"Those people make me feel good about myself. They make me feel important. When school starts, I’ll cut back my hours. Promise."

Mom gives me a hug and says, "It’s good to know that you’re a hard worker. Your father couldn’t hold a job to save his life." It’s not easy for my mother to show affection, so I appreciate the gesture. Mom is pleased to know that I am not my father’s son. I am nothing like that person. He who often took cars apart and then forgot how to reassemble them. My father, as far as a I can tell, was one shiftless son of a bitch. No, I’m not that man’s son at all. I don’t even know that man. I am my mother’s son.

Mom has struggled all her life. She grew up feeling unwanted by her mother. After my grandmother remarried (a man she met at a bar, while always dragging my mother along when Mom was surely too young to be at such a place) and started a new family, Mom became an outsider. My Grandma Shirley had five boys with her new husband. As the only reminder of a bad first marriage, Mom didn’t stand a chance. So she found a man to marry and moved out at fifteen. She felt like she had no choice. I suspect that my mother was abused, but if she was, she’ll never admit it. The only beatings she’ll acknowledge ever took place were the ones given by the nuns at her Catholic School. A ruler across the knuckles. A smiling nun. Bloody hands. No wonder my mother quit school and ran off with Big Ron. What went on at home, before she moved out at fifteen, Mom will never speak of. I do know that Mom was not the recipient of even a hint of affection as a child. Beatings at school. Ignored (or maybe abused) at home. Mom had to grow up fast. She wanted out, and she got out. Pregnant and married by the age of sixteen.

One of my mother’s better qualities is her general agreeableness. Ask her to sign something, and she almost always complies. Mom is not a stern taskmaster. Mom is a pushover. She’s only punished me once in my life—when the police brought me home late one weekend night, after I’d snuck out with my best friend Todd to play video games at the local convenience store. I try not to think about Todd, my former best friend and perverted creep. What he did still makes me shudder.

Soon after saying goodbye to Mom, I’m on my knees in the back of Pizza Tent, scraping the floor with a large metal spatula. Must clean out the cracks. The bits of meat and cheese stuck between the maroon tiles. Left by some pimply-faced member of the previous era. The 70's version of me. This place may have never had a thorough cleaning. Until tonight. And I’m just the man for the job. Cleaning clears my head. Relaxes me. The repetition of movement. Jerk of the arm. Twist of the wrist. The mind on automatic pilot.

I look up and see Manny flirting with Kiley. Sexy Kiley with her Pat Benatar haircut and her tight red assistant manager sweater that wraps around her large chest. Manny is my age. Sixteen. Soon to be seventeen. Kiley graduated high school back when it was still cool to wear a KISS T-shirt to school. She has at least fifteen years on Manny. I know they’ve been messing around. Kiley has left a few nasty hickeys on Manny’s neck. Not sure if they’ve slept together yet. Probably. He just smiles when I ask for confirmation. Pizza Tent certainly has its share of women in their thirties looking to initiate high school boys into the wonderful world of sex.

Cliff is behind me, Walkman on full blast, singing along with Stevie Wonder. He’s cleaning the oven. Parts of the oven. Belts and grates and wall panels and oddly shaped pieces of steel. All three compartments of the sink are filled with sections of the oven, which must be scrubbed cleaned and then reassembled. It’s a puzzle I could never solve. But Cliff’s got the mind for it. He’s a sharp kid. A drug dealer and amateur stand-up comedian. Tonight, he brought an eightball of coke into the building. He showed it to me when he arrived. Sold it to Ben. Cliff is the only black person in the building tonight. Manny is El Salvadorian, although he and Cliff share the same light shade of brown skin. The rest of us are Caucasian. Various shades of white. From paste to pink. Cliff will probably be the only person who stays completely sober tonight. Regarding cocaine, he once said to me: "I don’t mess with that shit. I just sling it. But I ain’t no corner boy. I don’t stand around Camden waiting for the clients to come to me. I make connections. Deliver in person. I don’t need no corner when I got a whole building full of pizza-sellin’ motherfuckers buying the product. But I never sample the goods. I leave it to you crazy white folks to do the do. I’m just a businessman. Most I do is blow a joint here and there. Get my smoke on. Hard stuff ain’t for this nigga. My mom didn’t raise no fool. But, please, feel free to do all the drugs you want. I need some new sneakers and a fat gold rope. Snort your fucking asses off. Make daddy rich."

I’m about to get back to scrubbing when Diana suddenly appears in front of me. I’m on all-fours, filthy spatula in hand. She’s staring down, hands on hips, smirking. Her scent like onions dipped in lemonade. Diana is Ben’s age, late-twenties, I’d guess. I think they were high school sweethearts. She’s strikingly thin. Dark hair. Loud and rude. Pretty in a hardened sort of way. She can either be sweet or vindictive, depending on how recently she’s gotten high. She’s the type most people would call a bitch, but I kind of like her. Diana makes me laugh, and I like the way her long nails feel on my skin when she scratches my back.

"Well, since you’re down there, Erv," she says, grinning and posing above me, arms at her side. I look down at her feet. She’s wearing little white sneakers with fluffy pink laces.

"What? I don’t..." I then notice that my face is extremely close to her special lady place. Or "cunt," as Diana likes to call it. My position is quite compromising. If Diana had a whip in her hand, I’d look like her slave, her Boy Toy.

"Come on, gimme a couple of quick licks. I won’t tell Ben. Heh."

"Give what a few...oh, right." My face burns with embarrassment. I’m sure my skin is beyond pink. Probably purple. Like a drunk-on-blood tick. She loves to make me uncomfortable. Loves to make everyone uncomfortable.

"Drop the spatula and come with me, kid," Diana commands. "Me and Ben have a special treat for you. A little bit of motivation. Something to keep you going through the night and make you feel like a stud. Some fuel."

"What is it?" I ask, at my naive best.

She takes my hand and pulls me up. "You’ll see. Don’t be so impatient. Well, it is a bit of motivation, but nothing we learn in the Pizza Tent Manager Training Program. Sometimes Ben and me like to come up with our ways of getting our employees to work hard."

Diana leads me by hand to the front of the store. I allow her to do as she pleases with me. I make no objections. We pass by Tricia, who’s in the dining room with a few other waitresses, refilling the salt and pepper shakers which have just been thoroughly cleaned. Tricia stares at me with her large brown eyes and silently mouths Don’t do it, but I’m not sure what she means. Diana glances at Tricia and mutters "Stupid cow" just loud enough for me to hear. "You know that Tricia wants to fuck Ben, right?" she says, not really asking a questing. Just putting it out there. Saying her peace. "She wants to fuck and Ben is just stupid enough to do it if he’s drunk enough. Well, if I ever find out he put his dick in that, I’ll chop it off. You didn’t fuck her that night at the party, did you?"

"No way," I say. Not for a lack of trying.

"Good. She’s nasty. I know she’s your friend and all, but come on. Look at her, then look at me. I’m way hotter. Don’t you think?"

All I manage to say is, "Umm."

"I’ll bet her cunt smells like Thursday’s leftovers."

Actually, I think, more like a sweet combination of perspiration and citrus. Not at all unpleasant.

Diana pulls me into the men’s room and the first thing I see is Ben, grinning stupidly my way. He puts his arm over my shoulder and says, "Welcome, Erv. Tonight is your lucky night." Diana locks the bathroom door. The three of us cram into the small stall. Not easy considering that Ben is a giant. Six-five, almost three hundred pounds. A mostly-hairless bigfoot. And there, on the toilet seat , are three thick, glistening lines of cocaine. Cut neatly and ready to be snorted. Diana’s eyes widen. She licks her lips. Ben smacks my back. Hurts me just a little. Ben bends down, sticks one end of a rolled dollar bill in his nose, and snorts, inhaling quickly, as if it were a competition. While Ben’s nose is over the toilet, Diana leans in and whispers in my ear: "I love coke. It makes me so horny. Makes me wanna fuck. You’ll see. After you snort, you’re gonna be hard as a rock." As soon as Ben comes up for air, Diana is down, finger pressing one nostril closed, inhaling. The sound like paper tearing. She gets it all. Every last minuscule bit. Licks the toilet seat. Wipes her nose. Smiles. I’m next and I do not hesitate. I do not resist. I do not tell them that I can’t. I make no mention of my drug-addled, jailbird older brother. I fail to cite even one of the million reasons why I should not be snorting this line of cocaine. It seems like too much effort. Just easier to snort. To make the boss happy. Inhale. Do it. Be a man. Just do it. And I do. Diana rubs my back as I take the rolled dollar bill between my fingers. As I insert one end into my right nostril. As I breathe in. As the white line disappears. As the thousands of tiny granules disburse. Make their way up through the tightly-rolled dollar and into my system. The drug trickles down the back of my throat. The line is gone. It’s in me. It’s too late. There’s no going back. I’ve done the deed. It tastes like powered metal. I shudder.

Diana running her long fingernails down my back, whispering words of encouragement. Ben saying, "Why don’t you just fuck him already?" Diana jokingly squeezing my ass. Ben laughing. Ben saying, "How about it, Erv? Wanna make a nice sandwich out of my wife?" Ben losing his smile. Saying, "That’s my wife you’re talking about, asshole. I’ll kick your faggot face in!" Ben and Diana laughing. Ben adding, "Okay, fine, I forgive you. But I get to fuck her in the ass. It’s tighter there. You get the front, Erv. She’s so stretched out she probably won’t even feel your little pecker." Diana smacking Ben upside the head. Saying, "Why do you always have to be such an asshole? He’s just a kid, and I’m not a fucking whore." Ben shrugging. Adding, "Fine, Erv can have the asshole. My mistake." Diana trying not to smile. Diana smiling.

I can’t laugh. I’m too overwhelmed. The euphoria hits me immediately. The buzz. The high. Skin burning. Brain buzzing. Heart pounding. I think Oh yeah, this is nice. My heart has never pounded this hard before. It’s like a motor. A buzz saw. Ben and Diana are so proud. Like doting parents. I’ve done them proud. The only sound I’m aware of is the beating of my heart. The thump thump thump. I feel strange. Out of body. Distanced from myself. Like I’m on the other side of the room looking at myself and not recognizing who I see.

"All right," Ben says, pushing me out of the stall, "now get back to work. I expect you to work your ass off tonight. Don’t let me down, kid."

"I won’t."

Diana winks, "Bye, Erv. See ya soon. I need to be alone for a minute with my husband."

"Oh, yeah," he says with glee, like the Prom King about to get lucky with his Prom Queen. "You know what that means."

Ben opens the bathroom door. Throws me out. I smack hard into the wall as the bathroom door closes and locks.

I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t feel quite so fabulous. The high of cocaine is like hitting the game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth, but without actually having to hit a home run. Like saving a baby from a burning a building without having to get burned. I’m calm yet panicked. I’m happy yet disgusted with myself. Heart pounding faster. Mild chest pains. Never do this again. Need more. Dear God please don’t let me have a heart attack. I’ll never do it again if I live. I won’t do it hardly ever. Maybe just once in awhile. I untuck my shirt to cover my erection. My brain is producing images and sounds and thoughts at such a rapid pace that none of it is making sense. It’s all blurring together.

Tricia won’t even look at me as I pass her by. She knows. Tricia used to respect me. Cliff comes up behind me and lays an arm over my shoulders. He says, "Wow, I’m surprised you did it, Erv. I thought you were different. I really thought you was gonna turn ‘em down. Aw, well. If you ever need some coke, let your good buddy Cliff know and I’ll hook you up good." I nod and keep walking. I sidle up next to Manny. He looks at me and laughs. "You got some white stuff under your nose." I frantically wipe my face and then say, "Is it gone?" He replies, "It wasn’t there in the first place, fool. I was just seeing if you’d done it. You’re a bad boy, Erv. Congratulations. You’re one of us now."

I clean everything. The floor, the walls, the windows, the shelves, the ceiling. The only time I’m not cleaning is during my ten-minute break, which I spend in the men’s room. So I can masturbate. The erection keeps getting in the way, so I have to take care of it. I masturbate on my knees, over the toilet. My fantasy is this: I’m on my back. Tricia sits on my face. Diana sits on my cock. They hate each other but are united in their love of me. They take turns fucking me. Switch places. It’s nice that they can put their differences aside long enough to give me their sweet, sweet love. Then they team-up on a blow job. The best imaginary threesome I’ve ever had. Better than my legendary Molly Ringwald/Pam Grier wet dream team-up from 1986. I shoot directly into the toilet, flush, clean myself up, then return to work. Still feeling good. Still electric. But now talking to myself. Talking to anyone. Nonstop talking. I talk until I come down. Talk until the drugs wear off. We finish cleaning when the sun comes up. My heart has finally stopped racing. I come down hard. Go from frantic to comatose. Struggling to keep my eyes open.

I’m soon in Tricia’s car, parked in front of my house. She was kind of enough to give me a ride. I know I look and smell awful. All I can think about is that next line. When and where I’m going to get it.

She runs her fingers lightly over my face. "Erv, don’t lose yourself in the drugs. I’ve done my share. I’m no angel. But I know when enough’s enough. If it’s just a casual kind of weekend thing, that’s fine, but you’ve got be very careful. These things can get out of control fast."

I smile. "I’ll be fine. I just wanted to try it one time. I’m not the kind of person who gets addicted to drugs. I’m smarter than that. I’m not like my brother."

"I hope so."

So do I.