Chapter 28 — Wandering Spirit

When Groove Radio went off the air, there was a part of me that also died with it and since I didn’t want to do love songs, smooth jazz, or God forbid dinosaur rock, my options were limited.

“So you want me to play Stairway and Free Bird every fifteen minutes?” I asked when my brother suggested KLOS.

But none of it mattered since Jeff and I were no longer speaking. So, with nothing else to do every night, I decided to go out and check out the clubs in the area. There was Club 369 on Placentia Ave., but they were mostly into heavy metal. Then there was some sports bar across the street at the Albertson’s shopping center, but that seemed more like a biker hangout where greasy white men in tattoos and leather would go every night to shoot pool and drink. Then I found a place that my friend Angela suggested, Off Campus, right across from Cal State Fullerton. I remember at first, we were both disappointed, with such an obvious name one would expect the place to be brimming with college-aged people. Instead it was mostly Foxfire veterans seeking new prey; men with shaved heads, hooligans in crisp ironed Dickies, and burned out door-to-door salesmen in cheap Walmart suits. Then soon after we got there, Sweaty Palm Phil came over to buy us a drink and remind us “ladies” that “the night was still young.” I politely thanked him then slammed down an unusually weak Kamikaze and waited for the night to get better.

Soon after that, DJ Kevin showed up and an occasional song encouraged us to get up and dance, and when I wasn’t dancing, or talking to Angie, I was hanging out behind the booth chatting with Kevin.

“It must be nice,” she would tell me when I sat back down next to her at the bar.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“I mean everywhere we go all the men just adore you.”

“Yeah, that must be why I’m still single!” I said as we laughed.

When I wasn’t out dancing, I was talking to guys I met through a dating line I recently joined. Sometimes if they interested me, we’d go out for dinner or meet up at Starbucks. And there were those times it went further than that and we’d end up back at my apartment sometimes until morning. It’s not that I was looking for love or some sort of commitment, in fact I would warn them as they kissed me good-bye, “don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

One thing I noticed was, the absence of love removed most of my selective restraints—most any guy, or if none were available, even a woman would do. The first time it felt pretty awkward, but their warm soft lips and smooth firm breasts, made me feel as if I was loving myself. There was even a man who was technically married, but recently separated—some guy named Jeff, not my agent, but some guy that I met on the line—he was kind of fat and smelled really bad so I would insist that before we would do it, I “get on all fours.”

Then there were nights when I was alone, and the walls of my room closed in all around me. Sometimes I would call one of the men on the prayer watch at Calvary Chapel, other times it was new hope at Crystal Cathedral. It wasn’t like I abandoned my faith, but my light had grown dimmer—like Peter following along at a distance, moving in shadows, warming himself at the enemy’s fire.

If it was before eleven o’clock I’d go out to Thirty-one Flavors for a Mint Chip Cappuccino Blast, come home and take all of my meds, get undressed, get into a bath, and pick up one of my toys from the side of the tub—the one’s without batteries, as those were the ones I kept by the bed. Then a symphony of water and plastic rushed up against my G spot like the torrents of an underground geyser seeding through an adjoining volcano. Closing my eyes, I cast aside all of my morals—those that I learned as a child, and those that were later undone. And soon I fell into a dream as the walls began swaying in rising towers of lavender steam:

“I asked him with my eyes to ask again, yes! And then he asked me would I, yes! To say, yes! My mountain flower and I, first I, put my arms around him, yes! And drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume, yes! And his heart was going like mad and yes! I said, yes, I will. Yes!” (Joyce, 1305).

One night as I was walking home from the club, dressed all in black and barely visible along the dark deserted streets of my neighborhood, some middle-aged man in a white minivan pulled over and rolled down the window.

“Pam, what the hell are you doing out here?” he shouted. “Get in and I’ll give you a ride.”

Terrified, I kept on walking, then he crept alongside of me blowing his horn.

“Pam, it’s your brother. Come on, get in.”

So, he helped me inside and we just sat there and looked at each other before he spoke up.

“Are you always out this late?” he finally asked.

“Not always, and you?”

“Just got back from the store,” he said, but I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not. “Come on, I’m taking you home.”

When we walked in the door, the light above the dining room table was still on like it usually was, then looking around, he noticed two straws and a mirror sitting next to an unwashed cup.

“What the fuck is this all about?” he asked, lifting up one of the straws. “You doing coke? Or is it meth?”

“Dude, it’s not even mine!” I protested to no avail. “One of my friends must have left it there. You know I can’t see very well.”

“One of your friends?” he said as he grabbed ahold of my arms and stared a hole right through my eyes. “Bullshit! What the fuck is the matter with you?”

Then he kept right on swearing at me as he went to the kitchen, reached under the sink, and pulled out the trashcan.

“Well you can tell your friend that your brother who actually cares about you, just threw all of his shit away!”

“Look, Ron, I’m sorry,” I tried to tell him, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“Sorry? You’re sorry my ass!” he scowled. “With all of the meds that you’re on, this shit can kill you!”

“Ron, you don’t understand,” I told him as he tied up the bag and walked to the door.

“What? What is it that I don’t understand? I did some of that shit myself! Damn near ruined my life! Tell me what is it that I don’t understand?”

“Ron,” I said then I looked in his eyes still reddened with anger but starting to soften at each of the edges. “You don’t understand that I’m already dead.”

A week before Thanksgiving, almost ten years to the day of my mother’s death, I found out that Don and Veronica were no longer together. He left her for some skank named Debbie, who Veronica let move into their home when she claimed that her husband abused her. Now with Don out of the picture, she was in danger of losing the house.

“Dad, its Pam.” I said when he answered the phone.

“Didn’t I tell you that you’re not allowed to call here no more?” he shouted back loud enough to tingle my ear.

“Dad, please you’ve got to call your lawyer we need to do something.”

“What kind of shit did you get yourself into now?”

“It’s not me, Dad,” I calmly explained. “Veronica’s going to lose her house.”

So he called up his lawyer and requested an ex parte hearing to see if I could use some of the funds from my estate. It turned out that since Don and Veronica were in the process of adopting my daughter, she never asked me for child support. But now that her marriage was over, I asked the judge if I could not only pay her to be Arielle’s guardian, but that she be paid retroactively dating back to the day she was born.

“I don’t need your fucking money!” Veronica said when I told her about it. “What, are you trying to tell me that I’m not able to raise Arielle on my own?”

“No, sis, I’m just trying to help,” I assured her.

A few weeks later, right before Christmas, we went into court and the judge ruled in my favor. When the hearing was over, Veronica ran over to me as I got ready to walk out the door with my dad and his lawyer.

“Look, thanks, sis,” she said, reaching out and touching my arm. Then she turned and went in the other direction out to the structure to look for her car.

That year, we all got together at Marie and Roger’s house for Christmas, and since Betty insisted on me being there too, I was formally invited. The day was cold when we made the drive out to Bakersfield in my father’s Bronco and once we got over the pass, the wind started picking up dust as the car shook back and forth on the road. Not only would most of my family be out there, but so would Ron’s friend Jim, his wife Lisa, and both of his daughters. Last year I had stayed home at my apartment and Don and Veronica showed up with Arielle for a couple of minutes, then just like that they had to be going. But this year I would finally get to spend time with my baby. I went to the store to buy her some clothes and a stuffed golden bear like the one that lived in the big blue house on the show that she liked on TV. I also bought her a pair of white Doc Marten boots in a toddler’s size. “You’re fucking kidding!” Veronica said when I told her about them. I also decided to write her a poem and read it out loud in front of the family. It was a verse that I’d heard in a song—one from the seventies—but I made it my own, a heartfelt sonnet of love to a son that I changed into a song for my daughter.

“Hey, Pam you got a booger,” Jim said pointing to the mole on my face as Roger let us in through the door.

“Merry Christmas to you too.” I said as I gave him a hug. “So how is life in Tehachapi?”

“Pretty damn cold,” he chided. “But the scenery’s nice and the property’s cheap so I can’t complain.”

“So are those the little ones?” I asked him, pointing at the two little girls toddling around on the living room floor.

“Well, one of them is,” he nodded. “The other one’s yours.”

Then I heard Veronica calling me over, as she stooped to the floor to pick up the baby.

“Say Merry Christmas, Pam. Arielle, can you say Merry Christmas?”

After a couple of tries, she did manage to say my name, but it was still “Pam” and not “Mom,” so that kind of hurt. Then after I held her awhile, Veronica’s son Andrew came over and snatched her away. When we finally sat down to dinner, I was all the way over at the end of the table next to my father and Betty while Arielle squirmed in her seat next to Veronica, saying my name over and over and trying to join me.

“Sit down, Arielle!” Veronica scolded as Roger who was dressed in a white chef’s hat and a matching apron set a plate of prime rib, fresh baked rolls, and scalloped potatoes down on the table.

“All right, who’s going to say grace?” He asked as he took off his hat.

With all our heads bowed, and what seemed like several minutes of silence, my father finally spoke up, “Good bread, good meat, good God, let’s eat!”

After dinner, Veronica served us all a slice of “pink pie”—a recipe she learned from our mother—then we gathered all around by the tree to open our presents. While most of us got cards and money, my father surprised Veronica with a present that was, considering him, quite neatly wrapped. It was some sort of sweater that looked like the ones that your grandma would knit when you were a child. It was the ugliest thing, but it still made her cry when she opened it up. Then I gave Arielle the presents I got her and while she didn’t know what to make of the boots, she sure loved the bear.

“Wait everybody,” I said as Marie and Roger started gathering up all of the paper and boxes and Veronica piled up all of the dishes into the sink. “There’s still one more thing.”

“What is it Colombo?” My father chuckled.

“It’s a poem that I wrote for my baby.”

At first, I heard a few groans, then Roger told everybody to “listen up” as Arielle’s eyes set softly on mine.

I took a deep breath and read it out loud in front of the room:

The season is upon us now, a time for gifts and giving;

As the year draws to its close, I think about my living.

The Christmastime when I was young, the magic and the wonder;

But colors dull and candles dim, and dark my standing under.

Oh little Arielle, shining light, you’ve set my soul to dreaming;

you’ve given back my joy in life, and filled me with new meaning.

A savior king was born that day, a baby just like you;

And as the wise men came with gifts, I’ve come with my gift too;

That peace on earth fills up your time, that brotherhood surrounds you;

That you may know the warmth of love and wrap it all around you;

It’s just a wish, a dream I’m told, from days when I was young.

Merry Christmas little Arielle, Merry Christmas everyone;

Merry Christmas little Arielle, Merry Christmas everyone!

(John Denver, 1975)

For a moment the room stood quiet and still, the glow from the tree warming my face in cascading pixels of light. Then I looked at Arielle, her face agleam, her mouth slightly opened and two small hands reaching over in my direction. I smiled back and for a moment our eyes locked onto each other, suspended in the seasonal radiance that held us together in a distant embrace until shards of uproarious laughter rained down on me like showers of blood.

“Thanks, Pam!” Andrew stood up and bellowed, “for ruining Christmas!”

Then gales of laughter swept through the room as I tried to hold back the tears in my eyes.

“Pam, that was beautiful!” Betty exclaimed. “All of you should be ashamed of yourselves!”

“Look, Pam, you know that we love you,” my brother assured me when all of the laughter finally subsided. “It’s just that you were so serious!”

“There’s no need to apologize, bro. I’m used to you mocking me.” I reached in my purse and pulled out my phone. “I’m calling a cab. Andy, I’m sorry I ruined your Christmas!”

My father and Betty followed me outside with my sister Marie close on their heels.

“Just take her back to the motel,” she told my father. “I don’t need all of this drama at Christmas!”

We were all supposed to meet up the next day for breakfast, but the three of us decided to leave that night. On the way home, none of us spoke, as we climbed up into the darkening shadows and over the pass—the cold wind whistling in through the cracks of the white plastic cab.

When we got back home, my dad dropped me off at my place, without even saying good-bye let alone wishing me a Merry Christmas. I walked up the sidewalk that led to my building as glowing streams of white crystal bulbs still hung in the trees. I climbed up the stairs, opened the door, set down my purse, walked into my room, and laid down and cried.

I wanted to pick up the phone and call somebody. Let’s see who out there still gives a shit? Trey, he’s probably busy with family ever since he got married last year. My old friends from high school? Yeah right. My agent Jeff? Are you fucking kidding? Steve? What about Steve? Right now I didn’t care if he ever loved me, maybe he did and was too afraid of letting me know. Perhaps if I call him, he’ll want to come over? I knew it was late, but maybe he was sitting alone in his room waiting for somebody to call him? Maybe he was feeling lonely as well, after all, Christmastime can be pretty lonely. Maybe he’d forget about all he had said, and he’ll just want to come over and hold me. Don’t we all need somebody just to hold us sometime? Feel some sort of human connection, a warm soft body to lay there beside us and tell us those things that make us feel alive, even if they turn out to be lies?

No, Pam! Don’t do it! I said to myself as I picked up the phone and started to dial. Then I put the phone back on the receiver, picked it back up, and dialed the prayer watch. But then even after we prayed, I still felt like an uninvited guest to the party of the one whose birthday we all were celebrating.

For the next few days I stayed in my room and when I wasn’t playing video games, I was writing poetry—really dark and personal stuff that if I ever let anyone see they’d probably want to have me committed. Then on New Year’s Eve I was out on the couch eating popcorn and red vines, watching Austin Powers instead of Dick Clark, when the telephone rang, and it was my sister Veronica. And what was even stranger was that it sounded like she had been drinking.

“Hey, Pam, I just wanted to thank you again for saving my house. And oh, by the way, I’m sorry about what happened at Christmas, you know Andrew can be kind of an ass especially after his father left us.”

“No sweat, sis. How’s everything going?”

“I don’t know if I ever tell you enough, but you know I’m not really big on emotions.”

“Tell me what? I asked her then she started rambling again.

“You know that bitch, Debbie?” she said as she started to slur. “She told me that Don never loved me! That’s what she said. That home wrecking bitch!”

“Veronica don’t listen to her! You need to ignore her.”

“She’s even got Don doing drugs again and drinking and shit. And you know what else?”

“No, no, what else, sis?”

“She said that she wants Don and her to adopt the baby!” Then she started crying so much that I could barely make out a thing that she said. Then choking back a new round of sobs, she regained her composure and boldly declared. “Over my dead body!”

“Mine too sis! Mine too! That fucking bitch!

“A whore! A fucking whore is all that she is!” Then she suddenly started to giggle and for some reason I giggled as well.

“You know what, sis?” I told her. “This year has really sucked!”

“Tell me about it!” she said. “Anyways I just wanted to wish you a happy new year and hope that things will get better and all, but I’m not really sure that they will.” Then she started crying all over again.

“Well happy new year to you, sis! And by the way, I really do love you.”