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Tales of the City Part VI:
Jenny's Joyride
I wish I had
paid more attention to Violet's strange behavior.
Instead I looked away, stopped talking to her that summer. From the start
she sensed something invisible about Jenny. Tried to tell me, but I wasn't
listening.
It was because Jenny was sophisticated, older than me and seemed confident
that I was drawn to her. At that age I felt restless, daring, and willing
to try anything, which made me vulnerable to the influence of the people I
looked up to.
Jenny made Violet seem boring. All the things Violet was too afraid to do,
Jenny encouraged and even suggested. Stealing was one of those things. In
the past I had stolen makeup from the drugstore or candy from the party
store and up until I met Jenny, I never considered the possibility of
stealing anything bigger, or anything better.
I remember the first time she came over to take me out stealing. She drove
up squealing the tires of her '78 shiny black TransAm. The t-tops down and
her long golden hair streaming in the wind. Concrete Blonde blaring,
sunglasses slipped down her nose, she looked at me and smiled. Chewing gum
and her posture, her figure perfect. I wanted to be like her.
I was sitting on the porch, bored and angry at Violet for not wanting to do
all those wicked little things that I did - steal, smoke, drink, and do
drugs
'Beware of darkness, beware of sadness - it can hit you'
That day Jenny took me to Pico's and I stole 6 pair of g-string silky
undies and an $80 Christian Dior bra, which I wore everyday for the rest of
that summer. The tiny straps and satiny texture of the fabric made me feel
feminine, sexy, more grown up, like Jenny. That summer I stopped wearing
baggy clothes and dressed like her - in rebellious tight clothes. My
favorite was a pair of black fishnets that I wore with chunky combat boots.
Violet thought it was shocking and looked me up and down with a scowl on
her face. She was worried because I smoked pot with Jenny, and hung out
with the dealers, the artists and the skaters that Jenny knew. Violet
thought they were all losers and most of them were dropouts. "That's what
happens when you smoke weed," Violet said knowingly, though she had never
smoked it. "It's like on those commercials where those 30-year old potheads
sit in their parents basement saying, 'I wished I never would have smoked
that first joint'. They don't do anything but watch TV all day. Is that
what you want to end up like?"
I rolled my eyes. So much she just didn't understand. So I walked away and
ditched her that summer. She made me want to be even more rebellious, so I
hung out with Jenny constantly after that. I wish now that I would have
realized what was really behind Violet's eyes. Clear blue, large and
fearful. So afraid of everything in the world that summer, and I was too
wrapped up in myself to notice or care that she was eating less, dropping
more weight and staying in her house all day.
Soon my closet was packed with new clothes. When my Mom asked questions, I
told her they were Jenny's clothes.
At first it seemed like Jenny's friends had something different, something
better than the friends I had my own age. Even the skaters, who in my
memory, are hazy figures dressed in dark green or gray shorts cut off at
mid-calf, dirty flannels draped over bony shoulders. They sucked on cans of
Butane and listened to bands like Rancid and The Sex Pistols. But there
was nothing about their company that changed me, not really. I found
shallow people, deep people; it was the same with this crowd as any other.
It was Jenny that had power over me, that influenced my life and changed my
perspective. Looking back I realize that she was weaker than me, her
confidence false, her sense of herself only a mask, many masks.
When I would spend the night, we'd stay up all night in her basement room
getting high. Lying in bed listening to Concrete Blonde, eating shrooms.
Staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars all over her ceiling. She'd read my
Tarot and always she claimed she saw a man in my future. There was no name,
only an impression or the idea that he was out there somewhere in the
universe. My destiny. Soon, very soon, the stars and planets would align,
she promised, and he would enter my life.
Sometimes we'd do speed and stay up running around town all night long. One
time we sat naked under the stars. She told me how to bust the clouds
apart. "Just concentrate. Focus all your passion, all your love, all your
hate, and your creative energy onto one cloud and move it with your mind.
Break it apart," she said.
These were things I loved to do. It felt like I found a way, or she found a
way to connect with the entire universe. Watching the milky clouds pull
apart, like claws, like fingersS. I was never sure if it was my mind or the
wind that broke the clouds apart and moved them across the sky. But Jenny
always believed it was us, our energy.
She had the ability to make the average occurrences appear mystical and
magical. Whenever anything bothered me, when I had a decision to make, I'd
tell her about it. She'd stare at me for a few moments, letting me sink
into her. Then she'd smile her upside down smile, thick bottom lip pouting,
protruding. "Lay back," she'd say. "Take five deep breaths. Slow and deep.
Go to the epicenter of your being. A door. Open it. A path through a
forest, the sun shines through the branches and the leaves. This is a
sacred place. Feel it, become it. The tree spirits, the nyads, they are
Alive, they surround you. There is a stream, listen, hear it bubbling,
laughing. Now ask you question and listen for the answer. The right one
exists. Inside yourself."
It was hypnotic, strange. I felt otherworldly.
'So Softly, so close to me surrounding me so pitifully Lullaby,
lullaby to you.'
When I listen to my Concrete Blonde CD's, even now, 10 years later, every
song reminds me of those times. Jenny's music, our music. The summer of
1992. And I remember the red crushed velvet cover of the journal she stole.
Reading the pages she wrote, I discovered all her secrets; the story behind
her eyes.
There were many things I didn't know about her, until after she went away.
The next installment of Valerie's fictional serial of 'Tales from the City'
will appear next issue. Send comments to:FIVEMILEBOOT@aol.com
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