Dear zoe, p.8
Dear Zoe, page 8
Soul Man
Jimmy Freeze came and went from his house at least five times a day. I spent a lot of time on my Dad’s porch and I bet there was hardly a single time I sat out there more than an hour that Jimmy Freeze didn’t either come running out of his house or jogging up the sidewalk and take his steps two at a time. I figured he was seventeen, maybe eighteen, but it was hard to tell because he was so tall. He was always in a hurry but he was never carrying anything, at least nothing that didn’t fit in his jeans pockets.
He also never acknowledged my existence and that started to make me think he was cuter than maybe he was, which I hate. Getting older makes you stupid that way. I mean, he was cute but there was nothing all that unique or mysterious about him, except that he paid absolutely no attention to a girl who wasn’t that much younger than him, no matter what she wore. I started to get a feel for his schedule and made sure I was sitting out there whenever he might come by but I may as well have been a pot of flowers. So I figured I needed to make an impression.
It had been a while since the night his music woke me up and it had never happened again. Frank and I were sitting on the porch steps, directly in his line of sight as he fast-walked up the sidewalk. He somehow turned and started up his stairs without ever registering our presence, until I started singing.
I sang real soft, “There is a young cowboy . . . who lives on the range . . .”
You never saw anybody stop so fast in your whole life. He was like David Blaine with his hand on the handrail and his legs levitating in mid-air. Then he rocked back off the steps.
“What did you say?”
He looked a little bit like he was in one of those dreams where you realize you’ve gone to school in your underwear.
“Me?”
“No. The dog.”
“Nothing.”
“What song was that?”
“I don’t even know. Just some stupid thing my stepfather used to play. It’s been stuck in my head lately for some reason. Frank likes it.” I stroked Frank’s head and he played along real well. His tongue was hanging out sideways.
“That your dog?”
“Not really. My Dad’s selling a litter and no one wants this one so far.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. He’s the runt, I guess.”
“You gonna keep him if no one takes him?”
“You always ask so many questions before you find out someone’s name?”
“Sorry.” He actually did look sorry. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Tess.”
“Hey Tess, Jimmy.” He let go of the rail and put out his hand. He had long fingers and his hand was real warm.
I nodded at his house. “You live there?”
“Yeah, sometimes. With my Dad and my stepmom.”
“I’m surprised I haven’t seen you before.”
“I’m out a lot.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Nowhere really. Just around. Pretty much anywhere but here. He friendly?” Jimmy put his hand out to Frank and Frank sat up and put both paws on either side of it, like he was holding a lollipop, and licked it real fast.
“Yeah, he’s friendly. How about you?”
It was like he sort of looked at me for the first time. “Depends.”
“On what?”
He sat down on the steps so Frank was between us and he started scratching his ears. Frank’s whole head fit in his hand.
“You Nunz’s daughter?”
“You know my Dad?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of how?”
“Sort of how everyone knows him.”
“How’s that?”
“I don’t know. He’s just one of those guys people sort of know. Plus the truck. I mean, you can’t have a truck like that and not have people say, ‘Who the fuck was that?’ ”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I couldn’t believe I was defending the truck. “You got a Porsche or something?”
“I’m not exactly legal to drive right now.”
“How come?”
“Let’s just say if I’d had a license during my last traffic stop it would have been suspended again.”
“You think that’s pretty cool?”
“No. I think it sucks.”
“Because I’d kill for a driver’s license right about now. And when I get it I don’t think I’m going to treat it like a bad girlfriend.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen. Soon.”
He looked at me like he was surprised but couldn’t decide why.
I said, “You’re thinking my face looks older but my body looks younger.”
“Yeah. That’s it. How’d you know?”
“How’d I know what I look like?”
“Hey, no worries. Sorry.”
“Look. I was practically the first girl in my class to get my period and I’m either the last one to get boobs or this is it.” I looked down at myself.
He turned sort of red and looked at Frank. “Either way. No worries.”
“For you.”
“Yeah, for me.” He kept looking at Frank. “Not a boob man.” He said it real soft, like boys talk to Mom.
“No such thing.”
“I’m telling you.”
“Then what are you?”
“I’m an eyes man.” He still wasn’t looking at me.
“An eyes man. Yeah.”
“A ‘Soul Man.’ ” He did a little Belushi thing with his voice, that dead guy from SNL.
He grabbed Frank’s paws and stood him up on his back legs and sort of hid behind him while he sang.
“ ’Cause you ain’t seen, nothin’ yet. I’m a Soul Man! I’m a Soul Man!”
It was pretty funny but I pretended I didn’t think so.
“Very mature.”
He looked at me from behind Frank. He squinted a little bit.
“How come you wear so much makeup?”
“You’re real smooth, you know that?”
“No, I mean you don’t need it. That’s all.”
“Thanks.”
“So why do you?”
“I don’t know. I think I like putting it on more than I like how it looks when I get it on. I feel like I’m making a different person.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
He shrugged at me. “Hey, you got anything to drink inside?”
“Sure. You want a beer or something?” I don’t know why I asked him that.
“Your dad won’t mind?”
“Naw. He gives me sips of his all the time. Hold on to Frank.”
I went inside and walked through the living room, where my Dad was on the couch watching the Pirates and into the kitchen. I took a beer out of the refrigerator and headed back through the living room, trying to look like I did this every day. My Dad did sort of a double take.
“Where you goin’ with that?”
“Porch.”
“Who’s out there with you?”
“That kid from next door. Jimmy, I think. He’s real nice and I told him you wouldn’t . . .”
“Put it back.”
“Dad!”
“Put it back and come inside. You’re not hangin’ around with him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
“What am I supposed to do, Dad? Hang out with you all summer?”
“You can have friends from school over here.”
“Dad, come on.”
He didn’t act like a dad or lose his temper with me very often, so it kind of scared me when he got up off the couch and stood real close to me.
“Either you go out and tell him to leave, or I will. And you ain’t gonna like how I do it.”
“Okay, okay.”
I set the beer down and went out to the porch. Jimmy had put Frank down and was already standing up.
“No worries. I heard him.”
“Sorry. I don’t know what his problem is.”
“Me. It’s going around.” He hopped over the handrail and down to the little strip of concrete between our houses. He pointed up and into the narrow alley. “Your room that one?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded backward, down to up. “See you, Tess DeNunzio.”
“Bye.”
Frank and I went inside. I picked up the beer, twisted off the lid and took a sip. My Dad didn’t say anything.
Travis
Jimmy was right about my Dad’s truck. It became a part of his identity. People neither of us even knew started waving to us on the way home from school. Really it was more like they were greeting the truck since they never looked to see if we waved back. The truck was like this mobile member of the community everybody recognized. Even Frank. I know dogs are supposed to know things mostly by smell, but he’d see Dad’s truck turn the corner into our block and he’d go leaping off the porch to greet him.
“See, Tess,” he told me once, before I knew the real reason why a lot of them were waving. “This truck’s got character. No one’s got character no more.”
I told him having character wasn’t the same as being a character, which is what he was in that thing.
“Nothin’ wrong with that either,” he told me.
And I guessed he was right, though I was still glad he mostly picked me up over at Em’s school.
Maybe you put the clues together already but it took me longer than you might think to figure out he was dealing drugs from the back of that thing. I don’t know how I thought he was making money enough to live, let alone work on the house and buy a TV the size of a billboard. There couldn’t have been that many “deliveries” in his neighborhood worth paying someone for except the obvious, and people with enough money to be flying somewhere weren’t likely to want to arrive at the airport jumping out of the back of the S.S. ’Nunz like some underprivileged SWAT team.
I found out from this really creepy guy who came right up on the porch one day after school. Frank and I were just relaxing and this guy comes up and drops a roll of twenties at Frank’s front feet like a bone. Frank sniffed it and the guy looked at me for like ten minutes before he said anything.
“You Nick’s girl?”
I didn’t like the way he said that so I said no, I was his daughter. He smiled out of one side of his mouth like he thought he was a villain in a movie. He was real skinny and even though he looked about forty he had pimples all over the loose skin on his long neck and he had eyes like an old dog, all yellow and weepy.
He said, “That so? You remember me?”
“Nope.”
“I’m Travis. Me and your Dad went to high school together. I was at your folks’ wedding.”
“Sorry. Wasn’t there.”
He didn’t laugh but his eyes got shinier.
“No. But I seen you lots before your Mom got smart and left. Probably even seen you naked a couple times.” My skin got all jumpy when he said that and I looked down at Frank so he wouldn’t see I was afraid. “Can’t believe enough time’s passed for you to look like this.” I saw the toe of his dirty sneaker nudge the roll of twenties away from Frank who was licking it.
“You mind giving that to your Dad for me?”
“Why?”
“Your Dad takes care of his old friends and this is an old debt.”
“Sure. Whatever.”
“Thanks, honey pie.” He bent over to give Frank’s head a quick pat but I could feel him still looking at me. “You ever get to sample the product?”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on. The way kids are now and you livin’ at the warehouse? You gotta be an old pro.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Although by then I had a pretty good idea.
“Whatever you say. Your Dad gone for a while?” Now I looked up because I wanted to be ready just in case. Travis pulled a half-smoked joint out of his shirt pocket. “I still got a little left.”
“He’s on his way home. Right now.” And as if I’d made it appear, the truck came around the corner and headed straight for us. Frank leapt off the porch, kicking the twenties down the steps. I felt like following him but I didn’t want to give Travis the satisfaction.
Travis said, “Too bad. Maybe another time,” and then he wasn’t far behind Frank. He tried to seem casual about it but he didn’t look like he had much interest in paying my Dad in person. He waved at the truck without looking up and headed down the sidewalk.
As of that moment I’d never smoked weed in my life but I wasn’t naive about it. Most of my friends had at least tried it and a few kids I’d hung out with in middle school left it behind for bigger stuff a long time ago. I don’t think there are less drugs in good schools like mine, just more expensive ones. Still, watching my Dad get out of his truck, see him see Travis, see him see the roll of twenties at the foot of the stairs, see him figure out what I probably knew made me feel older all of a sudden, like when I found out about Mom and Justin. My Dad had his head down a little and I was sitting way above him like a judge. He bent to pick up the money, flipped it in the air and grabbed it again and Frank jumped, thinking it was a game. He ignored Frank and looked up, right at me, to see what I was going to do.
“Aren’t you scared?” I asked him.
“Of what?”
“Of getting caught.”
“I guess I’m more scared of not havin’ any money.”
“How about work, Dad?”
“It ain’t that easy.”
“Yes it is, Dad. You work, they pay. That easy.”
“Not what I’m worth. You know, I want to be able to give you stuff.”
“How does anyone know what you’re worth, Dad? You never stay long enough for them to figure it out.” He was sitting next to me now. Frank looked up at us from the walkway, back and forth. “And don’t hand me any more crap about doing it for me. You’ve got satellite and a DVD. How much money’s in my college account?”
“Okay. News flash: I’m a shitty father.”
“No you’re not. But from prison, yes. From prison you’d be a really shitty father.”
“It’s nothin’. A little weed. Only to adults. And never enough to sell to anyone else.”
“Oh great. My Dad, the dealer with a conscience.”
“They’re gonna get it from someone.”
“So it may as well be you?”
“Exactly.”
“Jesus, Dad. Are you familiar with ‘The War on Drugs’? Do you ever watch the news on that theater in your living room?”
“Sweetie, in ‘The War on Drugs,’ I’m a conscientious objector.”
People like my Dad a lot. Even David and people who think he’s wasted his life, because he either makes you think he’s doing exactly what he wants to be doing and wouldn’t trade places with you in a million years, or he makes you laugh.
“The warden will love your sense of humor, Dad.”
“I’m serious. That’s my political position.”
“You don’t even vote.”
“If I did.”
“So people should be able to buy drugs like groceries.”
“I’d put little bells on the truck. Like the Goody-Bar man.”
“Brilliant.”
“You know. All the burnouts would hear the bells and come racin’ out. But real s-l-o-w.” He dragged out that last word and made his voice drop down low. He was nudging me with his shoulder to ask if we were done arguing and I nudged him back, but real hard, to say yes but not because he’d won. Frank sensed the end of the conflict and scrambled up the stairs to push his head between us and we all went inside to figure out what to do for dinner. That was the way fights with my Dad always ended, at least for me—with food. Apparently it wasn’t that way for everyone though. I passed Travis on the sidewalk a few days later, and even though he tried to look away I could see he had a shiner on his left eye about the size of a hockey puck. He was lucky I hadn’t told my Dad everything he said.
Stoned
I don’t want this to come out the wrong way but it was easier to forget about you at my Dad’s, especially once Jimmy Freeze and I started hanging out together. When I was at home everything old was still there except you so I could never look anywhere or even be anywhere without feeling like you should be there too. Jimmy was something new in a new place and it helped take up the space where you were. I even started to understand about Mom and Justin and I felt bad for her that the one thing that maybe made her feel better for a little while was something just about the whole world would see as wrong.
