23 - Unicorns and John Wayne
(This journal entry corresponds to the chapter that follows this page)
Journal: March 27, 1987
So where do I begin?
Perhaps thinking she wouldn’t call, or that she had at tried
during some odd hour over the previous two days, and gave up in disgust when
she couldn’t reach me, or perhaps decided from the coolness of our last meeting
on Saturday I wasn’t worth the trouble.
It was such thinking that left me unprepared for when she
did call, while my best friend, Pauly, hounded me with phone call after phone
call for me to do “just this little favor,” to pick up some pot from his
paranoid dealers in Paterson and drive it out to him in west Jersey, a favor I
put off until Thursday until I felt certain Peggy wouldn’t be calling me back,
and if she did, I wouldn’t accept it because she waited too long to reply –
figuring I would save the hundred dollars I had set aside for the occasion, and
then, she called.
I’m still not sure whether Peggy is using me or not, the way
my ex wife does in calling me only when she needs money, although Peggy has yet
to ask for money, which makes me think something else is involved which may
make all this worth the trouble, if and when we get to the finish line.
But with my underground newspaper due to come out soon, I put
the money back into my checking account to cover the cost of printing it.
I had twenty-two dollars on me when she called, and I
panicked, unable to articulate the speech I had prepared the moment I heard her
voice, and the best I could come up with was: “Then it’s still on?”
“Of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
A good question, I thought, although I was so caught up in
the details, caught up in wondering about her motives, caught up with an
overall lack of trust in this budding relationship and my own feelings, I did
not take anything for granted or that she would keep her word.
This wasn’t like I felt when I was with Fran, trapped into an
uncomfortable if not only an intensely sexual relationship, I almost felt as if
I was selling myself into slavery with my dealing with Peggy. Fantasies of real
love leaped into my head, even though I should know better, since my whole purpose
of going to strip clubs was to join all the other lonely men in shared misery while
staring at T&A that I could never have. I never expected to find love there.
And here, I nearly talked myself out of the date, which I
had reluctantly made in the first place.
Why?
Partly out of fear of her, and her barroom mindset where
people used each other, and where the unwary get gobbled up alive. Even though
I hang out in some strip clubs, I am out of my element in bars, a guppie
swimming in a pool with sharks.
I’m also in a state of disbelief, reminding me of that time
back in junior high school, when the most popular girl in school asked me to
take her to the dance. I thought she was kidding and declined, one of those moments
that still make me cringe thinking back on.
Half the reason I asked Peggy out was to prove to myself
that I could and to challenge the idea that this was some kind of game.
She game me instructions to her house, which I immediately
lost, then rushed up to the bank to try to draw the money out again before it
closed, knowing that it would be closed. I showered, then tried to find
clothing that might look more presentable.
I tried calling Pauly to inform him I would not be making
the trip out to see him to deliver on his special favor.
I had to do this thing with Peggy, to find out more about
this strange woman, about me, and how far I could stretch this attraction.
Pauly did not answer; but then I did not let it ring too
long, knowing just how upset he would be about my inability to bring him the
pot he needed.
I rushed up to downtown Passaic; the banks were closed. So,
I called work to arrange to get an advance on my pay check.
Finally, I drove to Peggy’s apartment on Harrison Avenue in
Lodi.
This was old stomping ground for my family, whose footsteps
I could trace through every block, going back generations to when they arrived
here in the 1880s.
Peggy lived above a shoe store in a rundown old brick
building, the trim of which pealed paint, yet was UpToDate enough to have a buzzer
system in the downstairs vestibule – although I needed to push no buttons. The
front door was wide open.
Peggy was startled to see me. She thought I had said 7:30,
not 6:30, which I might have said in a panic. I couldn’t recall for certain.
But once there, she had no choice but to let me into her apartment.
It was obvious that she lived alone, these three rooms serving
as her inner sanctum, a small kitchen with a round black-painted wooden table
in which a heart had been cut with matching antique chairs (also with hearts
carved in their backs), one of which was damaged.
She pointed me to the other room where she said I should sit
on the couch, equally damaged, with a corner propped up with a phone book.
I sat only briefly,
and it wasn’t until later when returned from dinner that I took notice of what made
up that world of hers.
I did notice the collection of books in the corner, many of
them best sellers, yet enough text books to confirm she had indeed gone to
college.
She dressed quickly, dried her hair and followed me down to
my car, with me apologizing the whole time for the condition of my car, a needless
gesture since she had a similar habit of filling the passenger seat with empty
cups and fast food plates.
A common denominator.
We stopped for gas before driving west towards Willowbrook,
where I stopped and went into the Dunkin donuts to get the advance on my check.
She complained about my lack of music in the car.
I asked her why she hadn’t gotten her car inspected?
She told me it wasn’t registered and she didn’t have car
insurance. In fact, she didn’t even have a driver’s license any more and might
never renew her license again. She said she somehow got along fine without any
of those things.
God help her if she ever got caught or wound up in a serious
accident, I thought.
Worse, still, there were bench warrants out on her for the
many traffic tickets she’s already received for driving in this condition.
Why the police hadn’t hauled her off to jail might be
contributed to the lack of coordination between motor vehicle and local police.
She dared not, however, go near a court room.
She said most of her paperwork showed that she lived at her
father’s house on Lanza Drive. When the sheriff’s department showed up with
warrants, she simply denied being Peggy.
This stark defiance of authority still startles me, for it
says something about her that I didn’t get from my other interactions with her,
a sense of experience I hadn’t yet come to realize, how she could survive in a
violent world, a clever manipulator who had a role in that dark environment,
and suggested just how deeply emerged she was in the underworld.
I also noticed her calendar, which looked very similar to my
ex-wife’s. My ex-wife used this to keep track of her appointments, crossing off
the items when her business with them was concluded.
Peggy said many of them had to do with her tutoring, her
work with United Way, and her Republican organizing, although she did not look
me square in the eyes when she made this claim.
We drove to the restaurant Peggy had picked out.
It was way to fancy for my budget, but more importantly, bearing
the all too familiar look of a mob joint, tan walls with black awnings. It was
a place she apparently had frequented in the past in the company of some rock
star, sports figure or mafia don.
She did not act offended when I told her I couldn’t afford
the place and directed me to a place in Clifton better suited for my budget as
well as my blue-collar sentiment.
We talked a lot, she laughed a lot, and then we drove back
to her place, a running dialogue that revealed a lot about her lives, me
talking way too much for my own good, she talking far less than I would have
liked.
Once we got back to her apartment, we found roses leaning
against her apartment door, which she snatched up and tossed onto the kitchen
table when we got inside.
“From a secret admirer,” she said with a laugh.
She handed me a beer and a glass, while pulling out of the refrigerator
a container of orange juice and a bottle of vodka, mixing them together in a
glass filled with ice.
The glasses had images of unicorns on them, a theme I then
noticed spread throughout the apartment: there were unicorns everywhere, unicorn
novelties, unicorn stuffed animals, unicorn paintings. But the living room was
dedicated to John Wayne, where she had a collection of his photographs spread
along one whole wall, young John Wayne, old John Wayne, John Wayne as cowboy, marine,
sailor and private eye.
He was the real love of her life.
“If I could I would let him do me any time,” I said.
“You do realize that he’s dead?” I asked.
“I know that!” she said, giving me a cold stare. But I could
see from the look in her eyes how she must have cried when hearing the news of
his passing.
“Stay here, I’m going to get undressed,” she said, giving me
an odd look from the door, perhaps a bit amused by my shocked expression – me, thinking
of that old cliched line about “Let me get into something more comfortable.”
She returned a short time later wearing a marron smock, her
pale legs poking out from below exposed all the way up to the thighs.
Below the John Wayne photos on the wall across from where I
sat on the couch, she had a record player and several hundred records stacked
up from which she selected tunes she wanted to hear.
We drank our drinks. She talked about how she’d given her
heart to a man who didn’t deserve it, a man who had hurt her deeply, destroying
things that were precious to her, he intending to hurt her as much as possible,
all in the name of love.
As usual, she left out specifics such as time references,
refusing to divulge anything but the barest of details.
We sat side by side on the couch, and it took me a long
while to approach her.
I asked if she would mind if I kissed her.
“If you have to ask, forget it,” she said.
I tried to kiss her. She pecked at my lips. I think my
breath was bad.
I tried to neck. She told me to behave, and got up again to
play more record, and sing, the way she always sang while on stage.
At that moment, she looked utterly innocent, like a little
girl, but a little girl whose defiance of authority might eventually end her up
in jail, who drives home drunk from every dancing gig, and who for some reason
I can’t explain wants to be with me.
She asked when my birthday was, and when I told her, she
made a face, telling me Taurus is boring.
I managed to get another kiss, a bit more substantial than
the earlier peck.
I had to leave. I had to go to work.
I drove away thinking of unicorns and John Wayne.
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