"Die Lovin' You," the decibel level is deafening. It's frantic, fantastic.
gawky Dexter Cambrook and his nemesis Elise Petko are dancing, over each other's feet. Smoke Filer, who hasn't more than two to live, is grinning, sweating, shaking his ass as if he knows his number's coming up.
Pete Marsh (who won't die for another several years) is happily dancing with Trish Elders in pale green chiffon who's watching the crepe-paper-festooned doorway in vain, waiting for John Reddy Heart to appear. "He can't just stay away--can he? Don't we mean anything to him at all?" Miss Bird, several prom chaperones, glamorous in shimmering green taffeta to her hipless body, has cooly declined Mr.. Dunleddy's request a dance to retreat to the faculty women's lounge on the second floor of the school to ponder, with a bitter smile, her pale mirrored reflection--"The nature of heartbreak never changes, Maxine. Only its elusive object." Evangeline Fesnacht who hadn't a date for the prom is at home in seclusion of her room in a passion of a new discovery--Franz Kafka. As E. S. awoke one morning from uneasy dreams she found herself transformed in her bed into a gigantic beetle! It's an open secret that Veronica Myers and Ken Fischer will be splitting up after graduation. Tonight, the glittering prom that's the highlight of the happiest four years of our lives, graduation and a final frenzy of parties--'After that, it's permanent. We'll always be friends, of course," Verrie has said. Stoic Ken has made no commentary. "That neurotic doll," Dwayne Hewson, shiny-faced, mutters, "she'd never get away with that shit, with me." Pattianne Groves, gorgeous in strapless dusty-rose tulle, gleaming auburn hair in a French twist at the back of her head, stares at her date. "Excuse me? What?" Ginger McCord in strapless yellow upon her date Dougie Siefried in a rented tux and sky-blue cummerbund- "Damn you, Dougie, John Reddy Heart is not a murderer.
He is not." We're amazed, thrilled as a tearful Ginger slaps Dougie's freckled face, bloodies his nose and the starched snowy-white front of his tux. Years later, guilt-stricken Verrie Myers, by this time a moderately successful film actress, wouldn't be able to recall why she and Ken Fischer had broken up at graduation.
she was told of Ken's apparent suicide, at the age of thirty-nine, during a business trip to Stuttgart, Germany, Verrie reacted with as much emotion as we'd seen in her in any of her movies, she burst into tears, tore at her hair and face until we restrained her--"Oh God. Oh no. Ken Fischer is dead? I'd always thought--"--we were destined to marry we wanted to finish Verrie's stammered sentence for her. But possibly this wasn't what Verrie meant to say. Possibly, Veronica Myers, who has told interviewers she's peace only when following a prepared script, uttering words others have prescribed for her, when she isn't forced to improvise for herself out of the "banality, exhaustion and terror" of her soul, hadn't a clue what she meant to say. O. K. Do what you have to do is probably the wisest course. We gather together to recall prom night, graduation and the parties that followed.
notorious parties not all of us survived. Babs Bitterman, Steve Lunt--"It's so ironic, they weren't even a couple really. They didn't love each other much." Smoke Filer. "But who was Smoke's date for the prom.7--I keep forgetting."
"Half her face ended up, the cop at the accident site said, on windshield, like a putty mask. But she didn't actually die. ")
youth O America like gold coins spilling from our pockets as the poet Richard Eickhorn would one day write. So many coins! such riches! no need to to pick up what you've dropped. Waiting that night, the night of the prom, Reddy Heart who was our uncrowned King. And he never came..
last dance was danced, we were staggering, kissing, hugging, crying, girls' mascara streaked on their youth, flushed faces like ink, guys goofily grinning and wobbling in their too-tight polished black shoes, vomiting in the boys' john, a madhouse scene like kiddie bumper-cars in the lot. But John Reddy didn't show, as two weeks later he didn't show at graduation, either. And it was revealed to us he'd moved out of his Water Street apartment. "He couldn't just--leave? After living here for seven years?
Not saying good-bye to anyone?" We tried to determine who'd seen John Reddy last in Willowsville. There had to be a pair of eyes that, knowingly, saw him last. (No contesting who'd seen him first, Ketch Campbell. ) Sometimes we counted adults, sometimes not. Like his boss Frank Farolino who told us he'd said good-bye to him weeks before--"He'd given me notice early. He was quitting the job on June first. I had a sort of idea he'd be leaving town, he was vague about that part of it. Mostly he was anxious about passing exams, getting his diploma. You have to hand it to him.
bastard." His teachers Dunleddy, Hornby, Salaman must have seen him walk out of exams, might have waved to him not knowing it was a final good-bye.
Hornby said, "I spoke to John about going to Erie County Tech.
tuition's low, he could get a loan. I urged him to study drafting, he's got some real talent. But he said, I'd get too restless. It fucks me up sit." Many times Woody McKeever would recount how he'd met John Reddy in the parking lot on a scorcher of a June afternoon--"I asked the kid how were going and he sort of winced saying he hoped O. K. , he was worried he might flunk geometry and not get his diploma. I said, John, I passed, wanna bet? putting out my hand, and he backs off like he's scared of being touched, and says, Coach, I lived too long in Vegas, I bet. I'm kinda hurt, I didn't know it would be the last time I'd see him.
" It was under similar circumstances that Miss Bird said good-bye to John Reddy, after our two-hour English exam in the gym. A dozen of us, groggy from the ordeal, eager for the punchy jolt of nicotine tinged with smoke, were filing out at the end so Miss Bird could only call out
"Good-bye" across rows of desks, and John Reddy who was sort of with us, though not with us, waved to her in his offhanded way, you could see that the exam ordeal had roughest on him, he appeared distracted, sweaty as if he'd been sleeping in his clothes (which maybe he had), T-shirt stained across his back and his lank, thick, black hair disheveled from running his hands through it despairingly. Miss Bird would declare afterward, her pursed lips trembling with hurt and indignation, "Never did I suspect John Reddy wouldn't be graduation! Or that, so abruptly, he was leaving Willowsville.
hinted. And I had a graduation present for him--Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass in a beautiful facsimile first edition. I've kept it for twelve years, wrapped." That last day of exams was a Friday. By Wednesday of following week, John Reddy was gone.
He'd passed all his courses with average grades of 75 percent, 73 percent, 79 percent except for Vocational Arts III, Mr.. Hornby had given a grade of 94 percent.
None of the girls of the Circle, searching their hearts and consciences, being truthful, mostly Christian good-girls, could lay claim to having seen John Reddy following exams in the gymnasium. Except Katie Olmsted her sweetly dogged way insisted she'd "caught a fleeting glimpse" of him, Sunday morning, 9,48 A. M. , as he was driving the Mercury (at a speed) south on Haggarty Road, the Olmsteds, en route to the First Presbyterian Church, were driving north. Katie said eagerly, "I wonder--where was John Reddy going? To church? In a white shirt, so handsome, so neat, a longsleeved white shirt with the cuffs buttoned, but no necktie that I could see, and his hair wetted and combed, like a tamed wild animal? I'm it was church. I'd been hearing talk of John Reddy attending services at the United Methodist, and the Church of God, but nobody actually saw him, were no eye-witnesses, people brushed it off saying such a notion was farfetched--'John Reddy, in church? Him? But his mom used to go to church, I've heard. The Hearts may be a good Christian family, who can judge? It's sinners who need church, not the rest of us." Katie acknowledged she got a little excited, and leaned out the window to wave at John Reddy past, and "maybe, just maybe" John Reddy waved back, though it wasn't clear whether he'd recognized her. Sexually rapacious, stylishly dressed Mrs..
Rindfleisch, Jon's problem mother (a "nympho-mom" we'd been lurid rumors of since we were all in sixth grade), her hunter-green parked crookedly, idling at the curb, hurried swaying into Muller's Drugs to pick up a prescription (for Valium
, Mrs.. Rindfleisch described herself as a pioneer of state-of-the-art tranquillizers in Willowsville in those heady years) and nearly collided with a display of hot water bottles, staring the tall rangy classmate of her son's, what was his name, the Heart boy, boy with the astonishing sexy eyes, the boy who'd plugged Melvin Riggs, Jr. , the skull, darling Mel Riggs who'd once, a decade ago at a New Year's Eve party at the Bozers', danced her into an alcove, knee between her redspangled lame skirt, and murmured into her burning ear words of
enclearing obscenities--"The last I can reasonably expect in my lifetime, I think." Mrs.. Rindfleisch heard her husky voice lift Lyrically, "John Reddy!
Hel-lo." She somewhat surprised herself, cornering a boy Jon's who so clearly wanted to escape. (What was John Reddy doing in Muller's?
Some of us speculated he was stocking up on Troians for the weekend, he must've run through rubbers like other guys run through Kleenex. ) John Reddy appeared startled that Mrs.. Rindfleisch knew his name. Or maybe it was the lilt of her voice, her gleaming predator eyes and shiny lipsticked lips. He must not have recognized her though he and Jon had been on the track team together and she'd come to a few meets, eager to see excel and to be proud of him even if, most times, unfortunately, didn't, and she wasn't. "Well, um, John--lots of excitement imminent, yes?"
he regarded her blankly. "I mean--the end of the school year. The of--high school. Your prom, graduation. Such a happy time, yes?
John Reddy murmured what sounded like, "Yes, ma'am." Or possibly, "No, ma'am." Mrs.. Rindfleisch queried brightly, And will your family attending your graduation, I hope?" John Reddy shook his head, pained.
"Why, that's too bad! No one?" Mrs.. Rindfleisch moved closer, a sweetmusky scent like overripe gardenias. She tried not to lick lips. "Why don't you join us, then? I'm hosting a lavish brunch that day.
Family, relatives, friends, scads and scads of Jon's classmates--your classmates. Will you join us? Yes?" Not looking at the woman's heated face, John mumbled he might be busy that day, but thanks. Flushed with her generosity, Mrs.. Rindfleisch said, "Well, John Reddy, know in-vited. Chez Rindfleisch. Anytime. In fact--" Her second Valium since lunch, was it her third, had just begun to kick in. That delicious downward sensation.
Sliding-careening. A spiraling tightness in the groin. In the and folds of the groin. She had a quick, wild vision of how her pubic hair not graying for the same shrewd reason the hairs on her head were
"graying" but shone a fetching russet-red) would appear to John Heart's staring eyes, flattened like italics glimpsed through the pink-satiny transparency of her panty-girdle and believed it was a sight that arouse him, she laughed, effervescent. Teeth sparkled. Asking edgy boy if, um, would he like to join her in a Coke? a cup of coffee?
beer? a slice or two of zingy-hot pizza with all the trimmings? next door at the Haven or, better idea, her car's right outside, ignition already switched for a quick getaway, they could drive to Vito's Paradiso Lounge on Niagara Boulevard, no trouble there, him being served. "What d'you say, John Reddy?
Yes?" But John Reddy was mumbling, not meeting her eye, "Ma'am, thanks but go, I guess. Now." Mrs.. Rindfleisch was astonished to see her out, as long ago that very hand might've leapt out to forestall swaying, toddler-age Jonathan from falling and injuring himself, now it was a beautifully maintained middle-age hand, manicured, Revlon-red-polished scratchily caressing the boy's hairy forearm, brushing against the boy's taut groin, she saw a flicker of--what? --helpless lust in his face. 7--or fear? --"Ma'am, thanks, no." Quickly then he walked away, about into a run. Mrs.. Rindfleisch stared after him, incensed. How he! What was this! As if everyone didn't know the brute animal, the fiend, sexy Killer-boy! As if she hadn't one of her own, a handsome sexy teenage son, at home! Watching him exit Muller's as if exiting her life, against a rack of Hallmark greeting cards. His lank black greasy hair was long enough for her to have seized into a fist, and tugged. God damn should've. The way he'd insulted her. A hard-on like that, practically popping out of his zipper, and cutting his eyes at her, sending her sex messages with his eyes, staring at her breasts, at her (still glamorous, shapely) legs in diamond-black-textured stockings, then coolly backing away, breaking it off teasing like coitus interruptus, the prig. Like of them, Goddamn prigs. Tears wetted Mrs.. Rindfleisch's meticulously cheeks. Tears wetted Mrs.. Rindfleisch's raw-silk champagne-colored worn beneath an aggressively youthful heather suede vest ideal for mild autumn days and nights. She stumbled in her high-heeled lizard-skin pumps to the door, or what appeared to be the door, she'd forgotten--what?
Some reason, some purchase to be made, she'd come into Muller's for, what was it, God damn who cares, that beautiful boy was slipping outstretched fingers like my very youth, my beauty, you wouldn't believe how lovely I was, my perfect little breasts so bouncy and so free-standing, just hated to strup myself into a bra. Oh but there, he was waiting for her--on the sidewalk--he hadn't stalked off, after all--no, it was her son Jon, Jonathan, he'd sighted the Mazda crooked at the curb, motor running, leftturn signal crazily winking. "Oh Jesus, Mom, what the hell are you doing?" this boy yelled, grabbing at her arm, and Mrs.. Rindfleisch who screamed, "You! You and your dirty foul-minded John Reddy Heart'!
Don't any of you touch me." A few hours later, Smoke Filer and Bo Bozer, high on weed, cruising Smoke's T-bird along the Cheektowaga strip, swore sighted John Reddy driving the Mercury with, Smoke said, Sasha squeezed up so close beside him she was "basically riding his cock" but Bo disagreed--"That wasn't any high school kid, that was a woman. A broad.
Somebody who knows the score." Smoke tailed John Reddy's car for but eventually lost it in traffic. Blake Wells argued, most convincingly, that he had to be the one to see John Reddy last--"I saw him with the U-Haul," He'd been cruising through Tug Hill Park on his bicycle, fighting the senioryear malaise that had been seeping into his soul "like squid ink" for months, looping along the One Hundred Weeping Willows Walk by Glen Creek and through to Spring Street, and North Long, from North Long to Garrison. He carried his camera in the bicycle basket and stopped to take pictures. "Preserving the time before graduation. Like it our preposthumous time. Our time yet of innocence. I guess, like a lot of the kids, I was feeling kind of lost and scared." And suddenly he saw, an intersection, a familiar sight--was it John Reddy Heart in his car, a U-Haul attached? Blake almost toppled from his bicycle, was so surprised. He stopped, snatched up his camera. "I seemed to know this be a historic moment." Blake waved, but John Reddy didn't notice.
Or, if noticing, didn't respond. The car and the wobbly U-Haul were away.
Quickly, Blake snapped several pictures. Of the twenty-four exposures on the film, only these four would turn out blurred, dreamlike. "God damn!" Many times we examined the pictures, in the months and years to come.
them to the light, turned them at hopeful angles, as if they were visual riddles like the artwork of M. C. Escher, or children's games in which shapes secreted in clouds or foliage suddenly leap out at the viewer. But these were not riddles to be solved. These were merely blurred snapshots.
Blake said, disgusted, "I don't know what went wrong. I steadied the camera the bike handlebars, I sighted the car perfectly in the viewfinder. I know I did." But we could see only blurred movement along a familiar roadway might've been a car, or a U-Haul. "Like background in a picture which the foreground, the actual subject, is missing." Said John Reddy, You never knew me.
Said tohn Reddy, Ain't got a clue of me.
Aohn Reddy, tohn Reddy Heart.
Kenawka, Minnesota. One of those American places, and there are such, where you wind up, living your life, your actual once-only life, though you can't recall having chosen it or why, in the first of what delirious or drunken or deluded exhilaration you might have thought Yes! I can do it. I will.
His name in this place was Richard A. Eickhorn. Yet to himself Ritchie.
In his soul, seventeen years old.
He woke to a painfully dry mouth, veins pinching like wires at his
temples. It was so early--7,40 A. M. --there was no sun. And perhaps it wasn't a season for sun. He was in his Thermopaned but still drafty first-floor study where he'd slept what had remained of the previous vodka-blurred night on a sofa bed he hadn't tugged open, in his clothes he hadn't removed, only his boots shoved off and left to fall, spread-eagled, on the floor.