Season of the Witch
Things get horny in Lucero – Chapter 7.
The Tenderness of Wild Beasts
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Chapter 7: Season of the Witch
1999 was my sex year. Sort of.
Not that I was not aware of its existence –I mean, every bus shelter and bridge column from LA to Sacramento was covered with phone sex posters. But I did not feel concerned yet. On the contrary, my best friend was quite precocious. Already in fourth grade, she forced me to play that ‘Dream Phone’ game with her. At the time, I was more into watching the Animaniacs; I had zero interest in that cheesy pink phone with its fake dudes. Later, she was also mad because my hair would not curl when she tore them out, apparently a scientific proof that a girl was in love. In Bethany, if other girls were into boys our age, Jud preferred grown up men. The thirty year old volunteer of our first aid training got a surprise when he tried to make her guess the word fracture and she answered fellatio. She was obsessed with her neighbor Magnus, a good looking father in his forties. And I am pretty sure she paid the tattooer with a blow job. Esmee could compete, but definitely not me. Judith tried to do my sexual education by bringing me to the theater to see Wild Things, American Beauty, and Cruel Intentions. In the middle of the screening, she would disappear in the dark with the twenty-one year old usher or various male spectators, and I realized that I had failed the test by being the only one to see these movies in their entirety.
So yes, I was quite unsettled to see her in her very white wedding dress, with its almost prudish draped scoop neck. Virginia seemed quite disappointed to see her daughter rushing in my direction, all smiles. As Judith kissed me, I noticed that she had a bun –holy shit– and flats. I wondered if the tattoo was still there or if she had it lasered. Her style, her well behaved attitude, she was Meghan-Markling so hard.
“Oh my God, oh my God! I am so glad you are here, darling!” screamed Jud, forcing me into a hug. “I need to introduce you to Sam! Sam? Bae, where are you?”
She twisted her neck for a while, but no Sam came to her rescue, leaving her with only one option, having a conversation with me.
She asked, “So, are you settling in Lucero or are you just visiting?”
“Hmm, just visiting.”
“You live in Boston, right? Oh, I love stopping there on our way to Martha’s Vineyard… Sam has a place there, you know. And what do you do there? Did you become a writer?”
“I’m writing, yeah. I also work with animals. I’m a trainer.”
“What? Amazing! I remember being so jealous when you were telling me about your weekends chasing birds of prey… I mean, I only went to the mall.”
I have to admit that I was a little taken aback by this confession. The girl I remembered, with her shopping sprees at DKNY, her weekends of long-distance travelling and partying, jealous of my observation of turkey vultures for hours in the middle of nowhere? That was confusing. But not as much as that weird spark inside of her dark eyes. I had spent my childhood and my adolescence admiring her self-confidence, her levity, even her aloofness. And right now, she was diving her desperate eyes into mine, just like a kidnapping victim trying to alarm witnesses without the notice of her abductor.
“You do need to meet Sam,” interrupted Virginia, a little drunk. “He’s such a hunk, a promising young man.”
She insisted too much on ‘young’.
She added, “I don’t see your date, Mary Jane, did you come alone?”
I could not resist rewarding her with a smirk, but Jud was already pushing me toward the bathroom. Since then, the DJ had played it safe, with a mix of Taylor Swift and Adele. But the succession of “Baby One More Time”, “My Favourite Game” and “Teenage Angst” stabbed me in the back and dragged me unconscious down Memory Lane.1
A blazing evening of July, a fluorescent swimming pool, a scenic view on the State Park; I was inside a David Hockney painting, the uneasiness included. It was another birthday party at the Lair mansion.
This time the question was, “What’s your body count?” and I had no Mum-panicking answer to make up.
“Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know
That something wasn’t right here?”
A screen inside the house was showing some video clips. At some point I got a glimpse of Keith Flint, reminding me of the Prodigy poster I had in my peaceful room. Another time, I saw someone had switched the channel to some porn.
The boys kept talking about Leonardo Di Caprio doing cannabis in The Beach and Christian Bale doing cocaine in American Psycho, and I had seen The Virgin Suicides more than six times.
Esmee had finally started dating Nahuel. Dawn was chain-smoking; there were rumors her new baby brother was actually her son and she liked to pretend it was true.
“I should have seen it when my hope was new
My heart is black and my body is blue.”
The night grew darker, the aquamarine glow of the pool made me dizzy. Fifteen years old were pretending to be adults in the middle of bokeh lights and glitter. I remember that Magnus’ windows were lit and, under them, Jud and Esmee in lingerie and suspenders were warming his dark silhouette with their performative lesbian PDA. There were boys in swimming trunks everywhere, their tanned and slender bodies drying up in the tepid red floor tiles. The music was resonating like a sonar in this ocean of juvenile bulges that was opening ahead of the two indifferent Lolitas, as subtle and polite as a Harmony Korine movie.
“Since I was born I started to decay
Now nothing ever ever goes my way.”
Past and present overlaid for a moment, except that at the wedding party, adults were pretending to be teens in the middle of phone screen lights and babysitters.
I was not in a state to protest when we got into the men’s bathroom, but apparently, it was mixed. Nahuel was doing lines on the sink with a guy that turned out to be Sam, and a gal, who, I now know, was Delia Garrison.
“Oh, Sammy boy, let me introduce you to Joan, my childhood’s BFF…”
So now, I was Joan again. Sam was definitely not the brown haired husband Jud had placed an option on at her seventh birthday. He was very blonde, with frosty blue eyes; a scary, ageless, cyborg version of Jimmy Fallon. Definitely not in the vein of Judith’s teenage Daddy issue. Ignoring me, he pushed his wife in one of the stalls and they started making out, door open. Drugs and sex were not limited to the children-free zone of the bathroom, and I remember asking myself what kids were thinking about their so-called role models of parents. Did Fiona and Nathan see their mother wiggling and giggling in hope of a free bag of Molly? She was openly flirting with Nahuel, and I was surprised not to see Esmee around. I later learnt that Dawn was now teaching English in Brussel with her husband and three children, but the Stevenson witch was nowhere to be seen.
At the end of the freshman year, her fusional relationship with Judith had become suffocating. They were dressing the same, behaving like evil twins. I spent most of my time alone in a corner reading Stephen King. When I asked to be withdrawn from Bethany, Oliver obviously protested. However, in silence, Mum took my uniform to the garden, put it on fire and watched it burn while smoking a cigarette. That day, she really looked like the Stanford graduate you must have known, and I found her magnificent.
(To be continued.)
The following quotes are pulled from these songs: Britney Spears "...Baby One More Time"(1998), The Cardigans "My Favourite Game" (1998), and Placebo "Teenage Angst" (1996). Rights to their respective owners.