STARLIGHTER

  Things did NOT blossom between Sasha and I after returning to Revere Beach. Our romance withered, ran out of gas, bit the big one, and popped a gasket.

  Don’t get me wrong ... Sasha didn’t suddenly turn into ice. It was more subtle ... nothing you could chart on a graph. She continued to laugh at my lame witticisms, to tousle my hair, to drive playful elbows into my gut. No, it was something else. Simply put: Sasha avoided being alone with me. Not an easy task, considering how we shared the same fucking apartment. I mean, Joey was always rushing off somewhere.

  When her old man was out hacking or something, Sash spent most of her time upstairs with Marianne or Jonathan or Patricia Street or Frankie Zurich or Jumbo, the Wonder Clam. She remained up there all day; drinking beer, getting high, listening to tunes, watching soap operas and making small-talk. Whenever yours truly was around, she made damned sure there was at least one other person around, too. She skirted meaningful contact with me.

  And sometimes she’d split early in the morning before I got up and not return until dark, claiming she’d spent the day with her Digger friends in North Cambridge.

  She was juicing more, too ... and it secretly worried me. She’d hit the bottle at sunrise and not stop until her and Joey uncreased the sheets at night. I casually mentioned it to her once, her boozing. My criticism was veiled ... it took the form of a non-judgmental gag. “Christ! Be cheaper just to lay in a pipeline from the brewery.”

  Sasha smiled, shrugged. “Bite me, D.C.”

  She sat for hours in front of Kaplan’s color TV. (His Dad had it shipped over and Jonathan acted like he’d just gotten a turd in the mail). She fried her brains on color television ... gaping mindlessly, hour after hour, with one of the cats on her lap and a beer in her hand. The life was slowly dying from her eyes.

  Patricia Street immediately picked up on it (college girl). “She’s a tad down in the dumps, I think.  Y’know what I guess it is? New Hampshire. Having to come back here is a letdown.”

  But I knew it was more than that.

  On the few occasions when I managed to corner her alone, she was so totally shitfaced that nothing meaningful could possibly come out of it. I’d say something to her and she’d act melodramatically drunk, burlesque drunk. She’dclaim how she needed to lay down at once or she’d pretend she was about to barf and jet into the bathroom. The only times she felt ill or needed to crash were the times she found herself alone with me. She ALWAYS had a goddamned excuse! She ALWAYS put distance between us when any degree of intimacy seemed even remotely possible.

  On July 29, two men walked on the moon. “What do WE care, Danny? The same assholes who produced this moon shit, are the same assholes who produce napalm.’’ This from Jonathan Kaplan ... via Frankie Zurich.

  Less than a month later, there was a big rock concert up in Bethel, New York ... wherever the fuck Bethel, New York is. Zillions of people showed. The TV had aerial shots ... lines of immobilized cars on the road ... a massive carpet of stoned humanity splashed over the rustic hillside. It was more than a music festival ... it went beyond that. “It’s a new revolutionary nation,” Frankie Zurich proclaimed. “A harbinger of the future, a spark of hope.” We all sat in front of the tube mesmerized, wishing we could be there. But we felt the vibes ... it radiated from New York State in all directions. And we were, like, tribally connected, man!

  On the lighter side ...

  A celebrity murder spree in - where else? - California. The cops nailed this freak named Charles Manson, a Svengali-like hipster. Manson masterminded the butcheries, sayeth the Heat. He was one of those cult dudes. And his followers were all hippies. And the weird thing about this Manson bunch was how uncomfortably they reminded me of, well, us ... Marianne, Joey, Jon, Sloth. Blue and Frankie. Not that we had a homicidal loon-bag among us like Chas Manson ... but shorn of his hypnotically malevolent aura, Manson bore a not too remote physical resemblance to Jonathan.

  Of course they were on TV, this Manson bunch. I was freaked at how ordinary, even banal, these killers looked. A few of them could easily mingle among us without drawing undue attention. They looked like WE looked, like run-of-the-mill Heads. They mouthed the same political aphorisms. They shared our opposition to the War. They listened to the same music and read the same books. When certain members of this cult were interviewed, they sometimes said shit that made alot of sense. Yet these cats were fucking murderers! It left me vaguely troubled.

   One of this bunch - a chick named ‘Squeaky’ - looked just like Sasha.  Swear to Christ!  A dead ringer. Not just her facial features, but EVERYTHING.  She was the same height as Sash ... she weighed the same ... she walked like her ... she talked like her ... she wore her hair like Sasha ... she moved around inside the same ragtag clothes .  Remarkable.  All the others said I was nuts. Every now and then they admitted that, yes, from a certain angle maybe, she often looked a little - VERY little - like that ‘Squeaky’ skunk ... perhaps.

  “Whew!” went the chorus. ‘‘You must be tripping, D.C.”

  This was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

  Blowsy and expansive, Joey dominated the conversation that morning. Guess what topic eventually came up?

A)  The Rockets?

B)  Duckpin Bowling Techniques?

C)  Post-War Existentialism?

He urged the boys to crank off one more practice. “This is probably the last time we’re all together before  .. y'know? ...the gig.”

  “I don’t give a shit,” said Blue.

  Neither did anybody else.

  But Joey didn’t give up.  He yammered for another ten minutes on creating a good impression at the agent-crammed Starlighter ... on the vital importance of ‘professionalism’ ... blah, blah, blah.

  Joey’s diatribe was kiboshed by the Technicolored arrival of Henry Brylcreem and Connie Cleavage.  They roared up in their sporty convertible and rafishly blapped the horn. As usual, the two of them were decked-out like movie stars;  Henry especially, who was arrayed in one of his ‘UP-AND-COMING-MAN’ ensembles.  He sashayed into the house totting a bewildering variety of photo equipment. ‘’German,” he informed us. Said he wanted to snap a few group shots ... “ Y’know? ... a picture of the whole gang.”

  The dude murdered a half hour just setting shit up.  He had tripods, light meters, special lenses, filters, reflectors ... the back platform looked like an MGM sound stage, for Chrissakes!  He positioned us all at the far end of the deck and kept moving us around.  “Blue, you stand up front. Frankie, move in a little closer. Take a half step forward, Marianne.  That’s it!  I think you’d be better in the back, Sloth.  Smile, D.C. ... this is for the history books. Connie, honey ... tilt your head just a little bit.  No, the OTHER way.”  What an irredeemable asshole!  The guy thought he was Cecil B. DeMille. ‘’Okay, I think we got it now. Everybody look natural.”

  Henry composed the shot so that Sasha was positioned between Joey and Yours True. ‘ Ironic’, I reflected glumly. He kept telling Joey and I to move closer to her. “Here goes nothing,” he grinned. Henry had one of those hoity-toity delay-action shutters ... which gave him ten seconds to leap into the photograph himself.  Figures.  He dashed out front and plopped himself down on one knee in front of the group. Our Fearless Leader.

  A second before the camera went off, Sasha draped one arm over Joey’s shoulder and the other arm over mine. I forced myself to smile.

  ‘CLICK’.

  Everything was upside down in the morning. Joey was upbeat and I was the one with the attitude. The fact that I was outrageously hung-over didn’t help. Soon as I got up, I staggered into the can and evacuated ten quarts of yeasty-smelling urine ... then I took a quick cold shower to rinse the sour-smelling sweat from my body of well-tempered steel. I felt better ... marginally better ... but there was nothing I could do about Joseph Belmusto. When I groaned and complained to Marianne, she fixed me a BROMO SELTZER. It fixed my stomach okay, but it had NO effect on the headache or the misanthropic mood. Still, it felt good knowing SOMEONE - Marianne - gave a shit.

  We all ate breakfast outdoors, on the platform. I restricted myself to orange juice and black coffee, eschewing all the other delicacies. Everybody yapped away amiably, even Sloth was chiming-in with more grunts than usual. But yours truly remained sullen ... gaping out at the trees ... trying to untangle shit.

  As I said, Joey was full of it: “Next time you do any heavy boozing, D.C.,’’ he grinned broadly - no trace of one upmanship - as if everything were dory-hunky. ’’ ... Take a couple of aspirins BEFORE you crash. It always works for me.’’

  ‘’You couldn’t tell me this last night?’’ I asked in a low scratchy voice.

  This prompted a brisk and cheerful discussion about hang-over cures and preventions.. The conversation seemed entirely moot. I resented everybody’s feeling so good ... especially Joey.

  But what REALLY got to me was Sasha. She acted unfazed and untroubled ... the same ol’ Sasha ... the same unflappable Sasha! She treated me the way she ALWAYS treated me ... with good-natured ribbing, a sparkling smile and a bubbly glint in her eye ... the same upbeat crap she doled out to everybody else. ‘’Quiet today, D.C.,’’ she grinned at me from the far end of the picnic table. ‘’C at got your tongue?’’ When Marianne informed her that I was in pain, Sasha fixed me with a mocking look of concern. ‘’Poor baby! ‘’ she grinned

  There was no secret look in her eyes ... not the slightest indication of our intense moment in the sun together yesterday

  Darkness descended around nine. A chill coursed through the house. Sweaters were donned and another log was added to the fire. Joey remained on the floor near the fireplace, strumming his newly strung guitar. He played soft and slow ... desultory little nothings. He stared pensively into the leaping, crackling fire ... totally removed from the rest of us. Blue was removed, too; he removed himself to the living room sofa, where he quickly fell into a coma. The rest of us passed a bottle of wine and did up a couple of bowls of ‘ganga’ ... all except for Marianne, of course. She observed us from her rocking chair, a benign glow radiating from her. Jonathan had a few tabs of mesc which he offered around. Sloth and Frankie Zurich partook. Yours Truly declined. I played a game of SCRABBLE with Patricia ... and lost. I drank beer after beer until I could barely walk. I was fried. I staggered into the sunroom - everything was a blur - and crawled into an imaginary hole in front of the television. Television! Things on TV were always cleaner, always symmetrical. Shit on TV always had a point. What, I asked myself, was the point of today? Where was the symmetry? Where was the resolution? Where was the climax? Where were the syndication residuals?

  At ten-thirty, Joey lifted himself off the floor, strode into the kitchen, drained what was left of the ‘MATEUS’, took Sasha’s hand and informed her it was time to turn-in. There was steel in his voice. “Time to hit the hay, babe” ... just like that. Nary a trace of a fissure or a gleam of uncertainty. “Time to hit the hay, babe.” And Sasha complied sheepishly. Like a balloon at the end of a string, she was led into the guestroom in back.

Where the bastard proceeded to maul her. He slapped her around, pushed her around. He called her a ‘whore’ and a ‘slut’ and a ‘worthless bitch’. And he made damned sure we could all hear it, too ... made sure we didn’t miss a thing. Sasha pleaded with him; “Joey! Joey, not so loud!” It didn’t stop him. Sasha screamed and sobbed. There was a violent ripping of fabric. Sasha gasped. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” ... a desperate gush of helplessness. Joey screamed; “I’m gonna fuck you, bitch!”

  It was Joey’s Standard Operating Sexual Procedure ... only he cranked up the decibel level twofold. Soon he was nailing Sasha to the walls, smashing into her again and again and again. And Sasha shouted out obscenities with each thrust ... a kind of joyous torture. An unholy din of sexual frenzy.

  And we were all forced to listen to it ... to every shout, to every squeak of the bedsprings, to every slap, to every taunt. I don’t know how the others reacted; whether they were alarmed, whether they ignored it. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I just sat in front of the boob-tube unable to move, gaping stupidly at the electronic images, wallowing in a mire of beer and unresolved rage. “That no good fucking prick!” I screamed to myself over and over again.

  And, man! ... I felt lousy about it!  I would’ve felt better, maybe, if he hauled off and bopped me one or acted shrill and crazy with anger.  But this ‘suffering-in-silence’ bit made me feel like a puddle of piss.  I was bilge, utter bilge!  What kind of guy, after all, hoses his best buddy’s skunk behind his back?  The answer didn’t do much for my precious self-esteem.

  The same train of thought - or close to it - was racing through Sasha’s mind, too.  She was at the kitchen table rapping with Patricia Street ... but every few seconds her eyes strayed over to Joey and a flicker of trepidation showed.  At one point she looked at me, nodded and smiled ... but it was mostly for show.  Sasha was putting on a brave front primarily for MY benefit.

  I took my beer and sauntered over in Joey’s direction.  I felt Sasha’s eyes following me.  I didn’t exactly know what the fuck I was doing - I was drunk - but my instincts compelled me to go shoot the shit with the guy, have a normal conversation, lighten leaden atmosphere.  I wanted Joey to know that everything was okay, that Danny Callahan WASN’T a prick. I don’t know why, but it seemed important that the dude DIDN’T hate me.

  “Hey, Joe.” I made my voice matter-of-fact.

  He briefly looked up. I couldn’t see his eyes through the reflection of fire in his ‘cheaters’, “D.C.” Equally matter of fact.

  “Changing the strings, huh?”

  “Uh huh,” he grunted. At that point he was wrestling with a ‘C’ string.

  “So how did practice go?”

  “Metz-a-metz,” he shrugged.  No eye contact.  Ice cold.

  “Big Starlighter gig, huh?” I contrived a smile.

  “Big Starlighter gig ... yeah.”

  The boy was not in a talkative mood.  I slunk away, feeling low down.  I looked at Sasha who smiled at me.  But there was no joy in her smile ... it was flat and one dimensional.

  Bad vibes were suddenly as thick as a brick.

  But Joey wasn’t currently in the mood for hauling his assets 30 miles north to get shitfaced, when he could do the same here for nothing. And that was the consensus among the rest of us, too.  But Henry’s motor was still running. He was antsy to ‘make the scene’ ... wherever the indigenous scene happened to be.  It wasn’t here, that’s for damned sure! He asked all of us if we’d very much mind, seeing how none of us were interested in any heavy-duty partying, if he and Connie copped an early dixie. ‘’We’ll be back here first thing in the A.M.,” he assured us.

  It’s not, I think, that the rest of us were anti-social, averse to partying and shit ... but we were intimidated by the ‘la-de-da’ social climes inhabited by the Midget Marine and Connie.  Not only was it beyond our financial pale, but we simply didn’t fit. The thought of Blue or Sloth - or ANY of us for that matter - hobnobbing in one of Henry’s fancy-pants ‘hot spots’, mingling with his circle of ritzy, ‘on-the-go’ live wires was ... well, strange.  Not where our heads were at, as they say.  We were into granola, mud meatloaf and humpback whales ... not champagne cocktails, ‘Rolex’ watches and trendy bistros.

  “You know,’’ I injected gratuitously. “It’s probably not in your book there ... but there’s a place right here in Belknap Falls ... place called ‘DOT’S’.  Joints lousy with swingers, Pepsi generation cats. Very hush-hush and cliquish.  I mean, why travel all the way up to North Conway?  ‘DOT’S’ is where it’s at!  Ask for Earl.’’

  Joey gave me the visual equivalent of a kick in the nuts. Jonathan suppressed a giggle. Sasha shook her head and grinned at me. And Marianne spoke; ‘’Don’t listen to him. Lost in the woods too long.’’

  After the departure of Henry and Connie, Joey retreated even DEEPER within himsef for the rest of the evening. He sat on the floor next to the fireplace slowly and methodically changing the strings on his guitar. When he stared into the fire, glints of orange flashed in the lenses of his glasses. The dude was unnaturally reflective ... no palpable evidence of his usually fidgety manner. He wasn’t trying to cajole the ROCKETS into another practice or work on the charts or polish the sets and prepare for this big opportunity. None of that. He just sat placidly by the hearth, sipping ‘MATEUS’, tuning the ax and gaping at the fire.

  Well, I didn’t need to have a Fulbright Scholarship to connect the fucking dots!  Joey had put two and two tog ether and arrived at the inevitable four.  He’d figured out what happened between Sasha and me !  What else would drive him so low?

  I instantly realized - with an almost audible gasp - that he KNEW!

  By the time we sat down for supper, the rain was slashing down in gray diagonal sheets, spears of lightning were ripping into the nearby woods, reports of thunder vibrated the windows and all the house lights flickered. Normally a frightening situation. But Jonathan, from the head of the kitchen table, exuded quiet reassurance, which the rest of us eagerly picked up. Even Blue seemed less paranoid.

  Maybe he was stoned.

  The table wasn’t meant to sit more than six ... even with the expansion leaf ... yet there were eleven of us chowing down. Eating became a kind of squinchy endeavor. Not surprisingly, Frankie Zurich dominated the dinner conversation ... he was directing salvos of political invective aimlessly into the ether. And except for Jonatnan, nobody was paying much attention. By the time we finished with the soybean mystery meat, the storm had subsided.

  Jonathan casually mentioned that night’s sleeping arrangements. He informed Henry and Connie that they were welcome to use the master bedroom (they being, of course, the master bedroom TYPE) and that he and his old lady would be more than happy to ’rough it’ on the floor. Considering Marianne’s pregnancy, this was a vastly magnanimous gesture on Jon’s part.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Henry protested. “We found o motel on the way up. Few miles from here ... Weirs Beach. Already booked the reservation.”

  There was the obligatory howl of objection.

  “No, really,” sayeth Connie unto the wretched. “It’s a divine little place.” Yeah, right! Valet parking, liveried servants, 24-hour room service, sunken heart-shaped tubs, canopied beds - the whole ball of wax. THAT would fit the two of them. Connie and Henry were not - under any circumstances - going to crash in the same house with nine unwashed freaks. For all the relative opulence of the Kaplan home, there wasn’t a silk sheet IN the joint.

  Before Jon or Marianne could offer up further objections, Henry swung the discussion unto a different tack. “We were thinking ... why don’t we all go out tonight? Knock ourselves out !” His voice shimmered with restless enthusiasm. A quiet evening with his friends was apparently the furthest thing from his mind. Henry just happened to have a pamphlet in his paw ... some drek churned out by the state tourist commission or something ... listing all of New Hampshire’s alleged hot spots. Brylcreem plowed through the pamphlet with rising hope that his zealotry was rubbing off. ’’ Here’s a cool-looking place. In North Conway. Where’s that? Says here, ’live music every night;. Whaddya say, Joey?”