LET'S GET NAKED - PT 2

Rhonda hadn’t told me it was an outdoor party. It was in Tilden Park, a huge 2,000 acre wooded recreational area at the top of the Berkeley Hills. I wasn’t dressed for an outdoor party and didn’t much like them. They were always wilder than the regular Mira Vista Park parties. Combine that with smoky fires, dirt, bugs and squatting in the bushes to pee, it didn’t make for the most comfortable time. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I was determined not to let an opportunity to be with Marty pass.

Robert drove around Tilden’s winding roads at a speed that sent us all leaning into each other at every turn. Rhonda kept telling him to slow down but he’d only laugh and go faster. I thought about trying the trick a nun at school had taught us to get a boy to slow down. Sister Mary Austen said that when a boy was driving too fast, we should not react or act scared because that’s what they wanted. We should tell them that there’s something up ahead we wanted to see, and ask if they could slow down so we could get a better look. Then we should pretend to be looking for something. But in Tilden Park, I couldn't think of anything to say besides, “Hey, Robert, can you slow down so I can look at that tree up ahead, that green tree?” Yeah, I’m sure he would’ve slowed down for that.

About a mile into the park, he came to a screeching halt on the side of the road. In the bushes, a few feet away, was the beginning of a dirt road that disappeared off into the woods. Rhonda pointed to it and said, “The party’s right down that road.” I looked at her, hoping she would change her mind and talk Robert into going to the party with me. But her face was cold and unsympathetic. Her eyes looked fierce. They were outlined in thick black liner which was starting to gather in the corners. Her overly tweezed brows were dotted with faint stubble where the hair was growing back. For the first time, I noticed how thin and cruel-looking her lips were. The right side of her mouth turned up just a little bit. This was all the cheer she could muster for me. Rhonda couldn’t even fake being a good friend. Her hair was dark and greasy. She wore it parted down the middle, hanging straight like Cher. Rhonda liked it when people told her she looked like Cher. More than once I had even said she did. I was her friend, we were supposed to feed each other’s fantasies. At that moment I was amazed how ugly she looked to me now.

I got out, and walked around the car to the road. Robert lit a cigarette, threw the match out the window and it landed near my feet. He said, “Have a good time,” and drove off, leaving me in a cloud of white smoke and dust. I held my breath until the smoke cleared then checked my clothes for dust. The sun had set a short while before and it was beginning to get dark. Usually I liked this time of day, when everything was silhouetted against the sky, but that was when I was inside looking out, and safe from nature. I wasn’t an outdoorsy girl. I was afraid of spiders, and beetles, and moths, most of all moths. My sister and I were both afraid of moths. Once we had even made our parents come home early from a night on the town just because there was a moth in the kitchen. Moths are fluttery and unsettling and when I was six, a boy down the street told me that if the powder from their wings got in your eyes you’d go blind. I believed him. The same boy also told me that dragonflies sucked your blood. I was afraid of those too.

I stood there alone in nature, in the encroaching blackness, at the beginning of the path that led to Marty Koutz. I was scared and wanted to go home but I forced myself to move, cautiously, one foot at a time. I froze once I heard what sounded like an owl hooting somewhere in the treetops nearby. I wondered if owls ever attacked humans. Fortunately the boy down the street had never said anything to me about blinding or bloodsucking owls. I kept moving. The gravel in the dirt crunched under my feet. I varied my pace to change the sound. It became a game that distracted me from the 2,000 acres worth of fears just waiting to pop up and terrorize my mind. As I walked further in I could hear music in the distance, conga drums being played in a furious rhythm, and sporadic laughter. I was relieved. Then fear rose again. What if it wasn’t the Park people? What if this was some rowdy group of people I didn’t know? What if it was the Hell’s Angels, or worse? There was nothing worse. I had read stories about the Hell’s Angels and everybody was afraid of them. Every weekend my junior year, I had peered out a bus window at their headquarters in Oakland, as I rode to do volunteer work at a home for the aged. I’d seen all their Harley motorcycles parked in front. I knew that if you even thought of touching one of those bikes, they’d torture and kill you. How was I going to survive at a party full of Hell’s Angels? Instantly my heart eased as I heard someone scream out, “Let’s get naked!” All was good. I was in the right place.

I reached a clearing and saw smoke rising from a big bonfire in the distance. The atmosphere was lively. About fifty people were scattered around. Some of the guys had their shirts off and were dancing with abandon around the fire. I looked at the faces of every dancer, over to groups gathered in conversation, and then to every couple sitting quietly off to the side. I scanned every face illuminated by the yellow flames of the fire until I spotted Marty. I finally breathed for what seemed like the first time in minutes and exhaled a wide smile. Finally, this whole messed up start to the evening was worth it.

Anxious to catch up with everyone and get into party mode, I raced to a gallon jug of Red Mountain wine, raised it to my mouth and drank, no, gulped down half the bottle. I knew by drinking my nervousness and trepidation would soon be gone. I’d be relaxed. I’d say all the right things. I’d have fun. I’d belong. All I had to do was let the wine do its work, knock out the brain cells that made me uptight, put a big smile on my face and get me loose enough to be attractive, but not loose enough to do anything I’d regret. I sat down on a log next to the fire and waited for Red Mountain to do its magic. A rush of warmth ran through my body. I laughed. “Woo hoo!” I yelled. It was going to be a good night.

Everything was okay now. I had made my entrance into the party without any embarrassment, had blended in with the rest of the crowd. I was now sitting less than ten feet away from Marty Koutz. I looked at him and smiled. God, he was beautiful. I think I could’ve been happy sitting on that piece of dirty lumber for the rest of my life just staring at Marty Koutz. He noticed me looking at him. We made eye contact for one short second and everything I felt about him came pouring out of me and into that look; all the longing, the desire, the fantasies, the dreams, the hopes, my complete obsession traveled an invisible highway from brown eye to blue. He turned his head away, but I took that as a good sign. Everything he did I translated into something positive. After all, the fact that he had even looked at me in the first place had to mean something good.

It was a chilly night but I was hot. It could’ve been the wine, or the fire, or Marty but I started to sweat. I took off my furry black coat, placed it on the log next to me and patted its soft faux fur. I thought about when my mother had given it to me, how surprised she was that I finally liked something she had bought me. There was a bit of sadness in her smile though, as if she was disappointed. Like somehow I had robbed her of her daily dose of feeling unappreciated.

The wind shifted and smoke from the fire blew into my face. My burning eyes gave me the perfect excuse to move out of its path and closer to Marty. I smiled at him again but I could tell I made him uncomfortable. This time, there was no way I could put a positive spin on the look on his face. It wasn’t love, or even like. It was more like panic. Marty jumped up and dashed over to a nearby open shed where people were dancing to music coming from a tape player inside an old truck parked nearby. I watched the dancers move aside and let him pass through, closing in behind him until he disappeared into the gyrating crowd. I chugged more Red Mountain wine and followed.

My feet felt heavy. I aimed my body toward the shed, but it suddenly became two sheds spinning in circles around each other. I stopped and held out my hands to regain my balance. Now everything was spinning. The Red Mountain train had taken me a few stops past sociable and delivered me at sloppy drunk. I felt my body lunge forward and I went with the momentum, zigzagging my way toward the shed. Someone in the distance yelled, “Let’s get naked!” People howled. I howled too. They were having fun and I wanted to have fun too. My head propelled me forward, chasing the revolving shed somewhere in front of me while the rest of my body stumbled after it. But before I could reach it, I tripped and fell, bending at the waist into a large, rusty trashcan.

Everything went black, except for a pencil thin ray of light that leaked in through a hole in the can. Loud laughter echoed from outside. I knew they were laughing at me. I didn’t move. I decided to stay inside the trashcan, hide my head and pretend that none of this had happened. But a hand reached down and pulled me up straight. It was Rat. Rat was one of the older guys who hung out at the Park. He was tall and wiry, always nice to the girls who hung out there, and pulling me out of the trashcan for him was just an instinctive act of chivalry. He asked if I was okay. I could only squint and strain to see past him to where Marty had gone. All was a blur.

Someone ran over to the shed and yelled, “The cops are coming!” Everything became chaos. People scattered in all directions. Rat grabbed my arm and began to run with me, a valiant knight rescuing a drunken maiden in distress, pulling me through the darkness like a rag doll, jerking me through wet grass and over rocks. I tripped again and fell into a puddle in the dirt. Rat pulled at my arm, “Get up or you’re going to get busted!” But I didn’t want to run anymore. I didn’t want to move anymore. Nothing was going the way I had hoped it would. I wasn’t supposed to be this drunk. Rhonda and I were supposed to watch out for each other. I was supposed to be with Marty. I felt sick. I was tired. I just wanted to lie in that soft puddle-bed, go to sleep and forget everything.

I looked up at Rat and could see his face clearly in the glow of the fire. He was handsome. His brown hair looked soft and wild. His eyes were kind but they were small and his nose was pointy. He really did kind of look like a rat. And in that panicked moment of survival, Rat let go of my arm and said, “Sorry, babe. You’re on your own.” Rat ran off into the darkness and I lowered my head into my soft muddy pillow, closed my eyes, and let go of it all.