LET'S GET NAKED - PT 3

When I opened my eyes I found myself slumped in an orange plastic chair in a bright neon lit office. On the white wall in front of me was a four-foot poster of Smokey the Bear warning that only I could prevent forest fires. Underneath Smokey, behind a huge wooden desk, sat a man in a green uniform. On his desk was an engraved wooden plaque with the words Tilden Park Ranger Station.

The man was black, maybe in his thirties, or forties. I was seventeen, to me he was just old. He was talking on the phone. I could tell it was about me by the way his eyes traveled back and forth; sizing me up then glancing away to look at his fingernail, or his watch, or a number two yellow pencil with chewed up eraser that was lying on the desk. He began giving directions on how to get to the Ranger Station to the person on the other end of the phone. He was patient and kept repeating the directions. Who ever he was talking to was confused. I was confused. He looked up at me again, then told the person I was fine. He listened, made reassuring grunts, said goodbye and then hung up.

My stomach began to rebel. The Red Mountain wanted out. The nausea was overwhelming, a sickness in my gut so deep and as sad as my night had been. I could feel the Red Mountain river rising up in volcanic spasms. “Where’s your bathroom?” I blurted out. The man pointed to a side door. I started to cough, then dry heave. My hand flew up to cover my mouth as I ran into the bathroom and closed the door. I knelt down over the toilet and allowed the retching to carry up red oceans of sour wine. It spilled out of my mouth and nose and flowed into the white porcelain toilet. Spasm followed spasm as my stomach emptied. I kept flushing the toilet with one hand and braced myself on the toilet rim with the other. With every flush I could pretend this wasn’t really happening. The man knocked on the door and asked if I was okay. I shouted back, “I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it so why bother to tell the truth.

The vomiting stopped. I washed my face in the mini-sized sink with a worn heart-shaped piece of soap that smelled like roses. I rinsed out my mouth. There was a hand mirror hanging over the sink but I was afraid to look in it. I knew it wouldn’t be good. I grabbed a fistful of paper towels, wet them and went back to the toilet to clean it up. I was drunk but I was a courteous drunk. I couldn’t possibly leave the toilet a mess so I wiped it down, erasing every trace of wine soaked bile and the pork chop dinner I had eaten a million hours earlier.

I went back to the basin and washed my hands again with the little soap that was quickly melting away, looking more like a mis-shapened kidney than a heart. I felt much better. I felt brave. I looked into the hand mirror on the wall. It was turned to the magnifying side and I saw my face at an alarming closeness. My brown cow eyes smudged with smeared black eyeliner gave me a zombie look. I combed through my uncontrollable hair with my fingers until it reached some semblance of style, took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom.

The man was still behind his desk. He sat up in his chair and took his number two pencil out of his mouth. I sat back in the orange chair in front of him, the Park ranger whose name was Gene. He asked if I was cold. It was only then that I noticed I was shivering, and didn’t have my black furry coat. I felt disconnected from my body, like I was somewhere deep inside watching what was going on around me from some vast inner distance. Gene put his heavy green park ranger jacket around me, gave me his gloves and sat back down. His chair squeaked as he swiveled from side to side, watching me, almost staring. It made me uncomfortable. Then he leaned back and asked, “Do you think you might get pregnant because of tonight?” From that faraway place inside I heard his words echo. I was outraged that he had assumed so much. He didn’t know anything about me. He was the uninvited stranger who had picked me up out of the mud and held me captive. “Hey, I’m still a virgin!” I answered defiantly. I wasn’t quite sure he heard it the way I had meant it to come out. My voice sounded drunken and slurred so I repeated myself making an effort to enunciate. “I’m. Still. A. Virgin.” Gene didn’t say anything. He just swiveled back and forth in his chair some more, chewed on his pencil and stared.

The phone rang. An hour had gone by and in that time my father had been driving around the curving maze of roads in Tilden Park trying to find us. He was lost. Gene told him not to worry. He would drive me home.

I sat shotgun in the official Tilden Park Ranger car and directed Gene how to get to my house. He confessed, “The only reason I’m doing this is because you’re black. Anyone else and I would’ve handed them over to the cops.” I wasn’t used to thinking about things in a racial black-white way, but I was happy that Gene had a reason that was keeping me from going to jail. I thought about Rat who had tried to save me. It was good that he ran. The nausea began again and Gene pulled the car over. I puked the rest of my guts out onto a recently pruned rose bush in front of a white Victorian house on Gilman Street.

When we arrived at my house, all the lights were on. It was three in the morning and my mother and father came out in the cold to meet us. I got out of the car and tried my hardest to be sober, to walk a straight line from the car to the house, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. I weaved my way toward the front door. My mother grabbed my arm midway and began pulling and yelling at me. I was unfazed. This was nothing new to me. It was her usual routine whenever I came home late. “You smell like smoke. You smell like alcohol.” My father held her back. She started to cry, “Where’s your coat?”

Once inside the house, I gave Gene his Ranger jacket back and handed him a glove. I had lost the other one somewhere between puking in the Ranger Station and puking in the rosebush. He told me not to worry about it. My mother continued her histrionics, badgering me with a million questions all at once. “I’m going to bed,” I mumbled and stumbled off to my room.

Once inside, I closed the door. I could hear Ranger Gene talking with my parents in the other room. I reached down to pull off my black satin blouse but stopped and stared at it. It was on backwards. I didn’t even remember taking it off. There was a long, dried bloody scratch down my right arm. What from? I had no clue. What else happened that I didn’t remember? I climbed into my bed, dirty; smelling of smoke, mud, wine and vomit and fell fast asleep.

I always liked the day after a party. Certainly not the way you felt, you always were a little hung-over, but the recap was exciting; talking to people who were there, comparing notes, and reliving the whole night detail by detail, nuance by nuance. This time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what happened but I knew I had to. I had to get to the Park to fill in the blanks. But there was no way in hell my mother was going to let me leave the house that morning. I told her I needed to go retrieve my black furry coat. She relented.

I walked to Mira Vista Park and was happy to see a group of girls who had been at the Tilden Park party sitting on the lawn. They had my coat. Rat had picked it up, put it in his truck and brought it by the Park. It was a bit dusty but intact. I started to feel better about everything. No real harm had been done.

We sat there on the green grass, just taking in the sun. It felt good on my face and burned away the terrible feeling from the night before. But I had to ask. “Anyone know what happened to me last night at the party?” They all exchanged knowing giggles but hesitated sharing with me. Then Diane spoke up. She was sort of the mother figure at the park. Her on again-off again boyfriend was one of the original Park members and they had a baby together. She was strong and fierce and nurturing. Diane had no problem telling you the truth, bluntly, and a tad sadistically. She told me how someone had yelled, “Let’s get naked” then I pulled my blouse off and Shelly Roman had helped to quickly put it back on. She described how I was dancing sloppily and fell into a trash can, scratching my arm on its jagged edge when Rat pulled me out. I was relieved. That didn’t seem so bad. But there was more. Her kind motherly hand went up to pat me on the shoulder. “You chased Marty Koutz around the whole party,” she continued, “You were shouting, “I love you, Marty! I love you, Marty!” I closed my eyes. My heart sank. I wanted to shrivel up in a little ball and disappear from the face of the planet. Not only did Marty know how I felt about him now, everyone did. I laughed it off, then made excuses and left.

I walked home feeling naked, clutching my black furry security blanket. I had committed social suicide. It was okay for a guy to get drunk and sloppy. All they did was knock things over or start to fight. But my O.D. on alcohol had released an infinite chasm of teenage longing and desire; loudly, vocally, and in hot pursuit of its victim.

My optimistic survival mechanism kicked in. I rationalized that it probably wasn’t that big of a deal. It’d all be forgotten in a couple of days, or until the next party when someone else got wasted and did something stupid. For all I knew, the guys had forgotten it by now anyway.

A car cruised down the street towards me. I barely saw Marty sitting in the back seat laughing, before the other Park guys stuck their heads out of the window and mockingly chanted at me, “BernielovesYOU! BernielovesYOU!” They continued up the street and out of sight yelling, “BernielovesYOU!” It was worse than I thought. On my walk home I threw the furry black coat into a trash can, as if the whole mess was its fault. I just couldn’t stand to look at it anymore.

From that day on, every time the Mira Vista Park guys saw me, they would taunt me with, “BernielovesYOU!” I hated it. But there was no way to stop them. I wanted to talk to Marty and explain things, deny it all, or do something to make it right. But whenever he saw me, he would literally run in the opposite direction. I had embarrassed him and he hated me for it.

But deep inside I remained optimistic. I’d just bide my time. I’d keep showing up. I’d ignore him and pretend like I didn’t care.
And then maybe, one day… things would change.
And Marty Koutz would again look my way.