I knew they were making an example of me. My friends whose fathers had attended Taft, they had all been given warnings, while I was being expelled. Charlie had been a scapegoat as well—getting clean only to suffer the repercussions of old crimes. The fact that life was intrinsically unfair lodged itself at the center of my chest, like a well-mortared brick. I loved Taft; I’d finally lived my life fearlessly, everything within my grasp. With no one to stop me, I’d ordered the proverbial club sandwich—and I’d devoured it whole. Now those old feelings of unworthiness were creeping in again, and I wondered if I’d even deserved any of the happiness I’d felt over the previous two years, the frenzied sense of freedom.
Granted, there probably wasn’t a single handbook rule I hadn’t violated, with the exception perhaps of plagiarism or cheating, but my grades had been good and I’d been a strong athlete—varsity ice hockey, varsity tennis. I’d seen plenty of kids get away with more than I had. In the boys’ dormitories I’d seen bongs as tall as standing lamps, with lamp shades placed on top as their only disguise. I knew students who were regularly invited into a certain teacher’s apartment for cocktails, and boys who got caught red-handed with drugs and faced no consequences. The omnipresence of drugs and booze at Taft had taken nearly all of us up in its mischievous embrace. The chartered buses into the city, the free-flowing cash, the “chaperoned” theater trips, the dinners at Beefsteak Charlie’s with free pitchers of beer. We’d all partaken.
And then they’d changed the rules on me.
Hearing a crackle of plastic, I opened my eyes: my father, opening a pack of cigarettes. I sat up in the seat, and he eyeballed me in the rearview mirror, a slight smile on his face. He lit two cigarettes with the car lighter and handed one to me.
I took it silently. The last time he’d given me a cigarette I’d been ten, also riding in his car. I took a long drag on it and looked out the window at the blankness of Ohio, picturing my father and Bobby smoking at the airport, the tears drying on their cheeks.
We were almost home.
Return
WALL IN DETROIT, 1984
(by Frances Stroh)
Detroit, 1984
The potholes on Jefferson Avenue got worse every year. Five months of ice and snow and then the blasting April heat caused the pavement to buckle, then shatter. This, combined with the badly depleted coffers of local government, meant we had a piece of Swiss cheese for a road as we headed into the heart of Detroit to the abandoned Uniroyal Tire plant, an icon of the city’s manufacturing past that was set to be demolished in just a few months.
We had been planning the excursion for weeks, speaking in muted voices in the hallways at school, lining up a car, discussing the pros and cons of various drugs. LSD, we’d finally agreed on.
Hobey drove while I sat in the passenger seat and Caitlin and Mike lounged in the back. Dilapidated buildings lined the street, and ambling jaywalkers crossed in front of our car. Hobey knew we were coming on, and he cranked up Bad Brains—hard-core raspy punk that made my skull ache. Grosse Pointe seemed a million miles behind us.
I observed Hobey’s herringbone tweed overcoat, his trim buzz cut, his wicked smile—all so out of sync. Bags of provisions and gear were piled at my feet: cigarettes, beer, water, camera equipment. We passed a billboard displaying the tagline “Stroh’s Is Spoken Here,” and I felt a little ashamed. Stroh’s was Detroit’s beer, like Bud was for St. Louis, but it wasn’t as if I’d done anything to deserve having my name up there like that. No one else noticed, or they didn’t report on it if they did. My friends and I never talked about it, the wealth I’d grown up with.
Everyone in the car jammed to the music and smoked. We had Mickey’s with us, not Stroh’s. I opened one to calm my amped nerves. I was coming on fast to the acid. Outside the window, the streets visibly vibrated with the music while the car floated forward, a bubble of self-sufficiency, into the density of the forsaken city.
Toyota and Honda were winning the war. And Detroit, Detroit was an aftermath in the form of a city, a tragic defeat of all things American. Populations, industries, architecture—collapsing in on themselves like decimated ruins. The wreckage of this city etched itself into my genetic code, I could feel it, the patterns engulfing every shape and color.
I turned to Caitlin and Mike in the backseat. They smiled, their eyes melting pools of light. Caitlin’s black hair blew sideways across her face. She had a fragile beauty, with the translucent skin, the shadow-encircled eyes, of a druggie. Mike wore his sheepskin vest, a silver medallion resting against his hairless chest. He put his hand on Caitlin’s, holding on while his feet lifted off the floor, his red curls all liquid fire as he threw his head back, laughing at nothing at all, or maybe everything.
“Wow . . .” It was all I could think to say. On the street a homeless man shared his food with a dog. “Wow, I mean, look . . .” I trailed off, the waves of feeling so intense I knew they must have seen it, too—the open wound that was the world.
Hobey switched the cassette and turned up the volume on “Box of Rain,” smiling over at me. Deejay as shaman. The gentle, twanging notes made the sun feel warmer, the sky bluer, the bombed-out city a kind of refuge.