Fiction: Walking Down The Stairs To John Gordon’s Party

It was the last time my legs hit the ground, walking down the stairs to John’s party. The stairs went to his cellar. I had on a navy blue jump suit with a navy blue turtleneck under it. It zipped down the front. I had the figure of a girl going into adolescence but breasts too big, but that is not important, nor was what I was wearing.

I got to the bottom of the stairs. The room had the nervous tension that parties do, at the beginning.

It was a pivotal night because it marked the beginning and the end of something big. That is what this story is about.

People take things for granted. I took for granted the simple experience of feeling. What do you mean, you say? I mean that that was the last night I could feel.

People pair off in parties. The boy I liked was not there, so I went with his friend. We went in the back room and kissed. His was tall and thin, dark hair. I never went too far. I didn’t want to go into the bad girl list. It meant something to me to have lists from which I could separate myself. That was part of why this night stood out in bas relief like the boring art history you have to read about where the artwork is raised, so it has it’s own name.

I came home from the party. My home looked welcoming until you entered. It was like one of those movie set homes that have warm facades but are a thin painted surface when you look from the back. I went to my room in the cold house but it was OK. That is part of the story, how it was OK.

My room was blue.I had a bed spread of blue flowers, raised with an embroidery that was fluffy, so the flowers looked like they bloomed. There was a navy blue ceramic plate on the wall of a Dutch girl that my grandmother brought back from Holland. My grandmother brought me dolls back from all the places she visited. I had a collection in my room.

When I got older, they were put in a box They looked cheap when I came home from college to look at them. They were lying all on top of each other like I may have been if I had gone on the bad girl list.

There were secrets in my attic along with my mother’s wedding dress and old, old books. My mother had TB when she was in college. She told me TB stayed in books, so I was afraid to open them. The attic was hot and cloying like people that are too close to you but you don’t want them to move away either.

My mother was always afraid the TB would come back. When we got sick, she would dress in a cap and a gown and go from room to room like an industrial green ghost. I knew there were many bad things associated with sickness that were scarier than the bad things I had buried deep in my subconscious.

I started having phobias. I thought I had to touch things three times to ward off things. I was still a happy child because I made a compartment and put all these things in it like Pandora’s Box. The phobias were like Pandora’s sins which came flying out if she didn’t lock it tightly enough. I locked it tightly. You can be sure of that.

That brings me to the party, I suppose. That was the last night I could feel. I felt the kiss of the boy’s lips on my mouth like melting sugar and butter on the best cinnamon roll. I felt my own body responding. I heard the people in the other room, but I knew I would be OK because I knew when to stop. You see, that was part of feeling, too. You know when to stop.

Several things happened after that. I was like a lighthouse when kids throw rocks at it for fun. It still stands but it becomes shabby and an eye sore. Maybe, they tear it down and put up a new industrial one, that won’t be subject to the elements. Sooner or later, something made of natural material wears out.

It could be a slow erosion or one could topple over dead. For me, it was the former. Are you getting bored yet? I did many things to try to make myself feel. I did many things to destroy the self who could not feel because I hated her. I guess I need to tell you about those.

I had no respect for her. She was the same as everyone. She wore a sweater set if everyone wore one. She wore a buttoned down, navy blue blazer with small gold hoop earrings and Waspy flat shoes.She acted right, too. It was not as if she made a spectacle of herself, quite the contrary.

Long ago, I had given up on the foreign dolls ever going back to their exalted spot on the bookshelf. I knew that girls like me go into the bad girl pile, sooner or later.

One has to want to stay in the good pile or the bad pile will call them. Gradually, I didn’t care if I had on the same clothes or the right shoes. Gradually, I didn’t care if my hair was unkempt.

I changed colleges. I wanted to leave an all girls school and go to a co-ed one. When I transferred to the co-ed school, I didn’t join a sorority because all the girls looked the same. They looked like insects populating so fast that you marvel at the wonders of nature. I was not a sorority girl. I was an insect populating girl who was just fooling people.

So, you want to know how it happened that I went into the bad girl pile. I will tell you.

It didn’t matter to me, anymore, to stay in the good girl pile. Other girls were already there. I saw the good girls in my classes. They hung out with their friends in the cafeteria eating thin girl lunches. They joined the sororities so they could all be together.

I was moving, inexorably, to a pile of my own making. It had to do with killing the new girl without destroying the old one. It was touchy like brain surgery. Actually, I simply wanted to get back to the time at John Gordon’s party when I was kissing the cute guy and my body was melting.

I hate when I digress because I don’t want to get to the meat of the matter. I know you are pulling your hair out and telling me to get on with it, for Goodness Sake. Ok, I will when I get back. I promise.

One night, I knew I was going to kill her for good.She encumbered me like the girl in 4th grade who was dying and held onto my arm with her cold hand. I went to a party. I had been there before, so I knew some of the people. One guy stood out as if in bas relief. He had bright blue eyes that could see to the core of things. I liked people like that because I couldn’t see anything. I was as dense as split pea soup when you make it wrong and it is a brick until you add water.

One thing I knew was that he knew about bad things. I wasn’t going to surprise him like he was some kind of slide ruler geek. I think I asked him to dance. Maybe, it was he but he danced like I expected, slowly and sinuously. He whispered in my ear that *I* was the kind of girl you take home to mama. He knew I was between two worlds and that was why I was there.

I gave up my virginity so my mother would stop laughing at me. She told me I was too high and mighty. She told me I was uppity. I didn’t want it anymore if it cast me off. Her love was a chimera but I didn’t care.

It made no sense to keep struggling against inexorable forces. I sealed shut the door to Pandora’s Box with all the little munchkins therein. The munchkins liked to play but all that stopped. I became like the wind, blowing here and there, with little resistance. Lots of things left that I needed and when they did, I was cast adrift in the creaky boat. It was forever thus until I endeavored to plug the leak with the resources at my disposal, even if they were bubblegum and dreams.

The guy never kissed me. He was shocked when the sheet turned red.Later,I found out that he slept with most of the girls at Vassar but I was not surprised. His eyes looked like he was from another world. I was in another world myself, one from which I am awakening. That is why I wrote this story.