Mickey And Delia (1) A West Coast Story Stupid Kids In the Suburbs Friday 10-28-1966 Ginn was pretty much holding court at the base of the little slope on the tiny lawn in front of De Anza High School in Richmond California, strutting back and forth she was driven by her nervous energy. The sun was out, the sky was clear and the lawn was firm and dry on this day. A small group of students had hung around after school waiting to see if anything was going to happen before they went home. She was making arrangements for rides to her small birthday and Halloween party that her parents had said she could have at their house. A few members of the small clique were sitting on the sloping lawn, variously listening to her or talking to each other or reading or daydreaming. Ginn had her parent's car, since she had turned sixteen and had a license to drive, and was sorting out who she would give a ride to her party. Mickey, who had not seemed to be paying attention, suddenly asked Ginn with sweetness and hopefulness, “Can I come?” “No,” Ginn stated definitely. “Why would you want to come?” she asked scornfully. “Well, you live in Pinole don’t you? So do I. Could you give me a ride?” It was a walk of over five miles for Mickey from the high school in the north east edge of Richmond to his parent’s house in Pinole and a ride would help him greatly. He could not always get a lift hitchhiking and there was no bus service. “Oh please let him come along,” pleaded Edith. Everyone called Edith ‘Mother’ because she acted maternal and had a soft heart. “I’ll give you a ride to Pinole but you can’t come to my party,” Ginn said to Mickey after some thought. She then gave Edith a significant look and told her, “And you’ll have to sit in his lap because there aren’t any more seats.” Mickey looked down at the lawn feeling scorned and worthless. He felt people always considered him a second rate person and Ginn had always seemed to consider him less than that. “Let’s go then,” Ginn growled. Mickey perked up a bit, tossed his head to get the hair out of his eyes and smiled at Mother. The eight of them walked to Ginn’s car, a boxy silver Rambler that looked to Mickey as if Ginn’s parents had little interest in anything that was new or exciting. “Don’t say a thing,” Ginn warned Mickey seeing him grinning at the car. Three people got into the front seat and five in the back seat. Even though Mickey found Mother to be a little heavy he cherished the feel of her soft bottom on his thighs. He could tell Mother was getting a little alarmed by this intimacy so he stared out of the window of the car and tried not to think about her as they were driven down the drearily familiar two-lane road. It was called the Appian Way as if it ran through an ancient city in Italy instead of El Sobrante California. There was a creek on one side of the road and a dirt path on the other side between the Mohawk gas station and Manor Way. California is a made up name for an island that does not exist. Spanish sailors saw the peninsula of Baha and thought it was an island and made up the name California for it. The Spanish saw the brown grassy hills from their ships and called California the Golden Land. El Sobrante is Spanish for The Leftover since it was hilly land leftover from the large Spanish ranches such as San Pablo, Vallejo and El Cerrito and it was still an unincorporated community without sidewalks. There were so many open fields in Contra Costa County that it had more horses per capita than any other county in the state. They were approaching Pinole and Mickey looked at the dry brown grass with bleak boredom. Mickey was frustrated and starting to feel claustrophobic in the crowded car. His sixteenth birthday was next month. The year before he had had a severe bout of depression and he was worried that it might happen to him again this year between his birthday and Christmas. His break up with Carol, his small town girlfriend from vacation the summer before, had left him feeling disturbed as if his love life was over before it had even begun. Last summer Carol had been running around with Kurt the madman moron who made a habit of destroying vehicles when he had enough alcohol in him. Those two had looked at him with undisguised scorn and laughed at him. An unmistakable sign to Mickey that they had been having sexual relations during the winter when he was back in the Bay Area. He was lonely and wanted to fall in love. He had looked in his psychology book and it said that, "Unsatisfied needs create tension..." He wanted a girl he could have sex with, he did not want to be a virgin anymore. He was afraid of love because he did not want to get stuck with someone for the rest of his life, he felt he was to young to commit himself to anyone or anything. He had been drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes trying to relieve the feelings that made him tense and irritable. They drove through the mundane suburbs of Pinole until they reached Ginn’s house. They parked in front of her house on the side of the street. Mickey was impressed with the neat yard and garden in front of the small fifties style house with a flat roof. He had never been by Ginn's house before and was surprised that it was only about a mile from his parent's house. “Thanks for the ride Ginn,” he said politely. Ginn broke out in a baleful grin, pleased that he would be leaving as the other passengers left the car and went through the front door into the home. “We live so close, I can easily walk home from here.” Ginn’s grin turned into a quick rage. A malicious look appeared in her eyes. “Wait here for a minute,” she said. She ran quickly into the house and then came back. “Say Mickey, do you want to come in?” she asked mischievously. “I don’t know, maybe I should go.” “It’s all right, come in for awhile,” she reassured him. “Well ok, for a little while.” Mickey walked into the living room and the first person he noticed was Linda sitting in an overstuffed chair looking at him woefully. He heard Ginn laugh behind him and now he understood why she had invited him in, she wanted him to see how badly he had hurt Linda. She had cut her hair short and looked vulnerable in her plain gray shift. To Mickey she looked so beautiful in her sadness and pain that he felt compelled to go to her. She turned her head as he approached and looked at the wall. Jerry, sitting on the arm of her chair, turned his cynical egotistical grin to Mickey who turned away horrified at what this might mean and walked to the other end of the room. Ginn came back into the room with a camera and took a picture of Linda in her misery. It stung Mickey deeply that he had broken up with her the month before just because she liked the song Groovy Kind of Love, which he felt was by the numbers and simple minded. Now he was so sorry that he had been so stupid. He had been naked with her once but they never had sex and he had been so frustrated that he could not stand it. Being without her was worse. Now he was alone and he did not have a shot at sex with her but apparently Jerry did. There were many people at the party that Mickey did not know and he felt reserved but on whim, he acted out a part. He emulated an all knowing, know nothing guru. He made a point of asking people in the living room, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” He was trying to get people to examine their lives and question their basic assumptions. It was something that he had made up on the spot. Some of the party goers took his exercise seriously and answered the questions but most would not answer the pretentious questions other than by saying their names and that they were at a party. One eighteen-year-old guy shouted at him with outright hostility demanding to know who he thought he was and what he thought he was doing and said he did not have to answer Mickey’s stupid questions. Mickey put on a brave clown act to cover his broken heart and confused mind. The party went on without drugs or alcohol, the music was turned down low and the kids talked quietly with each other. Mickey talked with David and Michael and noticed that Linda was no longer at the party and he was hurt again feeling that his presence had driven her away. He was about to go home when a woman he had never seen before entered the room. She was wearing black shoes that looked like slippers, black slacks, a wide belt and a vest. Her large breasts pushed out her white close knit sweater before her. A beaded pink and white necklace hung down from her neck. Her small freckled nose wrinkled when she smiled. Her perfect teeth showed often and her blue eyes sparkled. On top of her head she wore a black leather motorcycle cap with silver studs on it. She was seventeen but seemed maturer than the others in the room. She sat comfortably in the chair opposite of where Linda had been, talking to some of Ginn’s friends. Two girls sat at her feet and listened to her reverently. She spoke with enthusiasm and shook her head a lot swaying her thick long dirty blond hair. “Who is that?” Mickey asked Michael his voice touched with awe and amazement. “That’s Ginn’s sister Delia,” the normally reticent Michael seemed unmoved. “Is she a Hell’s Angel?” Mickey asked looking at the hat. She resembled some of the women he had seen sitting on the back of motorcycles. Michael laughed, “No, she’s really nice.” “Does she have a boyfriend?” Mickey asked. “You don’t stand a chance with her, she’s a ‘nice girl’, she’s not like Ginn.” “What do you mean?” Mickey asked. Michael appeared startled that he had criticized Ginn aloud and looked around to see if he had accidentally offended her but she was not within earshot. “I gotta go,” Michael said. Maybe I’ll see you at school Monday.” Normally Michael looked like he felt uncomfortable so Mickey could not tell if he was afraid of Ginn or just felt poorly. “Ok, bye,” Mickey answered. As Michael said his good-byes Ginn walked past Mickey and he screwed up his courage to talk to her. “Is that your sister?” “Are you still here?’ asked Ginn with ill-disguised irritation. “Why don’t you go talk to her, she won’t bite you,” she said sarcastically, fairly spitting venom. Ginn stalked off to the kitchen to ask her mother if she could put some wine in her lemon lime soda. Her mother said no and as soon as her mother left the kitchen Ginn topped her glass with white wine. Mickey was driving her to drink. Mickey walked up to Ginn's sister and she said, “Hi, I’m Delia, what’s your name?” in a friendly patronizing way. She seemed amused to notice that this gangly awkward, not very handsome, pimply faced, big eyed, youthful stranger with worry lines on his forehead, would be attracted to her. Right then she almost made the decision to leave the room but she was in her own house and was older and felt in control of the situation so there was no need for her to run. Mickey felt quite intimidated by this worldly looking woman who acted out the part of the superior intellectual. He was drawn as a moth to her potential sexual fire, he had to talk to her. “My name is Mickey,” he said noncommittally. “Oh I’ve heard of you, you went with Linda.” “Yeah, during the fall, but that’s over now,” he said embarrassed. “And now Peggy,” Delia was smiling as she watched Mickey squirm. Peggy was a skinny flat chested blond with bad teeth that Mickey had gone out with in hopes of having sex with after fouling up his relationship with Linda. Her father was a truck driver and he often left Peggy and her mother and the other children alone for weeks without support or money. At Peggy’s sixteenth birthday party Mickey had made out with her, in her dark bedroom. When he had her pants partly down she stopped him and broke up with Mickey because she did not want to get pregnant and end up like her mother. Mickey was not proud of that relationship and was somewhat relieved it was over. “I went with her for a short time but we broke up. I’ve never seen you before,” he said to Delia, changing the subject. She kind of cocked her head, “I go to Richmond High School, that’s probably why you haven’t seen me. How old are you?” “Fifteen.” “Oh,” she sounded disappointed. “Why are you in the eleventh grade?” “My mother started me in school at age four…” “Like Ginny.” “Because she wanted me out of the house. What’s your major?” “Psychology,” she said. “I want to be a youth counselor.” It did not occur to Mickey that she might see him as a potential case study. He was taken by her apparent intelligence, he too was interested in psychology. He had purchased his first psychology book on Freud when he was thirteen and had developed an innate understanding of human motivations because he felt he understood his own motivations. Delia was happy and optimistic and encouraged him to talk about books and movies he liked. They soon found an intellectual bridge between them that they could reach each other over. Delia was amazed to suddenly be in communication with this shaggy dark haired young man with the strong libido. He was attracted to her constant and charming smile. Her blemishless skin and shinning eyes forced him to keep finding things to say to her because he did not want the conversation to end. Eventually Delia excused her self, but first she asked him to stick around for awhile. Mickey walked down the hall and found the bathroom and peeped into Ginn and Delia’s bedroom. They both had white bed covers with tuft patterns. Mickey stuck his head into the room and saw a record player and a window in the corner. After using the bathroom he returned to the party and when Delia came back he asked her for aspirin and dumped some of it into a cup and filled the cup with cola because a rumor had been around that the combination would get you high. He drank the concoction and asked Delia, “What do you think will happen?” “It might give you an ulcer,” she said in a disdainful yet curious tone of voice. After another forty-five minutes or so all Mickey had was a headache and a slight buzzing in his ears. Ginn was starting to get nervous seeing her sister and Mickey get on so well. It was not much longer before Ginn and Delia’s mother declared that the party was over because she had to make dinner. “Who needs a ride home?” asked Delia to the group. Some of the kids answered that they did. “How about you?” she asked Mickey. “Oh I can walk, I don’t live too far away. Give a ride to those who need it.” “I’d like to give you a ride, it would save you a few steps and some time.” “Ok,” Mickey answered cagily. “Who needs to go home first?” asked Delia. Mickey held back the impulse to say he could go first because he felt that she was up to something. “Me,” shouted David, “My parent’s will kill me if I don’t get home soon.” He told Delia where he lived and she took the Pinole Valley Road, which winded past cow fields between the brown hills and was narrow and twisting. Delia drove as fast as she could, careening around corners, throwing the three passengers around in the back seat while she whooped and laughed. David was laughing loudly and encouraging her from the front seat. He looked odd in the darkness of the car with his shock of blond hair and course features. Mickey could see in his grinning pale white face the image of the teenage boy getting his kicks. Mickey closed his eyes going around some of the turns. He had been in a bad car wreck in July and it had scared him deeply. His mother had been driving the station wagon when the right rear tire suddenly went flat and the car was thrown off the road sideways. The passenger side where Mickey had been sitting hit a tree. His right elbow had gone through the window and was permanently scarred and he had been knocked unconscious. David was driven home and the laughing and joking group in the boxy silver Rambler drove on to the main drag in the city of Richmond. They drove down McDonald Avenue where, at night, the greasers were always in their hopped up cars, popping their clutches and spinning their tires until they smoked. They drove to the end of the Avenue and turned around where everyone else did by the railroad freight terminal. They drove back up the street honking and waving and in general making fun of and putting down the greasy motor head types with their bouffant girlfriends because they were usually the right wing pro-war anti-intellectual types. “They will probably do this for the rest of their lives,” said Francis caustically.
Copyright © 2007 Michael Potter |