“I’ve-been-trying-to-call-you-but-your-machine-has-been-full,” I said as quickly as I could. And I almost got to
“your” before she broke in: “I’ve been away—are you deaf ?
My machine was full.” I was at a loss, and I almost hung up.
But then, her voice softened.
“I’m glad you called, Tom-Tom. I was beginning to think you had used and forgotten me.” Now there was a teasing tone. How many personalities did this girl have, anyway? I realized there would be no point trying to puzzle out how being unable to leave a message on someone’s answering ma-226
chine because they have been away from home for four days counts as ignoring them. Or why she was going all Fatal Attraction on me when I was the one who was supposed to pretend I didn’t exist for the preservation of her real-life serious nonimaginary relationship. We were in boy-girl world, or we sort of were, where logic is optional. I was learning a lot.
Really, I was just glad to hear her voice, even if I had no earthly idea what the things it was saying were intended to accomplish. Or rather, I liked hearing the nice voice. The mean voice was harder to take. But she also confusingly used the nice voice to tell me that her boyfriend was a very jealous, unstable person who had rage issues and that all she would have to do is tell him about me and I’d be dead almost instantaneously. Also to say: “If my father found out how you took advantage of me, he would bash your fucking head in and you’d go to jail for twenty years.” I doubted she was right about the specifics there, but I got her point. But then she laughed, as though she had only been kidding, and told me, in the softest, most feminine manner, that she was glad I called. At one point she got really quiet and said that sometimes she hates who she is and feels there’s no way out, and she sniffled like she was trying to hold back the tears. But just as I was starting to say I totally understood what that felt like, intending to offer some words of comfort and encouragement, she just started laughing.
“Are you okay?” I said, after a confused pause.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said with a kind of venom in her voice. “You’re the one who can’t take a joke.”
She had been making fun of my attempt at a cool and digni-fied (devil-head) demeanor, I guess.
Sam Hellerman had been wrong about Deanna Schumacher in every respect but one: she was kind of a psycho freak.
227
Now, what you have to understand is that the whole time, Amanda was standing in the doorway glowering at me and chanting “get off the phone, get off the phone” with ever-increasing volume. And Little Big Tom and Carol had crowded around to observe the novelty of clumsy little Chi-Mo trying to talk to a female. It was hard to concentrate, and I was nervous enough to begin with. So I can’t rely on my interpretations of Deanna Schumacher’s words or the awkward pauses between them or the tone of her voice. In warfare there’s a thing called the “fog of war” where everything around you is confusion and chaos and no one is able to see the big picture till it’s all over, and even then everyone has a different memory of it. It was like that. The Fog of Deanna.
Somehow, though, amid the confusion, it was established that she wasn’t being ignored, at least not by me, and that she didn’t really intend to go through with any orders for my execution, though I still got the impression that she was mad at me somehow. She kept saying “I’m glad you called,” though, which was a good sign. I truly had no idea what was going on, but it was beginning to dawn on me that having no idea what’s going on is a more or less defining part of the whole coupling process.
Somehow it became clear that no one in this situation would mind all that much if I were to visit again. At least, that was the conclusion I reached when she said that Mondays and Thursdays were best, as that was when her boyfriend worked late. Okay, I’m game. “Don’t disappoint me,” she added, which I knew was from a movie, but I forget which one. Then there was an operator-assisted emergency break-through on the phone from one of Amanda’s friends.
“I’ll have to call you back,” I said, and she said,
“Whatever, Tom-Tom,” in her pissed-off voice, and then she switched to the polite voice again and said, “Be sure to tell 228
your mother and sister hello from me.” I was going to say something like “Okay, then,” but she had already hung up.
I know I said I was going to call her back, but I honestly didn’t know if I could take another one of those chats anytime soon. Amanda pounced on the phone as soon as I set it down. My mom was laughing and smoking, asking who I had been talking to in a teasing tone that was eerily similar to the one Deanna Schumacher had employed to ask if I had used and forgotten her. And she’s the one who claims not to want me to attempt suicide. I’ll never understand women, no matter whose mom they are.
Little Big Tom tilted his head and said, “Mojo working!”
I resolved to take the GED and emancipate myself as soon as possible, just so I could safely use the phone again.
But I think you have to be sixteen.
I ended up visiting Deanna Schumacher again the following week. It went pretty much the same way as before—a psychotic conversation, followed by making out, ending in a blow job. We had some more time left on the pumpkino-meter this time, so I decided to risk it:
“So your father’s a Santa Carla cop.”
“Peace officer,” she said absently. She was straightening up the room. “Or he was. Not anymore.”
“And he knew my dad, you said.”
“Yeah, I told you that already. Can’t you shut up about my father for five minutes?”
That was about all I had the strength for. Something about her tone told me I wasn’t going to get too far with this line of inquiry.
When we switched to other topics, things went better.
I mean, I learned some interesting things about Deanna Schumacher. She liked to talk about herself, though she 229
wasn’t all that interested in hearing a person’s comments in reaction to her statements, which seemed intended primarily for effect.
“One thing you have to understand about me,” she said,
“is that I’m totally into Stoli.” Ah, I thought—the relationship deepens. She also said at one point that she “likes girls” even though she was mostly into guys.
“Is that a Suzi Quatro–Joan Jett kind of thing?” I said. She had no idea what I was talking about, but I had a feeling she didn’t really care what I had to say on that or any other matter. It was just part of her general method of trying to overwhelm me with confusing data and erratic moods and to keep me just a little off-kilter at all times. It was working, too.
I never had any idea what she was thinking, whether she was glad to hear from me, whether she had lost interest in me, or anything. The Fog of Deanna was exhausting.
The coming Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I knew I couldn’t call or visit on that day, which worried me a little.
How was I going to make it through a whole week without any contact? I was already walking around with that punched-in-the-stomach feeling almost all the time, unable to eat or do much of anything, and I knew it would only get worse.
Then something happened that made even the Fog of Deanna look comparatively easy to navigate.
P OI NT-B LAN K AT YOU R OWN R I S K
It was my fourth session with Dr. Hexstrom, the day after my second Deanna Schumacher experience.
I have to admit, my interest in The Seven Storey Mountain was dwindling. It was pretty slow going, and I already knew the ending, which is that the guy ends up deciding there’s 230
more to life than fast times and goes into a monastery. Plus, there’s this part where he starts heaping praise on the Doors of Perception guy, so I was kind of disappointed in him. It’s weird how all these guys seemed to know each other. There was even a quote on the cover of The Seven Storey Mountain from the Brighton Rock guy, saying something like “the best way to read this book is with a pencil,” whatever that might mean. It must have to do with their all being weird Catholics.