SERIES: Lifelines

AUTHOR: Missy

EMAIL: lasfic@yahoo.com

PART: 1 of 1

RATING: R (Adult thematic material, language, sexual content, character death, violence)

PAIRING(s): various

DISTRIBUTION: To Myself so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine.  Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

 Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: Romance, Drama

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: Goes from pre-canon to post-canon

SPOILERS FOR:  Laverne and Shirley Move In, Hi Neighbor, Two of our Weirdos are Missing, Look Before You Leap, The Slow Child, Lenny’s Crush, Not Quite New York, The Road to Burbank, Sing Sing Sing, A Night at The Awards, Helmut Weekend, Love/Life is the Tar Pits and the Mummy’s Bride

SPOILLER/SUMMARY:  Another Lenny lifecast piece, following him from childhood to middle age.

NOTES: This story contains a mild crossover with the movie Almost Famous.  You will not have to have seen the film to enjoy the tiny in-joke in one segment.

DEDICATION: For Jo.

***

His first clear memory was of his mother.   It was his fourth birthday and she had just placed a big chocolate cake on the table for them to eat with his big sister Ella.  His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw it, and he promptly spent the following hour keeping a close eye on his mom in the hope that he’d have a second alone with it.  He knew he was being a naughty Lenny – mom had said specifically that they weren’t going to have cake until Ella came back from school in an hour. 

Lenny’s mother, typically, didn’t notice his sudden interest in her daily chores; she mumbled to herself as she vacuumed the rug, running over and over the same balding spot in the blue pile.    Lenny smiled proudly – she was so tidy that the table got polished at least four times a day, even if it was usually the same spot.

He watched her closely for minutes.   At last her repetitive chore ended, and she collapsed in the window seat, closing her eyes.  Her stillness gave him hope.  Did he dare?  His mother’s temper tended to be sharp, and whenever he stepped out of line he ended up with a sore bottom.  Would it be worth hearing of his stupidity in Polish for the millionth time?  Her even breathing galvanized him into action.  Now….

His fingers were inches deep in the glossy frosting when his mother’s voice penetrated his consciousness.  “No, Lenny.”

He looked up.  She was surrounded by a chilly orange halo of sunlight, her eyes twinkling with merriment, and it was that jolliness Lenny would preserve in his mind forever.  His mother was terminally intolerant of messiness, but that day she laughed, wiped his fingers with her pink dish rag and frosted over his fingerprints.   She gently scolded that she hoped their guests would never find out what he’d done.

His father and sister never found out about it.  By the end of the night, Mom had smashed the cake on the kitchen floor, a reaction to his father’s lateness.  Lenny went to bed with an empty belly, listening to his folks scream at each other.

It was the last time he’d think of his family as a happy one.

***  

“What’s the matter, son?”

Lenny didn’t lift his eyes from his tv dinner.  “Nothing, dad.”

“You ain’t touched your cherry cobbler,”  Dad said knowingly.  “C’mon – tell your ol’ pop what’s wrong.”

A big, watery sigh came from the depths of Lenny’s chest.  “I don’t wanna go to school tomorrow!”  With that, he began to sob.

“Aww geez – uh…calm down…”  Through the curtain of his tears he heard his father getting up and pawing over to him.  He placed an awkward hand on his shoulder.  “Everyone’s scared to go to school the first time.  You’ll be okay.” 

“I’m gonna be older than everyone,” Lenny sniffled. “They’re gonna call me a dummy.”

“Hey!  You ain’t no dummy!  You’re my boy, the future of the Kulakowski line!”

Lenny shook his head.  His father’s fairytales of Poland didn’t mean anything when he was stuck in a Wisconsin gutter.  “I ain’t that special.”

Dad rubbed Lenny’s shoulder awkwardly for a moment more, then suddenly froze.  “You know what you can do?  You can bring my guitar to show and tell.”

Lenny’s jaw dropped.  Dad’s guitar had come all the way from Poland and was his last connection to the old world of royal glitz his grandmother had endlessly spoken of.  It was a family treasure – the only one they had.  “But I don’t even know how to play…”

Dad smiled, headed across the messy apartment.  The closet overflowed when he opened it and dragged the instrument to the light.  He sat down in his dingy, dented sofa, patted the spot beside him.  Lenny sat down, wide-eyed.

“This is how you tune it in open g…” his father instructed.  In the course of the following hour,  Lenny learned how to tune the instrument, and how to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” 

A lifelong passion had begun.

***

“Whatt’re you doing hiding up there?”

Lenny peeked through the heavy foliage and down at the pigtailed little girl watching him on the sidewalk.  “SSH!!” he hissed.  “Do you want him to hear?”

The girl frowned, and he noticed she had a pretty bad overbite.  “Him who?”

He let out a long-suffering sigh.  Girls really didn’t know anything…“The creature from the Black Lagoon!”

The girls’ brow crumpled.  “He ain’t real!”

Lenny’s jaw locked.  He considered this.  “He is too!”

“Says who?” she asked.

It was hard to argue from a treetop.  Climbing down, limb by limb, he said, “Hector Kestenbaum.”

“Who?”

He  looked over his shoulder.  “Hector from school.  Hey…I don’t know you…” he added more cheerfully, “are you new?”

 “My family just moved from across town.”

Lenny tilted his head.  “I was wondering why you talk funny…”

She drew herself up tall, her indignity puffing her short stocky body.  “I don’t!  Everyone in Brooklyn sounds like me!”

“Is that in France?” Lenny wondered.

She giggled.  “No!  It’s in New York.”

“Oh,” Lenny retorted.  “I knew that..”  With as much dignity as he could muster, Lenny promptly fell on his keister.

In his humiliation, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.  “Are you okay?” the girl wondered.

He nodded.  “Dumb tree,” he said, biting his lip to keep from crying.

“Do you want me to get your mom?”

He bit his lip harder.  “I don’t got a mom.”

The little girl momentarily wilted.  “Oh,” she said.  Then, more softly, she added, “I don’t got a mom, either.”

Never in his life had Lenny met anyone who shared his condition.  His eyes were wide and curious.   “Did your dad lose her?”

The girl giggled again, but she quickly turned serious.  “She died,” the girl continued, her fists knotted against Lenny’s Official Buckaroo Bob shirt.   “That’s why Pop and me moved.”

“I’m sorry,” Lenny repeated.

They locked eyes.  She’s pretty, he thought to himself – and realized he’d never had such thoughts about a girl before.

A voice cut through his meanderings.  “Dopey!  Hey Dopey!  Dinner’s ready!”

The voice was coming from an open window in Lenny’s brownstone.  He realized that she must have moved in last week, while he was away visiting his Grandma Kosnowski in Long Island.

 She carefully released him.  “That’s my Pop.” She got off the ground and started up the stairs.  “I guess I’ll see you when school starts tomorrow.” 

He tried to force words from a constricted throat.  “Ah – uh…”

On the stoop, she turned around.  “I never asked your name.”

“Lenny,” the word came out.

She smiled.  “My name’s Laverne.”  She opened the door and entered the vestibule.  “ Bye, Lenny.”

He wasn’t able to manage a “bye, Laverne” until she was long gone.

*** 

A red rubber ball whizzed by Lenny’s ear as he fell to the floor.  Crawling toward the edge of the crowd, he heard a whistle blow.  “Ignatowski!  You’re out of there!” 

He was happy but terrified to still be in the game.  At nine, Lenny loved sports and wanted desperately to be good at them.  Dodge ball didn’t really feel like a “sport” to him, though.  More like abuse in sport form.  He crawled closer and closer to the multipurpose room’s door.  The bell was going to ring…any second…darn it, Bobby Grimaldi, get out of the way…

When Bobby moved, Lenny met the glare of a dark-eyed boy, crawling in his direction.

It was all Lenny could do to stop himself from yelping.  The boy frowned intensely at him.

“Move, you’re blockin’ the door.”

“No I ain’t!” Lenny protested.  “You are!”

The short boy locked his jaw.  “The door’s that way, stupid.”

“That’s the closet,” Lenny said contemptuously.  On cue, janitor McKay emerged from the half-open door behind Lenny.  The shorter boy’s dark eyes became meaner.

“I knew that!  I just got turned around making a right at Shawn Peterman,” he complained.  The sound of the school bell ringing set both boys to their feet.

“KOSNOWSKI!  SQUIGGMAN!” barked the coach, his large fists popping with veins as he dug them into his sides, “ten jumping jacks for shirking!”

“Squiggman”’s entire expression instantly changed, and he nearly looked…charming?  “Coach Castlehouse,” he started, “you’re a smart, handsome man…why, a practical god among the sweat-sock set….”

Coach Castlemain’s jaw locked down even tighter.  “TWENTY.” He snapped.

“I…got weak ankles…appendicitis…period cramps?” Squiggman tried.

“NOW.”

The two boys lined up and began performing very weak-looking calisthenics.  “Lousy…stupid…stinko…jerk,” Squiggman muttered under his breath, sweating to keep up with Lenny. 

“Aww, he ain’t so bad,” Lenny said cheerfully.  “He’s just having a hard time.  I heard Missus Coach Castlehouse left him last weak for Missus Mister Partimus.”

“Where’d you hear that?” the shorter man wondered.

“I’ve got my sources,” Lenny said, quite smoothly. 

“Maybe you wanna share ‘em?”

“Maybe,” Lenny said.  “Hey, did you ever hear the one about the elephant and the frog?”

Squiggman laughed.  “The frog said, ‘that wasn’t my wife, that was a flamingo’?”

“Yeah!” Lenny laughed.  “Yanno, you’re kinda neat, Squiggman.  You got anyone to sit with at lunch today?”

“I’ve got my own private table.”

Lenny’s eyes widened.  “Since when?”

“Since Fonzie shoved me in the coat closet last week.  Joke’s on him – it’s warm, dark and got great views up girls’ skirts.”

“Wow!  Can I sit with you?”

“Sure thing, young man.”

“My name’s Lenny.”

“You can call me Squiggy…”

“What’s a Squiggy?”

He frowned in confusion.  “It’s a me.”

“Oh,” Lenny smiled.   Quick as a wink, Squiggy stuck a hand into his pocket, withdrew something silvery and shiny, and flicked it onto the floor.  “Hey, you dropped that…” as he bent over to retrieve it, a quick kick to the back of his left knee sent him sprawling on the floor.  “OWww!” he whined aloud.

“Coach Castlehouse!  Coach Castlehouse!  Lenny’s hurt himself!  Can we be dismissed?”

Abruptly, the coach was over Lenny, checking the rising bruise on the back of his knee.  “Better take that to the nurse and ice it down, boy.”

“Can I help Lenny to the nurse’s station?”

The coach let out a long-suffering sigh.  “All right, Squiggman.  You’re both dismissed.”

Lenny waited til the coach was out of hearing.  “Whatt’d you do that for?!”

“Lenny, Lenny, Lenny, you poor naive dope – now did I or did I not just get us out of gym class?”

Squiggy was pulling him forward, inexorably.  “Yeah,” Lenny panted as he tried to keep up with him.

“Would you rather spend the next ten minutes sweatin’ back there or was it easier to go through a little pain to be free?”

Lenny’s mind reeled at Squiggy’s logic.   “You’re a genius, Squiggy.”

“Aww, you’re makin’ me flush,” Squiggy snorted.  “C’mon – lunch is half over!  I wanna get there before Shirley Feeney does…”

“Shirley Feeney?  Laverne’s Shirley Feeney?”

“You know her?”  Squiggy squeaked.  “Shirley, the future mother of my little Squiglets?”

“Only ‘cause she knows Laverne.” 

Both boys floated off dreamily for a moment.  Abruptly, Squiggy slapped Lenny on the shoulder.  “I have a feeling we’re gonna make a perfect team…”

****

Eighteen isn’t a momentous occasion for a boy.  Girls get all the parties, presents and cooing compliments when they hit the middle of their teens – boys celebrate by hoping and praying they’ll pass their driver’s license test.  Lenny had done that on the morning of his sixteenth.  Two years later he had nothing better to do then cruise around.

He spent his time with Squiggy following The Girls – as always.  Unfortunately, the Debs had gotten wise to their peeping and taped brown bags over the windows of their clubhouse.  Their fun thus routed, the boys wandered the endless sunny summer streets of East Milwaukee.

“Hey,” Squiggy poked Lenny’shoulder.  “You got a dime?”

“I got a whole dollar from my Pop today,” Lenny grinned proudly.

Squiggy’s eyes widened.  “A whole dollar – boy, just thinka the kinda broads we can buy for a dollar.”

“Buy?” Lenny wondered.

Squiggy jerked his thumb at a large, brightly-lit building looming at the foot of Brad Street.  “Lenny, it’s time somebody made you a man…” Squiggy said grandly, and he began to drag his friend through the bright red swinging doors of the burlesque house.

They emerged into a darkly-lit lobby, with a ticket booth and two muscular bouncers guarding another set of swinging doors.  The bubble-haired blonde behind the booth instantly brightened at the sight of Squiggy.

“Mister Squiggman!” she burbled, rolling out an orange ticket from the large roll on her desk.  “How wonderful to have you back!”

“Always a thrill, Dani baby, always a thrill.”

“How’s your novel coming?”

Lenny nearly blurted out his confusion, but Squiggy interceded, “just finished my third chapter.”

“I hope Dick Rogers survives his latest battle with the snake people!”

“An author never says.  But confidentially, I’d never kill a goose when it’s laying out the golden egg.”

“What about your friend over there?  Is he a famous novelist too?”

“This?” Squiggy grabbed Lenny by the cuff and dragged him forward.  “This is Lenny Kosnowski – he’s a big game hunter.”

“Really?” Dani purred, sizing Lenny up, “he’s kinda scrawny.  Doesn’t look like Hemmingway at all.”

“I already toldja Hemmingway only photographs hefty,” Squiggy held out his hand.  “Two tickets, please.”  He tossed three dollars into the change tray.

She took the money and plunked tickets into the basin.    “Have fun,” she winked.

Shaking with nerves, Lenny swiveled his friend away from the booth and stage-whispered, “big game hunter?”

“Len, the First rule about charmin’ chickeroonies is try to sound like a big shot.  And if you ain’t a big shot yet, lie about it.”  Squiggy saluted the bouncer and pushed open the last set of doors.

Lenny’s reply was cut short by the sight of a tall, skinny blonde writhing on an elevated stage, her breasts covered only by a thick fan of white feathers.  He felt Squiggy leading him to the middle of the room and a black sticky-topped table, and felt himself sitting down, but his wide eyes were only for the beautiful girl lit up by the spotlight.

He said nothing to his friend for a solid hour as girl was replaced by girl, scanty costume by scanty costume, fan dancers by shimmyers.  In that time, he’d seen a few dozen wonderful pairs of bare breasts and (he swore) a quick flash of one girls’ you-know-what.  He had died and gone to some sort of paradise where all the girls smelled nice, looked like extra sexy Doris Days, and were fecklessly happy.  He concentrated hard on committing every wiggle and line to memory.  If he did, he’d never need to hide Sears fliers under his bed again.  

One of them was especially beautiful.  She had dark red hair, long legs, green eyes – like Laverne, but her boobs were bigger.  WAY bigger.  He watched them twirl beneath a pair of white stringed pasties and squirmed with excitement.

“You like her?” Squiggy asked.  Lenny blushed, managed a nod, then saw to his horror the girl was watching their table.   Squiggy nodded his head once – she winked.  “Don’t look ‘em in the eyes!” Squiggy corrected him.  “It makes ‘em think you wanna do more than ogle their bounciness!”  Suddenly he was getting up.  “I’ll be back.  Don’t do anything!”

Two more girls did their acts during Squiggy’s absence, and Lenny admired everything but their eyes like Squiggy asked.  He snapped out of his girl-induced daze when someone pulled him up out of his seat.  “Hey, birthday boy!  Time for your present!”  Squiggy called.

“Oh boy!” Lenny crowed, not even caring how hard Squiggy was yanking at his wrist as he pulled him to a darkened room at the back of the stage area.  “I hope it’s a ca…” he turned to Squiggy and said quietly, “Squig, that ain’t no cake..”

“Call me Brandy,” his present – the girl he’d been admiring earlier - said.  She was lying in what could almost be called a black teddy on what had been a coach a few hundred “special parties” ago.

Squiggy punched Lenny’s shoulder.  “Remember, don’t look her in the eye.  Ta ta!”

Lenny heard the door slam behind him.  He stood stammering, his skin flushed, waiting for the girl to say something.   “Hi,” he mustered up.

“Hi,” she said in a low, seductive voice.  “So, what’s your pleasure?”

“Well, I like playing guitar, and Howdy Doody, and Buddy Holly…”

“No, honey,” she purred, standing up and walking with aching slowness to Lenny.  “What do you like to do with girls?”

“Hold hands.”

She studied him for a long moment.  “Another virgin,” she mumbled.  Then she pasted a smile on her face and winked.  “You wanna have a little fun, sweetie?”

“Yes?” Lenny squeaked.

She made a soft cooing noise and made him sit down.  “Poor little thing…no party on your birthday…” she soothed.  “Well – maybe little isn’t putting it the right way…you’re an awfully tall thing…”

“My Pop says I’ve been growing…”

She pressed her palm against his fly.  “I should say so.” 

Confusion, desire and fear fought for control of Lenny’s body.  Lust won out as she unzipped the fly of his jeans.  It REALLY won out.

He finally had the courage to open his eyes again when the shaking stopped.  She was still kneeling on the floor, her pretty face twisted with mild surprise, a thin thread of something white and glossy marking her right cheek.

“I’m…sorry,” Lenny squawked. 

“That’s all right – it happens a lot…” she let go of him and wiped her hand on the knee of her black pantyhose.  “Your friend doesn’t have to pay me.”

“Squiggy paid you?” he squeaked.

“That’s the way these things work,” she smiled apologetically.  “He pays, you have fun.”

“I thought…you know…you…liked me?” he moused.

“Wish I could say I did,” she shrugged.  “Don’t look so down.  I do this four times a night, and every single one of them thinks we’re having a love affair.”   She patted his arm.  “If you wanna have a real go you can.  We’ve got ten minutes.”

Lenny shook his head, stuffing himself back into his jeans and zipping up.  “No, I’m okay…”

She got to her feet, an odd glimmer of sympathy in her eyes.  “Have you ever been kissed before?” she wondered.

“Sure…once…no…”

She cupped his chin and, to his surprise, planted a very gentle kiss on his lips.  A sweet feeling slipped through him – not quite erotic but soothing; it was so nice that he didn’t have the whit to kiss her back.   Soon she released his chin, smiled, and said, “that’s one to grow on.”  She sat down on the couch and smiled.  “Happy birthday, Lenny.”

He giggled, touching his tingling lips.  “Thanks,” he burbled.

Squiggy waited for him at the doorway.  “D’you bag her?” Squiggy asked.

“She kissed me,” Lenny smiled, touching his lips.

He spent the rest of the afternoon walking on clouds, Squiggy’s provocations no less than a mosquito bite to his soul.

****

He tried to remember how he’d gotten here.

They’d all been doing the bunny hop at midnight.  His date, Sheila Montrose – lead tuba player for the Filmore High Marching Band – had brought him a cup of punch from the refreshment table, and he had been so hot from the hopping he’d drunk it all down without a thought.  Come to think of it, it really had been pretty good-tasting stuff, even though it was the color of Pepto Bismol and tasted like fire-scorched lemonade.  After four more cups, he felt like the cleverest, coolest guy in the room.  Sheila seemed to feel the same way – she hung on his arm, moon-eyed, glaring at every girl who came up to talk to them.  So he took a few more drinks.  One for Buddy Holly, one for James Dean, and one every time he saw Laverne kiss Fonzie at the opposite end of the gym.

Somehow, they had ended up under the bleachers, hidden from the prying eyes of their fussy chaperones.  Somehow, his hand had gotten up under her dress.  Somehow, she had unzipped his pants and introduced him to the magic of friction.  Somehow, he’d found the rubber Squiggy had bought for him in a rare moment of generosity (from now on, he’d have to get his own).  Somehow he’d manage to move his hips in just the right way to end up reallydoingitohmygod. 

He sat between her legs, dead to the world, as the band played “Volare” and “Apple Pink and Cherry Blossom White” and his Filmore High classmates tromped over the freshly waxed floor.  Garish lights shone in strips on Sheila’s body –teeth bared animalistically, one breast bare and the tip lit bright pink, a fringe of pubic hair dark in the light.  He was tongue tied.  What do you say to a girl who you just went all the way with?

“EY LEN-EE!” a cat-call came from above them.  Lenny’s eyes shot upward – Squiggy’s dark eyes and small face squashed its way out between the whitewashed slats two feet over their heads, right beside that of Hector Kestenbaum.  “WAY TO GO!”

Lenny opened his mouth and his lips moving flabbily, but he seemed to be living in a silent movie. 

Sheila was living in a Busby Berkley musical.  “YOU CREEP!” she shrieked, smacking him across the face with her hammy fist.  “I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!”

He tried to tell her how sorry he was, that he hadn’t set her up for this humiliation, but she had shoved her breast back under its pink satin cover and was crawling away from him.

Furiously, Lenny turned his stare on Squiggy and Hector.  His best friend leaned in for the juicy details.

“So, how was she?”

Lenny moaned, shoving himself back into his brown suit pants.  Despite his humiliation and how badly he felt for Sheila, how his head was pounding, a tiny spark of satisfaction sprung up inside of him. 

At least he wasn’t a virgin anymore.

And if anyone didn’t believe him, he had witnesses.

***

His father’s thin-but-best suit didn’t offer much protection from the chilly April breeze, but Lenny was filled with delight anyway. 

It had been a horribly long road.

He’d failed remedial English lit twice, French 101 once, math for beginners three times.  His PE grade stank.  While he was taking his first final “someone” had scrawled FAG in red lipstick across his locker, and he’d had to ask Squiggy what the word meant while they washed it off. 

When final grades were posted, Lenny learned that he’d nearly been held back.  Nearly.

Thank God a C- was still a passing grade.

He glanced over his shoulder to see his Pop in the front row, a huge camera around his neck.  He urged Lenny to smile and when he did, he was blinded

Then he heard Principal Thackery call his name.  “KOSNOWSKI, LEONARD.”

Lenny rarely felt proud of himself, but he did that day.

The entire gang had gathered at the Pizza Bowl afterward, plugging Frank’s jukebox with nickels and scuffing up his floor with bright saddle shoes.  They bowled for hours and ate him out of house and home.

Lenny’s father bought him a beer and a round of bowling. 

And he said he was proud.

But Lenny just couldn’t get over the gold letters.   Someone had dubbed him adequate for the first time in his life.

Now he’d have to go out into the world and prove he was.

***

He’d learned the route in a week, the tricks in four.  You had to take the overpass on 1-24 into Green Bay, or you’d get lost in afternoon traffic, that was the most important one.

Secretly, he loved his first job – it made people smile at him on the street, made them act like they liked him.  Little kids loved the big shiny truck he drove, firemen and cops cozied up to him for free beer.  He felt respected and wanted.  Even proud.

The best part of it all is that Squiggy’s beside him all day, navigating and helping him carry kegs and crates.

He may be stuck living with his sister (had to move out and give his father a little space, yanno), but things couldn’t be better.

 ***

Waking up on the other side of a long night, he rolled out of his new bunk bed and stumbled to the sink.  His least-dirty mug was selected, filled with instant coffee and hot water, then sipped down.  When it was gone he sat down by the windowsill with his guitar.

Spring had brought promise to his life.  He and Squiggy had been living together in their “Love Den” at the Knapp Street building for a month, and so far – besides their volatile first fight – things were pretty good.  Squig had the best ideas, and better yet he never hesitated to share – whether the thing they were trading was a woman or rent money.  More importantly, he always had someone who understood him nearby. 

Plus, he gave him space when he needed it…which he often didn’t, much to Squiggy’s annoyance.

A smile curled his lips when a familiar whine crawled up the dumbwaiter.  There were indeed lots of advantages to living in this building. 

***

The black lightening – decorated tights made him chuckle as he shucked them off.  From the lowest pits to the grandest heights in one day – he couldn’t believe it.

The girls were their friends.

Lenny had never had another REAL friend besides Squiggy since his childhood.

He met Squiggy’s eyes at they climbed into the backseat of the girls’ Cadillac. 

“They’re crazy about us!” they bragged simultaneously.

***

His head whiplashed in the direction of the big-breasted redhead as she jiggled past.  An ass like that deserved a marching band of praise, but he did what he could to show his appreciation.

“Aroo!” he growled, biting his palm.  Like a faithful hunting dog, Squiggy took up the call after him, making smacking noises with his lips and rubbing his fingers together, as if he could feel the girl’s skin under his palm. 

The result was the same, naturally: they were completely ignored.  Big Red walked out of sight and Lenny sighed. 

He leaned casually back against the bar and said, “I dunno, Squig.  You think this really turns chicks on?”

“What is that I hear?” Squiggy wondered.  “It sounded like the whine of a doubting man!”

“Aww, I wasn’t whining,” Lenny whined.

“You was whining,” Squiggy retorted.  “Have I ever given you a bum steer?”

Lenny’s brow crinkled.  “You never bought me a cow!”

“Concentrate, Len.  This here is a time-proven way of getting broads into our sack.  Remember the Donatello triplets?”

He let out a nasty giggle.   “Okay, you’re right, Squig,” Lenny admitted.  He cast a glance at the warming beer in his hand and sighed again.

“Whattsamatta?”

“I’m worried about Laverne.”

Squiggy’s laughter turned derisive.  “Why?  Ya dodged that bullet.”

Lenny squirmed.  “She’s still my friend.  If she’s in trouble…”

“Ifs’s ifs was buts and candy was nuts we’d all be eatin’ at the Ritz,” Squiggy proclaimed.  

“Yeah, I know,” Lenny sighed.  “But…”  He knew, the second he started talking, that his thoughts were useless.  Squiggy knew all about Lenny’s crush on Laverne, and between the two of them they’d done everything they could think of to charm her to his side.  His similar efforts on Squiggy’s behalf had been just as useless on Shirley. 

At that point, Laverne came through the front door of the Pizza Bowl.  He knew from her shining smile what the verdict was and congratulated her happily.

A tiny part of him wished she had been in trouble.  It felt like his last chance to prove he could take care of her had slipped through his fingers.

***

“Dear Lenny – thanks for the kiss.  Your f-f-f…”

The short blonde smiled gently and pointed to the word on the short note she’d written him.  “It says friend,” she explained.

Lenny beamed, carefully folding the piece of paper and sticking it in the front pocket of his jeans.  “Thanks,” he grinned.  “Thanks for going to the dance with me, and kissing me, and being so nice.” He took her hand and squeezed it.  “You’re really, really nice, Amy.”

The girl – who was just over eighteen, though her youthful features made her look sixteenish – smiled back.  “Thanks,” she echoed back softly.  She hitched herself up onto her toes.“Whisper,” she murmured, kissing his lips very gently.

He tried to embrace her but Amy’s tiny body seemed to slip through his hands.  Lenny was smiling.  He touched his lower lip thoughtfully, a little giggle coming from within him.  “I like the whisper part best.”

She smiled at him – her eyes twinkling.  Edna Babbish’s voice cut into Lenny’s consciousness.  “Amy?” she was standing on the curb, right in front of a yellow cab.  “The cab’s here, honey.” 

“Mamma,” Amy said in a scolding tone, seeming to float down the front stairs of the building and into her mother’s arms, “I know!”

“Yes, baby,” Edna hugged her daughter.  Her eyes turned on Lenny, and the contempt he’d expected to see had been replaced with respect.  “You’re a big girl now,” she added, low and throaty.  “Be good for your teachers.”

“I will, mama.”  She released her mother, picked up her pink travelling purse.  She smiled for Lenny, waved, and ducked into the cab.

Lenny pushed a hand into his pocket and caressed the perfumed note.  She promised to write him, he promised to do the same, and at that moment they both believed that they’d found a true love.

As he watched her cab crawl out of site, Lenny couldn’t see the future.  He didn’t know that they would write short, sweet notes to each other on and off throughout the years.  Or that their feelings would mellow.  Or that he wouldn’t cry two years later, when she married a boy from her group home, and that he’d even attend the wedding with a big smile on his face. 

He’d look at her and remember feeling green and tender and gentle.  The first time he’d ever felt that way for a woman.

He couldn’t have known it wouldn’t be the last…

***

“Whatt’re you doing?”

He pressed a finger to his lips and his ear to the door.  A giggle came from the depths of him.  “She doesn’t think you’re good enough for me!”

“WHAT?”

He sprung up, pressing a hand to Bridgette’s mouth.  “Do you want them to hear?” he stage-whispered.

Bridgette’s jaw took on an obstinate cast.  “I shoulda punched that bimbo…”

Lenny gently pushed Brigette back.  “I wanna have a girlfriend with a non-broken jaw.”

The short, somewhat dumpy girl smiled, the whiplash coquettishness of a vulture.  “You’re gonna have to earn the right to call me your girl,” she purred.

A few minutes later back in his apartment, Lenny manfully tried to prove himself worthy of being Brigette’s boyfriend.

Pretending the entire time she had red hair, green eyes and an overbite.

As he snuggled naked and happy next to Brigette on his bunk, Lenny decided that it was better to be with her than alone beneath a coffee table.

***

It was amazing how empty a room could be when you stripped it of the important stuff. 

Over there his Bettie Page pinup used to hang, and he always used to put his sandwich on that radiator.  He and Squiggy had written their names in mustard on the ceiling, and skated on Jell-O over the floor.

Good memories, forever locked in the past.  He wiped away a little tear on the back of his hand.

Squiggy barreled through the front door, keys for their new ice cream truck jangling in his front pocket.  “Geez, I leave for a minute and you turn into a girl!”

He immediately jutted out his jaw.  “I ain’t a girl!” Lenny replied.  “My face is just leakin’ a little bit.”

“Sure…” Squiggy looked down, arms crossed tightly over his leather-clad chest.  Lenny glanced at this little roommate and though the saw a glimmer of a tear in the corner of his left eye.  “What?” Squiggy snapped when they accidentally met glances.

“Not girly at all, Squig,” Lenny teased.

Squiggy ducked out of Lenny’s line of sight.  “I ain’t crying!  I’m sweating….I think old lady Babbish turned on the heat insteada the air.”

“We don’t have air conditioning,” Lenny pointed out.

“And that is why we’re moving to California,” Squiggy announced firmly.  He scooped up a cardboard box filled with buzzing moths from the table, the tail of a green stuffed iguana limply draped across its edge.  “Remember,” he said, “when we get to California, we tell the girls we got lucky, and that’s why we’re staying.”

Lenny nodded, locking the door tightly behind him before he could think twice.

***

The snuffling noise drew him close to the desert’s edge. 

Guilt stabbed his gut when he made out her shape – stark against the night sky in her sea foam-colored pjs, bent slightly at the head like a sunflower deprived of warmth. 

When he touched her shoulder she whirled around and punched him unendingly, hard sharp blows raining over his chest.  He stood and absorbed it all, until she leaned into his loose grip, exhausted by the hellish night.

“Why did you have to do that, Len?” she whined.  “Why?”

I wanted you so bad, he thought, but knew saying what he felt out loud would be wrong.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

The words broke through her rocky shell, and her tears triggered his.  Forgiveness came upon them in an instant, but months passed before the right words were spoken.   Around them the desert broke away in particles and drifted through the nothingness, rubbing their eyes dry.

***

“So, who do you listen to?”

The tiny brunette smiled up at him.  “The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, Buddy…”  Lenny’s jaw, as always, had gone slack as he listened.  Her little finger came out and pushed his mandibles together.  “Don’t let the flies get in,” she teased, sipping at her beer.

Lenny giggled, and Sabrina laughed so hard her dark pigtails shook.

“I like the Beatles,” Lenny said.   In 1964, that meant everything.

They talked about movies and tv shows.  Could Mister Ed talk or was that magic?  The Munsters lived at Warner Brothers in special boxes and were only let out to do their show.  They knew this because they knew someone who knew someone.

Empty bottles stood sentry at the far end of the table.  The moon fell.   Night turned into morning.

Frank shoed them into the daylight.  “Lock up time!  Go out and enjoy the sun!”  Lenny knew Frank was secretly glad about his interest in Sabrina – it meant Lenny wasn’t panting after his daughter at the moment.

Not that that was much of a regular event anymore.  Everything had changed in their move – even his attitude toward Laverne, his now-spare best friend. 

Lenny wasn’t thinking about her when he walked Sabrina back to her little bungalow on La Brea.  She shyly smiled when he pecked her on the cheek and promised to call. 

He danced all the way home, singing “The Look” at the top of his foolish voice.

***

The statuette glimmered between his palms.

He checked his teeth in its reflection – no little hunks of meatloaf, he realized in relief.  He checked his hair – still in place.

Still Lenny.  Now the award-winning Lenny Kosnowski, representative of the Polish people.

From gutter to the world’s stage, he wondered if his mom was watching.

***

The phone jangled for a few minutes before the receiver clicked.  “Hello?”

“Dad?”

“Lenny!  How’re you doing, boy?  How’s California?”

“Sunny.” Lenny said quietly.  “How’s Milwaukee?”

“Snowy.  So, whatcha want?”

“Nothin’,” Lenny cast an eye on Squiggy, who was reading the latest issue of the Black Scorpion with intense absorption a few inches away on his bunk.  “I just wanted to say…”

A long, long pause.  The wilted air mattress lay at his feet, a greasy black stain at its head a reminder of the torturous week past.   

“Hello?” his father asked again.

“I just wanted to say thanks,” Lenny cleared his throat to push away the harder emotions.  “Thanks for being a good Dad.”

***

He’d figured out how to skip rocks over the tarry surface without letting them sink below the bubbling topcoat. 

Karen loved to put a spin on her toss, making her rock pinwheel end over end across the surface.  She tried to explain to him what made their tosses skip across the inky surface, but the words had gone over Lenny’s head, or made his temples throb.  It was much easier to kiss her.

She’d made him feel smart and worthwhile.  Being looked up to had been such a new sensation – he wanted the feeling to last forever.  Maybe he’d confused gratefulness with love -   she’d had no problem leaving him back in California when she went to New York.  It had been three weeks – she hadn’t called.

The memories would stay with him – the sabre’s tooth around his neck.  It was good to know he had potential – that maybe, someday, someone would look at him and call him smart and mean it.  Lenny didn’t really believe he had it in him, but if Squiggy thought so…

That was the wrong thought entirely.  Karen had, after all, told Lenny that he needed confidence.  He didn’t know how to feel that way, but he would try to fake it.

He lifted his eyes to the broiling California sun.  Though he was alone in the afternoon, everything seems to shimmer with magic.

***

Little Shirley Feeney was someone’s wife, and Squiggy was having a nervous breakdown.

The girls knew, and were afraid of a scene, so they made it Lenny’s job to keep an eye on his best friend throughout the wedding.  Obligingly, he did whatever he could to keep Squiggy focused on anything else -  the food, the music, Walter being all wrapped up like a mummy – as long as he wasn’t thinking of little Shirley Feeney being a bride.

Lenny was proud of her.  Shirley had never been more of a passing attraction for him – his mind danced off to “what if” land with the occasional peek down her blouse or up her skirt, but nothing of life-changing magnitude– so mostly he thought of her as a sister.  In return, Shirley had taught him manners and study habits - how to be a better person.

Eventually, they danced – tiny Shirley came up to the middle of his chest, so it was quite easy to lead.  They awkwardly tripped over each other’s toes and laughed to the weak strains of Tony Bennett piping from the borrowed military stereo  (Carmine couldn’t sing.  Laryngitis, he claimed).  They were sociable teenagers again. 

She headed off for a honeymoon in a baby blue sundress.  “Have a good life, Shirley.”

“Lenny, I’ll see you next week!”

But in a month she was lost to the march of army life, overseas for years and a presence in his world only through birth announcements and Christmas cards.  But they would see each other again, he assured himself now and again.  Lenny didn’t know when, but his heart wasn’t in the wondering.

After all, Laverne was still single.

***

There was one thing he could do well at a memorial service: make a cup of coffee.  It was all he could do in a kitchen, but at the moment it seemed to be the most helpful.

She sat on the stoop of her father’s trailer, a lanky ball of black and red in the afternoon sun.    She barely lifted her head when he slipped the mug into her grip.  “Thanks,” she said weakly. 

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, slipping easily between the door and her small, too-thin body.  He put a comforting arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him. 

Her nose wrinkled.  “Patchouli?” she wondered.

He grinned, a little abashed and drawing back.  “It’s cheaper than musk,” he said.  After nudging her in a friendly way, he added, “times’re a little tougher so me and Squiggy’re cutting our budget.  We’re using hog snouts instead of chicken necks.”

She winced.  “Len, my stomach’s been rumbly all day…”

“But you’re smiling.”

“Yeah,” she squeezed his hand.  “Thanks for coming to the service, too.”

“Your pop was a great guy.”

“He was,” she said, squeezing his arm.

“Laverne?” They turned – standing in the driveway was Laverne’s boyfriend, Mike Carposi, a burly black-haired member of the LAPD.  “I pulled the car around.  Hey, Lenny.”

Lenny respected most of Laverne’s boyfriends – cops, moreso.  “Hey, Mike.”

“I’ll see you back at home, Len.”

“Yeah,” Lenny smiled.  “If you need something…”

He didn’t need to tell her to call – she knew her voice was always welcome.  Her hug was quick, and soon she was gone. 

For the first time in a long time, it didn’t hurt to see Laverne with a guy.

Squiggy finally came by to pick up Lenny an hour later – while he’d attended the funeral, he’d suddenly lost his appetite in “Jay and Missus Babbish’s trailer” and disappeared for parts unknown.

They were unusually silent for the remainder of the ride home.  Alone in their apartment they lay on their bunks, miles apart, mourning a foster father who had smacked a little sense into them both, but always with the best of intentions.

***

“Thanks for walking me down the aisle, Len.”

“Glad to.  I was surprised you picked me.”

“You’re one of my best friends.”

“I guess.   I mean, I know Shirley couldn’t do it, ‘cause she’s a girl, and your Pop’s in heaven…”

“And you’re my best friend.”

“Nah.”

“Yeah!  Ever since Shirl’s been gone you’ve been great.  You’ve really kinda always been there, Len.”

“I’ve always liked you, Laverne…”

“I know.  I hope we never stop talking, Len…”

“Vernie…”

“Hey, did you know Sabrina’s here?  She’s one of Mike’s friends.  I hope it’s not weird for you…”

“Yeah…yeah!  We met up in the buffet line.  We’re gonna go out for drinks after the reception.”

“Len…make sure she treats you right this time.”

“Hey.  You have a good time together.”

“We will.  Make sure no one hurts you.  You’re a real sweet guy and you don’t deserve it.”

“You make sure he treats you right.”

“He does, Len.  Night.”

“Night, Laverne Carposi.”

***

1968 had been a year of education for everyone in California.  Millions of people marched for racial equality, peace in Vietnam and the rights of women; they dropped LSD, smoked pot and shared vans, ideals, communes and sexual partners.  They indulged in psychedelic music, intellectual one-upsmanship, and improvisational comedy.  Lenny and Squiggy were not immune from such craziness but one day, when he had grandchildren to entertain, Lenny would say that living through the 60’s wasn’t as fun as the movies made it out to be.

He owned a red-and-white VW van with chrome details, which had come to him and Squiggy through a swap deal.  Who’d have guessed that moldy bacon sandwiches would turn out to be great for composting heaps?  That was why Squiggy was the genius in their little family – which had expanded a year ago to include Sabrina.   It was a family with odd living arrangements - Lenny and Sabrina shared expenses and a couple of sleeping bags on the floor of the VW while Squiggy occupied the Laurel Vista apartment, offering them the floor when it was too cold to stay outside and use of the stove.  Most often, they stayed outside in the cold – Sabrina had convinced Lenny that they needed very little from the material world.  They grew cucumbers in the windowsill and scrounged through garbage cans for “perfectly good non-expired edibles”.   

Change had been exterior in Lenny, mostly.  His hair fell in dirty blonde locks around his face and clung to the bridge of his long nose in sweaty slivers when he played.  He wore strings of red love beads around his neck – pretty ones shaped like the aggies he’d loved to knock around the schoolyard – that adhered to his sweaty neck.  For pocket change he busked on the corner of Kneeland Street – if he wasn’t filing paperwork for Squignowski.  Squiggy rolled his eyes at his friend’s choices and went to Hollywood parties, keeping food on the table thanks to his ability to cut a throat.  At least that kept him away from Sabrina – the two of them fought violently about the lifestyle that occupied Lenny’s time. 

Sabrina worked for a co-op and brought Lenny to every peace march she heard about.  She had become a vociferous activist for non-violence and her rights as a woman. 

Sometimes too vociferous.  He’d bailed her out of jail more than once for assault; she routinely called police officers “pigs” and once had hit one over the head with her tambourine.  So much for non-violence.

But Lenny didn’t mind her feistiness.  Sabrina was so pretty and funny, and she was spunky, too.  She liked his supportiveness and his gentleness; she thought he was handsome.  They had what he considered really good sex – and knew from the way Sabrina’s body vibrated at his touch like a guitar string that it was good for her, too.  They came from the same sort of background, had the same general sense of taste, held the same political beliefs.  She didn’t need his paycheck to stay afloat but wanted his moral support.

And she loved him.  Really loved him. 

Wasn’t that enough?

He polished his mother’s diamond ring against the front of his stained poncho, blowing on it twice.  It glittered back at him, his reflection bright and shiny.  It was, he decided, and pushed open the door of the van, hope upon his lips.

***

“You’re so bourgeois, Lenny,” her teasing voice lilted through the warm night air.

“Sabrina, I don’t think it’s beige wine to wanna make your folks like me,” Lenny insisted, dumping his dustpan into the garbage basket.  He glanced at their little apartment; it had gotten up quite a coating of dust in the two months they’d been tenants. 

“Sweetie, my parents don’t even like me, and I’m their kid,” she retorted – a dark shadow crossed her black eyes, but it was quickly gone.  She straightened up, her long black hair brushing her shoulders.  “Is Squiggy bringing dessert?”

“He said he would,” Lenny said apologetically.  His best friend had kept the Laurel Vista place – and half the profits of Squignowski – when Sabrina had declared that their VW-sponsored love nest was too small for a married couple.  It wasn’t an option that many of their new friends had…

It was a fact that weighed down Lenny’s mind as he welcomed Sabrina’s parents – Kitty, a chain smoking housewife with Sabrina’s dark eyes and an ex sergeant of arms called Bob.  Despite her initial lazes faire, Sabrina had sunk into an anxious dither, burning a pot roast and baked potatoes, spilling wine on the white-cloaked table.  Her mother smiled flatly and drank too much; her father locked his jaw tightly, when he wasn’t mowing down chunks of red meat. 

Dessert never arrived.

Bob pulled him aside on the porch.  Cigar smoke wreathed his head and wafted in noxious plumes under Lenny’s sensitive nose.  “Young man,” Bob said abruptly, “do you intend to marry my daughter?”

“Yes, sir,” Lenny coughed.

Bob’s dark eyes studiously examined Lenny.  “You understand our Sabrina is special.”

Lenny beamed.  “She’s always special to me.”

“No, son – Sabrina is a delicate flower.” Bob watched Lenny closely for a reaction.  “She’s a sensitive girl – gets that from her mother’s side of the family.”

“Mister – Officer…Sir….I’d never treat Sabrina bad,” Lenny pled.  “She means the whole world to me.”

“You sure about that?  She can be a handful sometimes.”

“She’s got a lotta life in her.  That’s why I love her.”

“You love her?” Bob chewed the word thoughtfully.

“So much, Sir.”

Bob nodded his head once, firmly.  “I commend her to you, then.  Good luck, Son.”  He offered his huge, sweaty palm.

Lenny shook his future father-in-law’s hand, “uh – thanks, sir.”

The evening ended on an argument – a dull conversation about the war had turned animated, and a furious Sabrina kicked her parents out.  She raged at their bourgeoisies, scrubbing the apartment from door to shower before throwing herself into Lenny’s arms, exhausted and tear-stained.

As he held her, Lenny cherished the gift he was being given. 

*** 

The wedding – despite their long-standing forbearance against pomp – had somehow become a traditional affair.  Sabrina had suggested nipping off to a justice of the peace in the middle of the night, but Lenny had been firmly against that – he wanted a church wedding, within the approving graces of the God he still, despite his new values, believed deeply in.  Besides, he’d wanted Squiggy with him.

Squiggy could have cared less where the wedding took place.  Looking back on cake-stained photographs now and again, he criticized himself – he’d been getting pudgy, losing chunks of hair as he reached thirty.  Sabrina picked out a simple white dress and knit shawl – her hair was filled with wild orange flowers – Lenny wore a dark English mourning suit with a white tie that he felt ill-at-ease in.  Squiggy played best-man with a sour look but said nothing while Lenny and Sabrina traded vows in a tiny chapel in Sherman Oakes.

No one else had attended the nuptials – Shirley was in Asia, Carmine was in matinees in New York; Laverne had just survived hard labor and brought her first son into the world.  Lenny’s father had just been through gall bladder surgery – he’d offered to reschedule the event but his father had insisted the wedding go on as planned.  His sister had never been a close relative and was easily excluded.  Sabrina’s parents weren’t contacted, at the bride’s request.

Lenny was deliriously happy – Sabrina, usually calm and collected, glowed with a sparkly effervescence that made him glad to be her husband.  They ate apple pie and danced to the radio in the crisp bronze September evening – the mood unspoilable.   

Before they left for their late-evening flight to Poland, Squiggy cornered Lenny in the men’s room.

“You sure you’re happy, buddy?”  Squiggy asked, staring at the floor.

Lenny grinned dumbly.  “Sure I am.”

“REALLY happy?”

Lenny nodded.

“With Sabrina?”

“Sure!”

“Like you was happy with Karen?”

Lenny glowered.  “You promised you wasn’t never gonna say her name again.”

“Why, does it make your heart got patter-plop?”

“No, it makes my tummy go gurgle,” Lenny retorted.  “Cmon, Squig, I love Sabrina.”

“Yeah,” Squiggy’s lips compacted into a thin line.  “I know you love her.”

“I know you ain’t exactly friendly but I love ya both..”

“…don’t get all fruity on me…”

“I do, Squig,” Lenny said, his voice soft and velvety.  “I want you both to be okay with each other.”

Squiggy shuffled his shoulders.  “I’m okay.  I’m fine.”  His eyes screamed something’s wrong with Sabrina – can’t you tell?  But he said, “It’s okay.  Have a great life.”

Lenny’s hug yanked him off of his feet.  “You’re the best friend I ever had, Squig.”

Squiggy squeezed his best friend’s arm.  “You got a wife now, Len.  Go leak on her.”

*** 

Kulakowski wasn’t what Lenny’s grandma had told him it was.  Her tales of a lush, teeming city filled with noble people had, in real life, somehow transformed into green-tinted streets blind alleyways clogged with the dour-faced masses.    What had once been a liberal republic was now a communist bloc nation – had anyone suspected that Lenny was the maternal grandson of the last Countess of Kulakowski he would have been quickly executed.  Sometimes marrying out of the family tree was a good thing – so was keeping things at a distance.  Still, being out on the street was a discomfiting experience, as twenty-five plus years after Hitler and Hirohito’s surrenders the town still bore scars from World War 2 – a building missing here, a memorial lying there.  The Glorious Revolution tried to keep up with the present and replace what had been destroyed, but weariness still peeped through in shadows.  Kulakowski had been annexed by Germany late due to its general remoteness but it still seemed ominous and filled with the passing mist of ghosts.

Lenny tried to avoid the streets, the old memories of ancestors - ignored everything but the green velvet room, his wife, and the food they were brought three times a day.  It was pretty close to heaven, and he usually had not a thought beyond the inane joy produced by flesh on flesh. 

One morning he awoke to find her sitting alone on their balcony, chattering in the cold night.

She spoke.  “Do you ever wonder how many people died in this city, Lenny?”

Lenny had never experienced such a thought, but he said he hadn’t.

“Hitler killed so many people.  He was a fascist, like Johnson is.”

Lenny didn’t think so, but he said the war would get better, if they kept trying.

“You don’t understand,” she snapped. 

He did.

“No, you don’t.  People are dying, and our government isn’t doing anything to stop them.  They’re no better than Hitler was.”

It was cold outside, didn’t she want to come in?

“No, Lenny.  I’m fine.  Leave me alone.”

He went inside to brood.  Poland, wreathed in steam, seemed to bubble in a matching distemper.

***

A child was here!

Lenny – an exhausted, beard-covered dishrag – had never been more relieved in his whole life than when the starched nurse rolled his new son into the nursery.  Exultant, he pressed his nose close to the glass and stared down at the wiggling, red-faced little fellow squirming under the warming light.

The baby, Lenny thought, looked just like him – same nose, same blue eyes, same blond hair.  He had Sabrina’s chin (thank god) and the cute curve of her lips. 

His father was nearly overwhelmed with pride, gratitude and love.

And guilt.  Because Lenny knew that Sabrina had labored long and hard; because he’d tried to be there for her in the delivery room and had run away like a coward after the broken nails, scratch marks and pleading had driven him to tears; because they’d been going along merrily for a year living in their little apartment, working away at their jobs, when he’d “oopsed” her and begun this.

It had been a deceptively easy pregnancy to get through, as Sabrina saw herself as an earth mother and bore her physical difficulties with grace.  Emotionally, however, she had been a mess – when she’d unloaded the news on her parents her father had castigated Lenny, accusing him of taxing their daughter’s fragile state.  Sabrina had cried for hours afterward, inconsolable, furious at herself for lacking the ability to make them happy.

That memory at the forefront of his mind, Lenny crept guiltily to Sabrina’s room, found her sitting propped up in bed laughing with a flock of nurses ringed about her.  Her dark hair had been combed carefully into two pigtails – her dark eyes sparkled when she saw him in the doorway.  She looked as fresh and sweet as she had when he’d first fallen in love with her so many years before.  The nurses melted back into the wall at his presence, leaving them suddenly alone.

“Hey,” he whispered, kissing her forehead, stroking her hair and arm.  “Are you okay?”

She nodded.  “Did you see him?  He’s beautiful.”

“He’s a big ol’ chip off the block,” Lenny smiled.  “Are you okay?”

She nodded briefly.  A smiling nurse trundled a bassinette into the room and all conversation stopped.  “Someone’s hungry!”  The woman trilled in a Bronx accent.    The baby was carefully picked up and placed in Sabrina’s arms.

Carefully baring her breast and placing the baby to it, Sabrina sighed.  After a long minute of awe-filled silence, she finally said, “I want to call him Robert.  After my father.”  Lenny nodded and smiled.  Sabrina brushed her cheek against the top of the baby’s head.  “The world’s gone crazy,” she said quite casually.

“The Hells’ Angels can’t get to him, Sabrina,” Lenny said strongly.

Sabrina shook her head.  “I’m not talking about Altamont,” she said quietly.  “We’ve lost so many people in the last year,” she said weakly, sounding so old and tired.  “So many OD’s, so many running in the underground…”

“Shh.  You’re gonna break something.”

A weak laugh.  “I’m invincible.”  She looked down at her son’s working lips.  His grip on her nipple had slackened, and she gently disengaged him from her breast.  She handed the baby back to her nurse and covered up.  “I’m Wonder Woman,” she mumbled, falling into the uncomplicated cool of slumber easily.

Lenny watched his little boy for a moment.  He was getting a little less red by the minute, hinting that he might inherit his father’s porcelain-colored skin.  The nurse was tagging his little wristband with a Sharpie – Kosnowski, Robert. 

“A middle name?”

“Huh?” he asked the nurse.

“Does he have a middle name?”

Lenny chewed his lower lip thoughtfully.  Sabrina was out of it – she’d never know the difference. 

He saw the defacto godfather of his son in the hallway, nervously combing and re-combing his hair.  There, despite all of his problems with Sabrina.

A smile crossed Lenny’s lips.  “Andrew,” he said softly.

***

“BOBBY!” Lenny bellowed, turning the golden-haired child around in mid-noogie.  “Be nice to Dominick,” he ordered, as the dark-haired little boy squirmed out of his son’s grip.

Bobby reluctantly let go of the shorter kid.  “He said I was a dummy!”

“You are a dummy!” Dominick panted. 

“I am not!” Bobby pouted.

“Who doesn’t know that sharks can’t live in swimming pools?” Dominick retorted.

“Lots of people!” hollered Bobby, staring at his father.

“DOM,” Laverne Carposi’s Brooklyn honk cut through the argument.  “Say you’re sorry.”  

“You too, Bobby,” Lenny demanded.

The two boys looked to the ground, scratching the white sandy beaches underfoot shamefacedly.  At last they whispered apologies to each other.  “Now go play,” Laverne ordered, pushing them both toward the ocean.

The kids scampered off toward the tossing waves, and Lenny sent a relieved grin in Laverne’s direction simply for adding her presence to the afternoon.    He started toweling his (thinning, he was ready to admit) hair.   “Thanks for cuttin’ in there, Laverne.”

“S’no problem.  I’m sorry about Dom.  He thinks everyone in the world comes from Florida.”  She shook her head, spraying the ground with droplets of water. 

“We used to think everyone came from New York,” Lenny reminded her.  A nostalgic smile turned up the corners of Laverne’s mouth, making her look a pretty sixteen again. 

But a glance at her reminded him she wasn’t quite the girl who’d helped him get through puberty anymore.  In the ten years that had passed since she’d left California Laverne had rounded at the hips and bosom, a flock of crow’s feet rested about her eyes; instead of a daring bikini she wore a conservative one-piece navy bathing suit.   Lenny knew he’d gotten paunchy, a little wrinkly, but all in all he wasn’t much different from the boy who had panted after her thirty years before.  He noticed she was smiling at him and thoughts about the past suddenly fell by the wayside. 

“How did you make it through the sixties without aging a day?” she wondered, mysteriously echoing his thoughts. 

He pinched his plump belly.  “Vernie, in case you ain’t noticed, I kinda turned into a big blob.”

She shook her head.  “No you ain’t – you got a little bigger.  We all did.”  She pecked him on the cheek, apparently just for being himself.

Something she’d never do for him in Milwaukee.  He pecked the top of her head in return.  The noontime sun turned their shoulders bright red as they chatted ‘til Mike called them in for dinner.

The meal was a surprisingly festive affair.  Lenny took his time with the grilled chicken Mike had prepared and examined everyone’s behavior, starting with his hosts.   Mike, for instance, was clearly wearing a toupee along with a heavy gold chain and suntan.  The family’s good fortune as of late was due to his gradual climb to the title of Chief of Police in Dade County, where he’d been transferred to clean up the ranks.  Laverne had become a reluctant housewife – reluctant on Lenny’s presumptions, as she seemed to have a furtive restlessness about her.  She talked about going to night courses, something so unlike her that Lenny had taken pause and Shirley had immediately asked her if she was feeling well.

“Honestly,” Shirley declared as Laverne left the room due to a “headache”.  She poured another glass of sangria into her fruit juice jar, “it’s like she’s turned into me and I’ve turned into her!”

Lenny didn’t have a remark for that one – while it was true Laverne had become a little more conservative, Shirley hadn’t turned into a wild woman, just a hyper-organized housewife with an activity and a solution for everything.  She and Walter had a cheerful marriage driven by self-help books and love of their three children, two ladylike daughters and an equally ladylike son.

Squiggy, meanwhile, had found happiness with a Hungarian immigrant with a 42DD cup size and generous lips named Nashtinka.  She knew three words in English, and two of them were “blow” and “job”; they inhabited an entire level of Laurel Vista and went to a swinger’s club every night.

Carmine portrayed a wise father on a CBS sitcom while visiting the Playboy Mansion frequently – he sent a Christmas card every year, and even called Shirley occasionally, apparently just to hear her voice.

After they put Bobby to bed, Lenny and Sabrina went walking on the moonlit beach.   When forced to reflect on that night again by his wife’s therapist, Lenny would be able to recall nothing but how white the moon had turned the beach, and how Sabrina moved -  like a dancer, kicking sand here and there. 

He nearly expected what happened – her letting go of his hand, her wild laugh, her charge into an ocean she couldn’t swim through.

Half-drowned, he carried her sobbing to the beach.  “I saw what you did, Lenny.”  She said, suddenly.  “I saw the way you looked at her.  You never loved me, never, never, never.”

“Yes I do, Sabrina, I love you, I love you,” he begged.  The words tumbled together in an agitated yell as she fought him with her voice.  Night animals heard their voices and met them with calls of their own, turning the world primitive and embryonic.

She turned her face to the sand and sobbed.

***

The girl was golden-haired as her brother but, decided her father, much noisier.

She had come to the world intentionally and was much wanted – and her mother had gone through an easier time bringing her into the world.  Lenny had been there the entire time, his hand in Karen’s.  The labor had been merciful.

It was the only thing merciful about his sometimes-girlfriend.

She was dour-faced as she held her daughter.  “Call her what you like,” she said.  “I need to sleep.”

From the start, then, the girl was Lenny’s to raise.  He called her Rachel and spent golden afternoons feeding her with a bottle and carrying her around the hospital, showing her off to the nurses. 

Her mother lay alone in bed, the perfume of her solitarily soul filling the room.

***

August 18^th, 1976

This is an oral testimony on history of PAITENT from HUSBAND of PAITENT, to be used in treatment of case by PHYSICIAN.  Testimony is transcribed by PYSICIAN.  HUSBAND will be henceforth referred to by the initials LK; PAITENT will be referred to by the initial SK.

PHYSICIAN: Do you know anything about your wife’s childhood?

LK: -thinking hard-: She said she was an army brat – her folks moved around a lot. 

PHYSICIAN: Did she share her impressions about her family with you?

LK –confused-: SK don’t make fun of people.

PHYSICIAN: I meant did she tell you how she felt about her family?

LK: She liked her dad a lot, but they didn’t get along.  He never liked what she believed in.

PHYSICIAN: You mean her counterculture politics?

LK: Yeah.  She really believed we shouldn’t have gone to Vietnam.  She fought hard to get our guys home…

PHYSICIAN: Tell me more about her relationship with her mother.

LK: She and her mom don’t get along at all.  SK says her mom drank a lot as a kid, and that meant she didn’t get a lot of attention. 

PHYSICIAN: SK has told me she acted out a lot as a teenager to gain that.  And this was why she ran away from college in Berkley to waitress in Burbank.

LK: Yeah, SK always loved those Gidget movies!  When we was dating she tried to learn how to surf, but her balance wasn’t right…

PHYSICIAN: When you were dating how would you describe SK’s demeanor?

LK: Weird.

PHYSICIAN: Weird?

LK: Weird, but I thought that was just how she was.  Sometimes she’d be really happy and silly and make jokes with me; sometimes she’d be real shy; sometimes she thought I was a creep and didn’t want nothing to do with me.

PHYSICIAN: How extreme were SK’S anti-war activities?

LK: She went to protests lots.  She didn’t like the police at all – she still don’t – and she fought with them a lot.  She was real sad when her old group broke up and the movement died.  She actually ain’t been the same since then.

PHYSICIAN: How would you describe her attitude toward you?

LK: Not good.  Not since she started wanting to die…

PHYSICIAN: Mister Kosnowski, try to control your emotions.

LK: I can’t…I’m sorry, I just wanna know what’s wrong with her.

PHYSICIAN: That’s why you’re giving us this statement.  Your wife has become gradually more suicidal over the past three years, right?

LK: Uh huh.

PHYSICIAN: She often spoke of ending her life because she didn’t have a place in the world, correct?

LK: That’s ‘cause she’s mad everything ended.  Doc, everything she worked for in the ‘60’s just went splat on the ground.

PHYSICIAN: I’m aware that the world’s changed quite drastically in the past six years, LK.  Your wife had a career she found fulfilling?

LK: She worked for a women’s shelter.  She loved it – made her feel good and important and needed.  I just wish I coulda made her feel like that…It’s been three years since I felt like we was a family.  And I wish I hadn’t fooled around with Karen, but I needed someone there and she was so nice – and I was so lonely.   Rachel is such a nice girl and I dunno what I’m gonna tell Sabrina when she gets out of here, but she’s been in so long I could say maybe I could say we adopted her and she forgot…

PHYSICIAN: LK, I think it’s time you were told – your wife’s illness isn’t your fault.  Her general practitioner and I have come to the conclusion that she’s suffering from early-onset dementia.  It’s a completely organic disease – she had in fact displayed symptoms years before she met you.  But at this moment and with the medication we can provide her I’m afraid a temporary recovery is the most you can hope for.

LK: What does that mean?

PHYSICIAN: That means she’ll never be able to left alone again – can never in fact live outside of an institution again.  I know you don’t have very much in the way of money, but this is a state physicality and we provide excellent long term care.  LK?  Do you understand what I’m saying?  Dammit…

((END OF TRANSCRIPT))

*** 

He floated through life without thought for many years, but, if he had the strength to do anything at all, he parented.  His kids were always clean, and they always went wherever they wanted to – parks and movies and stores.  There were lollipops on Sundays and long days at the beach. 

When it came time for them to go to school he attended to every bump and ding; paid close attention at every parent-teacher conference and even took notes.  At every PTA meeting the roaming hoards of newly-minted single mothers flirted with him but he was too tunnel-visioned to notice – besides whatever time he spent with Squiggy socially or at Squignowski and what time the kids spent on sports or friends they were one coherent fused unit, their closeness a thin shell preventing the outside world from seeing into their universe.

The kids grew tall and strong; Bobby was a goofball but a better student than Lenny could have hoped for, and little Rachel had a sweet, piping voice and fantasized about being a show rider. 

They were eight and two when what was meant to be a brief archeological dig took Karen to Egypt.  Her last postcard described for them all the heat and beauty and history of the region – Rachel simply had to go there one day. 

Her coffin arrived home two days after a telegram describing the epic hotel fire that had taken her life.

*** 

Every room in the sanitarium had been painted bright green, and it hurt Lenny’s eyes until he forced himself to look at the bed. 

Sabrina was propped up in bed, combing out her dark hair with a quizzical smile on her lips.  “Lenny?” she took his kiss – her lips were a little chilly, as if she had just sipped ice water.  “It’s not Friday.”

He brightened.  “You remember what day it is!”

“Educated guess – no red pills today.”  She examined his face closely. “Are you doing okay?  I know it’s getting close to the holidays….”

“With money?  Squignowski’s doin’ great – we got clients booked up and down the coast this week.”

“I’m glad you’re able to support Bobby,” she smiled, putting  her brush and hand mirror down.  “Show me some pictures, already!  I’m dying of suspense!”

Lenny pulled out a stack of Polaroids.  Sabrina’s smile widened.  “He’s as tall as you are now.”

Lenny lifted his chin.  “He ain’t my height yet!”

“No, but it’s a close race,” she hugged her knees.  “He’s almost fourteen now.  Time’s gone by so quickly…”

“You said it would,” Lenny pointed out.

“I did,” she agreed happily.  “It’s a new world, Lenny.  Women run their own companies, ERA is pending…I wish we’d had a little girl so Bobby wouldn’t be lonely.  It’s an exciting time to be a woman….Lenny?”

He swallowed the lump in his throat.  “Doc Miller says you shouldn’t get too excited about ERA.”

“I know,” she smiled.  “How are the rest of the gang?”

“Squig and Nashtinka bought a condo in Orange County.  She’s in a real estate and they’re in a tennis club.”

“No kids?” she wondered.

“Nah.  They ain’t the kid type.”  If anything, they’d figured that out in their years helping Lenny raise the children.  “Carmine’s show got…”

“…Cancelled,” she inserted quickly.  “I saw on Entertainment Tonight.”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s on Hollywood Squares.”  Lenny stuffed his hands into his pockets.  “Shirley and Walter are still together – the kids are in high school.  He’s got back from the Antilles last weekend – says they’re gonna transfer him to a desk job soon.”

Sabrina watched him intently, knowing who Lenny was avoiding speaking of.  “What about Laverne?”

He turned away, hiding in the room’s shadows.  “The doctor said I shouldn’t talk about her.”

She pushed aside her quilt and walked toward Lenny.  “I’d rather hear about her than wonder what you’re doing with her behind my back…”

“Sabrina…”

“Is she still with Mike?”

“No, Sabrina, she ain’t with Mike no more.  They split up a couple of years ago.  He didn’t like how much time she was spending at her Gymboree franchise.  They just…grew apart.”

“Like you and me.”  He made a protesting noise but she held out a forbidding hand.  “I’ve been in an institution for twelve years.  You have to know by now I’m not coming out alive.”

“Don’t say that,” Lenny whined.

“Stop whining,” she demanded, “and listen to me.  You’re a wonderful man, Lenny – you deserve more than a nothing life waiting for me and taking care of our son, who, by the way, will be a man soon.”

“It’s my life,” he pouted.  “I got the right to spend it however I like.”

“Not when it’s making me unhappy.  You’ve gotta let go of me and follow your heart.”  She tugged at his pointed collar.  “It may be a cliché, but it’s true.”

Lenny’s eyes were tightly closed – a little tear leaked from between the lids.  “Don’t think I don’t love you…”

“I know you love me – as much as you could.”  She turned in his arms and stepped back into the blinding white light streaming from her single window.  Lenny looked beyond her shoulder to the ground, amazed that the limited view of courtyard and old trees could be so illuminating.  At the edge of his vision he saw something sheathed in white gauze lying at the edge of the frame, like a wounded bird in its throes of death.  Before he could exclaim at his discovery…

“Dad?”

Lenny’s eyes eased open.  His daughter stood in the doorway, nibbling her lower lip.  “The limo’s here.”

He swallowed to dampen his dry throat.  “I’ll be up,” he said.  The girl disappeared unobtrusively – she was like her mother that way. 

He forced himself out of bed, brushed his teeth, put on the old grey mourning suit that he hated but was the only suitable piece of clothing he owned.  He tried not to look in the black-cloaked mirror or at the framed picture of Sabrina sitting on his bedside table. 

Downstairs his son sat in an ill-fitting suit and fade haircut, his oversized sneakers nearly too big for him already, down at the mouth. His sister, as always, was composed beyond her years, watching the Monchichis as she ate an orange.

“C’mon,” he called them to their feet.  “Let’s go.”

They walked over the flagstone steps and the morning’s paper, its headline blaring:

TRAGEDY AT CEDARS:

Local declares herself Wonder Woman before leaping to her death.

***

“Hel-lo.”

“Squig-yow!” 

“Tut, Len, didn’t anyone tell you not to block a doorway?  Hey, Bobby-lou, got a  light for ol’ Uncle Squiggy?”

“I don’t smoke, Uncle Andy.”

“Len, whatt’re you teaching that boy?  He’s sixteen and he ain’t had his first cig?  Hey, blondie – you’re getting’ tall…”

“Hi, Uncle Andy…”

“She plays guitar, too?  Whattya got, a drum circle in the backyard?”

“I like singing, Uncle Andy…”

“Yeah, she’s been goin’ to all the local coffee houses on Saturday nights…”

“That’s nice, honey…issheanygoodlen?”

“Rach, can you play Uncle Andy your song?”

“Sure…this is just an instrumental…”

“….that’s good.”

“Good?  Peh!  She’s terrific!  Ed Sullivan terrific.”

“Who’s Ed Sullivan?”

“Kid, you wanna make a million?”

“I dunno, Uncle Andy…”

“Wouldya trust me?  I’m gonna make you a star.”

“A star?  Really?”

“Sure!  Now do we have a deal or not?”

“Daddy?”

“I’m gonna let you make this call for yourself, honey.”

“Okay, Uncle Squiggy.”

“Good!  Now help me get my suitcases.  You ain’t on Texaco Theatre yet.”

***

TACKING IT IN:

Rachel Kosnowski says goodbye to fame and hello to high school

By:  William Miller for Rolling Stone

There are several thousand different ways for a teenage millionairess to spend her hard-earned money in one week – just ask Christina Onassis.  Rachel Kosnowski – owner of three gold records and two gold singles  - gets the latest Michael Jackson 7” and an ice cream cone.   The rest of her million dollar fortune resides in bonds until she turns twenty-one.

For some, an unusual display of restraint; at the Kosnowski house in Petaluma, another Saturday. 

Rachel is disciplined in many other ways.  She wakes up every morning at nine sharp to a home-made breakfast and two hours of tutoring, followed by a half-hour of rehearsal.  There’s a break at noon, then more lessons and rehearsals until two – at what point she’s finally released for a couple of hours of leisure time.  On a recent Friday afternoon she went roller-skating with her two closest friends  -  her head thrown back and laughter pealing through the air, she looked like any other valley girl.    

Until someone stopped her for an autograph. 

“Ohmigawd, hiii,” a short blonde with twig-solid braids giggles.  “I have all your albums!”

With the patience of a woman twice her age, Rachel stopped, seemingly in mid-air, and pivoted toward her inquisitor.  “Daddy taught me to be good to people,” she explains to me later.  “You never know who you’re gonna meet around the corner.”

---

Were she not internationally famous, you would have a hard time picking her out of a police line-up.  Blessed with sharply boned, blonde good looks (inherited from songwriting partner and father, Leonard, 49), she’s the picture of ordinary, unassuming girlhood, the Bluebonnet girl come to life.  At fifteen years old she has a calm, tender air about her, and she seems to be deeply sensitive about her youthful gawkiness (she’s grown three inches taller in the past six months).   She loves Rick Springfield and watches General Hospital religiously; her favorite food is pizza; she has a dog named Smelly Junior (Smelly died mysteriously last year.) and an older half-brother named Bobby who’s “in school” (this is apparently code for bumming around Europe).  She also has two best friends, Shawna and Grace, and they’re both going to begin attending Palisades High in September. 

That’s the biggest news in the Kosnowski household.  Walking away from a million-dollar career may seem ludicrous to an adult, but when you’ve been famous since you were thirteen a taste of normalcy might be just the thing you need.

---

“No!  Do it like this!”  The short, hairy man pivots around on his right heel and goes into what looks like an epileptic seizure.

Rachel watches him for a few minutes, a smile that betrays the smallest hint of confusion tilting her lower lip.  Wheezing, the short man takes a chair and glances at Leonard.

“That kid of yours don’t take direction, Len” he wheezes.

“There ain’t no dancing in the act,” Len smiles, his teeth locked hard behind sealed lips. 

“We gotta go out with a bang!” on ‘bang’, he punches his open palm with a closed fist, causing his face to turn a shade of purple that matches his jacket.

“She’s gonna go out the same way she came in,” Lenny smiles indulgently, taking a bite out of a large red apple sitting on a nearby table.

“Daddy,” Rachel says, her voice filled with exasperation, “that’s made out of wax.”

--- 

Rachel Marie Kosnowski came into the world on April 22^nd in 1976.  Her father had been married to another woman at the time – a former waitress, communications student and Army brat named Sabrina Kosnowski, whom Lenny had married in 1969 and would commit suicide ten years after Rachel’s birth.  Rachel’s biological mother, a professor of Paleontology at Southern California University, had been a previous girlfriend of Lenny’s.  “I turned to her in my time of need,” he explains, eyes always upon his guitar.  Rachel was the result – to Lenny’s delight and her mother’s dismay.

Karen Caldwell got over her initial concerns, gradually become a mother figure for both of the Kosnowski children, though Lenny admits he always knew that the relationship was temporary.  “Karen wanted to be free as much as she could.”  When she left for a dig in Egypt he admitted to having an “icky” feeling in the pit of his stomach – a justified emotion, as Karen Caldwell lost her life in a hotel fire two days after entering the country.

“I don’t know a lot about my mom,” Rachel admits – averting her eyes to her guitar.  “My dad shows me pictures of her all the time, and talks about her a lot, but it’s not the same.  It’s not like she’s actually here.”

“I try to show her how much Karen loved her.  She really did love her lots, especially by the time she got older and they could talk.”  Lenny caresses the girl’s slim fingers but she doesn’t look up from her instrument.

Lenny says he did this because he understands what a lack of love feels like.  He had been born into poverty in Long Island, New York, and his mother left the family on his fifth birthday.  Lenny grew up to be a truck driver, then a talent agent, all the while planning to become “filthy rich”, never having a clue how to accomplish that goal.  When his daughter picked up the guitar at nine, her pure voice and quick learning curve caused him to consider the possibility of her becoming a star some day “but not yet.  I wanted her to have a little time to grow up.” 

All of that changed when Lenny’s partner in Squignowski Talent Agency of Burbank, Andrew Squiggman chanced to hear Rachel playing a song during a weekend visit.  “And I knew the kid had talent,” Squiggman says, standing a little taller under his thinning, oil-slicked pompadour.  “And me and Len’d been going through a little (client) drought.  Rachel was gigging at open mike nights on Saturdays – all covers.  I knew we wouldn’t make money that way, so I told her to start writing songs.”

Rachel had never written a song in her life, so she turned to her father for help.  Lenny explains, “I started playing as a kid, and I’d always written songs, but not with anyone else but Squiggy.  Rachel was real curious about what she could do, so we sat down and spent a Sunday trying out harmonies.  Before we knew it, we had a song.”

The Kosnowski oeuvre – littered with California mornings and drag races, true love and bluebird-filled maple trees – is a peculiar universe populated by cheerful or mopey teenagers and their disapproving parents who ride on waves of cheerful Casio riffs and snare drums.  It was a winning formula - at nine, Rachel was headlining the Copperline, Marin County’s largest all-ages coffee klatch.  It was there that a receptionist with Clive Davis’ office happened to hear her.  Three weeks later, Rachel was cutting the demo that would become Party House.  Six months after that, American Bandstand; one month after that, heavy rotation on MTV.

After that, the world.

Everyone there seemed to know the opening riff to “Sunrise”, a number-one hit for three weeks the spring Rachel turned thirteen; they could sing along in broken English  to “Walk on Clouds”, her #2 smash duet with Boy George (she describes him as being “rad” to work with “because he taught me how to put on eyeliner”).  She was taken in as a beautiful emblem of American lovliness, a pixie of magic and uncomplicated joy.  Music took her from Tokyo to Nova Scotia in two years, depositing her in California just before her fourteenth birthday, at what time she started work on a follow-up tentatively called Leopard Spots.

---

Fleets of teenagers with huge hair and loud shirts drift into Constitution Hall, gum snapping and eyes bright.  A banner hanging on the Colonial façade outside reads Rachel: The Farewell (For Now) Tour, but no one seems to notice that Rachel’s hoping for a permanent vacation.

“Rachel is so amazing,” Terri Martin, 15, says, her aqua-colored mohawk impervious to the whirring overhead fans.  “She’s, like, revolutionary.”

Uncle Andy, in his best circus tent voice, is hocking teeshirts with Rachel’s face on them from a card table in the vestibule.  “FIVE DOLLARS, STEP RIGHT UP!” he shouts, standing on his folding chair to draw stronger attention.  He says that Rachel gets exactly half the proceeds of the shirts and all licensing fees – “not that we got any takers lately”.  Wads of green disappear right into his pocket when no one’s looking.  There is no reprimand.

Backstage, Rachel sips fresh lemon tea as her father tunes his guitar.  They have a pre-show prayer ritual – with their drummer and keyboardist, heads bowed, they say a Hail Mary.  “It’s my favorite prayer,” Rachel says.

That same drummer and keyboardist worked with her father and Uncle Andy in their first band, “Lenny and The Squiggtones”; they describe Lenny as being primarily unchanged from his youth.  Murph, a large black man with a rock-solid stance nods his head once, curtly, when asked about his youth.  “Lenny raised Rachel right.”

Kevin, who sports a throwback red afro, asserts, “I wouldn’t’ve even let him sit for my cat when we were kids.  He’s a better guy now than he was then.”

On a stage bathed with hot pink light, no one seems to notice how old Rachel’s backing band is.  “The guys are eye candy for the ladies,” Uncle Andy declares, but none of Rachel’s teenaged fans can name anyone in The Waves but their lead singer.  Her backup could be Satan’s minions and they would happily sing along when “My Dream” comes through the speakers.

--

The world given Leopard Spots was somehow less innocent than the one that had embraced Party House.  Poverty and crack addiction were America’s newest concerns, and harder-edged rock had filled the airwaves with anger and confusion.  Leopard Spots did anything but rebel against Reganomics.  The platter’s lead single was “My Dream,” which had barely cracked the top twenty when it was caught in the PMRC dragnet.  Lenny, the primary lyricist, was forced to testify before a tribunal the song wasn’t about a drug trip.   Lyrics about “happy walls holding me” and “dancing on marshmallows” belied his statements; Leopard Spots was slapped with a cautionary label.

The album promptly stiffed at record stores.  Like dominos, the House of Rachel began to tumble down.  An endorsement deal with LA Gear fell apart; an offer to play with the Disney Parks was retracted; a sitcom development deal that promised untold millions evaporated. 

The experience has left Lenny bitter.  “You can’t even talk about riding ponies in the sky without people saying you’re doing smack,” he growls.  “I dunno what’s happened to this country.”

Rachel is comparatively resigned.  “It was a big sign that I need to take a break,” she said.  She relates a story about attending a fancy party in the Hollywood hills, asking me to remove the names of several well-known actresses from young Hollywood.  Someone had offered her some coke, some weed, some beer, “and I understood that that was the only way they could be happy – being lit all the time.  I didn’t want that to be me one day.  I wanted to stop while it’s still fun.”

“She’s always wanted to work with horses,” Lenny adds.  “This singing stuff is just a hobby.”

The only person in firm denial of Rachel’s likely future is Uncle Andy.  “This is just a vacation,” he insists.  “Til she gets out of high school.”  Until then, he’s managing a boy band.  “They’re called the Ninth Universe Cowboys,” he shoves a black and white glossy at me.  “Lookit those dimples, eh?  In two years, every girl in the country’s gonna be (drooling after them).”

--- 

Terri is among the small crowd waiting in the midnight rain for Rachel after the concert.  Rewarded for her devotion with an autograph and picture, the young girl seems to glow.  “Keep fighting the man, Rachel!” she yells, all Billy Idol sneer. 

Rachel manages a quick wave before being swept into an old black limousine crowded with friends and family.  “It’ll be fun to go back to school,” she tells me.  “I want to be a veterinarian some day.”

“You ain’t going into the army!” 

The girls laugh.  “Daddy, I want to help hurt animals.”

“You can do that at home,” he smiles indulgently and pats her on the head.

***

It was hard to forgive death.  The bastard was simply inhuman. 

Without warning, it took women, children and men to their graves.  Cats and birds and dogs.  Even trees turned brown.

Lenny’s glare rested, unforgiving, on the casket.  How could such a tiny box contain John Kosnowski?  His father had been broad-shouldered, square-jawed and never, ever sickly.  He wanted to shriek, pound the wood and break down in tears, but such releases were denied; inertia claims him and he can barely shoulder it down to the cemetery.

The world he’d known had passed away years ago, too – Shotz was now a Pabst brewery, and the Braves had become the Brewers.  The old neighborhood had been marked for “urban renewal,” and he was afraid what he might do should he go back there and see a single thing changed.  He tried not to look out the window when the limo sped by.

Squiggy hung, thin and pale, in the background.  “He was a good guy.  D’I ever tell you he got me my first Penthouse?”

Lenny’s nose wrinkled.  “You mean you lifted it from him.”

Squiggy let out a laugh –mangled by a cough.  Lenny came over to him and carefully held him up.  “It ain’t good for you, being out like this.”

“The cold air ain’t gonna make my cancer worse.”

Lenny winced, denying death.  He circled the wagons, called for the kids, and pointed his shoes back to California.

“Let’s go to Al’s for some malteds.”

***

He was pretty sure he’d forgotten what sex was like.

He didn’t mind.  Close to fifty he was too busy to even think about engaging a woman in conversation, let alone boinking one.  Bobby had just come home from the Merchant Marines and was taking college courses on the education bill.  Rachel was a junior in high school, renormalizing into the real world once again.  His time was spent driving her around, and driving Squiggy to his chemotherapy appointments.

How easily he had fallen into the nursemaid role.  The old Lenny would have shrieked in dismay and hidden his head from a life that promised no future female contact, no loud parties, no babes at all.

He tried not to think – thinking hurt normally, but now it was a hazardous task.  Thinking made him remember how empty the nest could be.

Thinking forced him to answer the door in an apron.

She hadn’t aged a day, and he almost hated her.

“Laverne?”

***

“I had to come when you wrote about Squig.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I knew you’d need me.  Cancer’s hell, and no one should have to go through it alone, and you shouldn’t have to take care of him by yourself.”

“Me and Rachel’ve been doing okay helping him…”

“It ain’t Rachel’s job.  What the hell happened to Nashtinka?”

“She dumped Squig for some guy with gold chains and a record deal last month.”

“Aww geez – now I feel worse for him...”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming, Vernie?  I woulda at least cleaned up…”

“I wasn’t thinking about manners – I left the second I got your letter.  Mike has Frank for the weekend and Dom cancelled his visit.  Again.”

“Did he have to work this weekend?”

“No, he had a date.  With a model.”

“Lucky SOB.”

“One of the best things about being a fashion photographer.”

“How’s Mike?”

“He and Marta bought a llama ranch in Arizona last year.  We had to shuffle his days to make it easier on Frank.”

“Is he happy?”

“Oh sure – his pension kicked in.  He’s having a good time.”

“What about you?”

“I’m…okay.”

“Laverne Marie Carposi!  You deserve a hell of a lot better than okay!”

“Wouldya watch it?  I’m fifty-two years old, I got a successful business, I don’t have to cap bottles all day and I got two kids I don’t wanna hit.  Most of the time.  Me and Shirl hang out all the time since she and Carmine moved out to Florida.  Life’s good.”

“Yeah, but ain’t there something missing?”

“You’re talking about guys, aren’t you?”

“Maybe…”

“How do you know I ain’t seeing somebody?”

“You ain’t seeing someone!”

“How do you know?”

“Cause you woulda been trumpeting it all over the mountains if you were.”

“Oh yeah?  Well, I happen to be seeing a lawyer!  A nice, tall lawyer with big white teeth.”

“Oh yeah?  What’s his name- George Ladle?”

“George…Phwah!”

“You know, it’s been a long time since I laughed like this, Vernie.”

“Me too.  I don’t laugh with anyone the way I do with you, Len.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I missed the way we used to hold hands too.”

“We always hold hands – ever since we were little.  It always felt so nice.  I sort of always wondered what it would be like…”

“Yeah, if we…”

“…Mike’s gonna laugh so hard when I tell him this.”

“Why?”

 “He saw us at the beach house, when we kissed...didn’t bring it up until we got divorced.”

“Geez…”

“He thought it was funny…He said you were all puckered up like a blowfish…”

“That’s the nicest fish I ever been compared to…”

“Len…why don’t we go figure out how many kisses it takes to get my sweater off?”

“I…Laverme, are you sure?”

“Uh huh.”

“I don’t know if I can…”

“Why?”

“Sabrina saw us kissing that night, too.  I can never forgive myself for that.”

“I don’t think she’d want you to keep beating yourself up about that.”

“How can you say that?  She tried to kill herself that night.”

“You told me she’d tried to kill herself when she was a teenager.  And the doctors told you that she would’ve kept trying to, no matter how many men she’d been in love with.  And it was a silly little peck on the cheek – even Mike knew that, and he was jealous of every guy who smiled at me!”

“That little peck wrecked Sabrina’s life…”

“Sabrina’s been sick for a real long time.  Her doctors told you that.”

“Yeah, well…”

“I need you tonight, Len.”

“You ain’t never needed me, Laverne.”

“I always have.”

“Since when?  What changed your mind, Laverne?  Why right now?”

“Because life’s a precious thing, and love’s the one thing I’m missing.  And I’ve always loved you.  Since we were little kids and you warned me about the monsters.  Since you proposed to me when I thought I was pregnant.  Since you helped me with my Pop the whole two years he was dying.”

“You never told me!  All of your letters were so happy...”

“I wasn’t ever unhappy.  Lenny, I loved Mike, too.  I loved you both at the same time and I chose him because he was everything Pop wanted me to marry – everything I’d wanted in a guy since I was a teenager.  And I’ve never been sorry I made that choice, because we had fifteen great years and two great sons…okay, GOOD sons.  And we still love each other, just in a different  way – a better one.”

“Does it involve bouncy swings?”

“Len…you drive me crazy.”

“I thought Mike drives you crazy.”

“Not that way anymore.  But I’d like to find out if you do.  I’ve been so lonely since Mike and I broke up.  The more I think about it, the more I realize how terrific you are.  How much we deserve each other…”

“Vernie…”

“Don’t throw me out, Len.  Not tonight.”

***

The sex he had imagined them having – the images that had been tattooed on his inner eyelids for years – was not the act they played out on the wrinkled sheets of his master bedroom.   Thirty years older, lined and balding, he wondered if he disappointed her. 

She lacked sleekness, but was eager, wild, enthusiastic.  He didn’t mind a single flaw on her body – it only served to make her enchanting. 

She didn’t complain.  She cried out and groaned and spasmed obviously, taking all the strain and worry about not pleasing her off his shoulders.  He relaxed and they flowed together with sweet ease.

After an hour, she untwisted herself from the sheets and tossed back her hair, laughing vibrantly.  He raised his sleepy head and smiled down at her.

She panted, “I always thought you’d be good.”

He shrugged modestly.  “I try.”

She squirmed.  “I used to watch you eat popcorn…”

“So?”

“You always used to kinda lick it before you ate it…”

He rolled her onto her back.  “You saying you wanna be my popcorn?”

She smirked and pulled him toward her mouth.

***

He woke up to the sound of a shower and her horribly off-key voice singing “Wedding Bell Blues.”   A wolfish smile tickled his lips - he snuck into the plush bathroom.

When he parted the curtain she yelped, smiled, and reached up over her head, looping her hands around the shower head. 

Much later they brushed back their wet hair, dressed with shaking legs and hands, and brushed their teeth.  Downstairs, someone had made pancakes – a batter-encrusted sink and stove would be dealt with later.  They made cocoa puffs and flicked the cereal at each other, making the mess bigger, playing at being kids.

Out on the beach, Squiggy sat in the sunlight, his hair growing back in as his body overcame the effects of his chemo.  He smirked at Lenny and Laverne as they approached but didn’t make a wise remark as he noticed them holding hands.  Up the beach, Bobby was playing football with a bunch of girls from Rachel’s school, all of them brawny and beautiful in the new light.  Their boys were quick and bright, but the girls were quicker and brighter; Lenny understood now that that was the way of the world and embraced it.  He saw Rachel sitting, hawklike on an outcropping of rocks, strumming “The Water Is Wide” on her Washburn, her friends weaving flowers in her hair like a couple of stoned groupies.

Laverne’s smooth hand slipped against Lenny’s as they walked down the shoreline, betraying her nerves about the upcoming confession to her sons.  The wind cooling what the sun warmed.  Lenny caught her eyes sparkling up at him, promising nothing more than the next few hours and the hope of a few years more.  Lenny was okay with that, too – he wouldn’t cling this time.  It all had the gleam of a beginning, not the brown tone of a funeral parade.

He knew, now, that loss was only a temporary thing.  Some day he would see his mother and forgive her the reckless choice that had driven them apart – she was sick, and he knew it wasn’t his fault anymore.  He would meet with Karen and Sabrina again in some otherworldly dive bar and play guitar while they sang along – over whatever passed for beer in the next life he would extract the hows and whys from their lips and put a permanent end to their mutual confusion.  They would understand and let him go.  They would know he’d always been meant for Laverne.

He would meet with Brandy and laugh at his old naivety and pay her enough to follow her dream outside of the seamy go-go bars, and apologize again to Sheila for those bleachers, and agree with Bridgette that he’d never given her a chance.

He would wrap his arms around his father and, for the first time since he was six, tell him he loved him.

He had no death wish – no, the years would go on for as long as he could eek them out - holding her hand, being her lover, raising these children.  He would record again, and walk through the sands of his youth, and hope against hope for a baby by her ((he was really lying to himself now.  They were fifty.  But wasn’t it a time of miracles?  Didn’t he have a right to imagine green-eyed kids who could laugh like her while his face took on the droopiness of a basset hound?)).  One day he would take Rachel to Egypt and touch the smooth sandstone her mother had excavated.  There would be happy Christmases and weddings.  He would go on and on, like the water at his feet – stronger every time.  

One day there would be grandchildren to cosset and tend to.  When they sat at his feet, he would tell them: What I remember is my mother and Milwaukee.