There’s an abridged version of this piece currently up at TheRumpus.com.
Thank you to Susan Clements for including it. You can see it here: http://bit.ly/v5RSqd
The Blow Job
(1982) My cousin, Bill, is getting married again. His first wife was a famous, giggly blonde actress, and now he’s marrying another actress who, though equally famous, is decidedly less glamorous. He is marrying America’s Sweetheart. He is marrying Shirley Feeney.
Mom and I hear about the wedding from Aunt Sharley, but our invitations mysteriously never arrive, so I torment my mother into calling her brother, Bill Sr., to ask that we be included. My mother does not want to do this, but I push and push until she acquiesces, although she insists she will not attend, which is fine with me.
I am 17 years old and living with her again, after a brief and dismal stint with my erstwhile father and his new family. Her apartment is 350 square feet. There is a hot plate and a tiny refrigerator in the hall closet, and the bed—our bed—is unfolded every night from a ratty, tweed sofa. There is nowhere in that room I can’t hear her breathing.
I spend my days looking for a job that doesn’t require a high school diploma and my evenings hitchhiking down Sunset Boulevard to Gazzarri’s and the Rainbow, where I hang out in the parking lot when I don’t have enough money for the door charge.
The invitation arrives two days before the wedding. The card stock is thick and creamy and the envelope is lined with shiny paper that matches the color of the calligraphy ink. I borrow a dress, a slinky, green knit column, and invite the drummer from the Gazzarri’s house band to be my date. He picks me up in the alley behind my mother’s apartment by honking the horn repeatedly. He’s driving an old, white van with a broken window and a dragging tailpipe and he doesn’t lean across to open the car door when I approach. My skirt snags on a protruding spring when I slide into the passenger seat, leaving a curly, green tail of thread protruding from my ass. I am afraid to pull it for fear that I will unravel entirely.
There are photographers outside when we arrive at the sprawling Brentwood mansion where the reception is being held. Inside, I lose the drummer immediately. There are so many celebrities it feels like I’m watching TV. John Ritter pratfalls down a flight of stairs and mimes falling into the flower-strewn swimming pool. I perch at an ornately dressed cocktail table for what seems like an eternity, and when the groom’s brother–my cousin, Mark–slides into the seat next to mine and suggests we go out to his car for a bump, I eagerly agree. He’s debonair in his black tuxedo: goateed, thirty-something, slick. He rests his hand lightly at the small of my back while we wait for his car to be brought from valet.
Twenty minutes later, we are parked on a side street and he pushes my head toward his lap without a kiss or even a word. To be clear, I don’t resist. I understand this currency and I’m willing to use it. When he finishes, I crack the window and spit into the street. My most vivid memory of the whole night is the gelatinous mouthful that got stuck on the glass and slowly dripped down the passenger door.
