1ft street roots
13
Education * Dialogue * Independence
Hungry for Desire
This is the first
oftwopart,
biographical
series by
Karleigh Frisbie
Karleigh Frisbie has been
living in Portland o ff and
on fo r six years. She recently
finished her first collection
o f short stories, Ventral
Tegmental, based on the
experiences she had living
outside o f society as a
heroin addict. Currently,
she is working on her
bachelor’s degree in writing
and is living with fam ily in
California. '
BT KARLEIGH FRISBIE
contract. The other three members took
ordinary jobs, like driving cabs and waiting
moved in with Jack after otfr first kiss.
tables. Jack refused to stop living like a rock
That happened after I made him take a-
stair and blew the last of his money on
shower at my Pop’s apartment across
powdered drugs and leather pants
town. I bought him a new toothbrush because Supposedly the Sunset Strip had become a
I had often caught him cleaning shoe polish
ghost town, an embarrassment even. Jack
out of fingernails with his old one. He
trekked up north to Frisco where he said it
borrowed a pair of Pop’s boxer briefs and a
was “easier to be honieless,” and squatted
T-shirt with the word “Vaurnet” on it. It was
above a closed service station on Guerrero
then I decided he was ready to be m y .
Sfreet, giving hand jobs in alleyways for dope
boyfriend. Moving from my Honda Civic into
money. A few years later Hanson got a call
the shoe store was ecstatically welcomed. I
that Jack was in ICU at S t Francis Memorial
did not miss having rotks thrown at my
Hospital. He had an abscess on his arm that
windshield as I tried to sleep, snoopy
had gone septic, and a critical* case of
pedestrians peering in at me balled up in
Hepatitis B.
insomnia in the back seat “It’s a girl!” they’d
“Hey Chicken-Boy, let’s sell some shoes!
squeal. No, I did not miss this. Nor did I miss
Let’s get pumped!”
the middle-night urges to urinate which
“Buy me some coffee and maybe I’ll have
resulted in squatting curbside, hoping some
the motivation,” Jack said.
night-owPor bar-fly wouldn’t catch me.
“Oh no, no, no. The motivation is; dear
Jack and I rarely left file shoe store that
Jackie Chicken-Boy, whether of not you will
summer. At night we’d lock the front doors
have a place to lay your pretty head at night.
and pull our bedding out of the storage closet,, And I see Brandi’s staying Lere now, too. I
arranging the thick mound of blankets in the
might have to collect some rent from her.”
far corner of the store. Td fall asleep with the
“Oh whatever, Hanson! I Sold three pairs
oscillating frtn breezing over my face every 10
of DanskoS yesterday. You should be fucking
seconds, the smell of new leather sedating
paying me,” I said. I was hunched over a
me.
foot-mirror, applying a thick layer of eyeliner,
The shoe store specialized in Scandinavian
“and might I remind you Hanson, that .
clogs and ergonomically-correct sandals. Most without me and my trusty old Honda, you
of the clientele were much different than me
would’ve never had those orders delivered to
and Jack. Nurses and line cooks, yoga
Birkenstock on time.”
instructors and retired people. It also
“Damn. The fax is still broken.”
attracted the town misfits, who would come
I smirked at Hanson.
in before nightfall with changethey Collected
“I’m going to get coffee, and then I might
from recycling bottles to buy shoe glue or
go down to the pawn shop to see if I can find
anything with a propellant — rain-proofer and
a deal on a fax machine. Jackie, two Sweet-n-
Meltonian Super-Shine.
Lows?” - ' .
jack’s older brother Hanson owned the
“Three.” Jack was tuning his guitar, a pick
store and would mosey in every morning to
in hte mouth. A n d lots of milk.”
C O N T R IB U T I N G C O L U M N I S T
K
check invoices and re-merchandise. Usually*
he would come in yelling, since we were still
asleep at the back of the sales floor.
“Goddamn it, Jack! It’s quarter past 10 and
you don’t even have the sign out!”
~ “Asshole,” I’d whisper to Jack, before he
jumped up and slid into his jeans. .
Jack did not get paid for watching the store
all day. Instead, he got to live there. It was an
agreement Hanson.made With him after
saving his life.
“You’d be huddled in a doorway without
me,” he would constantly remind him. “Not to
mention, dead.”
jack would sit out front of the store with
his guitar and a drippy Styrofoam cup of
coffee. Sometimes weekend strollers up from
Los Angeles to ride the wine train and eat at
epicurean hot-spots would stop and listen
politely, leaving him a dollar. But most of the
town folk knew he was Hanson’s “crazy”
brother. The “fallen star” they’d call him. See,
Jack wasn’t always homeless and unemployed,
at the mercy of his big brother. In fact,
Hanson used to be quite jealous of little
Jackie. Back in the late 1980s, when I was an
awkward middle-schooler with a terrible
perm, J used to stay up late at night and
watch Jack’s band, Steel Venom, shake their
big hair and blow lipsticked kisses to the
camera on Headbanger’s Ball. Their one hit,
“Hungry for Desire,” had a video that
featured both a junk yard and a boa
• constrictor. Well, according to Jack, by 1991
metal had taken a nosedive and Geffen
Enterprises didn’t renew Steel Venom’s
I got dinner from 7-Eleven every night.
It was basically our kitchen. We closed
an hour early; the sun hadn’t even considered
setting yet We walked dreamily; a few folks
passed us and smiled and said, “Hi.” Some
even talked to; us for a b it Small town life was
a mumbling ongoing conversation. It was a
long, extended family reunion, with family you
didn’t even know, family you had never met
but you knew all about. They told you
everything: their fears, their secrets, thèir
plans. If they didn’t tell you, someone else
already had'. You knew their habits, the
ordinary ones, the embarrassing ones, even
the disgusting unmentionable ones. You’ve
heard the rumors and you’ve witnessed the
■
In a car parked on a city street, X was afraid
people would see me. They would laugh at
me or pity me. Truth was, they didn't see me
back then. X was invisible. la c k and I had
become an important part of the fabric of
town. We were no longer ghosts. We had
names. We were probably even talked about
at dinner tables after grace.
truths. In a car parked on a city sfreet, I was f
afraid people would see me. They would laugh
at me or pity me. Truth was, they didn’t see
me back then. I was invisible. Jack and I had
become an Important part of the fabric of
town. We were' no longer ghosts. We had
names. We were probably even talked about
anson was gone all day. He always was. I
at dinner tables after grace.
think he hated the shoe store. He always
We cut through the park, where a group of
boys did skateboarding tricks off the gazebo,
made excuses to leave. Customers would
trickle in all day as Jack would take requests whirring and clacking. An old man, with slow,
deliberate movements, wet his gossamer
by the front door, “Somethin’ Else,” and
“Good Golly, Miss Molly.” I’d be frying on the silvery-white hair in the fountain. “Hot one,”
Jack said as we passed. The man nodded, and
old dead stock shoes I found in the crawl
space above the backroom; granny loafers and then fumbled with a damp cigarette from his
shirt pocket. Jack lit it for him.
Scholl’s sandals. I considered them my
We sat on the curb in front of 7-Eleven,
payment
where the smell of dryer sheets from the
“Babe!” Jack called to me. I was Shaving
laundromat next door made my Hot Pocket
my legs in the rusty cold-water sink. He
wanted me to come play with him. He wanted taste better than it really was.
to teach me some minor-seventh chords and a
ack held the faucet on for me as I sudsed
Rolling Stones song, a Cheap Trick song. Jack
my eyelids, purply-grey foam streaking my
convinced Hanson to buy me a light,
rearms.
nonthreatening nylon-string acoustic since I
“You have clinic tomorrow, babe,” He said
had helped him and his family move from
as he handed me a towel.
Lakeport to Petaluma. I had spent that
He was the organizer out of our coupling.
afternoon wrapping dishes in sun baked pages
of the Lake County Record Bee, and jimmying He’d write lists on yellow post-it notes, his
handwriting as bulbous and as blimpish as a
headboards and end tables into the U-Haul.
third grader’s. Clinic. Shower. B string. Wild
Hanson only viewed me and Jack as cheap
Horses-easy. Madeline-Birks-778r0264.
labor.
“You gonna have a talk with them .
I rinsed my razor and went outside,
tomorrow?”
dragging, a stool and my guitar in one hand.
“Jack, I ’ll be done when I’m done. Probably
Jack had patience. He positioned my fingers
three more months.” .
on the fret board, contorting them into
“They want you on that shit forever, You
impossible assignments. He’d take apart
gotta just tell them ‘I’m ready.’”
songs and wouldn’t put them back together
' I was making a face. The face that happens
again until I had every note down. He’d count,
when I chew on the inside of my mouth when
keep the beat on his thigh. He’d smile when
I’m irritated.
I’d get frustrated, and call me a rocker when
“You’re scared. They want you to be
I’d get confident.
scared. Thfcy want to imprison you, Brandi.”
“Wanna lock up and get din-din?” He asked
■
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