I used to lay awake thinking about how my hair curled. I sat outside in the sun, reading magazines with lemon juice in my hair until it dried like straw. Strawberry blonde was boring. Sylvia Plath blonde was my choice. I saved up for Chuck Taylor’s because I thought they sent the right message to accompany my white, tight T-shirt and Levis: in control, but available. I purchased more red lipsticks than I could afford, looking for the shade that a standard Pick Me girl would favor. I was in college, in Eugene OR and I’d been there long enough to realize I was bright but directionless, and I wanted An Experience. I was young and broke, bored with routine and vaguely interested when a guy began pursuing me. He was in a frat, but gave off an air of not caring. A Pick Me boy, if you will. Our ironic fronts seemed to spark off each other. His name was Jason. His dad was a brain surgeon. He lived in San Francisco.
I liked the idea of visiting him in San Francisco. I’d already progressed in my mind. Not to marriage. Chuck Taylors didn’t marry. They dallied. They observed. Such was my naivete. Jason took me to lunch. We talked about our econ class. He mentioned a Little Sister’s weekend, and wondered if I was a skier. I was. A terrible one. He further wondered if I wanted to lower myself and hang out with potential sorority recruits. An eye roll. A grin. Two weeks later, I found myself in the back of a utility van bound for somewhere with snow. A handful of boys. And besides me, two girls, each alike in smelling of candy perfume, who laughed too loud at jokes that weren’t funny. They were nervous, knowing there would be reports to their potential Big Sisters back at HQ. I was independent. One of the frat guys had been in my dorm freshman year. He caught my eye and we both winced at their ridiculousness.
I don’t remember if we skied. I don’t remember if I left the big house outside of Bend even once. I remember that most of them got high and stayed that way, and that talk turned to busing of poor people to rich people’s schools. I remember thinking that I had entered a world of people who had everything, but wanted more. This was Friday, on a long weekend. I slept on a couch in the living room. I wanted to leave. I stayed.
On Saturday, the partying didn’t stop. I remember going to the basement and finding a room with bunk beds. I went to the top bunk. There were no sheets, so I found a scratchy afghan and laid down on it. Funny what you remember. I’m a light sleeper, so I heard Jason from San Francisco when he entered the room. I remember his big frame shaking the bed as he climbed it. I remembered what he said to me. He said I knew the score. That is was time to pay for the weekend. I told him I didn’t like him. He laughed and told me how little that mattered. And then he did what many unimaginative men of power did before him and since. He took away my illusion that I had any power in any situation at all. He took off my clothing, he did his dirty work, and then he fell asleep in the small bunk. I climbed down, collected my things and took a shower.
I remember I spent Sunday sitting in a chair looking out on a snowy scene. I asked my dorm friend if there was any way I could go home. He looked ashamed and stopped speaking to me. On Monday, I sat thigh to thigh with Jason from San Francisco as we rode back to Eugene. He flirted with me. Untied my shoe and took it. He told me he was going to hold it ransom, until our next date. We arrived back at their frat house. The house mom was mad, because it was her cargo van, and we were late. I went in and called my best friend. I had one shoe on. She picked me up and we went back to our apartment. I told her what happened to me. I asked her to throw my other shoe away.
I didn’t speak of it again for a long time. I saw him in my Econ class. His eyes, when they saw me took me in clinically. There is one of the people I used. I am done with her now. I let go of thinking my hair was magic. I stopped looking at my clothes as a calling card for a fantasist. I was wounded in the deep recesses of myself, and I had to close it off and continue. I didn’t disappear, but I withdrew. A glancing blow in a life already filled with violence and self incrimination. A closing of the door. An enforced sobriety of knowledge.
I grew up.
