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“And you’re doin’ ‘em too.”
I stopped talking and just let my mouth hang open for a few seconds.
“Nunh-unh,” I finally managed.
“Yeah you are,” Riley insisted. She pulled off her thrift-store parka with its fake fur collar, slung it next to her in the wooden booth, and flagged down a heavily tattooed waitress with a Betty Page haircut.
Imagine this: you have just taken up boxing. You’ve worked the bag, done a lot of jump-roping, maybe even sparred a little. With an 87-year-old man.
Then you find out your first real fight is with Mike Tyson.
Not current-day Mike Tyson. Noooo. Time-travelling Mike Tyson, who has come here from the past, in his prime and fresh from biting the ear off of Evander Holyfield.
That was what I felt like when I heard Riley wanted to do shots.
“NO.”
“Then we’re not doin’ the fuckin’ interview.”
“But – but – ”
I wanted so badly to whine, But Ryan made you promise!
But I knew that would torpedo the whole thing.
“Riley, you’d drink me under the table in half an hour. I will literally die from alcohol poisoning if I try to keep up with you.”
She considered that. “Okay, we’ll go three for one. I do three shots, you do one. And you can do little girly shots, with umbrellas and shit.”
That was actually a pretty good offer.
But I was still nervous.
“Four for one,” I countered.
She shook her head in disgust. “You are such a pussy, Blondie,” she muttered, before ordering her first round of Four Horseman – Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Johnnie Walker, and Jameson.
And a shot of amaretto for me.
93
The first thing I asked her – after she’d downed all four shots – was how long she’d known she was gay.
“Forever,” she said, and belched.
“What’s your earliest memory, though?”
She stared off into the distance and actually gave it some thought. “There’s actually two things I remember. One was Mr. Hopkins.”
“Mr. Hopkins?”
“Yeah. He was this old asshole I had to live with when I was little.”
I frowned, but thought better than to ask about it now. After all, she was actually talking, and she hadn’t even propositioned me yet.
“Anyway, he said, ‘Riley, one day you’re gonna grow up and get married and have kids of your own.’ I was, like, four or something, and I didn’t know shit about sex… but I saw all the men and women who were married on TV, and I just knew that was never gonna happen for me.
“So I was like, ‘Nunh-unh.’
“And he was like, ‘Oh yes you are.’
“And I was like, ‘Nunh-unh.’
“And he got really mad and was like, ‘Yes you ARE.’
“And I was like, ‘NUNH-UNH.’”
Maybe it was the shot of amaretto, but I was totally charmed by the thought of four-year-old Riley (who still had a multi-colored mohawk in my daydream) standing her ground against the patriarchy.
Then she finished the story.
“And when I wouldn’t agree with him, he beat the shit out of me.”
I stared at her, my mouth agape.
Riley frowned. “What?”
“He… spanked you?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “No, he beat the shit out of me.”
“With… his hand?”
“No, his belt.”
It took me almost ten seconds before I could finally speak.
“But… you were four. And you didn’t DO anything.”
She shrugged again. “I told you he was an asshole.”
“Who was this guy?”
For the first time, she looked visibly uncomfortable. “He was my foster mom’s dad. So, like, my foster grandfather. Or something.”
“…oh…”
“They weren’t all bad,” she said hurriedly. “My foster families, I mean. Some of them were pretty good. He was just a real dick, that’s all.”
SOME of them?
She gave a curt laugh. “I didn’t give a shit, though. I just gritted my teeth and took it. Fucker never made me cry, not once,” she said proudly.
The next round of shots came a few seconds later. I bolted my amaretto as quickly as I could, steeling my courage.
“What… what about the other one?”
“The other one what?” Riley asked as she tossed back the Jim Beam.
“The other memory. About how you knew you were gay.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah.” She grinned. “I was in kindergarten, and I had to ride the bus. And there was this little girl in my class who rode the bus, too. Mandy Parker. She was, like, the prettiest girl in school. Blonde hair, always wore these really pretty dresses. And this boy – I think he was in first grade – he kissed her on the bus ride. And I got really, really jealous.”
“Of Mandy kissing somebody?”
“No, of the dude – cuz he got to kiss Mandy.”
I laughed out loud.
Much better story than Mr. Hopkins.
And then, unfortunately, she finished it again.
“So I punched the kid in the mouth when we got off the bus, and then I kissed Mandy, which she didn’t like so much. That was the first time I ever got suspended.”
I stood there staring at her.
“What?” she asked belligerently.
“You got suspended in kindergarten?”
She beamed with pride. “Yeah.”
“…do any of your stories have a happy ending?”
She seemed a little bit thrown by my question. “…that’s not a happy ending?”
I flagged down the tattooed waitress. “I’m going to need another shot,” I told her.
“I’m not even finished with my second round yet,” Riley pointed out.
“Do you have a lot more stories like the ones you just told me?”
“I guess – why?”
I looked at the waitress. “I’m gonna need a lot more shots.”
94
Actually, things got a lot less grim after that.
Especially when, after my fourth shot, I decided it was a good idea to come clean and admit I’d heard her and Ryan in the kitchen.
“You BITCH!” Riley howled with laughter, and slammed back another drink. “I shoulda known. Did you hear everything we said?”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I heard you being mean to me.”
She laughed. “If I’d’a known you were listening in, I’d’a said a whole lot worse to your face.”
I did that little sideways head-bob that means, Yeah, okay, I can see that. “I was totally shocked when you agreed to do it.”
“Yeah, well…” She took another shot. “I’d do just about anything for that fucker.”
“I didn’t realize you guys were that close.”
“Hell yeah. He’s like the older brother I always wanted but never got. After my sister, he’s probably my best friend.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yeah, but… I don’t get to see her much while I’m on tour, so it’s basically me and Ryan.”
I noticed that she raced past my question about her sister, but she was talking so fast – and I was already so drunk – that I let it slide without comment.
“When I first got to Athens, life sucked. I mean, sucked bad. I lost all my friends when I left New York. I had no fuckin’ money, cuz I spent every last dime on the drive down. And I don’t know if you know this or not,” she said playfully, “but the chicks in Athens? Not exactly like New York. There were, like, ten lesbians in the whole fuckin’ town, and basically all the little bi-curious college girls wanted to do was get drunk and kiss other sorority chicks. So I was gettin’ NO play at all.”
My memory of Athens – and the LGBTQ community – was slightly different. I remembered lots of crop-haired Women’s Studies majors all over the place. (Sorry to be stereotypical, crop-haired Women’s Studies majors).
But I doubted any of them were ready for the totally insane, perpetually drunk, walking tornado of an NYC punk rock drummer chick that was Riley Wojtalik.
Not that I blame them.
“So I was basically a mess,” Riley continued. “Really fuckin’ unhappy. I probably woulda quit and gone back to New York, but Ryan was the reason I stayed.”
She laughed, and her eyes got a faraway look. “He kept bugging me to play cards. I was like, ‘Get the fuck out of here with your cards. I came here to rock out, motherfucker, I’m not here to play Go Fish.’ But he kept bugging me, and bugging me, and bugging me, until finally I agreed, just to shut him the fuck up. And that was the first good night I had in Athens. We got drunk – well, I stayed drunk. He got drunk, but he’s a lightweight, kind of like you. Anyway, we were drunk and laughing and telling stories… and then we played cards every night for the next three weeks. That was before we were booking any shows. We’d practice during the day, maybe record some demos on Ryan’s equipment, and then we’d get drunk and play cards at night.” She smiled. “That was one of the best three weeks of my life.”
My heart swelled as I thought of Ryan befriending the lonely little punk rock girl. “You were the one who talked him into staying in the band, right?”
