The Cheer Leader Read online

  After Bobby takes the picture and blows a kiss to me when Jeff isn’t looking, we ride to the Quick Stop. This day, I don’t have to pay half for the peanuts or buy my own Icee; Jeff buys as a going away present because it is his last day in Blue Springs. Looking back, I am glad that Bobby took the picture (even though at the time I hated him) because otherwise, I would not remember what Jeff looked like that summer. He was about the same size as me (short) except he was much thinner and he had pale skin (a freckled sunburned nose that prompted me to call him Rudolph most of the time), soft pale hair and eyes like pale gray tissue paper. He was the kind of person who looks much better in black and white and thank goodness, that’s what kind of film Mama always bought for Bobby because it was so rare for him to take a worthwhile picture. This picture is good though, and it makes me think of the few things that I knew about Jeff Johnson. He was two years older, from Maine, spending the summer with his aunt (Mrs. Monroe, wife of fat Mr. Monroe who took our pictures for us on holidays), and he was different from any boy that I had ever met. He didn’t try to find out if you wore a bra or if you had ever kissed or if you had started your period, like Ralph Craig and a bunch of boys had done in the fifth grade when all the girls were given a book called Growing Up and Liking It. Beatrice had had to go home that day and if I had by then heard Lisa’s description of periods, I probably would have gone home, too. No, Jeff Johnson was different; he liked to talk about fishing and bombs and poker and just the way that he talked made him sound so smart that on that last day, I confessed to him that I wrote poetry and thought that Christopher Columbus was the most wonderful person to ever live. That last day, he held my hand and it made me feel real strange but sort of good inside and he told me that he would send me a picture when he got his braces off. Just before we left that day, Jeff poured all the peanut juice out in front of the curb (our curb) and we watched it run through all the drink tabs and cigarette butts. I didn’t look up but while we watched that juice, he put something cool on my finger and with my thumb, I could tell it was a ring of some sort; actually it was a pop top, but I wore it for a long time after that. Finally after a long time, I put it in a box with lots of other junk and forgot about it. I never heard from Jeff and Mrs. Monroe never mentioned him; I figured for years that he was still wearing braces and that was why. Naturally that was dumb, and I see it now; I also see that being in love and being dumb are often simultaneous actions which my future years seem to portray more blatantly than a silver pop top and one black and white photograph of a skinny Yankee kid with braces that no one else in the neighborhood would have anything to do with, and a summer nurtured by boiled peanuts and strawberry Icees. I guess the most important thing to point out is that I had actually engaged in hand-holding, I had found someone, temporarily, with similar interests and I hadn’t had to act a certain way. Even more important is remembering that after all of that, I never heard from him, not a single shitty little Yankee postcard, and I should have remembered that for future reference but unfortunately it was hidden from me by my subconscious who chose, instead, to remember that rubbery knee, sweaty palm, coronary palpitating feeling that I had experienced holding hands with Jeff Johnson, there in front of the Quick Stop in Blue Springs all summer when I was eleven.

  OCTOBER 12, 1968

  I am getting ready to go to the high school football game with Tricia, Lisa and Cindy. That week, we all had boyfriends; Lisa was going with Ralph Craig which I thought was sickening though I didn’t tell Lisa, Tricia was going with a boy in the seventh grade which was par for the course since she had already gone with all of the boys our age, and Cindy was going with Myron Paul who was cute but always in the slow reading group (something that I had little tolerance for). My boyfriend, as of that very day, was Ray Peters. Myron had come up to me during lunch recess and handed me a note that said that Ray wanted to go with me and then there were three boxes: Yes, No, I’ll let you know later, check one. I was just about to put No but Tricia, Lisa and Cindy all stood there telling me that I should, that he was cute, and that we’d all sit together at the ballgame as a group.

  Needless to say, this was my first big encounter with peer pressure. Ray was standing beside the cafeteria door with his hands in his U.N.C. parka, staring at the ground. Myron went back with the Yes block checked, Ray looked at it, turned red and went into the cafeteria. I knew that Ray was not cute and not the kind of boyfriend that I felt I should have, and yet, I was not ready to stray from the group, even if it meant having a chubby boyfriend with large teeth. He was nice, though, and by the time that Daddy took this picture of me and Bobby, I had convinced myself that Ray Peters would make a perfectly acceptable boyfriend. Still, in the picture, I am slightly uncomfortable not just because Bobby, whose girlfriend is a junior high cheerleader and stacked, has just called Ray Peters “Porky Pig,” but also because my training bra was slowly riding up to my neck. Prior to the picture, I had stuffed it with a pair of Andy’s socks, then Mama made me unstuff it. She had said that I would grow, to give it time (a parental lie spoken out of love when you are in one of those dreadfully awkward stages, a parental prophecy which in my case, never came to pass).

  My discomfort with myself and my anticipations of Ray (which both show up in the twisted smile) do not both come to pass. Only discomfort grows when Ray Peters slips his hand under my corduroy poncho (which is what everyone is wearing) and grabs hold of mine. His hand is plump and damp (so unlike that cool Yankee hand of Jeff Johnson from whom I am still waiting to hear). Then, as if that’s not enough, Ray picks his nose a little when he thinks that no one sees, but I do and I am so horrified that I can hardly concentrate on the way that Bobby is all huddled up with the large breasted cheerleader just three rows in front of me. As if that’s not enough to endure, I have to cope with the problem of my boyfriend’s last name which all the boys (Ralph Craig in particular) make fun of. I take it as a personal insult and I realize that I do not want to be linked up with someone who inspires penis jokes.

  The following Monday, I sent Lisa (because she enjoyed that sort of thing) with a note to give to Ray. I deliberated long and hard that previous Sunday night on just what to say in the note. I wanted to say, “Bug off, creep. I can’t stand you,” because I felt that he deserved it after the humiliation that I had experienced. However, something kept me from doing it, maybe I was too nice, maybe sometime during the night I considered his feelings, maybe I was too weak to take such a strong stand. I wrote, “I am breaking up with you but we can be friends (a tactful lie) from: Jo Spencer.” Again, he merely turned red and went into his classroom.

  MARCH 8, 1969

  I am at Lisa’s house sitting beside a stack of 45s. Her mother took the picture and then she and Mr. Helms disappeared into the back room for the rest of the night. Lisa had to raise hell for several weeks to get such an agreement from her parents (something that I never would have done or even thought of doing). After they leave, the party really begins. I have found at an earlier boy/girl party had by Tricia McNair (Mrs. McNair made a check every twenty minutes) that I like to control things like record players while at a party. I am playing “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe because I like the way that it makes me feel. It makes me feel like I am moving all over even though I am sitting perfectly still.

  “Come on, Jo,” someone says but I ignore them. Ralph Craig and Lisa are apart now and breathing deeply. They French kissed for three minutes. In just a minute, he will kiss Tricia McNair and they will look like the pink gouramis that I saw in the pet store, their mouths twisting up and down, like the first fish that I ever caught at Moon Lake when I was six. That fish just lay there, wide eyed, open mouthed and dumb; he was dying and had a good excuse; I felt that Ralph and Tricia did not. Years later, when I was studying sixteenth century poetry, I found that “die” was often used as an orgasmic description, and thus, my analogy between the fish and Tricia and Ralph was perfectly plausible. They stopped at five minutes, a record which Ralph and Lisa tied before we went home.
/>   “I’m so dizzy, my head is spinning.” I am ready to go home and have been since I arrived. Beatrice is sitting in that circle and I am surprised. Usually, she avoids such scenes but I think that possibly, remembering her fascination for Ralph’s nastiness, she wants to kiss. The Pepsi bottle stops on her and I can feel myself getting embarrassed for no good reason except I know that Beatrice is pleased and that Ray Peters doesn’t want to kiss her. I stare at the little plastic bust of Beethoven that Lisa won for playing chopsticks or something very similar. There are giggles when they lean forward on their knees, and I know that Beatrice as intent as she is, does not realize that everyone is laughing at her. At that point, I had a strong urge to take up for Beatrice and yet, I couldn’t speak out; I could not call attention to the fact that I was not playing, so I put “Dizzy” back on and kept an eye on Ludwig because I felt that what you can’t see can’t hurt you.

  At nine-thirty, I said a quick good-bye and ran outside to wait for my Daddy. I sat on the curb in front of Lisa’s house to remind myself that I had fun one time sitting on a curb. The streetlights looked like tall skinny people with halos and I recognized the sound of our car before my Daddy even got to the third person. Just when I felt that I couldn’t stay there another second, he stopped and I got in. I remember it so well because at that point, I told a lie. He asked, “How was the party?” and I said, “Fine, I had a good time.” He smoked his pipe and it smelled like burning leaves and I wished that I could ride forever that way and that I’d never have to go to another party and that I’d never have to kiss but it wasn’t long before I had forgotten that, too. The only part of the wish that lingered for a long long time was the part about smelling the pipe and riding in the car with him forever. Even now sometimes, that wish occurs to me.

  MAY 30, 1969

  It is a beautiful day and I am standing at the very end of the Holden Beach pier, watching the sky change from blue to apricot glaze to faint pink outlined in deep violet and I am struck by the poetic thought that it looks like a watercolored print being washed over. I am so immersed in finding a word that rhymes with color that for a few minutes, I stop watching everyone else doing the jerk down on the beach. They have all written boys’ names in the sand and drawn hearts, arrows and other symbols of love. Even Beatrice has written Ralph and no one can make fun of her because she is the one having the end of school party and we are all staying with her mother and older sister in their beach house. Otherwise, I’m certain that Beatrice never would have written Ralph’s name.

  “Come on, Jo!” they yell and Lisa aims her camera at me; I am the dark speck bisected by the rounding horizon. I know that if I go down there, that I will have to write something in the sand. I would want to write Mark in the sand but I just can’t let anyone know. He’s in high school, in Bobby’s class. They must never know because if they do, I have all suspicions that one of them may go after him and get him. Cindy wouldn’t do that to me but Cindy is going with Ray and I want to tell her how I saw him conspicuously inconspicuously pick his nose that time. It is one of those dilemmas which I will find in the future is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

  Granted, it was a trivial matter and yet, the outcome then appeared as great as it has appeared other times when there was far more to lose. Still, I kept thinking, suppose I tell Cindy that Ray picks his nose in public; she would be embarrassed; if she really liked Ray, she would say that I was jealous. However, this is the way that people sometimes think as I discovered once when I thought that way. On the other hand, I did not want to be responsible for Cindy’s humiliation if she happened to witness the picker in action. I could imagine her saying, “Did you know that Ray picks his nose in public?” and being the honest person that I am, I would have to say, “Yes.” Then she would ask, “Why didn’t you tell me?” and I would explain the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” theory, and she would say, “But, I would’ve believed you,” which is exactly what everyone says after it is all said and done and there is no choice to be made. In situations such as that, I try to get by without saying anything and preserving my opinion. That is what I was doing on the pier, preserving my opinion and thinking big thoughts.

  If I can just think of what rhymes with color, then I can join the party with confidence. Muller! You might say I’m a muller when it comes to water color that paints the sky when the day does die, (not orgasmic) and duller! The color of the sky gets duller when I try to catch the pink spots. I stare so long, I see dots, like millions and trillions of forget-me-nots, and I am not forgotten, remembered to the end, all I have to do is smile and everyone will be my friend until the end so help me, God is my witness that I’ll never be hungry again by Joslyn Marie Spencer and with that touch of drama, I wave to the yelling crowd below and head down the pier, I’m coming! I’m coming! (I was not aware of the sexual implications) though my head is bending low, I hear their silly voices calling, our friend, Jo.

  MAY 30, 1969, P.M.

  This picture was taken after everyone stopped doing the jerk on the beach and started doing the pony on the balcony of Beatrice’s beach house. Beatrice insists on playing “Julie, Julie, Truly Do You Love Me?” over and over on the record player because next to Ralph Craig, Bobby Sherman is her favorite person in the world. She has already told us that we have to watch Here Come the Brides whether we want to or not because it is her party. Nobody minds that because Beatrice has already assured us that we can eat whatever we want to and stay up all night.

  In this picture, Tricia is doing the pony right; her way is no different but everybody acts like they are learning something because Tricia is just one of those people that has to have her way and be in the limelight. The dirty white tennis shoe attached to the skinny white leg that Tricia is about to land on belongs to Beatrice’s mother who is squatted down beside a grill fixing hot dogs for us. Cindy keeps trying to do the pony but she keeps getting her hands behind her when they should be in front and vice versa. Cindy never caught on to things very quickly (like about having Ray Peters for a boyfriend) but she was always very good in math. Beatrice cannot dance at all but Tricia doesn’t correct her like she does Cindy about her hands and me not bobbing my head at the right times. It is because Beatrice is having the party and her mother is standing there. Also Tricia wants to win our Miss Universe pageant that we have planned to have right after hot dogs and before Here Come the Brides. I have my back turned in this picture and it looks like I am doing the pony but really I am not. Everyone thinks that I am and this is why I hop from one foot to the other. What I am really doing is saying Mark Fuller in my head one hundred times on each foot so that he will want to ask me out when I am old enough to go. Looking back, I realize that that was a foolish wish to make, not because it never came true but because had it come true, I would have gone out with a tight jeaned, greasy headed, zodiac medallion wearing undesirable, who always talked about how he hated to shave his face which was an ignorant (he thought subtle) way to hide the fact that he had very little facial hair, only about four hairs that sprouted from his chin that were just as greasy as those on his head which I’m certain were unnumbered. Why would God (with all the other hairs on other heads to count) bother with such a poor example of the human race. Mark Fuller should never have owned a razor.

  MAY 30, 1969 (Just before Here Come the Brides)

  Here, we are all in native costume. Tricia is in the center with a beach towel around her shoulders and tinfoil on her head. Clearly, she is the winner. She is from Arabia and has on pajama pants like I Dream of Jeannie and a bikini top. She has half of a maraschino cherry stuck in her navel and it stayed there the whole time that she did a hoochie-coochie dance to “Ahab the Arab.” I am standing beside her with the plastic fruit because I am Miss Congeniality. I am from Spain and I am wearing my blue bathrobe with a red scarf tied around it. It doesn’t look Spanish but I had decided that that was irrelevant since I did not look Spanish. I felt that I had done a wonderful job reciting excerpt
s from “The Highwayman” for my talent. I opened my arms wide when I said, “The moon was a ghostly galleon,” and looked up at the ceiling in a poetic way the whole time. I was somewhat shocked and displeased that I did not even place.

  Cindy is very happy because she is second place. She has on Beatrice’s mother’s raincoat and she brought her white go-go boots and her Nancy Sinatra 45 just for this occasion. She always did “These Boots Are Made for Walking” at every pajama party but this was the one time that she placed. I was happy for Cindy and told her so though I could not stop wondering what I could do the next time so that I would be the winner. Nevertheless, I was Miss Congeniality and I almost always got that because I was always real nice about agreeing with people even when I didn’t mean it so that they would leave me alone. Years later, this congenial act got old but my subconscious continued to do it against my will. I would be saying “eat shit” or “bite the big one” and all that would slip from my tongue was something like, “Yes, you look just like an Ethiopian Princess.” I was very good at saying what people needed to hear to quieten them and it was this factor alone which I think ultimately led me to being the first name in the group, the Most Popular Senior Girl.

  Lisa did not place at all since there are just five of us at the party but she doesn’t care. Her name is Fifi and she is from France. All she did to herself was paint her thin lips like a Valentine, tease her hair and put on a bathing suit. For her talent, she sang “Frère Jacques” and did the jerk. She was not upset by the results because she was still in a position of authority, she was still the only one of us that had a period. Tricia said that she could feel one coming on and had brought supplies. I remember thinking that with her luck, she would probably get to use them, and advance another step beyond Cindy and myself. As a result, she did but Cindy told me later that she was faking. I had thought as much but it bothered me that I was the last to know.