Cinnamon Girl Read online

  Cinnamon Girl

  Cinnamon Girl

  Lawrence Kessenich

  Copyright © 2016 Lawrence Kessenich

  Cover background © iStock/Getty Images

  Cover photo © Fotolia

  ISBN 978-1-68201-027-3

  First Edition: September 2016

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc

  PO Box 451

  St. Cloud, MN 56302

  www.northstarpress.com

  For my friends from UWM and UW in the late ’60s, especially Chris, Tom, Carmen, Peter, Kathy, Paulette, Mike, and Fran. We always hoped we would change the world for the better, and in some big and small ways, we have.

  1

  TELEVISION LIGHTS FLARED on behind the police line, blinding us. For a few seconds, it was eerily quiet. I heard a siren in the distance. Then they charged.

  Time seemed to stand still. I saw their clubs waving over their heads, but in the penumbra of TV lights it all seemed unreal, like a war movie in slow motion with the sound track cut out.

  Then one of the TV riggers stumbled and fell, dousing his lights, and I snapped back to reality. It was only thirty or forty policemen against 200 or so of us, but we were bareheaded and wearing jeans and sneakers and they had helmets and billy clubs and jackboots, and they meant business. We all realized simultaneously what was happening. Somebody yelled, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” and everybody ran for it.

  A couple of people fell, and for all I know got trampled, if not by their brothers and sisters, then by the cops. Some of the cops were yelling and had their clubs up high, ready to bring them down—happily—on a hippie head. Someone near me was foolish enough to taunt them, but I just kept running.

  I headed for the bluff that overlooked Lake Michigan, where the underbrush was thick around the trees. I reached the verge as a smaller guy slipped through an opening in the brush just ahead of me. We crashed down the hillside together, barely keeping our feet, branches whipping our face. At the bottom of the hill, we emerged from the vegetation at a gallop and, exhilarated by the chase, continued through the lit park and across Lincoln Drive and out onto the broad beach, collapsing on the damp sand at the water’s edge.

  As we lay there on our backs, panting, unable to speak, I gave my confederate a closer inspection. He was lean and wiry and wore a black t-shirt and black jeans. He had a high forehead and a shock of black hair, pulled back in a ponytail, a roman nose, and a thick goatee. His deep-set brown eyes brimmed with mirth, even as he struggled to get his breath. Laugh lines etched their corners, although he was clearly no older than I was.

  When he’d caught his breath, laughter overtook him, the goatee jumping as he howled into the darkness. I stroked the anemic blonde hair on my own chin and smiled.

  “Goddam cops,” he finally said. “When it comes down to it, you just can’t argue with ’em.”

  He turned on his side and extended his hand.

  “Tony Russo,” he said.

  “John Meyer,” I replied.

  We shook, joining palms and grasping the heels of one another’s hands.

  “Most people just call me Russo,” he added, running his fingernails through his scalp, maybe combing out sand.

  “Want to smoke a ‘j’?” he asked. He dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out a crushed cigarette pack.

  I looked around warily, and then felt embarrassed by my caution.

  “Why not,” I said. “The cops are all busy cleaning up the park.”

  Tony extracted a joint from the pack, but it was broken in two places.

  “Shit, this is no good,” he said. “Let’s get a few hits off of these pieces. Then we’ll go back to my place and do up a decent one.”

  “You live nearby?”

  “Brady Street. Above Headroom.”

  “Is that your shop?”

  “Nah. I couldn’t run a business if I tried.”

  He struck a match and lit a piece of the joint, taking a long, deep hit as he did. He handed the joint to me, and I took a good hit myself. It was smooth and sweet.

  “Nice stuff,” I croaked, holding in the smoke.

  “Yaaaah,” said Tony, breathing out luxuriously, like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland with his hookah. “I got it from my friend Jimmy. He knows some South American dudes who get the stuff from home.”

  The piece was nearly burned up after two hits. Tony told me to toss it or eat it. I popped in into my mouth, putting out the live coal with saliva, and swallowed it. Tony was already lighting the second piece.

  “You have roommates on Brady?” I asked.

  He smiled but couldn’t answer right away, because he was holding in a hit. He held out the piece of joint to me. I took another hit, too, drawing some of the sweet smoke up my nostrils. Tony exhaled and laughed.

  “You might say I have roommates,” he said. “A wife and a kid.”

  I blew out my hit. “No shit? A wife and a kid already?”

  “Claire and I have been married almost two years, now, and Jonah’s six months old.”

  The dope was beginning to make me feel everything in an exaggerated way. My chest ballooned with every breath of fresh lake air. My eyes were wide, taking in the sparkling lights across the bay in South Milwaukee. The sound of lapping waves was captivating.

  “It freaks me out, sometimes,” said Tony. “Hey, man, watch yourself.”

  I looked down at my hand, which seemed as if it was detached from my body. Then I felt the heat of the coal on my fingertips.

  “You want to eat it?” I said.

  “Pop it into my mouth.”

  I did as he asked. It sizzled on his tongue. He chewed it up as he set about lighting the last piece of the joint.

  “You meet Claire at UWM?”

  “Uh-huh. You go there, too?”

  “I’m an education major … I guess.”

  “Hey, me, too. But you don’t sound too sure about it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I guess not. Seems right for now, though.”

  “How about Claire?”

  “Pre-med.”

  “That’s ambitious.”

  Tony nodded agreement as he toked on the freshly lit joint, and then handed it to me. I sucked in a small hit, then snorted a few more to fill my head with the lovely aroma. I was getting good and stoned. I handed it back to Tony.

  “Let’s split,” he said.

  We started walking along the beach, not saying much, just enjoying our buzz with the soft breath of a breeze off the lake and the whoosh of cars on Lincoln Drive. It was perfectly clear, stars shining through the glow of city lights. Out on the horizon, where the sky darkened above the water, stars massed like fireflies. We walked right by the Brady Street footbridge, which would have taken us more directly to Tony’s apartment, and continued on past the floodlit marina, past the old Coast Guard station with its tall white mast, devoid of flag for the night, past the duck pond lined with willows swaying sensuously.

  We followed Lincoln Drive as it curved up toward downtown, then turned onto Prospect Avenue and headed back toward Brady Street. Prospect was a busy street lined with shops, apartment buildings, gas stations, and the occasional private home. It followed the bluff above the lake, but the roar of traffic shattered our meditative mood.

  “That was nice stuff, Tony. Thanks for getting me high.”

  “Not bad, is it? It’s a perfect night for it, too.
I could get used to this kind of weather.”

  We passed an old church with a half-timbered parish house attached to it. On the wall beside the house’s entrance was a carefully lettered wooden sign that said “DRAFT COUNSELING CENTER.” We noticed it simultaneously.

  “Bummer,” said Tony.

  We walked in silence for a minute under the garish yellow glow of the streetlights. Tony tugged his beard thoughtfully.

  “What would you do if they drafted you?” he finally asked.

  “God, I don’t know. There’s no way I’d join the army with that dumb-ass war going on, and I sure couldn’t deal with prison, so I guess I’d have to go to Canada. But that scares the shit out of me, too, running off someplace where I don’t know anybody, not being able to come back and see my family. I can’t see faking insanity or pretending to be a conscientious objector, the way some guys do—there are wars I’d fight in. What about you?”

  “Pretty much the same. I’d try hiding out in this country before I’d run off to Canada—maybe somewhere out West. There’s a lot of open space out there. Like the song says, ‘Any way you look at it, you lose.’”

  A pall hung over us for the next few blocks. Then we turned onto Brady Street and walked silently past 1812 Overture Records, Age of Man, The Silver Shop, B.J.’s Antiques and other storefront businesses until we came to the Headroom head shop below Tony’s apartment. We peered in the window at paraphernalia, ranging from tiny alligator roach clips on beaded leather thongs to a huge, freestanding glass bong. Our mood brightened immediately.

  “Maybe you should get to know this guy, Tony.”

  “I should. Maybe he’d give me that bong for my birthday.”

  He unlocked the electric pink door next to the storefront and we entered a dark stairwell.

  “The light’s busted, so watch your step.”

  My moods are vulnerable to my environment, especially when I’m high, so I felt like my whole world had gone dark as we climbed the steep steps. I kept a hand on the wall, which was covered with peeling paint. At the top, Tony slipped his key into the door, and while I wondered how he managed to find the keyhole, he jiggled it until it turned, then pushed open the door.

  Maybe it was just a function of standing out in the narrow, dark stair, looking into the bright expanse of the room, but the place seemed like a shining refuge in an ominous realm. In truth, it wasn’t all that bright, just a couple of lamps casting pools of yellow warmth on the shabby rug and furniture. In the far pool was a ratty green couch with a woman perched on its arm, her long bare legs crossed. She wore a short, lacey white dress, and a magazine rested on her lap. She held a cigarette in her hand and the smoke from it caught the light of a standing lamp beside her, obscuring her face. She looked like a Vogue magazine version of an impatient bride waiting for her groom.

  As we entered, she swung her head toward us, her long, straight, strawberry blonde hair sweeping away the smoke to reveal a lovely, pale face with green eyes and a few freckles sprinkled like cinnamon across her nose.

  “What are you doing home so soon?” Tony asked her.

  “The shower was cancelled at the last minute,” she replied. “Rosie got sick. So Katie and I just sat around here and drank beers.”

  “Bummer. How’s Jonah?”

  “Fast asleep, thank God.”

  “Oh, hey,” said Tony, “this is John. We met at the park. John, Claire.”

  She focused those green eyes on me. They caught the light and glowed like cat’s eyes.

  “Hi,” I managed to croak, my throat suddenly dry. I swallowed to wet it. “Tony and I just happened to choose the same hill to run down. We almost got our heads bashed.

  “Bashed?” she said, concern in her voice. “Did it get that bad?”

  “We didn’t let it. We all scattered like leaves to the wind, huh, Tony?”

  He was already reaching into a small rosewood box on the mantel for more weed.

  “It wasn’t worth getting our heads busted for that pissy little park. This’ll blow over, and we’ll be sitting at the fountain smoking joints in no time.”

  He sat down on the couch, spread out some of the marijuana on an album cover and began to clean it, picking out seeds and stems. I just stood there staring at Claire, who had finished her cigarette and was stubbing it out in a big green glass ashtray on the sofa. She leaned over and started rummaging around in her fringed leather purse on the floor.

  “Hey,” Tony said to me, “sit down and make yourself at home, will you. You’re making me nervous.”

  Claire sat back up, a fresh cigarette and a pack of matches in her hand.

  “Do you want a beer?” she asked.

  “Sounds good.”

  “Tony?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She lit her cigarette before getting up. As she held the match to it, I noted the contrast between her delicate wrist and her full breasts, revealed by the scooped neck of dress. It was an extraordinarily sexy combination. When she rose and went toward the kitchen, I had to stop myself from following her.

  “Hey,” Tony said to me, “if you’re not going to sit down, why don’t you put on an album. Anything you want.”

  “I was listening to Neil Young,” called Claire from the kitchen. She pronounced it “Yun.”

  “Would you mind playing ‘Cinnamon Girl’ once more?”

  “Happy to,” I called back.

  I went to the stereo, which sat beneath a screenless window that looked out onto Brady Street. In an apartment across the way, illuminated by a blacklight, a strobe flashed in time to a Rolling Stones tune. I fixed on the throbbing light and sound, completely spacing out for a few minutes.

  “Hey, man,” said Tony, “are you going to turn that thing on, or what?”

  “Huh? Oh, ya. Sure.”

  I found “Cinnamon Girl” on the record label, clicked on the turntable and poised the needle over the cut. Then I clicked the arm release and watched the arm descend, ever so slowly, it seemed, toward the record. Just as the song began, I turned to see Claire re-enter the room, pale as an angel, a can of Old Style beer in each hand.

  “I want to live with a cinnamon girl,” Neil Young sang, “I could be happy for the rest of my life with a cinnamon girl.”

  Claire handed my beer to me and smiled, then set Tony’s on an end table and went back out to the kitchen for her own.

  I sat on the floor, across from Tony, who had rolled several thin joints. He lit up the first one and passed it to me. I took a long, languid hit. When Claire came back into the room, I handed it to her, my fingertips grazing hers as I did. She took a couple quick hits and announced that she was going to change her clothes. Tony suggested that she take the joint along, which she was happy to do. He handed me another and put a match to it.

  “You live on the East Side?” he asked as I toked on the fresh joint.

  I held up a finger to indicate it would take me a moment to answer, and passed him the joint. Then I blew out the smoke, feeling the gentle collapse of my lungs as I did.

  “I still live with my folks up in Whitefish Bay. It’s not ideal, but it’s free, and they mostly leave me alone.”

  “I can dig it.”

  “You both work?”

  “Claire’s an aide at a nursing home near UWM and I work at the docks—when they’ll take me, that is. You’ve got to go down there every morning, take a number, and wait around to see if they call it, unless they’re so busy that everybody works. The longer you work there, the lower your number gets, because guys are always quitting, but you’ve got to go every morning.”

  “Must be tough work.”

  “It’s either really tough or no work at all. And it’s all day, too, so I have to take night classes. Sometimes I think I’m crazy to try to—”

  A pair of motorcycles roared by on the street below, drowning out his words.

  “—but the money is so damn good, I hate to give it up, especially with the kid.”

  We smoked in silence for
a few minutes. Neil Young was singing about a man needing a maid. Claire came back into the room wearing a bright red tube top that outlined her breasts and ragged, cut-off jeans that displayed her slim, tanned legs. Her feet were bare. I paused in mid-hit, my eyes wide. The jeans were cut off so high that the white pockets peeked out below. Her long, golden hair was pulled forward over her right shoulder. She sat down beside me on the floor, smelling of sweat and herbal shampoo. I felt the vibrations from Neil Young’s guitar go right into my chest and down through my body.

  “Should I light another ‘j’?” asked Tony.

  “Not for me,” I said. “I’m buzzed.”

  “Claire?”

  “Not right now.”

  We sipped our beers for a while without speaking. The album ended, and there was a break in the traffic below, so, for moment, it was almost quiet. Then a sudden breeze sprung up, rattling the Venetian blinds, and the traffic noise resumed.

  “You live around here?” asked Claire.

  “In Whitefish Bay, with my folks. But I work part-time at Siegel’s Liquor Store, over on Oakland, delivering booze and stocking shelves. It doesn’t pay much, but the hours are flexible, so it’s good for school. I hear you work at a nursing home.”

  She was pulling another cigarette from her pack of Kool 100’s.

  “Colonial Manor—just up the hill from Siegel’s, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’ve noticed that place. Do you like it?”

  She lit her cigarette, shook out the match, and tossed it into the green ashtray, which sat on the floor in front of her.

  “It’s a living,” she said.

  Tony took a cigarette for himself and offered the pack to me. I didn’t smoke much, but it seemed like the thing to do at the moment, kind of like Indians passing the pipe to a new friend. I took one. Tony struck a match and lit mine before lighting his own.

  “I can’t imagine working in a nursing home,” I said. “You must have to deal with a lot of disgusting stuff. I admire you.”

  “I’m not sure I can deal with it, either.”

  “You should see her when she gets home from work sometimes,” said Tony. “She’s so wasted and bummed out she can hardly move.”