Jennifer Finney Boylan - Im Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted: A Memoir

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Contents

For my sister,
with love

The Coffin House, about 1925

So Im wearing my footsteps into this floor
One day I wont live here anymore
Someone will wonder who lived here before
And went on their way

Something as simple as boys and girls
Gets tossed all around and then lost in the world
Something as hard as a prayer on your back
Can wait a long time for an answer

Patty Griffin

Authors Note

The events at the heart of this narrative took place a long time ago. While I have taken care to ensure accuracy whenever possible, in the end I cast my lot with Frank McCourt, who noted that a memoir is meant to be an impression of a life, and not a photograph. Since this is the story that I have chosen to tell and not necessarily the one that others would relate, given their druthers, all individuals appear in the story under pseudonyms; some have been obscured still further, in the hope of making them unrecognizable. The book contains no composite characters. The timeline has been expanded or contracted to suit the storys demands, and dialogue invented, in good faith, when memory failed. The story contains occasional elements of invention, in keeping with the facts of my life, not in order to shamelessly bamboozle the reader but in order to fill in gaps in the narrative, or to dramatize scenes that I did not witness firsthand.

The author may be contacted at JennyBoylan@aol.com, or through her publisher, Doubleday Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc.

PART I

Removing the tower, 1944

Im serious, she said.
The only thing missing in this place is a dead body.

Dirty Deeds

I was in a biker bar. There were worse places. My colleagues, who had names like Lumpy and Gargoyle, thought no less of me simply because I was an English professor. Its nothing to be ashamed of, one dude suggested. Its whats inside your heart that counts.

The venuethe Astrid Hotel, in Astrid, Mainewas famous not only for the skankiness of its patrons but also for its ghost, an undead girl who walked its tattered hallways weeping in her pajamas. Shed drowned in the twenties, in the nearby Kennebec River. The girl was determined, supposedly, to find her father and her sister, whod been guests of the hotel, back in the day. Hey. Dont you know I cant swim?

I had come to the Astrid to play with my friends in an R&B band, Blue Stranger, up on the hotels grandiose stage, in what had once been a fancy ballroom. Now it had a cement floor, fiberglass tiles on the ceiling. On one wall was a rough-hewn mural of the north country. There were lumberjacks hoisting logs with skidders, fur trappers trudging through the woods on snowshoes. The Astrid Hotel itself was depicted on the mural as it once had been: a genteel mansion perched on a ridge overlooking Carrabec Falls.

It was on a rock at the bottom of the falls that theyd found the girl.

Over at the pool table, guys with tattoos and beards employed the ladies bridge. There were mill workers and river guides, taxidermists and hippies. The bouncer chalked his cue. To his left and right were guys named Sleepy, Gangrene, Itchy, Monster, Weasel, and Happy.

The last song of the first set was Somebody to Love, the Jefferson Airplane number. I was playing Farfisa organ through an old Leslie amplifier.

Your eyes, I say your eyes may look like his

But in your head baby Im afraid you dont know where it is.

I liked this song all right. But sometimes, I dont know. It left me dispirited.

During the break, we all went up to the bar. The bands lead singer, my friend Shell, ordered me a drink.

I got out the book I was readingPale Fire, by Nabokov.

Shell looked over and sighed. Hey. Professor Glasses. What now?

I smiled. Its a fake poem. And then theres commentary on the poem, written by somebody who doesnt exist.

She sighed. Whatever.

Its really interesting, I said.

When she wasnt leaping around the stage of the Astrid Hotel in spandex, Shell was the vice president of a savings bank. You think? she said.

I cleared my throat.

Was he in Sherlock Holmes, the fellow whose

Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?

She smiled. You really do live in your own little world, dont you? she said fondly.

Thats so wrong?

The bartender put two clear, fizzing drinks in front of us. There were what looked like prunes on the bottom. Shell handed me a glass.

Whats this?

We clinked. Fart in the Ocean, she said. Tequila and Seven-Up.

Servedwith a prune?

Served, she said, with a prune.

Why is it, I wondered, that women have to drink the undrinkable? In my day, I had seen my sisters order everything from a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster (vodka, cider, cherry brandy, and Tia Maria) to a Warsaw Waffle (an unspeakable union of vodka and Maine maple syrup). Would it be so wrong if once in a while we had a nice pint of Guinness instead? But whenever I had a Guinness it was inevitable that one of my girlfriends would come up to me and say, You know how many calories are in that, Jenny? As many as a steak dinner! This, from someone who was drinking something called The Screaming Chocolate Monkey.

From the other end of the room a womans voice rose in anger. Leave me alone! she shouted, then threw her margarita in the face of her good man. This dramatic imperative was greeted with applause and cheers by everyone except for the fellow whose face was now covered with triple sec.

Shell looked at me and smiled. Brandy and Boyd LeMieux, she said wistfully. Theyre the perfect coupleshes an ex-model, hes an ex-Marine.

Brandy stood up and headed toward the bar where Shell and I were sitting. She was an attractive woman, in a dilapidated sort of way. You want a cigarette? she asked.

I dont smoke.

Brandy laughed. Right, she said.

Jenny heres an English professor, said Shell.

Brandy LeMieux laughed like this was funny. Yeah, she said. And Im an astronaut. She picked up Shells drink, downed it in a single gulp. Didnt eat the prune, though. She looked at my book.

Whats that? Any good?

Its Nabokov, I said. You like Nabokov?

Her mouth dropped open, as if I were one of the Beatles. Whoa, she said. You really are an English teacher. Arent you!

I guess.

Shell patted my shoulder. Well, she said. Ill let you two chat. Then she headed over toward the place where Boyd was sitting, staring sadly into Brandys empty margarita glass.

Brandy and I watched as Shell sat down next to him. I could imagine the counsel she was offering.