Finding Joy

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Finding Joy - book excerpt

Chapter 1

JOY 

I was seventeen when the bong years came to a close. When the pipe’s gurgling water morphed from concentric circles on a pond, to a drowning undertow. Jolted from a Kodachrome dream of psychedelic turquoise, I struggled to the surface, back toward the beautiful light.

Why should you give a shit about another stoner kid inhaling her last? You’d probably think she was just another fuck-up doing something stupid.  And you’d be right. I’d done a friggin’ factory of idiotic things during the bong years. From taking downers before chugging Coors, to sneaking the car out while my parents played golf, I’d churned out more stupid widgets than’d fill a Pakistani sweatshop.

But you know, every stunt made perfect sense in my daydreaming head. I’d work out the details on how bitchin it’d be when everyone saw me cruising through the park, tunes cranked, flicking Marlboro ashes out the window. Of course, I didn’t count on my uncle being there with his kids, or running out of gas two blocks from home. 

Shit.

When I was seventeen, the sweet ambrosia of Hawaiian, Thai Stick and Columbian Red turned to bitter resin.  The chamber’s glowing bowl flared and spat embers while I fought to stoke that dying flame. I searched both purse and pockets, but all of my matches had burned, leaving the rolling smoke withering to ash on my tongue.

That year, you could have changed my name to Naïve. Or Dreamer and Head-in-the-clouds-Hippie-Wannabe.

Anything but my real name, Joy Chappell. I know, it sounds like a holy-roller churchy girl. I guess that’s what Mom was going for when she named me. Wanted me to sound all innocent and shit. And maybe I was. In my own way.

How can a car-stealing, pot-smoking, LSD-tripping chick be innocent?  If you were born in the 1960s, like me, you’d know. All around, there was this message of optimism and hope saying that soon people were going to come together in love and peace. From the films where smiling hippies lived off the land, to songs like All You Need is Love, to news broadcasts about people taking to the streets in brotherhood, the Utopian message rang out. 

Even Mom, with her Vote for Nixon button, teased beehive hairdo and miniskirts, started to speak of women’s rights and stopping the war in Vietnam. But it was the teenagers I met that had the most profound effect on my idealism. They told me that by the time I grew up, the world was going to be a far-out, fantastical planet where all we had to do was sing a few songs and smile for bursting cannon balls to become rainbows.

And I believed every freaking word.

So here I was, a kid certain that someday the light of hippie sun would shine on all our faces as we danced barefoot in meadows. I had so much faith in this dream that I thought, if you can really talk to a person, get them face to face and bare the beauty of your child soul, you could soften the hardest of hearts. When I was really little, I even believed that if I told the President to stop the war, he would. He’d just look in my kid eyes and make peace.

Naïve, I know. But when you’re a kid, you see the world through your own eyes. And when you’re high to boot, everything is tinged with this soft mist, like an out-of-focus camera, and you trust people, thinking they just want to give you a ride.

Yeah, I never knew people were truly ugly until April 7, 1981. The night I peered into the tunnel of darkness. 

You know, I really thought the face inside was just a mask. One I could melt away with my Kodachrome soul.

But I was wrong. And by the time I figured it out, it was too late.

I was seventeen and I was about to die.

Chapter 2

KYLE

My half-sister’s an idiot. She says I’m Mom’s favorite, which isn’t true. I just don’t mess up like she does. I mean, if she would just think once in a while, maybe she wouldn’t be grounded all the time. Or if she planned, she might have some money, and wouldn’t keep begging for me to break into my savings

But I didn’t put a Strongbox Secret Cash Box on my Christmas list for its name. I wanted a piggy bank that looked like a vault, so I’d think twice before pulling money out. I’m not inserting coins in the slot for no reason, I have big plans. A Black Knight Sidewalk Skateboard with Cadillac wheels that will make me king of the streets.

And I’m almost there. So far, I’ve saved $7.43. Just $2.56 more and I’ll have the $9.99 I need. Then Kyle Wright will be like one of the skater boys, cruising over sidewalks till I hit Wheeler Hill. I’ll be perched at the top waiting for that light to turn green. Then, with a quick kick, I’ll jet down that asphalt wave, and the only sound will be the wind whooshing past my face. I won’t hear slamming doors or Mom crying.

It’s all stupid Joy’s fault, anyhow. Stupid head. If she hadn’t screeched, “You’re not my father, you can’t tell me what to do,” Dad wouldn’t have had to put her in her place. I mean, you just can’t have a seventeen-year-old talking like that.

Then Mom wouldn’t have tried to get between them. And Dad wouldn’t have hit her instead of Joy.

He didn’t mean it. I know, ‘cause he came back later with a big bouquet of flowers for Mom. Said he was sorry.

Dumb Joy. Dumb name. Doesn’t fit her at all, since all she seems to do is tick off everyone, arguing with her stupid hippie stuff. Doesn’t she realize the hippies are gone? Move on already and get a brain. And keep your hands off my bank.

Chapter 3

JOY 

Now, I don’t want you to get the idea that my life is just one endless suck-fest of green donkey dicks. I had all kinds of happy times. I had grandparents and cousins I got to visit every summer, a field nearby my house for awesome fort building, tons of books and, for a couple of years, a best friend who stood by my side. Until…

Well, we won’t talk about that right now.

From fifth grade on, Cheryl Silva and I were like two eggs in a nest; we both loved Donny Osmond, Tiger Beat magazine, and rainbow sherbet. Of course, I liked a cherry on top, which Cheryl thought was overkill, ruining the perfect blend of pastel colors.

Cheryl talked like that a lot, acting like an expert on art because her mother sometimes took her to the park to paint. But it never bugged me, I liked learning from her.

 She was the kind of friend who would tell you when you had chocolate pudding on your face. The kind that finishes your sentences. The kind that makes you giggle until your sides hurt.

 And when she listened, she was the kind of friend that looked in your eyes and got you.

Not that I told her everything. I mean, I’d hint at some of the bad stuff but couldn’t say it out loud. That’d make it too real.

 So instead, I told her old stories of when I was little. Like one day in sixth grade we were in her room, listening to Only a Moment Ago on The Partridge Family Album when I got to thinking.

“You know, Cher, only a moment ago we were little kids.”

“Yeah, fun times, huh?”

“I don’t know. I hated grownups always saying children should be seen but not heard. They told us to sit quietly, hands folded in our laps, while they talked about important things like, like...”

“The electric bill?”

“Exactly. Or if they should buy a new vacuum cleaner or not.”

“And,” Cheryl giggled, “the perfect way to swish the toilet.” She held up a pretend toilet brush. “Sani Clean is the best potty scrubber in the world. Your bowl will sparkle with this amazing brush!”

Chuckling, I nodded. “Adults are boring. I mean, can an adult bike with no hands, steering by sheer will like you do?”

“Or do about a million cartwheels and round-offs on the front lawn?” Cheryl added.

“They sure can’t shimmy up a tree in eighteen seconds flat.”

“You could before I ever met you.”

You should have seen me. I thought I was Tarzan, bare-chested, wearing cut-offs like a loin cloth.

“You still think you are,” Cheryl teased.

I made fists and pounded my chest like a gorilla. “Barefoot, I’d dare anyone to go as high as I could.”

“Climbing higher than me. That’s for sure.”

“One day Kyle tried to follow, but I climbed higher, teasing him. Come on, Ba-by. Can’t you even climb a few feet?”

“I bet your mom didn’t like that.”

“She was in the house. But I do have to give my little brother props. He stuck his tongue in his cheek and reached for the next branch. But it was too thin and bent.”

“Little kids are dumb. Everybody knows you have to have a branch as big as your arm or it’ll break.”

“That’s what I said – ‘Pick a thicker one, stupid head’ – before I grabbed the next branch. Now I was really high, up where the tree gets skinny and you can see all over the neighborhood.”

“Next to that weird singing lady’s back yard where she practices opera all the time?”

“Yeah, while my parents roll their eyes. Even a few houses over into Cathy’s yard, where they have a wooden hot tub that Mom says people go in nude. Never did see any naked people, though.”

“You would look.”

“Whatever. From up there, I could see as far as the golf course next to our neighborhood. It looked like a big green ocean.”

“And what did my friend with the overactive imagination become then?” Cheryl asked. God, she knew me.

“I was a sailor battling waves in a storm, of course.”

“I can just hear you shouting, ‘Ahoy matey!’” she said, grinning. “Sounds fun.”

“It was until stupid Kyle called up saying he couldn’t reach. ‘Stop being a little baby’, I said. ‘Sure, you can. Stretch!’”

“Encouragement. Good.”

“I don’t know why I was helping him. All I ever hear is how amazing he is. How perfectly clean his room is. Or how great his kindergarten report card was next to mine. How he never spilled his milk during dinner. ‘Why don’t you act more like your brother, Joy?’”

“Can relate. Why did you?”

 “Yeah well, he is kind of adorable, when he isn’t being so annoyingly perfect. But don’t tell him I said so.”

“Never.” She jerked her head toward her baby sister’s room.  “Little brothers or sisters, should never know when you think they’re cute.”

“Totally. They’d use it against you.”

“Forever,” Cheryl agreed.

“He tried, chanting to stretch over and over again. I watched, cheering him on.”

“I’m guessing this doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“He’d forgotten to leave his toes on a lower branch and reached too far for his stubby little arms. I tried shouting, ‘No, not that way, there’s no…’ But I was too late. He tumbled down and started bawling his head off.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“Mom appeared immediately and scooped him into her arms. ‘Joy Marie Chapel, what’s wrong with you?’ she yelled, rushing my crying brother into the house.” I sighed. “Didn’t follow.”

“You were better off in the tree.”

“Yep. Where I wouldn’t be seen or heard.”