The one interesting thing about my decision to effectively denounce the Klan - other than my dad’s taciturn treatment of me - was that his Klansman buddies quit coming around. They still had those crazy blowouts and I presume quite a few of those partygoers also had ties to the Klan. However, there were no more clandestine meetings at our home where my mom sewed patches on hooded robes for new recruits. And we never again piled into her Vega and drove to where the Klan rallies were always held behind the Stuckey's truck stop on the interstate. It’s like that time, or that part of our lives, never existed. If Tommie Dean was still involved with the KKK he didn’t let on. Otherwise life was normal, or as normal as it could be with parents who were avowed white supremacists.
Those Saturday evening rendezvouses in our basement with my parents' most intimate friends were starting to occur more often. So much so my mom was sending my two younger brothers off to spend the night with our grandparents. I got to stay home though, most likely because Judy-O thought I was old enough. Now that I know what I know, I probably wasn’t old enough, in fact I’m certain I wasn’t, but my mom - and apparently some of her friends - liked having me around. So I got to stay, but I didn’t sit on the top steps anymore. I felt that was only tempting fate, as tempting as it was.
At school, other than a few of my classmates keeping me at a safe distance, things were fine. If anything, the current events, combined with the cultural climate of the day, had made me somewhat more popular. Okay, popular is probably a stretch, but more of my classmates certainly knew who I was. Girls, who were already beginning to make me stop and take notice, were noticing me. I even had my first French kiss later that same school year. The girl was directly in front of me as we left study hall on our way to gym class. She was walking with her friends and I was right behind her. The next thing I knew she’d spun on her heels and had her tongue in my mouth, right there in front of God and everybody.
In retrospect, growing up in the seventies was liberating. While there was definitely some crazy monkey business going on, I typically felt safe, cared for and well-fed. Even those occasional beatings with my dad’s belt didn’t leave me with any physical scars any more than they left me with a desire to one day do the same to my own children. I had more friends than ever and even had my own room with a half-bath. In addition to the incredible music coming from my parents' jukebox, I also had fewer rules to adhere to than other kids my age. I could typically stay out later, stuff like that. I’m quite positive this was all due to my mom and dad’s laissez-faire attitude towards parenting, of which I was an obvious benefactor. However, as these things are apt to go, it all came with a price tag.
While my mom had de-escalated her involvement with anything Klan-related, she’d picked up a new hobby of her own. She had a sudden fascination with the occult and those types of things that would be considered supernatural. I think a catalyst was when she discovered a series of books on Pyramid Power and became preoccupied with pyramidology. She seemed truly fascinated that the ancient pyramids might’ve held hidden secrets that had the power to trigger sexual urges, among other things. I also noticed more and more books on related subjects. There were books about Wiccans, there were books about strange disappearances in the Bermuda triangle, there were books about casting spells, there were books about aliens, there were books about alien abductions, there were books about exorcising demons, you name it and she was probably reading up on it. Because she was always reading stuff like this, she always had something fascinating to talk about with anyone who’d listen.
To say she really liked to talk about those things is an understatement, and boy did she talk fast. She’d speak even more rapidly when she was excited, which she usually was whenever she had a captive audience. It was exhausting trying to keep up with her in those moments.
At home she was always practicing incantations and setting up candles in the shape of a pentagram. She also had a satanic bible and claimed to be an atheist, a belief which she more or less maintained up until she passed away at the age of 69. Whenever friends came over my mom would entertain us by summoning the spirit of someone dead. My buddies loved it. I took it in stride but was beginning to feel self-conscious about anything that seemed to deviate from what I thought was normal. I wasn’t appalled by it, but it was beginning to make me uncomfortable.
Since her newfound interests were being encouraged by others, Judy-O took her act to the Lover’s Hideaway. Her seances and incantations quickly became fan favorites at their parties and other impromptu get-togethers. They even had a theme party around Halloween where everyone dressed up as witches and warlocks. My mom put out a big punch bowl in the kitchen with a boozy concoction she called witches’ brew. This was one of the parties where every room of the house, including my bedroom, were not off-limits to guests. During those parties my mom warned me that they also needed access to the half-bath in my bedroom. Judy-O made it clear she would offer some quid pro quo reciprocity and encouraged me to hang around upstairs as long as I wanted, even telling me I could help myself to her punch. She reminded me I might have to find somewhere else to sleep. That wasn’t a problem since my two younger brothers were spending the night at our grandparents. But my mom also reminded me that under no circumstances could I go downstairs once the Lover’s Hideaway sign was turned on.
By the Halloween party I was familiar with quite a few of the regulars. Chunk and Porky were always there because where you saw one you saw the other. Chunk had a different girl every time and Porky was usually alone. There were those whose names I never knew long enough to stick but I could always remember their faces. For a year or two they were always around and were all nice to me. As I’ve already mentioned, many of the girls didn’t seem much older than I was at the time and their All Hallows’ Eve costumes that night were very revealing to my pubescent eyes.
After an hour or so and since nobody had bothered to use my bathroom, I walked into the kitchen where I thought I heard a couple of voices. Sure enough, it was Diane, one of my mom’s closest friends, and a couple of the young ladies who I remembered from the party my birthday weekend. I recognized them because they were two of the girls who were exceptionally nice to me by way of hugs and kisses while sitting on the steps that night. As soon as I walked into the kitchen they seemed thrilled to see me, as if they were expecting me. There was nobody else, just them and a big bowl of the vodka-infused Halloween punch to which my mom had added green food coloring to make it look like something from a witches’ cauldron. They each had a glass and Diane poured another one and slid it my way with a wink.
I then realized that all three of them were dressed like cats, but barely. They’d painted whiskers on their cheeks and had the tips of their noses painted black, in keeping with the feline theme. They were all wearing halter tops and either a really short skirt or even shorter shorts. It was hard not to notice all the skin. Each of them had on several Halloween-themed necklaces like the kind you might find at a convenience store check-out. I tried to keep my gaze at eye level, even though I’d already gotten the impression they didn’t really care what I looked at. Diane was one of my mom’s closest friends and had no kids. I think she was in her late-twenties and very attractive. Dirty-blonde hair with green eyes like mine and tanned skin that always glowed like she’d just sauntered right out of a ray of sunshine. I’m sure she knew how often I stole glances her way. The other two girls seemed closer in age to me than they did Diane. I’m guessing they were late teens and probably graduated high school during the previous year or two.
That’s when I noticed the odor. It smelled kind of familiar but I wasn’t sure where from. Then it hit me. It was the same smell I noticed in the stairwell the night before my birthday. Kind of sweet, kind of pungent. It only took me a few seconds to figure out it was coming from the hand-rolled cigarette of the girl directly opposite me in our group of four. Diane was watching me the whole time and recognized that I noticed it. She quickly reached down, grabbed the joint from the girl's hand, said “Might as well” and took a long toke. Then she pursed her lips in the direction of the girl she’d taken the joint from and blew smoke directly into her pursed lips as she inhaled.
Wait, what.
The third girl, the one directly to my left, wondered aloud if my mom would be upset with me being there for that. Diane quickly chimed in to say Judy-O wouldn’t care, like she knew that my mom really wouldn't care. I still didn’t know what was going on though. Then the girl opposite me takes the remains of the joint, leans in close with her black kitten nose and says, very seductively, “Want a shotgun” and then takes a toke as our eyes lock.
At this point, as fast as things were transpiring, I was having a very difficult time keeping up. I felt like I was about to bite off way more than I could chew. Truthfully, I was hoping Diane would jump in and throw me a lifeline. I’d yet to figure out that they were all wondering the same thing, did I want to get high.
So I said, “What’s a shotgun?”
That caused all of them to howl, so I nervously laughed along. Then the girl to my left said “They just did a shotgun,” motioning to Diane and the other girl. She explained that you take a big puff of a joint and then blow the smoke into someone else's mouth so you can both get high. Then she says “Here, let me show ya,” as she reached for the joint. I don’t know what expression I had on my face at that moment, but Diane had the presence of mind to intervene on my behalf. She seemed to sense I was about to hit the panic button.
Diane blurted out “Oh, he’s fine,” and encouraged me to enjoy my drink. I could tell I must have looked flustered because Diane was perceptive enough to quickly change the conversation to distract from my sudden embarrassment. I took my first gulp of my mom’s witches’ brew as the three of them continued talking. I was still trying to figure out what had happened. I was twelve and I didn’t know much about getting high with a joint, whatever that was.
After a moment of me sitting there, no longer a part of the conversation, I nervously excused myself so I could prevent any more indignity. Diane looked my way and I told her I was going to go to my room. She gave me a look like it was okay. The other two girls said “Bye” as I turned to leave, and I felt like I had my tail between my legs. As I trudged away I heard them giggle, presumably at my awkwardness. For all the times in my life where I’ve felt humbled by moments like that, I still haven't gotten used to the feeling.
As I lay on my bed, about ten more minutes passed and I heard the three young ladies in our kitchen head towards the stairs, still laughing. Diane stepped into my room to ask if I was okay. I told her I was fine. She stood in my open doorway for a moment like there was something else she wanted to say. She was studying me and said she was sorry about all that in the kitchen. Again, I told her I was okay. The last thing she asked me was whether I had any questions.
I realize now Diane was probably asking me if I wanted a better explanation as to what a joint was, or what did they mean by getting high. I just shrugged, so she said goodnight. Now that I know what I know, I’m confident my mom put Diane up to conducting my initiation ritual that evening. Diane, like my mom, probably thought she was doing me a favor, giving me some kind of street cred. This was their way of showing me that they cared. I get that now, but I didn’t then. That would come later, after Judy-O left us for wherever atheists go when they die.
As I sat there that night, reflecting on the devilry with Diane and her two young girlfriends, I thought about the movie Easy Rider. I’d recently watched it with my parents even though we arrived late and missed the opening scenes. My mom was very much into the biker film genre that was popular in the early seventies. We saw several of those types of movies during that time of our lives, usually double features at one of the local drive-ins in the area, with me and my brothers sitting in the back seat of our dad’s Impala. Most of these films had a definite Hell’s Angels vibe, with scintillating, innuendo-laced titles like The Hard Ride or Savage Abduction. In recalling the dialogue of the much-ballyhooed Easy Rider flick, I remembered the moment by the campfire where Wyatt and Billy introduced George, played by Jack Nicholson, to marijuana. In that scene they talked about getting high on grass, seeing UFOs, talking to bullfrogs in the middle of the night, and freedom. After my mom’s failed attempt to persuade me to smoke weed with her friends earlier that evening, I did the math and figured out what a joint and a shotgun were. I also suspected it was marijuana that had the unique odor I’d noticed on those occasions when my parents were partying with their friends. As much as a part of me still wanted to go sit on the stairs or hang out in the kitchen that night, to see what other mysteries of my parents' adult world could be unraveled for me, I was also apprehensive. The last thing I wanted to do was to be embarrassed again.
Fortunately, no one needed my bathroom or bothered me the rest of the night. I eventually dozed off and slept until the sun woke me up the next morning. I got up and realized my parents were gone and that I was home alone. My first thought was they had gone to pick up my two younger brothers after they’d spent the night with our grandparents. Then it hit me, if I was home alone then it was a good time to go explore downstairs for anything illuminating. I was still curious as to what ‘party supplies’ I might find, since they seemed to fuel my parents' soireés down in our basement.
I jumped up and headed to the Lovers Hideaway. The closer I got to ground zero the more it smelled like stale beer and cigarettes. It was pretty bad. There were dirty glasses everywhere with discarded cigarette butts soaking in the remnants of the previous evening's secrets. Pillows were strewn all over the checkerboard-patterned floor as if something other than dancing had been going on. There was also a projector screen in the far corner. Then I noticed an 8mm projector sitting on the bar. I didn’t even know we had one of those.
I really wanted to do a deeper dive and figure out what else was lurking in the shadows. But I couldn’t afford to risk getting caught down there unsupervised and had no clue when my parents might be back. I also knew there would be other opportunities to sneak around and find more clues as to what happens down in the Lover’s Hideaway after the sun goes down. I had a sneaking suspicion there were more than shotguns on display.
© 2023 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.
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