Chapter Seven: Heroes and their Holy Houses
Aloha, reader. The photo dump for chapter seven follows.
Mr. Lawrence got his revenge a few months later when he cast me as Hero in the school’s production of Much Ado About Nothing. God, I hated that character. She was wetter than the Pacific Ocean, and showed a talent for only one thing: fainting. By the end of rehearsals I would have willingly put my hands around my own neck and squeezed to spare myself having to say another one of her lines.
I found Orwell’s book quite amusing, mainly because the most remarkable thing that happened to me in 1984 was viewing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the cinema with Dad and Irene. It scared the bejeebus out of me, and I had a horrible, horrible nightmare afterwards: I watched myself drown in a pit that seethed with insects and vermin, and I was powerless to reach a hand out and save the other me. Fear paralyzed me. I woke up at two-thirty in the morning, sweating and breathing raggedly, feeling like I had my throat crushed. I sat up and pulled my blanket back to get up and go into Dad’s room for comfort but stopped when I remembered Irene was with him. I lay back down and closed my eyes. Moments like that reminded me exactly why my stepmother incited jealously.
My parents bought me the Walkman I had been bothering them about for months, and a bundle of cassette tapes to go with it. I’m sure you don’t care, but I am going to list them anyway; I have them at hand, you see. I became the proud owner of Slippery When Wet (I was infatuated with Jon Bon Jovi at the time a fact that was testified to by the huge poster of him I had in my bedroom), Houses of the Holy (Dad, surprisingly considering his overall conservatism, adored rock music) and True Blue (Irene, unsurprisingly, found great pleasure in pop). Normally, I would have hated being forced to listen to music chosen by my parents, but I didn’t complain. I actually found some of it quite enjoyable, in small doses anyway.