Murder, Music and Mickey D's! Part II: James Zastawnik
Plus Scenes from my 1989 Graduation from Erieview Catholic High School
Welcome Friends!
WARNING: I have written some feel good stories, some political satire and some tributes to my mentors; this is not like any of those. I promised a memoir, and drudging up the past, is dirty work. This story contains some pretty horrible details of rape and murder as well as drug abuse and homelessness. I strongly suggest skipping this one, if you think any of those will offend or upset you.
ALSO: To provide a fair level of protection for the people and places mentioned in this piece, I must ask that you subscribe, even at the free level (by clicking none), to continue reading. Thank you for understanding.
“I’ve died a thousand deaths, each time reinventing myself brighter, stronger and purer than before. From the midst of destruction, I became the creator of myself. From the midst of darkness, I became my own source of light.”
-Cristen Rodgers
Let’s Just Dive Right In, Shall We?
I had no trouble finding places to crash during high school. Families who struggle financially, as many did who’s daughters attended Erieview Catholic, seem to deal well with crisis. A teenage runaway from the suburbs, was a welcome distraction from whatever worries or problems of their own they were facing. In the late 1980’s, a lot of families living in Cleveland’s inner city, were directly impacted by the crack epidemic, either dealing the drug themselves, or dealing with family members who were addicted, and committing crimes to support their habit.
I lost my cozy spot at my friend Cheryl’s house, where I’d been staying most school nights, for over a month, making the mistake of thinking my boyfriend Paul would let me move in with him permanently, once I had finished high school. Her house was next door to the Hell’s Angels Club House on Edna Avenue on the Near East Side. I’d be lying, if I said I wasn’t aroused by the rumble of Harley Davidsons coming and going all hours of the night, the crackling of their bonfires, and the crinkling of their beer cans.
Thinking as I did, that I was all sorted, Cheryl had taken in another runaway from our class. I would come to regret losing the serenity of her house, where she lived with her mother and brother, yet we were almost always alone. I would miss our evening ritual of drinking hot tea before climbing onto her waterbed, where we’d smoke one last cigarette and listen to her favorite Stevie Nicks’ album. Never again, would I get to enjoy the deep and restful sleep that came from knowing, that we were well looked after, by our deadly and dangerous neighbors who never seemed to sleep.
Cheryl broke the news to me outside St. Peter’s Church, on East 17th and Superior, after a rehearsal for our graduation ceremony, which was to be held the next day. We received our snow-white cap and gowns, in flat cellophane bags, and when a classmate saw me wandering aimlessly around downtown, still clinging to the bag five hours later, she knew I needed a place to stay.
We rode the bus to East 142nd and St. Clair and walked a block or so to her house, through an all black neighborhood, while I tried my best to act cool amid all the stares and comments coming from large groups of people gathered on porches, front steps and street corners. Nan knew everyone! She held her head high, locked elbows with me and told everyone to ‘mind their business!’ Cleveland is the most racially segregated city in the US and I likely, would have felt the need to do the same, had we gone as far west as we had traveled east, only I doubt the reception would have been without incident as mine was.
Nan and I weren’t the best of friends, but Erieview girls are sisters through and through, a bond we carry to this day. Our class, the class of 1989, endured more than any group of young women should ever have to. Freshman year we lost one of our sisters, Meredith Brooks to bone cancer and in 1987, our Junior year, we suffered a terrifying and horrific loss, one that surely impacted the rest of all of our lives.
Just before Christmas, our beloved classmate, a free-spirit with an infectious smile, Barbara Blatnik was beaten, raped and strangled to death. Her naked body was then callously dumped in the woods and was discovered in the early morning, identified only by her Erieview Catholic High School class ring. The crime went unsolved for three decades, until DNA evidence, which was unavailable at the time of her murder, was used to solve the crime thanks to The Porchlight Project. James Zastawnik was arrested and charged with her murder in May 2020, but the fucker died before ever even standing trial, something I would have not known until I found the following video, while researching this piece.
As Nan and I walked, I marveled at her courage and strength and when we got to her house, I marveled at her independence. She and her older sister lived on the second floor of a double house, and her mom lived on the first with her boyfriend. Shortly after we arrived, as it was nearing dark, neighbors began dropping their kids off to Nan and her sister, dressed in their pajamas and carrying soft blankets and stuffed animals or dolls. Within an hour or two, her house was filled with small children and the music and laughter from downstairs, presumably from their parents, shook the walls. Without much thought, as if it was a routine on Friday nights, the sisters began to set up tiny fold out lounge chairs for the children to sleep on, tucking them in one by one. Some gave no resistance, while others needed to be held while they cried themselves to sleep, missing their mamas mostly, something I understood all too well.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I woke the morning of my graduation to Nan’s mother, a nurse, probably drunk or high, but so full of love and so nurturing toward me. Introducing herself as she sat down beside me, on the arm of the chair I had slept in, she coaxed me into consciousness by gently rubbing my stiff neck. When I was feeling better and fully awake, she insisted I take a nice hot bath, a lovely gesture, but looking back, it may have been more of a public service.
My boyfriend Paul’s rehearsal hall, where I had stayed most of the week, didn’t have a tub or shower, nor did he have any hot water, so I went long periods of time without washing my hair, getting by with little more than the occasional whore bath. (Since it is very likely that I named this myself, a whore bath is basically when you stand at any sink, from a highway rest stop or a fast food restaurant, to a friend’s guest bathroom, and wash as much as you possibly can, as fast as you can; armpits, crotch, face and neck, obviously not in that order, before someone walks in!)
A little while later, Nan’s sister appeared with a folded bath towel and summoned me to follow her to the bathroom. We passed several pleasant women in the apartment clutching coffee cups or giant beer cans, smoking cigarettes and sharing stories, whispering the naughty bits before erupting with laughter. They smiled happily at me, treating me as a welcome guest and honored soon-to-be graduate.
Noticing me and nodding approvingly to Nan’s sister as she had been following orders, Nan’s mother said she was gonna run over to McDonalds and asked what we wanted for breakfast. I had no money, so I lied and said I wasn’t hungry. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, saying “Common, it’s your graduation present, it’s on me!”
“I’ll take Hot Cakes!” I said with a grin, because I knew they would fill me up and because they weren’t too expensive. I’d felt bad enough already for all they had done for me. We continued into the bathroom, where Nan’s sister showed me how to use a pair of pliers to turn on the faucet. The claw foot tub was cluttered with rusty shavers and mostly emptied shampoo bottles and body wash, which I lined up along the edge of the tub that met the wall. I washed a cock roach that had been hiding underneath one of the bottles, down the drain, then filled the tub before climbing in. It was easy to imagine I was in paradise, once I closed my eyes!
When I emerged from the bathroom, probably too long of a time later, Nann’s mother looked disappointedly at my clothes. They were the same ones I went in wearing and they were the only clothes I owned, besides my school and work uniforms; black shorts, a white Adults (my boyfriend’s band) t-shirt and a pair of four dollar, black Chinese cloth shoes. She asked what I was going to wear to the graduation and I shrugged my shoulders, saying, “My cap and gown I guess, and I’ve got shoes at my boyfriends I need to pick up.”
She smiled uneasily, handed me my hotcakes, to which she added sausage and scrambled eggs (God bless her!) and said, “Happy Graduation Baby!” She then signaled that I could take my food into the living room where Nan and her sister were busy tidying up from the kiddie slumber party. I cherished every bite while fielding questions from a few remaining toddlers, mostly about my hair, the same question everyone who saw me had, but were too polite to ask; “What’s up with your hair?”
On top of my head was a messy asymmetrical mop of bleached blond and dark brown hair, the overgrown remains of a once, cool as hell, punk rock hair cut I received from an edgy stylist and salon owner, who my dad hired to fix my hair, after I had cut it rather creatively myself! After meeting me, I think the stylist set out to teach my dad a lesson about stifling a persons creative expression! Unfortunately, I had no time, money or idea how to maintain my unique hairstyle once I left home.
Rescuing me from the candid toddlers, Nan’s mother appeared in the living room offering me a white, polyester nurses uniform to wear under my gown and assuring me that it would be no trouble at all, to swing by Paul’s to collect my shoes on our way to the ceremony. I was so grateful, for the bath, the food, the clothes, but more than anything, I was grateful to be treated like family on such a special day.
A few days before graduation, I snuck into my parent’s house to retrieve a pair of white pumps that I had worn to a cousin’s wedding, because I did not want to spend money on something I knew I was only going to wear once. My mom caught me as I fumbled in my closet carelessly, thinking no one was home. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed and glared at me with angry eyes, eyes that softened slightly when I finally noticed her and told her what I was doing.
I don’t think she had expected me to continue attending high school after I left home in April, much less to make the last couple months’ tuition payments myself and actually graduate. I might not have, if it hadn’t been for Paul and the bargain we made, that I had to go to school four out of five days a week, if I wanted to spend my weekends with him.
After all these years, I am still unclear what prompted my parents to come to my graduation, dragging a few of my siblings with them. Did they need to see it to believe it? Were they worried how it might look, if they weren’t there? It always seemed to be important to my mother to appear happy, regardless of what was really going on. So while I was surprised to see her there on the end of a pew as we filed into the church, I was not surprised to see her clicking away, with one of those disposable cameras that she loved so much.
Other than my encounter with my mother over the shoes I was now wearing, no one had seen or heard from me for two months, since my eighteenth birthday, when my mom and I had our worst fight ever. I was leaving for work that afternoon, when I suddenly remembered that I forgot to pack hairspray, prompting me to run back up to my bedroom. My mom caught me on the steps on my way back down, grabbing me with wild eyes and accusing me of going to my room to get drugs. She demanded to look in my bag, but I was running late and I knew she would take my brand new pack of Newport 100’s, so I tried to fight my way past her, knowing I had no time or money to buy cigarettes before work. We struggled, fighting viciously over my bag. I didn’t want to hurt her, because she had suffered a broken arm recently, falling while wallpapering, and was still wearing a cast.
She lost her temper and started beating me, even hitting me with her cast. I wrestled away from her and ran back up stairs. When she reached the top, chasing me, I shoved her in the upstairs hallway, out of my way with all my might and ran back down the stairs. I remember the sound of her head hitting the hallway closet door and what sounded like her teeth catching the door knob. I paused downstairs upon hearing her moaning and didn’t know what to do. She sounded like she was in agony.
Minutes earlier, I was planning on taking the car that my sister and I shared to work and I was excited, wondering if anyone at Lutheran Medical Center, where I had been working as a dishwasher for months, would know it was my birthday and might’ve gotten a cake. And now, I was standing in the kitchen, still wearing my high school uniform, thinking I had just knocked out my mom’s teeth and that my dad would surely kill me.
Leaving the car keys on the table, I just walked out the door, knowing I could never come back. With no money for a bus, I started walking up towards Detroit Avenue and found myself in the garden of my grade school, where I just sat quietly crying. Behind the garden was a secret hideaway, under an unused balcony of the school’s gymnasium. I spent the night there, sleeping on the cold concrete with my bag containing my Lutheran work uniform as a pillow and woke to the sound of children playing, and hid until the school bell rung. Once it was silent and everyone was inside, I crept out and began the eight mile walk to my high school. By the end of the day, the dean, who had asked why I was 3 hours late and smelled like bus fumes, made sure I had a slew of bus tickets, a free lunch card and a new Erieview sweater. My classmates took care of the rest.
When our graduation ceremony ended and the final class picture was taken, my fellow graduates and I filed out of the church to thunderous applause, and into the arms of awaiting family, friends and faculty members offering congratulatory hugs and kisses, some presenting their loved ones with beautiful bouquets of flowers.
It was a tense, but thankfully brief encounter with my family, who seemed to be scattered, as if they had all been making their getaway, and only a few got caught. My mom insisted we pose on the church steps for a photograph. I don’t know if it was what she intended, but she sure did capture the moment perfectly, the sadness, resentment and anger.
I’ve studied this picture several times during my life, each time feeling something different or noticing something new. Recently I was drawn to the necklace I am wearing; a Christian medallion with St. Brigid on the front and St. Patrick on the back. Perhaps it was them watching over me, protecting me all those troubled years, as I danced with the devil and came face to face with many of his demons. And while I lost just about everything a person could lose that following summer of 1989, (including that necklace), I never lost my faith in God and I never stopped believing that he had some sort of assignment for me to complete. Interestingly, I am just beginning to think that I finally know what it is!
Paul came to my graduation as well, which was a huge surprise for me and for my parents as well, but for different reasons! He was every parent’s worst nightmare! He bore a slight resemblance to Iggy Pop and was 15 years older than me. He was wearing a black beret over a blue bandana which was tied just above the back of his neck, full eye makeup, a tight, sleeveless white t-shirt exposing his muscular build and protruding veins, and had on purple pants tucked into black combat boots. I don’t know how she knew, but my mom asked if the guy in the wife beater, who looked like a heroin addict was my boyfriend. I blushed!
A lot of my classmates and their parents knew Paul and his band from the neighborhood and his presence at our graduation created a bit of a buzz. Even if they had not attended a show, many knew his music, because the neighborhood hang out, E. J. Kovacic Recreation Center, was directly across the street from his rehearsal hall, where the band practiced a few nights a week in front of giant windows which opened up to the street.
I went looking for Paul as soon as my family and I fell awkwardly away from each other, with nothing really to say to one another. He was waiting for me outside his maroon Chrysler Cordova, looking as shocked as I was, at seeing my family there. He hugged me and told me how proud he was of me, and then told me to get in the car because he got me a graduation present that I could probably use right about now.
As we climbed into the car, he reached down underneath my seat to retrieve a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. While I pulled the seatbelt across my chest and into the buckle, he set the bottle in my lap saying, “Happy Graduation Miss Brigette!”
I knew before I unwrapped it, just by the shape of the bottle, that it was Southern Comfort, my favorite! He insisted I open it and take a swig as he scanned the area for any reason not to. I took a sip, and when he asked, “So, thats your family, huh?” I took a couple more while nodding. Tears just poured out of my eyes, uncontrollably as I handed the bottle to Paul. He took a sip then held his hand out for the lid and replaced it, while watching me with sad sympathetic eyes, twisting the bag tightly around the bottle and sliding it back under my seat. He grabbed me, and held me tightly, kissing my tears away, and said, “You can hang out with me all night at work, everyone knows you graduated, but just say it was from Tri-C, college not high school, ok?”
Since I had left my other clothes at Pauls when I picked up my shoes, I stayed in my graduation gown all night, and the congratulatory shots just kept coming to me and Paul, as I sat beside him at the Phantasy Night Club, where he worked as a doorman checking IDs and collecting the cover charge for the bands.
It was a turning point for us. He no longer hid our relationship and I no longer had to sneak drinks. I would come to the Phantasy at the end of the night carrying all the leftover food that was supposed to go in the trash from my McDonalds job around the corner. Everyone loved seeing me! I passed out food to bartenders and security guards as well as roadies and musicians who were usually breaking down their equipment drunk and hungry!
While I stayed at Paul’s more frequently, I think the sight of my family at my graduation made him uneasy about letting me move in permanently. I never knew what Paul was going to do. Would he take me home, or would he leave me to fend for myself? Sometimes we would end up at after parties all night with bands, smoking weed, doing coke and popping pills. I wasn’t scared of anything back then except being alone. When you’re alone, you have time to think about what it is and who it is you are running from, and I was not willing to do that yet.
To Be Continued!
And Finally…
“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” -Leonard Cohen
While I left Erieview, looking pretty much the same as I did going in physically, I was a completely different person.
I would no longer sit quietly or comfortably among racists or bigots
More than anything, I lost my
I lost my taste for the finer things in life and wanted
I had little or no patience for people who voiced their opinions on subjects they had no
“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” -Leonard Cohen
My whole life, friends and family always wanted better for me. Whatever I was interested in, or whoever I was surrounding myself with, I was always told I could do better.
Like a mosquito in the night, I am drawn to the light, that must find its way into and out of the cracks of those who have been wounded and those who are both broken and made whole by suffering like me. My taste is for the blood poured out onto canvas, kneaded into clay, made into music, spilled onto the page or projected on a screen.
The light that shines from within, that too can only be re
For a long time, I was conditioned to believe that I lacked the self esteem and confidence to date someone that they would consider “worthy of me!” Even men I’ve dated have actually said that I deserve better! One of the funniest comments yet, came from a friend of a 310 laborer I was dating. He looked me up and down, in my J Crew v-neck and skirt and looked at my shirtless boyfriend wearing jean cut offs and drinking a can of Budweiser, and he asked, “So what, are you like doing a documentary about hillbillies, and trying to infiltrate the crowd for research or something?”
When I’ve asked people to explain what they mean, they usually say that I deserve someone as smart, successful and good looking as I am. “But that’s all so superficial,” I’d reply. I realize now, that how I appear, how I’ve always appeared, does little to reflect who I really am.
Who I am, I owe almost entirely to the experiences I had and the people I met in the four years I attended Erieview. And while, on the outside I still looked like an upper middle class suburban girl, inside I had become a street wise, bad ass, straight up gangster! Well, kind of!
No one had ever heard of Erieview Catholic High School in Lakewood, where I grew up in an all white, mostly Irish Catholic neighborhood. I only knew about it because I had an older cousin living in the inner city who went there, and after shadowing her for a day, I was hell-bent on getting in. My parents were not thrilled, so I slept through all the entrance exams to schools they preferred, and gave Erieview’s test my all. I scored the highest out of all the applicants, missing only one question, winning a scholarship, and giving them a financial incentive they could not pass up.
In keeping with my birthright as the second oldest, the rebel who always has to be different, Erieview suited me perfectly. I had always been interested in other races and cultures, and Erieview was a microcosm of the entire country, with a window into several others. While I don’t know the exact demographics, I do know that they did not have a diversity problem, nor could they have ever been accused of not being inclusive! I was a minority, not because of my religion or race. I was a minority based solely on the fact that I had it pretty easy and relatively good, compared to nearly every other girl in my class.
I became hyper aware, of what I now know is called white privilege, on my first day and over the course of four years I learned about poverty, injustice, inequality, racism, sexism, drug abuse, incest, rape, murder and the challenges facing immigrants, gays and pregnant teenagers. I saw how the deck was stacked, how the cards were dealt and I always wondered who these dealers were working for! In four years, I think I saw it all. Everyday I became more awake and alive, more appreciative, more grateful, more understanding and more importantly, I became more shocked, more outraged, more motivated to help bring about change.
Every day my ability to relate to those who are unaffected by human suffering, untouched by great tragedy, diminished, as they have no empathy or compassion because they themselves, have never needed it.
As horrible as that sounds, I think being sheltered from reality is far worse. Worse, because the people who grew up sheltered from reality, the ones who live in the safest communities, attend the best schools and have all the support they need to be successful, tend to be the ones deciding court cases, passing laws, and making decisions for the people who didn’t have those same opportunities. And also, they make really boring boyfriends!Thank You For Being Here My Friend!
Cheers!
Bridget