“It was late one night. Raining. Cold. I was five. My parents said everything was going to be fine… Parents lie.” “What happened?” Danny asked, turning his head to look at me. We were sitting beside each other, drinks in hand, on his crumbly leather couch that was moulding into his green-yellow backyard. I kicked my feet up onto the glass patio table, which was unevenly positioned on the damp spring grass. “It’s a really long story.” “Well, are you gonna tell me or not?” “I’ll tell it, just hold on one second.” I groped around in my backpack for a cigarette pack. I lit one, exhaled a plume of stinking smoke, and continued, “It was around this time of year, nearly seventeen years ago, when it happened. One night, I was sitting in our basement, teaching my cousin how to play cards, when my mom came running down the stairs, and she-“ “Which cousin?” He asked, curiously, blue eyes staring right at me. I sighed, exasperated. “Will ya let me tell the story you wanted to hear so goddamn much? Her name was Donna, you never met her. She was a couple years older than me.” Danny nodded, and I continued, “_Anyway_, my mom ran down the stairs and she said, ‘listen, kids, dad and I gotta go buy some shit real quick, you two just be good and we’ll be back.’” I paused, thinking for a moment. “Or something like that. I can’t remember it all too great. Well, I didn’t know either of them were home anyway, so I don’t _care_ too much, and Donna and I just kept playing cards and she was asking all these questions….” “Stop beating around the bush, Macey, c’mon. Tell the story already.” Danny set down his half-empty glass on a stained cardboard coaster, and yawned. “I’m _telling_ the goddamn story! You’d _hear_ it, if you were actually _listening_.” “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m listening.” I pulled my still-wet hair behind my eyes, the long, soggy bleach-blonde strands soaking through my shirt and into my shoulders. “Okay, well, Donna kept asking when they’d be back and I kept saying I didn’t know. Because I goddamn _didn’t_. Anyway, a couple hours later, we curled up all nice and cosy in our bed- we shared a bed, then, because she lived with us most of the time- and she slept. But, of course, I couldn’t sleep. So I put on one of my mom’s records that she played all the time, I remember, I can still hear it-“ “What record was it?” I knew he’d ask me that. Danny always asked what record it was. “Well, it was by Richard Hell. _Blank Generation_. My mom always loved that guy…” I paused, almost still hearing the spinning record on our beat-up old record player. Then, I continued with the story: “Donna didn’t wake up, even though I was playing the record. It was pretty loud… Well, I didn’t hear the front door open and shut, real quick, and my mom was pretty drunk. She came into the room, and was all stuttering, and asked why I’d taken her record player into my and Donna’s room… And I kept asking, all innocent like the five year old I was, ‘where’s daddy, where’s daddy?’ And she yelled something- I can’t remember- but it woke Donna up and _she_ started to yell…” I fell silent for a long moment, almost going back in time in my memories. I hadn’t thought about that day in a long time… “Macey? You okay?” Danny’s voice snapped me back to reality. “Yeah, just thinking… Anyway, Donna started to yell what was going on, and my mom was yelling something, but it wasn’t really anything because she was drunk… Well, she picked up the record player and threw it and the record all got smashed into about a thousand pieces, and everyone got very, very silent, until my mom said something about she wanted us to go to Donna’s mom’s house, but she was too drunk to drive, and Donna’s mom’s house was about a twenty minute drive away- Donna’s mom was my dad’s sister, by the way. Anyway, she got us, five-year-old me and eight-year-old Donna, into her car, and we were all in our pajamas and all that, and she started to drive in the _pouring_ rain-“ “Damn, this can’t end well…” Danny muttered, as he took a long slug of his drink. I sighed, ashed my cigarette, and remembered the wet leather seats in the back of my mom’s old car that felt just exactly like Danny’s wet leather couch. “It doesn’t. She crashed the car, right in the passenger side, into a ditch. The window on Donna’s side got all smashed into the dirt, and the glass shattered, too. Her face got-“ I stopped abruptly. Blood, all over the other side of the car, all over the leather. “Her face got pretty smashed up, too. My mom was screaming, trying to climb out of her door even though the car was on its _side_ and her side was in the _air_… Donna’s side was smashed right into the dirt… I was only shooken up, and crying. Well, I can’t remember too much of the next bit… But I woke up sitting in those stinky waiting areas of a hospital, and my mom wasn’t there, and I was crying for her, and Donna. This lady was there- she worked for the state, or something- and she explained it all to me. My dad had been caught selling drugs that night, and was in jail and all. And Donna… Well, she was dead. All the glass got in her brain and stuff, and her head had been all smashed into the ground.” “Oh.” Danny stared at the glass table, which was littered with bottles, cans, and ashtrays. “So…” “So, that’s how I ended up at old Beard’s place. Foster care, and stuff. You know.” I fell silent. That was the end of the story, wasn’t it? That’s all there was.

Sixteen and a half years ago, just a month or two before my sixth birthday, I showed up to Beard’s door with a lightweight backpack and a tall, ethereal social worker. Well, her name wasn’t really Beard. Her _real_ name was Mary Louise, but all the kids called her Beard because of her fat, scratchy chin. Beard was a squat, simple, middle-aged woman who always minded her own business and would always feed you well. I shared a bunk bed with a noisy seven-year-old Indian girl, who was named Julie, and across the hallway, there was Bobby’s room. Bobby was Beard’s adopted ten-year-old son. Most of the time, I stayed pretty quiet and out of the way, until Julie started to try to strike up dialogue during my second week at Beard’s place. She was pretty angry, but we struck up a friendship. She taught me how to swear and I taught her how to play cards- like I did with Donna, only a couple weeks before then. The next fall, I started first grade and Julie started second. It was the fall of 1973, then. Bobby, Julie, and I would spend the days after school listening to The Doors’ _Morrison Hotel_, on Beard’s old record player in Bobby’s bedroom. We’d play cards and try to convince Bobby to let us hang out with him and his friends, tall baseball-playing guys who smoked cigarettes. When I was eight, Julie ran away for the first time. She was nine. The very next day, two burly, white, mustache’d cops brought her back. They told Beard she’d been shoplifting gum from a gas station in a neighbouring town. That night, Julie told me the story. I remember it vividly. “I stole Bobby’s friend’s bike and rode all the way to the other town. It was _ages_ to get there, Macey, you wouldn’t believe it! And then, when I was tryna get some gum, these cops came in and asked me all about if I knew were my goddamn mum was. I told ‘em to go to hell! But they took me back here, of course.” The very next day, after the cops brought her back to Beard’s, she told me she was going to run away again and asked if I wanted to come. I didn’t really know what we were running away from- to me, Beard was a fantastic substitute to my drunken, screaming family. I said yes, anyway, and after school the next day, we began walking south. Julie said if we walked far enough south, we’d get out of Washington, and if we walked farther south, we’d get into California. We never made it there, of course.

Well, how did I meet Danny, you ask? It was in a small town outside of Seattle. Julie and I had just ended up in this small kind of neighborhood just east of Seattle, after a week and a half of hiding out, stealing, and sleeping outside. She was barely ten years old, then, and I was only nine. We usually slept in people’s unused sheds, or under their front porch, if we were sure we’d get out of there before they went out for the day. We’d hang out in the park and act like we were normal kids, although we avoided others like the plague. All we needed was each other, anyway. Until we met Danny, that is. Danny was eleven, then, and he was your average paperboy in a small town. Every morning at six, he’d ride this too-small red bike around town and deliver newspapers. He’d caught on to our living situation pretty quickly- he’s always been observant- and when he saw us in the streets while he delivered papers, he started to bring us leftover bits of his breakfast: halves of bagels and toast, bits of fruit, stuff like that. He and I became friends right away. He’d ask what happened to my parents and I told him they’d died. He’d loan me dollars to buy candy at the corner store, and pretend it wasn’t a big deal when I never paid him back. A week later, while Julie and I were washing out faces and whatnot in a dingey public bathroom, she said solemnly, “Macey, we gotta get going south. We’re gonna go to Oregon, remember, and then go all the way to California. We have to leave.” When I told her I didn’t wanna go, she told me that she didn’t want me to come, anyway. She was pretty hotheaded, did I mention that? “Well, fuck you, then.” I crossed my arms, pouting as any nine-year-old would. Julie stalked out of the bathroom with a muttered, “I never fucking liked you, dumb little brat. Bye!” My first real childhood friend- besides my three cousins, who by then I could hardly remember- had left. I never heard from her again and, as far as I know, she never made it to California.

I collapsed into the scratched up office chair, my head lolling back to stare at the ceiling. I continued to gaze blankly at the ceiling even when I heard Danny’s footsteps, and then a moment later, his voice: “Macey?” “Hi.” I wasn’t looking at him- I still had my face to the ceiling. “Are you drunk?” “Aw, man, how’d you know?” I laughed, leaning forwards in the chair to look at him, his arms crossed and his greasy brown-black hair disheveled and down to his shoulders. “You know I can tell.” “Yeah…” I sighed, spinning the office chair in a 360 with my sock’d foot on the floor. “They never shoulda let me turn twenty-one.” I paused, then changed the topic to the one that had been weighing on my mind the whole day: “Remember when we used to live together?” “You’re _still_ sleeping on my couch, you know that, right?” “No, I mean, when I was a kid. In Snoqualmie. Remember…?” I tilted my head to one side, blinking slowly. I tried to recall exactly the layout of his parent’s old house, but couldn’t. “Yeah. Why?” Danny sat down on the couch across from the crusty office chair that had somehow found its way into his living room. “Dunno. I’ve just been thinkin’ about it.” I reached into the depths of my memory and pulled out the summer of 1977- two short months that practically changed my life. I was ten, and sleeping on Danny’s parents’ couch-bed, after I’d found myself alone and homeless after Julie had abruptly left my life. At that thought, I drunkenly decided to nearly shout out, “Remember her? Remember Julie?” “Julie?” His eyebrows leapt up in surprise, until realization dawned on his face and he said, “Oh. Oh, yeah.” My head spun, but I thought nostalgically about that summer. I recalled the time I’d really been drunk- it was during that summers… Danny was about twelve or thirteen then, but he could pass for sixteen or even seventeen- mostly because he was very tall- and if the right cashier was working at the store, you could buy alcohol if you were about three years old. We’d bought a fifth of whatever and sat at the edge of the forest, drinking. We’d gotten stinking drunk and staggered all around town in the dark, kicking over everybody’s trash cans on the sidewalks. I remember very clearly, I was wearing one of his mom’s old fugly dresses, because I owned hardly a single outfit. It was one of those 1950’s looking dresses, pink and black, and it was way too big for me, since I was four foot eleven and weighed about ninety pounds, and the skirt went down to around my ankles. It was hilarious to think about. I realized I had laughed out loud when Danny interrupted my nostalgia: “Macey? All good?” I giggled manically again, and explained, rather poorly, “I was just thinking about your mom’s dumb old dresses that I had to wear. Remember…?” “_What_?” “The first time we got drunk. In 1977. And I was wearing one of your mom’s old dresses that was way too big for me. Remember?” I pulled myself up to sit with my legs crisscrossed, and grinned. “Remember?” His face broke out into a smile, instantly remembering that day. “Yeah, I remember. We didn’t get home till, what? Four in the morning?” Danny laughed, and added, “My parents were so pissed.” “It was worth it, though…” A sudden sadness hit me along with the nostalgia, mixed with the alcohol in my blood. I frowned, and remembered the first sip, and how horrible it tasted- like nail polish and fire. I wondered why I didn’t just stop there, but did it really matter anyway?

“What the _fuck_?” Eleven-year-old me snarled, crossing my skinny, white arms over the _Ramones_ shirt that I’d hitchhiked to Seattle to buy. “You’re like my _parents_!” “_May._” Danny’s mother, Deborah, said softly. She’d always call me _May_. “You have to go.” I’d only just turned eleven a month before, in February, 1978. And they’d decided to call Social Services, saying that I’d run away from foster care and had been living on their couch for over a year. Which was, technically, the truth. I guess they didn’t want a little would-be punk sleeping on their couch anymore. “Well, fuck you, then,” I said to Deborah, almost matter-of-fact sounding. That evening, Danny and I sat in near-silence in our favourite place to hang out, the white stone-laden beach right by Snoqaulmie River. It was frosty still, I can remember it as clear as if it was yesterday. “I can’t _believe_ those fuckers,” I hissed, lighting a cigarette with cold, shakey fingers. “Well, you’ll have your own bed, at least,” Danny said, frowning “Don’t you look on the fuckin’ bright side! I don’t _care _if I have my own bed or not…” I sighed, dropped my face into my hands. “This _sucks_!” “Yeah…” The very next morning, Frank- Danny’s father- drove me into Seattle, into this brightly-lit office-looking place, where a short, fat, balding man in a brown suit that stunk of onions told me that these people was really nice and all, and I’d totally love it there. When I told him that he looked like he’d die alone, he chuckled, then glowered, and told me to keep it in my lane. Less than an hour later, Frank dropped me off to at my brand-clean new home: an apartment on the tenth floor of a boring, brick building on some busy, busy, busy street, smack dang in the middle of Seattle. A tall, dark-haired couple was standing, smiling stupidly, waiting for me. Their names were Richard and Nancy, of course, and they told me they were very excited to get to know me as soon as they met me. I shook their hands, smiling blandly: “Hi, I guess.”

I threw my backpack down on the twin-size bed, which was covered with plain green bedsheets. I stared at the four biege walls, singular window, desk, bed, and nightstand. While Richard and Nancy were busy cooking and watching the news on TV, and listening to classical music, or whatever the hell they did in their free time, I laid down on the bed, straight as a ruler, and thought about going to school there, about people, about what the hell my life was going to be like. The thought of it drove me insane. I sat up as a loud knock hit the door. Nancy opened it, her rosy cheeks pulled into a dimpled, pearly-toothed smile. “Supper’s ready.” “Oh, cool.” I hopped up unenthusiastically, only to sit on a creaky chair and eat chunky mashed potatoes, while the two of them asked if I was excited to start going to school. I told them, “No, not at all. I hate school.” Truthfully, I’d only done about four years of school, and mostly I was scared I’d fail. I mean, I was starting middle school, in _March_, after not having gone to school for nearly three years. Sure, I had hell of a time finding classes and getting my locker combitation right, but people didn’t talk to me and I didn’t talk to them, and it was fine. Until about two in the afternoon, I mean. Since I was starting so late in the year, I needed a tutor: a bland, smiling girl who got straight A’s, to tell me that I’m stupid, to tell me that I’m bad at everything, and to tell me how to do algebra. Her name was Pam. Pam and I, let’s just say, didn’t get along too well. She didn’t appreciate my sense of humour very much, especially when I called her “Plain Pam.” Well, she was a good tutor, at least, and caught me up on a lot of missed work. I asked her if there were any punk rockers in middle school, and she replied, “What, are you into that? No, not that I know of, anyway.” Then, I asked her if there was anyone interesting in middle school, and she replied, “Yes, but they aren’t losers.” It was around four in the afternoon when Plain Pam was done with me, and I did as Nancy had told me: head home with the spare key, and hang around until she’d get back from work around seven or seven-thirty. Their apartment looked blander and sadder than ever without them in it. There wasn’t a lot to do, so I called Danny’s house, but nobody answered- I guess nobody was home.