This song made me fall in love with someone once. Or helped, anyway. He said, “This song is about you.” Corny, but nice.

Thanks to Halo for making it pop into my head. New Order makes me happy mopey. Or maybe mopey happy. Anyway, it’s good.

Final Part

I opened my eyes to see my mother standing over me, who decided until further notice to wake me up at the dawn-scraping hour that she and my baby sister woke up. From then on I would not be allowed to indolently sleep in like the other carefree kids on summer break. I was given a list of chores as long as my arm, and expected to do nothing off-list all day long, including my only escape, reading.

At night after I went to bed, I heard my stepfather considering removing my door from its hinges so I wouldn’t be able to “plan anything.” At the time, I truly thought this was because I was a horrible person. Later I learned it was because he was paranoid about people to such a degree that with his mother’s help, he convinced himself that when I was disowned as a teenager I would come back and literally burn the house down. Never mind the fact that my sister, the only family member I really loved and felt a bond with, was still living there.

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In Which I Recount Part Two of My Harebrained Scheme To Run Away From Home. A Story In A Unpredictable Number of Parts.

Certainly, there was a part of me that was relieved at being pulled out of the river by the police, who interrupted my escape attempt. But there was a part of me, too, that was deeply disappointed that I had failed so utterly. The decision to leave home was entirely impulsive, brought about by my friend’s suggestion, but I was behind it all the way. Here was my chance to test my mettle. I was a big fan of mettles being tested, since I loved stories where people overcame great obstacles and emerged stronger, even if their transformation was completely internal.

“You kids are lucky we found you before sundown,” said one of the cops. I didn’t really know what this meant then. Now I suppose it meant that if they hadn’t found us, we’d be that much further away under the protection of the dark. As an adult I think I have read some statistics presented in a way to poke parents that say if a day goes by and your kid doesn’t turn up, that’s it, man, you better get a new hobby because you just lost your old one for good.

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When I was ten, I decided that I had endured enough parental tyranny and it was time for me to split. I always felt like I was preparing myself to leave, or move at any moment, since I didn’t feel like I belonged where I was. I had vivid fantasies of the Harry Potter variety: “It’s all been a mistake. You don’t belong here at all. You’re actually a genius/circus freak/part wolf eel.” Maybe some small part of me was holding on to the idea that my grandma was going to come back and get me, and I would be where I belonged

We lived in the woods, so I developed an interest in survivalism and living off the land. I read as many books as I could about edible plants and how to make fires. I practiced making little fires and putting them out. I even forced myself to read “Mark Trail” every Sunday morning (covertly, to avoid arousing suspicion), although I strongly suspected that was a waste of time. I was ready for my moment when I would wake up and my childhood as I knew it would be over.

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HAY WOW, it’s June. I just had to say that.

So, it’s warming up around this joint and I am busting out the tiny clothes.

I seem to be traveling in reverse, somehow. I think that when you’re young you’re supposed to wear the ho clothes, and then as you get older you’re supposed to get more respectable somehow, and grow some dignity, and buy some culottes or whatever. Especially post-spawning.

When I was nineteen I moved to Phoenix and lived there for three years. I had a whitey-white friend like me who was always hiding from the sun as well. We used to take the long way wherever we went at school so we could skim the edges of buildings and walls in order to take advantage of the shade there. I was a fairly religious applier or sunscreen and wore ballcaps and sunglasses. I wore long shorts cut off at the knee and voluminous rock tee shirts. My technique for beating the heat was to go the route of loose clothes that didn’t cling.

Of course, the side effect of this was that I looked like a slightly raggedy frat boy, especially since I cut all my hair off when I moved there. I look at pictures of myself at twenty and I realize I have seen cuter catheters. Depresso. I told myself I was being sensible in the face of really punishing weather, but I look back and realize I was hiding myself, too.

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So, I was meaning to post these with my theivery posts, but fucking shit if I could find them. Guess what, though? I was ransacking my joint while I was packing, and Strudel found my hatbox where I keep some of my old pictures. Way to be useful, tiny shit-losing feral dwarf.

If you were wondering if child abuse could be perpetrated through “hairstyles,” the answer is yes, yes it can. I liked this dress because it reminded me of the dress worn by Angel Face Barbie. Early acne? Check. Snaggleteeth? Check. Who loves an ugly duckling? NO ONE.

This is the age I was when I was at the height of stuffing candy down my pants: eight.

Exhibit “B” is probably when I was at the beginning of my porn gaffling. The little feral dwarf next to me is my sister, of course.

Look at that jaunty denim hat! Even that diaper is totally eighties! I’ll bet that diaper is about to come back into style any minute now. Also, no pants. Did you miss that trend? Yeah, I think everyone else did, too. I’m telling myself that I was wearing a bathing suit under that tee shirt, but who knows? Maybe not.

Here I am at my eleventh birthday. Banana clips! Fonzie attitude! “Aaaaaay!” Bad perm! Did I even deserve a party? Probably not. This was around the time that I stopped rootling drawers. But did I stop stealing things? No, I did not.

To be continued. Dun-dun-DUN!

When I was eight I embarked on a career as a shoplifter. I was a latchkey kid from the time I was seven or so, but before I was eight it was just during the after school time. That summer we moved to a tiny apartment with our three cats while my parents were building their house. It was near one of the busiest streets in town, State Street, and I was forbidden to cross it.

(An aside: this apartment was the location of my first erotic dream. Oh, Alex P. Keaton MWAH MWAH MWAH!)

At first I had some supervision, in the form of a stay-at-home mom who lived in the building. After I spit in her daughter’s face, I think the adults determined the arrangement wasn’t working out so well. My mom saw that I had made a bunch of friends with the other kids in the neighborhood, so she kind of let me loose. Specifically, she saw that a twelve-year-old girl named Jenny had taken an interest in me. Jenny was pretty, charismatic, and a quick liar, so most of the adults liked and trusted her.

Jenny was one of those kids who was automatically in charge, no questions asked. She was the oldest and the bossiest, and was a master manipulator. She would stage fights for the other kids’ entertainment. I was a frequent participant in these fights and a frequent loser. Jenny was the one who coaxed me into spitting in the other girl’s face, because it was determined that she was a namby-pamby. She was, too, and I didn’t care for her much either.

Shortly, as in a couple of days after I started hanging out with Jenny’s gang, they decided they wanted to cross the busy street that we lived a couple of blocks away from. There was a Stop-N-Go (a.k.a. “The Stop-N-Rob”) that had a motherlode of candy to choose from.

“C’mon,” she said. “I want candy. Let’s go across State.”

This is the point where I should have said, “I’m not supposed to cross State Street,” and walked away.

HA! Yeah, right. For my entire childhood I was plagued with the fear that someone was going to think I wasn’t totally hard to the core. I have been beaten up and eaten disgusting things more times than I can even remember. Therefore, I didn’t say anything except for, “I don’t have any money.”

“That’s okay,” she called over her shoulder, “you won’t need any.” Wow! Was my new friend going to buy me some candy?

No.

Jenny stood at the end of one aisle, acting as lookout, while I hovered over the Jolly Rancher bars.

“What do I do?” I asked on the way in.

“Just stuff it in your shorts!” she hissed.

She gave me the nod and I snatched a bar and crammed it into my waistband. It was pretty close to the clerk, but just then Jenny darted over to the ten-cent candy. He couldn’t keep track of all of us. Jenny bought a piece on the way out.

When we got back across the busy street, we turned out our pockets (and pants) to pool our haul. I was allowed to keep my Jolly Rancher. The other kids had grabbed more than one thing, so the booty was divvied up.

“How does that taste?” Jenny asked.

“Pretty good,” I said, the bar hanging out of my mouth. It was watermelon flavored.

We made many more trips across the street after that. I got busted once by my mom’s friend’s boyfriend, who was driving down the street and saw me run across. My mom scolded me, and I did it less after that, but didn’t really stop. I hated that guy. I stayed at my mom’s friend’s house once when she was out of town, and his daughter narced on me for pretending to use an Exacto knife on a teddy bear while we were playing Surgery. She told me not to do it, but I ignored her; latchkey kids do what they damn want. Then of course he ratted me out. I guess it ran in the family.

When I turned nine the house was finished, and we moved safely away to the sticks, where the hobbies there were drinking, teen pregnancy, drinking, and shoplifting. A year later, when I was ten, we saw Jenny’s teenaged sister, who was working as a bagger at a local grocery store.

“How’s your sister doing?” my mom asked.

“Oh,” Jenny’s sister said. “A few months ago she got hit by a car while crossing State Street. She died on the way to the hospital.”

It took me years to realize that could have been me.