(no subject)
This here is something I turned in to English -
I hereby give it to the world.
THE RUNAWAYS
I remember running. I remember the sound of my feet hitting the pavement, and the sound of my ragged breathing rasping through the cold night air. I remember being dimly aware of the blur of lights all around me, of being intensely focused on one light up ahead.
I ran as if the devil was biting at my heels - and I was only half-aware that he really wasn’t. There was not predator at my heels, but I found it too hard to keep myself from pretending. I never paused to think that I might be a runaway. I just took it as a simple fact of life that I never belonged where I actually was - I only belonged where I was going.
I remember being late for a band party - a wicked two hours late, which meant that by the time I actually got there not only would the band have most likely finished playing, but there would also be no food, beer, or drinks for me.
I was dressed in my trash-glam party-wear - a vintage snow-white skirt with lace sticking out of the bottom (perfect for dancing in, and sleeping safely), and a black tank top. My hair was in a spidery, jet-black up-do, and my make-up was fit to match Danzig’s.
I arrived at the smoky gray shadow of a house, and a million kids with blood-shot, half-closed eyes crowded around the door. I was greeted by those who knew me, and a few who didn’t. I was offered a cigarette, and someone smoothly removed my long black velvet coat. I noticed with displeasure that nobody offered me a beer. I found out that I needn’t have worried about being late; the band had never arrived. No matter, however, Lauren,* Robert,* and I were there, and that was enough to get any party started.
I found my way to Lauren’s room, switched out the lights, and switched on some music - not loud enough to bother the neighbors, but just loud enough so that it could be heard throughout most of the house. I looked in Lauren’s underwear drawer for the prize that usually awaited me there - a can of beer. I found my most coveted prize and followed Lauren into her parent’s bedroom, to enjoy a beer silently with
Jake and Lauren. I had only been in the dark for a few seconds before the beer was snatched away from me before I took a sip.
I began to look around the house, observing the many different people there. It felt as if it were the first time that anybody had turned on my eyes, as if it somebody had turned on a light bulb in a dark room. I saw a guy making out with a girl on Lauren’s sectional. I saw a guy sitting on Lauren’s stark-white carpet, an ominous look on his face. I saw discarded beer cans, I saw lighters, a couple of bottles from Lauren’s father’s personal alcohol collection spilled on the kitchen table, or else half-empty or half-mixed with coke. I grabbed myself a stale root beer and some popcorn. The music was already beginning to blend with my bloodstream, I was beginning to drift into the in-between, the small line separating overwhelming consciousness and over-whelming lack of self.
I was beginning to walk back to Lauren’s parent’s room, pushing my way lightly through the crowd when Robert, Lauren’s boyfriend, touched my elbow.
“Hey, Ivy…” he said, in the voice one could never forget - the voice of one already completely lost to the void of apathy. In that one moment I saw how dead he looked with his eyes nearly closed, and how sad it was that although his spirit had almost completely left him, the body left behind had perfect posture. I knew that look in his eyes, and I knew what he wanted. I was quick to disappear into the crowd. It wasn’t until later that I chanced upon him in Lauren’s room - being more than friendly with Ally, the runaway, as more than a half dozen people would as the weekend progressed.
A crash sounded from somewhere inside the house, and I heard a sob of agony. I realized it was in Lauren’s bathroom - somehow she had found out about Robert. I pleaded with her for about half an hour, between yelling at Robert to come and help me. I was so afraid that she might do something rash. It is so sad that our nameless little subculture experiences such highs and lows, and that they are so easily discarded in what is assumed our trade.
Quick as a flash, she left the house, slamming her front door so heavily behind her I flinched. But before she left - she didn’t forget to say, “Ivy, I’m leaving you in charge.”
More and more people filled the house, as my mental abilities continued to decline. I had not had a single smoke or a single sip of anything other than my root beer - no doubt left in one of the many rooms I’d strolled through.
The house soon came to house about 50 - and I decided to take a break. I paused the music, to some mild groans, and put in a long-coveted CD of Lauren’s - Mindhole’s “Turkey Fucked.” I put it on loud enough to make the bed vibrate, put it on loud enough so that it would shake the weariness from my skull and the filth from my bones. I was beginning to have too many thoughts for a party of this sort. I heard things crash, and high-pitched giggles of boys and girls alike delighting in destruction.
I don’t remember ever falling asleep, I just remember waking up and seeing a tall, slightly hunched figure in Lauren’s doorway, and noticing that it was two hours later.
“Ivy, we need… your help out here,” it was Robert.
I walked into the house, squinting at the too-bright lights: and found the house in chaos. There were coke cans everywhere, as well as crushed cigarettes, food, chips, popcorn, somebody had spilled coke in the living room, and people had discovered the rest of Lauren’s liquor cabinet. The kitchen table was a sticky assortment of more alcohol than even I thought it possible to consume. But in the middle of the living room floor was truly my gift of the night - somebody had let Lauren’s dog in, and she had certainly let us know what she thought of the party - right on the stark-white living room rug.
It was then that I decided to take a break - and I stepped into Lauren’s infamous laundry room. More people had gotten washed and hung out to dry in there than I think even she could keep track of. People raised their eyebrows as they saw me enter, I had always proudly refused all of their requests. I immediately took a seat next to my friend Jon, proud veteran of Lauren’s laundry-room… and with enough brain cells left to prove it.
I took a seat across from him, and grabbed his home-made pipe - a six foot long thing. He quickly snatched it back from my hands and took a hit himself. To this day, I don’t know if he grabbed it from my hands out of greed - or out of a twisted sort of feeling of protection of me.
He took a long hit, with me sitting straight across from him, sitting on an overturned bucket. I could stare straight into his eyes, and I must say I was ready for the oblivion that awaited me. And yet there was no oblivion, and this disturbed me far more than any other stoner’s empty stare. He was in there, waiting to get out - or hiding form something - or trying to run away. I asked myself the question so many times while staring into his eyes, “Why, why, why? What are you trying to run away from? What are you trying to drown out? What are you running away from?”
It was then that I ran myself. So many kids in the living room, dining room, computer room, bedrooms - so many people having sex, drinking, smoking, playing video games, or running away from home. So many unanswered questions ringing in my ear - “What are you running away from? What are you running away from?”
The lights shut off and I heard Robert call my name. Or maybe I called his, I don’t quite recall. The cops had arrived. Crazy drunk Gary tried to get under Lauren’s futon, nastily scratching his face. Most of the attendants of the party were gathered in the main hall, whispering, “Pigs, pigs, pigs….” It finally occurred me to usher them into Lauren’s parent’s room, where they were least likely to be heard or seen. I went into the master bath myself with three of the drunkest guys - and shut myself up with them. I don’t know how long I waited in there, it might have been 3 minutes or 30. When I finally came out, I found something pleasant waiting for me at the door of Lauren’s parent’s room - two cops.
“You, what’s your name?”
“Ivy,”
“Ally? Are you sure you’re not Ally?” The officers continued to harass me, trying to make me the runaway girl that I was not. Lauren finally miraculously appeared and saved me, digging up an old I.D. “Her real name’s Yvette,” she told them, and I was never happier that I’d gotten too late to a party to drink.
The cops didn’t want to leave me alone. Maybe it as my cherubic face, my inevitable insolence, or the fat that I was caught holding a can of root beer in my hand, and not any other substance. After a million questions about whether or not my parents knew where I was and what I was doing (answered with a petulant ‘Yes’ every time), they decided to leave, on the premises that they only came for Ally and we hadn’t been drinking any alcohol, the cops left.
The party continued all around me, but I was no longer among its guest list. I had left to inhabit someplace else - someplace along with the walls, somewhere in the light fixtures. I was the fly on the wall. I was only half-present when the booze hounds stole into Lauren’s medicine cabinet, almost overdosing on some little white pills that made them all the crazier. I was only half-present when one of these booze hounds found it might be nice to clock me one on the side of my face, breaking my glasses. I was only half-present when Ally went crazy yet again and tried to beat my to a bloody pulp (she didn’t succeed).
Lauren and I were going to bed when I heard something scratching against a window in the kitchen. I looked outside, to Lauren’s vast backyard, and realized because of the pattern on the ground just how many people had chosen to run away when the cops came.
Walking back to the room I was sleeping in with Lauren, I paused to look in every other room, to see my beloved crazed teens, sleeping. I chuckled to myself at the dozens and dozens of converse on the floor - all-black, black-and-white, low tops, the all-black high tops with red shoelaces, mine.
“Hey Lauren,” I said as I climbed into bed with her, “Whatever happened to Jon? Where did he go?”
“Oh, he ran away when the cops came.”
And so did you, I thought. And everybody else in this house, including me. We’ve got a house full of runaways.
I hereby give it to the world.
THE RUNAWAYS
I remember running. I remember the sound of my feet hitting the pavement, and the sound of my ragged breathing rasping through the cold night air. I remember being dimly aware of the blur of lights all around me, of being intensely focused on one light up ahead.
I ran as if the devil was biting at my heels - and I was only half-aware that he really wasn’t. There was not predator at my heels, but I found it too hard to keep myself from pretending. I never paused to think that I might be a runaway. I just took it as a simple fact of life that I never belonged where I actually was - I only belonged where I was going.
I remember being late for a band party - a wicked two hours late, which meant that by the time I actually got there not only would the band have most likely finished playing, but there would also be no food, beer, or drinks for me.
I was dressed in my trash-glam party-wear - a vintage snow-white skirt with lace sticking out of the bottom (perfect for dancing in, and sleeping safely), and a black tank top. My hair was in a spidery, jet-black up-do, and my make-up was fit to match Danzig’s.
I arrived at the smoky gray shadow of a house, and a million kids with blood-shot, half-closed eyes crowded around the door. I was greeted by those who knew me, and a few who didn’t. I was offered a cigarette, and someone smoothly removed my long black velvet coat. I noticed with displeasure that nobody offered me a beer. I found out that I needn’t have worried about being late; the band had never arrived. No matter, however, Lauren,* Robert,* and I were there, and that was enough to get any party started.
I found my way to Lauren’s room, switched out the lights, and switched on some music - not loud enough to bother the neighbors, but just loud enough so that it could be heard throughout most of the house. I looked in Lauren’s underwear drawer for the prize that usually awaited me there - a can of beer. I found my most coveted prize and followed Lauren into her parent’s bedroom, to enjoy a beer silently with
Jake and Lauren. I had only been in the dark for a few seconds before the beer was snatched away from me before I took a sip.
I began to look around the house, observing the many different people there. It felt as if it were the first time that anybody had turned on my eyes, as if it somebody had turned on a light bulb in a dark room. I saw a guy making out with a girl on Lauren’s sectional. I saw a guy sitting on Lauren’s stark-white carpet, an ominous look on his face. I saw discarded beer cans, I saw lighters, a couple of bottles from Lauren’s father’s personal alcohol collection spilled on the kitchen table, or else half-empty or half-mixed with coke. I grabbed myself a stale root beer and some popcorn. The music was already beginning to blend with my bloodstream, I was beginning to drift into the in-between, the small line separating overwhelming consciousness and over-whelming lack of self.
I was beginning to walk back to Lauren’s parent’s room, pushing my way lightly through the crowd when Robert, Lauren’s boyfriend, touched my elbow.
“Hey, Ivy…” he said, in the voice one could never forget - the voice of one already completely lost to the void of apathy. In that one moment I saw how dead he looked with his eyes nearly closed, and how sad it was that although his spirit had almost completely left him, the body left behind had perfect posture. I knew that look in his eyes, and I knew what he wanted. I was quick to disappear into the crowd. It wasn’t until later that I chanced upon him in Lauren’s room - being more than friendly with Ally, the runaway, as more than a half dozen people would as the weekend progressed.
A crash sounded from somewhere inside the house, and I heard a sob of agony. I realized it was in Lauren’s bathroom - somehow she had found out about Robert. I pleaded with her for about half an hour, between yelling at Robert to come and help me. I was so afraid that she might do something rash. It is so sad that our nameless little subculture experiences such highs and lows, and that they are so easily discarded in what is assumed our trade.
Quick as a flash, she left the house, slamming her front door so heavily behind her I flinched. But before she left - she didn’t forget to say, “Ivy, I’m leaving you in charge.”
More and more people filled the house, as my mental abilities continued to decline. I had not had a single smoke or a single sip of anything other than my root beer - no doubt left in one of the many rooms I’d strolled through.
The house soon came to house about 50 - and I decided to take a break. I paused the music, to some mild groans, and put in a long-coveted CD of Lauren’s - Mindhole’s “Turkey Fucked.” I put it on loud enough to make the bed vibrate, put it on loud enough so that it would shake the weariness from my skull and the filth from my bones. I was beginning to have too many thoughts for a party of this sort. I heard things crash, and high-pitched giggles of boys and girls alike delighting in destruction.
I don’t remember ever falling asleep, I just remember waking up and seeing a tall, slightly hunched figure in Lauren’s doorway, and noticing that it was two hours later.
“Ivy, we need… your help out here,” it was Robert.
I walked into the house, squinting at the too-bright lights: and found the house in chaos. There were coke cans everywhere, as well as crushed cigarettes, food, chips, popcorn, somebody had spilled coke in the living room, and people had discovered the rest of Lauren’s liquor cabinet. The kitchen table was a sticky assortment of more alcohol than even I thought it possible to consume. But in the middle of the living room floor was truly my gift of the night - somebody had let Lauren’s dog in, and she had certainly let us know what she thought of the party - right on the stark-white living room rug.
It was then that I decided to take a break - and I stepped into Lauren’s infamous laundry room. More people had gotten washed and hung out to dry in there than I think even she could keep track of. People raised their eyebrows as they saw me enter, I had always proudly refused all of their requests. I immediately took a seat next to my friend Jon, proud veteran of Lauren’s laundry-room… and with enough brain cells left to prove it.
I took a seat across from him, and grabbed his home-made pipe - a six foot long thing. He quickly snatched it back from my hands and took a hit himself. To this day, I don’t know if he grabbed it from my hands out of greed - or out of a twisted sort of feeling of protection of me.
He took a long hit, with me sitting straight across from him, sitting on an overturned bucket. I could stare straight into his eyes, and I must say I was ready for the oblivion that awaited me. And yet there was no oblivion, and this disturbed me far more than any other stoner’s empty stare. He was in there, waiting to get out - or hiding form something - or trying to run away. I asked myself the question so many times while staring into his eyes, “Why, why, why? What are you trying to run away from? What are you trying to drown out? What are you running away from?”
It was then that I ran myself. So many kids in the living room, dining room, computer room, bedrooms - so many people having sex, drinking, smoking, playing video games, or running away from home. So many unanswered questions ringing in my ear - “What are you running away from? What are you running away from?”
The lights shut off and I heard Robert call my name. Or maybe I called his, I don’t quite recall. The cops had arrived. Crazy drunk Gary tried to get under Lauren’s futon, nastily scratching his face. Most of the attendants of the party were gathered in the main hall, whispering, “Pigs, pigs, pigs….” It finally occurred me to usher them into Lauren’s parent’s room, where they were least likely to be heard or seen. I went into the master bath myself with three of the drunkest guys - and shut myself up with them. I don’t know how long I waited in there, it might have been 3 minutes or 30. When I finally came out, I found something pleasant waiting for me at the door of Lauren’s parent’s room - two cops.
“You, what’s your name?”
“Ivy,”
“Ally? Are you sure you’re not Ally?” The officers continued to harass me, trying to make me the runaway girl that I was not. Lauren finally miraculously appeared and saved me, digging up an old I.D. “Her real name’s Yvette,” she told them, and I was never happier that I’d gotten too late to a party to drink.
The cops didn’t want to leave me alone. Maybe it as my cherubic face, my inevitable insolence, or the fat that I was caught holding a can of root beer in my hand, and not any other substance. After a million questions about whether or not my parents knew where I was and what I was doing (answered with a petulant ‘Yes’ every time), they decided to leave, on the premises that they only came for Ally and we hadn’t been drinking any alcohol, the cops left.
The party continued all around me, but I was no longer among its guest list. I had left to inhabit someplace else - someplace along with the walls, somewhere in the light fixtures. I was the fly on the wall. I was only half-present when the booze hounds stole into Lauren’s medicine cabinet, almost overdosing on some little white pills that made them all the crazier. I was only half-present when one of these booze hounds found it might be nice to clock me one on the side of my face, breaking my glasses. I was only half-present when Ally went crazy yet again and tried to beat my to a bloody pulp (she didn’t succeed).
Lauren and I were going to bed when I heard something scratching against a window in the kitchen. I looked outside, to Lauren’s vast backyard, and realized because of the pattern on the ground just how many people had chosen to run away when the cops came.
Walking back to the room I was sleeping in with Lauren, I paused to look in every other room, to see my beloved crazed teens, sleeping. I chuckled to myself at the dozens and dozens of converse on the floor - all-black, black-and-white, low tops, the all-black high tops with red shoelaces, mine.
“Hey Lauren,” I said as I climbed into bed with her, “Whatever happened to Jon? Where did he go?”
“Oh, he ran away when the cops came.”
And so did you, I thought. And everybody else in this house, including me. We’ve got a house full of runaways.