The Destroyer

By Deborah Eden

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 9, 2008
• ISBN: 9781469112541

Deborah Eden

Deborah Eden is a mother of two and proprietor of the web blog www.queendebbie.com. She has been published in many web zines and spends most of her time caring for her family who drive her crazy on a daily basis.

Book preview

Prologue

When I was fifteen I sat in my front bedroom, hanging out the window and smoking cigarettes, listening to Deep Purple records. I’d lift my tiny breasts as far away from the brown and yellow shutters as I could so my mom wouldn’t be able to smell the smoke, and I’d dream.

I’d dream of my future and how being an adult had to be better than this… this… boring life. Everything would surely fall into place once I grew up. Things magically happened to adults.

I dreamed of how I would fall in love with someone like Swan in the movie, The Warriors. I would play Mercy and a faceless hot stud would play my Swan. I was always fantasizing about him or John Taylor from Duran Duran. I imagined sex with them was as hot as it could get, and at fifteen, that’s what I wanted. I was a normal teenage girl, hormones raging. I could never remember a time when I hadn’t been focused on some form of obsession.

I was bored.

I was an only child.

I had two friends, Noel and Stacey. They kept me up to date on all that was happening since I was somewhat of a loner, with my pink hair and safety pinned clothes, when everyone else was getting into Addidas and rap music.

After my mom fell asleep and my dad ran off to yet another bar, I’d light a cigarette and be so cool, smoking, choking, getting dizzy, and staring out my bedroom window.

Every night, the Carachini’s across the street got drunk and beat the piss out of each other, one of them inevitably taking off in the car and roaring off into the night, only to come back a few hours later, no more fighting, until the next night.

The Steinback’s whose mother tried to poison our cat, Tinkerbell, swearing she was pissing in her grass. I think it was Mrs. Steinback pissing in her own grass. Or she was smoking it, one or the other. They had five children, one set of twins, and a henpecked husband who was forever running to the store for one gallon of milk, never two, always one, which infuriated my mother to no end, went up her ass like a finger in the heat of passion.

Then there were the Tomlinson’s, just married, holding hands, sometimes doing things on the front step that made me put own hands down my pants, thoughts back to Swan or John or whoever the stud of the moment was.

At fifteen, I finished what they were doing long before they did.

I watched everything with such a need, a burning, hungering need, wondering where I was going, what was in store for me. I had no aspirations. School bored the shit out of me, though I got good grades without even trying. I watched people go about their business and it was frustrating. No boys looked at me. I wanted them to want me. I wanted someone to want me. I went to a co-ed school, but the boys and the girls were separated, and when the boys snuck over, my pink hair and safety pinned uniforms were not a draw. I was surprised the school let me get away with them. They probably felt sorry for me. The girls with the Madonna haircuts and the crisply ironed uniforms were the ones they went for. I sat alone and smoked cigarettes. My friend’s Stacey and Noel went to the public school, which you had to take a bus to get to, and I wanted to be able to walk to school, so alone I walked.

Thank God Stacey lived ten doors up the street from me because sometimes if it wasn’t for her who knows what I might have done in a moment of great teen angst.

Life was so fucking confusing once I’d become aware of it.

And that’s about the time when everything around me exploded.

PART I

Chapter 1

It started on the edge of that strange endless summer when Gina was raped and murdered. My junior year in high school had just started. I trailed behind my friends, loathing their stories of good times and parties well into the midnight hours. They had lives. I had Souxsie and the Banshees. They were hanging out in the woods, drinking and smoking weed, and getting fucked. Stacey and Noel had started going out with Mike and Joe, respectively, and they were doing things that made my skin boil with envy.

 . . . And then we did it! Noel shouted, her eyes beaming.

Me and Mike did it too, Stacey boasted.

My face flushed with anger and I said nothing. I smoked pot with them once in a while, but this only increased my insecurity. I had no stories to tell. I felt awkward and annoyed. By the end of the summer I retreated into my room where I would stay, progressing from Deep Purple to Black Sabbath to Suicidal Tendencies. I was determined to take control of something in my life. I started working out. A vigorous work out that shed even more pounds from my bony frame, yet added definition.

When my dad left for good at the end of this summer, it hardly came as a surprise. It wasn’t even a disappointment, really, not like I had read in all the books, heard psychologists say. My mom took it harder than I did. That was her husband, her lover, I was angrier about not getting laid than I was about my father leaving.

I was a teenager with my own priorities.

It was on my very first day of junior year at Saint Bernadette’s for Girls High School (the boy’s side was St. Ryan’s) when my mom came running into my room, shaking me awake, more violently than necessary, even for the first day.

Have you seen Gina? she asked, in a panick that I could not comprehend in a sleepy dream state. I knew Gina. She was Gerry’s twin. I knew them vaguely if only because they were very popular and that they were twins. It turns out she was missing and had last been seen with three other kids; Ken, Fred and Millie.

The cops had gotten the same story from all three of them; they had been drinking and driving the night before and had been pulled over by a police officer who took great interest in getting the girls out of the car but, oddly, not the boys. Millie was the last person to have seen Gina alive. She and the boys had been so nervous about getting caught; none of them had taken a minute to think about why a cop would have taken the girls and not the boys when they were all clearly underage. The man had taken Gina and Millie and then dropped Millie off at her house, telling her to never do this kind of thing again and then drove off with Gina in the car. Millie had been terrified, thinking the cop had given her a break. She hadn’t said a word to her mother. She figured it would all come out anyway, which it did, when Gina’s mom, Theresa, called the next morning thinking that her daughter was sleeping safely at Millie’s house, and asked her to send Gina home. She wasn’t expecting the answer she got.

Didn’t the cop bring her home? she blurted through tears.

It was five hours later when the police found a young girl, of Gina’s description, thrown into a ditch, after having being sexually abused. The girl was dead. That girl was Gina.

The neighborhood response was incredible. Nothing like that had ever happened before in Monroe Park. The neighborhood itself had been created in the early sixties and nothing like this had ever happened in our quiet little nook in Northeast Philadelphia.

Later in the day, my mother, already at Teresa Johansen’s side, comforted her, sat with her. My aunt Millie had lost her only son in a tragic car accident years earlier and was able to relate to the tragedy on some level. Stacey, Noel, and I ran to the row home on Watershed Lane with the intention of helping, only to discover that everyone within a twenty mile radius had the same idea. We maybe got six feet from the front door. I couldn’t even find my mom. Hordes of people, young kids, worried mothers, reporters, and more than a few real police officers were roaming about. The cops were trying to maintain some sense of order. In the heat of the moment, some jerk off took this moment to fly by on his skateboard, which flew out from under him when he saw all the commotion.

Asshole! I yelled, tears in my eyes.

Fuck you, too, he yelled back, giving me the finger.

Noel flashed him a dirty look. Don’t you know what happened today?

What happened? He asked, clipping the skateboard with his front toe so that it shot up in his hand. He caught it with ease.

A girl was raped and murdered by a guy posing as a cop, she screamed, loud enough for more than a few people to turn around and throw her a dirty look.

Stacey smacked her on the arm and said, That’s Patrick O’Malley.

As if that should explain away his behavior. Patrick O’Malley was someone I vaguely recognized. He lived next to Stacey, but too far up the street for me to know him well. It’s funny how two people can live so close to each other yet never get to know them. I only knew that Stacey and Patrick’s family fought bitterly with each other, though I didn’t know why.

Stacey’s brown eyes cascaded to the ground. She placed a carefully manicured hand on her Sassoon covered hips and gazed back into the crowd.

What such a shame.

Patrick O’Malley’s eyes followed hers. He shook his head and said, Wow, that’s fucked up. Anyone want to smoke a joint?

How can you think of getting high at a time like this? Noel ripped into him.

I think about getting high all the time, he said.

I wanted to giggle, but never would. I felt horrible about what happened but the tension surrounding us was just too great.

So I heard, Stacey frowned.

For a moment, we stood in silence when suddenly Stacey had a change of heart. Sighing, she admitted, But that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. And then, something I’d heard my whole life, before I even knew what it meant. "Do you know what her name is?" she asked, pointing to me.

He surprised me by nodding, Everybody knows her name.

What does that mean? I asked, defensively.

Mary Jane. He bobbed his head up and down, obnoxiously. I mean, come on, everybody knows your dad, Teddy. He used to sell pot to my older brother. That’s probably how you got your name.

I stepped back, my face flooding with anger, the heat rising to the nape of my neck. That’s not true! My mom thought I was going to be a boy and when I came out I was a girl and I was supposed to be Anthony. They were still in the hospital when they saw this cute little girl named—

People turned around to stare at us, a reporter came running over, a microphone in hand, asking, How close were you to Gina Johansen?

I burst into tears which caused the reporter to put the microphone up to my face. I turned and walked away. I could hear Stacey chastising Patrick and Noel calling after me, Mary, come on, don’t let him get to you.

A girl I knew as Patricia Colone, who was merely an acquaintance of the twins, had suddenly become their best friends. I could hear the chatter of her saying,  . . . . and then Gerry told me that she couldn’t feel Gina anymore… .

What?

I shook my head. I turned to Stacey who was close behind me, What the hell was that all about?

Did Gina really say that? Stacey asked, lighting up a cigarette. Christ, that sucked we couldn’t even get to the front door.

My mom was best friends with Gina’s mother. She was in there somewhere. I’ll find out later. My eyes were still stinging with tears. My dad never sold pot. I hissed, hearing the scraping of a skateboard following us from behind.

Stacey shook her thick dark hair so that it fell to one side, her eyes lined thick with dark mascara. She swung back around, running her fingers through her hair again and again until it started aggravating me.

Who the fuck cares what he thinks, Mary? she asked, still primping, He’s an asshole. He used to string wire across the front yard when he knew my brother would be walking Smurf up the street and he’d trip over it, every time. You’d think Mickey would learn, but still. Or he’d put tacks on the pavement and they’d get stuck in his feet. He’s lucky my dog never got hurt or I’d have fucking killed him. God, I hate my hair! She stared at my own bleached out, half pink mop. I think I’m going to get it cut. Will you color it for me, the blonde part? I nodded, though not sure why she wanted to take her perfectly highlighted natural brown hair and bleach it out.

I felt Patrick looming behind us. I turned to face him and he stepped on the front of his skateboard to stop it. Hey, Mary, listen I wasn’t trying to hurt you or anything. I— he paused, searching for an explanation, while I cocked my head and stared at him. My brother used to say that Teddy down the street sold pot to all the kids—

Sold pot to all the kids? I cried, searching for words. You’re not making me feel any better.

Mare, what about my hair? Stacey was trying her best to change the subject, but I didn’t give a shit about her hair at that moment. I was seething. Just thinking about my dad, hurt. It just hurt. I pushed my own bleached blonde, half pink hair back into a bun, and tried to think of something to say.

I don’t know, Stacey… I broke. We had made it to Constader’s playground and I sat down on a bench by the ball field and just cried. Noel sat down next to me, glaring at Patrick while Stacey barked at him that maybe it was time to at least bring out the joint he’d promised. Noel thought this was disrespectful and Stacey was still more concerned about me bleaching her hair than anything else, asking meekly, Tomorrow, maybe?

Does anyone remember why we’re here? Noel asked, putting her hand to her forehead. Today’s Gina’s funeral, I can’t believe you guys are going to smoke a joint. What if Jeff sees us?

Jeff was the manager of the playground.

I stared at Patrick, ignored Noel, and watched him pull a joint from his cigarette pack.

America’s Choice? Stacey asked, snarling.

Well, what the fuck? They want a buck ten for Marlboro’s. These are only eighty-five cents, he explained.

You gotta’ go to the gas station in the middle of the parking lot, she told him, They’re only ninety cents there.

He nodded as Noel glanced around nervously. Patrick motioned to the pentagon shaped building at the foot of the playground telling us, Jeff won’t care as long as there ain’t any kids around.

We are kids, Noel said, shaking her naturally blonde hair behind her, her blue eyes like liquid glass. She was the man killer in our group. Walking down the street with her was humbling. Men stared at her and made comments that I’d never heard before. The youngest of our trio, she at one time was the ugly duckling, with buck teeth and a sloppy appearance. She was brought up in a very poor household, but her dad had good benefits and once her braces came off, everything else fell into place. She was the All-American apple pie femme fatale, with long golden locks that curled at the ends, sky blue eyes and super high cheekbones. Her body was filling out, too, while mine stayed somewhat kid-like, short and flat chested. My hair was bleached out and punk cut. I was used to being in her shadow. After her, they went for Stacey. I usually trailed behind, ignored.

That’s why it took me by surprise to catch Patrick staring at me from the corner of his eye. Now that the fervor had died down I found myself checking him out a little bit. His dirty blond hair was neatly trimmed and combed back in the feathering style of the eighties. He was tall, over six feet, and lanky. Not a stud, but appealing. It was his I-don’t-give-a-fuck demeanor that got to me. I dug it.

I had smoked pot a few times before but never really got anything out of it. Maybe this pot was better or something because all of a sudden I felt a heat rising inside of me like never before.

You didn’t lace this with anything, did you? I heard myself saying through static. It scared me. I looked at Stacey who was hitting the joint like she was sucking on a tailpipe.

Don’t steam the damn thing, Patrick snapped, causing her to jump. We watched the joint fall from her mouth and onto the ground. Noel stood in the background, her lips pursed, eyes blazing.

Give me the damn thing, she hissed, picking it off the ground and taking a hit.

Patrick laughed. It looked like there was a haze surrounding us and now I knew what Jimi Hendrix was singing about, except that this haze was distinctly pink, not purple.

The heat in my system was almost suffocating. My heart started racing. Nervously, I brushed my palm against my chin in a back and forth motion like I was wiping something off. Patrick noticed this immediately.

Are you all right? he asked, his eyes slivers of turquoise.

I guess, I said, not convincingly. He grabbed me by the arm. It was becoming hard to swallow and I felt like I was going to throw up. My panic did nothing to stop Stacey from sucking back the joint until it was non-existent. Then she asked for roach clips.

Patrick made a face. Fuck that. I’ll role another joint.

Noel’s green-blue eyes widened. Another one? I think I’m done. I like getting high, not retarded. I just want to go home and lie down. I’m tired.

She left. That left the three of us, with me on the verge of a breakdown. The only reason I held off is I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of Patrick. He was kind of cute and I longed to do something other than sit in my bedroom, listening to Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, though Master’s of Reality was indeed, a masterpiece of modern sound.

O’Malley, someone yelled from behind. I turned to see a good looking guy riding a mountain bike wearing Oakley sunglasses. When the man with the dark hair riding the bike called out Patrick’s name and smiled I noticed the gold caps on his teeth. That was the first time I’d ever seen that, a white guy, with gold caps.

Who’s that? Stacey asked.

Patrick blew out a large amount of smoke, forming a perfect ring. The guy who sold me this, he said, choking on it. Smokey.

My panic increased. Why had I left Gina’s funeral to smoke pot with Stacey’s neighbor? Stacey and Patrick were laughing at something I missed. Maybe they were talking about the Smokey. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. My heart was beating too fast.

Friday night we usually get these things called wine coolers. Bartle’s and James just came out with them. You guys should come up to the Jefferson School playground one night and hang out with us. You’d have a great time.

That sounds cool, Stacey said.

Yeah, I nodded, feeling sick.

I did not enjoy the rest of the night. I felt sick and silly and all I wanted to do was go back to my room, the room of gloom that I usually wanted so badly to escape from.

What felt like hours later Stacey said she wanted to get home, before her mom did and I gladly tagged along.

I have to go, too, I said.

Patrick’s face dropped. I thought maybe we could hang out tonight.

On a Wednesday? I have to go to school tomorrow, but Friday night sounds like a good idea, I said this, knowing I might drink, but never, ever would I smoke pot again.

Friday night came and Stacey asked if I was going to Jefferson with her that night. Noel had a date. Tuesday night I had slept so good and felt so relaxed the next day I decided maybe pot wasn’t so bad after all.

I’d never really ‘hung out’ before. I was a bookworm. Hair bands like Motley Crue and Guns n Roses were just starting out and hard core fans were everywhere. I was used to the long haired’s down at Constader’s playground, but not the rap group loving gold teethers that Patrick hung with. They all had short hair and gorgeous girls hanging around. They all had ‘fuck you’ attitudes that intimidated me, but Patrick hung with the crowd and didn’t seem bothered by them at all, and he had long hair.

A girl named Lynette came up to Stacey. She had a perfect body with big boobs, though conservatively dressed. Her hair was highlighted to perfection, unlike my bleach blond rag, hers cascaded in perfect dark to light tendrils. She had a condescending attitude, but Stacey remained unaffected and talked to her as haughty as she did her. This surprised me.

When she walked away Stacey giggled, I guess we’re beneath her gaucho loving ass.

I stared at the ground praying she hadn’t heard. Patrick laughed and made it worse yelling, She’s one of the Kennedy’s. She’ll kick both your asses at once.

Yeah, her sister Sissy is like a dude. Stacey nodded.

Anybody got any dust? someone howled from the short hair crowd.

Somebody else, maybe his girlfriend, started yelling at him about smoking it. I heard, That shit will kill you, Michael. It has embalming fluid in it.

He replied in a scratchy smoker’s voice, Good then, when I die I’ll make sure they give me a cheaper rate. I already got the shit in me. I got a good look at the guy. He was as big as a tank and scary looking.

He came right over to me, So, when did you hook up with O’Malley? The sound boomed across the entire Jefferson schoolyard.

I met him the day of Gina’s funeral, I said quietly.

Yeah, the funeral, he nodded, That sucks. What a fucking asshole. Didn’t they catch the guy?

Pretty much, I told him, only knowing what my mom had told me, All of the prisoner’s wrote to Teresa and said they would take care of him for her. He didn’t even get bail.

Good. I hope they poke him right in the asshole. He moved his pelvis back and forth in an exaggerated motion.

Patrick caught the guy talking to me and walked over. I see you met Mike.

Yeah, I said flatly.

You almost ready? he asked.

Yes, I said, jumping up, racing to tell Stacey I was leaving with Patrick. She was busy talking to some other guy and waved at me like she could have cared less.

I had a few beers in me and felt happy to be walking home half drunk, with a guy that I liked who I was pretty sure liked me back. I’d never even been out on a date before. We crossed the streets to my house. Everything was silent. He lived on the same street but on the opposite end. Again, I couldn’t believe our paths had never crossed before. I knew my mom would be asleep already. It was ten o’clock. And she trusted me completely. I’d never given her any reason not to.

We stepped inside without turning on the lights. We made our way down into the basement. Here it was quiet and private. I always hung with Stacey and Noel down there. The room was straight out of the seventies; a flowered couch, two felt orange chairs, an old refrigerator that always held Pudding Pops, and two toy boxes built into the wall, covered with vinyl print. Old posters hung from the wall, leftovers from my dad. One was of a picture of a gun that’s pistol pointed backwards and read ‘For sale—Polish pistol only used once.’ Another was a gravestone marking that read ‘I told you I was sick.’; A bunch of half naked women in velvety paintings.

We had a tiny backyard that used to hold your standard row home four foot pool, until last year when it collapsed, emptying buckets of murky green water into everyone else’s backyard.

Groovy couch, Patrick laughed, breaking me from my thoughts.

I giggled and tripped over a gold plated five pound weight, drunkenly falling onto the couch. He sat down next to me and said, You’re beautiful, you know that?

W-what? I stammered, staring at the refrigerator. Do you want a Pudding Pop?

He shook his head. No.

Bill Cosby always sells them on TV.

Well, Dyno-mite, he screamed, waving his arms wildly behind him.

I laughed hysterically.

You liked that, did you?

Yeah, but, that’s JJ from Good Times, not Bill Cosby.

Does it matter?

I shook my head and Patrick leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I didn’t even have time to think about it. I never kissed anybody before, but the alcohol must have taken over because I didn’t feel nervous at all. I felt incredibly horny.

His hand found its way up my shirt and I unzipped my pants. He lay back on the couch and started playing with my nipples. I couldn’t help but think that here I was a virgin, never even kissed anyone before and now I was letting some guy I just met put his hand up my shirt.

Hold on, he said.

What? Why? I could barely stand it. I wanted to have a story of my own to tell. I wanted to fuck.

When I was younger I taught myself how to come by rubbing my crotch against scratchy materials. I don’t remember how I started doing it, or why. I just did. And it felt good. With him holding back, yet still rubbing my chest, I couldn’t stand it. I straddled my legs across him and rubbed up against his pants. I did this until I came. It wasn’t hard I was so turned on. I was sure he couldn’t tell. He seemed distracted. Maybe he was too drunk or didn’t want to scare me. A million thoughts were running through my head. He never pushed me any further and I was a little embarrassed about coming on top of him without him even knowing. I thought that this was the time when we were supposed to have sex, but he just kept rubbing me. Like that, the moment was gone, leaving me tired and confused. Tiredness won out and as he headed for the door, kissing me again, saying goodbye, I was glad I had done what I had or I’d have been completely frustrated. I went to bed and fell right to sleep.

Chapter 2

Stacey called me the next morning, crying. Does Patrick have any pot, Mare?

My brain wasn’t even the least bit focused yet. I was fuzzy and my head was pounding. I felt like I was going to throw up.

What’s wrong, Stacey. Why are you crying?

I think I’m fucking pregnant. The last time Joe fucked me we didn’t use a condom and I still haven’t gotten my period.

Why would you do that? I asked, amazed that she would fuck some guy in the woods that she barely knew and not even use a condom—AIDS was everywhere, on the news, in all the papers. It just ‘came out’ and was all anyone ever talked about. I thought she should be more worried about that than being pregnant.

I don’t know, Mare. I wasn’t thinking. Now what am I going to do?

Why don’t we go to the store and get a pregnancy test?

I don’t have any money. I can’t ask my mom for money. What am I going to tell her it’s for?

Tell her it’s for school.

For what? she moaned.

Why don’t we just steal it? We used to steal all those Duran Duran magazines. I’m sure we could get a pregnancy test down our pants.

Will you come with me?

Of course, I said, the klepto in me relishing the challenge. I might have been a bit slow in the sex department, but I was no goody two shoes.

I got dressed and made my way up the street, glad that it was Saturday. I never remembered feeling so cloudy. I would have never made it to school like this. Patrick walked out of his house the minute I walked past Stacey’s house, her brother’s giant lawn sculptures eclipsing my view of him. His ‘sculptures’ were supposed to look like animals, but they didn’t. They looked like big blobs of unkempt shrubbery.

Hey, Mary Jane, where are you going? Patrick asked, brushing back his hair with a little black Ace comb.

Down the stores, you want to come with us? My face flushed when I spoke to him and thought of what happened the night before.

Sure.

He glanced at Stacey’s house, his lips curling into a smirk. Where’s Franny?

I don’t know, why?

Punk. Her brother is such a fag.

I didn’t know what to say. He was my friend’s brother, even if he did seem a bit wimpy. He was always yelling at Stacey or crying about something.

Whenever I tied his door shut he’d always get his mother to come out and yell at me.

I laughed, but stopped when Stacey came out of the house. I didn’t want her to think I was laughing at her brother.

Too late, Patrick asked, Where’s your fag brother? the second she reached us.

Patrick, I yelled, my mouth opened in surprise.

Wha-at? he mock whined.

Stacey just shook her head and laughed. He’s fine, she said.

She must have been upset.

We walked up the street and past Jefferson Elementary, down past the woods and passed the 7-Eleven, the beer store, the bar, and the pharmacy. This made up the epicenter of Monroe Park. Across the street there stood an A&P and a nightclub; next to that, a Thrift Drug. There was an old school bus on the corner that a guy sold fruit and vegetables from.

These were the days when the sun always seemed to shine, the days before I realized that life was not always fair. Even though I wasn’t the most popular nor the prettiest girl in school I just assumed that everything would always go my way.

This was also the set of stores we needed to get the pregnancy test from. The pharmacy across the street would have been impossible since they put everything of value behind the counter. I hesitated as we approached the entrance, not sure if Stacey wanted Patrick to know what she was getting into, but she pushed right past me.

Let’s get this over with, she huffed.

The pregnancy tests were in the back of the Thrift Drugs, in the pharmacy section. The pharmacist sat way up high, the regal king of all that was prescribed. I wondered how we were going to get past His Highness. Patrick stared at the tests and then turned to me and whispered, Does she think she’s pregnant?

I nodded, though my eye remained on the pharmacist, whose interest in us suddenly escalated. Three teenagers standing in front of the feminine products aisle, one of them a guy, was hardly subtle.

Can I help you? he asked, looking annoyed.

We’re just looking, Patrick said sharply.

Just looking? he asked, his eyebrow raised.

We don’t know which pregnancy test we want, he said boldly.

Stacey and I looked at each other. Patrick grabbed a box off the shelves and stared at it. I wondered if he knew what he was looking at because I sure as hell didn’t. The box was big and looked like it had a dozen different tubes inside. He motioned for us to follow behind, and we quickly headed for the front door. I heard the pharmacist in the background asking if we wanted to pay for the product there or at the front counter. That’s when all three of us broke out into a full on run. We heard, Security! but security turned out to be a tiny old man we busted right past at the front door. We made it through and just kept running. The pharmacist came running out after us. I couldn’t believe it. Stacey and I followed Patrick into the woods which were right behind the school bus. The guy with the vegetables smiled and waved at us as we passed.

I know these woods better than anybody, Patrick shouted.

Curiosity got the better of me and I turned to see if the pharmacist was still chasing us, and he was! I desperately tried to follow Patrick. We jumped over a piece of thin steel wire, a pathetic barrier that tried to keep teenagers out, yet did nothing but trip the pharmacist. We heard him cursing as he tumbled into the brush, yelling that he knew all of our names. We slid down a graveled hill. We kept running until we hit a cement bridge that served as a crosswalk to the other side of Monroe Park and eventually led us back up to Jefferson Elementary. I didn’t turn around again until we reached the schoolyard. The woods behind us were silent. Someone eventually did come up from behind and we all jumped until we saw that it was just a guy with thin wispy hair who Patrick knew. He called him Tony.

You guys want to smoke a joint? he asked, his voice like sandpaper.

Patrick stopped, breathing heavy and peering into the woods.

He’s been gone, I said.

Who’s gone? Tony asked.

Your joint doesn’t have any dust in it, does it?

Who’s gone? he repeated, oblivious to Patrick’s question.

The pharmacist, we all yelled.

What the fuck are you guys smoking? Tony barked.

Patrick would later tell me that not too many people liked Tony. He was a loser, but a loser with a free joint. And we all needed one after what we just went through. Stacey didn’t want to stop, but she did when Patrick and I both said we were. We sat on top of a log, and smoked Tony’s joint, or tried to anyway. He passed it to me first, but as soon as I inhaled it I noticed the difference in flavor. It tasted like dirty spearmint, so strong I pulled it from my mouth and winced. Patrick grabbed it from me and took a hit.

There’s dust in this, Tony. he yelled.

Stacey grabbed it, changing her mind. I’ll smoke it, I don’t care.

Are you sure? Patrick stared at both of us. I was vulnerable and lost any fear, fear that should have stayed with me.

Has anyone ever died from it? I asked.

Only from jumping out a window. Tony said, glancing around. And I don’t see any fuckin’ windows around here.

I took in a huge hit, sucking in its flavor. At first it felt just like a regular joint and I got all warm and fuzzy. I sat back and soaked in my surroundings, except that suddenly the trees started looking too green, the leaves began turning pointy and angular. I could see each dew drop on every point. After we finished, we walked out of the woods and into Jefferson Schoolyard. I thought maybe I’d feel better but it just got worse. I realized I couldn’t remember walking out of the woods. It freaked me out. I turned to make sure Patrick and Stacey were behind me and the green from the trees trailed together, almost as if I were flipping pages in a book, really fast. Everything started coming together and I began to hyperventilate.

Patrick noticed it right away. Are you OK, Mary?

Yeah, I whispered, feeling like I trapped in an elevator that was plummeting down way too fast. The sky above was moving round and round and I