Lilly

OGW NOTE:  OGW WILL NOT BE POSTING NEXT WEEK.  OGW WILL BE POSTING EVERY TWO WEEKS FOR THE SUMMER (JULY-SEPT.)

Lilly:  New Outsider Girl, Lilly, is a teen on her own in San Francisco in the 1990’s.  No home, no job, no life, but surviving thanks to the kindness – or not – of strangers.

Lilly:  San Francisco.  My clubbing years.  My no-real-home years.  Job:  Dancing three nights a week for $75 and free drinks; Troc, Urban Decay, DNA Lounge.  Covers my meth, my E, my weed, my brunch at “R” Bar of bloody mary with shrimp, pickled string beans and celery.  Breakfast of Champions.

I feel like I’m stuck in a permanent weekend.

Sleep wherever I end up.  Today I’m sprawled on a Mexican blanket on someone’s floor.  Can’t remember who.  Is it a she?  A he?  Unusual for me to be on the floor, especially if it’s a he, but often if it’s a she as well.

Mouth dry, lips cracked.  Back aches.  Spine.  Heard when you do Ecstasy your spinal fluid dries up, but I don’t believe it.

Memory:  Dancing afterhours at Chez Luis, basement private club.  E kicking in.  Talking to some girl, name Star.  Talking, talking, talking, yelling over house music spun by DJ Troy, my sometime fuck buddy.  This is not his floor.  Star said, “Where’d you get that New York accent?”  I’m like, “New York.”  She:  “It’s cool.”

Memory:  Huddled against heating unit, naked, crying, pink dildo, trying to jerk off, trying trying trying, can’t.  Curse the tequila at Bar None.  Someone cradles me, picks me up.

Oh that’s how I ended up here.

Push up to sitting.  Naked, great.  Just great.  I frantically scan the room for my duffel, and it’s there on the floor and I grab it, pull it toward me.  Thank God.  Clothes and half a doobie. 

Oh yeah, much better.  Dude or dudette must’ve gone to work?  For coffee?  Bathroom?  No way to know, but don’t care much.  Time for me to exit, stage right.

Locked.  Fucking locked in!  Pound, kick at the door, start screaming in a cracked, desperate voice.  Where am I? 

HELP ME!

No one hears.  No one comes.  Palms hurt from banging on the door.  Sink to the floor, clutch the Mexican blanket like Linus does his security blanket.

Nancy

Nancy is Casey's mother, both from OGW and from the novel I recently finished, Somebody's Daughter.  Nancy's daughter and her friends have been at a party -- their first keg party.  Nancy freaks out and goes looking for them at 3 am.  Read the first 21 pp. of Somebody's Daughter at http://www.writing.com/authors/shelley2007.  Read more from Kayla, Casey, Rain and Nancy in OGW:  10/1, 11/5, 11/12, 12/10, 12/31, 1/14, 2/11, 3/25.


Nancy:   I woke up with a start at three AM, sitting straight up and shaking my head, as if a bucket of water had just been thrown on me.  I rubbed my eyes frantically.  I remember thinking, Something’s wrong!  Casey! and hurrying to her room.  She wasn’t there.  Grabbing my keys and my cell, I was dialing her number as I slid my feet into my Berks.  She didn’t answer, and I left a quick, “Where the hell are you?” message before fumbling with the door downstairs which shit!  -- always stuck in summer.  I threw my shoulder against it and finally smashed through, ran to my car, left the house door open behind me and didn’t care.

Brian Kepler’s house was quiet.  Too quiet.

“Casey!”  I yelled in the backyard.  “Casey!  Casey!”

Backyard strewn with empty and broken bottles.  Pool table in the garage felt torn.  Running, slipping, running, shouting.

“Shut up or I’ll call the cops!”  I heard from the house behind the back fence.

I should’ve called the cops, but I ran into the house through an open door instead, dialing as I went.  “Casey!” I yelled into the house and the phone at the same time, stupid voice mail.  Stupid party.  Stupid mom.

Upstairs, I threw open doors.  Threw open one, and Kayla was in a boy’s bed, but no boy.  She was sleeping, tucked in all nice.   

“Kayla!  Kayla!  Wake up!  Where’s Casey!  Where’s my daughter!”

Kayla opened her eyes, snapping awake the way I had back at home.  “Mrs. Shaw?”  Kayla fumbled under the covers.  “Oh God,” she said.

“Looking for these?” I said, throwing her underpants at her.  “Where is Casey?”

“I don’t--”

“Forget it!  You’re useless.  You stupid little--”  I didn’t say bitch, but I was thinking it as I left the bedroom and continued throwing open doors, shouting as I left open the doors, revealing girls and boys making out, having sex, passed out in vomit, stoned, stupid.  “Casey!”  

The door at the end of the hallway opened, and a boy, Brian, that was who it was, Brian Kepler, I thought.  

He tried to stop me from going in.  “You can’t --”

“Casey!” I yelled, pushing past the boy, into the room.

I froze.

“Look, I don’t know what happened, but I told them they have to go.  I don’t know--”

“Shut UP!”  I yelled in Brian Kepler’s face.  I noticed the top button of his shorts was undone.  He wasn’t wearing a shirt.  “Don’t you move,” I told him.

God help me, I forgot about Casey when I walked into that room.  All I saw was Rain Rikowsky, eyes shut, legs spread. -- (I don’t know how to say this, I’ll just do it) -- a boy with his shirt off and shorts around his ankles, pumping on top of her.  A couple half-naked boys, boys with their zippers undone and their hands moving fast, groans, shouts and cheers swallowed when I’d burst in.  The boy on the bed jumped down and grabbed his shirt off the floor, tried to run.  Brian Kepler stopped him.  I tore a handheld video camera out of another boy’s hand.

“I think you broke my thumb!” he yelled at me.  I slapped him.

“Shut UP!”  I said, rushing to the bed and throwing a stained bloody sheet over Rain’s lower body.  I rushed to her head, I said, “Rain, honey, wake up, Rain, are you there?” Her head lolled.  Someone snickered, but mostly the boys were trying to get away.  Many did escape.  But Brian threw camera boy down and shirtless boy against the wall.  For about half a second I wondered whose side Brian Kepler was on.  He seemed to be on ours.  But I hated him.

I called 911.  I gently stroked Rain’s face.

“Oh God,” I heard from the door.  It was Kayla.  “Rain... Brian... oh God oh God oh God oh--”

Brian tried to hold on to Kayla, but she shoved him, sudden power bursting out of her.  She ran to Rain and held her hand.  I dropped the camera I’d confiscated.  I looked at Kayla.  “Where’s Casey?” I tried to say, but it was hard to talk.  I couldn’t get a breath, and I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t find the ground with my feet anymore.  

Gabby

In respect of LGBT WEEK… Gabby is an outsider girl with a lesbian Mom.  Gabby learns that just being lesbian doesn’t make you cool, and her Mom’s girlfriend is as annoying as Mom’s last boyfriend.

Gabby: “Gabby, what’re you doing?” Ellen yells to me, even though I’m only in the next room.  Her tone says:  “Whatever you’re doing, it’s not as important as what I’m about to ask.”

“Folding laundry,” I say.  My tone says, “Your laundry so’re you sure you want to get on my case now?”

“Get me a snack.  Gab-by,” Ellen whines.  “Gabby!”

     “Get it yourself!  God!  I’m folding your laundry right now —“

     “Gaaaby, my feet hurt.  You try wearing three inch heels for eight hours.  What’s your problem anyway, just get me some of those pita chips and some of that spicy hummus from last night.  It’s not that difficult, I’m not asking for you to come up with a gourmet -- Gabby?  Are you listening to me?  Come on Gabby, I’m serious.  Your mother always tells me what a good kid you are… Gabby, are you there?  Gabby, what’re you doing —“

     “Alright, alright!” I say, dropping the laundry on the dining room table.  Anything to shut Ellen up.

     I hate Ellen.  I wish my Mom were home.  This is so Cinderella.  Lesbian Cinderella.

You think it’s going to be different when your Mom reveals to you she’s coming out as a lesbian, I mean, I thought that.  Not just different as in no smelly guys tracking mud in the house and sneaking glances at my chest.  I don’t know why, but I thought when my Mom made peace with her sexuality and got a girlfriend, our life was going to be all about fresh flowers, impromtu fashion shows, sunglasses and floppy hats, makeovers, ice cream straight from the carton… I thought when Ellen moved in it was going to be like the perfect sleepover party.

Ha!

Reality?  Since my Mom got with Ellen, not only is life at home not girl talk and sleeping bags in front of the TV, I can’t even have a real sleepover party with my friends.  Seriously, no one is allowed to sleep over at my house anymore.  None of my so-called friends’ parents want their kid to sleep over in a house full of lesbians.  They like think life in my house is a non-stop orgy or a sex ed. class or something, which is almost as funny as me thinking it would be a non-stop ice cream sleepover.

I want my mom to be happy, I do! I think as I spoon hummus into a small plastic bowl, exactly two tablespoons because Ellen’s on Weight Watchers.

     A tear slips out of my eye and slides over my cheek.  I wipe it away quickly, but another tear follows, then another, then faster and faster, and I’m crying, and I can’t stop and all I want is someone to get a snack for me, to love me.  Right now it feels like I don’t have two Moms, I have two children.  And they’re not the cool kids on the block like I expected they would be.

Jessica

Jessica first appeared in a short story I wrote, called “The Book”, for the anthology “Lost and Found”.  The story is a memory of Jesse and her best friend Anne… first love, and of the events leading up to a tragic accident.

Jessica:

When I isolate, I go all the way, I mean no contact with the outside world, I mean if you’re not an anxiety or nasty phrase in my head, you’re just not in my space, know what I mean?  I’ve been in that head space for weeks.  Not everyday since the accident, but most.

But today, in spite of the pain in my leg, I slid on a pair of sweats and asked my Mom to drive me to the gym. 

When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t even muster the energy to put on my iPod and listen to angry alternative music and cry.  I felt too badly even for that.  Honestly? I wanted to die today.  I usually keep up a good face, and I exercise my bad leg faithfully, but not lately.  Not since a week ago last Tuesday.  Yep, that was the last day I felt like living.  

But this morning I thought, if I spent another day in bed, or dragging my leg uselessly behind me in mental and physical agony -- I might as well be dead.  I deserved to be dead.

Yet I knew, or had myself partly convinced, that I also deserved a chance to feel better, go figure.  Am I forgiving myself for Anne’s death?  I hope not.  Still….

“How are you today?” my Mom wants to know.

I see the For Sale sign on Anne’s old house next door as we pull out of the driveway, and I say, “Dunno,” which is true.  I dunno anything. 

At the gym I lifted three pounders:  biceps, triceps, delts front, middle, back, pecs, lats, rhomboids.  I sucked in my gut and pulsed up and sideways.  I stretched – feeling, if not actually hearing -- my bad leg creak as I pulled it straight and leaned for all my might.

I felt better.  Like one baby step outta my head.

Not happy enough to shower at the gym with all those women, friendly and loud, but well enough to stop in the coffee shop for a cappuccino before my Mom came to get me. 

OhmiGod!   There, in the coffee shop, was Lark, my dearest friend from rehab., Lark with her fused spine and only one complete arm.  Lark, who reminded me how much worse pain could be.  Call it the Power of the Universe, God or Goddess, the Tao, or just Dumb Luck – Lark!  Here, now! I seriously almost cried. 

I said I’d been meaning to call her, but… and she said, “I know.  Me too.”  Then we hugged, my crutches hanging from my wrists and clanging behind her back, she supporting me with her one arm, a couple of crips no longer alone… God!  Good!  Smiles on broken lives like bandages on our hearts!

And I was out!  Out of my self-imposed isolation.  Free of my meanie self, my head-jail.  Never free of guilt, but walking in the world. 

I dunno, but it seems like it’s good enough for today.  Freakin a miracle, if you ask me.

Megan

Megan is a rich California girl stoner, who formerly appeared in OGW, Dec.3.  Her friend Stacy wrote OGW, Jan.21.

Megan:  Today it’s my birthday!  (da naa naa na naa naa)

Lying on the floor, smelling carpet.  Cigarette burning, ashes falling without me having to tap it, my hand floating over the ashtray.

Suspended animation.

I’m all, “I don’t think we’re gonna make the movie,” and Stacy’s like, “Why not?” and I’m like, “’Cause I can’t get off the floor,” and she’s all hardee har har.

Well, outta Stase, it’s more like, “p-ha-ha (hiccup) hee hee p-ha-ha, hee” cause she’s trying not to laugh too hard, she’s trying to act all together and not ass-kicked, on the floor, STONED.  She’s like, “Did you ever notice how everything comes in three’s?”

I heard on the east coast, which is where my sister Angela goes to Hah-vard, there’s like no such thing as Chronic. (!!!)  Angela says there’s like “B” weed, and people charge a heap and it’s not even “A” weed, and I’m all, “I’m there, sista, gonna pack up my trunk full of chronic and drive out there this summer and sell it,” but she’s such a downer, she’s like, “Megan they’re going to send you back to rehab if you don’t shape up,” and I’m all, whatever, bitch.

Stacy says, “If you drive across country with your trunk full of weed, you have to be careful, remember that Stephen King book with the cop with the melting face and shit who like threw those people in jail and was going to send them to hell or some shit, like remember that?  It was like called like Deliverance or whatever—“

“Deliverance was a movie.”

“Yeah, this was a movie.  Ohh my God!  And remember that other movie!  Texas Chainsaw Massacre, right?  Don’t drive through Texas.”

“I know, right?”

The chronic we smoked after school today is my favorite, it’s called Blueberry, and Stacy’s bro knows the grower so we get it lots and also this other weed called Spaceland, which is Stacy’s favorite—

What was—is someone at the door?  I’m so fucking doomed if--

No.  Getting paranoid. 

Feeling my toes dig into the carpet, feeling like it’s totally interesting, but then why am I feeling sweaty and now I’m getting nauseous and crap oh crap I’m having a panic attack is someone at the door is my face melting I wanted to go to the movies and now I can’t and if someone’s at the door I’m fucking dooooomed I’m screwwwwed I’m fucked up and sweating and this weed is so strong you do half a hit and you’re on the floor and that’s cool that’s cool Megan that’s cool don’t freak out I’m freaking out I need to stay up to stay out to--

“Give me another hit, now Stase, now!”

I suck on the bong.  Bongs are gross.  The way they gurgle is like a whole lot of spit in the throat of this glass beast.  Hate bongs, but you can’t smoke chronic in a joint cause Stacy’s brother’s friend says it’s like so not cool and it wastes the good weed and you have to use a bong—

Shit.  Head hit the carpet.  Staring into the fibers, it’s dark down here.

See the net underneath, holds the fibers together, makes a carpet for my face to rest on.  Can’t close my eyes.

Monsters inside.

Lucy

Lucy is a new Outsider Girl.  In this very short piece, she repeats the mantra, “Peace, love, respect,” but seems to be the only one who holds out hope for that.

Lucy:  “Peace, Love, Respect,” my mother says to me, well, yells down to me from upstairs, where she claims to be watching a movie and giving me and Keith some “quality alone time”, another of Mom’s catch phrases.

     But how do I live the mantra -- the peace, the love, the respect -- when Keith is using his “You don’t understand a word I’m saying because you’re so—“

     “--fucking frustrated!  Yes, I’m frustrated, Lucy!  You will not fucking listen!  And another thing—“

     I’m thinking, “Peace.  That means no fighting.  Love, that means caring for each other.  Respect, that means treating others the way you’d like to be treated.  Listen!  Lucy, you have to listen!  Give him his say, and maybe he’ll feel better.  Maybe he’ll want to kiss you.  Maybe he’ll tell you how lovely you look today, how your blue eyes sparkle and your curls are so soft they smell like lavender, and—“

     Maybe when he reaches out his hand he will stroke your cheek and tell you he loves you instead of what I know he’s—

     My head snaps back from the force of his slap, so hard, I hear my neck crack.  I don’t dare cry.  Peace, love, respect, peace, love, respect, peace, love, respect, I keep saying to myself.

Gemma's Mom

Gemma’s Mom:  Gemma is a thirteen year old who has just sprouted fairy wings because her mother was an addicted to fairy Dust.  When she burned out and her wings stopped working, Gemma’s Mom ran, leaving Gemma when she was only six.  Gemma first appeared in a short story, “Wings”, then in OGW 9/24/09, 10/29/09, 2/4/10, and now she’s the narrator of a novel I’m working on.  The following is a letter Gemma’s mother wrote to Gemma when she was eight.

My darling girl, my little fairy, my precious Gem,

Remember when I used to fly?

Remember that poem I used to read to you?   “Come away, human chyld/ to the waters and the wyld/ With a fairy hand in hand/ From a world more full of weeping than you can understand.”  I saw it framed on the wall of a friend’s bedroom yesterday, and I began to cry.  I’d tried not to think of you for so long.  My feelings for you came rushing back in that instant, breaking the wall I’d built up around my heart.

Do you still love me?  I used to be your whole world.  Are you very angry with me?  Have you tried to forget me?  Please believe me when I say I love you very much.  I’ve been scared and lonely and trying to heal.  But yesterday, the Goddess showed me that Yeats poem, and I knew it was a sign that I needed you back in my life.  I’ve missed you soooo much. 

You must wonder why it took me two years to write to you.  Maybe you’re wondering why I never came home.

Remember when you couldn’t wait to be like me?  When I left, I didn’t want you to see me so broken.  I didn’t want you to want to be like me any more.  I left to spare you.

Honey, I couldn’t bring you with me, or come back, not the way I was. 

It’s taken me two years, but I’m learning to fly again.  I have friends, I have the Goddess in my life, I’m painting beautiful pictures (like we used to, together.  Remember when we used to paint together?  Is that mural still on the wall in the upstairs hall?  Or did your father paint over it?  He probably did paint over it.  I don’t want to place blame, but in order for you to understand why I left, you should know that your father never understood me.

I should’ve taken you with me.  Every day I’ve thought of you.  Every day.  I have a picture of us from the day you were born, you’re a little doll, porcelein-white, sucking on the long sleeve of a onesy that covers your hand.  Your head is against my neck, and you are at peace.  As am I.

      

I was afraid to write to you.  I was afraid your father had turned you against me.  Do you understand, I loved him so much, but he stopped caring about me.  In the end, he wasn’t even talking to me!  He never understood me.  How devastated I was after Jacob was born, when I stopped being able to fly.

I’m not blaming Jacob -- he was such a sweet boy!  How is he? 

You were tooo young to understand, but when Jacob was born, something inside me snapped.  I think it was what’s called post-partum depression, which you’re too young to understand.  I was just so sad.  I felt like I was in a horror movie, only it was real and it was never going to end.

I felt trapped.  I was dying inside.  My wings had stopped working and were worn out and dull and I couldn’t understand why, but I know now it was because of my heavy heart.  I’d always used flying to lighten my spirit, but it wasn’t working anymore.  Even your sweet, heart-shaped face and contagious laughter couldn’t lift me up.  My wings were heavy weights.  Jacob was another weight I couldn’t carry.  Your father didn’t want to help me.

You used to say, “It’s all right Mommy,” and pat my hand.  But it wasn’t.

Anyway, enough sad talk.  I love you Gemma, I always have and always will.  I am getting better, and when I am fully healed, I will bring you to New York City to live with me.  We were meant to be together.  Goddess willing, we will be.

Please forgive me.  I love you, baby.

Love,

Mommy