Read Online Freaks and Revelations by Davida Wills Hurwin - Free Book Online Page A

head.
    “She lit your hair, man,” Glenn says and smacks me again.
    I cuss the girl out and shove her backwards. She falls into her boyfriend, a big blond flattop wearing a collar with spikes. I didn’t notice him. He pops me one, dead on, center of my forehead. My head whips back like a bobble doll. The girl laughs.
    This is not what I expected.
    Glenn presses through bodies and drags me away from them, somehow gets us closer to the stage; I’m dizzy and stink of burnt hair, with a bump rising in the center of my face. What the hell’s different from that stupid motel? Everybody keeps trying to mess me up.
    The MC rants on as the band sets up behind him. People jump on the stage; he kicks them back off. He punches one guy. Glenn slips me a flask and I gulp some whiskey. It burns going down. I’m about ready to suggest we get outta here when Black Flag kicks in.
    “I ain’t got no friends to call my own!”
    Lights change colors. People scream out the lyrics. Somebody starts to pogo and in an instant, the entire room’s jumping up and down, as one, including us. Everything starts to blur. The music’s going faster than my heart, but I’m catching up. The pounding in my head is now coming from the stage, and I can’t tell where I stop and everybody else begins. Long hair, short or shaved, we’re all Punk now—one mind, one single body. Nothing else exists. Dez Cadena catapults off the stage and onto the crowd. People carry him over their heads. I reach up and feel his weight as he travels across the room, never dropping the mic from his mouth:
    “Depression’s gonna kill me!”

Early 1978
    TWO YEARS BEFORE
    SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

    {1}
    Sometimes on Sundays, I pretend to have a headache so I won’t have to go to church. Marianne knows I’m faking, but doesn’t say anything. We take care of each other.
    Today, I lounge in the old iron chair on the front porch; it’s got a big round spring so you can rock back and forth, side to side, or even in a circle. I like how it creaks. I think about my family. I wonder about my dad, if he’s out in the garage doing a sign. I wonder if Paul’s okay. When he turned eighteen, he got out of Juvie and decided not to come back home.
    “Your brother broke my heart,” Mom said when she found out. “Every time the phone rings at night, I know it will be something bad. I couldn’t live if anything happened to one of you kids.”
    I wonder if that’s true.
    I creak the chair around. I like how it feels. I like being where I’m not supposed to be. I start counting the cars that whiz by, trying to keep track of how many I see of each color. The street’s busy this morning—it adds up fast.
    A bright yellow van goes by, the color of a school bus. It’s number three on yellows. A baby blue Bug is twelve, or maybe thirteen of blues. Another red car is twenty-one. One more yellow van—no, wait, it’s the same one. Should I count it twice? Why not? Four yellows. Five minutes later, it comes by again. I sit up. The guy driving pulls over to the curb and beckons me over.
    “I’m afraid I’m lost,” he calls out, smiling, very friendly. I walk down the sidewalk to his car. He’s a teenager and really cute; even Marianne would think so. He’s in brown cords and a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The car behind him honks and he waves it by. He’s got nice white teeth and smells of good cologne. “I thought there was a store nearby?”
    I like how he looks, brown eyes and dark hair in a short do. I’m starting to get a little tingle. I point to the right. “Yeah, 7-Eleven. Three blocks, at the corner of Wesley.”
    “Well, I’m dense,” he laughs, “because I can’t find it. I’ve gone by there twenty times.”
    He smiles and I blush. I tip my head down and look up at him. I shrug.
    “You think maybe you’d show me?” he asks, reaching over to open the passenger door. Click.
    Tingles for sure now, but I shake my head no. “I have to stay