Harvard anymore. Dad was inconsolable with rage and, clearly, didnât want to see me for awhile.
At least that was something I could do right, I could stay away from home like a pro. As I watched him drive away, my heart broke for him. And, though I was relieved I wasnât in the car with him right then, I knew I would make him proud of me one day. I remember clearly thinking, Iâm fucked up right now, Dad, but one day, you will be proud to tell people that Iâm your daughter.
O ne of those fucking freaks my father hated so much was one of my dearest friends. Her name was Stitch, and she saved my life.
I was sixteen and I still had a mind to lose. My sanity was careening on a mad rolling bike with no handlebars, and I was blindly flailing into an inevitable belly flop into the abyss. But not until my twenties. I could still go crazy my way and collect all the exclamation points life could swing at me. So I decided to go crazy, officially, a week or so after my sweet sixteen. Fuck Dr. Lovey.
There were loads of girls in the punk-rock scene who wanted to kick my ass for one reason or another, mostly because I was so loud and uncool, but I had one or two aces on my side.
Stitch was a super badass, had never lost a fight, and, for whatever reason, she was my friend. She looked six foot nine withher Marlboro-box-red Mohawk and greyhound lean body. She was a few years older than me, but had a job at a nightclub and her own apartment on Mission Hill. I would often crash with her in exchange for cooking spaghetti and canned white clam sauce (my specialty at the time). We would eat, drink beer, smoke tons of pot, and talk about music, fights, and whatever we dreamed for ourselves in the future.
Stitch knew that I was going crazy, and she thought it was cool. She wanted to see it happen.
And it did, on the Fourth of July, 1985.
It was an established fact, or rather, someone read somewhere, that if you take acid seven times you are thereby clinically insane, so, for a pile of fucked-up kids, it was a celebration when one of us would hit lucky number seven.
My birthday had been just a few days earlier. My sweet sixteen. Everyone had forgotten about it. Dad was up at Boarsie, Henry was at awesome camp, and John was anywhere he wanted to be. Eventually, I got a call from Henry, a hug and a joint from John, and my dad left me a present on the sofa on one of his microvisits, before he split again. It was a poster of a kitten sitting in a wine glass. He was still pissed at me for the whole crew thing.
So on June 25, 1985, I made myself a key lime pie that I ate, by myself, while drinking a stolen bottle of dry vermouth. That night I ended up in the backyard, with my arm around my dog Rosie, hacking up bitter green foam and crying like a girl.
A week or so later, I get a few hits of acid and decide to share it with Stitch. She told me about the whole clinically-insane-after-seven-trips factoid, and we were both into it. My brain was going to go bye-bye anyway, so why not help it along?
It was the Fourth of July, and it was bloody hot. Hot like deep in a panting dogâs mouth hot. Everything in Boston looked smudgedwith a piss-yellow halo of hanging, soggy air. The plan was for me, Stitch, and a couple other kids to hang in Faneuil Hall to trip, scare children, beg for change, then hit Harvard Square at sunset to drink bagged 40s and watch fireworks over the Charles River. Then we could all pass out in the park. A perfect teenage day.
Once in Faneuil Hall, the acid churning in our empty bellies, we made our way to the Christian Science Center. The CSC was a great place to have a picnic and enjoy a summerâs day if you were normal. It was also an ideal location to get all twisted on drugs, if you were a jackass punk with a middle finger for a moral compass. There was an impeccable little grassy park stretching away from a massive reflecting pool and a fountain. The park was dotted with small ornamental trees
At least that was something I could do right, I could stay away from home like a pro. As I watched him drive away, my heart broke for him. And, though I was relieved I wasnât in the car with him right then, I knew I would make him proud of me one day. I remember clearly thinking, Iâm fucked up right now, Dad, but one day, you will be proud to tell people that Iâm your daughter.
O ne of those fucking freaks my father hated so much was one of my dearest friends. Her name was Stitch, and she saved my life.
I was sixteen and I still had a mind to lose. My sanity was careening on a mad rolling bike with no handlebars, and I was blindly flailing into an inevitable belly flop into the abyss. But not until my twenties. I could still go crazy my way and collect all the exclamation points life could swing at me. So I decided to go crazy, officially, a week or so after my sweet sixteen. Fuck Dr. Lovey.
There were loads of girls in the punk-rock scene who wanted to kick my ass for one reason or another, mostly because I was so loud and uncool, but I had one or two aces on my side.
Stitch was a super badass, had never lost a fight, and, for whatever reason, she was my friend. She looked six foot nine withher Marlboro-box-red Mohawk and greyhound lean body. She was a few years older than me, but had a job at a nightclub and her own apartment on Mission Hill. I would often crash with her in exchange for cooking spaghetti and canned white clam sauce (my specialty at the time). We would eat, drink beer, smoke tons of pot, and talk about music, fights, and whatever we dreamed for ourselves in the future.
Stitch knew that I was going crazy, and she thought it was cool. She wanted to see it happen.
And it did, on the Fourth of July, 1985.
It was an established fact, or rather, someone read somewhere, that if you take acid seven times you are thereby clinically insane, so, for a pile of fucked-up kids, it was a celebration when one of us would hit lucky number seven.
My birthday had been just a few days earlier. My sweet sixteen. Everyone had forgotten about it. Dad was up at Boarsie, Henry was at awesome camp, and John was anywhere he wanted to be. Eventually, I got a call from Henry, a hug and a joint from John, and my dad left me a present on the sofa on one of his microvisits, before he split again. It was a poster of a kitten sitting in a wine glass. He was still pissed at me for the whole crew thing.
So on June 25, 1985, I made myself a key lime pie that I ate, by myself, while drinking a stolen bottle of dry vermouth. That night I ended up in the backyard, with my arm around my dog Rosie, hacking up bitter green foam and crying like a girl.
A week or so later, I get a few hits of acid and decide to share it with Stitch. She told me about the whole clinically-insane-after-seven-trips factoid, and we were both into it. My brain was going to go bye-bye anyway, so why not help it along?
It was the Fourth of July, and it was bloody hot. Hot like deep in a panting dogâs mouth hot. Everything in Boston looked smudgedwith a piss-yellow halo of hanging, soggy air. The plan was for me, Stitch, and a couple other kids to hang in Faneuil Hall to trip, scare children, beg for change, then hit Harvard Square at sunset to drink bagged 40s and watch fireworks over the Charles River. Then we could all pass out in the park. A perfect teenage day.
Once in Faneuil Hall, the acid churning in our empty bellies, we made our way to the Christian Science Center. The CSC was a great place to have a picnic and enjoy a summerâs day if you were normal. It was also an ideal location to get all twisted on drugs, if you were a jackass punk with a middle finger for a moral compass. There was an impeccable little grassy park stretching away from a massive reflecting pool and a fountain. The park was dotted with small ornamental trees
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