I worked the midnight to 6am shift for a Portland rock station and loved every second of it.  It was perfect I didn’t have to deal with any of the slimly sales people or the suits in corporate or the interns and promotion department that always want to hang out and pitch ideas.  I became obsessed with photocopying my ass, just because I could then fax it to my listeners who were stuck alone at night with office equipment. My favorite game was to play: “Let’s see what my co-workers left for me to eat in the fridge.”  I always went for the bags that said:  Do Not Eat!  I’m such a rebel. Another perk to working the late shift  was that I could break  format which meant I would play what ever I wanted because my bosses were all asleep, so I thought.  I got a request for Sublime’s  “Date Rape.”  As the song played the studio line began blinking.  Fuck, it was Zoe, the mid-day girl/ music director.“I DIDN’T PROGRAM THIS SONG!” she yelled.It was a request.  “IF YOU WANT YOUR JOB, YOU PLAY WHAT I TELL YOU TO PLAY!” click.  I recorded our conversation, re-mixed it with a music bed and different effects.  I played it over and over revealing to the audience what a bitch she was.  Every time I passed her in the halls or sat across from her at staff meetings, she would look at me and point her two fingers in her eyes then into mine, as to say, “I’m gonna get you, bitch!”  Women can be horribly cruel to one another especially when there’s a threat, I imagined I threatened her, which is a complement in the business, although everyone is.   One day she left a message on my answering machine, “Is there something wrong with your hearing?  You played the unedited version of “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam, where Eddie Veddar clearly says “Daddy’s little FUCK!  I got my eye on you.”  clickZoe was arrested for DUI and called me begging from her cell to cover her ass and not to tell anyone, so I did.  We became friends then we both got fired when the station automated.  That was my career in radio.    

“Who am I?” I asked my fellow cashiers during down at the department store I work time as I jerked my flag off.   They looked at each other puzzled and a little offended.
“Claude! Duh!” I say equally puzzled.
How could they not get I was imitating Claude?  This was the 19 year old kid that took a girl from the accessories department to dinner at Hooters sporting a hickey from the night before, not knowing this girl was a feminist, vegetarian and a member of the debate team.”
Claude pipes up, “What are you trying to say Molls…. I have bags under my eyes?”
How dare he.

I work in retail, which mostly consists of dealing with a bunch of assholes pissed off that we don’t validate their parking.  I called for the next customer in line.  The world went into slow motion as a man who looked confused and out of place wanted to purchase a couple of t-shirts.  I was taken by his southern accent, which was all starting to make sense now.  He had a glimpse of crazy in his eyes.  He returned the next day, “another T-shirt huh?”

“You remember me?”

“Some people are hard to forget.”

He returned again the next day, “so do you do anything else besides buy t-shirts?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Yes.”

“I paint, for the galley next door.”

That night I googled the gallery and found his paintings.  Wait I’ve seen this work before…. One of his paintings is hanging in my doctor’s office.  Weird.

The next time he came in, my mouth said, “I had a crazy dream about you last night.”

What?

You were getting undressed in the fitting room and I accidentally walked in on you…

“Would you like to have coffee tomorrow,” he asked, “I should tell you that I have a girlfriend.”

I guess.

We met at the trendy coffee shop where you can’t help but feel uncomfortable by all the coolness in the air.  We got our coffees.  He says he’s having a panic attack and needs to go up to the VA for his Valium. 

“I LOVE the VA hospital! I hang out there just for fun.  It’s like the bus times a thousand.”

Can I go with you?”

Are you nuts?

We spent the next 3 hours in the waiting room surrounded by grumpy old one-legged men reeking of cigarette smoke. 

He dropped me off at the coffee shop where my bike was locked up.  He asked me for my phone number then called me an hour later to ask me if I put a curse on him?

No.  Why?

I got into a car accident a block after I dropped you off.

No, I’m just bad luck.

Oz is has been in lock down at the YMCA while I work my meaningless retail job. I walked down cellblock B for babies.  Each room has a half door where the wardens hang and taunt one another and sometimes throw notes attached to strings of thread they’ve unwoven from their underwear. The head baby presses its face against the plexy glassed doggie door desperately waiting to be paroled.

At the end of the day I went to identify my kid in the baby line-up; until I realized all the babies had been changed into YMCA jumpsuits.  Fuck!  They all look the same.  I couldn’t tell which one was mine until I started picking each one up and asking it, “Do I look like your mommy?”

 After one week he caught some sort of kennel cough and the warden says he’s cutting a tooth.  Next it was stink eye then lice. I don’t want my kid raised by a bunch of cowboys and Indians.  It’s time for an adventure, lets go to the “Aunt Farm” for the summer.  “Aunt Farm”

Is what I refer to as my sisters house aka Ozzy’s aunt and her farm of children ages: 13-8-6.  My younger sister is separating from the kid’s dad and needs a babysitter for the summer, we’ll be sleeping in her garage in Santa Cruz, CA…..Peace Out Portland.

As the hum of the gun began, the tattoo artist asks: so why red roses?

I’m from Portland, City of Roses. 10 roses for the 10 years I lived there.

Why’d you leave?

I’m on the run.

Is there a reward?

I’m not worth very much.

Are you really on the run.

Kinda, I just got fired for stealing at my work. During the investigation I asked if I could go smoke a cigarette. That was their own mistake.

You bounced?

Hell yeah I bounced, I wasn’t gonna go back in there so they could fire me or with my luck press charges.

So what brought you to Santa Cruz?

I grew up here. My younger sister just separated from her old man. She has three kids and now that I have a kid it just made sense for us to help each other out.

How old is your kid?

Ozzy just turned a year old, in fact I got canned on his birthday. I’ve never lost a job in my life, this was just stupid. One of those moments where you look back and say what the fuck was I thinking?

I knew I was gonna get caught from the moment I did it. Then the Omens came and I knew I was in trouble.

You got Omens? Right on!

No dude, these were bad, fucked up shit.

What happened?

Let me just set this up. I’m a stoner. Always have been always will be. It’s just who I am.

I had been good for a while, mostly because I was living in a studio apartment with my mom and my baby. And mom was NOT cool with me and Mary Jane hanging out.

But the sun was shining in Portland, which never happens in April, and mom was spending the weekend at her crazy boyfriends house. I can’t smoke weed but you can date a lunatic. (We all have out faults) I was broke $$.

So I reached into my money making goody bag:

Sell Books+ $7.00

Donate Plasma+$40 (I’m not jonesen that much)

Sell clothes+13

Cans+4.20 (oh yeah baby that’s an Omen!)

Unemployment, ding. That’s the ticket!

So I credited my account, enough for a bag then a greedy impulsive thought popped into my head.

Take more it said, so I did.

I went to see my buddy I get weed from. We smoked a bowl with the baby on my back. I wrapped my bag in the baby’s sweater and shoved it in my Marc Jacobs handbag. I walked to the bus stop a few miles away. When I stopped at the 75, a conservative looking woman approached me and said you dropped this. It was the baby’s sweater.

Oh thank you! I said not even realizing that my weed was gone. The universe slapped that bag right out of my hands. SHAME ON YOU!

Paranoia kicks in and I begin to run down side streets hoping that woman didn’t call the cops.

So here I am on welfare living in my sister’s garage otherwise known as my life as a writer.

Enjoy the follow-up to Scars of Paris, I wrote in 2007. I know. Insert plug now right? But again I’m on welfare so purchase your very own copy today at Amazon.com. Wink Wink.

2 more weeks! Mom squealed into the phone.

Till what?

The annual camping trip, aren’t you excited?

I was actually thinking about sitting this one out.

You’ve gone the last 31 years, stick with something for once in your life.

We arrived and set up our tent in 6 minutes 23 seconds.

Now gather around kids and let me tell you a story about grandpa and tents. Before the spring loaded, 8 lbs. of nylon, we had a 75 lb. heap of canvas that took up the equivalent amount of a dead body. Metal stakes and poles, my father would become so frustrated, GOD DAMN, FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!

Things have certainly changed, seemed to be the theme in my head this week as I saw the kids camping so differently than when I was a kid twenty years ago. From the big map that unfolded to the backseat to GPS systems installed in our SUV with DVD instead of singing songs and playing games. Game Boy’s have replaced a game of Catch. Camping is a weird tradition that helps us appreciate the luxuries of electricity and running water. At home we deadbolt our front and back door yet while camping the only thing between you and the wild beast of the forest and society is a zipper. Are we remembering the past or preparing for the future?

You kids got it easy, so don’t start whining when your IPOD runs out of juice.

What are you eating, Aunt Molly? Kelly asks.

It’s a fruit, we call them blueberries and I like them because they make my poop purple.

My poop has red stripes when I eat licorice. Kelly compares.

Jose, my brother-in-law interjects, I conducted a test where I just ate one corn kernel and I chewed it to a pulp. Next day, I shit out a whole kernel.

As we continued discussing our bowel movements, the kids got out their store bought marshmallow sticks.

No, No, No. When I was a kid we hunted down a stick and sharpened it with a knife.

Every year someone brings the token drunk. Last year one of my sisters brought her friend Dingo aka the human fire extinguisher. His big party trick was to jump into the campfire or throw things like his guitar into the flames.

My sister had a lovely backyard wedding with a acoustic guitar player and an altar framed with wild flowers. A path carved by votive candles in paper bags. Once they said, “I do.”

Ding-Dong starts moshing on all the candles screaming, “Let’s Party!”

Later that evening Ding-Dong had to be hog tied with his own neck tie after he got up on a table and dove for the ceiling fan that couldn’t take his weight. Sparks flew as the fan was ripped down to the floor with Ding-Dong clinging to the blades. A few men tied him up and threw him in the back of the wedding Hummer.

Another year my ex-husband brought his brother Doug who passed out in the dirt, we knew he was still alive because every few hours he would wake up and holler, “Elmer!”

Doug was always getting us eighty-sixed out of bars or parties. On Jack’s birthday, we were treated to VIP, on the house love from one of our co-worker’s brother who managed a swanky club in the city. Less than an hour later we were being escorted to the door by security who had Doug in handcuffs.

“What the hell happened?” I asked Doug.

“It was a big misunderstanding.” He said slurring his words.

The next day he believed what had happened was that a cross dresser was using the urinal and the security guards were harassing him/her so Doug was just defending the man/woman. I’m sure there’s another side to the story that only he/she knows.

Molly, when did you have your first drink? My niece asked after getting busted for drinking and fighting.

On my twenty-first birthday which was also my wedding day…and I was a virgin.

You Lie!

I was in the eighth grade and mom had just had a Bunco party where her friends left behind a bunch of vodka. The next day, before school, my two friends Sam and Maddy came to my house.

Look what I got, I said revealing the bottle from behind my back.

Let’s get wasted. I said taking the first swig and passing it to Sam who swigged and passed to Maddy who swigged and around we went until the bottle was empty. I filled the bottle up with water and placed it back on the kitchen counter. We stumbled through the back alley smoking a cigarette.

Maddy began laughing hysterically for no reason, “careful, you might pee your pants again.” Sam said referring to the major incident that happened one week prior to the: get wasted before school day.

Sam flicked a calligraphy pen filled with ink at my face. Maddy busted into laughter at the sight of me with black splatter thrown across my face. Maddy stopped laughing and ran out of the classroom.

Hey look, Maddy peed her pants, Sam yelled, pointing to the puddle left on Maddy” chair.

I started turning my locker when I heard, Maddy yell, “I hate you bitch!” while jumping Sam. A crowd gathered and cheered on their favored chick. A teacher broke up the fight. I don’t know why but my instinct told me to jump on the teacher who then grabbed me and drug us all to the principal’s office. We were suspended for three days.

At least it wasn’t downloaded on the internet, my niece says. Yes there are some perks to being an old fart from the stone ages of a

My cousin called: IT”S FREE SLURPEE DAY!I haven’t had a slurpee since back in the day when we used the spoon/straw=spraws, for sniffing cocaine’ I thought to myself as we pulled into an overflowing 7-11 parking lot filled with people walking out with shot glass slurpee cups. We shoved our way past the hotdog rotisserie display case and found two police taking down a crackhead who was abusing the gift. I shot my slurpee and felt the sharp pain to my brain as I grabbed my head screaming: AHHHHH!Amateur, my cousin chuckled. We just got pedals for Guitar Hero.

My cousin called:  What are you doing?Hiding under my bed.Why?The cops are at the door and I don’t want to deal with it.Now what’s going on?It’s a long story, just come pick me up. 

This week at the Aunt Farm:My sister is playing with fire, literally.  She hooked up with one of her ex’s close friends and one of her old friend’s baby’s daddy.  Follow me so far?  She thought it was just gonna be a fling, but he doesn’t really have a place to stay since his split, so my sister has been sneaking him in and out of her bedroom so the kids don’t find out because they are friends with his kids.  Still following me?As the days went by, they started getting too comfortable then next thing you know my sister’s ex is texting her that he knows about it and that he is going to throw gas on her and light a match.   

That’s not why the cops are at the door.  My sister’s friend got arrested on 4^th of July on Domestic Violence charges.  She was sick of her boyfriend calling her a fat whore in front of her teenage daughters.  She punched him out and he claimed to have had no choice but to call the police otherwise he would have to hit her back. 

Child Protective Services placed the two teenagers with their grandparents.  The girls wanted to go to the beach for the 4^th but the grandparents had them on lockdown so the girls ran away to our house.  The grandma freaked out on me and I didn’t have any answers so she called the cops.  So here I am hiding under my bed.

Last night I pulled a Scarlet. What I mean by that is I kept mom up worrying because I was late coming home from school. Fall term started today where I ran into a former writing student who is taking Screenwriting with me. We decided to get a drink after class where I would ramble on about publishing Scars of Paris over the summer. This is why I didn’t shave my legs today, I knew I might run into someone I could potentially fuck.

My cellphone rang at 9:14pm. “Where are you?” mom asked with a tired voice.

“Uhh, the library,” I lied.

“I can’t go to sleep until I know you’re home safe.”

Mom’s trippin again. She did the same thing when Scarlet was in town visiting. My sister has a lot of friends and likes to party. The first night she got into town she hopped on her friend Zach’s handlebars and headed out to a Roller Derby bout.

“Make smart choices!” mom hollered as Scarlet and Zach cruised off without their bicycle helmets. “That kid makes me so nervous,” mom mumbled.

“Hey mom, remember that tandem bike we found in the basement of that haunted house we rented on Madison.” I said trying to get her mind off her worries. That basement had all kinds of treasures. My sisters and I were always scamming up ways to make some cash mostly just to buy candy. This basement was a gold mine of opportunity if only the mice that also claimed territory of the basement didn’t freak us out.

“On the count of three. One, two, three,” we opened the door to the basement and charged down the stairs barking, “RUFF, RUFF RUFF, RUFF, RUFF!”

The coast was clear, no mice just an overwhelming history of mildew. After we found the tandem, we cleaned it up and took it for a cruise around the neighborhood. Heads turned, as the kids couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw this bicycle built for two. They chased us down the street and we stopped to let them have a better look as they circled around.

“Give you a ride, for a quarter.” I said to the rich kid whose parents were insurance brokers.

“OK!” he said with excitement as he dug a quarter out of his pocket. Even the poor kids coughed up a quarter for a ride. Business was successful but we decided to expand. There was a stationary bike, a trampoline and a rowing machine buried in the basement. Ding! We got ourselves a gym! Shit add that couch and we got a country club. The country club was shut down after the kid with the insurance brokers demanded we refund their son’s membership and notified us that we could be sued.

Turns out we weren’t the only ones who liked hanging out in the basement. Something weird happened one day when there was a knock at the door. We were home alone and I being the oldest at age twelve was in charge so I answered the door. There stood a creepy man with a familiar face. Another man was waiting in a running car stopped in front of our house.

“Is your mommy or daddy home?” he asked.

“There not here right now.” I said trying to remember where I had seen this man’s face.

“May I look in your basement, I left something down there when I was hiding from the cops.”

“What is it, I’ll look for you?” I said thinking fast.

“I left a cross, that meant a lot to me.”

“Wait here.” I said as I shut and locked the front door. I remembered where I knew him from, a flyer passed around school. I called 911. I headed down to the basement and under the stairs where he said to look was the cross.

I handed it to the man as the police handcuffed him and his buddy. When I think back on that day I get chills, knowing something bad could have happened but luckily didn’t.

Me, mom and the baby were all woken up to my drunk sister pounding at the front door.

“It’s unlocked!” I whispered as she slams the front door. The baby starts to cry, “Your kid’s crying,” she says as she passes out in my bed.

“Move over,” I said. “Me and mom were just talking about the old basement.

“Ha, Ha! You got busted with porn, you pervert!” my sister laughed waking the baby once again.

“Shhh!” I said rolling my eyes but it was true. I had dug a little deeper in the basement where I found old raunchy porn. So of course I put in my book bag and brought it to school to gross out my friends and see if I could sell it to one of the boys. Before I could make a profit, the magazine fell out of my bag, onto the floor in class. The kids sitting near by pointed and laughed the teacher bent down to pick up the porn. I was sent to the principle’s office where my mom was called in for a conference. Mom was humiliated she thought it was my fathers and said she wouldn’t be able to show her face at my school again, so we moved.