Chronicles of a bad kid.

“It’s not fair!”

“Ashley, I’m not going to keep talking about this. You know you can’t go. There is absolutely no supervision in that house.”

“But I’m 12 years old! Kyle’s only 13 and he will be there! Plus, you know he won’t let me do anything wrong!”

“You know your Aunt Sherrie makes Kyle’s rules and your father makes yours. And Kyle has good judgment, he doesn’t lie, and we just can’t trust you enough yet to make good decisions. That’s the end of it. You are not going to Justin’s. Period.”

“You know this shit is not fair!”

My angry footfalls bounced off of the walls of the hallway as I marched back to my very own safe haven. I slammed the door of my bedroom as hard as a hollow door will slam and skipped over the constant clutter of my floor. I plopped down on my bed, pulled out from under my ass the sixteen things I had sat on and began to pout. Fuming, I huffed and puffed to myself: how hard it is being a 12-year-old girl. No one lets you do anything, even though you know you can take perfectly good care of yourself. No one ever believes you, especially when you have the Angel of Kyle fluttering over your head. 

Kyle was there beside me for every birthday, Easter and Christmas, really more of a brother than cousin, especially since he had moved in with my grandmother. She lived in the house in front of mine and came up to keep an eye on Kyle, my sister, Colleen, and I. Kyle was born without fault. Well, he had fault, but it was only visible to kids, it was the kind that adults can’t see until the ground actually begins to quake. Kyle had those big brown eyes that never shifted or blinked, he knew how to focus them so his credibility was never questioned. So even when he did wrong, he was still a great kid because he fessed up to it and never tried to deny it. I knew that while he was no great kid, he was still pretty smart because he told just enough of the truth to make him seem credible, then lied his ass off about the rest. Like when we squirted all of the Go-Jo (my Poppop swore by the stuff, a hand soap that will take off any amount of grease or tar etc.) into the floor of my Poppop’s garage. Kyle said, yes, he was sorry, he knew he was not supposed to be playing with it, but he only squirted it into the sink, not the floor. Ashley must have accidently got some on the floor. In reality, the only way I got it onto the floor was wiping it off of my clothes after he squirted me with it-my hands never actually touched the bottle. When I mentioned this, I was not believed. Kyle had already accurately portrayed the events, I was only trying to cover my ass. In short: “liar, liar pants on fire.”

Since he was the credible one, anytime a dispute came down to my word against his, he was being a great kid and I was a liar. Honestly, I had a short history of lying, but to me, I was really making up stories, being creative and interesting. I did not see the distinction until later, but once I did, I never went back. But “liar” is the kind of label that sticks to you. No amount of truth or Go-Jo could remove it.

My bad judgment and all prohibited me from being on that particular acre of Ebenezer Church Road where Justin’s family lived. Justin was the boy next door, very typical with his dirty blonde hair and bad attitude. His parents’ property touched ours, but our actual houses were separated by acres of woods. Justin’s parents were negligent at best and the most we ever heard from them were fighting or lawsuits about the proximity of our driveway to their property. Ironically, the house was always in some state of disrepair and our driveway probably added value to their house. I always had the feeling that they did not care much about the property; they only hoped they could get some money from the lawsuit. So they were stand-up people and great neighbors. Actually, after I grew up and moved to college, two people overdosed on heroin in that house, one of which being Justin’s dad. 

Justin was allowed to do most whatever he wanted. That was the coolest thing to me. Even though we had started kindergarten together and he was now two grades behind me, I still thought he was cool. He smoked cigarettes and drank, which were not cool specifically, but they gave him an air of maturity that I had yet to find in anyone my age. I smoked cigarettes when I could get them, but had not ever been drunk-it seemed too much of a vomiting activity for me. 

I rifled through my closet to find my lavender wish box. It was a box that had a charm bracelet and a book about wishes in it. The most valuable part of the box was that I could pull out the purple satin and cardboard that made up the fake bottom and store my few cigarettes and lighter in it. I stuffed my cigarettes into the pocket of my denim shorts and made sure my t-shirt covered them enough. I moved around in front of the mirror for a minute to be sure she could never see the pack, no matter which way I turned, then headed out the door. 

“I’m going to Ashley’s, mommom.”

“Where is she?”

“Uh, at her house…where I’m going.”

“Is Kyle going?”
“You know he’s at Justin’s.”

“Well don’t you think you need someone to walk you there?”

“Damnit” (Under my breath). “I’ll call her and tell her to meet me halfway.”

“Be careful, Ashley.”

Ashley Marshall was my best friend and Kyle’s girlfriend. She was very commercially pretty with highlighted hair and thousands of cute clothes: size 3. Ashley lived with her parents, down and across the street from Justin. When I got to the end of my driveway, I saw her walking into Justin’s yard. I looked around for traffic and grandparents before sprinting down the road and into the front lawn, littered with weeds, trash and various inoperable motors. I sat down on the step and struggled to get my cigarettes out of my pocket. Ashley pulled hers from her purse.

“What are they doing?” I nodded toward the house while she explained that Justin had gotten some vodka. This was no deterrent-I followed Ashley into the house and down to the basement. There was a pint of Absolut Vodka and a gallon of lemon iced tea on the only table in the room. The table was really more a collection of cinder block.

“What’s up sis?” Kyle slurred in my direction as he crossed the room to stick his tongue down Ashley’s throat. Justin gave a hopeful look in my direction. I averted my gaze and began to study the bottle, looking for ingredients or something, I don’t know, I was just a studier. Ashley grabbed the bottle from me and took a couple swigs, obviously enough to send her over the edge. At this point I was thinking how crazy it was that vodka has an instantaneous effect. I soon learned that this was not true as I noticed the difference from the first-drink-fake-drunk and one-hour-later-real-drunk. The latter involved intense hunger and despair that Justin’s house had no food in it. I watched them dance and stumble around, feeling half-amused and half-amazed. Until they started for the door and I was just worried.

Ashley Marshall’s house was by far the best place for food. At the time, her parents were almost as strict as mine, so I immediately refused to go there. Absolutely bad idea, no way Jose. I explained this to them the entire way to her house and up her driveway. Ashley and Kyle were embraced, weaving back and forth, almost the width of the paved drive. Justin was continually trying to embrace me, but luckily I had my duck and shove technique down. Miss Maryanne, Ashley’s mom, was in the front yard watering flowers as we filed up onto the porch. Ashley and Kyle sat down on the bench to make out and Justin sat down on the porch to watch.

I became the mediator, bouncing back and forth in between the drunken people and the parent people. Since I was the only sober one, I felt it my responsibility to take care of the others, including protecting them from parental repercussion. Miss Maryanne talked to me for a few minutes.

“So what’s your grandmother up to?”

“Oh, not much, ruling the world as usual.”

“Oh really…Ashley! Ashley, what are you doing?!” I turned around in horror as Ashley had straddled Kyle on the bench. There was definitely nothing else I could do. I grabbed Kyle and started down the driveway as Maryanne smelled Ashley’s breath. I heard them yelling from the bottom of the driveway. Maryanne had no idea how she had raised a fourteen-year-old girl to come home drunk at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Ashley had no idea where she was. I had an idea that she was being dragged into the house and into bed.

The walk home was easier said than done. As soon as I would detach Justin from my torso, I would have to chase after Kyle as he ran (in the middle of the road) back to Ashley’s house. I had almost talked Justin into going home when Kyle plopped down on his back on the yellow lines. 

“I refuse to move until Ashley comes to tell me to.” Jesus help me. Please, Justin, please go home, I cannot deal with you now. He did. I pull Kyle to his feet and wrap his arm around my shoulders. Next up, getting past my grandmother’s house and into mine uninterrupted. I definitely gained stealth points as I snuck him up the driveway with him yelling Ashley’s name at the top of his lungs. I opened the door to my house.

Mom was home from work. 

“Hey ma, how are you?!” I shouted from the hallway as Kyle began to make gurgling sounds in his throat. I escorted him to the bathroom and grabbed the phone.

“Ashley, is Kyle alright?”

“Yes, Mom, why?”

“Well, I have to give Colleen a bath…” Shit. Shit. Shit. Kyle was unhappy to say the least to be dragged into the powder room-muttering the entire time how he would never make it to the other bathroom. After all the vomiting he passed out on the couch. ::Ring Ring:: 

Aunt Sherrie was calling to see if I knew where Kyle was. I did, of course. I told her that he wasn’t feeling well and had fallen asleep in my living room. Apparently my truth-telling skills were just as honed as Kyle’s as she said goodnight and for him to come home in the morning. As I hung up the phone, I took off at a run to my bedroom before I was asked anymore questions about my day. I shut my door and crawled into bed to reflect upon just how bad my judgment really is.