My first love. That’s one to save, and actually, one I haven’t thought of in a long time. So let’s get it down before it doesn’t matter anymore. I mentioned him in an earlier post. T. He was my virginity-taker’s best friend. No, I’m not the kind of girl that just skips around the circle. This was not planned. It happened over a period of time and was completely unexpected.

The first time I saw him was when I went to A.’s apartment and he was sitting outside with his homemade bong. I thought he was weird and that was the end of it. But after A. left, my friend D. started hanging out with him, so he became my friend by default. I’m sure she had a crush on him. She got crushes on everybody. But he wasn’t the kind of guy that fucks all the girls. In fact, the whole time I knew him he only had 2 girlfriends and they didn’t last long. He didn’t seem interested in sex, which made him a great guy friend. What he was interested in was alcohol. He drank Thunderbird like it was the nectar of the gods. I tried it once and thought it was the nastiest shit on the planet. But he loved it and he drank a lot of it. He was into all the other stuff, too…weed, hallucinogens, pills. He was a little more advanced than I was at the time.

When I first started hanging out with him, I discovered he didn’t like physical contact. This, of course, was something to tease him with, and D. and I would chase him around, screaming, “I’m gonna touch you!”. Then, at some point, I managed to wiggle my way past that. I told him I liked to hug and he would reluctantly allow me to hug him when he would leave. Eventually, it became customary, and he didn’t seem to mind as much. One day, D. told me that T. had said something to her about liking me. I was surprised because I had never thought of anything with him beyond friendship. But the idea made me look at him differently and my feelings began to change. The exact moment I knew it was love was a strange one. T. had taken my brother out drinking and when he dropped him back at our house, I came out to see him. Before my brother got out of the car, he leaned out of the back seat and puked in the street. T. kindly came around the car to make sure he was alright, and when I looked at him, I thought, “I love him.” Plain and simple. Then T. put a nice little bow on it by asking my brother, “What have you been eating? Beans?”

Our relationship never progressed past the point of friends, though. The only time it ever got close was one night when we went to an outdoor punk rock show. T. was on his second bottle of Thunderbird and I had drank four beers at lightning speed. T. and I were hanging on each other like close friends do when they are extremely drunk. It was time to leave and I told my other friends, T. and A. (hush) that I was going with T. They misinterpreted this to mean I was going to his house and they knew how I felt about him, so they were telling me not to do that in my condition. I let them know I only meant to ride home with him and after making sure we had a designated driver, they let me go. T. and I were in cuddling in the backseat, kissing each other on the cheek and the top of the head and talking nonsense. The whoever that was driving had all the windows rolled down trying to sober us up, but it wasn’t working too well. When we got to my house, I got out of the car and T. got out to give me my hug. After hugging, I pulled back and looked up at him and he looked down at me and we shared the barest of kisses. Just a slight brushing of our lips together and that was it. But it was enough to sober me up a little. When I got in the house, I went to my room and just sat there, thinking, Did that really happen? I went over it and over it, remembering everything that had happened on the ride home, storing it away. I had never felt so happy. The next day, T. called and asked nervously if we had “done anything” the night before. I was worried he would freak out and not want to be friends anymore, so I said nothing had happened, which was almost true. I don’t know if he remembered and was checking to see if I did, or what, but I was only thinking that keeping him as a friend was better than not having him at all. So our relationship stayed the way it was, even though we both knew we liked each other.

A conversation we had one night in his car might have explained why. We were sitting there talking when he suddenly asked if he could rest his head on my chest. Of course I had no problem with that. While he was lying there, maybe because he didn’t have to look at me, he said, “I would go out with you, but I love my drugs too much.” I answered, “Oh, that’s sweet, T.” The reason he said that was because I had found out that he was shooting crushed up pills and had gotten very upset. Plus, I was always telling him he drank too much and I was worried about him. I told him that every time he left me, I was afraid I’d never see him again. He agreed, knowing that at any time, he could overdose or get into an accident. He seemed to understand the seriousness of that, but it wasn’t enough to make him slow down.

He was always doing crazy shit. Once when he and my brother had locked themselves out of the house, they had broken one of the small windows in the door to get in. D. and I came in later and T. started playing around with the broken glass, acting like he was going to slice his throat. I got really pissed and slammed my bedroom door in his face. He came in and threw his head into my lap and apologized profusely until I forgave him. Another time, T., his then-girlfriend J., my brother and I were all hanging out on the roof of a parking garage, smoking a joint. T. had drank 2 bottles of Thunderbird and decided he was going to jump up and run along the ledge of the building. Immediately, I was running alongside him, ready to grab him if he fell. Every couple of feet, there was a gap, and he would jump over, still running. He got to the end and jumped down, laughing. It had scared the shit out of me, and when I turned around, I saw J. watching me and I knew that she knew. (That relationship ended when J. got pregnant by another guy.)

The end came when T. stole his parents’ car one day. They were finally fed up and had arranged for him to go to rehab in Boca Raton, FL. Before he left, he gave me his leather jacket to hold for him. I loved that jacket. Very punk rock. He said he would be back soon to pick it up. We wrote to each other for a little while, but eventually life got in the way, and we lost contact. Then one day, two years later, my grandma answered the phone and it was him. He said he was in town and wanted to know if he could come by. I was so excited. When he got there, we sat on my grandma’s front porch and talked. He told me that he had finally stopped drinking and that he had been sober for a few months. I was very happy for him. He had a girlfriend, who was actually sitting in the car the whole time, but I also had a boyfriend, so that didn’t really matter. I told him I was graduating high school that week and he said he would come, which he did.

The last time I saw him, I was married and seven months pregnant with my first child. He had tracked me down and was finally wanting his jacket back. He came over for a few minutes and then he was gone. I don’t know where he is now.

That’s the story of T.  Like first loves do, he’ll always hold a place in my heart. I hope he’s happy and doing well.

One afternoon, my brother told me that he, D., a guy I had a crush on named J., and their friend, T., all planned to skip school the next day and asked if I wanted to join them. As hard as I was riding J.’s nuts, I couldn’t say no. I knew it would be fun and I really wanted to be in close proximity to J. Even if he didn’t pay any attention to me (which he usually didn’t), he was nice to look at.

The next morning, D. came to pick up me and my brother. Then we picked up J. He sat in the front seat, so I got maximum ogling time. From there, we went to T.’s house. He lived down a private road, so we parked at the end of it and waited. A few minutes later, T. came running across the field and jumped in the car. The day had begun.

We went to a house out in the country not too far from where we went to school. A couple of girls lived there, named S1. and S2.  I didn’t know them, but they seemed to be friends of J.’s. We hung out there for most of the morning, drinking beer and listening to music.  S2. was drinking a bottle of Robitussin.

I was surprised when my brother told me that J. wanted to see me in the bedroom. He had not paid me any more attention than usual and I couldn’t understand what he would want to see me about. When I went in the room, he was sitting on the bed, smiling at me. I don’t remember the details of the conversation, but in short, he wanted to fuck. I was completely flabbergasted. On the one hand, I really liked him and the fact that he wanted to fuck me was flattering. But on the other hand, he had never acted like he was interested in me before and it all seemed too convenient. Here I was, obviously enamored, and there he was, bored and a little drunk. Umm, no. This was way before my slut stage, and I was still capable of making a good decision based on the circumstances. It also helped that I had heard some interesting stories about J. having a monster cock, and I didn’t feel up to the challenge.  So I told him that I wouldn’t do it because the only reason he was asking me was because he was drunk.  He respected that and didn’t press the issue.

We all decided to drive into the city since we didn’t have anything else to do.  When we got there, T. suggested that we do a beer run.  I don’t think anyone in the car actually believed he was serious until we drove up to the Circle K and started making plans — T. would grab the beer while J. and S1. distracted the clerk.  I didn’t think it was a good idea for J. and S1. to even go inside, because instead of worrying about one person getting away, we had to worry about three.  But they went with T.’s plan.  D. got out and put a parking placard over the license plate for the getaway.  He and S2. remained in the front seat and my brother and I were in the back.  We left the passenger doors open and watched our three friends go inside.  About two minutes later, T. came running out with a half case of beer in one hand and his ridiculously huge skater pants in the other.  He jumped in the front seat, but J. and S1. were nowhere to be seen.  We had no choice but to go.  As we left, I looked behind us and saw a man standing in the parking lot, pointing frantically at the car.  D. was sure that his little placard trick hadn’t worked, probably falling off as we sped away.  In any case, we got out of there.

As we drove away, the guy who had been pointing at the car decided to play superhero and followed us.  He caught up with us and tried to get us to pull over, which of course, we didn’t.  I had my head between my knees praying that we wouldn’t get caught.  My mother would kill us twice, once for skipping school and again for getting arrested.  Luckily, we did some quick maneuvering and lost him.  However, we stayed in the neighborhood, trying to decide what to do about J. and S1.  We had no idea what was going on with them, but we couldn’t just leave them there.  Then again, we couldn’t return in the same car for fear of getting caught ourselves.  We decided to get rid of the evidence and dropped the beer off in someone’s driveway.  Then we drove back towards the Circle K and parked in a driveway close by that was shielded from the street by a line of trees.  My brother put on a beanie and D.’s jacket as a “disguise” in case he had been seen in the car and got out to go see about J. and S1.  He walked to the edge of the driveway and peeped around the trees.  Immediately, he turned and ran back to the car, his face an O of panic.  As he jumped back in the car, Mr. Superhero, who had followed us earlier, drove up and saw us parked there.  He backed into the driveway in front of us and stopped, but didn’t get out of the car.  We were all sitting there, trying to figure out what he was doing.  D. suggested that someone should go talk to him and see if we could persuade him to let us go.  We all thought that was a stupid idea.  After a few minutes, it dawned on me.  I said, “Oh shit, you guys…he’s waiting for the police.”  We started looking for an escape route.  The place where we were parked was actually a small road leading to a couple of houses.  We turned the car around and headed to the other end of the drive.  There was a long branch blocking the way, and T. got out of the car to move it.  Instead of getting back in, he told us to go ahead.  He wanted us to think he was doing us a favor by leaving so he wouldn’t get us in trouble, but I think he was really trying to save his own ass.  No one could talk him into getting back in the car, and he took off.  Meanwhile, we still needed to get away.  The drive had run out, but we found ourselves behind some other houses, with a narrow path between a chain-link fence and the trees.  We drove in one direction for a minute until the trees got too near the fence for us to go any further.  We had to back up, but D. did this a little too fast and managed to drive completely underneath the fence into someone’s back yard.  I could see the fence in the front windshield and heard a piece of the molding on the side of the car come off.  Driving back out from under the fence, he then proceeded to hit a small tree and knocked the passenger rearview mirror off.  After all this, it seemed prudent to get out of the car and collect ourselves.  We hopped the fence and walked around one of the houses to take a look at the street, still trying to stay out of sight.  We saw Mr. Superhero drive by and assumed it was now safe to leave the way we had come in.  At that point, there was nothing to do but drive back to S1. and S2.’s house and wait for a call from J.

By the time we got back to her house, S2. was trippin’ balls.  The Robitussin was really working it’s magic.  While we waited for the phone to ring, we had to keep her as calm as we could.  She alternated between worrying about her sister and screaming for water — she thought she was going to blow up.

Finally, the call came.  J. and S1. were at a strip mall near the Circle K and told us to come pick them up.  J. said everything was cool and he would explain when we got there.  Meanwhile, S2. was screaming at J. on the phone, blaming him for her bad trip.  She said that he had told her she wouldn’t trip hard unless she drank the whole bottle.  Unfortunately, she had still drank 9/10 of one.  But after all the water she drank, she finally started coming down.

When we arrived at the mall, we were ecstatic.  Everyone was okay and not in jail.  J. dived into the back seat and threw his arms around me.  I was just as excited to see him and it was nice for the moment that it lasted.  After everyone had finished hugging, we started our way back to the house.  J. told us what happened on the way.

It seemed that T. didn’t want to do things the smart way.  Instead of grabbing the beer and running, he took it up to the counter.  The clerk looked at T. with a smirk and said sarcastically “Are you going to pay for that?”  T. said, “No,” and then ran.  J. and S1. were so stunned at his audacity that they could only stand there.  The clerk tried to run after him but didn’t make it, so he called the police.  He made J. and S1. stick around since they were witnesses.  Mr. Superhero came back after his attempt to stop us and gave the police his description of the car.  J. said he was completely off.  He got the color and the make of the car wrong.  When asked if he got the license number, he said we didn’t have one.  The police told J. and S1. that there were witnesses that said that they were seen coming in with T., but they denied knowing him.  When they were asked why they weren’t in school, they said they were dropouts.  So the police let them go.

By the time we got back, school was almost out, so D. dropped everyone back off at their houses.  We found out later that T. had made it back in one piece.  We all managed to survive the day without getting into trouble with the police or our parents.  And yet…we didn’t get the beer.

C. hooked me up with my date. The first guy she asked wanted to know if he was “gonna get any,” so he got scrapped. The second guy, S., was a winner. I knew who he was but had never really spoken with him. He was a skater that my brother used to hang around with. We didn’t officially meet until the day of prom, so I guess you could say I had a half-blind prom date.

The festivities began at C.’s house. C. had gotten 3 hits of acid from her date, B., so we each dropped one after we finished getting ready. The guys got there and we started drinking. S. didn’t do drugs and C. told me not to let him know that we were on some. While S. and I were hanging out in the back yard, C. and B. were in her room doing meth, which I didn’t find out about until later. I wasn’t into that sort of thing at the time, so I wasn’t too interested when she told me, anyway. After a few drinks, we all piled in the car and headed to prom. When C. got in the car, she told me that she had taken the last hit of acid, which was a little rude, since she was supposed to share it with me.

C., B., and I started tripping on the way and it didn’t take S. too long to figure out. He didn’t get upset about it, though, and actually started fucking with me. He would look out the window and then slowly turn his head in this weird way and look at me. It was freaky, but funny. He also had this tic that he didn’t seem to be faking, which was 3 quick shakes of his head while he was talking. C. told him to stop doing it, and he said she sounded like his mom. I just ignored it because I wasn’t sure if it was something he could control. I still don’t know if it was real or not.

He also introduced me to The Mad Circle Game. The concept is to make a circle with your thumb and forefinger and try to get someone to look at it. If you do, you get two quick rabbit-punches in the arm. The only rule is that it can’t be at or above eye level. So we started playing. He kept getting me repeatedly through the night, and both of my arms were bruised by the end of the evening. I think I counted his wins up to about 85 times. I was able to get him once. I had been trying all night, but he said no one had gotten him in a long time. But while we were talking in the car after the dance, I made the circle near my foot and he looked! I was so excited! Finally!

Back to prom… I don’t remember where it was held, but when we first got there, we posed for pictures. C. and I each took one by ourselves and then all four of us posed for one together. If you look closely at the photo, you can see that B., C., and I all had huge pupils… And S. looked pretty cool himself. He had blue hair, a safety-pin in his lapel, and was wearing skate shoes with his tux.

When we got inside, I found out that I had a pretty popular guy. Everyone was saying hi to S. like he was the star of the school or something. I saw my best friend from junior high and she was a little shocked at my buzz-cut. We had gone in two different directions from the time that we were friends. She was a little more goody-two-shoes than I was.

The acid really helped everything look as beautiful as it was intended, so I can truly say that my prom was magical. Everything was so pretty and colorful! I told S. that I didn’t want to dance because I was still a little shy in those days. But because I was tripping, he managed to get me out on the floor before I knew what was happening. I’m glad I did, though, because it wouldn’t have been right for me to go to prom and not dance. It was nice and, while we were dancing, he brushed his lips across my cheek, the only liberty he took all night.

After we left, we went to IHOP for dinner. I ordered a hamburger, which they served open, and according to my brain, the cheese was moving. I told my friends what I saw, so whenever I would try to take a bite, they’d all say, “Moo!” It was so funny, I don’t think I was able to eat very much.

After dinner, we all went back to B.’s house, where he, C., and I each dropped another hit of acid on a sugar cube. Then we went out to watch the sun come up. We ended up back at C.’s house, where S. and I stayed up for a while talking. He told me that he hadn’t really thought of me too much because I was just a sister of a friend, but after hanging out with me, he thought I was really cool. He was probably the best date I could’ve had. He was nice and fun and didn’t expect too much. I had a great time.

Prom Theme Song:  Wonderful Tonight — Eric Clapton

Before I went to Mexico, I dated a guy named T. who shot up cocaine. I didn’t mention that I started doing it with him. I never got as bad as he was because I hated myself for doing it so much that I would try my best to keep him from doing it. I knew that if he did it, there was a good chance that I would do it, too. When it came to drug use, I usually did what everyone else was doing. The only drugs I haven’t tried are the ones I was never exposed to.

The first time I did it, he was at my apartment preparing everything. I was watching him and getting curious. When he asked me if I wanted to try it, I agreed. I made sure that he was only going to give me a little because I was scared of overdosing. When he gave me my dose, I laid back on the bed.  My mouth and nose was filled with the taste and smell of ether. The feeling was overpowering.  It was the most intense shit I had ever experienced. It was exhilarating and scary as fuck. Kind of like riding a roller coaster for the first time. I said, “Damn, T., how do you do this every day?” I started feeling nauseous and thought I was going to throw up. He said that was normal and that it would pass. Just to be safe, though, I went to the bathroom. The nausea passed and I sat down to pee. The sound of my pee in the toilet sounded metallic. In fact, everything sounded metallic, even the air. I was sitting on the toilet saying “Al-um-i-num” over and over.

I didn’t do it every time he did it, but I did it more often than I ever should have. Sticking a needle in your arm to get high is one of the stupidest things you could ever do, and I want anyone reading this to understand that I am not condoning it. If I can get across any message at all, it’s “Don’t do it!” The rest of this story will hopefully convince you of that.

One night at T.’s apartment, we were getting high. We went into the bathroom and turned on the shower to trip off the sound of the water. He gave me my dose while I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub. It was the biggest dose I ever got, and it made my ears ring. Whenever he would get a good hit, he would say, “That rang my bell,” so I told him, “I think I just got my bell rung.” It was scary and great and fucked up and I didn’t want another one like it.

Meanwhile, T. was having a problem hitting his vein. He had already registered blood in the syringe and when that happens, you can’t wait too long or the blood will clot and make it stick in the needle. He was getting frustrated and sticking the shit out of his arm and it was fucked up to watch it…so I prayed. This is probably the most fucked up prayer I’ve ever made, but I did it. I said, “God, please help him hit his vein. He’s killing his arms and I can’t watch it anymore.” And He listened.

The very next attempt T. made, he hit the vein. He hadn’t intended on taking the full dose, but I think in his frustration, he just didn’t notice. As soon as it hit him, I saw it in his face. I said, “Are you okay?” He said, “No.” I said, “Look at me.” And I started talking. I made sure he kept his eyes on my face and I just talked. I don’t remember what I said, but I was high as fuck, so talking wasn’t a problem. I could see the struggle he was going through on his face, just keeping his eyes open and aware. I kept talking to him until the peak of the high had passed and he said he would be alright. He told me if I hadn’t been there, if he had closed his eyes, he would’ve died. Due to the circumstances, I was glad I had been there.

He decided to quit after that. While he was at work one day, I cleaned his room. He had syringes, needles, matchbooks to sharpen the needles, bloody cotton, all kinds of shit scattered in his room. I threw everything away in homemade biohazard bottles. I rearranged his room and made everything clean and pretty. When he got home and saw it, he actually cried. Well, for T., that wasn’t unusual, but that’s another story.

I find it interesting that God answered my prayer the way that He did. Basically, He said, “Sure, I’ll help him out. But I’m going to teach him a lesson.” In my experience, that’s the way God does things.

It started out small. I would steal my lunch from the school cafeteria because I spent my lunch money on cigarettes. This limited my meals to a hamburger and a carton of milk, since these were the only things that came packaged and easy to transport. I would walk into the cafeteria, pick up my lunch, look around like I hadn’t found anything I liked, slip my catch into my sleeves, and walk out. When I got to my table, I would produce my food like a magician and chow down.

When I lived in the Crackhouse, it was an everyday occurrence. This was more out of necessity than greed. My mother had just gotten divorced from her second husband and was out of the house a lot, partying and rediscovering herself. She neglected to buy food or pay any other bills, so it was just me and my brother on our own. The condition of the house suffered from having a bunch of teenagers in charge of it, hence the name “The Crackhouse.” It was a real wreck. But more about that another time. My grandma lived a few blocks away, so we would go over there every day to eat one real meal. My brother would then go stay with friends. I had a friend, B. (she of the Ouija board story) staying with me at the time. When it got late, we couldn’t go to my grandma’s, so our first hustle was going to the Domino’s Pizza at the end of the street to cadge any pizzas that hadn’t been picked up. At first they would give them to us, but I guess they got tired of us coming by every night, and started saying no. But then they would just throw them away. So B. and I would wait until they closed and then climb into the dumpster to retrieve the pizzas. Yes, I said it. I dumpster-dived for food. In my defense, the pizzas were always in boxes on the top of the trash, and we watched the employees put them out there, so we knew they were fresh.

Anyway, back to the shoplifting. We eventually grew tired of pizza and started paying regular visits to the Citgo where we met J. (also of Ouija board story fame). While we talked to J., we roamed around the store, stashing goodies in our clothes. He knew we were doing it, but he was polite enough not to say anything. I think he just enjoyed the company. He was too weird to have many friends. When we first started going, he would lock us outside if he needed to go to the back of the store, but eventually he started letting us stay and that’s when we would really stock up. (He let us in on the fact that the security camera didn’t work.) We had to steal things that would fit into our clothes, so it was mostly Slim Jims, snack cakes, and things of that nature. I was able to get a Mountain Dew down the front of my pants most nights. This was also the times they still kept cigarettes displayed in front of the counter, so we kept our habit going easily. We would hang out for a while, get us enough food for the evening, and then leave. Later, another guy came to work there, and he made a point to let us know that he knew we were stealing, and he didn’t care at all. One night, I made a comment about a display of beer and he pointedly turned his back. I told him it wasn’t any fun if he let me do it. (I never stole beer.) Another time, he threw me over his shoulder and I yelled out “Put me down! You’ll squoosh it!”

My real shoplifting buddy was C., the girl I mentioned in a previous story. She and I would take trips to the mall and steal clothes like nobody’s business. All we would do is grab a bunch of shit we wanted to try on and take them to the dressing rooms. Once there, we would pick out what we liked, put our clothes back on over those, and walk out with the rest and hang them back up. (This was before they started counting items when you go in.) When we got out to the car, you could see us pulling off the things we had walked out with. It was a lot of fun, and the only way I was able to get new clothes without going to a thrift store.

I stole a lot of little things, too. I once walked out of a head shop with a James Dean poster down the leg of my jeans. I had to pull it up into my shirt a little so I could bend my knee enough to walk out. I stole a lot of books. Afterthoughts (I think they go by Claire’s now) was a favorite of mine and the only place I ever got caught. I used to steal those little clip-on nose rings and other miscellaneous jewelry. The day I got caught, I broke my two cardinal rules of shoplifting. I made a point to never steal anything I didn’t truly want and I always paid attention to my surroundings. On this occasion, I did neither. When I left the store, the clerk came running after me. She happened to be a girl I went to school with and she had talked the manager out of calling security if she could just get back from me what I had taken. Problem was, they had only seen me take one thing, but when I pulled it out of my pocket, the rest fell out. So I lost my entire booty. But it was cool, because I didn’t get into any serious trouble.

Before I tell you about my greatest catch, I’ll explain to you why I thought I could do this. When I was in the eighth grade, I started to write a book in which one of the characters gets arrested for shoplifting, so I checked out a book from the school library on shoplifting. It basically told you every way to get caught. Bar code scanners, hidden cameras, plainclothes security guards, and those little ink tags. The only thing I didn’t fuck with was the ink tags. Not worth the trouble, in my opinion. Bar codes I tore off. I still have books with the bar code torn off the back cover. Along with that, I can walk into a store and do a quick scan of where all the cameras are or where there might be cameras. If someone is following me too closely, they’re obviously security. Again, I will stress that I’m not telling you how to get over. This was more than 10 years ago, and things have changed drastically, so please…don’t try this at home. My biggest catch was, amazingly, my prom dress. I had quit school halfway through my junior year (I did go back the next year and graduated) and I thought I wouldn’t get a chance to go to prom. C. was going to hers at the high school I had attended in the country and she had hooked me up with a date. Problem was, there was no way I was going to be able to buy a prom dress. So…C. and I went to the mall. After a lot of searching, we found our way into a popular department store. I grabbed a bunch of dresses and headed to the dressing rooms.  Upon trying on a short, silver-sequin-covered dress, I decided that would be the one. My major problem was that my hair was just growing out from being completely shaven and it was a whitish-blond, so this dress went well with my ‘do. I tore the price tags off and slipped them under the seat in the dressing room. I put my clothes back on over the dress, but due to my t-shirt being a little thin, when I moved, you could see the sequins shining through. So I had to turn the top of the dress inside out and tuck it into my jeans. I was lucky in that C. had picked up the same dress in her size, so I was able to carry the look-alike back out with the rest. Then we walked out.

After I turned eighteen, I was a little more cautious because I was officially old enough to go to jail. One day, Someone told me it was time to stop. At least, that’s the way I saw it. I was at the mall with my soon-to-be husband and I stole a little beanbag frog from Afterthoughts. I put it in my pocket and, before I had left the mall, it was gone. That was my sign. Not to say I never stole anything again. When I was in Cancun, I stole food from a supermarket for a while. And here and there, I might lift a pair of sunglasses or something if I think I can get away with it. But that’s rarely, especially since I don’t want to get busted in a foreign country. Mostly I do it because I know I’m good at it and it gives me a rush. I haven’t stolen anything in about 2 years, though. That’s probably for the best.

I’ve wanted to tell this story for a while. The problem is that it’s hard to tell without giving away the identity of myself and those involved. Of course, the only way that would happen is if the people who knew me or the others mentioned were to read this. Of the millions of people out there, those chances are slim, but possible. However, I don’t feel like it’s enough to hold me back from what I want to write. When I started this blog, I promised that it would be as honest as possible, and that’s the way I’m going to keep it.

I had a friend named C. She had a friend named M. I don’t know how they met. All she felt like mentioning to me is that they had fucked. She took me to his house one day and told me on the way over that he didn’t have hands. He had lost them in a sheet-metal accident at his job. Of course, he was compensated extremely well and had bought himself a nice house, an SUV, and all the toys a young man could think of…computer, Playstation, big-screen TV, surround sound stereo system. He even had his own recording studio. All of that didn’t make up for the loss of his hands, but it made him quite comfortable.

He was a really sweet guy. When I first met him, I thought he looked like a teddy bear. He was about my height, which is a little short for a guy, and he was softly built. A nice way of saying a little tubby. He had brown hair and eyes, with a beard. He smiled a lot and was a very intelligent, likeable guy.

His arms stopped a little below the elbow. In place of his hands, he had 2 steel double-fingered hooks. The whole setup was strapped around his shoulders and worked like so: when he stretched his arm out, the “fingers” of the hook would open; bringing his arm toward his body would close the hook.

Watching him do things was fascinating. Things that I don’t even think about, he had to learn to do with no hands. For example, since he was a smoker, he had to do things a little differently. He would shake a cigarette out of the pack and into his mouth. To light it, he used a Zippo. He would roll the wheel of the Zippo down his leg to light the wick. After lighting it, he would smoke the whole cigarette without ever taking it out of his mouth. It would just hang off to the side. To dump the ash, he always had a 2-liter bottle around that was half-full of water. He would lean forward and expertly flick the ash into the mouth of the bottle.

The one thing that he wasn’t able to do alone was light the bong. Either C. or I had to help him with that. During the day, he had a friend come over and help him do little things like cooking and cleaning and lighting his bong. He told us that this guy was leaving town soon, and he was going to have a problem finding someone else that was cool enough to light his bong for him. I offered my services, but I don’t think he took me seriously.

We hung out for a while, smoking weed, then took off. We told him we’d be back later that night and make a party of it. I was really impressed with M., who didn’t seem to be affected by his disability. However, C. told me that he was really shy about going out in public, especially to clubs, because people stared at him. I thought that was awful. There was nothing wrong with him besides the fact that he was missing hands. Shit happens. But I guess people can be stupid sometimes.

We came back later with my boyfriend, T. We all got high, then went to a bar to play pool. T. was really good at pool and cocky about it. When M. said he would play him, T. said, “Alright, I gotta see this.” I was interested in seeing it myself. And he was pretty damn good. Watching him play using only hooks to control the cue was not something you see every day. And he held his own. T. ended up beating him, but M. only had 2 balls left on the table. Not bad.

Through the night, while he was playing, M.’s hair kept falling into his eyes. I watched him flip his head back enough times that I began pushing it out of his face for him. He was such a cutie. I’d never met a guy that impressed me so much. I liked him.

We went back to M.’s house. I started playing on his computer, downloading music. He introduced me to a song called “Shut Up and Fuck” by Betty Blowtorch. I loved it. We talked about everything. It was basically M. and I having our own conversation and C. and T. left to themselves, which was fine by them because I think they were doing some meth together. I found out that M. was a big fan of James Dean, as was myself. We seemed to have so much in common and I was having a lot of fun getting to know him.

A little later in the evening, T. said something to me about it. He said he could sense the chemistry between M. and I. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it and neither did T. We had what you would call an open relationship. We didn’t fuck around on each other until the end, but it was understood that if we wanted to, we just had to say so. I don’t remember if I wanted to fuck M. at that point, but I was definitely attracted to him.

He took us into his studio and I discovered that he could play guitar and the keyboard. Amazing. To play the guitar, he placed it on his lap and used a slide for the chords. He used his open hooks to play the keyboard. He played both instruments well. He also sang for the band. He said that he had just started learning to play the guitar when he lost his hands. He almost didn’t continue with his lessons, but decided to do them anyway. My admiration kept growing.

We left that night and I didn’t see M. for a few days. During this time, T. and I broke up. (He was shooting up cocaine and I couldn’t handle watching him do that to himself, so we split.) M. had given me his number, so I called him. He invited me over to watch Kurt and Courtney. When I got there, we got stoned and then went into the kitchen to make popcorn. When he started to plug the microwave in, I told him, “I don’t feel good about you doing that.” He said, “Yeah, me neither.”

The real problem came when it was time to sit down with the popcorn. I was just munching away and realized that he wasn’t eating any. Because his hooks closed tighter the closer he brought them to his body, there was no way for him to eat the popcorn without crushing it to bits. So I had to feed him. It started out as funny, but became somewhat sensual. It sounds corny when written down, but he was staring into my eyes with each piece of popcorn I put in his mouth. We ended up having sex on the couch. It was nice and sweet.

When I got ready to leave, I was trying to put my shoes on but having trouble with a knot in the laces. He sat down and asked me if I needed some help. I looked at him, smiled, and said yeah. He got the knot out in a couple of seconds, something I couldn’t do with ten fingers.

The next time I saw him, we had an argument over sex. He thought I wasn’t attracted to him because I wasn’t able to achieve orgasm, which was a problem for me at the time. I tried to assure him that it had nothing to do with him, but he wasn’t hearing it. So I left and never went back to his house.

A few months later, I was delighted to see him at the club. I ran up to him and threw my arms around him. He didn’t seem to have any hard feelings, which was cool. I told him to follow me on my “rounds” so I could introduce him to my friends. He was a good sport about it. I don’t know if it made him uncomfortable, since everyone was shaking his hand, but he seemed alright. Only one guy acted stupid and jumped back when he saw M.’s hook, but then he played it cool and apologized and M. said he was used to it.

That was the last time I saw him. I hope he’s doing well for himself and has found someone to love.

I was having a problem finding a place to sleep one night, and I was ready to pass out. I was sitting near the beach and a couple of guys started talking to me. One spoke English and the other one didn’t, so I was just talking to the one who did. I told him my problem and he said I could stay with him. I didn’t know either one of them, but it wasn’t the first time I had went home with someone I didn’t know, so that wasn’t a big deal. I always gave them the same speech. “I just need a place to sleep. If you think I’m gonna fuck you, then just leave me here.” They always gave the same response. “No, no. Don’t worry. No problema.” And they always did the same thing when we got there. They had to try just once to prove something about their manhood, maybe, but they usually backed off with no problem.

So I got in a cab and went downtown with them. When we stopped, the guy who spoke English got out and I started to follow him. He stopped me and said I was going with his friend. I didn’t know they lived separately and I told the guy that I made the deal with him. He said his friend was cool and not to worry. I was a little wary, but I still needed a place to sleep, so I went. When we got to the guy’s place, it was almost morning. All he had was a cuarto, which is just one room. I lay down on the bed and got ready to pass out. After just a minute or two, I felt him trying to touch me. I smacked him away. He tried again, and I smacked at him again and talked a little shit. He lay down next to my feet and we must have slept a little. I woke up a little while later to feel him touching me again, so I got up and moved to the little mattress he had on the floor. After a few minutes, I felt him touching me again. I sat up and put my fist in his face and told him if he touched me again, I was gonna knock his ass out. Of course, he didn’t understand what I was saying, but he got the idea. So I lay back down and about 2 minutes later, I felt his hands on me again. I sat up to hit him, and saw he had a kitchen knife. He held it up to my throat and said something in Spanish, curling his lip and trying to look mean.

I knew I was in a bad spot. But my mouth took over. I said, “Go ahead, motherfucker, I don’t give a fuck. But you better give me a cigarette first.” He understood “cigarette” and actually got up to give me one. I stood up and lit the cigarette and started talking shit, sliding on my sandals as I talked. He was still standing there with the knife. I knew there was only one thing that was going to keep me in that room. If he had locked the door, I was done. Just in case, I looked around and saw a pair of scissors laying on the bed. Okay, that would be Plan B.

I got my chance a few seconds later. He turned his back for a moment and I was headed to the door. I got lucky and the door opened. I heard him say, “Hey!”, but I was already halfway across the courtyard. There was a lady outside hanging her clothes, so I knew he wouldn’t take after me. I went through the front gate, made a right, and started walking. I had no idea where I was. I was just trying to find a main street so I could catch a cab. I didn’t have any money, but that was never really a problem for me. Taxi drivers in Mexico are always willing to give a pretty girl a free ride.

After about 10 minutes, a taxi pulled up and asked me where I was going. I told him to take me to Avenida Tulum. From there I could hop on a bus to the Hotel Zone. I told him I didn’t have any money, and he said no problem. When I got in the car, I told him what had just happened to me, and he suggested I go to the police. I didn’t want to do that, I just wanted to get where I was going, which was back to the Hotel Zone where it was easier to survive. During the ride, the driver actually had the nerve to put his hand on my leg. I looked at him and said, “Are you serious?” I had just nearly gotten myself hurt by not fucking some dude and he wanted to play games. When I got to Tulum, I hopped on a bus, and headed back “home.”

That was the only time I ever had any real problems going home with a stranger. For the most part, the guys behaved themselves once I made it clear they weren’t gonna get any. Not saying I was pure. I fucked a lot. But it wasn’t a given, and I made sure they understood that.

I had a most interesting evening. Last night, my guy took me to the Plaza Athénée to meet Brett Ratner and Allen Hughes. My guy has done business with Allen and has been hanging out with him and Brett since their arrival in Paris. I was invited along last night.

The Prince of Morocco (not sure which one) checked in to the hotel yesterday and wanted Brett’s room. So Brett was moved to the Royal Suite. For the inconvenience, they gave him the suite without charge for the rest of his stay. The suite is usually 16,000 euros a night, so you could imagine it was quite nice. Why the Prince didn’t take that room to begin with, I don’t know, but it provided a very nice setting for the evening.

Allen met us at the door. Brett came out of the bedroom and greeted us, then showed us around the suite. He’s a cool guy with a lot of energy. He was constantly on the phone. At one point during one of his calls, he said, “I’m not going to do a movie without a movie star. That’s retarded.” Funny shit.

We sat around for a while discussing current movies and music videos. Then Brett and Allen had to go to a business dinner, so my guy and I went downstairs to one of the hotel’s restaurants, Le Relais Plaza, and had dinner. Allen sent my guy a message that Brett wanted to pay for everything and wouldn’t have it any other way. I thought that was nice. We had a good table next to the piano, away from the rest of the crowd. The pianist was playing jazz classics. The champagne was the best I’ve ever tasted. We had King crab meat hors d’oeuvres, the house salad, and grilled lobster with pasta penne. Surprisingly good food for France. All in all, a nice dinner.

Afterwards, we went to the lounge to meet back up with Brett and Allen. When we got there, the group had gotten a little bigger. To my delight, one of the new arrivals was Robert Knepper, the actor who plays T-Bag on Prison Break. My guy and I are big fans of the show, so we were really digging his presence. Also, Yvan Attal, the actor that plays George the taxi driver in Rush Hour 3 was there, along with some other people I didn’t know. We sat in the lounge for a few minutes, then everyone got up to go to Brett’s room. My guy started talking to Robert about his new movie, Hitman. We rode the elevator up with him and I told him I was impressed with his Southern accent in Prison Break, being that I’m from the South. He said that what he had done to capture the accent was to call the University of Alabama and record the people he spoke to.

Robert, my guy and I had a pretty lengthy conversation about a number of things. It was pretty cool. When he left, he shook my hand and kissed me on each cheek. His goatee scratched my face. I loved it. That was my first big movie star encounter.

I got to shake everyone’s hand as they were leaving. My guy and I stayed to watch Helmut by June, a documentary that Brett produced about Helmut Newton. Brett went to sleep. So it was me, my guy, Allen, and Yi Zhou, a Chinese artist. Then, she left, and I stayed up listening to Allen and my guy shoot the shit until I couldn’t hold my eyes open any longer, and fell asleep on the sofa. My guy woke me up about 5 a.m. and we went home.

Is it possible to lose your virginity twice? I have. The two definitions I see for losing one’s virginity is first-time sexual intercourse and the breaking of the hymen. The first time I had sex, my hymen was left intact. The second time, my hymen was broken and gone for good. These events happened almost two years apart and with two different guys. The problem is, the first guy sucked and the second one was kinda cool. So I’ve always wanted to disregard the first and claim the second. Officially, I give the blue ribbon to the guy who actually broke through. But it doesn’t erase the experience of the first time I had sexual intercourse, as much as I would like it to. The first time I had sex was about a month after my 15th birthday. It was with a guy named D. whom I had dated briefly a few months before but had broken up with. He had been trying to get me to have sex with him for a while, but I wouldn’t do it. I don’t know if it was because I was scared or if I wanted to hold on to my virginity or just because he was a little dickhead. I still kinda liked him in my twisted way (I’ve always been attracted to assholes), but something held me back. One day, I just got tired of him asking me and I told him that I would do it the next time I came into the city. (I lived in the country with my mom and stepdad but stayed with my grandma every other weekend as a compromise after I ran away from home the first time.) So, when I came back to my grandma’s, it was arranged. Our other friends, including my brother, Little T., and his cousins, went to the “Iranian store” up the street to wait for us. Little T. had just moved out of a house that was across the street from my grandma and we went in through the back door. The entire experience was so fucking sleazy. We did it in the living room floor. Both of us only took off our pants. I don’t think we kissed or anything. He just stuck it in. And he was so small. I know every girl says this, but I didn’t even feel him. At all. There was no pain, no pleasure, no awareness of another person connecting themselves to my body. Nothing. It was so disappointing. And it got worse. After he was done (he at least had enough sense to shoot off on the floor) he got up and left me there. I got dressed and went to the store to meet up with everyone else. When I got there, he had told this big story that made him look like a major stud — supposedly I had put scratches on his back. I told them it wasn’t true since he didn’t even take off his shirt, but everyone still believed him since he actually had scratches on his back, probably from some other little girl. So, in the usual manner of things, I looked bad and he looked cool. It was an awful experience. It was supposed to be a major milestone in my life and it was bullshit. I can say that we were young (he was 14), inexperienced, and all that, but it doesn’t change the fact that it sucked balls and I have to live with the memory. I didn’t have sex again for a year and a half. One day in the summer that I was 16, I was hanging out with a girl friend, D. She took me to meet a guy she liked named S. He was staying with a guy she used to like named A. We picked S. up and I saw A. briefly, enough to determine that he was cute. Then, D., S., and I headed to a local off-limits hangout. As soon as S. got in the car, he started rolling a joint. I asked him if that was always the first thing he did, and D. quickly chimed in that I had never smoked pot before. He said, “Oh, I’m gonna have fun with you.” So when we reached our destination, I got high for the first time. The first hit I took tasted like shit and I said so. S. told me “I would get used to it.” I probably wouldn’t have gotten high the first time, but S. gave me a shotgun. D. was a little jealous seeing our faces so close to each other’s, but he gave her one too, so it was cool. It was just a slight buzz, but it was interesting. We went back to pick him up the next day. A. came out to the parking lot while we waited for S. and hung out for a minute. He talked to D. while throwing pebbles at me. He never said anything to me. Just threw rocks. He was cute and I was getting a crush on him. Then S. came out and we left to get high again. I didn’t catch a buzz that time, but I was getting experience. The next day, S., A., and D. showed up at my house. I was living with my grandma by this time and I was on the phone with my mom when they got there. She told me not to go anywhere and I told her I wouldn’t. We went to my room and A. started flirting with me. He still didn’t say a whole lot, but he sat in my lap and leaned back against me on the bed. I was eating it up. It seemed I never got any guy I had a crush on to pay attention to me, but here he was. They said they were going on the mountain to get high and wanted me to come along. I really wanted to go but I had told my mom I wouldn’t leave. My brother happened to come home in the middle of this conversation and he told me to go. His explanation was that he did whatever he wanted and never got in trouble and I should do the same. So I decided to go. Before we left, A. left a message on the chalkboard in the kitchen that I had been kidnapped. We drove up to the mountain and got high, walked around, and had a really good time. (When you’re a teenager, two girls and two guys hanging out is always cool. It’s balanced.) About five o’clock, D. said she was supposed to be home and called her mother from a pay phone to let her know she was on the way. While D. was leaving the message, A. was sitting in my lap. I started bouncing him on my knee and he stopped me and said, “Don’t do that.” I was confused at first, but I got it after a couple of seconds. I was very naive. We started driving back to D.’s house. D. and S. were making out in the back seat and A. and I were talking. Somehow we got onto the subject of sex and I told him that I had sex one time but didn’t feel anything. He said he felt sorry for me. We also had a little game going with his front seat. The car was older so it had a bench seat in the front, but the passenger side wasn’t locked in, so every time he would stop, my side would move up. A. would scream, “Stop moving the seat!” and I would laugh. It was cute. When we dropped D. off, her mother came to the door and started screaming at her, asking her where I was. She said my mother had called the police and everyone was looking for me. It turns out that my mom had taken the message on the chalkboard seriously. D. told her mom that they had dropped me off somewhere else, so A. told me to duck and threw a shirt over me, then drove away. We dropped S. off somewhere and then were at a loss. I was scared to go home because I knew I was in trouble, so A. said I could come to his house. He wasn’t supposed to have girls in his room, so he snuck me in through his bedroom window. We were laying on the bed watching TV and then started making out. Things progressed, we got naked, and I realized I was about to have honest-to-God, real sex. When he tried the first couple of times, it wouldn’t go in. This is what told me that I was probably still a virgin, physically speaking. I told myself it was like putting in a tampon and relaxed my whole body. His timing was perfect. As soon as I relaxed, he thrust up and was there. It hurt a little, but it was definitely better than the first time. I didn’t get any sexual pleasure from it, but I enjoyed the closeness of our bodies. I had never been naked with a guy before. When I look back at it, I think it’s exactly what first-time teenage sex should be. Afterwards, we lay there and watched TV until his mom came to the door. She had been there the whole time, but he had told me to be quiet. Obviously, she figured out someone else was in there. She knocked on the door and told A. to open it. He threw a comforter on top of me and opened the door a little. I heard his mom asking him if he had a girl in the room and he told her no. She knew better, though, and told me to come out. I didn’t know for sure if she really knew I was there, so I stayed put, even though it was July and I was sweating under the blanket. She told him to get me out and take me home. He closed the door, fell on top of me and said, “We’re busted.” She had seen my foot poking out from under the comforter. So I got dressed and went out to the living room, hair mussed, cheeks pink, looking like I had just had sex. I never looked at her; I was so embarrassed. She told A. to take me home, take some clothes to his sister at her job, and to come straight back. So we left. We dropped off his sister’s clothes and then drove down to the pond near where she worked. It was dark by then and he told me that this was the place where he was going to kill me. I said, “Oh, really?” He started to drive again, then slammed on the brakes. My seat moved up and he said, “Stop moving the seat!” I threw my head back and laughed and he leaned over and kissed me. It was the best kiss ever. It was impulsive and surprising and wonderful. We drove back to his house and picked up a couple of guys along the way…see previous entry Chasing Seagulls. After that, we drove around for a while but eventually he had to take me home because he was running out of gas. It was about 2 a.m. when he dropped me off and I didn’t want to wake my mom or my grandma, so I went to sleep on the front porch swing. When my mom got up to let the dog out, she saw me and told me to come inside. I told her I had stayed at a friend’s house and she said the police had told her that it was probably a prank and didn’t take the note seriously anyway. So everything was cool. A. and I tried to see each other after that, but my mom was kind of strict about where I went. We talked on the phone and I was only able to sneak over to his house one more time. We had sex again, but it was rushed and I had to crawl out the window when his mom came home. He had shaved his hair off and I liked his hair, so it was sad. Then he told me that he was moving to Seattle with his family. I was upset that there wasn’t a chance to build a relationship with him. I really liked him. He called me before he left and that was it. So, the second experience was everything that it was supposed to be. Even if he was just like all the other 17-year-old boys getting some easy pussy, he didn’t give me that impression. And that mattered to me. I’m left with the memory of a good time with a good guy. And that’s the guy who took my virginity. Period.

I was about five years old when we moved into a house that my stepdad’s parents had just moved out of. I don’t remember a lot from that time except for the weird shit that went on in that house. Coincidentally, I was living there when I first saw Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. It wasn’t the best setting to see something that was kind of scary to a five year old.

I think the first thing that everyone noticed was the sound of heavy footsteps coming from the attic. My grandmother kept insisting it was squirrels, but if that was the case, they were some big-ass squirrels. These were obviously the sounds of a man wearing boots walking up and down the attic floor. My parents got a little history from someone; my stepdad’s mom, I think. The story went that a man had lived in the house with his family and his wife decided to leave him and take the children. He was so distraught that he hung himself in the attic.

My brother and I were eating breakfast in the kitchen with my mother one morning when we heard the sound begin. This was the only time I remember hearing it during the day. I said, “Mama, that man’s walking again,” to which my mother promptly said, “Shut up.”

My mother saw something one night that was unrelated to the man, so I can’t explain the why of it. She said she was sitting in the living room with a friend of the family when she looked into the hallway leading to the front door to see a little girl standing there. She said, “—-, go back to bed.” She thought it was me. The friend said, “That’s not —-.” She then walked into my bedroom to check, and I was asleep. When she came back, the little girl was gone. That hallway was always cold, no matter what time of year it was.

One night, I was in bed sick. I felt like I was going to vomit, so I got up to go to the bathroom. When I tried to open my bedroom door, it wouldn’t open. I twisted the knob back and forth and pulled as hard as I could, but it wouldn’t budge. I finally vomited on the floor. My mother came to the door and opened it with no problem to ask me what happened. I told her I couldn’t get the door open. There was no way to lock the door, so I don’t know what kept me from opening it. I’ve always felt that it was something sinister.

My brother, who was about three years old at the time, had a “bad dream” one night, in which he said he saw the shadow of a man leaning over his bed. He had a crocheted football my grandmother had made for him that he threw at the shadow on the wall. When he did this, he said the shadow darted away. So, to make him feel better, my mother pulled the mattress off my bed and brought it into the living room. When she turned the light off, I was looking into the kitchen and saw a man standing in the doorway. My mother told me that I cried out, “I see him, I see him!!” But I don’t remember that, I only remember seeing the man standing there and then he was gone again when she turned the light back on. I turned over and did not look back towards the kitchen when she turned the light off again.

It wasn’t the last time I saw him. One of the scariest things that ever happened to me was the night that our dog, Cricket, had gotten free from the enclosed back porch where we kept her at night. She came running into my room and jumped on the bed, scaring the shit out of me. I started talking to her out loud to calm myself and went to my mother’s room to tell her the dog was loose. My room was adjacent to the kitchen, so I had to walk a little ways through the kitchen and across the living room to get to my mom’s room. I woke her up and told her Cricket was loose. She told me to put her back up. I said, “I can’t. It’s dark.” She didn’t reply and wouldn’t wake back up. I decided I would just let Cricket sleep with me and I started back to my room. About halfway across the living room, I stopped. The man was standing in the kitchen doorway. I just stared at him. He was of average height, but I couldn’t make out any features. I just saw the form of a man. He wasn’t solid, either, because I could see the shape of the kitchen table behind him. I didn’t know what to do. He was in the way of my bedroom. I don’t know how long I stood there, but it wasn’t long. Then I just broke and ran towards him, keeping to the far side of the door. This may sound stupid, but I think he stepped aside for me. I ran into my room, jumped in my bed, and hid with Cricket under the blankets. I didn’t come out until morning.

I think the ghost of the man wasn’t related to either the little girl and the cold hallway or the incident with the door that wouldn’t open. I do believe he was the one who visited my brother that night. I didn’t get any sense of evil from him when I faced him in the doorway. So I think that he was drawn to my brother and I because we were small children and he missed his own. Whatever the case, he was scary to live with, so we moved shortly afterwards to a house up the street. Occasionally, I would have to pass the house, which always seemed eerier when it was from the back.