One night with Robert solidified an idea that previously had been pushed to the wee corners of my mind. I had ignored the little voice calling from back there for so long, pretended it wasn’t there, gone on with my life as though it didn’t exist.
But as I rode into Pitcairn with those college guys, that little voice became impossible to ignore. It screamed: Larry isn’t the right person for you.
Instantly, I screamed back: He has to be! I don’t have anyone else!
But after a very full day of partying with people my own age – people who likely came from the same general background as I did, even though they were male – it was hard to believe that I should settle for living in Pitcairn with a man nearly twice my age.
More importantly, it was horrible to go back to living without the kind of laughter I’d shared with Robert. We’d really laughed. We’d had things in common; we’d found the same things to be funny. I’d laughed that way with a handful of ex-boyfriends who were kind-hearted souls, who’d treated me with respect, who enjoyed the same things I enjoyed. Robert reminded me that people existed in the world with whom I could laugh.
But I never, ever laughed with Larry. I’d laughed with Bonnie at some of the songs Larry sang; the lyrics had been funny. I’d laughed at the “CHICK” name tag I created for myself, at the irony of naming myself something so mundane. I’d laughed with Ronnie about little things. But I did not laugh with Larry.
Larry’s idea of humor was to hang Christmas ornaments around his penis and strut around naked saying, “Look at my big balls!” as the ornaments clanged together.
This did not make me laugh. Like most of the things Larry found funny, I didn’t see the humor. But Larry – who never recognized my apathy – laughed at his own jokes enough for both of us.
For most of my youth, nobody laughed at my jokes. My humor is so dry, some people miss it.
“People have to be smart to get your humor,” my mom told me. “Not everyone is as smart as you.” This made me feel better about the throngs of people who ignored my jokes in high school.
Maybe Larry isn’t as smart as you, the little voice yelled from its corner.
Robert and I had laughed about everything. Our perspective on life and people seemed to be aligned in a way that made us find the same things funny. It was just an added bonus that Robert was sweet.
Of course, Robert and I had no cell phones, and we weren’t planning to keep in touch.
But after Seven Springs, it was like someone had blown all the fairy dust off of Larry. I could see him for the man he was, not the man I wanted him to be. He was like a cowboy without a horse and I’d always been a bigger fan of horses than cowboys.
Sure, Larry was cool. My God, he was cool! He played that guitar and flew me down the road on that Harley. But for the first time in my life, I wanted something more than “cool.”
I wanted somebody smart. I wanted to be smart. And I wanted to laugh again.
I just had no idea how to make that happen.
So I drank more. And I became even more morose.
The idea of gang rape had never occurred to me before that moment.
I had no idea what to do, so I sat down and stared at the TV. I saw absolutely nothing. I sipped my beer, queasy at the thought of what was happening behind my back. I couldn’t run; I would never get to the door before somebody grabbed me. And if I got out, I had nowhere to go.
The banter between the guys had stopped; the only sound was coming from the TV. I didn’t dare move.
They’d seemed so harmless. Why was this happening? And what could I do?
After an eternity, a voice came from behind my head. It said: “You’ve got to pick one.”
I didn’t turn around. I squeaked, “Why?”
“You’ve just got to pick one,” came the reply.
“I’d rather not,” I said, still staring at the TV. If I pick one, I thought, maybe the rest of them will leave me alone.
A few minutes passed. I could make out the sounds of their hands moving, quiet but increasing.
“You’ve got to pick one,” someone said again.
I lit a cigarette. I stared at the screen. Finally, shaking, I turned around.
I took a long drink from my beer can as I surveyed my surroundings. Robert was the one I’d talked to the most; he seemed to be the nicest. All of the guys had seemed nice.
But Jeff was the most classically handsome, with his bright green eyes and perfect black hair swooping over one eye. He was gorgeous.
When would I ever get another chance to just pick someone gorgeous?
“Okay, I’ll pick Jeff,” I said. The other guys groaned a little at my decision, but no one got up – except Jeff, smiling his perfect smile.
“Let’s go,” said Jeff, and we headed into a bedroom together as though this were some elaborate game of Truth or Dare.
I didn’t question what was next; I undressed quickly and – since beds often made me nauseous after drinking – I threw myself down on the floor.
Jeff didn’t waste any time either. He jumped on top of me and started immediately, without even a kiss. Immediately bored, I realized that there was going to be no pleasure in this experience for me.
“Can I pick somebody else?” I sighed.
Jeff stopped and looked at me. “Huh?”
“I want to pick somebody else.”
“Uh, okay,” Jeff said, backing off and letting me up.
Naked, I walked into the living room. “He sucks at this,” I announced. “I want Robert.”
This announcement was followed by hoots of laughter, and even a demonstration of Jeff’s poor form. Finally Robert threw everyone else out and closed the bedroom door.
I had a much better time with Robert. He was slow and gentle and kind and beautiful, but best of all, we laughed literally all night long. We talked and we laughed and we messed around and laughed and cuddled and laughed some more.
We finally fell asleep after the sun came up and within minutes, the other guys were waking us to go home.
I didn’t want to go. I’d had more fun with Robert in one night than I’d had with Larry in two years. I wanted to stay in Robert’s college dorm room and marry him someday.
But instead the guys dropped me at the Pitcairn apartment. I dragged myself up the stairs. Larry – who asked nothing about my night in Seven Springs – was thrilled to have me home.
I wanted to die.
As Larry disappeared around the corner, the guy at the bar half-whispered, “He knows we’re not leaving until tomorrow, right?”
“I guess so,” I said.
I had no idea what Larry knew or didn’t know. What was I supposed to do until tomorrow? Where was I supposed to sleep? I had no money, no food, nothing but the clothes on my back and a pack of cigarettes, which was fast disappearing. How was I going to get my treasured menthols at Seven Springs?
Robert – with whom I’d been chatting carelessly only moments before – suddenly became my caretaker.
“Where can I get cigarettes?” I asked, wasted enough not to care about any of my other issues.
“We’ll take care of you,” Robert said, showing me to a vending machine in the corner, then filled my glass using the pitcher of beer in front of him.
Sure enough, the guys took care of me. We drank for another hour or so, then they decided it was time for pizza. It had gotten dark outside and Larry, sure enough, was long gone, no motorcycle in the lot.
We walked back to the place where they were staying – a massive multi-bedroom condo with an enormous living room, which was surprisingly clean, and an open-concept attached kitchen where, when delivered, the pizzas were sprawled on the counter.
I calculated quickly: six guys, and me. I prepared to sleep on the couch. Someone handed me a beer from the fridge as I stood awkwardly among them. “Help yourself when you need one,” he said, gesturing toward the refrigerator before sitting down.
“Movie?” someone said.
Robert said, “She’s never seen The Blues Brothers! We gotta watch it.”
“You’ve never seen The Blues Brothers?” The guys collectively gasped.
“I’ve seen it,” I said. “I just don’t remember it.”
This was true; most movies I watched in the early 80s were lost in the haze of blackouts by 1987. I’d watched more than one movie several times and had no idea what the plot entailed, let alone what the key moments were. It took me multiple viewings of Animal House to remember (just) the food fight, which had become part of college culture.
Someone popped in a Blues Brothers VHS, and the guys sat on the furniture – a couch and several chairs – around the room. Not wanting to miss this surely awesome movie, I sat down on the floor, in front of the coffee table.
Sitting on the floor distanced me from the guys, too, which meant I felt a little safer.
They turned the lights off for the movie. Guys were shuffling back and forth to the kitchen grabbing beers and pizza and everyone was talking amongst themselves, commenting on the classic elements of the movie – the car, the Saturday Night Live superstars – but I tried to concentrate on what was in front of me. I wanted to appreciate the movie this time, even though I’d been drinking all day.
When my beer ran out, I hopped up to get another one. I reached into the fridge, cracked the beer, and then headed back to my spot in front of the television.
As I turned into the living room, I realized quite suddenly that every single one of the guys was quietly but obviously masturbating.
Mentally I gasped; outwardly I remained silent. Without a word I walked back into the room, turned my back on all of them, and reclaimed my spot on the floor.
One Saturday afternoon, Larry and I went for a ride in the country. We were in a forest when I started begging to stop for a drink.
“There’s nothing out here!” he said over the roar of the Harley. “Just Seven Springs, and it ain’t cheap.”
“Let’s go there,” I said, having no idea that ski resort drink prices meant we’d run out of money before I could drink my fill. Of course, “my fill” was never possible – but my feeling of deprivation would happen a lot sooner at an expensive resort.
A minute passed. “I guess we could have a couple,” Larry said.
Within half an hour, we were pulling into the Seven Springs parking lot and clomping out of the sunshine into a dark cabin-style bar. Except for a handful of young guys at the end of the bar, the place was empty.
A couple drinks later, Larry and I were chatting with that group of guys; they were all college kids.
They were my age. I suddenly felt less alone than I’d felt in forever.
Within an hour, I’d begun ignoring Larry, who was sitting to my left at the bar. My stool was turned completely to the right, my back to Larry, while I chatted with the guys … some of whom had moved closer to be better able to hear me over the music.
Interacting with these college guys was thrilling. We talked about spring break and dorms and parties and compared and contrasted our schools. We talked about whatever songs played on the jukebox, which inspired conversation of the bands we’d seen in concert, our favorite classics, and the worst songs ever made (“You Light Up My Life” topping that list). And when I learned that the guys were from Pittsburgh, we talked about our respective high schools, our (mixed) reviews of Vincent’s Pizza and what sports we all played, even though I no longer played sports.
I was having the time of my life in that bar, just hanging out. And Larry uncharacteristically allowed our banter to continue without interjecting. The fact that they all happened to be rather attractive young men did not elude me, nor did it elude Larry, but we were just having fun.
I think Larry realized, after Florida, that I needed something more than he could provide.
Larry didn’t push me to shorten the visit, nor did he insist on being part of the conversation. He was smiling and seemed to be having a good time – which I noticed whenever I turned around to look at him. He didn’t appear to be unhappy or agitated in any way.
In fact, Larry allowed the guys to buy us beers and shots – lots of beers and shots. But after two or three hours, Larry was finally ready to go.
Like any good drunk, I would have started chopping off my fingers if it meant that I could continue to drink right where I sat. “Please, can we just have one more?” I begged. “I’m not ready to go home.”
Larry had heard it all before, and sometimes we stayed. Sometimes we left anyway. But on this particular occasion, we did something we’d never done before.
Larry turned to one of the guys and said, “You can get her home, right?”
My jaw dropped.
The guy next to me blinked. “I’ll make sure she gets home,” he said. They shook on it.
I was flabbergasted. “You’re gonna leave me here with them?”
“They’ll getcha home,” he said. And he sauntered out the door, leaving me behind.
“I’m going home,” Larry announced one night as we sat at the Sharwood.
“Why?!?” I whined. “It’s barely 10:00!”
“Gotta get some rest!” he laughed. Larry handed me ten dollars, kissed me, and left.
I remember ordering a shot of root beer schnapps with my new money and then I remember: nothing.
A blackout. A big, empty space appeared in my memory where my life should have been.
I awoke on a floor, desperately dry-mouthed, willing my eyes to open so I could find my cigarettes. I reached out and clonked my arm on something hard – a table maybe, or a wall.
Then someone snorted.
My eyes flew open: I was not at home.
I was among the bodies on the floor of someone’s living room. There was a guy snoring on a couch – likely the noise I’d just heard – and two more guys and another girl were sprawled around using jackets and magazines as bedding.
We were all still clothed, which I found to be a soothing revelation. I was still wearing boots, and my hips hurt where the studs of my jeans pressed.
But I had never seen these people before in my life. And I had no idea where I could be.
Maybe I’m in Ohio, I thought. I’d often gotten drunk and asked someone to drive me to Akron to see Bonnie. And the people around me were young enough to be in college.
I had no idea how much time had passed since I’d bought that shot of root beer schnapps. It could have been hours or days; I could have flown on a plane and never known I’d done it.
I had no idea what day it was. I wracked my brain for a clue; nothing appeared.
I could be anywhere, I thought. Hawaii or Myrtle Beach, or maybe I’m in Ireland! I’d always wanted to go to Ireland.
As I fumbled to quietly light a cigarette, I acknowledged this exciting notion: maybe I’d done something new!
It was still dark outside. I pulled myself up, then stepped over bodies to make my way toward what turned out to be a kitchen.
Thirsty.
I opened the refrigerator door: no Diet Coke, but at least a dozen Budweisers inside. I grabbed one, feeling guilty for stealing from the Irish strangers.
I didn’t want to wake anyone by cracking it open, so I stepped outside. I stood at the top of a wooden staircase, streetlights sparkling in the distance. This house was on a hill, overlooking at least a hundred houses below.
The world was dark and silent.
I plopped down in the doorway, imagining. I could be anywhere. If I’m in Ireland, I’m never going back.
As I sipped my beer, light appeared in the distance, slowly brightening the city beneath me. It took me awhile to realize I was watching the sun rise.
Everything was breathtakingly glorious; the world turned orange and caught fire as I watched.
The houses became clearer. They were older homes so – maybe Europe, maybe Ohio. I thrilled myself by being simultaneously nowhere and everywhere.
Then, just as I was wondering how I’d ever get home, I saw something familiar: an American gas station.
So much for Ireland, I thought. And then it dawned on me with the force of a nuclear blast: I knew that gas station.
It was the only gas station in town. I was still in Pitcairn.
My travel dreams crashed around me, irrevocably destroyed. I finished my beer, grabbed another beer from the strangers’ fridge without remorse. Then, devastated, I headed for home.
One night, Larry and I were at a bar – one we’d visited a hundred times, with the live country band and all the old people dancing. I got up to use the restroom.
Larry had learned to occasionally follow me when I headed off. Otherwise I sometimes did cocaine without him, or I passed out on the floor and he couldn’t figure out where I’d gone, or I walked out the back door and got locked out. Any number of things could happen.
So Larry was following me to the restroom, as he sometimes did. We walked past two booths that were tucked just outside the restroom hallway, where people were sitting, laughing, drinking. It was dark and loud and I barely noticed the tables.
A biker looked up as we walked by. Bikers were very easy to identify, thanks to their unruly facial hair and leather vests. Being Larry’s ol’ lady meant that I felt confident in what I did next.
“Hey,” I said with an easy smile.
“Hey,” said the biker with an easy nod.
Larry and I continued into the hall toward the restroom.
As soon as we’d rounded a corner, Larry grabbed my arm – hard.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he growled.
“I’m going to the fuckin’ bathroom,” I said. I thought he understood our current mission.
“Back there! What were you fuckin’ doing with that guy?”
It felt odd, after all the cheating I’d done, that Larry was going to be upset about the word “hey.”
Confused, I stammered, “He’s a biker?” I thought we said hi to our own kind. Plus I thought saying “hey” was socially acceptable. Heck, Larry said “hey” to everybody!
Still holding tight to my arm, Larry shook his head. “He’s a fuckin’ Hells Angel! You don’t fuckin’ talk to a fuckin’ Hells Angel! Don’t even fuckin’ look at a Hells Angel!”
I knew that “Hells Angel” meant “biker” but I had no idea what made that particular biker different than all the other ones. Nor did I know how I was supposed to know the difference, since all bikers looked pretty much exactly the same.
“Okay?” I said tentatively.
Larry was still in panic mode. “He coulda pulled a knife on you! Or fuckin’ shot you right where you fuckin’ stood!”
“Why would he …” I stopped myself. Larry was completely out of control, detailing the horrors that could have happened because I said “hey.” He went on and on and on.
He concluded with: “Don’t ever fuckin’ talk to a Hells Angel! Got it?”
“Got it,” I said. “Never fuckin’ talk to a Hells Angel.”
I still had no idea what I was supposed to do when confronted with the dreaded creature I’d just seen, and I was baffled as to how I would ever recognize the difference between that bearded man and all the other bearded men, but it was no use discussing it with Larry any longer.
I went into the bathroom, walked out of the bathroom, and walked back past the table where the Hells Angel still sat. I did not turn around.
But as soon as I got back to my table, I stared at the man who could have killed me for saying hello. He was chatting with his friends, just like everyone else in the bar, drinking his beer, smoking a cigarette. I looked for some kind of sign that identified him as The Devil Himself, but found none.
From that moment on, I just didn’t say “hey” to any bikers who didn’t say “hey” to me first.
Problem solved.
I am fairly certain that my dopamine system was broken when I was born.
Maybe I didn’t have a sufficient number of receptors to channel the dopamine to the proper places in my brain. Or maybe the base of my brain, where the soon-to-be-dopamine neurons were stored, didn’t have sufficient space for all the dopamine I was likely to need.
Or maybe I made plenty of dopamine but used it all up too fast which caused my desperate need for more.
I learned about dopamine when noticing that video games, especially when played for more than an hour a day, will suck up every ounce of dopamine in the brain and cause a desperation for more. This was obvious when my sons would suddenly become grouchy and rude after a four-hour session on the Wii.
I also learned about dopamine surges when researching my son’s ADHD. People with ADHD generally have insufficient dopamine, too, which is why they move around a lot. They use movement to create mental stimulation.
Interesting side note: sugar has the same effect as video games and movement.
I am addicted to any video game I like (so I try not to play) and, in spite of my intolerance for a variety of foods, I also eat too much sugar.
I am certain, even before any autopsy, that my brain severely lacks dopamine.
When I was small, I spun around endlessly so I could get dizzy and fall down, then get up and do it again. I wanted some kind of rush even at the age of four.
There is much research on how alcohol artificially provides surges of dopamine, too. That dopamine rush is what I was seeking when I drank. It was like my dopamine receptors were broken.
In fact, in 2023, long after I figured it out for myself, NIH finally identified the genetic markers for addiction – and verified that the dopamine system plays a role in that disorder.
And to worsen matters: alcohol, when consumed regularly over a long period of time, completely interferes with the body’s ability to create dopamine. So as I drank, seeking more dopamine, my body became more and more incapable of producing its own dopamine – making me even more dependent on alcohol.
In other words, the very thing I used for a dopamine rush killed my ability to naturally create dopamine.
And, in the vicious-cycle way of all things, I believe I was lacking the ability to properly process dopamine when I was born, so in my attempts to get more dopamine, I actually cost myself the very tiny amount of dopamine I was naturally creating on my own.
Did I mention: sugar has the exact same effect on dopamine depletion as alcohol? So when I wasn’t drinking, I was eating candy, desperately trying to always feel good.
The biggest challenge I had when I was drinking – and, quite honestly, for my entire life – is that I believed I always, always needed to feel good. Feeling “down” was unacceptable.
And I was born “down.” I was a moper and a whiner and a pessimist from birth.
Probably because I didn’t have enough dopamine.
The good news: there are other ways to increase dopamine levels naturally. Eating healthy foods, meditation, and exercise are all great dopamine-boosters.
I didn’t do those things. I drank. And drank and drank and drank and drank and drank.
One day during a long ride in the country, Larry and I stopped to admire a lake. Since it was mid-summer, the place was packed with people running up and down the shores, drifting in and out of the water, waiting in line at the stationary ice cream truck. We were just two bodies amongst the summer crowd.
Larry went to the port-o-johns and I was standing, smoking a cigarette and staring at the water, when a little girl walked past me. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old, happily sucking on a freezer pop, her wet hair still dripping down the back of her orange one-piece.
In her youthful innocence, she reminded me of myself at that age.
As she trotted past me, she glanced up and caught my eye and I gave her my biggest, friendliest smile. The little girl’s eyes widened and she instantly started to cry, transforming her walk into a run as fast as her little feet would carry her – back to her family, back to safety.
I’d scared her.
I’d smiled at her, which terrified her.
Suddenly I saw myself as she saw me: standing in the sand wearing torn jeans and black boots, my hair disastrous, a large black helmet in my hand, skull rings on my fingers, a cigarette in the other hand. I stunk of ash and filth and stale beer; I hadn’t showered in days. I probably hadn’t even brushed my teeth.
On the inside I was still a little girl, toddling down the beach with my popsicle. But on the outside, I was revolting.
I’d spent much of my youth wanting to be a teacher; I so adored children. But I scared this girl without trying. I couldn’t have children with Larry, and I knew that, but I’d always thought I might someday teach. Another dream dropped by the wayside that day.
“Ready, Baby?” Larry asked, reappearing.
“Yeah,” I said.
It wouldn’t have helped to tell him what had happened. Larry didn’t see the world the way I did. He’d been loud and crooked and harsh for years; he probably wasn’t even aware that he scared small children. He wouldn’t have understood why this was a new experience for me. He didn’t understand that leather and boots didn’t fit on a family beach.
On the way home, Larry and I had sex in a cornfield somewhere near Grapeville, Pennsylvania. Afterward I wrote a poem in my head as I rode on the back of the motorcycle on that beautiful summer day.
It’s one of the few poems I can still recite from memory.
“A child ran from me today,”
I whispered to him as we lay
Making love in rows of vegetables somewhere.
“Why?” he mumbled back at me
But I just sighed because he
Ran his fingers down through my long hair.
And later on, out in the sun
I thought I felt that child run
Somewhere in the corner of my mind.
A sign said Grapeville just one mile
I scared that child with my smile
And then I turned away from all the signs.
Larry and I no longer argued after the bars closed, because I would never again keep him from sleep. He went to bed and I stayed up listening to music.
As the angst of living with Larry while being very much alone began to take hold more permanently in my brain, I turned to the one thing that kept me functional: music.
In 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree album and I bought the cassette. Its lead single, With or Without You, held a special place in my heart. Something about that song made me think it was written specifically for me, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it might be.
Night after lonely night, I would put my tape in the boom box and hit “play.” At the chorus, I would scream-sing at the top of my lungs:
I can’t live … with or without you ….
I did not know to whom I was singing. I only knew that I felt deeply, painfully, excruciatingly torn, like my life could never be my own because something was pulling me in opposite directions. I felt like I was dying but had no idea why.
Sometimes I believed it was Larry who was holding me back. It had become difficult to live his life, but I had no life of my own to live.
Sometimes I believed it was my parents. I couldn’t live their lives either, but I was miserable living without the people I so dearly loved for the first 20 years of my life.
Maybe I couldn’t live with or without The One from college. Or maybe it was Bonnie. I just couldn’t live the way I was living.
The deepest, most profound meaning came to me from the song’s refrain:
And you give yourself away … and you give yourself away …
At this point in the song, I crumbled completely. I had numbed myself for too long to be able to cry, but I would wail like a wounded animal in a steel trap: “And you giiiive yourself awaaaaaay…!”
I knew, deep down, that I had given myself away, lost myself completely, misplaced my very soul.
This had happened for no discernible reason; I was just gone. The person I’d been had completely vanished, even from my own view. Yet I had no idea where I’d gone, or if I’d ever be back.
And you give and you give and you give yourself away ….
Maybe I’d given my soul, as the retreat pastor had said, to all those men with whom I’d had sex. That felt true, but something else felt like it was truer; I just didn’t know what it was.
Mostly I just randomly moaned aloud in tune, knowing the song was deeply, powerfully, inextricably linked to me.
And immediately, at the song’s last note, I rewound the tape and played it again. And again.
I wallowed in the song like a pig in a mud bath. I played it again and again and again and again, every single night, all night long, for months.
I had no idea – truly, not a clue – that I was singing With or Without You about alcohol.
After several days of complete madness in Daytona, it was more than a little disheartening to arrive back in Pitcairn.
The Sunshine State – even though I’d avoided all sunshine – had reminded me what it was like to have fun, to party all day and night, to be amongst people who drank like I did, who proclaimed freedom as a mantra, who thought I was a superstar just for lifting my shirt.
Now I was returning to the doldrums of work and empty bars. Reality hit like a sledgehammer.
The apartment was dark and dingy, a reminder of my agonizing loneliness. The garbage reeked in the kitchen since no one had emptied it before we left, and the bathroom smelled as moldy as ever. The stench of stale cigarettes and ash would have been unbearable if I hadn’t been smoking a cigarette when I walked in. The thin carpeting was filthy and my bare feet felt grittier than when I’d been romping in the dirt outside our tent.
Larry clomped up the steps behind me, tossed some stuff onto our bed and went into the kitchen to make a sandwich. He didn’t seem to notice the condition of our apartment, or the smell.
Until I’d had this one day without alcohol, I’d somehow not been aware of the state of our apartment.
My home was embarrassingly disgusting. I wondered for a moment why anyone would want to live here. How would it appear to other people? This place was gross. But I’d never noticed it before.
A week away, and one day without alcohol, and … here I was.
I was sad to be home, disappointed in what I’d come home to, apathetic about Larry, excited only about going back to work where I could see my friends, get high at lunchtime, and earn another few dollars so I could drink for another few days.
I stepped into the bathroom and, for the first time in a week, I saw my reflection in the chipped bathroom mirror. I dropped my cigarette into the toilet and stared.
I hadn’t seen my own face in a very long time.
I’d spent a week ignoring my pain with the help of countless cans of beer, and some root beer schnapps. I’d had sex with Larry several times in the pup tent without a single thought about how I appeared.
But back at home, with the offending bedroom nearby reminding me of Larry’s fists, and the offending window reminding me of my suicide attempt, I was stunned into stillness.
I was no longer listening to the solid roar of motorcycle engines or enjoying Lookin’ Out My Back Door on repeat. I wasn’t the suave character who’d had such fun dancing in the bar with the guys in Daytona. And I wasn’t the sexy girl I imagined I’d been as I randomly flashed bikers, strolling coolly and confidently through the masses of black t-shirts and tattoos.
In spite of so much time passing, I still looked like someone who’d been pummeled in the face then dove out a window. In other words, I still looked like me.
And I had exactly one shot left on my roll of film.
