When my parents told me they were completely uprooting everything to go take care of my ailing grandmother, I thought I had been understandably upset. I had friends, school, a job, history, and I was losing it all because my parents couldn't bear to leave me alone – or even let me move in with a friend. My dad admonished me for being insolent, screamed at me for being selfish and cruel to my grandmother. I wasn't trying to be, honestly, I love my grandmother, but to live with her permanently? I couldn't stand her odd behaviour for more than the few days we visited during the summer. She rarely ate, and she always slept during the day and only was awake and active at night; I don't think I've ever seen her go out in the sun. And her house always reeked of dead things (probably one of her long forgotten cats, or one of those weird taxidermy statues a neighbour brought her) – I just didn't like it there.
I didn't like Santa Carla. There was too much gang violence, too much theft, too much crime, too much partying; it was just too much. The wild side of Santa Carla threatened to swallow one up in an unending orgy of ecstasy. It was a unlike any place I'd known before. Santa Carla would chew me up and spit back out in a matter of hours. I wasn't like the people there, I wasn't into the newest fashions, I wasn't really a part of the music scene, and I didn't care for the whole "live fast, die young" thing. No, I was focused on getting an education and getting the fuck out of Dodge while I could. Santa Carla? Santa Carla would kill me before I made it to college. It is, after all, "the Murder Capital of the World". I remember reading those words emblazoned with white spray paint on the back of the "Welcome to Santa Carla" sign. That sign gave me nightmares for a solid week after I spotted it. I had never heard that before, but it was backed up so well by the missing persons cases and the constant "Have you seen this person?" questions.
It scared me because I knew the truth behind it. For those few days during the summer, I would see the signs on the boardwalk, on the milk cartons - and more and more signs were added each day. I refused to go to the boardwalk after sunset, petrified I'd join those who had mysteriously "disappeared". That point was hammered home two years ago, when my grandmother's neighbour's son went missing, and never re-emerged: dead or run-away. My parents refused to let me leave Grandmother's house until we left Santa Carla after that. They blamed his disappearance on the local "Surf-Nazi" gang, and promptly cut our trip short. Thank God.
Then there was the issue of starting at a new school midway through the year. I wouldn't know anyone, and by that time everybody would have already settled into cliques and groups and there would be no room for a new kid. It would be hell. I would be that freaky new kid, and the rumours would spread like wild fire- just like they had when that kid transferred into my school last year. These ridiculous rumours circulated about him being expelled from his last school for assaulting a teacher to running away from a gang and being in witness protection. It's amazing the things people came up with about him. What they might come up with about me. I had a hard time making the friends I already had, but to start from scratch? I would end up friendless for the rest of the year, maybe even until graduation. I thought perhaps that might be for the better: no ties to Santa Carla mean that there would never be a reason to ever return after graduating.
I would have to find a new job, something that had been near impossible back home and would be even harder in Santa Carla. With the abundant population, the unemployment rate had to be high, not to mention the few who would actually hire a teenage girl. They'd think I was a coke-head or knocked up the moment I walked in looking for a job. Maybe they'd think I was trying to rob them or… Okay, maybe it wouldn't be that extreme. But still, the job hunt would be hard as hell
I was doomed no matter what. And my parents didn't care.
The smell of the sea overwhelmed me, flooding my mind with memories of a blue sea. I suppose that was one perk of Santa Carla - easy access to the beach. My wavy red hair whipped around my face as I leaned out the car window, trying to get a view of the people we swiftly passed by. I was right; I would never fit in here. To these strangers, I would be another passing face, nothing spectacular, not one reason to even ask my name – just another stranger.
'Good.' I thought, 'Just how I like it I can be invisible and unimportant.'
Yes. That's how I would survive. I wouldn't stand out from the crowd; I wouldn't make myself a target for gangs or rapists or anybody. I would slip by Santa Carla's radar and in a few years, I would have never existed to these people – and not because I was simply another missing person.
No, I would never be a somebody in Santa Carla. This place would change me, as all places do, but I would never bend to its will. I would never belong to Santa Carla, and it would never belong to me. This place was simply another stepping stone in life, a hurdle I had to overcome. I would blend with the faceless hordes, avoid the night life and obey the laws and my own safety precautions: Never leave the house at night, No gangs, No boys, No alcohol, No drugs, Be sceptical about everything and everyone, There are no good people here, Get out as fast as you can.
Santa Carla, the Murder Capital of the World.
I couldn't have been more wrong about you.
