February 16th 1984
An anniversary birthday. Phoebe Buffay was turning sixteen years old. Her fifteenth birthday had been spent mugging a kid in front of a comic book store and then buying a new dress with the money she had taken from him. Now, this was her Sweet Sixteen and once again, she was waking up in the back of that burnt out Buick She had not been back to her old home since that run in with Leslie and she refused to go back. She would be fine being on her own. She had made it this far and now she was officially sixteen.
"Happy birthday, Pheebs. You made it to sixteen," Marjorie said as she walked towards Phoebe, smiling. "I stole this from the market for breakfast." She held out a box with doughnuts.
"Oh, fantastic," Phoebe said. She sat up and Marjorie got into the car. The two opened up the box and began to eat the doughnuts. They tasted so good, Phoebe had not eaten in a few days. They were yellow, cakey doughnuts with chocolate frosting. "These are so good."
"What do you wanna do today?"
"Learn to drive."
"We can make that happen."
"No, we can't."
"Don't you still have Comic Book Boy's keys?"
"We don't know where he lived."
"I'm still sad we didn't see your New Years Boy. What do you think he ended up doing for New Years?"
"Well, the last time I saw him...he had girls all over him. He was like a teenaged pimp. He was hot though."
"Alright, there's a party tonight," Lowell said walking towards the Buick.
"What party?" Phoebe asked.
"You know that tire yard on twenty third and Benningham?" Lowell asked.
"Yeah?" Phoebe asked.
"Party...we can celebrate your Sweet Sixteen," Lowell said.
"You still have that purple dress?" Marjorie asked.
"Yeah...but you know, last month because everyone is always willing to give during the holidays, I made two hundred bucks singing in the subway. I kind of wanna go back and see if that girl is still working there," Phoebe said.
"Maybe...we should go."
"Although," Phoebe said, grabbing her notebook from her open guitar case and flipping it open. "It's Monday. So she might not be. She'll probably be in school."
"I miss school sometimes."
"Me too. Well, here's my plan instead. I am going to go to the library and then I'll meet you at the tire yard," Phoebe said.
"Great. Apparently, this will be a great party," Lowell said.
Phoebe smiled, looking forward to her birthday. Last year, she had been sad. It wasn't how she expected to spend her fifteenth birthday but as Marjorie had said back then, Phoebe needed to concentrate on making it to sixteen. She did, she made it to sixteen and that was worth celebrating.
Wearing her Lincoln High sweatshirt over the purple dress she had gotten last year, she walked towards the New York City Public Library. This library had become like a home to her. Every single day spent looking through books and newspapers. First thing she did though before going to read anything was go to the bathroom where she splashed water all over her body and washed her hair in the sink. She cleaned herself up the best she could before going to look up articles on the 1984 Olympics. They would be ending in a few days. She wanted so desperately to keep herself informed on everything. She began reading books on languages and began to teach herself French and Italian She looked up books on history, reading up on American History and even history in other countries. She scoured the encyclopedias, spending most of her days reading. Then when she was done, she would sometimes go to the movie theater to watch movies. She would use the money she had saved through singing and then spend most of the day in the theater, often wandering from one theater to the next seeing two or three movies on one ticket.
After spending much of the morning at the library, she walked towards the movie theater, figuring she would treat herself. They were never too strict on checking tickets or ID which made it easy for Phoebe to get into R rated movies or to see more than one movie after just paying for one ticket. She got in line and looked at the list of movies, wondering which one she would see.
"Dude, there it is. Hot Dog, the movie. It's gonna be awesome."
Phoebe turned to see a boy, about her age standing behind her with a group of other boys. The boy looked kind of cute as well, tall, brown hair cut in a shaggy bowl cut and blue eyes.
"We have our fake IDs," one of the boy's friends remarked.
"Yes, yes," the boy pulled out his wallet, grabbed his ID and handed it to his friend. The friend let out a snort and shook his head.
"You're an idiot," the friend said.
"I know...but how?" the boy asked.
"Who the hell is gonna buy you as Boy George Michael Culture Club," the friend asked.
"It's a family name," the boy said.
Phoebe let out a snort. The conversation behind her was making her laugh. She looked at the boy and his friends.
"I wouldn't worry about it actually...this theater isn't too strict with ID," Phoebe said, turning around and smiling.
"Cool...so are you gonna provide the soundtrack to the movie?" The boy asked, pointing to Phoebe's guitar case.
"Oh, no...I'm not...I just...I came from a guitar lesson," Phoebe lied.
"Awesome. So, you go to Lincoln High? Where's that?" The boy asked.
Phoebe looked down at the sweatshirt she was wearing. The sweatshirt always brought back a memory of that fifteenth birthday in Long Island.
"Long Island."
"Awww, I'm Chandler by the way. These are my buddies, Matty, Tyler and Dave."
"I'm Phoebe."
"Hi, Phoebe. So, what are you doing around here?" Chandler asked.
"Seeing a movie. It's my birthday. My mom let me take the day off from school to hang out in the city," Phoebe said. Lying was seemingly becoming second nature to her, it was another survival skill she had to pick up.
"Happy Birthday."
"Thanks...well, what are you doing here?" Phoebe asked.
"We have gout," Chandler said.
"We do not have gout," Chandler's friend, Matty said.
"I want us to sound gout. That just sounds awesome and so much better than I had a cold. You know how common those are," Chandler said.
"You're funny," Phoebe laughed.
"Thanks," Chandler said.
"Thank G-d. It's the only reason we're friends with him," Matty said.
Chandler gave his friend a look and shook his head before launching into an explanation about how he and his buddies went to an all boys boarding school and decided to take a day off to come into the city to try and see this movie. Phoebe wasn't listening all that closely though, she was paying attention to the boy with the interesting name. He kept looking at her, smiling and laughing. The gaze he gave her made her feel warm and nice. It reminded her of the gaze that New Years boy gave her, so friendly. Phoebe wished she could take that warmth and bottle it up to use during those nights when she was cold.
Soon it was her turn to get her ticket but as she stepped up to the counter, Chandler appeared next to her.
"Let me...it's your birthday."
Phoebe cocked her head to the side and smiled at him. Her heart beat faster as she looked at him, his eyes so kind. Had anyone offered to pay for her for anything?
"I-" Phoebe said.
"She's not gonna hook up with you," Matty said.
Chandler took a deep breath. "I need new friends."
"Okay, thank you," Phoebe said.
"You wanna see the Hot Dog Movie with us?" Chandler asked.
"Okay."
Chandler turned to the counter and looked at the person. Suddenly, he cleared his throat.
"Two for Hot Dog: The Movie...do you wanna see my ID? The name is Boy George. Michael. Culture Club. Family name," Chandler said, making his voice as deep as he could. Phoebe laughed again. This boy was the funniest boy she had ever met. The lady behind the counter just glared at him, rolled her eyes and rang him up and handed him his tickets. Chandler handed one to her and then looked back at his friends.
"You're sad," Matty said.
"Yeah, I'm still going to see a wiener...or as my dad calls that...well any day."
"Thank you, Chandler," Phoebe said.
"No problem."
Phoebe's heart melted a little as he walked towards glass doors. This was turning out to be a wonderful Sweet Sixteen. She liked being under this boy's gaze, liked how wonderfully nice she was being even though she was sure she looked like crap.
Once in the theater, Chandler sat next to her. He had bought her candy which she liked and she thoroughly enjoyed herself sitting there with these random high school boys who she learned were all fifteen, a year younger than her. They were cracking jokes, laughing and having fun. For the first time, Phoebe actually felt young. She felt like a kid and she loved that feeling. Sure there were a few brief moments where she did question why some random kid was being nice to her but maybe she looked better than she thought. The movie was ridiculously bad but sitting there with this particular group of boys made her happier than she had been in so long. For those two hours she managed to actually forget. She managed to forget that at the end of the movie, these boys would return to their boarding school where they would be amongst friends and have a warm meal and beds to sleep in and she would be walking to a tire yard to celebrate her birthday. She would have no warm bed although she was thinking Lowell and Marjorie were working on getting food and alcohol.
When the movie let out though, that memory came flooding back. One of Chandler's friends, Dave was sixteen. He had driven to the movie and as they walked towards Dave's car, Chandler grabbed Phoebe's arm as his friends walked ahead of them.
"So, that was a good movie," Chandler said.
"Yeah, it was. Funny...it was bad. But funny."
"Yeah...look, I don't do this...like at all. But something about...you seem...well..."
Phoebe smiled at him. She both wanted and also at the same time did not want him to ask the next question. She didn't know what she'd say to him.
"Say it," Phoebe said.
"Can I call you sometime?"
He cringed slightly, looking embarrassed that he had even asked that question. Phoebe bit her bottom lip. What could she possibly say? What number could she give? It wouldn't matter anyway, she had no number.
"Um...well, Chandler...I had a great time but I just...well...I have a-"
"Oh, it's fine. Forget it. I-I understand," Chandler said, immediately.
"You do?"
"Yeah...please. Yeah...I should go. I...my friends are...I gotta go, it was nice meeting you," Chandler said before turning and running off, catching up to his friends who were now about twenty feet away. Phoebe watched as he got into the car and his friend pulled away from the curb. She watched as Chandler was sitting stone faced in the back seat as his friends were talking. Phoebe closed her eyes as she could feel her heart breaking. She didn't want to hurt him. It was so sweet of him. She had had such a great birthday so far. She had had a date. She took a deep breath and turned to walk, still thinking of that boy, so sweet and kind hearted. Telepathically, she tried to send him good thoughts as she made her way to the tire yard where her party would be held. He would not understand. He deserved a girl who actually had a phone number to give him and home where he could pick her up for dates.
She reached the tire yard just as the sun was starting to set. As she walked in, Marjorie ran up to her and hugged her and handed her a cup with a brown liquid in it. Phoebe took a sip and immediately cringed. It was strong.
"What is this?"
"Jack Daniels. Where were you Pheebs?"
"I went to the library and then the movies. I met a boy."
"New Years Boy?"
"No. His name was Chandler."
"Chandler?"
"Yeah...I met him in line and it was weird, he just started talking to me and we saw Hot Dog: The Movie which was awful but he was so funny. He was so great. He bought me Junior Mints. He was there with his friends. He's from I think Scarsdale or something...somewhere really reach and he goes to boarding school and...he was ditching and then...he asked for my number and I couldn't give it to him. He thought I was blowing him off. But I couldn't tell him the reason I couldn't give him my number...but he's cute. I'm sure he has girls just falling all over him."
"Come on...hey, look Pheebs. You survived to be sixteen. Now, you gotta concentrate to making it to seventeen."
"Yeah...G-d, but it would have been nice to kiss him. I've only had one boy kiss me like ever...I miss it. I bet he would have been a good kisser. If I'm not gonna drive a car on my sixteenth birthday, maybe I can get a kiss."
"We can arrange it."
"It's just...sometimes I miss that. The...I was in that movie theater and laughing so hard and not at the movie but at Chandler and his friends and I'll probably never see that boy again. He'll probably forget all about it...but G-d, I hope he knows somewhere how much what he did meant to me. That I did look at it as something special. He just started to talk to me. It was so random and yet so wonderful."
Marjorie smiled at Phoebe as she placed her arm around her and led her off. The first few hours of her party went well. Phoebe drank and people ate but soon the alcohol led to people getting drunk and attitudes changing. There was man, John. Someone had told her he had just escaped from prison and liked Phoebe. He kept staring at Phoebe, talking to her, touching her. He did not have the same kindness in his eyes as Chandler had. He did not have the warmth that she wished she could bottle up. John kept getting drunker and drunker and soon started doing drugs as well. Being high and wasted was never a good combination, and his behavior grew more and more erratic and Phoebe tried to escape him, every time he approached her. But it was when she rejected a kiss from him that his behavior went from erratic and strange to terrifyingly angry. He pulled out a knife and exclaimed to her that he was going to kill her. Phoebe began to run away from John but soon he caught her, shoved her violently to the ground and with the blade of his knife inches from her, he smooshed his face into hers, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. Phoebe closed her eyes and tried to recall the face of Chandler or the New Years Boy but all she could see was the monster who was now lying on her, moving his hand up her thigh. She tried to struggle, but he kept telling her he would kill her and stuff. So she lay there as he began to unbuckle his pants and lay back down on top of her. She kept her eyes shut when she suddenly heard a loud blast and John's body went limp, the knife falling to the ground a quarter of an inch from her head. Lowell and another guy ran over to her and grabbed the guy off her. He was dead from a gun shot wound.
Phoebe sat up and watched as John was carried off, thrown into a barrel. She hugged her knees to her chest and began to cry. The party continued around her as she sat. She thought of Chandler, wondering if he had made it back to his boarding school. She tried desperately to recall the loveliness of that moment, that movie but all she could feel was alone and cold and the realization that she would now have to figure out a way to survive to seventeen.
