A/N: another Flashback! (wahoo!) they are about fifteen at this point.
Keep reviewing because I'm insecure ; P Also, the squat town this is set in
does not exist as far as I know, and yes I did borrow Sara's net dress from
the book SMACK by Melvin Burgess. Sorry, I thought it was a hi-larious
idea!
Chapter Eight
ANGEL
(he's about 15 at this point)
I met Sids at a party in the squat town in Soho.
We were at Louie-Louie and Alice's place, the music was so loud you could feel the bass pulsing in your feet a block away. By the time you were actually in the big front room, lit by a thousand candles jammed into empty wine bottles, or stuck to books or the floor your teeth were tap dancing in your mouth and your bones were doing a tango. I was dressed to kill, all in blue like the Virgin Mary. Only I guess I was like, the revised version. Like I say, I was in all blue, but I was wearing a tube top, a knee length viol skirt, fishnets and four inch heals with little sequins on them. As I say, a revised edition. Mary after she's lost her cherry. To Lucifer.
Sara was wearing a net. I kid you not, she was wearing this little black crochet dress and that was it. It looked like a normal dress at first but then you really started looking and BAM you notice you can see right through it. Jordan wasn't too happy about it.
"You look like a hooker, Sara."
"That's the idea."
Jordan glared at her and picked at the duck tape on his jeans.
"Don't pick at them you'll ruin them!" protested Sara, "I spent ages on them. The jacket too."
"She's right. If you pick at it you'll ruin the effect." I scolded, smiling to show we weren't ganging up on him. And he did look fabulous. Sara had stuck duck tape all over his tattered old jeans and cut some extra holes in them for effect. She made him a shirt out of some pairs of black fishnets, but the crowning achievement of this ensemble was the jacket. She'd made him a penguin coat (the kind with lapels and tails) entirely out of duck tape! It was so amazingly amazing I wanted to steal it.
"Excuse me, sir, but that jacket is so amazingly amazing I think I'd like to steal it!" boomed someone over the music. It was a boy with white hair that stood out around his head making him look like a mad scientist. He was wearing a lime green Hawaiian shirt with garish pink flowers on it, cut off camo pants and massive bright pink boots with daisies painted on them and Dalmatian print lining the poked up over the edges.
"I'm Sids!" he screamed, "and I am in love with your jacket and I want to marry it! Will you dance with me?" but he wasn't talking to Jordan, he'd grabbed my hand and was tugging me out onto the writhing sea of bodies on the dance floor.
"I'M ANGEL!" I bellowed over the music.
"I'M A MONGOOSE!" he bellowed back.
"I'M A LEBONESE YACK!" I bellowed.
"I'M WINNIE THE POOH!" he bellowed.
"I'M A BOWL OF PASTA!" I bellowed.
"I'M AN ELEPHANT!" he bellowed
"I'M HIGH AS A KITE!" I bellowed
"I'M NOT!" he bellowed.
"I'M HAVING A BLAST!" I bellowed.
"I'M IN LOVE!"
And then he kissed me. I was so shocked at first I honestly didn't know what to do, but then he started to nibble my lower lip and I really started to enjoy it.
"I really am in love, Angel." He whispered when we came up for air. "Honest to heaven."
"With me?" I asked.
"Yeah."
I smiled. "Well I think you're better than caramel with peanut butter on top. Which is my favorite candy." Because I couldn't say I was in love with Sids. I wasn't. So I couldn't say, honest to heaven, that I loved him. So I did the next best thing.
Sids laughed. "That sounds disgusting."
"It's delicious."
"Am I?"
"You're better 'n delicious, Sids." I purred and kissed him.
We spent the rest of the party dancing and slipping into closets or corners to make out. We were on the red couch with the ripped upholstery, the one three windows down from the mulberry tree, when Sids said, "You wanna be my girl friend, Angel?"
I grinned 'cause it was like third grade or something, really innocent. He was blushing too. I mean, we'd spent about five hours freak dancing and kissing on various pieces of furniture and he blushes when he asks me out? I decided right then and there that if I had to choose a guy to fall in love with it would be Sids and I really hoped that I did one day.
I kissed his nose, working my way long his jaw until I was nibbling his left ear lobe gently. He moaned softly. "Sure I will." I murmured.
"Amazing. Amazing amazing amazing." He said and that was that.
That night as Sara, Jordan and I walked home from the party was the first time I realized I was alive. It was probably around three AM and the city had that blue-ish black hue that it only gets at three AM. The stars were huge and bright and they looked close enough to grab and hold in your hand. It was just amazing. Like Sids said, amazing amazing amazing.
* Three Months Later *
Remy planted roses in front of the squat. A thousand roses she planted in a thousand different colors. She never trimmed them, so they grew together into mountain of thorns and leaves and reds, oranges, pinks, yellows, whites, blacks so many colors. Remy wore long dresses with no shape to them and never cut her long blond hair or pulled it back. She didn't wear shoes except in the winter. She liked to lie on her back on the crumbling garden wall and sing songs by Kate and Anna McGerigle.
"Love, love where can you be?
Are you out there lookin' for me?
Love I am waiting
Heart beats accelerating!"
David was quiet, he had dark hair that always fell in his eyes and only half of his mouth smiled. He love to read, and play soccer and cook and he wanted to be a chef.
He was playing soccer with Louie-Louie and Aruthur and Foxy and Anderson and Julia who dresses like a boy when he kicked the ball too hard and it whacked Jordan in the back of the head.
They've been best friends since.
We were sitting in the rose garden, Sara, Remy, David, Sids, Jordan and I, drinking weak tea and telling stories when David asked, "Why did you three run away?"
David ran away because his father hit him and locked him in the basement and Sids ran away because his Catholic family didn't want a gay son. Remy didn't run away. Remy never had anyone to run away from because neither of her parents wanted her. Remy's always been on her own and she's always lived in the squat town.
When David asked why we ran away Sara's lips turned white around the edges, Jordan looked up at the sky and held his chipped mug a little tighter. I started to shake and shake and shake. I remembered shadow wolves like oil oozing out of the dark, I remembered Alberto who never spoke and cried all the time, and I remembered Jordan holding the knife and Mr. Ralph's blood everywhere.
"We had a rough time at home." Said Jordan. "We just got so sick of foster home after foster home so we just up and left."
But Sids felt me shaking, and he wrapped his arm tighter around my shoulder and I knew he knew Jordan wasn't telling the truth. I also knew I'd tell him that night, because I hated never talking about it.
Chapter Eight
ANGEL
(he's about 15 at this point)
I met Sids at a party in the squat town in Soho.
We were at Louie-Louie and Alice's place, the music was so loud you could feel the bass pulsing in your feet a block away. By the time you were actually in the big front room, lit by a thousand candles jammed into empty wine bottles, or stuck to books or the floor your teeth were tap dancing in your mouth and your bones were doing a tango. I was dressed to kill, all in blue like the Virgin Mary. Only I guess I was like, the revised version. Like I say, I was in all blue, but I was wearing a tube top, a knee length viol skirt, fishnets and four inch heals with little sequins on them. As I say, a revised edition. Mary after she's lost her cherry. To Lucifer.
Sara was wearing a net. I kid you not, she was wearing this little black crochet dress and that was it. It looked like a normal dress at first but then you really started looking and BAM you notice you can see right through it. Jordan wasn't too happy about it.
"You look like a hooker, Sara."
"That's the idea."
Jordan glared at her and picked at the duck tape on his jeans.
"Don't pick at them you'll ruin them!" protested Sara, "I spent ages on them. The jacket too."
"She's right. If you pick at it you'll ruin the effect." I scolded, smiling to show we weren't ganging up on him. And he did look fabulous. Sara had stuck duck tape all over his tattered old jeans and cut some extra holes in them for effect. She made him a shirt out of some pairs of black fishnets, but the crowning achievement of this ensemble was the jacket. She'd made him a penguin coat (the kind with lapels and tails) entirely out of duck tape! It was so amazingly amazing I wanted to steal it.
"Excuse me, sir, but that jacket is so amazingly amazing I think I'd like to steal it!" boomed someone over the music. It was a boy with white hair that stood out around his head making him look like a mad scientist. He was wearing a lime green Hawaiian shirt with garish pink flowers on it, cut off camo pants and massive bright pink boots with daisies painted on them and Dalmatian print lining the poked up over the edges.
"I'm Sids!" he screamed, "and I am in love with your jacket and I want to marry it! Will you dance with me?" but he wasn't talking to Jordan, he'd grabbed my hand and was tugging me out onto the writhing sea of bodies on the dance floor.
"I'M ANGEL!" I bellowed over the music.
"I'M A MONGOOSE!" he bellowed back.
"I'M A LEBONESE YACK!" I bellowed.
"I'M WINNIE THE POOH!" he bellowed.
"I'M A BOWL OF PASTA!" I bellowed.
"I'M AN ELEPHANT!" he bellowed
"I'M HIGH AS A KITE!" I bellowed
"I'M NOT!" he bellowed.
"I'M HAVING A BLAST!" I bellowed.
"I'M IN LOVE!"
And then he kissed me. I was so shocked at first I honestly didn't know what to do, but then he started to nibble my lower lip and I really started to enjoy it.
"I really am in love, Angel." He whispered when we came up for air. "Honest to heaven."
"With me?" I asked.
"Yeah."
I smiled. "Well I think you're better than caramel with peanut butter on top. Which is my favorite candy." Because I couldn't say I was in love with Sids. I wasn't. So I couldn't say, honest to heaven, that I loved him. So I did the next best thing.
Sids laughed. "That sounds disgusting."
"It's delicious."
"Am I?"
"You're better 'n delicious, Sids." I purred and kissed him.
We spent the rest of the party dancing and slipping into closets or corners to make out. We were on the red couch with the ripped upholstery, the one three windows down from the mulberry tree, when Sids said, "You wanna be my girl friend, Angel?"
I grinned 'cause it was like third grade or something, really innocent. He was blushing too. I mean, we'd spent about five hours freak dancing and kissing on various pieces of furniture and he blushes when he asks me out? I decided right then and there that if I had to choose a guy to fall in love with it would be Sids and I really hoped that I did one day.
I kissed his nose, working my way long his jaw until I was nibbling his left ear lobe gently. He moaned softly. "Sure I will." I murmured.
"Amazing. Amazing amazing amazing." He said and that was that.
That night as Sara, Jordan and I walked home from the party was the first time I realized I was alive. It was probably around three AM and the city had that blue-ish black hue that it only gets at three AM. The stars were huge and bright and they looked close enough to grab and hold in your hand. It was just amazing. Like Sids said, amazing amazing amazing.
* Three Months Later *
Remy planted roses in front of the squat. A thousand roses she planted in a thousand different colors. She never trimmed them, so they grew together into mountain of thorns and leaves and reds, oranges, pinks, yellows, whites, blacks so many colors. Remy wore long dresses with no shape to them and never cut her long blond hair or pulled it back. She didn't wear shoes except in the winter. She liked to lie on her back on the crumbling garden wall and sing songs by Kate and Anna McGerigle.
"Love, love where can you be?
Are you out there lookin' for me?
Love I am waiting
Heart beats accelerating!"
David was quiet, he had dark hair that always fell in his eyes and only half of his mouth smiled. He love to read, and play soccer and cook and he wanted to be a chef.
He was playing soccer with Louie-Louie and Aruthur and Foxy and Anderson and Julia who dresses like a boy when he kicked the ball too hard and it whacked Jordan in the back of the head.
They've been best friends since.
We were sitting in the rose garden, Sara, Remy, David, Sids, Jordan and I, drinking weak tea and telling stories when David asked, "Why did you three run away?"
David ran away because his father hit him and locked him in the basement and Sids ran away because his Catholic family didn't want a gay son. Remy didn't run away. Remy never had anyone to run away from because neither of her parents wanted her. Remy's always been on her own and she's always lived in the squat town.
When David asked why we ran away Sara's lips turned white around the edges, Jordan looked up at the sky and held his chipped mug a little tighter. I started to shake and shake and shake. I remembered shadow wolves like oil oozing out of the dark, I remembered Alberto who never spoke and cried all the time, and I remembered Jordan holding the knife and Mr. Ralph's blood everywhere.
"We had a rough time at home." Said Jordan. "We just got so sick of foster home after foster home so we just up and left."
But Sids felt me shaking, and he wrapped his arm tighter around my shoulder and I knew he knew Jordan wasn't telling the truth. I also knew I'd tell him that night, because I hated never talking about it.