CHAPTER 3

Jimmy met me by the street corner. He was patiently smoking a cigarette and talking animatedly to a young girl who was dressed in a raggy black dress. Somehow I didn't think it was raggy because of her lifestyle. She was so entrancing that I stared at her as I walked, and almost knocked over a trashcan.

Jimmy laughed at me. "Hey, if it's not the clumsy Jesus!"

"Hi," I said, straightening the trashcan. Jimmy and the girl came forward, and she extended her hand.

"Jesus, this is my girl, Haushinka." Jimmy introduced, "And Whatsername, this is the Jesus of Suburbia."

Haushinka smiled at me. She was obviously older than Jimmy, which placed her as probably older than me, because Jimmy is two weeks younger than me. She shook my hand with her soft pale one, and then dropped it.

"Call me Whatsername."

"Why?" I asked softly.

"No one ever remembers my name, so they always refer to me as 'Ol Whatsername'." Haushinka explained.

Jimmy beamed with pride at his long lost friend, and they appeared the perfect couple to me, as Whatsername was a head and a half shorter than Jimmy, with soft feathery black hair and Jimmy had the proud face of man fresh from the altar. Now, more than ever, I wanted to be Jimmy so bad. I had a fake smile on, hoping Jimmy wouldn't notice my lack of total elation as he led Whatsername and me into the warehouse.

"Whatsername just popped in all of a sudden. Hitchhiked all the way from Chicago to Cisco, and then walked to Berkeley!" Jimmy said in amazement.

"Total misery," she agreed. "I had my thumbs out on the highway for hours!" She made a dramatic gesture and fell back onto the pallet Jimmy used for a bed. "Finally somebody was nice enough to stop. I remembered Jim here telling me that he was in Pinhole, so I caught up with him just as he left school today."

I nodded. "So, uh, you don't go to school?"

"Hell, no!" Whatsername cried. "Horrible place."

Jimmy sat next to her, grinning. "Want to come with me to school tomorrow and scare the fuck out of the teachers?"
The girl nodded vigorously, her hair bouncing. "That'll be sweet. so Jesus, do you go to Pinhole Valley High as well?"

I dipped my head. My throat was too constricted from shyness to speak at the moment, really. I found myself tongue-tied and my palms sweaty.

Jimmy glanced at his watch. "Oh, shit, Jesus, it's late. You should probably go home now!"

I looked at my own watch, glad for a reason to have to look at something other than the girl Jimmy had his arm around. I noticed the time, and cringed, as Mom and Brad were probably home now and therefore knew I was not.

"You're right, I'd better go." I said a quick goodbye to Jimmy and Whatsername and ran all the way home, my mind racing.

CHAPTER 4

The next morning Jimmy stood alone by the door, waiting for me like he has every morning since school began this year.

"Hey, Jesus," he called.

"Where's Whatsername?" I asked, sad not to see her.

"Sleeping off yesterday, kid. I would be too, if I had hitchhiked from the east and walked through California."

"Oh."

Jimmy and I went through the school doors, jostled by the crowd. Jimmy, being the cool, admired person that he was, was stopped and greeted by most of the tattooed, pierced stoners and punks of the school. We eventually made it to my locker, where I collected my books for class, Jimmy following. He doesn't go to his own locker anymore, and I don't think he even remembers the combination. He keeps his important textbooks in my locker, and the rest he's left at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay, in random hotel rooms, or in the case of his much loathed History textbook, that Asian violinist's pants, because Jimmy smeared glue on the cover and Hae-Young sat down on it, unnoticing. No one likes the kid, because he thinks he's better than everyone else because he can play a chromatic scale. Jimmy can, too, because he took a few weeks of violin himself from his foster mother before dumping it in favor of the bass. The warning bell then chimed, and I slammed my locker shut.

"See you later, Jimmy," I said, leaving for my first hour.
"You're such a loser for trying to be punctual, kid." Jimmy laughed as he walked beside me. "When you free the strict reins of society, you can live free--"

"With marijuana in my hand and a hot girl by my side. Yes, I've heard your story before." It's Jimmy's usual tease.

Jimmy looked a bit put out that somebody had finished for him, but he punched my shoulder in a friendly way and said farewell by way of, "See you in second, kid!"

Jimmy didn't, however, because he was chucked into In-house suspension again, but at lunch, which I spent hanging out in the courtyard with a group of all of mine and Jimmy's friends, Whatsername showed up, jumping off the roof and knocking bits of gravel into my soda.

"Look out below!" She called. Her skirt flared out as she sailed down, and landed perfectly beside me. "Anyone notice me?"

"I did," about 20 kids said from various different cliques outside.

"I meant anyone who could realize I don't even go to this school." Whatsername laughed. "You've got some strict security at the door, children. Metal detectors, I ask. It's not like Jimmy's going to come in here with a gun and blow you all to bits. Speaking of Jimmy," she looked around. "Where is he?"

"In-house, again." I explained.

"Damn." Whatsername sat down beside me at the picnic table. "Well, are you going to introduce me to these fine young people?" she asked me, as they all gave her odd looks.

I pointed to each in turn. "Brandon, Kryssie, Mick," I said, going around until everyone had been introduced. They all smiled and nodded at Whatsername politely, and when I was done, she stood up on the table, bowed dramatically, and proclaimed to all and sundry that she was a dear old friend of Jimmy's up for a visit. Then she got down and stole my cookie, and munched on it blissfully until the whistles sounded for us to get ready for the end of lunch. Kryssie piped up,

"How are you getting back outside?"

"Watch me," Whatsername said pleasantly. She got up and strode through the courtyard door ahead of us. "Create a distraction, Jesus."

"How?"

"Run into the office screaming or something," she said.

"No!" I replied. "I don't want to get in trouble!"

"Ah," Whatsername sighed, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Jimmy was right. You are young and mature." She patted my arm, then smiling, walked into the office herself. I heard her complain of having a headache, and they gave her some Tylenol. She walked back out again, smiling still.

"What was the point of that?" I asked.

"Free drugs!" She popped the pills in her mouth and walked out the front door of the school. I shook my head and headed off for my next class.