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Description
Chapter 1: The Escape
The diner is seething with white noise, meaningless, ignorable. There is sweat between my fingers, on my palms. As I slide them together, my stomach turns- that sticky grease, so basic, so human, so... vile. Vomit rises in my throat, my face turns red. I pull up my hood and look down at the Table. I try to suppress my nausea, even as that thick, rancid smell of frying lard wafts out of the kitchen. I gaze deeply into the formica. I force myself to be interested in the random flecks of color. Beige, pink, yellow, white, green. Someone kicks up the Jukebox, shattering my concentration. Country. Not cool country either: Not Cash, or Nancy Sinatra, or anything else respectable. Just some ignorant redneck trying to pass off a penchant for racially motivated violence as Down-Home Patriotism. I feel sicker.
Beige, pink, yellow, white, green. God, what have I done? That awful lard smell passes through again. When they cremate Toby Keith, that's what he'll smell like. My salad arrives.  Iceberg lettuce and bright orange italian dressing that tastes like a Sundae topping. I don't even wait for my bill, I throw a five on the table and leave.
The way I hit the glass door is a drop in the ocean compared to what I feel like doing. I wanna blow that place sky high. I wanna burn down every building in this town, the quaint little diner, the rows of identical plastic houses, every last one of the endless souvenir shops, the yacht club, the church, all of it, until there's nothing left but the dust and the bay. I hate everything. I hate everyone, myself included. I am a rage machine, and I need to do something drastic.
I need to destroy something.
I need to destroy myself.
I am in the barber's chair before I can even process what I'm doing. My feet take me here, all by themselves, as though overt defiance of the unspoken laws of this place is in my genes. Like this is somehow instinctive.
Instinct is just another word for destiny.
I let that one word fall out of my mouth. The 50-year-old woman with the perm wants to know if I've cleared this with my mother. I lie. She knows. She asks me to leave. I am hating the tears as they stream down my face. My feet are driving me again. I almost get hit by a car on the corner of Ramshorn. The beeping completely goes over my head. I am in Shelby's basement, I came through the window.
"Christ! Will you knock for once, you little fucker?"
The animosity peters out of her voice when she sees the tear tracks on my face. I am trying damn hard to suck it in, to not expose myself,  and I cough out that one word again, harsh, angry, slurred but sharp. I can't really annunciate, all my energy is being expended on freeing as few tears as possible.
"Are you sure? Your mom'll fucking kill you."
"Don'tcare."
Shelby sighs, rolls her eyes.
"Alright. Sit down."
She drags her swivel chair across the cement floor and for some reason, my mind flashes back to being younger, maybe 12, and skateboarding with Shelby and Josh. It was the year Josh left for college, and he was showing off. He used to sleep in this basement. I remember all the boxes, the milk crates filled with records, the posters that had symbolized Josh incarnate, now long white cylinders piled on the ping-pong table. It was his last day, all his stuff was packed except his skateboard, so we skated together in the basement. We demanded different tricks of him and he always complied, without fail. He was our superman. And I was like any 12 year old. I wanted to do everything he did.
The buzzing kind of wakes me up, this simple memory having lulled me out of blind rage.
"Look, Jay, are you absolutely sure you want me to do this? Last chance to stop."
I'd known the jump over the table was too high for me, but I didn't care. In the presence of my idol, I thought I was unstoppable. I still remember the look of terror on Josh's face. It tied in perfectly with my gut instinct that gravity had betrayed me.
I breathe in deep.
"...Do it."
If you've never had your head shaved, it is a shock to the system. It feels like you're defying God. With every heart pounding jag, a shot of irrational fear, the brutally honest, terrifying truth that there is no turning back from this, shoots through your spine. I'm choking on every thrust of the shaver into the dead-straight black mop that's been surrounding my face for as far back as I can remember.
It surrounded my face the day of the accident. It was an ollie, over the ping-pong table. Josh had done it two seconds earlier, and I was bound and determined to show him I could do it too. He warned me not to, but I didn't recognize the severity in his voice until I was airborne, the long black strands flying around me.
They fly around me now, fluttering to the ground, as I try to keep breathing. Moments ago I was hiding tears, now I'm suppressing a panic attack. I keep telling myself, over and over, you asked for this, you want this, you've wanted this for ages, ever since you saw that Josh got one, suck it up, you wanted this, and now you're getting it.
This a microcosm of that self same emotion that rushed through me a split second before impact. I don't even remember hearing the rear truck catch on the table, although Shelby later told me it was a deafening crack that Mike D., two blocks down the street and stoned off his face, said he heard. I'm pretty sure she's exaggerating. What Mike D. probably heard was the ping pong table falling over, and me with it. Of course, I didn't hear that, either. The only sound I remember, is the oddly hollow thump of the back of my skull against the concrete floor. To hear Shelby tell it, I was unconscious for a full 30 seconds, while she yelled for her mom, and her brother expertly checked my vitals without moving me. I awoke to Josh staring right into my eyes, as a wave of nausea roared through me, and I turned my head and puked my guts out. Tears rushed as Josh scooped me up and carried me out to his car. I remember sobbing, lying out on the backseat with my throbbing head in Shelby's lap as Josh sped down Ramshorn. I remember staring up at the inside of the rear window, at the reverse of various band stickers. "Galf Kcalb" and the four bars. "Stnednecsed", and the Milo Head. It strikes me only now that punk band logos are typically the same backwards and forwards.
I remember the hospital, my parents showing up. My dad bitching me out for "being a little numbskull" (pun not intended, unfortunately), and how he took away my skateboard. He told me if he saw one in the house again, he'd tan my hide with it. I wasn't even sure if he was kidding. I remember choking back tears, lest I get another lecture on "acting like a Goddamn man". It was the first time, I think, that my dad's disciplining techniques didn't make me sad, or scared. Just anger. It was the first time that that passionate desire to destroy the prison cell I called home flared within me.
The concussion wasn't that bad. They sent me home, after all the paperwork was taken care of. I remember that shame as my dad drove me home, but made sure to stop at Josh and Shelby's first to pick up my board. I was not allowed out of the car, and was told that I would not be allowed to go to the Rivers' Goodbye dinner for Josh that night. That was my dad- when it came to teaching me a lesson, he never missed a thing. I remember that my head was still pounding as I was made to watch my father dissemble my board in the garage, removing the trucks and throwing them in the garbage, then stuffing the deck- Alien Workshop, not that you care, and a gift from Josh himself- into the wood chipper. For months after, you'd notice the odd speck of green paint or scrap of griptape in the mulch of my mother's garden. I remember not being allowed to cry as my prized possession, in a way, a physical manifestation of my childhood, was turned to dust, and being told by my mother, later, it was only because he cared about me, and didn't want me to hurt myself again. Bullshit, I thought. I remember internally gasping, it was the first time I'd ever used a swear, even in my own head. That's fucking bullshit, I yelled silently, as I poured tears into my pillow that night. If I had hurt myself in the backyard, he probably wouldn't have even taken me to the hospital. He's mad because I embarrassed him in front of the Rivers'.
That was the first night I ever snuck out of the house. I couldn't believe how easy it was, that for all his malice and iron-fisted control, my father couldn't keep me in the house at night, some how. It was as simple as the back bathroom window, up to the roof, across to the front of the house, jump down to the balcony, jump down to the porch, and run like hell in case they heard you. To this day, I still haven't gotten caught.
The street signs flew by my weary eyes, Oak, Freeland, Adelaide, York. I rounded the corner of Ramshorn, as the mist that had lightly drifting in the wind changed into substantial rain. It was August. It was a release. Freedom, pouring down, inside and out. I tapped on the basement window. Fear that Josh wouldn't answer, or worse, that he'd be mad at me for waking him, stopped me cold. His head popped into the frame, and he drowsily smiled at me.
Released from fear. Released from doubt.
He helped me in the window (I was still too short to just jump through onto the bed), and gave me some of his dry clothes. I swam in them, swimming in the smell of my hero, the odd combination of incense and Old Spice.
"So, Tiny, what the hell are you doing here at 2-frikking-am?"
"I wanted to see you, you know. Before you left."
"...You snuck out of your house, didn't you."
A statement, not a question. But he wasn't mad. I was stunned to hear a note of pride in his voice. Still, I had to remain cool.
"Psh. Like I'm gonna let your last memory of me be 'crying on the floor in my own puke.' ...You know, it didn't even hurt that bad."
"Hey. Don't play tough with me, I know you got messed up today. It's okay. I'm just glad hurt was all you were. Can't have a Tiny body lying around."
I laughed, and it hurt my head. It dawned on me that I should probably let Josh sleep, he was driving to California tomorrow.
"I should go. You gotta sleep, dude."
"Naw, Hey! At least wait out the damn rain. Besides, I made you something."
With the excitement of a 5 year old at Christmas, Josh dived under the bed and pulled out a milk crate. I could barely make out, in the dark, his old vinyl record player, along with five records and a pair of stereo headphones.
"Josh...what?"
"It's for you. My mom and dad got me a CD player as a going away present, so I don't really need the record player, and I'll sell my other records and buy them on CD, but these.... these, I could never sell. Too many memories."
I looked through the five albums. They were unfamiliar, but that newness was inviting, enticing, bold. They were the first day of a new season, an autumn wind in summer. Terrifying, and beautiful.
"I never could have made it through High School without this music. I mean that. So, I'm giving them to you. I know your home life's for shit."
My eyes locked on to him, as I sputtered for a denial.
"Hey, no. Stop. Don't tell me it's not. Your dad's a prick. I know your dad's a prick. I see the way he treats you, I know he has no sympathy for you at all, I know he took away your board-"
"Destroyed it."
"What?"
"He put it through the mulcher."
There was a moment of silence as the severity of my punishment hung in the room like a storm cloud. Josh's face screwed up with rage.
"See? That's what I mean. What kind of FUCKER punishes their kid for concussing themselves-"
I laughed. I couldn't hold it in. "Concussing". It was an awkward word. It was the kind of word a 12 year old laughs at.
This lightened Josh up considerably. He smiled, and put his hand on my head. He had huge hands. I remember calling them "hat hands" when I was real small, because they covered my head like a hat.
"Jay, I think you're gonna be alright. If you can live with your dad, and still laugh about being concussed, I think you might just make it out alive."
What can I say? He was right.
Well, sort of.
I'm just "out" a few years early.
I'm never going back.
I don't care what the consequences are.
I will never look into my father's eyes again.
This morning.
My parents were arguing again. Over me, as usual. My school pictures came in the mail today. I heard the fight start- my dad sighed. My mom asked what was wrong. Big mistake.
"Why don't you cut that damn boy's hair?"
"Jim, don't start this. Jamie has naturally beautiful black hair. He can grow it out, he should grow it out."
"Maurine, the boy looks like a goddamn queer. Hell, half the time, he don't even look male. It ain't natural. Boys are supposed to cut their hair short, girls leave it long. Our son is out there looking like a goddamn freak. It's an embarrassment."
"Jim, just let him be, it isn't hurting anyone-"
"It's hurting me! It's hurting my job! The new clerk in the office, he comes in to drop off a fax, he says, 'Hey, ain't your son the one with the long hair?' People think I just let my kid run wild, and it ain't fair to me for you to let him do what ever he wants to do."
"Jim-"
"And that ain't even starting with those people he hangs out with! They are the scum of society, Maurine, and Jamie calls them 'friend'. Half of them are on drugs, and I told you right from the start that Shelby Rivers would end up on crack or hooking, or both-"
"Jim! That is really not right-"
"Well, the Rivers' never put an ounce of discipline into either of those kids, and now their paying for it. I mean, the boy- what his name, Josh?- he's a damn dropout, playing in a damn rock band, completely fucked his folks over and didn't shed a tear-"
I couldn't listen anymore, so I went in the closet. It's a weird place to seek solace, I know, but it was where I had to hide the records and the player after Josh gave them to me. I still only had those five records, too- a while back, during the whole Columbine thing, my dad saw a news report saying that Eric Harris and Dylan Clebold might have been influenced by the music they listened to, and made a decree that I could not have any of my own music. Still, I got exposed to things at Shelby's, at Mike D's, even at school, when our crew would pass around a CD player during lunch, just sharing songs. It's true what they say- you can't stop the rock.
I was in the closet for a while, just staring into the dark with the headphones on, letting the song take me away.
Take my hand...
I'll do everything...to you...
Take my hand...
I'll take everything...from you...
"The Lost Souls", this song was called. From the album "The Art of Drowning" by AFI. The singer for this band, Davey Havok... his voice is just incredible. There's more passion in one note then most people ever feel in their entire lives. That's what I think anyway.
It was switching to the next song, and, there was a brief moment of quiet.
"BOY!"
He was on the other side of the door.
And then "The Nephilim" was blinding my ears.
I was completely at a loss. To just walk out of the closet would beg scrutiny, or at the very least, a bad pun at my expense. To ignore my father would lead him to believe I wasn't in the house, and as I was  grounded, that was a more terrifying threat. I stood, and tried to breathe, tried to think of a way out of this. For no reason, just out of instinct, I leaned my foot against the door frame.
Instinct is just another word for destiny.
The headphone cord is caught on my foot.
It yanks out of the Record player.
"-REMAIN! In shadows growing wings..."
"-the HELL?"
My father throws open the closet door, me and Mr. Havok are exposed for all to see and hear.
"Now what in the Hell is all this?"
"Dad, I-"
"What did I tell you about you having music?"
"Wait-"
"You gone out and bought a goddamn record player. After I said no music. Jesus Christ. You don't listen to a word I say, do you, you little SHIT."
Bam. Slap to the Ear. I fall. I wasn't hit hard enough to merit falling, but if I stay down, he'll go easy on me. Or he did, usually. But he's not after me.
He grabs the record player, and yanks it, cord and all, out of the closet. Art of Drowning falls off, onto the floor. I gasp as I realize what he's doing. I squeak out an ineffectual "Don't" as his foot comes down on the record. He then throws the record player- just hurls it- into my wall, and all the gears and filters and screws rain down on the carpeting. He kicks me out of the way, and digs my other records out of the closet. With the systematic efficiency of the Final Solution, my dad throws the jacket, and breaks the disc, once, twice, three times. I am sitting in a pool of black, gazing down at the wreckage of Art of Drowning, Milo Goes to College by the Descendants, The Argument by Fugazi, And Out Come the Wolves by Rancid, and Rage Against the Machine.
I don't hear the snide comment my father makes to me. I'm lost in that sea of black vinyl, black despair, slowly turning to black rage.
"...boy, you better answer me. You got any sort of explanation for this? All the Jackets say 'Josh Rivers' on them. You get these from his sister or what?"
"...him."
"What?"
"I got them... from him."
"....Well, at any rate, the Rivers' are clearly bad news for you. You aren't to hang out with Shelby anymore. Clear? She's a slut, she does drugs, she's got you listening to this ...dark... shit... she can burn in hell for all I care, but you won't go down with her, long as I have breath in my body. You understand? ...Hello? Earth to Queer-boy, any of it sinking in?"
That's all I remember, officer, I swear. I wish I remembered more. I wish I knew how I broke my dad's nose, because I'd relish it. I'd relive it over and over. I'd spend my whole life reliving that second.
But I don't remember. I blacked it out.
The next thing I can recall is the diner.
"Done."
I'm back at Shelby's, I'm looking into another pool of black- this time, not my records, my hair. There's a ring of it, all the way around the swivel chair. I reach up, and run my hand across the single thin strip of black that remains, in the center of my scalp.
I've got a Mohawk.
"This is most definitely a personal triumph. It's goddamn fucking PERFECT, Jay, Look."
I turn to face the mirror on top of Shelby's dresser. Not to be too narcissistic but, I take my own breath away. It is perfect. Just that single line, is all that remains of
Jamie Hard-On, the scared, bullied child.
My name is Jay Hardon.
And from this point on, my life is my own.

Description
Chapter 1: The Escape
The diner is seething with white noise, meaningless, ignorable. There is sweat between my fingers, on my palms. As I slide them together, my stomach turns- that sticky grease, so basic, so human, so... vile. Vomit rises in my throat, my face turns red. I pull up my hood and look down at the Table. I try to suppress my nausea, even as that thick, rancid smell of frying lard wafts out of the kitchen. I gaze deeply into the formica. I force myself to be interested in the random flecks of color. Beige, pink, yellow, white, green. Someone kicks up the Jukebox, shattering my concentration. Country. Not cool country either: Not Cash, or Nancy Sinatra, or anything else respectable. Just some ignorant redneck trying to pass off a penchant for racially motivated violence as Down-Home Patriotism. I feel sicker.
Beige, pink, yellow, white, green. God, what have I done? That awful lard smell passes through again. When they cremate Toby Keith, that's what he'll smell like. My salad arrives.  Iceberg lettuce and bright orange italian dressing that tastes like a Sundae topping. I don't even wait for my bill, I throw a five on the table and leave.
The way I hit the glass door is a drop in the ocean compared to what I feel like doing. I wanna blow that place sky high. I wanna burn down every building in this town, the quaint little diner, the rows of identical plastic houses, every last one of the endless souvenir shops, the yacht club, the church, all of it, until there's nothing left but the dust and the bay. I hate everything. I hate everyone, myself included. I am a rage machine, and I need to do something drastic.
I need to destroy something.
I need to destroy myself.
I am in the barber's chair before I can even process what I'm doing. My feet take me here, all by themselves, as though overt defiance of the unspoken laws of this place is in my genes. Like this is somehow instinctive.
Instinct is just another word for destiny.
I let that one word fall out of my mouth. The 50-year-old woman with the perm wants to know if I've cleared this with my mother. I lie. She knows. She asks me to leave. I am hating the tears as they stream down my face. My feet are driving me again. I almost get hit by a car on the corner of Ramshorn. The beeping completely goes over my head. I am in Shelby's basement, I came through the window.
"Christ! Will you knock for once, you little fucker?"
The animosity peters out of her voice when she sees the tear tracks on my face. I am trying damn hard to suck it in, to not expose myself,  and I cough out that one word again, harsh, angry, slurred but sharp. I can't really annunciate, all my energy is being expended on freeing as few tears as possible.
"Are you sure? Your mom'll fucking kill you."
"Don'tcare."
Shelby sighs, rolls her eyes.
"Alright. Sit down."
She drags her swivel chair across the cement floor and for some reason, my mind flashes back to being younger, maybe 12, and skateboarding with Shelby and Josh. It was the year Josh left for college, and he was showing off. He used to sleep in this basement. I remember all the boxes, the milk crates filled with records, the posters that had symbolized Josh incarnate, now long white cylinders piled on the ping-pong table. It was his last day, all his stuff was packed except his skateboard, so we skated together in the basement. We demanded different tricks of him and he always complied, without fail. He was our superman. And I was like any 12 year old. I wanted to do everything he did.
The buzzing kind of wakes me up, this simple memory having lulled me out of blind rage.
"Look, Jay, are you absolutely sure you want me to do this? Last chance to stop."
I'd known the jump over the table was too high for me, but I didn't care. In the presence of my idol, I thought I was unstoppable. I still remember the look of terror on Josh's face. It tied in perfectly with my gut instinct that gravity had betrayed me.
I breathe in deep.
"...Do it."
If you've never had your head shaved, it is a shock to the system. It feels like you're defying God. With every heart pounding jag, a shot of irrational fear, the brutally honest, terrifying truth that there is no turning back from this, shoots through your spine. I'm choking on every thrust of the shaver into the dead-straight black mop that's been surrounding my face for as far back as I can remember.
It surrounded my face the day of the accident. It was an ollie, over the ping-pong table. Josh had done it two seconds earlier, and I was bound and determined to show him I could do it too. He warned me not to, but I didn't recognize the severity in his voice until I was airborne, the long black strands flying around me.
They fly around me now, fluttering to the ground, as I try to keep breathing. Moments ago I was hiding tears, now I'm suppressing a panic attack. I keep telling myself, over and over, you asked for this, you want this, you've wanted this for ages, ever since you saw that Josh got one, suck it up, you wanted this, and now you're getting it.
This a microcosm of that self same emotion that rushed through me a split second before impact. I don't even remember hearing the rear truck catch on the table, although Shelby later told me it was a deafening crack that Mike D., two blocks down the street and stoned off his face, said he heard. I'm pretty sure she's exaggerating. What Mike D. probably heard was the ping pong table falling over, and me with it. Of course, I didn't hear that, either. The only sound I remember, is the oddly hollow thump of the back of my skull against the concrete floor. To hear Shelby tell it, I was unconscious for a full 30 seconds, while she yelled for her mom, and her brother expertly checked my vitals without moving me. I awoke to Josh staring right into my eyes, as a wave of nausea roared through me, and I turned my head and puked my guts out. Tears rushed as Josh scooped me up and carried me out to his car. I remember sobbing, lying out on the backseat with my throbbing head in Shelby's lap as Josh sped down Ramshorn. I remember staring up at the inside of the rear window, at the reverse of various band stickers. "Galf Kcalb" and the four bars. "Stnednecsed", and the Milo Head. It strikes me only now that punk band logos are typically the same backwards and forwards.
I remember the hospital, my parents showing up. My dad bitching me out for "being a little numbskull" (pun not intended, unfortunately), and how he took away my skateboard. He told me if he saw one in the house again, he'd tan my hide with it. I wasn't even sure if he was kidding. I remember choking back tears, lest I get another lecture on "acting like a Goddamn man". It was the first time, I think, that my dad's disciplining techniques didn't make me sad, or scared. Just anger. It was the first time that that passionate desire to destroy the prison cell I called home flared within me.
The concussion wasn't that bad. They sent me home, after all the paperwork was taken care of. I remember that shame as my dad drove me home, but made sure to stop at Josh and Shelby's first to pick up my board. I was not allowed out of the car, and was told that I would not be allowed to go to the Rivers' Goodbye dinner for Josh that night. That was my dad- when it came to teaching me a lesson, he never missed a thing. I remember that my head was still pounding as I was made to watch my father dissemble my board in the garage, removing the trucks and throwing them in the garbage, then stuffing the deck- Alien Workshop, not that you care, and a gift from Josh himself- into the wood chipper. For months after, you'd notice the odd speck of green paint or scrap of griptape in the mulch of my mother's garden. I remember not being allowed to cry as my prized possession, in a way, a physical manifestation of my childhood, was turned to dust, and being told by my mother, later, it was only because he cared about me, and didn't want me to hurt myself again. Bullshit, I thought. I remember internally gasping, it was the first time I'd ever used a swear, even in my own head. That's fucking bullshit, I yelled silently, as I poured tears into my pillow that night. If I had hurt myself in the backyard, he probably wouldn't have even taken me to the hospital. He's mad because I embarrassed him in front of the Rivers'.
That was the first night I ever snuck out of the house. I couldn't believe how easy it was, that for all his malice and iron-fisted control, my father couldn't keep me in the house at night, some how. It was as simple as the back bathroom window, up to the roof, across to the front of the house, jump down to the balcony, jump down to the porch, and run like hell in case they heard you. To this day, I still haven't gotten caught.
The street signs flew by my weary eyes, Oak, Freeland, Adelaide, York. I rounded the corner of Ramshorn, as the mist that had lightly drifting in the wind changed into substantial rain. It was August. It was a release. Freedom, pouring down, inside and out. I tapped on the basement window. Fear that Josh wouldn't answer, or worse, that he'd be mad at me for waking him, stopped me cold. His head popped into the frame, and he drowsily smiled at me.
Released from fear. Released from doubt.
He helped me in the window (I was still too short to just jump through onto the bed), and gave me some of his dry clothes. I swam in them, swimming in the smell of my hero, the odd combination of incense and Old Spice.
"So, Tiny, what the hell are you doing here at 2-frikking-am?"
"I wanted to see you, you know. Before you left."
"...You snuck out of your house, didn't you."
A statement, not a question. But he wasn't mad. I was stunned to hear a note of pride in his voice. Still, I had to remain cool.
"Psh. Like I'm gonna let your last memory of me be 'crying on the floor in my own puke.' ...You know, it didn't even hurt that bad."
"Hey. Don't play tough with me, I know you got messed up today. It's okay. I'm just glad hurt was all you were. Can't have a Tiny body lying around."
I laughed, and it hurt my head. It dawned on me that I should probably let Josh sleep, he was driving to California tomorrow.
"I should go. You gotta sleep, dude."
"Naw, Hey! At least wait out the damn rain. Besides, I made you something."
With the excitement of a 5 year old at Christmas, Josh dived under the bed and pulled out a milk crate. I could barely make out, in the dark, his old vinyl record player, along with five records and a pair of stereo headphones.
"Josh...what?"
"It's for you. My mom and dad got me a CD player as a going away present, so I don't really need the record player, and I'll sell my other records and buy them on CD, but these.... these, I could never sell. Too many memories."
I looked through the five albums. They were unfamiliar, but that newness was inviting, enticing, bold. They were the first day of a new season, an autumn wind in summer. Terrifying, and beautiful.
"I never could have made it through High School without this music. I mean that. So, I'm giving them to you. I know your home life's for shit."
My eyes locked on to him, as I sputtered for a denial.
"Hey, no. Stop. Don't tell me it's not. Your dad's a prick. I know your dad's a prick. I see the way he treats you, I know he has no sympathy for you at all, I know he took away your board-"
"Destroyed it."
"What?"
"He put it through the mulcher."
There was a moment of silence as the severity of my punishment hung in the room like a storm cloud. Josh's face screwed up with rage.
"See? That's what I mean. What kind of FUCKER punishes their kid for concussing themselves-"
I laughed. I couldn't hold it in. "Concussing". It was an awkward word. It was the kind of word a 12 year old laughs at.
This lightened Josh up considerably. He smiled, and put his hand on my head. He had huge hands. I remember calling them "hat hands" when I was real small, because they covered my head like a hat.
"Jay, I think you're gonna be alright. If you can live with your dad, and still laugh about being concussed, I think you might just make it out alive."
What can I say? He was right.
Well, sort of.
I'm just "out" a few years early.
I'm never going back.
I don't care what the consequences are.
I will never look into my father's eyes again.
This morning.
My parents were arguing again. Over me, as usual. My school pictures came in the mail today. I heard the fight start- my dad sighed. My mom asked what was wrong. Big mistake.
"Why don't you cut that damn boy's hair?"
"Jim, don't start this. Jamie has naturally beautiful black hair. He can grow it out, he should grow it out."
"Maurine, the boy looks like a goddamn queer. Hell, half the time, he don't even look male. It ain't natural. Boys are supposed to cut their hair short, girls leave it long. Our son is out there looking like a goddamn freak. It's an embarrassment."
"Jim, just let him be, it isn't hurting anyone-"
"It's hurting me! It's hurting my job! The new clerk in the office, he comes in to drop off a fax, he says, 'Hey, ain't your son the one with the long hair?' People think I just let my kid run wild, and it ain't fair to me for you to let him do what ever he wants to do."
"Jim-"
"And that ain't even starting with those people he hangs out with! They are the scum of society, Maurine, and Jamie calls them 'friend'. Half of them are on drugs, and I told you right from the start that Shelby Rivers would end up on crack or hooking, or both-"
"Jim! That is really not right-"
"Well, the Rivers' never put an ounce of discipline into either of those kids, and now their paying for it. I mean, the boy- what his name, Josh?- he's a damn dropout, playing in a damn rock band, completely fucked his folks over and didn't shed a tear-"
I couldn't listen anymore, so I went in the closet. It's a weird place to seek solace, I know, but it was where I had to hide the records and the player after Josh gave them to me. I still only had those five records, too- a while back, during the whole Columbine thing, my dad saw a news report saying that Eric Harris and Dylan Clebold might have been influenced by the music they listened to, and made a decree that I could not have any of my own music. Still, I got exposed to things at Shelby's, at Mike D's, even at school, when our crew would pass around a CD player during lunch, just sharing songs. It's true what they say- you can't stop the rock.
I was in the closet for a while, just staring into the dark with the headphones on, letting the song take me away.
Take my hand...
I'll do everything...to you...
Take my hand...
I'll take everything...from you...
"The Lost Souls", this song was called. From the album "The Art of Drowning" by AFI. The singer for this band, Davey Havok... his voice is just incredible. There's more passion in one note then most people ever feel in their entire lives. That's what I think anyway.
It was switching to the next song, and, there was a brief moment of quiet.
"BOY!"
He was on the other side of the door.
And then "The Nephilim" was blinding my ears.
I was completely at a loss. To just walk out of the closet would beg scrutiny, or at the very least, a bad pun at my expense. To ignore my father would lead him to believe I wasn't in the house, and as I was  grounded, that was a more terrifying threat. I stood, and tried to breathe, tried to think of a way out of this. For no reason, just out of instinct, I leaned my foot against the door frame.
Instinct is just another word for destiny.
The headphone cord is caught on my foot.
It yanks out of the Record player.
"-REMAIN! In shadows growing wings..."
"-the HELL?"
My father throws open the closet door, me and Mr. Havok are exposed for all to see and hear.
"Now what in the Hell is all this?"
"Dad, I-"
"What did I tell you about you having music?"
"Wait-"
"You gone out and bought a goddamn record player. After I said no music. Jesus Christ. You don't listen to a word I say, do you, you little SHIT."
Bam. Slap to the Ear. I fall. I wasn't hit hard enough to merit falling, but if I stay down, he'll go easy on me. Or he did, usually. But he's not after me.
He grabs the record player, and yanks it, cord and all, out of the closet. Art of Drowning falls off, onto the floor. I gasp as I realize what he's doing. I squeak out an ineffectual "Don't" as his foot comes down on the record. He then throws the record player- just hurls it- into my wall, and all the gears and filters and screws rain down on the carpeting. He kicks me out of the way, and digs my other records out of the closet. With the systematic efficiency of the Final Solution, my dad throws the jacket, and breaks the disc, once, twice, three times. I am sitting in a pool of black, gazing down at the wreckage of Art of Drowning, Milo Goes to College by the Descendants, The Argument by Fugazi, And Out Come the Wolves by Rancid, and Rage Against the Machine.
I don't hear the snide comment my father makes to me. I'm lost in that sea of black vinyl, black despair, slowly turning to black rage.
"...boy, you better answer me. You got any sort of explanation for this? All the Jackets say 'Josh Rivers' on them. You get these from his sister or what?"
"...him."
"What?"
"I got them... from him."
"....Well, at any rate, the Rivers' are clearly bad news for you. You aren't to hang out with Shelby anymore. Clear? She's a slut, she does drugs, she's got you listening to this ...dark... shit... she can burn in hell for all I care, but you won't go down with her, long as I have breath in my body. You understand? ...Hello? Earth to Queer-boy, any of it sinking in?"
That's all I remember, officer, I swear. I wish I remembered more. I wish I knew how I broke my dad's nose, because I'd relish it. I'd relive it over and over. I'd spend my whole life reliving that second.
But I don't remember. I blacked it out.
The next thing I can recall is the diner.
"Done."
I'm back at Shelby's, I'm looking into another pool of black- this time, not my records, my hair. There's a ring of it, all the way around the swivel chair. I reach up, and run my hand across the single thin strip of black that remains, in the center of my scalp.
I've got a Mohawk.
"This is most definitely a personal triumph. It's goddamn fucking PERFECT, Jay, Look."
I turn to face the mirror on top of Shelby's dresser. Not to be too narcissistic but, I take my own breath away. It is perfect. Just that single line, is all that remains of
Jamie Hard-On, the scared, bullied child.
My name is Jay Hardon.
And from this point on, my life is my own.