text: “Principal Davis is a cunt.” The anger that fueled the words is dry before the ink. I wet my finger and try in vain to rub the words from the faux-leather school bus seat. Across the aisle, Jason Withering’s dull stupid gaze presses on me. “So what, are you going to tell on me?” He shrugs. His road-kill eyes drift down to my chest. I shoulder my ratty book bag and head to the front, leaving my crumpled suspension form behind. “This isn’t your stop.” The bus driver doesn’t even look at me. “I moved.” He responds with a long sip from his big gulp. A hearty gurgle noise seems to indicate the matter resolved. We stop at a light. I grab the lever and pull it hard. It’s easier than I expected and the door hisses open. He reaches to stop me but hesitates when he considers the large fruity drink in his hand, settling instead for a half-hearted rebuke as I jog away into the drizzling rain. I cut through an alley, the town square and an elementary school yard. I stop a minute to wistfully watch the swings. There is a hole in the back fence in a bramble of poison ivy. I navigate though it, and then move delicately around a roadside monument to a traffic accident that lay just beyond. A car pulls up alongside me as I walk. The window hums down. The man inside has yellow eyes and a don’t-mind-if-I-do face. His car is nice. His watch looks expensive. “Where are you going.” “Home.” “Wanna’ ride?” “No, its right there.” I point to my house. “Oh, nice place.” I look at him funny. It’s not. On the street full of tidy houses, mine is the shitty one. In school we just read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Well I live in Boo Radley’s house. If I had friends, they wouldn’t come over. The windows are blocked with clutter. There is detritus all over the yard. Our old Cadillac has been turned into an island for sunning stray cats in the sea of tall grass and weeds. “I like your socks.” I stop to look down at my feet. My red knee-socks are full of holes and grass stained. I look at him closer. He has a giddiness around the edges that makes me uncomfortable. His grin is so wide it almost disappears around the sides of his face. When we get to my house, I peel away and run up the steps. The car moves down the street and turns out of sight. On the porch I peer through the window. I can see my Grandma sitting in her chair, cocooned in cigarette smoke. Her wig is drooping to the side. She holds an electrolarynx to her throat to coax out the mad barks that constitute her half of a conversation with the TV. I imagine the poisoned menthol smell of her cardigan. Death and chemicals. She always reeked of death and chemicals. As I walk down the steps and back into the rain, I tell myself this time I really am running away, but I know it isn’t true. I spend the afternoon wandering the woods behind the park. A stray cat follows me and I share my lunch with her. The two of us slink into an abandoned house through a busted window. We sit and read the graffiti on the walls. *Jenifer Leigh is a slut.* *Rockyeez mom gives good hed.* I wonder if there is anything about me in here. It’s night by the time I get home. I know the doors will be locked. That was the deal; in by dark or not at all. I scramble in through the bathroom window. Careful not to turn on any lights, I run a bath. A towel under the spout dampens the noise. I lay floating in the dark. The crickets buzz lazily. The only light is the dim yellow glow of the streetlamps outside. Some children see their future in the clouds. I see mine in the water damaged bathroom ceiling. There is a spot that looks like my pregnant cousin. Another looks like my friend Amy, who dances at the Playpen. And there is me, a small smudge just barely blooming into existence right above the window. It is a doom without romance, I decide. The quiet death of a stray dog crawling under a porch to die. It is too much to ask, perhaps, to avoid my fate, but I would prefer to find it with a bit more grace. What if I were Diana? Or a Kennedy? I almost smile as sleep overtakes me. I wake suddenly. The water is cold and the crickets sound louder, almost expectant. Someone is in the doorway. I pull back the curtain a little and see the silhouette of my Grandma. Her wig and the cardigan outline the shadows of her form. She shifts her head a bit as if to get a better look. I can smell her death and chemicals. “Grandma?” I see her raise the Elecrolarynx to her throat. “Hello dear.” The sharp staccato words ring out sharply. I don’t respond. A long disturbing silence follows. She begins shifting from one foot to another, apprehensively. I sink down further into the water, watching her. “I have brought you something.” “You can give it to me in the morning. Go back to sleep Grandma.” “But my dear, I want to give it to you now.” She shuffles forward, head down. Her hands pull a small bundle from her sweater pocket. As she unwraps it I can smell sweat and dirt and grass. I recognize my socks. She lays them out across the top of the toilet seat with large hairy hands. When he lifts his head up I see the giddy too-wide smile and yellow eyes under my grandma’s wig. I sink further into the water, a weak escape from the horror. He gestures to the socks expectantly, bobbing up and down faster. I ball my fists and try to scream but I only find the taste of the tepid bathwater. He is moving up and down in a feverish state now, a sock in his hand and an eager whine trailing from his mouth. He edges closer to the tub. I cannot watch. I sink lower and look at the ceiling. My water spot is growing. He has one foot into the bath. My water spot is spreading fast. Two feet. It’s bulging under the paint. He reaches down to touch my face and my fear changes to a rage like I have never known before. A fury against the bad school and the dead parents and the insane grandmother and this whole wolf’s den of a town. Loathing unfreezes my paralysis. The ceiling rips open in a flood and I scream out from a place inside both dark and primordial. His grin droops in surprise. Before he collects himself I ball myself up and kick out against the side of the tub, spilling out on the floor painfully in a wet tangle of limbs. His hands are on me but they slip. I run. He grabs me again, but this time too, I slip away. I grab keys on the counter and sprint the car outside. I hear him trip over my grandma’s body in the dark and the sickening flat sound of his face hitting the tile floor. I’m out the door and into his car. A howl from the house fills the night as I speed away. Its almost sunrise when I finally stop driving. I turn off near a sign for Amarillo and park on a road leading off to nowhere. I have no money, no phone, no clothing. There was a light up billboard outside Albuquerque with my face on it. When I open the trunk, I find my grandma’s jewelry. Its at the top of a large duffle bag full of similar pieces. Diamond watches, rings, pearl necklaces, an emerald tiara and a large wad of social security checks and cash rubber banded together. The bag is too heavy to lift. Next to the bag is a case with duct tape and and a long wicked looking knife. There is more. In the spare wheel compartment I find clothes. So many clothes. It’s mostly high school girl’s school uniforms. I put on a shirt and shorts emblazoned with the words ‘Valley high Pys. ED.’ There is blood on the sleeve I sit in the car awhile, listening to the thrum of the semi trucks on the highway with my eyes closed. When I open them, I can see dark clouds forming back in the west. I can feel the malevolence reaching out, calling me back to it. Demanding me. I put the Emerald tiara gently onto my head, checking it with care in the mirror. I drive east.