Spun excerpt, part 2

NOTE:  I'm bummed the formatting and fonts don't transfer.  If you're interested in a fully formatted version that will make a little more sense, email me!



This is about pp. 25-50 of my newest novel, Spun. 



Shelley Stoehr

www.shelleystoehr.com

FB:  Shelley Stoehr

Myspace:  www.myspace.com/crossesshelley

blog:  www.outsidergirlswrite.blogspot.com

[e-mail]

19.
http://www.Jbird.myblog.com

Jbird’s Word World
date:  9/7/09  3:04am
title:  “First Time”

20.
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21.
http://www.Jbird.myblog.com

Bound, Not Gagged
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http://www.Jbird.myblog.com


Bound, Not Gagged

date:  9/7/09  3:06am
title:  “First Time”

Yes, I changed the title of my blog, okay?  You want to know why I change it all the time, when that just makes it hard for you to find me, well maybe that’s why, I mean, maybe I don’t feel like being found.
Mabe it’s cause my writing, this blog, imitates life, and life keeps unfolding.  See, now I’m thinking mostly about (you know what and you know i can’t say it here), and that made me think how it kind of ties me up, but it frees me too, like it frees me to write about any sh*t going on, even when i’m here in the middle of it.
Ahole came back.  now they’re  practically doing it on the mattress behind me, and i’m trying to ignore them and Painterg’s at least respectful and says A**hole, j.’s right there!  and he’s all, what is she sdoing here anyway?  i’m like whatever.  not like i can go home.

Sad Fact# 3 million and 10:  i don’t have anything better to do, or anyplace else to be.  it’s like three am, and I’m sooo spun, and all I can think of is how tired i am, or else i think about my mother (which is Sad Fact # 3 million and 9, Btw), and so here i am in the blogosphere again.  i know ur all windering how i got started as a meth head, when i’m such a good girl, giood grades, potential and sh*t.  well, you don’t know me so well.  so here’s what happened:
oh, and notice I don’t change my moniker, JBird.  That’s because I’m always going to be like a bird when I’m writing, antyhing, anywhere, you know, free like a bird.  Word.

22.
         I wake up itchy and a little panicky.  I don’t know where I am at first.  Then I see the computer screen, and realize I dozed off while writing.  Since I’m no longer motivated to finish the blog entry I’d started, I lazily wipe a string of drool off my lip with one hand, while reaching out with the other to hit the return button and fuckit, just post the damn thing as it is.
         Who really cares how I got started using anyway?

23.
         I look around.  Ugh.  Gross, but since I don’t hear Kevin’s annoying fake ghetto speak, I’m thinking, hey, at least he’s gone.  I hate Kevin.  He is, for one thing, old -- maybe thirty-five or more years old.  He used to be Paige’s professor at The California School for the Arts, before she dropped out.  Paige introduced him to crystal meth, and recently he quit teaching to tweak full-time, so I’m not sure where he gets the money to support them, except maybe from dealing.  He also does freelance graphic art stuff for corporations who rape third world nations.  Logos and shit.  Basically, he is the devil.  But he pays for the drugs, and he’s almost never home, so am I to complain?
         I am me, I think then.  But right after I think, Who?
         I’m too burnt out to think straight, and too itchy from the worn mattress cover.  Hot from the quilt Paige threw over me.  Mouth dry, faint remnant of drool dried-out.  Stomach deflated, sharp pain pinching in there.  Shaking, and yet slow.  Everything slowed down.
         It seems hella important not to feel so crappy, so I try to type a new blog entry, making use of Paige’s laptop while I have access:
date:  9/7/09  2:32pm
title:  “I want”

         I want:  A laptop of my own, a boyfriend of my own,

24.
         But then I hear Paige splash out of the pool, say, “Brrrr, Now that’s what I’m talking about,” and slide open the glass door.  I log out of my blog site, embarrassed for some reason.  Plus sick anyway.  Still shaking. 
         Crap.  Holy crap. 
         I hate myself.  Hate my blog.  Lies, it’s all lies!  I’m not even a writer, I’m just a drug addict loser!
         Quick, to save myself before Paige even has a chance to finish drying her hair, before she can offer me a hit which I know I’m gonna take, I roll over and grab my notebook.  Roll over again, get a pen.  Lift head and chest.  Write. 
Ow!

25.
I
         flow
                     Down
                              Drown.

26.
         So Poetic.
         And Ironic.
         Need me meth and 
                   Still don’t want it. 

27.
         Oh my God!  Depressing. 
         It’s still Sunday, no school.  I hope.  How long did I sleep after my binge?  My whole body aches.  I know Paige, and I know she just stayed up, but in the end, I gave up the party.  Wanted, finally, sleep more, and finally shut off my thoughts, although dreaming was still racy.  Nightmares and dreamscapes. 
         I want to go back to sleep, but since I’m up, OMG!  Fear for my mother grabs me by the throat and chokes me.  Tears. 
         I want my mommy! I cry inside.  I want to talk to her, I want her to want me, home.
         I’m vulnerable in this sleep-sick, drug-deprived state of Owww!

         I Want
to stop hurting
Momma to be Mommy
a laptop of my own
boyfriend
to be a writer
to be rich
to have more friends


28.
         Rolling across the mattress, I squint against the harsh light beaming through the glass patio door.  I am like a vampire, recoiling as soon as I grab my cell phone.  I call my mother.
         At first, only silence.  “Frank?”  I say.
         “Fuck you want?” he says.
         Too tired, burnt, empty to argue, I ask, “Is my Mom there?”
         Long silence, some scuffling noises.  Then she comes on, says, “Jenna?”  She sounds blurry and dull, like me.  Like mother, like daughter.  Hangover time.  I need water.  I can barely lift my sticky, heavy tongue to speak.
         “Mom.  I’m sorry for running away.  I’m at Paige’s.”
         Her head must be pounding, but she raises her voice anyway -- “I told you I don’t want you over there anymore.”
         “She’s my best friend.”  Where is a cigarette?  I reach around through the muck on the floor with my free hand.  Hot California sunlight lights my fingers bright white.
         “She’s a bad influence.  She’s too old for you,”  my mother says, and groans.  I hear the click of a lighter.  She has smokes.
         Finding mine, I say, “How much did you drink last night?”
         “When are you coming home?”
         “Did Frank behave?”
         “You have school tomorrow.  A paper due.”
         “I don’t know when I’ll be home.  I don’t know what Paige wants to do today.”  What do I want to do? 
         I want to go home -- my mother just has to ask.  Please oh please oh... but I think of Paige splashing in the pool, high, and I want that too.  If I could just feel better, Oh.  My.  God, I’ll do anything.
         “Your books are here.”
         But Paige holds out a bong made out of a Febreeze bottle.
         I have to go.
         “Love you Mom.  Be safe.”
         “Jenna!”
         “Later, Mom.”

29.
         I Want
to stop hurting
Momma to be Mommy
a laptop of my own
boyfriend
someone who loves me more than anything
to be a writer
to have more friends                                                                                
to know who I am
to know who I should be
to know what I will be
to survive til then

My Mother Wants
to stop hurting
me to be her mother
more time in my head
someone to love her more than anything
to get what she wants when she wants it
to know nothing
to feel nothing
to remember nothing
to survive til then

30.
         A drop of water from Paige’s hair falls on my open notebook, and I look up, my hand covering my secrets.  Okay, make that my obsessive lists that I don’t want anyone to see because then they’ll know how worried I am all the time.
         I’m so tired.
         “Oh please,” Paige says, as I let my hand drop away from the page.  “Like you have any secrets from me.”
         Maybe she can read my mind.  Maybe I don’t need my mommy or more friends, or anything but Paige.
Paige is: light (ninety-five pounds, dripping wet), eyes slivers of glass, clear, my friend, bohemian princess, loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer. and David Boreanaz like me, can do the dead man’s float in the pool for 3 minutes straight, draws, paints, loves unicorns, fairies, jungles and puppies

         “And Wife Swap, you forgot to write I love Wife Swap,” Paige says, sitting on the edge of the mattress and choosing from the list of recorded shows on the TV.  “Check this out, Jenna.  I saved this episode for you.”

31.
         I suck in smoke, feel it swirl through my insides and take away the cramps, the obsessions, the everything.  On TV there’s a wife who’s a belly dancer, switching lives with a pig farmer.  Paige and I start laughing and almost can’t stop, until Paige grabs my arm, not meaning to but still digging in her nails.
         “Oh, oh, oh!” she says, “You have to write this down --”
purple paint
silver paint
gold paint, maybe w/real flecks real gold
scarves, see thru
lots of scarves
fabric for pillows
gold tassles
shells, ceramic flowers, charms
etc.

         “We’re going to make my room look like the inside of a genie bottle,” Paige says, “Like on the show!  Here, wear this.”
         Paige hands over a dyed antique slip-slash-dress, which I don’t want to wear because I really hate dresses.  On the other hand, my two day old tee-shirt and jeans combo is smelling pretty rank, even to my burnt-out nose.  I change in the bathroom, taking time to also wipe down my armpits with a wash cloth and dry-shave.  Too spun to shower. 
         Pff.  Shower?  Eat?  What’s that?

32.
         Paige pauses Wife Swap, says to me, “Cool, you should wear dresses more.  You have nice legs.  Guys would like you better if you showed your legs.”
         “What guys?”  I say.
         “Puh-lease.”
         
33.
         Before Paige turns off the T.V., she and I say, “Awwww,” together at the goth daughter of the belly dancer.  Then we do another hit of dope of course, and Whew, we’re off!
         I need to keep up!
         And yay!  I can do that because I’m full on recovered from two nights not sleeping.  I’m ready to go anywhere.  Smiling.  Free.  Stoked. 

34.
         Excitement
         Singes us.

35.
         We stop for chai tea on the way to the craft store.  Tea is caffeine, and a way to hold off the jitters.
         I’m feeling good as we throw all the tiny bottles of purple and silver craft paint the store had into a plastic shopping basket.  Paige loads me down with a roll of purple tulle too, and I tuck it under my arm.  My notebook is still in the car, but Paige has the list, torn out and in her hand.  She flits on up ahead like one of the faeries she draws so expertly -- a goth boho faerie girl wearing a black tutu -- no joke -- and a pink tank top that says “Daddy” inside a bleeding heart with crossbones.
         Wow, I think, just looking at her, as I try to keep up.  I get tangled in my dress, while Paige seems to fly without wings, hovering from space to space, and no where inbetween, she’s so fast. 
         Whoa.  How did we end up in the wedding decorations aisle?
         Why is Paige pulling handfuls of the purple paint bottles out of our basket, and dumping them on the floor in favor of a white do-it-yourself headpiece?
         And how did my chai tea, which I thought I’d lost in the plastic flowers aisle, end up sitting on a shelf next to bins of little, unpainted oval boxes?  I start cracking up, which makes my nose run, and I don’t have a free hand to wipe it, so of course I laugh harder.  Paige laughs along with me, as she loads up my basket with small oval boxes.  My foot falls asleep.  My eyes are gummy, too dry to cry, so I only blink fast at the silliness, the craziness of it all!  The thin fabric sticking to my sweaty legs, part-shaven and rough -- and the guy in the blue apron who whistles at me anyway!  The tea I lost again (how could I lose it again already?)!  The fried ends of my hair and Paige’s outrageous sandals with four-inch, clear plastic, stilletto heels!
         Hi-lar-i-ous!

36.
         Running her hand over a strand of white tulle, Paige asks, “Do you like this?  What about these flowers?  Help me.”
         “But what about the purple?  Everything was purple on Wife Swap.”
         “Huh?”  Paige squinches up her little nose.  “Oh,” she says, “Forget the stupid genie bottle already!  This is for my wedding!  Help me pick out flowers for these boxes.  Here, hold these.”
         I stop laughing.  She picks out her fave tiny flowers in white, yellow, and lavender, on three inch wire stems.  Putting down the basket, I hold as many flowers as I can.  Paige pushes even more into my open fists.
         Giggling, she tries to close my hands, but they’re really full. 
         Somehow, I’m still giggling, even though it makes me sick to think of Paige marrying Kevin with his big fat head, fisted hands and bitchy attitude.  Just when I’m about to say something to that effect, Paige spins around, tosses the length of white tulle over her shoulder, and says, “Let’s go!” 
         We go. 
         We leave our chai teas behind, which for some reason -- even though I’m confused and pretty pissed off -- is still really funny.  We giggle all the way to the parking lot as if nothing is wrong with Paige giving up the bellydancer’s genie bottle dream, replacing it with a wedding theme. 
         It is so much easier not to feel anything.  Laugh and go with the flow.  I’m going to add that to my “What I Want” list:
         to laugh
         and go with the flow

37.
         “He hasn’t asked me, don’t worry,” Paige says, dumping the bag of boxes, flowers, leftover silver paint, and unfinished veil into her open trunk.
         “What?” I say, all innocent as I light a cigarette for her, handing it over before lighting my own.  My breath is fast, and my eyelids are blinking like some kind of tic.  My usual tic -- my shoulder -- keeps spasming, jumping up and down like half a shrug sped up and stuck on repeat, which always happens when I get high.  Sometimes it makes Paige laugh.  Sometimes I cry inside, because it’s not right, her laughing at me when my shoulder really hurts.
         “I know what you’re thinking,”  Paige says.  “You’re afraid I’m going to marry Kevin.”  She smirks as she leans low under the steering wheel to pack a pipe.
         “It’s not for real,” she says.  “But it’ll freak him out.  I’m too young to get married.”
         You’re too you, I think.  Paige can’t ever marry Kevin, he will kill her.
         I always have to save someone -- Paige, my Mom.  Who will save me?  Me, I guess.  Sometimes I feel so alone.
         “I should get home,” I say, thinking about not taking the pipe from Paige, thinking about just this once doing what’s best for me.  Asking myself, it is what’s best, isn’t it?  I decide  I’m not so sure, and so I take the pipe, figuring just one more hit will do me more good than harm.

38.
         The whole Paige/Kevin thing has me really shook up.  I don’t say anything, because I’m afraid it’ll come out wrong, and maybe Paige will laugh at me or something. 
         I’m so glad I have my notebook to write in.  On the ride home, I write furiously, stuff that’s probably nonsense, but I don’t care because it’s my notebook
my notebook for me.

Paige has Kevin.
Even Mom has Frank.
Is there, and if so, where and when is there, someone for me?  I’m filled with longing, or, rather, emptied of everything else.  “There isn’t any me anymore,” said Hemingway.  So say I, when I’m going home, alone again.  I say to myself, Paige loves me, my mother loves me, but do they really? 
         Paige has Kevin.  Kevin has Paige.
         I always go home
                                                           Eventually.
         Mom has Frank.  He has Mom.
                                                           Who has me?

I would’ve liked to make P.’s rm. a genie bottle, cause rgt. now, I feel like a genie trapped in a bottle,
bottle is home, but it confines me to its glass belly, no one gets in or out, and the most I can hope for is the glass breaks.
I want to be in love.  That’s what it is, rgt.?  Paige/Kevin, Mom/Frank.  They hate each other but if they weren’t in love they wouldn’t still be together, or would they?
Who would I be willing to throw myself under?

39. 
         Along the way to my house, I take two more hits, and at my house, I accept the small baggie Paige presses into my hand, even though --
         “I’m going straight this week.  I’m quitting,” I say, so wasted, I don’t know what I’m saying!
         Paige smiles, without quite laughing out loud, which is good because I might’ve hit her, even though I’m half-giggling myself.  Still, she doesn’t need to act all smug.  You know, I feel kind of bad for her, because she has a major problem and can’t quit using.
         “Just in case you run out of ideas and you want to write,” she says, winking, and it is true that my writing comes easier and is more profound when I’m spun, right?  Plus I still have that paper to write for Mrs. Keating’s class.
         Paige, as usual, is right -- it’s good to have crystal, just in case, I think as I shove the baggie deep into my pocket.  After all, I don’t know what lays ahead, and I have to be able to take care of everything.  You know, handle it all, cope.  Save the whole fucking world, if I have to. 
         Paige waves ‘bye. 
         It’s hard to feel okay about myself and my life.  Meth helps like you wouldn’t believe.  So I don’t feel guilty about going home high, and holding too.  I feel relieved, like, Now I can deal.

40.
         Big breath.  Close the front door behind me, and notice the muted chaos:  the whooshing of the ceiling fan riffling through unpaid bills on the dining room table, the TV on in the living room, shades of blue blinking light.  My head hurts and I need a long drink of water, but I can’t go into the kitchen, I have to go upstairs -- there’s trouble calm down I can’t. 
         I gag.  I stumble, and catch myself against the wall.  Have another “wish I were wearing jeans and a tee shirt instead of this stupid --” moment as I push up a fallen strap on my slip-dress.
         There’s trouble calm down I can’t.
         In spite of the TV, the fan, the dishwasher running, the dog barking, etcetera, I’m drawn to the staircase by the sounds from upstairs of wobbling feet, big stomps, and a sudden smashing of glass.  Climbing the stairs slowly, I try to ease my mind by focusing on the smell of cooked meat left from dinner.  I let that make me nauseous and angry because Meat is Murder like the tee shirt says, and if it weren’t for, weren’t for, weren’t for fuck him Frank, my mother would know that.  She’d be so different than --
         The woman lurching around her bedroom, knocking over a picture frame.  She gets on her knees to try and pick it up, and Frank closes in on her with a video camera!  What the fuck!  Rushing into their room, I grab the camera out of his giant hands -- stupid, stupid, stupid!
         “How do I delete this, Oh God!”  I smack the side, hitting random buttons.
         Frank yanks the camera out of my hands as my mother climbs up the side of the bed and sits, swaying.  She is lost at sea in a sinking boat. 
         “I don’t know why I,” she starts to say, but can’t finish, because she’s so drunk.  I doubt she even knows where she is. 
         “Holy crap, Mom!”
         Meanwhile Frank is videoing again, asking her, “Do you like vodka, Amy?” in a fake, sugary voice that you wouldn’t think would fool anybody, but she is my mother.  The one with the unfinished twenty-four hours sober coin.  The one smiling and swaying and nodding, “yes,” even as her cheeks blossom with a mottled pink flush of shame.
         Although I try again to get the camera, Frank jumps out of my way, agile in spite of his bulk.  Meanness makes him slick and nimble, and I can’t catch him.  He grins at me and asks my mother, giggling around the edges of his words -- “Do you love vodka more than Jenna?”
         Oh. My. God.  What, am I having some kind of waking nightmare?  Starring in a messed-up horror flick?  What the--
         “Mommy!”
         Her eyes flicker, just registering me.  Her arms reach for me as she says, “Sweetie, don’t ever... prom-iss me...”
         Frank gets between us with his fucking camera and now a nearly finished liter of Smirnoff too, which he waves around near my Mom’s face, holding it in front of his pants like it’s his Thing or something, and it’s so gross and so weird that panic grabs me around the waist and throat and wrists and holds me tight.  I can’t move. 
         Frank says, “Who do you love best?” and my mother, maybe without meaning to, grabs the bottle with her outstretched arms -- the bottle, not me -- Shit shit SHIT Mommy!  Goddamn it Mom, get your shit together, please, please.
         As my mother gulps down a long swallow of vodka, Frank turns on me, backing me against the wall.  “What’d you really come home for?” he says, evil, pure evil a sparkle in his eyes.  He winks.  “Nice dress,” he says.
         I can’t breathe, and I can’t run, and my mother doesn’t even see me anymore.  Frank pushes up close to me, the camera at his waist, the eyepiece poking me in my privates and he knows it.  When he strokes my cheek with a finger, and I smell his cigarettes and dead meat on his breath, I squeeze my eyes shut.  When it doesn’t all go away like a bad dream, I’m like “Oh hell, no,” as I finally unfreeze and run.

41.
         I hear him laughing as I slam my bedroom door, and I hear my mother saying, “Shenna, honeee?  I yove you!  Shenna, where’re you?”
         And then her voice disappears, either to the bottle, or to Frank, and God!  I feel so guilty for running away and not helping her.  I tell myself it’s just because I have too much to do, like write my paper that’s due in the morning so I can get an “A”, go to college, get a good job and that way make sure she is, someday, safe. 
         I sit at my desk, open Facebook on my computer, and type:
www.facebook.com/jenna.walker
jenna walker is NOT crying or shivering or quaking, but is very, very wary.
                                                 
         I click “Share”, so people I hardly know -- mostly Paige’s friends, well her used-to-be friends -- can see my status and not understand me some more.  I clutch the pressed-wood edge of my desk. 
         So this is what they mean by “white knuckling” it, I think, just before I give up and slide the stamp-sized baggie out of my pocket.  I know, I’m supposed to be quitting, but I can’t stand myself anymore. 
         Okay, I soothe myself, it’s okay.  I need a little bit, just a little, and that is okay.  It doesn’t make me a loser.  I’m completely in control, and it’s no biggie...

42.
         Oh yeah, uh-huh, alright! I think, after doing a massive line.  I rub my burning nose with a fast-moving, sloppy fist, while smiling at my brain on fire, burning bright again. 
         I open my notebook. 
         I open a new word processing document on my computer. 
         I opened up my blog site as well, because I am rolling.  Flying.  Spinning out a new story I am ready for anything I am brave and invisible, oops, I mean INVINCIBLE!          
         I can go
                   where
                             I need to go.
         I have to say
                   I have to be
                             I can do it
         Becuzz I am an angel-licking
                   Goddess Grrl
         Power is 
                                       WORD(S)!

43.
         My cell phone buzzes, vibrating a little dance on my desk.  “What’s up Doc?” I say.
         “Hey honey, how’s homelife?”  Paige, of course.  She’s laughing.  I’m laughing.
         “Bites the big one,” I say.  “What’s new with you?”
         “Wish -- Hey!” 
         “Paige, what?”
         “Get the fuck out of here, you --”
         Oh, Kevin.
         “Jenna, he’s breaking all my stuff!  All my wedding stuff!” Paige cries.  “I’m gonna punch him -- fuck!  He hit me!  You hit me, you motherfucker!”
         Well, duh.  Just last week he tore an earring out of her ear, and I mean like through the skin, you know, and then he threw her out of the house for crying!
         “I gotta go,” she says.

44.
         why am I so surprised?
         
         mother-me,
         i cannot be
         i will not be smart or good or alright again, really
         i will not give up drop out finish last like a nice girl but
                   i want my mother
                   back.
         not This!
         not like This, i am not really like this so
                   help me,
         mother-me.

45.
www.facebook.com/jenna.walker
jenna walker is not looking forward toi writing her school paper, so if I have any friends out there, pls keep me going so  i can keep writing my poems and oh yeah check my blog
                             link:  www.jbird.myblog.com

          46.
http://www.Jbird.myblog.com

It is What it Is
date:  9/7/08  9:08pm
title:  “First Time (again!)

It was not like this, the first time I did glass.  I should say just glass becuz you never know.  I’ll just say g. 
No, M., as in the big M. 
No, that would be my mother.  Ok now i’m confused.  Sh*t, never got so confused bbefore, just did one line and --hold on.  more later, k’?  gotta do my paper for school, “Write about a special moment in your life” 
miserable life, more like it, only it wasn’t like that then, either, not always.

47.
Best Friends
         A special moment in my miserable life, you mean, right, only it wasn’t like that.  Not always.  Not the day I met Paige. 
         It was one year ago.  Paige was a senior, and I was a junior.  My mother and I had just moved out from L.A. to Corona.  It was only a half hour away, but it might as well have been another planet.
         It was my first day at my new school.  I didn’t sit with anyone.  Didn’t know anyone.  I felt like a big, fat Nobody, hiding out in my big clothes, my books, my poems, my corner of nowhere.  I felt, but didn’t look up to see, the other kids staring at me.  My hair was short then, and still its natural color, dirty-blonde.  I wore low hanging boys jeans that let my underwear show, which had been the style back at my school in L.A..  (Gangsta’ wannabes). 
         I clutched a pen, my black, unlined notebook, something to read, and my mom’s phone number at her new job so I could check on her later.
         By lunchtime I was thinking of cutting out, not just from the rest of the day’s classes, but from school altogether.

48.
         I don’t need it, but suddenly I hear not just weeping, but out and out wailing from my mother’s room, instead of crying any more, I get out the baggie again and do another line.  Make it two.  I tap my fingers on my desk, open up youtube and find a fav old Tori song, recorded live.  Play “Still Silent After All These Years.”  Shared it on Facebook.  Typed:
jenna walker painted “what if I’m a mermaid” on bumper of Paige’s car.  some guy pulled up alongside once and siad are u?  and paige was like What?  and i said What if?