this is why i never write normally here about my day.
on the answering machine i said, rentz, i went for a walk; everyone else, start talking, and so i left, reading let’s all kill constance and feeling very much alive. i didn’t see too much on the way there and happened to look up at the right moments to stop and wait for the cars to clear before crossing. we don’t want another episode of frogger. that game used to scare me to tears. i dropped off nightfall and death is a lonely business, like saying goodbye to best friends with whom i shared my favorite ice cream. or maybe they shared theirs. then i went inside and in a quick fit of randomness picked up peter pan, the importance of being earnest, and cast away, though more movies and books are all i need right now. i waited at the wait here rug and some guy came in and asked are you in line and i was like yeah and kept reading. with my big floating cloud of a skirt i’m sure he couldn’t read the words, but what good is a new wait here rug if people ignore it? the lady checked out my things and wanted to check out lets all kill constance, but i already did, i promise. see all the papers i taped on to conceal the nude woman on the cover from the innocent or not-so-innocent eyes of the boys who may see me reading it? and i walked home a different way, reading and not looking up at the driveways, often. i found myself waiting on the edge of walton by the church, and suddenly there were no cars and the priest had died because constance came to confession too many times with a list of sins longer than a ladder to heaven. i crossed to the garage sale the custodian’s wife has had set up most of the week and she said, oh, i just sold a skirt you really would have liked with all sorts of patches, kind of like the one you’re wearing now. i bought the first black dress i touched impulsively for two bucks mom gave me for dinner and talked to the smoking lady about the wonderful works of ray bradbury. i bet the skirt was ugly anyway. then i stole my new treasure away, to see another garage sale at a house on the street before mine. i was lured there by the mirror the two old ladies had leaned against the tree, reflecting the bright greenness of the leaves above, where a passer-by would not otherwise see. i glanced at a sweater retired from life and picked it up, as well as a robert lewis stevenson novel, stuffed in a cardboard box with old theology books and paperbacks depicting large-chestest men ripping the clothes off fainting women and gnawing on their necks. i paid them 75 cents and they asked if i really read while i walk. it’s a habit i formed when i was a child, i told them, realizing that they would think that i am a child now, too.

a girl i have not seen since she was young popped out of a car full of rave people and called, amanda! and she gave me a hug. i’m staying at my grandma’s now, trying to get the partying out of my blood, and then i’ll go back to school for journalism. people want to publish me. come by sometime, and i said yes, and we smiled farewell.

when i got back, my mom had called and then marcia called with me there. she wanted to come get me for a movie, so i hopped in the shower. put on a skirt that shows my legs, and i heard caleb say in my head, but i thought you didn’t like your legs. i don’t, i answered, but for once i really don’t care how they look. they wanted to be free, so i let them be.

it’s really coolly retro of marcia to have random yellow and orange crayola markers in her car. that’s all i could find with which to write. the pens i pulled out were all dead. including the one i brought with me.

the place to hang out if you’re a kid and live in oxford is the downtown theater. so they hung out there and admired my shoes. and of course, my shoe laces. and three girls even bothered to tell me to my face. oxford must be very boring.

when the window is open in a car, the person sitting behind it gets all the air. and i wasn’t wearing a jacket. i was shivering when the duel began, the duel of the truck and my friend marcia. surrounded by all these fancy mustangs, jags, and corvettes, we just couldn’t pass the old rusted out truck. it drove better than the sports cars. so we followed it out of the fray, laughing my teeth cold in the wind, while marcia cursed all old drivers to the cars they really deserved, and passed the guy with much pomp and circumstance. marcia even drove between the cones into a construction zone so as to do the u-turn that would take me home. and there were workers there, though i did not notice till i looked behind.

neither of them wants me. so i had two phone calls when i was out; nate at a quarter to 8 and caleb at 8. the boy called me at 5? mom said he was all by himself, but then before he hung up, there was a knock at the door. and no one answered the ringing phone. so i walked outside, in the dark, wearing my short pleated black skirt and shoving the old lady’s sweater over my head. it would live again over younger skin. i saw ahead in the streetlight a floating fuzzy sphere seed, hanging in midair as if hairsprayed in place. i cupped my hand to meet it, held it in my palm like the statue of liberty, and then watched it float away on the breeze my presence created in the dead air. i walked on, toward the freeway, away from the houses, dancing a jig under a streetlight to see my shadow leap in excitement. a truck passed me and stopped at the stop sign. and stopped. and stopped. go, go, go, i thought at it. how embarrassing to try to pass a running car sitting between me and a right-hand turn. go, go, go, i thought, as it stayed, brake lights glaring at me. my shadow grew longer as the streetlight behind me slowly faded, taking my shadow away with it. the parking brakes stopped glowing, but the truck stayed. parked. the door opened and a man got out. you need a ride? i kept coming, knowing i could not do otherwise, thinking for a fleeting minute of knives and dark rides in passenger seats, but as he walked nearer, i cocked my head in interest. why was he concerned with me? i said, no, but he couldn’t hear me and kept coming, uncertainly, haltingly. as i got nearer, he tried again; you need a ride somewhere? no, but thank you very much for asking, i answered in a high, kind, i’m-your-teacher-and-i-am-refusing-your-offer-of-candy-out-of-kindness voice. by the light of the next streetlamp, i could see only the clothing and height of my would-be chauffeur. he wore a baseball cap like a bi-colored beach ball, ridiculously long chain around his neck, baggy jersey, sagging shorts that might as well be called pants that end a bit too soon. he was a hood. but he had the sweetest, kindest voice and more consideration than i would expect in a penguin-suited businessman. all right, he assented, whether verbally or through mannerism i cannot remember. i passed his idling truck on one side while he got in the other, and as he turned left and drove away, i said, yes, take me to california. why not?

after having the worst pen day of my life in which all the pens i touched held onto their ink for dear life so i could not spill my guts, i saw a pen lying on the pavement under a streetlight. cautious, i circled it twice, stared, then picked it up. a bit smashed, probably from a car. i pressed the top and the tip appeared, but made no backward clicking action. i tested it out on the lamppost, writing perfectly on the white paint... amanda johns august 2004... and a van shined its lights on me. i walked away, a man in glasses in his mid 30s looking out at me as if he wants to say something. all he would have to do if look at the post and know everything. i grasped the pen and felt safe, even when the van came back around and passed me, then stood, door open, in my path ahead. the van left, passing me again, for the last time. where it stopped was a scattering of dark colored pieces of heavy paper. i picked one up and squinted in the faint lighting. some sort of magic rpg game with an evil face... i ripped it in half and let it lie with the others. more hoods up ahead, me gripping my pen and wondering why suddenly i am so afraid. because one person already talked to me tonight. but they passed, only talking how much they hated auburn hills. and me thinking now much i love it, walking barefoot around the suburb in the dark, alone, with a pen and a hundred words trying to burst out on non-existent paper. if one of them grabs me, i’ll say ironically, i suddenly have the urge to make it to church tomorrow morning, and they’ll laugh about making a convert.