Why isn't Jane giving me the blunt? She always takes the longest out of us. I like Stanely. See, he just hits it once or twice and then brings it on over here. Bring it around town. No shenanigans. That Jane girl is full of shenanigans. I like Stanely. He's got a straight, sharp face. No, that's not the word. He's got a–
"Fi!"
"Huh?" I guess he caught me out of the spell. Jane gets up with those perfect, lanky legs, goldenrod, and finally reaches the blunt out to me. Thank God. A slow, steady inhale and the exhale and a slow, but faster inhale and the exhale to go with it. Yin and yang. I belong here.
The usual intrusive thoughts I have seem to melt like the water at this lake, just flowing, going. Nothing impales my calm. I wish I could always feel like this. I have long forgotten its name but everyone in the city knows it. Its 1987 and everybody knows everybody. Only its June and nobody cares about anybody now. Last slivers of freedom before college takes us, or work, or fighting for this stupid country, or killing yourself. The calm before the storm. I wish I could lie here forever. My thoughts are so quiet. I hear nothing but running water, maybe a fish swimming around in the glassy pond.
This place stays in the news. We were all surprised that we didn't catch a news truck or a mythbuster filming the place on a CamCorder, scouting for the infamous dead bodies. This pond, lately just called "Green Pond" after its color, is a common site for murderers to dump their dead bodies. Stan, Jane and I like to come here to spook each other. Well, it was my hiding spot first, they just stole it. Borrowed, more like. We're too old to think this place is truly haunted, but still young enough to have a little belief. We get high, we drink, we bitch about life, we get high some more.
But the real reason I love this place so much is its cult following. AKA me. I'm the only person I know that wonders what it feels like to murder someone. It's not voluntary; I don't want to murder anyone. But I wonder. I cannot deny the wondering. Am I crazy? I construct entirely fake scenarios in my diary, because I know my mother reads it. It allows me to pretend to be the daughter she asked for. No one wants a fucked up in the head, whitewashed black girl in 1987. I don't think anyone has ever wanted what I am.
I love feeling close to people who could potentially be as insane as I. There's comfort in that. I remember, we had a unit in my english class last year about comfort in sadness. I'm not depressed; I hate being sad. I just... see things that aren't there. They are loud. And they tell me to do things, sometimes. My mother thought I was losing my mind and called me a schizo. She still does. We couldn't afford to send me to a doctor, not that she would have anyways,, and all they really do is give you Thorazine and turn you into a zombie, and who wants that? So I come here, to my spot, and talk back to the voices.
I don't think Jane has ever felt a single ounce of what its like to be me. Maybe I'm too hard on the girl. I wonder what it feels like to have to sneak out of the house. I can just walk out if I want to. And I always do. I learned that when I was twelve. She didn't call out after me, she didn't threaten me, she just said to be home by the time I had school in the morning.
"Where should we go on our next date?" asks Plain Jane. Stanley looks up at her.
"I was thinking the diner."
"We always go to the diner!"
"We're too broke to buy much of anything 'cept burgers and milkshakes, Janie!"
"I want steak!"
"I'm not bikin' all the way down to the damn downtown! Who I look like?"
They were made for each other, with European frames juxtaposed by brown tarps for skin. Who am I to intrude? I belong here. I belong here, right? Doesn't feel like it. But this is a different time. Nothing is wrong. Just let them bicker. They were made for each other afterall.
