Snakes and Ladders - Falice

My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)

Ever since she left me, I sure feel all alone. A little misunderstanding, I can't get her on the telephone.

***

It was Friday night and Alice Cooper had been standing in front of her closet, staring into the vast racks of clothing, for what seemed like forever. Every time that her eyes dared to dart to the very back left of the closet, Alice felt a rush of emotions that couldn't easily be listed. Excitement, sentimentality, longing, but most prominently, guilt. Because, her husband had so clearly asked her to throw those old clothes out. Actually, he'd demanded that she burn them, but Alice had never been one to take demands.

Behind all those soft blouses with pastel pink floral prints and baby blue polka dots, if you looked past the freshly ironed pencil skirts, you'll find a few plaid shirts hidden away. Shirts that still smelled of smoke and her old cheap perfume. But, those button downs certainly weren't the only skeletons hiding in Alice Cooper's closet. For if one was to search a little deeper, they would find a locked box tucked away secretly on the shelf above the clothing rack. A box that genuinely hadn't been opened in years. 

It remained locked because Alice wasn't sure how to open it. Not literally, but emotionally speaking. She wasn't sure if she should open it. She wasn't sure what the outcome would be. Would she get angry and finally burn its contents like her milquetoast husband so wanted her to? Would she be overcome with melancholy and be reduced to tears? The truth was that she knew exactly what would happen. She would be forced to face reality and swallow a bitter truth. And she certainly had no interest in doing that.

What was in said fabled box, one may ask? A leather jacket. Black with a bit of tasteful fringe running down the arms. There was a hole in the right-hand pocket from when she'd accidentally shoved her hand in the pocket while still absentmindedly holding a lit cigarette. But, what's so special about a run-of-the-mill leather jacket? The fact that, on the back of it, resides a two-headed snake in the shape of an "S." The truth being, it isn't just an ordinary leather jacket, it's the jacket that she was granted when she was sixteen years old and she joined the Southside Serpents. 

But, that's not all. That box signified memories that Alice would rather not have to remember So long as they're locked safely away in that box, she thought that she didn't have to. It was a foolish thought, but it seemed to be working for her. The jacket took up most of the space, but if one dug around a little bit, they'd find a variety of items. Countless Polaroid pictures of a young Alice Smith running around the Southside, going to house parties, hanging out at the Wyrm, on the back of a motorcycle, arm in arm with Hermione Gomez and young Freddie Andrews, lying in the arms of the one and only FP Jones.

As if those photos weren't already too much for her to handle, the box was already home to a variety of sonogram pictures of a baby that was never really hers to keep. The first note FP ever passed her way back in tenth grade English class, the name tag that she wore that summer that she worked at Pop's, the blue scrunchie that was always either in her hair or around her wrist as a teenager, her favourite tube of ruby red lipstick, the spare key of her very first car, numerous old tapes and cds that she'd spend hours burning, her old journals. The box contained what was her entire life as a teenage girl before she'd fled from the Southside and decided that it was better to forget everything about herself in hopes that everyone else might do the same.

She's hanging out down on Main Street, living in a different world. I'm standing around with the gang on the corner talking about my girl.

Today, just thinking about that box and its contents, Alice shuddered. She wasn't sure why she suddenly felt sick to her stomach until she realized that she felt similar to when she would go away for a weekend on a business trip and force herself to be away from Betty and Polly. What she was feeling wasn't physical sickness exactly, it was homesickness. A dreadful longing for what seemed like a different lifetime. For people and places and feelings that she once embraced but now hides away from.