BANG OUT

“But I’d trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday,
to be holding Bobby’s body next to mine.”
- “Me and Bobby McGee” as performed by Janis Joplin

We were listening to the Ani DiFranco song about how she forgives her father. It made Janie want to forgive her father too. We sat on her roof making up a dance between ourselves and our shadows to D’yer Maker by Led Zeppelin, and I guess I’m saying that wrong but I already have my connection to the song. I made my connection. And she had a swimming pool with no water.

Our moms both stayed in their big houses after our dads left. Janie’s bedroom was really two rooms separated by a door and I guess that one of them used to be her sister’s bedroom. After school my mom would call and she would start talking. I could put the phone down on Janie’s nightstand, pick it up five minutes later, she’d still be talking.

There was this big hippie store in Norwalk that we used to drive to once Janie got her license. We bought a million enormous tie-dye shirts and this poster called “100 Dead Songs.” There was a train with a monkey driving it, which meant, “The Monkey and the Engineer.” There was a five-pointed swirling star up in the galaxy, which meant, “Dark Star.” There was a sunflower with a glimmering bead of sweat on it that we supposed meant, “Morning Dew.” We bought the Janis Joplin album with “Cry Baby,” “Mercedes Benz” and “Me and Bobby McGee” on it.

My mom cleaned the pool and raked the leaves and shoveled the snow after my stepdad left. We could have moved to a condo but she said something about stability. My mom said, “You have allergies because Janie’s house is dusty and moldy and filled with dog hair.” After we left the police station I told Janie’s mom I’d never steal again. She said, “Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself.”

Being “good” means eating as little as possible. My mom said, “I was so bad today.” My sister told us, “Kristen’s so good. She eats a few crackers at lunch.” But my mom said no, three crackers isn’t healthy. The way the sun shone in Janie’s bedroom window did this cool thing to the wax of the candles. How when we left our yearbooks out on the screened-in porch and the sky turned yellow, started raining, it curled and crimped all the pages.

Janie’s mom was on antidepressants so she was really laid-back. We called her parenting style, “Laissez-faire.” She let Mariah and then Pauline and then Mark Terrien stay with them for months when they were having problems at home. My mom and I got into a fight once and I left her a note that said, “I think we both need some time to think, so I’m going to stay at Janie’s.”

When my boyfriend broke up with me I got this awful headache and the room started spinning. My mom came home and I begged her to take me to Janie’s and she said “why are you acting this way, what is she, like, your lover?” My lover? Who are we? Where are you?

Janie had this collage she made out of wrapping paper and the words from a billboard we saw that said, “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart.” Which was true I guess. And that was sad, and tragic, and depressing, and therefore art. There was a movie on TV about these anorexic-girl best friends who spoke French as their secret language and used to eat a lot and then make themselves throw up. And then one got put in a hospital and got so sick and bad that she cut a hole in her closet wall and she poured all her food in there instead of eating it.

I had a pool in my backyard with water in it. We’d walk to the elementary school, smoke pot on the swing set. We saw Cara Rizzo’s mom power-walking around the school soccer field, picking up flowers and sticks and looking at them, oh my god she is so crazy it is amazing. There was a song on the radio that went, “I want to push you around, I want to take you for granted.” We kicked off our shoes while we swung on the swings, said it was our song.

Cortney used to draw the anarchy symbol everywhere but Janie said if there was anarchy, that would mean that killers like Charles Manson would be running free to attack and murder our mothers. There was this thing that happened when Cortney went away to boarding school. At first we talked a lot and wrote letters, but then missing each other got too hard and we became, “Comfortably Numb.” We used our lunch money to buy a bag of purple Skittles and a bag of Chex Mix from the vending machine, then saved the rest for if Pink Floyd ever got back together.

We’d go to Janie’s house all the time cause her mom didn’t care when we ate all the food in the house, and she’d buy cheesecake and Bran Chex and Pillsbury Cinnamon Toaster Strudels and we turned all the bread in the house into toast with lots of butter. We made marzipan at my house for a school project once. When it didn’t work we poured it down the sink and my mother screamed that we’d clog the plumbing.

Janis Joplin did not exercise. She didn’t have to try. She drank Southern Comfort (Janie’s brother called it SoCo) She sang her heart out like a shooting star exploding in the sky. I wrote on my notebook, “If you’ve got a today, you don’t want a tomorrow, man.” I applied this lesson to swim team practice every day after school, followed the feeling in my chest. We loved the part of the song where she said, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to do” And then, “Nothing, that’s all that Bobby left me/”

Janie and I picture ourselves when we’re grown up, raising babies alone, pushing strollers together, smoking cigarettes on a big porch with rocking chairs. At her brother’s wedding reception everyone wore tie-dye. We stared at the mountains, drank champagne, bounced on an enormous trampoline.

Copyright © 2009, Marisa Crawford