This is Fiction, by the way.

I was 16 years old and I was a junkie. A recovering junkie who liked to get high.

I was raised on a farm but moved to the city after dropping out of high school. Ran away is more like it.
I went to live with my sister to get a job and make a life for myself. Fate had other plans for me.
Fate was 28. He was my boyfriend. Fate taught me how to drive a car and how to shoot up. Fate also taught me how to rob liquor stores. Mom and he got along really well.
She was the yang to his ying, and Fate the ying to her shriveled up old pussy.

Fate was passed out on mad dog at eight in the morning. I was 16 years old, had been to the big city, had gotten hurt, seen Fate beat up by cops, heard him tell a girl just my age who was working at a Baskin Robbins that he would kill her if she didn’t give me the money. Now Fate and I had moved back up north to Mom’s house in Oregon. Trying to clean up.

I was bored out of my mind and I knew that Mom was having sex with my boyfriend.

This went on for weeks. I was 16 years old and I was bored.

It was eight in the morning. He was passed out from drinking Mad Dog 20/20.

Do they still make that stuff? I remember its sweetness. I remember the fuzzy coating it put over my head. I remember kicking heroin and being glad the liquor stores in Reno were open all night.

However, right then, in Oregon, I was bored.

I poked Fate a couple of times to make sure he wasn’t paying any attention. He snorted and turned over.

I reached in his pocket and got the keys to the van.

Then I went and took a shower. Leisurely like. No need to hurry. Mom and boyfriend were old, drunk and fucked out. No one waking up here anytime soon.


I was 16 and sober.
And Oh. So. Bored.

After the shower I called a couple of friends to see if anyone wanted to hang out. I didn’t get any firm responses, but just wrote it off as being too early, everyone knows I’m out, they’ll show up later.

That is how my mind thought then. I thought I could change the world if I wanted to.
Reagan was in office.

I did not have a license to drive a car, but I knew how. I had driven the drunken asshole out of many a tight situation and could work the pedals and wheel quite well in my 16-year-old mind. I just thought I would go to town and get some booze, head to the park, hang out for a while, party with some old friends and then drive home.

No big deal, right?
Except that little girl that ran in the road.
I remember every detail of her.
Her face, her eyes were brown. Her hair was in two ponytails, one on each side. Her ears were pierced but I can’t remember her earrings. Little gold hoops maybe, or something dangly.
She was wearing a green tee shirt and red pants. I thought it a bizarre combination at the time but as the years go by, it seems less and less odd.
Her little shoes. One flew in the air over the van. The little red flasher light was still going and I could see the face of Big Bird, laughing at me.

I had just left the liquor store.
I bought two pints of peppermint schnapps.
I downed one in the parking lot then started the van.

The store was three blocks from the park I wanted to go to.
I still don’t know why that little girl ran out in front of my van. I never looked to the right to see if her parents were there. I guess someone must have been there, she couldn’t have been more than 6 years old.

I drove one block to the first and last light before the park.
I was looking in my side view mirror to see if I could change lanes when she ran in front of me.
I looked forward just in time to see her tiny rag doll body, dressed in red and green, the colors of stop and go, fly to the curbside and just in time to see the flashing shoe fly over the top of the van.
Fates van.
I stepped on the gas

I was still 16 years old but I wasn’t bored anymore.

My mind sort of slipped into automatic. Maybe it was the pint starting to affect me. I don’t remember driving out of town or the five miles of highway home. I pulled in the drive and parked straight enough in the regular spot. I went in the house and didn’t see anyone so I went back to the bedroom where Fate was still asleep. I threw the keys on the bed next to him and went to have another drink.
Mom was in the kitchen drinking coffee. I helped myself to a cup and liberally dosed it with schnapps then handed the pint to Mom. She drank it straight from the bottle and passed it back my way.
“How you doin?” She asked.
“I’m fine, just woke up.” I lied.
“Oh, I thought I heard the van?”
“Well, it wasn’t me, have another drink.”
“Ok, ok. Don’t get nasty.”
Then we just started talking, chatting about nothing really. I don’t know how long we were talking but it could not have been that long because there was still some booze left in the bottle.
A car pulled up in the drive and Mom looked out through the curtain slit.
“It’s a cop! What did you do? Tell me now and don’t lie. NOW!”

I told her the whole story in two sentences.
She looked at me and said, “you tell them it wasn’t you driving the van. You picked up a hitchhiker and they were driving because you don’t have a license. You told her to stop but she said she had a warrant and wouldn’t stop. She drove you here and then walked away.
Knock, knock went the cop.
Who’s there went Mom.
I told him the story and answered his questions just like Mom told me to. As much as I didn’t like her, she was smart and I trusted her when situations were tight.

The cop believed Mom’s story. She never said a word the whole time; just let me do the talking. I got a ticket for allowing a vehicle in my control to be operated without insurance and never heard anything about it again.

I never told Fate.
I was 16 and killed someone and got away with it.