Processing takes a long time, I found out. I was printed, photographed, and "counseled" by the people doing intake. It all amounted to a bad pickup line

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" they asked over and over. Worded differently of course, but it all sounded the same. My wits were about and knowing that I wasn't 18 yet they would more than likely contact my parents. I coulnd't have that so I lied. I lied andgave them a fake name, and said I didn't know my social. Since I had never been arrested before I had no fingerprints on file. So I was booked and printed under a now Legal Alias.

I was shown to a cell that was packed with women after surrendering all my possessions. They missed a copper braclet I had on my wrist though, and I wondered if anyone would notice. I lay down on the bunk that was the furthest away from the women milling around the cell and buried my face in my arm. I lay there tense waiting for someone to come up to me and say something or try to touch me in any way. Time crept by, and after a few hours they had a call for people that wanted showers to go get them. I feigned sleep and amazingly no one said anything. I did manage to sleep for a bit since most everyone was gone, and after they came back the mood was alot more somber. Hours passed on the backs of snails and all of a sudden I hear someoone shouting.
"Ducky" someone called.
Over and over they called until it registered with me that that was the name I used. I laughed inside for a moment thinking of the kids in San Fran whose real names where as strange or stranger and allowed me to be able to use this.
"Here" I shouted, and watched as a guard walked up to the front of the cell door. It opened and she motioned for me to follow him. They haden't taken my clothes yet so there I was dressed in a tight striped shirt and black cords. My hair in god awful pigtails. I walked the length of the hall looking in at everyone sitting and laying there waiting for time to pass as I did. Then I was out.

I went into a room following the guard and sat down at a desk. I was told to wait a moment and someone would be over to ask me a few questions. A cop came, almost immediatly, the quickest thing that happened since I woke up that morning. He told be I would be allowed to goo, and had to be at a court date by nine thirty the next morning.

I went down and was able to collect my things and was sent on my way.
I searched through the garbage bag they had handed me with my things in it and located the bit of cash I had. I was happy it was still there, 'cause I didn;t get so much as a bus token when I was let go. I found a bus stop and asked a person walking by the time. It was seven at night. I had been arrested less than fourteen hours before. I couldn't believe that I was outside again and that they actualy expected me to show up for a court date. I laughed to myslef a bit after getting on the bus and heading back to the haight.

I finally got "home" at around nine and went to where I had camped. The place was ransacked by either the cops or the others living in the park. Now I had the vclothes I was wearing and the few things I had in my bag. I had no clue where I was going to sleep, since even my bed roll was gone. I didn't know if Jester was in too, or if he even knew I was gone. I ended up in front of Cafe Cole sitting on the pavement and nursing a cup of coffee. One of the local Hare Krishnas was there and sat next to me for a time. He wanted me to come to the local Parade
thing they were going to do the next day. I agreed mainly becaus ethey would have foor and the Krishnas were always entertaining to watch.

I finished my coffee and went to Larry's hoping I coud crash there again.
Fortunatly I was able to cathc Larry before he bailed for a gig he had that night, and he stuck me into his room before I left. I was asleep again in minutes and more soundly then I would have outside. I was scared to sleep out there now that I hadn't just been waved away with a warning. Maybe it was time for another change. This small world I was in was getting smalled and chocking me. I was trapped in drugs and the streets. I knew I didn't have to be, but didn't want to go to a shelter and certianly couln't go home. Then like a flash I knew I had an out.
I had to find Jester. As soon as I could I was gone and onto the wilds of South Carolina. I was ready to travel again.
I woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Or rather something woke me. There was someone in bed with me and it wasn't a smell I was used to. I had read somewhere that love was directly connected to scent, and that each individual carries their own that is both sexually and emotionally pleaseing to only certian people. Jester had a scent I could roll myself in, but this wasn't him. As I was coming awake realizing this, the arm belonging to this entity circled my waist and cupped my bear breast. The thumb and forefinger pinched my nipple slightly and it caused an unwecome frission of pleasure. I could feel my body respond, as I turned to see who I was responding to.

In the shadows of the room I could only see a sillouette of a head and torso, but that was enough.
"Larry?"I said it questioningly, but I knew it was him.
"You should be with me." he mumbled into the back of my neck.
I could smell the gin wafting out of his mouth and tickling the small hairs there.
"He's not good enough for you. You don't even know where he is right now, and when you're in trouble who do you come to. Me."
"Larry," I said again."I know it seems like he's not there for me, but he is in the ways I need him to be."
"You need a man, Nic. A man, not some crazy kid with wingnuts on his hat."
"I'm the only one who can say what I need right now Larry." I started to get up and he grabbed me, pulling me onto my back on the bed.
" It's past time, Nic. I've been sitting here watching you for months now and I am getting what I want."
He grabbed my wrists in one hand and pinned them above my head. His legs were heavy above mine and I couldn't move. With his free hand he continued to touch and fondle my tits, then covered my mouth kissing me. The taste was foul, I can still remember how sour it was. His free hand now was travling south, and reached my clit. He found it unerringly in the dark, and to this day I wonder. Why was he able to find it without assistance. Again I responded, his touch sent a jolt through my legs and they spread. He took advantage of this and forced his way between them. My saving grace was the fact that he was only half hard. Maybe because of the boose, maybe becase he knew this was rape. I'll never know, but I thank God every time I remember. I used this and started to move against him. I softened my lips and started to kiss him. Allowing my arms to relax, and grinding my pussy against him. He moaned then releasing my arms and I could feel him starting to grow harder. I reahed down like I was going to help him in, and he lifted up so I could. He mumbled something like I knew, or I know, but I didnlt let him finish. I stroked my hand down the length of his cock, untilI reached his balls. He lifted up a bit more allowing me to cup them in my hand. I squeezed then. I gripped them with all the strength I could managed and squeezed, the twisted until he howled.
"FUCK!" He screamed as his sprang back.
I went with him still holding on.
"LET GO OF MY NUTS YOU FUCKING PSYCHO!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs, then smashed his hand into my cheak.
I fell to the side, still holding an he crashed over half on me half on the floor. I let go then and jumped up. I stood over him bare ass naked breathing hard. My cheak and eye felt like they were on fire.
"You numb fuck." I said, trying my damndest to be calm. "You lousy sack of shit what gives you the right to touch me."
I Looked down at him doubled over on the ground cupping his swelling balls and I just turned then. I scooped my clothes off of the floor and walked over to the door, opened it and walked out. I dressed as I was walking into the living room and grabbed my bag. My eye was already swelling shut, and seeing was an effort. Turbo was in the kitchen staring at me with his mouth half open. I noded at him, and he back at me and I walked out.

I found Jester a few hours later and told him what happened. He was pissed and made some meaningless threats to go there and "take care of him". I realised then that Jester, was just what Larry said. A crazy kid. That didn't matter to me thoug, because if a man was what Larry was, then I would be better of alone, and keeping company with crazy kids. I said then that I wanted to go to South Carolina if he could make it happen. He said he could, and if I wanted to we could go to the welfare department today and try to get the process going.

Now I won't bore you withthe details of sitting in the most depresing office in the world. Nor with the endless paperwork we filled out, nor the horribly dead inside beuracrat that delt with me in the process. But I will say that within two days we both had tickets to Aiken, South Carolina. and were ready to get on a bus.

We got to the greyhound station station, the morning we were set to leave. Each of us had a bag of clothes and a spare amount of food. It was a 3 day trip, so I knew I'd probably be hungry alot, but I couldn;t afford to take more. I had about fifty bucks on me, and was hopeing I wouldn;t have to spend anything. I was also not taking any speed with me, and haden't done anything that morning. To combat the enevitable withdrawls I'd have I got a friend to thumbprint my with some LSD and I was starting to trip as the bus pulled away from the station. Jester and I had gotten the triple seat in the back of the bus by the bathrooms, and I strached out on his lap and fell into a light dose. When I woke up we were stopping for a break and to pick up some passengers. I was tripping pretty hard by then and decided to stay on the bus. There was a guy who was catty courner from us with a huge dufflebag that had gotten off at the rest stop, but when we started up and pulled out he hadn't goten back on. It was then that my sense of smell kicked in. I had smelt it before, but now the sent invaded my head, not leaving me alone. I pulled the dufflebag over to me and opened it up. Not much was inside. Some clothes, and a few snacks, but at the bottom there it was. The sorce of the scunky smell was a bud about the sixeof my fist, maybe even bigger.
I gigled then, knowing that I'd be able to make at least a few bucks on the ride.
The bus ride was indefinate
Years passed by my window as I stared out at the flat land of Texas, the desolate dusty hellishness of Oklahoma, and the rabid, rampet Bubba's of Arkansas. About the second day I had come fully out of my acid trip and was yearning for something. I knew full well what I wanted but tried to ignore it.
"Wanting it would do no good!" I told myself.
"I couldn't get it anyhow"
"I'm stuck on a bus, so just forget it."
Well yes all of those things could be true, but this was me. If I wanted something bad enough, I got it. This is still true today! So there I was looking at this at least an ounce worth of bud I had and my mind went. The next rest stop I was behind the bus station in Atlanta having a smoke and talking to some of the other bus riders I had become aquanted with. Jester was sitting on the curb furtively rolling a joint we were going to pass around. Of course one of the guys wasnted to buy some so I sold him a good chunk for about fifty bucks. A rip off really, but supply and demand being what it was when we only had a twenty minute layover he bought it. I ducked into the bathroom with the cash and within about 5 minutes found a nickle of speed. I had some tin foil in the duffle bag of the giant bud so I proceded to chase the dragon right there in the bathroom.

After that I hurried back out and managed to catch a puff off the roach. They smoked it quick, and I was lucky to get anything to take the edge off. We climbed back on the bus, and away we went.

About ten the next morning we arrived, and were met at the bus station by Jester's friend/mom/whatever. She was no relation to him, but had kinda adopted him. We got alog fairly well right away and soon we had pulled into this beautiful neighborhood. They were like the houses I grew up around. Large and fairly smelling of money. Jester and I set ourselfs up in a large room upstairs with a private patio entrance. The only thing it was lacking was it's own bathroom. God after sleeping rough for months it was heaven.

The families name was, get this, The Blessings. Ron, Airalee, and their daughter Airron. They were a quirky bunch, and to have adopted Jester and I they would have to be. Their entire living room was lined wth builtin bookshelves and covered from floor to celing with the most obscure and often somewhat obscene books. Some was fiction, some was art, most were about sex and drugs odly enough. I soon found out the strangeness of their relationship. Ron and Airalee weren;t what you would consider swingers, but they were polyamourus. I had no idea what that was, and had never come up against something like that before. Airalee had a boyfrend that her husband knew about, and not only that, but they did things together. Not sexual things, but they would all hang out, or go to dinner and movies together. The harmony was amazing. There was no jealousy and there was no pettiness. No one in that household lied to one another, and it was the most amazing and loving marriage that I had ever seen. There relationship opened my eyes and I would later start living my life, or trying to, in a somewhat simaler manner.

Our first night there Jester, who;s real name was Chuck, got in touch with some old friends and we met them at wafflehouse.

The friends of his were Phil, Joe, and Josh.
Phil I hated from the moment I met him. Something about that smarmy sarcastic way he had rubbed me the wrong way. I was pretty sure he felt the same way. Within an hour we were throwing snarky comments back and forth to one another, hoping the other would slip up, stutter or something. By the end of the night we had to call a draw, and apparently we had highly amused not only everyone else at the table but the waitress informed us that we made her night.
 
For a time I made the blessings home, my home. I had Halloween, a Birthday, Thanksgiving, and then Christmas there. I became a part of the circle there, and soon enough Phil and I became less then mortal enemies. We spent any free time we had at the local Wafflehouse. Jester, who by this time I had started to call Chuck with everyone else, hadn’t found work and so had a lot more free time than I did. I managed to get a horrendous Job in the local mall at a clothing store,
and funneled whatever I made either to the Blessings for feeding us or spent it at Wafflehouse sucking up countless cups of coffee. Jester by this time was starting to loose some of his charm. He started to get stranger and stranger, or maybe he was always that way. It was hard for me to tell really. It’s amazing how your perspective on people changes when you aren’t doing crank and acid every goddamned day. Even the fire eating didn’t thrill me when I couldn’t chace the trails that weren’t there anymore.

On the other hand I was spending a lot of time hanging with Joe, Josh and Phil over at Phil’s house. Our sarcastic give and take which bothered me so much at the beginning became the only refuge I had from being annoyed with Jester. Taking a page from Ron and Airalee’s book I began a physical relationship with him, while still being with Jester. It worked for a time, but as the months passed and my eighteenth birthday approached I started to pull away even more from Jester. Him not working and constantly asking for money started to bother me more and more, and I felt my desire for him ebb. Phil and I never had a large love affair like Jester and I did, it was more of a physical comfort.

My birthday arrived and Ron, Airalee, and everyone had a little party. Nothing big, but we all got kinda buzzed and everyone was dancing around the living room. It really made me realize how lucky I was, and for the first time in a while I thought of my family. I missed my mother in an abstract way, and thought I might giver her a call soon to let her know I was still alive. Later that night I was on the patio outside of our room sitting and talking with the guys. I had my eyes closed and was listening to their back and forth feeling the cool November breeze wind its way under my shirt. I thought that I was happy here in a way, but I knew deep down that my journey was coming to an end. It was almost like I cound here the wind play a funeral dirge for who I had been these past few months. This fearless, careless, reckless girl that had jumped headlong into a life she hadn’t even known existed from her previous suburban world. Know here I was again, living in a house, working at a mall, and basically becoming who I was before, but with my demons burnt out of me. I knew I could go home.

I stayed for Thanksgiving and Christmas, helping out as much as I could, and finding little gifts with as much personality and originality as I could afford on my meager pay. Airalee in the mean time started to have problems. I found out from Ron that she has bouts of depression and unless she has medication she becomes almost violent towards herself at times. She was taking pills, but apparently not with any regularity and when she did they weren’t working the way they should. The day before Christmas I cam home form work late, it was a mad house there, and after we cleaned up it was almost eleven. I walked in to a silent and dark house. The Christmas tree being the only thing that gave me a way to see.
I heard something in the kitchen and went in to see who was awake. It was Airalee, sitting alone in the dark eating something. When I went over to say hello, and I realized she was quietly sobbing and eating great handfuls of some kind of white paste. It was Crisco and flour mixed together. She was just sitting there scooping some up with her fingers and shoving it into her mouth, chewing for a bit and then swallowing. How she was even able to get a little down her throat was a mystery, but I realized that she was having increasing trouble doing it. I, as gently as I could, took her hands, and pulled her away from the table, and walked her upstairs. She followed me like a child and I managed to get her into her room. I let Ron know what was happening and went down to clean up her mess. He came down a brief time later and told me that she was sleeping. Then almost fell into my arms crying. He was going to have her hospitalized right after Christmas. I let him know then that I was leaving too the day after and going home if I could. We just sat and held each other for a while, wordlessly giving comfort and strength. I went to bed after that and slept dreamlessly.

The next day everything seemed normal, and there was no evidence of what happened the night before. We had our gift exchange and a wonderful dinner. Everyone was in great spirits including Airalee. Still I slipped away from the family to go call my own, for the first time since I had left all those months ago. I dialed my number and my mom answered on the first ring. A tearful exchange followed and I told her I was coming home. All of our bad feelings were gone in the joy of just speaking to one another again. I went back downstairs and let everyone know that I was going home. There were tears, but in general everyone seemed happy for me. Jester and I took a walk outside. It was so cold I could see my breath, but not quite cold enough to snow. He asked me why I was leaving, and I unloaded everything. From what had happened and was happening to Airalee, to why I was upset with him. He was silent for a bit, and then looked up at me. His eyes sad, but clear.
“I love you.” He said very simply.
“I’m not going to argue, or try to change your mind. You’re to strong for that.”
I opened my mouth, but before I could he hugged me.
“I want you to do what you have to do, or what you think you have to do at least.”
I saw the man I had fell for. He may not have fit in here, and while this was close to my world, it would never really be his. He was a street performer, and fire eater. He had no desire to get a real job and wear a name tag or put on a tie. I knew this, but ignored it because he didn’t fit into where we were. I know I loved him, but also that he wasn’t for me anymore. We went upstairs soon after and made love for the last time. I fell asleep in his arms, and woke up a few hours later. Taking my bag I walked through the silent house to the front door, and put a note on the table next to it. I had already said my goodby’s but this was just my final thank yous to everyone. I opened the door quietly and walked out. By the time I hit the highway the sun was coming up, and the frost on the grass would be melting soon. I caught a ride within minutes and I was on my way home.


That’s it for this story, my journey that spanned close to a year of my life. Obviously I left quite a bit out, but nothing really that would have added to the story. Or maybe it would have, I’ll never know. Jester and I did see each other again, and in fact he was the one that introduced me to my now ex husband. The rest I never did see again. Airalee went into the hospital, and was admitted for about four months. After that I lost touch with them. As for me, well here I am, living each day like it’s a gift. Because it is one.