1995 — THREE
Hey Evie babe,
What’s doin wit you nigga?
Anyways, Primo’s coming back on Monday and
coming to school on Tuesday.
I really missed him.
I don’t want to dump Ben cause I care about him
and stuff. But I have like this major malfunction
where I can’t go with out people too long.
I cant commit myself or something. Its fucked up.
Ya know what sucks?
I cant stay after on Tues or Wed or Thurs butt I
can only stay after Friday. See if you can stay
after on Friday. Are you going to Washington?
I’m not. Who are you rooming with?
You know your friend Bartles & Jaymes?
Maybe my friend Aftershock can be his bitch.
That would be chillin.
I like Anne Marie Delgado a lot, but sometimes
she gets too hyper.
Oh yeah – on Monday, Rich Koch came to
Religion class high. He was fuckin wasted! He
was staring at the floor and looking around like
a tranqulized chimp or something. It was fuckin
funny as hell. He freakin broke
my Zippo lighter. The god damn jerk! I had to
spend the whole weekend hanging out with him.
Sat & Sun & Friday night 7:00 – 8:30 because of this
religion retreat thing. Actually, he’s pretty cool, but
boy is he dumb! Well its 11:26 now and I’m sleepy.
So I’m gonna hit the sack. Toodles!
Jackie
Enter first note from Jacqueline. Jackie became my go-to girl for the next two and half years whenever I needed therapy from someone who was going through a girl-to-woman-hood far worse than I could have ever imagined myself experiencing. Jackie was there for me when I needed to talk about my fledging self-mutilation habit, my embarkment into professional truancy, and together we shared gossip flinging days, drug-filled afternoons and holed-up nights in our rooms. We both lost our phone privlidges constantly, and fought with our parents as if it were our last night on earth. Only her father had a lot worse of a temper than all three of my parents combined (mom, dad, stepfather), and he showed his love with his fists and backs of hand. She lived in a violent household of incredibly strict, overprotective and ultra-religious Italian Catholics and she paid the price for her youth daily.
Jackie and Primo were together for most of eighth grade, except during the time he was sent away to rehab; then Jackie began dating Ben, a far more together kid than Primo, with a much straighter act. But Jackie always longed for Primo, as all girls with very tough parents long for the bad boy.
This is the first of many Jackie letters to come. I feel like there are bounds of notes I ripped up and threw away, perhaps to destroy the evidence. I never managed to recover the notebooks she and I kept throughout summer school of ninth grade, the ones we passed to each other via friends or out car/schoolbus windows as she and I were not allowed to see each other anymore by then. But everytime I look back on the notes from her I do have, I am always comforted by the solidarity I found in her during what was the first major torrential period of my (then)short-life.
