Bastards of Young

The pings and pops of the pinball machine were the only things keeping me from falling asleep while standing up. Well, the pings and pops and Tre bellowing claims about his ability to fuck the game in the ass. Our original plan had been to go see Wayne’s World, but the newly installed arcade games had captivated our already non-existent attention spans and we had spent the last two hours pumping quarters into pinball and Multicade slots.

“Tre,” I said wearily, “You’re going to get us thrown out.”

“You see this, Jean,” Tre began slamming his pelvis into the machine, “This is me fucking the game in its ASS!” His showing off had consequences as indicated by the loud “wah wah waaaaah,” music playing from the crackly speakers. “Son of a bitch!”

“You still got high score.” I sloshed around the ice in my large Coke and tried to drink up the last little bit of watered down coke.

Tre begrudgingly put his initials into the number one spot while mumbling about how he could have done better.

“Aw, come on,” came Billie’s frustrated cry from across the room where he and Mike were engaged in a battle of epic proportions at the Street Fighter II machine.

Mike laughed manically, “Take that, bitch!” In an act of desperation, Billie kneed the back of Mike’s leg. “Ow, fuck you,” he picked up his button pushing pace.

“If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine,” Billie said as he attempted to match Mike’s pace. I took my place next to Billie with a small grin playing on my lips. Mike’s character did a fancy jump right into Billie’s face and the red bar dwindled to a slight sliver.

Mike smirked as he punched in the death blow. “Your powers are weak, old man!” Mike’s character punched Billie in the stomach and that was the end.

“Dammit,” Billie pounded the top of the machine with his fist in frustration.

“Its okay, Bill,” Tre said putting a hand on Billies shoulder. “We all know you’re not that much of a push over pussy in real life.” Mike let out an amused gasp of “Oooh,” as he and Tre shared a high five.

“Fuck both of you. Hard.”

“Buck up, kid,” I said giving his chin a gentle nudge with my fist. “I thought you did good.”

Billie grinned slightly and leaned forward to give me a peck on the lips. “You want to get out of here?” He had that look in his eyes, but I fought the urge and shook my head. Mike and Tre were walking towards concessions to get a few things before it closed for the night, but I still dropped my voice to just above a murmur.

“I think you should hang out with the boys tonight.”

Billie scoffed, “I’m going to be spending a ton of time with them over the next two months. I won’t see you at all.” He stroked my arm with the back of his fingers lovingly.

It was true. The guys would be leaving for an American and European tour in a few weeks and they wouldn’t be back until May. I was honestly terrified, but I would never let Billie know – he had enough to worry about.

I did my best to plaster a smile on my face. “I just don’t want them feeling neglected, you know? I don’t want to be that girlfriend.”

“Would you stop worrying so much about the type of girlfriend you don’t want to be,” he sported a lopsided, exasperated smirk and that energy that I loved was starting to shine in his eyes. “Think about the girlfriend you are!”

I suddenly felt kind of small and embarrassed as I tried to explain. “I know… it’s just I don’t-.”

Billie made sure I didn’t finish that sentence by placing his lips over mine. Taking a step forward he forced me against the arcade wall so that we weren’t too visible as he made the kiss more intense. After a couple of seconds he pulled back for air, a huge grin on his face. “Jean, what do you want? Right now. Me and you. Fuck everything on the other side of this wall. Well, you know, at least until we have to step past it to go do what you want and stuff.”

I laughed and leaned my head back onto the wall in thought, which Billie took to be an invite to bite at the crook of my neck. Groaning, I put my hand on his chest and pushed him back. “I can’t think when you do that.”

“I know,” he had a devilish look that made me want to kiss and slap him at the same time. I reframed from doing either since it’d only serve to make the situation better in his mind.

“What the hell are you two doing,” Mike popped his head into the room. “They’re about to close. Put your pants back on and let get out of here – Tre said a couple of good band are playing at Gilman tonight.”

I could tell by his sudden perked up expression that Billie wanted to go, but he still said, “Nah, you guys go ahead. Me and Jean are going to go somewhere.”

“Oh…well, see you around then,” Mike disappeared back into the lobby as Billie turned to me smiling.

“So, what d’you have in mind?”

I was tired as shit – there was a huge mix up with the new record orders that had taken me all day to fix and it didn’t help that Rodney was standing over me the entire time making passive aggressive threats that maybe “this gig wasn’t working.” All I wanted was to go home, curl up in my bed and sleep through the weekend, but I couldn’t get the way Billie perked up out of my head. Looping a finger through one of his belt loops I started to lead us out of the arcade.

“Hm, I think I like where this is going,” Billie said behind me, the smile on his lips ringing out in his voice.

“Oh, you will,” Mike and Tre were just stepping out of the theatre. “Hey, guys!” They both stopped and turned in wait of what I had to say. “We’re going too!” Billie reached up and grabbed the hand that had his belt loop, giving it a squeeze.

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The band playing was a great little 60s garage type band from San Diego called the Witch Kings. Before them had been a pop punk little girl group of 14-year-olds singing about starting their periods and boys that I had thoroughly enjoyed, but that everyone else seemed unimpressed with.

As the smoking hot lead singer of Witch Kings wailed away everyone in the pit was going crazy pogoing and pushing each other playfully. Mike and I had lost Billie and Tre in the chaos, but it was nice to hang out with him one on one. Currently, we were both doing dumb dances like the disco and scuba diver.

During the solo of a song called “Den Orral” Mike spun me around into the arms of some one behind us. I jumped back only to have Billie pull me back with a wide grin. Mike leaned in over me and yelled something I couldn’t make out into Billie’s ear. Billie just laughed and hit Mike’s fist with his own in response.

“Come on,” Billie yelled as he started to pull me out of the crowd while waving a good-bye to Mike. I gave him a short wave before he was lost in the sea of people.

Outside Billie took out his pack of cigarettes and got one for the both of us. “Let’s get you home,” he said handing me the lighter.

“We don’t have to,” I lit the cigarette and exhaled the smoke, some of it stinging my eyes. “The band’s only on for like half an hour more.”

Billie exhaled his own smoke with a smile. “Yeah, but you look exhausted,” he tucked a fly away lock of hair behind my ear.

“I can sleep when I’m dead,” I said doing my best gruff cowboy expression.

“Don’t say that,” Billie grabbed my hand and we started walking to the late night bus stop about a mile away. We were quiet for a long time until Billie started humming next to me. I instantly recognized it as “Hound Dog” and began singing about discrimination against those who ain’t ever caught a rabbit in a low voice.

By the time we had made it to the bus stop we had gone through “Hound Dog,” “You Sexy Thing,” and as we approached the bench we were belting out “Beat On the Brat,” at the top of our lungs. We plopped down to wait on the bus laughing. I couldn’t help, but marvel at the fact I was singing Ramones while holding the hand of a crazy, purple headed boy that for some reason seemed to like me even more than I liked him.

As I was thinking he leaned his head onto my shoulder. “Fuck me side ways,” he said with a yawn. “I getting tired too.” I didn’t say anything; I just kissed the side of his head and leaned mine against it.

I think we were both about to drift off when the bus pulled up. We trudged up the stairs and paid our fair before realizing we were the only ones on the depressingly florescent ride. Billie led us to the dark corner in the very back and took the window seat. As I took my seat next to him I noticed he was mumbling a song under his breathe as he looked out the window. After a few seconds I recognized the second verse of “Kiss Me On the Bus.”

I took the hint and gently turned his already grinning face to my own. I wanted to tell him how I was feeling, how I hadn’t ever met anyone like him before and it was scary as hell sometimes. I had an entire manifesto storming in my head, but all that came out was a simple, “Hi.”

“Hello,” he replied looking at my lips.

It felt like hands were strangling the air out of my lungs and the tiny stupid voice in the back of my head that talked me out of everything was screaming. Fighting through I managed to move my lips to form the sentence, “You’re my favorite thing.”

The energy was back again as he looked into my eyes and asked, “Bar nothing?”

“Bar nothing,” I confirmed.

We probably would have hit a home run in the bus that night if the drive hadn’t slammed on breaks at a few choice moments. There’s no romance in that breed.

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“We should probably consider bathing at some point,” I said the next day as I attempted to nestle myself closer to Billie as we lounged barely dressed on the living room floor. The pattern all morning consisted of us attempting to join the living only to find ourselves tangled up in each other on the floor again.

“I think we both know where that’ll end up,” Billie said groggily. The day had been hard on him. “Maybe we should just give up on doing anything outside of the apartment today.”

“Okay,” I sighed contentedly.

Soon, I could hear soft snores coming from Billie. Instead of finding the dark room and steady breathing of Billie soothing, I started to feel depressed. Outside light was sneaking in through the blinds so I decided to step out for some fresh air.

I put on a fairly decent smelling pair of blue jeans and the Hawaiian Tropic baseball style t-shirt I had worn the night before. Outside the air was chilly, but comfortable as I climbed up on the porch railing and lit one of the cigarettes I had brought out. From across the lawn I saw Tracy coming from the bus stop, still in the clothes from the night before.

“Walk of shame,” I asked as she approached.

“Psh, I’m not ashamed – it was awesome,” she climbed up next to me and I offered to share my cigarette, but she declined.

“Who was it?”

“The bartender,” she said simply. My eyes were probably as wide as quarters as I dropped the smoke.

“Fuck off!”

“I kid you not,” she seemed like she couldn’t stop grinning.

“And it was good?”

“I saw God.”

“Fuck…,” I looked off into space, lost in thought. “Lucky. I’d have a lot of room in my dress for that man.”

“Don’t let Billie hear you saying that.”

I grinned and pulled out another cigarette, “He’s in the living room barely clothed, heads up.”

“Thanks… how’s that going?”

My grin got wider, “Really well. He’s not like any of the boys back home.”

“Have you dropped the L word yet?”

My stomach clenched and I felt a wave of fear sweep over me at the thought. “No,” I answered quicker than I meant to. I took a long drag to calm my nerves a bit. “No, we’ve only been together for like a month. Kind of feels like it’d be too soon to say something like that.”

“Well,” Tracy had slid off the banister and leaned her elbows where she had been sitting. “I think he’s already there, but smart enough not to say anything.”

Stomach clench, fear, repeat. “Really,” I tried to keep an even tone as I took a drag off of my cigarette. “What makes you think that?”

“The way he looks at you. Some times it’s like he’s seeing the universe revolve with you right in the middle.”

Stomach clenched tighter, more fear and a nice little struggle to open my mouth. “Well, I think I’ll get there too… I mean, I definitely think I’m on my way, you know? I just feel so different with him. It’s scary sometimes.”

Tracy gave me a sisterly smile and nodded. “Yeah, it is,” she paused for a second before continuing, “Just make sure you’re both on the same page. This shit can ruin a relationship.

“I know,” I said looking away and taking another drag. Life was getting complicated.