Bastards of Young

I gently removed the needle from the surface of the little 45 to start it over again. Ashley had given me the EP to review with all the giddiness of a kid on the night before Christmas... which made it really hard to write a horrible review for it.

I cringed as what sounded like a cat scratching a blackboard started up again and I still found that the only adjectives that would come to mind were “unbearable,” “messy,” and “fucking just turn it off now, goddammit!” Sighing, I flipped off the record player and laid back on the living room floor. Above me the fan swung at an alarmingly high speed as it fought a losing battle with the freak scorcher that was today. Outside I could hear a lawn mower and kids screaming with laughter and my eyes started to droop lazily as the joint I had been enjoying slowly fizzled out.

“Jean,” my eyes crack open slightly. The daylight coming through the windows wasn't nearly as bright as it had been a second ago. “Jean!” I opened my eyes completely to a very pale Tracy standing over me.

“Are you okay,” I asked sitting up only to find my back was incredibly stiff – I must have dozed off for a few hours. “You look really pale.”

“I...uh, um...,” she shoved a strand of her red highlighted hair behind her ear and shook her head. “Never mind, I'm just tired and wanted to make sure you're okay down there.”

I cocked an eyebrow, not convinced. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she put on a strained grin. “Whatcha want for dinner? Is Billie gonna be home?” She turned and scurried into the kitchen as I picked myself off the living room floor.

“I'm not sure when he'll be back,” I replied on my way to my room. “A bunch of them went out for the day, but I'd be down for some pizza like you made last week.”

“Oh, God,” Tracy cried from the kitchen.

“Tracy,” I rushed to my door only to smack right into Tracy who was sobbing uncontrollably. “What? What's wrong?” Instead of replying, Tracy merely threw her arms around me and cried some more. “Trace,” I managed weakly after a few moments of silence. I did my best to guide her to my side of the bed and sit her down, but she insisted on holding onto my neck even after I had bent over to set her down. “Tracy, let go and talk to me.”

Finally she drew away her arms and held up a thin stick I hadn't noticed before. I felt my stomach drop to my feet as the bell in my head went “ding!” “Oh, fuck,” I took the stick from Tracy and saw a blue plus sign glaring up at me. “Tracy....”

“I don't know what to do!”

“It'll be okay,” I said automatically as I chucked the pregnancy test on the bedside table and sat next to my bawling friend. “Just don't freak out.”

“How can I not freak out,” Tracy yelled. “I'm not ready for this! I work in a college mail room. What the fuck?”

I put what I hoped was a comforting arm around Tracy. “You're almost done with school and Larry --”

“Oh, God, what if he leaves?” Tracy buried her face into my shoulder for another round of loud sobs.

“Stop being stupid,” I hugged her close. “He's not going to leave. Larry loves you so much; you can see it every time he looks at you. I bet he'll be ecstatic. Just take a deep breath.”

“I want to talk to Rosa,” I took comfort in the fact that she was able to say that in a semi-normal voice.

“Alright, let's go see if she's home,” I stood and lifted Tracy up with me.

“Thanks, Jean.”

“Yeah, just name the tyke after me and we'll call it even,” my heart lightened as Tracy cracked a genuine grin.

Rosa was pretty pissed at first, but as the minutes turned into hours she started to almost seem excited at the prospect of her baby sister popping out a kid.

“We'll have to get you to the doctor immediately,” Rosa said solemnly taking a sip of coffee. “And no more smoking, of course. First off it'll hurt the baby and secondly, a smoker mother looks trashy.”

Tracy groaned into her cup. “This is going to be fun.”

“This is what happens when you spread your legs,” Rosa's sing song voice made me cringe.

“Thanks for the heads up, Rosa,” Tracy's eyes looked ready to shoot lasers and I took a deep gulp from my coffee to avoid the tension.

Rosa finally brought up the question I had been dreading since we had sat down to have this conversation. “What are you going to do about the living situation?”

Tracy looked baffled, “What do you mean?”

“Well, uh, Trace,” I started to clear my tight throat. “With Billie and me there isn't exactly a lot of room for you and Larry and you know, the baby.”

“Jean's right – you're going to have a family. You guys are going to need your own space.”

Tracy started to look pale again, even a little green. “Yeah...,” she wiped away a few tears that had started to run down her cheek. “I'll figure that out with Larry, I guess. Jean,” she looked at me as even more tears threatened to brim over. “I'm sorry about all this; I don't want you to think-”

“Shut up, Trace; you've got bigger things to worry about,” I managed a smile. “We'll be fine.”

Tracey gave returned the smile, appreciatively.
“Well, I have to go to work,” Rosa stood. “You better go to Larry.”

Tracey nodded and we both stood as well,“Thanks, Rosa.”

“See ya, Rosa,” I waved as we walked out the front door and Rosa called her farewells behind us. Outside we pause for a second on the porch. “Would it be in bad taste if I lit one right now?”

“A little, yeah,” we both started to chuckle before Tracey got silent again.

“It's going to be okay; you know that right,” I shuffled nervously, looking for the words I wanted to say. “I mean, it takes a village to raise a child and between all of us you've got a nation.”

“I'm just not ready for all of this to be over.”

“All of what?”

“Just being young and carefree and, yeah,”she rubbed her eyes and then looked my way still teary eyed. “I had a lot more I wanted to do before I had to grow up.”

“Maybe it'll be worth it? I dunno, maybe it'll be nice to have something bigger than yourself to worry about.”

“Want to trade places,” Tracy said with an edge of hostility.

“No,” I grimaced.

“I'm sorry. Look, just don't tell Billie yet; I don't want anyone else to know before Larry and I have a chance to figure things out.”

“Okay,” I pulled Tracy into a hug, “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Tracy squeezed hard and then let go and started across the yard without another word. I stood watching her until she had rounded the corner before I went back to the apartment. The more I thought the worse I felt for Tracey and Larry and even the baby. Tracey and Larry's joyful faces as they ran around the beach the night I met Ashley seemed to take on a new youthful glow. I felt horrible that no one was particularly happy for the little person who was about to start a life on this planet without a choice in the matter anyway.

Walking in the apartment, I found Billie sitting in the armchair by the window, his left leg bouncing like crazy as he bit at his finger nails. As soon as he saw me he plastered on a huge smile and stood on very shaky legs. “Hey!”

“Hi,” I said, looking at him oddly as he wrung his hands and continued to smile with his mouth and look terrified in his eyes. “Are you --”

“I'm good! I'm... great! How are you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I noticed he was sweating. “Are you sure you're--”

“I know,” Billie covered his mouth as if he hadn't meant to say that. My heart sank as I thought about Tracy's request. I rubbed my eyes and held my hands there for a second.

“Just don't say anything until Tracy tells you about it okay?”

“You were going to have Tracy tell me,” Billie looked angry all of a sudden.

“Well, yeah... I mean it's her kid!”

“Wait, what?”

“It's her baby! Tracy's having a baby.” Billie's face softened immediately and he sank back into the chair with a thud.

“Oh, fuck. Thank God,” he had his hands over his face, but I could see a smile poking out. “Thank you, Jesus.”

“You thought I was pregnant?!”

“I found the test on the table,” Billie gestured enthusiastically to our room. We looked at each other in silence for a second before we both started to crack up. “I've never been so terrified!”

“You were sweating bullets; what happened to 'I want a family right now,'” I sat on the arm of the couch, smirking at him.

“Yeah, well... maybe I can wait a bit,” he grinned sheepishly at me from his slouched position in the chair. Grabbing his hands, I pulled him up and into our room.

“Lay down with me; it's been a long day.”

“Sounds wonderful.” We both climbed under the covers and quickly became tangled up with each other. Both of us breathed contentedly and I could feel Billie's eye on me as I laid next to him with mine closed. “You look pretty,” he said before gently pressing his lips to the tip of my nose.

Grinning and opening one eye I replied, “ You too, especially now some of the color is back in your cheeks.” This made him laugh and I couldn't help, but give him a kiss as well. We laid in contented silence for a while after that... until I decided to screw it up. “We might have to move out.”

Billie didn't react the way I thought he would have; he didn't react at all really except for, “Yeah, I was just thinking about that,” and a resigned sigh.

“What should we do?”

“Well,” he started to rub my side comfortingly, “We could go back to the squat,” I made a disapproving noise. “Or we could find a shitty little place and see where that gets us.”

“I could deal with that. Let's see what Tracy has to say and go from there.”

“Sounds good,” he yawned. Silence enveloped us once more and after a while I heard soft snores in front of me as I started to drift off as well.