Bastards of Young

I was really starting to regret that I had told Tracy anything as she sat across from me and Billie on the bus -- wordlessly begging “Do something cute,” with her giddy, staring eyes.

“Um…so, Tracy,” Billie began after an uncomfortable clearing of his throat. “Are you still with Mark?”

Tracy’s nose scrunched up in disgust. “God, no! I broke up with him before Christmas. Loser tried to tell me girls couldn’t have a proper band. I’m talking to a new guy, though.”

“Oh, really?”

“Uh-huh, Jacob. He’s really cool. You guys’ll like him.”

Billie grinned politely. “Awesome. I hope it works out.”

“Yeah, well, enough about me. I want to know about you two.”

I felt myself tense. Tracy, shut the hell up. Shut. The. Hell. Up.

Leaning forward with giddy intent she proved we weren’t telepathically connected. “Are you two an… item?”

A chorus of uhs and ohs began to spew from me and Billie’s mouths as we looked at each other and shifted uncomfortably.

Billie broke through to form the first intelligible communication. “Not exactly.”

“We’re just taking it slow,” I backed.

“Yeah,” Billie broke into a goofy grin, “I kind of wanted to take her on a real date or two, you know?”

I blushed and beamed at the ground, feeling Billie’s eyes on me. I looked up just in time to see Tracy roll her eyes. “Just promise me you just fucking go at it soon.”

“Shut up,” we both cried in annoyed unison.

---

The house was about a block away from the bus stop, which wasn’t so bad, but it did suck to have to lug all of my possessions that distance once again. Approaching the old, two story house we found a man and woman slightly older than us drinking wine on the steps next to the garage that I assumed led up to the apartment.

“Tracy,” squealed the woman, putting down her glass and scurrying up to Tracy, throwing her arms around her. Tracy almost lost her balance since her bag was so heavy, but she regained it and hugged the woman back happily.

“Hey, girl!”

Pulling away the woman surveyed me kindly as the man walked up calmly and hugged Tracy lovingly as well. “You must be Jean,” she said as a statement.

“Yes, ma’am,” I held out my hand and offered a smile.

“Oh, listen to that accent, Dan! Call me Rosa,” Tracy’s sister then enveloped me in a bone crushing hug. As she let go and moved on to Billie, the man approached me with a smile and held out his hand.

“Hey there, I’m Dan. Rosa’s husband,” he had a thick Southern accent.

“Where are you from,” I asked taking his hand.

“Duluth, Georgia.”

“God, it’s nice to be around one of my people again,” I grinned jokingly and Dan returned the gesture.

“Ditto!”

“Well, let’s go show Jean the apartment,” came Rosa’s bubbly voice. She still had an arm around Billie as she led us up the stairs. Once at the top she pulled her arm from Billie, who took a big step so that he was back by my side as I stifled a laugh and Rosa unlocked the door. “Welcome home!” she stepped aside so I could be the first to walk in.

The front door led into a large living room that smelled of cigarette smoke. The walls were plain white dry wall and the floor was nicely polished hard wood. A rather large couch was to my right and beyond that was the TV against a wall that was nothing, but shelves. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but I was sure I saw a VCR.

To my right was three stairs leading up to a small hallway that Rosa said led to the bed room, bathroom and coat closet. “Dibs on the bedroom,” called Tracy from behind me.

“I know,” I mumbled as I walked across the room to gaze into the tiny kitchen. The hard wood flowed into here and the counters were white with yellow tops that matched the refrigerator. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Rosa was beaming at me.

“Dan and I tried to fix up the sun room a bit.”

I frowned. “I thought I was sleeping in the dining room?”

“It’s both,” Rosa said as she took my arm and led me to the room next to the kitchen. I could hear the foot steps of the others behind me.

“Wow,” it wasn’t much. A bare queen sized bed and a dresser squeezed into a tiny room without a door, but it was a hell of a lot more than I had at the squat. “Thank you guys so much!”

“It was nothing,” said Dan off to my side.

“Well, we’ll let you guys get settled! It’s getting late anyways.”

“Enjoy the place,” said Dan as he took Rosa’s hand and they walked out. The rest of us all said our individual good-byes as they exited.

Throwing down my rucksack, I flopped onto the bed. “This is great!”

“I’m going to go to my room,” Tracy said with a chuckle as she took the box from Billie’s hands. “Thanks for carrying this, Bill.”

“No problem.”

“Night,” my voice was muffled from where I was laying faced down in the bed.

“Night you two. Be good,” with a wiggle of her eyebrows she had disappeared.

After that the room was silent except for some rustling. “What are you doing,” I asked lifting my head up to find Billie taking stuff out of my bag.

“Helping you unpack,” he said simply as he put a few t-shirts in a drawer of the dresser.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

Smiling, I got up and walked over to him. “I have a better idea.” With one hand I closed the drawer and with the other I tenderly grabbed his hand and pulled him closer.

“Ooooh, is it an idea I’ll like?”

Leaning in, so that the gap between us was almost non-existent, I replied, “I think so,” into his ear softly.

----

“Oh God, you were right. I love this idea.”

“I told you,” I took another bite from my half off pizza as waves crashed about 50 yards away from where we were sitting on the deck of a local all night pizzeria a few blocks away from the apartment. The air was chilly, but not unbearable with a sweat shirt on.

“I just wish you would’ve let me pay,” Billie had pizza sauce on his cheek as he spoke.

“And miss the chance to flaunt my dough,” I said taking a napkin and whipping the sauce off of him, “Fat chance.”

Billie gave me one of those over exaggerated smiles as I pulled my hand away. “Cute,” I said with a smirk.

“You know it.” He then leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about your family.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“Well, my mom’s a cake decorator at Food Lion.”

“Do you get free cake?”

I let out an amused snort as I said, “Half off.”

“What about your dad?”

“A car salesman. ‘Always felt really connected to Paul Westerberg because of that,” Billie’s grin got wider. “I also have a brother, Jimmy. He’s 25 and has been everywhere. When I was planning this whole thing… if you can call it planning… he had a contact in every city I mentioned. He wants to be our generation’s Jack Kerouac.”

“Nice!”

“Yeah, he’s a cool guy. I have a sister too. She’s 23. We’re not really close. She’s one of those I-want-a-family-right-now type people and she just can’t understand why I don’t want all of that too.”

Billie looked shocked. “You don’t want a family?”

“Not at 21!”

“Well, what do you want at 21?”

I thought for a second. “I’m not sure. I just want to live, you know? Learn. See things. Become the person I want to be. I’d really like to try my hand at being a rock journalist. But, yeah, what about you? What do you want at 19?”

“To play music. Hang out with you. If I want to shoot for the stars: make out with one of the chicks from Baywatch. I’m a simple man.”

“I like it,” I said, laughing.

“I wouldn’t mind starting a family early though,” he said in all seriousness.

“Like how early?”

“I’d not have a problem getting married right now if I had the right girl.”

I let out a disbelieving huff, “Yeah, I’m not even thinking about marriage for another 5 or 7 years.”

Billie shrugged, “You never know. Things could change.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that so I just finished my pizza in silence. When we had both had our fill we headed back to the apartment, chatting about Green Day’s next gig. It was at a guy’s house in San Jose on Saturday and Billie was hell bent that I go, not that I was giving an objections.

“I can’t date you until you hear and love us,” he said walking backwards in front of me.

“I said I’d go,” I gave him a slight push on his chest.

Beaming he fell into place next to me again, taking my hand as he did. A little ways ahead of us were two glowing lights moving in odd patterns. “What’s that,” Billie wondered aloud.

“I think…oh shit, yes! They’re doing that fire twirling stuff, but you know, without the fire. Poi!" I quickened my pace and Billie followed suit. We approached two punk girls about our age; one watching the other twirl. They both stopped what they were doing to watch us approach with apprehensive curiosity.

“Hey,” it came out as more of a question from the girl not twirling.

“Hi,” I said brightly with a slight wave. “I’m Jean… just moved in around the corner. Oh, and this is my… friend, Billie.”

“Marry,” said the twirler.

“Rae,” said the other.

They both gave us friendly smiles and nods of heads.

“Cool, um… would you guys mind if I gave the twirling a shot? I used to do it in high school.”

“Sure,” Marry passed me the balls.

I was surprised at how easily I remembered the moves, but I immediately felt the peace I used to as my arms and body moved rhythmically with the twirling. After doing a few moves I allowed the strings wrap themselves around my hands and handed the balls back to Marry. Billie looked amazed and I couldn’t help but pump a fist of victory on the inside.

“That wasn’t bad,” she said.

“Yeah, you were good,” said Mary, grinning at me oddly.

“Thanks! And thanks for letting me give twirling a try again. But, I'll see you guys around,” I gave them a wave as they told me goodbye as well.

When we rounded the corner Billie took my hand again, “There’s so much I don’t know about you.”

“I could say the same about you.”

He chuckled and started talking excitedly about how I had to teach him how to do Poi until we reached the apartment. I started up the stairs, but Billie held back.

“Aren’t you coming in?”

“Nah, I should get back to my lowly squat.”

I stepped off the stairs so that he was taller than me again. “You can stay if you want,” I hoped I didn’t sound pleading.

“I have work tomorrow and plus you need the first night to yourself.”

“It’ll be weird going to sleep without hearing you snore.”

Billie took a step back, “I don’t snore!”

“Oh, you so do,” I said poking him in the chest accusingly.

“Well, I don’t snore that loud,” he took my hand that had been poking him into his own so that he now had them both at his command.

“Okay, true. But, it’ll still be weird. See you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” he kissed my forehead with a comic ‘Mwah.’ “See you later.” With that he turned and began walking to the bus stop.

“Hold on,” he looked back at me as I rushed up and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Needed that,” I said half smiling and biting my lip, hoping he was still okay with kissing.

He grinned to my relief, but sighed as well. “This whole taking it slow thing might be fucking hard.”