Lullabies

I laugh now as I follow people around. Stalk them really, I love having the ability to be unseen while getting to see any persons life from my perspective. Since my death, I have made the best of my situation. Though I had seen a few things I couldn't tattle tale about well... Because of my state. I have encountered drug smuggling operations all across America. Not often Though. Six months ago I'd payed a visit to Mexico and trust me. There is a lot of this criminal action there.

I can't tell you how long I've been dead, because well, I've lost count of the years. Yes years have passed. And time changes a person. I have learned a lot more about myself then I did when I had been alive. I had even stalked Billie for a time. Stayed at his house during that time. Not only for a look into his life. But to have a somewhere to take shelter since I didn't like being at home anymore. I drift through my room and can constantly hear the sobs of my mother at night. She lost her job because her crying late at night exhausted her too much and she couldn't keep up with it all. Dad is still quite upset and I haven't seen Jack in forever. The last time I saw Jack was a week after my death. He took it the hardest because he and promised me he would see me after that night. He moved out of my parents house and out of his own mothers house. Packed up all his stuff and moved miles away to attend collage at California State. I felt really alone during those times so I eased a few peeks at Billie's life. I had witnessed his life for the span of three months and saw multiple things happen during that time. He had broken up with Erica a week and a half after my death because he was upset apparently too. He'd blame himself for my death and she couldn't get him to get over the memory that I had died in His arms. And that to me would be the best place to die. I was in a happy state of mind when I drifted over to the other side.

His mother had remarried a man that he apparently disliked. He retreated further into what I learned to be his excessive love for music. And drugs. After his break up and all his stress, he had begun to drink heavier and do a great arrangements of drugs. One of the reasons behind my leaving was because I didn't want to see him kill himself with that crap. So I skipped town and fled to New York.

I had lost a lot of interest in my ex best friends too. Ashely and Marcy had said a bunch of nasty things after I died and started a shit load of rumors to make me look like the sin of earth since she originally had for having let me drink in the first place. Ashely was never one for the negative spotlight.

On my first night at Billie's...

I was bored. Well of course I was, there is nothing to do when you are dead. Especially a teenager spirit. Nothing can sate the thirst for adventure. And tonight was a good night for adventure. The sky cracked with another roll of streamer lightening and a sharp peel of thunder. The rain poured down in utter darkness and each drop went through my skin and continued to puddle on the sidewalk. I walked up the street a few more blocks before making the decision to pay my ex crush a visit. Thats what everyone was to me now. I couldn't proceed to call everyone my friends and family when I wont see them again for a very long time.

I knew his address now pretty well from previously riding in the bus with him in fifth grade before we all bought cars and cut off that route of socialization all together. I knew the house was shabby and white and across the road from the tracks where a train blared its horn loudly announcing it's presence. I peeked through the front windows and headed inside by walking through the door. Ollie, his mother I am assuming. She had been to my funeral but she wasn't married yet, sat on the couch with a older man which I guessed was Brad, Billie's stepdad. I took a seat between them on the couch while they chatted about when Billie should be back. I was patient until I heard the slosh of boots scuffing the tile behind me and knew he was home as the door closed loudly behind him and he tried to stalk off up stairs to his room before his mom could catch up to him.

“Billie! What's wrong?!” Ollie asked concerned as she grabbed his arm. I stood behind her beside the stairwell while he slowly turned towards us. I hadn't seen him in a few months so of course he had changed. He had thin stubble on his chin. Dyed his hair red and he looked thin and unhealthy. He looked broken. 

“I broke up with Erica.” he simply stated then winced at his own words. Drops of water dripping off his clothes in puddles around his feet and off the edge of his nose. He was disheveled and looked like he had already had his fill of bull crap for today. Ollie nodded slowly and he jerked away from her and proceeded to run upstairs. I followed him curiously upstairs. Walking into his messy room and stepping around things even though I couldn't break anything. I sat on the end of his bed while he pulled out a joint. Lit it, inhaled deeply and coughed a couple times. Enough times to get me worried. He growled suddenly and pitched the  lit joint at the wall. He sighed heavily and dropped his head into his hands. Even though I knew I couldn't, I reached over and rubbed his back. My fingers grazing the fabric of his soaked sweat shirt. My hand sunk through and I sighed in my own frustration and dropped my hand into my lap. I couldn't talk to him or do anything to make him feel any better. I would be merely anything more then a figment of his imagination if he did so. I glared down at his collection of used drug packages on his bedroom floor. Why would he do this to himself? Can he not see himself clearly at all? He is too amazing to bring himself down with drugs.

I watched him lie down on his back and stare at the ceiling for a couple minutes before he closed his eyes and fell unconscious. I curled up into a ball beside him and stayed all night. I didn't sleep though. I watched him for every second of ever minute if every hour that night. With utter fascination to be that close to him for that long. I began to daydream while lying there. Imagining in if were still alive and he actually liked me and didn't just know me because he felt bad about me having died in his arms. He hardly knew me but still some thing like that can be traumatic for some people. I envisioned myself in his place and understood his predicament easily. I was there until morning, February 17th 1990.  It was his eighteenth birthday. So I followed him curiously as he got up without waking anybody and drove to school. I hadn't been to school since the accident. So I looked out the car windows as he drove and played Ramones. My pride and Joy and I had heard very little of them since my death. 

When he parked, he razzled his hair and walked inside the registration office and demanded he drop out to 'pursue other things' as he had said though both his and my own graduation would be in May if he could only hold on two more months. I watched him in shock as he finished up and drove home ro the tracks and hung out there for his birthday. From that day, his life was a never ending downward spiral. Eating him up and reminding the world that society doesn't take too kindly to high school dropouts. I proceeded to stalk him over the three months though. It had become an asset in my life to be there. So much so that I had forgotten all about home And had not desire to go back. The last day I'd been there, I'd seen mom standing at the kitchen counter with every possible stain removing solution out around her in a big ring while the pretty peach dress was spread out across the kitchen table while she scrubbed at the blood stains. Her eyebrows pulled together in concentration to get out the stains and get rid of any reminders that I was the daughter, her daughter, who would never come home. At least not as far as she was aware.

It continued to rain for three days. And with every day, I'd catch grasp of more of Billie's miseries. He hated his step father and got into verbal fights with him often. He is trying to make this band work but isn't getting much support from the surrounding punk community. He has been taking his breakup relatively hard and had written a song about her called Christie Road. I'd witnesses him tell his band mates that it was about Erica always being grounded by her mother but she would sneak out and they would meet up. His band mates were, Mike Dirnt, who had also witnessed my death but hadn't taken it as hard. And John Kiffmeyer. Who was this snobby, bossy drummer dude who hung out at 924 Gilman Street on a daily basis.

Billie disliked John because he kept trying to take his songs and his lyrics and change them. It took every ounce of his self control to not attack him for his intrusions.

One Sunday, I had sat in the rocking chair under his huge bedroom window and watched him play his guitar for hours. I had learned too that he had named it Blue and it actually was blue. Covered in stickers from various bands he listened to and brands and then just plain random stickers. His initials on the pick guard. It had always fascinated me how people can play that sort of stuff. Watching Jack play his instruments always fascinated me so I'd always ask him to play my favorite Ramones songs. He would smirk at me and sigh before going into I Wanna Be Sedated. 

* I looked up at the grey sky above me. It was beginning to snow heavier but I was in no hurry. I watched around me at the hurried life of New York. How no one ever had the time to just stop for a bit and relax. Or the people who wear business suits that are far too relaxed need to learn to be a little more spontaneous. Where the brighter clothes and be the weird one. Not the one that everyone likes. Looking back upon my life I wished I hadn't worried so much about being. Popular and making the squad. Being the girl at the top of the pyramid and the one who missed family get togethers to go to ever single pep rally at the school gym. I miss being alive for multiple reasons, besides being visible. I miss talking to my mom and playing checkers with my dad every Sunday night because those were the days he got off. I miss my friends— Jane, Jade and Chloe. Who actually cried at my funeral. I miss my memories. All things that could never happen again. When I was going through my music loving phase, my dad had bought tickets to go see Scorpions in concert. Mom was gone for the week for a business trip, so dad dyed my hair with the washable Halloween stuff. Moussed it into a mohawk on my head and we sat in the front row. Waving like retards at the band; and it got us noticed. They pulled me up on stage to sing a little bit with them.

I smile at the memory. One of the highlights of my childhood. I'm not going to get into that depressing talk where I'm all like 'And it's never going to happen again or ever be the same because I am dead forever...'

I walked around town some more and found a cemetery. Which I avoided entirely because they never shut the fuck up over there. I made the mistake of visiting a grave yard once and all the spirits there do is bring me down with their gripping about how they had their whole lives ahead or them and it's all over and they never had the chance. They have to tell me the story of their lives and beg me to help them. I don't want to be that ghost that is giving false assurance. I crossed the street instead in favor of a little café. I sat at a isolated table in the shadows with a little lantern on the table. Which would have illuminated my skin had I had any... I sat back in my chair and began to daydream about my own funeral.

Once again it was raining. On a Sunday everyone stood around the plot and cried as they lowered my box into the pit. Ollie, Billie, Mike, Tré were there. Erica came for Billie's support. Mom dad and Jack came. Jade, Chloe and Jane were there too. Jade constantly dabbing at her eyes with a square of cloth. Ashely and Marcy hadn't come because they were all too busy spreading rumors about me 'suiciding' myself. So it eased their own guilt for encouraging a drunken dart gun war where there was one real gun in the confines.

Billie actually held up pretty good. Everyone looked so sad and considering how many people I knew, only this small group had come. My aunt and uncle had come and so had my great grand parents and my grandma and grandpa. Two of my cousins and that was it. They begin to shovel dirt over me while I stand there in the same jeans and t-shirt I'd out on the night I'd gone to the hospital to meet myself. My eyes wide and silver tears fell from them as I began to disappear. The crowd surrounding the hole began to disperse and I stood alone as the rain picked up. I prayed it would soak me. Chill me to the bone but I felt nothing when the drops touched. I was all alone here in the Rodeo cemetery. 

I nodded once. To close this open book. Its all over and I thought I'd fall to pieces. I turned away and went to take shelter in the chapel.