And they hatched the plan of plans: send me toВ Texas for the summer. You tell your mother I work hard for my money.Д«ut this time, theyвЂ™d each actually gotten the nerve to phone each other. Tell you father you need new clothes, mom would direct me. Since the divorce, they had devised a simple plan of communication. The old man wasnвЂ™t any happier to see me. They say youвЂ™ve stopped showing up to school. Things headed further south the day I came home to see my mom waving my report card like a cleaver. More than one expulsion, and you lose that sobriquet. Anyway, her dad was my step-dadвЂ™s business attorney, and that meant she was a good girl. SheвЂ™d been a debutante, or could have been. Somewhere in there, I started dating a nice girl. I skipped back and forth between my old manвЂ™s apartment and my momвЂ™s house. So I rode bitch, and rarely had money of my own. You wonвЂ™t manipulate a grown up out of pains in their wallets as easy as you do the ones in their chest, or their mind. If only I wasnвЂ™t the product of a broken home. My parents had split, and I had managed to manipulate them when bad news came. What I hadnвЂ™t recognized was a need for discretion. They smoked Marlboro lights, and drank diet Coke, and that was the smell of victory. IвЂ™d watch girls with perfectly brushed hair chew gum and memorialize summers spent in NagвЂ™s Head, or Gibson island. Other times weвЂ™d land down the hill from the Country Club, where the last of the townвЂ™s grass tennis courts sat. Johnny Unitas had a restaurant in Towson, and weвЂ™d sometimes sit in the lot across from it drinking beer. I was happy to regally lose myself in juvenilia, blowing smoke to the brit pop beat as Doug screamed through red lights and did donuts in half empty grocery store parking lots. On our way back into town, every bump sent the engine slamming into the hood. One time driving out to the country, where yet another girls school was located, Doug lost control and we ran off into a field of immature corn. WeвЂ™d crank up Cure songs, too stoned to remember our names. Blue is just as good as green.Дoug also had this German car, and drove so fast our hair blew back like that old Maxell ad with a guy in a leather jacket and sunglasses sits in a chair, the music blows hurricane force down upon him. You donвЂ™t want to miss anything, he explained. I liked the green skirts best, but Doug told me not to over specify.

One school had blue skirts, the other, green. That was the year I ditched finals and rode around with another delinquent visiting a couple of private girl schools during lunch breaks. By sixteen, IвЂ™d made it to public school, but I skipped as much as I showed up. I spent my teenage years getting thrown out of a few different schools.

Old penthouse magazine