Not just a diary

I always slept very light, so light sometimes it felt as if I wasn’t sleeping at all. It was sometimes hard for me to distinguish the dream world from the real world.
I heard a slight knock and I opened my eyes, only to see everybody was still sleeping and it must’ve been somebody’s foot hitting one of the metal machines. Lodi was still sound asleep, bunched up next to me with her head on my shoulder. I glanced at the clock on the wall, and to my surprise it was about eight thirty and everybody was still knocked out. I chuckled to myself as I saw their positions… Leon was lying on his back and TK was using his stomach as a pillow. For some odd reason Matt was lying draped on a few washing machines on his stomach, his hand hanging down. There was somebody missing and I soon figured out it was Michael. I figured he had had to be home a certain time or something and left on his own.
Lodi took a big breath and moved her head a little bit. I could go back to sleep, but I wasn’t up for it. I swung my foot out and kicked TK on the ground. His eyes rolled open slightly and he glanced at me.
“Nasty man…” I said, shaking my head.
TK didn’t seem to know what I was talking about and he closed his eyes and tried to get more comfortable on Leon. It was then he realized he was sleeping on Leon. He immediately sat up strait and his eyes were wide as he looked at where he had been lying. I snickered.
TK rubbed his eyes and Lodi all of a sudden jolted back on her hands, looking at us wide eyed. It was TK’s turn to laugh.
Her mouth went wide open, “Oh my gosh was I like that all night?”
TK laughed again and that made her blush and we just laughed it off as Leon and Matt woke up.
I guess our little Laundromat overnight adventure was successful but we didn’t plan on doing it again anytime soon. The floors were hard and cold anyway. We all decided we needed a break from each other.

A few days later Miguel got me up early.
He came into my room and shook me on the shoulder; “Come on I’m taking you with me today?”
I rolled over drowsy, “Since when?!”
“Because I got you a job.”
“A job?! I’m twelve! There’s a child labor law!”
“Yeah well I’ll tell you about it in the car. Come on!”
I got up and pulled on some pants and slipped on my shoes. Miguel and I had talked about a week ago about how we were going to pull in some extra money. He had made the point that making sure I was living wasnt supposed to be his problem. He was once again pissed at my father.
I got in the passenger side of his topless SUV. Miguel started down the street toward the gas station.
“So what kind of a job did you get me?”
“Oh there’s this place by Shredd called Hot Topic that needs some help. I know one of the guys pretty well and we’ve hung out a lot so he said he’d give you a job as long as you’re willing to work minimum wage.”
“Hot Topic? Isn’t that the punk place?”
“Yeah it’s a pretty tight store.”
“Okay whatever…”
We pulled into the gas station and Miguel got out and stuck the pump into the side of the car. He climbed back in to wait and started drumming on the dashboard to his own made up beat.

“Hey do you know how to drive yet?”
I threw him a bizarre look, “No! Of course not! I’m twelve!”
“Jack never taught you?”
“Yeah right…”
“That is really odd.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know… he taught me when I was twelve.”
“That’s probably just because he needed somebody to drive him home from the pubs.”
“True. But still we should teach you.”
I shrugged, “Sure.”
“What do you already know?”
“Pretty much everything…”
“You know how to use the stick shift and everything right?”
“Yeah.”
“All right cool lets have you drive the rest of the way then.”
I didn’t know what to say. Miguel was weird like this. It was like he had no idea there were laws or boundaries he couldn’t cross. He also expected people to know about everything. There was a click and Miguel hopped out to take out the pump. I went inside with him to pay and picked up a Surge. Yum… Surge…

When we got back to the car Miguel went ahead of me and climbed into the passenger side. I took a deep breath and looked around to make sure nobody was staring before climbing into the driver’s seat. This wasn’t the greatest car to be teaching 12 year olds to drive in considering it had no windows or roof. I was almost positive we’d get pulled over.
I started the ignition and put it into gear as if in a dream, nervousness nor fear crossing into my mind. I sat there for a moment, then finally put my foot lightly on the pedal. It felt really weird having a care under my control. I got onto the street without any difficulty but I wasn’t graceful. Actually driving a car was a lot harder than knowing how to drive a car.
I stayed calm and serious as I always did and Miguel gazed out the side of the window as if going for a joyride. At one point I was so preoccupied with how much pressure I was putting on the pedal and if my speed was okay that I didn’t notice a red light and I almost slammed into the back of an old Mercedes. Luckily I jerked to a stop.
“Jess watch it this isn’t a roller coaster.”

I would have to say my first drive wasn’t at all how I had expected it to be. I did okay but it was still totally random that Miguel let me drive the rest of the way to the mall that day.

The mall was crowded as usual.
I passed by a hunched up group of kids, “Hey Jessin!”
I recognized some people from Madison, “Hey…”
As I walked on they still yelled up at me.
“Where you going!?”
“Hot Topic.”
“Ohh sweet we’ll meet you there okay?”
“Whatever.”
We slinked along until we came across Shred.
“Hey Miguel…” a guy at a desk helped some skater had looked up.
“Hey, hold up I’ll be right there.”

I followed him over to Hot Topic. Hot Topic was a very dark store. It was made for mostly punks and Goths. It had a lot of black T-Shirts with sayings like, “I feel better now that I’ve lost all hope.” And they had about fifty different kinds of wallet chains and other leather and metal bracelets and stuff. They also had black light stuff and hair dye. Every person that worked there was always a freak with a bunch of piercings. Over all it was a pretty sweet store.

Some guy with black liberty spikes looked up from his clip board at us and hopped over the counter.
“Hey Miguel, bro, what’s hangin’,” They hit knuckles in the handshake.
“ ‘Ay, homes, what’s happening. I brought Jessin today.”
The guy cracked his knuckles and five’d me in the handshake as well.
“ ‘Ay, ‘ow you doin’, I be Craig. So you gonna work hea’ wit us man?”
I shrugged, “Sure.”
“ ‘Aight, so how bout I go n’ take yous to the back n’ we’ll let yo brova get back to his work over there. Later much Miguel.”

And with that Miguel ditched me.

Craig led me through the store and talked as he went, “Alls we need yous to do’s is work the little jobs round hea, just restocking stuff n’ dealin’ with people who can’t find stuff , n’ stuff you know what I’m sayin’, just do whatever ‘cause we’ve been needin’ it wit da popularity dis place been getting’ you know. Since you bein’ under age n’ all we can’t put yous on the payroll officially but considerin’ yer situation n’ erryting we be givin’ you ‘bout five bucks an hour cool?”
“Sure…”
“ ‘Aight now I’ll show you da stuff.” I followed him round the store while he pointed out where stuff was and explained my hours and everything. He said since this wasn’t a legal thing or anything I could basically come in whenever I wanted. I just had to come in three or four times during each week and one had to be on the weekend. I’d stay for as long as I could. This was definitely going to put a damper on my summer plans of chilling at Prado Grande.

For about a week after that, I went back ever day. It was a pretty fun place to hang around. After Craig saw I actually came back every day he even gave me a free T-shirt, black of course, that read, “Don’t piss me off, I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.” Craig was pretty cool despite his gruesome appearance. He even went and got a spike pierced through his lower lip. He offered to give me one but I passed. It wasn’t that I feared the pain, I just didn’t want a spike coming through my chin.
Then one day I was about to start walking home when Miguel showed up and told me to go into Shredd and pick out any deck on the back wall and his boys would hook me up with their best trucks, wheels, bearings, everything I needed. I was pretty surprised they were letting him have stuff this early in his job. Who knows, maybe they felt sorry for us or Miguel was hooking up the manager with weed. (Just kidding.) But hell, I was getting a new board out of it so why should I care.

It took a while, but I eventually picked out the perfect complete skateboard get up. Number 2359 deck… which happened to be Zoo York… some grind king trucks… spitfire wheels… the best bearings… oh yeah it was great, and yes everybody was jealous at the laundromat. Once again… life was good.

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