Young and Dumb
this story originally appeared in Flashquake , Summer 2009 She ran away when she was seventeen. Met up with a guy on the bus and together they rode to Denver. But he turned out to be trouble. One night she slipped away from the room they rented. By the neon strobe she packed a bag, took his wallet while he slept. On the way out of town she stopped at a diner with a funky name and ordered a chicken dinner. Ate it to the bone. It was a bad space. She couldn’t go home. Let’s leave it at that. And she didn’t have anywhere else to go, except names on a map. She preferred the blue roads, the ones that branched off, growing more and more anonymous, changing names in different locales, adapting to the terrain. Often dead-ending. She was okay on her own. She knew enough to get by. Her step brothers had taught her karate. Really more like Three Stooges gestures. She knew how to scream. Enough to do damage to her vocal cords, until her stomach muscles ached. Until black night melted and she...