There is no reason why a 2-hour drive from Pittsburgh to Cleveland should take nearly 4 hours, yet that is how long it took Alisha and me to get there on Saturday. I blame Henry and his propensity for printing out defective directions. Granted, we did a lot of dawdling, but Henry doesn’t need to know that.

I didn’t get kidnapped by a trucker at the rest stop, but I didn’t have a bathroom issue, as usual. First, as soon as I shut the stall door, the automatic flush was triggered and I’m not sure why, perhaps I was over-caffeinated, but the rush of water as it was being sucked into the bowl made me yelp. Yes, yelp. Not one of my finer moments. Then, the stall door started to drift open and I didn’t have my pants all the way up yet. Public rest rooms are my enemy. I’m certain that one of them will be the scene of my future murder. (Bathroom 1, Erin 0.)

It was a little after 4:00pm by the time we parked in the garage across from the House of Blues. Doors didn’t open until 6:00pm, so we decided to check out the Chocolate Bar that was right across the street. A quick once over of the menu posted by the door was all it took to convince us we might die if we didn’t enter the door, however I might have changed my mind had I been privy to the fact that their website intro actually says “What happens at The Chocolate Bar stays at The Chocolate Bar.” Oh really?

Someone needs to call the fucking Mafia and have them bury that slogan next to Miley Cyrus’s body in the desert.

(What, she’s not there yet? Patience, my friends.) And there will be no pouring of the 40s, no ironic “What happens in the desert…”s slung around for old time’s sake. Bury it dead, please.

“I can’t believe this place is attached to the hotel Christina and I stayed in last October and we didn’t even know it,” I irrationally lamented, upset that I missed out on something I didn’t even know existed.

“Yeah, but if you had come here with her, she’d have thought it was a date,” Alisha pointed out. I looked around and noticed that the ambiance was definitely dimmer-switched and candlelit, with edible underwear for sale in a corner nook.

She is wise, so wise.

We had a very perky blond waitress whose name I didn’t care to remember, but she complimented me on my rings and that’s the most important thing to me. I ordered a flight of mousses and Alisha got a platter of strawberries accompanied by a martini glass full of melted chocolate. My teeth got all sprung just looking at it, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to swipe it from under her nose and chug the whole motherfucking glass.

This “incredible sample” of dessert mousses included double chocolate, creme caramel,  cappuccino chocolate and lemon ginger; the tray was finished with halved strawberries lying quite sexily atop rose petals. I tore into the creme caramel first and it was actually pretty amazing; it was hard not to swipe at the caramel residue with my finger toward the end when my spoon exhausted its welcome. The double chocolate was topped with white chocolate curls that were definitely not shaven from one of those pink-eyed albino candy rabbits that no one ever wants to see in their Easter basket, but more likely from the wings of angels, fresh from a celestial orgy.

Did I mention my presentation included rose petals? Well, it did. Alisha’s didn’t. She tried to act like she didn’t care, like her vat of molten chocolate made up for the petal-less platter, but I kept seeing her ogling my petals and I felt, as usual, so very triumphant.

The lemon ginger mousse was a pretty large let down. Whatever the hell that white stuff was on the top tasted synthetic, like frothy plastic, or ejaculate if it had been whipped like egg whites. The lemon was too potent and overpowered what trace notes of ginger even existed. I was disappointed with it and am now determined to get Henry to make his own (ejaculate-less) version.

By the time I got to the cappuccino cup, I was on the verge of choco-nausea. I think it tasted great, and I was mad at myself that I wasted the remainder of my sugar tolerance on that ginger shit when I could have been savoring some cappuccino mousse crap.

Alisha must have some strong-ass will power for not slurping that drinking chocolate once she ran out of strawberries. Actually, I don’t think she even ate all of the strawberries. What a crybaby. Anyway, her dessert must have been good because she was relatively nice to me during the length of our stay.

I later looked up The Chocolate Bar on Yelp and most of the reviews were beyond negative. I mean, yeah, the spoon in my setting had been previously used, but who doesn’t like experiencing someone else’s final bite once your saliva moistens it from its crusted cocoon?  And apparently, there is big beef in Cleveland with the waitstaff of this eatery. I mentioned this to Henry and he pointed out that I was taking the word of the inhabitants of America’s most depressed city. Touche.

However, too many choices remain on the menu for me to not want to give it a second shot.

Afterward, I tripped when I failed to realize that the bathroom floor sloped upward. (Bathroom: 2, Erin, 0.)

I went to a haunted house in Donora, PA last Saturday with my friend Cinn and her boyfriend Bill. I don’t get to see Cinn very often but she’s always been the big sister I never had, so when I do get to hang out with her, it never feels like a ton of time has passed. Every October reminds me of when we met in 1998, and we reminisced about that plenty in the car Saturday night (much to Bill’s chagrin, I’m sure, as he’s heard the story a thousand times by now).

Two years ago, I wrote an essay for a writing class about the event that solidified our friendship, and I guess because it shines a big, embarrassing spotlight on my softer, more sentimental side, I never posted it here.  But I don’t know, who cares. Here it is.

————————————————-

       “Stop, you’re making me choke on Skittle juice!” Cinn screamed from behind the steering wheel. A long ribbon of highway unraveled in front of us and I grimaced when Cinn said we had at least two hours left in our journey. I tickled our ennui by flirting with the driver of every vehicle that had the misfortune of passing us, only exciting the burly and unwashed-looking men manning the gigantic semis that made compact cars like Cinn’s sway perilously.         

       Two days earlier, I was meeting Cinn in person for the first time after several encounters in a gothic chat room called DarkChat. She arrived at my apartment, her shocking red locks were closely shorn to her pate and jutted out in spikes here and there, and we went off to buy our costumes for the upcoming Type O Negative show and Dracula’s Ball in Philadelphia. I knew nothing about her but that she was twenty-eight to my nineteen and lived only a short jaunt away from me. I didn’t even know she was married until that weekend, when I arrived at her house at the designated departure time, but somehow the particulars didn’t seem to apply to this friendship – we had somehow managed to connect based on something entirely more intrinsic than a/s/l.

       Agreeing to go on this trip was just what I needed, coming off the heels of a tumultuous summer filled with break-ins, having my wallet pilfered and car stolen (and then ever-so-thoughtfully returned hours later) by people I thought were friends.  It was a summer that started off strong, full of parties and crushes and a bounty of alcohol, but by the end, it had become a twirling tailspin of depression, loneliness and the stark reality that 99% of the people with whom I shared my apartment weren’t going to be there when I needed them. I had taken to living as a near-recluse, keeping my heavy curtains perpetually drawn, even on sunny-skied days. During this self-imprisonment was when I stumbled across the chat room. At first it was nothing more than a release for my pent up aggression, a place admittedly to flame and mock the suicidal Goth kids; but then I began noticing that there was interesting conversation scrolling past the screen, people gushing about bands that I liked. Before I realized what was happening, I was being sucked in to this strange realm of pale-faced misfits. And I fit in because I was a misfit too.

                                                   ***

       Our dresses hung like black-laced shrouds from the garment hooks in the back of Cinn’s car. The plan was to check into a hotel when we arrived in Philadelphia, change into our off-the-Hot Topic-rack gowns and meet up with another DarkChat user, Your Druidess. I had never chatted with this lady before, but Cinn confidently assured me that she would be standing outside of the Trocadero with our free tickets to the Type O show. Here I was, recuperating from a summerful of broken trust, only to turn around and hand over what little left I was able to scrape up  to this strange woman who I essentially knew nothing about. However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider, at least once, that this woman with her Simon LeBon coif was a real vampire, luring me to a sinister abattoir for Internet chat room newbies under the guise of some gothic jamboree. Maybe I might have second guessed some of her innocent sidelong glances, seeing them instead as the shifty glance of a nervous Internet predator.  I would later learn that she was nervous – of what I was furiously scribbling in my vacation journal.

       Her real name was Allison, but she preferred to be called by her online moniker – Cinnamon Girl — and preferred to call me by my chat handle, too – Ruby. Conversation flowed easily between us, even though we had engaged in minimal chat room interaction, and I diligently noted in my journal that she kept count of every cemetery we passed, had an eye for spotting majestic trees, and churned out a myriad of cheesy one-liners, such as “Call me a bitch, but call me” and “Boobage is like mileage,” which I still don’t really understand even a decade later.

       My friends thought I was making a mistake by coming on this trip. Meeting people on the Internet is bad idea, some of them said, trying to deter me. This isn’t going to end well. You don’t even know her. Do you even like Type O Negative? Aside from a cover of “Summer Breeze,” I knew little about Type O Negative, but Cinn changed that with a nonstop Type O curriculum in the car. I’ve been a fan ever since, though it’s a wonder I didn’t wind up abhorring them.

         But that wasn’t the point. It could have been any band, it could have been Anal Cunt, and I still would have said yes. It was something that at nineteen years old, after the reality of the summer’s end had set in, I felt I really needed to do. It would be an experience, something to write about, a story to tell.  I wasn’t in college; I wasn’t living in a dorm and going to frat parties or spending semesters abroad. It may have been just a trip to Philly, but it was more than that to me.

                                                   ***

       “We’re not going to have time to find a hotel,” Cinn said, exhaling a heavy sigh of defeat. We had finally reached the city only to be met with gridlocked traffic. “Start putting your makeup on.” She tossed me my bag from the back seat and I bedaubed my eyelids with a layer of glitter thick enough to make a drag queen proud and possibly get some change tossed at me if I stood on a corner.

       “Do I have to wear these fake eyelashes?” I groaned, tumbling the plastic package over in my palm, in search of instructions. I had already managed to squirt glue in my eye before she had a chance to say anything, but in my journal I wrote that she physically forced me to adhere them to my eyelids else I’d sleep on the streets that night.

       We squeezed into our slutty Morticia dresses in the tight confines of a dingy gas station bathroom. The fluorescent white track lighting made my normal complexion look legitimately sallow and I wished I could achieve that look at the ball. Cinn made that wish her own reality by heavily coating her entire face with white powder, a measure I was unwilling to take. Cinn accidentally dropped a ten dollar bill in the commode.

                                                   ***

       Your Druidess never showed up.

       We stood dejectedly outside the Trocadero for an hour, watching hordes of Type O fans bustling into the sold out show, clutching onto hope so fleeting, it was like cocaine sifting through our fingers. I silently breathed a sign of relief though, because I wasn’t 100% on board with donning my ridiculous Goth uniform anywhere other than Dracula’s Ball. Cinn was openly weeping over this  imbroglio when a big-wheeled pick-up truck sped past, Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” blasting ironically at high volumes from the windows. I shot my fist into the air and saluted.

       Your Druidess is a stupid name, anyway.

                                              ***

       Refusing to let Your Druidess’s blunder ruin our trip (she was probably a fifty-year-old fisherman, anyway), we decided to make the best of it and seek out the Dracula’s Ball, which we had planned to attend after the show. Driving through Central City on Halloween night, past loading docks and alleys full of shadowed forms, I began to understand why the Fresh Prince’s mom made him move to Bel Air. It didn’t seem like we were in the right place and my old friend Panic began to rise again up my esophagus, like a recently ingested model’s salad. It burned.

       She’s going to stab me with her fake fangs and roll my body into the river. But before I let my paranoia get the best of me by hurling myself from the moving car, I spotted an undulating line of poorly dyed raven locks, billowing capes, and sparkling neck-bound crucifixes. We had found the Dracula’s Ball. In my head, I rejoiced with the Tabernacle Choir.

                                                   ***

       This is high school all over again, I thought as I came precariously close to being engulfed by the obnoxiously large black velvet couch on which I sat, like a shell-shocked Alice at a tenebrous tea party, while Cinn was over at the bar getting refreshments. My feet dangled inches from the floor, the chair was that ludicrously oversized. Cinn came back with a beer, which I grabbed for desperately (and I don’t even like beer), but she handed me a glass of Coke instead, mouthing off some spiel about not contributing to minors.  And here I thought we were bros.     

       We were the first people to be let in, having been hand-picked in front of everyone by Malachi, Philadelphia’s Baron of Goth. I never did find out who he was supposed to be, but I know that girls swooned when he neared them and men shook his hand with great respect shining in their eyes. A top hat nestled stately upon the carefully tousled kohl hair framing an alabaster face; a tailed tuxedo suitable for Marilyn Manson to wear to the market and a cane imprisoned within the grip of a white-gloved hand finished off his meticulous look.  He could be a vampire. He could really be a vampire. When he approached us with an extended palm, every girl gasped in envy. Murmurs of our luck resounded around us as we advanced to the doors, leaving everyone to reapply their black eyeliner in disgust.

       It smelled like a clove and anise cocktail inside the Ball, with a slight trace of sweat and smoke coalescing to provide an acrid after-scent.  Black velvet and gossamer draped from rafters, chandeliers, and limbs, like gauze on an unraveling mummy.                                                                                                                   

       Tall, emaciated boys in high-collared shirts with frilly sleeves strutted to and fro, arms akimbo, feet stuffed into thick-soled black Creepers, while girls spiraled dream-like around the dance floor, giving off the illusion that they were floating above the ground as they skipped in staccato patterns, yet managed to retain their fluidity; cupping their hands into cordate offerings, they contorted their arms in hypnotic patterns which a friend would later tell me he dubbed “Passing the Ball of Energy.” Every third girl had some variation of fairy wings clipped to her back and none returned my smiles.

       You know those stares you get when you leave the house accidentally still wearing the skin-suit you fashioned from your last murder victim? It was like that.

       I tried to tell a girl I thought she danced beautifully and she all but hissed in my face while dripping gobs of glitter much like the molten blobs of wax that plop from tilted taper candles. And here I thought I had escaped the Prom two years before; this must have been Thomas Jefferson High School’s revenge. The girls could see right through my façade, sniffing the scent of my dress’s cheap threads and knowing that it wasn’t purchased in some Elizabethan boutique, branding me a poseur. The acceptance I once felt in the Goth chat room was all but shattered when I was forced to stare this culture in the face, without the shield of a computer monitor.

       Feeling safe with my roots in the wall, my aphasia and I remained sidelined for most of the evening.                                                    

                                                   ***

       “What’s an egg cream?” I asked Cinn, scanning the menu at Silk City Diner.

It was 11:30PM and the diner was sprinkled with several other Ball escapees. Cinn said that we would see how we were feeling after we got some food in our stomachs, that we’d decide then if we were going to go back to the Ball. Under the table, I crossed my fingers for a vomitous outburst, an exploding appendix, an arm severing spontaneously.

       Minutes later, the waitress had convinced me that egg creams were quite possibly the most delicious refreshments one could ever want to flow down their gullet; I imagined Jesus ripping himself from the cross and striding purposefully into the nearest diner and ordering a tall glass of creamed eggs. “What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get down from that cross, Jesus?” “Get myself a nice cold egg cream, friend.” And how could Jesus be wrong?

       The waitress slid a tall glass of egg cream along the Formica table top. I should have known I couldn’t ever agree with Jesus. It was disgusting. A foaming cylinder of soda water and chocolate syrup, essentially. I didn’t know what eggs had to do with it, but there must have been a lot of courage infused into that vile libation, because I felt recharged and feisty, like the Erin I was before my generosity and effervesence had been wringed dry like an old ratty dish rag. Mounting the sparky-vinyl booth, I shouted, “Can I have your attention? We’re from Pittsburgh and I’d like to take your picture!”

        In a surprising twist, everyone graciously obliged. It was like an awakening for me, a reclaiming of that spark that had been robbed from me that summer, the lack of which had quickly shoved me into a shell. I felt rejuvenated from my moment of bravery and decided that I wanted to go back to the Ball.

        But first I had to wait for Cinn to emerge from under the table.

                                                   ***

       She introduced me to the man with red irises, long and slick black hair, and two sets of fangs, saying his name was Tom and that she had met him earlier in the night, during her quest for beverage which should have taken five minutes, not thirty. Suddenly oblivious to my presence, they began making out and I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time their tongues met that evening. I rolled my eyes and wandered around the building, curious what I might find on the other floors.

       The basement was a crypt for kegs and an astringent aroma of cloves and mildew which made my nasal passages feel unwelcome. The second floor seemed dandy until I entered a room that was like walking into a bathroom at Studio 54. Sickly Goths lounged languidly around tables of blow. I had a feeling that probably wasn’t the best room for me to be loitering. I’m a very addiction-prone girl.

       Not really feeling comfortable anywhere inside (except Vendor Alley, where I threw down fifty dollars on a red leather bat choker with wings so salient they bore small holes into the skin of my throat while I wore it), I relocated to a stoop outside, taking solace in my pack of Camels and scribbled furiously in my journal. I began panicking about where I was going to sleep and how I was going to get home, because I realized I had no idea of Cinn’s intentions.  I felt threatened by this man Tom. Women get weird when men enter the picture. I hoped that I wasn’t about to get ditched, although it wouldn’t be the first time.

       I returned the raucous salutations of inebriated passers-by, declined offers of rides and wild nights, and accepted a stamp pad which I promptly tossed to the side, afraid it might be laced with acid or whatever hallucinogenic was popular on the streets of Philly. A homeless man sang in my face until I silenced him with a crumpled dollar.

       As I lit my fifth cigarette with cold-shook hands, I heard a shrill voice reverberating down the sidewalk on a wave of the pulsating beat of Electric Hellfire Club.

                                                   ***

       Every October, I feel nostalgic for that music. I fill my autumns with a rotation of goth-rock bands like Sisters of Mercy and Christian Death; I remember the way those people danced and looked so free, and still wish I could fit in with them. But instead, I listen to this music alone, this time in the warmth of my house, and not from a curb outside of a club, on a cold hemorrhoid-incubating slab of city concrete. Not only am I fake Goth, but a seasonal one at that.

                                                   ***

       “Jesus Christ, I’ve been looking all over for you! I thought you had been stolen, and I was so scared. And then I kept thinking about your damn journal and all the made-up stuff you were writing about me, and what would the cops think—-” She roughly pulled me into her, hugging me tight and petting my hair. It was a scene straight out of a crowded department store at Christmastime, except that I wasn’t a crying child silently thanking Santa for helping her Mommy find her, but a nineteen year old girl with rogue specks of glitter scraping her eyes and a sleep-deprived surliness.

       Tom was still saddled protectively to her side.

                                                   ***

       “Are you sure you’re not hungry? We can stop there,” Carl said, jabbing a finger out the car window at some fast food chain. “Or there.” It was the third time he suggested this supposed good intentioned pit stop. I was seated awkwardly in the passenger seat of his truck, my dread-filled eyes staring straight ahead, glued to the back of Cinn’s car.

       Tom had invited us back to his apartment and devised a brilliant plan which put him in the driver’s seat of Cinn’s car, while I was pawned off on his friend Carl, who appeared to be an amalgamation of Ozzy Osbourne’s and Michael Bolton’s genetic markers. Translating this to mean that Tom and Cinn wanted to spend time alone, I acquiesced – but not without a loud, throat-scraping exhale, the kind that every teenager perfects, to illustrate my annoyance — and joined the lascivious Carl, who was desperate for an excuse to stall our reunion with the others.

       “No, really. I’m not hungry. I just ate two hours ago. A lot. I ate a lot. Four courses, at least.”  My gaze remained indestructible, refusing to let Cinn’s car out of my sight.  “Maybe even eight,” I mumbled in an undertone. I’m going to be so pissed off if I get raped tonight, I thought bitterly.

                                                   ***

       Tom’s apartment was what you’d expect for a man convinced he was a vampire: no matter where you placed your ass, an animal print of some sort was promised to be underneath; black pillar candles occupied every free surface area; Egyptian relics and religious tchotschkes gave the room a very underground Pier 1 ambiance.

       I was trapped on Tom’s couch for three hours, during which I suffered through a painfully awful vampire movie (Vampire Journals), and even worse, Tom’s lame attempt at humorous commentary; a photo op for Carl, in which I appeared to be shrinking back inside of myself while Carl ravenously leered over my shoulder (a photograph I treasure to this day); and Tom’s guided tour through the technological wonderments of WebTV.

       While Tom was searching for a better ankh image to embed in his email signature, I slipped out to Cinn’s car where I proceeded to collapse into frustrated tears in the passenger seat. It was 6AM and I wanted to sleep, but not in Tom’s perverse lair. Cinn came after me, and I sobbed about not knowing what Tom keeps under his floorboards and not wanting to sleep in the same room, building, state as Carl, and I complained of the searing pain I was feeling in my eyebrow. I had just had a new ring put in days before, by a husky goliath in a piercing parlor who looked like he could have just shimmied down Jack’s beanstalk. The gauge was all wrong, but he forced the purple hoop through the miniscule holes in my brow. When I awoke, I was supine and groggy on a couch, and he showed me the paper towel drenched with my blood.

        “I need to wash my face,” I wailed, hiccupping on tears. “This glitter is really making my piercing hurt.”

         Probably scared of what fabricated tale I was bound to weave inside the purple cover of my vacation journal, Cinn placed her hands on my shoulders and promised we would leave right then. She was true to her word. She drove all morning, stopping near Hershey to feed me a nutritious breakfast of raspberry Danish and strawberry muffin.

                                                   ***

        After that weekend, Cinn and I forged a sisterly relationship, which isn’t always a good thing, but I know that she would save my life if she could. We’ll go for months, sometimes years, without speaking, but underneath it all, it was like we survived a train wreck together, a Gothic train wreck of spider-webbed carnage and fish netted limbs, anise smoke and novelty fangs, and that alone bounds us together, no matter our differences or penchants for running off with mysterious strangers. I still haven’t found my place in life, an accepted membership into some snobby subculture, but I’m OK with that. I like being the girl with a cover no one can judge.

                                                   ***

              The night after I returned home found me in the emergency room, with a doctor surgically extracting my eye brow ring, barely visible amongst the swollen patch of eyelid that caused people to mistake me for a mongoloid.  “Look at all the puss that came out!” he lectured me, while two nurses vowed to never let their daughters get pierced.

                       I still have a scar.

My New Underage Homies

Somewhere in between salivating over the extensive candy spread that was being sold as skater’s fuel and Christina trying to fillet herself with a saw, we braved the cold in order to have a cigarette. This is where, beneath rain that was trying desperately to be ice, we met Jordan. Boasting an I <3 Haters t-shirt and braces, Jordan proceeded to give an argument that he was, in fact, 18 and oh brother could we please spare a smoke? Apparently, his argument was convincing enough for Christina to flick him a Camel with no hesitation. I guess he felt obligated to give us some chatty as payment, as he hung around and told wild tales of being the only black kid in his school who likes hard music. “Well, except for one other black kid. But he’s gay.” He then went on  to say that being gay is like the new goth, and Christina and I agreed fervishly, as we had just made fun of a faux-lesbo couple inside the show. They were literally dragging each other around, holding hands with feigned passion, and then quickly scanning everyone around them to see if anyone was noticing. It was the lamest thing I think I’ve ever seen. Kind of like when Christina wears bandanas as headbands.

Then some other youngin’ with a nearly-Canadian accent ambled over, skateboard in tow, and weasled his own cigarette from Christina, the human tobacco dispenser. She’s like an anti-Truth billboard. He wove yarns about chain-smoking Camel Crushes and coughing up blood. “They were recalled, you know,” he said in earnest. Christina looked horrified because evidently she’s been smoking them too. I waited for her to fall asleep that night in the hotel room before chanting, in a soft, monotone whisper, “Smoke more Crushes. Have another Crush. You think Crushes are better than pot. Smoke them all day long. No more food, just Crushes.”

I think that kid’s name was Kyle. He looks like a Kyle, in any case. Kurt. Kam. Kleatus. He was going to give Christina a cigarette as soon as his friends came back in the car where he left his pack. But that’s like basically saying, “What, baby? I put on a condom, I promise.” She told him not to worry about it, which is a good thing considering THAT CAR DOESN’T EXIST.

The Bathroom Condition

I don’t generally make use of the facilities when I’m at shows because club bathrooms make me feel like I’m walking into an STD incubator. But I had been drinking a torpedo-sized can of Monster and kind of really sort of had to go.

The stalls weren’t too bad. I was able to enter one without the need for a hockey stick to slap away sullied tampons or soggy wads of toilet water. Soggy from the commode water or emo tears of angst, who knows? I was able to pee without worrying some rare bacterial eel from Asia was going to swim up from the pipes and enter my vagina. I was even able to wash my hands with a lovely aromatic hand soap and not that orange shit that reeks of hospitals and  high school science labs. A very surprising jaunt into a public restroom, to be sure.

But I did not attempt to return to the bathroom later on and here is why: Two girls  were hogging the sink area, posing sexily with each other, lips all smooched out and dripping with glittery lip gloss, taking their photos into the mirror. The one girl’s hip was jutted out so far that it kept grazing my thigh as I tried desperately to suds up while fixating on my hands and not at the creepy sexual circus that was opening its big top right next to me. The worst part was that they looked like they had ended up there accidentally after leaving a Hollister sale and decided, “Oh what the fuck, while we’re here let’s update our Facebook pics because OMGWE’REATAROCKSHOW!” They looked to be in their early twenties, making this display completely unacceptable. I wanted to toss some Maroon5 tickets at them to get them to go away.

Maybe I should have just looked for a nice photo booth to piss in.

The Worst Moment of My Life

Sometime after my accidental immersion in restroom eroticism, Jonny from Emarosa was back behind the merch table, not being noticed. Christina wanted to go talk to him, but I kept saying I didn’t want to. I knew what was going to happen: I was going to get up there, he was going to look at me expectantly, and I was going to blubber all over his pants. It happens all the time when I meet people in bands that genuinely affect me. So Christina is all, “Well, I want to meet him” and somewhere inside the pit of my soul, the thirteen-year-old in me reared her unreasonably jealous head and whined, “THAT’S NOT FAIR I LIKED THEM FIRST AND I LIKE THEM MOST.” Still not wanting to do this, but also not wanting her to meet him on her own, I reluctantly trailed behind her with my head down.

Here is where I am going to be honest: this was a really painful moment for me. It hurt me so deeply that I haven’t wanted to write about this trip at all and I have barely talked about it even with my friends. But here is what happened in a nut shell – Jonny essentially didn’t notice me at all because as usual, boring old Erin was eclipsed by Christina’s showy charm and no matter how many times I tried to talk, he would always go back to her. So of course, she gets this brilliant idea to try to make me look like the super fan, which backfired and made me look like a fucking loser. Oh look, it’s the new Suicide Smoothie from Jamba Juice, and it’s seeping from my pores. We probably only had a minute of face time with him, but it dragged out in excruciating intervals and I could hear my own stammering voice, laced with fear and doubt, as though I was screaming to be heard outside of the fishbowl on my head. After I told him he was awesome for the FOURTH time (wtf ugh), I thought the game warden had finally arrived with the shotgun but NO. NO NO NO that fucking tampon Christina had to go and be a fucking backstabber by asking if she could take a picture with him. So then it was all, “Here Erin take this photo of us” and then I don’t know which of them had the brilliant afterthought to include ME, the one who actually LIKES HIS MUSIC AND OWNS EMAROSA’S ALBUM, but the next thing I knew, I was in the asshole picture too and let me tell you that picture is like keeping the jizz of the trucker who raped you in the rest stop THAT IS HOW SICKENING this momento is to me. Horrible. Awful. Painful.

I vaguely remember almost tripping over someone’s bike as I retreated. I almost wish I would have. That would have been the richest ending to this story. AND THEN ERIN WAS IMPALED BY THE SPOKES OF SOME THIRTEEN YEAR OLD’S BIKE AND BLED OUT ALL OVER THE FLOOR BUT THE SHOW STILL WENT ON THE END.

Later that night, Christina had the audacity to say that the most traumatic moment of the night for her was that goddamn Benny Hill Show scene with the fucking Mountain Dew can. Oh, well la de da. I was just psychologically mauled back there by the merch booth, but hold the phones, Christina didn’t know where to set down a can of fucking Mountain Dew. That bitch is lucky I didn’t haul off and wizard kick her fucking cartoon face right then and there.  God, get fucked.

Anyway, it’s always nice when you take solace in someone’s music and then when you try to tell them that, they act like they would rather by q-tipping their dickhole than sharing the same air as you. But to quote Christina, after we walked away, “OMG JONNY WAS SO NICE SQUUUUEEEE” and you know I’m pissed off when I write the word “squee.”

Trying not to let it ruin my night, I consoled myself by going back to scene kid adoration and trying my best to enjoy Breathe Carolina’s set while blocking out the horror show that had just transpired, knowing I’d have the rest of my life to replay it over and over and over in my head like that fucking 1-800-MY-LEMON commercial that I hate so much.

I wish I had been there with Purple Hood. I bet she would have acted like half of a faux-lesbian couple with me, holding my hand tenderly while not forcing me to talk to Jonny. Maybe she would have won me a cute pink stuffed sea barnacle from a Claw machine after the show, braided my hair and told me I was pretty while playing me a mix tape full of Seaweed and Sunny Day. Then the next day we’d go to the mall so she could get her cartilage pierced and then she’d buy me a bracelet at Hot Topic and maybe we might stop for a Slushie at 7-11 and talk about how rad Jennifer Aniston is (Team Aniston FO’ LYFE). Shit, now I want to date that girl.

And then later I hugged a Teletubby. People in costume always prod my desire to dole out hugs. I don’t know what it is, but at haunted houses especially, I’m always wanting to dry hump every last Joe in a Kmart mask.

And then I made Judas tip him.

At some point, Pierce the Veil came on and I was able to go back to that sensation of inner peace for awhile. I was a little sad though that Henry wasn’t with me, because he likes them too and their songs always make me think of him. I was partially aware that Christina wasn’t even really watching the show, which annoyed me but whatever. She broke up a chick fight at one point because she always has to meddle. Me? I’d have liked to have seen how that would have panned out, but whatever. I will say, however, that by the  time Christina stepped in, the back of the one girl’s head looked like what’s beneath Tyra’s weave. It was all nest-y and knotted and I can only imagine how badly her scalp must have ached. I wanted to know what started the fight, and for whatever reason, I dwelled on that for days following.

This dude was standing near the front with us and it was kind of like having Henry there. Old? Check. Earplugs? Check. Glasses and 1980’s THE SERVICE ‘stache? Check. Except this guy was shaking his jock all over the place. He was INTO IT and it was incredible. He was also recording a lot of the show, and I was worried because there were two young girls in front of him who were dancing with each other. It started out innocently, but before I knew it, they were essentially simulating sex. The one girl kept throwing her head back and a few times it hit my arm. I was afraid they were going to get me pregnant so I stepped to the side. So yes, I was worried that the Bizzaro Henry was clandestinely filming them for some sick, underground clothed porn ring, but then I think the one girl was his daughter. Which, depending on how you tend to view sex in the 21st century, is still alarmingly awkward.

Also next to me was a young kid with gaudy fake eyelashes who I assumed was a chick until he leaned over me to shout in a husky tone, “Is Monica here?” There was definitely a bobbing Adam’s apple. The youngest trannie I’ve ever seen in person (and the first scene trannie), as I happily jotted in my diary later that night.

I really like Pierce the Veil because a lot of their lyrics are about soul-crushing love and suicide and just being fucking miserable. Among my favorites are:

“Please understand me when
I’d rather see you dead
Than live without me, so thirsty for more
Beyond the sea blue light I met the love of my life
She’d rather see me dead than face me
I like your starry eyes, they yell surprise! Surprise!
I’m in love…but not for long”

***

“Another boy without a sharper knife
The moment, that’s where I
Kill the conversation
Wrap this up
With a knife that loves to feel
How do you know how deep to go before it’s real “

***

Plus, there’s some screaming too which stirs the anger I always got brewing in my veins. I love you, Pierce the Veil.

I am done with this fucking saga.

Part I Part II

After being stuck in that hallway for an hour and breathing in the subtle aroma of Clearasil (I think I witnessed some of those kids reaching puberty, even), they finally opened the door to all of us non-skaters. We had our hands stamped and claimed our spot by the stage. Naturally, Pink Sleeves and Pot Belly in Stripes (the adolescent bimbos who never stopped flitting back and forth on the heels of the roadies) beat us there.

Waiting for Emarosa to come on, I killed time by analyzing the scene kids before me, wondering which of them were in it for the music, and which were just pretentious retards who have to rip off other people’s styles to look cool.  Christina and I deduced that probably it was mainly just the boys who were real underneath the assymetric coifs and skinny jeans. Don’t get me wrong! I love me some scene kids at the post hardcore show, but some of them are just ridiculous. (And I know, it’s like that no matter what the scene is. Posers never die out.) And then I make the mistake of getting close enough to hear their oral banality and I’m reminded that at the core, most of these kids are just obnoxious teenagers. It’s going to be hard weeding through the fake ones to find the good ones, like Blake, if I ever get off my ass and put that book together.

The cool thing about this venue was that, if I got bored with kid-watching, I could pivot to the left and take in some skateboarders on the ramps. There was this one guy, he looked older than the rest (like, he could have been TWENTY, OMG), who was riding his bike on the ramps. In true asshole fashion, I cried out “OH MY GOD BE CAREFUL!” in mock-concern. I guess he took that as the mating call of a new fan, because when he reached the top of the ramp closest to me, he got off his bike and rested there, smiling goofily at me. Stewing in discomfort, I quickly slid behind the pillar I was leaning against. But every time I peeked around, he went back to grinning at me. Christina thought this was hilarious and was practically passing out wedding invitations.

But then I became distracted by this bitch who was totally stealing my gimmick of being the plain, older girl at the show. I glared at the back of her ugly head and shouted to Christina, “This broad’s usurping my demographic and I hate her!” She stood so close in front of me that I could smell the product wafting from her too-shiny black hair, which was unacceptable considering the show hadn’t yet started and there was around, oh I don’t know, 678765 cubic feet of empty space around the stage.

In the middle of thinking thoughts generally reserved for the minds of the criminally insane, Emarosa took the stage and I went from being a homicidal head case to a teary-eyed girl with a melting heart.

Jonny, I love you long time.

Many times I have attempted to explain how I feel at these shows, and I know fail miserably. It’s like when you get a tooth ache and you swish with scalding hot tea, letting it seep into the nerve pocket. That’s how it is for me at these shows — I derive some sort of sick pleasure from the pain I feel in my heart. It’s like passionate torture and part of me wants to run out the door but the other part is like, “No, this feels good. Let’s break out the nail-studded dildo now.”

I didn’t pay  much attention to the people around me during Emarosa’s set, but there was one incident involving a scene kid who, when you factored in the height of his Robert Smith back-combed hair-scraper, towered at least six feet and planted himself right in front of me. Then his puny little girlfriend joined him and they dove into an impromptu reunion-slash-lovefest of sorts with the kids next to them. There was a lot of hugging and before I knew it, I lost track of whose jelly-braceleted wrist belonged to whom.

There’s good old Pink Sleeves, probably devising a plan to get on the band’s RV and dole out statutory blow jobs.

While Jonny sang, I forgot about the cocksucker who wrecked his Hummer, leaving me with wet bangs. I forgot about Christina directing me to the wrong Holiday Inn because she’s an idiot who couldn’t remember where she made reservations. I forgot about the fight I had with my mom. I forgot about making a grooming appointment for my cat Marcy. All the shittiness got pushed aside and I was able to just relax and breathe for a little while. I never realize just how much stress is building up in my muscles until I go to show and the thundering bass releases it all from my body. Thank you, thundering bass. Mama’s neck was so TIGHT. (I can’t stop calling myself Mama lately and it’s freaking me out.)

Since Emarosa was the opening band, their set was very short. I caught myself putting my hands to my heart a few times though so it was probably best that they left the stage when they did, before I ended up on the floor in a piteous puddle. I knew seeing them live was going to fuck with my emotions. Just listening to them in the car has forced me to pull over and bury my face in my hands on occasion – I WON’T LIE. Thankfully, they didn’t perform any of the songs that leave me vulnerable to a razor’s edge.  I know, it sounds lame, but aside from my kid, this is all I got.

(Part three: Making underage friends with near-Canadian accents, meeting Jonny against my will, and what hair looks like after a chick fight.)

VI: The After Show

Corey and I couldn’t think of a better way to cap off such an amazing concert than by returning to our luxury motel. Pulling into the lot at 11:30, we were greeted by several shifty denizen who chose to congregate outside their rooms with beer and cigarettes. Corey wanted to get a picture of the Pennant Night Club next door, because it was country night and this amused him to no end, but he made me go with him. It was at this point that I realized I was probably more suspicious than anyone else in that lot, what with the way I stopped dead in my tracks, hunkered over to suppress giggles, to stare at a couple across the lot.

Corey gave me this look that screamed, “What the fuck, are you crazy? You can’t just stop and STARE at the crazy townies having sex around their clothes out front of their room!”

I snapped out of it and followed him to the street.

“This place has wi-fi?” Corey asked in amazement after we reached the front of the motel. “How does a place like this have wi-fi?”

“They probably steal it,” I said, shrugging, and then we both laughed and couldn’t stop because the Giddy Sibling Bug had bit us.

Back inside our room, I called Christina to tell her that the state she was born in sucks. She was really hurt by it, and Corey shouting things like, “New Jersey is gay!” in the background only wrenched the knife further, because she actually is gay. I mean, she has a tattoo of New Jersey on her leg, that’s how proud of it she is.

“Where exactly in New Jersey are you?” she asked. I couldn’t remember the name of the town, other than the fact we got lost and ate at Pat’s Pizzeria in Gloucester, and that we saw a lot of signs for Camden.

“Um, no wonder you hate it. Camden??” That’s when I learned that Camden had replaced Detroit as the most dangerous city in the nation. “You should be OK as long as you’re not in a gang, though,” she reassured.

Meanwhile, Corey was debating whether or not he wanted to take a shower. “I mean, did you see the shower curtain? It has burn holes in it,” he whined. But he finally manned up and conquered the shower stall. He came out of the bathroom a walking cautionary tale.

“I don’t even want to think about all the dirty New Jersey sex that was in that shower before me,” he spat with disgust.

“And just so you know, the water smells like fish. Have fun with that in the morning.”

We got comfortable in our respective knife-slashed beds with the local Gloucester channel on TV. Backed with all the best soft rock hits were still-ads for the local cemetery, a middle school talent show, and a list of the honor roll students. It was a sweet surprise when the ads were pre-empted with some small-scale recording of a youth fishing competition. It was awesomely terrible and we couldn’t stop watching.

“This almost makes me want to live here,” I said. Then we laughed.

“I’m so afraid to close my eyes and sleep. This place scares me. Have you ever seen No Vacancy?” Thanks, Corey. Thanks for making that the last thought in my head before I fall asleep.

Around 1:30am, a nearby door slammed. “Oh goodie, our neighbor’s home!” Corey facetiously enthused. Then he got up and put his face up to the peep hole.

I was paranoid he was going to get shot, so with the covers pulled up to my chin, I hissed for him to get away from the door.

I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking I heard a car alarm. I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not, but I remember thinking I should probably check to see if my car was still in the lot but I was too afraid to go out there. (The window of our room overlooked the back of the property, not the lot.)

The next morning, we gladly turned in our key and Corey snatched a covert picture of the miserable desk clerk who hated us.

VII: Cereality

Aside from seeing the Cure (and eating at Pat’s Pizzeria), the only other thing I refused to leave before doing was getting breakfast at Cereality, located on U Penn’s campus in Philly. I was proud that I finally forwent using Henry as an atlas and tapped into my Blackberry’s resources to find the place, nary a wrong turn. But first, we filled up the gas tank in Gloucester. I tried to get it myself, thinking I could get away with it, but an older Mexican swooped in and grabbed the nozzle off me. Foiled.

As soon as we crossed the threshhold, I was in my happy place. “Rock Me Amadeus” was playing when we got there and Corey, who is in AP Euro and should maybe try acting like it, said, “Huh. We had to listen to this song in my history class.  I think it’s supposed to be about someone historical?”

Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Kiss Them For Me” came on just in time to aid me in tuning out the disgusting trucker-caliber sniffling and snot-suckering taking place behind me. Mmm, yummy — just what I want to hear while I’m trying to decide what I want to EAT. A nice bowl of bubbly snot? A mucous smoothie? There’s not enough froth on my coffee, would you mind blowing your nose in it?

Fucker.

At home, I have a healthy bowl of oatmeal every day, with a hearty handful of flax seed sprinkled in for good measure; so I decided to live large and ordered a bowl (it’s actually served in an over-sized Chinese take-out container) of The Devil Made Me Do It. Basically it was the most disgusting, stomach-turning house-blend on the menu and I was entirely too overwhelmed to come up with my own concoction without at least six months prior planning. Cereal is some serious shit.

One of the people working there was this awesome Goth chick with spiky blond hair and black lipstick. Corey and I simultaneously fanned ourselves.

“She’s like, so cool,” I enthused, and Corey concurred. It doesn’t take much to impress us. Evidently, just some bleach and a faceful of kohl.

After I paid for my container of diabetic shock, I went to the milk counter and, as if to apologize to my body for what I was about to funnel into it, I squirted skim milk onto the cavity-making mound.

Joining me at a small outside table, Corey blurted, “Guess what that Goth girl talked to me!

”

“Oh my God, LUCKY! What did she say??” Sadly, I really was jealous.

“She said, ‘Did you pay for that already?'” We squealed over that for a few seconds, and then he added, “And her name is SIMONE!”

My cereal consisted of Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, malt balls, and chocolate syrup. I don’t even like malt balls, but goddamn all cereal should have them. It was the best ever, but after five spoonfuls, my belly tried to reject it. Of course I forced down almost the entire thing and got sick as soon as we hit the turnpike. Corey was smart (and boring) and got something healthy that was made of Life, strawberries and honey or some shit.

While we ate our cereal, “Just Like Heaven” played and we were like, “What the fuck, best breakfast ever.”

Five hours later, we were standing in my living room, blabbering on to Henry about our motel and the people we saw there, Pat’s Pizzeria, all the strip clubs, being lost, not understanding how to get gas.

“I feel like there should be a movie about this: When Well-To-Do Kids are Forced to Fend for Themselves.”

[Part 1][Part 2][Part 3]

III: Pat’s Pizzeria

Corey and I had time to kill before the show started, which was a good thing because our breakfast and lunch consisted of sharing a bag of Munchos in the car. Driving down the main drag of whatever shit hole we were in, we passed strip clubs and adult video stores, liquor stores and dance studios (the exotic kind) on every block. Every couple of intersections, I would start to pull into a parking lot, and then say, “Oh, never mind, that’s just a bait shop” or “Oops, I thought that was an IHOP, but it’s just another whore house.” Holy shit, New Jersey is made with a crust of perversion, filled with a gooey center of booze and g-strings. No wonder Christina is so sleazy — she was BORN in the center of it all.

When the going gets tough, the tough call Henry.

“We need you to find us somewhere to eat, somewhere that’s not too far from our motel, and somewhere that has grilled cheese,” I ordered, skipping the salutations.

“I AM IN PITTSBURGH,” Henry growled.

“Find your own damn restaurant, you’re capable. USE YOUR FUCKING BLACKBERRY.”

“Yeah, OK. So, we passed a sign for Camden, if that helps. Find us food establishments, thanks.”

Henry, probably realizing that I was just going to keep calling him until he fulfilled my wishes, found us some family restaurant back in Gloucester. I followed his directions part-way until I grew tired and nervous that he was leading us straight into a river or over a cliff with dynamite in our mouths, so when we came upon Pat’s Pizzeria, Corey and I both agreed that it’d do.

Despite the neon “Open” sign, Pat’s didn’t appear very inviting. There were no other cars in the lot and a large section of the entrance was cordoned off with yellow Caution tape. We were hungry and running out of time, so we dropped the spoiled siblings act and went inside. But I mean, we REALLY had our hearts set on grilled cheese, just so you know.

We must have missed Pat’s hey day by a few years. It looked like it could have been a decent establishment at some point, but then maybe the owners stopped caring because it’s probably just a drug front anyway. Who cares if the vinyl booths have switchblade slashes in  them and the floor hasn’t been mopped in weeks when you’re hustling kilos and illegal arms out the back of the storeroom.

A shifty guy named Yianni waited on us, never once making eye contact. He seemed surprised that we opted to dine in because apparently the locals eschew Pat’s disheveled dining room for their own. I ordered cheese ravioli and I won’t lie — I was excited to try the edible delights of Gloucester’s famed pizzeria (there’s an advertisement for it on the underpass leading into  town, so you know it’s good).

Somewhere in between spying a shirtless fat man sitting down with a beer in his house across the street and sending pictures of Corey looking scared and miserable to our mom, an older woman who appeared to be a few food stamps safe from vagabondism sat down behind me with a double stroller. Her frizzy red hair was streaked with gray and she was wearing a billowing man’s overcoat; her lips were unable to meet past her buck teeth. We paid no attention to her, and then halfway through our meal, she set her sights on us. She was undeterred by the fact that, moments earlier, Corey loudly postulated, “I feel like this town is swimming in AIDS” and proceeded to solicit us with small talk.

“What is tomorrow? I feel like tomorrow is something special,” she asked aloud, looking directly at our table. I turned slightly and told her it was Mother’s Day, but apparently the proper reaction would have been to box up our food and finish eating in the car, because once we took her bait, she refused to  throw us back to sea. There was a vibe about her, I can’t put my finger on it, but she seemed slightly unstable. Her eyes seemed unfocused, glazed; and I mean, I’ve been known to pick up hitchhikers without a second thought, so my feeling nervous about someone speaks volumes. Corey was unnerved by her too.

She asked Corey and I what we were getting our mothers, and I explained that we’re siblings and have the same mom, and that my present to our mom was getting Corey out of her hair for the weekend, that this was our first sibling road trip and we were there to see the Cure.

“The Cure?” she repeated, brows furrowed. “No, I ain’t heard of it.” Feigning incredulity, I told her that they weren’t a new band, they’ve been around since the late seventies.

“Oh, that’s before my time. I wasn’t around all that long ago.” I was hoping she was being facetious, but something told me she was a little off-kilter. This was around the point where Corey started kicking me under the table.

“Let’s get the fuck away from the crazy broad, plz.”

She began bragging about her older kids. One daughter, who is 21, is in charge of three WaWas. THREE WAWAS, you guys. I wasn’t aware that this was a huge accomplishment, but her face fell a little when I didn’t applaud, so I hurried up and said, “Oh wow! That’s great.”

“Oh yeah, I know! And she just graduated high school last year.” She smiled and shook her head proudly. “My other daughter is nineteen. She just graduated this year. You probably know her,” she said to Corey. “Crystal?”

Corey, who refused to engage her, continued staring in the other direction, so I reminded her that we weren’t townies. Every time I caught Corey’s eye, he widened them into angry and impatient saucers, imploring me to stop talking to her.

He finally took matters into his own hands and went to the counter to get takeout boxes off of Yianni.

“Oh right!” she said, remembering. “You guys are musical. I forgot.” I don’t know what she meant by that, but Corey had returned to the table with takeout boxes, which we sloppily scraped the rest of our food in. Before I left, she pummeled me with sweet sentiments, asking God to bless me and urging me to take care of myself. “Please tell your mother I said Happy Mother’s Day!” she shouted as I shirked quickly through the door. Hey Mom, some crazy fisherwoman from New Jersey might die if you don’t have a blessed Mother’s Day.

I feel like if I had been any closer, she would have stuck me with a pin to have a drop of my blood to keep as a memento.

When we got out to the car, Corey breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief. “What the fuck was wrong with her?

She didn’t even order any food. She was just SITTING there the whole time, like she was lost.”

As we pulled back into the motel’s lot, I theorized that she was probably there to get her weekly fix. The guy who was fighting earlier with his girlfriend no longer was wearing a shirt, and was staring at us from the door of his room. As we got ready to leave for the show, we reminisced of past European vacations. “And look at us now!” I shouted cheerfully, waiting for the bathroom light to warm up.

I: Getting There

The night before we left, I had Henry look up lodging for Corey and me while I was at work, since I am helpless and had more important things to do. My only criteria was: close to venue and cheap.

He sent me info for Red Carpet Inn, which had rooms for $49+tax. It was located in New Jersey, and it was only 3.5 miles away from the Wachovia Spectrum, where the Cure was playing Saturday night.

I quickly emailed him and said I’d take it.

“You realize this place isn’t going to be nice,” Henry chided in his reply. The user ratings all said, “You get what you pay for,” and I was OK with that because the more money I saved, the more shit I could buy throughout the trip, like Slim Jims and crack.

“Don’t you dare even think about calling and complaining,” Henry said the next morning, as he armed me with directions and SoyJoy bars.

Corey arrived at my house at 10:00 and, between filling up the gas tank with liquid gold and taking out some cash for the turnpike, etc., I managed to spend $71 before we even left Brookline. 

For the 300+ miles on the Pennsylvania turnpike, Corey and I mainly reminisced about  past displays of family dysfunction, which included Corey’s favorite Father-Daughter fight in which I screamed in my step-dad’s face that I wish he’d get his head cut off by the log splitter we had in our backyard. Corey was laughing, and I was too but the whole time I was thinking, “Yeah, but this was a stepping stone in the rickety path of dropping out of high school.”

I forced Corey to listen to a special mixed CD I made just for the trip, and he sarcastically cheered every time Chiodos came on. However, he is now obsessed with Dance Gavin Dance, which is more than I could have hoped for. However, I ridiculed him every time he disagreed with my musical tastes, you know, like every other obnoxious music snob does.

My favorite moment was when Corey told me he was going through my step-dad’s cell phone and discovered naked pictures of my step-dad’s girlfriend all bent over the back of the couch. Ten minutes later and it was all, “Remember when you found naked pictures of Daddy’s girlfriend?” and then we laughed all over again.

I’m not used to being the responsible one in these trips. My role is usually to wedge my fat ass in the passenger seat, armed with my vacation journal, beverage and snacks, switching up the music like it’s my destiny. Also, flirting with truckers and being  Annoying: Road Trip Edition. But this time, I had to pay attention to shit, like how the car was doing on gas, if all the tires were intact, all while keeping a general sense of where the fuck we were. Oh, the pressure. Corey was in charge of the directions, but every time I would ask him where we were, he’d stare ambivalently at the map and kind of shrug. So then I would call Henry and ask, “Hey, how much farther do we have?” and he’d get all mad because I wouldn’t be able to tell him where we were since I can’t read a map and then he’d have to go and turn the computer on (he was letting it rest while I was away) and by that time I’d be all, “Oooh we’re going through a tunnel! Bubbye!”

Directions-wise, it was smooth sailing until we made it to the Philly exits and had to get off the turnpike. Corey would play with my emotions by saying things like, “We need this next exit, No wait, next one. No wait this one!!” leaving me mere seconds to swerve onto the ramp. I screamed the whole way across the Ben Franklin bridge and somehow managed to take the wrong exit, which dumped us blindly into some small town called Gloucester.

We stopped at Coastal to get gas and when I started to get out of the car, an elderly employee came over and started pumping it for me. I learned later that night that it’s like, some weird law that all New Jersey gas stations are full service, and you would think that with me being such a fucking princess, I’d have really embraced this small display of pampering, but instead I panicked because I didn’t  know the protocol — was I supposed to tip him? Cheer him on? Wait silently in the car and pretend it’s not making me feel like an entitled White Person to have a Mexican work for me? I kept asking Corey but he was all, “I don’t know, this is weird and I think he hates us and I want to go” so we sped away when he was through.

I had to call Henry once again so he could get us to our motel (at this point, I didn’t even know the name of it) and our conversation went something like this:

Henry: What are you near?

Me: A black lady in really high boots.

Henry, sighing angrily: What are you near?

Me: A chocolate covered pretzel store.

 While Henry was busy trying to find out where we were, I pulled over and Corey ran into the chocolate-covered pretzel place to ask a local for help. Henry kept asking me for street names, and I would answer him with very important information, like:

“Ew that guy just looked at me!” and “I hope Corey buys some delicious confections while he’s in there. The sign says they’re the best.”

Corey returned with directions at the same time Henry found us on a map. To keep Henry’s ego from deflating, I chose his directions and proceeded to doubt him the entire time, saying that I should have listened to the pretzel lady’s directions instead, which caused him to yell back and say things like, “I AM NOT THERE. I AM IN PITTSBURGH. I CANNOT SEE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING.” Then he was all, “Fuck you, find it yourself,” and hung up on me.

Both sets of directions ended up being right. The pretzel lady said we’d know we were there when we saw the Pennant night club and Weber’s burger stand, and by golly she was right.

II : Red (from blood stains) Carpet Inn

“It looks like a concentration camp,” Corey groaned as we pulled into the Red Carpet Inn. It was the kind of place that people retreated to after their slum lords evicted them; the kind of place where people crept off to have lunch break affairs; the kind of place that had mattresses broken enough for people to appropriately OD on. Corey and I just may have been the only legitimate travelers staying there.

If you can, try to remember back to the last time you emptied fifty-eight ash trays in the center of your living room and then steeped it with Pine-Sol and the musty stench of your Aunt Mary’s baby doll collection. Yeah, you remember? Well, that’s what it smelled like it in the closet-sized check-in office.

We  had to wait for a man in front of us to check in, which provided us with the idle time necessary for a complete giggle breakdown. It started with Corey, who had to bring a fist to his mouth to stifle the laughter. The old woman on the other side of the bullet-proof windows shot us dirty scowls and I tried to bury myself in a Chinese take-out menu that I lifted from the counter. Corey tried to hide his laughter by turning to look out the window, nearly knocking over the “Free Use for Guests” 1980’s-model microwave off it’s shaky stand.

After receiving no pleasantries from the clerk, not even a nicotine-ravaged “Welcome to New Jersey,” we had our key handed to us and  found that our room was the last one in the row, and luckily for us the door wasn’t visible from the lot. A small vestibule with a flickering overhead light had to be entered to find our door. It was the perfect setting for a late night mugging, stabbing, gang rape, tranny hooker wardrobe change.

 Once inside, I was relieved to find that the room itself wasn’t too bad. It seemed to be clean, as promised by the hand-written note left on the desk, declaring that some broad named Lillian cleaned it with her own bare hands. There were some stains on the towels and sheets, along with the standard array of cigarette burns dotting the shower curtain.

 The lone window in the room gave us a view of the lustrous grounds behind the motel. I looked out and, oh good, saw two shacks — just perfect for stowing murder victims, a troupe of Romanian sex slaves, and bricks of cocaine. Personally, I liked to hope that the Holy Grail was in there somewhere, shoved in the anus of a drug mule.

 The bathroom light seemed a little short-winded, so I walked back to the front desk to request a new bulb. On my way there, one of the residents — a young guy in a brown t-shirt — emerged and sat in front of the door, lighting up a cigarette and staring me down. Probably he was trying to gauge if I was a potential client, maybe trying to size me up for my preference — coke, pot, meth, grande-cocked Mexicans. Hopefully he was checking out my boobs, too.

Back in  the office, I had to ring the bell multiple times, praying that I wasn’t interrupting some underground cock fight or sex party, before the no-nonsense old desk clerk came out of the back room. When I told her the bathroom light wasn’t working very well, she impatiently shook her head and said, “No, it works. You gotta leave it on for about five minutes, let it warm up.” I started to thank her, but she had already turned her back on me.

“I don’t think that old lady in the office likes me,” I whined to Corey, chaining the door shut behind me.

“Well no shit. We were practically laughing in her face when you were checking in.”

A few minutes later, a domestic dispute broke out in the parking lot.