Stoner & Spaz by Ron Koertge Read Free Book Online

dandelion.
    “This is in North Dakota, okay?”
    “You and your mom and this cop?”
    “Yeah. I was ten. And Ralph lived with us. Big son of a bitch. Worked out all the time. Then one night he comes into my bedroom, okay? And starts rubbing my back. How am I? How was school?
    “I had this little light with, like, angel cut-outs and it spun, you know? When the bulb got hot? So there’s these angels’ shadows on my pajamas while I’m telling him about my math test, and all of a sudden he starts rubbing my legs.” She sucked on the joint. “I’m fucking terrified. He’s huge. His hands are, like, giant. So I get up and go in the bathroom and I stay there until I hear him walk past, and then I go back to bed and lay there all night afraid to go to sleep.”
    When she holds out the smoke, I shake my head and reach for her hand instead, but she pulls it away.
    “Next morning, I tell my mom. She freaks.”
    “She should.”
    “But not about Ralph. About me. I’m imagining things. He was just trying to be nice. I just don’t want her to be happy. And I think to myself:
I’m on my own.
I’m fucking ten years old, and I’m on my own.”
    Colleen dives into her purse again, this time surfacing with a little amber-colored vial. Using a silver spoon so tiny it could’ve come from a dollhouse, she snorts what has to be cocaine. Now I’m getting nervous.
    “So what did you do?”
    “Split.”
    “You ran away from home?”
    “Not very far, just up the street to my girlfriend’s house.”
    “But he was there the next night, right?”
    “I didn’t go home then, either. There was always someplace to stay, you know? Somebody’s parents are always gone. This one girl lived in her parents’ garage, and I crashed with her for like a week.”
    “Your mom didn’t care?”
    Colleen shrugs. “I called home. I said I was sleeping over.” She taps on the little glass bottle with the spoon.
    “So what finally happened?”
    “Ralph took off. My mom’s boyfriends always take off.”
    She reaches into her purse, lights up, and inhales like she’s a diver about to go as deep as she can for as long as she can.
    “Do you think you’re the way you are,” I ask, “because of stuff like that?”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Colleen. You’re a drug addict.”
    “Bite me. I smoke a little. I snort a little coke. Big deal. You should watch who you’re calling names. You’re this fucking loser who limps.”
    I look down, appropriately enough, at my shoes. One’s fine, the other’s worn down on one side and all scuffed up.
    I try not to let my voice shake. “I didn’t mean just you. I meant me, too. Am I a loser because my mom left and my dad died? My therapist used to say that people spend their whole lives getting over stuff their parents do, even nice parents.”
    Colleen stands up. “That’s bullshit.”
    She’s so loud that a couple of guys walking by stop and stare. I tug at her ice-cold wrist.
    She sits down again but pulls her hand away and hisses, “That’s bullshit. Maybe I’m a stoner, but the devil doesn’t make me do it and my mommy and daddy didn’t make me do it.”
    When she fills the little spoon another time, I scoot to the left so I’m more between her and people on the sidewalk. “Take it easy, okay? My dad used to work here.”
    “Where were you when I needed a non sequitur for Mrs. Hamilton’s class? What’s your dad got to do with anything?”
    “I used to know people. They might recognize me.”
    “That was years ago.”
    “I still limp.”
    “You’re sitting down, for Christ’s sake.”
    I struggle to my feet, never a pretty sight. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow, okay?”
    “You started it. You want to blame your mom and dad because you’re a snob, go ahead. But it’s bullshit.”
    “A minute ago I was just a loser. Now I’m a snob, too?”
    “Well, what do you call a guy who never talks to anybody?”
    “Hey, nobody talks to me.”
    “And that’s somebody else’s