Chapter 100

“You and Marlene. Dad will flip his shit, then kiss her stupid. Whatever.” My father knew Marlene wanted her charge to be himself, and damn everyone else. But he worried. He wanted to the world to be a safe place for his “kids,” as he called us. To wrap us in bubble wrap and keep the mean people away.

Beebub found a station playing classic rock, and Jimi Hendrix was wailing away on his six-string. My best friend played air guitar all the way to town, and I sang along with the radio.

The stares we garnered as we found our seats in the back of the theater weren’t unusual. To hear “freak” or “faggot” or “pansy” wasn’t an unknown. But the threat of a stay in a cell overnight with Marlene growling at us wasn’t how we wanted the evening to end, so we behaved. For now.