FLOWER’S STORY PART 2: THE MOST COVETED ESCORT IN RHODE ISLAND
It had been weeks since I’d seen Flower. I was living with Lucy, the ivy-league chick that went to Brown University that thought I was turning nineteen when in fact I was turning seventeen– that story is here— so I was living a double life full of lies. I couldn’t even keep up with all of em.
There was half my day that I spent at Brown University with Lucy going to college plays and frat parties, even attending class and eating in the school cafeteria with other Ivy League students, then at night when Lucy fell asleep I would run down to Thayer street and light a candle and ask people for spare change.
One time Lucy asked me to go get her a pack of cigarettes, which was no problem, especially cause she gave me the money to do so, but uhhh… She thought I was eighteen, turning nineteen… but i was sixteen… turning seventeen.
So i’d say
Cigs? Sure! No, uh, no problem.
Then I’d run and run and run with fury to Store 24 and beg every person that walked by me to buy me a pack of cigarettes.
I’d get back to Lucy’s room like an hour later and she’d be like
Yo, where were you?
Whattaya mean? I was gettin you cigs!
For an HOUR?!
Oh, I got caught up in a game of hackysack… you know how it is.
Ah, no, I don’t… she’d say. lol.
But point is, where was Flower?
I dunno.
All I heard were rumors.
Then one day Shroomy, some kid i had met on the street named… well, Shroomy, came up to me and was like YOUR FUCKIN FRIEND JUST SHOVED A GUN IN MY FACE.
What? That shit ain’t like Flower.
She was just, lost. Shooting up dope under abandoned real estate offices and behind deserted garages and always with weird ass grimy ass dudes… that was Flower. Guns? Nah. Not her.
The last time I had seen her she was with this dude with a tat on his neck. Everybody has a tat on their neck now, but back in 2001, the only people with neck tattoos were fucked in the head. So I was like wtf?! Who the fuck is that?!
And she’d just be like
Oh! That’s Craig! He’s helping right now.
Helping you?
Yeah. She said as her voice quivered.
Why you sound like that?
She sounded totally lifeless.
Sound like what?
Like that! All fucked!
Grreeeaaabgyyyyyyyshdjdkdnfn
I wrote my name just now like that cause that’s how it sounded when she said it. Her sounds bumped into each other and my name ‘greggy’ started out comin out like ‘groggy’ then just mutilated down to that. What I just wrote the line above.
See? You can’t even say my fuckin name!
SttttoooPPPPPO ioiottttt.
Whatever I couldn’t fuckin help her anymore. What the fuck could I possible do??
Who the fuck is Craig anyway what’s that mean ‘he’s helpin you out’?
YA kNnowwww
No I don’t. I don’t know. Why don’t you fuckin tell me!
I couldn’t stop cursing, shit, I still can’t stop cursing and I’m thirty one.
Why you yelling at me gregggyygyygy?
Cause I don’t understand you! Helping you with WHAT?!
just… Help.
With WWWWHHHHHHAAAATTTTTTTT!?!?!?!?!? Money?
Jobs.
Jobs?!
Calls an stuff ya know?
Huh? At the strip club?
She was a stripper.
No they fired me.
Again?!
It was a different one.
A third one?!?
And she gave a weak attempt at loling.
Ha ha haaaaa yeah again! Three times I mean three places ha ha they fired me!
So how’s he helpin you.
Jeez grRReegGgyy. With tricks an all, ya know?
Tricks?
I didn’t even know what that meant at the time.
Tricks. Tricks are for kids! ha ha! (i wasn’t laughing) Ya know, one’a the girlllzz from th’club told me bout it’n how to do it’n stuff’n now it’s yeah.
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!
But I figured it out… That made me mad.
YOU’RE A HOOKER?!?!? I kept getting louder. I wanted to punch her. I wanted to fuckin kill that fuckin DUDE with the FUCKING NECK TATTOO across the street! WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE LOOKIN AT SHIT!? Everyone! Everyone can FUCK THEMSELVES.
At that very moment, that’s how I felt.
It was another two weeks or so till I saw her again, and boy had things changed. She wasn’t wearing her hippie dress. She was wearing sparkly tight pants. She didn’t have her dreadie type hair anymore either.. She had cut it. Short. And died it!!! She was skinny as hell and wearing this low cut tee shirt without a bra. She said it helped with the jobs.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY FLOWER?!?! Literally a month ago we were running through the grass trippin on acid hopping over puddles and reading poetry on milk crates outside the bookstore.
NOW WTF?!
I know I told you in PART I that I was gonna tell you how she robbed her pimp then nearly got shot in the stomach and died… But I had to tell you this story first. You had to know where I was, where we were at this point in time. Shit had gotten bad REAL quick since Vincent (the roving poet from part one)… He wasn’t even in the picture anymore. It’s as if he never existed. Compared to the dude with neck tattoos he seemed like Marty fuckin Poppins.
Anyway, I’m gonna stop here but feel free to read about how I ended up in the most infamous juvenile institution in America…