THE BULLET THAT GOES RIPPING THROUGH YOUR SKULL

   Our neighborhood wasn't too special, mostly cinder block houses I call "air-conditioner containers", but the next neighborhood over was worse. Every house needed a paint job and someone to pull weeds, but they were all single-parent homes with delinquent kids. Bobby Finlay's mom was an overworked alcoholic waitress and her two sons did not make her life easier. It was in their trashed house that I first heard Black Flag, tasted alcohol, and heard guys lie about their sexual conquests. We decided to actually try to get drunk, and to avoid detection by our parents we went to three different houses (mine, Bobby's and Travis's) and filled a Thermos with a half-inch from every bottle of booze we could find. We went back to Bobby's where there was never a parent in sight, shook up the thermos and poured it out in glasses. It was purple and tasted like a mix of turpentine and candy. We forced down this swill and the room started spinning while they blasted my face off with "In My Head" on the family turntable. Bobby and his neighbor Jason started brawling for basically no reason and cracked into a piece of furniture so it would no longer stand up straight. I started to feel queasy and polluted and passed out in a chair. I woke up to see Jason holding a cigarette lighter to my jeans and the jeans on fire. I was like "staaap" and he just laughed at me. 
   I staggered home and it was barely dusk, walked in the door right past my mom who was trying to say something to me, crashed into my room, fell into bed fully clothed and zonked out. When she later saw the scorched jeans she thought there was something wrong with the clothes dryer and I didn't correct her.