Songfull Lives

Songful Lives
By Madison Penix
Chapter 1: By The Way
So I sat there and watched the sun go down as I knew that I was letting her down. Dani counted on me to be there, I just couldn’t face it again. I think it’s stupid in the first place to even think I would go there but after all…she was my best friend. Dani Hicks… is fifteen years old and to her a “rising star”. She was good though.
See she wanted me to come to this club called “The Hatch” with her tonight to watch her perform what she thinks is going to be her number one single, “A wonderful life”. She said she based the song on me and of course the title is just simply sarcastic. HA! I laugh at the first line...it says “Nirvana Smith…feels uncomfortable in her own skin, and we all watch as her life falls apart into little bits.” Well, my name is Nirvana Courtney Smith. I am fifteen years old and I have a tendency to where my mind on my sleeve.
So, Dani wanted me to come to the club to watch her perform. I just can’t go in there because in the upstairs of the club some performers do cocaine lines and heroin shots before they go on stage to help them “perform better”. Well my dad was one of them. Right before he went on stage he shot up and just fell over. He just thought that he could try to calm down and shoot up he would do well and be signed to have a record deal. The producers were out in the audience. He overdosed and died there right upstairs. I loved him.
Now I am in a tunnel. I ditched Dani I feel bad…and I have something to comfort me. Pot. I laughed when I opened the small little plastic thing I kept it in. I don’t know why but I felt like I was instantly going to be happy as I took the first hit. It tasted minty. Ha! I began to laugh as I realized I ditched my best friend who is in the same position as my dad was and I am smoking pot in a tunnel…ha-ha!!
Hours passed and I was still in the tunnel totally stoned and was wondering who I was. I am guessing it is three a.m. and my mom doesn’t have a care in the world about where or what I’m doing. She’s probably passed out drunk somewhere while a Mexican is raping her in the ass. I suspect that’s what happens every night. I began to feel…dizzy…unreal...I passed out. I awoke up to a dirty hobo checking me for money. I quickly shooed him away and saw Dani there.
“Where the fuck were you?!” she screamed. I raised my head feeling lightheaded and said, “Did you really think I was going to show up? My dad overdosed there from heroin a week ago and you expect me to walk in and feel all fine?”
“ok, I guess you’re right, I’m sorry for ever thinking that you would just go in there and be happy…Nirvana I understood that! I’m just disappointed that you at least didn’t even think about supporting me with anything.”
“…whatever. Just help me up. I’ve been sleeping on a random cardboard box and who knows what the fuck what’s been on there.”
Dani laughed quietly and she helped me off the ground. I just realized that I was quite sore from sleeping on the ground. We mostly walked the way home in silence as we both thought of how selfish we were to each other but we were best friends. I mean really...what friends don’t do that?
…
Well I get home to my four room trailer and find my mom passed out drunk in a way that it was just too sad to see. I walk in my room and see a skinny white guy lying on my blood stained bed.
“What the fuck?!” I said trying to get him out. He got up and he spoke with some kind of slurred speech which I think I made out as, “Who the blah blah blahhh”. I pushed him out of my room and he tripped over my bowl and fell on the couch where my mom was laying. It was then that I realized that he had no pants on.
“Your fucking sick mom, you know that!” I screamed. She woke up.
“What is your problem?” she asked confused.
“YOU! Ok! Do you see this? What looks wrong with this? You had sex with a random ass guy and dad just died a week ago!”
I started to cry for the first time about my dad’s death. I guess that I really didn’t think that my dad was gone until I saw my mom with another man. I ran to my room and lay on my bed. I grabbed my favorite picture off my end table of my dad. It was from when I was six and we were at our very first concert together. It was a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert and that’s when I first saw Anthony Keidus and had a huge crush on him. I reached over but it wasn’t in its usual place it was. I got up and looked around. I look over at my black spray painted dresser and saw it. The glass was broken and it had a rip in the picture. They were snorting cocaine on it. I ran to our crowded living room and yanked on my mom’s hair and dragged her up to where she was standing on her feet. Tears were streaming down my face and I just asked quietly.
“Why?” I was still hanging on to my moms’ hair. It seemed like she could feel no pain because she looked me in the eyes and said, “Get over it” I threw her on the ground and ran out of my house. No one ever was going to treat me like that. No one ever will.











Chapter 2
Elderly Woman Sitting Behind a Counter in a Small Town
I stormed out of my house pissed off and I could tell right then that I would not be coming home that night. When I realized that, I ran back into my house and grabbed my dad’s picture then…ran out again. With his picture in my hand it gave me a comfort that I had not felt in a while. I walked down the barren street leading out of the trailer park. I walked down the lone highway which seemed like forever to the nearby convenience store “Stop ‘n’ Go”. My two other best friends Sean and Shane work there. Well Shane’s not really just my best friend I just like him a lot. We’ve tried to date before it just didn’t work out. He left me for a preppy blonde chick that ended up cheating on him a couple weeks later.
I walk into the small old fashioned store and see Sean stealing cigarettes from off the counter. He was very obvious so I went up behind him and jumped on him knocking him over on the floor and knocking over the shelf of cigarettes.
“Ah!” Sean screamed. “What the fuck Nirvana?” I laughed out loud because his boss looks over out of the corner of his desk. Sean quickly puts down the cigarettes.
“I was just putting these up so…yeah.” Sean said embarrassed to the point where his face turned as red as his highlights in his hair were.
“Remember,” said his boss, “I’m watching you.”
“Ok,” said Sean. “I’m just gonna take off now” And he ran out of the store quickly and I followed him slowly.
“So, is Shane here today?” I asked.
“Umm, no its Tuesday.” Sean said and laughed.
“oh”
“You seem…disappointed!” Sean said putting emphasis on the word “disappointed”
“Well, yes I actually am. I was hoping he would be here so I could ask him if he wanted to smoke some with me”
“What about me?!” Sean screamed. He turned around and he started to walk backwards and gave me a look that made him seem he wasn’t too happy.
“oh, yea I was going to ask you too...” I said looking away from Sean because I knew if I looked at him I would laugh.
“Oh, thanks.”
“You’re welcome” I smiled. We came up to this bridge and decided to roam around it to find anything interesting. So we both climbed underneath the blue stone bridge and sat down on the white colored uncomfortable rocks leading up to the water. Sean instantly pulled out a joint from out of his skin tight black skinny jeans and lit it up.
“Wow, what kind is that?” I asked.
“It’s purple haze.” Sean said with a big stoner smiley on his face. “this shit is supposed to make you trip balls.” He took a big hit and started to cough while smiling. He started to laugh while there were tears streaming down his eyes from the smoke. I stole it from him and took a hit. I laughed and handed it back to him. He was still coughing.
“Damn!” I said as I started to feel a buzz. “This…is...awesome!”
“Ha! Bitch I told you!” Sean said in this tiny little voice which made me burst out laughing. We smoked the rest and got about three more hits and we climbed out from under the bridge and kept walking. We weren’t very sure of where we were going but we knew it was somewhere fun. We were both extremely high and didn’t have a care in the world. Sean pulled out his phone and typed in Shane’s number. He dialed the first four times wrong and some old guy answered the second time and he was like, “Who the hell is this?” and we just burst out laughing and hung up. Finally Sean got it right and Shane answered after the fourth ring.
“Hey where are you at?” asked Sean.
“Umm…I’m at work” replied Shane.
“what the hell we were just there!”
“Well, come back I’m almost off.”
“How? I just got off work a couple minutes ago?” He looked at the time and we both realized that it’s been five hours since he’s got off. But, of course we didn’t know that because we were high off of our asses. It was almost night time so we turned around and headed back towards Stop ‘n’ Go.
…
When we got there it was still pretty obvious that we were high. I looked at Shane and my heart instantly melted. I just love the way his dark grey eyes match perfectly with his long black hair and eyeliner.
“You motherfuckers got high without me!” Shane said And he smiled, showing his perfectly straight teeth that took three years of braces to fix. It was worth it. I zoned out most of the conversation because I was looking at how hot Shane looked today. I swear…if I wasn’t high and my eyes weren’t all squinty and blood-shot my eyes would be huge and just drooling over him.
But this old lady came up and accidently bumped me in my shoulder which knocked off my staring and daydreaming.
“Oh, I’m so sorry please excuse me.” The old lady said obviously embarrassed.
“It’s okay don’t sweat it.” That’s when I turned around and saw her bright blue eyes. She looked familiar and I couldn’t tell who she was. I watched her as she paid for her tube of toothpaste and walked out the door. I couldn’t seem to remember who she was but I knew her from somewhere…
That’s when I realized i still had my dad’s picture in my pocket. I opened it up and I instantly remembered.



Chapter 3
New Perspective
I ran out of the store and practically jumped on her car. She screamed as I slid over to her window and motioned her to roll her window down. I was wondering why she screamed but then I realized from her perspective a freaky looking high emo chick jumping at her car would be pretty damn scary. So she rolled down the window and said,
“Look okay here’s all my money I don’t want any trouble.” She threw a one dollar bill on the ground and began to roll up her window very quickly. As she was rolling it up I stuck my hand on it and pushed it down breaking it. We both paused and stared at the stuck windshield wondering how?
“I’ll pay for that ok but wait I have to ask you something!” I said. “What?” she said in anger. “Have you ever owned an ice cream stand?”
“Yes…yes I have. How do you know that I haven’t been in the business for quite some time now?”
“Me and my dad used to go there all the time. Remember? It’s me, Nirvana...and my dad…Kurt.” She quickly got out of the car and gave me a hug. “Oh my, I haven’t seen you since you were so tiny. It’s good to see you! You’ve grown up to be very pretty! So how’s your dad?”
“Oh, well…he’s dead” I said. She seemed very upset. She’s known my dad since he was eight to. I looked into her lone face and saw a tear drop from her eye. She grabbed me again and gave me a hug.
“Well, I have to go for now.” She handed me a piece of crumpled up paper and she quickly got into her car and drove away. I watched as she pulled out of the dusty parking lot. She laid her head down on the steering wheel and began to cry. She pulled herself together and drove away.
I opened the piece of paper and there was a phone number written in perfect handwriting on it. I would have to call this later.
I walked back into the store and Sean looked at me like what the fuck?
“Who was that” Shane asked me.
“Oh…just an old friend.” I smiled.

Chapter 4
Asking For It
I sat in the leather seat of Shane’s new car. I didn’t know what kind of car it was since I didn’t really care about that stuff but, I was thinking about all the events of today. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that I actually saw Debby today. I haven’t seen her in 7 years and neither has my dad. Well, she’ll never see my dad again. I think that is why she was crying. Oh well you never know.
We pull up to Shane’s house and I see that Dani is already there sitting on his front steps looing bored. She saw the car pull up and she instantly got on her feet and ran too meet us. She had a huge smile on her very excited face. We got out of the car and she ran to me and hugged me. I was shocked pulling back a bit when she gave me a hug. “Guess what!?” she said as she ran into me. I was scared to know what was going to happen. “What?” I said waiting to hear the crazy idea she had.
“Ok, do you remember that guy Ryan right? The one I told you I met at that party and we sort of…well hit it off”
“Yeah…what about him?” I said looking at her with big eyes. “Well…he invited us all to a party! Well you, me and Shane at least.”
“Thanks!” said Sean as he butted into our conversation. He walked away with a smile on his face and went back to a previous conversation with Sean. “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean really, he’s twenty-two, don’t you think that’s a little too old…maybe, just a little bit?” She let go of me very disappointed she turned her back on me and said “fine we won’t go…”
“Oh well I don’t care” I said. I wasn’t very sure about this but I owed her for not going to her performance. “Yes!” she said excited. Dani started to jump up and down and ran into the house. I followed her in slowly.
“So, where’s this party at anyways?” I said. “Oh it’s on Shannon street. “Dani replied while looking for outfits to wear. “Shannon Street! Are you serious Dani? That’s like…in the ghetto. I really don’t think we should go there now.”
“You can’t back out now. Now help me find something to wear from out of Shane's sisters’ closet. She always has the cutest clothes!” Dani said still excited. She was obviously head over hills for this guy and I didn’t like it. Dani was fourteen years old and he was twenty-two.
“Holy shit!” Dani said. “I didn’t realize that it was already four. The party starts at six.”
“ok?” well we looked through the rest of Shane’s sisters closet and Dani picked out a cute black tank top and some grey skin tight shorts and her favorite pair of the famous black high-top converse. She did her hair like any other emo chick would do it, a huge bump on the top of her head and straightened every piece of hair. I picked out a purple tank top with a sublime sun on it and a black ripped undershirt underneath it. I also was wearing some grey ripped skinny jeans and purple high top converse. I had my black crossed chocker and my grey skull necklace. My hair was in a bump and some sections crimped and other straight. We also found a pack of hair dye so we gave ourselves a couple blue streaks in our hair with a double coat of eyeliner and we looked hot.
“Ok its 5:30 now so by the time we get there it will be around eight” Dani said and she gave me a double high five. “Yes! I feel accomplished” I laughed. We walked out of the room and see Shane and Sean both sleeping on the same couch.
I hit the couch hard and yelled “Wake up!” The both jumped up to see what was going on. Then they quickly looked at me and I gave them a little wave and smile and I said “let’s go.” Sean started heading for the door but Shane just stopped and stared at me. I couldn’t help it but I smiled then walked away slowly. We walked out to the car and we could already see bits of darkness in the sky. The car ride over there nobody really said anything just occasionally Shane looking over at me. And then when he saw me catch him he would quickly turn his head back to the ride and I would see a tiny smile form in the corner of his lips.
When we got there it was 6:23p.m and the place was already crowded. We walked into the yard leading up to the house and everybody was staring at us. We didn’t know anybody there and they didn’t know us. Dani was all excited and as soon as we walked through the door she saw Ryan and practically through herself at him.
I let her just go off with him while I talked to Shane. We found somewhere quiet to sit got a few beers and sat down.
“You look amazing tonight nirvana” Shane said as he looked straight into my eyes. “Thanks” I said blushing. I pulled my hair back out of my eyes and behind my ear. He smiled.
“Well listen,” he started to explain. “I’m sorry for what happened the last time we tried to date. That whore just pretty much bribed me with sexual favors…it was too tempting. I really should have stayed with you.” He grabbed my hand and held it in his. “She meant nothing to me.” He said softly. I just noticed that our faces were inches from each other’s. He got closer to me. I could feel his cool breath on my lips. He reached over and grabbed my face softly meaning not to hurt me. It was like the world stopped. Like I was almost dead and he was the only thing keeping me alive… He leaned in closer. He pressed his soft lips onto mine and I could feel his breath going into my mouth. We stayed like that for about 30 seconds.