Not only had it been four years since I’d last been to Santa Cruz, but back then I’d been getting around on a bicycle. I didn’t exactly get lost, but I must have made a wrong turn, because I found myself driving past the Boardwalk.
I pulled over to watch the people hanging out on the steps near the carousel, thinking I might see some of my old friends. I didn’t, but I did see quite a few kids around my age, clusters of them laughing and acting goony, couples making out or strolling with their arms around each other’s waists. Some of the white kids were punked out like me. Part of me despised them, but another part of me could imagine a different world, where if you were alone and there was a group of kids your age and style, you could just hook up with them. Of course, if they’d known I had all that dope and money, it would have been them trying to hook up with me.
It was around ten o’clock when I rang my grandparents’ bell. Fred was already in his bathrobe and pajamas. Tall man, severe, always looked like he’d just finished shaving. I could tell by the look on his face that he knew what had happened.
“It’s him,” he called up the stairs to my grandmother. He didn’t say hello, but he didn’t slam the door in my face, either. A few seconds later Evelyn came bustling down the stairs in her nightgown and threw her arms around me. I was taller than she was, now. It was the first anybody had touched me since Teddy knocked me down this morning. For some reason I burst into tears. I didn’t even know I had any tears in me.
I slept in my old bed in my old room that night. Clean sheets, cool ocean breeze, a long hot shower, salve for my burns, then one of Teddy’s pain pills, and I was in dreamland. My dreams weren’t as gory as you’d have expected, though. I didn’t relive the events of the morning or anything like that. Instead, I dreamed that I’d driven Teddy’s car someplace, only now I couldn’t find it and I couldn’t remember how to get home.