"When I look back now, that summer seemed to last forever,
And if I had a choice, yeah I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life."
-Bryan Adams, Summer of '69(1984)

I, Peter Stevenson, woke up one morning. And I sat up in the bed and promptly hit my head on the ceiling. It was too hard to make it a good day. The light was still on by the bedside table, which was smashed against the bed, which was crammed against the wall.

I stood up from the bed and looked in the mirror to check on my iron burn. And on my right side it was indeed still there. The red skin was waxy and pinkish in the dim light. I remembered what it came from and I cringed. I pulled a shirt out of the top drawer and put it on, before looking at myself. My sandy-blond hair was almost to my shoulders. And I knew Dakota's mom would try to hack it all off. I would try in vain to keep it, but she would always win in the end.

I stood there a minute, as I took a sip of the Tab I left on my dresser from the previous night.

The next step was to walk out of the bedroom, through the door, and get some breakfast. I stumbled down the long hallway and into the kitchenette. I prided myself in being taller than most of my friends so it wasn't hard to stand on my toes to reach the top of the refrigerator and pull down a box of generic corn flakes. Then comes a bowl, then comes the milk, and then a spoon. I'm assuming all of you reading this know how to eat cereal so I'll leave it up to you to finish the rest.

I was eating it, all chill, doing my thing, when this fatass in a bathrobe meandered into the room. I studied him because he didn't look like the men my mom was normally with. But I didn't think too much of it. He scratched his four o'clock shadow and looked like he had never seen a seventeen year old boy before. Maybe he hadn't, I don't make it a priority to discriminate.

"Make yourself at home, Robert," I said, pulling a name out of the dead space around us. I didn't know if that was it or not but he didn't correct me, so I continued. "We have cornflakes, with milk, but if you require something a bit more exotic, you could skip the milk."

He looked at me like I was a disturbed individual and shook his head real fast. "I've got to go actually." He took the bathrobe with him, plus the coat he left on the couch, and disappeared out the door. The smell left with him. It was one of cat musk and maybe crack. I shrugged and continued eating.

I was lucky that day because my mother didn't wake up before I left. She looked like a Gremlin/E.T. hybrid if she woke up before ten, and sounded like it, too. I usually started some coffee before I left as common courtesy, but I was still pissed about the sleepover she had with her new beau that morning.

The school day started at precisely 7:45 am, and it was already 7:30. The walk took about twenty minutes. I figured my chances of getting to school on time that day were pretty low, so I ate slowly. What other way was there to go but by walking? I didn't ride the bus. It didn't go down my street for some reason.

Well, actually there was a reason. I lived in one of the seediest dens West of the Mississippi.

My house was stuck on the end of a road called Palmetto Ridge Lane. It's stupid, because we don't live in Florida, thus no palmettos. No ridges either. Even though we lived in a place named Ridgeton. Basically, the land developers were high when they named the place. It's a cold walk in the mornings. The sidewalk is surrounded with trees that drip whatever rained the previous night onto your head and I was all by myself.

After the hike up the road (mind the hill, it leaves even athletes out of breath) you cross a busy intersection where you can see a McDonalds and Morris Simpson's motorcycle dealership. You can cross the road pretty easily without killing yourself and see the school at the bottom of the hill.

Cherie Hills Memorial School was old. It showed in the woodwork and everything else, because the school had no money to fix it. It hadn't been updated since 1957, when it was built. Since then society had moved past it, building greater things while the place of learning sat still like a time capsule. As a play on words, they had planted cherry blossom trees. These unfortunately had been cut down because irresponsible students I totally had no connection with had been climbing in them. It was not my fault the nerds took a morning walk underneath them. It was not my fault that the climbers would purposefully squirrel up the trees and fall on the nerds before morning classes started. And it was certainly not the fault of anyone that the nerds had weak and brittle bones that broke easily when guys like Matt Husler fell on them. We sent three kids to the hospital my sophomore year alone. You should've seen Michael Kane. His toes could've touched his shoulder after Matt was done with him.

The outside of the school was painted a faded crap-brown that got darker in winter and paler in the summer. Much like the students going through puberty, it changed as the years went by. In the receiving hall doors a glass pane was still broken open and the plastic Mr. Lensouis, the custodian, had taped over it was still flapping in
the wind. It had been broken three years before after a junior threw a firecracker in over summer break and they were still too cheap to buy new glass.

The west wing was where everyone in 12th grade learned. The cafeteria was across the science lab and you could see and hear everything through the window. And right next to the cafeteria before you turned the corner was the broom closet. And the broom closet was where the dumb kids sat and learned at their own slow pace. However, no one was really sure how much they learned, as anyone who was in there assured it was all fun and games. P.S.- It was all fun and games. I was in there myself my first two years of high school. In fact, I was automatically sent there after the school administration learned I had repeated 6th grade. In my defense they didn't give me enough of a transition.

P.P.S.- I will not use P.S.'s in the rest of this book, as those are my initials. I instead will use A.S. to stand for After Script.

I ran down the hill the rest of the way to get to the school and checked my watch. Exactly 8:00 sharp. First period was just beginning. I grinned and pushed the doors open. I went to my locker first to collect my stuff, then went next door into Algebra II. Mr. Gordon didn't notice me come in, and I make a note not to notice whatever it was he teaching me. Maybe reinforcing our knowledge of parabolas or the Quadratic Formula. And thus began my day of regretting going to school. It started out nice, made a sidestep away from the right path, and went the opposite direction.

It was right before lunch when I was going to the lunchroom. Ray Charleston cornered me and pinned me against the wall. I started looking through my pants pockets, figuring he needed to steal lunch money from me.

"Hey Chuck." I smiled, looking at him. He and I were about the same height. Sucks to me, though. His biceps were twice the size of mine. And that was saying a lot. Football vs. working at a lumber mill. You decide which would make you stronger after a week. Although my favorite thing to do at the mill was take calls in the office, so there's not that much to be said.

"Butthead." He had just used his favorite insult on me. Never changing, never ranging.

"Maybe you ought to increase your vocabulary." I chuckled a bit at myself. A funny guy, you know.

"Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you. There's something I don't understand," Ray began.

"Don't hurt yourself."

He leered and came closer. The pungent odor of his breath washed over my face. Grody. "Do you know who your father is?" The ever growing group of people around us laughed at his comment. It was a well known fact I didn't know who my father was. Only that he looked a lot like me because I'm not very similar to my mom.

"Nope." I said readily. Honesty is the best policy when you're dealing with assholes; it surprises them. If they don't see their words taken into effect, they leave, feeling like failures. But Ray the Rat wasn't set up to fail that day.

"His mom's open to anyone!" Ray shouted to the crowd like a carnival barker. My mother was very ambiguous as to who she spent her time with. I used to think it was anything that walked, but then she started voicing her standards out loud and the lines blurred.

"Actually she's not," I stated. He looked back at me.

"Really?"

"Yes really," I rolled my eyes.

Ray nodded as if he finally got it. I was relieved right until he said, "She open to you?"

"That's sick," one of the girls standing off to the side whispered to her friend. I didn't care what they said, they were stupid anyhow. What idiot would believe that? But apparently everyone in the hallway did, unless they just thought it was funny.

"I don't sleep with my mother, unlike your dad." The crowd gasped. "Can I go to lunch now? My seats waiting."

Ray pressed up against me harder, effectively cutting off my oxygen supply now. "You go when I say you go." I tried to retort back, but I had lost the ability to talk.

"Give 'im a swirly, Ray!" Jeered one of his friends, and he seemed to consider this.

"Naw." He eventually let go and threw me to the ground and a welcome rush of air joined my lungs once again. It left me a short second later when I got it knocked out of me on the tiled floor. But it wasn't just my chest that hit the floor, it was my face too, specifically my mouth and jaw.

Smack! Went my face on the ground. Damn! Went the audience as they stepped back, wondering if next my brains would start spilling out of my head. That didn't happen. My tongue was in pain and blood was swishing in my mouth. I thought I had bitten it, because it had been open when I fell. My whole head felt like cookie dough.

I pulled my arms up to stand, but that was when something white, wet, and bloody caught my eye a foot in front of me. I picked it up and looked. It was my tooth. The moron knocked one of my front teeth out! Well, actually, the floor knocked it out, but if he hadn't pushed me, it wouldn't have happened.

"You know what this means?" I asked as I stood, wobbling a little because of my cookie head. I showed him the tooth. He backed away a little uncertainly.

"N-no!" He retorted, still trying to sound on top of things.

I flicked the tooth back on the ground. It pinged off somewhere. "It means you're in DEEP SHIT!" I shouted the last part before throwing a punch at him. He stumbled and I saw my chance, talking him to the ground. Just like football, I had thought at the time, the one thing not animalistic. Kicking, still more punching, and now both of us yelling at the top of our lungs. A good old hallway brawl.

I sat down on his chest and started to pull his hair. He screamed like a little girl and slapped. Everyone was watching us now. I even saw a few druggies peering out of the lunchroom door frame, coaxed out at the sight of Peter Stevenson, that kid who sometimes hung out with them, trying to kill Ray Charleston. I'm sure it was the best thing ever to see.

I know how they say everything turns red when you viciously attack someone, but it was pretty clear for me. I was sick of the constant crap he was giving me, and I wanted it to stop.

Ray had stopped shouting and was making gasping noises. I got worried I crushed his lungs, so I backed away. His nose was broken, smashed in and twisted upward. And it was dripping blood down his front. The collar of his jersey was usually white. It was a lot pinker now. Meanwhile, my mouth was still bleeding, and it mixed with saliva and trailed out of my mouth. Ray picked himself up off the floor and walked off down the hallway. His group of friends and followers went after him.

"He's gonna kill you tomorraw," Shelley Simpson (daughter of Morris Simpson) drawled, appearing at my side. She draped her leather jacket over my shoulders. It smelled like her cigarettes.

Her boyfriend, Rob slapped the side of my head. "Dumbass." Shelley sighed at him and pulled a napkin out of her pocket. I wiped the drool and blood off my face.

"I am not a dumbass, Robert." I told him. "Your dad ought to arrest that freak and put him in county lockup."

Rob's face was made of stone. "He's taken him down to the station more than once for shoplifting but no one cares for his dad's bad side."

Mr. Charleston was a special breed. Born the year before the Great Depression started, he was known to trust no one with his money and fiercely guarded his property with a shotgun. That in itself was not a surprise, as most of the families in Ridgeton owned a gun or two for self defense. However, no one quite had the attitude or skill to match Ray's dad.

"One day I'm going to really kick his ass." I warned. Rob and Shel folded their arms. "No, really."

"Peter, you try that and you'll be the one getting taken down to the station." Rob said.