Page 7 - No 2

Spring 1988 Hobo Jungle Page7

a.1 5

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by Abbi Woodhall

Me and Sally were talking about when we have kids and we're
gonna have lots of them 'all our own cause I think you must love kids
more if their your own. But I still thank God I'm adopted because
that means I don't have, their genes in me. When I was kicked out of
high school they yelled at me and told me I didn't know what reality
was and I told them how the fuck can I not know what reality is if I
supported myself for a year and a half.

I was going to paint houses but my though my mom's shoe left a per­
mom said-no because it was too manent hole in his leg .. '/
dangerous and I said i'd lay tar instead But his being home all the time didn't
and she said yes but probley only be­ mean that I still wasn't the one who had
cause she doesn't know what laying tar to help my mom into bed or just to the
is. So I was laying tar instead of paint­ bathroom if that's as far as she could
ing houses cause painting houses is too make it. Once when I was thirteen I
dangerous and one day when I was had to drive for her but when I took the
laying tar I got this big fuckin' third de­ car out later just for the hell of it I got
gree burn on my arni that the scar is really fuckin' bawled out. And when I
still there from. was sixteen and I came home drunk she
I have another scar, too, this one on threw a bottle she'd just emptied right
my back. It happened when I was six at my head, but it didn't leave a
and my mom took me out to dinner to scar ... by that time I had learned how to
meet my Aunt Rosalin and she had a duck when I saw her bring her hand up
couple of carafes of wine with her to wing something at me. I could tell
lobster and when she sat me in the car when she was gonna do something like
she forgot to shut the door and we that cause I could see her arm come up
drove all the way down Route One like or maybe it's just the look on her face
that and I fell out and got gravel all dug that tells me. Like the look on her face
into me. There was a hat on the seat when me and Sally told her we were
next to me and I think I grabbed for it gonna get married.
when I started to fall out, yeah, I think I So I quit school and layed tar and got
must've grabbed for it cause it was in burned and went back to school and
my hands all the while I fell. I remem­ got kicked out of school and got a job
ber laying by the curb and watching the at Grand Union stacking shelves from
wheels on the car and I remember it eleven at night to eight in the morning.
was dark out. That scars pretty ugly but And it payed a lot. Enough so I could
not as bad as the one from when I got get a car and pay for a correspondent's
burnt from the tar, but they do both course so I have a diploma so I got a
hurt when the water in the shower is real job. And the Grand Union job
too hot. ' payed enough so I could talk to my
Even though I just fell out of the car, girlfriend on the phone even though its
when we got home I had to help her long distance. But she's not my
into bed because my dad wasn't h0me. girlfriend anymore, see, cause we're
He wasn't home a lot, until the night my gonna get married. When I told my
mother kicked him in the shin at three mom she hugged Sally but it wasn't a
o'clock in the morning and told him real hug. But then she yelled at me later
never to come back and after that my and told me I'm just a kid and I said
dad always came home every _night even fuck you I never was.■