Issue 22 - 1992

Coe Review • Issue 22
“Well, fuck, yeah! It was cool. It was pretty cool. People
started treating me with a little more respect. I stopped getting like
black eyes every other week,” she laughed, “and Spike started
teaching me how to fight. That was fun.”
“Why did you use to get black eyes?”
“Because just everywhere I would go, people would look at
me and just think I was some sort of fucking weirdo, and punch me
in the face. That was lots of fun!”
“What would you do then?”
“I’d punch them back, naturally. But I didn’t know how to
fight for shit. And I’m still not like the best, but I can defend myself
a lot better than I could back then. See, now I’d rather fight with a
large stick. Like last night.”
“What happened?”
“When, last night?” she said nonchalantly. “See, I went out
looking for this girl, right? There’s this girl on Haight Street, and
she’s a total lily. She’s a freak now, and I wanna... change her mind.
I wanna let her see my side.” She chuckled. “And I’m gonna do it
with a stick!”
“How do you know her?” Marisa and Thorn hissed
contemptuously at me for this idiotic question. “I don’t know her,”
said Marisa patiently.
“You just know the way she looks, huh?”
“Yep.” Both girls laughed. “Yep,” said Marisa. “She’s
definitely got like an attitude problem. I was really freaky looking.
She’s a nothing. She walks around in this leather that’s big enough
for her to fucking live in. And it’s got like DROOLING IDIOTS
written on the sleeve and all sorts of punk rock shit written all over
it, and she walks around and she like hangs on all the guys. She’s a
total bimbo. Definite bimbo. So, I think we need to send her to Boot
Camp! What about you, Thorn?”
“Mmm,” said Thorn boredly over her toast.
4
I had been Jenny’s lover for more than a year. She had never
told her family about me. The fact that I was white was a problem,
although Jenny and I both struck each other with bludgeons of the
heaviest loyalty whenever one of us was so unguarded as to consider
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