Hookers or Cake

I was eight years old and this was my favorite song. They had it on the jukebox at the Burger-n-Shake. It was 1 play for 10 cents or 3 for a quarter. Anytime I’d get a couple of bucks I’d go get a medium twist dip cone and sit by myself, stare out the window and listen to Love on the Rocks, three times in a row. I was a sad weird creepy kid.

Anyone else love terrible songs when they were a kid?

Something about being broken before you’re whole

They moved my older sister and me to some shitty small town into a new foster home. My new foster parents were old and didn’t have any toys. So to entertain myself I drew a lot and made up stories.

There was one neighbor kid named Luke who I used to play with. His folks must’ve been rich because they lived in huge old house that had more than twenty rooms. His parents were young and his mom was pretty. Luke’s dad always wore suits and drove a big fancy car. Luke himself had a bunch a fancy cars, but they were of the toy variety. Actually one day while we were playing I showed him how to smash em all up with a big hammer I stole from my Dad’s tools. I got in big trouble. Luke got all new toy cars and I got a whipping and didn’t get to watch TV for a week, not even Sesame Street. I was so bored I remember sitting in the back alley with the same hammer and breaking old rocks in half. It sounds stupid I know, but have you ever broken open a dusty old rock? They are full of all kinds of surprising bright colors. I guess I really lost myself in it because I broke rocks open until I had blisters on both hands, did it several other times too. The exciting life of an eight year old.

I didn’t get to play with Luke much after that, but whenever I did we always got into trouble. Throwing rocks through windows and breaking stuff.

I was away at summer camp when he died. Some nice woman sat me down and told me. She said that he’d died in his sleep, that he didn’t feel pain or anything. I felt dizzy and kinda numb, like I was falling out of my own body.

When I got back home, Luke’s house was empty. I guess his parents must’ve moved. I didn’t really talk to anyone about it, except the woman who had told me about Luke’s death at camp. I’d go visit her every so often. She was nice. She liked my stories and always asked me to draw for her.

I’d forgotten all about this until I had a dream last night and Luke was in it. I was at my Grandma’s house, its where all the dead people from my waking life live. I’d never seen Luke there so it was unusual. He smiled and held out a present for me. It was heavy, I opened it, and inside was the old hammer! I looked at Luke and his face was dark and shifting around, like I couldn’t remember what he looked like. “How did you die?” I asked him. “You killed me,” he said and I awoke with a jolt. Holy Fuck! What?! I grabbed my phone and called my sister.

“Hello?” she mumbled, it was still early.

“Julie! Did I kill Luke?!”

“What?” she said. “Who?”

“The little neighbor kid, Luke who died when we lived in Brookdale, did I kill him?”

“Oh my god,” she said. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Luke was your imaginary friend,” she said. “You had to be put on meds and visit a shrink.”

I felt a wonderful calm come over me, like something had finally come into focus.

“Are you ok?” asked my sister.

“Yeah I’m fine.” I sighed “Its just, I had a dream about Luke and he told me that I’d killed him.”

“Wow, thats pretty fucked up,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “Hey, did I used to have a hammer or something?”

“Yeah,” my sister laughed. “You had some weird funeral with a bunch of rocks and buried it behind that old burned down school.”