Ozzy
You strike up an unlikely friendship with this guy Ozzy. He wandered into the vintage store where you work looking for the owner, and for a minute you think that you're destined to fuck, but then it becomes apparent that that is not going to happen. Not because he is ugly or anything, but that just isn't the vibe. So instead you began talking and don't stop even after your four hour vintage slinging shift is done. That's how that happens, some air signs get together and can’t shut up forever.
So Ozzy stars visiting you weekly at the four hours of relaxing boredom that is your vintage store job, nicest boss ever, too bad the economy was dying out in the neighbourhood, but so it goes. Even though he was like 27 and you're 18, it doesnt matter. Conversation matters, and you've got it in spades.
You hang out an abnormally large amount of time for an emerging punk dyke and a balding straight drummer with dreads and a Black Sabbath obsession. Ozzy is cool, he drives you around in a van with a wooden “I Can't Drive 55” Plackard mounted on the interior dash, and a red and black leopard print couch in the back. Yes, with the neon lights inside, but he never got a battery for them before the engine died. He has small teeth that don't quite touch and you can see every one of them when he laughs or smiles, which is often.
After vintage, then pizza, you go to your secret place: to sit on an overlook above the abutment for the expressway. Drive slowly through the back roads of your friends’ deep city neighbourhood to get to the swath of land beside Broadway Ave, more of a rest stop without the bathrooms lining the circular street connecting the inner loop expressway on this side of the city. Park the candymans's van on the side of the road, and, clutching your beer, walk through 25 feet of abandoned field, along the fence, until you get to a rip in the opening and squeeze through.
Realise that deep in your babyish heart you are a paranoid female, gaining a full understanding of all the assault that could befall a woman in America, and you're ashamed that you'd never consider going back there alone. But Ozzy was the second biggest man hanging around, at least 6’3”, with no neck, shoulders as broad as a doorway, and solid arms from 20 years of drums - he just grew up well-fed and masculine, and inexplicably feminist, respectful and funny.
Once through the fence, stare at the decaying cityline, less and less buildings lit up over time, and watch the cars go by on the expressway that's 30 feet below you on the incline. You're with Ozzy, nothing could go wrong even though the world around you is so clearly getting rubbed off the page. This is actually safe, you think, I can sit here fearless and just say what's on my mind.
To self-satisfiedly hang out with your hot girlfriend Pixie.
To go to band practice.
