Chapter 2

It is surprising which moments our spiritual remains revisit after it’s housing fails. I was always a positive child, even though I was the daughter of car-gypsy drug-addicts. I was usually able to charm at least one librarian into issuing me a card, somehow instilling them with the notion that I was trust-worthy and book-reliable. If you want to get on the bad side of a librarian, just return a book that landed in a mud-puddle while checked out to you. They have minds like a card-catalog, and remember every ripped and folded page and if you think you get in trouble for talking loudly and spazzing out, just wreck a book to find out what trouble really is. No, don’t. It might make them cry.

I spent a lot of time in the public library, they don’t frown at you after awhile like in a bookstore, libraries want to share their books with you, and are glad to see you reading. I usually just hung out in the library for awhile reading before trying to obtain a card, and by then they could see my bookworthyness.

It sure beat hanging out in the van with my bliss-ed out parents. I was lucky I wasn’t damaged as a fetus, as it was Mom couldn’t choose between Kendra and Sandra so she split the difference. I am just grateful I am not named Candy, it isn’t difficult to imagine.

I am tough, I have to have been to survive a childhood of bleary neglect. At least there was no abuse, like alcoholic parents might have done, no beatings or put-downs and belittling s. But I was lucky to get a meal every day, and I suppose we looked like a family of white stencil zombies, but with out the rotting bits. I guess that I just fed myself from Mom’s comatose body is how I survived infancy.

Once I could speak, I managed to find head-start classes to ‘sneak’ into, and the kindly folks saw to giving me some clean clothing which wasn’t turning to rags, fed me a double portion at snack-time, and one on one tutoring in reading while the others were having nap-time. I wandered around whatever town we were passing through for the while, be it weeks or months, certainly never years, exploring, making friends, and getting socialized by ‘the village’. If I had parents worthy of the name, I wouldn’t have needed the village. But I was glad of old people (they were all old to me) willing to chat about this and that with some random little girl. It helped that I was cute, I would perhaps not have had quite so many socializing conversations if I was ugly kid Joe instead of cute Kandra who was older and smarter than her size would suggest.

Looks really affect how other treat us, just think about the look of a vehicle some one drives. Cop-magnet red, anyone? That is a thing, and also a thing, is red-headed boys getting more than their fair share of the blame. I was a beneficiary of the effect, straight haired blondes with blue eyes really do have more fun, or, have more doors held open for them, more drinks bought for them, get out of more tickets in their Cop-magnet red sports machines, get asked out on more dates, and, are raped and assaulted and kidnapped more often than their prevalence in the population would suggest. The other side of the ‘white privilege’ coin. If I was plain mousey-brown Jane, I doubt I would have drawn the attention and effort of Creepypants.

I have had to deal with lots of unwanted attention for a long time, but I knew this guy was bad news in his own class. The kind of dude it was better to let shoot you than get into his solid-side van. You give them all your attitude at full volume, and they are social retards who can’t deal with a real woman, so it makes them very uncomfortable, and paranoid of discovery by authorities. You might survive getting in the van, as a sex toy stashed under the bed when not needed, until you are no longer new and exciting and get discarded.

So he stopped trying to capture me, and just started annoying the hell out of me instead, stopping any one from having any kind of conversation with me, or even giving me so much as a glass of water, the bastard. He was so convincing and calm, as contrasted to my increasing desperation as I became more frazzled. One young family was convinced I was mental, but safe enough as long as no one touched me.

He was clever as could be, but couldn’t figure out how to pick up chicks with out using chloroform and a gag. Most fellows who are that lacking socially either do without or enter into a monetary transaction, which the working gals make real simple. Even a first timer could manage to get the business done. Not Creeparoni, if he wants a girl and the only thing he can think to do is grab her and drag her off, well, nothing except discovery stopping a guy like him!

He was old enough and seemed practiced enough in his lies that I suspected he had done this a few times at least, maybe more. He probably started with the more vulnerable, and worked his way to more complex challenges, like little ol’ me. I was pretty desperate when I walked into the little independent pizza joint in the small seedy mall, Bloopies, kind of catchy. I didn’t have a lot of hope, but you just can’t give an inch with these creepazoids ‘cause they are stone cold takers, not a bit of heart to them. You have to fight and claw and scream, do a lot of that, and a few well placed knees and kicks and stomps and bites- Girl, you are fighting for your very existence against one of these monsters in human form. Don’t accept a single bit of it, they are like a smooth spoken devil who would talk you out of your very soul. If you go along to get along, you go along to your own bad end.

I looked at the dude in the kitchen, he was the only one in the store. He seemed too young, and had an air of innocence about him, like he hadn’t had to worry yet about the wolf at the door or mean ol’ Old Man Winter. I could already imagine Creepster scaring him off too, and worried what I would do then, I was getting pretty tired by now, not to mention thirsty. I didn’t dare go anywhere private like into a bathroom, I just know he would attack me at my most vulnerable. That’s what kind of bad news dude he was. I asked yet someone else for some small help, and with just a few words, he had offered me sanctuary, discounting Creepustule’s words in spite of his elegant sartorial style and grooming.