Born 1965–1980 · teens late 1970s to 1990s
“I don’t need your approval… also please don’t touch my mixtape.”
Key's on a shoelace, not a chain, because the chain broke back in sixth grade and nobody's ever fixed it. That's the whole house's maintenance plan in one object. Parents work, so it's been me letting myself in since I was nine. Not a sob story. A fact. Don't do the face.
Middle kid, which everybody calls lucky. I call it the same deal as a lamp: fine, long as you don't need anything. Nobody's tracking my location. Half the time nobody's tracking my name.
I've started a sketchbook I don't let anybody near. For a while I was leaving the last page open on purpose. Small thing. Already said more than I meant to, so I'm moving before it gets bigger than it needs to be.
After school it's the mall. Not "went to the mall," lived there. Food court. Arcade. Judging what people rent at the video store like it's a pop quiz I didn't study for and still ace. Nobody's checking on me there either, which is the entire draw. Bogus curfew, never enforced past eleven-thirty anyway, so who's counting.
Nobody's picking the music for me, so forget whatever's droning out of the record store speakers, give me the loud, messy, honest stuff, the kind that sounds like an actual bad day instead of a commercial about one. Rad, if you're asking, which nobody is. Walkman batteries are always about to die and I let them, because a dead Walkman's at least an honest excuse for quiet. Same deal when the tape jams. A pencil in the reel, one slow turn at a time.
Ask me if I care about anything and watch me shrug so hard my headphones fall off. Foolproof, except the one time it wasn't. Report card came Tuesday. I didn't hide it and I didn't hand it to anybody either, I left it face down on the counter under the mail, where you'd actually have to be looking for something to find it. Mom was yelling about dinner from wherever she was. Dad had the news up too loud in the den. Nobody moved the mail. Wednesday I checked. Still there, same angle I left it. Thursday, same, so I stuffed it back in my backpack.
Somebody did find the sketchbook open on the bus last month, only it was the wrong crowd doing the asking, reading it out loud to the back seats for a laugh instead of actually wanting to know. Did not set the bus on fire. Personal growth. Sketchbook stays home now. I doodle on my hand in the meantime, which is harder to confiscate and a lot easier to lie about.
That's the whole file. Don't make it weird.