Free The Sunset Strip Diaries by Amy Asbury

there. There were a lot of heshers (also known as rockers or Heavy Metal kids) in black Iron Maiden concert T-shirts and Vans; guys and girls in tie-dye Grateful Dead shirts; some alternative /goth /ska /skinhead /punk types in black (with a bit of purple or red); and the occasional chick who looked too old to be in school, and who looked like a stripper (that was the group I was put into and there were only two of us at most).
     
    The group of misfit kids was pretty cool. Most of them had problems with which I could identify. I smoked Marlboro Reds with them at lunch and hoped I would make a friend. To my relief, a tough girl named Abby started talking to me. She had wide set eyes and large features; light brown, messy hair parted to the side, and lots of eyeliner. The bottom half of her hair was dyed black and the top part was light brown- it looked like it grew out and she gave up on doing her roots. She never smiled. When she talked to me, I couldn’t tell if she was deciding to kick my ass or she didn’t mind me. I shared a lighter with her.
     
    I looked around my school to see if there were any guys who were into the Sunset Strip scene. They would be considered “glam” guys and would most likely be into Poison and other bands that wore makeup and looked like women. All I saw was the usual white trash heshers with thin hair and black T-shirts. I was more interested in the type of people I saw in The Metal Years movie: guys with dyed black hair and style. I sighed. Nope. Not at this school.
     
    Or so I thought. One day while I was smoking a cigarette with Abby by the bungalows, I saw a glam guy walk by. My head turned as he passed and I nearly choked on my cigarette: he was 6’1” or 6’2”, had long, dyed black hair, pink Converse All Stars and tight black pants. He wore a colorful t-shirt and a fedora with a leopard print band around it. I knew straight away he was the type of guy with whom I would need to align myself if I was going to get into the Hollywood music scene.
     
    I needed info. I did some recon by asking around the smoking area, teetering around in my black velvet high heels and leopard-print tube skirt. In between games of Hacky Sack, a few hippies told me some dirt. The guy’s name was Jamie. He was in eleventh grade, and he was the drummer in a band that played on the Sunset Strip. They called him a “Glam Fag.” Perfect!
     
    I was thrilled, rubbing my hands together. Now I would just have to get him to notice me! He appeared to be the only person who hadn’t.   Whenever he passed the smoking section, he never socialized with the big group of mostly guys. I never saw him smile, only smoke cigarettes, hit on girls, and make sarcastic remarks. He walked around with an air of conceit, aloofness, and all around dickery. I saw that he wrote “I am God” on the side of his Converse. I thought that maybe I saw wrong. Certainly no one would write such a thing…would they?
     
    It was a Friday in mid-October when he got around to noticing me. He walked up to me and asked me what kind of bands I liked and I stuttered some sort of answer designed to impress him. While looking around at other chicks, he kind of told me we were going to go on a date. I was a virgin, but he couldn’t tell that by my revealing clothes that I found so cool and grown up. All they did was advertise to this guy that I would sleep with him. Not what I had intended. 
     
    I awkwardly agreed to go out with him. I went home and announced to my parents that I was going to go on my first date that very night. They were like, WHAT? They were bumping into each other trying to figure out what to do. They hadn’t thought of the rules yet, I could tell. They were probably trying to come up with something right then and there. They were used to me hanging out with Jeff at our house, but this was different: I was going to get into a car with a boy they had never met and drive away with him.
     
    I was uncomfortable as I got