Free Punkzilla by Adam Rapp Page B

it’s tears it’s more like some liquid form of LIFE leaving her. Her hair is so white it hurts to look at and she smells like diarrhea and old flowers. This man with blond hair is driving. He has a bald spot at the top of his head and a sunburnt neck. I think his name is Dale or Dave or maybe Dan and he’s one of those adults with braces. He’s really quiet and maybe like forty and he’s wearing a tie and a short-sleeved shirt and he drives with both hands on the wheel. They’re pretty quiet people. Every once in a while the old lady sighs. She might be his mom but she could be his grandmother too. I’m just glad I’m finally out of the rain and not dead.
    The shittiest day by far P even shittier than that experience with Alan Skymer in the Super 8 Motel even shittier than when Mom and the Major took me to Red Lobster to tell me they were sending me to Buckner and I never thought things could get worse than that. I’m okay now but about ten hours ago I got jumped in the bathroom of the Greyhound station in Caldwell Idaho.
    I didn’t think I was going to be able to write you again for a few days because my hand got so sore from the other letters. When I make a fist it feels like there are needles in it or something but I started getting the shakes again and I figured writing you would calm me so I’m going to give it a try.
    I spent about half the morning hiding behind an abandoned Mexican restaurant staring at a big-ass cornfield and getting rained on. It’s been raining like a motherfucker all day and till Dale or Dave or Dan and this old lady with the leaky eye picked me up on the side of the highway I was seriously thinking about laying down on one of those yellow lines and ending it all like letting a semi blow right over me.
    So anyway back at the Greyhound station in Caldwell Idaho these dudes jumped me and stole all my shit except for this notebook. I was the only one in that bathroom pissing at the middle urinal when I heard someone come in behind me. The next thing I knew a forty of Budweiser got busted over my head. It sounded like two cars crashing deep in the pulp of my brain. They got me right above my left ear and there’s a huge knot there now and I have a feeling that it’s going to keep swelling and I’ll wind up with a serious growth on the side of my head.
    I had never been knocked out like that before P like waking up and having no idea where I was or what happened. When I came to I made this weird sound like AAUAUAUUAAUAULL all high-pitched and girlish. For a second I thought I was mentally retarded or some sort of vegetable man who lost the use of his brain. I could hear this faraway ringing sound and it took me a minute to figure out that the noise was coming from inside my head. I can still hear the ringing a little now. It’s sort of mixing in with the hum from the engine of this car. At first it freaked me out but ten hours later I’m finding it weirdly comforting.
    They got my wallet and this turquoise belt buckle with a black bear on it that I got in Portland. My right eye is pretty swollen too and the side of my head stings like a bitch and my ear has been bleeding off and on for most of the day. I probably have a concussion so I’m trying to not fall asleep. The dude who picked me up keeps rolling the window down every few minutes because he thinks it’ll keep me conscious.
    I remember learning about that concussion thing in health class when I was still in school in Cincinnati and how if you fall asleep when you have a disaster to the head that you can go into some kind of coma state and never wake up.
    When I got off the floor of the bathroom I couldn’t walk so good and I had to go to a knee and then I got sick and puked in the sink. I spent about ten minutes picking little pieces of glass out of my ear where the bottle broke. I probably need stitches but I can’t exactly snap my fingers and wind up at a hospital plus I’m basically a certified runaway and who knows where