A Plug

I have no vested interest in saying this at all, but you should read this blog. If it had more literature-based posts, it would be my life at work...

http://shitmystudentswrite.tumblr.com/

 

Why I Didn't Fuck Lee Ving

I was a gorgeous, slim, svelte 85-pound 19-year old who could drink just about anyone under the table and had no fear whatsoever when it came to taking various illegal substances. I was all about the local music scene and I loved revisiting my punk roots as often as I could by watching bands play. I was working in a bar and begged my boss like crazy to let me off work early so I could go to the divey-est of dive bars to see two of my favorite bands play. One was a local band where almost all the members were friends of mine and they were playing with Fear. Fear has always been one of my most favorite bands of all time - mostly because of Lee Ving.

 

image by Guy Webster

*sighs* Even now, viewing his image sends my heart all a-flutter. Yes, he's considerably older than me but, fuck...he's Lee Ving. So when my friend Chris told me his band would be playing with Fear and I was invited to hang out after the show with them backstage, I knew precisely what that meant and I told Chris I was all in. So I begged, pleaded, almost cried, and worked a ridiculously stupid deal with my boss so he'd let me go early. And as soon as 9:00 rolled around, I ran the fuck out of there as fast as my truck would take me.

Before the show, Chris called me over to the edge of the stage as they were setting up. "So, you're gonna stay after, right? Lee really wants to meet you..."

"Of course I'm staying. And then go wherever."

"Cool. This is gonna be a great show!"

"Yep. Good luck, and come find me after your teardown."

And then I went to the bar. And then I went to the corner and did a couple bumps of coke. And then I smoked a few cigarettes and went back to the bar.

Admittedly, Lee looked a tad bit older than I'd remembered him last but, fuck...he's Lee Ving. Despite my two-year relationship with a guy who turned out to be a total fucking loser who was almost twice my age anyway, I was fully prepared to engage in whatever deviant, hedonistic activities Lee was into. I was so excited that I almost couldn't focus on the band playing in anticipation of it just being over. I seriously could not contain myself.

Both bands were amazing. The stage presence was great and I heard all the songs I wanted to hear. The crowd was rowdy and aggressive and the spirits were high. It was good. After Fear was done, Chris came out to tell me that they were going to clean up, get some drinks and food back there, and he'd come back out and get me when they were ready. "Lee said he thinks you're really pretty and he can't wait to get you backstage." For real? ME? Fucking sweet. I hope he rips my panties off... All of a sudden I felt a calm wash over me. I was SO ready. I remember calling my friend on my huge-ass Nokia brick cell phone to tell her what was going on and that was pretty much the last thing I remember in a normal sense.

That's when I hit the floor and began seizing.

Now, I knew I had some undiagnosed seizure disorder and yes, it did have a tendency to strike at ALL the wrong times. My doctor said it could be brought on by a very fast drop in blood pressure but, due to my numerous head injuries from the past, they just couldn't be sure. I could usually feel them coming on but I think the atmosphere of the club distracted me from the warning signs.

At first people thought I was OD'ing. For a few moments, so did I. It's not like I hadn't been shoving coke up my nose and Crown and Coke down my throat all night. People started laughing and kicking me and pouring their beer on me. The buzzing in my ears kept getting louder and louder and drowned out the crowd's jeers. I tried to explain what was happening, but my jaws were clenched tight and I had no control over myself.

The paramedics showed up pretty quickly, because I was still unable to respond or stand on my own. I was shivering so badly that the bartender had poked a hole in a garbage bag to put over my head. They tried to make me get in the ambulance but I refused. They made me call my boyfriend and he came to pick me up.

All of this time, Chris knew there was some kind of huge incident going on, but didn't know it was me. And so, obviously, Lee's penis and I didn't get a chance to get acquainted.

Either way, it's a sad story. I've never been a groupie in the sexual leech scenester sense. There have been bands that I've followed from the beginning and become friends with members, and supported them all the way. I've never slept with a band member of any fame just because of who they were. This...that would have been the exception to that rule. He's not the hottest man anymore but, then again, I don't look like that bombshell I used to be, either. No, I wouldn't fuck Lee Ving at this stage of the game, anyway. Things are different now.

I always wondered that if I HAD been able to go through with it, if I'd asked him for his phone number after all of it, if he would have said, "I don't care about you...fuck you." I'm guessing he probably wouldn't - too cliche - but I could still imagine the words coming out of his mouth.

image from Vans Warped Tour 2010

Surfacing, Only To Recede Back Into the Depths

Ashley...oh, how my mind kept wandering on about this girl. I had, basically, all day after writing that post to do nothing else but obsess; Troy was working on that car and I was stuck up at the shop with little else to do. So I kept digging.

I thought back to all my training, especially when I was a repo agent. If you could go through their trash - the paper stuff, not the actual garbage, you could learn more about them and their habits and get leads. So I dragged all of her stuff into the office, laid it all out on the desk, and started thinking.

I looked at maps of the schools she went to and cross-referenced those with property records from the area of people with the same surnames, including the aunt's last name I found on the card. I found a local woman with the aunt's name, so I searched for her. She owned a company with a website, so I just shot her an email through the site. I figured that was the most unobtrusive, least odd way.

But then I started thinking about the photo album and how she'd listed everybody's name under the photos. I remembered seeing something about her "California family," so I went back to the album and started looking at pictures.

There wasn't a city written anywhere in the album. California's huge, and the surnames were fairly common. I kept looking. And then I hit gold: a picture of an "Uncle Jeff" who happened to be wearing a company shirt.

I Googled the company name and there was a link for "our team." Clicking on that, I saw the man I was looking for in name and photo. When I checked the White Pages for his full name and city, two numbers came up. One was the shop number and the other was his home. I checked the property records to make sure it was a residence and then I called the number. Nervous, I waited as the phone rang about 10 times. An answering machine picked up. What an odd message to leave: "My name is Stillie and I live in ___. I'm trying to get in touch with the family of Ashley Paige because I found some things that belong to her. They're personal items like pictures and stuff from grammar school and thought she might want them. You can give me a call back at..."

For hours all I could do was wait impatiently. And then, a phone call.

I had gotten in touch with the correct family, and it was her aunt that called me. We had a pretty long conversation, actually, about who Ashley was, her troubled background, her 'gypsy' lifestyle, and her influence on her cousin (that woman's daughter). She said she didn't know where Ashley was, but she was sure she was okay. She said she'd call Ashley's favorite aunt - the one whose name was on the card - because they were pretty close and she'd for sure know where Ashley was. One of them would call me back. She couldn't believe I would go to so much trouble for a bag of water-damaged pictures. I told her it was because I couldn't imagine living my life without mine.

My biggest fear in this endeavor was calling family - making real contact - only to find out that she was missing or had been murdered or something. Of course, the family could either be grateful and want the items, or mad that I dredged up all the hurt but I was seriously afraid that might be the case. When I found out it wasn't, I was quite relieved.

Several hours later, I got a phone call from an in-state number. It was Ashley. "Hi. I'm Ashley. I was instructed to call you?" She sounded a little put-out at first.

I told her who I was, where I was from, and why I was calling her. I told her all the items I had, and what all was contained in the bags. Her voice perked up and she seemed pretty happy. I was all proud of myself for doing what I thought was the right thing by finding her. She asked me how I got them and I told her, although I was a little bit of a liar when she asked, "Did you say this came out of an old car you bought? Where, and what kind was it?" (we bought the car with no title as a salvage vehicle and, honestly, who knows if it was on the up-and-up. i didn't want to be blatant about a possibly stolen car.)

I told her, and then there was silence. I could feel the tension in the space between our phones. In a frosty, flat voice she said, "You can throw it all away. I thank you for going to so much trouble but I don't want any of it. Throw it out."

I started to say something about it was okay, it was no problem, and that if it were mine, I'd want it back, but the line had already gone dead. She'd just hung up on me.

Just out of curiosity, I used a friend's out-of-state cell phone to call her number back today. The phone she used to call me from was a convenience store's indoor line.

My mind can't stop going over all the possible scenarios about why a girl would run all the way across the country from her hometown, make stops midway, and then end up back to the place she originally ran to, and was perfectly willing to erase every last bit of her existence. I make up all these stories about her: about her past, her adventures, her traumas, and her travels. I keep seeing her face - that last picture in her file folders that wasn't totally bubbled and melted where she was smiling, perfect hair, natural makeup, hope still glimmering in her eyes of the future to come after high school - and try to imagine how it went all wrong. I picture her in my head, strung-out, sallow and pale, hair all chopped and dyed a color unbecoming for someone of her fair complexion. I imagine her being in unsanitary living conditions, with abusive men, her morals and values slipping into a pocket of her mind so far in the past she's not even sure she ever even had them, just so she can survive. The torture she puts herself through is the only way to stop the madness in her head - temporarily - but it's better than being home and it's better than being dead and it reminds her so much of being in her real home that it's a comfort but not the same and, in many ways, safer.

And out of this small experience, a work of fiction is born. Loosely based on a true story, this fabricated one is the only way I can let this go. I'm bothered by it more than I should be, so I have to purge it.

I am done poring through her belongings, piecing together an adolescent life that seemed picture-perfect and, probably, that's exactly what it was: only in the pictures. The smiles in those photographs were a mere moment in time captured forever. People rarely take photos during their tumultuous times. I can't see all the bad stuff that went on behind the scenes so, although the certificates and awards and physical proof of academic achievement exist, I can never guess about what was really going on besides that. I can only imagine what happened to her job at Lowe's, whose welcome packet was tucked in amongst all the papers. Neither can I guess what happened to her car, an older Honda whose long-expired insurance card was found in a file folder too. It doesn't matter now. It's all going to go into a 55-gallon drum at the storage lot where we dropped the car, and it's going to get burned along with trash we've pulled out of other cars.

I've decided to save one of the wallet-sized school photos, edges yellowed from water and sun, scratches exposing the orange and white emulsion under the image, just to use as inspiration as I write my story. Maybe I'll even PhotoShop it if I decide to one-off self-publish it and use it as cover art.

Just as quickly as Ashley came up to the surface of the sea of millions of faces, she began sinking back down, swallowed up by the population where everyone looks alike and nobody has a name; ghosts, if you will. Ashley has disappeared, again.

Ashley Paige, Where Are You?

Troy and I are forever picking up junker cars to keep our project and race cars supplied with plenty of parts. Yesterday we drove 3 hours away to pick up one of these cars for $200. It took the seller forever to finally get to his shop to meet us, but we'd already started trying to load the car.

While we were waiting, we looked around the interior and checked it out all the way around. The car was full of possessions very clearly belonging to a girl. Like, keepsake kind of stuff. I asked the guy in the shop next door to our seller's what was up with all of that.

He said the car came from a customer who had every intention of fixing the front end (the suspension and front wheels were missing). He dropped the car off at the mechanic's and a few months later, told him he couldn't afford to fix the car. He came by and got his stuff out of the car, but left all the girl's stuff. He said, "Oh, I broke up with her. I'll call her and have her come by and get it," and left it sitting on the roof of the car in grocery bags.

Nobody put the stuff inside the car until a few days later. Basically, her things have been sitting inside this car with stray cats curled up on it; the hatch had been left open for 2 years. There's water damage to almost everything.

It's sad to see what was left behind: report cards from elementary school, high school orchestra performance programs, pictures and more pictures and more pictures, a photo album, an Al-Anon Day-at-a-Time book, cards and letters from family. I felt like I needed to find her so she could take this stuff back.

I used to be a skiptracer. My job was to find people who didn't want to be found, and repo their cars. I was damned good at it. I had access to paid databases most of us can't use because they're not worth it unless you're a business. I found people all day long and it was a rush.

I know this girl's name, I know what elementary school she went to, which high school she attended, all the years she was there, and I even know what she *looks* like...and she's just disappeared.

Using all the information I know, I cannot find a trace of her anywhere online or anywhere else. Using the family's names from cards and letters (which had no envelopes so i don't even know where they were mailed from)...nothing. No Facebook page, no MySpace, no Twitter. No blogs, no personal information about her online anywhere. Did she go back home to Georgia? Did she stay in this state? Was she ever even in this state, because we have no idea where the car came from before it was dropped off at the shop. Did she go somewhere else? Was she troubled and ran into some problems and just fell off the map?

I feel as if this is a personal mission I need to fulfill; to get this stuff back to this girl. She's young, too...elementary school in 2004. No information in her stuff from junior high, so I don't know about that.

There's a slight concern with feeling like a stalker, but at least I have a reason to track her down.

Well, I'm going to keep poking around. Maybe the schools can help me figure out a narrower map to look for family.

Is this obsessing over something that should just be tossed out?