“Did you find your little dream girl?” Mari goes when we get home. I just nod my head up and down and up and down and smile like a fucking pervert because I’m getting horny just thinking about Ione Gabrielle… I dunno her last name, though, but it’s gotta be, like, something girly and hot and sexy, ‘cause she’s girly and hot and sexy and next time I see her, I’m gunna tell her.

“What’s her name?”

“Ione.”

Mari pushes her eyebrows up like a head-doctor and makes this tish sound, so bad I wanna hit her in the face for doin’ that.

“What?” I go, sorta snarly ‘cause my sis just pissed me off.

“What? Nothing! But… Ione’s sorta weird.”

“Shut the fuck up before I whoop your ass you stupid midget.”

“I’m just telling the truth, dickwad!”

“Eh?” then I start, like, talking like Mom does when she gets pissed and starts bustin’ Spanish out of her ass. Since I sound like a motherfucking retard when I speak Spanish, though, I, like, start talkin’ fast and shit, like Mom does sometime. “You shut your goddamn mouth you little Goth whore!”

Then Mari, like, gets tears in her eyes sorta and goes stomp, stomp upstairs, boo-hoo, Pat made fun of me, Mom, I hate being the mulatto, I wanna fucking die.

Nobody even, like, knows she’s half black and nobody really cares, either. My sis is always being a dumbass.

So since I’m done making Mari cry, I hafta do something else, so I, like, go to my bedroom and sit on my bed to see my porn, the porn I got under the bed ‘cause, like, Mom doesn’t look under the bed – not anymore. So then I find my old yearbook from before Saint John’s and see the pretty girls and the pictures they, like, slipped in ‘cause they wanted me or whatever the hell they were thinking. Pig and Brandon and Johnny gave me some, like, nice pictures of chicks they know from other places, too, and I saw these chicks in real life and thinking about them is enough to have me, like, splatter all over the fucking wall, but when I think about my little angel I wanna blow up totally. It’s fucking insane.

And there I go, popping that huge pimple in my pants.

It’s, like, fucking insane, man.

---

Pig doesn’t shut up his trap all morning ‘til Johnny punches him in the face and nearly gets his ass a referral. But Pig still wants to mouth off, so I keep, like, opening and closing and opening my fist so I don’t sock him, too. But I dunno what the fuck he’s talking about – probably something stupid.

“Dude, thenshee,” Pig spits up again and hasta catch his breath so I like sit and wait for him to quit being a dipshit.

“Just say it, dumbass,” Brandon says, super low.

“This chick blew me at the party, a serious hot chick!”

“So fuckin’ what?” I go.

Pig’s face is all wet and sweaty and red, so I sorta look away ‘cause he’s making me feel sick. Disgusting mongrel.

“Was she serious hot?” I go, really rude.

“Yeah, dude, serious hot!”

“Was she serious drunk, too, buddy?”

Pig’s face gets, like, really red and he dribbles a bit to answer, so I keep on.

“Was it serious good?”

“Yeah, man!”

“I serious don’t give a shit, shit, SHIT!” I go finally, yellin’ at the top of my lungs so Pig knows I don’t care about him.

Pig gets sorta shy or whatever you call a fatass with some motherfucking puppy-dog look on his motherfucking piggy face.

“How you did at the party?” Brandon goes, low still.

“I found her,” I say, kinda low, too. “She was so fuckin’ awesome.”

Brandon puts on a smile for me so I nod back.

“Her name’s Ione,” I go.

“Nice.”

“Yep. Aw, Ione don’t have a clue, man. She doesn’t know how I’m gonna really go crazy when we hook up.”

“Short?”

“Medium.”

“Was she, like, blonde or what? I forgot.”

“Like brown with some blondie parts, I guess. It looked darker outside, y’know? I dunno why, dude.”

“Mhmm.”

“I’m gonna get her, though. I know it.”

“Yeah.”

So then Brandon and me are, like, seeing the same thing and I’m cool with that ‘cause I might need his help, yeah? ‘Cause Ione’s not gonna be easy, eh? Nah, she won’t.

“What’s her name?” I go, frowning really hard at Pig. He sorta fattens up and looks happy.

“Riley,” Pig goes.

“How’d she look?”

“Um… sorta short chick with blonde hair and… uh…like, y’know, a little cross around her neck, that sorta thing.”

I wanna smile a bit ‘cause Pig’s got himself a little church-girl who just got drunk, but I don’t ‘cause it’d just be pitiful to see him all depressed and such. I guess….

“You look down, Piggy,” I go.

He swishies his mouth a bit so I lean forward, across the lunch table we’re all sitting at, and Brandon leans in.

“Does Piggy wanna go see his girly-girl again?”

“Sorta, man. She told me all sorts o’ stuff, serious stuff, and I was serious into her.”

I lean back sorta so I can see all of my Pig, the poor fatso.

“C’mon, then,” I go. “You know where she lives?”

“Huh?”

“You heard,” I say sorta loud so the punks at the table right by us are all, like, bending their little necks to see what the hell is going on; Brandon jumps sorta at them so they all wimp back and mind their own business.

“Tell me, Pig, and we’ll go drop in.”

I’m in a giving mood ‘cause Ione’s got me in a good state.

“Are you serious, dude?”

“As a heart attack.”

---

The good thing about Pig is that he’s hella good at, like, being a creepy stalker. He knows the address for Riverside and everything so getting there wasn’t, like, tough or anything really. I’d only been to Riverside once and that was, like, a long time ago when Mom wanted Mari to go here ‘cause Mari’s old head-doctor said she needed it, but in the end we didn’t ‘cause the school is super expensive, even too much for Buddy, so Mari just mope around s’more till she got over it.

“This place is serious huge,” Pig goes when we’re outside, him, me, Brandon and Johnny.

“Yeah,” Johnny goes.

“We’re splittin’ up, Piggy,” I go, and I pat him on the shoulder, all gruff so he sorta doesn’t wanna argue.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll see you later, boys,” I go, and I turn around and put my hand at my forehead, Captain Wilde, to my colonels. And they all nod back at me ‘cause they get it, they know me, Captain Wilde, higher than all. Then I sorta do a slide back and the hedge that Pig’ll be coming through next and maybe Johnny and Brandon, too.

Riverside is a huge place, kinda like a big, old church, full of thick ugly hedges and Miss Mary, mother of Jesus, wife of Joseph, bitch of Him, Almighty, and then I fit in there somewhere ‘cause I’m the dearest of all, Saint Patrick. So I walk past her bust and pat it for luck from that great kinfolk and her husband and her son and her pimp and her love.

Then I see it, the light in the dark hallways, not from my angel’s room, though, so I, like, step to the side so they can’t see me. It’s a nun, I think, maybe, and a dude

“…and Rachel has been uncontrollable these past few nights, Father…”

“A fortnight is all, then,” Mr. Nun goes.

So once they pass and I’m alone, just me and my red forelock hangin’ on my face, I go around the hall, like, real slick and sly and spy. There’s a chapel on the first floor and inside I see another kinsman, then up ahead I spot, like, a cross with Christ hangin’ off and starin’ at me like I should help him down, but I don’t.

Then I finally find a hallway with, like, a bunch of doors that aren’t classrooms ‘cause they’re, like, too close to each other. So I go up the hallway and up the stairs and up the next stairs and on the third floor I stop. I knock on a door as quiet as I can and wait for a girl to come out in her nightie, hopefully.

“Hel –,”

“Hello, there,” I go once the girl’s eyes get big and she looks sorta, like, scared that a guy is standing here.

Her voice must be stuck in her fat little throat so I open up and talk for the both of us.

“I’m looking for Ione.”

“She’s on the fifth floor, room five-oh-six with the other… what… who are you?”

“Plumber, sweetheart, go to sleep.”

The girl goes up down, up down, then turns around and closes the door in my face so I feel sorta dejected, but whatever, Ione won’t do that to me.

It’s just these motherfucking tattletales I gotta watch out for.

So then it’s just fourth floor, fifth floor, and my floor with my angel, room five-oh-six with Pat-oh-Wilde and his angel, Ione.

Now it’s knock-knock-knock-wait-knock-wait.

“Hey – who are you?”

It’s Rachel, the, like, obnoxious one. She’s all half-naked and wearing this silly look like I’m the hooch.

“Sandman, here on official business,” I go, and I sorta smile so she sorta gets it and scoots.

“Is it Luke? Rachel, is it him?” someone goes from inside.

“No,” Rachel says and she closes the door so nobody else can hear.

There are three other girls in the room and I see my angel, glowing sorta, with two other chicks who look hella skanky.

“Who are you?” one of them goes, but she doesn’t look beat up about it or anything. My angel’s starin’ at me.

“Patrick.”

“We met him at the carnival,” Rachel goes.

“Oh… well, did he come for you?” the other chick goes, pointing at Rachel.

“Um, I didn’t call him.”

“I wanna talk to Ione,” I go.

Ione’s face gets hella red so I wanna sort of make it… not red, I guess, like calmer.

“Gaby? Why?”

“’Cause I like her.”

The two girls both start freaking out and shaking and waving their arms and going back and forth with each other.

“Get out,” I say, sorta firm.

“What? No, this is our room. You and Gaby can use the broom closet.”

The broom closet? Hell no. My angel deserves more than that, really. She deserves a bed that’s made of, like, clouds and marshmallows and the like. Not a motherfucking broom closet. I wanna punch the wall ‘cause one of them said that.

“How’d you find me?” Ione goes, sorta big-eyed, but I’m not annoyed or anything ‘cause her eyes are so pretty it doesn’t even, like, matter. Hell, my cock is getting hard anyway.

“Magic.”

Ione sorta smiles so I sorta smile, too, and I nearly start laughing when she stands up and waves to her little skanky friends and takes my hand and walks us both from the room, calm as a lake. Then she stops when we’re in the hallway and finally turns to my face and I, like, get a serious boner ‘cause she’s amazing.

“You don’t know me,” she goes.

“I do.”

“No, you don’t. What do you know about me?”

“I know you’re name’s Ione. I know you’re really hot. I know where you live, now.”

Ione smiles again and I smile, too, so I lean over and try to kiss her, but she, like, moves her head back, kinda like a bird, so I just go on straight for her neck and her shoulders and her chest and all that good stuff before she steps back crosses her arms, really shy-like.

“What’s it?” I go, sorta stupid.

“I dunno who you are.”

“I’m Patrick.”

“I know that,” she goes. “But I’m not – this isn’t really how things are.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m afraid there’s too little information, Patrick. You’re cute, yeah, but I don’t think there’s anything else I know or – and I’m sorry – like about you, either.”

She’s just teasing me, though.

“So what do you want to do to learn more about Patrick?” I go, smiling a bit.

“Nothing.”

“Or?”

Ione just rolls her eyes and keeps her arms crossed.

“Well…. Okay. There’s a guy I meet. You can help walk me to his place on Saturdays. How about that?”

“Like… another man?” I go, and I feel my blood getting sorta hot and my right hand getting sorta tighter.

“No, he’s like a teacher, I guess. Like a dad, I dunno. But you can walk me to his house. It’s a long walk and I can get kind of lonely, I guess. My friends can't know about this.”

“Yeah,” I go, and my insides get mushy again.

“We can talk when you take me," she adds in really quick.

“But, wait – what’s the difference if we make out before we talk or after?”

“Well, I’m not making out with you, period, Patrick.”

“Why not?”

Ione just puts her shoulders up and breathes sorta loud, so hot my nuts are, like, in Satan’s grip. Then she turns around and goes back to her dorm thing with her skank friends.

“G’night, Patrick.”

“’Night, Ione.”

And the door gets closed, that quick, and my little angel’s left me alone again. I, like, stand there alone and think about Ione and how gorgeous she is, but then he ruins things like always, Piggy.

“Dude, we serious hafta get outta here, like serious, man,” he goes, putting one big, red, sloppy soaking hand on my arm. I put my hand out to push him off, but he, like, falls off anyway, and can barely breathe.

“What’d you do?”

“Nothin’ – man – c’mon,” he goes cough-cough-cough really loud so the whole motherfuckin’ building can hear him and I want to beat his face in, but no time.

“Let’s go!” I go, and Pig and me and later Johnny and Brandon are jumping over a fence trying to get out before the nuns notice. I dunno what the hell Pig did, but I did get him in the nose once we were outside.

---

Author's Note: any thoughts would be appreciated :)