Love is a drug.
A Punk Rock Breakfast at Tiffany's... In 1980 NYC, eighteen-year-old J.J. Buckingham is an uptight trendoid. Working as a mannequin painter and a counter girl, she moonlights as a creature of the nightclubs. J.J. falls for aloof, crazy-talented artist and bicycle messenger X-It. In order to win his love she succumbs to the dark machinations of drug dealer Marko Voodoo. X-It will love her if she’s the Queen of Underground Manhattan, right? Her plan backfires with horrendous consequences. "It would be an understatement to say I savored every word and line of the book." - Fiction Predictions Discussion Questions for X-It. Author Q&A. |
Excerpt from Chapter One of X-IT
San Francisco
June, 1980
Fate loves a doorbell. Me, not so much, but it is my party so I run to answer the door.
I shriek, sock-slide down the hallway, and bang into the wall. Bright purple hair dye splatters the yellowed wallpaper leaving fluorescent trails across my vision. The Cure’s Fire in Cairo plays. Loud. Dye drips down the wall and my face.
“Don’t trash the place because you’re leaving,” says Alicia, my fellow squatter. We were paying rent to her boyfriend until he got involved in some kind of property dispute. The free lodging allowed me to save cash for New York.
I laugh, like bells to my ears. “Alicia, the invite said, ‘J.J.’s Dye-your-hair-and–drop-acid Going Away Party.’ So if you’re not going to do either, go away.” I don’t know my guests much or at all. Who better to see me off than people who don’t care?
“Grow up.”
Alicia always says this to me. I’m a legal adult. Just. However, Alicia never lets me forget my history as an ‘unoffically emancipated minor,’ as my mom put it. Mom ran out of gas on the parenting thing when I was fifteen. Since then it’s been sink or swim. I’ve done both.
Alicia collects the mail bag she uses as a purse and heads toward the door. Turning around, she adds, “How come none of your usual friends are here?”
“Why would I invite the people I’m running away from?” I laugh again, and it sounds more like icicle wind chimes this time. “New York should be far enough away, don’tcha think?”
“New York, New York, New York,” she says. My grubby copy of The Basketball Diaries flies across the entryway and smacks me in the chest. “You’re way too pretentious to be a punk rocker, you know. ”
I launch her terry cloth headband in retaliation. It hits her boob.
Alicia smiles a just-one-more-day-and-she’s-gone smile. “Good-bye, J.J. Try not to wake me when the taxi picks you up in the morning.”
As Alicia edges out into the entry, the two bell-ringers make their way to the door. I squint; the lights are spinning. I recognize Art Munny. I gave him my number two weeks ago because he plays guitar in a band.
He looks like a junkie version of the Clash’s guitarist. I’ll never touch the stuff. However, heroin-loving rock stars live as the fragile gods and goddesses of my universe, as cool as white spiders, creatures unaffected by mere realities of gravity and sunlight. But Art is a straight-up serious musician with a day job in insurance, and allergies that cause dark circles under his eyes.
Art holds out his arms to me. He takes in my appearance and drops them again.
“Ah, J.J.,” he says. “This is my roommate Michael. Michael this is J.J.”
I look through Michael. “You brought a straight geek to my party?” I shake my head. Bad idea. More purple drips. “Beer, wine and chips are in the kitchen.” I wave them through, shut the door, and turn all the deadbolts.
“Are we your prisoners?” asks Michael. In this light, he looks like Elvis Costello. My opinion thaws.
“Naw, some people here have taken three hits of Windowpane and they keep trying to go outside,” I say, and catch Michael giving Art a what the hell have you gotten me into? look.
Later, I trap Michael on the sofa by sitting on the coffee table and throwing my army-booted feet onto the overstuffed arm. Art scowls trendily in a doorway, chatting up a girl in a new-wave mini-skirt.
“Is she going home with him?” I ask Michael and stuff a tortilla chip in my mouth.
Uneasiness flits across his face and is gone. “Maybe in a parallel universe.”
“Parallel universe?” Someone drops a dish in the kitchen. I ignore it even though the noise crashes through my bones.
“Yeah,” he risks a nervous smile. “Just like this one, by way of the road not taken.”
I crunch another chip. “How many universes are there, then?”
With a glance at Art, Michael laughs. “As many as necessary.”
“My head is burning,” I say. “This shit hurts.”
He blinks once. “Is it time to wash it off?”
I look at the clock. “About three hours ago. Help me?”
In the bathroom, I lean over the cracked, claw-foot tub while Michael, all elbows, rinses my hair with the handheld sprayer. Tentatively, he pats my head with a towel and then wraps it up turban style. He stands back to review his work like a nuclear physicist who has just roped a calf. Satisfied, he pushes his Buddy Holly glasses back up his nose. His fingers are purple. Strands of hair fall messily over his forehead. Cute.
My scalp still hurts. Do guys who like Elvis Costello and parallel universes dig bald chicks?
“Can I, er, call you, sometime, maybe? From New York?” I ask him.
Michael adjusts his glasses again. “Uh, yeah sure, I guess.”
* * *
Copyright Jane George
June, 1980
Fate loves a doorbell. Me, not so much, but it is my party so I run to answer the door.
I shriek, sock-slide down the hallway, and bang into the wall. Bright purple hair dye splatters the yellowed wallpaper leaving fluorescent trails across my vision. The Cure’s Fire in Cairo plays. Loud. Dye drips down the wall and my face.
“Don’t trash the place because you’re leaving,” says Alicia, my fellow squatter. We were paying rent to her boyfriend until he got involved in some kind of property dispute. The free lodging allowed me to save cash for New York.
I laugh, like bells to my ears. “Alicia, the invite said, ‘J.J.’s Dye-your-hair-and–drop-acid Going Away Party.’ So if you’re not going to do either, go away.” I don’t know my guests much or at all. Who better to see me off than people who don’t care?
“Grow up.”
Alicia always says this to me. I’m a legal adult. Just. However, Alicia never lets me forget my history as an ‘unoffically emancipated minor,’ as my mom put it. Mom ran out of gas on the parenting thing when I was fifteen. Since then it’s been sink or swim. I’ve done both.
Alicia collects the mail bag she uses as a purse and heads toward the door. Turning around, she adds, “How come none of your usual friends are here?”
“Why would I invite the people I’m running away from?” I laugh again, and it sounds more like icicle wind chimes this time. “New York should be far enough away, don’tcha think?”
“New York, New York, New York,” she says. My grubby copy of The Basketball Diaries flies across the entryway and smacks me in the chest. “You’re way too pretentious to be a punk rocker, you know. ”
I launch her terry cloth headband in retaliation. It hits her boob.
Alicia smiles a just-one-more-day-and-she’s-gone smile. “Good-bye, J.J. Try not to wake me when the taxi picks you up in the morning.”
As Alicia edges out into the entry, the two bell-ringers make their way to the door. I squint; the lights are spinning. I recognize Art Munny. I gave him my number two weeks ago because he plays guitar in a band.
He looks like a junkie version of the Clash’s guitarist. I’ll never touch the stuff. However, heroin-loving rock stars live as the fragile gods and goddesses of my universe, as cool as white spiders, creatures unaffected by mere realities of gravity and sunlight. But Art is a straight-up serious musician with a day job in insurance, and allergies that cause dark circles under his eyes.
Art holds out his arms to me. He takes in my appearance and drops them again.
“Ah, J.J.,” he says. “This is my roommate Michael. Michael this is J.J.”
I look through Michael. “You brought a straight geek to my party?” I shake my head. Bad idea. More purple drips. “Beer, wine and chips are in the kitchen.” I wave them through, shut the door, and turn all the deadbolts.
“Are we your prisoners?” asks Michael. In this light, he looks like Elvis Costello. My opinion thaws.
“Naw, some people here have taken three hits of Windowpane and they keep trying to go outside,” I say, and catch Michael giving Art a what the hell have you gotten me into? look.
Later, I trap Michael on the sofa by sitting on the coffee table and throwing my army-booted feet onto the overstuffed arm. Art scowls trendily in a doorway, chatting up a girl in a new-wave mini-skirt.
“Is she going home with him?” I ask Michael and stuff a tortilla chip in my mouth.
Uneasiness flits across his face and is gone. “Maybe in a parallel universe.”
“Parallel universe?” Someone drops a dish in the kitchen. I ignore it even though the noise crashes through my bones.
“Yeah,” he risks a nervous smile. “Just like this one, by way of the road not taken.”
I crunch another chip. “How many universes are there, then?”
With a glance at Art, Michael laughs. “As many as necessary.”
“My head is burning,” I say. “This shit hurts.”
He blinks once. “Is it time to wash it off?”
I look at the clock. “About three hours ago. Help me?”
In the bathroom, I lean over the cracked, claw-foot tub while Michael, all elbows, rinses my hair with the handheld sprayer. Tentatively, he pats my head with a towel and then wraps it up turban style. He stands back to review his work like a nuclear physicist who has just roped a calf. Satisfied, he pushes his Buddy Holly glasses back up his nose. His fingers are purple. Strands of hair fall messily over his forehead. Cute.
My scalp still hurts. Do guys who like Elvis Costello and parallel universes dig bald chicks?
“Can I, er, call you, sometime, maybe? From New York?” I ask him.
Michael adjusts his glasses again. “Uh, yeah sure, I guess.”
* * *
Copyright Jane George