Chapter One

t’s Not You, It’s Me

I am the sucker.

Ben’s standing on the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets; his hair, normally straight and elbow-length, is now appallingly cornrowed as his head hangs toward the ground because I’ve caught him.

I’ve caught him.

He’s too goddamned scared to make a move and I don’t blame him, because he’s my boyfriend and I caught him, just now, packing up all of his crap into a piece-of-shit hippie van because he’s running off to Seattle to follow his dream, which is growing pot, smoking it, and learning to play Neil Young’s “Old Man” on an acoustic guitar in order to perform it as a birthday gift for his dad, a man he has never met.

He is running away.

With HER.

Turn to the right, there she is, standing behind the van, trying to hide from me; it’s Dog Girl, his ex-girlfriend, dressed in a tremendous gauze dress and with matching cornrow hair.

“She made the curtains,” he mutters, still looking at the sidewalk.

“WHAT?” I said, shaking my head.

“She made the curtains,” he repeats. “For the van. She sold her car and bought the van.”

For a moment, I’m confused and I wonder about what I’m supposed to do with this. Am I supposed to fight, and kick and scream, am I supposed to oppose it? I have no idea, and I don’t do anything. I just walk away.

“Don’t you want to hit me?” he calls out.

“Don’t you want to yell at me, tell me you hate me?” he yells to me.

I just shake my head, and keep walking.

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