She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,127

of a black Dodge Durango.

On November 18, Willy and I hit the road with my Honda Prelude loaded to the roof and Stella’s note burning in my pocket. I instructed Matteo to continue paying rent on Auntie Jo’s apartment. I would be keeping it.

As we turned down Brownsville, I waved at Detective Joy Fogel. She was parked across the street from my building in a green late model Toyota with a man I didn’t recognize in the passenger seat. She had parked there a lot lately, the both of them. They didn’t wave back.

Twenty minutes later, I thought I saw a white SUV following us, but it remained on US-22 when we took the exit to I-99 North. I didn’t notice the one that picked us up two miles later. They were far more careful than the first.

PART 4

“We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.”

― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

March 12, 1994

Eighteen Years Old

Log 03/12/1994—

Subject “D” —

Audio/video recording.

DISABLED

—Charter Observation Team – 309

1

Matteo rented us an apartment a few blocks from campus, on Mifflin Road. A two-bedroom walkup in a converted three-story Victorian. My allowance from the trust was deposited on the first of each month into an account with Brentwood Federal Savings and Loan. I accessed the funds with an ATM card from anywhere for a small fee. That first month, Matteo deposited an extra two thousand dollars, more than enough to furnish the apartment, purchase dishes, a microwave, and the other essentials of college life. I tried to find a recliner as comfortable as Auntie Jo’s, but that search proved to be fruitless. I settled for a beanbag chair.

Classes began on January 14.

Ten days later, I turned eighteen.

The winter of 1993-1994 proved to be one of the worst in Pennsylvania history. At one point, the drifts along Mifflin Road were nearly seven feet tall. Because most classes were within walking distance (and I quickly grew tired of scraping ice from the windows), my Honda sat unused in front of the apartment, nearly vanishing beneath a blanket of white. When spring finally arrived, I had to buy a new battery to get the car started. A new bloom of rust sprouted on the trunk, a few inches from the lock. I’d watch that spot grow over the coming years.

There were parties, but I didn’t touch a single drink. Keggers, frats, sorority socials. The alcohol flowed, pot was readily available, ludes, shrooms. I even saw coke at one party, but it was college coke, no doubt cut with baby aspirin, flour, and God knew what else. I didn’t touch any of it. Instead, I was the guy in the corner with a can of Pepsi, sometimes a twelve-pack of Pepsi. I smiled and tried not to look too creepy as everyone else got wasted around me.

I wanted to drink, no doubt about that, but in watching the other students at all those parties, particularly the early ones, a realization came to me—they drank to enhance the social experience. It opened them up, took away inhibitions, it was a release. I only drank to forget, to numb, to hide. Alcohol helped to bring them out, alcohol turned me in. They drank to be together, I drank to be alone.

As I watched them all drink, as the laughter and shouting and dancing grew louder and slurred, I felt this gap growing—them and me, they and I, and I found a new way to be alone.

At Penn, everything was celebrated. Tonight we were celebrating what we hoped was the final snow melt of the season. It was the twelfth of March. Someone actually found it, a small mound of brown slush, on the west corner of Spruce Cottage across from the telecom building. Either that same someone or a different someone roped it off, set up a keg ten feet to the left, a boom box on a table to the right, and an improptu party started right there. In the fall, we had gathered around large bonfires. Tonight, we encircled this small patch of snow and watched it melt.

Welcome to college life.

“Come on, let me hypnotize you,” she said again.

I only half heard her. She was one of them. This usually happened a few hours into most parties. Aside from the previously mentioned uplifting effects, alcohol also brought courage, and at some point, one