“Skittles!”
She stopped dead in her tracks.
“Skittles, come here.”
She shyly walked over.
“Dude, do that again.”
At which point she smiled wide and ran back down the hall, adding that extra little bounce to each step.
Later at the convention, during the dead dog party, we were recanting great quotes from the con.
“Five guys in four hours! I love this place!”
Which was followed shortly by:
“Dude, I know she’s your sister and all…but, Skittles got it going ON.”
And it’s that kind of behavior that caused Skittles’ parents from banning her from conventions.
Which is sad, really, considering that the convention crowd had kept Skittles off heroin for several months.
But, we drank, and we smoked, and we made jokes that don’t go over in mixed company, so we were bad evil people who were just going to corrupt that poor young thing.
Which is why it was so painful to hear that Skittles had died from an overdose.
You see, she lived out in Lake Dallas, where entertainment is pretty scarce, but money isn’t. And like any place filled with rich, bored kids, heroin had made its mark.
Some friends. They dropped her off at home when they realized what was happening. Her mom found her in the tub the next morning.
We all made the drive out to Lake Dallas the afternoon of the funeral. They were waiting to hold the service after school, so all of Skittles’ “friends” could come.
I remember the news media was out there. One guy in particular, a guy named Shane who likes it when people call him “Bishop”, made a huge fuss about “those goddamn ghouls.” He went on and on about how wrong it was for the news to try and make the funeral a circus.
And the place was packed—standing room only. Skittles’ family (in flower print dresses! Again with the flower prints!), her “friends”, her classmates (who had just gotten out of school and didn’t want to be there) and their parents (who had just gotten home from work and sure as hell wanted their kids to be there) and the convention crowd (the only group dressed in suits and black).
Dude, we looked like the fucking mafia.
I will say, at least it was a decent funeral—not one of those ad-lib services. The preacher actually mentioned heroin—the first heroin funeral I have been to where the drug was mentioned by name.
Afterwards, most of the convention crowd went to Denny’s on Meadow—big mistake.
Ghetto Meadow had a new policy to keep the Goths out: you wouldn’t be seated if you were dressed in all black. I don’t know what the manager had against Goths—maybe he thought they were Satanists or something (religious discrimination!)—but he didn’t want them in his Denny’s. We knew about the policy, but we thought it was only for Church nights (Sunday and Thursday).
We were wrong.
The little no-good slime-ball bastard manager (tell us how you really feel, Mila) tried to turn us away at the door.
“You know the rules. I can’t seat you if you’re dressed in all black.”
“We just got back from a funeral.”
“I don’t care.”
I don’t know how many cell phones flipped out of coat pockets and called the corporate 1-800 line. The policy was quickly overruled and I think we got a few free meals out of it.
Later that night, we say Shane, AKA “Bishop” on the news. The little fucker had let “those ghouls” interview him.