Punks-A Tuesday

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high.
“Walk me home after school,” she offered Tommy, as she passed him in the corridor, bumping him with her elbow. She was on the way to her history class.
He watched, as she walk away, in her skirt; black, red and white plaid. Her hips straight.
Blue sneakers squeaking down the hallway.

Tommy waited for her after last class, looking tall, leaning against her locker. She liked how he looked in his blue jean jacket. When it was warm weather, Tommy would roll the cuffs up, but it was the first week in October.
“Have you missed me today, Tommy?” she asked him.
Tommy wished he knew what to say to her, but he hardly ever did.
Tommy shrugged his shoulders and looked away from her.
He noticed Mick walking out of the front doors of the school with Melanie Atkins.

It was quiet. Minnie and Tommy glanced at each other sometimes, as they passed the joint between themselves. They sat on the bleachers overlooking the never used ball diamond. The blank park space. Slides and swings and wood faded from sun. Trees on all sides, blocking them in.
Minnie could see the weeds and wet dirt of the earth, when she looked down. She tapped the wood from the bleachers beneath her feet; they were pointed inwards. She was letting out Aerosmith lyrics sometimes.

...Sloe gin fizzy
Do it till you’re dizzy
Give it all you got until you’re put out of your misery...

"Maybe I will buy a guitar," Minnie smiled at him, moving her head to her own music.
“Why does Billy-Boy give you pot all the time?” Tommy asked her all of a sudden. Abrupt. He needed to know.
She stopped moving and looked at him.
“I let him touch my boobs,” she whispered, then she dropped her eyes.
“What? Really?” Tommy demanded. Hand up through his own hair.
“No,” she said and then she laughed at him.
Tommy wanted to hurt something suddenly and his hand was still on his head, so he let it drop to his lap, before he punched his own skull. He looked away from her, again. Speechless, again. He was scared he would never have anything to say to her.
He looked up at the sun.
Her hand brushed his arm a moment later.
“We can make-out, if you want,” Minnie offered.
What the fuck? Tommy thought as he turned towards her, looking for her lips between black dots given from the sun. What the fuck is the matter with me?
Minnie kissed Tommy for five minutes, before she stopped and moved away from him, wrapping her arms around herself.
“I gotta go,” she said. “Daddy will be home early tonight.”
And she hopped up to her feet. She turned and walked down along the foot rail. Straight as a cigarette, and she never looked back.
Tommy decided he would not go home yet.
He wondered if Mick was done with Melanie.

Minnie walked down the side of the road by herself; almost home. The school bag on her back was empty and red and wrinkling in.
She did not notice the white car coming towards her, until it slowed down.
"Hey, Minnieeee. Wanna ride?" Darren Johnson leaned out of the back passengers side window. Minnie looked over at the car and noticed the others inside. She kept on walking.
The driver was Paul Ritcher, all gunk and braces when he smiled. She turned her eyes away from the car.
"Wanna suck our dicks, too?" laughed Paul.
Minnie lifted her arm, as she walked on. She gave them the finger.
They made kissing sounds and laughed.
"You could have at least said please, fuckface..." Darren's voice, almost out of earshot; and the smell of dirty exhaust in Minnie’s nose and on her skin.
Maybe I'll get my nose pierced, too, she thought to herself.