Scattered Chapter 3

[Trevor Race]

My First apartment was on the north side of the Tower District in Fresno.
My first roommate was my very dear friend since birth, Nathan Stevens. These days people were calling him "Dez"
It took a few months but the name grew on me and before long I was calling him by his self-chosen rocker name.
At one point i even tattooed "Dez" on his leg with a homemade machine made from a guitar string, a motor from a Walkman, a Bic pen, a bent spoon and some Higgins's fountain pen ink. Far from sterile, but it didn't come out half bad if you take into consideration the fact that I've never done a tattoo before and I couldn't draw a stick man to save my life.
My mom and step-father decided to pay the rent for this apartment until Dez and I could find a job and take over the bills on our own. I remember waking up at noon and taking a walk or a short bus ride down to the middle of the Tower District. I put in application after application, but to no avail. Who wants to hire an 18 year old kid with no experience aside from a 3 week stint at Albertsons? Ill tell you who...NO ONE! I mean Dez and I did get a few offers. Not job offers though. You see, Tower is also were the homosexuals of Fresno claim as a comfort zone. Well...some of them were so damn comfortable in their zone that they would walk right up to us and ask if we were an open couple or ask if we wanted to come to a party...putting the accent on the word "come"
Honestly it didn't bother me as much as it might have any other 18 year old from Kingsburg. then again I was an outcast and so was Dez. we were used to the unexpected and I guess because of that we were able to be civil. i remember thinking "this f***** f** needs his ass kicked" and not two seconds later thinking about the older kids in school that would say that to Dez or myself. we weren't getting picked on for being gay because that wasn't the case. but we were different and that, for some reason or another, was a threat to these cookie cutter preppies.
Dez was my roommate for a good 4 months or more before we got into it over something that was entirely my fault to begin with. When we moved in, my mom gave me so much awesome stuff so I didn't have an empty home. one of these things she donated was a big screen TV and an awesome entertainment center with swinging doors that hid the TV when not in use. I remember looking at that TV one day when i was out of Newports and there wasn't any beer in the house. i don't think we had food either but that wasn't as important as nicotine and alcohol.
I walked out of the pawn shop with $45 in my pocket and a feeling in my gut that told me I had really f***** up. That TV was a gift from my loving mother who just wanted me to enjoy my first taste of life as a man on my own. A WORKING man on my own. I couldn't cut it. So that night I brought home a few bottles of liquor that my neighbor Dorothy agreed to buy as long as i got her a sixer of king cobra. A few packs of newports for myself and a pack of Mavericks for Dez.
My mom would stop by whenever she was in town. we made sure to always have the doors on the entertainment center closed so she wouldn't know what I had done.
This time Dez forgot all about the TV and he was looking for a bracelet or something. he walked right up to those doors and opened them right in front of my mom.
I swear I saw her fighting back the tears in her eyes when she asked me "what happened to the TV I gave you?" She knew. I'm sure she knew. I don't remember if i tried to make something up or not but after she left Dez and I went at it. I blew up on him blaming him for it all and ended up kicking him out over it. I never felt bad about it until I started to write this and realized he had done nothing wrong. Sorry homie.
( Dez and i are still friends to this day)

My best friend Derek ended up moving in with me after he and his mother had quite the amusing argument. He was really tore up about it but I couldn't help but laugh my ass off when his mother,(who was eating a cantaloupe half with a spoon when the argument started) threw a cantaloupe right at his head. When that missed him she threw the spoon!

. It was mid summer of 2000 and i was job hunting. It was hot as hell in my El Camino. windows down and my energy to find a job wasted from the heat. I was done. Time to turn around and go back to the apartment with the A/C set to 66 degrees. I was cutting through a parking lot to get to the next cross street when i saw her. It is no exaggeration when I say she took my breath away. I always though the phrase "Love at first sight" was such cliche' b*******. not anymore. I was in love. or at least I knew I would be. I couldn't move. foot stuck on the break as I watched her walk to a white chevy S-10 Blazer. as she opened the door she looked back over her shoulder, right at me, and smiled the most amazing smile I had ever seen. She had platinum hair in a short pixie cut, dressed like she was on her way to a concert.Perfect smile ,perfect everything. And her eyes were just...wow.
I watched her drive away and read the sticker on her back window as she left. "Sublime" which coincidentally described this moment.
I drove home with this fog in my head. I couldn't think of anything other than that smile. When i told Derek about her and he saw the look in my eye, he said "write a song about her" "But i don't know a damn thing about her Derek. What the f*** am I going to write?"
He looked up from the guitar he was re-stringing and said "call it 'The Girl in the Parking Lot"
It was stupid but I liked the idea. About 20 mins later the song was finished. If you heard it, you would say its a stupid, silly, pop punk excuse for a song. And to anyone other than myself I'm sure it was. But that song had a real moment attached to it and Id tell anyone who would listen about the girl in the parking lot.
I remember my friend Anthony from down the street had me play it for him. "Thats f***** beautiful man I'm serious"
I'll never forget how much he validated that song for me. In more ways than one.