The other problem I had was that I was falling in love with my best friend, Gretchen, who I thought the rest of the world considered fat. We were in her crappy car and singing, and at the end of the song "White Riot," the one by the Clash, i realized by the way i was watching her mouth pucker and smile and her eyes blink and wink, we were way more than friends, at least to me. I looked over at Gretchen driving and she was starting to sing the next song, "Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?" b the Clash again, and I said, "I love driving around with you, Gretchen," but because the radio was so loud all she could do was see my mouth move.

It was a Tuesday around four in the afternoon, the first semester of our junior year in high school, and neither one of us had anything to do, because Gretchen had just recently neen fired from the Cinanbon at the mall for flipping off a female customer when she asked for more icing, and I wasn't allowed to work because my mother was very overprotective of me and insisted that I only focus on studying. I yelled something to Gretchen again and she nodded at me and then turned her head back to drive and kept on singing and I guess I looked over at her, at her short blondish-pink hair--some dyed brighter pik than the rest--and I watched the way her mouth moved again and I noticed she idn't ever wear lipstick and it as one of the reasons I think I liked her; and also I smiled at how she was holding her small white hands on the steering wheel very seriously. I also looked at her breasts; I looked at them and they were big, very big, more than I knew what to do with, and I guess the truth of the matter was they were big becasue she was fat, and it didn't matter to me then, not the way it would have were I hanging out with any of the guys.

Worse than that, she was known for kicking other girls' asses on a regular basis, which wasn't very cool.

Also, well, also Gretchen wasn't the most feminine girl in the world, sincerely. She swore a lot and only listened to punk, like the Misfits and the Ramones and the Descendents, especially when we were in the car, because although it had a decent stereo for a Ford Escort, there was a tape that had been stuck in the cassette player for about a year now and most of the time that was all it would play, and you had to jab the tape with a pen or nail file to get it to start and the tape was the same handpicked mix Grethen had thought was cool a year ago, which according to the labe on the tape waswhat she had called White Protest Rock, version II.

Gretchen's mix-tapes, her music choices, were like these songs that seemed to be all about our lives, but in small random ways made sense on almost any occasion. Like "Should I Stay or Should I Go nNow?" Maybe it means I should tell Grechen how I was feeling. Or maybe it meant I should just go home. TO me, the tapes were what made me like her, then love her so much: the fact that in between the Misfits and the Specials, she would have a song from the Mamas and the Papas, "Dream a Little Dream of Me" or something like that. Those mix-tapes were the secret soundtrack to how I was feeling or what I thought about almost everything.

So, the thing of it was, the Homecoming Dance was like in three weeks and I hadn't asked anyone and I wanted to ask Gretchen, but I hadn't for good reasons: one, I didn't want her to know i liked-her-liked-herl two, I knew she liked Tony Degan, this white power dude; and also--and this is the worst thing so I hate to admit it--but well, I didn't want the photographs. You know how they make you take your picture and everything? I didn't want photographs of me at Homecoming with a fat girl so that in fifty ears I'd have to be reminded of what a loser I was because, well, I hoped things in the future were going to change for me.

"Do you want to go get something to eat?" Gretchen asked. "I am fucking starving, because I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm a big fat cow."

"Whatever," I said, turning the radio down so we could talk. "Where do you want to go eat? Haunted Trails?"

Haunted Trails was on E 79th steet, this monter-movie-themed minature golf course and video arcade, really the only place we or any of the other stoners and punks hung out. "No, wait, forget it," she said. "All those kids'll be there and I look so gross. I'm supposed to be on this diet where I only eat white foods, it's like racist or something. Seriously, I am disgusted with myself, you know? I practially am a boy. Look at me. I practically have chest hair. I could joint he football team or osmething."

"Shut up," I said. "You just said that so I'd say how you look Ok, so I'm not even saying it."

"Oh, you figured me out, douchebag. No, i mean it, look at me: I'm practically a boy; i practically have a dick." And as she slowed the crappy blue Escort to a stop at the next light, she bunhed the front of her jeans up so it looked like she had an erection. "Look! look my god, i have a boner! I've got blue balls! Oh! They hurt, I need help! Give me some poon, hurrt, come on! Lets go rape some cheerleaders. Oh G-d! They hurt!"

I laughed and looked away.

"Hey, did I tell you I'm in love with Tony Degan again?"

"What? Why don't you forget him. He's like fucking twenty-six. And a white power asshole. And, I dunno, that should be enough"

"I'm not really in love with him. I'd just like for him to totally devirginize me."

"What?"

"You know, just have some meathead who doesn't give a shit about you, just get it over with, you know, so you wouldn't have to talk to him eer again? That way , it wouldn't be uncomfortable afterwards."

"Yea, I could see how being like raped by some white power dude wouldn't be uncomfortable"

"Exactly. That's why you're like my best girlfriend."

"Gretchen, you know I'm not a girl right?"

"I know, but if i think of you as a guy, then I have to worry about what I eat in front of you."

"But I don't care how you look," I said, and I knew I was lying.