How to Believe You’ve Become a Man: 18 in 83

Pops must’ve climbed into his van right after hanging up, because he was at my door within the hour. He didn’t bring the much-needed firearm, instead suggesting I flee and move in with him. It was obvious that getting the fuck away from that neighborhood, freebasing cocaine, and imminent threat was in my best interest. […]

How to Meet Super Famous People: 1982

Shortly after 1982’s first hangover subsided, Ma’s kind friend, Robin, let me have her super-cheap, street-level, one-bedroom apartment. Three days before my seventeenth birthday, I got my own pad to come and go as I pleased. The place was a block from Los Angeles City College, in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood littered with small, independently […]

How I Gained a Whole New Perspective in 1981

And so, back to the real world to witness years fly by from a seated position. Pops’ newest house had a pool in the backyard, which my therapists thought was great. By simultaneously providing buoyancy and resistance, pool therapy is the best exercise for gimp fucks like me. In theory, one could float, swim, goof […]