During my first year of college when I was eighteen, I went to live with my Grama Geri. Grampa Bill had died four years before, and ever since then Grama lived alone in her big four-bedroom ranch-style house, with its vaulted living room ceiling, chandeliered dining room, and golden shag carpeting.

A widow for four years, Grama now had a boyfriend whose name was Bill, just like my Grampa's. He was a multimillionaire, and came from Texas. I liked it when Bill came over, because whenever my Grama left the room, he'd gesture to me, and slip money into my palm. I'd smile with glee and shower him with hugs and pecks on the cheek, and he'd say, "shhh, don't tell your mother," meaning my grandmother. Now and again he'd slip me a hundred, but usually it was a fresh fifty, or maybe two. This earned him the (secret) nickname, "Fifty-Dollar Bill," which I called him to everyone but my Grama.

He had been married most his life to my Grama Geri's cousin Yvonne. The two couples, Bill and Geri, and Bill and Yvonne, used to hang out drinking martinis on low, angular brown sofas, and lie on the beach in Mexico together. I had seen the snapshots stuffed into gold tone metal frames, diffused with a thin greasy layer of dust, grouped on one wall in Grama's kitchen. If there were other things the four of them did together, it wasn't documented here. Yvonne had died of throat cancer a few years after Grampa Bill died of emphysema. All four had chain-smoked throughout the '50's and 60's, and Bill and Yvonne kept it up until each died of his or her smoking-related ailment; she in 1988, and Bill about ten years later. Grama tapered down to about three or four a day. Grampa quit when he developed emphysema in the '70's, but it killed him anyway.

All my life Grama had been like a second mother to me. To me, Grama Geri was like a fairy godmother from out of a wonderful tale, where she saves the Princess from her evil Stepmother, played for eighteen years in my case by a benign but bitterly moody mother. My comparatively sparkly and sweet-tempered Grama had cooed and purred over me all my life. Living with her was going to be a piece of cake because I knew I was her Golden Girl; I could do no wrong.

"You can have Grampa's room," Grama said. We went in together. Everything was perfectly tidy and organized, with his giant bed and dresser of dark wood just where they were when he was still alive. The room had a big sliding glass door onto the back yard, where a lovely olive tree Grampa had planted years ago stood on a raised knoll in the grass, surrounded by shrubs. I stood there a moment looking out, and went way back in my mind to summers when I used to visit, before Mom and David and I moved down here to southern California.

When Grampa was alive and healthy, he had grown strawberries all around the olive tree on the knoll. Atop the slope rising to the back neighbor's fence, Grampa had a row of grape vines which sunbathed on the south facing slope. Cappy and Babe, the two parakeets I kept as a young teen until each reached the end of its natural life, were now buried on the top of that slope, wrapped in aluminum foil. When Grampa was alive, giant stalks of Gladiolus stood every summer on the concrete porch, in terra cotta planters the size of Volkswagens; and along the edge of the mass of white and purple daisy ground cover, big coffee cans held stalks of tomato plants twist-tied to wooden stakes. Most of this was gone now, because he was. Now, surrealistically colorful plastic flower bunches poked perkily out of the dirt of the planters. "It looks so much nicer this way," Grama explained when I asked her about them. "When it was just dirt, it looked so cruddy. She wrinkled her nose at the memory. "Your grandfather," she said breathily, eyes open wide, emphatically pronouncing each word -- "Boy, he was a some gardener." She stood proudly with her fists on her hips, surveying the planters with their nearly fluorescent ersatz contents.

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The bedroom smelled musky and sweet, like my Grampa. It was a giant room, with a hallway leading to its own bathroom and walk-in closet. I filled his dresser and closet with my clothes, working around a few things of his which inexplicably remained: Neat stacks of white cotton t-shirts and underwear filed one drawer, and warm flannel long-sleeved shirts hung in the back of the closet -- the type of basic things a man might need, I thought to myself, if he found himself naked and penniless in a coffin, no longer dead, and found his way back home. I also found, leaning against one corner of the closet, a shotgun and two .22 rifles. Horrified at the idea of sharing a room with Grampa's hunting rifles, I made Grama take them away.

Every week Grama changed the sheets, making the bed for me the same way she made it for him, with an extra fold down at the feet for roominess. She opened my drapes in the morning, and closed them at night. She came in and cleaned the bathroom while I was at my junior college classes, and made us steak or roast ham or pork chops for dinner. Grama always had a glass or two of scotch while cooking dinner, just like when I used to stay over summers when I was a little girl. Grama had a couple of vices, but her vices were always very controlled: no more than four cigarettes a day, and a glass or two of scotch before dinner. Both were enjoyed with a kind of ritualistic discipline. These were balanced with the burden of always having to put her hair up in curlers every night before bed, which she did in the family room in front of the TV; and after which she would spend about ten minutes doing her "face exercises." Her last cigarette of the day was always in bed listening to AM radio, and I always worried that she'd set the bed on fire, and the whole house would go up. At least I had my big sliding glass door out which to escape.

Grama Geri, Mom's mother, had stepped in to help after Mom and Dad divorced, buying most of the clothes for us kids, and paying for our private educations. This had continued on well after we were all quite equipped to support ourselves, and it made life much nicer. Grama bought David a computer when he graduated from high school, and to be fair she gave me the cash equivalent, which I used to buy my first car. Whenever I needed gas money and Mom couldn't afford to help out, I could always call Grama for five or ten dollars. Calls to Grama reached extraordinary volume during my seventeenth year. She rarely told me No.

My first month or two living at Grama's was so luxurious. The house was large and quiet and I could do what I liked. She had a library of books including many literary classics, which I pilfered and read. She cooked all the meals I would let her. When I came home from my classes, I would sit in the black velvet chair in my room and read for hours. Grama would interrupt me on an hourly basis, popping in without knocking to check whether I needed anything, had enough light, and was warm enough.

"My precious love. Can you see what you're reading? Don't you want more light? Can I get you anything to eat? Don't you want to come into the family room?"

"Nope," I answered with increasing impatience. She asked me the same questions over and over.

"Hm," she said, looking down at me. She walked slowly back to the door and, touching the doorknob, looked back at me reading under the swing-arm lamp on the drafting table she had bought me. Sensing her still standing there, I raised my eyes to hers briefly. "Would you mind shutting the door?"

She chuckled, and stepped out, pulling the door behind her to about a ten inch gap, then walking away. Heaving a sigh, I plopped the book down open on the drafting table and charged over to the door, shutting it the rest of the way.

Often when we were eating breakfast at the kitchen table, I would read the newspaper, relishing the pleasure of both activities. Grama would always start conversations about the headlines while I was trying to read, and I would ignore her as long as I could before raising my eyes from the paper in frustration, sighing.

"These Mexicans," she said sharply, drawing out the "m" several seconds, "they just can't seem to stay in their own country."

I sighed.

I had been to Tijuana and I could understand why residents of northern Mexico, at least, would rather be here. Besides, much of the population of Southern California was Hispanic. A few of my boyfriends had either been born in Mexico, or were first generation Americans.

"They come here, and they don't even learn English," she muttered, continuing. I had seen the newsletters from Republican senators on her office desk, and knew she was a supporter of the English as the Official Language movement.

Over the last few months I had begun thinking what a bigoted racist she was. She had even philosophized to me over dinner once that black people weren't as smart as white people. Over my horrified objections, she explained that the lighter their skin was, generally the smarter they were. We argued over her stereotypes about people of every race and creed. She hated most of her neighbors, from the fat French Canadian to the family of the skinny Jewish girl I used to play with during the summer. She criticized most of my friends, as well; she didn't even like my other grandparents, and ridiculed them to me. I decided the only people in the world she liked were her own flesh and blood; and my Mom would contend that even that was pushing it.

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That first year in junior college I met my friend Tony. We were both graphic design students, and shared an obsession with Depeche Mode and alternative music. We'd go shopping together at night on Melrose Avenue, buying studded bracelets and black pointy-toed boots. These types of accessories were about as far as I had yet gone into Death Rock, as it was called; but I was deeply intrigued by the mysterious, cool fashion, razored haircuts, and creepy, dark music. Tony was bolder and cut his curly black hair into a short mohawk, and often wore bondage pants strung with straps and buckles, black army boots, and black eyeliner.

I felt that the main thing keeping my look too mainstream was my long, layered, wavy golden blonde hair. Tony and I talked about it a lot. He thought my hair was beautiful, even as "normal" as it was, and didn't think I should cut it. Everyone always commented on how beautiful my hair was, and I had long feared that whatever beauty I had was contained in those golden strands, and without them I might not be beautiful. Even Grama Geri used to stroke my hair, cooing, "My beautiful Granddaughter," as I squirmed embarrassedly; she had done it all my life. Increasingly, though, I didn't care if I was "beautiful" -- what I really wanted was to be exciting, exotic, extraordinary, special. I loved how Aimee Mann of the band 'Til Tuesday looked, with her puff of droopy white-blonde spikes, and yard-long braided tail. After finally winning Tony's support, I decided that was what I'd do. My hair wasn't long enough for a tail of that length, but I figured I could pull off twelve inches or so.

I made an appointment at an expensive, progressive salon in Los Angeles for one Thursday afternoon. Tony and I had a date to meet at his place at noon to drive to L.A. together. I wouldn't have to be out of bed until ten or so, and tended to sleep late anyway. So when an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter Scale hit around seven forty-five that morning, I was completely dead to the world.

I suddenly found myself sitting up in bed, yelling, "Grama! Grama! Graaa-ma!" The bed shook and the sliding glass door was making horrifying squeaking, creaking noises. I looked over and saw that the reflections on the surface of the glass door were pulsing and bulging as the glass twisted in its aluminum frame. Frozen in place and hyperventilating, I shouted again, just as Grama Geri came bounding into the room. She rushed to the bed and hugged me tight, and I squeezed my face into her cold-cream-scented neck until the shaking and noises subsided back into peaceful early morning sunshine. We let go of each other, and for a minute I sat there looking at her, realizing that with no concern for herself, she had run into my room because I was calling for her.

"Thank you for coming when I called you," I said, still shaken.

"Well, of course, Sweetheart," she replied with a surprised frown. "I would always come if you called for me." I hugged her again, and got out of bed for an early breakfast.

Tony and I went to the salon in L.A. and I got the haircut I wanted: bleached white-blonde, short and slightly spiky, coming to a neatly-shorn "V" in the back. Below that, a slender braid several inches long began, coming down over one shoulder and ending past my collar bone in an invisible rubber band. I didn't feel insecure or ugly like I had feared, in the least. I felt edgy, mysterious, and sexy. Tony was instantly in love with it. On the way home we stopped by the mall in Thousand Oaks to pick up a leather motorcycle jacket I had ordered. Flinging it over one shoulder, I walked back through the mall with Tony. I was tingling from head to toe with excitement over my new look. Someone called to me, "Aimee Man!", and I turned to look with a huge grin on my face.

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I walked into the house and went straight into my room.

"Hi Sweetheart," Grama Geri called after me, "what do you want for dinner?"

"Nothing," I yelled from my room.

"What? You have to eat something." I could hear her voice approaching.

"I ate with Tony, I'm fine," I insisted, hoping to satisfy her. But she was coming down the hall now.

She walked into my room. I was in the walk-in closet, digging for clothes cool enough to go with my new haircut. She came over to the closet and looked at me. I stopped rearranging hangers, and looked back at her. We stood there for a minute.

I thought, if she isn't screeching at me, maybe she likes the haircut. She inhaled slowly.

"Oy," she finally sighed, and she turned and walked out.

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For the last two years I had been driving a small, ten-year-old, pumpkin-yellow Datsun King Cab pickup truck, which I called Fido because it was such a doggy-looking thing. About a year earlier, Fido had been rear-ended by another pickup truck when fast-moving traffic had suddenly come to a stop in front of me. The impact threw my body backwards, belted into the bucket seat; and the weight and perpetual motion ripped out the front bolts holding the seat to the floor. My head flew back and broke through the rear window, my skull denting the bottom edge of the steel window frame. The impact also pushed my truck into the back of the car in front of me. My neck and back were injured moderately, but the major damage was to my truck. The hood was bent in and wouldn't close, one headlight was crushed and turned out to the side, and the tailgate was creased down the middle, folded like a partially-open book.

I eventually did all I could afford to make old Fido driveable again, but very little was done to it cosmetically. It was still the color of baby shit, but now it was also generally very tweaked; the hood was held shut with twine and there was still no back window. I laughed at myself for having thought, before the accident,that Fido couldn't be any uglier. Every day I parked it in front of Grama's house, and there it sat alone in the sun, on a tidy cul-de-sac with neat rectangular lawns. Most other cars in the neighborhood were tucked away inside their respective garages, in a civilized fashion. Poor Fido looked like it dropped there from outer space; or at the very least was constantly visiting from some deeply unpalatable neighborhood.

I was over at my friend Amber's house one evening, when her poet-musician boyfriend Kevin got the idea that we should cover Fido with art and graffiti, turning it from a tweaked pile of bent sheet metal into an artpiece. I thought that sounded grand. We pulled it up onto Amber's mother's lawn and proceeded to paint it. Kevin used blue paint to write his favorite song lyrics up one side and down the other: "if only blue could comfort you." Seemed obscure enough, kind of mysterious and literary. At least nobody will know what it means, and that's a good thing; I certainly didn't. I just liked the sound of it. On each door I painted a big Love & Rockets logo, my favorite band at the time. Amber used silver and white to make stars and moons on the roof, hood, and tailgate. It was kind of a mess, but it did seem like art now, or a pretty good facsimile thereof. Certainly now it had character.

The next morning, Grama went out to the driveway to get the newspaper. I was eating cereal at the kitchen table.

"What did you do to your car!" she screeched as she charged back through the front door.

"Painted it," I replied casually.

"Why on earth would you do such a thing?" she gasped, fists on hips, leaning forward. I stopped eating and looked up from the paper. "Amber and her boyfriend did it with me. It's cool! You just don't like it because it's not all white-bread and..." -- I searched for the right word -- "acceptable."

"Susan, for crying out loud. You can't park that outside this house! You park that down the hill on Del Manzano."

"I am not going to park two blocks away and walk in the dark late at night when I get home from work. Someone could attack me or something. Do you want that?" She was seething, but silent.

I went back to reading. She's so pathetically bourgois, I thought. She cares much more for looks than for substance. It really matters so much, doesn't it, what my car looks like. Oh! What will the neighbors think. As if she even likes them anyway!

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I had become a regular at Xenon West, the local alternative nightclub which played the music I liked on Wednesday nights: Love & Rockets, The Cure, Ministry, Specimen, Skinny Puppy, Bauhaus. There, I made friends with numerous other freaks, who were mostly younger than my 19 years. One such friend was called Deaf Jeff, who was, it turns out, deaf. We were just friends, but I found him very sweet and kind of intriguing. He carried around a little pad of paper and a pencil which he used to communicate. He told me he could feel the music's rhythm, and regardless of the fact that Death Rock's rhythm wasn't all that different from that of other types of music, he loved the scene, loved to dance, and dressed the part.

Tony and I weren't hanging out anymore. He had announced that he was in love with me, and issued me an ultimatum to be his girlfriend or never see him again. After a couple of attempts at romance with him, I had to admit I wasn't attracted to him that way, and chose the latter. So Jeff became my new playmate, and we started going down to Melrose together shopping for clothes and music. We got stopped together once by a professional photographer looking for weirdos to shoot. Embarrassed, I said no way -- but Jeff made me agree to do it, so I sighed and paced impatiently in an alley behind our favorite shop while the guy dragged his 8x10 camera out of his car. He mailed me one of the resulting photos of myself, hand-printed beautifully on 11x14 fiber-based paper and included with an invitation to his art opening, which I did not attend. It's still one of my favorite photos of myself.

I may have been in my first year of college, but Jeff was just a senior in high school. I burst out laughing when he invited me to his high school prom, but composed myself and said "yes" after Jeff scribbled how we'd go all decked out in our finest freaky fashion; and anyway, he didn't have a girlfriend to go with him.

I needed a prom dress, but I hadn't the money to buy one. Grama was charmed by the handsome (and quiet) Jeff, and gave me $100 to buy a dress and boots with. Knowing my choices were limited with that kind of money, I headed to Hollywood.

I found an excellent pair of black pointy ankle boots with silver buckles up the sides for $50, and a pair of fishnets and black gloves for another $10. Then after searching store after store, I finally found the perfect dress. It was black crushed velvet with a strapless fitted bodice and a a short skirt, with several layers of different lengths of black netting falling from the hip. It was $40 exactly. I planned to rip up the netted skirt and add more pieces, but with the black gloves, boots, and fishnets, I thought I had the perfect outfit.

I carried my treasures about a mile back to where I'd parked my truck, almost amazed to even find it again as I'd walked so far that afternoon searching the shops. I opened the door, threw my purchases behind the passenger seat, and jumped in. As I fastened my seat belt, I glanced over at the bags I had just thrown onto the floor. There seemed to be fewer than there should be. I moved the one on top, which had the boots in it. Underneath were two smaller bags, one with the fishnets I'd bought, and one with the gloves. I did not see the bag with the dress in it.

I frantically undid my seat belt and felt under the passenger seat. I looked behind my own seat, between the seats. It had to be there! But the dress was gone. I had no more money and no dress, and worse, my Grama had given me this money. I had to find the dress. Had it fallen from my hands as I carried my purchases back to the car? Did I stop anyplace and put it down? My mind was crawling with every image, every action since buying the dress. I couldn't think of anyplace it could be.

I grabbed the other bags from the truck, which still had no back window, and retraced my steps back to the store where I bought the dress. I asked the salesladies if I'd left it there, but they said no. They looked very sorry for me, as my anxiety was clearly growing, but there was nothing they could do. They did tell me there was one more dress there like the one I bought, in the same size; but I dreaded the idea of telling my Grama I had lost the first dress, and I was sure she would never give me money for another one. "This is just like you," I knew she'd say. "You'd lose your head if it weren't attached."

Depressed and brimming with tears, I walked back to the truck with my remaining purchases and drove home. I tried to think of what I would say to her.

I walked in the front door and shut it behind me.

"Did you get it?"

"Well..." I said.

She came over to the tiled entry where I was standing. I showed her the boots.

"Where's the dress?"

I sighed, furrowed my brow, and began telling her the story. I told her I bought the dress, and it was only $40. I told her I walked back to the truck, and discovered the dress had vanished. I told her of searching for it in the truck and retracing my steps, and returning to the shop. I told her I had no idea what happened to it, and now I had neither a dress, nor her $40.

She started yelling at me. "How can you just not know what happened to it? You may have some strange ideas, and do weird things, but this takes the cake! How can it just disappear? This could only happen to you! I've never left a store and then just lost the thing I bought. My god, Susan!"

Filled to overflowing with guilt and indignation and disappointment, I lunged at her. I towered over her as I began screaming into her face that I had searched for it, I looked and looked! Spit flew from between my teeth, and she backed into the corner. I raised my arms and screamed louder that I felt bad enough without her accusations, and above all, I spent the $40 she gave me, and then lost the dress, and I felt so terrible, and here she yelled at me and made me feel worse. Finally I burst into tears and ran into my room, leaving her recoiling, horrified.

After five or ten minutes, my bedroom door opened and Grama Geri crept in. I was face down on my bed sobbing. She sat on the edge of the bed.

"Sweetie," she said.

I didn't move.

"I'm sorry about the dress."

I sniffed and turned over. "I'm sorry I lost it too... but I'm mostly sorry I lost your $40, Grama." I started crying again. "I feel like I want to die." I was genuinely depressed over the screaming argument, and the careless loss of her gift.

She gave me a hug, and then set $40 down on my nightstand.

"Oh, Grama..."

She left for a second, and came back with a glass of water. She held out her hand and gave me a little white capsule.

"I've never seen you so upset! This is just a sleeping pill. You'll feel a lot better after you've had some rest."

Wow, she gave me money and then medicated me. What a woman! I wasn't one to take any sort of drugs normally, but this was an exception. I thanked her, genuinely, for everything. I took the sleeping pill and went to bed.

The other dress was still at the shop the next day, and I got a parking place right out front.

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My new boyfriend Jason, a self-described "straight edge punk rock skater vegetarian socialist," was a frequent customer at the record store where I worked. He had dreadlocks and didn't shave; at 16, three years my junior, he only had peachy facial fuzz anyway. He was a poet and political activist, and sang and played guitar in a punk band. He was tall, intelligent, charming, and a complete crack-up; but was, admittedly, a little goofy, lurching around in front of the counter telling strings of hilarious and improbable stories. His young age came as a bit of a shock to me, but in light of his wit and intelligence, it didn't seem like a deterrent to getting to know him better.

His poetry focused on social injustice, hypocrisy, alienation, and abuse of power. His writing style was elegant and objective, but passionate. His political views were emotionally charged, but also seemed forged from education and deep consideration. It seemed impossible to me that he could be just 16. We spent hours together, sitting in my parked truck or one of our bedrooms -- his, only when his parents, who didn't approve of me, were away; and mine, only when I could sneak him past Grama Geri without her commenting -- talking about all of our views and ideas. At some point I became convinced that Socialism was the only responsible kind of government, when one considered the manifold ills of capitalism, and vegetarianism was the only appropriate diet, when one considered the inhumanity and the waste of resources. These two things opened a previously unimaginable ideological chasm between Grama Geri and myself. We argued constantly about politics, I wouldn't eat what she cooked anymore, and I was always out with "That Jason."

I learned the bass guitar and played in his band. I dyed my hair fuchsia. I was starting to dig thrash and hard core, kind of; my record collection became interspersed with Bad Brains, Social Distortion, Dead Kennedys, DRI and Subhumans.

I also decorated my bedroom, making it "mine" instead of Grampa Bill's. I found swaths of sparkly fabric, shredded strips of iridescent cellophane, and hung these in sheer walls and kelp-forest configurations from the ceiling. I tacked band posters, letters from friends, funny things cut out of magazines, Jason's poems, and my own drawings onto the walls. I strung multicolor strands of ribbon from corner to corner like birthday decorations. I installed black lights and bought candles and incense. I called my new creation, "The Dendrite Awareness Facility." The name was on the door, spelled out with randomized letters X-acto-Knifed from a People Magazine.

This was now my haven, where I would bring friends over and play cd's. If Grama didn't like them, the friends were snuck in and out the sliding glass door, through the back yard. As long as I was there, the door was shut and incense was lit.

Grama Geri stopped coming in altogether.

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After almost a year of this, I decided I wanted to move to Santa Cruz. Jason and I had broken up and gotten back together a few times, and with greater insight into his turbulent (and often inappropriate) emotions, I no longer thought it impossible he was only 16. I had met someone else, a philosophy student at UC Santa Cruz, originally from Ojai and home for the summer. He was taking a photography class at my college, and we started hanging around after class together together, talking about literature and philosophy. I was his rapt student as he told me his insights; he laughed at my sarcastic comments. I decided to join him when he moved back to Santa Cruz that fall.

Grama was overjoyed that I was moving out. She waved merrily as I pulled away from the house, the bed of my truck brimming over with my belongings covered with blue tarp and rope.

I came back four months later, dissatisfied with Santa Cruz and the relationship. She glumly accepted me back into my old room; god knows why. My mom had moved into a small apartment and there was no place else to go. Grama had a sense of obligation, and, perhaps, a glimmer of the little girl I had once been still in her memory.

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I enrolled in my third year at the junior college. Grama began asking me more and more often what my plans were after this year was up.

"I told you, I'm applying to Cal State Long Beach. You've always said you'd pay for my college, right?" She seemed pleased, but asked me again whenever she thought of it. Had I applied yet? Had I heard from them? In fact, after the end of that school year and well into summer classes, I still hadn't heard a word from the University about my application. Meanwhile, I was finishing all my foundation courses and was moving on to every other course of study I'd ever felt interest in, besides completing my graphic design curriculum and working my way through the photography and fine art programs.

I was having trouble with Fido, too. The damage to the truck from the accident two years before was making it difficult to keep it in legal operating condition, especially the headlight which pointed up and out to one side. Its socket was destroyed, and there was no reliable way to keep the bulb angled correctly. Also, the truck no longer had registration tags. While tooling down a highway toward the beach one evening, enjoying a spectacular sunset, something in the rear-view mirror caught my eye, cartwheeling down the road behind me. Only after returning home did I discover it was the rear licence place, which had apparently been loosening and never discovered. In order to have it replaced, the truck had to pass certain inspections, requiring expensive repairs. It took me a while to get the money together for the repairs, and over this period the registration expired. That on top of the missing plate made old spray-painted Fido and his pink-haired operator quite the moving target there in conservative, Christian, suburban Camarillo.

I was pulled over constantly, and ticketed most of the time for being unregistered and having no back plate. Now paying the tickets was taking even more money which I didn't have to pay for repairs to start with. I rationalized that I couldn't stop driving it, since I was working part-time and going to school five days a week. One of the registration tickets went unpaid, and unbeknownst to me, a warrant was issued for my arrest. This is a town where there are no other criminals to speak of, and failing to properly register your beat-up, spraypainted pickup is cause for great consternation.

One evening, Grama and I were watching tv together in the family room. She sat up on her sofa, putting her hair up in curlers. I was recovering from a mild case of walking pneumonia, for which I was on strong antibiotics, and was lying comfortably on the other couch, having already finished my homework.

The phone rang, and I answered it. "Is this Susan Johnson?" the male voice asked.

"No," I corrected him, "this is Susan Jennings."

"Okay," he replied. "Sorry to bother you."

I hung up and went back to the couch.

An hour later, the doorbell rang. I answered it. There stood two young men in jeans and black t-shirts.

"Yeah?"

"You Susan Jennings?"

I squinted. They didn't look at all familiar. "Yeah?"

"We have a warrant for your arrest, ma'am."

"What?" I shouted. They must be joking. They didn't have on uniforms.

"No joke, ma'am. Outstanding ticket for automobile registration." They held out badges.

"And they arrest people for that? That's crazy! What about thieves and rapists and drug dealers?"

"We need to read you your rights, ma'am."

Grama came to the door, and they repeated the information to her.

"Well can't I just pay bail? You can't take her to jail, that's crazy."

"You can pay bail down at the station, ma'am. We have to arrest her and take her to the county jail in Ventura. If you wish to post bail you'll have to come do that afterwards."

I looked at her apologetically, but I could see she was furious at them, not at me.

"This is ridiculous," she frowned.

"But you'll come pay bail?" I asked anxiously. I was starting to freak out a little.

"You bet I will. I'll be right behind you." Her determination was comforting.

"Ahh, ma'am," the officer interrupted, "actually you can't follow us there. If you're in an accident along the way we can be held liable. You have to wait at least fifteen minutes before leaving the house.

Grama and I looked at each other with shared mockery of such a stupid rule.

"Okay," I said finally. "Let me get my jacket."

When I stepped onto the porch, they read my my rights and handcuffed me. I was overwhelmed with humiliation at being handcuffed; I wasn't exactly dangerous, just a regular, harmless pink-haired junior college student.

At the county jail, I was searched and my scuffed boots were taken away, but nothing else. I was fingerprinted and put into a holding cell with five or six Latinas inside. They were all chatting, recounting the exciting story of the chase leading to their arrest, which involved back yards and chain link fences. I sat down on a bench to wait for my Grama. I did not belong here.

The girls finished talking and turned their attention to me. "What are you in for?" one of them asked.

"Not paying my car registration," I answered sheepishly but with some anger.

"Wow!" They all said in unison. They looked amazed.

"They lock you up for that shit?" another girl asked.

"In Camarillo, they do," I said, making a face.

"Wow," she repeated, more quietly. It was like, in this particular jail, being arrested for a stupid reason was the way to earn respect, or at least sympathy. "Man, that sucks."

Okay, I began to relax a little. The cell was clean and brightly lit, and apparently I wasn't going to be beat up. I started looking around, wishing Grama would show up.

Grama paid bail and the ticket, so that was the end of it. I don't remember the drive home... I just remember feeling overjoyed to return to my own room, and get into my own bed. And feeling grateful to Grama for keeping her cool and being there for me, just like with the earthquake.

--------

Autumn came and no word from the University. I couldn't believe they wouldn't have accepted me; my grades were exemplary, and I'd be transferring as a junior, with foundation completed and lots of extra units. I enrolled for another superfluous semester at Ventura College. I had become teacher's pet in several of my art classes and my photography class, partly due to familiarity. I admit the longer I stayed, the harder it was to leave.

But I finally did have to call the University and find out what was going on. I spent half a day on hold, transferred from office to office and person to person. Finally I got an admissions worker who knew who I was and had seen my application.

"Susan Jennings. Graphic Design program, transfer from junior college, right?"

"That's me," I said hopefully.

"You were accepted last fall. You were accepted but there are no records that you replied to your acceptance letter."

"What acceptance letter?" I had seen no such thing, and believe me, I was looking.

"We sent you an acceptance letter last Summer. Why didn't your reply?"

"I never got an acceptance letter! If I had gotten an acceptance letter I would have gone!" I was getting very annoyed.

"Well," she said, helpfully, "we sent you one."

So that was that year, wasted waiting for the acceptance letter that was lost in the mail. I was angry at myself for not calling sooner, but I hate dealing with office people. I just wanted the damn letter to come, and I'd pack and and move down to Long Beach.

Grama, who had mostly kept her patience up to now, was starting to crack. She became constantly irritable, and it became clear to me that she wanted Fifty-Dollar Bill to move in, into my room. This was understandable, but there was only so much I could do. I would have to reapply to the University, and it was too late for spring semester. I'd be out of there by fall at the earliest. We clashed frequently. She hated my clothes, and most of all, hated my hair, which was purple now. Every now and again, she'd look at me long and hard, with a look on her face like she'd just smelled a fart. Sometimes she'd even take a strand of purple hair up for a minute and examine it, dropping it in disgust.

"Why do you...?" she'd begin to ask slowly. I'd smile at her. "Oh... never mind," she'd turn away, exasperated for the millionth time. I don't know why she even brought it up anymore.

By now, whatever had been my gripes about living with my mom had been forgotten. I couldn't imagine that life with her could have been any worse than life with Grama. Whatever was the problem, it certainly wasn't me. Certainly, moving out of her house was the best thing that ever happened to my relationship with my mom. She invited me to stay at her apartment some weekends, and we'd stay up late watching movies, then lay in bed together talking about stuff.

One night we rented The Color Purple, which left us both sobbing into Kleenexes. We washed our faces, hugged and kissed goodnight, and went to bed. Somehow we started talking about our relationship, and Mom started crying.

"Do you think I was a bad mother?"

"No! No, Mom. You did the best you could." My heart was breaking at the thought that she could blame herself for any of my troubles as a teenager... depression, nihilism, self-hatred. Maybe if Dad hadn't left? Who knows.

"I hope I wasn't a bad mother," she said again, swallowing tears.

"You were the best mother in the world," I said.

--------

Summer was upon us again, and although I had reapplied to Long Beach State, again I had not heard back from them. This time I did not hesitate before calling; I still had my notes from last time and even asked for the Admissions lady by name.

"We sent your acceptance letter two months ago, says here."

"What!" I could not believe this could happen twice.

"Are you coming?" she asked.

"Yes! Yes, for crying out loud, I'm coming. Can I accept over the phone?"

"No, I'll have to send you another acceptance letter. There's a form for you to send back, but do it right away."

"Yeah," I said sarcastically. "If you could actually send it to me, I promise I'll actually fill it out and send it back." She was utterly unfazed.

The news was received with great joy by Grama Geri. And sure enough, the second acceptance letter came, which was received by whoops of joy by all.

This left me less than four weeks to find an apartment in Long Beach, move, and get my classes. Most students had already chosen their classes, so it was going to be slim pickins for me. After two reconnaissance trips to Long Beach and several phone calls, I scored a second-floor studio apartment in a cute beachside neighborhood. I packed up the Dendrite Awareness Facility once again, this time for good.

I looked around at the room, now emptied of all my things and containing only the mirrored dresser and chair that had been there when I came. After my three year tenancy, Grampa's tidy, serene room was very changed. The walls were scratched and covered with tack and nail holes, and the areas around where the edges of where posters had been were dirty and discolored. The ceiling was brown from candle smoke in one area. Grampa's stereo, which I had been using, had both speakers blown. The grout in the shower was stained pink. Threads I couldn't reach, or hadn't bothered to, hung here and there from the cottage cheese ceiling.

I looked out at the lovely olive tree, still there outside the sliding glass door, just like when I came. Grama and I had no idea what was in store for us that day she showed me to my room. Our relationship had changed -- deepened, but soured. We had adored each other as grandmother and granddaughter; but as two adults, we were so different from each other that there seemed to be no compromise, only outburst and silence. I hated her bigotry and self-righteousness. Even her stylish clothes, her strappy high-heeled sandals, and her sparkly princess jewelry seemed stupid and trashy to me now. I had switched to a more flowing Gothic look, and standing there in my black lace and silk skirt, gauzy tank top, and blue Doc Marten's, I couldn't imagine myself ever being anything like her. Though, she had given me a black rabbit-fur collar jacket of hers from the '50's, and a bunch of silver rings which I wore all the time.

I grabbed my backpack and headed out. Grama was in the kitchen.

"Are you going?"

"Yep."

"Well, you take care, Sweetheart," she said. "I love you. Call if you need anything."

"Okay," I said, hugging her. I can't remember if I thanked her for letting me live there for three years. Even then, after everything we'd been through, I still felt comforted by the smell of her perfume when we hugged; and she still called me Sweetheart.

I jumped into the blue Chevette my dad had given me to replace Fido, which I'd sold for fifty bucks. Camarillo, with its stupid police force, perfect lawns, and closed minds, and Grama Geri, soon disappeared behind me.

<        to be continued...

who, me?