Start from the beginning? You want my whole fucking life story? Man… Okay, fine, but don't go thinkin' I'm some kinda bleeding heart out for your sympathy or some shit. You asked, I'm gonna tell it like it is. So sit down and don't interrupt me, aight?
I grew up in Peoria, Illinois, which is famous for fuck all. They got corn, old Polish people, and Lutherans out the ass. You would NOT believe. Church on every damn corner. My parents were lifelong members of the Cult of the Dead Dude Nailed To A Board, and spent many years trying to brainwash me into it. Problem was, even as a brat I asked too many questions. Those types don't like it when you ask questions, dig? They're all about dogma and blind faith. So I never really fit in.
My formative years were spent fighting with the 'rents about their "good christian principles" and how I wasn't following them to the fucking letter, punctuated by the weekly Sunday morning screaming match over wether or not I was going to church. They always won, but I got 'em back by embarrassing 'em in front of the congregation by piping up during the sermon with sacreligious outcries like "But, why?" You can imagine, I'm sure, how well this endeared me to the church.
I went to school like a good little girl, though, and ended up running into the same deal with the teachers. Let me tell you, the history they teach in public schools is bullshit, and teachers don't like it when you point that out. I had great grades up through middle school, but more than my fair share of detentions. Wasted plenty of Saturdays that way.
Then, somewhere in the early days of highschool, I stopped caring as much. I don't mean to say that I caved to their preconceived notions of how a teenage girl should act. What I mean is that I stopped trying so hard to please, stopped playing in their little puppet show. My attendance went through the floor, my grades were a wreck, and my parents got to know the school faculty a lot better than they would have like. Instead of sitting in class, I'd be hanging out in the park with a joint and a long-dead Greek philosopher. Or Nietsche, that boy was a hoot. Started givin' myself a real education, see, not their useless Standardized Curiculum Cookie-cutter. That noise just wasn't my scene.
Eventually, I fell in with my kinda people. You know, the "bad influences" and "hoodlums" that drink in the park at night? Those guys. We had a lotta common interests, like not giving a shit. My mom 'bout had kittens the day Jonesy and I found a pack of needles while we were smashed and I came home with a ring in my lip. Got grounded for a month, and she made me take the stupid thing out.
Hold on, 'fore I go any further, I gotta back up a little. When I was thirteen— or was I fourteen? Nah, I think thirteen was right. Anyway, around that time, my grampa gets me this polaroid camera for my birthday. Y'know, the old clunkers that print the picture out right then and there. Fell in love with the damn thing, started takin' pictures of everything. It was the one thing my parents approved of, me havin' a decent hobby, but the didn't always like the things I took pictures of, or the comentary I made on 'em. Earned a few more groundings along the way, but it was worth it.
I was sixteen when I learned that my attitude wasn't the only thing different about me. About two months before the Bomb, I'd been grounded (yet again) for staying out past curfew, and then the ensuing fight with my parents wherein I threw a shoe at my dad and broke a lamp. So I was in my room, breaking more things as a teenager is apt to do, wishing I could be anywhere else but in that fucking house. I threw a stack of polaroids at the door, then kicked it and it swung open, right into Jonesy's bedroom. You can imagine that we were both sorta taken aback by this turn of events.
Well, after the Bomb, and the business with Dicta- I mean President Petrelli going public with the so-called Evolved, I learned I wasn't so special after all. Big whoop. I'd been practicing with it for a while, but I could only really get it to work when I was pissed or something. Emotional arrousal, y'know. About a year later, my parents caught me at it, figured out what was going on. Let me tell you, that was NOT in the plan.
So being the good Christians that they are, they decided that they needed to have me exorcised, and if that didn't work, registered as per the Linderman Act. Fuck. That. Noise. Obviously, I bugged outta there as quick as I could. Packed what I could fit in a backpack, grabbed my camera and my dad's stash of cash from his sock drawer, and disappeared into the night like some kinda heroin in a drama.
I didn't have a game plan at that point, just knew I had to get the fuck out of Dodge. So I bummed around a friend's place for a couple'a days, hiding from her parents and mine both, but once the cops got involved, I had to get movin' again. First place I could thnk of was New York City, where all the action was going down. So I put on a miniskirt and put my thumb to work on the highway.
Been a little over a year, now, I been in the Big Apple. Classic gutterpunk, livin' in a wrecked theatre near Ground Zero-Two. Not a cinema, but the old kind with an actual stage and shit. It's pretty rad. I steal to eat, or make cash doin' odd stuff here and there. I got a friend sells prints of some of my photos online, I get a check every now and then. Did a stint with some magazine, but they paid me half what we agreed on and tried to have me arrested when I broke the asshole's nose. Good thing I can run faster than the cops.
It's hard out here for a punk, but I make it from one day to the next, doin' what I have to (which is mostly illegal). Gotten pretty damn good at dodging the authorities, made some good contacts in the shadier parts of town, and made my mark on the city here and there. Maybe someday the Man'll get the message, but us little guys gotta stick together, ya hear?
Are we done, now? 'Cause I really need to go have a smoke.
