Amy
What are they looking at? You don’t think I don’t know what they’re thinking? They’re jealous, that’s all.
Colin
I’m doing all right.
Supervisor
I’m worried about you.
Martha
Where are you, Colin?
Amy
Cut it out, you two. Can’t you get along?
Colin
Easy…easy! We don’t need this from you. Not after yesterday. No!
Martha
Colin.
Amy
Here we go. You can’t lay a finger one me, and you know it. You can’t touch me. There’s no way you can. I’ll call CPS. Child Protective Service. Then protect me. Come after me, as I slipped away with my butcher knife. I’m adrift, your wayward child. No guidance. No map. Alone. In a hospital. No, not in jail. In a hospital. Adrift in a hospital on life support. No, I’m not crazy. Everybody else is. In a hospital and not in jail where I should be. Think before you act! Think. To think! To think? Think about what you did. It’s not as much about what I did as what I didn’t do. I didn’t burn the school down. I set a little fire in a restroom and tried to stomp it out. Lit a few paper towels with my lighter and didn’t expect it to amount to much. Then it grew! And grew!
(Pause)
I should’ve known better. Adrift! Where were my parents? Where were they while I was adrift! I didn’t hurt anyone! For a long time I thought about hurting someone. There is this particular group of kids. They don’t like me. They won’t leave me alone. They don’t like the way I dress, so they pick on me. They call me names, fag and stuff. Fag! Queer! Okay, they did. They do. And I tried not to react. Dad told me not to react and said if I didn’t react they’d stop, but they didn’t. Fag! Queer! Okay, maybe I am funny…maybe a little, a little, you know, weird. I certainly don’t mind being a little weird, a little different, but I’m not a faggot or a queer. Okay, I like to dress like a boy and in overalls. Okay, I defied the dress code, hoping… Well, mom came to school for a conference. They wouldn’t stop and the school wouldn’t really do anything. Where was my dad? Where was CPS? I wanted them to call CPS? And all the kids treated me like poison ivy, and they called me faggot and the school wouldn’t do anything to them. Then?
(Pause)
At least I didn’t kill anybody. Okay, I thought about it. I could’ve. I hid a butcher knife under my clothing…tied it to my thigh and came to school with it hidden there. I skipped homeroom. I went to the restroom, thinking I’d catch one of the girls in there. They all go in there and primp and talk about boys, and I thought I’d hide in one of the stalls until one of them was there alone. But instead I set a fire. Setting a fire was a big mistake, and the reason I got caught. At least I didn’t hurt myself. Okay. Sometimes I cut myself. That’s why I wear long sleeves. And I knew after I got caught that they were required by law to call CPS. You see my dad is CPS. And me and CPS don’t get along. That’s it.
Colin
“Fourteen and a mother, you probably deserved a licking.” I never told her that, but I thought it. It could’ve been Amy, but Amy is more mature than that. These day kids grow up too fast. As she pointed to her infant, she asked me, “Do you think she’ll turn into a sassy-ass flirt?”
Amy
And he never showed up. Well, I showed him. Screw him! I showed him. Mother came. Always mother. She always comes. So I showed him. Want to fight? Come on. I’m fucking tired of it. I thought if he called me a fucking faggot one more time, I’d cut his fucking balls off. Only I went into the wrong rest room. Screw him then! Easy, calm. I had a plan. I was going to take them out one by one. And it would’ve worked too, except for the fire.
Colin
I told her, “ You’re of a different generation and speak a different language. I have a daughter like you. Her name is Amy.”
Amy
At least no one got hurt.
Martha
Calm down Amy.
Amy
Then make them stop.
Colin
My tomboy, Amy. “You can’t get in trouble with me.” She’s into blue jeans, trucks, and things, that’s my Amy. “You have a beautiful baby. Is it a boy or a girl?” She looked twenty-one, not fourteen. No, I didn’t tell her that she looked twenty-one.
Martha
She turned on me. She’s always been a daddy’s girl.
Colin
“He left. She leaves. Oh, fine. He don’t work. Works here and there, where he can. Remember, my pa eviscerates…that’s a big word for pulling your heart out…eviscerates chickens, ‘cept his paws got too swollen. For as long as I remember little o’me! Me, me! I’ve had to support myself. His paws got too swollen. It was his goddamn excuse.”
Amy
What a fucking mess! But I’m not a piece of garbage. Dad told me I wasn’t a piece of garbage.
Colin
She said she wanted a baby. Needed one more than anything. Fourteen and needed a baby.
Amy
I’ve thought about living on my own, and I’ve thrown a few things together and slipped out during the middle of the night. There’s a place I like to go to, a place to hide in plain sight.
Colin
There was Sunshine, Sunshine of yesterday. Remember her? How could I forget the worse sex abuse case I’ve ever had.
Amy
I have a hideout. I have a secret place right in the open. It’s on a curb right in front of the school. It’s where I sit and smoke. I generally sit alone and smoke and defy anyone to stop me. A kid in overalls who’s begging for a fight…she shows no fear because…because…because…because she’s rough and tough.
Randy Ford
