She decided to drop out of school altogether because it was too much bullshit and, being a night owl, she hated the hours. She thought she might get herself a job in the music industry. She said it as though there was a thriving music industry in our town. Shortly after dropping out of school Vicki and Dad engaged in a violent argument when one of her boyfriends accidentally set the living room sofa on fire. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her cram clothing into paper bags. “The day I allow that baldheaded bastard to smack me with a bag full of frozen chicken wings is the day I die,” she said, pausing to soothe the bruise on her forehead. “I don’t need this kind of bullshit in my life, not anymore. This bird is taking wing. I am out of here, friend.” She acted as though there was an airplane in the yard, the pilot tapping his fingers against the face of his watch, waiting. “The next time you hear from me I’ll be in California. California or Reno. I’m going to a place where people don’t have to live up to their necks in bullshit. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” she said. “One hell of a long time. Yes, sirree, Vicki has definitely met her quota of bull-shit once and for all. It’s time to grab the bull by the horns and say, 'Adios, bullshit.' Hand me that clock radio, will you Chug? Your sister is fucking out of here.”

It turned out that Vicki did not leave for Reno or California but, instead, for Ginger Treadwell’s. Ginger was the boyfriend who had set the sofa on fire, an older redheaded guy who lived three blocks away in a basement apartment he rented from his mother. Every now and then I would go by to visit her but she never came over to the house or phoned as she didn’t want to see our father. “Tell him I’m a model and a stewardess and never know where I’ll be from one day to the next. And tell him they’re making a movie of my life story and they want Boris Fucking Karloff to play his part.”