I sat on the floor, smashing my head between my knees. There I was in my still, fatherless home.

The fridge hummed.

THE ACE OF SPADES

I HEARD one voice saying, I’m sixteen, I can’t handle this, and I heard another voice screaming, Let’s fucking party!

The real voice was China’s.

I’d come down here only ten minutes after my father left me. Early evening, and we were in her sometimes room on the second floor of the King’s Hotel, lying on her single bed, listening to Motörhead. Both of us on our stomachs, facing a small window that looked out over the alley below. While I was worried and still, China was pretty much out of control.

After the sailor left her, she bleached her hair. Flinging her head in circles, her hair whipped, a white whirl. Dressed like she didn’t give a damn, she wore a spangly tube top, tight gym shorts, and white sports socks pulled up to her bruised knees. Swigging Bacardi, she turned up the volume. Lemmy’s voice blared from her small black boombox. His voice was husky and heavy as he sang over the bashing drums.

That’s the way I like it baby. I don’t want to live forever.

Heavy metal’s never really been my thing. I like it a little more than Led Zeppelin, but it still makes me think of motorcycles and the brawny men in black leather who used to come to the commune and beat up my father.

But China loved the Ace of Spades.

And the song seemed to belong in her hotel room with the broken Bacardi bottles, the black lace curtains, the one-eyed teddy bear. She stood up on the bed and her hips swayed.

If you like to gamble, I’ll tell you how you learn…

I had a dim idea that I should go outside and look for Justine, but I gave it up because I was here now.

Here now, in the King’s Hotel, where I’d made a vow. Promise me you’ll do it. Yes I will Do It. Yes I will. I will.

Outside, it had started to rain, and the night rain made the sky seem hopeful and diamondlike. Me and China, we were almost ready to Do It. I rested my head in my hands and tried to get a better look at the pale sliver of moon.

Stop looking so dreamy, China said. Standing above me, she raised her fist in a rock star way, as if she was onstage above a crowd of devotees all flicking their Bic lighter flames. Stop looking so dreamy, China said.

Let’s fucking party!

We snorted cocaine off the cover of Go Ask Alice. China said Alice was her real name, but Alice doesn’t live here anymore. So don’t ask Alice, she said, and she threw the book against the wall.