At the time, the conversation was meaningless to me. Well, actually, at first, I thought they might have been talking about me. Could Dirk Wallace be ready to press charges against me for humiliation and thievery? Could I be thrown in jail for failing to show up for a hearty steak dinner at the Mickelsons’? But when I looked around the room, I realized there were hardened criminals everywhere. I’m not joking. They could act artsy all they wanted and paint their house blue and write black petal heart on the bathroom wall, but the fact was they were all a bunch of lousy degenerates. One woman with a pink mohawk and a dog collar around her neck was right in front of me bragging about committing the felony of being a public nuisance. She was just acting belligerent and boasting about how she spent her afternoon swinging around a baseball bat at the bingo hall. I didn’t like her much. Then there was a prettier, frail girl on the couch who was covered in a sleeping bag, just like the one I’d seen on the roof. Her skin was in a bad condition, with a strange bursting red boil on her cheek, and she rubbed her eyes and asked me if I had some Percodan. I said I could give her some black beauties though she looked like she was in rough shape. The police could have been looking for her. I also talked to a guy who showed me his gun. He was in one of the bedrooms. I’d given up my desire for overdose and I was feeling kind of social and like I wanted to stir up some trouble again. Anyway, he showed me his gun, just a little pistol he’d picked up at the pawnshop. He said I could touch it. Can I have it? I replied.

Of course you can’t have it.

Please, I said smiling. I begged him. Please give me your gun.

He was pretty handsome too, with greasy black hair and high cheekbones and a mean, dirty grin. Yeah, he was a mean man who’d done a stint in the maximum-security Mission jail. I kissed him on the mattress, and then later, when I bumped into him in the hall, I gave him a fake name, Josephine, which suited me more than Sara. I liked it so much that I didn’t care when he called me a tease. So what—I’d been called worse. I’d been called a bitch and a slut, and even then, I knew none of those words were true. They were just words and they didn’t mean anything. I’d forget them before I ever carved them into my skin. Look, Josephine, he said, I’ll let you touch my gun.

I want it, I said. You don’t understand.