Coal to Diamonds: A Memoir by Ditto Beth & Tea Michelle

Author:Ditto, Beth & Tea, Michelle [Ditto, Beth & Tea, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
ISBN: 0385525915
Goodreads: 6783579
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Published: 2012-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

14

Even though I was spending all my time with Jeri, Nathan, and Kathy, I felt like I was on the outside of their intense friendship. I knew they liked me, so I was way more comfortable around them, but I was still the newcomer. What we needed was a bonding experience to bring me into the fold, and thanks to Nathan, we got one. The night we became a little punk rock family of avant-garde misfits was the night that Nathan told an enormous lie.

Nathan was a notorious liar. There was a sort of famous punk couple who lived in Little Rock, Vic and Stacy. They were so hot and cool and punk that their legend had spread all the way to Judsonia. They were like the Kennedys of Arkansas punk, like royalty. Nathan said he had arranged for us to stay with them, to sleep overnight in their punk rock castle in Arkansas.

Vic and Stacy! Maybe Stacy would take to me in a sweet, big-sister way. She would be so impressed with how I did my hair, she would ask me to style hers, and I would! I would somehow help the impossibly cool Stacy become even cooler, and maybe she would take me in.

Not only was I finally going to catch a glimpse of Vic and Stacy—whom I’d never seen—I was going to sleep at their house! Crash on their floor! It was so thrilling.

I had told my mother that I was going off to Little Rock to stay at the home of an adult couple. She was suspicious.

Punks take care of each other! I tried to explain. We were all in the same big misfit community.

Well, I want you to call me when you get there, and I want to talk to this Vic and Stacy, my mother demanded. It was annoying and embarrassing. Why was she all of a sudden feeling the pull of maternal duty? And why did she have to have a phone?

Fine, I said, I’ll call you. You can talk to them. The thought of my mother talking to the famous Vic and Stacy was kind of hilarious. She had no idea what legends she’d be speaking to.

The drive to Little Rock in Kathy’s car was life changing. It was the first time I was alone with all three of them—Jeri, Kathy, and Nathan. Jennifer was gone for good now. It was just us, cruising along, listening to music and cracking up. I laughed so hard on that drive I peed my polyester pants. Imitations, weird voices, utter nonsense. It was the perfect road trip.

At the Waffle House on the side of the freeway in Little Rock, I sipped at my sweet tea and ate hash browns as we waited for Nathan to come back from the pay phones out front. He was putting in a call to Vic and Stacy, our chaperones. He swung through the glass door and walked back inside the Waffle House, his dirty suit and clanking dog chain raising the eyebrows of the waitresses behind the lunch counter.

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