Beatrice Sparks - Go Ask Alice

Richie and I never go anywhere. It’s almost a ritual for him to pick me up, and spend a few minutes with my parents and then rush over to the apartment he shares with Ted. I really wish we could be together stoned every night, but he only lets me come over when he restocks my acid supply and gives me enough grass and barbs to last me until I see him again. I know he’s studying very hard so I try to content myself with what he can give me of himself which seems to be getting less and less. Maybe I am oversexed, at least I seem to be a lot more interested in it than he is. But that’s only because he worries so about me. I wish he’d let me take the pill and I wish he didn’t have to work and study so hard. Oh, well, what I’ve got is so great I don’t know how I could even wish for anything more.

Today I went to the grade school again. I don’t mind pushing at high school because the stuff is sometimes kind of hard to get and the kids usually come up and ask me for it. Chris and I just supply it from Richie. He can get whatever is their bag, barbs or pot or amphetamines of LSD or DMT or meth or anything. The high school kids are one thing and even the junior high, but today I sold ten stamps of LSD to a little kid at the grade school who was not even nine years old, I’m sure. I know that he in turn must be pushing and these kids are just too young! The thought of nine and ten year olds getting wasted is so repulsive that I’m not going over there any more! I know if they want it they’ll get it somewhere but they won’t get it from me! I’ve been lying here on my bed ever since I got home from school thinking about it, and I’ve decided that Richie must come over and see Dad about a scholarship, surely with his grades and background something could be worked out. I’m sure it could.

If there were medals and prizes for stupidity and gullibleness I certainly would receive the half-assed one. Chris and I walked into Richie and Ted’s apartment to find the bastards stoned and making love to each other. No wonder Richie Bitchie wanted so little to do with me! Here I am out peddling drugs for a low class queer whose dad probably isn’t sick at all. I wonder how many other dumb chicks he’s got working for him? Oh, I’m so ashamed! I can’t believe I’ve sold to eleven and twelve year olds and even nine and ten year olds. What a disgrace I am to myself and my family and to everybody. I’m as bad as that sonofabitch Richie.

Chris and I sat around the park all day thinking things over. She’s been using drugs for over a year and I’ve been on since July 10 to be exact. We’ve decided it would be impossible to change while we’re here so we’re going to cut out and go to San Francisco. And I’ve simply got to turn Richie in to the police. I’m not being vindictive or spiteful or jealous, really I’m not. It’s just that I’ve got to do something to protect all those grade and junior high school kids.

All this crap Rich sold me about “they’ll get it someplace” and all that is just a bunch of high pressure bullshit. He doesn’t care about any one in this whole world but himself, and the only way I can make retribution for what I’ve done is to at least keep him from getting more kids started. That’s one of the worst things about this drug business. Practically every kid that uses also sells and it’s just a giant round robin thing that keeps on getting bigger and bigger until I wonder where it will ever end! I really do! I wish I’d never gotten started. And now Chris and I have both pledged to each other that we’re going to stay clean. We really and truly are! We’ve given our sacred oath and promise. In San Francisco we won’t know a single soul that uses it and it will be easy to stay off.

It’s very sad sneaking off in the middle of the night, but Chris and I could think of no other way. The bus will be leaving at 4-30 A.M. and we must be on it. First we’ll go to Salt Lake City for awhile and then backtrack to San Francisco. I am really quite afraid of what Richie might do if he caught me. He will almost surely know the one who turned him in because I told the police in my letter about the few places I know where he stashes his supply. I wish all dealers could be put away!

Goodbye dear home, goodbye good family. I really am leaving mostly because I love you so much and I don’t want you to ever know what a weak and disreputable person I have been. And I hate being a high school dropout, but I dare not even write for my transcripts, knowing you and Richie might follow them. I’m leaving you a note beloved family, but it can never tell you how sacred you are to me.

We are in San Francisco, in a dirty smelling and stifling little one room apartment. We are both filthy after so many miserable hours on the bus, and since Chris is taking her bath down the hall I will write a few lines till it is my turn. I’m sure we have enough money to last us till we get jobs because I kept the one hundred and thirty dollars I was supposed to turn in to bastard Richie, and Chris was able to draw out the four hundred plus dollars she had in the bank. This whoring little spider hole we are in cost ninety dollars for the month, but at least that will give us enough time to get jobs and look for a decent place to live.

I feel dreadful about my parents, but at least they know I’m with Chris and they think she is a nice and respectable girl who won’t lead me astray. Boy, how much further astray could I go?

Chris and I have looked all day for jobs. We’ve followed up every ad in the paper, but we’re either too young, or too inexperienced, or we don’t have references, or they want someone with a following, or they’ll call us. I have never been so damned exhausted in my life. We certainly won’t need anything to make us sleep tonight, even on the lumpy, soggy, let down contraption which is called a bed in this cracker box.

Everything always feels clammy and damp here. There is even a green type of fungus mold growing in the closet, but thank goodness we won’t be here long, at least I hope we won’t be here long! But today was no more successful than yesterday in job hunting. We couldn’t locate Chris’ friend either.

I took a job in some crappy little lingerie store. It doesn’t pay much, but at least it will keep us in groceries, etc. Chris will keep looking for a better job and after she gets one then I will quit and look for something a little more challenging. Chris hopes that maybe in a year we can open our own boutique. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? And maybe when we’re very successful we can invite our families to come and see us and glory in our success.

Chris still doesn’t have a job. She looks every day but we both decided that she wouldn’t take just anything. It has to be in a first rate store where she can learn everything we’ll need to know to run our own place. Every night I am so tired I can hardly make it to bed. I didn’t realize that standing up all day waiting on grouchy, lousy people would be so exhausting.

Chris and I spent the day touring Chinatown and Golden Gate Park and we took a bus across the bridge. It’s a wonderful and exciting and beautiful city, but I really wish I were home. Of course I couldn’t tell Chris that.

Chris finally got a job! It’s in the greatest little shop I’ve ever seen. I went down after work and bought a pair of sandals. She can learn everything there is to know about buying and displaying as well as selling, because there are only two of them in the shop. Shelia is the owner, and she is without a doubt the most fabulous looking woman I have ever seen. Skin as clear and white as snow and eyelashes as long as my arm, fake of course. Her hair is jet black and I know that she is all of six feet tall. I can’t understand why she isn’t modeling or in movies or on TV. Her shop is in a very exclusive little area and her prices are high, high, high, even with Chris’s discount, but anyway I just felt I had to splurge after all the scrimping we’ve done and are going to continue to do.