I will never forget that day, I may have forgotten the date, the hour, even the year as I can’t seem to remember whether it was the early eighties or late seventies; but I’ll always remember what happened.

I had graduated from high school, good riddance, and was now left to fend myself with no college degree and little to no money in my pocket. I considered being a public service worker, a ditch digger, even a career in the high seas, but in the end I was reduced to sneaking into rock concerts and dealing cheap prescription drugs to people who thought they could get a high off Antihistamines and girl’s who wanted to know what would happen if they took Viagra.

The only one of my costumers who left any impression on my memory was a boy, probably not old enough to be allowed into the concert where I met him at, but with enough cash to become my number one customer.

It was Novocain he was interested in, he bought it from me like it was as cheap as Tylenol and as addictive as meth, when in truth it was neither.

On first impressions most people were stunned, he was beautiful, with shocks of black hair, and pale skin and a slim frame which left his skinny jeans hanging loose on his hips. His voice was soft and unforgettable, it would have been precious if it hadn’t been for the dark thoughts that his lips gave birth to.

He was an anarchist, but not like any of the flower children. He was darker, and more violent then anyone the hippies would dare associate themselves with, and he showed it in his clothing and his perpetual scowl.

He was clever too, I’d known that for a long time before that fateful day when I met him under a highway over pass to exchange drugs. He was perched near the top of the slant in a melancholy position, he had been sad for a long time. You see, he loved a girl, Gloria, an American girl as he would always say, a rebel girl. But she had refused him again and again, cause she was rich, and although he had money, he was still poor.

And he was mad at me, cause I was out having the time of my life with all the other American idiots, as he would call them, and he was stuck waiting for the saint’s to come to suburbia’s promised land.

“You okay stiff?” I asked.

I froze, he had a gun in his hands. “No.”

He coughed and then continued. “We’re in the murder city,” he flipped up the safety, “And those subliminal mind f***ers are going to hear the sound of hysteria.”

I was terrified, he was talking like a killer, I grabbed his shoulders and made him stare into my eyes, “Know your enemy.”

He shrugged me off, “revolution only counts in hand grenades.”

“No!” I shook my head, “There are other things to the world, it needs its parents and its children and its peaceful games of horseshoes and.”

“Horseshoes you f***en peacemaker?” He paused, “I don’t know how to answer you.”

“It’s not a question.”

His face lit up eerily, “but a lesson learned in time,” then he began to nod.

“Give me the gun Mr. Armstrong,” I said in my firmest voice.

The boy handed it over then turned to leave, “Call me Billie Joe,” he said.