Freaks and Revelations by Davida Wills Hurwin Page A

any Polaroids.
    She blows on one finger, touches it gently to her lip to test if it’s dry. “This family is so messed up.” She takes back the polish bottle and screws the cap on, snags a cigarette from her purse, stares at me once more, chuckles. “All of us, we’re crazy.” She glances toward the kitchen, scoops up matches from the table. “Get me before she comes back in.”
    I nod and she slips out to the front porch. Jesus stares down at me and all of a sudden, I feel very small.
    *   *   *
    The Nutcracker goes up; Davy’s amazing as usual. I do okay and I have a great time on the tour. Mom gives us each flowers on opening night. I get to miss two days of school when the show goes on tour. Nobody mentions Uncle Bobby again, not even Kait.
    Christmas Eve, we have our usual procession. We dress up in robe costumes and march from the backyard to the front. We go from oldest to youngest, so Marianne’s first, carrying Mary and Joseph, since Paul’s not here. Davy has the cow and the lamb. I get stuck with the palm fronds. Kait’s got Baby Jesus. Mom waits in front, by the empty cradle.
    We’ve done this for years. It used to be fun.
    “Everyone else puts the whole scene up at the same time, Lori,” Dad would tease, back at the old house.
    “Everyone else is wrong,” Mom would say, laughing. “Mary didn’t get there until after dark.”
    That’s when we march. Except here, in the new house, we’re on a busy street, not a secluded yard like before. “This is so embarrassing,” Kait whispers.
    “Shh, just get it over with,” Marianne mumbles, as we go round to the front yard.
    “I knew I shoulda burned the stupid statues,” Davy whispers.
    “They won’t burn, dummy,” Kait hisses.
    A guy in a truck going by honks his horn. “What are you all supposed to be?” he yells out, then laughs.
    Mom’s lips tighten. I look back at Kait. She shakes her head slightly. Marianne stares at the ground. Davy’s eyes have gone completely blank. Each of us takes our turn to place our pieces in their proper positions. Marianne sets down Mary and Joseph, Davy does the cow and the lamb, and I lay the palm fronds in the center of the cradle. Kaitlyn, eyes scary with anger, puts in the baby.
    We stand in a line, clasp our fingers together, and bow our heads as our beautiful mother prays to a plastic Baby Jesus.

Late 1977
    THREE YEARS BEFORE
    LOS ANGELES COUNTY

    {1}
    I start my band the summer before ninth grade. Glenn plays bass. I sing. Roy can’t do shit but he’s got his dad’s guitar so we let him be the guitarist. Glenn shows him some chords and he learns to play them—real fast and real loud. This guy Craig has drums. I buy all the music I can afford: Black Flag, the Clash, Sex Pistols. More Punk Rock’s coming out every day.
    Finally! Something in the world that I can relate to. Punk Rock. It means: No rules. It’s made for me and everybody else who doesn’t fit in. I grow my hair like Johnny Ramone and start writing songs. Now all that poetry I used to do has a place to go. Words pour out of me. Everything that used to feel crazy makes sense. I make sense. I have a direction. I have my music. It’s what I’m going to do with my life—be a Punk Rocker. Say something important. Make it big. I won’t even have to graduate from high school.
    It’s wild.
    I’m wild, getting wilder.
    On Saturdays, the band rehearses inside an old elementary school that’s been boarded up for years. We pry the wood off the back windows—it snaps easy, rotted. We drag in Craig’s drums and set up in the multi-purpose room, which, for some reason, still has electricity. We can play as loud as we want; nobody is anywhere near around.
    Our third time there, we decide to decorate. We spray paint obscenities all down on the walls in the main hallway, RAMONES and BLACK SABBATH on the blackboards in the kindergarten room. Glenn tries to spray paint a naked girl but he starts with the tits and it looks really