I've just taken the very, very exciting step of putting a web counter on here just now. This was the highlight of my evening by far. Probably the best thing that's happened to me in 2000. Seriously though. Today I got scared because Sarah said "if you hadn't spent all morning looking at my diary, then you would have made it to work on time". I forgot that you can track who looks at your site. So it's similar to caller ID in a way. People can see when I visit their pages 26 times in one day waiting for some sort of update. This room is so much better with candles going instead of the normal bright ceiling light. I'm in the mood for this type of music right now, and it's suiting me fine, as I plan to go to bed shortly.

Nothing that exciting has happened today so I thought I'd tell this little story from a while back. I changed names a bit...

�You�re not a psycho are you?�

�No, I�m definitely not a psycho�now get in before we get killed here.�

This was the first bit of conversation I ever had with Kerry.

Let me back up a little though�. I was driving to Virginia Beach from Boston for a two week- vacation, when I saw this girl hitchhiking. At first I just saw her from the back: a little over five feet tall, curly brown hair pulled back into a pony tail, a waist-length leather coat (It was August!), and a look on her face that said �fuck you�. Normally I never stop for hitchhikers, but I was on the highway, and there was something about her I noticed from 100 yards back. I figured she was a runaway, perhaps harmless. I hadn�t talked to anyone, save for the various McDonalds employees, and gas station attendants, to which the conversation was strictly limited to, �ten dollars on three�, and �A number four, Coke�.

So here I am driving down the route 95 south, blaring the Rolling Stones, dying to talk to someone, anyone, and a teenage girl falls into my world.

�Where are you going?�

�I don�t really know, I�m just kind of going�

�Are you some sort of hippie runaway?�

�Do I look like a hippie?� she snaps, grabbing my cigarettes from the dashboard of my bright green rental generic American rental car.

�Well, no, but�My name is Charles, by the way, what�s your name?� I pulled on back on to the highway.

�Kerry�

�Nice to meet you Kerry�

She started looking around the environment of my car. My own little world for the next two weeks; Empty Marlboro packages, empty coffee cups, cassette cases, newspapers, maps, various junk food, etc.

�So where are you going?� she lights one of my cigarettes

�Virginia Beach�

�Me too� she replies, smiling

We�re in Rhode Island at this point.

�You�re going to Virginia Beach? What part?�

�I don�t know, how about you?�

�The part with the beach� I snap, grabbing my cigarettes

She takes her coat off and starts to get a little comfortable for someone who�s known me for all of five minutes. I notice how attractive she is, with her black tank top, and small features.

�So how old are you?� I ask, feeling silly asking this after �checking her out�

�18, you?�

�27 going on 20� I finally get a little laugh out of her

�You�re going down there alone? Don�t you have any friends?� she laughs

�Yes, I have a lot of friends, but I like to get away, you know, it cleans the mind�

�What are you on drugs or something?�

I realize she�s pretty young after this remark; here I am, having left Boston to get away from people for a bit, younger girls actually, with a teenager in my passenger seat.

�No, I�m not on drugs actually. You see, I like to get away by myself every summer for a couple of weeks. I�m not a serial killer, I�m not a psycho, and I�m not on drugs, I�m just�getting away from it all. What�s your excuse? Are you running away?�

�Sort of�I just finished my first year at Boston University actually, I don�t really know if I want to go back. So I�m going to visit friends in Florida for a month or so�well, there�s this boy down there�

�Let me see, you�re parents have a lot of money, they are too conservative, and this is your rebellion right? Isn�t this supposed to happen before you go to college?�

She playfully slaps my right hand, which is on the divider between our seats.

�You think you have me all figured out don�t you? Rebellion? Come on!� she laughs

�Well, one usually doesn�t see B.U girls hitchhiking on 95 south. How much did that jacket cost anyway?�

After having Kerry in my car for thirty minutes or so, I thought how this could turn into a pretty interesting trip after all. She seemed pretty intelligent, but there was definitely something missing from the story. I didn�t notice anything out of the ordinary about her appearance, she was pretty attractive, and quite lucky she got picked up by me in retrospect. God knows what could happen to her on this highway. We talked a bit at length about our friends, and families. She had a pretty big group of friends, this boy she was going to see sounded like a real jerk though. Typical controlling male, who probably had about four different girls chasing him at any given time. She showed me a picture of him; he looked like a typical all-American guy, with bleached blonde hair, generic tribal tattoos, and a nose ring. He was basically Leonardo DiCaprio. Her parents knew she was going away for a few months, but she failed to tell them that her ride fell through at the last minute. She had a big fight with her dad the night before, and just wanted to leave as soon as possible. When I asked her why she didn�t just take a bus, she said that buses were boring, and she had a can of pepper spray with her anyway. Fair enough. She wanted to meet new people and thought this would be the best way to do it. Personally, I would have opted for a train, but I guess she got her wish, as the next few weeks would be a life changing experience for her, and I.

Route 95 is the armpit of the eastern part of the United States; I�ve been up and down it more times than I care to remember. When I was twenty, my girlfriend at the time, Jessica, fought up and down this highway for three weeks straight. I remember a particularly nasty exchange at the Vince Lombardi Memorial Rest Area parking lot over a picture she was taking of me. I guess it was my fault, she was taking a picture of me after a horrible lunch at the Roy Rogers and she couldn�t take the picture, I said something condescending, and it escalated into a twenty minute argument about me not having any tact with her. I can still vividly remember her jet black hair falling in front of her watery eyes constantly during the whole exchange. It finally ended with me brushing her hair out of her eyes and apologizing for being �so fucking tactless�. I hated when she would argue with me, she always ended up on the verge of crying, and I would hold her until my shoulder was wet with her brown-eyed tears.

The trip before this current one, I went by myself, and broke down in New Jersey. I was stuck there for a night, and ended up chatting with this truck driver in a diner for close to four hours. He was an old African-American from Georgia, who had seen it all, Korea, Martin Luther King, Kennedy, and my favorite, Louis Armstrong at Carnegie Hall! He was completely amazing; he was a small muscular, bulldog type, with very strong facial features, and an incredible voice. I barely did any talking, even though I drank about sixteen cups of coffee the whole time talking to him. He reassured me that there were decent people in the world, and pretty much made the rest of my trip boring and uneventful. I would love to know what he is up to right now.

Kerry pulled a small bottle of whiskey out of her bag.

�Want any?� she asked, unscrewing it

�Actually, ya know what, I�d rather you not open that in here, I�m not really a drinker�

�Okay�well, you don�t have to have any then. I�d like to though��

�Fine, take your sip or whatever you call it, and put it away. I�m just not into that shit at all, and think it�s pretty weak.�

�Wow, aren�t we righteous!� she yells at me

�Hey, you want to come with me for the ride, you�ll have to deal with my rules, and opinions. Now do you want to hear The Clash, or The Who?�

�Huh?� she asks, obviously too young.

I wonder if these kids these days look at The Clash like I would look at say�the Beatles. The Clash are so recent to me, even if I have been listening to them as long as I have been. To her, and most kids you run into, the late seventies/early eighties is so ancient to them, it�s scary. The first time I had sex, Kerry was five years old. The first time I tried marijuana, she was six. The afternoon I was at my friend Dave�s house after school (eight-grade) listening to �Pink Floyd- Dark Side Of The Moon� drinking his fathers expensive vodka, and smoking our bad brown pot, Kerry was probably out in her yard playing ball with Jenny and Skippy. It all seems so long ago. Sometimes I look back, and try to remember what got me here. Did I do something wrong in my past that led me to this life of just wandering around from time to time, not really settling down for good. Granted I'm still young, I feel like I should have accomplished at least something. Although, what man would want to trade driving to Virginia Beach with some young girl he just met, with coming home from the office to his dinner and television. Not I.

More later, whew...

out-

before & after