Under the Bridge Read Free

company or weed. Nevada lay down on his bed, and her scarlet curls fell across the clean cotton of his pillow case.
    Josephine seated herself before his mirror, her back perfectly erect. “Can we have some of your weed, Colin?”
    â€œYeah, Colin, please,” Kelly begged.
    Josephine stared into the mirror, and Kelly gazed at Josephine as one looks at a map.
    â€œPass me that joint, slut,” Josephine said to Nevada.
    Hey,
Colin wanted to say,
Don’t talk to Nevada like that.
But he was lazy and high, and he felt subdued by the onslaught of perfume and giggling.
    Colin Jones had posters on his bedroom wall, posters of Metallica and a Ferrari and a Mach 1. Best of all, he had eight speakers.
Awesome,
he thought, gazing about his domain. Awesome cars, awesome speakers. The girls were ruining his reverie. Giggle, giggle.
    The girls wanted to listen to Tupac Shakur, but Colin Jones possessed none of that “gangster shit.” He did not listen to rap, and he scoffed at the younger boys of View Royal with their saggy pants and backward baseball caps, fronting like they were from the ghetto.
    â€œWhy are you such a headbanger, Colin?” Josephine said, giggling.
    â€œYou’re like one of those guys in
Wayne’s World,”
Kelly said, looking up at Josephine to see if her remark garnered a laugh.
    â€œGive me some of that Bacardi,” Josephine said. As she took the bottle from Nevada’s purse, she boasted to Colin that she had “jacked” it from Nevada’s mother.
    What kind of girl calls her friend a slut?
Colin wondered. What kind of girl steals liquor from her friend’s mother? Answer: a twisted little troublemaker.
    Colin Jones knew then that Nevada was too far gone. “Basically, Josephine corrupted Nevada,” he would later say. Though he was often high and always easygoing, he observed the corruption and felt concerned to witness this: the fall of the girl next door.
    â€œBring some women,” his friend Tommy told him. Tommy had just moved into his own apartment and wanted to have a tequila party. Colin couldn’t find any women, and so, as a “last resort,” he brought the girls—a decision he would later regret. The girls seemed so happy when he invited them.
Awesome! Colin, you’re the best!
Josephine’s smile was sincere, and her face was luminous. Nevada sat on his lap as they drove to the party in his friend Paul’s station wagon. Kelly handed her last cigarette to Josephine, and as she did so, Colin observed the red dots above her eyes, on the skin where she’d plucked at her eyebrows. Josephine’s eyebrows were thin and overly arched, and her skin was white and pure, without the slightest mark. Kelly, he thought, just doesn’t really have the act of artifice down pat yet, and he remembered then that he’d heard the boys at her school teased her and called her “Grubnut.”
    â€œHey,” Josephine said to Paul, draping herself over the driver’s seat. “Did you know that I’m going to New York? I’m going to join the mob. I’m gonna be a hit man!”
    â€œThey let girls do that?” Paul asked.
    â€œHell, yeah. They like women in the mob. They don’t have to serve any time if they get caught.”
    â€œWell, good for you,” Paul said, feigning support. In the backseat, Colin Jones shook his head, and it occurred to him then that most girls Josephine’s age were watching
Cinderella,
but Josephine, here she was, abandoning dreams of princes and preferring the narrative of
Scarface.
    â€œThe party was a total disaster,” Colin Jones would later recall. “The girls said they were snorting speed, but I think it was just caffeine because Kelly started falling all over the place. Nevada looked really sick and I thought I better get them back to View Royal, so I had to leave the party and drive them all home.”
    It seemed an omen of sorts to