Chapter 6 Hell-Raiser
Hell-Raiser
I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A WILD HYENA—WE’VE ESTABLISHED that by now.
By junior high, I was fighting constantly. Everywhere. Church, parties, bus stops. I was fighting in school too. I was never one to start shit—but I sure as hell would finish it.
One day early on, I got jumped at the bus stop by three girls—probably because I looked at one of them the wrong way.
I got my ass handed to me. I’m talking steel-toed boots to the face, three on one.
I went home tail tucked and crying. You would think your parents would coddle you and help lick your wounds, but nope.
Instead, Bill took it upon himself to teach me how to fight.
“Life is hard, Alisa,” he told me, “and just because you get your ass whooped doesn’t mean you lie down and cry about it.” As if I hadn’t been getting my ass whooped for years already—by his wife. But okay. Go off, Pops.
We went out in the back yard, and he held his hands out in front of him.
“Hit me,” he said, and I took a swing. He caught my hand and threw it back down.
“That’s not how you throw a punch. You don’t make a fist with your thumb like that. You do it like this.” He taught me to square up and rotate my shoulder, and I was outside until dark punching my father’s hands.
We practiced every day after school. He taught me to kick or pull hair if I couldn’t get a good hit in. My favorite was yanking someone by the hair and slamming their face on my knee—it became my signature move. That and always throwing the first punch.
* * *
BY THE TIME I LEARNED how to throw a punch, I was attending Fremont Junior High in Vegas, and all the anger I accumulated over the years was barreling out as I lashed out at everybody. I’d become the kid whose friends’ parents wouldn’t let come around. I was a bad influence, and I reveled in it.
My parents assumed the nonstop fighting and detentions were because of my school environment, so they put me in a private, religious junior high school associated with our church, Trinity.
Maybe they were hoping I’d calm down or that private school would be less hardcore.
But it didn’t take long before I made friends with a fellow troublemaker—Nicole, who had jet-black hair and stick-on tattoos.
Not to mention, her mom was pretty and let her do whatever she wanted.
I was so jealous that she had a mom who was her best friend—but the jealousy didn’t have any teeth.
I just loved what she had and wanted it.
I loved that girl. We spent our days drinking and smoking between classes.
And to add to it, I had Randi, my best friend from church too.
We got in trouble for passing explicit notes back and forth talking shit about our teachers, but we did it all to make each other laugh.
I just could never focus on school. It was near impossible for me to learn anything, and I’d sit there in class with my mind racing a thousand miles an hour.
There had to be more to life than sitting in a cage for eight hours a day doing math.
I just wanted to have fun in between worship and Bible study and school uniforms and being told we’re going to hell.
A little laughter at the teachers’ expense was perfect—until we got caught.
Busted. Off to the principal’s office the three of us went.
The intercepted letter was so explicit they called our parents and read the letter out loud to them. Yup. Grounded again.
My days were numbered at that school. Mindy refused to let me buy lunch or any junk food.
Remember, she had me on a strict diet. And she sent me to school with chicken cacciatore for lunch, and like every kid, I just wanted to be like everyone else.
It was humiliating pulling a huge Tupperware out of my backpack and not even being able to heat it up.
So I did what made the most sense at the time.
I walked into the girls’ bathroom and flushed that chicken cacciatore and white rice down the toilet.
I didn’t think anyone would notice, and I’d just go buy lunch like everybody else.
Backing up the entire school’s plumbing system was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me at Trinity.
I hadn’t been trying to get in trouble—and how was I supposed to know that rice would clog up the whole fucking drainage system?
Who knew rice swelled that much? I sure didn’t.
They handed me an expulsion that day. But hey, at least it wasn’t for fighting. We were making strides.
Freshly expelled, my parents put me in another private school, Harbor Christian Academy.
The school was no bigger than a thousand square feet with maybe six to eight kids per classroom.
Every single lesson was on a VHS tape from 1982.
It felt like a last resort for troubled kids.
The good news is that it was right down the street from my house, so I could ditch and run home to hang out while Bill and Mindy were at work.
Not one to shy away from adventure, when someone handed me a can of spray snow after school one day, I tagged my name on a brick wall on campus—my entire government name.
How the hell was I supposed to know it would look like spray paint or that it would stick?
Why did I write my fucking name? Combine that with my attitude toward adults and constant ditching and, well, you guessed it, they showed me the door.
Back to public school I went—and yet somehow in the midst of all this chaos, I managed to graduate eighth grade. High school was next.
I was used to being a bad influence and a big man on campus.
Not there. At my high school, I was the low man on the totem pole.
It all felt like some kind of humiliation ritual, and of course all the kids made fun of me.
It was clear I didn’t fit in. I didn’t know any of their slang.
I was too innocent. Me? Innocent with a clean mouth?
It’s honestly shocking—I was the worst kid at my private school and now the most innocent at my public school.
Here’s a little perspective: Maybe I hadn’t been such a bad kid, after all.
Maybe I was just a normal kid who craved some love and needed some help.
I got tired of the bullying. I wanted to be like everyone else.
One night, I sat in my room practicing mouthing off with every cuss word I could think of.
I recited all the dirty jokes I’d ever heard out of Bill’s mouth.
I was tired of being the innocent girl. I wanted to be the bad girl—like how I thought of myself—and like the villains in the movies I loved.
I joined every sports team I could in high school.
Sports were an escape from home, and I loved the team mentality and working toward a goal together.
But I also got to run off all the extra energy I always felt, sitting in my throat and choking me.
My parents never came to a single one of my games.
Sometimes, when I would see the other kids’ parents cheering them on, it would hurt my heart.
But then, I would think how embarrassed I’d be if Mindy was there yelling at me, or Bill, critiquing my every play.
Then I’d let it go. Plus, who had time to wallow in self-pity?
* * *
I’LL NEVER FORGET THE FIRST time I saw Tasha.
She was a cheerleader with long, curly blond hair—and even longer legs.
All the boys in school drooled over her, and once you saw her, you didn’t forget her.
When I walked into my theater class that first day, I noticed her right away.
Plus, we were both freshmen in a sea of seniors.
We were a little standoffish with each other at first, but we weren’t mean. We always worked in the same groups and did scenes together, but we didn’t really talk outside class. She had her own set of friends, and I had mine, having finally broken free of the bullying bullshit.
One day we were in class and the door to the theater flung open.
“Where the fuck is Tasha?” screamed one of the senior girls who was notorious for fighting. “I’m going to beat your fucking ass, Tasha! You fucked my boyfriend!”
I swung my head around to find Tasha onstage, obviously caught by surprise. The girl walked across the auditorium, closing in on Tasha, and I could see that Tasha didn’t want to fight her. So before this senior could get to her, I stood the fuck up.
“Mandy, get the fuck out of here,” I said. I knew Mandy, and we’d talked a few times in the hallway. When you’re both known for fighting, you develop a mutual respect. I didn’t know the details of Mandy’s beef with Tasha, but I wasn’t about to let it explode in our theater class.
Mandy stopped dead in her tracks.
“Stay the fuck out of this! It’s between her and me.”
I stayed super calm, no matter how pissed she was.
“Nah, it’s not,” I said. “Get the fuck on.” By that time, the teacher had caught wind of what was happening and sent her straight to the dean’s office.
“Thank you,” Tasha said to me. I just smiled.
“No problem.”
We were instant friends after that.
* * *
I’VE ALWAYS PREFERRED HAVING FEMALE friends over male.
I like to think it’s because in a past life, I was a witch who belonged to a coven of powerful, spiritual women who scoffed at the men who fell to their feet and cast spells on any who wronged them.
I’ve just always felt safer in numbers with women as my allies.
And in high school, my crew was Tasha, my cousin Stacy, Michelle, and Lisa.
We were all from the most dysfunctional families and somehow—like the wayward get-along gang—we found each other. They’re still by my side today.
I got to know Tasha pretty quickly after that day in class.
She came from a broken home too. Dad wasn’t around and Mom popped in and out.
When Tasha and I started hanging out, she was living with her aunt.
She was one of the prettiest girls in our school, but it’s almost like she didn’t realize how beautiful she was.
She also had a Blood boyfriend, like Barbie and gangster Ken.
Her family of misfits is honestly what drew me to her.
They were as trailer trash as could be, and I loved it.
They would barbecue and sing classic rock songs, and even though they fought like cats and dogs, they still stuck by one another’s side and welcomed me into their raging vortex with open arms. They knew how fucked up my life at home was, and soon enough, my family was on Tasha’s family’s shit list.
Michelle has been one of my best friends since second grade.
She couldn’t be more polar opposite than me, but that girl has always had my heart—her mom, Sherri, does, too.
Hers was one of the few houses I was allowed to go to and stay the night.
Boy, did we abuse that privilege. I wanted to stay every night if I could, because her house was full of love and happiness.
Her mom was the sweetest woman I’d ever met and knew what was going on at my house.
She hated sending me home. She knew what was waiting for me.
Michelle and her mom stood by each other up until the day Mama Sherri passed away.
The only way I could honor Ms. Sherri was to send her off in the best funeral Michelle could possibly put together for her.
We dressed her up in the most leopard-print-clad way we could, and I could feel her soul smiling down on us as we sat by her casket.
She was such a special woman, and she’s the one who gave me memories of childhood love.
And then there was Stacy—a fucking lunatic.
A lovable lunatic, but a lunatic all the same.
She was adopted by two lesbians when she was a baby—the story’s changed a few times, to be honest, but Phyllis and Kate raised Stacy with a little more money than the rest of us.
I mean, they had a pool, for God’s sake.
You never knew what kind of mood Stacy would be in, but when it came down to it, she was always there for you. Even if she didn’t want to be—and trust me, you knew when she was there but wished she were somewhere else.
Phyllis and Kate kept an eye on us, because they knew that together we were trouble. But they overlooked a lot of my colorful behavior because of what I had going on at home. Now that I look back, it’s clear that everyone else’s parents hated my parents. At least I wasn’t alone.
Lisa was the “mom” of the crew. She was responsible, had a great family life with parents who loved her, and a longtime boyfriend she’d been with for years.
She lost her virginity to him and they stayed committed.
If you ever needed anything, Lisa was the one who would show up on time.
Her mom was the sweetest and always welcomed me in their house with open arms too.
I could never officially live with them, but she would always let me crash when I needed to and never let me go without a meal if I was in her house.
Lisa was the all-around good girl. How she got mixed up with us, I’ll never know. But thank God she did.
I still love these women, our little wayward rat pack.
We’ve all been through hell together, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
Nothing means more to me than having these friendships for my entire life.
No matter how much space or distance or breaks in between, we’ve always picked up where we’ve left off. And that I’ll cherish forever.