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Kieninger Ashley English 300A Memoir Essay Angela I think the reason why Angela attached herself to me, and none of my friends, was because I was the only one who offered her a cigarette. When she had asked if she could bum one, the others cringed and ungracefully turned away, shoving their packs protectively into their pockets. Whenever I tell the story of Angela, I always start at the forest preserve, when I had first met her. Homeless and a loner, Angela s temporary home must have been near where my friendsand I slumped on the metal benches in the soccer field. Our carefree laughter because it always felt good to skip class and the large, collective plume of smoke that hung over our heads were no doubt what drew her from her dark and shaded hiding. Many people seem to agree that it had all started at the beginning, with my giving away a cigarette. A new Cook County tax on tobacco was just implemented a month or so before, the cost of a pack of cigarettes rising to a record-breaking nine dollars. What friendly atmosphere there was between smokers, and the casual offering of cigarettes between one another, was becoming a part of history. Smokers now guarded their cigarettes fiercely, and to ask if you could bumone off of somebody else was quickly turning taboo. The friendship was all a sham, my brother said. The only reason why she stuck around was because you hand-fed her cigarettes like a goat at a petting-zoo. But I was quite sure that my brother was wrong. My friends were not impressed with Angela. Her hair would go unwashed for days, and if she somehow managed to get it washed, it always looked the same. Her clothes were continually patched with dirt. She would rather spend what little money she had on cigarettes than to buy a razor to shave her wooly legs with. She slept in unlocked laundry rooms of apartment buildings. One memorable afternoon was spent touring Palatine, her showing me all of the laundry rooms where she had scribbled her name on the wall. She would spend hours walking around Palatine, because walking was her favorite thing to do. Everything she told to me I was intrigued, and my questions would never stop. After we met Angela and I were inseparable. One of her favorite hang-out spots was Harper College, where it was easy to spot her hanging about the cafeteria, shamelessly asking people for quarters. We were always found smoking outside the arts building in between my classes, where Angela never ceased interest at my drawings or the textbooks I lugged around or the books I read. She seemed just as fascinated with my monotonous, school-to-work-to-home life as I was fascinated with her carefree and I-do-whatever-I-want-life. And this, I had thought, was what made our companionship so unique and genuine. She taught me how to roll cigarettes, and I taught her how to fill out a job application. Angela was a far cry from being civilized, but that was entirely her appeal. She took me to shoddy, crumbling apartment buildings, to townhouse complexes that were still in midconstruction at night, where her and her other friends flocked to smoke and drink embezzled alcohol. I never partook in any of the drug festivities that were going on, but always kept an anthropological distance, intrigued by a way of life that I had never witnessed before. Before long, though, people grew suspect. I don t like Angela, my friend Samiedeclared one day. Why is she always hanging around at Harper if she doesn t go to school? Does she have a job? Why doesn t she work? my brother had asked. Everybody howled when they found out that she was homeless. Get rid of her, my mother seethed. But I want tohelp her, I objected. At this my mother stared at me disbelievingly. You, she said, are not obligated in any way to help her. If she wants help, she can go on welfare. I hardly heard fairy tales when I grew up. Instead, I heard how my dad and his brother were beaten senseless a block from their home, their groceries and wallets stolen. I heard how my mother s friend was assaulted on the train, where her screams would be carried for a quarter of a mile before anyone came to her rescue. Growing up in Chicago, my parents would be of that generation that would flood the empty suburbs throughout the sixties and seventies to escape the city. It seemed for every child that lived in our neighborhood, his or her parents came from Chicago. Don t be foolish, my mother said to my sympathetic retorts on what the world was really like. Most people don t even a need reason to hurt you. If you have something they want, they ll just take it. But I was indignant at these oppositions and stories. We live in the suburbs! Hearing an approaching police vehicle was as much cause for excitement as hearing the ice-cream truck. While our mothers scoffed, all of us children would hop excitingly on our bikes and dash off to follow the police car. Upon reaching the car, we would stop at the street corner, curious and whispering, waiting awkwardly for the juicy scandal to unfold before us. I continued to ignore everyone s stern reprimands. I convinced myself yes, it was the true reason that Angela s very presence would offend anybody and everybody by her homelessness and careless lifestyle. She just did simply what she wanted. She had dropped out of high school years before, with no intention for ever going back. Look, Samiesaid one day, pointing at my purse, where hundreds of little white receipt papers fell out because a button had come undone. You wouldn t be buying so many damn cigarettes, she said, if she weren t taking so many of them. But then something really did happen between Angela and me. A year or so had passed, and it was winter again. It was customary for Angela to stop by at my work when it was nearing the end of my shift, where she would take my keys and go warm up my car for me. My car, a portly 91 Oldsmobile model, was so old it often took half an hour for it to heat up. Driving on a road that expected 35 mph or higher was often dangerous and life-threatening, for by the time the car coughed its way to the ample speed, every swear and female-derogatory slur came through the windows faster than a heavy rainfall. The day was no different than usual. Angela had come in and said her ritually exuberant HIYA!!!! tomy managers and coworkers, and tinkered with some of the ugly gardening sculptures that were already on display, even though winter had just barely begun. My shift ended soon enough, and I went outside. Something wasn t right. I blinked. I blinked again. The old, crumbling and yellowish tank that was my car wasn t sitting in its usual spot. It wasn t anywhere. Angela wasn t anywhere. I think I choked. My car was gone. Suddenly, I felt the nascent winter breezes claw through my flimsy flannel shirt, and then I realized how truly far away I lived. And then I thought, Angela stole my car. Complete madness ensued shortly after that. I went through the five stages often intended for the person on the deathbed: there was denial, and then anger, and grief, and all the rest, and the unsympathetic police, the furor of my parents, and the cold disapproval of my brothers and friends. In the months that followed, Angela would never surface. How could you be so stoooopid? somebody bemoaned. I told you so, was another popular attack I often received. I could care less about the car. Luckily for me, the car had only cost five-hundred dollars, a debt easily paid off within the first month of ownership. But I was tactful not to say that out loud in front of everybody. They thought I cried at the loss of my car, and at my stupidity and irresponsibility. I cried because I had, somehow, lost Angela. I cried because her taking my car was not some cold and random, thoughtless act that my mother often attributed to the ruffians of Chicago, but it was personal. Well, my brother sighed once, you never were reallystreet smart. Street smart. I still don t know what that means. Does this mean that I should guard against everybody? The problem with you, Samiesaid, is that you don t judge people. You need to realize, that there are really only a few people in the world who deserve your trust and friendship. It was a hard lesson to swallow, let alone digest. I still am. Here is a passage from a book that I had read years before, but wasn t able to realize its significance until I met Angela: 'You are young and just entering into life,' said He; 'Your heart, new to the world and full of warmth and sensibility, receives its first impressionswith eagerness. Artless yourself, you suspect not others of deceit; and viewing the world through the medium of your own truth and innocence, you fancy all who surround you to deserve your confidenceand esteem. What pity, that these gay visions must soon be dissipated! What pity, that you must soon discover the baseness of mankind, and guard against your fellow-creatures as against your Foes!' Works Cited Lewis, Matthew G. The Monk. New York: Grove Press, 1959.

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