If my plan works, then I won't ever tell this story again, unless
I decide to help other runaways someday. The main thing
right now is to take all the bad things in my memory and
squash them under the sewer cover lids. Then I'm going to
stomp those lids down and forget. If the plan doesn't work,
I'll come up with another one. That's the kind of person I am.
        T-Rex took me home with him, which was the first
step in the plan. We slipped out of Pinco's so-called studio
and ran and changed directions and ran again, and then caught
the bus to T-Rex's. It's near the river, not such a great
neighborhood, but I've lived in worse, and their apartment is
decorated very nice. I've lived in Charleston, West Virginia,
and Parkersburg and Huntington and Cincinnati, too, and also
out in the country, but my mother said it was too spooky. She
always wanted to own a place, but she never did, at least not
when I knew her, and I've been gone for almost a year.
        Overall, I like smaller places for the grass, but I like
bigger places for quick getaways like what T-Rex and I did.
Pinco's so-called studio is in this warehouse that his father left
him. He has rooms for us to sleep in upstairs, and he makes
his so-called films in the big space downstairs. I needed
T-Rex mostly to have a place to go to. That was the first part of
my plan, and that part has gone okay.
        I met T-Rex because Pinco hired him and some of his
homeys to come in and, you know, be in the films with us. Us
being the runaways that Rafi brings to work for Pinco, but it's
working, so-called, too, because when we got paid, we had to
give it all back to Pinco for room and board. He gave cash to
T-Rex and his friends. They thought it was a big joke to be
paid to do what is the only thing on their mind anyhow, what
a bunch of jerks, but T-Rex was okay. He was kind of sweet,
and younger than he looked, and on our break we talked for a
while, and I decided he was the one for my plan.