"Riff Raff didnít show up tonight," one of them said. "We need somebody to play the part."

Cockily, Robert swaggered forward to accept the invitation.

Instead, they brushed by him. "September, can you fill in?"

I smiled at Robert, who stood slack jawed, as I accepted. I knew that he had just been dealt the ultimate snub and I was enjoying every second of it.

The entire time I was involved in Rocky Horror my health was pretty shaky. For much of the time I wore a permanent plastic tube in my arm so I could insert a needle and take my medications easily. Iíd get a lot of people asking me about and I came up with a variety of stories to explain it. Eventually I settled on telling people that I took a lot of heroin, but donít like needles so I had the intravenous line put in.

Eventually I had to drop out of the Rocky Horror picture, because my lungs wouldnít allow me to breathe and move at the same time.

While I lived at my grandparents, the barn was my refuge. My Grandmother is the nicest person in the world. My Grandfather wanted to see me put my life together, and figured that riding my case was the best way to accomplish that. Unfortunately, Iím the kind of person that doesnít like to be pushed, and rebels even further. So sparks would often fly.

Mostly it was filled with various tools and long unused farming implements. I cleared out the loft and made it my second home. My grandparents never came into the loft and I could hide whatever I didnít want them to find up there. I had a sawed off shotgun hidden beneath a loose floorboard. Iíd use the loft all the time to do wargaming with my friends. Other times we would smuggle alcohol into the loft and drink until we were stupid. One night we drank too much wine and Shawn ended up vomiting twelve times in a row; a personal record Iím sure. That was the last time he ever drank wine, a miserable experience which , he later informed me, was intensified by an early drive to Woodenville with his Uncle Al- the most annoying man on earth.

Another night we ended up destroying about ten sheets of styrofoam, breaking it over each otherís heads, and laughing ourselves silly. I tried to break about a foot thick chunk over Shawnís head, and found it extremely hilarious that I couldnít. In retaliation for his headís non-compliance, I went over to the wooden slat door at the top of the stairs and put my fist through it. To do me one better Shawn put his head though it. Fortunately all this damage was not discovered for years.

My Grandfather was right to take a strict disciplinarian stance with me, although he may have been able to temper the way in which it was dispensed. As soon as I managed to slip out of my grandparentís view, I would become a bonafide wild child.

One Saturday I escaped for a party at, Shawnís future wife, Maryís parents house. Her parents, of course, weíre gone. By the time the live band, Count Zero, had cranked out a blistering four song set on a makeshift stage of tires and plywood, I had already