Now, three weeks later, here I was, sitting in the TV room at the shelter's Minors wing like I'd been here all my life, watching a repeat of Friday Night Videos with eight other girls, two of them pregnant, all of us smoking. These days I was smoking Newport 100s instead of Marlboros; Alice and Hope, my girlfriends at school, wrinkled their noses and complained, "Now we can't bum cigarettes off you."

No such problem at the shelter, where the preferred Newport 100 was elongated especially so that two people could go halfsies on it. Thus, the minute you pulled out a cigarette, someone said, "Gimme halfsies," and somebody else said, "You got another one of those?"

If you had three cigarettes or less in your pack, you could decline — "I only have one more after this, and my wish" - which was your "wish cigarette," the one you turned upside down as soon as you opened the pack while saying to yourself, for instance, "I hope I'm not, and I hope to god I never get, pregnant." You smoked your wish cigarette last, ruminating on the wish, and if you gave it away, you risked not finding your perfect new boyfriend, or magically receiving a thousand dollars.

Because I was the white girl, people smoked all my cigarettes. "White girl, Jenny, Jane. Gimme one." I resented it, but went along with it, griping to myself. If I didn't act friendly, it was confirmed that I was a stuck—up racist bitch. I was fighting a losing battle on that front ever since I "dissed some brothers" outside the Orange Julius while coming back from a shelter—sponsored trip to 42nd Street to see A Nightmare on Elm Street. What did I do? I didn't even know. We were strolling down the Deuce, making crazy killer razor—claw fingers at each other, and a swarm of guys launched right at us, sucking their teeth and muttering suggestions, so I tried to skirt past them. Not two blocks later, the whole group's cutting their eyes at me and hissing, "Bitch. Stupid white ho."

Still, life here in the Minors wing was marginally more comfortable than at Main, where I'd spent my first night and morning. Whereas Main held maybe seventy—five girls at a time, half of them sleeping on foam mattresses on the floor, the Minors wing housed only fifteen girls in shared bedrooms in a private, four—story brownstone, with two nuns or counselors on duty at all times. My new bed was in a room on the third floor with two other girls, Big Perla and Treece. Big Perla was the size of a sumo wrestler and she never spoke. Treece was a square—headed girl with square—rimmed Cazal glasses who hated my guts.

Treece's friend Sherri also hated my guts, and Sherri was psycho. Her fists were always clenched, her neck veins strained, and her nostrils flared; she was like a charging bull with cornrows. Sherri was six or seven months pregnant, her belly stuck out like a load of laundry in front of her, and she was determined to miscarry Ð often, when the nuns weren't looking, she'd take a flying leap at the arm of the sofa, or smash her belly into the stair banister.

I'd already had a run—in with square—head Treece and Sherri the pregnant psycho, my very first week at the Minors wing. They were hanging out in our room one night after lights out, dancing around by the window, fucking around with some guys standing down on the street, flashing them and miming blowjobs, whooping it up like it was Disneyworld. I was tired, and I knew Big Perla was trying to sleep too, and if the nuns had to come upstairs to shut us up, we would all get punished.

"Oh my gawd!" screeched Sherri, her big belly throwing distended shadows as she lurched around the room, heaving with laughter. I wasn't interested in a seven—thirty pm curfew, or cleaning the stairs with a toothbrush, so I pulled the pillow over my ear and grumbled, "Shut up."

The men on the street were forgotten. "Shut up?" said Treece, suddenly behind me. She reached out and slapped me in the head. "I know white girl didn't just tell me to shut up."

"Oh yes she did," said Sherri, at the foot of my bed.

"Hey!" I said, as Treece jumped on top of me, pushing the pillow hard on my face. "MMMPH!"

I flailed in panic, the feet of the bed scraping and bumping on the floor as we thrashed, and the nuns immediately called up the stairs, "Ladies!" They were on their way. Treece got me with a fist to the side of the head, then scrambled back across the room to her bed, as Sherri fled to her room. Sister Thomas Rita opened the door and hit the lights. Treece and I lay there panting, pretending to wake from a deep sleep. Perla lay there with her eyes and mouth shut, as usual.

"What just happened here," demanded Sister Thomas Rita. She was a tall, broad—backed woman, formidable even in her sixties.

"Nothing," I said, my heart drumming loud in my ears. "I don't know, I was asleep."

"I didn't hear nothin'," said Treece, grumpy. "Sound like it came from upstairs." Perla showed us her silent back, pillow over her ear.

Sister Thomas Rita wasn't buying it. "I know I heard something. In this room. Who else was in here?"

I shook my head and shrugged, mouth innocently agape. Treece continued to act affronted. "Nobody! We was sleeping!"

I could feel a tender spot throb where her fist hit my head. "Honestly," I said, "we were."

Sister Thomas Rita squinted at me. She was a tough old nun, and she had no problem throwing you out for breaking the rules. No fighting was the first rule; fighting would get you thrown out of the shelter right then and there Ð both of you. Even if you were just defending yourself. I looked up and blinked at her, blameless.

Sister Thomas Rita left, unsatisfied, and Treece and I sank back in our beds. "I'ma catch up with you later," she promised me.

"Look, I'm sorry I said shut up, I apologize." Jesus.

I had not slept easy since that night. I was way on the tips of my toes. I waited until the last person was finished in the bathroom so I could be the last person in bed. I stayed out after school until dinner, and after dinner I stayed in plain view in the TV room until it was time for lights out. But if I ever happened to cross Treece or Sherri coming from the bathroom, or going down the stairs to the kitchen for chores, they'd press right up against me in my face and flex.

"White bitch."

And I'd do my best not to flinch, even at the fake punch that often followed, or the real shove. Just scurry away, get past it. I wouldn't be here forever.

Where was I going to go? That was the burning question. The counselors determined that "family reunification" was not a viable solution in my case Ð they were talking to me about foster care, or a group home. Scary, but exciting to think about a new life, one that didn't include any of my ostensible parents. As long as the shelter wasn't sending me back home, I'd go just about anywhere.

My mother had called the shelter twice so far. The first time, I called her back, revving up my indignation in advance so I wouldn't immediately cave in when she told me that Dave was gone and she begged me to come home.

Which she didn't. "I don't know what is the matter with you," she said, coldly, her heels echoing on the floor as she paced. "This is unacceptable behavior. You'd better get your butt home, pronto. You have a lot of explaining to do."

"Me?" Blood rushed to my face, swirling in my ears. There must have been some kind of mistake, I must have misdialed the phone Ð the lady on the other end was supposed to be crying right now, apologizing, swearing to make it up to me if I'd forgive her again. Instead I heard Dave in the background, clearing his throat like a bad actor, making his presence known. "You said you weren't taking him back, I told you...!"

She rolled over this like a tank. "You don't set the rules around here! Now you can come home right now, or I can throw away all of your belongings. If you don't live here, your stuff doesn't live here either."

I hung up the phone, went to the bathroom, and cried for about an hour.

I didn't return her second call.

Girls came in and out of the Minors wing. A girl named Bernadette, gawky with a big flat nose, locked herself in the pantry with a knife Ð they had to call the nutwagon to come and get her, straightjacket and everything. Nuns didn't fuck around. Two girls, both named Tina, got thrown out in one night, after fighting each other over a bisexual boy hustler named Angel. A small, bow—backed Chinese girl came in one afternoon, stayed for about an hour, and sneaked out, never to be seen again.

Then my scary square—head roommate Treece got bounced when she showed up two hours past curfew, trying to get in the door. Everybody knew, if you were even fifteen minutes late, the counselors were already packing your stuff in a plastic bag and people were claiming your leftover toiletries. You missed curfew, you didn't get back in the house, period, ever.

So Treece's ousting could not even remotely be my fault, but of course Treece's hate—mate Sherri tried to put the blame on me. I heard her talking loud about me in the room next door: "You can't trust that white bitch. She always running to the nuns, complaining out her neck. Watch, she gonna get me thrown out, too. Watch."

Sherri wasn't even waiting to catch me alone any more, now she'd try to fight me right there in the TV room. "I hate that white bitch. She know I'm talking about her, but she too scared to look over. Bitch can't even look at me. Hah." Then she'd punch herself in the stomach. There was no possible response to this; I'd tried everything Ð laughing, scowling, leaving the room, addressing her — "I don't know what your problem is with me, Sherri, I never did anything to you."

Somebody mocked me from the corner, my corny white girl enunciation: "I dewn't knew what your per—ob—lem is." I excused myself from the TV room.

Fortunately, not everyone hated me quite so much. This new girl, Roxanne, seemed very mellow. She and I found ourselves walking to the A train together one morning, and somehow we started talking about books. There were no books at the shelter except some old coverless Michener paperbacks, a World Fact Book from 1973, and a beat—up copy of the Bible, which failed to grab my interest the one time I deigned to skim it.

"Who do you like to read," Roxanne asked. "Who's your favorite author." I had to think about it so I didn't say Jackie Collins. "I guessed Kurt Vonnegut, or Kahlil Gibran."

She nodded. "My favorite author is James Baldwin, you know him?"

"'Sonny's Blues,'" I said. "He's really good."

"You know he's gay," she offered.

Ah hah. I should've figured. "That's cool."

Roxanne smiled wide. She had a broad face with a big, cheeky smile, which was purple and white against her dark brown skin. She had earring holes, but no earrings. Her hair was short and natural, and she wore a blue workman's coat. "You all right, Jane."

I didn't correct her on my name.

Roxanne and I went to the laundromat together on the weekend, traded stories. She was from the Bronx, where she said she used to be a "Five Percenter."

"What's a Five Percenter?"

Roxanne rolled her eyes and shook her head, like I didn't want to know. "Girl, Five Percenters is the blackest black people there is. They're Islam, and they preach that the white man is the devil." She broke into her wide smile. "You don't want to come visit me in my neighborhood."

We watched our laundry turn in the dryers, all the clothes we owned except what was on our backs — my black sweater, purple with wear; the jeans and t—shirt I got from the donations room at the shelter. Everything else had been left in a bag on the curb in front of my mother's apartment.

"So, what are you doing here," asked Roxanne, curious, but not critical. Everyone else who asked seemed a little critical.

I gave her the short answer: "Stepfather." Roxanne nodded. It was a common answer. "How about you."

"Mother," she said, sighing. "And father."

Yeah.

There was a pause where the next question would go, if the next question were said out loud. So...how bad was it?

"Your stepfather ever try anything with you?" she asked, raising her eyebrows like she was amused.

"No, he's mean, he's definitely crazy, but no." Another pause.

"My father's been trying to have sex with me for years now," she said. "But he and my mom got divorced when I was little."

"Jesus." She was so nonchalant, I didn't want to overreact, but Ð Jesus. I mean, say what you want about my own crazy dad; at least he never tried to have sex with me.

"Yeah, he's always coming around my school, trying to talk to me. Telling me he wants to take me to a hotel, buy me things." She made a flapping puppet mouth with her hand. "Talking all this crazy stuff."

"That's crazy. They're all..." I shook my head.

She shook her head too. "...Yeah."

Roxanne liked to keep a low profile at the shelter, where her "gay ass" was not embraced. She wanted to spend evenings downstairs in the quiet kitchen doing homework, and I was only welcome to join her if I was going to be totally quiet, and not clowning, or kicking her ankle. Sometimes I managed to calm down enough to work alongside her, with the hiss of the brownstone's steam heat shushing me. Other times the lure of the TV room was too great, I wanted to smoke or use the pay phone. I got restless, shuffled my papers too loud, and got a scowl that sent me upstairs.

What can I say. I was bored. In between being scared, and being angry, and feeling sorry for myself and deprived, and then feeling really proud of myself and full of adrenaline, I was bored. The shelter was dull, it was ugly, it was uncomfortable Ð wherever you sat was saggy and smelly. There was no privacy. There was nothing to do. It was like waiting at a bus station for days at a time. People lolled around, enervated and cranky and hungry, hoping something or somebody interesting would distract them until it was their time to get shipped off someplace else.

Vondell was a distraction. She was one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, and she was only twelve years old. When she came into the Minors wing, she lied and said she was seventeen, and she looked like it Ð she had a woman's face, full, round breasts, and a curvy waist and ass Ð but the counselors eventually came up with her legal name and birth date, and Vondell was busted. She was furious Ð she could have had a nine thirty pm weekend curfew. Instead, she had to be home by seven every night.

Baby Vondell was a sensation in the house. She was everywhere, hanging off people's arms, laying front and center across the couch in the TV room, sucking her thumb, and I quickly became her favorite, well, one of her favorites, at least. She called me Mamma, as in "Mamma, you love me? Am I pretty? You gonna give me thirty cents?" Asking was she pretty like she didn't know. She was a living, breathing plum, and she smelled like cocoa butter, sprawled out there on my lap.

I had to wonder if maybe Roxanne's tendencies were rubbing off on me, or if I was really this pathetically happy just to be liked by another girl in the house, even if it was insincere. Either way, I was acting like a chump. Roxanne came with me to buy a Klondike bar at the corner store, then laughed at me when I threw in a bag of BonTons for Baby Vondell. "Oh, no. That little girl is playing you."

I scoffed. I knew full well what Vondell was up to. I chose to let her play me, so I wasn't getting played. "She's not playing me. I offered to buy her some chips."

"Oh, you offered. After she went on for twenty minutes about how she's dying of hunger, and won't somebody bring her chips." Roxanne did an apt impression of Vondell, with her lower lip pouted out, and I cracked up.

"Shut up, you're just jealous."

"Of who? Vondell? Pshoo." She punched my shoulder, grinning. "Get over yourself, girl, you ain't all that. And besides, I know you always love me the best."

"Friends," rapped Whodini over the radio. "How many of us have them?"

I'd given the number to the residents' pay phone to some people from school, but the phone never rang for me. Which was fine, whatever they were new friendships, most of us were new sophomores at the school that year. It wasn't like we'd all been friends since the seventh grade. I didn't even have any friends since the seventh grade I was a pariah in middle school, and my freshman year at Competitive High hadn't been much better. But this year, since I'd started at this new school in Chelsea, things were significantly different. I'd dropped into a decent—sized crew of new—wave party kids skateboarders, art punks, potheads, and mods that covered a full two tables in the lunchroom. The girls wore tight, pegged purplish—black pants and shirts with cut—out necklines; the guys doodled checkerboards in pen on their white hi—top canvas sneakers. After school, we slouched around Washington Square Park, trying to mooch each others' pot; on weekends, we went to keg parties or dive bars or nightclubs like Danceteria. This was all recapped at the lunch tables on Monday.

"We stayed out so late on Friday," said my friend Alice, flipping her long, famous black hair. "We were having such a good time, we did not want to leave."

"That sounds fun," I said, over a mouthful of school lunch. School lunch was a shameful thing, but it was free with my voucher, and I was hungry.

"It was really fun," added my friend Hope. "Totally."

Alice continued playing with her mesmerizing hair, which fell straight down like waterfalls from both sides of her perfect part, like the Chinese girls' over in their corner of the lunchroom. Guys loved Alice's hair. They loved Alice, even though she was only a gawky sophomore, baby fat still apparent under her sharp chin she acted way older than fifteen. Hope sat next to her at the chipped formica table, chewing absently on her raggedy nailpolish. She was shorter and curvier than Alice, with a strawberry—blonde bob and a sweet, kittenish face, usually set in a look of jaded disdain.

Alice and Hope and I were in the same homeroom together, and we shared the belief that everything about school was beneath us, so we had grouped up pretty quick. We ran around to parties and bars together, cut first period and got bagels, kept up on who the others hated and liked. On paper, Hope and Alice were my best friends. Sometimes, though, it was like they weren't even thinking about me.

"You should have come out with us," said Alice. Was she laughing at me? It was hard to tell with Alice; she had a habit of pursing her lips in a little pout when she came to the end of a sentence. "We missed you."

"Yeah...I have that curfew."

"That's right, oh my god. What is it, like nine o'clock? That totally sucks."

"Totally sucks," Hope agreed. Hope was more empathetic, she got grounded by her mom all the time. She usually went out anyway and suffered for it later. Sometimes I thought Hope was tougher than me, because she stayed at her mother's, while I ran to the shelter for protection. Her mom was at least as bad as mine.

Alice grabbed Hope's wrist. "I can't believe Ollie Wythe was there, he is so gorgeous."

"Oh my god, Ollie Wythe is so gorgeous."

Hope and Alice had a little shudder and whinny over gorgeous Ollie Wythe, a member of this pack of hot, alcoholic upperclassmen who called themselves "the Boyses." Coming in contact with any of the Boyses for any reason made Hope and Alice neigh like horses "I saw Leland Banks in the stairway after fourth, bbbrrrrrrr!" "Ollie Wythe almost ran me over with his skateboard before first, huhhhhhh!" I had no encounters with the Boyses to report. I just kept shoveling in the Salisbury steak.

"So, what'd you do this weekend, Janice?"

NununUNununun, Nanice? I didn't want to be extra—sensitive, but suddenly I was in a shit mood. I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to sound casual.

"Not much. Hung out. Went to the park on Saturday."

"Oh."

Yeah. Here's what I did that weekend: On Friday night, I ate a Klondike bar on a stoop with Roxanne. We sat outside in the cold December air until exactly nine pm, then we went back inside, where Baby Vondell smoked all my Newport 100s, and Sherri crossed her eyes and spat at me.

On Saturday I looked for a job. In the afternoon, I went to Washington Square in the cold, hoping someone would be hanging out and smoking pot. I watched the Rastafarians bounce soccer balls like hackey sacks, and envied their customers. On Sunday it rained and I stayed in. It was my turn to sweep and mop all five flights of stairs and the hallways. That took about an hour and a half. I even did some homework. That's how bored I was.

I needed a new boyfriend, or some guy to spend time with. Me and the girls aimed high in our dating careers, but there were only two or three really top status guys at school, and we couldn't all go after the same ones. Maybe, I thought, I should broaden my criteria. There was a guy from the swim team in my Computers class who was exceptionally well—built, though he had a skin problem. He was conservative and dull, with his collared sport shirts and his too—short hair, but he seemed interested in me, and he had that upper body.

I floated the notion by Hope over a cigarette in the fourth—floor bathroom. "What do you think of Andrew Winkler?"

Her nose wrinkled. "I don't know, dude...I guess he's got a nice body, but...he's not that hot...and he's not even that funny or anything."

"Oh, I know. He's totally in love with me. I'm like, 'No thanks, I only want to have sex with your shoulders and chest.'"

"Hah." Hope appreciated my toughness, as I did hers.

Despite the veto, I pressed on. I needed something to do after school. I was tired of sitting in the TV room at the shelter like a political protester, always passively resisting a beating. I deserved a little hands—on affection.

We should study together sometime, I proposed to Andrew via note.

His reply: I like to study naked.

And that was what we called foreplay.

It was quickly arranged that I would go over to Andrew's on Friday to study naked. "We have to go right after school, though, because my mom gets home at five."

I rolled my eyes at Andrew's mommy. People who lived with their parents were such suckers. They had even less freedom than I did at the shelter. When I got my own apartment, they would all be jealous. "Whatever," I said, dismissive.

"And we can't smoke pot or cigarettes or anything in the house."

"Okay." Some date this was shaping up to be.

Still, I went. The bell rang after eighth period, and we both left by the back exit, as agreed — better not to parade down the block, lined with friends who would just stall and embarrass us. We walked briskly back to his apartment in Chelsea. We didn't have anything to talk about on the walk. The only thing we'd ever really discussed was the logistics of this date, and now here we were, on it. Andrew was a nervous person, I realized, trotting beside him down Greenwich Avenue. Besides missing obvious answers in Computers, and taking teasing way too personally, he was also a little bit of a granny. Oh well. I didn't respect him, I didn't even like him, but I didn't dislike him yet, so here we were.

He hustled me into his building, then the elevator, then the apartment, then his bedroom. No grand tour, no orientation. His room was dark blue with white trim. A desk, a basketball, a pile of laundered and folded clothes. A big boy's room.

"So," I said coyly, sitting on his bed. "Are we going to study?"

He said something like, "Unh," and fell on me. This was the first kiss, the climax of all the waiting. It was wet and flabby. Our chemistry was inert, all the molecules dropping straight to the floor, refusing even to roll. I thought, Ugh. I wondered what he was thinking. He was in his own world, eyes squeezed shut, pimples pulsing. "Take off your shirt," I said seductively, as he blindly humped my upper thigh.

Ah yes, there they were, the pectoral muscles. The shoulders, the upper abs. Something to focus on while this nasty operation was underway. God, he really didn't know what he was doing. Stab, stab. "Here." I realized, He's a virgin. He's just using me to have sex for the first time, so he can say he did it. And why was I using him again? For the romance?

I thought, Let's just get this over with.

It didn't take long. It never did. The cleaning up was gross. I splashed water everywhere, trying to bathe in the sink like a pigeon in a puddle. Spruce myself up before I bolted up to the shelter. I caught myself in the mirror, eye makeup smudged, hair mussed, neck bitten, face red. Busted.

Here we are again, I said.

The regular, my reflection replied.

We smirked at each other, and turned away.

"The Regular," (excerpt) from GIRLBOMB — A Half-way Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum. Copyright 2006 by Janice Erlbaum. Reprinted by permission of the author.