Well, they have at least one thing going for them: they underestimate me. I guess when they took my car keys, they didn’t realize that maybe I had made a copy. I unlocked my little metal bank – the only real privacy I had – and pulled out the copy. With the key and a good pocketful of clinking change, I left, locked the door, and went out to my car.

I love my car. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s older than my brother, but still, it’s mine. So it doesn’t matter how old it is; to me it’s beautiful. For a quiet moment, I sit in the leather seat of my 84 Mustang LX and consider. They won’t be back until 12 at the earliest, 2 at the latest. Four to six hours to work off some frustration. I don’t think it’ll be long enough, but it’s a start.

Ten minutes later, I’m speeding along down I-45, radio blaring loudly, windows down, hair streaming in the wind. It’s too windy to put the top down, but I can still enjoy the air. The wind is strangely therapeutic. If I wasn’t the one driving, I’d close my eyes and just let it blow everything away. But I can’t really do that. So instead, I just let it blow through me. When I finally park the car at Grapevine, I feel empty and numb, not just from the cold.

The atmosphere is dim and loud inside. Music blasts through the air from a dozen speakers set in the ceilings and loud zaps and booms and pows echo off the concrete block walls. I make my way up the stairs to the second level and stop before a large screen TV attached to a counter top. I pick up one of the plastic blue guns and punch a few quarters into House of the Dead.

As the gorified zombies and undead demon toads leap out at me, I imagine familiar faces plastered on their bodies. *Boom* *boom* *boom*! Three dead parents fall to the ground, heads half exploded. *Kachow,* down goes a killer gargoyle dog, teeth still smashing together. While I blithely save the world from paranormal scum, a detached part of me examines my personal therapy.

Every time things get really bad, I go here: GameWorks. The only place where I can just disappear into the crowd. Everyone else there is just like me: kids busy blowing things away, eyes locked on the screen, hands clamped around joysticks, pounding buttons, pulling triggers. Here is the place where I can take out everything on evil monsters who wear my enemies’ faces for only fifty cents a game. No real consequences, no deaths, no tears, just piles and piles of bloody bodies and me with mild carpal tunnel syndrome. Well, not yet anyway.

At about the time where I made it out on the balcony to confront the giant demon, someone else pops up and inserts a few quarters. Darkly tanned hands pick up the second gun and start firing. Several minutes and a few quarters later, the demon is fleeing, the rabid demon bats are twitching on the ground, and we’re both blowing imaginary smoke from our pistols.

“Hey Tam.” The kid next to me popped in another few quarters.

“Hi Ana.” I still had three shots to go before I needed a new life. The next round of ghouls and zombies started up and we dove in, guns blazing.

“So,” Ana said conversationally as she mutilated a chainsaw wielding dead man, “Another blow up with Mr and Mrs Middle America?”

“Uh-huh.” I slammed a new handful of quarters home into the slot and kept firing. I won’t let the tears build up, not this time. They can’t make me be visually affected. I won’t let them. All I have to do is keep killing them, and it will all be okay.

“What was it this time?”

“Stupid stuff.” I gritted my teeth. Several more zombies went down, limbs spasming with each gunshot. It’s always stupid stuff with them. All those bloody little things that keep building up until finally the last one falls and makes everything *snap!*

“Shoe stupid or religion stupid?”

“Little of both.” My fingers are starting to get cramped. It’s been nearly an hour. “The religion thing and the clothes thing, you know. It’s never just one thing with them anyway.”

The last of the undead demons fell to our flaming bullets. We punched in our initials – 1st and 2nd place – and set the guns back down. “Want to go for it again?” Ana asked softly. She understood the therapy.

“Nah.” I cracked my knuckles a few times and shook the blood back in to them. A few quarters were still jingling in my pocket, enough for a coke. We headed over to the bar. Ana got a tall cherry coke and I bought a small DP. The icy cold Dr Pepper felt pretty good, soothed the caffeine withdrawal headache that had been developing behind my eyes. We took a seat by the railing, watching the other gamers play.

“Sooo…” Ana slurped the last of her coke down. “You gonna fill me in on the details or should I pull out the red-hot pokers?”

“Hey I didn’t expect some kind of Spanish Inquisition,” I said half-heartedly.

“Nobody does. So?”

So here’s the story. My name is Tammy Ashfield and I’m sixteen. I am pretty much the average kid: decent grades, two parents, two brothers, a dog, live in the suburbs smack in the middle of the bible belt. And my parents are Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, good jobs, go to church every Sunday, pay the taxes on time, etc. etc. My brothers are normal, my dog is normal, my whole life is normal. Except for me. I’m the freak of the family; I guess in a few years I’ll be the black sheep. See, my family has always been Southern Baptists. Now they aren’t fundie bible-thumpers, but they’re good church-going ‘our God is the only way’ Christians. And I’m not. See, a few years ago, I started hearing about this thing called Wicca. And it was this great neopagan based religion that fit almost perfectly with my own personal belief system. And now, several years later, I call myself a Wiccan. The problem is, it goes against what my parents believe in. It’s a constant clash point between us because even though I’m out of the proverbial broom closet, they continue to make me go to church with them every Sunday. I despise that.

But that’s the blanket problem. This morning was much more minute. It happened because I was up late last night working on a project. I got it finished at about 3 AM and did a pretty decent job if I do say so myself. Then I collapsed into a minor coma until about 8 when they attempted to wake me up. There was a brief argument that ended with “Yes you will get up!” So I was up. Sort of. Then I found that none of my ‘good clothes’ (translation: uncomfortable trappings that look stupid on me) were clean and there was no time to get them washed. So I declared that today would be a casual day. It didn’t go over well with my parents. What followed was one of the stranger fights we had. I don’t think I ever threw ice at my dad before… but then again, he never dumped a glass full of coke on my head either. They confiscated my keys, the computer keyboard and the remote control, then stormed off to church.

And that’s it.

Ana set down her empty glass. “Nasty situation Tam.” She shrugged. “But I don’t know what to tell you. My family was never really religious or anything.”

“Aren’t you lucky.” I said quietly. “Something like that. Anyway, I don’t know the answer. I mean, you guys just keep clashing together. The whole Christian-Pagan thing is like putting Hillary and Monica in the same room and expecting them to get along.”

“Yeah.” I stirred the half melted ice in my cup. “But I don’t expect them to join in at sabbats or anything. I just want them to leave me alone. I understand how they’re ‘worried about my soul’ and all, but they haven’t even bothered to learn anything about it. I picked up that book, the Cunningham one you told me about. They never even opened it.” I sighed deeply. “Sometimes it feels like they just don’t care. Back when I was a christian, they never talked about religious junk, they didn’t care. But now that I’m not one, it’s the number one priority they have. It just pisses me off.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “I know.” Silence. We both pondered for a minute. Then, “Want to try Area 51?”

“Why not?”

Once again, we’re diving into the fray. I don’t think my parents will ever accept what I am. We’re just too opposite. But in another two years, I’ll be out of the house and off to college somewhere. Maybe there will even be a pagan club there… Until then, I guess I’ll just have to slip back into the broom closet while I’m around my parents. It won’t be easy, but I can keep it quiet. Well… it wasn’t really the answer I wanted. To be honest, I just wanted one big easy clear-cut answer that would make all my problems go away. Too bad real problems don’t have answers like that.

Wouldn’t life be easy then?