Bad Valley Takes the Night Bus.

She’s got generic cigarettes, a Zippo, gummy bears and an illegible map streaked with blood and beer stuffed in the side of her bra. She has taken other forms of public transportation including hitchhiking and moustache rides, but now she’s on the night bus without a clue as to where it- or she- is going. She finds the middle of the night the best time to listen to institutional escapees talk about their lives and the ghosts only they can see flying past the tinted windows. Bad Valley listens as the lady with the wig takes out her teeth and tries to offer her $100. Bad Valley doesn’t take it, but she lets the woman give it away to the man in the back, huffing down a beer underneath the brim of his baseball cap.

Bad Valley pretends to listen while she daydreams. It is Bad Valley’s Jesus Year and she is full of sin. She is full of hellfire and damnation and those little guys in Purgatory that wait around with hooks and crooks to drag good people down. Bad Valley rides the tilt-a-whirl backwards. She knows where and why and how the grass is greener and yet still she steadfastly refuses to plant or tend to anything.

She closes her eyes, nodding occasionally and lets the wig lady buy her a cheeseburger and a coke. And a coffee. And a beer. Bad Valley is always drinking something and usually way too much of it. She is ready to sleep on someone else’s floor. She is ready to abandon someone else’s dishes and someone else’s laundry on someone else’s dime. She wants to listen to scratchy records and smoke unfiltered cigarettes indoors all day, without a clue as to whether or not the sun is out. Bad Valley doesn’t want to call home or check in. Bad Valley doesn’t carry the proper documents for travel. She shreds her parking tickets, her state taxes and any evidence of having being insured, past, present and future. Her license and her visa are expired. She only keeps them around for their pictures, which are pretty and dark and difficult to discern.

When it stops, Bad Valley has no desire to get off the bus and doesn’t have enough money for another ticket so she cries until the driver takes pity on her and takes her where she thinks she wants to go. Bad Valley arrives unannounced, unaccounted for and unexpected. Even so, Bad Valley is welcome where she is found.

Bad Valley doesn’t care what Good Valley thinks. Bad Valley doesn’t have a bedtime, watches the sun rise, makes the sunset hazier with smoke from her swishers sweet cigar. Bad Valley doesn’t teach, she takes. She doesn’t’ listen, she tells. She doesn’t wake them up when she gets to where she is going. She crawls into their bed, puts her arms around their waist and whispers to them until she is the most important thing they have ever dared to dream.

Bad Valley Lives

Bad Valley has been very, very bad.
She has refused to keep you in the loop.

She lives in squalor, entertaining roches and the friends and families of roches. She drinks instant coffee, boiled like black soup from the microwave. She never grinds her own beans. She crunches raw ramen noodles, twinkies and red hot cheetos straight from their wrappers.

Bad Valley lives by caller id, doesn't answer the phone or return emails. Her inbox is full, you can't leave a message. She is too busy watching daytime tv and pasting cutouts of her head onto the pages of US magazine. Bad Valley eats apple pie for breakfast and drives even if she's just going around the corner and there are sidewalks.

Bad Valley has a perfectly good bike rusting in the shed.
Bad Valley doesn't recycle. She never takes the trash out on the right day. When she does take the trash out, she doesn't move the can out of sight after it's been emptied. She rakes her leaves but lets them rot in putrid little piles in the front yard, never bagging them, blowing them or calling the county to haul them away. Bad Valley forgets to eat the vegetables she buys and they go bad at the bottom of the refrigerator. Instead of washing her sheets she sprays Febreeze. She doesn't price check either. She just buys the first thing that catches her fancy. She throws away coupons and doesn't record her receipts. She has no idea what's in the bank, what's coming down the pike or how to reconcile her checkbook with a hill of beans. Bad Valley doesn't brush her teeth very often.

Bad Valley stuffs her clothes in her drawers rather than folding them neatly. Bad Valley doesn't know what's at the bottom of her closet, hasn't organized it in years, hopes that it will somehow-magically- take care of itself.

more adventures of bad valley

Bad Valley is on her third divorce in New York.
She lives on the 8th floor without windows or an elevator.
She can run up the stairs because she never gained weight because she never got pregnant and she never, ever lived west of the city in the suburbs.
Bad Valley has the names of her most prominent lovers tattooed on the small of her back. However she can’t quite keep track of them all, so she has them sign a guest book on the way out the door. Bad Valley lives next to the bus station. She eats breakfast at 7-11 or Waffle House or Aunt Sarah’s every morning. She eats chocolates and skittles for lunch and has a steak dinner with fried onion rings every night. Bad Valley does not go to bed at a respectable hour. She jay-walks and hitchhikes and goes to midnight movies and after hour clubs. She has a whole different group of friends from dusk to dawn, friends whose last names she never bothers to discover. Bad Valley sleeps in a different bed every night of the week. She does not use a planner. She does not know what day it is or which month, only the season and sometimes the year. Bad Valley runs away with the circus for a month every summer. She is very flexible. Bad Valley does not go home at Christmas and is not sure to call. She does not own flats or sneakers or snow boots. Bad Valley wears flip-flops and heels and impractical clogs. Bad Valley never memorized her social security number and keeps cash wadded up in balls under the mattress and behind the mirror. Bad Valley does not have savings or mastercard or visa. Bad Valley has an endless cash flow from an unknown source. Bad Valley is very, very good at cards. Bad Valley has a poker face. Bad Valley can shoot darts and play pool. Bad Valley gets tips even when she’s not working. Bad Valley has a pocketknife. Bad Valley has a bottle opener on her key chain. Bad Valley has over due library books that she’ll just go ahead and keep. Bad Valley does not adhere enough postage. She signs all of her letters with red lipstick kisses and dots of perfume. Bad Valley lies to the clergy. Bad Valley wrecks automobiles and gets tickets for speeding. But nobody makes Bad Valley pay because she is too beautiful and beguiling. Bad Valley doesn’t use coupons or drive to different grocery stores in search of sales. Bad Valley does not plan the future or think about the past.

introducing my alter ego!

Bad Valley does not want to meet your mother.
Bad Valley doesn’t do windows.
Bad Valley does not take a multi-vitamin.
Bad Valley kisses boys on public transportation.
Bad Valley didn’t write her own vows but if she did, she wouldn’t mean them. Bad Valley only prays for herself. Bad Valley looks for a new apartment when it’s time to clean the house. Bad Valley lets the bills and the laundry and the dishes pile up and then stuffs them all big black garbage bags to be hauled away with the trash. Bad Valley has never filed state income tax. She eats nothing with artificial sweetener and at restaurants she orders cheesecake and French fries. Bad Valley drinks whiskey from the bottle and wine from the jug. She smokes unfiltered cigarettes from a skinny silver cigarette holder that has turned ashy black and is hot to the touch. She chain smokes in nature. Bad Valley never came back to Virginia, never sought a therapist and still speaks trash to her mother. Bad Valley doesn’t attend family reunions, write thank you cards or send wedding gifts. She does not get oil changes or state inspections or update her license plate tags. She never checks beneath the hood. She uses full service at gas station and tips with a kiss.