dawn patrol

we got jackets made up. they aren't real leather or anything. real leather jackets are expensive. they look like leather but they are a bit shiny. we did the letters on the back ourselves, too. we took our jackets into michael's and it was embarrassing because charmaine from the bus stop works there and i've always had a thing for charmaine and i had to ask her how can you paint letters on leather and she looked at the jackets and i said i mean how can we paint letters on these jackets that aren't leather.

"dawn patrol," she said and i thought she was going to ask what it means and i'm glad she didn't because i'm usually the funny guy and i think charmaine likes funny guys because she used to go out with ricky rocker and he's actually about ten times way funnier than me even though i am really funny it's just that he is so funny like one of those guys who says really funny things all the time. and i didn't want to be serious or cry in front of charmaine i just wanted to find out how to paint letters on a jacket that isn't leather and then maybe another day i could be funny and she would like it and we could go see a movie or i could sit next to her on her couch and we could talk about things and people.

she didn't ask though, which was good, and she was really helpful. she got all the stuff for us and they have this section in michaels where you can do projects and activities and she took us over there and did the first one so we could see how to do it. she's really nice and when she smiles she looks at me right in my face not like other girls who smile and look away.

then we went back to my place and finished up the jackets and then we went to visit dawn and we wore the jackets and we were pretty proud of them even though they weren't real leather and we did the letters ourselves.

dawn wasn't in her room. she was down in the dungeon as she calls it getting another scan. she doesn't have any hair from the chemo and even her eyebrows are gone and that time franklin asked her about her pubes she started to cry so we don't think she has any pubes either. the doctors say she's going to die but she isn't dead yet and she's fighting it but we all sat there in her room waiting for her to get back and we talked about it and we agreed that she probably is going to die. her face is all fat and she vomits and she's sad all the time and now she's back in the hospital and we don't know exactly what's happening but they are stopping the chemo.

when dawn got back she said that we were gay because of our jackets but she hadn't seen the words on the back yet and jeremy got kind of pissy because he is actually gay and he doesn't like it when people say things are gay but he got over it. then we all stood in a line and turned around and dawn saw the letters on the back and she started to cry and we thought it was because she was so happy about it but she asked us to leave so it was kind of weird but she didn't want to talk about it so we went home and the hospital is right on the bus line so we'd come in on the bus and had to catch it back again and this guy on the bus gave us a hard time about the jackets and i was mad about it all so i told him i wanted to punch his face out and he just laughed and said something to his friends and they laughed and it made me feel pretty bad.

so the next day i went back by myself and i decided to just carry the jacket instead of wearing it. dawn was okay but she said she was constipated and she pressed the button thing a few times while i was there and i think it was the one that helps with pain. i explained about the jackets and told her that we wanted to be the "dawn patrol" like her own personal people who could do things for her and she asked me if i was going to give her an enema and i don't know if she was serious about it and then she said it made her even sadder to see us being the dawn patrol because she wanted us to go out and do fun things and tell her about it instead of doing sick people things because then we would resent her and i told her no way and i don't really know why she was so upset about it.

i told dawn how hard we worked on the jackets and she said i should ask charmaine out sometime and i said i would. and then i asked her if we could still wear the jackets and she said yes but on one condition and i said oh no because she always puts conditions on things and it's usually something pretty annoying. what is it i said and she said that we could only wear the jackets if everytime somebody asked us what it was about we had to say exactly "there's this girl called dawn and every guy she fucks she gives them a leather jacket with dawn patrol on it." i told her they aren't really leather but i would say it.

so i wore my jacket on the bus on the way home and this other guy, i don't know why guys on the bus always pick on me but they do, so this guy called me a faggot and i told him my friend is gay and he said that proves i'm a faggot and he said why was my jacket so faggot. i got upset about it and i wanted to tell him that my friend dawn has cancer and she's dying and i made the jacket because i don't know what else to do and i want to help her but i tried thinking of things and this is all i could come up with and i know she doesn't want to die because she told me but i'm pretty sure she is gong to die and we've been friends since forever and why did she have to get cancer and die because she's a really nice kid even though sometimes she is sarcastic but she's never mean.

but instead of all that i said "there's this girl called dawn and every guy she fucks she gives them a leather jacket with dawn patrol on it" and the guy said that isn't a leather jacket and then i started to cry right there on the bus and then the bus stopped and charmaine got on. she came over and sat next to me and i cried all the way to my stop and then i got off and charmaine looked out the window and tilted her head a little bit and she smiled at me.

so today i'm going back in to visit dawn and i'm going to tell her all about it.