[ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ]	Reality Trip by Dana Kaye While the parents worked to put food on the table and roofs over heads, the kids caused innocent trouble, gallivanting amongst suburbia. They ran around town like it was their own personal playground: the railings were slides, the grassy knoll across from the college campus was a picnic area, and the parking lots were for double dutch. Most of the parents were around, in the office buildings, construction sites, beauty shops, but for the most part, the kids were on their own. Rob and I sat in the gangway between two downtown apartments, our baggy jeans draped over our Airwalks, huddled together to relieve us from the late autumn chill. “Here take some,” he said, handing the bag of mushrooms to me, and I took a finger full and shoved them into my mouth, wincing at the bitter taste. After the bag was ingested, we sat there for a moment, perhaps waiting for the beautiful trip to present itself in dazzling colors. “What time is your mom going to be home?” he asked me, taking the last drag off his cigarette. “Not until eight.” “Then let’s go to your house.” We walked, using the alleys, not wanting to be seen by a teacher or some nosy PTA mom. We hugged our matching black trench coats around our torsos as the wind blew our pink and black locks behind us. I could feel the shrooms starting to kick in as the ground beneath my feet began to feel like a moving walkway, pushing me towards home. We lived in the south part of town, in the small strip across the train tracks before it turned into the city. There weren’t many houses south of the tracks, mostly apartments, old and dilapidated. The crack-heads walked up and down the blocks with the dope dealers and gang bangers. It was still suburbia, and the streets were lined with trees and hedges, with a playground around the corner. But the ground was littered with empty forties and condom wrappers, the slides at the playground were covered in tagging, and the only people who hung out there were older folks up to no good. The parents wouldn’t let their kids play there.