Monroe Street

  In the heart of downtown Topeka, across from the State Capitol, stands Assumption Catholic Church. It’s a Mission-and-Renaissance-Revival brick monolith from the 1920s that was built to survive tornadoes, scandals, and the weekly parade of restless kids shoved inside to worship a God they weren’t entirely sold on. Next to it sits Assumption Grade School, a mid-century, no-frills building where the hallways reek of industrial cleaner and the K-8 classrooms smell like pencil shavings and boredom.   Outside, an asphalt playground waits like a killing field where kids bleed for kickball glory and learn the hard way that falling on blacktop means a trip to the ER for stitches, casts, or a new pair of teeth. Between the church, the school, and the homeless who drift in for free bologna sandwiches from the church’s rectory, the whole block feels like its own ecosystem: strange, isolated and self-policing. I had been part of this ecosystem my entire scholastic life. Raised by i...

Saturday, November 7th, 1987 Def Leppard’s Hysteria is breaking the airwaves. Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again is breaking MTV. And my girlfriend and I are breaking the Catholic Church’s cardinal rule of no sex before marriage. I’m fourteen. She’s thirteen. Her name is Stephanie Allen.  She’s pretty with long, wavy blonde hair, piercing green eyes, and a million and one emotional scars. We’re at her place: a two-car garage turned into a tiny, two-bedroom hovel in the part of town where couches are on porches and residents are on parole. She lives with her mom and fifteen-year-old sister, neither of whom are home. Her mom probably out drinking and drugging. Her sister probably out breaking and entering. The room we’re in is a cramped space she shares with her sister. Girl clutter everywhere and a stolen license plate that says CUDDLES , swiped off a car by her mom’s boyfriend during a blackout bender. The room is barely bigger than a coffin, so the girls sleep in a bunk bed....