Tina joins our class mid semester. Instantly, I dig her aura. She shares the relaxed gait and slow drawl of the local stoners. She wears her dark hair flat and parted down the middle and has an effortless flower-child-boho quality I envy. I have determined she and I are going to be friends.

When class is dismissed for break, I invite her to come hang with me in the forest, where the skaters, stoners, and goths go to smoke. She thanks me and tells me it's a relief not to have to sit with Sarah, her school appointed escort, in the band room for another student council meeting.

“No problem,” I say. I hold out my hand to her. My black nail polish is chipped, and my cuticles are ragged. I can't stop chewing during class. “I’m Jen, by the way.”

She says her name is Tina, which I already know. I ask her where she's from. She tells me she just moved from the city; her mom’s boyfriend bought a house in Stonefeild. I'm familiar with the subdivision. It's where all the rich kids live. I've driven past but never been inside the gate. She blushes and tells me she's just moved there from Wintergrass.

“That’s the trailer park in the in the Westend of the city, right?” I know of the trailer park because one of the local guys I grew up with moved there recently. He comes back on the weekends to get stoned with his friend all the time. I don't bother to ask if she knows him. There's definitely something a bit wrong with him. He's one of those guys all the girls instinctively seem to avoid. He has striking Scandinavian ash-blond coloring, and would be considered handsome, if not for his unnerving demeanor and soulless stare. Once, while a group of us were all at his trailer, he pulled out a bunch of nude Polaroids of his mom from her panty drawer and passed them around for all the guys to gawk at. When his friend, Beckett joked about taking the pictures in the bathroom to jerk off, he laughed, like it was the funniest thing. I told him he was disgusting. He just grinned at me. I never went back to his place after that and kept my distance whenever I saw him around the neighbourhood.

 “Yeah, that’s the place.” She puts her hands in her pockets and kicks at a scuff mark on the linoleum with the toe of her Adidas.

I see my chance to solidify between us the kind of bond that can only be shared by those who hale from similarly shitty places. I tell her "I'm from the Village. It's the trailer park just a few kilometres outside of town.”

Her face brightens. “When Mr. Elder set me up with that annoying student escort, he warned me to stay away from the kids from the trailer park. God, what a dickhead.”

“Oh, man. He hates us so much.”

Tina flashes me a conspiratorial grin. “Screw him.”

We walk to the forest. There are about thirty kids gathered in small circles on the gravel path smoking cigarettes. The air is winter-crisp, and I tuck all but my smoking fingers into my thin jacket to keep warm. We share a cigarette and salt and vinegar chips.

We chat about our shared love of music. “I really love all the old classic rock stuff. Pink Floyd, CCR, Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac, stuff like that. I've also been listening to a lot of indie stuff like Elliot Smith and Mazzy Star lately. Have you heard any of their stuff?”

She shakes her head. “Never heard of either of them.”

 “You gotta listen to them, they're awesome. I'm really into punk, too. The Sex Pistols, Bad Religion, and NOFX, stuff like that.” I laugh and gesture to my Nirvana shirt. “And of course I listen to grunge.”

 She doesn't really listen to punk or grunge, but she likes rock and pop, and listens to a lot of rap, too. “Lately I've been listening to No Doubt, Tupac, and a lot of classic rock stuff,” she says.

We compare our favourite classic rock bands, and after some back and forth we finally land on a band we both love: The Doors. My dad has all the albums, and I've spent endless afternoons looking through the album covers, mooning over the band photos.

I watched the Doors movie with Val Kilmer the year before and fell hopelessly in love with both Morrison and Kilmer. Fantasy crushes have always felt safe to me; no risk of rejection. Kilmer does such an incredible job of conjuring the dead rockstar that I'm often confused by who exactly it is I have the crush on. If Jim is the soul of my crush, Kilmer is the living embodiment. Their art blurs together for me; a seductive pastiche of sensory memory. Two spirits intertwined on some higher artistic plane where distinctions are unnecessary and amorphous abstractions are all that need exist. I no longer try to make any sort of mental differentiation between the two and accept that they have become, for me, mostly interchangeable.

Tina says L.A. Woman is her favourite of their albums. I tell her mine is their self titled album, but I also really like Strange Days. I ask if she knows that Morrison took the band name for the Doors from a book, The Doors of Perception, a reference to a line from a William Blake poem, which I proceed to recite for her. She admits that she didn't know this but seems impressed that I do. I've always been meticulous about my band research. I am obsessed with learning all the minutia of the various bands I like and have amassed an annoying cache of trivial knowledge. I've been called a know-it-all enough times to feel a small sting of regret every time a regurgitated fact impulsively passes my lips, so it's always a relief when someone thinks it's cool and not just irritating.

I learn that Tina doesn't just look the part of the stoner, she does, in fact, smoke pot. I tell her about Dan and Landon Miller, two brothers that live in the retro basement of their baba’s bungalow and don't attend school anymore due to behavioural problems. They live with their Baba because last year their mom’s boyfriend decided to use Landon’s head for batting practice. They had to sew him up after with something like thirty stitches. He still carries the scars, curved lines snaking his cranium like the stitching on a leather baseball. The brothers make a bit of cash by dealing pot, so their place is a regular hangout for the stoner crowd.

“You should come hang out Saturday. My friend Melanie is dating Landon, so we always smoke for free.”

“Really? That would be great! I mean, as long as your friends won't mind me tagging along?”

“Oh, they won't care. Melanie and Landon are always taking off on me to make out in the spare room, anyway.” Melanie and I had been inseparable through most of junior high until she'd started dating Landon the previous summer between eighth and ninth grade. “Would be nice to have someone to talk to so I don't feel like such a third wheel.” I usually get stuck talking to Dan, who's always totally blitzed and is the kind of guy who makes up weird shit that's obviously fake to try to impress everyone. “You’d be doing me a huge favour if you came and kept me company.”

Tina says it sounds great and accepts my invitation, then asks what I'm doing Friday. She wants me to hang out at her place Friday night and says we can smoke a joint with her older brother, who she claims always has a stash and doesn't mind sharing.

***

Tina’s brother’s room is lit by a string of colorful Christmas lights and every inch of the room is plastered in posters. NWA, Wu Tang, Dre, Snoop Dogg, and some other rap groups I don't recognize peer out from between psychedelic weed posters and band magazine cutouts. Tina laughs as she sees me taking in the chaos. “My mom’s boyfriend gets mad because Ethan has ruined the drywall and ceiling with all the thumbtack holes.”

Tina’s brother dresses like a rapper. Cyprus Hill hoodie, fat silver neck chain, oversized jeans with exposed boxers. He has a light sienna complexion and eyes like a wounded animal. His head is shaved to little more than a centimetre of fuzz.

Tina introduces us. He takes me in in one long glance, starting with my chin-length blonde bob. His eyes work down to my cropped sweater and low-rise black corduroy bell bottoms. I feel a bit of a thrill as his gaze lingers appreciatively over the sliver of my exposed midsection.

The music pumping out of his stereo is something I've never heard before. Rhythmic, sensual, dark. Like if Rap and A cappella had a goth love child.

“What is this?” I ask, motioning to the sound system.

He shoots Tina an exasperated look. “What is this? What do you mean, what is this? It's Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, only the greatest rap group to ever live.” Ethan launches into an enthusiastic rant about how incredible their music is and tells me all about the band’s obsession with Ouija. His passion seems to have sparked something in me. There's a lightness in my head and an ache in the lowest part of my belly.

Tina asks if he has any weed we can smoke. He slides open his dresser drawer revealing a stash of papers and baggies. He dumps some weed out into a rolling paper. I watch as he carefully folds the shake into the square of parchment and his tongue glides the length of the paper.

He flips open the screen-less dormer window, then hops onto the roof and sparks the joint. Tina and I both lean out the window and take turns puffing on it. I inhale the cold night air and marvel at the full moon hanging in the night sky.

Ethan’s mom yells from downstairs for him to get his ass off the roof. Panic kills my buzz, and I look to Tina with terror. I've never been in such a nice house. Everything is sparkling new and in pristine condition. My entire trailer could fit inside their living and dining room. I assume the rules about smoking and drug use are a lot tighter than with my regular crowd. I've had other friends from nice families banned from hanging out with me for much less than this. My friend Andria’s mom found my pack of cigarettes once and went totally nuclear. Andria came to school the next day with a box of the notes we had exchanged and the friendship bracelet I had made her and told me her mom said we couldn't hang out anymore.

Tina shakes her head with a laugh. “It’s fine,” she says, “My mom’s boyfriend, Ron, hates it, but Ron’s at work and mom is chill. She just doesn't want Ethan out on the roof because she's worried, he'll cave it in and piss Ron off. Ethan and him fight all the time because Ron is always on his ass about his pot smoking. He says Ethan acts like an ungrateful punk, and that it's his house, his rules.” She tells me about her dad, who still lives in the trailer park and how after the divorce and up until her mom moved in with her boyfriend they had lived with him. She talks about how much she misses her friends now, misses her old life.

I feel a wave of sadness for her, and for her brother, who keeps his eyes fixed dispassionately to the poster covered wall while she talks. I'm touched and even a little surprised she's so attached to her former home. I wish I had the same feeling of connection to where I lived, but I yearn for something bigger, less constricting. I can't wait to get the hell out.

Ethan seems to tire of the conversation, because he jumps up from the bed and says that we should all play Ouija. He pulls a cardboard box from under the bed and flips the board out onto the mattress. “Who should we conjure?”

I shrug and look to Tina.

“I say we call up Jim Morrison.”

Ethan seems pleased with this idea because he positions the wood planchette on the board and instructs us to put our fingers on it. His voice drops to just above a whisper, “You know, my friend went to Morrison’s gravesite in Paris and took a grave rubbing. It's hanging on his bedroom wall. He says that he can always feel the presence of his spirit now when he listens to a Doors album.”

Ethan places his fingertips against mine and closes his eyes. “We call on the spirit of Jim Morrison. Jim, if you're here tonight with us give us a sign.”

The planchette glides up and down the board spelling out a word, as if by magic.

H E L L O

Tina looks pleased by the response but warns, “You have to watch out for trickster spirits. I've heard that some aren't really who they say they are. They can't lie though, so you have to ask very direct and specific questions, or they'll try to trick you.”

I find it kind of funny that there is some universal honor code amongst spirits that requires them to tell the truth when asked directly and wonder what the spiritual recourse for lying is.

Tina sits up tall and speaks to the ceiling with authority. “Is this the real Jim Morrison or is this an imposter? Speak true, spirit!”

R E A L

We all look at each other with amazement. My desire to believe begins to outpace my skepticism. I've stoped trying to ascertain which of my companions are responsible for making the Ouija speak.

“Jim, can you give us a sign to prove that you’re here with us?”

Y E S

We wait in bated silence. A moment later the Christmas lights flicker, and the room goes dark.

“No way!” Tina screams. She looks around the room, eyes round like quarters. “Stop it. You pulled the plug, didn’t you, Ethan?”

He grabs at his chest like a wounded soldier, shot through by his sister’s uncharitable accusations. “I mean, someone or more likely, something pulled the cord, but it wasn’t me.”

Tina rolls her eyes and turns to face me. “He must've pulled the plug. No way the spirit is that strong.”

I suspect Tina is right, but I don't say so. I don't want to ruin the fantasy.

Tina gets up and plugs the lights back in, returning the room to its gypsy carnival atmosphere, then says, “You know… The Ouija can also make predictions. We should all ask the Ouija something important. I'll go first.” Tina asks if her parents will ever get back together. The Ouija is undecided on this. Ethan asks if Bone Thugs will release another album. The Ouija answers in the affirmative.

Tina looks to me. “Your turn. What would you like to know? You may ask the Ouija the one thing your heart most desires.”

I ponder for a bit. I had my first serious boyfriend over summer. We only broke up because he moved to the city to stay with family after his trailer had burned down. I had found the brief romance thrilling and yearned for more. I decide the thing my heart most desires is to be passionately loved, so I ask, “Will Jim ever love me?”

Ethan watches my face closely as the planchette moves across the board towards the no.

I let out a playful wail. But Ethan cuts me off with a sharp, “Wait.” A sly smile creeps across his features as the course begins to correct.

Y E S

I am elated, but my elation soon turns to doubt. “Do you think Jim could really fall in love with me?” I ask. “I mean, is something like that even possible?”

Tina laughs, “I told you; the Ouija never lies.”

I don't  want them to think I'm just a silly girl, so I add, “Of course I'm just playing around. I know none of this is really real.”

Ethan’s eyes lock on mine, and my breath catches. “It can be real if you want it to be.”

“Weren’t you just saying something about that the other day? Something about the doors of perception?”

I am used to being perceived but haven't given much thought to my own perceptions. People have all sorts of perceptions about me, and I stack these up and measure them against my own tenuous estimation of myself. I am prodigious in my need to be perceived, and I realize this hunger for the approval of others makes me appear shallow. The well of my emptiness is bottomless, muddied by my own perception that despite my longing, I don't really deserve to be loved. I recite the familiar phrase aloud for myself as much as I do for her, “There are things known and unknown and in between are the doors of perception.”

“Well…?”

I smile, deciding that the moon is full and and somehow hangs impossibly from the sky, so anything is possible.

I ask once more, “Will Jim fall in love with me?” I close my eyes and place my fingers on the planchette, and repeat, “He-loves-me-he-loves-me-not.” The familiar sing-song adage loses its childish overtone and begins to take the shape of a love incantation. The tug of an invisible cosmic force guides me across the board. I open my eyes again and look to the answer, eager to learn my truth. I am not alone in my quest for love. Ethan’s fingers rest alongside mine.

Y E S

Tina claps her hands then looks between her brother and I and declares, “The Ouija has spoken.”