Pumpkin
(Photos by Keith Newell)
You could think this is sad because these little girls eat pills and not food and let their friends tattoo them with electric toothbrushes and hang around people with rifles and could be dead five different ways before they’re 21. But they don’t make me sad because I believe in art, and I believe hurting yourself is just what you do when you have a lot of energy and ideas and, um, spirit that got trapped like bubbles of lava that erode your insides. The violence girls inflict on themselves and boys inflict on other boys — that is the same intensity of dedication they’ll inflict on songs or films or books, if they just do it. Pumpkin and Melissa are already ahead because they can actually hit notes and everything they say is true.
Melissa
I gave them the assignment of getting their first ever song and short film completed to air on SBTVC by the time part two of this interview goes up, so let’s see if my faith is real, or else I’m wrong and this world is a waste of a time to be got through ’til you die.
We met up in Melissa’s room at the group home mental hospital halfway house that was converted from a funeral parlor.
STREET CARNAGE (Lisa Carver): What did you call that — bag of love?
PUMPKIN: Spacebag. The bag in the box of wine. You drink it then you blow it up when you’re done with it and it doubles as your pillow.
Doesn’t box wine taste disgusting, though? Bottled wine is bad enough.
PUMPKIN: No, it’s delicious. Here.
It’s really good! I don’t like wine, but I like spacebag! It looks like urine, though.
PUMPKIN: It looks like a colostomy bag.
MELISSA: I got big pills and little pills.
PUMPKIN: Neurontin enhances. Want one?
And the guys in this house are concerned about ME coming here being a bad influence on YOU? I overheard the one guy: “Oh you bringing a prostitute here?” And Melissa said, “She’s not a degenerate. She used to do prostituting. Now she’s the man.” No one ever called me the man before.
MELISSA: That was Justin. He’s a jackass. We were wrestling, and he said, “Eventually we’re gonna have sex.” And I said, all sarcastic, “Yeah we’re gonna be boning all the time.” This kid Bob, he slept in my room, and he agreed to take the floor and I took the bed, except I woke up from this dream I was having about William Burroughs and a bunch of philosophers holding balloons and going up, and I woke up to Bob having his hands in my pants.
PUMPKIN: I used to be a prostitute, when I was 13. These people I knew set it up. I ran bags of money for them, bags of drugs.
[looking at her arms] You’re a cutter.
PUMPKIN: Former. Now I’m a trichodectomaniac, or something. I’m tricky.
You pull your hair out?
PUMPKIN: Yeah.
So those are all old scars up your arms? They’re forever?
PUMPKIN: Yeah. I hit a bone on that one. A stab-and-drag. I carved Crazy into my thigh. I also have an eating disorder, NOS.
How old are you?
PUMPKIN: I’m seventeen.
MELISSA: I’m bipolar affective disorder II with congruent psychotic features. This is the story: Walgreen’s was having a sale on aspirin. I wasn’t thinking about overdosing at the time. I was thinking, “I have a coupon, and we might need it for the house.” And then my dad, who’s an alcoholic, came by and went to sleep on my floor, and a thing of vodka slipped out of his pocket. And he woke up and went home after saying, “You’re my baby!” and stuff like that. So I had the vodka and I kept it. Before that I only drank socially, like at the party where my friend Anna Tosie became a slut. Because she gave a kid a blowjob in the basement. She took ballet, so she’d impress boys by putting her legs behind her head. And she got really different, like straightening her hair. We were 15. She would go out with boys just so she could say, like, “143 Kevin” in her AIM profile. It wasn’t about substantial relationships. She used to be funny and out there, but then she became a different person, got really obsessed with boys liking her, and boob size, and flaunting how skinny she was. It was rough.
What happened about the aspirin and dad’s vodka?
MELISSA: My mom died in 2001. In her will, custody went to her brother and my cousin. My cousin outsourced me and my two siblings, and kept the money. I ended up with my uncle who was really abusive — not sexually, thank god. He was just everything else abusive. The last straw was I went in there to make a sandwich, and he said, “You open the pack of turkey ham that’s not open when there’s already one open and I will beat your fucking ass.” I said, “That’s it.” I went in my room, went under the comforter, took the aspirin, drank the vodka. Then I went into the bathroom, because my room was right next to my niece’s. She was listening to OutKast. I didn’t want my niece to have that traumatic experience of seeing someone go out on a stretcher. The last thing my uncle said to me as they were carrying me to the hospital, he leaned over me to say, “You so stupid, you couldn’t even do that right.”
So then you lived in the psych ward. That was probably a better place to live than your uncle’s.
MELISSA: I lost my virginity in the psych ward. And I met Pumpkin in the psych ward. Everyone said she was so scary because she had a knife. But she wasn’t some scary person who’s going to rip your organs out.
PUMPKIN: I just carry a knife for protection.
How did you get to the psych ward?
PUMPKIN: The guy I’m with now, who I’ve been with since I was 13 — he’s nine years older than me — told me he was getting back together with his ex-fiance, and that like deteriorated my life. I was already in a therapeutic high school because I have really bad anxiety — that’s why I’ve taken so many Klonopin in the 15 minutes I’ve been in your presence. Um … where was I?
Your boyfriend … my god, he looks like a murderer.
MELISSA: Crazy Larry.
PUMPKIN: That’s been his name since he was about ten. Now he’s Crazy Toothless Larry.
Do you love that he looks like a murderer? Do you gaze up at him and think, ‘You look like a murderer’?
PUMPKIN: Not so much anymore. When I was 13, I was all about that. He scared the fuck out of me when I first met him. I hated him.
He was 22.
PUMPKIN: Yeah. We were at Harvard Square. It was freezing out. And he wanted to talk to me. He had me look up at the light and then look at him. Apparently when you’re looking at something appealing, your pupils dilate. So he said that was proof that I liked him. I was like, “No, I’m terrified of you.”
Your pupils also dilate when you feel fear. To increase your peripheral vision, to see what your predators are doing out of the corner of your eye. That’s a really great pickup line, though.
PUMPKIN: Yeah. And then he asked to kiss me, and I refused because of this bitch named Wendy that was absolutely head over heels with him and I was kind of friends with her, and then come to find out later she’s an insane bitch. But he is the man who put me in so many psych wards it’s not even funny.
MELISSA: My boyfriend put me in the psych ward, too. I called him and said, “Do you miss me?” And he said, “Yes and no,” so I went into my room crying on the floor and … And he was a paranoid schizophrenic not on meds. So I went AWOL from my group home, got a room at the Hilton. After we have sex, he’s talking about monkeys with chips in their brains. And that’s not ideal pillow talk. And he was serious about it! He said, “And the apocalypse!” And I said, “What happened to cuddling?” I was 18; he was 31. He was my only boyfriend I ever had. First time we had sex, in the psych ward, I had this shirt with a karate guy on it, and he was going Bam! And when he pulled out, he jizzed on my shirt, and I go, “That’s ironic.” Because the guy on my shirt is going Bam! And he went Bam! on my shirt. And I go, “Fuck this. If this is what sex is about, fuck this.” Because I really loved that shirt. Really attached to that shirt. If they don’t abuse you, though, having a boyfriend is awesome. The boning, the companionship.
PUMPKIN: Me and my boyfriend share the same room, and we barely say a word to each other. We’re always together, so we have nothing to ask each other.
MELISSA: I like older guys because they’re more mature.
PUMPKIN: I like older guys because I have daddy issues.
-LISA CARVER
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STREET BONER 1321
Not sure what kind of voodoo mojo this guy is using but he just made a pile of gay shit look badass.
STREET BONER 1319
All Tomorrow’s Parties is a great place to see people passed out on couches while their favorite band plays down the hall.
Bad Behavior has blocked 2382 access attempts in the last 7 days.
That’s not irony sweety, it’s coincidence
10.30.09 at 10:10 am
Pumpkin is fucking HOT. I’d get crazy with her any day.
10.30.09 at 10:31 am
Daddy issues!!!
10.30.09 at 10:34 am
Thank you Lisa Carver!
10.30.09 at 10:42 am
jesus
10.30.09 at 10:43 am
exploiting the emotionaly disturbed for props. nice.
10.30.09 at 10:45 am
actually that is irony
10.30.09 at 10:47 am
Fagsalot, you’ve hit the nail on the head once again.
10.30.09 at 10:47 am
cool, let’s abuse our daughters and make them run drugs and make them prostitute themselves. it will help them get more ARTISTIC
10.30.09 at 11:14 am
Crazy girls are just as boring as regular girls.
10.30.09 at 11:19 am
Finally, something I didn’t immediately regret reading.
10.30.09 at 11:35 am
WOW THEY SEEN FUN.
Imagine that brain-melt of a day.
10.30.09 at 11:37 am
Lil Chuckie Manson, if you got crazy with Pumpkin, Crazy Toothless Larry may get crazy with you!
10.30.09 at 12:24 pm
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10.30.09 at 12:29 pm
these girls are righteous. thanks for the interview. (oh,re: “exploitation of crazy people” spending time in a psych ward does not make you utterly incompetent and exploited. these girls are smart and hilarious. )
10.30.09 at 1:03 pm
These gals are totally awesome! They remind me of me when I was a teenager. Thank you for letting us take a glimpse into their lives, Lisa!
10.30.09 at 1:16 pm
Lisa, 1) you’re a skilled, sensitive interviewer who has a lot of empathy; 2) those women have been through a lot and I’m sorry the morons on the site treat them like shit; 3) they’re as funny as hell.
10.30.09 at 1:17 pm
the boning, the companionship.
10.30.09 at 1:30 pm
It’s weird how you can tell they’re so young but yet they talk about gnarly shit.
10.30.09 at 1:32 pm
i think these girls are amazing. if i knew more women like them growing up (or even more grown up ones in my adult life) i think the world would be a much cooler place. great job LCC, thank you for finding them!
10.30.09 at 1:50 pm
huh. this is totally my dating past. strange.
i’m sorry, did i say dating past? I meant, this is totally dating.
10.30.09 at 1:51 pm
Ra-haddd “Yeah. I hit a bone on that one. A stab-and-drag “
10.30.09 at 2:30 pm
YYYYYYAAAAWWWWWNNNNNnnnnn.
Ahhh the mentally ill, always good for a laugh.
10.30.09 at 2:34 pm
Suicide attempt over lunchmeat? Christ.
10.30.09 at 2:35 pm
I enjoy the pace of this interview with all of the tangents, tendrils, and tongue out comments. It’s clear to me that Pumpkin and Mel are comfortable with each other and they’d be a great pair to troll around with some night.
10.30.09 at 2:40 pm
No, he’s right. It’s coincidence. It’d be only be ironic if either he’d couldn’t come and the shirt said “BAM!” or the shirt had a turtle going into his shell and he nutted on my shirt. I actually learned about irony vs. coincidence, irony of fate, etc in school. But to be somewhat fair I was quite effed up. That’s why I speaking with a lot of run-ons.
10.30.09 at 2:49 pm
PUMPKIN: I used to be a prostitute, when I was 13. These people I knew set it up. I ran bags of money for them, bags of drugs.
this was a tad out of context…i was a prostitute when i was 15-16-ish…but the drug running was when i was 13…i got help with that from the same people that i ran drugs for…
it should have looked more
PUMPKIN: I used to be a prostitute. when i was 13 i ran bags of drugs and money for them, they helped set it up….
and thank you to anyone who posted somthing positive and in mine and Mels favor.
and thank you Lisa & Keith for the lovely time.
10.30.09 at 5:17 pm
more please
10.30.09 at 5:47 pm
Also: I turned twenty last month. I’m kinda an old man.
10.30.09 at 6:23 pm
wow this is a great interview.
10.30.09 at 7:08 pm
in reply to Stoops
we’re working on more stuff tonight
10.30.09 at 7:17 pm
i like this. i was in a psych ward when i was 15, so i can relate. lisa is doing a good thing by facilitating their creativity. art was really the only thing that emotionally helped me get through the horrors of that sort of institution. once, i got caught smoking a cigarette and was put in solitary for 24 hrs. i smuggled in a tiny piece of sculptee that i took from the art-therapy room and made little sculptures of animals and what not all day. dealing the other people there was the worst part. on my first day there, i was in the cafeteria for lunch and i sat next to this dood that reminded me of jeffery dahmer because he had absolutely no expression on his face and he just stared blankly. total creeper. anyway, right after i started eating my meal, he started vomiting all over the table. he didn’t mind at all. also, there was a ginourmous whale of a girl there who literally worshipped kurt cobain (he was still alive at the time). she had made shrines to him and idols of him, etc. anyway, he killed himself while i was in there and she went completely apeshit and the staff tried to restrain her and she was fighting them and shit and then they gave her all these injections and put her in solitary for a few days. intense shit.
10.30.09 at 7:46 pm
I must try spacebag! Great interview with insightful, articulate people. That they may have a few psychiatric difficulties doesn’t disqualify them from being able to consent to be interviewed. They seem better grounded than most people I meet. I hope they continue to document their experiences.
10.30.09 at 7:48 pm
Absolutely fanfuckingtastic. I am predicting that Sixty Minutes will hire Lisa any second. Or Nightline…. I would bet my balls that if they replaced the fatuous, pompous doosh they have on there now with a REAL journalist and writer like Ms Carver their ratings would blow up. But back to Melissa and Pumpkin. These girls are more self-aware than pretty much anyone I have heard/seen in yonks. And, as Lisa sez, “they can actually hit notes and everything they say is true.” Great stuff. Alive. Thank you.
10.30.09 at 8:31 pm
I spent a week in the psych ward and two weeks in parcial treatment last year.
Rough shit. Good luck to all y’alls.
10.30.09 at 9:47 pm
You should visit every psych ward in your hometown, interview vibrant young women, then compile their wit and wisdom into a book called Wards of the State.
10.31.09 at 12:31 am
every girl is like this, i can name like 20 off the top of my head that are like these people. theyre not crazy, their parents just dislike them enough to put them in a psych ward. besides, tons of people claim they all have “issues” because it makes them look more interesting and people you dont know give you sympathy and attention.
10.31.09 at 7:24 am
Re: the person with the name with all the As: this might sound shocking and/or incredulous because young girls are known for being obsessed with themselves but I don’t need to put all my issues out there for “attention”. But I’m 20 and I first was hospitalized when I was 15: mental illness is obviously a part of my life.
And I usually don’t like to give a bunch of backstory as it might ruin the reader’s interpretation but my parents had nothing to do with sending me to a psych ward: the decision was made by the hospital shrink. They waited for a bed to open up while I was on an IV.
The reason Pumpkin and I call ourselves “crazy” has less to do with psych ward stays and more to do with self-deprecation, not taking ourselves so seriously, and being able to laugh at ourselves. Which might be a foreign concept to the Street Carnage set.
Anyways, I have to go the bank now and deposit the money from the big, fat disability check I get every month that your tax dollars probably paid for.
10.31.09 at 1:24 pm
WOW this is BULLSHIT I know “Pumpkin” shes friends with a girl i used to go out with her name is Kaylee and she is NOT crazy at all….heres her myspace page http://www.myspace.com/anular42
10.31.09 at 2:29 pm
shes just pretending to be crazy for Halloween.
10.31.09 at 2:30 pm
^ ^ hilarious.
@lonemescarlo or whatever
i honestly honestly couldnt care less. you both are doing exactly the same things as 14 year old girls have been doing since 1 million bc; having tons of inside jokes, dating ugly dudes and cutting your arms. these are facts.
and fat chance on the tax thing, im french.
10.31.09 at 4:17 pm
one more thing, bipolar is for old queers like stephen fry. my farts have bipolar disorder. just saying.
10.31.09 at 4:19 pm
Dicks.
10.31.09 at 5:24 pm
I think you’ve (like all hipsters) confused aesthetic drive with aesthetic talent.
10.31.09 at 10:36 pm
Scrolling down these comments is like Dante’s descent into hell.
10.31.09 at 10:37 pm
Pumpkin and Melissa, good luck! You are hypermodern! Heroines! Don’t die! Not yet!
11.01.09 at 1:19 pm
um my name isnt kaylee…and thats also not my myspace page, “had to check”….but props to you for potentially putting that girls friends list at a higher number….
11.01.09 at 6:02 pm
and for halloween, i pretended to be semi-sane… hung out with my bf’s friend and her kids…. got drunk, dressed like i normally do, “didnt get any strange looks on the train for once” …went to sleep and then woke up, before the crack of dawn, by previously mentioned children….one of the sanest days of the year so far.
11.01.09 at 6:08 pm
Would you like to see my arms? The only things on them are tattoos that I got from a parlor. And Mr(s)., um, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa: if you have an issue with be having bipolar disorder, take it up the shrink who talked to me. I don’t a psychiatry degree nor am I allowed to practice so I sure as hell didn’t diagnosed myself.
I know a lot of people reading this are thinking “what makes them so special?” This isn’t a reality show or a ghost-written memoir. It’s just an article that’s a snippet of our lives, which mental illness and spacebags are a part of.
And all the pains that come with being deemed “crazy”, I am that people see me as “normal” or “boring”. In my world. that’s a compliment.
11.01.09 at 11:17 pm
I love pumpkin!i’ve known her since kindergarten and i know whats she’s gone through and it’s real so enough with the attempts to be an asshole, let’s listen to our mother’s circa pre-school for once “if you have nothing nice to say don’t say it all” and keep these positive comments. So if you dislike them take your negative energy and don’t attempt to leave a comment that makes you look like an ignorant moron and go do something productive instead.
11.02.09 at 12:52 am
thank you laila….i love you
11.02.09 at 12:55 am
i dont have an “issue” with it. i just dont feel you deserve an article in contrast to someone else with a mental disorder who actually has something interesting to say. you came across like you had a remarkably self-absorbed attitude and frankly, really boring. suppose thats just your “psychosis” then.
11.02.09 at 11:52 am
You came back four times to talk about it, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. About how bored you are. You’re like some gross person sweating all over this girl he keeps coming over to fuck while telling her how unfuckable she is the whole time.
11.02.09 at 12:19 pm
then what are you, just some white knighter? please, this things on my blog aggregator
11.02.09 at 6:27 pm
Best wishes to Pumpkin and Melissa, you are both beautiful and I hope you get through these early setbacks to live long and happy lives.
11.03.09 at 2:29 pm
RE:aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
ive been holding off on responding to negetive comments…but you seem too be getting quite rude with us…
if your farts are bi-polar you should probably get that checked out, i know a great gastroligist i could recommend.
I’m sure there are much more intresting people Lisa could have chosen to interview, personally, i even find myself boring, thats why often keep my mouth shut, but she gave us hope, that one day we can maybe make something out of ourselves.
also just because he “looks like a murderer” doesn’t mean he’s ugly, i think he’s one of the most beautiful men i have ever seen, and although he’s a jerk sometimes, i hope to marry him someday.
my mother did not put me in a psych ward, the state did, and she fought like hell to get me out.
&
LCC is more than a white knighter, shes a fucking “White Goddess”
So what trash do you have to talk about me? i’d love to know, not that i havent had an awful week as is, but please….bring it on. the hate gives me inspiration, if your rude enough, maybe you’ll even get your own song.
Donnie the Lion, thank you.
xoxoxo
-pumpkin
11.03.09 at 11:11 pm
[...] supposed to remind you of who these two gals are before we get into Part II of the interview. For Part I, I called them little girls who could [...]
11.05.09 at 12:17 pm
Big-ups to Pumpkin and Melissa! Keep on keepin’ on, and don’t let anybody tell you different!
11.06.09 at 1:10 pm
So that is what a spacebag is. I was walking through Jackson Square the other day and this guy shouts at me, “Hey, man, are you fucked up?” It was 4 pm. I said, “No.” He says, “you wanna be?” I said, “No.” He waves this fucking bag in my face, “c’mon, hit it! It’s a spacebag!” I said, “I don’t know what the fuck that is but I know I don’t want to be fucked up on whatever it is that you’re fucked up on.”
In 9th grade I hung out with these two brothers who lived in a house on the boardwalk with their father and their 3-legged whippit named, Willy. These guys were pretty interesting kids. They had a great record collection, always had pot and sometimes acid, rode skateboards, and had utter contempt for everything in their path that didn’t have urethane wheels or loud guitars and fast drums, and they were too smart for their own good. Well, they loved Flipper, and Flipper was never very fast, but you get the jist. Once I started hanging out with the likes of these two, my parents pretty much officially wrote off the chance of me ever amounting to anything respectable.
Their mom was dead and they hated their father. He pretty much hated them too. He was a psychiatrist. We all called him “Papa Psych”. We used to ditch school all the time and hang out at their house, listening to records, drinking schaeffer, dropping acid, and smoking pot. We were horrible to everyone including each other. No one was spared from the endless barrage of ridicule and insults. The 3 legged dog hung around, all shaky and nervous, and had these tubes coming out of his skull for some reason. They seemed to hate the dog as well but I always felt sorry for it. I guess they were technically kicked out of Papa Psych’s home but we would just break in when he went to work and proceed to completely dismantle the structure of the house, piece by piece, chunk by chunk. There was a pretty large contingent of delinquent misfits that posted up there. It was like the Little Rascals with mohawks and skateboards. Occasionally, the dad would make a surprise appearance and everyone would scream, “Papa Psych!!” and we would leap out of 2nd story windows and scale down trees to get away. Papa Psych would be screaming as well. Mostly curse words. He would get really red in the face too.
11.09.09 at 7:26 am
“You’re like some gross person sweating all over this girl he keeps coming over to fuck while telling her how unfuckable she is the whole time.” HA! love you lcc. hope to see/hear the film/songs.
11.22.09 at 11:56 pm