🎧' I Want to Be Your Dog – The Stooges

MAY 3, 1983 — ROCKVILLE CENTRE, NEW YORK

Life was never easy for you. The daughter of troubled parents—or better yet, parents who were either high or simply vanished, leaving you and your siblings alone for days.

Since you were nine, you had to act like an adult. Maybe because you were the oldest of five, maybe because, in the absence of a bipolar, addicted mother, someone had to take charge… and that someone was you.

So growing up was never a choice — it was the only way out. By twelve, you already knew how to deal with overdue bills, how to come up with convincing excuses when social workers knocked on the door, and how to protect your family when no one else seemed willing.

Now, at twenty-two, you were a young adult trying to build a life of your own. You were temporarily living with your boss while looking for a decent place to stay, far from any kind of dependency.

You had learned not to trust so easily, to be independent, strong… even when all you wanted was to fall apart. Working with Joan Jett felt, in a way, like the fulfillment of a dream — not just because you were practically the same age and shared the same interests, but because, finally, you could live a life that was truly yours. Far from the ghosts of home.

In the middle of tours, sleepless nights in studios, and packed shows, you found yourself surrounded by people, by noise, by applause… But even so, sometimes, the loneliness crept in.

Only now, it was different: for the first time, you could choose who to let in.

And, without realizing it, Joan had crossed that line. She looked at you in a way no one else did; she made you laugh even when you didn’t want to, stirred a tension you tried, in vain, to ignore.

After all, she was your boss.

Now, you’re there, sitting at the kitchen counter, books open, notes scattered, a half-empty mug of cold coffee by your side. Your pen glides across the paper as you sketch ideas for the costumes for the next tour.

The clock reads almost three a.m. when a sudden noise makes you flinch.

The door swings open and slams shut, a bit clumsily. Shuffling footsteps echo down the hall until Joan appears in the kitchen: smudged makeup, hair as wild as ever, leather jacket draped over her shoulders, and that smile—drunken, mischievous, unmistakable.

“You’re still up, huh?” Joan says, her voice noticeably slurred as she leans against the doorway, looking you up and down.