She did not have much trust in anyone. She had little concept of trust. Things had been done to her, just to save her young life, when she had suffered from certain ills, that left her suspicious and untrusting. Then, in the summer in 1955, she ended up crushed and mangled in the street, at the corner of Speedway and Washington Blvd., in Santa Monica. Her baby sitter had craved a drink, or dozen..., and gave her the babysitter's dog to walk, alone, when she was just three years old, on Santa Monica Beach. No one thought much of that kind of thing, backDeborah Coss then. It was her own neighborhood. She had walked around alone, unchallanged, so many times before. But that day, and within minutes, the once lively, talkative and animated child, lay in the street, crushed from head to hip, having been hit by a car. She bears scars to this day, from that day, so long ago.

They said she would not live, and gave her morephine for three days, then just waited for her to die. But her will to survive surprised them all. And she lived to tell about it. The baby sitter moved out of the neighborhood, the same day, in the middle of night. And no one ever apologized to her for all her pain and suffering. No one had ever told her it wasn't her fault. No one had told her that she was valuable, and that sometimes bad things happen to good people. Maybe that's when she started to objectify herself, in her own mind. Maybe that's why she never apologized. Don't tell her something is for her own good. Those flashing eyes will narrow, and she will endure whatever comes, butDeborah Coss you just went to the bottom rung on her ladder of what's acceptable. So much of what had been good for her, had hurt her deeply, where doctors hands, and mothers love, can not reach.

In her childhood home, violence was a daily thing. Whether it was dealt with fists or words, wounds were re-opened or made anew, daily. Her step-father was a cruel and violent alchoholic. Her mother had been raised in a children's home back in the 20's, with no-one to teach her how to love and nuture. Then, there had been all those men and half grown men, who like ghouls, walk this earth and who like parasites, suck up their strength by taking, raping and killing the souls of their victims.

She had seen, and endured a lot. But you could not tell by looking at her. She looked like the All-American, girl-next-door kind of child. But inside, she was broken, not quite right, and festering on memories of the assaults upon her, around her, and the fear of those still to come. It pain and the victimization just seemed never ending.

She never made plans. She did not know how. Nothing much surprised her or shocked her. Later in life, in the Army, serving as a combat medic and psych tech, all of this would actually help her to do a better job. She certainly knew what it was, to suffer, and she had enough left inside to give to those, with whom she could empathize. But now, and until she could kiss her demons on the lips and tell them good bye, she could not help anyone, not even herself.

After talking to the others who lived in the commune, she was coming down from the reds she had taken, the very reason she could not go home that day, then she had taken some vitamin C acid. In fact, she took a mega dose of it. She lay in the room she now shared with him, wasted, and listened to the song "She's Leaving Home," by the Beatles, with tears in her eyes. She had not meant to run away again, when she left home that morning. She thought of her mother and second stepfather, as the words started to wash over her, takingon a life of their own, under the influence of the "C":

Daddy our baby's gone.

Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly

How could she do this to me.

She (We never thought of ourselves)

Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)

Home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)

She's leaving home after living alone

For so many years. Bye, bye

Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away

Waiting to keep the appointment she made

Meeting a man from the motor trade.

She (What did we do that was wrong?)

Is having (We didn't know it was wrong)

Fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't buy)

Something inside that was always denied

For so many years. Bye, bye

She's leaving home. Bye, bye

And she knew that the words made sense to her, invaded her heart and thoughts, were actually about her and her wreckage, but then the "C" kicked in harder and she cried for a while and then lost touch with reality. Bad Trip. She did not care that the people around her said there was no such thing. That had been her first bad trip. But like every other bad thing in her life, it had not killed her. Damn it!

The next day, she reflected on her running away, and breaks down and cries again. She doesn't know why, she just does. She thinks of her mother and almost feels bad for her, yet she feels worse for her self. If only they had really taken good care of her, if only they had protected her, if they had known about un-conditional love. But they didn't. And now she lived in Hollywood. With about 19 other people, Summer of Love, North Hollywood, walking distance from Griffith Park. Coooool. She wasted no time in getting her first job.