Chapter Three

- A Brief History -

It’s about having courage.

As a freshman in high school, I was terribly shy around the ladies. Never tongue-tied, I was always outgoing and loud-mouthed. I had no problem talking to girls. I just lacked the balls to tell them exactly what I required of them. How I envied my friends who could simply inch their way under a girl's shirt with no over-thinking the long-term ramifications of copping an A-cup feel or the paralyzing fear of her hand reaching out to stop mine. As an adult, I can look back and see there was nothing to be afraid of. But at that allimportant age, I didn't understand that the worst that could happen was that I'd walk away from an evening without having felt a tit, or with the loser girls, got my finger moist. It never occurred to me that by not trying, I sealed my own fate, or that the girls whose bodies I was too scared to explore probably went home wondering what was so wrong with them that I didn't at least try to paw them. Who knows whose self-esteem my shyness crushed? Luckily this condition stayed with me throughout my high school years. Yay!

This timid path I walked probably originated in a single humiliation I endured at the age of ten. My fifth grade class was being treated to a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. This was a BIG deal - an all-day affair that took us not only out of the classroom, but also across state lines.

{The REALLY BIG DEAL came in the sixth grade: A three-day excursion to the rustic camp Upham Woods in the Wisconsin Dells. Three days and two nights tucked away in the forest with supervisors who at the end of each day supervising dozens of rowdy eleven and twelve year-olds, were badly in need of a cigarette and adult conversation and the distraction they provided. When the lights went out the animals ran free. We free-running adolescents took full advantage of our supervisor's nightly distraction, indulging our nighttime curiosity to its fullest. We never understood why no one above the sixth grade was allowed at camp Upham Woods - till we got to seventh grade. As puberty set in, suddenly all the possibilities of that trip to the forest came clear.}

The Gang of Four - The Serb, The Drunk, The Hard Guy, and myself (the ruling party of Ludington Grade School) - decided that our educational experience in the Land of Lincoln would be even sweeter in violation of the Mann Act. Nothing sparks a young man's imagination like the image of a romantically lit coalmine exhibit with an under age hottie on his arm.

We convened on the small patch of grass behind the softball field one morning's recess to coordinate our hottie selections. Best to avoid the social gaffe (and potential bloody nose) that would result had one of us unwisely set our sites on the same hottie as The Hard Guy, our undisputed leader. We all displayed the scars from the disputes that confirmed his leadership. I couldn't have cared less who he chose, as my sites had been set for some time: A South American beauty with black hair and mysterious dark eyes who left a funny, tingly sensation in my belly whenever she spoke to me. I was smitten, bitten, and in love. In L-O-V-E. It's easy for an adult to write off the feelings of a ten year old as a crush or even puppy love, but how do you explain why I can still conger up those feelings? My fifth grade hottie was the first girl with whom I was truly in love. Number 1.

No one in The Gang challenged my claim on Number 1. Once things were straight on our end, invitations were issued through the secret communications network that ran under the teacherŐs nose like escape tunnels in a Nazi Stalag. As the filmstrip of "Our Mr. Sun" projected to the front of the room, my invitation snaked its way across the aisles - mouth to ear, mouth to ear, till it reached the luscious ear of Number 1. I sat in eager anticipation of her smiling, silent acceptance of my offer of pleasant company and protection in Chicago. Not to mention my undying love and adoration.

Anxiously, I peaked over out of the corner of my eye to watch her face light up as the words were whispered to her in the darkness. Ah, but it would be my ears, not my eyes that received her delightful r.s.v.p. of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" resounding across the room, just loud enough to wake the teacher from his post martini-lunch nap and fix all knowing, smirking eyes on me.

I didn't speak of or to a girl, any girl, in romantic terms for nearly five years, almost fifty percent of my tender life. Sure, there were evenings spent rolling on the grass near the banks of Honey Creek, studying anatomy and doing as much extra credit work as possible. But I felt no attachment to the activity, no bond with the female flesh being offered to me. Gosh, this is starting to sound like a gay manifesto, isn't it?

Early in my freshman year of high school, things started to change. Fifth grade was forever ago and I'd come out of my fog. Number 1 lingered distantly in my memory, but the residue of the embarrassment she dealt me faded to a dull haze.

I felt the need to get on with life. It was time for a girlfriend. The cute girl who sat behind me in physics class, specifically. Despite my shyness, once I set my sites on someone, it never occurred to me the conquest would not come to pass. My powers of visualization were extremely strong; the offshoot of a vibrant imagined life lived in my head.

My physics class romance only lasted a short while. Again my heart wasn't really in it and it showed. She recruited her best friend to deliver the sad news of our break up. I went through the motions of being upset, but I was fine with it, really. It didn't even bother me that she dumped me for a Special-Ed student. He was slow but strong and violent and spent the rest of high school threatening me with beatings. I couldn't get it through his thick skull that he had actually won the girl and it was fine by me. Something in him needed to assert itself in my face. A year after high school, he led the police on a high-speed chase that ended with him plowing into a barricade, killing a sheriff. I wonder if he's still in jail.

The fall of that year, I went to the Halloween dance, stag, as an accident victim. I was really convincing, I guess. My costume consisted of a cane that I picked up in the family recycling business. (That's another book all together - The Junkmen of Milwaukee, or How to Fuck Up Your Children One Weekend At a Time.) I walked into the gym leaning heavily on the cane and created a modest stir. The concern everyone showed for me was quite touching. A hastily concocted story of being hit by a car and taken to the emergency room and who knows how long I'm going to limp like this was so convincing my leg actually started to throb. Number 1 was there, concerned. My recent ex and the future cop killer lurked in the distance. For some reason, I was the only one of the Gang of Four present. The Gang had lost its dominance upon graduation to junior high and disbanded, leaving me the most social ex-member. When the surrounding grade schools fed into the junior high, the girls from our grade school drifted toward the handsome guys from Burbank Elementary. It seemed only fair that the girls from Burbank or one of the other schools should drift toward us. But there was no such exchange program in effect. I meant to write to the school board about that. Alas, all the girls from all the schools went for the Burbank guys. They were magnetic. I quickly made friends with them.

The night of the Halloween dance, I settled into a circle of friends, close and peripheral. Hovering around, but never quite landing in the circle was girl who had recently transferred to our school and hadn't settled into any clique yet. A year younger than I, she possessed a seductive quality heretofore unknown to me. Her distance drew me in. She had a certain reserve and poise that was uncommon in the girls I knew.

It was that night that I first discovered the fine art of overcoming my physical limitations and inherent shyness with talk. Coincidence of physical proximity brought the new girl within earshot. Bolstered by my convincing performance as an accident victim, my conversational skills rose to dizzying heights. I was charming and seductive in a way I'd never exhibited before. The nervous wisecracks and sarcasm I had always relied on to get me through stressful or awkward social situations were nowhere near, and not at all missed. As I spoke, I witnessed a change come over my audience, as if they were finally seeing me, or acknowledging my being. I felt no resentment for my classmates' past indifference. The way I saw it, you need to do something to earn that acknowledgment from the world and I finally stumbled on my specialty. The attention I had craved so long was finally mine and I liked the confidence that came with it.

As the dance drew to a close, the circle adjourned to the local pizza parlor. Just outside the gymnasium, the new girl clutched my arm and suggested a shortcut across the junior football field.

"Do you want to smoke some pot?" she asked once we reached a point away from everyone and everything. For an instant I froze. I had no pot. I never had any. I've never purchased drugs in my life. My breath resumed when she produced a pipe and a small bag of Wisconsin dirt weed. Pot back there and then wasn't anything like it is now. You could smoke and smoke and smoke and keep your head. There was none of this one bong-hit stuff circulating in my neighborhood. She took a slow and delicate hit off the pipe and handed to me, her fingers lingering on mine for a nanosecond longer than I expected. The hairs on my neck rose. I took a similarly restrained hit and passed it back.

Everything about her was natural and easy. She was an anomaly. That she didn't come from an especially stable family and neither of us lived in the height of society, her demeanor made her standout. Being with her gave me a level of comfort I'd never known. The simple grace of her movements and her relaxed manner made time so fluid I didn't notice the hour that had passed on that field. The zone we were in had nothing to do with the crappy pot. My focus on the moment was intense. Though the conversation between us flowed easily, inside me churned thoughts and feelings I couldn't articulate. I had never experienced this kind of connection with another human being. What the fuck was going on?

Reluctantly, we finally started on to join the others. A after a block or so, she turned to me and said, "Your cane." I had left it at the football field. My cover blown, the two of us retrieved my prop and it was never mentioned again. The simple act of her sharing that secret, keeping it ours, reeled me in. I was a goner.

Sitting on that football field, she and I had formed our own circle, perfectly luminous, outside which existed everything else and nothing. Our circle hadn't completely revealed itself till we arrived at the pizza parlor. Suddenly all outside light and sound seemed harsh and garish, and the pizza parlor was hideously loud and bright. Our friends in their circle were revved-up and boisterous as we entered. Before even saying hello, she informed the crowd that I was escorting her home, goodnight. I spent the whole walk to her house amazed that another human being could see so clearly into my thoughts and desires. Moreover, I was stunned that not only was she not repelled by those desires, she actually shared them. I marveled at her intuition, the ease at which she transformed my feelings into simple, effective actions.

We talked outside her door till two in the morning. It took me that long to kiss her, out of fear. Not the fear of kissing her, finally. It was the fear of ending the night, opening the circle, and rejoining the world.

Her mouth was tender but not limp, inviting but not vulgar, passionate but not desperate. She kissed me down to my soul. In this moment, with our lips and tongues together, I was a superhero, baby. I had Balls. I was ready to pack up and live the rest of my life right there, right then. Send a note home, I'm taking all my meals here. Nothing could touch us, we were so enveloped in each other.

I desperately did not want this night to end. What to do when you're fourteen and have a history of staying out past your curfew and parental threats hovering overhead?

Every second of that kiss was worth ten times the amount of shit I was going to endure when I got home. Two a.m. was really pushing my parents' limits. The last time, they had told me if I were going to be late, just call and they would come get me. They hadn't specified that I was to call before the end of the night. My mom was none too thrilled to be up and driving at that hour, but I couldn't have cared less. I was in love for the second time of my life and this time it was the real deal. Number 1, who? I had Number 2.

Back at school Monday, Number 2 and I slipped into a relationship that did not easily fit into boyfriend/girlfriend parameters. There was one obstacle we had to deal with: a recently dumped and jealous boyfriend, one of the Burbank guys. This is where I made one fatal mistake - I gave a shit. I cared what would happen if the ex found out too soon. Jesus, when you're fourteen and the world surrounds you, your actions in these situations will have lasting effects. I settled for a life of surreptitious, yet constant flirtation with Number 2. We stole moments away from the crowd, but were never to return to our moment. The circle never closed in on us again. Suddenly, I was outside the moment and unsure of myself. No longer invincible, I was in a state of utter confusion, with not a clue how to handle her or myself. Why did I not assert myself and just fucking take her into my life in full view of the world? What was I waiting for? What was I afraid of this time - a fight with her ex, the scorn of my classmates? Where, oh where did my balls go?

A few months later, her family moved. Poof. Number 2 was gone. What kept me from chasing her? There couldn't be any reprisals from the ex boyfriend, no stigma attached to me from the rest of the student body. How could I let her get away like that? I could have picked up a phone and found her. But I didn't. But then, what prevented her from seeking me out?

I started my first professional band the next year. The Bass Player, a year older than me, worked at a gas station in the neighboring city of West Allis. In that there is no East, North, or South Allis, I could never understand the geographic reference in the name. Two years later, on the way to a gig, Number 2 came up in conversation.

“Oh, yeah,” said Bass Player, “She used to come into the gas station all the time and ask about you.”

“She what?”

“All the time.”

“All the fucking time?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t think to fucking tell me about it until this very fucking moment?”

“I didn’t know you’d care.”

I never played in a band with him again. I never saw Number 2 again. I never discussed this with my friends.

I have no understanding of my inaction in the situation.

I have no forgiveness for a fourteen year old ill-equipped to handle the gift dropped on him from the hand of God.

I have memories of that moment, that heroin high I spent every waking hour chasing after.

I have hindsight, a web site, and a word processor.

<-Go Back

Turn The Page ->