It can’t start from the beginning. As hard as I try to call forth the fuzzy memories of the daily doldrums of life it only gives me flashes of what made me. It wasn’t until I began to walk down the halls pounding my fists into the textured wall as I made my way to the last room on the left that the world called me to write.
The reason I bring up the house, the woods and the parents is because that always seems to be the first things I ever remember. In fact my earliest memories are of two things. Both involve my father. The first is being left in the baby tub in the bedroom and him turning off the lights on me. I must have been only around 2 or three years old at that time. When I tried to recall this memory to my mother she told me that could have never happened. The second was a memory of waking up in front of the TV playing Wizard of Oz and walking thru the house only to find that no one was home. There. Any armchair psychologist can figure what is wrong with me at this point. I’m not going to bore you.
When you are an only child your best friend becomes you imagination. Your second best friend becomes books. Your third and maybe just your first really may become food. I have spent hours in therapy and easily thousands on self help manuals that tell me this, and why it happens and how to let it all go. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I will get over all of it someday. I am 42 years old and at least 4 or five times a year I succumb to a binge, worthy of self flagellation., and at least 4 or 5 times a day I wonder if it would just be easier to put on the sweat pants, quit my job and eat myself to death with my weights worth of tiny chocolate donuts. As they say, the struggle is real.
The only thing that ever made me feel whole and fulfilled before I became a parent, (and that took a while) was writing. Long languid lines I would write in unlined journals for my own secret joy. Self satisfaction is a drug. You work hard on something that is all your own and when it is done it is a real celebration. My love affair with the lifestyle came in the guise of a boy, which is why I bring up T.
The physicality of a relationship when you are 14 is limited, at least in my day it was. We didn’t get as far as second base (at that time) but because we shared our first kiss, in the rain, his brace teeth crushing against mine in a cringe worthy meld that quickly turned into a blissful short time stopping moment that will live forever in the middle of Bluegrove Rd under a canopy of trees, while being drenched in the rain. How is that for a run on sentence. But I digress.
The most attractive thing about him to me was his brain. T was lucky to have had a houseful of older brothers and sisters that left him a rich experience in pop culture and music. He was a walking encyclopedia of all the songs you should be listening to and all the books you should be reading. He was a rebel by the book, he smoked, he grew his hair long, he read the books they told everyone they shouldn’t read, watched the movies that had tasteful nudity and violence that was always appropriate for the subject matter. I just thought he was amazing. There’s the first problem.
"I like being around writers because the make me feel more sane. I can relate to the constant struggle of observe and record, and the noisy brain music that goes along with. But mostly its a game of acting until it becomes second nature. I didn't want one to know that secretly I wasn't slitting my wrists and banging my head on a keyboard at 3am. I was actually just asleep in my cozy bed, 2 painkillers and a beer keeping me there."
It doesn’t take long when you are in a relationship (real or imagined) till things inevitably have to change. For me it was the wretched summer that tore me away from the place I should have been. Before I left for a summer in exile to the arid skies of south texas, T made me a mixtape. I know this may be beyond most readers but back in the day we made cassette tapes carefully crafted from our own jamboxes and recorded either from the radio (what a past time! The trick was knowing when the song may come on, running across the room to get the very beginning and knowing when to cut out before the d-j came on with his annoying banter. ) This was a very special mix tape. Side one was The Doors album in full, Side two was Strange Days, again by the Doors. The hyper sexual syrup of Jim Morrison threw me in a direction I could barely understand. Somehow I knew that this man was my true love! But I’d had to settle for T.
The long summer days gnawed at me. I couldn’t call him lest I incur the wrath of the telephone bill from my aunt who barely even made local calls. She would actually walk to her friends house down the road than call her. It was that kind of town tho. There was little to offer a teen besides a movie theater, an ice cream shop and a convenience store that carried VHS tapes. That was the summer of horror films for me. Every afternoon we’d grab gramma’s black umbrella to block the tremulous sun and we walked in our cut off shorts and tube tops (still nothing filling that out) to find our next wonderful psycho sexual thrill of a bloodbath that could have no way been know to our parents had become our nightly viewing. I saw more ketchup, dismembered bodies and breasts that summer than I have seen in my adult life (good thing!)
The only thing I could actually do to let my sophisticated cousins (15 and16) know that I was actually ‘going with’ a boy was show them his picture in the yearbook we had received right before we left for summer break. In the excitement of the last day I had failed to even get him to sign his name, much less leave me a detailed love note in the crease of the spine declaring his true and undying love for me. He actually had never even said those words to me, but I KNEW he felt it when I left a hickey the size of Rhode Island on his neck. But alas no promise ring, no phone calls or letters from home.. yet.
“So is he cute?” Rosalinda asked between snapping her gum and twirling the massive umbrella on her tank top strap shoulder “ He’s white ain’t he?”
“Yeah,” I answered hopefully, I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. As for cute, I couldn’t really call him that. He didn’t look like Simon Le Bon or John Taylor. What was I going to say? “oh he’s dreamy and he has braces and thick glasses’ These girls didn’t know anything about brains and wit. They were dating the football hunks and had pictures framed on their walls of their homecoming dance complete with two ton mum pulling the spaghetti straps of their pastel colored gowns. They’d have them over for dinner they made by themselves. They’d poiur over the back issues of Good Housekeeping and find the recepies headlined ‘HOW TO PLEASE YOUR HUNGRY MAN’ while I was sneaking Cosmos and reading about the different types of orgasms. You pick and choose in this life, ladies.
‘Does he have a nice tush?’ Marilee said poking rosa in the ribs and winking her eye
“You guys are gross”
I walked up ahead of them trying to ignore the chatter.
“It’s too bad you are going steady, Mara’s boyfriend’s cousin is in from Houston and he wanted someone to triple with.”
Wha-what. Houston? He might actually have a brain in his head. How worldly!
“Hey, I don’t know what your Neanderthal boyfriends are like with you, but mine wouldn’t care if I went out to a movie or something. What were you going to do? I said walking backwards in front of them, watching my feet for cracks and rocks on broken asphalt.
“ Ha HA! I knew it!” Mara exclaimed “Well Roger is going to get us some fake IDs and we are we are going to the border to have a little fun. Jose is going to drive. That’s your date”
“He’s sixteen?” I said nonchalantly trying not to give away the fact that it scared me
“ oh no, he’s 18. We figured because you are from the big city it wouldn’t make much difference. Hey we can put some make up on you and you can borrow a dress from Rosa. It will be great.”
Gulp. Great.
Walking back home from the video store, a letter was there for me! T had written!!
Dear Mildred,
I keep having conversations with you in my head. Whenever
I'm walking down the street I imagine you walking
with me. We talk about anything, nothing. I see you smile,
the sunbeams glancing off your hair in rivers of molten gold.
Maybe my vision could become a reality. Maybe you'll read
this and think "eww...creep." Or maybe you'll think
"oh, that's sweet. What a poor misguided fool." In any case,
Here it goes: Mildred, would you like to walk with me?
T
My heart swelled at the thought. I tore open the envelope. The Actual Letter Read:
Mil,
I miss you. I haven't had any fun this summer at all. My parents took us camping. Ug!!!! They closed the neighborhood pool cuz of the West Nile. Stupid mosquitoes. I saw Charlotte there. She got a job washing all the towels the stupid jocks use when they practice for swim team, but they fired her cuz of the mosquitos and stuff. We went out and had a pop at the Dairy King. Can you call tonight?
T
WTF?
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