Chapter XV: Leather and Lace

Chapter Fifteen: Leather and Lace

In spite of allowing me to visit Whaleswood Beach dressed like Don Johnson, JoJo was a close friend when he lived on South Street in 1983. Since he was a Yankees fan, our friendship proved that I could transcend sports. His parents had lived in New York and when they got divorced, as every other married couple did in 1983, his mother moved to Bone Harbor to sell real estate. She brought JoJo and his older brother Chris. I met JoJo at the basketball court by the South Street Mill Pond as 7^th grade was about to begin at the Junior High School on the other side of the Mill Pond. We both loved basketball and whiffle ball and football and computer video games. Girls were, of course, openly reviled in favor of WWF wrestling, rap-masters Kurtis Blow and Run DMC, baseball cards, combustible hair spray, and shoplifting.

When a summer rain shut out the basketball courts or made the Strawberry Banke football field too wet, we walked to Laverdiers drug store, chewed enough gum to choke a snake, and played Galaga. else sat at house. We were equal friends with Evan “Squid” Squidly, whom I had known for three years as the speed-talking brainiac of Bone Harbor, and were always welcome at Evan's brown Colonial box house near Strawberry Banke. There we passed the winter months eating heated ham and cheese sandwiches and listening to The Wall by Pink Floyd on Evan's record player, music that I instinctively knew was evil in some irresistible way. Evan's parents never seemed to go to work, so they were always hovering nearby with trivial historical questions or challenging word puzzles that not only embarrassed Evan but made it nearly impossible for us to look at Evan's stash of wrinkled Hustler magazines.

When the weather improved, Evan was usually ordered to go repair the roof or the garage windows while JoJo and I walked down the steaming brick sidewalks to Strawberry Banke to buy penny sugar balls or five-cent peppermint sticks at the Olde Towne Grocery. Living in a museum meant that historical nostalgia was sold on every corner and made me an easy target for the Timewraiths after the Sox lost.

After a tour through J.J. Newberry's toy section, JoJo and I tossed a football on our way back to the Mill Pond basketball courts to play basketball with Gordy Clutcher, who was there in storm and shine.

JoJo stood six foot four inches in his Pump-up Air Jordans, which is why he was known as Stretch. He was a legitimate basketball player and forced Gordy to sink fifteen-foot jump shots, while I would shamelessly take two or three steps with the ball tucked under my arm to get the ball inside, away from JoJo's aggressive defense. His giant paws were always there to swat the ball out of the air when I attempted a conventional shot. I eventually learned to imitate Karem-Abdul-Jabar's hook shot with below average success.

JoJo was a New York Yankees fan because his Father still lived in New York and because it is easy to be a Yankees fan. Being a Yankees fan is like supporting Reagan in '84. Of course he was going to win. It takes courage to be a Red Sox fan, courage and sacrifice.

Our spring Whiffle Ball games became epic rivalries between the Red Sox and the Yankees that lasted for hours after Jr. High School had set us free for the afternoon. The outcome of our games, we believed, directly influenced the outcome of our team. Our field was the cement racquetball courts in the parking lot of the JFK center, two houses away from Kurt's house and behind the current Monahan home, which was, for those who are keeping track, the home of Tucker “Tweak” Weeks in 1983. The outdoor courts supplied a self-contained playing field because half of ceiling was missing, which provided an obvious home run boundary. Although basketball was JoJo's favorite sport, he was a formidable opponent in Whiffle Ball. He always seemed to come from behind even when I couldn't stop hitting home runs. I threw curveballs, Dan Quisenberry-like side arm fastballs, knuckleballs, sliders, high, unhittable Ephus pitches that fell nearly vertically into the painted strike zone, left handed trick pitches and anything I could think of to get him out including loading the ball with pebbles after fetching it from the dirt and gravel parking lot. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes, despite my heckling, he remained focused, watched the ball curve into position and connected with a crushing swing that sent the ball rocketing out of the courts and into the parking lot beside the John F. Kennedy center..

We were friends for life until JoJo's mother moved over the Chickanoosuc River to Plumsook, Maine in the summer of 1984, stretching our bonds thin across state borders.

It wasn't enough that JoJo worked at the Marshford movie theater and let me sneak in to see Footloose so many times that I got kicked out of church for yelling, “Dance your ass off.” In an effort to remain close, Gordy and I (Evan had to paint his garden shed) bicycled across the Memorial Bridge with our baseball gloves, slaloming down the blooming hedge-lined roads of Plumsook. JoJo's house was surrounded by greening fields and thick forests, a vision of pre-colonial New England and I was suddenly out of my element. Gone was my comfortable South Street neighborhood and its homey Little Store. On the roads of Plumsook there were no fences for the dogs that chased us down the street. The animals just ran wild in the fields, killing indiscriminately. There wasn't a single video games within 100 yards. Instead of 1985, it was like the Dark Ages. JoJo had no neighbors, no ball park, and no basketball court. Not a VCR in sight! How did these people live, I thought at the time. When I wasn't within walking distance of a bag of Corn Chips, I felt a little lost, but on the borders of my fear was a love of adventure.

JoJo, Gordy and I played Cut-throat baseball in JoJo's gigantic front yard while “Summer of '69” blared from a battery operated boom box. One person would hit fly balls while the other two slapped mosquitoes and raf after the ball. Ten catches meant you got to hit. I was a better fielder than JoJo but Gordy seemed to defy gravity as he out-jumped me for any fly ball. We played until the fireflies came out to blink in the long grass and the first stars appeared over Marshford.

Then we turned the spotlight on JoJo's driveway and played Cut-throat basketball against the garage. Whoever had the ball had to score against the other two. Gordy was a foot shorter than JoJo, but still managed to contend. I satisfied myself by goofing off and hitting one of every ten hook shots I tried and by intentionally and maliciously fouling JoJo and Gordy. Gordy was not affected by my punches to his kidney and won with a miraculous, last chance, blind, shot in the near-dark that sailed inches from JoJo's outstretched fingers. The ball swished through the mosquito night and into the net.

Then JoJo took advantage of his driver's permit to speed into Marshford and buy Pizza and New Coke to eat until we were sick. We sang our Youthsongs to the blinking stars and pounded our chests. I told Gordy that he only won because he cheated and JoJo challenged and won an arm wrestling contest against Gordy. “When I look back now...” sang Bryan Adams, “The summer seemed to last forever.”

Sadly, JoJo made the career decision to go to Appleham Academy for 9^th grade. Once he left the circle of friends it was hard to know where he was and when he could come out to play football. Sure, he had a car, but he had fallen under some girl's spell and she had him jumping through hoops instead of taking jump shots. My companionship became less and less important. Stories about Hank “The Tank” Rubin's heroic consumption of ten hamburgers sounded childish compared to JoJo's account of Vice President Bush visiting his school to give a talk on economic values. And how could my imaginary love affair with Chrissy Jenkins compare JoJo's vivid description of locking braces with a cute Appleham girl in the library?

JoJo last crossed the bridge from Maine early in the discontented November of '86. The ultimate Red Sox defeat still reverberated through Bone Harbor, stiffening my joints, but I somehow found the strength to dress and eat and shuffle up the hill to school and back. Maybe, possibly, a girl like Chrissy Jenkins or Darcy Devins would notice my suffering. Maybe I could be pitied and loved and revived from the funk that was settling in my Sox cap.

I invited JoJo to a game of football with Erin “Kodiak” McCorley and Cristo and Skipper “Skip” Sully. Relatively new to each other, we were still testing one another's loyalty. JoJo was now the outsider and hid his anxiety with violent play. The game progressed in characteristic fashion, escalating in roughness from friendly two-hand touch to gang tackles, to open warfare. JoJo hit me at the knees on one tackle and the frustration from the Sox loss boiled inside of me. I stood up and threw the ball at his face.

“First Down, hoser.”

“Bring it on, queer.” he taunted as he adjusted his glasses. “How are those Red Sox doing?”

We all knew how the Sox were doing.

“Screw you, Stretch. Your mom sucked my Smurf last night. Real nice.”

“Yeah? I heard Buckner tried to kill himself.”

I squinted severely.

“That's bullshit.”

“He did,” announced JoJo soberly. “I swear.”

This attempted suicide didn't sound at all unlikely. What was there to live for after coming that close to victory and losing? People killed themselves everyday for less. JoJo's face was serious and grave. Breathing heavily, I put my hands on my hips.

“Come on, Stretch. Where did you hear that?”

“I just read it in the paper today.”

Since I had imposed a media blackout on my house, I had no way of knowing if this was true. Cristo's mouth hung open.

“Are you sure he killed himself? Maybe he just got hurt.”

“Shut up, Sticky. How? When?”

JoJo shook his head slowly and pinched his mouth together like he was fighting tears. Cristo's chin started to quiver.

“It's cold illin',” said JoJo. “Buckner was walking down the street in Cambridge and a witness said he just decided to jump in front of a bus.”

What? A bus? I knew how dangerous those downtown Boston buses were. They could kill five or ten people a day and still be on time.

“Really? Is Buckner alright?”

“He's fine. The fahking bus rolled through his legs! Ha!”

I grit my teeth and ran my cracked fingers through my hair.

“Adding insult to injury ain't wise, Stretch.”

Cristo's arms were in the air, celebrating.

“So he's alright? Buckner's still OK? Right, Oggy?”

“Buckner is fine,” I grumbled. “Stretch is the one who's about to die.”

Laughed JoJo, “The bus rolled through his legs. Get it? He couldn't stop a bus if he stood in front of it. Ha!”

Skipper and Erin laughed nervously until I looked in their direction.

“You should shut up now, Stretch. At least the Sox weren't watching the series on television like Don Mattingly and that sissy Dave Winfield. 'Oooh. Look at me. I'm Don Mattingly and I get to watch the World Series on television because I suck and the Yanks finished five games behind the Sox.' Shut up!”

It happened so rarely that the Yankees finished behind the Red Sox that even though the Sox had just added the crowned jewel of collapses to their crown of shame, I had to use it as an insult.

“Well the Sox aren't going to make the Series next year,” JoJo shot back. “Just watch. They're too humiliated by this year. What's wrong, Oggy? Are you choking? Somebody better give Bill Buckner the Heimlich Maneuver because he's choking. Cough! Cough! Is Bob Stanley choking too? Uh oh. The whole team is choking. Look out. Cough!”

JoJo put his hands around his throat and made choking sounds. He spun in theatrical circles.

I announced loudly that Skipper would throw to me on the next down and that I would run past the 'Pussy' JoJo for a touchdown. I added that no one could stop me and maybe they should just give me the seven points right now.

“Are there any objections to this plan? No? Fine. Hike the frigging ball and let me burn this prep school fag out of his preppy underwear.”

Erin growled.

JoJo said, “Don't pull a Buckner.”

Skipper grinned.

Cristo rubbed his fat belly and wished he could go home and eat.

I snapped the ball and faked a long flag pattern before stopping short. Skipper read the play and fired a leather rocket. I caught the hard pass with my chest and turned with the ball under my arm just in time to see JoJo's body flying through the air. His shoulder hit me in the groin and stopped me dead. I groaned but managed to keep my feet on the ground as I tried to tear away from JoJo by bringing my knee up into his chest. He held onto my belt and I dragged him a few feet before taking striking him in the face with the football. His glasses flew off and for some reason JoJo became so enraged that he stood up, picked one of my legs up off the ground, and kicked the other one out from under me. He ended my brief flight by bringing his body weight into mine, landing on me with a grunt. I reached for his throat.

“You wanna play like a pussy?” I asked as I applied a merciless headlock. “Is that it? Is that how the prep school queers play? Do you wanna get hurt?”

We were both fans of WWF wrestling and in our younger days had ridden a bus down to Ironbury to watch a Grudge Match at the Boston Garden featuring the Junk Yard Dog and Rowdy Roddy Piper. Hulk Hogan was our ultimate hero but we also admired and emulated Jimmy 'Superfly' Snukka and Jesse 'The Body' Ventura. George 'The Animal' Steel was a delightful freak who chewed his leather lease off each match and crawled around like Quasimodo in the ring as fans pelted him with dog food. My favorite wrestling move was the headlock and, as JoJo was quickly learning, I was a master. The idea was to deprive your opponent's brain of oxygen long enough for the opponent to submit or else pass out. JoJo's favorite move was called The Claw, patented by Andre The Giant and employed by Randy 'The Macho Man' Savage. This move involved palming your opponent's head like a basketball and squeezing with all your might on his temples. It brought excruciating pain and an immediate surrender, if not brain damage, but JoJo was far from applying The Claw as spit bubbled from his purple lips and his arms flailed wildly. I laughed as hard as I could and made sure no blood or oxygen could get to his brain.

“Who's choking now?” I heckled. “Huh, Macho Man? Who is the sissy choking now? I can't hear you. Speak up, queer. You wanna show off in front of my friends? This is my turf. Screw you! You go back to your pussy prep school and play lacrosse with your dick!”

JoJo grabbed my hat and tore some of my hair out. He slapped my ear then punched my face. The pain only made me squeeze his neck tighter in the sleeper hold.

“The Sox are going to win next year and the year after that and every year. Say it! Say the Red Sox are the best! Say, 'My name is JoJo Locke and I love the Red Sox. They are the Champions.' Say it!”

The only thing coming out of JoJo's mouth was white froth.

“I can't hear you, Stretch. Is it because you're choking? What, sissy?”

JoJo's tongue swelled but I could still hear him breathing so I applied more pressure and commanded him to admit the Red Sox were the greatest team ever. JoJo then attempted a desperate move. He applied The Claw to my knee, which was the only body part available to him at that moment. Pain exploded up my leg and erupted in a scream I uncorked as tissue tore in my knee. I had to release JoJo from the headlock to strike his right wrist viciously with the tip of my elbow. I heard a loud snap followed by a defeated yelp as the pain ebbed from my knee. JoJo rolled over holding his wrist and whimpering. Erin and Skipper both grimaced awkwardly on the sidelines. The game was clearly not going to continue. Cristo cowered like a scared puppy probably pissing his pants.

Slowly, JoJo got up, found his glasses with his left hand and with deflated, hunched shoulders, he walked toward his car. I massaged my knee through my grass stained Bugle Boy cargo pants. Feeling around my lips, I found a small cut and looked at the blood on my fingers with a thrill. Guilt stewed in my gut, but I could not show mercy in front of Erin and Skipper.

“Get out of here, you prep school pussy, “ I yelled, though I wanted to apologize. “Queer! You don't know me. You don't know Ray Knight. I know secrets! The Sox...” My throat swelled with emotion. “The Sox are the best,” I choked out.

I looked for approval from my friends. Erin was obviously disappointed. He grimaced and shook his head as though it pained him to see me needlessly drive a friend away. Skipper shrugged without commitment. This was a side of me he hadn't expected. Cristo was rocking himself back and forth in the grass with his hands over his ears. JoJo climbed into his car, gently cradling his arm, and closed the door. I pretended this was a normal end to the day's recreation, nothing unusual, and called out.

“I'll call you later, ok, Grandmaster Flash? Yo! Word up, Mix Master Jo! Hey, Stretch! Hey, kid!”

The black El Camino pulled away slowly and disappeared around the corner. I was nauseous and sore. As if I wasn't injured enough from Game Six, my shoulder was now bruised. My groin was stiffening and my knee clicked when I moved it.

“The pussy deserved it,” I said to no one. “Ray Knight is responsible. Look!” I pulled the 1986 team photo out of my stained back pocket. “Schiraldi had to strike him out! He had a 1.41 ERA. He was good!”

No one had any comment so I pressed my lip until it hurt so bad tears came to my eyes. Ray Knight had caused me this pain, and I intended to get revenge.

“Think fast,” I called and zipped the football at Erin. He reached for it but it fell to the ground near the cowardly Cristo.

“I'm hungry,” said Erin as he thwacked a can of Kodiak chewing tobacco against his leg, then stuck a plug between his lower lip and teeth. “I gotta go. Big Chemistry test tomorrow, remember? What's the atomic weight of Helium?”

“I have no idea, Kodiak. How about you Skip? You wanna throw a few? I'll buy you a hot dog at Gillies. Maybe we can toilet paper the High School like that time. Remember guys? Remember when we threw toilet paper on that tree by the High School? We had fun. It was so funny. Kodiak fell and the janitor chased us and Cristo got caught and Huggy said he didn't care about his baby. Remember? It wasn't so long ago.”

There must be a way to get it all back, I thought. Forever, I'm on the edge of a life, forever bordering salvation. If I could just slow things down then I could sort them out and put them back where they belonged. I just needed time.

“Sorry, Oggy,” said Skipper. “I told my dad I'd help him cut wood tonight. See you in school, K? Don't forget that Lab report”

“Fahk that Lab report,” I shouted. My chin was quivering. “Fahk Helium. I've got better things to do. I got the high score on Star Castle. Me! I beat Clutch in Whiffle Ball. I was good!”

Skipper threw up his hands in a sign of surrender as he ran a post pattern to his parent's car and drove away towards Langdonville. Erin waved self-consciously at me (or was it a motion of dismissal) and then walked up the back steps into his house. Cristo was already shuffling away toward his home on South Street since it was time for Fraggle Rock or Silver Spoons or whatever that coward watched on television as his mom cooked him spinach pie and stuffed grape leaves. I almost let him go but something about Cristo's awkward limp made me blame him for the Red Sox loss, for JoJo, for Ray Knight, for everything.

“And don't come back either, you pussy. Loser!”

Cristo turned around.

“Wa? I didn't do anything.”

“That's the problem, Cristo. Where were you when the Sox needed you? Where were you when Stanley threw that wild pitch? You didn't do anything. You just sat there on your fat ass.”

I was trembling with rage. I wanted to kill, to tear my heart out and feed it to Bob Stanley. Tears fell down salty on my split lip.

“Oggy,” said Cristo, “That had nothing to do with me. I...”

“It had everything to do with you. Everything! You don't know anything. I got the high score in Star Castle. I was the king!”

Cristo made a gesture of penitence, but I ignored him.

“Get the fahk out of here, you cripple. Get out! Loser! I don't ever want to see you again. Everybody hates you. We all hate you, Cristo. Maybe next time the Sox are one strike away from winning it all you'll do something. Maybe you'll be a man!”

Tears came to Cristo's eyes. He started to speak, to beg for forgiveness again, but I turned away from him. I hated myself. I hated everyone. Five minutes ago I was surrounded by friends and now I was alone. It was Ray Knight's fault. Damn him! When I looked again Cristo was limping down the sidewalk, totally alone, surrounded by another season of death. He tripped on the curb but didn't fall down. He had nothing, no one, and I didn't care.

“You don't know me,” I called out. “You don't know Ray Knight.”

Halloween was gone. Paper pumpkins and candy wrappers filled the trash. November had teeth like a dragon. I was alone. My foot ached terribly.

The football now lay in the wet leaves by a crooked chain link fence where it would probably remain for a year. A neighbor raked his lawn with the silence-breaking sound of late Autumn that confirmed the end of all that is green. One more strike, I thought, and none of this would have happened. Curse Bob Stanley! I limped to my gray hooded Red Sox sweatshirt and found that JoJo had forgotten his jean jacket and his prep school tie that had served as end zone/out of bounds markers. I picked these abandoned articles up and started to stagger home.

I paused at the end of the driveway as a car appeared on Aldrich Avenue. I hoped it was JoJo coming back for his coat and tie. I would apologize and explain that I had just wanted to show off in front of my friends. My behavior had been stupid and petty and I was deeply regretful. I would apologize a thousand times. I would let him break my wrist if he wanted. Of course the Red Sox weren't going to win in 1987. They might never recover from the heartbreaking loss they suffered in October. I might never recover either. Just forgive me. Forgive me and let's go get a hot dog at Gillies like the old days. We could drive to the mall and play arcade football where the only injuries were digital. Please, JoJo.

But the car was a white VW Cabriolet convertible. It parked in front of me and Erin's twin sister Rose McCorley bounced out of the passenger door, escorted by a Def Leppard power chord. Rose wore spandex the color of the winter sky over Break Island and tight enough to touch every inch of her precious body, like a cellophane wrapped Twinkie. Rose ran effortlessly to me and pressed her giant breasts against my arm as she hugged me and pinched my ears. She smelled like a delicious Whaleswood Beach prostitute. I stared at her cotton candy hair, her wet lips, her damp neck, her mashed but full chest. It would be two long and frustrating years, an eternity, before I could get my greedy hands behind her sports bra.

“Oooh, Oggy. Hi! Look at your ears. Your wookie ears are just so...wookie. Ooooh! Say your ears are wookie. Say it, Oggy.”

“My ears are wookie,” I said with very little enthusiasm. I was still looking for JoJo's car with some hope he would return. What had come over me when I hurt his wrist? Who was this devil inside? What was his name?

The driver's door opened and my Marilyn, my Grace Kelly, my private dancer, my pin-up spank monkey, Darcy “Double D” Devins, stepped out carrying a bundle of clean clothes. My prostate quivered in anticipation. Life flowed into my groin.

“What's wong, Oggy?” dribbled Rose.

“Nothing.”

“You look sick and aww wed. But your ears are so super-wookie-licious. Ooh.”

I let Rose fondle my ears as I admired the stunning Darcy. She was also wearing blue spandex tucked into her green neon leg warmers and a torn Spuds McKenzie sweatshirt that fell off one silky bare Devins shoulder and dipped below her delicious ass, an ass that I imagined was as hard as a side of beef. I could see her tiny feet, her angelic face with a perfectly formed nose and radiant blue eyes. She strode on two incredible legs that I dreamed about spreading with my hands as a look of fierce desire splashed Darcy's passionate face. Her finger nails were painted labia pink and I so wanted to suck them and eat them like the pieces of sticky ribbon candy my grandmother offered at Christmas. Darcy was a sumptuous, all-you-can-eat eye-buffet and I ate until I was sick. Darcy's Pat Benetar haircut that was perfectly formed like blond cake frosting topped with a headband or pure silk. Still, she had enough hair to hold while I kissed her precious mouth. Just one kiss, just one strike and all would be well again.

“Look at this boy's ears, Darce,” said Rose in a caring voice. “Just look at these wookie ears! His ears are wookie-licious. You want to pinch them?”

Darcy looked eagerly to the front door.

“Alright, Rose. Enough, girl,” I said as my posture improved. I held in my stomach and I pushed out my chest. I tried to appear aloof and handsome. JoJo? JoJo who? Ray Knight? Fortunately, Rose noticed my bloodied lip and shook her chin in mock, motherly concern.

“OoooH, Oggy has a boo boo. Were you and Erin fighting again? Naughty, naughty Oggy. No cookies for you. No, you bad, wookie, cookie. Ooooh. Wookie ears.” She pinched my ear again and smiled, bouncing, cheeks red, lips wet, breasts like bags of marshmallow.

I shrugged like Han Solo and repeated the most manly line I knew.

“It's nothing. It ain't shit.” Casually, I added, “So, watcha up to?” I sounded like Toddy Bonigan.

Rose's chin immediately stopped quivering. Her face lit up.

“We are going to go take a shower and get ready for the Frat party up at UNH. Then we're going to the Culture Club concert. My boyfriend got me tickets. He's the best! I'm so in love with him!”

Rose bounced and blinked her long lashes, tilting her head and absently tugging my ears. Darcy stared at her feet. I tried to act like I had been invited to the frat party but chose not to go.

“Oh, that? Yeah, Boy George is cool. 'Do ya' really want to huuuuurt meeeee?'“ I crooned as I scratched my flexed biceps and took pleasure when they noticed how buff I was. The fight with JoJo had pumped up my muscles. It would take a strong man to hold Darcy up against a wall. I love you Darcy. I love the shape of your neck and the color of your eyes. I'll dress you in the morning and undress you at night. Please let me kiss you. I'll be the best boyfriend ever. You'll learn to love me. I didn't confess these thoughts, but my lips moved over the delicious words.

“Well, have a good time, girls,” I drawled. “Don't get too hammahd.”

“You know us, Oggy. We're good girls,” Rose said with obvious irony and a sexy smirk and wink. I suddenly loved Rose.

“Not too good, I hope.”

How could they resist my wit? How?

“Ooooh, let me pinch those woookie ears one more time. Oooh! They are just so woookie-nookie-liscious.”

Rose pawed playfully at my ears for a minute while Darcy stood next to her holding a change of clothes. I could smell the fragrance of the perfume Darcy brushed behind her own wookie ears. I could smell the toothpaste she had used to clean her white teeth. I could smell the sweat on her bountiful chest. How hard would it have been to say, “So, we should get together sometime. Have some beeahs”? Instead of writing notes to her, I could have asked her to go on a date with me. Just one more strike.

Darcy was a year older than me and strode through the high school halls in her running shoes with ceramic hair and French-rolled jeans like a plastic Queen. She was escorted by her admirers while I ran from class to class, always late, never in-sync with the tides of people. There were so many girls to follow around that I hardly had time to go to class at all. For instance, I had Darcy to follow from room 114 to 210. Then there was Cindy Phillips who always went to the bathroom after third period to smoke a cigarette and powder her cheeks. I had to sit near Chrissy Jenkins at lunch so I could watch her slowly melt a Creamsicle with her orange lips. My schedule was demanding as hell and I often had to sacrifice punctuality for a second more watching Cindy straighten her sexy frilled skirt by her locker. Of course, I couldn't miss licking her locker combination after she had closed the door. It was exhausting. Who gave a damn about the atomic weight of magnesium? Who cared about the Canterbury Tales? What did Boyle's Law really have to do with me? What I needed was a secret way to masturbate in the cafeteria.

I turned toward the McCorley house, and was about to say I was on my way to see Erin, when I saw the curtain in the living room fold back into place. Erin's shadow stepped back from the window. Rather than allow him to blow my cover, I said nothing.

“Good to see you, Wookie Ears,” said Rose as she pinched my ears again. “Ooooh! So wookie. Good luck on the Chem test tomorrow.”

Darcy followed Rose without ever acknowledging me. To her, it was like Rose had been playing with the neighborhood raccoon for five minutes. Perhaps she had been intimidated by the dozens of roses I had sent to her house in Whaleswood. Maybe she did not appreciate the hand painted cards and poetry I left in her locker or how I polished her combination lock with my tongue. She certainly never thanked me for attending her track meets and cheering for her alone on the bleachers with big signs that read, “GO DEE DEE! BHHS #1 DEE DEE IS THE BEST!” It is also possible that she never forgave me for promising to buy us two tickets to a Hall & Oates concert but never delivering. Still, her kiss was first on my list.

“Keep it chill,” I said, which could not have sounded more stupid if it had come from a talking baboon.

I watched the two sets of gorgeous spandex-wrapped legs walk gracefully down the sidewalk and then jump up the stairs two at a time like foxy little sex muffins.

As Darcy followed Rose up the stairs she did not notice a neon pink sock fall out of her arms and tumble onto the sidewalk. It fell like the last leaf off the tree of my dignity. She was too eager to get away from me, perhaps, or maybe she wanted me to have it, because she kept walking up the steps and left the sock behind. I was tortured, torn, by the choice I had to make. I could call to Darcy and give her back her sock, which would mean I might have to speak to her. That terrified me. What would I say? What if I said what I felt? The Bone Harbor Police would pick me up in two minutes. I also wanted to get a good look at Darcy's ass because I knew I would beat off to this memory hundreds, probably thousands, of times in the future. Already, the blood pounded in my wounded penis. Of course, I also wanted to keep the sock, to smell it, to wear it from time to time in my room, to own this precious piece of otherness and raise it as my own. And it was possible that she wanted me to have it, as a secret gesture like when ladies would drop their handkerchief on purpose to attract a gentleman's eye. This last premise convinced me.

I glanced up at the house, but didn't see anyone watching so I ran to the foot of the stairs, grabbed the small neon pink sport sock, soft as shorn pubic hair. My heart thumped a New Wave beat as I touched the delicately worn cotton. and held it to my nose. The sock smelled like an unused baseball, like pure virgin sex, and for the first time in three weeks I didn't think about Ray Knight, or Bob Stanley, or Calvin Schiraldi, or Bill Buckner. I didn't think about the Red Sox losing the World Series. The Soxk was my savior! I kissed the heel and the toe and the ribbed tube. A tiny drop of my blood stayed on the cotton. Sacrifice! Life was sacrifice. Then I looked around to make sure no one had seen me. No one had. The Sock was mine! All mine! My precious!

I tossed JoJo's jacket over my shoulder and limped quickly away, hunched like a freak, even as I second guessed my decision. Why didn't I tell Rose to stop pinching my ears? How much humiliation could I put up with for female contact? Why didn't I swear more? Girls like it when guys swear. I should have said 'shit' at least once. But I also wanted to appear different. So why didn't I pounce on Darcy like a wild cat and chew her spandex off with my teeth? That would have been different. Maybe Hall & Oates was touring again...

The regrets munched me up. Why couldn't I just knock on the door and admit that I had seen her sock fall on the ground and had planned on keeping it for my own, to hump at my leisure, but had decided against it. Instead, I wanted her to have her sock back. Darcy would find me noble and honest and invite me to wash her back as she gave Rose oral pleasure in the shower. Yes! Then she would attend to my massive, throbbing skin rocket with all the lust of a succubae. Damn! That would never happen, I thought. What was I thinking? I wished I had Buddy Huggington 's confidence or Piper's maturity or Kurt's good looks. Ogden Bleacher wasn't a guy who girl's talked about in confidential notes. Ogden Bleacher was just another anonymous face in the hall. Would Darcy ever give me the sock willingly? My lips silently asked this questions but heard no answer. My biceps had been flexed for three minutes and I found I could barely relax them. Now it was too late. If I walked up the steps now Darcy and Rose would think I was completely insane. They would assume I had stolen the sock from Darcy's car. Rose would tell Erin and Erin would tell Cristo. I would get the reputation at School of the Sock Freak. The chances of me having sex before I graduated would vaporize. I'd have to leave town. The Red Sox had already lost; my reputation couldn't take another blow. I had to keep the sock now and just pray Darcy wanted me to keep it.

I looked both ways for JoJo's car swerving up Aldrich Avenue but only saw some lounging cats, marking their territory with urine. I would not see JoJo again for many years and his jacket and tie remain in my closet with the rusted survival knife, the chipped nunchucks, the creased posters of Hulk Hogan and the warped Run DMC records. As I passed Darcy's car I got a small thrill by touching the cool metal with the same hand that would later stroke her greased cotton sock. I quickly passed the big maple tree that Bugsy Kindle would strike and die beneath a few years later. I crossed Middle Street and jogged down the length of Lincoln Avenue, past the house where I went to for aid when I hit a parked car on my bike, past the tree with giant testicles, past the stripped Maple trees whose bare crooked branches reached out for Darcy's sock, my treasure.

The Timewraiths were not yet as strong as in 1991; I could pass these assorted landmarks with merely a nod of recognition and a knowing grin. I was in such a hurry to go home and explore Darcy's sock that I passed by the Little Store even though they had just got a new video game--A week after the Red Sox lost the World Series Cullen Fossey's mother decided the Venture arcade game needed too many repairs. She replaced it with this ridiculous game which attempted to replicate a comic book. The player had to choose one action, one joystick command, for each screen. If the action was correct the outcome was played out on the screen and the next scenario appeared. The game was just a series of memorized moves but kids still lined up to watch something new, the fools--that was no competition for Darcy's sock

Decisions, decisions: Would I cover the black vinyl couch cushions with baby oil and hump it while I stroked and kissed Darcy's hosiery? Or would I immediately get the vaseline out, grease up the sock and give it the screwing it deserved? And how would I work my father's girlfriend's nylon stockings into menage? So many choices. Leather or Lace? I had a lot of work to do and not much time until Cagney & Lacey came on.