Finding a Place in 1976

When I was young, it was more important
Pain more painful, the laughter much louder, yeah
When I was young

When I was young[1]

My mother started me in elementary school at the age of five, believing I was smart enough to keep up with the other kids who were usually older–while my dad–opposed; him saying I was just an average kid at best who would fall behind, and probably fail.  He, also, wasn't around much to enforce his rather low opinion of me, as was the day my mother brought me to school.  My mother spent the next six years trying to prove dad wrong and was wise enough to teach me to enjoy school and appreciate learning.  But, perhaps—I think—my dad spent the same time trying to prove her wrong.  There was seemed to be a lot of arguments aas well as a lot of yelling—none of it to clear.  

I really wasn't aware of the age differences while I was going through elementary school and usually being younger than most of the other kids. I also found it difficult to get to know someone new, and quite often assumed we'd be moving again anyway so I wasn't really sure if it mattered. After all the years of school with older kids, you would have thought it would be easier going into the seventh grade, but junior high was different . . . Very different.  They were teenagers here; much older teenagers and some, the consistent failures, were often hauntingly intimidating. Although I went through a growth spurt during that first year before turning thirteen, this was no place for a child like myself: a slightly insecure twelve-year-old outsider that knew no one and was socially inept.  I was always uncomfortable; having met only one kid, Harley Peters, I could call a friend. While the rest of the kids seemed to be a part of some clique group or friends since birth, school–the place I once enjoyed–now became painful.

So at the end my first year of junior high school when summer came along, I was just glad to not be dealing with all the anxiety I experienced throughout a long and unnerving year. It would also be my first time seeing an ocean as well.

My friend Harley came to pick me up to go to the beach.  He was a big kid at fourteen; flunked a grade or two and during the past year spent a greater part of his break-time, between classes, terrorizing many of the kids he encountered throughout the hallways of junior high.  His approach was the standard bully introduction, "Hey, you, dork," he would say, "give me your money."

It worked on every poor bastard that crossed his path.  Some kids would just walk up to him and hand over their lunch money before he even demanded it.  Harley was the first extortionist I ever met, and his approach to me was no different from the others.

"Hey, you, dork, give me your money," Harley demanded.

"Uh, money," I said, acting stupid.  "I don't have any money."

The small amount of change my mother would give me each morning was actually hidden in my shoes.

"I was going to ask you for some change so I could have lunch," I said.  "You look pretty well off. Can you spare a quarter, a nickel? I'll pay you back."

Harley just stared down at me.  I wasn't sure if my first attempt at bully psychology was working.  Something was going through Harley's small mind, but rather large head, and I wasn't sure what it was.  But it didn't look pleasant as his eyes began to anger and his fist appeared to tighten.  I had no recourse and nothing else to say, so I turned to the next smallest kid walking by.

 "Hey, you, dork, you got any money?" I said with the toughest voice I could muster up; a kind of Clint Eastwood-Robert Di Nero combination.

The kid stopped, and I don't remember his name, but he was small and fragile and definitely non-confrontational.  He looked at me, and then up at Harley, quickly pulled two dollars from his pocket and handed it to me.

I split the two dollars with Harley, he appeared appreciative, or perhaps impressed, I'm not really sure, but we became best friends. 

I wasn't aware of it at the time, but Harley was a fan of Clint and Di Nero, like myself—although I don't think the bad Clint-De Niro combo-impersonation was a factor in Harley taken a liking to me, or even the lunch money extorted from that small kid that avoided me the rest of the year.

Harley wasn't such a bad guy once you got to know him or at least he wasn't to me.  The only thing he had going for him was his body and it's massive presence. He knew that, and he used it.  I also don't think Harley had any fear; quite unlike me who found despair each day I walked the halls of junior high school.  It was nice having Harley, this big badass kid, as my friend.

Harley pulled up to my house in what was a used mail cart.  These three-wheeled vehicles, known as the Westcoaster Mailster, were used by the postal system to deliver mail, until the Postal Service realized they were unreliable, unsafe, only ran well on flat roads while tending to tip or lean up on two of the wheels if taking a turn to quick. Harley found tremendous joy in this particular defect.  It was kind of like doing a wheelie except it wasn't the front wheel that lifted; it was one of the back wheels.  You could buy these vehicles cheap, and Harley's dad bought one for Harley to get around in.  All you needed, at fourteen, was a motorcycle license, and you could travel anyplace a car could go.  I jumped into the back. 

"Got another stop," Harley said, as we pulled away from my house.  "Phil Paderas is heading to Europe for the summer, and he wants me to keep an eye on his girlfriend."

Not only was Harley running a pretty good business extorting kids of their lunch money at the age of fourteen, but was also financially persuaded by Phil Paderas, a rich kid Harley knew, but I didn't, into taking on his first job as a bodyguard . . . and Jesus!, that body was about to get into the back of a three-wheeled Westcoaster mail-cart, I considered to myself . . . With me!

Rita was "going steady" with Phil.  Going Steady in that small section of the world meant the two people involved with each other would not see other people and the girl in the relationship would wear the boy's I.D bracelet to validate their bond.  In reality, the bracelet was just a way for the male to send a signal to other males: Hands off—she's taken. Childish perhaps, but just the same, most guys would honor this somewhat juvenile arrangement. 

Rita was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen in real life. It wasn't only her straight black hair, that she parted down the middle surrounding her clear, fair-complexion face, nor her blue eyes that gave her the look of a young Cleopatra—portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor of course—nor her shapely body, that could have easily been in a Playboy centerfold—if not for statutory laws—but it was also her inviting smile.  She was older than me, by at least a year and a half. And older girls, to a boy of thirteen, can be especially intimidating. But when Rita looked at me and smiled, it was like a shot of cocaine; with my mind quickly racing away from reality and into a dream-like-state, absent of all anxiety or fear.  She was truly my first narcotic.

Rita also came from money. She lived in an elegant South Florida home along the Intracostal waterway.  Her father was an entrepreneur of sorts who made his money by selling high-quality waterbeds and owning a chain of Water Bed Outlet's throughout South Florida. He was a slick looking guy who sported a terrific tan.  He reminded me of the actor George Hamilton; always dressed to the T, pink polo shirts, white Versace suits, and Gucci shoes usually absent of socks.  The times I saw him were brief and the main thing I recall him ever saying to me regarded his daughter.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do, kid," he would say with a wink and this strange little pop that would come from his cheek and gum.  I wasn't sure what that wink and pop meant.  That he was kidding?  That it's okay to do the opposite of what he was saying?  I'm sure he would not have screwed his own daughter, but I'm positive he screwed other people's daughters.  The guy had the look. I know it.  I've seen it a thousand times since.  The wink and the pop, I would find out was a male signal.  Letting one know it's okay . . . I understand.  I'm a man, too.

When we pulled up to Rita's house, she was already waiting.  I jumped from the back of the mail cart to let her in—and held the door for her.

She gave me a quick look as if to say that was uncommonly nice, and said, ”Hmm, a gentleman. Why thank you, kind sir. That was nice of you.”

 She was wearing a white blouse over her black bikini top and a pair of shorts that climbed up her beautiful rear-end. As she jumped into the back of the vehicle, both cheeks popped from under her shorts and appeared to smile in unison. Damn, I thought, as I stood at the back of the mail-cart, I’m getting a boner, and we haven't even left her driveway.

Ah, jeez! Will she notice?  I thought to myself.

I jumped into the back and picked up a beach towel Harley had brought and held it to my lap disguising my loss of control.

"It's Harold, right?" Rita smiled. “I’ve seen you around.”

Christ! A hard on and that narcotic smile! My mind danced.

"Uh. Yeah. Um. Harry." I said looking down at her wrist where a gold I.D bracelet hung with the name Philip. Oh, geez, my mind in a frenzy, how do I stop this blood pumping to my penis?

She smiled again and looked up front to Harley.

"Where are we going?"

"Clark Beach." Harley replied, "Phil told me that’s the only beach I should take you to."

Rita turned and smiled at me. "We could have used my pool," she said.

Harley glanced back at Rita, "Phil said the pool was off limits."

Rita looked back at me, and I'm not sure if she meant for Harley to hear her or not—the moment seemed to go into slow motion, and I thought she touched my leg. 

"Well, Phil is not in town."  She grinned.

And she gave me a wink; and I'm not sure if there was also a pop involved, but I felt a connection to this beautiful creature that sat across from me on my first day of summer, in the back of Harley's mail cart.  It wasn't just the hard-on anymore; they had come and gone through practically every class throughout the year including the grueling lectures by Mrs. Harper in English Comp. No, this moment seemed special to me, as though there was a connection between her and me that was difficult to understand. 

We began to drive. Harley turned on to the main road and took a quick turn, then leaned his body slightly towards my side of the Westcoaster. The side, where Rita sat, began to lift as the wheel came off the ground. I could see there was excitement on her face; like you’d see in someone's eyes on the first dip of a roller coaster, and then I sensed her fear as she grabbed my shin and held on.  I shifted my weight towards her and the Mailster dropped back down to the road.

Harley was laughing at his little practical joke while Rita looked up at him and smiled. "What a shit you are," she said. 

She looked over at me, smiled, and while still holding my leg squeezed it tight for a moment and said, "Thanks."

We rode to the beach; the whole time her hand holding my leg and me not being sure if she was even aware of it. My hopes were, she felt I was her knight-in-shining-armor, and perhaps someday my act of chivalry would be rewarded. Throughout the time we rode to the beach, I would catch myself staring at her when she wasn’t looking. I also felt her gaze when I wasn’t looking at her.

At the beach, her popularity, and all the salivating guys she attracted tended to get in between any conversation Rita and I could have had. I don't remember much of that day other than me watching her until she would look my way and then I'd turn to something else—I may have been playing the hard to get routine—it's what young people do when they don't know what to do.  What I remember most was her beautiful bouncing breast and sweet bottom diving in and out the blue glistening waters of the Atlantic Ocean.  At one point, she left a group of friends to walk over to me where I sat alone looking out at the water.

“Hey, why don’t you come join us?” She asked.

I really didn’t have much to say to her or a group of her friends. The truth is, I didn’t know what to say or talk about.

“I’m good.” Is all I could say.

She appeared slightly bothered as if she was thinking I was being mean or possibly even smug—I wasn't sure. I almost blurted, no, no, I like you, I’m just not good with people when she smiled and said.

“The lone wolf, huh?”

The lone wolf, I thought to myself. That’s pretty neat.

I kind of shrugged my shoulders and appeared to think seriously about it for a moment.

“Yeah. I guess.”

She smiled and said, “I like that . . . Harry, don’t you like me?”

Maybe it was a game she was playing. Maybe she wasn’t used to being ignored. Maybe I was a challenge. Who knows? I was a lone wolf, and it didn’t matter; she was talking to me.

All I could muster up was, “You’re cool.”

She laughed and said, “You’re cool too, Harry,” while tossing some sand on me and running off.

I wondered. Does she want me to follow? I wasn’t sure as my eyes followed her to her group of loving admirers. I wasn’t prepared to be a part of those kids I didn’t know.
That day past quickly and it almost blended together like a hazy dream with bits and pieces of images and any other talk mostly unclear.  But, there was something I definitely understood, when Harley and I dropped Rita off at her house, and she asked me to walk her up to the door . . . She wanted me to call her.

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[1] Writer Tom Snow – Eric Burden and the Animals