The cinema has given us plenty of movies about young boys coming of age, but none have ever been as rich and wondrous as the summer I experienced during my tenth year on earth. It was 1982, glorious 1982, and I would spend my evenings staring up from my bed at a cracked yellow ceiling, wondering what the world had in store for me. The days, those were filled with intrigue and romance.
At the beach club where my parents had a membership, I was befriended
by Anne the lifeguard. In her dark blue malliot, Anne was a tall
24-year-old goddess with milk-white freckled skin and long red
hair, a woman who would become my template for idealized female beauty. I was
far too youthful and unskilled to keep from telegraphing my feelings,
but I was wise enough to know that she was 100% unattainable. All the while, Wendy was always on the periphery. Wendy was a bookish Jewish girl with glasses who lived two states over, but her doddering old grandmother owned a house three blocks from mine. She would stay there on summer weekends, and we spent a fair amount of time together -- riding our bikes, drinking soda on the steps of the local market, watching television at her house.
Labor Day came and school started anew. Anne went back to Tufts University, where she was working towards a graduate degree in medicine. The weekend after fourth grade officially began, Wendy spent one final weekend in town.
"I won't be coming around again until next summer," she said to me as we sat in her grandmother's attic. "But I want to give you something to remember me by."
Saturday, September 11, 1982. Nine-one-one. The day that my childhood placed an emergency call to the cosmos, because my emergent adult self had committed first-degree arson on its little house. The day when someone of the opposite sex felt compelled to close her eyes, put her wet lips on mine, and commence several minutes of synchronized jaw movements. It sent a 110-volt shock through my tiny 10-year-old body that I'll never forget.
Six years ago, I was living in Philadelphia, 120 miles south of where the towers smoked and crumbled. I had a blog back then too, and all I could think of to write was "This is not a movie," in big bold capital letters. (We were all short on poetry in the immediate aftermath.) I have two vivid memories of that day: one, hundreds of scared people streaming out of office buildings thinking that we were next, and two, stumbling around the streets of Center City looking for a church that wasn't locked. I hadn't been to church in over 15 years.
It wasn't until several months later, once a scab had formed over America's wound, when I had a sudden realization. Whoever did this had not only set the tone for a dark decade of paranoia, discontent and government manipulation, but the bastards had ruined the perfectly beautiful anniversary of my first kiss.
"Well, isn't that a motherfucker," I sighed.
