I
Once upon a time, having not learned his lesson, a thirteen-year-old boy was crushing on yet another girl. For these purposes, we’ll call her Kelly, who was in his eighth-grade class. She wasn’t part of the preppy clique. Instead, she was more…redneck, for lack of a better term. Not one of the farmer cliques necessarily. If you were a teenager in the 80s, you’ll no doubt recognize the tougher girls who wore tight jeans and smoked in the bathrooms. To be fair, he never saw Kelly smoke.
Perhaps that was part of the allure for him. The ‘nicer’ girls wanted nothing to do with him because of his geeky status.
He may have been a bit of a fool for believing he’d have better luck with girls who could basically eat him up and spit out the bones.
That boy was me.
I don’t know what it is about ‘bad girls’ that spark attraction for us lesser men. I’d probably have to consult with women who go for the bad boys. They’d most likely have a reasonable explanation. After all, whether the coveted is a bad boy or a bad girl, the one doing the coveting typically ends up with a broken heart. Yet, they’ll continue to pursue the unwinnable, believing the next one will be ‘the one.’
And with that, I’ve summed up the textbook definition of insanity.
I’ve often heard that there’s a fine line between love and insanity.
Indeed.
II
Let’s back up a few years, picking up where we left off in elementary school.
My family moved to Woodbine, Maryland, in the winter of 1981. I did the first half of fifth grade at Freedom Elementary and the second half at Mt. Airy Elementary. It should have been a fresh start, and fuck knows, I tried. That’s not to imply I conformed to the other kids. I listened to country music and not the mainstream rock everyone else did. This was mainly to impress my father, Charlie, as he listened to country music. That’s not to say I didn’t like what the local country station, WPOC, played. I did. But I wanted Charlie to like me, and I thought that was a way to accomplish that.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t work.
To commit to this new beginning in Woodbine and Mt. Airy, I stopped using my middle name, Kevin, and began using my first name.
What’s that, you may ask?
Charles.
Yeah, my father’s name. I had the misfortune of being named after him.
I’ve been asked a few times if I pulled the name change to get my father’s attention. In complete honesty? No. That wasn’t part of it. On my first day of class at Mt. Airy Elementary, the teacher roll-called the class and referred to me by my first name. I didn’t correct her, and the rest is history. There was no muss or fuss about explaining the name change since no one knew I primarily used my middle name.
When Mom found out (or I told her, I forget which), she wasn’t impressed and disapproved. I didn’t stop, though.
By middle school, I regretted that decision. The name became synonymous with my father. Since his absence was taking its toll on me by eighth grade, I wanted as little to do with that name as possible.
Funny thing about that is I didn’t make any effort to revert back to Kevin until my senior year of high school. However, I was still using Kevin outside of high school, and that’s when the name bleed over became an issue by twelfth grade.
III
I recall feeling some attraction to girls in middle school. Most of them I admired from afar, knowing my less-than-stellar reputation would earn me further mockery not only from the prospective love interest but also from the school populace for expressing any interest in someone of the opposite sex. Surely you must remember how that goes. If the geeky, picked-on kid ‘likes someone,’ the object of their desire also gets blowback from that ridicule. They then join in with the bullying chorus to save face, which eventually becomes an additional embarrassment for the bullied kid.
Thanks, but no thanks.
I made that mistake once in seventh grade and never again.
Her name was Melissa, and I sat next to her in science class. I guess I stared at her one time too many. Someone noticed.
“Oh, my God! Do you like Melissa?”
I didn’t answer straight away. Kind of a dead giveaway.
I remember watching Melissa slump into her chair and go red.
Days later, she asked me if I liked her, and with my head facing down, I gazed at her from across my brow and meekly answered, “Yes.”
She duly avoided me after that. At least she had the courtesy not to join in with the mockery. For that, I was thankful.
Then, in eighth grade, there was Kelly. She was Kurt’s cousin.
Remember Kurt and how we had some crazy adventures around Woodbine?
Well, there was a reason I did many of the things I did with him, some of them less than legal. Kurt knew I was crushing on his cousin and used it against me.
IV
When spring of 1985 arrived and playing outside was more frequent because of the warmer weather, Kurt stepped up his torments. If he wanted me to do some crazy thing first, he’s say something like, “Look, son, if you do this, I’ll set you up with Kelly so bad it’ll be sinful.”
I’d grumble in reply, “I ain’t your son,” and do what he required of me.
In one instance, Kurt wanted to build a fort inside Mullinix’s hay barn using hay bales. On the whole, I don’t think the Old Man (how everyone referred to Wayne Sr.) would have minded as long as we didn’t destroy the hay bales.
Basically, Kurt would stand and bark orders at me to move hay bales. Understand something; those things are heavy, and moving them without hooks makes it twice as difficult.
Eventually, I built enough structure to climb in and out of it and not be seen, except for one hole that acted as a window.
Kurt wanted a door, which meant breaking some hay bales apart. Such a thing would surely piss off the Old Man. I protested. Kurt would ring out, “Remember Kelly!” thus ensuring he’d get his way. He wanted a private fort, so he had somewhere to take Laura as he was making inroads to ‘get in her tight ass pants.’
V
Laura.
She’s worth mentioning, too. If those previous girls were regular crushes, then Laura was a super-crush. One I knew I had zero chance with, although it didn’t stop me from trying when Kurt wasn’t around.
She was Meg’s friend and often spent the night with her in the Woodbine house. For reasons I don’t remember, Kurt couldn’t spend any nights there. I think his parents forbade it. So I’d invite my other neighborhood friend Chris instead.
Chris would come over and chill with me in my room, which was rather large. It took up the length of the downstairs dining room and kitchen. The room also had no ceiling light. To compensate for this, I had other lights. One of them was a retro Vigon Dance-A-Lite disco light on a shelf. Another was a sound-sensitive disco light that made star shapes when the music played. Chris used to do a robot dance while Styx’s Mr. Roboto played, and the disco lights flashed. I was moving away from country music and toward Top 40 by the end of eighth grade.
I don’t know if Chris was trying to impress Meg or Laura, but we invited them to watch. They’d giggle and leave. Chris didn’t seem to care. I admired that about him. Perhaps I, too, should learn not to care what other people think about me, so their taunts don’t sting.
By the time I began high school, I’d written Laura a poem and given it to her. I was saying goodbye since I’d be attending high school and wouldn’t see much of her anymore.
Nothing came of it, obviously. Unbeknownst to me, Laura kept that poem.
I saw her again when I returned to Maryland in 2021 after Charlie passed away. I was there to root through the now abandoned Woodbine house, looking for old home movies and slides I’d been fighting over for thirty years to get back. That’s when she revealed she kept that poem from so many years ago. Apparently, it moved her even though she kept that fact to herself.
The tale of returning to Woodbine in 2021, Dear Reader, will probably be the finale of this work.
VI
Kurt, too, fancied Laura. Chris and I thought Kurt stood a better chance than anyone of winning her affection. When I observed Kurt and Laura together, she seemed attracted to him. The signs were evident. The hair flipping, the posturing. Twinkling eyes, broad smiles, and laughs at everything Kurt said. This was merely my observation, mind you. I have no information on whether they dated or did anything besides flirting.
Following that summer, I often recall seeing Laura walk along Woodbine Road from her house on Hoods Mill Road, past mine, and toward Kurt’s. What that meant, I can’t say. I always assumed they were dating or doing more. I never asked either Kurt or Laura about it. None of my business. It did worry me sometimes that she’d walk that length of such a busy road by herself.
VII
As the spring grew warmer, the adventures with Kurt became bolder. There was also a spring dance at Mt. Airy Middle, and I really wanted to go with Kelly. That was all the information Kurt needed to push me into stealing things he wanted.
Yeah. Stealing. Terrible situation, that.
Sometimes we’d go fishing, but fishing in the Gillis Falls through the Salt Box Park turned up nothing. Plus, the bike ride to the Salt Box on Gillis Falls Road was up a steep hill and down an even steeper incline. Going back meant walking the bike to the top of that slope out of the valley. It was far too steep to pedal a bike.
Kurt then wanted to fish in a pond on another farmer’s property, one not Mullinix’s. I’ll leave out the name of that farm, assuming it still exists and hasn’t been sold off to developers. The bike ride there was significantly longer, nearly halfway down Woodbine Road to the High’s store, minus the steep slopes. It also meant biking by some of the school bus bullies who not only picked on me but would kick me or trip me getting off the bus. Kurt would say he’d take care of it, but to bike past their house at top speeds anyway.
I don’t believe Kurt would have taken care of it. He’d have gotten his ass kicked too, and he knew it. Kurt had something I didn’t. Confidence. And to be confident, one must always project confidence, even if the confidence tank is empty.
Kurt’s Aunt Betty lived off John Pickett Road. She was also Kelly’s aunt and often visited there. Kurt made that fact known to me as we pulled into Betty’s driveway.
No one was home, so we proceeded to the unnamed farm to ask permission to fish in their pond. No one answered at the farm’s main house or at the milking barn.
Before we left, a loud crashing sound caught our attention.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked, staring hard in the direction of the mystery sound that emanated from the other side of the milking barn
“Go look!” Kurt said with obvious excitement.
I looked back at him. “Go fuck yourself!”
“Remember Kelly,” Kurt said as if warning me.
I sighed in frustration and resigned myself to the task at hand. I rode my bike to the corner of the barn and peeked around.
There sat a giant rat trap with its fresh catch, a groundhog. I waved Kurt over.
Kurt gazed at the device with covetous eyes. “Damn! Look at that trap! Two doors! I’d love to have that thing.”
I cautiously surveyed the area. It seemed no one else was around. I didn’t feel right about being there and suggested we return later.
Ten minutes later, we were back at Betty’s. My fishing line had become tangled during the ride.
Sure enough, Kelly and a younger girl were messing around with a dirt bike, which is typical in Woodbine. I felt myself go red as I stared at her. She was indeed a beautiful girl.
Kurt went inside to talk to his aunt while I worked on untangling the line from my fishing rod. When I looked over at Kelly, she looked back and smiled.
“Ya catch anything?” she asked.
“Nope,” I replied. “We’re still in the process of finding a place to fish.”
“Oh,” she replied, turning her attention back to the dirt bike. The younger girl seemed impatient while waiting for Kelly to do whatever she was doing.
The bike eventually started, causing the younger girl to clap with glee. They mounted the bike and drove away.
“That was a wasted opportunity,” I mumbled as I watched them drive down the road and over the hill.
“You see anything you like?” Kurt asked suggestively.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Kurt suggested we go back to the unnamed farm. I agreed and followed him toward the hill, where Kelly and her passenger disappeared.
Kelly reappeared and approached Kurt we crested the top.
“Keep your trap shut!” I hissed as Kelly smiled at us.
“Hey, Kelly,” Kurt called out. “This boy over here likes you!”
Revenge is sweet, bitch, I thought, poking my fishing rod at him.
Kurt grinned like a fool and continued. “He does, man. He loves you!”
“Shut up, Kurt-ass!”
I reached out with the rod this time and smacked him across his back.
“Oww!” Kurt snapped, looking back at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Shut. Up.” I growled.
I glanced at Kelly and grinned. She smiled in reply.
“This boy wants your phone number,” Kurt added.
Kelly offered the phone number freely with a beaming smile.
“Did ya hear that, Kev?” Kurt asked.
“Uh-huh,” I replied timidly.
We bid our farewells to Kelly and proceeded to the unnamed farm.
“Jesus, Kurt,” I said under my breath. “You made me look like a fool!”
Kurt laughed. “Boy, I could hear your knees go click-click-click.”
“Ha!” I scoffed.
“Let’s go to my join instead, son,” Kurt said. “We’ll try the farm again in a few hours.”
“I ain’t your son,” I mumbled as we left the area.
VIII
Later that afternoon, closer to 4:00 pm, we returned to the unnamed farm sans fishing rods and tackle box this time. We weren’t sure the owner would say yes. Instead of riding bikes along Woodbine Road, we walked through the woods behind Kurt’s house, which leveled out at a creek. On the other side of it, we followed another trail to a barbed wire fence.
After crossing over, we crossed a field, the length of the pond in question and the barbed wire fences partitioning it from the fields, and to the milking barn. There, Kurt made me ask if we could fish in the pond. The owner politely declined, and we left without incident.
Before walking back across the field toward the barbed wire fence to the pond area, we passed the large rat trap that had earlier ensnared a groundhog. Kurt stopped to look at it. Then he looked at me.
“If you take that, I’ll fix you up with Kelly so bad, it’ll be sinful.”
There it was. Kurt’s quid pro quo.
I considered the proposal. After a few seconds, I bent down and picked up the trap to see how much it weighed. It was fairly heavy.
Kurt was halfway down the hill toward the pond when he mouthed the words, do it!
I grabbed the trap with two hands and ran like hell in Kurt’s direction. The smile on his face went wide. I was halfway down the hill when Kurt crossed the barbed wire fence to the pond. I tripped and fell down the hill.
The clanging sound the trap made was hard to miss.
I picked myself and the trap up and crossed over the fence. We ran to the opposite side of the pond. Kurt crossed over the fence as I looked cautiously around. A farmhand began walking up the hill from the milking barn. I dropped the trap by the fence post so he wouldn’t see it in the weeds and crossed over empty-handed.
“Why the fuck did you do that?” Kurt hissed.
“Check out the hill,” I said, panting for breath.
Kurt looked up. “Holy motherfucker!”
I held back a laugh at his flabbergasted expression.
Kurt pointed to the hill next to the barbed wire fence separating the farm from the wooded area leading back to the creek behind Kurt’s house. “Up the hill. Let’s give him a false trail.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what difference that would make, save to suggest we crossed onto their property from a different location.
Kurt wasted no time informing me we’d have to go back for that trap and get it, or there’d be no deal in setting me up with Kelly.
Frustrated, we backtracked through the woods to the spot near the farm we originally crossed. Since this was the first day of Daylight Savings, the wait for dusk would take longer.
IX
When 7:00 pm rolled around, we found a spot near the top of the hill in the woods that overlooked the pond we’d left a little while back. Kurt climbed a tree to see if the trap was still where I’d left it.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Kurt said after verifying the trap was still there. “We’re gonna go around to the other side of the fence where we left last time. I’m gonna watch while you run and get the trap. Then you’ll run like a motherfucker! I’ll wait a few minutes and see if anyone saw you. You run like hell, boy! The same trail we took when we left the first time.”
“Okay,” I said haplessly.
Kurt’s plan worked without flaw. I snared the trap and met Kurt where we said to meet.
“We did it!” he exclaimed, assisting me with carrying the trap. “No one saw you!”
“We?” I asked in a mumble.
Kurt stuck out his other hand. “Putter there, son!”
“I ain’t your son,” I said, shaking his hand as we walked deeper into the forest. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Literally.”
Kurt grinned. “Fuck you, buddy! You’d have to be pretty damn desperate to get Kelly to steal that trap.”
“Hmph.”
It took the rest of my allotted time before curfew to help walk the trap to a hiding place Kurt picked in the woods behind his house.
Kurt didn’t talk to Kelly that night. He didn’t ask her for another week.
By then, it was too late.
X
The day Kurt made the call, we’d gotten into trouble again, this time without stealing anything. Kurt wanted to go for an unauthorized swim in the pond at the unnamed farm. Why we were returning to the scene of the last crime for a swim with no permission at dusk made little sense to me.
We took our bikes into the woods and to the crossover spot some miles in. As always, Kurt wanted me to go into the pond first. I’d balk, and then he’d swear to call Kelly that night.
I was about to wade into the pond when another problem arose. The cows were cresting the hill by the barbed wire fence near pine trees, one of our escape routes.
There was a bull among the heifers. Generally, bulls don’t like people, especially when among heifers.
With a panic-stricken look on his face, Kurt suggested it was time to go.
We crossed the barbed wire fence separating the pond from the field and fled for our entry into the woods, the one at the bottom of the hill. The bull gave chase by the time we carelessly jumped through the barbed wire fence. Doing so caused a few scratches and at least one rip on my shirt. We grabbed our bikes and began walking down the trail toward the creek.
That’s when we came upon Kurt’s brother, Keith, his two friends…and their dog.
They spotted us and chased us back to the barbed wire fence we’d recently crossed. This time, we tossed our bikes over the fence and crossed over. The bull eventually spotted us as we tore ass up the hill for the pine tree section.
When we reached the top, not only was the bull making his way swiftly up the hill, one of the three guys from the creek chasing us crossed into the field and demanded Kurt and I stop because we were ‘under arrest.’
Kurt made a snide comment about what they’d do to us if they got us in handcuffs.
Being the sheltered child I was, I didn’t think Kurt was joking and panicked.
Fucked by a bull or fucked by Keith. Neither sounded appealing.
I followed Kurt’s lead. We tossed our bikes over the barbed wire fence, crossed through, and disappeared into the pine tree forest. This eliminated the threat of the bull, which I now assumed would turn his attention to Keith and his posse. Surely they’d have no issue with a bull mounting them.
I don’t know how long we ran through those damned trees until we arrived at Pickett’s farm on the other side. Pickett’s son, Jon, was one bully I often speak of. One with steel-tipped boots I’d been sourly acquainted with in the past. Kurt knew this, but our options were few. We’d have to zip down their long driveway to Gillis Falls Road and back to Old Man Mullinix’s farm.
That’s what we did, all the while catching the attention of Jon and his father. They tried to give chase, but Kurt and I were well onto Gillis Falls Road when Jon began biking the long stretch of his driveway. He’d never catch us.
I had twenty minutes left until curfew when we reached Mullinix’s farm. No one was there as the main house and milking barn were dark.
This time, I wouldn’t let Kurt off the hook.
“Guess what?” I asked.
“What?”
“Time to call Kelly,” I said firmly.
Kurt scratched his chin and looked up at the sky. “I did say I would, didn’t I?”
“Uh-huh.”
“C’mon,” Kurt said, pulling me by the sleeve. “There’s a phone in the milking barn.”
Kurt carefully picked up the phone to ensure the Old Man wasn’t on the line, as the barn and the home shared a line.
“I don’t remember the number,” he said flatly.
I recited the number.
He dialed the old black rotary phone with an agape jaw. “How could you possibly remember that? She told you that, what, like a week ago?”
“I have a good memory,” I said.
“I guess so. Hold on.” He stopped to speak into the receiver. “Hello, is Kelly there? Okay.”
Kurt mouthed the words, one moment.
“Hello, Kelly?” Kurt asked. “I’m calling for a friend, Kevin,” He paused. “Kevin?”
Then it occurred to me that Kelly wouldn’t know that name.
“Charlie!” I whispered.
Kurt nodded. “I mean Charlie. Yeah. He wants to know if you’ll go to the dance with him.” Kurt frowned. “You already have a date?” I felt my eyes widen. “Who? Billy? Can’t you make an exception? I mean, he’s been dying for me to ask you. Can you? Okay. Bye.”
Kurt hung up the phone, laughed, and ran at me. “You got her! She’s going with ya!” he nearly screamed. My jaw dropped. “Hot damn, son! You’re takin’ her to the dance! She’s yours for one night only.”
We continued laughing as we ran out of the barn. I had to tell Mom so I could arrange a ride the night of the dance.
I found Mom at her usual spot in the living room playing Mr. Do on the ColecoVision. All giddy and excited, I explained that I now had a date for the spring dance.
But I didn’t.
XII
It was all a show. Or, probably closer to the mark, Kurt pressed Kelly into doing something she didn’t want to do. I don’t know.
A day later, one of Kelly’s friends approached me with a note from her. She was sorry, but she changed her mind. She’d rather go to the dance with Billy.
Nobody knew, but my already fragile psyche didn’t take it well.
I wasn’t good enough. That seemed to be a theme more prevalent as time dragged on.
I avoided Kelly after that.
Kurt found out later, probably through Kelly, and was apologetic. He said he tried, but whatever was going on with Billy was more serious than he thought.
Yeah, well, whatever.
I needed to learn not to give a fuck. Like Chris.
That seemed to be the easiest way to avoid these types of mishaps…and pain.
As in all things, I have to learn to accept my culpability in matters of anger and resentment, or that shit never goes away.
Kelly was out of my league. Had the pendulum swung the other way, I wouldn’t have known what to do with her. Sure, I was disappointed and mildly hurt, but I set myself up for that.
Part of Kurt’s mission was for me to lose my virginity. He and one of Mullinix’s farm hands, Richard, constantly jeered me over that fact. I was the ‘town virgin.’
Nice, huh?
I couldn’t make Kurt understand that I didn’t see Kelly as an opportunity to meet his goal for me. I mean, had an offer been on the table, I’d not have refused, obviously. It’d have been a mix of curiosity and peer pressure.
Kurt wasn’t around when that moment finally came to pass in August 1987. He’d moved on with other people more his speed. I heard one of them was Jon from the Pickett farm. One of my bullies.
There’s no loyalty in small, redneck towns. Or anywhere, really.
XII
Yet, the lesson I should’ve learned from the Kelly Burning didn’t take. Or, more likely, I ignored it if we’re being totally honest here.
There was definitely a time in my life I’d throw caution to the wind and go for the clearly unobtainable, knowing the result would ultimately be to my detriment.
And that’s where my first high school crush comes in. She was older than me and one grade higher. Still, I didn’t let that stop me. I knew a crash and burn would be the outcome.
It’s all about the journey, Ralph Waldo Emerson, blah, blah, blah.
Maybe so.
