Episode VIII
1985-86: Joyous Illusion

I

Once upon a time, there was a fourteen-year-old boy who could finally go back to school after an unfortunate accident with gunpowder and fireworks that caused a six-week absence.

In the weeks between the beginning of the 1985-86 school year and the gunpowder accident on Sept 25, this boy joined the South Carroll High School choir and met several upperclassmen.

One of them was a girl named Joy, and our hero fell for her like a brick dropped off the World Trade Center.

That boy was me.

Joy was a sophomore, and I can best describe her as what Margot Kidder looked like when she portrayed Lois Lane in the first two Superman movies. It’s no coincidence she caused an endorphin rush in my puberty-stricken body. Margot Kidder was my first celebrity crush. I had a taped copy of Superman II when it aired on network T.V., and I must’ve watched it at least once a week. So is it any surprise that an older girl from high school who looked like the lovely Margot caught my eye?

But Joy was not my first veritable crush. There were a few others that taught me the word disappointment. You’ll remember Kelly from an earlier episode. And Melissa. Those weren’t heartbreaks, per se, but they definitely taught me a few lessons about the opposite sex; we, as men, should always approach them with caution. It doesn’t really matter the age.

Joy was far out of my league. Women that pretty don’t find me attractive, especially older ones. The first older woman whose attention I attracted wasn’t until 1991. And it wasn’t Becca.

Joy’s older age didn’t stop me from fantasizing that there could be a viable path to her heart. I was still recovering from the Gunpowder Incident (which meant I had little to no hair over my forehead). To say I looked unattractive would be an understatement.

I told Matt I thought Joy was a fine specimen. (you remember Matt, right? The senior who liked to drive me to school and spank my ass on my birthday). His initial reaction seemed to be one of disappointment. It must’ve been the realization I liked girls.

Kurt’s reaction was a little more amusing. He pointed at me, gawked, and burst out laughing, suggesting I had a better chance of freezing ice cubes in hell.

The problem was, and still is, I am generally shy around people I don’t know, especially those of the opposite sex. I was also physically recovering from the Gunpowder Incident, which lowered my self-esteem.

The obvious solution, at least I thought so at the time, was the ‘secret admirer’ route. My foolish self, steeped in romanticism, thought, ‘what girl wouldn’t love a secret admirer?’

As it turns out? None do.

Remember, we’re still in the pre-internet era. There’s no social media, instant messaging, or hiding behind clever screen names. We had well-folded handwritten notes.

My handwriting sucked at that age. I remember taking great care to print as legibly as possible. It’s all about the presentation. I don’t rightly recall what I wrote precisely. I kept a journal about the entire experience and saved it with everything I had hoarded from my youth. I couldn’t find it. I must’ve thrown it out. Anyways, I have a vague memory of attempting to be clever. Something like, “Joy, you have a secret admirer, and he’s me,” followed by a fair dose of flattery. Without giving it away, I may have even dropped a few hints about who I was. I remember telling her we were both in the choir, even though her Chorus II class was after mine.

The first problem I encountered was delivery. How do I get this note into Joy’s hands? I didn’t trust anyone to pass it to her on my behalf. And even if I did, when would I do so?

The lockers at South Carroll had air vents lining the top of bottom of the locker doors. I could always find Joy’s locker and go that route.

I had to become a faux stalker.

II

I had a relative that worked at South Carroll High during the years I attended.

We no longer speak.

The reason will become clear when we reach the 2010-2011 era. For now, we’ll simply call him Bad Relative, so I don’t have to use his name. Doing so would surely end with him dragging me into court again if he found out.

When I began at South Carroll in 1985, Bad Relative suggested I join the Audio/Visual club section of the school library and make myself indispensable. The primary function of the A/V club was to deliver T.V.s, VCRs, film projectors, etc., to teachers who’d signed up for them the days before.

The A/V club is also where I initially met Matt.

As the low man on the totem pole, I often had to deliver the biggest piece of equipment, like a T.V. cart with a massive VCR or equipment needed to go to the furthest point away from the library, the freshman wing.

Matt accompanied me on television deliveries when I returned to school after the Gunpowder Incident. He justified this by suggesting it took two people to deliver a T.V. to the second level as the rampways between the stories were so steep. There may have been a rule about that. It wasn’t always strictly followed, especially on busy mornings when every piece of equipment was signed out and due for delivery.

Since Joy was a sophomore, her homeroom and locker would be in a specific section of the high school. The ramp to the second level outside the library would take one to the sophomore homeroom section of South Carroll High. Matt and I would see Joy near there, usually hanging out with other girls. Matt theorized that since she didn’t have her arms wrapped around a boy, as many couples in school did, she ‘probably doesn’t have a boyfriend,’ which gave me hope.

Most mornings, we didn’t have time to hang around waiting for Joy to use her locker, and I knew no other way to find this coveted locker number. Thusly, we couldn’t figure out which one was hers. It seemed Joy totally avoided her locker.

Then one morning, while I was checking my school schedule, I saw my locker number on the top. I pointed this out to Matt. He told me the office kept copies of everyone’s schedules in a flat file drawer in a room where the P.A. system was at the back of the office.

I proceeded to the main office and asked told one of the aids I’d lost my schedule if I could make a copy from the one they kept in the P.A. room. After asking my name, she guided me to the flat file drawer on top of the table opposite the antique P.A. system and pulled out the drawer containing schedules with the letter of my surname. After she handed it to me, I told her I needed a few minutes to copy it on a scrap of paper beside the P.A. microphone.

She advised I put my schedule back where I found it after I was done and left to help another student waiting behind the counter for his turn.

I put my schedule away and looked up Joy’s, whose last name I knew by then, having read it off the Madrigal lineup in the choir classroom.

And that’s how I discovered Joy’s locker number.

III

The next day I asked Matt if he could give me a ride to school as I wanted to get there as early as possible to slip the note into her locker. He reluctantly agreed. We showed up at South Carroll High long before the buses arrived.

Joy’s locker was across and to the right of the doors to the rampway connecting the upper and lower levels, the school’s answer to wheelchair-friendly access. After arriving at school and locating her locker, I froze. We both stared at Joy’s locker across the empty hallway. Why I was so fucking nervous, I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps it was because I was actually going through with my idiotic plan. Yet, I stood there, frozen in place.

Sensing my hesitance, Matt sighed, took the letter from my hands, and slipped it into Joy’s locker via the door’s top air vent. This was it. This was the point of no return. There was no turning back now.

We returned to the A/V room and began tagging the equipment for the morning’s deliveries. Upon completion and with students arriving, I handpicked deliveries to classrooms closest to Joy’s locker.

On the second run, I watched Joy, who seemed surprised as she held my letter. I immediately looked at the floor as if minding my business and walked past her, holding onto the front end of the T.V. cart.

Matt noticed the whole thing and simply called me a ‘chicken.’

However, I’d left no way for Joy to reply.

I needed to rethink this strategy.

IV

In my following letter to Joy, I lamented how pretty she was and how I looked forward to the after-school rehearsals both Chorus classes attended together to prep for the winter concert. I also suggested that should she want to reply to me, she could leave a note in my sheet music folder.

Our choir director, Mr. King, assigned each of us a sheet music folder based on our seat number. Mine was fifteen. Since Joy’s Chorus II class was in the morning, she’d have ample opportunity to do so.

Oh, how I wanted her to reply! I didn’t know what to expect if she did. Would she be kind? Would she quickly deduce I was the gangly freshman kid with no bangs? I waited so impatiently that entire day for chorus class.

It was for naught. No reply was in my folder or surrounding folders. I looked just in case Joy picked the wrong one.

At the end of chorus class, I wrote Joy another letter with the usual flattery. Only this time, I asked questions about her, hoping that might invoke a reply.

It didn’t.

In the days that followed, I sent her more flattery, asked more questions, and dropped hints about who I was. Despite that, she remained silent. I was beginning to think this the entire exercise was for nothing.

V

The letters to Joy became fewer as the weeks rolled by. I was losing interest or, more to the point, felt as if Joy had no interest. What could I do? You can’t make someone like you.

Remember, these were still innocent crushes. I wasn’t yet coveting girls for sex, and honestly, I didn’t feel like I was in any hurry to lose my virginity, even if Kurt once had different plans. When I saw Joy, my heart would go aflutter as she was just so damned pretty and had that theater girl personality, which made perfect sense since she was also a Stagelighter (South Carroll’s Drama Club). I just wanted to talk to her in person and get to know her better.

‘Twas not to be.

One of the last letters I dropped off inside her locker was the day of the winter concert, wishing her well for the show since she’d be appearing in three of the four segments.

Mr. King typically split choir performances into four sections. The Madrigals, women’s ensemble, men’s ensemble, and the entire choir. The Madrigals (or Mads, as Mr. King referred to them) were a smaller group of performers, usually comprising the more talented choir members. By the strictest definition, a madrigal is a secular part song without instrumental accompaniment, usually in four to six voices, abundantly using the contrapuntal imitation. It was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. Auditions were required, and not everyone made it.

I didn’t try out for Mads in my freshman or sophomore years. I didn’t think I was good enough. Mr. King eventually persuaded me differently in the years following.

Our heroine, Joy, however, was a Mad. I’d have to say she was probably one of the most outgoing people I knew within the choir/Stagelighter clique. Not at all shy or reserved. I used to sit in the back of the auditorium during rehearsals and watch her in awe.

When the winter concert was over and the Stagelighters announced auditions for the spring play, I knew my efforts were in vain. Putting aside that I was younger and just a freshman (Bad Relative always said that freshmen should be seen and not heard), Joy was far, far out of my league. I wouldn’t qualify what I did as giving up more than realizing I was chasing the wind.

Or, as I said to Matt at one point, I wasn’t good enough for a girl like that.

Plus, as it turned out, she did have a boyfriend.

VI

One thing I liked about high school was that I no longer had to sit alone at lunch. Matt shared the same lunch period as me, and with him were two other upperclassmen, J.J. and Jeff. Myer, the other boy from middle school who’d been bullied as much as I’d been, also sat with me. There was also another boy from choir class, Randy, who joined us.

J.J., a sophomore, was a bit of a punk and unnaturally short. He tried to act bullyish toward the other freshman kids at the table and me. Matt would often set him straight with some quip about his height. At least until Matt gravitated away from me and toward J.J. as the school year progressed.

Jeff was a senior and a Hulk of a kid with curly blonde hair and bunched-up facial features. He looked a bit like Popeye. He was taller than me, and I was six-foot, two inches. Nobody fucked with him. While he rarely had much to say to me, I felt safe at the table with him sitting at the other end. He also was a prankster and carried a very “I don’t give a fuck” attitude.

In our day, we used to have to carry a plethora of textbooks. Since the schools reused them from year to year, we were often required to wrap those textbooks in book covers. They were large sheets of durable paper with ads printed all over. With concise instructions, these sheets could be fitted to cover a textbook. Alternatively, one could use a paper bag from the local grocery store. Most of the time, students would apply the free book covers inverted so that ads were inside the cover, leaving us to doodle over the surfaces or write the names of our favorite bands. But mostly, one would see the names of two people added together behind a heart, clearly indicating whom the book’s current owner dated. Eventually, one name would be scribbled out and replaced with another. Sometimes, probably depending on how bad the breakup was, they’d replace the entire cover. Students could quickly get a new one as they were available just about anywhere in school classrooms, the office, or the cafeteria.

One afternoon at lunch, Jeff took a book cover from the stack on the A.C. unit behind us and folded it into a gigantic paper airplane. That sucker had to be at least three feet from end to end. Predictably, the cafeteria mods were keeping a close eye on Jeff. It didn’t matter. When the period change bell rang, he stood up, launched that sucker clear across the cafeteria, and took off into the hallway before anyone could stop him.

The act earned a roar of laughter from our table and the ones closest to us. I heard later that the school admin still busted Jeff, earning him time in Jump’s office (our effeminate vice principal that many thought was gay, even though he was married).

Jeff would ultimately be the one to deal me Joy’s only reply.

VII

Letters to Joy became infrequent. I knew she would never reply, and there didn’t seem to be any point. She was clearly not interested. Eventually, she figured out who I was. I don’t know precisely when, except the day after I sent her my last letter, she replied through a proxy. Jeff. I wasn’t even aware she and Jeff knew each other. In terms of cliques, they were spectrum opposites.

Auditions for the spring play “Strangers in the Night” had begun. Bad Relative was in charge of the lighting crew and quickly drafted me. The lighting for the auditorium (commonly called the ‘small auditorium’ or ‘small aud’) was antiquated, at best.

South Carroll High was built in 1965, and it showed. The small aud layout was stadium-style, two stories high, with seats composed of a wood backrest and flip-up wooden seats. They were also terribly uncomfortable.

At the center top of the auditorium sat the projection booth, which also doubled as a control booth for lighting, sound, and spotlights. However, the lighting system was nothing more than a small portable panel of sliders with no way to control all the lights on the stage at the bottom of the room. This necessitated someone to stand backstage at the breaker panel with a wireless headset and throw the breakers on cue for any stage light not controlled from the booth.

Would you like to guess who was demoted to that job? If you said me, you’d be correct. Bad Relative justified his decision by claiming it would put me closer to Joy, who was sure to get a part in the play.

Yeah. Bad Relative knew about my crush on Joy. He didn’t out and say I had no chance in hell, but his expressions blatantly said differently. He once said to Mom in so many words that I needed to stop pursuing the ‘Greek goddesses’ and stay in my lane. Which I always thought was code for “You’re not good enough, kid. Don’t even bother.”

If you could see some of the girls he thought I should date and, in one case, tried to fix me up with, you’d understand his bar was so fucking low that it fell somewhere between the Earth’s mantle and the outer core. His logic? He’d say the fat, ugly girls knew how to give the best blowjobs, mainly out of necessity.

And if you could see the last few women he dated, err, cheated on his late wife with, if anyone would know, it’d be him.

Me? I had standards, even if they were way too high when I was younger. Or, as I counterpointed to Bad Relative, there was no way I could get it up for someone I wasn’t attracted to. So why bother? Her feelings would get hurt in the end, and it’d be a terrible situation and an incredible waste of time for us both. I suspect he parroted back my words to the one gal he tried to fix me up with because the air would literally drop to freezing if I passed her in the hallway or backstage. I’ll expound more when we get to 1988.

My last letter to Joy said I’d be part of the stage crew for “Strangers in the Night” and couldn’t wait.

A day later, Jeff strolled into the cafeteria during lunch period, privately handed me a note, and said, “This is from Joy. Sorry, dude.”

I didn’t read it then. There were too many people around, and based on Jeff’s words, the letter was bound to not be in my favor. Instead, I went to the restroom and read it there.

I wish I could remember exactly what it said. The journal I kept from that era had the actual letter. It seems to have disappeared into the mists of time. The crux of it was that she was very flattered, but she had a boyfriend, and not to be mean, but would I please stop leaving notes in her locker.

Well, there it was. Confirmation. At least Joy wasn’t deliberately mean. I knew from the beginning I had no chance in hell. This one still hurt a little. It waned quickly, though.

I was a few months away from meeting Amy, whom I’d be with for a year and five months in a long-distance relationship.

My participation in “Stranger in the Night” would ultimately be the reason for our first actual argument.

And not over Joy.

VIII

There was always something suspicious about the note Joy wrote me and had Jeff deliver. It didn’t look like a girl had written it. Females generally have very distinctive handwriting. One can easily tell when a girl has written a note, whether in print or cursive.

I didn’t pursue it. It was time to leave well enough alone. Remember how there’s no winning, only degrees of losing? This was a lower degree of loss. It could have been far worse and more embarrassing.

When production on “Strangers in the Night” began, I discovered who Joy’s beau was. He was a friendly fellow named Paul and was exceptionally talented musically. He was also very nice to me and, in one instance later on in the school year, stood up for me when two FFA (Farmers) bullies were verbally beating me down. Paul stepped in, stood up to them, and challenged them to do something about it.

They summarily backed off.

I thanked Paul for his effort. He told me to think nothing of it and walked with me the rest of the way to the choir room. Class act, all the way around.

IX

Even though Joy and I participated in two high school musicals together, 1987’s “South Pacific” and 1988’s “Kiss Me, Kate,” we never spent much time one-on-one. We briefly discussed the secret admirer incident at the “South Pacific” cast party. Joy admitted she didn’t write the letter Jeff delivered. One of her friends did, and he was the one who gave it to Jeff to provide to me. She’d been aware of it but, honestly, wasn’t that invested in the situation.

It didn’t bother me to hear that. I always suspected that was the case. I was still with Amy then, anyway.

I thanked Joy for her honesty.

The subject never came up again.