Girl #4: "Megan & The Flagpole of Doom"

I. Momma's Got a Gun

It was time to bid Bowling Green farewell... for now. My dad had gotten a job in Louisville, and so the family Williams were moving to the big city. The prospect of leaving the unrelenting boredom of country life was exciting to me, although I would miss Dina and my friends greatly. I also wasn't too thrilled with starting over again at yet another strange and unfamiliar school, because I had come to like the one in Bowling Green so well. As quaint as that school had been, I was worried I'd be swallowed up whole, like Pinocchio by the killer whale, at a city school.

My dad had to start his new job fairly quickly, so he went ahead up to Louisville, leaving us to do the actual moving part. My mom wasn't used to being home alone, and it didn't do well for her nerves. Although we lived in the middle of nowhere, which made a home invasion seem highly unlikely, the fact that we lived in the middle of nowhere, where nobody could help us, or hear us scream, made it all the more frightening a scenario.

One night, while we slept, there was a loud knocking at our front door. Mom woke me up, her eyes wide in terror, with a shotgun in her hand. She told me not to be afraid, and to follow her to the kitchen to stand-by at the phone in case the police had to be called. The door continued knocking, as mom slowly crept up to it, shotgun in hand. When she got close enough to the door, she pumped the shotgun menacingly, which made the knocking abruptly stop. There was a space of silence, as the person on the other side of the door weighted his options, before I imagined he slowly backed away and made a run for his car, wherein he backed out with such urgency, it spit out a torrent of rocks from our gravel driveway. My mom and I both exhaled in relief, and keeping the gun in one hand, she immediately called my dad, who was staying at my aunt's, to tell him what had happened.

My dad calmly explained that the man was not a burglar at all, but the man that my dad had actually borrowed the shotgun from for quail hunting. He was supposed to have come by earlier, but had been running late. It was no wonder that he had run off at the sound of his own shotgun being pumped, as it was a particularly familiar sound to him. Despite the explanation, my mom demanded that dad come back at once and drive us all up to Louisville to live with him immediately, because her nerves simply couldn't take another night like that. So, the very next day, dad showed up, we packed up what little we could fit in our jeep, and we left the house forever, leaving behind a great many of our possessions and furniture with it. It was an entirely wasteful and stupid thing to do, which as it happens, is completely characteristic of our family. All the way up to Louisville, we all teased my mom over the shotgun fiasco. Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun" was a big hit at the time, so when it came on the radio, my dad turned it up, and began singing "Karen's Got a Gun", and we all began singing along.



Now that I think about it, leave it to our family to take a song about a woman murdering her sexually abusive father, and make it into a happy family sing-a-long for a long car trip.

II. Welcome to the Dollhouse

In their haste to move, my parents, ever the responsible adults, neglected to perform a very important step whenever one plans on moving to a new city: finding a home which to move into. Being so young, I didn't fully realize that our family was, technically, homeless, nor did I much care, because we were moving into my aunt's house, where we would live with my four female cousins: Missy, Mandy, Michelle, and Melinda. After spending a year in perpetual loneliness in the country, the idea of moving into a house that was constantly buzzing with people, in a neighborhood full of kids my age, appealed to me about as much as a discovering a Jomba Juice would appeal to a man lost in the desert.

If my experiences with girls could have been considered limited at that point, I was certainly about to get a crash course. My four cousins were separated in age range to the point where it served as a helpful evolutionary chart to chronicle the process of how women go from innocent and cute to neurotic and crazy. Missy and Mandy were both in high school, while Michelle was a couple years older than me, and Melinda was my brother's age. My time in that house taught me the invaluable lesson that when girls gather into a group, or the more appropriate word would be "bloodthirsty mob", it is for the best that any male in proximity stay out of sight - in fact, get as far away as possible.

Don't get me wrong - my cousins were all sweet, fun girls, and I adored being around them, especially the two who were closer to my age. The older ones, however, tended to turn vicious and cruel when they had their friends over, such was the nature of teenage girls. Missy, for the most part, would just ignore me when friends were over, while Mandy was more apt to play pranks. I remember one time they were playing with an Ouija board, and Mandy tricked me into believing she was speaking to the Devil, who then subsequently "possessed" her, and she chased me through the house. I was terrified of my cousin for days after that, because she'd occasionally turn to me while eating, and secretly inform me that she was still possessed, so I should watch my back. Consequently, she was the one most often called upon to babysit my brother and I all the time.

The way my cousins' very personalities would transform when friends were over made me grow resentful of "groups", especially groups of teenagers, as they all seemed cocky and mean, especially to those they perceived of as weaker than them - namely, me. I grew resentful of older kids, in general, so much so, in fact, that when I watched horror movies like Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street, it seemed to me that Jason and Freddy were performing a great public service dispatching these obnoxious asshole teenagers. I was outraged that older kids felt they were entitled to walk all over anyone younger than them, and seeing as I had quite literally been the victim of an older kid walking over me (and kicking me in the face - refer to my previous blog entry), my resentment was understandable. I was convinced that all older kids were bullies, the lot of them.

Of course, I never considered that one day I would actually be a teenager, and every bit as obnoxious, not to mention, eligible for murder at the hands of a slasher villain. I was living within the glorious and warm cocoon that was childhood, where thoughts of the future were limited to whether or not I'd have enough money for the ice cream man the next day. I think when people reminiscence on the simplicity of childhood, it's the ability to live in the now, which is inherent in every child, that we really miss.

Anyway, while three of my cousins were older girls, with lives too "mature" and "complicated" for a boy my age to comprehend or relate to, I tended to hang out with Melinda the most. It was through her that I met Megan.

III. Best Friends

The days spent at my aunt's were never dull. I seem to remember those days as if every night was a pizza party, complete with movies. I even recall watching Batman for the first time sometime around that first month of living there, which kick-started my fascination with the character and his mythology forever. That movie made such an impression in my mind, I even remember the Diet Coke commercial that played before it:



I also remember spending most of my time playing the insane library of video games my cousins had accrued. They had more video games than I had ever seen in one place before. One game I played obsessively was called Mighty Bomb Jack for Nintendo:



If something wasn't going on in the house, there was usually much to do outside of it in the neighborhood, which was always bustling with kids my age. Within the first week of living in Louisville, I befriended the kid across the street, a guy named Aaron, and we became best buds... especially because he had a Sega Genesis. A game system that wasn't Nintendo?? Heresy! Aaron was the first person I would consider my "best friend". When we weren't in his backyard, jumping around, pretending to fight ninjas, we were printing up our very own newspaper, with me as the artist, and handing them out to neighbors for 25-cents each. We always had such a good time whenever we hung out, because Aaron's family had a plush entertainment set-up in their basement, and we'd almost always have it to ourselves to play video games or watch the movie channels, which was all the more a luxury for me since my family never had the movie channels, and were generally considered forbidden because of the high risk of nudity that was on them late at night.

I had already seen naked women before - once, in an issue of Playboy I found in my parents' closet in our country house, and the second time, er, well... let's just say that when living in a house with four girls, accidentally walking in on one of them getting dressed was an inevitably. I won't say which one I walked in on, because odds are, they're all probably reading this, but I had only the briefest half second to even comprehend what was happening, before a hot curling iron was launched at my head, and I scurried the hell out of there. I didn't really understand her reaction at the time, because even though I was certainly aware of and fascinated by the major physiological differences between sexes by that age, it was no more than an idle curiosity. I was eight, and hadn't hit puberty yet, so vagina's held as much allure to me as interest rates for home mortgages. It was just a thing that girls had, for some reason, and that was sufficient enough for me. In fact, the first time I ever saw a vagina, I remember thinking that it almost seemed to... grimace. Like it was constantly worried about something. It seemed like an all around, troublesome body part (I didn't even know the half of it), and I wished girls, as a whole, luck in dealing with it.

My point is, my parents needn't have worried - movies with nudity were not as much of a priority to my friend and I as movies with shit tons of violence! The bloodier the spectacle, the better! We would stay up super late watching movies like American Ninja, Bloodsport, and Predator, so that the next day, we could talk excitedly about the movie over bowls of Cocoa Puffs (which I had renamed "Poo-poo Puffs", causing the two of us to explode with laughter... and Poo-poo Puffs), and reenact the movies outside. It was all harmless fun, and nobody was ever in danger, except maybe our imaginary opponents. I went over to Aaron's for many reasons, but there was one reason in particular that kept me coming back...

Aaron lived next door to a girl I absolutely adored, named Megan.

IV. My Little Pony

To me at the time, Megan was like an angel. She had golden, curly locks and a cute smile. Megan regularly came over to hang out with my youngest cousin, and they would play with My Little Ponies. This was one of the first (but certainly not the last) times I had ever felt nervous to talk to even be around a girl. For one thing, she was in what I considered my home - my sanctuary, the only place on Earth where I could relax and be myself in all my disgusting glory! Sure, I shared the house with four girls (not counting my aunt or my mom), but I've never had a crush on any of them, despite the fact that I was raised in Kentucky. It was uncomfortable and awkward to have a girl that I liked watch me play Nintendo, or be around when I was doing something equally as nerdy, like watching Batman for the 80th time. When I liked a girl in school, I could be a different person than I was at home - a larger than life person. So here was Megan, seeing me in all of my... mediocrity. When I would wake up, my hair completely disheveled, and walk downstairs with urine stained pants to announce to my mom in the kitchen that I had, once again, peed the bed (or, rather, the bundle of blankets on the floor of Mandy's room that served as my bed), Megan would be there. It was humiliating.

Another issue was that I was at the age where I began to notice the major differences between boys and girls, which disturbed and annoyed me. For example, I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why they all loved the movie Dirty Dancing. It seemed to me a total bore of a movie. Now Batman - that was a good movie, or better yet, Ghostbusters... which, by this point, I was totally obsessed with anything Ghostbusters. Before moving to Louisville, I used to go to a daycare called Kindercare, and we would take a field trip every year to an amusement park in Nashville called Opryland. Boys would battle girls over what music we got to listen to in the van, and it was always between the Ghostbusters soundtrack or the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. The boys were woefully outnumbered, so we would have to suffer not only listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, but all of the girls badly singing along to it. It was agonizing.

So, when I moved into my cousins' house, I was suddenly surrounded on all sides by New Kids on the Block and being bombarded by multiple viewings of Dirty Dancing. I couldn't comprehend why all of my cousins insisted on pretending that these were acceptable, while they utterly refused to watch an actual good movie like Ghostbusters. I began to think that girls were either terminally stupid creatures, or that they were all simply conspiring against me - as if someday they'd go, "Ha, gotcha! New Kids suck, we were just messing with you!" To this very day, in my more agitated moments, I sometimes revert to that frame of mind. Justin Bieber's inexplicable rise to popularity has not helped.

Megan was no exception. She was into all that stuff as any girl at the time was. This was something I hadn't experienced with Dina, who seemed to enjoy the same things I did. How was I supposed to even talk to someone who was so profoundly different from me? Most of my attempts to talk to her were met with conspiratorial giggles with my cousin, or just plain indifference. One day I was drawing in my sketchpad, when I struck upon an idea. I remembered how Jessica, the girl in my kindergarten class, seemed impressed by my artistic ability, which had grown quite a bit by that point. Megan was really into My Little Pony, and she would often play My Little Pony with my cousin. I had grown reasonably good at drawing horses, so I drew a picture of Megan's favorite My Little Pony character and gave it to her as a gift. She seemed excited and flattered by the gesture, not to mention impressed by my drawing skill, and it seemed that I had at least won her good graces for a time... until Greg showed up.

V. Leader of the Pack

Greg was an older kid that began hanging out with my cousins on regular basis. I can't remember exactly how old he was, but I want to say he was a high school Freshman. Greg had the classic handsome features, such as well tanned skin, an athletic body, and a chiseled, square jaw that melted most girls' defenses instantly. He looked like one of the jocks in Revenge of the Nerds, which was one of my favorite movies at the time, so it's no wonder I drew that comparison. If there was one thing that movie taught my young, malleable mind, it's that the word "jock" was only two words away from being "jerk", and Greg was most certainly that.

He would swagger in, causing girls of all ages to get so excited that they would gather around him like he was goddamn Johnny Depp. Even my aunt seemed charmed by this guy. In reality, he was probably not as much of a jerk as I remember, but I resented him because he commanded so much admiration with little to no effort, based mostly on his good looks. It didn't matter that they guy had almost no personality. In fact, this almost seemed to appeal to girls more because it made him into a sort of an "everyman", so they could project whatever idealistic personality traits they wanted. The one trait about him they all seemed to agree upon was that he was funny, which simply wasn't true. In my mind, Bugs Bunny was funny; Gallagher was funny; Pee-Wee was funny; this guy never said anything funny, yet girls laughed at any weakly thought out joke he threw out, and it drove me nuts! Not for the last time, I considered the possibility that women, as a whole, were conspiring against me.

Greg would sometimes play basketball with the younger kids, which all the girls found endearing and sweet, even though he played as if the game were being held in a state penitentiary. That guy threw elbows like ninjas throw stars, and he'd play it off as if it were an accident. He was crossing cats, faking kids out so that they'd lunge for the ball, only to eat pavement. As all the girls fawned over him, I was screaming in my head, "Did you not SEE him dunking the ball on my HEAD???" It didn't matter - Greg could do no wrong.

I personally began having an ax to grind with him because Megan was crushing on him just as hard as anyone. In retrospect, of course Greg was no real threat to me in regards to Megan, seeing as he was in high school, and she was eight. Nevertheless, I hated how unfair it was that while I had to work for her attention, this guy got it effortlessly. If only my current self could travel back in time to warn my 8-year-old self that such was life, so better get used to it or face living a long, bitter existence, my child incarnation might not have taken such drastic measures to demand attention.

VI. Say Hello to My Little Friend... an 8" Flagpole

My family was having a grill out, and it seemed like everybody we knew in the neighborhood was over. This included all of my cousins, some of their friends, Megan, my friend Aaron, and... stupid Greg. Of course, we he finally sauntered up, everyone showered him with affection and bombarded him with hamburgers or hotdogs for his perusal. I just sat on the driveway, smoldering in jealousy, quietly eating my hamburger with Aaron, who was very much cognizant of my hatred for Greg, so he wisely allowed me to smolder away in silence.

Eventually, Greg got up, stretched, and announced he was going to play basketball. He asked if I wanted to play, to which I answered "No" and continued silently eating my burger. He then asked if I would eat my burger somewhere else, instead of the basketball court, to which again I answered, "No". He shrugged and told me that they would just play around me. The game started up, and in no time, of course, the basketball ended up on my plate of food, exploding it everywhere, the majority of it getting on me. Before going any further, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that, yes, I was being an obstinate little ass, but in that moment, I felt a sense of self-righteous pride that this guy wasn't going to tell me what I'm going to do. So one can imagine how stupid I felt, covered in baked beans, ketchup, and potato chips, knowing that this was my own fault for not moving out of the way, all the while listening to everyone laughing at me, including the enemy, Greg.

The most painful of all, though, was seeing Megan laugh at me. This sight mobilized the anger that had been simmering in me for weeks. My entire body began shaking, and my vision blurred not only from the tears welling in my eyes, but from pure rage. I had never been this angry before in my life, not even after being trampled on by Daryl the Albino. So I picked up the basketball and launched it at Greg's stupid, perfect face. He dodged it easily, and was even more amused than before. "Whoa, what's his problem?" he asked, as if he had not just witnessed my lunch exploding into my face.

One of my cousins, I can't remember which, said, "Oh, just ignore him, he's just jealous because he likes Megan."

My eyes flashed in betrayal, and my rage was replaced with shock, panic, and fake outrage. "What? No, that's ridiculous!" I sputtered, hysterically trying to seal the truth back up in a bottle, like it was a mischievous genie intent on ruining my life.

She only continued, "He drew all these pictures of My Little Pony for her, it was so cute!" This elicited a fresh round of laughter. Greg offered an insincere "Awww" of mock sympathy. Now I had enough. It was one thing to be the object of ridicule, but to take something that was supposed to be a gesture of romance, and turn it against me hit me to close to home. I wanted to completely thrash Greg, but I knew I didn't stand a chance. It seemed I had no other choice but to walk away, and I did just that... until I saw something shining to me from the grass in the afternoon sun. It was a long, 8-inch metal flagpole. I had been using it as a prop in most of my imaginary adventures for some few weeks, and it had become the bane my uncle's existence because he'd have to move it out of the way every time he tried to mow the lawn, but he'd only see it after nearly destroying his lawnmower running over it. I picked up the pole, testing it's heft, my tears splashing on the hot metal. Truth of the matter is, I didn't think about using the pole as a weapon, nor did I think about much at all, except making the pain go away. I turned back to Greg, who gone back to shooting basketball, while the girls had stopped laughing and chatted amongst themselves.

Nobody saw me coming, as I charged at Greg, much like Don Quixote tilting at a windmill. As Greg turned around to face me, I clumsily swung the pole, which was much too long and heavy for me to swing very fast, but it hit Greg in the eye, bringing him to his knees as he shouted out a curse. Everyone stopped what they were doing, to slowly digest what had happened. I dropped the pole, surprised that I had actually not only hit Greg, but brought him down. I had little time to be jubilant of my victory, as Greg, now absolutely enraged, stood back up, picked me up by the scruff of my shirt, and threw me into some nearby thorny bushes. Even though the bushes scratched the shit out of me, I had the most curious reaction to it all... I was laughing. My laughter only provoked Greg more, and he came towards me with violence in his eyes, screaming "You think it's funny? You think it's funny?" Thankfully, my cousins, finally snapping out of their shock, pulled him away, helping him to nurse his eye, while I continued laughing in the bushes. Aaron gave me a hand out of the bushes, and we ran back to his house, the both of us laughing our asses off in amazement at what I had done.

"You were like a Jedi or something!" he exclaimed, as I treated my cuts with rubbing alcohol, which burned hellaciously, but I was too happy to care. I agreed that what I had done was very Jedi-like, and Greg should count himself lucky I hadn't used a lightsaber. There was little to no aftermath to my "fight" with Greg. My parents were so much angry as surprised, if only because I had never gotten into a fight before that; I had mostly just gotten my ass kicked all the time. My cousins were upset with me for a time, but being the capricious teenagers that they were, they moved on fairly quickly. Greg stopped coming over as often, and when he did, he wouldn't say a word to me, which was all the better. As for Megan... believe or not, I had somehow won her respect that day, and after a week or so, found myself being invited to her house to watch movies, with my cousin Melinda always present, of course. Megan was never my official girlfriend, but I began to not care after awhile, as I had a new crush rapidly developing at school.

Although I look back on that day, disturbed by the violent lengths I had gone to protect my pride in front of Megan, my flirtation with violence as the answer to all my problems was only beginning. This would kick off an era in my life I'm not proud of - the era of The Foot Fist Way.

Girl #3: "Dina & the Raging Albino Clown"

I. Mud in my Eye

We moved out to the countryside, right outside of Bowling Green. This was my first time moving anywhere, and quite frankly, the concept blew my mind. Up till then, I had not considered that it was possible for us to simply pack our things and move into another house, and the prospect excited me. I was especially excited by the idea of going to a new school, as I was none too thrilled with my old one, especially after an incident during the last week of my classes. I had been standing in front of the school, waiting for my parents, precariously teetering off the edge of the front stoop, admittedly making a good target of myself for potential bullies, when I suddenly felt two hands shove me, and I seemed to float for a few seconds, like Wile E. Coyote, until I finally plummeted face down into a large mud puddle. Since screaming in terror is the natural reaction when falling a few feet, I not only found myself totally caked in mud, but a large amount of it ended up in my mouth. That officially answered the question I had much pondered, even while staring at the mud from the comfort of my stoop pre-fall: mud did not taste a thing like chocolate. No, sir.

I also learned something else that day - it was my first lesson in how cruel the world could be. We all have that singular moment in our lives when we first discover this, and our innocent perception of life, which is nurtured by bedtime stories and Mr. Rogers, is irrevocably shattered. I remember feeling a sense of shock and betrayal after I hit the mud, and I wondered, "How could someone do this to another person? What did I do to deserve this???"

My parents arrived to find me standing in front of the school, covered in mud, crying my eyes out. It wouldn't be the first time they would drop me off somewhere, only to pick me up an emotional wreck, but let's not get ahead of myself...

II. My New Friend Nintendo...

The new house might as well have been a castle, compared to our old one. This one had a basement! I was also getting my own room for the first time in my life, which was a prospect that thrilled me to no end. My grandparents gave me an old school desk for the occasion, which I thought was the most amazing gift anyone had ever given me at that point in my life... until I got a Nintendo...

Life in the country can be really lonely and dull. We didn't have cable, so no more watching MTV like I used to in the old house. The only kid that lived close to us was a little prick down the street who I hated to hang out with, but I did anyway because he had this magical device known as a Nintendo. At that point, I was already infatuated with video games. In the old house, my uncle would sometimes pick me up from school, take me to Wendy's for a frosty (another food item I hypothesized mud tasted like, and was terribly wrong), and then we'd go to the arcade, where I watched him play video games in profound fascination. My uncle was the kind of gamer that people would stop and watch because he was so good at them. His two favorite games were Ikari Warriors and Punch-Out (the original arcade version):





I hardly ever played anything, because quite frankly, the arcade games intimidated the shit out of me. They were loud, flashy, and only adults seemed to know how to play them. Then one day I went over to my grandparents' and my grandpa was playing Ghosts n' Goblins for the Nintendo. I was astounded to see a video game on the television! Here was something I could sink my teeth into! The controller was so sleek, and intuitive... and the game was easy enough to figure out: zombie rise from the grave, you stab said zombies with javelins. Easy-peezy. Whereas arcade games were for grown ups, Nintendo seemed more... benign. After I was introduced to Super Mario Bros, well, that was about all she wrote...

The point I'm getting at is, living in the country, there wasn't much for me to do. My imagination tided me over for so long before it wasn't sufficient. I didn't have any friends to play with. So I desperately wanted, no, NEEDED a Nintendo. I couldn't stand being at the mercy at the little asshole kid that lived down the street any longer. Finally, one fated Christmas, my grandparents gave me a Nintendo, and one of the first games I rented was The Legend of Zelda...

I loved The Legend of Zelda, despite the fact that I had no clue how to play it. I loved the golden cartridge, which made the game seem like a treasure dug up from the tomb of some forgotten king. What I loved most of all, though, was the story... well, the story that is provided by the instruction manual. The game itself didn't have much of a narrative, but that was all the better, because it allowed me to create a story of my own.

The main aspect of the game I found interesting, though, was that the protagonist, Link, seemed no older than I was! Up to that point, my only heroes were He-Man and Optimus Prime. I had never considered that someone my age could be considered a hero, yet here was Link, a young boy, sword in hand, on a dangerous quest to save a beautiful princess from an evil wizard, and as the one playing the game, I was helping him along every step of the way. It had a profound effect on my outlook of the world that served as a direct counterpoint to the mud puddle incident: the world could be cruel, but not if someone has the courage to take up their sword, as it were, and defend innocent people from getting pushed into mud puddles.

III. Dina's Love Letter

I started school not long after we moved into the new house. I had become so bored with being isolated in the country, and since this was before I had a Nintendo, the boredom was nearly unbearable. So, in a complete departure from my initial dread of school when I first started, I embraced the prospect of having something to do, and other kids to play with.

The school I went to was as simple as one would expect a public elementary school in the country to be. It was a normal school, not some archaic one-room building like in a Mark Twain novel, but it was small, which made it a lot less intimidating than my previous school. The teachers were mostly nice, and the other students welcomed me into their fold surprisingly quick. I enjoyed my classes, especially reading. Living in the country definitely showed me the value of learning to read, if only to have something else to do that will bide my time. Once I grasped the fundamentals of reading, I read voraciously. My parents could not keep up with my appetite for books, which lead to me begging for money whenever the Book Fair would come to my school (one of my favorite events of the YEAR), only for me to either receive enough money to buy maybe one book, or just plain no money at all. The Book Fair was an organization that would come to school annually, and sell a wonderful variety of books, school supplies, and fruit shaped erasers (yes, I was still infatuated with them at the time). I really can't express to you how excited I was on Book Fair day, so you can imagine how crushed I would be when I wouldn't be able to buy anything because my parents couldn't afford it.

It wasn't that my parents were negligent assholes - they were just kids themselves! My mom had me at sixteen, and my dad was about nineteen. So, when we moved out to the country, they were still in their early 20s, and both working crappy jobs: my mom was working in a home for juvenile delinquents, and my dad had quit a job as a janitor for a hospital to work 3rd shift at a bakery that made cookies and shit for Kroger. So, two kids, a house they were renting, and a car they were making payments on, it's a wonder they could afford clothes for us, much less books. However, my mom, being proud that I was so into reading, would slip me a five with my lunch money from time to time when Book Fair came around.

I excelled in reading class - so much so, that I began earning privileges, such as being allowed to play boardgames or draw if I finished my assignments early enough (which I almost always did). The only other person in the class who read at my level was a girl named Dina. I had met Dina on my first day of school and sat next to her at breakfast. I had a crush on her almost immediately. She had curly brown hair, big brown eyes, and freckles that accentuated each cheek, especially when she smiled. We became fast friends, and now that I think about it, I don't think I've had a relationship with a girl, before or since, that was as simple and easy as that one ended up being (not that our 3rd grade romance would be remotely considered a "relationship").

We grew closer as we played each other in various boardgames during class. I had begun developing quite the sense of humor by then, showing all the signs of a class clown in progress. I had such a hard time relating to people as a child, but I began to notice how my dad would always be the center of attention at social functions because of how funny he was - and he was really funny! My dad was so good at relating funny stories that people would be out of breath laughing so hard. It hadn't really gelled yet as a life lesson, but I began to see that other people valued humor, and that it was important to be funny if I was to have any friends.

Dina loved my jokes, which mostly consisted of drawing funny pictures of people in class, or just things I made up on the spot. We used to play a card game called Old Maid, and the teacher made the deck herself. The actual Old Maid card was a comically horrendously drawn stick figure, sashaying on the face of the card, sporting a hat with a flower on it. The picture made us both laugh so hard, we would make quite a spectacle of ourselves in our little corner, forcing the teacher to give us reproving glances from time to time. I would often hide the card up my sleeve, only to unleash it on Dina when she least suspected, causing her to erupt in fits of uncontrollable giggling.

One day, we were playing Tic-Tac-Toe, when during her turn, she wrote a little note on the game sheet that read: WOULD YOU BE MY BOYFRIEND - YES/NO/MAYBE. I was utterly shocked. I couldn't believe this angel, this princess, would want me as her boyfriend! With shakey hands, I wrote, in very large letters: HELL YEAH!

This made us both laugh so hard the teacher made us sit back at our desks.

Of course, we weren't really in a relationship in the mature sense of the word. "Boyfriend" or "girlfriend" were just titles we didn't entirely understand. As a matter of fact, Dina had two other boyfriends besides me, which I didn't mind at all, and neither did they. It's weird, now that I think about it, how monogamy has almost corrupted our innocent minds into believing that a person ought to belong to another person, and that's how it is. In reality, and I speak from the standpoint of someone currently living through a situation where monogamy has spoiled a friendship (long story, all of which will undoubtedly be told on here in the future), the fact that such a wonderful person, that makes you feel happy at all in this humdrum world, even exists should outweigh who they are currently existing with. All Dina and I knew was that we enjoyed each others' company immensely, and that was all that mattered.

IV. The Albino Strikes

Everyone remembers their very first bully, but not many had one quite like mine. My first bully was like something a villain from Batman. His name was Daryl. He was a freakishly tall, ghostly pale albino kid, with close cropped white hair, eyes which seemed to be perpetually squinting, and a bulbous, red nose (the only part of his body with any pigmentation), which gave him the overall look of a circus clown. In fact, my usual retaliation to his taunts was to call him a circus clown, which would make the class erupt with laughter, but Daryl to erupt with barely contained rage.

Daryl hated me for several reasons. Firstly, he was an older kid who had been held back in 3rd grade twice by that point. So he was dumber than shit. He would spend most of the time in class disrupting our lessons with strategically placed fart noises, which was about the only contribution he would make in the class. He refused to do homework, take tests, or do anything else that remotely resembled being cooperative. So, being that I was one of the best students in the class, he targeted me as the antithesis of everything he stood for. This resulted in almost every word I'd say during class being very poorly mocked by him, until he would be asked to leave the classroom. That was the only good thing about Daryl - he was almost never in class, because he would either get kicked out, or he'd have to attend the "special class" for asshole kids. Thankfully, I only had to deal with him sparingly, and my clown jokes were usually enough to shut him down. I was smarter than him, funnier than him, and certainly more well liked, and he hated me for it.

What he hated me the most for, though, was that Dina was my girlfriend. You see, Daryl had a crush on Dina too, but like most other girls, or humans for that matter, she thought he was cretinous slug and refused to talk to him. It's funny, now that I think about it, girls are a lot smarter about that staying away from assholes before puberty than they are afterward. Go figure. It infuriated him to no end that she liked me more than him, and eventually, one day, the anger boiled over.

During class one day, Daryl's jealousy had made him cross a line, and he turned his attention to Dina. The teacher had left to run copies, while we took a quiz. Daryl started off by mocking her, his usual opening salvo, before he upped the ante by throwing spit wads at her. Dina's face became beet red with anger and humiliation, made all the worse by her naturally sweet disposition, which made it difficult for her to put Daryl in his place. Her mild pleas for him to stop, coupled with her pouting, only made her a more satisfying target. I, on the other hand, did not have a sweet disposition, and I did not like seeing my girlfriend bullied by this asshole. So, in front of the class, I told Daryl to cut it out. He laughed, and observed in front of everyone, "Look at Craig, defending his girlfriend." He had used the tried and tested move of using the word "girlfriend" as a word to defame someone, and kids being kids, everyone giggled at this. I guess every idiot has to get laughs some day. Daryl's shameless harassment of Dina, mixed with his rare, successful taunt, infuriated me so much that I shot back without thought, or care, of the consequences. I stood up and screamed, with an almost manic tone of righteous zeal: "YOU'RE JUST ANGRY BECAUSE DINA DON'T DOESN'T LIKE CLOWNS, BOZO!"

This caused a hush to sweep over the class, followed by a chorus of "Ooooooh!" Feeling the momentum on my side, though, I continued, "Go back to juggling balls, or throwing balls in buckets, or whatever it is you CLOWNS do with balls!" The class laughed at my provocative use of the word "balls", and the battle of wits was done, with me as the victor. However, Daryl looked as if he was ready for a battle of a different sort, right then and there, but the teacher walked in, and we all resumed taking our quizzes, as if that had been what we were doing the entire time.

I had not felt like I was in any danger the rest of that day. Daryl went to his special ed classes, we all went to lunch, spent another hour in class, before going out to recess. Dina and I spent recess walking the track together, enjoying the spring weather, when I noticed one of my friends, his eyes wild with fear, frantically pointing behind me. I turned to see Daryl, snarling with rage, sprinting across the field like a rabid bull, his normally snowy white skin now turned a lava red that matched his clownish nose. Like a freight train, he barreled toward us with such speed, it would have been impossible to get of his way, and it looked for all the world like he intended to hurt both of us! I didn't have much time, but I had enough time to think. As time slowed down, and Daryl slowly, but surely, made his way to us, I closed my eyes, and asked myself, "What would Link do in this situation?"

Yes, I really did ask myself that.

Opening them, I imagined myself in Link's brown and green garb, sword in one hand, and shield in the other. The Legend of Zelda theme swelled to a crescendo in my head, fueling the part of my brain that was either responsible for acts of bravery, or acts of incredible stupidity. Without a moment's further consideration, I shoved Dina away, right as the albino tank collided with me. Despite my visualization of having a shield, unfortunately, my shield-less arm did not absorb the impact - my entire body did. I flew, for what seemed like several, blissful seconds, before I landed on the ground, and all the air left my lungs. Most of my memory of this event is hazy, probably due to the foot that Daryl delivered to my face as a parting shot before running away.

I don't know how many of you have ever been kicked in the face, but it's not as fun as martial arts movies make it look. My head rang like a bell and my vision swam as I fought with my brain for consciousness. I had gotten lucky - in reality, Daryl's foot hadn't made full contact with my face, but just sort of strafed it. If that albino bastard had played soccer, I wouldn't be typing this right now. As the ringing subsided, I could hear Dina screaming epithets at Daryl, who retreated, laughing the whole way. She helped me up and stumbled by her side to a teacher, whereby she explained what had happened, and the teacher, after making sure I was okay, went off in search of Daryl. Dina sat with me, as I fought to regain my bearings, and she nursed my mouth, which had begun bleeding. She told me that I had done a really brave thing, and that if there was anything she could do to repay me, she would do it. Ever the opportunist, I asked for a kiss on a cheek - mind you, I had no interest in kissing girls yet, but from the cartoons I had watched, it seemed like the perfect way to treat an injured hero. Dina giggled, kissed me on the cheek, and I felt a second wind of energy go through me like a wave. It was like whenever Popeye ate his spinach, and his muscles would ripple with strength. I jumped up, and whooped in victory, despite the copper taste of blood in my mouth, feeling like I had lost the battle, I had won the day.

V. Good-bye Dina...

My parents were called about what had happened, and they were furious... well, my mom was anyway. Dad became more determined to make me play football so I would toughen up and never have that happen to me again. They demanded that Daryl be put into a different class than me, which was a moot point. It turned out that he had a history of violent behavior, and kicking the face of a fellow student was the last straw. Daryl the Albino Clown was taken out of school and sent to a juvenile equivalent of Arkham Asylum, where ever the hell they send crazy delinquent Batman villains-in-training.

However, Daryl could have stayed for all the difference it made, because by summer, we ended up moving again. My dad got a job in Louisville, and we were moving in with my aunt and uncle until a house could be found. It pained me to leave behind a small school that I was excelling in; the new friends I had made; and more importantly, my first "real" girlfriend, Dina. She gave me a school picture that she had signed the back of as a farewell gift, and included her phone number for me to keep in touch.

Although I was truly fond of her, I never called her.