I walked home alone that night. The air was warm and the moon shone pitilessly upon my disheveled figure. I was limping as I walked down the sidewalk, red heels hanging from my ring and middle fingers, clacking against each other. I licked my dry, cracking lips and tasted blood—cold and metallic. Tears fell silently from my cheeks, a tinge of black from my mascara obscuring them in the darkness of the night. A cool breeze caressed my aching, bruised cheek and whipped my hair around my face. I shuddered; I left my coat back in the school auditorium. I heard nothing, not even my own heartbeat; I wasn't even sure if I was still alive. I didn't hear the car pull up next to me, but I saw it from the corner of my eye: a 1960 Chevrolet Corvette. Boys from my high school, ones I'd never seen before, and some familiar sat in the back seat with heads out the window. They were laughing at me and to each other as if they knew something I didn't and I was the butt of the joke. Fingers pointed at me and a bra was thrown my way; Μy bra. I didn't feel like picking it up; I didn't feel much of anything. Then I saw Gene Miller sitting in the driver's seat, eyes blank but mouth smiling. He wasn't laughing with the other boys, but that's what hurt the most. I stood there silently staring, wishing for him to spring from his seat and run to me, to help me, to save me. But he did nothing. He just sat there with a shameless, blameless smile. I started walking again, wanting to be back home where my father was, home where I felt safe. The car started up again and sped past me, not sparing me another single glance and I watched the car vanish in the night.
I met Gene four months before senior prom night. I was at the end of my sophomore year of high school, and he was a senior. He was popular with a boisterous group of close friends that stood out wherever they went and the entirety of the varsity cheerleader squad was his fan club. Gene was handsome, and I will admit that I was drawn to his sheepish smiles and deep almond eyes. He always slicked his black hair away from his face, and I thought, at times, that it made him look like Elvis Presley (I later learned that he was obsessed with him; If you gave me nine lives like an alley cat, I'd give them all to you and never take one back). He often wore a black faux leather jacket paired with various beige, white, and gray crewnecks that made him look even more like the singer. He had an angular jaw but rounder cheeks, his eyebrows were dark and defined and fit well over his eyes, and his refined nose sat comfortably over his peachy lips. Gene loved making dramatic entrances at the start of the school day (always the attention hog); the roaring motor of the Corvette that his wealthy father bought him for his seventeenth birthday, black sunglasses to add a hint of edge, and the swing of the cafeteria doors with a radio blasting "Pony Time" by Chubby Checker.
I didn't have much interest in Gene or any of the other students for the majority of my freshman year. I was country bumpkin Shirley Lynn from the small town of Frankenmuth, Michigan, and crowded places weren't my scene. I moved to New York during my freshman year because of my father's job relocation (he was a small-time banker who had been reassigned to a Bank of America branch in New York), and I was having an incredibly difficult time integrating into the New Yorker lifestyle. Rural Michigan was a stark contrast to the luxuries of New York. With Frankenmuth being as rural as it was, most people knew their neighbor's neighbor, and we formed a very tight-knit community. It was quiet without many tourists or outsiders. Most days were the same; boring routines of school, work, home, and repeat. However, the surrounding meadows and rivers gave the town a tranquil feeling, and I enjoyed my youth there. Looking back now, I can say with almost complete certainty that I would give anything to return to that time.
On the other hand, New York was a rambunctious circus show of clowns, jugglers, and lion tamers that saw no end. The glamor of the high rises and display lights rubbed intimate shoulders with the grime of the city's underbelly. You could seldom watch the street performers without hearing a distant yell or a scuttering sewer rat catching your peripheral eye. The people were quiet for the most part until you rubbed them the wrong way, or they caught you staring. Constant freedom riders and Vietnam protests littered the streets, and I remember often wishing for everyone's safe return home. On many occasions after school, I would see Robert Massey, the resident school hooligan with acne scars and a roughly-cut mullet, and his gang of misfit skater boys crudely spray painting racial insults on the streets that protesters often frequented. Hippies with their psychedelic hallucinogens loitered in the back alleys of campus and my neighborhood, and on a few nights, I even saw Robert Massey passing a wad of bills to a junkie by a garbage bin. Although there are plenty of things to say negatively about the city that never sleeps, it had a certain charm that is hard to understand to anyone who has never lived there for as long as I have. New York was the beginning of many music icons like Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, and from miles down the block from my Bronx apartment, I could hear street performer renditions of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "Ain't No Telling." I vividly remember many nights following the incident where I would lay in my dark room sometime close to midnight, fearful of night terrors and the people that would be in them, and my only solace on nights like those were the drugged-up singers down the block, transporting me to a world of colorful possibilities and sleepful nights.
Not long after we settled down in the Bronx, I was enrolled in Theodore Roosevelt High School. I ignored most of my surroundings and peers, allowing only two people from my Algebra class into my inner circle. Kimberly Stokes was a book nerd with peppered freckles across her button nose and the attitude of a Tasmanian devil. She had been held back a year and was, therefore, one year older than me. And Matthew Pickett, a friendly boy whose large build scared me at first, but I quickly learned he was as timid as a doe. They were an odd pair to see together if you didn't know them as intimately as I did—Matthew the mediator, and Kimberly the troublemaker. One time in our junior year, Kim borrowed her father's Pontiac to take us to a school football game (we were losing, and Kim's ex was playing. "I want to see him suffer after cheating on me like that," she said) and she was so elated after the miserable loss that she decided to drive donuts in the field's parking lot. Matt warned it wouldn't end well, but as always, Kim never thought before doing. She ended up bumping rears with Robert Massey's Mustang, and he threw a fit. He called her all sorts of names ("whore" and "bitch" being two of the few) that he would never dare speak of in front of his mother, and sweet Matt attempted to intervene. Perhaps frightened by the sudden interference by this large figure (he was rather intimidating if he didn't open his mouth), Robert took ten dollars from Kim (her whole allowance for the month) and scuttled off without another word. Kim got a good scolding from Matt and her father, but she held this incident over Robert's head for the rest of our time at TR High School, and he didn't bother us again that year.
I didn't hear the name Gene Miller until the start of my sophomore year. Kim was gossiping about her most recent ex, Lawrence, who was friends with Brett who was friends with a guy named Gene. Lawrence was cheating on Kim with a cheerleader named Rita (which is why the guy and Kim broke up in the first place), and after they started dating, Rita cheated on Lawrence with Gene. Kim made a whole huff about it, saying that's what he deserved for being a cheater. "Cheaters get cheated on," she said. I had a bad first impression of this guy. I thought he was the kind of guy who would help a girl cheat on her boyfriend. Not a person I wanted to associate with. However, that would soon change when one day toward the end of my sophomore year, I was walking down the hallway from geometry to German one cold January afternoon.
It was a tiring class; I never could wrap my head around geometry. The shapes, numbers, and exponents were like a foreign language I could never grasp. I didn't understand why I was being made to learn something I was never going to use in the outside world; I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to sing pop and jazz and soul; I wanted the name Shirley Lynn to be known by the world. I yearned to be the next Marilyn Monroe or Ella Fitzgerald—That's how I'd cry in my pillow If you should tell me farewell and goodbye—and geometry was not going to help me get there. I understood the usefulness of a second language, however, so I took up German (in order to connect with the German roots of Frankenmuth perhaps). And it just so happened that the class I was most looking forward to met after my least favorite.
Holding my German textbook in my arms and brown leather satchel on my shoulder, I walked down the reflective brown floors, passing yellow lockers and large, dusty windows peering out into the street. From the outside, the school was a sight to behold; large Roman columns and stunning intricate designs adorned the framework of the ginormous building, and the large bell tower rang every couple of hours on the hour. The interior of the school betrayed its initial impression. Dirty windows that had not been cleaned in what I believed to be a decade at least and the floor was polished, but the grim that seeped in had adhered to the polish and became one with the tiled pattern. The classrooms were large on average in order to accommodate the influx of students as of late, but the desks were cheap, and on multiple occasions I witnessed a classmate fall through the seat due to its poor construction. The cafeteria was the best-looking place on campus with large stable lunch tables and a wide open space for social interactions. However, the allure of the cafeteria overshadowed the poor quality of the food. But in comparison with the small, run-down schools in Frankenmuth, Theodore Roosevelt High School was a far cry from a poor house.
I glanced out the windows and stopped to stare at a crowd gathered outside. A boy with gelled black hair and a black leather jacket with dark sunglasses stood in the middle of the crowd of students, at least twenty of them, chattering and laughing about something I couldn't make out from the movement of their lips alone. As I watched this strange display, the boy in the center locked eyes with me from the street, and his eyebrows shot up his forehead. He looked to the crowd, possibly excusing himself, and then ran into the school building. I heard him running down the hallway toward me before I saw him, his sneakers squeaking on the polished floor. He stopped before me, and I turned to look at him as he paused to catch his breath. A moment passed then he spoke with a New York accent, something I would not have expected from him.
"You're Matthew's friend, right?"
I hesitantly nodded, a lock of my hair falling in front of my eye. I pushed it back behind my ear before speaking.
"Why?"
He breathed a sigh of relief, a smile gracing his lips, and moved to take off his sunglasses, now useless inside. He gracefully removed the shades, revealing his chocolate brown eyes the shape of almonds. He placed the glasses on his white crewneck's collar before speaking again.
"Matthew's in my English class." He looked down at his satchel, opened it, and pulled out a packet of paper. "We had peer review in class today, and I forgot to return his paper. I would give it to him myself, but I don't have a way to contact him. Give it to him for me, yeah?" He smiled sheepishly, his eyes silently pleading for a 'yes'.
"Sure."
His smile widened, and I took the packet from him.
"Thank you tons."
We stood for a moment in awkward silence, staring at one another. Then he asked:
"Shirley, right? I'm Gene."
I tilted my head. "Gene Miller?"
"Yeah, I guess you've heard of me."
I nodded. "How do you know me?"
He smiled again, something I later figured out he does often when he wants something.
"I heard from Matthew. It's a good name for a good girl. Thanks again for doing this. See you around sometime."
He turned away from me before I could say anything and walked down the hall and back out the door he came in and right into the crowd of student admirers. I looked down at Matt's essay and read the title, "Why Young Love Never Lasts."
The following day—a Wednesday—I met up with Kim and Matt for lunch in the cafeteria. As per usual, we sat towards the back at a table of five but used only three seats. The lunch ladies served cardboard pizza with rubber cheese, a side of half-frozen peas, and small cartons of chocolate milk. However, the three of us had packed lunches to spare ourselves the misery of school lunches. I packed myself iceberg wedge salad with sprinkles of nutmeg, carrot sticks, and a date bar on the side. Kim's mom packed her leftover spaghetti and meatballs from the night before, while Matt had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a carton of pineapple juice. We chatted for a while, alternating between eating and talking before I remembered the task Gene had given me. I reached into my bag and pulled out Matt's paper. I stretched my hand across the table to hand it to him. He looked confused and grabbed it from me.
"How'd you get this?"
"Gene Miller gave it to me yesterday. Said he forgot to give it to you during peer review."
"I was wondering where it was. I'll have to thank him next time I see him."
I smiled in silent acknowledgment, not paying much attention, and entered my mind while my friends' conversation blurred into the background noise of the cafeteria. I thought back to my and Gene's interaction the day before; greased hair, loud crowd, small smiles, questions, and almond eyes. My mind wandered for a bit, more than I could admit then, to his peachy lips and toned arms. To his accent, voice deep and flippant. To the way he carried himself, confident and carefree, as if he had all the time in the world to do whatever he pleased. Kim's voice broke my concentration.
"Speaking of Gene, I heard from Brett—"
"How'd you get to know Brett?" Matt interjected.
"Lawrence before we broke up." She gave Matt a dirty look for interrupting her. "Anyway, Brett told me that Gene was trying out for the school band."
This piqued my interest for I, too, planned on singing for the band.
"Why? Does he sing?"
She shook her head. "He plays the bass."
The sharp ding-dong of the school bell signaling the end of the block period broke the conversation, and we begrudgingly went our separate ways to class. I had U.S. history, a class I was not all too fond of. History was sad and tragic, a depressing way to go about your day learning about the bloody ancient battles, and it was even worse to hear about the most recent scars of our history. Scars that were still rather bare. My father was a veteran; he fought in Vietnam. The only reason he came back before the war even ended was sheer luck. A rogue piece of shrapnel in the left shoulder left his arm unusable so they sent him home before the official end of his deployment. In one such class, the teacher was discussing the events that led to World War II. A fearful student raised his hand and asked, "My father and his father went to war. Will I have to fight too?" The teacher did his best to console him, saying, "No, we live in a time of peace." At the time, I thought the question was ridiculous and the teacher was equally ridiculous for responding in that way. We were not in a time of peace. Rather, the men of our country were fighting to their deaths across the ocean. But I understood he said it to appease the ignorant mind of a young boy. We were only sixteen; too young to fight a war, but I failed to realize that other than our fathers and grandfathers fighting over in Nam, the ones back home were fighting wars of their own. The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death.