I told my parents I was sleeping over at Jason’s house; Jason told his parents he was sleeping over at my house; and I don’t think Tony’s parents really gave a shit so he just told them he was going “out”. I’d spent the past hour in front of the mirror trying to decide what I should wear. After putting my visor on, then taking it off, then putting it back on and tilting it ever so slightly to the left, then taking it back off, then seeing what it might look like backwards, I finally called Jason for some advice. “No bright colors, no candy necklaces, no glow bead necklaces, no rainbow stripes, and no pacifiers. Thats all Candy Kid stuff.” (Candy Kid is a term for ravers dressed in any or all of the aforementioned items)  I hung up the phone and quickly changed out of a lime green shirt and bright blue dickies shorts into jeans and a white t-shirt. I waited outside for Jason to pick me up.

There’s a scene in the movie Swingers where one of the guys is explaining to his friend that the best clubs are always the hardest to find. I think this was how Jason felt about raves.We turned on our high beams and drove up a winding trail in the hills of Ojai. The music from the beginning of The Shining started to play in my head as we traveled further and further away from civilization. It was midnight when we pulled over next to a rusted mailbox. We got out of the car and walked up a dirt trail. “I think this is it. Listen,” Jason commanded, tilting his head slightly as if to angle his ears for better hearing. “I think I hear bass speakers.” For a rave expert Jason sucked at knowing where the actual raves were. We all stopped talking and looked around, trying to sense the vibrations like Jeff Goldblum did in  Jurrasic Park. A faint bass drum echoed in the distance. “Yea, this is definitely it,”He assured us. We followed the noise.

As we got closer, flashing neon lights accompanied loud techno music. My anxiety took over and I started blurting out questions, “When are you guys gonna do the drugs? Are you only taking ecstasy? Do ravers take acid? I feel like ravers would take acid. How do you know who to get them from? How much is one pill? What do you think would happen if you took more than one pill? What do you think would happen if you took three pills? Have you guys ever tried acid? What do you think would happen if you took three tabs of acid right now? What do you think would happen if you took three pills of ecstasy and three tabs of acid all at once? Do you think anyone has ever done that? When are you gonna drink your Red Bulls?”

We made our way up the final zig zag to see the side of a barn covered in a plethora of Native American dream catchers. Neon strobe lights projected elementary shapes like triangles and squares that spun around and moved in slow circles on the wall. A DJ with one hand on the turntables and one hand on his head phones sat in front of a dirt-covered dance floor. There were about 60 to 70 people total. A warm light emitted from inside the barn silhouetting a group of teenagers. An Asian kid with bleached spiked hair danced around in circles alone while kicking up dust and waving around the bright green glow stick he had in his hand. Others were dressed similarly to him and sat along the side, watching him and bobbing their heads up and down with approval. Everyone else was sitting blankets scattered about the half grass half dirt patch of property surrounding the barn.

I followed Jason and Tony to the DJ who pointed them to the ecstasy, which I had no intention of taking.When I was thirteen, I smoked something called “bud” out of an apple with a friend. Afterwards, I found out it was weed and freaked out. Then I found out it was marijuana and really freaked out. I never knew they were all the same thing. I felt about as stupid as the kid in The Sandlot when he found out the Sultan of Swat and the Great Bambino and Babe Ruth were all the same guy. I gave up on drugs after that.

I figured if anyone asked why I wasn’t getting high, I could tell them I was just there for the music and nothing else. As a matter of fact, that was it. I was all about the music. The only way to truly appreciate the intricacies of techno music was to take it all in with a clear and sober mind. Jason and Tony negotiated quantity and price issues while I scanned the crowd looking for narcs.

“Did you get it?” I asked them. Jason opened his hand, revealing two tiny blue pills in his palm. Jason explained that ecstasy wasn’t just ecstasy. There were sub categories, usually with different names that sounded like someone playing the pyramid game and their category was “Things Found in a Child’s Room”. There were “Purple Dinosaurs”, “Green Monsters”, “Yellow Tweeties”, and as Jason stated while pointing to the 40-dollar purchase he held in his hand, “Little Blue Smurfs”. I watched them both pop the tiny blue pills into their mouths and wash them down with a big swig of water from a bottle. I envisioned what the police report might say after they overdosed. “Jason Reynolds – Dead on Arrival, lethal consumption of little blue smurfs.”

We sat in a patch of grass next to an old oak tree covered in a string of Christmas lights. The air was palpable with the overwhelming scent of Vicks Vapor Rub. It flooded my nostrils and gave me a similar sensation to the one you get when you dive into a pool and the chlorinated water rushes through your sinuses and gives you a five second headache. Jason sat cross-legged and rocked back and forth while grinding his teeth and rolling his eyes. He looked around without focusing on any one thing in particular. He’d turned into what you would call an “E-tard”. “Why don’t you hit the dance floor?” he suggested before taking a swig of water and returning to the vigorous teeth grinding.

I was anxious to try out some new moves I’d learned. Earlier that week Jason had taught me this dance that was supposedly popular amongst ravers. You lock the insides of your wrists and twist your hands around in a figure eight pattern.  I wasn’t really sure what to do with the rest of myself, but I figured I could just take cues from everyone else. After carefully observing for a few minutes, I cracked two glow sticks from Jason’s bag and positioned myself on the side of the dance floor next to a group of Candy Kids. I twirled my hands around and spun in a slow counter clockwise circle. I added a small kick with a head jolt that probably looked similar to the Elaine dance from “Seinfeld”. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a group of people watching me. I started grinding my teeth and rolling my eyes back to excuse my behavior. I slowly stopped and looked around like I wasn’t sure where I was or how I had gotten there, attempting to give the illusion that I was on drugs . I walked back to the patch of grass where Jason and Tony were sitting, pretending to stumble a bit on the way. “Not bad, I think you’re getting’ it,” Jason said to me while looking up to the sky and moving his head around like he was Stevie Wonder.

“Do you want a light show?” a girl about eighteen with greasy blonde hair and an unwashed wife beater asked. I felt guilty that she had offered me this under the false pretense that I was high. But I did want a light show even though I had no clue what it was. She straddled my outstretched legs and sat on her knees facing me. “Close your eyes and relax,” she said before she put a tiny bottle in her mouth. She blew into one end and a mist of Vicks Vapor rub came out the other end and onto my face. “Now open them slowly,” she instructed. A fast paced flashing white light allowed me to see things in short clicks like a strobe light. She twirled around a bright blue light that seemed to leave a trail marking the erratic pattern it was making. I started grinding my teeth and moving my head around while trying to look like I couldn’t focus. “Craaazzzy,” I said in a cheesy stoner voice. This went on for another minute or so until I heard a clicking sound and the lights vanished. She got up before I could thank her and asked the person next to me if they wanted a light show.

We cracked open our Red Bulls. “Dude, maybe you should give Brian your drink,” Tony said to Jason. “You know, so he could at least get like hyper and stuff, since he’s not high.” We agreed this was a good idea and I drank both Red Bulls in a shotgun fashion. I immediately started bobbing my head and feverishly tapping a beat on my jeans as if the effects of the caffeine had instantly set in. We walked around for a bit and I found myself in a conversation with an older women in her late 40′s who I was pretty sure had taken three tabs of acid and three tabs of ecstasy all at once. Her eyes would flutter and roll back into their sockets every few seconds. She started to cackle at one of her own jokes, revealing a smile that looked like one of those “before” pictures you see at the dentist. She could barely finish a sentence without being interrupted by the glowing stick in her hand, or the glowing beads around her neck. She was a mess. “You’re never too old to party!” she said to me while flashing a mini strobe light around my face. “Yeah, I totally know what you mean,” I told her in a way that totally sounded like I didn’t.

Dawn finally began to break and we decided to head back. My glow sticks had lost their glow and it was time to go. We walked down the trail, bass drums still humming in our ears and Vicks Vapor Rub seeping out our pores. When we got to the car, Tony inspected Jason’s eyes to see if his pupil were dilated, which was supposedly a dead giveaway that you’re on E. “What do you think?” he asked me as I jumped back in shock. His pupils had almost completely taken over the iris, leaving two black beady eyes staring back at me. It reminded me of the Simpson’s episode when Homer thought he saw an alien but it turned out to be Mr. Burns all drugged up. “They look fine,” I lied.

It was bright enough outside now to make Jason downgrade from headlights to fog lights. We drove back through the winding two-lane canyon road, techno music blasting. The song playing had one line for the chorus, sung by a girl that repeated over and over again while oscillating between which words the emphasis was put on. “Do you think you’re beeeeettttteeeeeerrrr off alone? Do you think you’re better off allloooooonnne?” At some point, around the 8th or 9th time this question was asked, Jason started slowly veering into the wrong lane–the lane where cars are going the opposite direction as us. I managed to get out an “aauuuggh” before he noticed the mistake and very slowly corrected it, finally returning us to safety by the time we’d finished the blind turn. Thankfully, we were in the middle of nowhere and it was 5 a.m.  Around the 14th or 15th time the girl in the speakers asked me if I think I’m beeeetttteeer off alooonee, Jason veered into the other lane once again. This time we were not so lucky.

The man driving the pick-up truck was able to turn just enough so that we didn’t hit him straight on. We hit the side of his hood with the side of our 91 Honda Civic’s hood and both cars spun out. The windows blew out, the tires blew out, the hood got squished and something under it made a light hissing sound while blowing steam, like you see on the Universal Studio’s tram ride during the King Kong part. “Shit dude . . . holy shit!” Jason screamed. “Shit dude! We’re fucked. We are so fucked!  Oh wait, Is everyone okay?” Tony and I briefly inspected ourselves. “Um, yeah,” we replied. “Okay then. We’re fucked! We are so fucked! Fuck we are so fucking fucked! Brian! Hide the glow sticks and beads and anything that would connect us to the rave!” As I did this he pulled down his sun visor that was still intact but had shattered glass in the tiny square that was once a mirror. He looked back at me. “How are my eyes, dude?” he asked in a panic.  I squinted and looked back and forth from left eye to right eye. They looked the same as before. “Good man, they look good. Better than before.”

“Is everyone okay?” a middle aged man with long hair and a goatee asked us while hunched over and looking in. “Yeah, I think we’re alright.” Jason replied as we all stepped out and reviewed the external damage. The car looked much worse from the outside. Even the guy’s full sized truck looked pretty messed up, certainly un-drivable. He walked back to his car and dialed the police. I looked out into the canyon of dirt and trees that we might have fallen down into, had we spun out the other way. It all looked artificial to me, like a Hollywood set that I could roll away. Behind it would be my house where I could sneak back into my bed and my parents would never find out.

“Yes, I’d like to report an accident . . uh huh . .yes I’m at . .” I tried to remain stoic, starring out at the hills as I listened to the man’s phone conversation. He got to the part where they started asking about the smaller details, and I noticed him glance over at Jason to size him up for a brief second. “Umm . . no . . no I don’t think so” He said in a quieter voice. I started to think of what my parents would say when they discovered I was up all night partying at a drug-infested rave out in the sticks. When most kids my age got into trouble it was because they were at a local house party where there was alcohol, not a creepy farm over 60 miles away owned by Buffalo Bill. I looked back at the mountains and daydreamed of a tunnel that went straight through them to my house. A bullet express train going from the scene of the accident to Brian Pratt’s room, no stops along the way. Just then, it hit me. “I’ve been here before,” I thought to myself. “Not in a weird déjà vu kind of way. But like I have actually been here, in these mountains, on this exact highway. But when? And why? What would I be doing out here? I’m not the camping type. Think Brian, think. Okay. I’m on this highway, its bright, it’s sunny, and it’s hot! Definitely hot. Midsummer? I am driving, and I am driving . . . my dad’s car! Yes! My dad’s car! My dad’s little white Toyota Corolla! The windows are up? No, down. No, they’re up because I have the air conditioning on and Mike wont roll up hi- Mike! That’s right! Mike was in the back seat and he kept rolling the window down and making that annoying vibrating sound. And Mike was in the front seat! Both Mikes! Mike and Mike! We were driving, windows up, AC on, and they both keep singing that stupid Head PE son – DEVIL’S PUNCHBLOWLS! Of course! We drove down this road, this exact road, to get to the hiking trail that lead us to the Devil’s Punchbowls where we went cliff diving!”

I hurried over to Jason, trying not to look too anxious. “Dude, I got an idea,” I said to him in an excited whisper. “I know this place. There’s a cliff diving spot about a mile away called Devil’s Punchbowls. We can say we got up early and we were going out here to hike back to them!” Jason nodded his head up and down while mulling this over. “Okay. . .We wanted to go early in the morning because . . . because that’s the best time. So we…  we hung out . . we just drove around . . you picked me up and we drove around and chilled until like 4 a.m. . . Then we headed out here . . to hike!” I took a step back to let my idea sink in. This was brilliant. This was fail proof. This was the best idea in the history of ideas.

After corroborating our stories together we went back to our “totally not guilty of anything, totally didn’t just come back from a rave” pacing. An SUV pulled up, coming from the same direction we were. The passenger window rolled down. “Are you guys alright? Did you just come from the RAVE?” an Asian girl wearing a bright yellow shirt, candy necklace, and rainbow striped beanie shouted out. “Fine, totally fine, everything is cool. We got it all taken care of. okayseeyoulaterthanksgoodbye!” The window rolled up and they drove away with us motioning our hands for them to continue.

The police finally showed up. One officer. He stepped out and walked straight towards the man driving the truck. They conversed back and forth, far enough away so that we couldn’t make out what they were saying. Occasionally during their discussion, they would glance back at us three looking guiltily like we were students sitting outside a parent/teacher conference. The officer began to walk towards us as Truck Man sat back and watched.

“Everyone doing okay? You boys alright?” he asked with mild sincerity. “Yeah,” I replied. “We’re totally good, dude. I mean man . . I mean officer. Officer!” Tony said. He grabbed his belt. The belt that has his gun, and his club, and his hand cuffs, and probably some other crazy shit we don’t even know about, and asked, “Which one of you boys is uhh Jason Reynolds?” Tony and I pointed him in the right direction. “You alright, son?” he asked, stepping a little closer to Jason. Tony and I both shot each other a look to as if to say “Alright? Why, what do you mean alright? Of course he is alright. He is alright. We’re alright. You’re alright. Everything is aaaaalllllright.” He looked at Jason, assessing him, then finally said in that douche-y tone of voice that only cops use, “Alright Jason, what I want you to do for me Jason, is to follow this little light using only your eyes. Is that okay, Jason? Can you do that for me, Jason?” Jason nodded his head. He looked left when the light went left. He looked right when the light went right. When it went up, he looked up. When it went down, he looked down. His head stayed still. He was good.

The cop drove us into the city because we were awesome and definitely weren’t on drugs. “You can call your parents from the phone at the station,” he said to us, as if the news would be a weight lifted off our shoulders. Normally this thought would be funny, but we really did have to get home and, well, logically, it was Jason that needed to make the call. I mean, how is going to explain the missing car when he gets dropped off? He made the call, we all waited.

Jason’s Dad picked us up. He said nothing. It was an hour-long drive. He said nothing and he looked nowhere other than the road ahead. He approached my neighborhood and I had to navigate. I cleared my throat and stuttered the directions. As we drove down my street I closed my eyes and made a silent prayer. “God, if you get me out of this, I promise I will never do anything bad ever again. Amen.”  When we got to my house the garage door was shut and there were no cars in the driveway (tell-tale sign that no one was home). “Where could they be?” I thought to myself. “They never leave unless . . .  Church! They must be at church! Ohhhh you are good! You are good God! God you are good! Thank you Jesus! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! Good luck Jason, I’m going to bed!” As I opened the car door and stepped out I finally heard what the voice of Jason’s Dad sounded like, “Tell your parents to call me when they get home.” Shit.

When I walked through the front door of the party, the vote was unanimous: Funny. I now figured there were three ways I could play this.

Option 1:  Live and breathe Ariel. From here on out, I am a sexy red-head mermaid that just wants to be “A Part of Your World”. I sing songs that everyone knows. I grab a fork, put my head down, flip back my hair, and start combing it until people are all like ” oh yea I remember that shit”

Advantage- Getting to use the girls bathroom with the excuse that I can’t break character

Disadvantage – Sharing my very unpleasant singing voice with the rest of the world.

Option 2:   I go the complete opposite direction from the first option. We’ll call this the Andrew Dice Clay effect. I push out my chest and walk in the manliest manner possible. When girls walk by, I shout  ”Hey hot mamma!” like I’m AC Slater from Saved by the Bell. I pound a full beer and crush the can on my forehead like I’m Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds.

Advantage- Getting extremely wasted extremely fast

Disadvantage- Risking possible injury from boyfriends of said girls walking by

Option 3:   What costume? What seashell bra? What long red hair? Whats so funny? Who’s got next in beer pong? Whats everyone laughing at? Mind if I put this bottle of Jack in your freezer?

Advantage – Not having to do any of the douchey shit from options 1 and 2

Disadvantage – None foreseeable

Now that I decided I was going to play it casual, therefore adding another layer to the comedy by juxtaposing a quiet and soft-spoken demeanor with my loud and outrageous outfit, I needed to figure out what regular Brian dressed in regular clothes would be doing. I scanned the room quickly, looking up and down but never at eye-level for fear I would catch glances with someone and have to give that uncomfortable “Yep . . . I’m a dude. . dressed in a little mermaid costume . . . that’s really for girls . . ” smile. “Lets see now, Brian normally would be . . . trying to look down Wonder Woman’s gold plated bra because its a little too big and Wonder Woman forgot to bring any extra support.” My eyes turned away to the couch, then the coffee table, then back to the couch. I was too conspicuous to be people watching, much less boob watching. “Brian normally would be  . . .  getting himself a beer!” I thought to myself, before I remembered the full bottle in my hand and took a drink. “Ok, that killed about 5 seconds.” I looked up and down the room again; at the wall, at the ceiling, at the floor, at the couch, at the coffee table, back at the ceiling. “Brian normally would be . . . not getting dizzy from spinning his head around too much.” Finally, my two friends that had agreed to do this with me stepped out, revealing their equally shocking costumes. We pre-partied for a while longer before deciding to take our act on the road.

“They are gonna think we’re hilarious!”Alice, as in Alice in Wonderland said. “We’re gonna go to a bar and everyone is gonna be all like, Oh my god! That is hilarious! You guys are so funny!” Beauty and I both nodded our heads in agreement. “And as soon as they stop laughing or we feel our costumes aren’t being appreciated as much as they should be, we leave and go to another bar! One that appreciates how hilarious we are!” he shouted, while I looked down at my stomach and tried to figure out the most flattering way to sit. I finally concluded that I would need to be standing at all times. My mind started racing for excuses to get out of wearing this ridiculous costume. “Didn’t Ariel become human in the end? Wasn’t there a scene where she was wearing like . . jeans . . and a t-shirt? I could still wear the wig, thats pretty recognizable. I’m mean come on, long red wavy hair, everyone will still know I’m Ariel.”

When we got to the bar, the vote was unanimous:  Hilarious. We stood out front for a while and took pictures with random people like we were working at the Disneyland theme park. We talked to hot chicks whose boyfriends had lesser costumes than ours. We went inside and took shots. We went back to the car and took free shots. We went back to the bar and took more pictures with more hot chicks. I fixed my bra and one of them laughed. Alice lifted up her skirt revealing men’s underwear and everyone laughed. It was clear to all that we were the funniest people on the planet. Our costumes were nothing short of genius. Every word spoken was to be transcribed in stone and placed in a tomb buried deep within the recesses of the Earth’s surface, where they will stay to prove to the universe that mankind was a brilliantly funny species.

After having to wait more than two seconds to get my beer from the bar, I started to envision a Noah’s Ark of Halloween costumes in my head. In moments, a torrential downpour will wipe out the bars patrons, leaving only those with the best costumes to stay and party. Or better yet, a plague. An instantly fatal disease that effects only the non-creative and uninspired. First to go will be the sexually suggestive gag costumes. No more nuts and bolts or plugs and sockets or breathalyzers with instructions on where one needs to blow. Next will be the last minute “I wasn’t planning on going out this year so I didn’t get a costume” costumes. These always take the shape of a professional sports player, a nerd, an army soldier, a hobo, a gangster, a Mormon, or Tom Cruise in Risky Business. After this, the recent and trendy movie character costumes will be eliminated. At this particular time, that would mean all the Jokers from The Dark Knight.

We finally left the bar around midnight for another house party. “Are there a lot of people there?” Alice asked to his friend over the phone. “What’s a decent amount? Are there girls? Are they hot? Will they appreciate our costumes? Will they understand what comedic geniuses we are?” We passed a bottle of Jack Daniels around and took shots as we drove down a residential street filled with parked cars on both sides. I played quick game of “match the costumes with the vehicle” in my head.

Lifted F150 –  Breathalyzer

VW Jetta – Sexy Cop

Acura Integra – Joker from The Dark Knight

Mini Van – probably just the pissed off neighbors

We walked straight through the house and into the backyard, where Alice and Beauty both lifted up their skirts in front of a rosebush and began to relieve themselves. Not wanting to pass up this Kodak moment, I jumped between the two and joined in. “Dude, that was the funniest shit I’ve seen all night,” Popeye told me after I had adjusted my mermaid tail and grabbed my beer off the patio table. Deciding we would need the bottle of Jack in the car, I walked arrogantly towards the front door as if I was too important to mingle with the rest of the sub-par costume wearers. As I waited for the crowd of people who had just entered to pass, I heard a small voice from behind me say “Hey Ariel!” I turned around to see a face unveil through a sea of party goers. Her hair parted down the middle and fell to the sides of two amber-colored eyes, focused on mine. She smiled and tilted her head slightly, letting some of her dark brown hair curl over her cheek and almost touch her lips.  That song from The Little Mermaid started to play in my head… the one where theres no words and it’s just Ariel going:  “aaaaahhhh ahahahahah ahaha aahhh aaaahhh”. I made a similar head tilting gesture and sheepishly twirled my red hair.

I approached her and introduced myself as Ariel. “I’m Pocahontas” she replied, lifting her eyes up to a colorful feather in her hair. This was clearly not part of the actual Disney character’s wardrobe, but I appreciated the coincidence she was trying to imply. I smiled and shrugged my shoulder in a “It was meant to be” kind of way. “What are the odds?” I said, hoping that she would understand that we were destined to be together. She nodded her head and looked down at the rest of her ensemble. “Well, I was originally going to be a nurse . .  you know . .  but not just like a regular nurse and stuff . .  you know. . .  like a sexy nurse . . . but then I was like . . well everyones always a nurse and stuff  . . so then I was like . . I’ll be an Indian!” I smiled and looked down at the fringe from her short top resting on her tan skin. “A sexy Indian!” I reminded her.

Alice began tapping my shoulder impatiently. “Come on dude, we’re out of here, this place is dead.” I looked back at Pocahontas, then back at him. “Looks pretty lively to me dude,” I replied.  He looked around the room and shook his head in disagreement with this. Beauty had since left to fornicate in the truck out front with the sexy pirate he was talking to. “Fuck it . . I’m goin solo . . I’ll be at JRBs down the street if you want to join me,” he said while slapping my shoulder. I got back to my stimulating conversation with Pocahontas about what costume she was originally going to wear, but then didn’t, but you know, she was like going to wear it and then changed her mind at the last minute. I shook my head and raised my eyebrows to indicate how amazed I was with her spontaneity. I mean, one minute she’s going to be a nurse and then BAM, no more nurse!   I thought about grabbing a beer from the fridge but I didn’t want to miss any more of her fascinating tales of sudden and inexplicable wardrobe changes. “Hold that thought,” I said, ”I’ll be right back.”

When I returned, it appeared that clothes weren’t the only thing she could change on a whim. Army McStupidman was chatting up her and her friends. He waved his muscular arms in the air, finishing some joke that seemed to make everyone laugh.  I felt betrayed by the universe. This guy wasn’t funny. Handsome maybe, but certainly not funny. I was the funny one. Me, right here. Just look at my costume.  I’m hilarious. Look at him, he’s a stupid Army Man. He’s only wearing that stupid vest so he can show of his rock-hard abs and chiseled biceps. I headed back to the fridge and grabbed another beer for the road.

When I pulled out the phone from my bra to call Alice, I was surprised to see how late it was. This was no longer a “where’s the party?” phone call. “Sorry dude, I’m already home and in bed . . you score with that chick you were talking to?” he asked. I mumbled an incoherent sentence that had the words “Army” and “douchebag” in it before hanging up and trying someone else. Since my costume didn’t allow me to carry anything other than the wad of cash I had already blown at the bar, I ruled out the option of dialing 522-Taxi. The only answer I got was from my friend Katie who was already sound asleep at her boyfriend’s house. “Oh no I’m cool . . just, you know .  . walking home all by myself in my mermaid costume . . I’m actually right by your house . . no I don’t need a ride it’s cool . . don’t worry about me . . I’ll just keep walking . . alone . . in the middle of the night  . . all by myself . . in the dark . . alone . .  no you don’t have to pick me up that won’t be necessary, it’s only like 4 miles from my house . . I’ll be there in no time . .”

It took twice the time it normally would since I could only take baby steps in my mermaid dress. When I finally made it home I tore off my wig, poured myself a tall glass of water and crawled into bed.  All I could think about was what I was going to be for next year.

1. The Interests

Everybody likes music, and art, and traveling, and the outdoors, and sunshine, and having fun. These are not things that give any insight as to who you are as an individual. I wouldn’t even really describe them as interests but more just standard features that come with any human being. It’d be like shopping for a used car and coming across an ad that says “Great vehicle, runs on gasoline, tires are round, has matter and density.” I still don’t know the make, model, year, milage, accident history, horse power etc. If anything I view the vaugness as a trap into buying a lemon.

2. I’m shy but I’m not shy

A lot of girls can’t decide on what they are. “I’m shy but I can also be very outgoing.” “I’m just a jeans and t-shirt kinda girl that loves to get dressed up and go out too.” “I’m a realist but I have a bit of a hopeless romantic side. . .”       When filling out your “about me” section you should use a “Which of the following best describes me?” approach. Like an SAT question, choose the letter that best answers the problem, don’t fill in every bubble.

3. The Nerd

Some girls like to pick out one non-airhead thing they do and then call themselves a nerd. The degree they give themselves can vary from: full on nerd, half nerd, a bit of a nerd. It’s always juxtaposed with some characteristic indicating that they are still attractive. For example: “I’m a nerd that likes to play scrabble and do crossword puzzles, but I also love doing girly things like getting my hair and nails done. . so I guess that makes me 1/2 nerd and 1/2 beauty. . . .”    For the record, the occasional board game does not qualify you as a nerd, or as you are really trying to imply, smart. This would be like me playing a game of HORSE and then calling myself a jock.

4. “My friends describe me as . . .  ”

A jackass? There is nothing cute about having your friend write your profile for you. You are not being modest you are being pathetic. These always end up reading like a eulogy in the present tense. “Sarah is a fun loving, good spirited person who can always put a smile on  everyones face.”

5. The List

Many girls think they are being clever by making one word lists of arbitrary things they like. It usually comes in the format of : trivial, trivial, trivial, serious (repeat) .  . . Might look something like this: “I love rainy days, pringles, blue jeans, my family, Leonardo Di Caprio movies, orange tic tacs, diet pepsi, feeding the homeless . .  . ”

6. The Art Chic

Her taste is far more sophisticated than yours. She would list her favorite bands but you’ve probably never heard of them. She’s looking for a guy that can go on long rhetorical rants about how fucked up the system is. You can tell she is artistic and creative because she has art that other people created tattooed  on herself.

7. “I like a guy that can make me laugh. . .”

really?

8. “No Drama, No Bullshit”

I have come up with an easy way to find out who the biggest slut is in a group of girls without running the risk of contracting herpes. It’s whoever uses the word “slut” the most often. This algorithm can be applied to many other things. You feeling the need to address the issue of not wanting “drama” or “bullshit” leads me to believe that you are in fact a drama queen full of bull fucking shit.

9. The Smokin Hot Friend

Does not need to be in all the pictures you post on your dating profile. This is essentially shooting yourself in the foot. Your caption could say “Thats me on the left, next to the girl that looks like she could be a model.”  Beauty is relative and when guys see a 6 standing next to an 8 we’re going to go with the 8. Find yourself some uglier friends to take pictures with or learn how to work a little photoshop magic.

10 . All the aforementioned girls that never wrote me back!

Marge – ” I’ll have one coffee please.”

Bartender – “You mean a beer?”

Marge – “No, coffee.”

Bartender – “Beer?”

Marge – “C-O-. . ”

Bartender – “B – E . . ”

Perhaps I’m pointing the finger at the wrong decade. Maybe I should be blaming every guy in 1986 that decided they would look good with short hair on the top and long flowing locks in the back. The backlash of this fashion trend caused everyone to go to the extreme opposite in the next decade. Hence the invention of the “Step” haircut, which myself and many of my fellow classmates wore from 1991 to 1996, in which it is closely shaved on the back and sides but kept long on the top. Some notable television characters that wore this look ; Zack Morris (Saved by the Bell) Brad Taylor ( Home Improvement) Young Indiana Jones (played by River Phoenix)

After years of searching, and a seemingly endless number of embarrassing haircuts, I have been able to compile a list of characteristics that separate the good barbershops from the bad. If you happen to notice any or all of these things, you have come to the right place

1. There is a red-white-and-blue-striped pole outside the building and it is nowhere near the 4th of July.

2. The staff predominately consists of men that look old enough to be Vietnam veterans.

3. There is a pot of coffee with non-disposable cups sitting next to it for patrons to enjoy while they wait.

4. For an extra 5 or 10 dollars, you can opt to get a shave.

5. There is some sort of clipped out and framed newspaper article about the shop hanging on the walls that has turned a yellowish brown with age.

6. Perhaps in the article there is a picture of the owner who looks much younger and skinnier but has the exact same hair.

7. Prices are listed on an old white board with black magnet letters and numbers.

8. The employees think a weave is something their wives do to make baskets.

9. The gentleman who went before you asked for “the usual”.

10. It does not have the words “Super” or “Fantastic” in the name.

In my hometown of Simi Valley, I was able to find two places that matched this criteria. One is called The Razors Edge, no relation to the signature move done by the WWF wrestler Razor Ramone. The second is called The Mens Room, no relation to the place with urinals and sinks. I had recently moved to Marina Del Rey where I was attending school and spending an increasing amount of time. After much debate, I decided it was time to venture out and find a new barber shop closer to my apartment. It had taken me 10 years to find a place I finally liked, so I was reluctant to give this up. Economically however, I knew something had to be done. I was paying almost twice the normal rate for a trim, when you factored in the gas I was burning driving back and forth from the two cities just to get a haircut.

To explain what happened following this decision, I first need to give a short geography lesson. Marina Del Rey is a beautiful beachfront town surrounded by not so beautiful, not so beachfront towns. As suggested in the name, it has a well-kept marina filled with sailboats. An upscale plaza is built around this marina which is filled with high-end seafood restaurants and fancy art galleries that contain paintings of sailboats. If you are looking for a good location to have a post-graduation brunch or a pleasant birthday dinner, this is the perfect spot. However, if you are looking for a good location to score some crack, you need only walk one mile south where you will find yourself in Venice; a mecca of drugs, drug-related shootings, and scary looking bums that are strung out on drugs. Bordering the east side of Marina Del Rey is the city of Inglewood, a name which may sound familiar to you from various gangster rap songs. As Dr. Dre puts it “Inglewood always up to no good.”

One summer afternoon, I was driving back to my apartment from Culver City and noticed a barbershop on the east side of town less than two miles from my place. It was a hole in the wall crammed between a sandwich place and a liquor store. It had no visible advertisements outside other than the words “Barber Shop” written in old western looking font accompanied by a red-white-and blue striped spinning pole. It had been almost 8 months since my last trim and I was horribly overdue. In a moment of spontaneity, I pulled into a nearby supermarket parking lot.

I sat in my car and assessed my hair in the rearview mirror, which was now a giant Greg Brady-esq ball of curls. I cautiously openend my door and took a deep breath as I stepped out of my truck. The beaming sunlight reflection off the white stucco walls of the supermarket forced me to squint as I walked towards the door. When I got closer to the front, I developed a new nonchalant kind of stroll as if I was running a routine errand. I opened the heavy glass door with the hand written sign reading “Open” and was temporarily blinded by the change of light inside. When I got my vision back, I looked around and started to wish my temporary blindness was more permanent.

My first thought was to take two steps back and out the door, but this proved to be impossible since my entrance had caused a chiming sound that alarmed everyone, informing them of a new customer at the front. I stood awkwardly and rummaged through my pocket with my keys, as if I had just needed them to open the door and was now putting them away. A large black man with a pencil thin beard and fake diamonds in his ears turned off his electric razor and looked up at me. “Whatchu need brotha?” he asked as he jerked his head up slightly. “Um  . . . a haircut?” I asked, as if I was making some sort of outrageous request. He looked me up and down, then nodded his head behind him and said “Big T will get you when he’s done,” then turned his razor back on. An even larger black man with an even thinner beard looked up at me and nodded his head slightly.

I sat in a a chair between the two and watched Big T run his razor over the bald spot of the back of his customers head for about 5 minutes until the tedium got the best of me. I got the courage to advert my eyes somewhere else and noticed a white board with black magnet letters listing the specific services they rendered. Ironically, at the top of the alphabetical list was a haircut that fit my exact needs: “Afro’s – 15 dollars”. I wondered if they thought I purposely chose this place because of my unusually ethnic hair. Among the other choices were: Cornrows, Dreadlocks, Flat Tops, and Fades.

Next to this list was a poster with pictures of various hairstyles one could choose from. It looked like it could be a mock advertisement for the product Soul Glo in the Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America. The models were all black and had greasy jerry curls or Kid n Play-style high top fades circa 1990. The last time I had seen anything like it was in a Supercuts when I was nine. I had pointed to a picture of a model that looked like Vanilla Ice and desperately begged my parents to let them shave zig zags into the side of my head.

A new Jay-Z song came on the television mounted on the wall in which he sang about the 99 different problems he had, none involving women. The screen had a small icon in the bottom right corner that read BET, indicating the name of the station. I watched for a while until I found myself bobbing my head up and down while playing the drums on my lap and then quickly stopped.

Not wanting to look like I was enjoying the song too much I began to browse through the literature they had scattered about on a nearby coffee table. I noticed a magazine called “King” which is kind of like Maxim only if Sir-Mix-A-Lot chose all the models. The cover portrayed a mocha-skinned woman showing off her unusually large backside. I picked it up and began to thumb through the pages and furrow my eyebrows to indicate that I was reading the articles and not just looking at the pictures. In a small paragraph one of the models described her perfect man as being well groomed and clean cut. I wondered if they gave me one of those tight hightop fades with a neatly trimmed beard it would make her wanna get all up on my shit.

Quickly realizing the situation I was in, a skinny white kid looking through half naked pictures of black women in the middle of a barbershop that could have easily been the set of the 2002 Ice Cube movie, I set down the magazine and tried to make myself look occupied in other ways. I searched through my phone book desperately wishing any of the names on the screen would call me. I looked back up at Big T who was grazing his razor over the same bald spot he had been trimming for the past 10 minutes. I watched the other barber  whose progress was equally unnoticeable. I looked through my inbox and outbox and re-read all the text message conversations I had had over the past week. Finally, when my anxiety level had entered the red zone, I held the phone up to my ear and said “Hello” out loud as I stood up and started walking towards the door. “Hey whats up” I said, talking to the imaginary person on the other line while I opened the glass door and stepped outside and into the sweet release of freedom. I put down the phone when I got a safe distance away and lifted my hands up in the air like Tim Robbins did in Shawshank Redemption after he had finally broke out of prison. I called my girlfriend when I got in the car and when she answered, I started our conversation with “Holy shit, you will not believe what just happened to me.” The story I told her was slightly exaggerated in order to achieve a higher level of sensationalism. “I finally escaped after the drive by shooting was over” I explained.

I looked over across the table where Christina was sitting. Her dress wasn’t quite as form fitting as the bathing suit she had been wearing on the river earlier that day. Occasionally, she would lean over to laugh and I could see the line between winter and summer on her chest. She had tan, healthy looking skin, the kind you would see in a Noxzema commercial . She had long brown hair that bounced and shined and did all those things that are promised to you on the label of your shampoo bottle. Occasionally, she would flip it back and suddenly a Barry White song would play in my head.

I could see why Scott drank himself stupid, she would be a hard one for anybody to get over. I adverted my eyes to someone else at the table, scared she might catch me staring at her. Everyone else was too drunk and engaged in conversation to notice me watching them. I looked over at Scott again, whose attention was now drawn to the extra set of silverware in front of him. He unrolled the napkin like it contained the lost treasure of Atlantis. The five o’clock shadow he had the last time I saw him was now a three week beard. His hair covered most of his face and I hadn’t seen him look up and make eye contact with anyone for a good five minutes. I couldn’t tell if he was in deep thought about Christina or if he was just trying to look like he was in deep thought about Christina. I wondered what he would do if he knew what I was thinking about.

The trouble started earlier that morning. We were pre-partying before we went to the river, which was before dinner, which was before going out to the bars, so technically you could say we were pre-pre-pre-partying. “You know what we should do?” I asked Christina enthusiastically. She leaned in and whispered “What?” I held up my index finger like I was about to reveal a genius idea. “We should drink this champagne straight from the bottle! Real O.G. style!” I then put it to my lips and lifted it over my head, not  taking into account the fact that it was  completely full and chugging out of it from a vertical position might be a problem. The force of the sparkling liquid was too much and I quickly spit it all out in a kind of spray mist form. Half of it came out of my mouth, half out of my nose, and all of it covered the kitchen counter. My eyes teared up and I wiped my face with the sleeve of my shirt. We both looked at each and burst into laughter. A little more came out of my nose.

“I’m back!” Scott announced as he swung open the door and clumsily walked inside. Christina and I were the only two up, everyone else was still sleeping. Back from 7-11? Back from McDonald’s? Back from spending the night in the dumpster? “Diiidjggyoou know that the bars open at 7 a.m. this weekend?” He said out loud to no one in particular. Christina grabbed my wrist and gave me a look that seemed to say “It’s gonna be a long day isn’t it?” I then lifted my glass of champagne and gave her a cheers. As I did this, she moved her hand onto my leg and whispered in my ear “We should make out,” then set her glass down and walked up the stairs. I watched Scott smoke his cigarette outside and tried my best to hide the shock from my face.

He had the appearance of someone who had just been dumped. It was like something out of a bad movie: the beard, the long hair, the drunken slurs, the shabby unwashed shirt. It all seemed a little theatrical. “You can not hook up with Christina, you can not hook up with Christina, you can NOT hook up with Christina.” I repeated over and over again in my head. So far I had a perfect record. Not once had I ever fooled around with a friend’s girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, although, not once had I ever really had an offer.

I could hear the pounding of footsteps descending from the second floor. I looked up to see her bare legs making their way down the staircase. She was hot. Much hotter than me. It would be hard to describe her hotness without adding at least one more adjective like say “Smokin Hot”.  She came down in a two-piece bathing suit and asked me if I could put lotion on her back. I felt like I was in a scene from “American Pie 7: The gang goes to Chico, California.”  I tried to rub it in as quickly and dutifully as possible, as if I were executing some common household chore like wiping down the kitchen counter. A small panic attack came over me when I realized she was going to be seeing me with my shirt off very soon.

We bought three 30 packs of bud light for 12 people, equaling about eight beers a person. They were gone by the time we left the river. We were constantly swatting away mosquitoes while we walked back to the cars in our muddy sandals and wet bathing suits. It was the middle of May and we all had that first day of summer sunburn. Everyone called out their order in the shower line as we drove home. “I got first shower!” Chris exclaimed. “No! you’re after me! It’s my house I have first shower!”

“Ok, second!”

“Third!”

“Fourth!”

My number ended up being one of those high ones that meant there would be no hot water.

I had successfully avoided her all day. On the river, I made sure there was a minimum of at least 3 to 4 inner tubes separating us at all times. When we got back to the apartment, I showered downstairs where all the other guys did, and she showered 24 steps above me where all the other girls did.  At dinner we had 6 people, 6 chairs, 6 plates and 6 sets of silverware in between us. It had been almost 10 hours with nary a word spoken. This, however, was all before we got to the bar, where I knew the real challenge would be waiting for me.

First off, I had to dance with her. It’s not my fault the d.j. was playing the jams and none of the other girls wanted to break out of the little circular fortress they had created. She set down her fruity blue drink, bent over in front of me and started dancing like I was 50 Cent and she was auditioning for a spot in my next video. I then had to smack her ass a little bit. It’s not my fault she was shaking it in my crotch, it would have been rude not to. She started shouting the lyrics of the song with everyone else on the dance floor. “To the Windoooooooww  to the Wall!!! . . to the sweat drop down my balls!! . . to all the bitches crawl!!” I did a quick scan around the room and briefly caught eyes with Scott who was dancing with another girl and trying to pretend like he didn’t notice us. “I’m gonna get another beer,” I shouted in her ear. What I really wanted was to do was run into the bathroom and splash a bunch of cold water on my face like they do in the movies. Perhaps I’d give myself a little pep talk with generic motivational phrases like “Stay strong” or “You can do this.” Instead, I took a sip of my drink and said “”Ok” when Christina asked me if I would walk her to the bathroom. It’s not my fault we both needed to pee at the exact same time.

We walked to a corner of the bar that was partially secluded from everything else. When we got to a point where no one could see us anymore, she turned around and gave a smirk. “I don’t really have to go to the bathroom,” she admitted as she inched towards my face keeping her eyes locked with mine. “This is it” I thought to myself. “This is the moment.” Her lips were now dangerously close to mine. “THIS . . is the defying moment in your life, Brian, when you find out what you are made of. THIS . . is the moment your character is put to the test revealing what kind of man you are. THIS . . . . . . is what it feels like to have Christina’s tongue down your throat!”

Before I could make the right decision, we were in a full on make out session. Hands on her waist? Maybe one in her hair? She buried her fingers in my hair and I grabbed her waist and started to do one of those “baby go, no stay, get off me, don’t leave” kind of dances. “Well you’re already making out with her, so you might as well just keep making out with her,” I thought to myself as I changed the position of my face and went in for some more. It’s not my fault she smelled like roses and tasted like sugar plums.

It ended as quickly as it started and before I knew it, I was following her back to the other side of the bar through a crowded dance floor. I tried to collect my thoughts. I knew I should feel guilty, or ashamed, or at least something other than an excitement I hadn’t experienced since Christmas morning when I was 8 years old and Santa brought me the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sewer Army Tube Assault Craft.

We arrived back to the table where our group was sitting and I sat down with a big grin on my face. “Hey Jenny!” I said cheerfully to one of Christina’s friends. She shot me a chilling look that seemed to go right through the windows of my eyes and  into my soul. “ I saw what you two did and it’s nothing to smile about” she snapped at me, then sat back in her seat and did one of those swiveling head things that black girls do, expecting an explanation. I wanted to come up with an excuse. “You must have me mistaken with the other white guy with the huge Afro and bright turquoise shirt.” Or “ You mean the suckface shot? Where one person takes a shot and then has to make out with the first person they see? It’s not big deal,people do it all the time, here you wanna try it?” Or “ I don’t know what you’re talking about, I can’t really remember where I just was, last thing I seem to remember was Christina slipping something into my drink . . . matter of fact, I’m feeling kinda sleepy now.” Any of these would have sufficed but unfortunately I was not quick enough. Instead all that I could come up with was  “ . . .oh.”

“BE MINE” seemed like a good start, but then again, she might perceive it as bossy and demanding. I wanted her to be mine, but not because she was forced to.  I put that one in the “Maybe” pile. “CALL ME” was interesting, but would that mean that I would have to write my phone number in the card? Or did it imply that she should ask me for it? “LOVE HER” didn’t make any sense… why would I want to tell her that I love someone else? It seemed kind of rude, like giving your Mom a Mothers Day card that says “I have the best Dad in the world”.  ”CUTIE PIE” and “SWEETIE” were a given; I put them in the “Yes” pile without hesitation. They were fairly neutral and vague, which allowed me to put in some of the more serious ones like “TRUE LOVE” or “MY GIRL”. These proclamations by themselves might be too forward, but mixed with a generic yet still heart warming, can’t-help-but-smile compliment like “Hey, I think you are a cutie pie” provided the perfect balance. It even allowed me to toy with the idea of putting in some of the more racy expressions like “LETS KISS”, which I cowardly removed at the last minute before sealing the envelope.

I had a total of 30 Valentines, all with illustrations of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them. Ryan would soon know that I thought he was “mondo to the max”. Jen would soon know that I wanted her to “have a pizza my heart”. John would soon know that I hoped his Valentines Day was “totally radical”. This left one more Valentine to give, but this one was a real card. Lying to my friends, I told them I had homework I needed to catch up on. I rode my bike down to the supermarket and searched through the overwhelmingly large selection of Valentines Day cards there were to choose from. This proved to be even more difficult than picking which candy hearts to put inside.

My selection grew narrower as I started eliminating the options. “Love” was out. If the feeling wasn’t mutual, the results could be disastrous.  I needed to find a milder substitute for the word. Cards with pictures of flowers, especially red roses, seemed too cheesy, even for a nine-year-old, and were immediately dismissed. I considered myself to be a funny person, but there was a time and a place for laughs and this was not one of them. Humorous – gone. Cards with cartoon people usually depicted adults, which would have been weird and confusing: ”Dear Kelly, Happy Valentines Day from some old guy that is supposed to represent me”. Cartoon people – gone. Cards with more than two sentences usually got too deep and mushy. Cards with more than two sentences that are too deep and mushy -gone. All that remained were cards with a bunch of cute, furry mammals holding hearts and saying some kind of pun related to the name of their species. K.H. would soon know that I thought she was “Beary special”.

I walked to school with a handful of small Valentines placed in plain white envelopes, and K.H’s card. It was twice the size of the others and had a heavy pink envelope around it that was bulging from the carefully selected mint candies I had stuffed in it.  In elementary school, everyone had to be included. “There are 31 people in the class so make sure you get enough,” our teacher had warned us. This meant that even Andrew “Douche” Dynam, who talks to himself, eats glue, doesn’t cut his fingernails, and wears the same turquoise windbreaker and grey sweatpants to school everyday, would still get a Valentine. 31 to be exact . Most people just passed out generic cards without even bothering to write the recipients name inside. The girls would place a pink or yellow or red envelope in front of me and mumble “Happy Valentines Day” under their breath, before walking up to the next desk and repeating the process. I carefully slipped K.H’s card underneath the pile that was growing on her desk when she wasn’t looking.

My best friend Nate and I took out our cards after school and read them all while we shoved heart-shaped chocolates into our mouths. “She gave you yours in a yellow envelope, a color she also used for Andrew Dynam,” I told Nate. “Yes but she gave you yours in a PINK envelope, the very same color she used for her best friend Lauren. Perhaps pink means that she sees you as just a friend,” Nate keenly observed. “Besides, she looked me right in the eye when she handed me my card and told me to have a Happy Valentines Day. She didn’t say anything to you” he boasted. I thought about this for a second. “Well, maybe she has a hard time talking to me because she likes me and is too shy or embarrassed to say anything,” I rationalized.  We both optimistically opened our envelopes hoping to find some kind of clue that would reveal her secret crush on us. Mine had a picture of a frog holding a red heart. She had gone with a mammal card too! Well, technically a frog is an amphibian: frogs lay eggs, go through metamorphosis and are cold blooded… but still, close enough!  I knew this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence; she must have had the very same thoughts I did. “I’m jumping for joy that you are my . . . friend.” My heart sank when i saw that last word. It appeared Nate’s theory was correct. But then, I noticed, just underneath that, written in blue pen, was “Love, Kelly Hensler”. My eyes fixated on her bubbly signature. I clapped it shut when Nate tried to peek over, then quickly opened it back up and looked inside to check and make sure it was still there, as if her romantic sentiment was a one-time gift that would disappear if I ever closed the card or stopped staring at it. I turned it around, indicating to Nate that he could look but not touch. My finger was pointing to the big L word on the bottom and his eyes widened when he saw it. “Does this mean you guys are gonna be like boyfriend and girlfriend now?” he asked. I looked back down at the card and answered “Yea. . . I think so.”

]]> http://www.ourthursday.com/2010/02/12/my-4th-grade-valentine/feed/ 3 http://www.ourthursday.com/2009/12/28/k-h/ http://www.ourthursday.com/2009/12/28/k-h/#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:30:04 +0000 brian http://lukeollett.com/blog/?p=722

Her name was Kelly . . . → Read More: K.H.]]>

Her name was Kelly Hensler, but we called her K.H. My progress over the years with her could be described as dismal at best. In first grade, I threw powdered chalk in her best friend’s eyes. K.H. turned to me and shouted “What did you do that for!?” then followed her friend into the bathroom. In second grade, I asked her if she wanted to see me make my face turn red. I breathed heavily for a minute, then let out all the air in my lungs. I put my arms around my neck and strained all the muscles in my body as hard as I could. I think this made me pass out because when I got up from the floor, she was in a casual conversation with a friend and it seemed like a considerable amount of time had passed. In 3rd grade, I stood right behind her in the ragtag choir our class had assembled for the annual school play. In rehearsal I thought it was funny to sing not just the boys part, but also the girls, with a much higher pitch voice. She turned around and glared at me when I did this.

Each year she got a circle around her yearbook picture, accompanied by two or three hearts. I would draw lines connecting her picture to the hearts as if they were radiating off of her. When looking through some of my other friends’ yearbooks, I would see multiple girls circled. I considered this tacky. While they would tentatively place circles around multiple girls with a pencil, so the mistake could easily be erased, I confidently drew a heavy circle around K.H. with a ball point pen. I paid no regard for any other classmates’ pictures I might be destroying in the process (sorry Keith Hayes and Jessica Hill).

Nate Lufkin, my best friend at the time, felt the same way about her. His success with her had been equal, if not worse, than mine. We decided to combine forces and collect as much information on her that we could, basically anything that might give us a better chance. We had plenty of practice observing our parents, neighbors and older brothers. We developed code words like “K.H.” to disguise our conversations, and we had safety spots where we would meet up before and after a mission. After my parents bought me a junior spy kit for my 9th birthday, equipped with 2 walkie talkies, binoculars, and morse code charts, I considered myself an expert.  Perched in the tree out front of my parents house for about 20 minutes, I would hear a “KSCCCHH 5 minutes till SB over!” . . ” Copy that N.L. meet me in the L.R.. . .over and out.” We would then take a 30 minute break from our espionage to watch Saved by the Bell in my parents living room.

We knew that B.D., or more commonly know to outsiders as Brian’s Dad, would arrive home between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m. We knew that B.D. would park his white 1991 Toyota Corolla on the sidewalk out front and then walk to the front door with his brief case in hand. We also knew that if one dropped a rotten orange on him while making this walk to the front door, he would get extremely upset.

We knew that N.B., a.k.a Nate’s brother, would return from Junior High at about 3:30, sometimes alone but more often than not, accompanied by 2 or more friends. We knew that they would shut the door to his room and listen to Nirvana and Pearl Jam albums for hours at a time. We knew that if one were caught peaking through the blinds of the window or crouched by the door, one would have to go through intense interrogation and ridicule. The door would quickly swing open as I was hunched down trying to hear their conversation. “Hey John! . . I was just umm . . just you know, securing the purmataters,” I’d say as he towered over me. “I uhhh really like that song you dudes were listening to about smelly teens!” I’d plead in a diplomatic voice. “It’s parameters, you fuckin dipshit, and the song is called “Smells Like Teen Spirit!” he’d say as he quickly slammed the door in my face. I’d scratch down in my notebook “per-am-a-ters . . Smells Like Teen Spirit . .  don’t disturb while in room.”

One day, we decided we were finally ready to put our finely tuned skills to the test. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was one of grave importance. It would be the mission to end all missions. We were going to spy on K.H.

Time: 1300 hours

Destination : Indian Hills

Mission: Espionage

Objective: Acquire all possible information on the subject known as K.H.

I rifled through my closet looking for my binoculars.  I hastily shoved them in my backpack, along with my shoes (for hiking), my walkie talkie (for communication), my water bottle (for hydration and possibly catching tadpoles as a side project), and my bag of teddy grahams (for nutrition). After a small debate, we decided to put on our black hooded sweatshirts. Just in case we were caught, they would be the perfect camouflage for hiding in the dirt hills of Simi Valley during broad daylight. We laced up our rollerblades and headed out.

There were practice runs before this mission. I would tell my dad we forgot something at a friends house in Indian Hills. He’d drive us around the neighborhood as we scoped things out and took shrewd mental notes of the landscape and terrain. After weeks of detective work, in and out of the classroom, we had compiled 15 numbers.

581 2756: telephone number

9: age

1476: address

7: times we thought she looked at us during recess

11: times we thought she looked at us during lunch

We had driven by her house only a couple times. Each time we did, Nate and I would sink down so low in our seats that it looked like the driver of the vehicle was alone. I would look up at the blue sky and tree branches covered with leaves as they spun by in a chaotic manner. I would always wait an extra 5 seconds longer than I needed to before finally lifting my head up past the door where it would be visible to outsiders. “Did you see anything?” one of us would ask excitedly afterwards. “Yea I think so, what about you?” . . “Yea I think so.

We took off our rollerblades where the gravel met the dirt and started hiking through the hills that separated our neighborhood from the Indian Hills neighborhood. We passed by the creek where we would normally look for tadpoles. When we got to the top of Bald Hill, we could see the cul-de-sac where K.H. lived. From here on out, it was whispers and hand gestures. We set our backpacks down behind some tall bushes that separated the mountains from suburbia. We started making our way to the target destination, jumping behind parked cars, trees, and bushes every time we heard a car drive by. When we got close enough to the house, we assessed the situation from a side yard nearby.

“I think we can get a clear shot of the front door from behind those trees across the street. What do you think?” Nate asked. “Too risky.” I replied. “I say we hide behind those bushes in the neighbors lawn. We won’t be able to see the front door but its got a clear shot of the mailbox. Someone has to go out and get the mail right?” He looked around further to see if there were any better options. “Ok,” he whispered.

We were wedged between a row of trees and bushes, concealed from all angles. We sat impatiently, watching and constantly shooshing each other every time we heard a twig snap. “Do you think K.H gets the mai. . ” My question was interrupted by the loud obtrusive sound of a garage door being opened. I looked to my right and Nate was in a full sprint down the sidewalk, already 2 houses down. I dropped the binoculars in my hand and started chasing after him. We ran back to the spot where we left our backpacks. “Did . . . you . . see . . .anything?” I asked, in between taking big gulps of air. “I . . think. . so, ” he replied. “Did . . you?” . . “I . . think . . so.”

We caught our breath and then discussed in full detail what had just happened. What we heard, what we saw, what we were thinking. “I have to go back!” I exclaimed, realizing I left a pair of binoculars in the neighbors yard with the initials B.P. on them and my parents’ home telephone number. “She finds those and calls my number and we’re dead!”

Time: 1500 hours

Destination: K.H.’s neighbors’ bushes

Mission: Retrieval

Objective: Safely return binoculars without being caught

“You stay back here and be on the lookout, in case we get ambushed. If you see or hear anything just yell PEA SOUP.” I started to walk out when I heard a car driving by. “Pea soup!” Nate said in a screaming kind of whisper. I jumped back behind the cover of the bushes. Whew, that was close!

I walked down the sidewalk, back towards the house, crouched down like I was ducking behind some sort of invisible wall. I jumped behind the side of the house where we had met up earlier and looked around to see if there was anyone out. I darted across the street and into the bushes where we were hiding before. “Yesssss” I said in a Napoleon Dynamite kind of way as I picked up my binoculars. Just as I did this, I heard the front door of the neighbors’ house open. I ran back to our spot with my hood over my head and my binoculars in my hand. “PEA SOUP!” I shouted. “PEA SOUP!” Nate timidly peeked his head out of the bushes to see me frantically running. I waved my arms at the direction of the hills, indicating for him to “Run! Save yourself! It’s too late for me!” I jumped behind the bushes and grabbed my backpack. We both started running down the dirt hill.

“What happened?” Nate finally asked when we got far enough into the hills where we couldn’t see civilization anymore. “The front door started to open when I grabbed my binoculars. I ran as soon as I heard the noise.” He stopped and thought about this for a second. “Was it K.H.?” he asked in a very excited tone. “Yea . . . I think so”