I, Danny Boyer, was a fourth grade love slut
I loved Julie Sadowski because she sat next to me. I loved Ilana Shabanov because she shared a sandwich with me once. I loved Eileen Dougharty because I saw her at the dime store and she might have waved at me. In my community of Arcadia Valley, Missouri, there were 42 girls in the fourth grade class and that year I fell in love at least 50 times.
(Love, like kickball, allows one to call do-overs.) Total Love Slut.
Perhaps I shouldn’t judge myself so harshly. I was young. It was a time of sowing wild oats and such, eh? And it wasn’t as if I was a playboy. In fact, during that school year I’d had three serious relationships.
Serious Relationship #1: Patricia Snyder. She was the prettiest girl in my grade. And the most popular. Which, in elementary school, was the same thing. She had the most wonderful laugh. It would start as a small little giggle and then ramp up until she was in serious bend-over-bust-a-gut mode.
For almost an entire month in Mrs. Branstetter’s class, I stared at Patricia and daydreamed about our future. What would life be like now that we were boyfriend/girlfriend? I imagined hanging out at recess, sharing our deepest secrets, talking about the most intimate things. I could tell her which of Charlie’s Angels was my favorite and she could tell me if bubble gum lip-gloss tasted more like Hubba Bubba or Bubbleliscous.
I imagined junior high. I would be on the basketball team (and somehow good at it) and she would be the cheerleader. On the weekends, she would drag out her pom poms and we’d practice her routines together.
I imagined high school. We’d talk all gooshy and plan dates for the weekend. I’d buy her a corsage every time we went out. Sometimes it’d be a simple one she could pin on her blouse, but other times it’d be a huge one she’d have to slip on her wrist. I’d take her to a movie and then to Pizza Hut. Over the deep-dish pepperoni she would lift her corsage and sniff it deeply. It’d be great.
Unfortunately, Patricia and I were not above having problems. You see, Patricia had absolutely no idea we were boyfriend/girlfriend. So there was only one thing to do. I had to tell her.
One day, when Mrs. Branstetter let us out for recess, I ran out to the swings and took the very first one. It was a spot I could lay in wait, with an eye on the door. When Patricia came out, I waved, but she didn’t see me. I called out, but she didn’t hear me. She just kept walking toward the slide, where Kevin Hill was climbing the ladder. (Kevin Hill lived three houses from me and rode my school bus.) I jumped from the swing and ran toward her, flailing my arms, calling her name.
“Trisha! Trisha!” (Because she hadn’t yet grown into Patricia.)
Finally she turned around.
“What?” she asked.
Just one word, but an entire Encyclopedia Britannica of rejection. I didn’t answer. I just stood there, like a dork, and watched as she ran off toward the slide. Toward Kevin Hill.
In that moment I hated Kevin Hill. I didn’t care that he was the only black kid in our grade. Didn’t care that his family was the only black family in all of Arcadia Valley. Didn’t care that I wasn’t supposed to hate Kevin Hill. I did. I hated his tootsie-roll colored skin. I hated his wide nose, pressed against his face like he was always looking in a window. And, most of all, I hated his smile, so white that Mrs. Branstetter had once called it “Brilliant”.
Kevin Hill slid down the slide, landed, and paused at the bottom. Then he smiled. Like he was gloating that he’d just stolen my girl. Smiled! Brilliant.
But I couldn’t focus on him. I had to move on. After all, sometimes relationships don’t work out. But with each breakup we gain maturity. It’s just one step in our journey toward real love. So we stand up, we brush ourselves off, and put ourselves back out there.
Serious Relationship #2: Laura Hudson. Now this was completely different. It was a few weeks before the end of the school year, a Friday and we were outside playing kickball. I was up, nervous and waiting for the ball to come rolling toward me, when I heard someone yell out, “Kick that ball!”
It was Laura Hudson. She was awesome. She was the fastest running girl in our class. She was a shoe-in to win every impromptu lugie contests (as lugie contests were apt to be). And, according to whispers, she was starting to develop. Which, if I’d heard right, was a good thing.
She kept yelling for me to kick that ball and I did. She cheered and I ran. She cheered more and I looked over to her. And she waved. I didn’t know what I’d done to warrant her attention, but suddenly I had a passion to write her a note offering the singular most important multiple choice question one can be asked in their fourth grade year: Do you like me, yes or no? She would put a checkmark in the little box and our fate would be sealed as boyfriend and girlfriend.
The rest of that afternoon, I planned. I would write the perfect note. I would focus my attention on the penmanship – penmanship guaranteeing eternal I-like-you-ness. I would fold it with such care that, without even opening it, she would know it was a love note.
Unfortunately, our love did not blossom in quite such a sophisticated manner, for Laura had her own ideas. When the last bell of the day rang out, Laura ran over to me and blurted, “Will you be my boyfriend?” (She had so much to learn about love.) Still, I said yes.
The weekend was heaven. Every Patricia Snyder image I had in my head – the bubble gum lip-gloss, the cheerleading practices, the corsage-sniffing at Pizza Hut – now had a new star. Laura Hudson. When my mom asked me to take out the trash, I let out a big sigh and with dreamy eyes replied oookkkaaayy. And the trash would be light, as if it were the most perfect trash in the world. I had a girlfriend. I had joined the ranks of that strange breed that could define themselves with the “n”. Danny-n-Laura. Heart. Arrow.
Monday morning I was so ready to be the guy with a girlfriend, but I walked into class and, well… The taunting of my peers kept me from happiness.
Eric Hedrick yelled out, “Hey Danny, where’s your girlfriend?” And then he laughed. And Curtis Ivester snickered. And Shannon Bone pointed. Laura was with Mary Henderson and Becky Smith in the corner whispering behind their hands. Everyone was looking at me, half were laughing, the other half whispering.
I sat down in my seat, put my pencil in the pencil groove at the top of my desk, and spun it and spun it and spun it. People tried to talk to me and I ignored them. Laura waved at me and I ignored her. When the lunch bell rang, Laura ran over to me and asked if I was her boyfriend or not.
“Not,” I said.
One row over and two seats up, Kevin Hill turned around and smiled. The audacity. He’d stolen one girlfriend from me, and now was taking pleasure that I’d lost another. Smiled. Brilliant.
I didn’t know exactly what was wrong. Hadn’t I been striving for a girlfriend all year? Now I had one, yet I denied her? Love confused me. It kicked me. Beat me. Love was Andre the Giant and I was a mere stain on the wrestling mat of life. I was ready to give up on love. To quit. To accept the fact that I’d be alone the rest of my life.
The last day of school was PLAY DAY. Which meant makeshift relay lanes were set up in the field next to the school and all the kids competed in races of the sack, three-legged, and wheelbarrow varieties. Ribbons were awarded after the events – blue first place ribbons, red second place ribbons, white third place ribbons, and light blue honorable mention ribbons. (The latter was supposed to reward racers for their participation, but really just made it easy to identify the losers.)
That year, I only received light blue ribbons. I mean, every year I only received light blue ribbons, but that year I had a reason. Love had zapped my energy, leaving me just a shell of a boy. At the end of the day I moped about and waited for the bus with my light blue ribbons shoved into my pocket. The bus pulled up. I slowly boarded, trudging to the very back, plopping into the seat. I wanted to go home. I wanted to forget the fourth grade school year had ever happened.
But then, Kevin Hill boarded the bus. He was carrying his three blue ribbons, the real blue, the first place blue. I slid down in the seat, hoping he’d sit up front. But no, he came all the way back and sat in the seat across the aisle from me.
“Hey, man,” he said.
I moaned and turned toward the window, hoping he’d leave me alone. But he didn’t.
”Want to go bike riding this weekend?”
I turned and looked at him. He looked at me. And he smiled.
Serious Relationship #3: Kevin Hill.
He had tootsie-roll colored skin. A nose pressed against his face like he was always looking in a window. And a smile, a smile that was brilliant.
Darwyn Jones‘s fiction has appeared in Windy City Times, Hair Trigger and the anthologies, SIN and Grimm and Grimmer. His more blurb-y writings have found their way into Chicago’s entertainment website metromix.com and the Not For Tourists Guidebook to Chicago. When allowed, he reads aloud, usually with Reading Under Influence (RUI) and 2nd Story, where he is proud to be a company member.