Praise for VALENTINE’S DAY by Don De Grazia:
“Hold onto your hearts, folks, this eminently readable tale about the redemptive power of pre-genital love is sweeter than an ice cream soda served with two straws.”
— Don De Grazia
By Don De Grazia
“Valentine” was my stripper name. One day, after my lunchtime shift at the Hun-ee-Suckle Gentleman’s Club, I put my tassels and g-string back in my locker, got dressed, and walked to catch the bus to that shooting gallery in the abandoned building, so I could trade in the crumpled dollar bills that all those gross men had thrown at me. You know–for a fix. As I walked to the bus stop, I saw a piece of notebook paper floating in the gutter. It was all folded up into a triangle, like how kids do when they play that football game where you flick the paper “football” back and forth on the desk. It reminded me of the time I played that game in 3rd grade with a boy named Tuck. Tuck liked the crusts cut off of his peanut butter and jellies. He wouldn’t eat a PB&J if there was any trace of crust on the Wonderbread. Tuck was the only boy in class who didn’t call me “Tubs” because I was so chubby back then. It was like he was blind to all that baby fat. It was like he saw something beautiful inside me.
Anyway, one time we were playing the folded-up-paper football game and I let Tuck win, like I always did, because I liked to see the way his big brown eyes lit up right below the bangs of his shiny bowl cut. Then I gave him the “football” and whispered in his ear that he should wait until he got home, and then unfold it. I walked home feeling excited, but I forgot all about the paper football as soon as I saw that big, yellow moving truck in front of our house. Mom was crying and dad was standing there looking like he’d just lost at the superbowl of paper football. My little brother Petey waddled up to me, took out his pacifier, and said: “Pawpaw got fie-ewed. Ow we gonna get stahwved to def?” I patted his head and said, firmly, “No, Sport. No, we’re not. Let’s go find you a coloring book. Or two.”
Next day was Saturday, and as we followed that big truck in our rusty, wood-sided station wagon, I said goodbye forever to the Dairy Queen where I had my first chocolate Coke, and to the Post Office where I sent that letter to Santa telling him that in lieu of presents that year I just wanted the big guy to talk to my daddy and help him stop drinking. I had heard that phrase “in lieu of” on the TV once when Mom was watching General Hospital while she held a bag of frozen green beans to her swollen eye. And I also said goodbye to Tuck, who I saw riding his Schwinn so fast his butt never touched the banana seat—he was riding toward my house with this really determined expression on his face. He looked up with those big, brown eyes, just in time to see me press my hand up against the window glass. As we pulled away, he jumped off his bike and held up the paper football. It was unfolded, and I could read my own handwriting: Do You Like ME? YES or NO? Check 1.
And I saw the big, red X Tuck had made in the YES box, and then he shrunk away until there was nothing but a gasoline rainbow in his place.
And then the bus came, and brought me back to my stripper-junkie reality. And then that bus left. Without me. I knew it would take me a long time to find Tuck, wherever he was. But I had time, didn’t I? Sure I did. Plenty of it. That’s pretty much all I had. Time. And you got to do something with your time in this life, right? So why not that?
DON DE GRAZIA is a full-time fiction writing professor at Columbia College Chicago, where he also earned his BA and MFA. After completing his master’s thesis, American Skin, De Grazia sent it off to London’s prestigious publisher, Jonathan Cape, who offered him a contract. In January ’98, American Skin was published in the U.K. Hailed as an American classic, the book was so highly acclaimed by critics that it caught the attention of publishers around the world, and in April 2000, American Skin was released in the U.S. by Scribner. A flood of positive reviews appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. It is now in its fourth printing and was recently anthologized in The Outlaw Bible of American Fiction. A member of the Screenwriters Guild of America, De Grazia is currently adapting the script for American Skin. He has written for the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, and other publications. He resides in Chicago, where he is at work on his second novel, Reel Shadows, a chapter of which appeared in the March 2009 issue of TriQuarterly. De Grazia is also the co-founder of Come Home Chicago, a series that celebrates our city’s unique storytelling tradition with readings and entertainment held at the legendary Underground Wonder Bar.