1995 — TWO
Hi I just finished taking my tests, I told
Carl what I had for him, he told me to give
him them latter. I hope that it is not this cold on
friday. On friday I’m riding Dave Bauer’s bus over
to his house, then we are walking over to your’
house. I talked to Frank Bruno, and he said that
he won’t tell Michelle, but he told Jackie. I can’t
believe that Primo is leaving on Monday. Oh yay
that Girl Shannon came up to me this morning,
and said “by any chance did you try to call me
last night,” and I said no, then she goes “my mom
didn’t pay the phone bill so the phone got shut
off.” The teacher left, and everyone is throwing
pappers. I cant believe that you Guy’s got a
port-a-poty, for the party. Well the bell is going
to ring, and I have to go to music
p.s. is Jackie Bruno in school
to-day
James
Wasn’t I lucky to have a beau sending me sweet, eloquent, romantic love letters like this? Ones that run on and on with no line breaks, indents or paragraphs? No clue to when his next thought is starting or the next one ending. Story of his life probably. Poor fellow did not make it past ninth grade. He gave me my first kiss and it lifted me off my feet so much that for a long time I gauged kisses off the level of giddyness he elevated me to with that primitive lip-lock. To “Red Light Special” by TLC at a school dance.
I knew James from around the hallways but the only time I had ever really spent with him was when I was with Primo. Primo and James both lived in town and had parents who could give a flying fuck what their children were up to so a lot of time was passed getting high at Primo’s and James’ with friends. This group included Frank and Jaqueline Bruno, Valerie DiGiovanni, Cadence Smith, Dave Bauer and Carl Udder, all of whom lived in town except for Carl, Cadence and I. We would walk around town from the time school let out until whenever we found a ride home or whatever. We’d eventually find out way to the parking lot behind the local supermarket, where the boys would skateboard on homemade ramps and the girls would smoke cigarettes and otherwise self-destruct sitting against a wall: burning holes in our arms, cutting lines along our wrists with shards of glass or seeing how long one could take getting the top of her palm scratched out at a furious speed by another’s fingernail. I still have the scars. Other townies from school included Joe and James Perezutti, Penny Vachel, Jesse Goodson, Jean Kruger, Ben Schroderman, Steve and Virginia Miller, Ezra Wendell, Scott McCafferty, Casey McKenzie, Jay Cindrello and Mike LaMonte. It was always guaranteed you could find at least two of them hanging in the parking lot in town on any given day. If it was raining, everyone would be at either Valerie’s or the Perezutti’s house. In both houses the basements were the designated areas for illegal activities of all sorts, from drug dealing (that should go without saying) to statutory rape to money laundering.
My house, located far enough away from town according to the perspective of someone two to three years away from even a Learner’s Permit, was to be host to my first party, the first of what would eventually be many more. After my parents recovered from this one at least. James’ was right, there was indeed a “port-a-poty” - my folks planned to refuse entrance to any teenagers in the house to use the bathroom, so they rented a port-a-potty which I did not see any one of my friends occupy the entire night. Primo and James did use it in the beginning of the night; to dispose of a bat they had found and killed with a broomstick in the barn’s loft. We videotaped the beginning of the event, and then I brought out a bottle of tequila I had found in the liquor cabinet (which was promptly emptied out by my mother and relocated somewhere I’ll never know to this day). All I remember is that someone ate the worm, and that the party was a roaring success, if roaring success means establishing oneself at the pinnacle of proper white trash teenage delinquent society.
