After our non-dance, it was pretty obvious that Katie had just used me as an entry point to the party. So I did what anyone should have done in that situation. I danced by myself.
I didn’t intend to dance by myself. The sting of my zombie realization was too fresh for me to do anything fun. But dancing was my only choice.
There are very few situations where someone has no choice but to dance. Maybe someone is shooting at their feet in an old western, yelling “dance, monkey, dance!” Perhaps they’re in a coming-of-age movie where dance is the only way for those young whippersnappers to express themselves. Or, in my case, they are shoved into the middle of a circle and have to choose between fight or flight.
I’d been to enough USY events to understand that most high school dances consist of circles of half a dozen to a dozen students dancing not too close to each other. Sometimes, the circle becomes an opportunity for a student to show off, or for a couple to try to demonstrate just how in love they are by grinding their pelvises against each other’s knees. Or the circle can become one more place for Scarlet Daly to try to embarrass you.
What Scarlet didn’t realize when she pushed me into the middle of that circle was that I was not the same meek kid who had tried to defend myself by quoting Gone with the Wind. I had spent the last three years in USY as part of dance circles—just not in front of anyone who went to Hunter.
So as the music played, I danced. Whether I was an objectively good dancer or not didn’t matter. I was so much better than everyone expected me to be, I may as well have been Beyoncé. You know what? Still a strange sentence to write.
I danced and I danced and I danced. And as the crowd started chanting “Go Steve!”, two senior girls I didn’t know jumped in the circle to dance with me. I went from humiliation and regret to dancing with two other people’s dates in the length of one song.
As the song finished, everyone cheered, and the two seniors hugged me. Well, not everyone cheered. I saw Scarlet fuming. I caught her eye, smiled, mouthed thank you, and started dancing to the next song.
Rejection is an odd thing—it only matters if you give it the power to matter. If you’ve ever called into a radio contest or played the lottery, you know that rejection without consequences exists. Why don’t we get upset when we’re not the ninety-ninth caller? Why don’t we cry when we scratch off a ticket to find it doesn’t have our numbers? Because we’ve already accepted those things as possibilities before we extended ourselves. And relationships are no different.
“Most people,” my brother had said years earlier, pointing at the middle of three lines, “live their life here. They don’t go far down, but they don’t go far up either. The further you go toward this top line, the further you will also go toward this bottom line. You decide if that’s worth it. I’ve never been a fan of the middle.”
Ever since then, I’d been taking more and more risks. I’d been stepping further toward both the top and bottom lines. And, overall, I’d been happier. I resigned myself to never live my life in the middle again. Unless it was the middle of a circle of people chanting “Go Steve!”
At the end of the night, I was exhausted from all the dancing and was about to grab some food and take the long subway ride home. Jacob and his girlfriend invited me to come with them to eat.
“You sure?” I asked. “I don’t want to push in on your date.” They laughed; they’d been dating for a while at that point and to them this was just a regular Saturday night, only with more formal attire. “Besides,” Jacob said, “You think Katie is eating alone? I bet she’s with Amalia right now, being consoled about how she missed her chance to dance with you.”
I laughed at the nonsensical thought of Katie even caring about us dancing together, and the three of us went to one of those little all-night delis with upstairs seating somewhere in midtown. Jacob teased me about how naïve I was to expect a senior to date me, as his senior girlfriend playfully punched him in the arm. After we ate, we walked around Manhattan for hours, just talking and laughing about how everything had unfolded.
It wasn’t until that night that I learned the full lesson from my heart-to-heart with Mason. I didn’t need to work on making more friends, and I certainly didn’t need to work on any more dates. I needed to spend time with the friends I already had.
HEADLINER
ROCK, ROCK, ROCKAWAY BEACH
I wasn’t often invited to parties. Most of the time I didn’t even know they were happening.
It made sense that parties existed. Every high school movie I saw had wild parties. I never thought much about why we didn’t have any at Hunter. I assumed that there were no parties because we were in the middle of a big city and students were scattered throughout it. As it turned out, the reason I didn’t think there were any parties at Hunter is because I was not invited to them.
Backstage during Brick, I overheard two girls talking about who had hooked up at the party the week before. There was a rumor that one of the girls had gotten an STD and her parents found out, and now they were going to prevent her from going away to college. And all I took away from that story was, “there was a party?”
It’s like that old proverb: “If a party happens in the forest, and no one invites you, does it make a sound? And is that sound you watching Twilight Zone reruns at home by yourself, weeping softly?”
I did have a social life outside of high school. Not just my USY social life—I’d go out with my classmates sometimes. I’d get Chinese food with Rebecca Chaikin or play basketball with Ozzie Roberts or shoot pool with Jacob Corry. I really enjoyed playing pool. I’d have grown up playing if my parents’ pool table hadn’t been leaning up against a wall in the basement next to the filing cabinets.
Sometimes a bunch of us would all go to Brent’s apartment to play video games because his parents were never home. Never. They may or may not have existed.
But parties were not a thing I did—not since the debacle at Marley’s country house. At the end of junior year, one of the Freak Hallway students I was friendly with had a party I was actually invited to. I asked my mother if I could go, and her usual strictness was replaced by enough confusion such that by the time she figured out what she was saying yes to, she’d already given me permission.
Actually, my mother didn’t really know what she was saying yes to. All she said yes to is “can I stay over at Noel’s house on Friday?” When she asked who Noel was, I had a fit about how my mother never paid attention to anything I said and how was I supposed to make any friends if she didn’t even pay attention to the ones I had. I told her that Noel lived in Queens, just like us, and that if she was uncomfortable, I would be close by. Amazingly enough, that all worked. And suddenly I was going to a party.
Noel lived in Rockaway, which is technically a part of Queens in the way that Guam is technically a part of the United States. Actually, it might be easier to get to Guam than it is to get to Rockaway.
There’s a Ramones song about Rockaway, and the chorus says, “It’s not hard, not far to reach. You can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach.” The Ramones are liars.
Breezy Point, the part of Rockaway where Noel inconveniently lived, was a forty-minute drive from my apartment and virtually impossible to get to by public transportation. If you try to get directions to Breezy Point today, Google Maps will tell you, “Sorry, your search appears to be outside our current coverage area for transit.” That’s how you know a place is hard to get to—when Google has to apologize.
Had Google Maps existed then, the directions probably would have been, “Take a right out of your apartment, and give up completely. Have you considered not going to this party?”
I had not considered that. This was my first real high school party, so I wasn’t going to let distance prevent me from going. Noel was a theater kid like I kind of was, so I wasn’t worried about the bullies being there. Also, bullies don’t take two trains, a bus, and a cab to go to parties.
A few of us hung out at Hunter after school that day
and went to Rockaway together. That kind of insane public transportation isn’t a problem when you’re being an idiot with your friends. I felt bad for the commuters on the trains and bus we took. Not just because we were being loud and annoying, but because they had to commute to and from Rockaway every day.
By the time we arrived, the party had already been going for an hour. Some of the seniors in attendance got there much quicker because they drove—cheaters.
Despite my initial excitement, there wasn’t much for me at a party. I didn’t drink or smoke (which might have been why I was not invited to other parties). And I wasn’t particularly good at striking up conversations with strangers. I spent the first hour there talking to the friends I had come with. Which was fun enough, but it wasn’t two-trains-a-bus-and-a-cab fun.
A blonde girl I didn’t know joined our conversation. I wasn’t paying much attention. Having been so burned by the Katie situation, I wasn’t looking to meet anyone new just yet. And that is how it always works. The best way to succeed at attracting someone is to not care whether or not they’re attracted to you. Eventually, the conversation became just Colleen and me.
Colleen Barrett was a senior at Hunter, and she was a theater kid, too, but she was involved in musical theater, which is why I didn’t know her. Also, she was on the crew side of things, so I wouldn’t have even seen her in a play, had I ever attended any of the plays I wasn’t in. Colleen and I were completely new to each other, so we had an awful lot to talk about.
Colleen and I talked until the sun came up. Literally, until the sun came up. Those still at the party (which was most of us—there’s no good way out of Rockaway at one A.M.) walked down to the beach and watched the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. It was the kind of moment that makes two people who have been talking all night kiss for the first time. And that is how I got my first adult girlfriend.
After the sunrise, we all went to a diner and got breakfast, before starting our long journeys home. New York City has a lot of wonderful facets to it, but one that is not complimented enough is the availability of all-night diners. Especially ones that can accommodate a few dozen very tired and somewhat hungover teenagers. Colleen and I sat next to each other. Astonishingly enough, we still had more to talk about.
I got home two and a half hours after I had left the diner—Rockaway is hard enough to commute from, but it’s even tougher on a Saturday morning. I didn’t mind. I slept for most of the ride, making sure to not fall too deeply asleep lest I miss my stop. I’d honed the skill of not sleeping through my subway stop during my commutes to high school, and it might be why I’m still a light sleeper today. If my brother, David, had had that skill, I’d still have my original Nintendo.
I mainly didn’t mind the commute because I was happy. It had been more than a year since Hope and I had broken up, and the connection we’d had over six months didn’t even compare to the connection Colleen and I made in one night. Colleen was intellectual and worldly and had experienced things in life that I’d only read about. And she’d read about everything. Colleen had opinions on authors I’d never even heard of. I’d never heard of the people on Hope’s tennis team either, but I was much more interested in the authors.
When I got home, my mother told me I had a message from “a girl named Colleen.” Ever since that mystery girl called me about the physics homework, I’d made sure my mother took down messages more carefully.
I called Colleen back immediately, and we talked more. How could two people have this much to say to each other? Colleen had been bullied a lot earlier in school and had also gotten quiet. She’d found theater crew as a way out of her shell, and now she was just making up for lost time. She was a lot like me.
Eventually, Colleen had to hang up because her mother wanted the phone. But before she did, Colleen asked me a question that surprised me.
“So,” she said, making her question more casual than it was, “What are we?”
I was so surprised, I didn’t even know what she meant. We’d made out, didn’t that mean we were boyfriend and girlfriend? I was so naïve, I was unaware there were other possibilities.
A more experienced person would have known that we could be seeing each other, just talking, friends with benefits, or a host of other euphemisms for not exclusive. But I learned about dating from romantic comedies. And only the kind of romantic comedies my parents would let me watch. So I didn’t know not exclusive was an option.
“As far as I know,” I said naively, “you are my girlfriend.”
Colleen took my answer to be sweet and confident, and she agreed. I didn’t learn until months later that she was not expecting me to say that.
After that, Colleen and I spent as much time as we could together. Colleen lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which made things difficult. But the Upper West Side is much easier to get to than Rockaway, so I didn’t mind.
What made things more difficult was that Colleen’s mother hated me. I was taken aback—while girls rarely liked me, their mothers always thought I was great. It makes sense: I was smart, polite, and not likely to assault their daughter. I wasn’t even likely to make out with their daughter.
Colleen told me to not take her mother’s abrasiveness personally, as her mother was like that with everyone—especially men. About a month after we started dating, Colleen confessed that her father had been murdered when she was a little girl, and her mother was never the same after that. Whoa. This was heavy stuff. I didn’t know if I was ready for an adult relationship.
Colleen also told me something else that surprised me. The reason she started talking to me that night was because her friend Julia had a crush on me and she was doing reconnaissance. I’d never met Julia, but she used to refer to me as “the cute boy in my creative writing class,” and Colleen was about to leave the party when I walked in. When Colleen saw me, she stayed to get some details and report back to Julia. After Colleen and I had been talking for a few hours, she excused herself to use the restroom. Really, she was calling Julia to check if it was okay to date me.
Learning about Julia made me wonder if anyone else had ever had a secret crush on me over the years. I’d had secret crushes on plenty of other people. Perhaps someone had one on me. That is a thought you should hold on to—there are billions of secret crushes out there in the world. Someone you’ve never met might have one on you.
I knew my relationship with Colleen likely had a shelf life. I was already committed to working at Ramah for the second half of the summer, and Colleen was going off to college before I’d get back. But we used what time we had together. I went to Colleen’s apartment twice before her mother made that not very fun, but she came to mine as often as possible. I even picked Colleen up from her part-time summer job. Okay, so I met her after work and we took the subway together. But in New York City, that counts as picking up.
I was almost seventeen and Colleen was already eighteen. Colleen was a very sexual person, and we fooled around as often as possible. Because it was the summer and school wasn’t in the way, “as often as possible” meant almost every day. It was all pretty exciting stuff; Colleen taught me more about anatomy than I’d ever learned in school. Like I said, I never did well in biology class.
When it was time to go back to Ramah, Colleen and I broke up. We’d only been together about six weeks, but it was a great six weeks. I learned a lot from her—including that life can be a lot more complicated and much darker than school bullies. And, while I was at Ramah, I made sure to read a few of the books Colleen had recommended.
I’d spent so much time feeling sorry for myself that I never realized how much harder other students had it. Here she was—bullied as much as I was, but also the daughter of a murdered father and a suspicious, frightened mother. I was upset that Tommy Tillet pulled a chair out from under me. The whole world had pulled a chair out from under Colleen.
I classify my relationship with Colleen as my first adult relationship because at the end of it I felt like much m
ore of an adult, and Colleen must have felt like an adult for a very long time. And, almost as important as that, I got to go to a party.
WHEN I FOUGHT A RAPPER
As much as Theo Webster terrorized me, I was never truly afraid for my safety until I met Phillip Cuchillo. I was afraid Theo would hurt me, sure, and I was afraid of what that pain might feel like. But I knew deep down that if Theo did anything to me, it would be temporary. And the older we got, the less I feared Theo actually doing anything. There are only so many years someone can threaten you before you figure out they’re all talk.
Phillip was different. Theo was a good student who liked to feel powerful. Phillip was an aspiring criminal. There were rumors that he brought weapons to school and rumors that he’d killed people and other rumors I didn’t believe. Hunter was a difficult academic school that you had to pass optional tests to get into. Menaces don’t take optional tests.
Friends of mine from USY went to city schools and had to deal with actual deliquents. Some of my friends from grade school even became actual delinquents. But I didn’t believe what they said about Phillip. You don’t rob a liquor store and then study for your AP art history test.
If you’re a fan of hip-hop, you may know Phillip by his stage name. One of his albums even hit number twelve on the hip-hop charts. This was before all that.
During a free period, I was sitting in a fairly empty hallway struggling with writer’s block when Phillip ran by, laughing. Right behind him came Rory Daniels, the girl I’d had an unrequited crush on at the very beginning of high school. She was laughing, too.
“Come on Phillip!” Rory said. “Give it back.”
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