Maybe Paradise Wasn't So Much... Part 1
Thursday, 16 September 2004 05:52:39

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.... hmmm...so THAT's what it looks like typed out....sonuvagun... some things you just have to see for yourself... You know, I've spent so much time dwelling on the aspect of life changes that I need to go someplace else tonight. So I've put on a little mood music, made myself a sandwich, poured a glass of water and one of white wine and decided to visit a fonder place. The movie that Rod and I are working on is a Romantic Comedy called "Finding Love for Annie". I don't want to go into too much at the moment, but suffice it to say, I'm really happy with our progress so far. But thinking about how to express yourself in a story requires at least a little dredging of the past if only to bring up feelings to work with. To that end, awhile back, I wrote about someone I haven't thought of in years who brings me back to the first time I fell in love. They say that you never forget it, and I haven't, nor have I quite gotten over her despite the fact that I have not seen her for a quarter of a century. (I love how that sounds...) Anyway, I beg patience in this indulgence. I'll get back on track with goings on later. It was the summer of 1981 and I had just turned 14. I had finished freshman year and starting what looked to be a fantastically long summer spent playing sandlot baseball and listening to music. I had discovered music the year before and I was the proud owner of a slightly used portable radio with headphones along with a brand new turntable that I had gotten that Christmas. It was a cheap, off-brand, but I didn't care. It played music beautifully and it was mine. Besides, at the time I only had two albums to play, otherwise I had to borrow my parents music. I had the Car’s “Cars” album, which I had bought with my own money. (And would have sent my parents into apoplectic fits if they'd heard it despite it's being tame in comparison to most pop-music of today.) And I had the Star Wars soundtrack that my parents could accept (dark and menacing as it looked) mainly because it was symphonic. But I also had my radio. The first time you become aware of music, it's like you finally learned to see. Oh, I'd always heard it, sang in church and on the holidays, but prior to the year before, I never gave conscious thought to turning on the radio and [i]choosing it![/i] After I learned that little magic spell, I would spend hours at night listening to Blondie, Billy Joel, Sheena Easton, Pablo Cruz, Journey and on and on. But music wasn't the only great thing about that year. My best friend, Louie, had moved into the neighborhood not long before from LA. Louie's dad was the first divorced guy I knew and Louie was his first son by his ex-wife. Louie was a strange kid. Having lived in the gang area of LA, he had a reckless streak that came out at the worst times occasionally getting us into trouble. (One night when we were fifteen, we took my father’s car out for a drive even though neither of us really knew how. Fortunately it was an automatic. We even bought gas to replace what we’d used and were scared out of our minds the whole time we were on the road.) I would never have dreamed of trying that myself, but Louie could make an outrageous suggestion, follow it up with his devil-may-care, lop-sided grin and make it seem like the most reasonable idea in the world. Of course, being what everyone considered a "good kid" maybe I was a bit [i]too[/i] trusting. We became pals that summer and, though I’d been friends with the other kids, Louie and I were tight. But as much as I quietly worshipped the guy's “crazy vato” act, the best part of that year began in mid-summer when Jenny moved into the neighborhood. Jenny had arrived after the start of summer with her parents and sister. Her parents were former counter-culture hippies who'd gone on to bigger things, but would never be able to shake the echoes of their youth. They were firm, but easy-going and always great adults to have around. Barbara was a big woman full of bright laughter like her daughter. Stro

Maybe Paradise Wasn't So Much... Part 2
Thursday, 16 September 2004 05:53:48

One of my favorite memories of Jenny had to do with a game the neighborhood kids played. We lived in a community where the grounds were patrolled every evening by a guard who would drive up and down the streets and carports. Sometimes we would play “ditch the guard”, teasing him by flitting in the space between houses, dancing on the edge of his perception like ghosts as he cruised slowly by. We’d race ahead of him waiting for him to almost pass then make enough noise or movement to pique his interest enough for him to stop and turn on the big Delco searchlight mounted to the side of his car. Once Louie chucked a washer from behind a hedge at the patrol car that spanged off the hood. We must have spent a half hour that night making our way back to our houses, and even then the guard circled the area long afterwards like a tiger with a smarting tail. In today’s world of Terrorist Alerts and heightened security awareness this kind of game would be considered extremely foolish and possibly even dangerous. A neighbor might come out with a gun, or an overly aggressive guard might persue until he could take a bad day out on his quarry, but that world was slightly less scary that close to home. One night, five of us were hanging out in the carports, talking endlessly about nothing we would ever remember. The night was warm and the moon was barely visible and no one heard when the security guard's car quietly and unexpectedly rolled into the drive leading to the carports. Without warning the harsh white beam from the searchlight blazed to life and swept the carports a few rows over. Most of us broke for safety, scattering like mice, knowing we had bare seconds to ditch or just give it up and answer banal adult questions. I was already breaking for a route to safety when I heard Jenny let out a strangled little scream behind me. Looking back, I saw her with her arms pulled in close, her hands partly raised as if keeping a ghost at bay. Her eyes were huge and locked on to the swiftly moving light. She had never done this before and didn’t know how to react. [i]“Jenny, Come ON!”[/i] I whispered as loudly and urgently as I could. [i]“Let’s GO!”[/i] She turned her head in my direction, but her eyes were wide and wild and she was frozen in place. In what I would consider one of the true highlights of my admittedly young life, I ran the five steps back to her and grabbed ahold of her hand just as the searchlight reached out to her. One quick tug broke the spell and we flew down the hedge-lined walkway between houses, her hand tightly clenching mine. The car behind us lept forward like a predator, it’s engine loud and throaty and headed our way. The hedgerow was too long and it seemed for a moment as if we were caught, but we slid sideways into a bare spot where it had been partly cut away the week before for workers to get at some piping. Almost before the leaves stopped moving around us, the car pulled up even with the walkway, it's bright eye flooding the path in front of us, so white it bleached the color out of the dark green leaves. We pushed as deeply into the hedge as possible and I held her tightly to me hoping that we were safe. Much later, my brother would remark at the long scratches on my back made by the branches we’d backed into. He teased me, saying that I should get a girlfriend with shorter fingernails, but at the time I hadn’t noticed. Of course you probably could have openly scourged me at that moment and I wouldn't have felt it, because that’s when I really became aware of Jenny. In that way that boys have of not paying attention to what’s in front of them, I never really saw Jenny before. She was almost a year-and-a-half younger than I was which, by adult standards, means almost nothing but I was headed into my sophomore year in high school and she was still in Jr. High making the gulf huge and distinct like the opposite shores of a wide river. She was pretty enough, but I was already looking forwards to seeing a couple of other girls from my class that fall. Yet, there we were, our hearts b