Be-Longing

In the summer before seventh grade, my school sponsored a day camp. On a rainy afternoon after popcorn and a movie, my friend Perron and I carried the projector back to the rectory. We were the lead altar boys, with gold chords around our waists at mass. Because of this distinction, we had some degree of clout at school. Other boys looked up to us. Once we stowed the projector away, Perron took off, probably looking for Kenya—he had stolen her from me. I stayed flirting with a tall, long black haired, light-skinned girl named Tania, a year younger than me and standing on a ladder. She and a few other girls had popcorn duty, but they left her to clean the kitchen alone. She and I had always been cool. Her older cousin Bridgette just graduated and I was cool with her, too—although she wasn’t interested in me the way I was in her. In truth, I was enamored with nearly all the eighth grade girls, with Lisa, Joann, and Bridgette as favorites. My affections were a frustrating one-way street; none of them liked me as a boyfriend. It was much the same in seventh grade; I wasn’t boyfriend material then, except for Rochelle, but I really didn’t like her in that way. After the same rejection year after year, I finally found my thrill in the class under me. I discovered being older was more appealing to girls, and was excited that I might get a cute girl I actually liked—I was tired of watching my friends with girls, and feeling inadequate. Standing there in the kitchen, I looked up at sweet Tania and asked, “What you doing up on that ladder, girl?” “Changing the light bulb.” She cooed. “Here, let me help you down from there.” She laughed as I wrapped my arms around her waist. “I got you now. Just jump into my arms.” She did and I brought her in tight, and laid a kiss on her. Her full, plump lips locked onto mine. My head filled with the taste and smell of her strawberry lip gloss. That kiss was part delicacy and part ecstasy, but wholly the most memorable kiss of my entire life. I suddenly knew what love felt like—I had felt it wash over my body and mind and I still get a thrill thinking of it. My synapses fired, my body stirred, and my heart pounded in my chest. I struggled to catch my breath. For years, and well into my twenties, I remember asking girls I knew two questions: Did they have any strawberry lip gloss, and if they did, would they put some on and kiss me? Most of them laughed, although they didn’t know why I asked something so specific, and a few, to my great joy, answered yes to both questions. Oddly, no one ever asked the “why” of my specific request. The reason was simple: I wanted to relive that first strawberry flavored kiss with Tania so it that would last forever. But for the rest of that summer and into seventh grade, Tania and I talked on the phone constantly, though I was forbidden to go to any girl’s house. My mother didn’t want me going anywhere without adult supervision, and while I broke this rule on many other occasions, I was content with my relationship with Tania the way it was, with most of our interaction being over the phone or in my love-struck imagination. On one Sunday not long before the school year began, my mother and a group of her friends were playing cards. Tania and I, as usual, were on the phone. “Julius,” she said, “you know my momma’s not home. She gonna be gone most of the day, and your mother’s all in with her friends and playing cards . . . so I’m thinking you ought to come over here.” “That sounds good, Tania. I’ll just tell my mom I’m going around to the corner store.” I breezed by her card game, told my latest canard, and slipped out the door. My mom barely acknowledged me. When I got to the small grocery store down the block, I caught a taxi. Tania lived in the Beverly area, about two miles away on One Hundred and Fifth Street, and I was on One Hundred and Sixteenth. We had fun, listened to Debarge’s All This Love, I Like It, and This Ring, fantasizing about what life would be like for us as adults. Minutes became hours and before I knew it, I had been gone for three hours. It was the 1980s, so we had no cell phones, no pagers, no way for my mom to track me down or know my whereabouts. I wasn’t sure she even noticed my absence with all the vodka and card partying going on, but if she had, she would worry. I knew I needed a plan, a cover story. I called her collect from a pay phone, making sure to add a note of distress to my voice. “Julius! Where are you? You don’t sound right. Why you calling me collect?” “Oh Momma, I was so scared. These three guys grabbed me and stuffed me into the backseat of their car. There was one guy on each side of me and I couldn’t get away.” “What? Where are you? Are you okay?” “I’m just scared momma. Two of them got into a fight and I ran and ran. I’m in front of the bookstore on One Hundred and Third in Beverly.” “You go on inside that store and tell them your momma is coming to get you in just a few minutes. Go inside right now and wait.” “Okay Momma, but hurry. I don’t want them to find me.” I ditched my wallet and put my bus card, my money, and my library card in my shoe. I scratched my face and arms so there would be a little blood. I had to look as if I had been through a major ordeal . . . When my mother arrived, she hugged me and cried, “Thank God my baby’s okay. Just look at what they did to you! I’m so proud of you that you got away.” I told her I had been blindfolded and how scared I was wondering what they were going to do to me. I whimpered and sighed for effect and it worked. I had spent time with my sweet Tania, without getting in trouble and enduring another whooping from my mother. About ten years later, my mom and I were driving down One Hundred Third Street in Beverly. As we passed the pickup point of my faux abduction, I looked down the street and unwittingly said, “I wonder if Tania still lives down here.” I had lost contact with her. My mother was quiet for a moment. “Ma, you remember Tania, don’t you?” I asked. Calmly, she pulled the car over and asked me if Tania was the long-haired, big-legged girl from St. Thaddeus. “Oh yeah,” I answered, already grinning and fantasizing about her. My mother immediately started beating me on my head and slapping me—all while we were still in the car. I was dumbfounded, and a little indignant. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you beating on me?” “Kidnapped?! You told me you were abducted—your ass even called me collect!” I laughed and laughed as she wacked me again on the side of my head.