There’s Leslie Jacobson. She’s willowy. Her black bouffant bounces and shines. My stooge, Dave, loves her. He tracks her across the lunch court. I run point and linger near her in food lines. She’s the quintessential Teen Fox. Dave can’t get it up to address her. We discuss her and beat every aspect of her into the ground. Dave’s crush fizzles out and reignites on a new girl. He carves her initials on his right arm and gets up the guts to show her. She flees in horror.
I torched my way through Camelot. I burned flames for Jill Warner, Cynthia Gardner, Donna Weiss, and Kathy Montgomery.
Jill’s an in-your-face little blonde. She’ll talk a blue streak to anyone. Her accessibility marks her as fatally flawed and thus a kindred spirit. She’s hard to stalk. She keeps spotting me. She starts intimidating conversations and forces me to respond. Jill rates high on spunk and low on hauteur. I crave mystery and elusiveness in my women. It flips my fantasy switch and gives me groovy shit to talk about with my stalking buddies.
Cynthia, Donna, and Kathy radiated wholesome beauty and hinted at stern character. I stalked them inside and outside of school and across a big patch of L.A.
Jack Lift backstopped my surveillance. He lived across the street from Cynthia’s pad at 6th and Crescent Heights. We shined shoes around the corner at the Royal Market and used it as our stakeout point. We tailed Cynthia around on our bikes the whole Summer of ’61.
I knew my love was doomed. I knew the Berlin Wall thing would escalate to World War III at any moment. L.A. was scared. J.B. kids stocked up on goods at the Royal Market. We discussed the crisis and concluded that our time was running out. I told the kids that I was hot for Armageddon. They said I was nuts. Jack and I fucked up their shoes under the guise of free shines.
The world survived. My crush on Cynthia Gardner didn’t. I entered crush monogamy with Donna and Kathy and torched my J.B. days down to an ember.
Donna had big eyes and a pageboy hairdo. She lived at Beverly and Gardner–the heart of Kosher Canyon. I set up a voyeur spot by the Pan Pacific Theater and surveilled her after school and on weekends.
I watched her front door. I watched people enter the synagogues on Beverly. Jack said they were war refugees. I perched by the Pan Pacific and watched the parade go by. I time-tripped back to World War II. I saved the people with the funny beanies and top hats. Donna loved me for it–until I left her for Kathy.
I traded up to a freckled brunette and a big house at 2nd and Plymouth. I boosted some Ivy League clothes to look more Hancock Park. The makeover thrilled me. JFK never looked so good. I hit a growth spurt, popped over six feet, and rendered my new threads obsolete. My pincord pants bottomed out at my ankies and drew jeers at 2nd and Plymouth. I never got up the stones to playJack to Kathy’s Jackie.
I was starting to get the picture:
Camelot was a private club and an inside joke–and I didn’t know the password or the punchline.
I went to the J.B. graduation dance on 6/14/62. I wore my father’s 1940-vintage gray flannel suit and drank some T-Bird with a neighbor kid en route.
I sweltered in gray flannel. I squeaked across the dance floor in brown canvas shoes. I asked Cynthia Gardner to dance. She accepted in the manner of nice girls worldwide. I sweated all over her and breathed Thunderbird wine in her face.
The class of Summer ’62 passed into history. The 4oo-odd members dispersed to three local high schools. My season of craaazy discourse ended.
I didn’t know what I walked away from. I left J.B. with no fanfare and no friendships intact. I didn’t know what I’d learned about myself or other people. I didn’t know that the inexorably destructive course of my life had been diverted and subsumed by a magical time and place. I didn’t know that the seeds of a gift were nourished then and there or that the raucous spirit I carried away would influence my ultimate survival.