| After the summer of 1963 and my sixth birthday had passed, I entered the society of school buses and the first grade. At that time, I became certain that the most beautiful girl in the world was Kathy, the little apple-cheeked brunette who lived on the other side of our back fence. Quietly I sat in the branches of the big elm tree in our backyard as I watched her play on her swing set, frolic with her dog or climb her own trees. Sometimes I would be a circus performer on the clothesline or build a trash can rocketship hoping she would look over my way, but I never really caught her attention. Although my brother and I played with her and her sisters every now and then, she didn’t pay me much mind on a personal level, and she certainly never perceived the silent longing I had for her. It seemed the more I wanted to be near her, the higher that back fence became. Kathy was in my class at school, but my growing love for her had made me too shy to even speak to her, although I watched her whenever possible. And even though she appeared to be sweet on another boy, I remained devoted to her. Every morning allowed a ride on the bus with her, but I boarded first and she never sat beside me. Every afternoon placed us on the same playground, but she kept company with the girls or that other boy, and I got into frequent trouble clowning and acting up, trying to get her to notice me. I wasn’t seeing any signs of success, but we were both still young, and I kept up my hopes. Late that November, our class was standing in line in a hallway, waiting to go into the auditorium with our assigned triangles, sticks and tambourines to begin practice for our Christmas pageant, when one of the teachers rushed down the corridor crying her eyes out. “It’s terrible, it’s terrible!” she bawled. “What’s happened?!” our teacher asked. “The President’s dead...he’s been shot!” Both ladies were weeping then. A third teacher rushed over with a transistor radio, and the three of them listened to news reports with intense, solemn grief. The world was at a standstill, caught in emotional shock, and I was in a panic of my own, standing on my tiptoes, straining to see Kathy at the back of the line, worrying whether she was crying, too. 1964 proved to be a year of skews, scares and skirmishes. There was a new President in office, a tall Texan who increased American involvement in a little war in a faraway place called Vietnam. Near there China exploded its first atomic weapon, and the Beatles invaded the United States. Everyday on television we saw films of Kennedy being assassinated, Lee Harvey Oswald being murdered, and thousands of screaming teenagers massed together to see the Fab Four, a scene which made even music appear a little scary. That summer my father brought in truckloads of new topsoil for our backyard, temporarily transforming it into a fantastic No Man’s Land complete with foxholes and an infinite supply of dirt clod grenades. There were some boys our age who lived at another house across our back fence, and it wasn’t long before a dirt clod battle broke out. Within a short time the friendly exchange of dirt volleys had escalated into a full-blown war between the kids of Our Street and those of Their Street. The ensuing melee of flying dirt bombs lasted for hours, but left only one real casualty: my heart had been broken by the unexpected sight of my apple-cheeked darling lobbing deadly dirt missiles in my direction. I figured then that if political alliances formed solely out of backyard geographical concerns could defeat true love, then I would just forget that girl. It was for the best. That little girl grew up to be the head cheerleader of my high school, married my cousin Larry, bore him a son, then welcomed him back from the Navy with the news that she and a buddy of his had blown all of the money and hashish he had sent her from overseas for safekeeping, and that this same good friend of his had given her genital herpes, which she had passed on to Larry. I should have nailed her with a dirt clod. |
| Poemission |
| Heart Hung on a Chain-Link Fence |
 |