Moving Day

It would take all of my wiles, a cup of coffee and a quick look out of my sister's bedroom window the following morning to give me the means in which to make my new "dream" a reality. I awoke the morning of June 18, 1982 at a little after nine a.m. I shot out of bed and practically ran to my sister's bedroom, which faced out directly onto Bainbridge Avenue, and threw open the window. It was a bright sunny morning and as I looked down towards 198th Street, halfway up the next block I spotted a moving truck. Almost immediately I also noticed a young girl carrying a box out to it. Guessing that it was a member of Angela's family, and hoping they were not too far into the move, I dressed quickly. Donning my New York Yankees cap to hide my hair (which was a just-woken-up mess) I headed out to the local deli for a cup of coffee and a danish. As I stood in the deli I pondered what my next move should be. I figured if I sat in front of my step-father Charlie's building I would be sure to see Angela as she came out from her's which was one building up. I would then feign surprise at seeing her and offer to help in whatever way I could. Leaving the deli I walked back, and arriving at 2839 Bainbridge Avenue, I sat down, drank my coffee, and waited until I was noticed. Sure enough after a few minutes the young girl who I'd seen earlier walked over to me and asked me if I was Jeff. More than a little surprised I said that I was, and she told me that she was Angela's sister Marina. She said that I must be the "cute guy" that Angela had told her she'd met in school the day before. Seeing a door open before me, I asked if I could help with their moving. As her mother's boyfriend came outside Marina introduced me to him, and he agreed that I could help if I wanted to. As I entered the building I ran into Angela who was just coming down the stairs. She looked surprised, though pleased to see me, and I wasn't sure what to say. Marina told her of my offer, and Angela smiled, yet looked a bit worried. Once Angela's placed the box she'd been carrying into the truck we all headed upstairs where I was then introduced to Angela's mother, and I proceeded to help to bring boxes down to the waiting truck.

My first meeting with Angela's mom Maria was anything but comforting. Angela introduced me as her "friend" from school and Maria looked me over, almost as if I were a fresh water piranha who had somehow landed in her pot of arroz con pollo. Wanting to appear likable I insisted that I help as much as possible, and soon was carrying one of the heavier, and more unwieldy, of the boxes down the stairs.. On my third or fourth trip down, in carrying a box that was tall enough to obscure my vision I misjudged the second step from the bottom as being the last and lost my footing. As a result my left foot was stretched back, and as this happened I felt and heard, a loud *crack.* At this point I was almost certain that I had broken it, yet unsure I stood up to test my weight, and immediately felt a sharp pain shoot up my entire leg. As Angela and her sister came down soon after, I lifted the box, and walked outside pretending that nothing had happened. I continued helping until the truck was fully loaded, in great pain the whole time, yet not letting on that I was. Once everyone had come down in order to drive over to the new apartment, Maria thanked me, shook my hand and turned to leave. Despite the almost unbearable pain in my foot I offered my services further to Maria (seeing that the decision would be her's) not wanting the day to end just yet. After a few moments where I was almost sure that she would decline my offer, Maria relented and I rode in the truck along with Angela and her family to their new pad which was located on East 176th Street in the Bronx. At one point we passed a police station, and not sure of my surroundings, but wanting to appear knowledgeable, I said that it was probably the infamous Ft. Apache Precinct. Maria's boyfriend agreed (although later I found out we had been wrong) and I felt proud.

Once we arrived to their new building I redoubled my efforts, almost as if to prove my worth to Maria. Somehow I knew if I could get her to like me I would have little problem in her allowing me to take Angela out. I carried, and helped to carry, the heaviest of their possessions up the five flights of stairs to their place on the top floor. Once inside I had discovered that it had originally been two separate dwellings, but that a wall had been demolished to make it into one large apartment. While I was in intense pain most of the time, the necessity of having to be a macho man, I did not let it show. The more painful it became, the harder I worked, very much like like the great horse Boxer in George Orwell's novel Animal Farm. Eventually we were finished, and only then did I allow myself the luxury of a brief rest.

Maria sent Angela's brother Daniel to the store, and once he had returned she gave us cool glasses Sunny Delight. During this time I had tried to talk to Angela as much as possible, also answering Marina's questions as she asked them. My timing was good, and my answers seemed to please them. I knew my time was limited, and I wanted to prolong my departure for as long as I could. Every so often Maria would look into the room to make sure that things were going alright, and intuitively I could sense that I had not won her over yet. Still, I was pretty certain that it would only be a matter of time whereby I would. After several minutes had passed I rose to use the bathroom, and almost immediately Angela and her sister saw my limp, which after my time at rest had become noticable. Asking me what had happened I casually told them of my accident on the steps earlier that day. When Maria's boyfriend was told of it as well, he suggested I remove my sneaker to see how bad the damage was. Once free of the black Converse sneaker that had encased it, my foot quickly swelled. As I attempted to stand again, the pain was even greater. When asked if it hurt I, as a matter of course. said that it didn't and that in fact wasn't bad at all. I was led to the bathroom where my foot was run under alternating cold and hot water. This, according to Maria's boyfriend, would help get the swelling down. He suggested that I do this again later at home, and after drying my foot I limped back to the room in which we had been sitting.

Time passed quickly, and as I had rested for a while more I was offered a ride home. I attempted to put my sneaker back on and at first was completely unable to get it on. Only by nearly removing the laces entirely was I was able, with great pain and effort, to slide my foot back into it. Again shrugging off my injury, just as my namesake Conan the Cimmerian shrugged off the great slashes he received in battle as mere scratches, I walked casually down the five flights hiding my discomfort to the best of my ability. Both Angela and Marina had come along for the ride, and I as was driven back to my neighborhood, with all of us in the front seat, I spoke with Angela for as much time as was allowed.

Once back in my neighborhood, I offered to help move the remaining objects that they'd left behind, but was told by Maria's boyfriend that it wasn't necessary as there was really nothing that they couldn't handle. I asked Angela when I was going to see her again, and she said that she'd be in Evander for a couple days the following week to take her final examinations. As I too had a test to take the following Monday I suggested that we meet afterwards, and she agreed. Seeing my time was gone, I gave Angela my telephone number. She said me that she would call me soon and as I walked away I glanced back in her direction. With a smile and a wave, she entered her former home, and was gone ...

Walking slowly back towards my building, I mulled over the day's events. While I felt an inward sense of elation at having had as much time as I did with Angela, I still wanted more. Already I was considering what I would say the next time we met, and hoping the chance would arise where I might ask her out to a movie, or to eat. I rode the elevator up to my seventh floor apartment, relieved that I could finally let my guard down and "suffer" in complete abandon. After using the alternating hot / cold running water treatment again on my foot (which at this point I could barely stand on) I went to my bedroom to rest. While there I sat down and wrote in my journal relating all of what happened that day. While I didn't want to admit it to myself, I could already feel myself falling in love with Angela. Of course in an intellectual sense I couldn't admit these feelings, yet they existed nonetheless. In retrospect, maybe I fell so quickly for her due to all of the horrible shit I had gone through with Elizabeth just two months earlier; or maybe I was just finally ready to *truly* fall in love. Angela seemed to possess all of the qualities that I'd always looked for in a girl, and in doing so, appeared to be the reality of all of my dreams. While I am certain that it was a combination of the two, there was also the magic that existed at that time that brought it all together. There has been no other time in my life where I have felt as sure about my place in the cosmos as I did then. While this was only a beginning, I was on my way to having the first "real" relationship of my life, and the most amazing summer in all of my seventeen years of existence...