When I was
in 4th grade my class got bussed out to another school. Danny Aguirre was
a schoolmate whoâd had a crush on me from 1st to about 5th grade
- no joke. This made me quite uncomfortable, as I hardly understood what
possessed this little boy to follow me around.
I mean, he followed
me everywhere
I went, even home. He wasnât really scary or anything, just creeped
me out a bit. What was the big deal? Why was he acting like such a weirdo
?
He didnât harass
me or anything, but no one relishes being Stalked,
eh? And he had this creepy loser friend who was tall and lanky and whoâs
parents made him wear his ãheadgearä all day. I thought he
must be retarded because there was Nothing my parents coulda said to make
me wear that crap in public all day. No way. And he hated me, too.
Every afternoon it
was the same thing. Fortunately, Danny wasnât in my class,but would
wait until recess, lunch, and finally, after school, to route me out
and ãwalkä
me home. I had two or three girlfriends to walk with on my routehome and
he would follow about a block behind us, ducking into the bushes,outta
site, should we happen to glance back, his loyal friend Eddie in tow.
This was a source of
Major
embarrassment for me who, at nine, positivelyLoathed the teasing I got
about my tag-along ãboyfriend.ä But, try as I might,I could
not shake him. This went on for years.
Then one rainy Valentineâs
Day, we were all on the schoolbus headed home (yup, the pesky buggerâd
finagle his way onto My bus. Eegads!). Despite his many protestations,
Danny persuaded Eddie to deliver me a note. Oh, how I dreaded this. Puleeze.
Not this, not now, not in front of (practically) the whole school
& all my jeering friends. Heck! Weâd passed out the damned Valentineâs
Day heart candies & boxed notecards already. What the f*ck?
Why
ME?!
Surrounded by my friends,
preparing to finally file off the stuffy, humid bus and out into the gloom,
so suited to this damned holiday, I disembarked without opening the note.
I got off the bus. My friends flanked me. They informed me that ãtheyä
were lurking around the bus. A peek under the vehicle confirmed that there
were in fact two little boys nervously fiddling about, trying desperately
not to be found out, yet hardly able to contain their curiosity.
I opened the card and
there Danny had drawn a humble Snoopy comic, complete with sheepish grin
and caption reading ãI Love Youä or ãBe My Valentineä
or some such tripe. My mom worked in the library and over the summer theyâd
had a ãjunior reading programä-type dealie whereby we got points
for every book we read. Being no dummy, Iâd read every single Peanuts
book, Garfield and Nancy Drew, too (easy reading=point
city!) Not to mention every single ish of Creem, Mad
and (when my sis could sneak around to fetch it), National Lampoon.
Apparently, this had
not gone wholey unnoticed by Danny (God, where is he now??). But thatâs
not the grievous thing. I read the card. I liked the card. And,
.....
in full view of Danny,
and much to the dismay of Eddie,
I dropped
the note, scribbled neatly on his notebook paper, into a puddle,
stepped
over it, and walked off into the waning, raining
afternoon.
Itâs safe to
say Danny did not follow me home after that. Eddie surely had to spend
hour upon hour consoling him. And I have never forgotten it. How that mustâve
broken his young, precious, little heart. For my part, I was only all of
nine or so, so I didnât know any better. But Iâve given this
a LOT of thought since then & itâs safe to say that perhaps I
understand now, years (and many probably inappropriate infatuations) later,
the depth of the devastation he mustâve felt. Sad, huh? Well,
