Kasher In The Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16 by Moshe Kasher Page B
Authors: Moshe Kasher
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you’ve never kissed a girl?” I asked him, terrified at the possibility of going another twenty years without getting some.
Mikey giggled and shook his head. “No, I’ve never kissed a girl, nope. I would, though. I’d kiss a girl. I’d fuck a girl, too.”
“Yikes. Good to know. But wait, how can you be thirty-five and not have kissed anyone?” I was almost angry at this point.
“Shut the fuck up, dude, you’re always talking.” DJ punched me in the shoulder to accentuate his point.
“He’s got a point, though,” Jamie said, defending me. “I first French-kissed a girl when I was six.” Jamie looked off into the distance after this lie, a self-satisfied grin on his face, ignoring the eye rolling going on all around him.
I looked back at Mikey Rip-It-Up. “So, seriously, you never kissed a girl?” I just couldn’t let it go. It was disturbing.
Mikey, however, was disturbingly unfazed by the question that should’ve sent him into existential angst, or at least horny frustration. He simply mumbled to himself and we all changed the subject.
There was something a bit unsettling about Mikey’s admission that he’d never been with a girl. But since none of us ever had been either, it fell mostly within the realm of our circle of normalcy. Then again, our circle of normalcy included four of the seven layers of Hell, so that’s best taken with a grain of salt.
We spent every day at Mikey’s place and treated it like our home. We were loud and hardly subtle about what we were doing. A parade of clear-eyed, sad-faced teenage boys tromped into Mikey’s place every afternoon and every night; we emerged bleary-eyed, stumbling men. We treated the place like shit. We tagged on Mikey’s walls and told the other janitors to fuck off. We climbed onto the roof and threw pinecones at passing cars. Basically,despite the fact that we loved Mikey Rip-It-Up, all we ever did to his place was rip it up.
Eventually the church took notice. Apparently the Presbyterian Church is weirdly uptight about thirteen-year-old boys getting high in the attic with their thirty-five-year-old custodian. They asked Mikey to leave the church, his house, and his position, and they called our parents and let them know what had been going on.
Donny’s mom got a call from the church’s personnel manager complaining about us.
“Hello, Ms. Moon, I’m calling to let you know that your son and a group of boys have been hanging about in our church, smoking marijuana, causing destruction to our property, and taking advantage of our handyman.”
Donny’s mom, unconvinced, asked the obvious question, “Taking
advantage
of your handyman? Those boys are thirteen.”
The church lady dropped a bomb. “Well, Ms. Moon, Michael, our
former
handyman, is mentally retarded.”
So that explained it! We literally did not know that, all this time, we had been hanging out with a sort of ne’er-do-well, drunken Forrest Gump (minus the inspirational story/good nature/running skills/happy ending). Now we knew.
See, Mikey Rip-It-Up was so especially cool to us, a group of thirteen-year-old boys, because he had the mind of a thirteen-year-old boy. He really
was
just like us. Sad.
Eventually, though, our minds had begun to build more sophisticated spiderwebs of thought and conniving and Mikey just stayed the same way. Mikey was gonna be thirteen for the rest of his life, and we, sad to say, were going to get older. The consequences of our age were going to chip away at us until some of us were dead, and some of us were in jail, and some of us got the fuckout of Oakland. But Mikey Rip-It-Up was going to stay the same. Too bad for him, our consequences ruined his little life. Mikey didn’t go back to his parents and ask for help after he got in trouble. He may have seemed like one of us, but he really wasn’t. We ravaged his life and left him severed from the charity that had been keeping him afloat. After we moved on, he sank.
Mikey hit the road and,
Mikey giggled and shook his head. “No, I’ve never kissed a girl, nope. I would, though. I’d kiss a girl. I’d fuck a girl, too.”
“Yikes. Good to know. But wait, how can you be thirty-five and not have kissed anyone?” I was almost angry at this point.
“Shut the fuck up, dude, you’re always talking.” DJ punched me in the shoulder to accentuate his point.
“He’s got a point, though,” Jamie said, defending me. “I first French-kissed a girl when I was six.” Jamie looked off into the distance after this lie, a self-satisfied grin on his face, ignoring the eye rolling going on all around him.
I looked back at Mikey Rip-It-Up. “So, seriously, you never kissed a girl?” I just couldn’t let it go. It was disturbing.
Mikey, however, was disturbingly unfazed by the question that should’ve sent him into existential angst, or at least horny frustration. He simply mumbled to himself and we all changed the subject.
There was something a bit unsettling about Mikey’s admission that he’d never been with a girl. But since none of us ever had been either, it fell mostly within the realm of our circle of normalcy. Then again, our circle of normalcy included four of the seven layers of Hell, so that’s best taken with a grain of salt.
We spent every day at Mikey’s place and treated it like our home. We were loud and hardly subtle about what we were doing. A parade of clear-eyed, sad-faced teenage boys tromped into Mikey’s place every afternoon and every night; we emerged bleary-eyed, stumbling men. We treated the place like shit. We tagged on Mikey’s walls and told the other janitors to fuck off. We climbed onto the roof and threw pinecones at passing cars. Basically,despite the fact that we loved Mikey Rip-It-Up, all we ever did to his place was rip it up.
Eventually the church took notice. Apparently the Presbyterian Church is weirdly uptight about thirteen-year-old boys getting high in the attic with their thirty-five-year-old custodian. They asked Mikey to leave the church, his house, and his position, and they called our parents and let them know what had been going on.
Donny’s mom got a call from the church’s personnel manager complaining about us.
“Hello, Ms. Moon, I’m calling to let you know that your son and a group of boys have been hanging about in our church, smoking marijuana, causing destruction to our property, and taking advantage of our handyman.”
Donny’s mom, unconvinced, asked the obvious question, “Taking
advantage
of your handyman? Those boys are thirteen.”
The church lady dropped a bomb. “Well, Ms. Moon, Michael, our
former
handyman, is mentally retarded.”
So that explained it! We literally did not know that, all this time, we had been hanging out with a sort of ne’er-do-well, drunken Forrest Gump (minus the inspirational story/good nature/running skills/happy ending). Now we knew.
See, Mikey Rip-It-Up was so especially cool to us, a group of thirteen-year-old boys, because he had the mind of a thirteen-year-old boy. He really
was
just like us. Sad.
Eventually, though, our minds had begun to build more sophisticated spiderwebs of thought and conniving and Mikey just stayed the same way. Mikey was gonna be thirteen for the rest of his life, and we, sad to say, were going to get older. The consequences of our age were going to chip away at us until some of us were dead, and some of us were in jail, and some of us got the fuckout of Oakland. But Mikey Rip-It-Up was going to stay the same. Too bad for him, our consequences ruined his little life. Mikey didn’t go back to his parents and ask for help after he got in trouble. He may have seemed like one of us, but he really wasn’t. We ravaged his life and left him severed from the charity that had been keeping him afloat. After we moved on, he sank.
Mikey hit the road and,
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