passing off to sleep, she noticed a box beneath my bed with a latch on it that I had mistakenly left unlocked.
In the final version, the one that still comes to me intermittently, in times when I want to feel innocent, my mother began snooping as soon as I walked out the door. She did not wait to see me wave to her from my father’s Mercedes, nor did she even bother with cooking that roast. Instead she stomped straight into my room and flung the clothes out of my drawers. She dumped my schoolbag out on the desk. She flipped through my notebooks. She called up Randy and Artsy Julie to grill them about my character. She stood on footstools and riffled through the items at the top of my closet. She looked underneath my mattress. And just when she was about to give up, when she was a second or two from realizing that my rebellion was only a quick rite of passage, nothing to be alarmed about, she sat on the floor to assess the damage she’d done. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a box underneath my bed with a latch on it that I had mistakenly left unlocked.
Regardless of how it all happened, what she found in the box was this: five poems; twenty-seven pornographic drawings of Lindy and myself; a green bracelet made by Lindy’s Christian pen pal in Jamaica;two hair barrettes; six pages of pornography torn from a magazine called
Cherry
that a guy named Ronnie Gibbs had brought to school; seven wallet-sized school photos of Lindy (two with her face cut out and pasted to the aforementioned
Cherry
pages); the condoms and sex pamphlet that my mother herself had given me; four mix tapes; a small bottle of Astroglide personal lubricant (half empty); six packets of vending-machine condoms with names like Mud Grips, French Tickler, and Lambskinz on them; the photo of Lindy singing to herself as she walked that I’d gotten from Jason Landry; a page ripped from the back of my yearbook that Lindy had signed for me in the seventh grade that read
Hey you! Have a great summer! Hugs, Lindy
(the
i
dotted with a heart); a pair of cheap plastic binoculars; and, finally, unfortunately, a blue Reebok running shoe.
Most of these items had easy explanations.
I dabbled, for instance, in poetry. The majority of my verse was so vague, however, that if it weren’t for the accompanying visuals, my mother likely couldn’t have pegged my muse. One poem I remember was called “106 Steps” and detailed the amount of walking it took for me to get to Lindy’s house.
Step number six, I bet you taste like Pixy Stix,
and so on. Lindy’s name was never mentioned, of course, as I substituted words like
heaven
,
nirvana
, and
paradise
for the Simpson house. It was awful stuff. Another was called “Roses in My Hand” and made a series of veiled innuendos about every red part of her that I would like to touch. I wasn’t trying to be coy, though, I was just a kid to whom everything seemed unclear. I wanted to fondle her
heat
, her
aura
, her
soul
, none of which I’d physically know how to locate if she allowed me. The last one I remember was written in violet Crayola for effect and was titled, simply enough, “My Blood Is You.”
This was not so bad. I’ve heard more malice in pop songs.
Much of the incriminating memorabilia could also be explainedby my habit of pacing the sidewalk in front of Lindy’s house. This was fairly innocent stuff as well: the barrettes, the green friendship bracelet that had unraveled and fallen off in the rain. Surely a boy can’t be blamed for that. Think of men who walk along the beaches in sunglasses and full-brimmed hats, scouring the sand with metal detectors. These are not felons. Think of our parents, even, holding on to some gold-plated brooch their mothers once wore, or stowing away a box of ribbons their father garnered in war. We are all small historians, aren’t we? We are all private treasure hunters, every one of us. So what was I supposed to do when, after the crime, I happened upon that lone
In the final version, the one that still comes to me intermittently, in times when I want to feel innocent, my mother began snooping as soon as I walked out the door. She did not wait to see me wave to her from my father’s Mercedes, nor did she even bother with cooking that roast. Instead she stomped straight into my room and flung the clothes out of my drawers. She dumped my schoolbag out on the desk. She flipped through my notebooks. She called up Randy and Artsy Julie to grill them about my character. She stood on footstools and riffled through the items at the top of my closet. She looked underneath my mattress. And just when she was about to give up, when she was a second or two from realizing that my rebellion was only a quick rite of passage, nothing to be alarmed about, she sat on the floor to assess the damage she’d done. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a box underneath my bed with a latch on it that I had mistakenly left unlocked.
Regardless of how it all happened, what she found in the box was this: five poems; twenty-seven pornographic drawings of Lindy and myself; a green bracelet made by Lindy’s Christian pen pal in Jamaica;two hair barrettes; six pages of pornography torn from a magazine called
Cherry
that a guy named Ronnie Gibbs had brought to school; seven wallet-sized school photos of Lindy (two with her face cut out and pasted to the aforementioned
Cherry
pages); the condoms and sex pamphlet that my mother herself had given me; four mix tapes; a small bottle of Astroglide personal lubricant (half empty); six packets of vending-machine condoms with names like Mud Grips, French Tickler, and Lambskinz on them; the photo of Lindy singing to herself as she walked that I’d gotten from Jason Landry; a page ripped from the back of my yearbook that Lindy had signed for me in the seventh grade that read
Hey you! Have a great summer! Hugs, Lindy
(the
i
dotted with a heart); a pair of cheap plastic binoculars; and, finally, unfortunately, a blue Reebok running shoe.
Most of these items had easy explanations.
I dabbled, for instance, in poetry. The majority of my verse was so vague, however, that if it weren’t for the accompanying visuals, my mother likely couldn’t have pegged my muse. One poem I remember was called “106 Steps” and detailed the amount of walking it took for me to get to Lindy’s house.
Step number six, I bet you taste like Pixy Stix,
and so on. Lindy’s name was never mentioned, of course, as I substituted words like
heaven
,
nirvana
, and
paradise
for the Simpson house. It was awful stuff. Another was called “Roses in My Hand” and made a series of veiled innuendos about every red part of her that I would like to touch. I wasn’t trying to be coy, though, I was just a kid to whom everything seemed unclear. I wanted to fondle her
heat
, her
aura
, her
soul
, none of which I’d physically know how to locate if she allowed me. The last one I remember was written in violet Crayola for effect and was titled, simply enough, “My Blood Is You.”
This was not so bad. I’ve heard more malice in pop songs.
Much of the incriminating memorabilia could also be explainedby my habit of pacing the sidewalk in front of Lindy’s house. This was fairly innocent stuff as well: the barrettes, the green friendship bracelet that had unraveled and fallen off in the rain. Surely a boy can’t be blamed for that. Think of men who walk along the beaches in sunglasses and full-brimmed hats, scouring the sand with metal detectors. These are not felons. Think of our parents, even, holding on to some gold-plated brooch their mothers once wore, or stowing away a box of ribbons their father garnered in war. We are all small historians, aren’t we? We are all private treasure hunters, every one of us. So what was I supposed to do when, after the crime, I happened upon that lone
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