Sometimes I forget why I bother.

I wake up late, something like 2PM late, and I’m immediately faced with the notion that I’m not exactly sure what happened. There’s no one next to me, but it’s clear that there is someone here. I stare at the ceiling, contemplating, and when I begin to listen I can hear the faint buzzing of the old television and the way that it rattles the walls a bit when someone on the screen yells. I try my best to fall back to sleep but I can’t. My head is throbbing, my mouth tastes yellow. I finally succumb to the fact that I have to get out of bed.

Upon entering my front room I see her. She is sitting cross-legged and upright on the couch, wearing a pair of my plaid boxer shorts and one of my smaller t-shirts. Her mess of hair is pulled up and back and the little make-up she had on has been completely rubbed off. Her eyes are crystal blue transparent and they see right through every part of me.

"Hi," I say.
"Hey," she says back to me. "Are you ready to drive me home?"

The mid-afternoon sun is broken up, sliding through the cracks in the mini-blinds and making stripes on her skin, which is so much more perfect without anything covering it up.
"I am," I reply. "Just let me get a drink of water."

Every Single Drop of Me Spills Out and Misses Her Completely

It was my fifth grade pornography. I would save up a couple bucks and tag along with my mom to the store, quickly scurrying to the racks to see if the new issue of BMX Plus or Freestylin’ was out yet. I would very carefully select one after checking the table of contents, and only let go of it to allow the cashier to scan it, at which point I would be waiting with outstretched hands for its return. I would take it home and lay around for the rest of the day, flipping through the pages, sucking in every word, and in the same way an older man might long after things that he could never have while perusing the pages of an erotic magazine, I would study the pages and dream of bikes and accessories that I could surely not afford.

I would stare for days at the pictures of the sponsored pros at their freestyle meets, crowds cheering emphatically as the riders maneuvered themselves around their bikes effortlessly. Among my heroes: Dizz Hicks, a burly guy who had hair not unlike Dee Snider from Twisted Sister and sported an Iron Maiden sticker on every bike that he rode; His partner in crime, Ceppie Mayes, who, although I didn’t realize it at the time, looked just like Perry Farrel, specifically in that he was dangerously thin and had jet black hair; and Ron Wilkerson, the pretty boy who rode for the rich guy factory team. I actually made it to a freestyle meet that year, and upon running into Ron’s younger brother Ryan(who was also a pro) at the urinal, proceeded to ask him if he was Ron Wilkerson’s brother. He told me, and rightfully so, to fuck off.

BMX is not a cheap sport to get involved in, and my parents were never in the position to run out and buy me a $450 bike just because I thought the custom mag wheels were "rad." So, I had to do some comparison shopping to find the best bike that we could afford. My birthday had rolled around and my parents were able to come up with $150 for the white Mongoose M-1 that I had my eye on. It was not a freestyle bike, it was pretty much a bare bones racing bike, but it said Mongoose on the side, and that was good enough for me. I rode the bike to school every day, taking all the big curb jumps and riding as fast as I could, speeding past anyone who might slow me down. That bike was like the girl in the back of the magazine: She's not as hot as the centerfold, but she's nothing to balk at, either.

Aaron McLaughlin was a sixth grader, but by virtue of the ever-popular split class, he and I sat a few desks away from each other. He was a husky young kid whose tight black curls that stuck to his head made him look Italian. He probably was Italian. He wore ski vests with flannel shirts underneath them and had the ability to be both very timid and very frightening. He was always cordial with me and I did my best to treat him the same way, but I always heard the stories:

"Did you hear about Aaron throwing the chair across the room while he was in after-school detention? Then I heard he started crying."
"I heard Aaron stole some guy’s bike this weekend and threw it in a river."
"Did you hear that Aaron finger-banged Brandi this weekend?"

I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded just as bad as "blow job," which I was also in the dark about. I still don’t understand why they call it that. Seems like it should be "suck work." Whatever. Like I said, Aaron had always been really nice to me, but I still made a mental note to not get in his way.

After school one day I was hanging around with Aaron and some of the other kids from our class and I was letting him ride my bike because I was really bad at saying no to anyone, especially him. I’m sitting at home reading bike porn, this guy’s doing things to girls that I can’t even imagine. I kind of had to yield to him. I was messing around, playing it cool, not paying a whole lot of attention to what he was doing with my prized Mongoose, when I glanced over and spotted him up on the crest of the hill that surrounded the small mini-valley that our school was in the middle of. I immediately feared the worst: The Ghost Ride. This is when you get going on a bike down a hill, feet not firmly planted on the pedals of the bike, and when a certain speed is achieved, the bike is thrust out from underneath the individual and the bike is rocketed down on its own, usually ending in a topsy-turvy mess.

Aaron was no doubt prepping for this and I was too far away to do anything. I yelled up to him. "Don’t ghost ride it! Please!" He heard me and did nothing. He clamored down the hill, his legs jutting outward, bouncing on the seat, and he let it go. The bike went flying, staying steady for a split second and then careening over itself and awkwardly rolling down the hill. I met up with it before it stopped, trying to grab on and prevent any further harm.

I examined the bike carefully, checking for damage. The brake cable had a small tear in it, but it wasn’t deep enough to impair it from functioning properly. I was still upset, but relieved. I tried to play it off cool with Aaron, but I was visibly bothered. He apologized and I straddled my bike, protecting it from any further harm that he might try to inflict on it. He walked away. I turned around and she was facing me. It was Amber, a girl who was in sixth grade and in a different class than mine. She was smiling.

"That was pretty lame," she said.
"Yeah, I guess," I said to her, "but my bike’s okay."
"Well that’s good."
"Yeah, I guess."

Amber was pretty, noticeably pretty actually. She had shoulder length blonde hair, fat pink cheeks, and a hoarseness to her voice that was rare in a girl her age. I knew her from school, but I didn’t know much. I did not have an easy time with girls. I was both cautious and curious. I had never really kissed a girl, was very scared to kiss a girl, scared of what might happen after it was over. Would I have to change or would I be changed or something like that? More importantly, I would have to take the jabs from everyone at school who would secretly be jealous and would find the worst possible ways of expressing their feelings.

A few weeks later it came to my attention through the hardly tight social web at the grade school that Amber like-liked me and I instantly became a bit nervous about it. She began to make small talk with me at recess, acting like this was standard schoolyard procedure. This was fairly new to me. I had never really talked to girls because I had no reason to. They didn’t care what kind of bike I rode or if the Braves had won or lost the previous weekend. They invested their time in stretch pants, erasers that were shaped like clouds, and Cabbage Patch dolls who had names like Skeeter McHenry and ridiculous shit like that.

Like I said, though, I was secretly interested. I was intrigued, just like any normal fifth grade boy should be. There was something soft and easy about girls. They cried and it was okay and they flipped out and it was understood and things hurt them worse and it was okay to show it. If they bent their finger back, even the tiniest bit, they went to the office and got an ice pack and they would sit for the rest of the day with a bag of lukewarm water resting on their hand, always close to crying actual tears. Maybe I was jealous. Maybe I’m secretly gay. Maybe I spent way too much time with my mom when I was growing up.

After school one day that Spring, I was hanging around with the same gang from my class, when Aaron somehow got a hold of the Mongoose and began riding it around. He knew how to push my buttons, I wasn’t hard to figure out. Amber was there, and she and I were talking while he rode around trying his best to annoy me. He wouldn’t bring the bike back to me, and eventually everyone left and it was just the three of us. Aaron rode up to Amber and I. We were standing barely underneath the covered area that was attached to the school. I looked at Aaron. "Alright dude, give me my bike back. I gotta go home now."

"Tell you what," he said. "you kiss Amber and I’ll give you the bike back."
I went white and cold. "Come on," I said, "just give me the bike."

"Kiss her." I looked at her. She was smiling, and for a minute I thought maybe she was in on this. Even if she wasn’t initially, it was clear that she was now. I had to cut my losses and get home. I turned to her, shut my eyes, and kissed her on the mouth. I said nothing as I backed away, then I grinned the best I could at her, took my bike from Aaron and I got on and started home, knowing that I was going to have to hear about this at school the next day.

The next step in the grade school relationship is the going. You go with someone. It doesn’t involve actually travelling anywhere, you are just going with the person. In my situation, since I had kissed the girl, the next step would be the asking of her if she would like to go with me. I know that I did this with Amber, I just can’t remember when or where I did it. I’m assuming that I did it at recess the next day, with some of her friends watching us and giggling. That had to be the way it went.

Anyway, Amber and I were going together, which to me meant that I had to say hi to her every time I saw her, or at least smile and acknowledge that she was in the area. This was the best that I could muster. Her friends started telling me that I should kiss her again, that if we were truly "going" that this is just what we would have to do. I tried to act collected as I let them know that I planned to kiss her again, but also made it clear that I would have to pick a good time to do it. I wanted everything to be cool, I would say. Don’t rush me, I would say. Then they would call me a prude. Another word which was wasted on me, but I knew I didn’t want to be one, so I said whatever I could to get them off my back.

The first kiss with Amber had been a random occurrence. There was no chance of things coming together like that again. I could think of no plan to kiss her again, so instead I chose to keep playing wallball and four square at recess, hoping things would work themselves out. If I saw her I would smile and say hello, and people would sometimes ask me what was going on, but I would just make up some story. Yes, I guess we are going, but I don’t know much else.

About two weeks of the going went by, and I had not kissed Amber again. I was sitting in the cafeteria eating the lunch that my mom had packed for me, sucking on a Caprisun, when a group of three of her sixth grade girlfriends approached me. They were smiling. I was scared. They towered over me as I sat holding my sandwich. One of them, the tallest one, seemed to be the designated spokesperson.

"Um, what’s up?"
"Nothing," I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin.
"Well, here’s the thing. Amber kind of wants to break up with you."
"Oh, um OK."

Now here’s where I lost track. When she said "kind of" I took it literally. I figured they meant that she was pondering it, that this was my warning to get my act together and act like a true going guy in order to stop this. However, they were using "kind of" as a way to cushion the blow of the break up. We were not on the same page. Maybe that’s why they were surprised that I took it in stride so well. They all looked down at me and grinned one big collective grin and they turned and walked away. I had a decision to make now, or at least I thought I did. I went home and I mulled it over while checking out the centerfold of Dizz Hicks doing some tricks on his tricked-out CW bike. He was screaming in a bubble from the top of a small wood contraption: "Use the small ramp, mutha!"

I didn’t know what to do. The next day at school, during lunch, I mentioned in passing to a girl who was sitting near me my dilemma. "Maybe I should just break up with her," I said. "You know, before she does it to me."

She stopped and looked at me. "Hold on," she said. She walked away and I saw her talking to Amber’s friends. They chatted for a bit and then they rose up and walked over to me, towering again over me and my turkey sandwich. The tallest one was grinning, and she was once again the spokeswoman. "You know that you and Amber are broken up, right? I mean, like you did hear us yesterday?"

I was immediately lost in a brilliant daydream in which I was to crawl into the industrial oven in the cafeteria and commence with the charring. Everyone had known except me. I meekly tried to cover but I had nothing. "Oh yeah, right. I know. That’s cool. Totally. Whatever." They smiled their big collective smile again and they turned like a dance team in unison and went back to their table. I tried to pull myself up and act like I had my shit together, but the look on my washed-out face couldn’t have made it more obvious that I didn’t. I tried to think of ways to disappear.

I rode my bike home alone that day, staring down and watching the smooth white and chrome racing with the streaking pavement, and I was clenching my teeth almost as hard as I was clenching the handles. I jumped all the curbs as hard and as fast as I could, wrenching on that fucking piece of metal, tasting the sweat and the tears that dropped into my mouth when the wheels would hit the ground, knowing without a doubt that this was only the beginning.