The relatively dark ending of Side One now over (there should always be a dramatic finish to the first act) we turn now to a Valentine’s reprieve in the form of fantasy. When real life doesn’t work out, and more often than not it doesn’t (at least not to the perfect extent that some of us would like) there’s only one thing to do: escape. I’m not talking the well-practiced acceptance speech after winning an Oscar/Grammy/Tony/Emmy award, or the imagined thunderous applause after performing a sell-out concert in Madison Square Garden, or even the perfectly-executed dance routine at a wedding that has all guests gasping in thrilled adoration and awe, I’m talking something more subtle yet just as seemingly unattainable: the perfect guy.

Track #4: LOST IN YOUR EYES

He watches me in the brief moments between classes. Our lockers are across from each other, and out of the corner of my eye I can tell he is pausing, waiting until I catch him staring, at which point he’ll look away or rush off or, on those happiest of days, look back and give a brief smile. He is older than me, but I like that. There is something protective about the way he behaves toward me, something I never felt even from my own parents. His protection was absolute, unwavering, and unconditional. It was simply in his nature.

After school one day he found me sitting by the curb, waiting for my ride. He sat down next to me. The brush of his denim was soft but firm, and he smelled vaguely of warmth – of toast on a cold morning, of apple pie on a cold night, of hot chocolate on a winter day – and of something dirtier.

He makes a bit of small talk, asks about a class I’m in that he took a couple of years ago, then squeezes my shoulder as a way of saying good-bye. I look up at him as he rises, and he has that smile again. And those eyes. And suddenly I am lost.

That night, I lie in bed unable to sleep. The feel of his hand on my shoulder had thrilled me, and I put my own hand on the bony area trying to determine what he might have felt. It is thin and slight beneath my hand, and I wonder at how it would compare to his own broadness and muscles. I feel embarrassed and ashamed, and my heart is in riot and rapture. I try to conjure his scent, try to recall the brief brush of his leg against mine, and only end up pulling a pillow close to myself for comfort. I want to cry.

I don’t mind not knowing what I’m headed for

You can take me to the skies

It’s like being lost in heaven

when I’m lost in your eyes. 

I just fell…

The days pass slowly, filled with the agonizing distractions of school work and classes between which I live in the brief moments that I’m near him. I write his name on scraps of paper that I quickly tear into tiny pieces with less than a letter on each lest anyone piece together the secret wishes of my heart. Alone in my bedroom, I write more than his name.

Love letters and dreams and fantasies of a life together. I write him my darkest fears, tell him my most daring desires, and explain how in the moment he touched my shoulder my whole world changed. I fold it up, seal and date it, and hide it deep in the bottom drawer of my desk. One day I will present it to him ~ maybe when we get married, maybe when we buy our first home, maybe when we celebrate our 50th anniversary – but some way and somehow he must know.

Track #5: I’LL BE YOUR EVERYTHING

He says hello to me in the hallway, whenever we pass. Sometimes it seems like he goes out of his way to do so, pushing through a throng of students just to get closer to me, then I think it’s all in my head. Why would anyone bother, especially someone as beautiful as him? But then I’m sure of it, certain that he looks frustrated if he can’t reach me before the sea of classmates swirls me away from him. On those days when we both linger after classes are done, I wonder if he too feels shy and excited and reluctant to leave. We begin walking out together, and I admit that I wait if he’s running late, or hurry if some teacher keeps class a little longer than usual. After a few days, it feels like old habit, and soon it is my favorite part of the day. There is a decent trek from our lockers to the parking lot where his car is and where my ride arrives, and I want to believe we both slow a bit near the end, anything to prolong our time together.

One day he tells me he should just drop me off to save my parents the drive. I’m not far out of his way. The excitement of the prospect of being alone in a car with him is matched only by the realization that he knows where I live. In those pre-internet days, before FaceBook and social media left us all transparently visible on a Google map, he managed to find out something about me. That someone cared enough to research where I lived, or at least to ask, touched me more than anything. Most of the time the world – at least my world – didn’t bother to care. Then, just like that, he was driving me home every day. Away from the prying eyes of classmates and the boundaries of school, he was different.

It’s hard to explain – he was a little less guarded, more ready to laugh, and somehow happier. I thought it was just being out of school that produced the giddiness, but a small part of me – the part that struggled to believe whether I was worthy of love – peeked out from years of hiding and allowed myself the possible realization that he was happier because I was with him. No amount of therapy or self-help books would ever surpass what that single moment accomplished. There is nothing quite as nourishing as feeling loved.

One day he doesn’t stop at my house, but glides past and around the block again. I challenge him with a quizzical glare, but his look and subsequent tone are so serious I don’t make a sarcastic comment. He tells me that he has something for me but that it’s not a big deal, just something he made because he saw how I liked certain songs on our rides home. With a trembling hand, he reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a cassette tape. On the side he has written, “Alan’s Melancholy Mix” and then a listing of all the songs. Most are ones we’d listened to on our brief rides, when he’d briefly sing along and give me a side smile, knowing I was too shy to ever join in.

There were a couple of classic rock songs, some power ballads from the likes of Journey and Chicago, and a few New Wave dance ditties that we both guiltily admired. The smile-inducing if infuriating inclusion of ‘You Can Call Me Al’ (because he knows that you absolutely can’t) rounds out the tape, but the best part is what he writes within the liner notes:

“For a guy who always seems a little sadder than he should be.”

Track #6: FAITHFULLY 

I wear the tape out, getting out of bed multiple times in the night to flip it over and begin it again. I replay the moment he gave it to me, the way his hand touched mine and lingered, as if there was more to be done. Years later, I would reassemble that mix of songs into a playlist and present it to him on an iPod. His eyes would light up as he played each song and we remembered those rides together. Our first kiss, the way he held my hand before it, and the ensuing lifetime of love played out amid the pop songs of the 80’s. We were in a different car, in a different city, and a completely different world, but we’d managed to stay together.

I’m still yours…

Faithfully.

You don’t need the whole world to love you, you just need the one.

{PS – None of this fantasy ever happened. No guy ever rescued me from the doldrums and terrors of school. I had to rescue myself, and I did, and if I’m a little bitter about it, well, that’s what Valentine’s Day is sometimes for.}

There is no cheesier “holiday” than Valentine’s Day, and while I have no horrible V-Day memories to conjure, neither have I any overtly romantic ones that come to mind. Every day with Andy is like Valentine’s Day. (Awwwww…) This has always been a Hallmark-perpetuated celebration of the hollow and trite, and traditionally I wear black to mark the occasion. It wasn’t always this way. When I was a boy the sweeping grand possibility of romance blasted from the horns of golden cherubs, and I fervently believed that one day my prince would come. As a throwback to that innocent time, to the moments when my jadedness had not yet hardened into its current implacable state, I present to you this modern-day version of a mix tape.

Back when I was a wee youngster, we had cassette tapes. They were small plastic rectangles that slid into a stereo or Walkman and played music from the slow turning of a fine, shiny brown filament. They could hold anywhere from 60 to 120 minutes of music – most clocking in at the 90 minute range. That’s a lot of space to fill with sound, but there never seemed to be a dearth of things to say though music. I won’t put you through anything as torturous or time-consuming as that – in fact, this is more of a super-brief EP than a proper mix tape, but the sentiment is the same. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Track #1: YOU’RE THE INSPIRATION

In the scant few years before the boys would square off against the girls, my best friends were mostly of the female persuasion. While any burgeoning physical attraction was leaning toward the guys, I had much more in common with the girls. They found me funny, and I found them more interesting than boys. They cared about pretty things, like hair and shoes and jewelry, and they were less rambunctious and violent than boys. We were not quite to the age where the lines were drawn in the sand though, so my friendships with girls in the class went relatively unridiculed. Such safety and freedom were more fleeting than I realized, and soon enough it would be forbidden to sit at a table of girls until high school. I didn’t know this then, so went about blissfully unaware of the impending end to such easy and sexless camaraderie.

For Valentine’s Day we would create our own Valentine receptacles out of brown paper bags, decorated with construction paper and glitter and doilies – the only time it would be ok for boys to dabble with doilies. I poured my heart into it, making the prettiest bag I could, hoping to attract the most Valentines  ~ not just because of who I was but because of how pretty I could make my bag. In truth, none of this really crossed my conscious mind. I loved a good craft project as much as the next person, but when given free reign I always felt a shiver of panic, particularly when no guidelines or rules were established. A little freedom is a good thing; too much makes me uncomfortable. Chalk it up to my Virgo birthdate.

Looking back, I can see now that I was never as despised as I sometimes felt I was. In fact, my bag was one of the heavier ones. This was a time before we were really hardened by the world, a time before any serious divisive differences. When left to their own devices, most children are pretty accepting of each other. It’s when parental and adult prejudices and influences start coming into play that kids get ruined or enriched.

For those few Valentine’s Days when boys and girls could give loving cards to each other without care or concern, I felt happy and adored. There was a purity in that exchange, something that would be missing after a certain age. We gave our hearts to one another, without reserve, without fear, without judgment.

You’re the meaning in my life, you’re the inspiration.

You bring feeling to my life, you’re the inspiration.

When you love somebody til the end of time…

Track #2: OPEN ARMS

By the last years of our time at R.J. McNulty Elementary School, we were beginning to galvanize into adolescents. The change was sometimes sudden, sometimes slow, and always irreversible. Boys didn’t much socialize with girls except to torment and antagonize. It was playful teasing for the most part, the set-up for more serious flirtations to come. Yet my heart sang a different tune. The sirens that called to me weren’t female, and the attractions I felt toward girls in my class were platonic and comforting, not dangerous or tinged with desire.

At night, the glowing red digital colon of my alarm clock blinked on and off its steady count of seconds. Staring idly at the shaft of hallway light that came in through the cracked door, I listened as Journey’s ‘Open Arms’ came on over the radio. At such a young age, I couldn’t have had the first clue about romantic love, but something in me had always understood longing. The unrequited fancies of a boy too often get lost in the assumed toughness that comes from being a boy. I never had that toughness, so I’d have to craft a cage for my heart for my own protection. I didn’t know that then, and I’m sort of glad.

I opened my heart to every silly crush and foolish infatuation, and fell head-first into the giddy swirling notion of what I thought was love. I pined silently and relentlessly for a camp counselor, a class-mate, and the blonde guy on ‘CHiPs.’ It would be my major downfall in life: to want the ones who didn’t want me back. My heart would never learn. My heart would never quiet. And my heart would never stop… longing… wanting… loving.

So now I come to you with open arms

Nothing to hide, believe what I say

So here I am with open arms

Hoping you’ll see what your love means to me…

Track #3: THE SEARCH IS OVER

Shards of ice amid a crazy state of mind. Disconcerting winter thaws and restless summer nights. The shifting of seasons across the mine-field of my heart. The ongoing search for a match. The quest for a partner. The fear of being alone. Such thoughts marred the mind as it tried to empty itself for sleep.

A love song on the radio. Lovers listening on the ride home. And me, not giving a fuck. Not even trying. In black and gray, damning the day of St. Valentine with a vehemence reserved for the bitter and the bereft, I spit out emotional vitriol and the carrion of trampled hearts in my wake.

I was living for a dream,

Loving for a moment.

Taking on the world,

That was just my style…

The random act of violence upon an innocent bystander is somehow easier to take than the sweet stab of veiled aggression by a lover or a family member. The former may leave you with a sickening lack of faith in the world, but the latter always leaves you with a sickening lack of faith in yourself. It is invariably destructive.

A shattered heart can never quite be put back together again.

All these silly love songs, all the cards and flowers and candy, all the jewelry and perfume and cologne – are but masks to disguise the utter emptiness of this holiday. If you’re lucky enough to get to this point in your life relatively unscathed, and if your heart has never been broken, hold onto that. For the rest of us, we’ll just keep looking for a way back to the day our school desks were littered with the innocent love notes of classmates, to a time when love was given without hesitation or reluctance or question, and to the last moment our hearts were full.

[I bet you can’t wait to flip the tape to get to Side Two…]