I used to call them babyfaces. Not so they'd hear me, but in my head lived a slew of them: I could let their names drop out of my mouth easily and endlessly as falling rain. And with the girls I sometimes would. They all, punk rock or thugged out or beach hood, had one thing in common: a bright, boyish face and that light in their eyes.
I wanted to, want to, save every one of them. These boys, these sweet angelheaded boys I want to save and will by any means necessary. I will save them by taking them to my bed. I will save them by taking them to my mom's table, or late late in the night in through the back siding glass door.
I will save them loud and quiet, I will save them when they show up sweet and I will save them when they dont show up at all and forget to call. I will save them a million nights, and a million different mornings. I will save them best when they come with the weeds and so drunk that they're part crying but cant even tell.
When did this happen? When did I trade my purple boots and flannel shouts for dubsacs and dime bags, blunts and nickel hits a coke? When did I rush to trade me in to save nightmares posed as a dream?
Today there were three of them. I forgot, I'd long forgot, that they used to be my means. Why tonight, why tonight to come back to me? I had to doublelook at the birthdates, they looked SO young, the sparkling freshface, sweet skin and shiny eyes. One continues to put Miss before my name even though I tell them all, call me Kelly. How could two of them already a been locked up? Already done time? Sweet little babyfaces not one a day over 19.
They want to get their GED's. Two will by July, the other, if he sticks around and doesn't go back to jail, could by the end of the year. Why tonight?
Because one of them I know he doesn't get it, and I have to tell him, cuz if I dont no one else will. And then it's back, it's all back because the I inside that I kept tucked away deep has been blending in lately with the Me that I used to be, and together this dynasty of I's and Me's are surfacing and merging and growing out again not from how I used to be but comfortably as one now within the whole of Who I Am.
So I tell him. Look, maybe no one's ever told you this before but these scores you got tonight, it takes someone special to come in off the streets and do this well, I want you to know how much potential you've got, I want you to seriously think about what you've always secretly thought of doing in your life. I want you to think about it and meet with me again on Wednesday so we can talk more.
Then, to get his attention, I lean back and say you know why I think most young people drop out of high school?
And he stops looking at his shoes and looks up with a twinkle in his eye, why? Cuz their too smart for high school and they're bored. And also they think that it's a waste of time cuz their extracurricular life, you know the one out on the street, is way more real. And they want the real life. They're insulted by how fake school and that whole scene seems.
He smiles wide. Yeah, yeah.
I stop. Sometimes I go on and tell the story about me and my dean the one where three weeks before my high school graduation I chased him around the desk in his office threatening him but luckily Dean Perry liked me, which is exactly what he told me later, and had been telling me for years, and also why he decided to cut me a break. I had just been suspended for skipping a week before. He liked me because in the 9th grade I was making my own zine, or independant magazine, fashioned after the riot grrrl zines that were steady influencing me, my music choices and lifestyle opinions at that time and I was eagerly selling it at school. All the Queens Men was my zine and in addition to it I had several photocopies of Fantastic Fanzine and whatever latest copies of Riot Grrrl I had in my possession. As was the punk rock grass roots way I was giving these zines away to whoever showed mild interest in what they had to say. Some time after lunch one day I got called down to the Dean's Office and I was all quivery inside, flushed and redfaced and ready to launch a defensive attack, and sort of out of control with the frenzy of adrenaline same reaction like I get even to this day. But more, inside what I remember is a staunch and quiet strong feeling of injustice. A simple how can he stop me from distributing these, speech and expression about real life is my right.
The very same real life that can so insidiously make you lose your power. The real life that can without warning or seeming reason slowly shut you up.
Dean Perry condemned me for peddling smut: these were the first days of female musicians using their thrash heavy music to take political stands. Rape, incest, prostitution and freedom of sexuality was all over the pages of both Fantastic Fanzine and Riot Grrrl; by comparison my All the Queen's Men was tellingly more tame. But I stood up for it, I defended it, I stood calm as I could while unfalteringly standing my ground. In the end I was reprimanded for selling goods during school hours. And regardless the hell I would raise and raise from that point on in my good Catholic school, Dean Perry made it clear that he respected me from that day of our very first encounter for my little showing of my own self respect.
That, and he knew I was way too smart for my own good.
When did all that change? All that pride and stalwart conviction in what's right? All that self-respect and belief in me. The grl power and Revolution Grrrl Style Now when did it turn to the men, the men the men the babyboys all wrapped up in tangled meaning in my cusps.
Babyfaces. Babyfaced. With eyes of a fool.
Why tonight? Because why not? Because two years ago this week Kevin finally went to the drugs. My prince, sweet fucking Kevin babyface beachboy love with the sharp sharp jaw. Like my old buddy Konan said when he told me all about it, it was kinda good though, you know? At least his parents didn't have to wait anymore to get the call.
Too fucking smart for our own good.
Because here I am and I didn't even realize it? Still laying my body down. Convinced I can save them all...
Ocean City 1995
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