Rev. X opened their front door when I rang. He gave me his usual, kind pastoral smile. Panic set over me instantly. Maybe I could tell him I needed private counseling. Maybe I could say I dropped by to volunteer for sweeping the church parking lot the rest of my life. Better yet, maybe I could tell him I saw his porch light on, and, while wiping my tears, tell him I was passing by on the way home and wanted him to pray for my sick cat.
Unfortunately, however, it seemed he knew why I was there. He turned to the living room and said, “April, Dick is here.” “Oh dear God, I’m sorry for all my sins. Please let me die right now so I can disappear.” God didn’t hear me.
Then I saw her. I suddenly decided she was absolutely the skinniest thing I had ever seen in my whole life. Surely a five inch tube sock would have swallowed her easily, but her hair was nicely combed and she even had a real dress on. As I peeked out from underneath the welcome mat she looked down at me through the glasses on her nose and nervously said “Hi”.
Horror of horrors, she was two years younger than me and yet she looked like a woman dressed up to go somewhere special. As for me, I’m not sure I remembered to scrub my face a little extra or polish those sandlot shoes. I never dreamed growing up could be so gross.
I tried to pretend I wasn’t there. I denied I had ever been born. Finally, it seemed there was no escaping the situation and I managed to return an embarrassed “Hi”. Somehow we managed to wave good bye to her dad as we bumbled down the porch and said a few dumb things. It took at least an hour to walk those twenty steps to my chauffeur-driven limousine.
Well, actually, it wasn’t a real limousine. It was the family 1951 De Soto, cold, old and needing to be sold. The chauffeur was actually a chauffeuresse, my elderly sister. She was an over-the-hill old maid, already nineteen and in college. Still, she had credit due her because she at least offered to drive us to the junior play at school since I wasn’t old enough yet.
It was wintry outside but that seemed fitting because it fit the atmosphere. It is impossible to know how many miles and hours it took to get from her house to the high school just a few blocks away.
When we finally arrived, the chauffeuresse spared us the embarrassment of being escorted and dumped us off in front of the big trees where it was dark. When we opened the school door there were not only classmates but even some parents and other adults. Some of them stared at us, and, of all nightmares, even a teacher had the gall to smile and say “Hello”.
I think I probably fainted there at the entrance. I don’t remember getting all the way inside but apparently did. The play had no name, no beginning, no intermission, and no ending. Maybe my first date ran away and hid or maybe she was kidnapped. Hard to say. Probably the city fathers had me sent home in an ambulance that night, and, at best, it was likely worse for her than it was for me. My memory is devoid of any recall whatsoever. I don’t remember ever seeing April again or hearing her wonderful dad ever preach again. Perhaps, indeed, I had already died after all and didn’t realize it.
That cured me for awhile. I couldn’t imagine what had come over me, a fun-loving teenager that believed in things like God, and like digging fishing worms and how to drop kick a football. I sacrificed a whole evening when I could have been assembling my P38 model fighter plane…to go of all places to a school with a girl…and in public where people could see!!!
Alas, such is the idiocy that propels an otherwise sane existence into confusion.
With the passing of time I began to find courage to inquire of others what had caused that apparent temporary insanity. Eventually I learned that teenagers sometimes catch something called “hormones” and the disease makes them start doing such weird and embarrassing things as I had done. It seemed maybe I had gotten affected by hormones somewhere along the way, whatever they are or whatever it is. Maybe I caught it from the flu or when I was digging manure out of the sheep pen.
Right then and there I decided to be a doctor when I grew up and invent a hormone vaccine to kill that germ before it could spread through the whole population. Dr. Salk had just done it for polio, and I would be the next giant on the line. I was sure God wouldn’t want any other kids like me to experience such gross stuff. Hormones deserved to die.