Supermoon 2003 - 2009 South Street Seaport Caricature Kiosk

Lower Manahattan, August 20, 2021

    I make my way through the winding streets of lower Manhattan enroute to the Traffic Violations Bureau.  Running late as usual, I hasten to make my 8:30 hearing so I can plead 'not guilty' to a ticket received early in the pandemic while racing on my bike to a doctor's appointment.  I pass the newly built World Trade Center, Trinity Church, and The Wall Street Bull. Tourists scrambling for photos, taking turns standing beside the larger than life bronze beast. This neighborhood is one with which I have a history. I am tempted to say 'much' history but how much can one person in one lifetime really have?  I ask myself this as I walk amid the civic buildings punctuated by their Grecian columns and classic sculptures of strong-bellied bare-chested winged ladies holding hands with cherubic babies -  a simulacrum of those from the days of yore.  I make my way to the 10th floor of 17 Battery Place, and when my number flashes on the digital screen, a desk clerk informs me that the officer who gave me the ticket is sick, and I am rescheduled for January.  I take the elevator down to the street and wander across Broadway, eastward to the South Street Seaport, noting the the many changes that have taken place in the past years. 

     My history with the seaport began in 2003.  For six years, I owned and operated a caricature kiosk. From the middle of May until the end of September, I drew tourists by day, and locals by night.  For those months, along with the other seasonal workers, I kept hours through the lengthening shadows of the Summer into the chill of early Autumn, when the crowds disappeared.

 I was still very new to New York City, and had just moved on from a teaching position, which had proved to be a poor fit.   I approached the South Street Management, when I noticed a portrait artist drawing tourists in the center of Pier 17. He was only there occasionally I had observed, and I wondered if there was a way to join forces with him.  Seaport management explained that the Pier was the exclusive domain of the portrait artist, as it had been for years, but they would allow me to sign my own contract for a different location. They charged me a paltry $600 a month , the caveat being that I would be allowed no secure storage, only a spot in the mall building service hallway near the elevators.  Here I could keep my display cabinet, its contents locked inside, and my umbrella. The young woman representing the management said I would be positioned at the end of Fulton Street, where Water Street becomes Pearl.  

  I built the cabinet myself, modeling it heavily on those in use at the amusement parks where I trained as a caricature artist in Denver and then Sandusky, Ohio. I affixed framed demonstration drawings to its exterior - some based on celebrities and some from imagination.  Three doors opened to three cubbies, where I would keep my supplies and personal items.  Casters on its base would allow for easy rolling across the short block of cobblestones, to my designated location.  Back then, the Fulton Fish Market was still operating under the JFK where it had been for 180 years.  The busy merchants were mostly gone for the day when I began my own, but the smell of fish hung heavy in the air as I pushed my cabinet along rough hewn cobblestones, passed historic brick buildings to my designated spot on Water Street,  at the far end of the seaport property just beside a small monument.  Shaped like a lighthouse, this was a monument to the victims who perished on the Titanic in 1911.  I hoped that this not bode poorly for my enterprise. Water Street gets its name from the fact that beginning in 1626, when NYC was purchased from the Lenape Indians, builders and engineers created bulkheads from sunken ships, and then adding landfill which created new maritime borders for the rapidly growing city. Water Street became Pearl Street to the south of my location, this named after the many oysters found in this area in the 1600's.  

    Early on, I noticed that my day's beginning coincided with that of the hot dog vendor across the street.  I would see the stand being pushed along Pearl, its stainless shape glistening in the morning light.  The figure pushing the weighty wheeled structure was a small-statured lady built like the powerful wooden boats docked along the pier -her face red with effort and short grey hairs straining from beneath a baseball cap. I learned that her name is Sophia, and she has been selling hot dogs at Fulton and Water for 16 years.  She was of Greek descent and knew all the good Greek restaurants in Queens.  I could easily see my cabinet from Sophia's hot dog stand, and kept an eye on potential business while sitting on a crate, and speaking with her about our latest topic. I enjoyed her company, and sustained myself with a steady diet of hotdogs during those first months of business, which were meager, to say the least. I happened to be situated in a wind corridor created by the buildings rising vertiginously before me.  The windy days were murderous, causing me to chase my umbrella and struggle with flying paper. Rain came fast out of nowhere on some days, and I would need to pack it all in quickly, and push my cabinet back to its storage spot, with greater speed than I had ever anticipated. 

     In July of that year, I learned that the portrait artist had taken leave of the seaport.  His spot at the center of the pier was available and I could have it right away.  I was delighted to be free of the trip across the cobblestones as this was quickly destroying the casters on the bottom of my cabinet.   Now, the distance from my storage spot in the mall building to the center of the pier was only a few short feet.  When it rained, I could quickly and easily stow it away for a few hours or for the day.  

    The mall building, demolished in 2013 after getting badly damaged in hurricane Sandy,  had a reputation for being the largest corrugated steel building in the country.  In other words, it was a gigantic tough shed.  During rainstorms, the ceiling leaked and buckets would appear, situated in puddles catching drips.   Just outside the doors that lead to the pier were two stands selling jewelry and custom license plates operated by a Turkish family.  They played pop music from a small speaker.  We became friends over the years, leaning on each other to watch over each other's stand when a bathroom break was needed. 

      The seaport hosted a busker program, and throughout the day and into the evening, a rotating cast of street performers would appear, entertain, and disappear - creating a void for the next performance.   There was the Jamaican yogi, a waif of a man who fit himself into a 1'  box, drawing frenzied crowds with his energetic muscle-bound fluffers.  The early shifts brought several human statues.  A purple fairy held hands with tourists and twirled a parasol as onlookers took rapid fire snapshots - across the way, her boyfriend, clad in a metallic costume of his own creation, his face painted in silver, vocalized polyphonic electronic sounds of an exasperated robot, these becoming triumphant when a dollar landed in his jar.  They were both from Brazil. 

    One morning after pushing my cabinet out into the center of the pier, I was counting the singles I had acquired as change, when I heard the swooshing sounds of a burlap bag being dragged across the wooden planks in my direction. “Well,  hello Money Bags!” said Alan, the Balloonatic, a tall swarthy man,  hands on hips. The burlap sack he dragged behind him issued with elongated balloons which spilled from his rear like a peackock's tail.  He astonished me with his sales banter, which drew the tourists in like flies to the lamplight.  "Give with your heart, and not with your mind - and dig deep!"   He talked baseball with the men and made the ladies blush. He made his money quickly and effortlessly, but his balloon repertoire was somewhat limited. When asked to make a dragon or a ship, he would charismatically convince the child that what they really wanted was a sword or a flower.   Alan's Cheshire cat grin was accented by a false front tooth, which he removed with his tongue to show distain or shock.   He became my companion for the early parts of the days, as he fell into the habit of wallowing his downtime away in my guest chair.  He gave me laughter and I gave him shade.  Alan had been a member of the Street Performer Program for 15 years, and came and went as he pleased.  He knew all the security guards, bartenders, and other performers. He generally lingered and extra hour past his allotted time to make a little extra "gravy". 

    Alan generally left when Nancy, the evening balloon artist, appeared. Nancy was a diminutive big-blue-eyed lady who was known for being hawkish about her time slot on the pier.  Nancy had trained with Marcel Marceux, the famous mime,  in Paris where she spent her youth. She was well past 55, but still an uncommon beauty with high cheek bones and radiant skin.  Nancy had developed an act in Paris called "The Human Doll", which consisted of herself, dressed as a frilly-dressed doll, standing perfectly still in a ballet pose while imperceptibly turning herself, as if on a turnstile.  She retired this performance after getting harassed by groups of kids after moving to New York.  Unlike Alan, she could make anything out of a balloon, and she also painted faces.  When she talked about her past as a mime, her voice became wistful and haunted with lost desire. 

    In the evenings, the performances attuned themselves to the rhythms of the nighttime.  The boat tours ceased, and a large swath of pier, used in the daytime to corral tourists waiting for their ride on the Shark or the Clipper City became empty spaces surrounded by the the creaking sound of the floating boats.  The human statues disappeared, and a spotlight shone on a performer named Michael Shulman, who also went by "BlackWhite".  Of Eastern European descent, his long black hair fell backwards while he leaned into his electric violin playing sumptuous gypsy ballads.  Later in the season, there were tango lessons on the far side of the pier where patrons sipped margaritas and danced into the long hours of the night until they were all danced out and stumbling toward their taxis. My guests in the evenings were mainly locals and many of them were giddy from a day spent with their families and the romance of the beautiful Summer nights.  I was as well! I drew until the business ran out and rode my bike home, covered in marker ink.  

    The same street performers appeared year after year, with only a few exceptions.  Bethany Wild, a crystalline-voiced singer and song-writer, with bleached blond hair and a 1000 megavolt smile, worked the pier during the lunchtime hours.  With her overly loud speakers, heavily produced soundtrack, and a fluffy lapdog, Harrison, in arms, she swayed to her own songs and often included sizzling renditions of jazz standards, such as "Fever", popularized back in the day by Peggy Lee. A blanket at her feet displayed CDs, which she promoted between sets. Her music radiated positivity but she would make catty remarks in her microphone addressing the people who walked by without acknowledging her tip jar.   "Go ahead, everyone...just walk by that tip jar. Don't put in a single dollar,"  she said with her crystal voice.  Street performing is a tough racket, and managing feelings of invisibility is one of the biggest challenges.  Alan, sinking deep into my guest chair and smoking a cigarette said of Bethany, "She never did nothing for nobody." This made me laugh, as it hardly seemed deserved, but could possibly be true.  

    My third year, a new performer, a tall willowy mime strode out on the pier. Going by the name, 'Pearl',  she was costumed in flowing white garb accented with a red sash and a floppy red hat, she carried a small red box - her podium.  Alighting atop it, she stood perfectly still until the time was right to strike out in movement. She interacted with the adoring crowd with great warmth and endeared them with a blazing red painted smile that conveyed nothing except radiant love.  The iconic gag involving a dropped handkerchief she made cunningly new: dropping the small red silk square in front of a passerby, yearning for it from her podium as if trapped there, and the expression of glee once it was returned.  How people were beguiled by her kisses blown through the air and laughed at somersaults from which she rebounded with balletic grace!  She occupied her spot across from me during the day, and was usually gone before Nancy appeared.  Nancy, however, knew who she was, and was no fan.  "She's really good, if you are into baffoonery Nancy once commented sneeringly, regarding the beautiful young mime.  

    So many things happened during this time.  My cabinet got broken into twice.  I forged casual friendships with many of the performers.  Pearl became my friend and confided in me her Christian Southern roots, as well as a burgeoning romance with a much older gentleman.  Years later, I would receive a postcard from Pearl, sent from the Tate Museum, and saying simply, 'Thinking of you."  Sophia, the hot dog vendor, and I visited each other regularly, and I continued to eat way too many hot dogs.  More than once, while sitting in my guest chair, she lamented her woes regarding her young son with learning and behavioral difficulties.  Together we admired Pearl.  "She is sooo beautiful," Sophia swooned.   I was going through my own life problems, but was buoyed by my business, which seemed to get better every year.  The tourists were challenging at times.  The people who looked interesting to me usually did not want a caricature, but there was a never ending supply of cute little children.  I don't think I ever drew someone without putting my entire heart into it.  I reveled in the responsibilities involved with running my little business, and constantly experimented with new ways of increasing sales and visibility. I worked indoors one holiday season, and became acquainted with a tattered Santa Claus, who drifted among the buckets and puddles, and who was in the habit of pointing out that Santa Claus did not originate as the clean-looking red and white figure of which we often think.  The seaport came under new management and required me to paint my cabinet to match the new brand colors.  Alan and I became thick as thieves, and spent many an afternoon under my umbrella drinking and smoking away our tips.  We talked about the other performers, and he once quipped regarding the tension between Nancy and Pearl, "Did you hear about the two mimes who got into a fight?  They are not speaking!" Once, I cannot remember the details, but after getting overly excited about something, he pulled his pants down and then went running into the distance yelling, "I am like Tarzan! Swinging from tree to tree!!"  

    A new balloon artist named Brian appeared my last year.  An enormously humble man who created breathtaking sculptures from balloons in his down time, he was secretly proud of being a member of the family which had established America's oldest balloon company, Pioneer Balloons.  Though gentle and unassuming, he had a face that reflected a difficult life.  I went on to learn about his past as a heroin addict.  He occupied a spot on the pier not far from Nancy, and though she was known for being territorial, Alan and I observed her soften in the presence of this newcomer.  Before too long, they were working together as a team. Nancy, Brian, and I were often the last people to leave the pier at night.  After rolling my cabinet into the service hallway with my last bit of strength, I wheeled my bike toward where Water Street becomes Pearl, and just ahead, the two of them rolling their carts toward the train station. I could see their old bodies hunched over in fatigue, but their hands linked together, as they disappeared into the street lit distance.  

                                  

  

Summer Wanes 2021

 

  

      We are in the last throes of Summer, and the great leafy branches that gently sway outside my windows are showing their first splashes of orange.  The heat has been intolerable for several weeks.  Last weekend, I repeated my ritual of taking a bus to Fort Tilden Beach and spending the day floating, swimming, and reading.  After a week of suffering through my work days, I realized that I probably had sustained heat stroke, as I had all the symptoms, including dizzyness and confusion, profuse sweating, cramping and headaches.  I even felt like I was going to disappear behind my eyes and fall away into the dirt a few times. Because I am accustomed to muscling my way through discomfort, it was not until yesterday at work, a week later, that I realized something was wrong. I left early, likely creating confusion and maybe even irritation among the other workers.  

    About three months ago, I began working at this design shop.  The company is 4 years old and just moved into a new space - a sprawling panopticon where the boss watches us from his desk on the mezzanine when he is not mingling and facilitating projects.  I know him through friends, and was delighted when he hired me.  His staff is competent and talented, and I felt I could learn from them, be a useful part of the team, as well as eventually use the shop for my personal projects.  Anyone who knows me knows of my abiding love of metal, and unrealized desire to have a shop of my own. I made the decision to work there instead of going back to union construction, as it allows for more flexible hours, a later start to the day, and a chance to work with people with whom  I may have something in common. This rarely happened on union jobs and my loner tendencies were exasperated by conversations around baseball and strippers.  Being useful, but more importantly, feeling useful is not only important to me when it comes to my employment, it is absolutely necessary for me to retain stability.  At this stage of my life, I have zero patience for busy work.  I have paid those dues way too many times after a lifetime of working job after job after job. My (mostly non-paying) personal pursuits easily occupy all my waking hours and trying to look busy when there is nothing meaningful to do is tantamount to torture.  The paycheck barely matters, although I know it should.  In a way, my last Local 580 job spoiled me, as my foreman, Bobby, always kept me busy, and I learned something new every day about the things I love - reading the drawings, doing layout, figuring out mechanical problems, and of course, the many physical challenges of rigging, climbing, and balance. At times when there was nothing to do, Bobby would say, "Just play the game, Marlene."  I never learned to play the game.  When I would make statements to my union fellows about needing the work to be "meaningful", they would scoff and tell me I was in the wrong place. 

    When I started at the design company in May, I did what I always do, which is to do my best.  It does not take long for other people to detect my earnestness, as well as my ineptitude.  I will always try, and I fail often.  Within just a few days, I started feeling the crushing feelings of being useless and the time started to pass like molasses. Unbearable tension rose in my chest and spread throughout my limbs.   Also, I had a few paying art gigs come my way which I chose to prioritize, so I took leave for several months.  Additionally, beginning around this time, a situation with my family which had been a slow burn for several years reached a devastating crescendo, requiring all of my emotional strength. This left me enfeebled, and looking back, I am so glad I made that bizarre decision to leave a potentially highly beneficial situation.  There would have been no way for me to be a functional member of a team during this time.  However, one day about three weeks ago, I realized my gigs had dried up, and that it may be the wise thing to revisit this opportunity.  I called the boss, and asked him if he still had a spot for me.  He immediately replied that he did, and I felt a surge of hope and relief.  

    I graduated with my MFA last year.  This was a long-standing goal of mine, and the people with whom I interacted probably experienced something of an art monster.  There was no way for them to know what being in that program meant to me.  At the times when I was failing, not academically, but personally, I did not manage it well.  There was confusion for me about this degree ultimately being about expression, but over and over again meeting with situations where my ways of expressing myself were not only unfruitful, but backfired detrimentally.  Part of the feedback that I absorbed not outwardly but through the process of interpretation, was that I make my problems into other peoples problems.  This created a harrowing conendrum. How do you ask for help in a way that is productive?  How do you win people over when you are crumbling?  How can I be a true to my own expression when that expression is so often met with walls?  My art was not the problem.  I was told that I was "talented" repeatedly by my professors, and I think they meant it.  I was the problem.  Me.  Outside of my art, but this is enough to stop my art from progressing beyond a very small enclosure, preempting many types of practical success.  My people skills have always been poor, but the experience of being in graduate school highlighted them in a way that was so punishing and shocking.  I always thought I would blossom in such an environment, and I did!- in many ways.  My work and process expanded well beyond my expectations, and in surprising ways.  I took every piece of advice.  I ate slept and breathed my art and art history. I learned about contemporary artists with whom I had been unwittingly dialoging.  The happiest moments of my life took place within the walls of my graduate studio with its towering ceilings, great sun-emitting windows, concrete floors, and shitty partitions that I could destroy with my installation experiments.  My work with Local 580, technically an ironworkers union, was mainly involved in installation, and I acquired a great love of attaching things to other things in ways that are daring.  The coalescing of my drawing, paintings, sculpture, and construction knowledge created an indomitable feeling in my chest that spread to my limbs.  

    It was, however, the loneliest time in my life.  I liked my peers, but there were many divides.  We were a random group, I was older, and I did not touch alcohol at all which precluded me from many bonding activities.  I had put the kabosh on almost all of my New York City friendships when I realized that I was changing. There were always people to go out with on a Saturday night, but when I started to court my old friends as a different person, they seemed distant. The more I was reading and thinking about ideas that interested me, the less I had in common with people at parties and the less patience I had for small talk or being an audience.   At the end of my first year, after a profound feeling that I was failing personally, I called my Mom and cried my eyes out to her while sitting in my car.  She said that she wanted to make me "feel like a princess", and I yelled at her, "I don't want to be a fucking princess!"  My angst was caused by a growing awareness that the unpopularity I had experienced for much of my life was never going to change, even when I was at my best.  I slowly began to realize that I am just like everyone that I hate.  Angry. Conceited. Self-absorbed. Pathetic. This was a horrible feeling. I began making my way down a rabbit hole that lead more and more to the divide between myself and my mother, that is exemplified in her well-meaning desire to "make me feel like a princess."  We are two very different people, and I never questioned her greatness as a mother until that year. 

    This may sound like blame, but it is not strictly that.  It is a part of unfolding as an adult, experienced by some, wherein you may begin to objectively assess formative experiences and use new understanding (hopefully) as a tool toward progress.  I began writing down all my memories and I called this collection Supermoon.  I started asking a lot of questions of my family members so that I could create an accurate timeline of my life.  My brother has a strong intellect, a memory like a steel trap, and is an alcoholic and an addict.  I have rarely felt comfortable with him save for a few phone conversations where he was undoubtedly "up".  My sister is a nurse, a mother of three, and has a symbiotic and very sweet relationship with my mother, as they live down the street from each other in Colorado.  I pressed my mom with questions about my father and their relationship before I was born which made her bristle.  I asked specific questions about different events which generated more questions.  This questioning and some of the resultant realizations began to create a new picture of my life and a shroud began to lift.  However it was not light that flooded in, but darkness.  I noticed how threatened my family was by my questions.  I noticed the gaps in their own knowledge.  For instance, my brother and sister had no knowledge of the punishing bullying I had endured beginning with kindergarten or my selective mutism.  My mom was particularly threatened by questions about the not talking, and her responses would devolve into "you were just fine."  But I wasn't fine.  I was 5 years old, then I was 6, then I was 7...very often coming home waling because of something someone had said or not said.  I felt like the only kids who talked to me were the ones who felt sorry for me.  I had no recourse except for gravitating to other loners which never felt real.  It must have been very hard for my mom to see me that upset and I know that she tried to help.  I think it must have drained her to have no answers.  Overwhelmingly, I remember her huffing at me to "stop the theatrics."  This is one of my earliest memories. When I tried to lean on my brother or sister while revisiting those memories, they saw it as a criticism of my mom, which it kind of is.  She was a single mom working hard to support us, but her priority was always, very Irishly, food on the table and clothing on our backs.  Granted, I view parenting through a modern lens.  I see parents leaning down to their five year olds asking them to say what they are feeling and validating their every whim, and it makes me feel sad.  I had lots of whims which were fine when it was quietly drawing, but beyond that  I usually had to fight for and defend them - especially as I got older.  More than one of my older relatives has confirmed, "It was always tough between you and your mom."  This truth had become buried in the pile of woes that my poor mom endured as a single parent with an abusive baby daddy. These took center stage until a few years ago, when I decided to stop feeling sorry for her.  I began to realize that my own woes barely had room to exist under her own.  In the worst moments, I hated her for having children with an abusive ne'er-do-well alcoholic who we were taught to despise.  In my adulthood, even before my own battle with alcohol, I started to see my father not as just a drunk, but as a human - wounded and struggling like us all with good bits along with the bad bits.  I once told my mom that I felt like I wasn't given the opportunity to love him, and this was grounds for a good several months of silent treatment.  

    Another thing I remember my mom telling me is to "think before I talk."  I wanted to follow her advice, as I did seem to have a problem with saying the wrong thing.  But the advice was too abstract, and I did not know how to employ it.  After all, one must think before talking right?  Plus, a lot of people thought I was funny, and I began to live for this new kind of attention.  It was, as good, if not more, of a way to get attention than drawing well.  All it took was for someone to laugh at something I said, and I liked them.  However, a lot of this dynamic is bound up in coping mechanisms that worked very well for many years. It still works, sometimes!  However, the better coping mechanism, which I realize after all these years (good god, I am almost 47) is to simply, think before you talk.  Are you being kind?  Are you being honest? Are you feeding into what the person in front of your face wants from you?  Are you being yourself? These are the questions I ask myself now, and have reverted into a kind of selective mutism, as this is a lot of thinking to do before responding.  I usually am nodding my head to signal that I am listening, which must make me look like a bobblehead. 

    Shortly after crying in the car to my mom, I made a phone call to a "friend" who has seen me at my best and worst over the years, who never hid his disdain for me (certainly tainted by unwelcomed sexual advances), and who has a thorough understanding of people, especially women. I reasoned that if I am going to get an honest answer about what is up with me and people, this thing that I cannot see,  it is going to have to come from someone who will be brutally honest, my feelings notwithstanding.  He inhaled deeply and said, "Don't talk."  

"What?' 

"Don't talk.  What happens if you don't talk?"

"You listen."

"Right."  

Silence. 

"You do this thing where you ask for help when you don't need it..." and his voice trials off into a little huff of not wanting to explain. "And...uh.  I don't know."

"I say the wrong thing sometimes. "

Silence.  

"What if I realize afterward that I said the wrong thing, and I want to apologize?" 

"Don't."

"Thank you.  I knew that you would...I mean, I always thought..."

"Don't. Talk."

Silence. 

"You try, but you have to try harder.  Let the other person finish.  Let it get awkward."

Silence.

"You are very competent.  I have seen you reinvent yourself many times."

Silence.  

"You have a lot of potential. I am going to go now." Click.

    So I am reinventing myself again. It is a mature iteration and with it comes a voice that does not issue from my vocal chords, but from my actions. I am learning to be the quiet sensitive person that I am, who is secretly, really really funny. It is also someone who gives a lot less of a fuck, or at least whose fucks are reserved for select items.  One wonderful old friend, who I leaned on recently, comforted me.  "Everything you do...is guided by a sort of integrity."  It took me several weeks to take that in, and to accept it.  I did emerge from graduate school with a few strong important relationships.  These are based on sincerity, witnessing, and acceptance.  The feeling that what I do and how I do it are O.K. is like an uncomfortable bra that I keep plucking at leaving those weird indents between my tits. The dent will go away, and my chest will feel fine, and a feeling of fine will eventually spread to all my limbs. This is the hope! I hate clichés, but there is one to which I must submit: If we don't have hope, we have nothing!

    

    

    

Supermoon One.6 (1987-1988)

    

 

    It's 1987 and I am again at Great Times Day Camp, deep in the New Jersey hinterland.  This will be my final year at camp, followed by eighth grade, and it seems like the whole world is changing.  It is toward the end of the season, which regularly includes an entire week of Color Wars.  The colors are always red and yellow, and the entire camp population is divided and required to wear their color while we run wildly through the campground in loosely assembled games of volleyball, softball, and relay races.  Campers who do not wear their color are made to paint their faces instead.  I am on the Yellow team, and have brought in a small jar of yellow enamel paint which I found in the garage.  I volunteer to paint faces with the paint, meant for model cars, and many kids line up for me stripe their cheeks.  They squeal with joy when they think they look like Indians.  

    It's the last day of Summer camp and I have just been spoken to about the yellow paint.  Several campers had reactions which caused their flesh to swell in anger, and their parents want answers. When I show my counselors the jar of yellow enamel, they roll their eyes in consternation.  Getting in trouble at camp is much easier than at school. We celebrate the final hours with a talent show. Me and The Boof draw on the little stage which is not very entertaining, but the campers clap anyway.  A gazelle-like girl named, Mindy, sings and dances the Itsy Bitsy Spider including an extended ending where she reaches high notes like a Disney Princess, which makes me cry for its beauty.  

    It's 1987 and it's my birthday.  This year, I am having a sleepover.   This is a novelty, as my birthday falls at the end of Summer break, when I have drifted away from my school friends. I invite Heather Gallagher, Megan McCloskey, Elena Bolling, Missy Wilson, and Joy Blackman who cannot make it, because it is the Sabbath. We are wearing pajamas, and have pushed the two black and grey Art Deco couches in the rec room together so it makes a huge bed which seems decadent to us, and we jump on it until Missy Wilson's foot gets stuck and she narrowly misses a sprain. We sit there catching our breath while Elena's hand reaches behind her backside, and she asks, "What's this?" as she extracts something from deep in the cushions.  We all scream when we realize it is a petrified hot dog.  It is there because my brother hates meat and often finds creative ways of avoiding eating it.   

    It's 1987 and I am out of books to read.  I find a copy of Mein Kampf, by Hitler in the garage.  I am challenged by the vocabulary and look up each word I do not know in the dictionary.  I bring it with me to school.   and Mrs. Anderson tells us it's quiet reading time.  When she sees my book, She grows irate and her eyes cross in fury. I am given a list of words to study, and she sends a letter home to my mom recommending more appropriate reading. 

    It's 1987 and we are playing keep-away with John McNulty. Chris Bolinsky, my neighbor who is one year older than me, joins us for our after school fun and games. This raises the bar considerably, as he is big and fast. I can still run faster than him and am very good at tackling. I am also good at tripping people, because of my brother and sister. I trip Chris and pin him to the ground and kiss him on the mouth. He jumps up and wipes his face and stomps off in disgust.  He doesn't talk to me for a long time.  

    It's 1987, and I am enrolled in ballet class. I have decided that I want dance lessons instead of horseback riding lessons, and I hem and haw about it to my mom until she finally acquiesces. Two of the Jennifers from Saint Peter Celestine are there as well, which explains all their grace. We pretend to not know each other.  Although I attend class religiously for ten weeks, I am not able to participate in the recital because neither my mom nor my dad have money for the expensive costumes, which is the only reason I wanted to take ballet lessons.

It’s 1987. And my mom has relented and allows me to participate in the recital complete with the glittering costumes.  During our performance, I concentrate hard on the routine which I can only do with my eyes closed.  When I open them and see I am on the wrong side of the stage, I quickly twirl toward the other girls, hoping no one noticed my blunder. This happens twice, but no one says anything when we go out for dinner at Ponzios afterwards.  

    It's 1987, and the men in the neighborhood, led by the taciturn but industrious Mr. Bolinsky, decide that the way to solve the gypsy moth problem is to burn the cocoons, which are all big and white and all over the Crab Apple trees. I am devastated by the destruction of the cocoons which are part of the life cycle of my beloved caterpillars. When I see them cut down branches with the offending cocoons and pour lighter fluid them, I fly into a tantrum, and follow them around crying and begging until they relent. The men give me a branch and tell me that if I take it away, the moths in it will be saved.   It's days later that my mom notices the branches with white cocoons in our yard, but by then, the larvae have hatched and tiny black caterpillars crawl up  the Willow tree.  

    It's 1987 and I am riding the bus to Saint Peter Celestine.  Every morning, I promise myself that I will memorize the directions to school.  My brother is younger than me, and he always seems to know the directions. The problem is every time the bus makes a turn, my mind wanders, and the next morning, I am back where I started.  My sense of direction is abysmal.  More than once, I had gotten lost in my own neighborhood, requiring intervention by kindly neighbors, and sometimes the friendly neighborhood police.   

    It's 1987, and we are on our last class trip to the roller skating rink. The DJ plays YMCA and we all make the letters with our arms while bouncing around in circles. It’s almost time to go and I am hopeful that this will be the day that I get through the whole two hours without falling. The DJ dims the lights for dramatic flair, and we flail in skaterly glee to "Oh Mickey You're So Fine You Blow My Mind - HEY MICKEY!I 

    It's 1987 and I am in line at church for Eucharist. Jennifer Cribben is asking me why I do not hang out with Megan McCloskey anymore.  I say that I do not know.  Megan has blossomed into a tall waify beauty with cascading ringlets of bright blond hair.  She will be going to Camden Catholic along with many of the others, and has become distant.  While this saddens me, I form a bond with Christina Russo, a tall sassy Italian girl who will be going to Cherry Hill West, like me. 

    It's 1988 and Christina Russo is sitting in front of me during quiet reading time. It's the last day of  eighth grade.  Mrs. Anderson hands me an envelope with my mom's name on it and tells me sternly not to open it. Christina Russo spins around and asks me "what's in the envelope?" and I tear it open to see it is the $50 cash refund for the school dance. I am no longer allowed to go because I put orange peels in the donation box at church. Mrs. Anderson sees the torn envelope, crosses her eyes in anger and leads me wailingly by my ear to the principal's office and tells the principal that she cannot take one more minute, even though there is only an hour left to the school year. 

    It's 1988 and I bring Christina Russo home with me. My mom is home from work and when I introduce Christina Russo to her, Christina Russo says, “Hi.”  When she leaves, my mom is fuming because she wants our friends to say, “Hello Mrs. Kryza” and not “Hi” when they meet her.  I think this is absurd, but say nothing, and wonder why it is that my brother's friends not only say, "Hi" instead of "Hello Mrs. Kryza", but also run around the house like its their very own. 

Supermoon 1985

  

  It's 1985, and I am in Summer Camp. We go to “Great Times Summer Camp”.  A bus picks us up in the morning and brings us deep into New Jersey where there are no houses.  We bounce on the seats and sing Summer of '69 by Brian Adams and People are People by Depeche Mode.  And then there is my favorite: The Search is Over by Survivor.  Unlike school, I have many friends. My taste for boys is on the upswing, and begin to pay attention to how my bathing suit sits on the contours of my shape and am forever moving my straps around to stave off tan lines. I become adversaries with a girl named Julia, who doesn't care for the attention that me and The Boof are getting from all our drawing. We draw cartoons for the other kids when they ask, and they buy us snacks and sit near us while we work, like disciples. Julia is a powerfully built sun-kissed, blond who walks like she owns the world. Since we are both backed by factions of female campers that do our bidding, the campground skirmishes begin to escalate until the counselors got involved. They elect to swap me and Julia to different groups. My new counselor said, “Swapping one beauty queen for another,” and I yanked on my earlobe to get rid of the water.

    It’s the end of Summer, 1985, and Mom Mom Marge and Pop Pop have brought us with them to Florida. We go to SeaWorld, where we see a  seal show. The show opens with a performance by a mime who looks terribly out of place in the hot sun with all the white face makeup. He looks searchingly at the stadium-style bleachers for a volunteer and all the kids raise their hands feverishly. He picks me to come down to the stage and motions for me to get into a box sitting on the stage. I get in the box and the mime gets in with me. He closes the lid and we are alone in the box. He asks me if I am ok while he takes off his shirt. There is barely time to respond as he flings open the lid and bursts out of the box, shirtless, and pantomimes his indignance so that the audience will think I was undressing him.

    It's 1985, and we are in line for Disneyland. It’s hot and we are cranky. My brother is antagonizing me and I give him a shove when he doesn’t ease up. He punches me forcefully in the face and I follow a gut instinct which is to pretend I am passed out from the punch, because I think it will teach him a lesson. While I lie on the ground, my brother cries in grief, but my Mom Mom Marge can tell its an act and whispers to me to get up, which I do slowly so as to not betray my performance.

    It's 1985, and we are driving back from Florida. We stop at a diner in South Carolina for lunch and the waitress asks my mom mom how old we are. The waitress looks at me, and at my body, and says, “Wow, she is healthy!” in a way that has some secret meaning.

    It's 1985 and it is after school, but before Mom gets home from work. I am with my brother and his friends wandering around the strip malls next to Wawa. We get bored with the storefronts and wander into the back where there are bushes and trash, and we find a pile of silky lingerie which looks like it may has been worn and hastily discarded . We conclude that someone has been raped, and call the police from a pay phone. When they arrive, they inspect the lingerie and tell us that it probably was not a crime scene, but we are good kids for keeping a lookout.

It's 1985, and I cannot stand sharing a bedroom with my sister, who is a slob. I no longer fit this room that my mom makes us share with its frilly curtains that matches the bedspread and pillow shams. I abhor the faux Victorian dresser with matching end tables. While the house is empty, I move my mattress and box spring downstairs into the blue storage room which is twice the size of my old bedroom and has the same silvery carpet as the rec room. When mom comes home from work, she says nothing, and shuts her bedroom door behind her.

   It's 1985, and my grandmother, Irene, has moved from her mansion in Short Hills into an apartment near our house in Cherry Hill. The apartment is a fraction of the size of her old place, but has the same air of untouchability, like a carpeted museum on the 14th floor of an apartment building. When the door opens, it makes a sound as it pushes against the plush white rug which new and stiff. On the wall by the door is the picture of my mom mom Irene on a camel, which was taken in Egypt. She is smiling at us from the past while two weary Egyptian guides shield their eyes. We are installed in front of the TV, and she asks us if we would like some V8, which is her way of giving us a treat, and when we try to say no, she gives it to us anyway, but tells us to be mindful of the carpet, which seems vaguely like a set-up. We watch Conan the Barbarian which has Arnold Shwartzenegger roaming the land raping women and punching camels, but my mom and Mom Mom Irene do not notice because they are smoking and talking in the dining room.  Mom mom Irene is a tiny white puff of a lady blending in with the whiteness of her apartment.

    It's 1985 and there is a new girl in the 6th grade.  Her name is Joy Blackman, and she is Jewish.  She is built like the Magnavox in our recreation room and wears glasses which dominate her face.  The first time I meet her, she has a long sheet of toilet paper trailing her shoe, which must have hitched a ride from the lavoratory.  The Sisters decide to put her in special Ed. 

    It's 1985, and Megan and I sit side by side taking a quiz.  She does everything quickly, especially taking quizzes.  Her pencil moves frenetically while a curtain of wispy blond hair spills over the desk. I do everything slowly, but I rush to keep pace with Megan.  Our friendship is fueled by competition. She admits that I am a better artist and a faster runner, but I am awed by her sharp wit, as she seems to have a comeback for everything. 

    It's 1985, and Chris Bolinsky doesn't care. I know he doesn't care because he says it all the time now. When I bring over the issues of Dog Fancy, he is no longer interested in them.  He says, "I don't care."  I eventually stop bringing Dog Fancy by his house and only talk to him if he talks to me first.  Two years older than me, I can see he is changing.

    It's 1985 and Megan McCloskey and I are like Bedoins sometimes. Wandering along well-traveled routes, and occaisionally exploring a new parking lot or neighborhood comple.  We pass by Ellisburg Shopping Center, a strip mall half way between school and my house.  We wander past a clothing store and a Chinese restaurant into the bowling alley, although neither of us have money to bowl.  I see a door near the restrooms that says "Keep Out."  I open it and see stairs leading up.  Megan doesn't want to join me, but I wander up the creaky stairs to find a big empty room, dusty from construction.  The front wall is all of glass, and when I look out, I can see Megan standing down in the parking lot, so I knock on the glass. When she sees me up on the second floor, she laughs and waves, as do I, and after a few seconds of this, the floor gives out beneath me, and I fall through a hole into the Chinese restaurant below.  I fall through a lamp and when I open my eyes, I am on the floor surrounded by broken glass, and there is a circle of Chinese people staring angrily down at me. I jump up and race out of the restaurant, passing Megan in the parking lot. The Chinese people chase me around Ellisburg Shopping Center and corner me behind a dumpster.  I walk with them back to the restaurant where they yell and cry to me about busted up the ceiling, while I stand there feeling extra forlorn. When I am finally dismissed, one of the men gives me a piece of red glass from the chandelier to keep, I guess as a souvenir.  

    It's 1985.  My cousin Belinda has come from Philadelphia to babysit.  My brother and sister are asleep because it is late, and the two of us are sitting at the kitchen table as she shows me how to draw graffiti letters. She demonstrates how to make letters shaped like bubbles that have extra shapes on them that you leave white, so it looks like the shine.  She showed me how to create shadows as well, and when we were done, our drawings fly off the page with their illusionism. 

      It's 1985, and my brother does not like to eat. He treats every meal like its ground steak and onions, even if it’s delicious grilled burgers and hot dogs. He squirrels his food away, but I, for one, know its not in his stomach. I see his hand with the hot dog disappear under the table while Sheba’s tail wags against my leg.

The Rig

 

      “Yo.  Tommy.”

     The two workers drove in the aging marking rig. It was Robbie at the wheel, as usual.  They were on the night shift and had started later than normal, as the temperature had taken a nosedive, and the rig needed a full 20 minutes to warm up. Robbie was at the wheel while his partner, Tommy, intermittently changed the radio station controls and checked his messenger for texts from his wife, or better yet, his girlfriend.  “Beat It” by Michael Jackson came across the airwaves.

     “Sixty years since this damn song came out and they still playing it every hour,” Tommy said as he leaned back into his seat, going over the math while his gaze floated out the window.

   Robbie observed the blinking dashboard lights.  “Hey man -- that’s fascinating but we have something else to worry about.”

   “Eh?”

     “Yah. Nah.  Last mark, it seized up for a second and then...” he searched for the right word, “it lurched.” The machine he operated was more like a tank than a truck with treaded wheels, a protruding exhaust pipe, and the rotating mixing drum.  Its operation was accompanied by a rhythmic “kerplunk-plunk’ caused by a shifting center of gravity of the hydraulic stamping output. Robbie noticed an aberrant “plunk” and remembered it was due for servicing, but not before the sensor light came on.  He put the rig into ‘park’ and killed the ignition with a flick of the switch.

    They looked behind them at the oversized parallax word.  The letters spelling “SCHOOL’ had smeared at the bottom with diminishing traces of yellow paint left in their wake.

Robbie took a cigarette out of the pack, lit it, and routed around the console looking for his gloves.  “Ok. Something’s jammed. Let me give it a looksee.” 

   Robbie heaved his stout frame out into the cold, slamming the door behind him.  Outside, he pulled a lever down which exposed a control panel.  He changed the diagnostic controls on for the stamp assembly, and the indicator light for the shock mounts began to blink.  He opened a paint-spattered side door and used his pocket light to inspect the mounting pads behind the hydraulics.  Sure enough, they were worn to nothing. Robbie disengaged himself from the opening that was too small for his frame, and looked disdainfully at the thick viscous retroreflective paint that now coated his overalls. “It's not the first time,” he’d learned to tell himself.

   “Tommy,” Robbie said through the window.

   “Eh?”

   “I have to shim the mounts. They’re loose.”

   “Ok." Tommy still peering at his phone.

   Robbie took the last drag on his smoke and tossed it on the ground.  

   “It’s freaking cold out here.” 

   “Yah.”

   Robbie opened a panel on Tommy’s side and pulled out a variety of shim packs from the toolbox, as well as the oil can, and a baby sledge.   After reassessing the gap, he decided a mid-sized shim-pack would do the trick, and wedged it into the tiny space left by the deteriorated shock pads.  Using the baby sledge, he tapped the shim pack in deeper still. He oiled the arms and pivots for the hopper, and checked the dispersion filter. He cleaned the tips. “A clean tip is a happy tip!”  one of his instructors had said at trade school.

   “Ok.  Let's see what we got.”  Robbie switched the ignition and the radio and interior lights came back on.  “Thriller” by Michael Jackson played. The dashboard, with its array of LEDs was further embellished by the custom crystal knobs that had been put there by the former driver.  Nothing could be done about the botched SCHOOL stamp except let the paint cure and peel it off in a few days. More work, so that was good. They drove from zone H to zone I, where their detail map showed a scattering of schools in the northwest corner were all in need of traffic control signage.  When they were positioned according to the designated coordinates, Robbie selected “stamp” on the controls and pulled back the lever handle. “Here goes nothing.” The hydraulics made their typical kerplunk plunk; paint pumped into the hopper which coated the stamp plates. These hammered into place and retracted leaving the word SCHOOL flawlessly emblazoned in the specialized paint.  Tiny glass beads included in the emulsive mixture gave the paint its retroreflective property, which aided in nighttime visibility, and “made the world a safer place” as they guys liked to tell their families. 

   “Aye! Look at that!”  Robbie congratulated himself.

   Tommy nodded appreciatively.  “Sorry you had to go out in the cold like that.”

   “T’aint nothin.”  Robbie drove to the next set of coordinates on the map. 

   “I’ll do it next time.”

   “Terrific.”

   They were in place, and it was time for the next stamp.  Robbie pulled the lever. There was again a pause before the kerplunk plunk, followed by the aforementioned lurching.  The stamping pivoted down on its arm and made its paint deposit, but did not come to rest after retraction, but rather stamped and retracted repeatedly and with enough force to push the rig a few inches each time.  The word SCHOOL echoed itself across the asphalt.  The kerplunking turned into thrashing and heavier dispensing of paint—the sound dampening as the paint deposit grew thicker.   The hopper lost stability at the pedestal and sent paint splashing to either side of the rig.

   “What in the...!”  Robbie yelled. “What the hell!  I’ve never...” He killed the ignition, but the stamping enclosure had become detached at the main power and was working off auxiliary.  

    “Turn it off!  Turn it off!” Tommy yelled back.

   “I did!  It won’t!  I have to…”  Robbie jumped out of the rig, and pulled open the control panel door struggled to disconnect the auxiliary power on the heavy pivoting machine.  He breathed out a bedraggled sigh and returned to the driver seat.

   “Well, partner,” Robbie pulled out a cigarette.  “Here’s your big chance.”  

Supermoon 1983 - 1984

 

     It's 1983, and my dad, and us kids are with Mom Mom Marge and Pop Pop Bill at their senior shantytown in Wildwood.  They have tons of friends and we get lots of attention from the ladies and men who drink cocktails and do not even make it to the beach.  We spend the day making sand castles and at night we eat, shower, and head to the boardwalk down the street.  We love it with its spinning lights and loud pop music.  Our favorite ride is the Gravitron.  When we enter the low flat cylinder, we get strapped to cushioned planks that slide up and down while the cylinder rotates and the centrifugal force makes us cling to the sides, like the laundry in the spin cycle.  We are dizzy and can barely walk afterwards.  My dad is dizzy and can barely walk even though he never goes on the Gravitron.  We walk on the beach which is dark, accept for the moon and the ambient light from the boardwalk. It's weird because we can hear the waves crashing, but can't them in the blackness of the ocean.

    It's 1983. We are latchkey kids. That's what John McNulty told us. When we ask him what that means, he says it's “a kid that lets themselves into the house, because their parents are not home”.  After the bus drops us off on the corner, we let ourselves into the house, change out of our uniforms, and run next door to see if John is standing by his front door, where he likes to smoke. He is a big man with a paunch that hangs over his waistband, which he insists is all muscle.  When he is there, he brings out his frisbee or we play monkey-in-the-middle with whatever projectile is lying around.  This is my favorite because I am exceptionally good at throwing and catching, even though I am very bad at keeping scores.  John tells us jokes and challenges us with riddles until his wife calls him in for dinner.  It never crosses our minds to ask him what he does for work, and it seems like his whole purpose is to play with us after school. 

            It’s 1983, and my stickers are all on the wall in the upstairs bathroom.  My brother had grown jealous of my sticker collection and destroyed them by peeling off the protective backs and putting them here on the wall next to the toilet.  They tear as I try to rescue them.  When I shriek with rage, my mom tells me to “stop being so dramatic”, but she concedes that my brother has a “nasty streak”.

    It’s 1983, and we have knocked over a porcelain tea set in the living room.  My mom cries over the broken pieces about how she can “never have nice things”.  Our house is full of Mom’s nice things.  There is crystal. Lennox, and porcelain galore. A collection of Royal Dalton dolls resides in a curio cabinet in the dining room.  These are ceramic ladies dressed in period costume who hold roses and wait for their great loves to return, or show up or whatever.  We are normally full of energy and Mom’s treasures often get reduced to shards as a result of our “roughhousing”.

    It's 1983 and as I get out of the shower and reach for a towel, I hear my mom screaming. I run out of the bathroom and look down the stairwell to see my dad pummeling her while she jerks away in pain. I run downstairs and the bath towel falls away and I am standing between the two of them naked, but my dad is so drunk that he does not know he is hitting me and not her, but I stand there and withstand the blows until the police show up and take my dad away.

    It’s 1983 and I have taught myself how to draw a perfect rose, which I draw incessantly during the breaks in class. It begins with a central swirl followed by overlapping crescents.  Missy Wilson has begun to draw a rose that looks just like mine, down to the last petal, on all of her textbooks.  When other people tell her how good it is, she just says thank you, and never gives me any credit.  This inflames me and when I confront her about it, I tell her that I want her to stop drawing my rose.  She laughs at me and tells me that it is not my rose, and continues using it to embellish her textbooks.

    It's 1983, and my Mom sits me down for a “talk”. She has just gotten her hair done and she looks just like princess Diana. She tells me that she and my dad are getting separated, and that dad is moving in with Mom Mom Marge, which is no real surprise, since he spends a great deal of his time there anyway.

    It's 1983 and we order pizza every Friday night from Johnny's Pizzeria. We squeeze around our tiny Panasonic TV set on the Formica and chrome table and watch Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. We all fight over who sits next to Mom, but we all know that it is really about the better view of the TV, where Fonzi goes, “Ayyyye” and Laverne and Shirley dance to “Schlemiel! Schlimazel!”

    It’s 1983, and we look out the window when we hear the sound of a sputtering motor.  Mr. Bolinsky is mowing our lawn, which he does completely of his own volition.  My mom watches him and is overcome with some cocktail of emotions that renders her speechless.  When she goes out to thank him, he waves a hand and says, “Don’t worry about it.”

     It’s 1983.  Across the lot from the school building is Saint Peter Celestine Church, we arrange ourselves in pews across from the pulpit, like we do every first Tuesday of the month.  I am unable to pay attention to the homily, which is delivered by Monsignor Sharkey, who is as old as dirt, and drones on endlessly about Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The other kids listen observantly, but no matter how hard I try to focus, my mind wanders and I draw pictures in the leather-bound hymnal, which does not escape the notice of the nuns and causes them tremendous grief resulting in unholy and damning phone calls to my mother. 

    It's 1983, and my brother's best friend, Patrick Pryer is over for dinner. Their friendship has deepened due to their both being alter boys, so we see a fair amount of Patrick.  We are having ground steak and onions, with mashed potatoes and lima beans. It is still our least favorite meal, but it's always fun when Patrick is there. We open the door after the electronic doorbell chimes (ding dong ding dong, dong dong ding dong), and instead of saying “hello”, he jumps back and exclaims, “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.”  We find this to be strange and hilarious because he has absolutely nothing to be sorry about.  His inborn proclivity toward self-flagellation and shame causes us to name him “Friar Pryer”.  While sitting at the table trying to withstand the troublesome onions and lima beans, He does an impersonation of a chipmunk that makes us all laugh until tears come from our eyes and our stomachs hurt.  Even my mom cannot stop herself from laughing. 

     It's 1983, and it's Saturday.  We are at my riding lesson, and today, I am hoping to work on my cantering, so that I can eventually gallop.  But when we get into the ring, I see that Happy has set up “cavalettes”.   These are so I can learn to jump, but when I trot Cochise over the short wooden x’s, it does not feel like a jump at all and I feel disappointed when I think about the Alec Ramsey jumping the Black Stallion over big piles of driftwood on the deserted island.  Happy says, “Great job!!” in a way that makes me really believe her.  

    It's 1983 and my sister's glasses are lost again. Mom notices them missing from her face when we come in from playing with John McNulty and my brother’s friends. When no one has any answers, she tells us, through clenched teeth, to get out, and DO NOT come back without them.  We search the front and the back of the house. They are nowhere in any of the usual yards.  Chris Bolinsky asks us what we were looking for and we said Sharon's glasses. “Again?” He joins the search and eventually finds them in a pile of leaves under the Willow tree in the backyard.

It's 1983, and my brother is white as a sheet.  “Lonnie’s son shot me,” he says.  I examine him for wounds.  “He missed,” he says. “He shot at me, and hit a tree instead.”  We go across the street where he shows me the bullet hole in the tree.  While we are standing there the son comes out the front door and yells at us to get lost.  Before we run off, he lifts his shirt a little and we see the gleaming gun in his pocket.  “And you may want to keep your mouths shut.” he adds.  We back away slowly and never breath a word of it to anyone until years later, when Lonnie and her son are distant memories.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    It's 1984, and I am at Summer camp. I meet a girl named The Boof who also loves to draw, and we spend every bit of free time drawing under the trees while the others play volleyball or buy snacks from the little concession stand. We create a character that is a bull dressed as a matador and work to perfect the contours of its horns and the embroidered ruffles of the cape.  She calls herself The Boof because she is a quarter black, and has a pom-pom of light brown hair where her bangs would be, and she does n't care for her real name, which is Diane. The Boof has long strong nails extending from thin fingers and exudes an elegance that I find beguiling and alien in someone our age. Drawing is the only thing we have in common, but that is quite enough to keep us glued to each other whenever possible.

    It’s 1984, and my Mom’s 38th birthday is coming up.  We wander around the strip mall next to the Wawa and eventually go into a shoe store where we find a remarkable pair of feather plumed shoes that glitter spectacularly because of the rhinestone details.  When the Russian lady behind the counter sees us eying them, she says, "It's Egret" with a knowing look that totally sells us.  They are size 10, but Mom wears an 8.  We buy them anyway, because they are so beautiful and the lady behind the counter tells us we can return them if need be.  When Mom opens them up, she oohs and ahhhs and pretends they fit fine even though her feet are sliding all over the place and the feathers somehow got squashed.

    It's 1984 and my brother, sister, and I are with dad in a graveyard. He gives us paper and pencil and explains the entertainment value of grave-rubbings, which is when you pick up the texture of the crumbling gravestones by rubbing the pencil over the paper pressed against the stone.  but we were too young for it to hold our interest, so we pretend to have funerals for the unfortunate dead.

     It's 1984, and my mom has decided to “redo” all the bedrooms.  I am confused by this because there is nothing wrong with the curtains, furniture and bedspread that we already have, but my mom says they are old and need to be replaced.  We all pile into the car and follow her around the furniture showroom and bounce on the couches while mom pics out all new furniture.  She asks us if we like what she picks out, but these are more statements than questions, and she picks out the frilly curtains and flower-embroidered bedspread that she likes the best.

    It's 1984 and Little Dotty is babysitting us. She likes to stay on the phone with her friends and is forever filing her nails, but she plays with us if we hem and haw enough. I demand that we play a game where she is a villain who catches me and holds me hostage while my brother and sister try to rescue me with swords that are really sticks. When she asks how she is going to hold me captive, I produce a length of rope from the garage, and instruct her to tie me up. It is easy for my brother and sister to rescue me because Little Dotty is not good at tying knots and disappears to talk on the phone and file her nails.

     It's 1984 and I am extra forlorn at school.  I am sulking in the lavoratory where one of the Jennifers runs into me and asks what’s wrong.  I tell her my parents are separated, but that means nothing to her, so I explain it's the thing that happens before a divorce.  None of the kids I go to school with have divorced parents, so they do not know what to say when I am forlorn, which is most of the time.  

    It's 1984 and it’s Saturday.  My dad brings us to Dorney Park. I see caricature artists at work, with their arabesque brushstrokes that somehow come together into a likeness of the gleefully smiling customer.  It is like magic to me.  My dad tells me we cannot afford one, and I tell him I just want to watch, which I do, until I am dragged away. 

    It’s 1984, and Heather Gallagher and me pretend to build our own castle, which is made out of “real pretend bricks” which we stack into an invisible fortress next to the tire playground.  The partnership devolves into a foreman and laborer arrangement as I dictate the layout of the kingdom, and Heather willingly submits to my commands. 

    It's 1984 and I come home from school and climb the evergreen tree to the right of our house, which is on the John McNulty side.  If I climb up about 12 feet, there are three branches which hold me like a cradle. I love climbing trees as much as I love drawing and spend long hours in the tree cradle, until the middle branch digs into my tailbone, and I have to come down.

     It’s 1984, and we accidentally knock over a Lennox vase while running around the house.  We stare in terror at the cream-colored fragments.  We find some household glue in the garage and spend hours praying to Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.  When my mom comes home, she notices nothing, so we know the prayer works.

      It's 1984 and we are having dinner at the kitchen table.  My brother tells my mom that we are latchkey kids, and she wants to know where we heard that.  My brother says everyone knows latchkey kids whose parents are not home.  My mom is incensed by this and says that we are kids whose parent is at work, which is different from being not-at-home, and that we shouldn’t use that word to describe  ourselves.  

     It's 1984 and I am wearing a hot pink angora sweater instead of the prescribed dark blue vest, because I think it will slip under the radar of the nuns.  When Sister Valerie sees my sweater, she tells me that I have had too many warnings, and now I have to go home for the day and do not come in tomorrow without the correct uniform. I feel gleeful exaltation as I leave the school grounds. When my mom finds out, she is more angry at Sister Valerie than she is at me.

    It's 1984 and I come home from school to see that the evergreen tree is gone. When I confront my mom about the tree's disappearance, she tells me the trees roots were upheaving the house.  I search around the foundation, finding no sign of upheaval, just the stump with its rings and rings of age.

     It's 1984 and we are visiting my dad like we always do on Saturdays.  He has brought us to Penny Packer Park, which we love because there are hiking trails and lots of challenging trees to climb.  There is a swing set that goes really high and shiny silver slide.  A massive green field stretches out in front of acres of hilly brambles where the hiking trail begins and we always spin around and pretend that we are Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music.  We sing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music…”

     It’s 1984 and my dad is collecting TV Guides for some reason.  I am entertaining myself by thumbing through the pages, to see what people in 1982 were watching during prime time.  At the back of the TV guide, I find three appealing cartoon characters with instructions for entering a contest.  There is turtle, a pig, and a bear.  If you draw the three heads and send it in, if yours is the best, you win $2000. Soon, every piece of paper in our house is covered in turtle, pig, and bear heads.  I enter the contest 2 or 3 times, but never hear back about the $2000.

     It's 1984.  It is snowing heavily outside, so we are home from school.  We are home alone, and my sister and I build a snowman while my brother sleeps late.  We roll the three balls like John McNulty showed us, and give it rocks for eyes and find a withered carrot in the fridge for a nose, which gives it lots of character.  We are incredibly proud of the snowman which looks almost perfect and go back to sleep in our bedroom buzzing for the joy of it.  When we wake up again, there is an axe through the snowman’s head, and the carrot is on the ground.  My sister and I are terrified and angry and we suspect my brother who refuses to admit that he destroyed our snowman, but we know it must have been him and his nasty streak.  

    It's 1984 and my mom has flown into a rage because the house is a mess. To motivate ourselves into cleaning mode, my brother, sister, and I form a close circle with our hands in the center, and chant “Puppy...Power...CHARGE!!”  We got this from Scoopy-Doo’s nephew, Scrappy-Doo.  We throw our hands into the air in unison and explode into action picking up clothing and vacuuming the rug. We clean for hours until mom simmers down and the tables smell like lemon pledge.

    It's 1984 and there is a new girl in school named Megan McCloskey. She is deathly thin and pale with saucer-like blue eyes and wispy hair. She joins me and Heather, but it is soon clear that Megan and I have our own chemistry, and Heather is lost.  Megan tells us the reason she is so skinny is because she is anemic. She begins her time at Saint Peter Celestine in special education, even though she is whip smart. So we figure it’s because of the anemia.

     It's 1984, and we have just come home from school.  We come in the back door and walk through the dining room, but we are stomping heavily and the top floor bounces with our footfalls.  We are shouting and flinging around our book bags when we hear a heart-stopping crash and shattering of glass.  My mom’s curio cabinet with her treasured collection of Royal Dalton dolls has tipped over and there is an impossible pile of mirrored shards and porcelain body parts where it had just stood.  We all turn white and and try to steady our hearts as we sift through the rubble, and woefully speculate about the levels of hell in our future. It is me who picks the phone up off the cradle and stalwartly dial Mom’s work number. She can tell I am terrified, so she sips her breaths quietly and says that she’ll be home soon.  When she arrives, she looks at the mess, is silent for a moment while we hold our breath, and tells us that it's ok.  She’s very sad, but it's ok.  Remarkably, the most delicate of the dolls remained intact with its porcelain lace petticoat and kerchief.