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.

 

Supermoon One.2 (1981-1982)

    

 It's 1981 and my dad is a Formica salesman.  Formica is a type of composite material that is all the rage among counter top enthusiasts. My  brother, sister, and I find a suitcase full of playing card-sized Formica samples in the garage.  We delight in the assortment of pebbled, marbled, and metallic finishes and decide that we will use them as currency, with the textures being more valuable that the solids.  We also find a half empty pint of Vodka, and a copy of Mein Kampf, by Hitler.

    It's 1981 and I am in special education because of the not-talking.   I am in a class of 6, even though the entire class has only 35 students.  Damien has down syndrome.  He is sweet as pie and has a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger even though he is in second grade. Donald Berry and Elena Bolling are the only two black kids in our class, but they are there too. Missy Wilson laughs a lot and likes to draw, like me. Also, there is Heather Gallagher, who is so docile, that she seems to have no will of her own. No one in special ed calls me Booger Snots. I am in here for a short time; although my speech and listening skills are poor, my writing and reading skills are very advanced.

   It’s 1981 and we are all having dinner at Pop Pop and Mom Mom Marge’s house.  Mom Mom Marge is my dad’s mom and she lives only one mile away, near the Wawa where my mom buys her cigarettes. Pop Pop is sitting on the porch when we get there, and he points to the the top of a big tree where we see his Blue Jay.  Pop pop’s Blue Jay visits him every day, he tells us, and waves us inside, as he is not one for talking.  With loud smoochy noises, Mom Mom Marge says “Come to Mom Mom!” and covers our faces with wet kisses, and crushes our heads against her cubic zirconia necklaces.   Mom Mom Marge is always in motion, and keeps the furniture in her living room covered in plastic, but that is ok because her downstairs has a triple-wide leather lounger and mirrored bar, so we can pretend to be bartenders and drunks.  We sit at the big round card table gamble with our Formica samples.  Mom Mom Marge makes chicken wings and she picks up our discarded bones from our plates and sucks the last of the meat off.  My mom tells us later that this is “disgusting”, but I identify with Mom Mom Marge’s disdain for waste. 

    It’s 1981 and Lonnie across the steet comes out in her nightgown with her two dogs, a Poodle and a German Shepherd.  She has them on leashes as she gets into her car and shuts the door.  The dogs are still outside the car as she holds their leashes out her driver’s window and slowly pulls out of her driveway.  She drives around the block at the same speed, stopping when the Poodle or Shepherd needs to relieve themselves.  In hopes of getting more of Lonnie’s dollars, we offer to walk the dogs.  She declines because its good for her to “get out”.

    It’s 1981.  Donald Berry and I have lost interest in each other, and the running dies down.  I turn my attention to the mortar between the bricks of my school building, where gypsy moth caterpillars rest in the sun.  They are big, black, and furry.  I pet them, and they respond by raising their front part and waving their little legs around, like they have been waiting for that all day. The caterpillars are endlessly fascinating to me, and sometimes, I bring them home in my lunchbox and free them in our backyard.  Sometimes, I put them in my jewelry box.  My mom finds out about this, and is barely able to retrain her ire while she tells me not to bring caterpillars home anymore, and especially not to put them in the jewelry box. 

   It's 1981, and my dad has given me four hermit crabs.  They are meant to pacify my desire for small living things, so that I will stop bringing caterpillars home.   I name them Shelly, Sunny, Blacky, and Star. I put them in an aquarium tank, along with odds and ends that seem suitable for a hermit crab diorama, including sand, horse statues and the heads from my sister's abandoned baby dolls. They become my main priority, and I go to visit them down in the recreation room as soon as I get home from school. I arrive one day to notice that Shelly’s shell is empty, and I search the downstairs looking for a hermit crab, completely nonplussed as to her means of escape and fearing for her vulnerability.  After giving up my search I look inside the tank to see the doll head moving slowly across the sand, and a small set of antennae quivering by its opening.

    It's 1981. I watch “Big” with Tom Hanks who plays a kid that magically turns into an adult because of a wish he made. He establishes a dream life in a dream apartment with his best friend in New York City and they make money doing what they love.   Adult life looks like a hilarious game. This is one of the first events that makes me think it would be a good idea to live in New York City, a thought that would get buried and resurface later. 

    It's 1981 and my dad names a star after my brother, sister, and me. It’s called Marjimsha, and we have a plaque from the National Star Registry to prove it, which we hang in the recreation room.  When the sun is far gone, he stands with us on the front lawn pointing to the constellation where Marjimsha can be found, while we ooh and ah and squint into the darkness.

    It's 1981, and I am at lunch in the St. Peter Celestine cafeteria.  There is hot lunch for sale each day, but I never have money for the delicious meat and cheese sandwiches that tantalize me with their smell.  Mr. Vince, who is our school janitor, gives me $3.50 to buy lunch and an extra quarter so that I can get ice cream afterwards.  Mr. Vince is my best friend at school.  I seek him out when I get too lonely and we talk about bugs and animals while he sweeps the cafeteria floor when the kids have left for the yard.

     It's 1981.  My dad drives us to Vorhees where there is a horseback riding stable.  Today is the first day of my lessons.  My instructor’s name is “Happy” and my horse is an Appaloosa named “Cochise”, named after a famous Apache chief.  We spend over half the hour grooming Cochise with special brushes and cleaning her hooves.  The soft underside of the hoof is called the “frog” and I use a hoof pick to remove all the dirt that is lodged inside of it.  The soil smells like manure, which smells like life itself. 

            It’s 1982 and Lonnie has a son living with her.  He is a full-grown man, but loiters around the front of the house with his dog, Magic.  Magic is a skittish mutt who has boundless energy and no bounds in general as she bounds from yard to yard jumping fences and “shitting all over place”, my mom observes.  Magic gets into piles of trash, ripping open bags and leaving their contents strewn around the street.  Nobody likes Lonnie’s son, including us, because we are displaced from our job of carrying in the groceries.

     It's 1982, and we are at Wildwood Beach.  Mom Mom and Pop Pop  come here every year and, have brought us to stay with them in a small compound of shantytown-style apartments they share with a big happy group of seniors who barbeque and hang laundry on clotheslines all day long.  We go to the beach every day and eat fruit in the sun until the umbrellas throw long skinny shadows.  When I sit on the sand, I stare at the heaving belly of the ocean, and pretend I am Mother Nature commanding its movements. I dive into the ocean so far that I feel fear.  I am a good swimmer, but when I get beyond the crowds, I like to hold my breath, squeeze my eyes shut and let my body go as limp as seaweed, to see what the water does with my limbs.  I go deep into a place where I am one with the ocean, and the sharks and jellyfish let me be. It looks an awful lot like I am dead when I do this, and I do not hear the lifeguard whistles until men are flexing their muscles preparing to jump in after me.

    It’s 1982 and Cabbage Patch Kids have become wildly popular. The girls in my class bring their weird-looking dolls to school with them, and it's a big deal for them. My mom tries to get me interested in the Cabbage patch kids, but I am unremitting in my antipathy. Plus, I am still more interested in the black furry gypsy moth caterpillars who sun themselves on the brick wall of my school.

     It's 1982, and the boys in our class have started playing “Wall-Ball”, which is a game played against the brick wall where I routinely hunt for caterpillars.  I get there first one day, to stake my claim on the wall.  I am aware that the boys have more power, but am compelled to make a stand. When the boys show up, they say, “move, Booger Snots, or we are going to peg you with the ball!”  I stand my ground and let them throw the rock-hard racquetball at my stomach, and pretend it doesn’t hurt.  One of the boys says, “She has balls of steel”.  I let them think I am allowing them to have the wall as I walk away and nurse my abdomen in the citadel of the tire playground.  

    It’s 1982, and Heather Gallagher, who is my only friend by default, has brought a Cabbage Patch kid to school.  I look at her weird doll with consternation and am unsupportive of her bringing it with us to the tire playground.  She makes a half-hearted attempt to show it off to the Jennifers, but they are not impressed, so Heather stops bringing her doll to school. 

    It's 1982 I have just learned from television about the “time of the month”. I have a can of v8 in my lunch and I pour it all over the toilets in the lavatory. I am shocked that they know it's me, and I have to have a “chat” and Sr. Valerie. I have grown to fear these chats where she leans in close to my face with her white-colored eyes and freckles and big gaps between her teeth. She finishes our chat, which is not a chat at all because it is only her talking, by recommending Redkin products for my hair, which looks like it can use a washing.

       It's 1982 and I wake up to my mom’s voice saying the wedding is about to start.  It's 3 AM and the wedding between Princess Diana and Prince Charles is being televised.   I rub the sleep out of my eyes and join her down in the rec room. The wedding is a very big deal for my mom, and she granted me permission when I asked to watch it with her.  I am never up this early and it feels like a special treat to be sitting there with my mom as she weeps over the beauty of it all.  I am mostly impressed by her dress which stretches endlessly behind her.  Mom says that is called a “train”, but she is mostly focused on the veil, which hides Diana’s face like a curtain.

    It’s 1982, and Mom Mom Irene has been staying with us, and we are driving her home to her mansion in Short Hills. It is a two-hour drive, and my mom plays Easy 101, her favorite station. My brother and I always make my sister sit in the middle and we torture her by singing the love songs into her ears, and holding her hands, like we are truly in love with her. The angrier she gets, the more lovingly we sing, and my grandmother hisses at us to be quiet. “Your mother is trying to drive.” When we ignore her, she reaches back and her hand darts around in search of a knee, but we dodge the disembodied claw, this way and that, until it hovers defeatedly, disappears.

    It’s 1982, and I am done with all the Walter Farley books in the library.  I find a book called the Ghost of Opalina, which is about a cat who has had 9 lives, and the kids who discover her ghost.  She is a friendly ghost who tells her story while the kids listen, and I am transported through her heroic journey and thrilling stories. The author, Peggy Bacon, not only wrote the book, but illustrated it as well with fantastic drawings that show off the glowing mystique of Opalina.

    It’s 1982 and I have bought my first CD.  It is the Footlose soundtrack, and I play the energetic music while we clean the house because my mom has gone on one of her cleaning tirades, and she cleans along with us.  When the title track plays, my mom shakes her hips and dances around the living room.  My brother and sister and me are thrilled and we dance along with her on the green carpet, then on chairs, and then on the tables, but then the song ends and my mom tells us to get off the furniture and finish cleaning.

      It’s 1982, and sticker-collecting has become popular.  Although I have eschewed any sort of trends emerging among my peers, I firmly embrace the collection of stickers, and have amassed a photo album worth which I have lovingly separated into sections.  There are Puffies, which are dimensional and rise up off the surface. There are Scratch-and-Sniff, which I only scratch on special occasions, and my favorite smell is Strawberry Shortcake.  There are plain stickers which have no special qualities, and my favorite of all, the Irridescents, which sparkle prismatically, and give me the special Little Princess feeling when I open up to them.  Of the Irridescents, my favorites are the pegasuses and unicorns that look like they are going to fly off the page.  I cherish this collection and keep it hidden after I find my brother and sister thumbing through it.  

     It’s 1982. I come home from school crying almost everyday.  I spend my days at school lonely and confused because I am not good at anything and fit in with nobody except the deferential Heather Gallagher who would be fine hanging out with a ham sandwich.  My mom never has any luck settling me down and tells me “It’s not the end of the world.” 

    It's 1982 and Sister Regina, the principal, tells my mom that my teachers are concerned. They all feel that I spend too much time looking out the window, “staring at clouds”. My mom asks if they can move me away from the window, but they say it’s bigger than that. At their behest, my mom takes me to a neurologist who thinks I may be having petite mal seizures, and that I should get an EEG. I stay awake and eat nothing for 24 hours before they can do the testing in the morning and my mom keeps me entertained through the dark hours with coloring books and paint-by-numbers, which I relish. When I color, I spend lots of time shading and try as hard as I can to not go outside the lines.  If my hand slips, I consider the page ruined, and start another one.  During the test, electrodes are attached to my scalp with gummy material that sticks in my hair, and I pull it out in little pieces while my mom has a long private meeting with the doctors. I ask her about the results when we are in the car. “They said you just like to stare at clouds,” she says without taking her eyes off the road.

     It’s 1982.  I am at my riding lesson and I have become very good at posting, which is when you stand and sit while the horse trots.  My dad has bought me a new velvet hat, which has a satiny green and gold cover with a pom-pom at the top, like a jockey.  At the end of the lesson I ask Happy when she thinks I will be ready to gallop.  She laughs and tells me I have to learn to canter first, which is the step in between trotting and galloping.  When I get home and tell my mom about my lesson, she says, “your father did not buy you the hat.  Marge did.”  Dad never has money because he cannot hold down a job.

       It's 1982, and my brother, sister, and I join my mom to watch Somewhere in Time, a movie with Chris Reeves who falls in love with a woman in a photograph who lived in a different era.  We know Chris Reeves already from his role in Superman, and he is firmly established as the embodiment of the perfect man.  In this movie, he is enabled to travel back in time to meet the beautiful Jane Seymour and he falls deeper in love with her until they must part.  The movie is full of romantic phantasmagorical Victorian scenes and my mom weeps for the beauty of it all, and we weep along, partially because the movie has a sad ending and its crushing to see Superman so vulnerable and fallible, but also because we are always sad when mom is sad, and we tease her about being in love with Superman, but she tells us she is committed to Tom Selleck. “He can put his slippers under my bed any day,” she says wistfully.