Meet Me In 2nd Grade

2nd grade was the best time I ever had in school, even though I learned more from a 3-minute record than I ever learned in school. 2nd grade was the first time I remember “liking” a girl. Everyone got along in my class. Boys played dodgeball at recess. Girls jumped rope. Sometimes, girls and boys would play together. These were Better Days.

There was Wendy and Mary, Janey and Cynthia, Little Steven and Scooter, Mad Dog, Mighty Max and C the ‘Big Man.’ C was like the biggest 8 year-old you ever saw. I had a crush on Puerto Rican Jane. I thought she was the one. We called her ‘Pretty Flamingo.’ No one had the courage to go up to her. She never even looked at us. She’d just pass us all right on by.

Many years later, I ran into Jane at a seaside bar down the shore. Teresa poured us a drink, and afterward, I found the keys to the universe. Jane unsnapped her jeans and suddenly, everything was all right. We made love in our birthday suits beneath the boardwalk. The aurora was rising. I’m on fire. That’s the night I first fell in love with a Jersey girl. I told her I’d drive all night just to buy her some shoes and to taste her tender charms. I asked her to talk to me. She asked me to prove it all night.

When it came to girls, my older brother taught me everything. He said girls in their summer clothes were his favorite. And the best kinds of girls were tramps…