Summertime Rolls

03/07/2011

This is the next part of my sort of memoir, see 2 entries back for the previous part.

Before High school started I got my braces removed, got contacts, and had my hair cut shoulder-length in a sort of Cobain-esque style that was popular at the time. I felt confident that my dorky phase was behind me.

That Summer I met Jenn at the local homecoming festival. She was a gorgious girl with an eye for art, an ear for music, and a mind for mischief. Exactly my type. We spent a lot of time near the river swimming together in the pollution, lying and talking on old docks at sunset, playing guitars around campfires and searching for adventures. She had relatives in town but lived in Bethlehem, PA. After about a week she returned home until the next Summer. This was before the Internet (yes, I'm old) but we sent letters back and forth in between her visits from that point on. We both liked to draw and paint on our letters and envelopes, and tried to outdo one another with the art on them. Some of our best were-

An envelope covered in pictures of birds with a lot of paper birds that fell out when opened.

An envelope and letter that looked bloody with a fake severed finger and sarcastic letter inside listing ridiculous reasons why the finger was severed and sent.

An envelope with a forest painted on the front that looked like you could step into it.

An Envelope with sharks with lazer beams tied to their heads drawn all over it.

A package with holes poked in it that read "warning, wild badgers, do not feed" on the front.

An envelope with a picture of Jesus in a bikini on the front that said "From Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus."

Jenn was a great Summer romance that lingered on the brink of my life but never quite happened. She came back again many times over the years when the weather turned warm, but every time after the first either she or I was in a relationship. We still went through a lot of near-kisses and "no...we shouldn't" moments. She met many of the characters in my life in those visitss, and I was always excited to introduce her to the passions of my world at the moment. In the winter she would call in various states of sobriety or lack of it, singing into the phone.

She lived in many places across the US over the years, busking for cash with her guitar and searching for a recording contract. The last time I saw her I could tell she had been through a rough time. She had just finished up living in Chicago, all she would say about the place was that all that was there was cold weather and cold hearts. She had stopped by to visit on her way back home, she was going to stay in Bethlehem briefly to heal and get over a hard drug streak. She looked beaten but not broken, a little too thin, eyes tired but still with a spark inside. We sped through the streets with my car windows all down, she sang one of her songs and her voice had grown big enough to carry to my ears through the wind.

We saw Lee on her last visit but Lee was tripping on strong acid. You can never be sure what someone is saying in that state, he thinks she told him "Lee, I think I have aids and I'm scared as hell." He does not know how he responded. Lee's girlfriend at the time had a strong jealous streak and acted rude toward any other girl around so we left shortly after. I never found out until after Jenn left town that Lee suspected this, never got to ask her about it. Did Jenn put on a smile for me so that I would remember her that way? Or did Lee get it wrong?

Either way, Jenn left with a wink and a song and a beat-up car with a painting of a turtle on the door. She sent me a postcard that looked like hula girl silhouette bathed in light a few months later from Hawaii, saying she was staying there and doing well. Then she disappeared. Literally, noone knows where she is. She may have drowned, been killed, or just chose to take off on the road and get away from her past for a spell. It has been 6 years since that postcard. I wonder if one day i will get another call or a letter carrying that slight smell of Summers from long ago.

Anyway...going back, I was just about to start high school as that Summer wrapped up, the Summer I met Jenn. Despite hating living at the farm and the raging insanity of puberty inside me I was feeling good about the world I was about to enter into.