THE MAGICAL MEETING
The time has come...the moment that I have both feared and desperately longed for - for quite some time. She is so beautiful. I’m talking about Esperanza - at the beauty salon Tijeras de Oro in Elizabeth, NJ. I can’t even look at her - she is so breathtaking.
She has finally busted me. I’ve been peering at her through the picture window of the salon for at least two weeks now - trying to jump out of view when she looks my way. I’m 16 years old and it’s 1976. She continues to look my way with a smile and wiggles her finger for me to come in. I want to turn and run. I want to make up some excuse about having to go - yet I yearn to go in there too. Paralyzing conflict knots up my whole body. I feel like I’m the Scarecrow from The Wizard Of Oz. My body is jerking all over the place. My left foot headed away, my right foot headed towards her - what a mess!!
I somehow orchestrate my extremities into making it to the front door, as she opens it up to invite me in. Instantly, it’s like I have crossed the threshold into another dimension. A strange, exotic, secret world. The first thing to rock my senses is the distinctive aroma filling the air. A sultry mix of hairspray, perfume, and cigarette smoke. The powerful hint of alcohol stings my olfactory senses. A feeling of awe and reverence fills my body, making me feel even more lightheaded. There are lights everywhere. Bright bulbs surround the mirrors in front of the barber chairs. Rapid-fire chattering in Spanish, loud tittering, clicking heels, snapping gum and blaring Puerto Rican music congeals into an enchanting, yet insanely intimidating cocktail.
Then I notice everyone in there smiling and laughing with anticipation.
These are women - not girls. They smell differently - each bearing their own particular scent and perfume. I gulp as I look around wide-eyed, trying to force some moisture into my depleted mouth and lips.
“Ay papi, come te llamas?” She asks in a lilting tone.
“What?”
A second of confused silence.
“No hablas Espanol? Papi?”
“Espanol? No...um...I don’t ...speak Spanish….”
“Oh baby - I thought you was Boriqua…”
“What?”
“I thought you was Puerto Rican - no?”
“Where you from, papi?’
“Um….here.... well...I mean, from Brooklyn…”
“Ay - what are you - Italian?”
“Yeah. Sicilian.”
THE ERADICATION OF ENORMO - THE HUMAN BUTT
It was gone! Finally. Hopefully vanquished forever. I’m talking about ‘Enormo - The Human Butt - aka’ -’Amazo The Trained Butt.’ In the past year or so, my butt had grown to enormous proportions - courtesy of a heavy diet of stolen Ring Dings and Three Musketeers bars. The rest of me was still fairly thin - with the exception of my butt. An unimaginable hell.
But in the months preceding my 16th birthday, and my later head-over-heels-discovery of the exotic Esperanza - something mysterious had happened. Everything had changed! It all started as I inexplicably took command of Daniel Webb’s ( yes, the same kid whose house me and Skinny break into every week to eat all the raisins out of his Raisin Bran) new set of weights. I storm over there every other day and lift maniacally in his basement, virtually claiming ownership - then run a couple of miles on the other days. Months pass, and not only does Enormo practically disappear - but I acquire an entirely new physique! Muscles sprouting everywhere - I am mesmerized - and cannot stop flexing in the mirror several hours a day! Not only that, but somehow, my entire appearance changes at the same time - and I suddenly look Puerto Rican! My mustache, formerly just a sparse collection of scraggly hairs - has now transformed into quite the beauty, surpassing even that of my sister Karen! A goatee now grows on my chin - where before there had been just a few stray whiskers! With a new found self-confidence, I decide I will no longer continue to get beaten up by the black kids at school anymore - and start learning how to box at the Elizabeth PAL - which was heretofore unheard of in these parts! And this is what leads to the fateful passing by of Tijeras de Oro on Broad Street - the workplace of the mythical Esperanza! Still, I am forced to wear the hated Benjamin Franklin glasses, however, and even more horrifying, facing the dreaded prospect of the second hand picnic pants once I return to school in September - but all this is about to change rapidly!
ESPERANZA
BLISTERING heat...the kind of day that the air is so thick with humidity, you kinda feel like you’re swimming, y’ know? I mean, even the flies buzzing around me are dragging ass - that’s how freakin’ brutal it is. I’m doing my best to mop up the ever-streaming torrent of sweat spewing down my forehead with my trusty bandana, as I trudge lethargically down Broad Street, Elizabeth, New Jersey. The year is 1976.
Suddenly - hoooly shit!! Wow! What is this - a fuckin’ mirage?! I wipe the sweat from the lenses of my hated Benjamin Franklin glasses, thinking perhaps they might be altering my vision - and put them back on. No, no it’s not an illusion at all! There, standing right on the other side of the picture window of the Tijeras de Oro beauty salon, cutting hair - is the most breathtaking creature I have ever encountered in all of my 16 years on this earth! The sheer essence of femaleness...an older woman too, maybe 19, 20 years old.
I cannot move...cemented in my tracks - unable to look away.
Caramel colored skin, long brown curly hair, tinted blonde - AND the most AMAZING full lips. Pink lips. I don’t know if they’re just naturally that color or it’s her lipstick - but they are perfect. Even all that, however, pales in comparison to her truly major asset - hazel green eyes. Hypnotizing green eyes. How could that combination even be imaginable?! It should be against the law - that’s what it should be!
As if this wasn’t all enough - her body is as if it had been invented by a group of mad scientists at the Playboy mansion! On top of that - she is wearing these incredibly tight white jeans - with red stiletto heels - to match her pink halter top.
Whew!
THE TRIALS OF WEATHERBEE H. PEABODY
It was over. I mean, we have NO chance - Skinny and me, that is. The year after The Pilgrim Girl was unceremoniously pushed into the mud on Thanksgiving Day, the previously very white Roselle High is forcefully racially integrated - happening to coincide with mine and Skinny’s first year there. It’s 1973 - and Roselle is finally and forever changed.
Even though we’re Sicilian (Skinny and me) and come from Brooklyn, and at least have some frame of reference for this - as opposed to all these Opies surrounding us - we’re still just puny little kids. Compared to these guys, anyway. I mean, most of them, they’re like grown men already. It’s like black Vikings invading the school. It was swift and it was total, and just like that, our innocence, or whatever the hell it was - is gone. Snap.
We didn’t really understand, but it felt like living under the Kremlin, or something. There was no point in trying to escape or resist, we just have to take our lumps...especially me, since for some reason, I am put into the class for the criminally insane. So, we’re pretty much just quivering pats of butter. That’s where Weatherbee H. Peabody comes in. Weatherbee is this fictitious character derived from our imaginations. He is this kid from England who is driven to school every day by his chauffeur in a limousine - he wears black framed glasses, and a tuxedo to school every day - and does snuff. And refuses to take gym class. I mean, subconsciously we know this is beyond absurd - but it had to be done!
So we start spreading this around - it’s almost, like, subliminal messages, or something. There’s a lot of nice black kids among the assassins also - and one this kid, Keith Bailey, is one of our confidants.
“Oh yeah, I seen that mofucka in gym class - he be wearin’ black socks and shoes, an’ shit with his gym shorts - mofucka be crazy an’ shit!’
Pretty soon, it’s like wildfire around the school (particularly among the black kids, who find this thoroughly intriguing) and everybody is claiming they’ve seen him.
“Man, I seen that mofucka doin’ snuff an’ shit while he be waiting for his chauffeur, then the mofucka gets in this limo!” Another kid declares.
It becomes such a must see attraction that finally, a group of the black kids threateningly confront Bobby Gibb, a friend of ours, claiming they’ve never seen him.
“Oh, they put him in remedial reading!” He blurts out quickly, saving his ass, and for reasons unknown that seems to satisfy the angry mob.
At last, Skinny and me are laughing again.