I had taken to pushing the crosswalk indicators three times at every street corners when I wanted to signify I was ready to cross. This act was not out of sense of urgency or boredom but because I had arrived at some inalienable notion that it brought me luck and each series of presses brought me closer to finding a girlfriend. Each day brought me in contact with at least two crosswalks and each day those two brought me closer to the number 14, signifying her ideal years in age. By the end of the first week I had surpassed the intended target, but thought that maybe it meant that destiny had someone older in mind to fill the role. I maintained hope.
I pined for the girl in shop class that would whittle the minutes away by carving the initials of her boyfriends into her legs. Lovers, I would think to myself in my head. Her, this black widow partaking in this all-consuming love that left her unsatisfied and the boys, their husks, eventually tossed aside. The most valiant unable to overcome the virulent power she commanded through the use of her voudoun, ritualistic carvings. I sought to be consumed by her - for my initials to rest beneath her snow white socks, burrowed deep into those tan, slim legs.
But it was a girl named Rochelle, appearing one afternoon on the lunch-room patio, that I believed embodied the reward of crosswalk ritual. I remember little about her save a charm necklace that would rest upon her chest. The charms - like small, square chocolates embossed with the busts of saints (scapulars). Arthur and I would skip school, making our way down to Woodman to her apartment where we were able to muck about unmolested by the authorities or concerned parents. Though I had envisioned our union as preordained, I lacked the confidence to express my desire for the girl's heart. I would later foolishly express myself by furnishing her with gifts from my wardrobe. A favorite jean-shirt (PEPE) and a pair of sunglasses - treasures, I would never come to see again. While she might have had passing interest in me at first, my inexperience sealed our fate to "just friends".
In the aftermath, I sought the attention of nearly all the girls that surrounded me in my Honors English class. Taking every chance to read aloud Romeo and Juliet; trying hard to show a lovestruck Romeo, a passionate Mercutio, or acrimonious Tybalt. I sought often to overcome the trappings of my less-than athletic (read: chubby) exterior by being insightful, humorous, and zany. I mostly failed.
This pattern of desperately seeking validation (mostly from women) continued to re-enact itself through my adolescents. The impetus that put this hellish, hemorrhaging contraption (me), in motion.