4th of july

Just finished reading Lynn Biederman's new YA novel, "Unraveling," which is about a frizzy haired, big boobed, sexually precocious 15 year old who can't get along with her mother. Big news. But Biederman's handling of her tragi-comic heroine is realistic and at times emotional. It brought me right back to another July 4th, in Woodbury, N.J. 1969. On the holiday everyone in town went to the high school football stadium to watch the fireworks; old people, young families with little kids, and, of course, teens looking for a little excitement.  I had a plan to meet my friend Sharon in front of the stadium at dusk, but Sharon had already hooked up. She and her steady boyfriend David were nowhere to be found. I paid my little entry fee and passed through the gate, avoiding the bleachers and the crowd for as long as possible, scanning the huge berms on either side before you went down some stairs into the actual stadium to see if I could see anybody i knew. Finally I picked a grassy spot on a steep slope of lawn and sat down. Before very long a boy, a lone wolf, came and sat down beside me. I didn't know his name, only that he was in the class or two ahead of me at the high school. Did we speak? Probably not. The fireworks started. As always, it was a big showy display of explosives that lit the sky for miles around. Boom, boom, boom, it was so loud my ears rang. The boy inched closer until our shoulders were touching.  I can still smell the sweet aroma of his Brut cologne hanging in the heavy South Jersey air. At some point he slung an arm around me and then his tongue was in my mouth. We made out. When the show was over, we were done. He stood up, brushed off his pants, said goodnight and walked off into the dark. The rest of the summer I kept an eye peeled for him in the Hardees parking lot and at the Wenonah pool but I never saw him until September when we both returned to school. Slouched against the wall by his locker, a meaty hand wrapped around his text books, he didn't look like anybody I really wanted to know better and this made me feel glad, and triumphant.