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The Stories...
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Love Stinks. Sometimes we get dumped.
: submit your own
What's so damn funny?
by wj
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As a person, I have a long, rich history of being somewhat goofy; which has worked to either my benefit or bane… during the summer of 1987, my 15th year, I got a little bit of both.
I remember riding in an outboard powered bass boat with 5 other kids my age across a lake in the Adirondacks. The boat was taking us to an island in the middle of the lake to a weeklong summer bible camp. I can’t remember the name of the bible camp, but I do remember Tracie, sitting on the other side of the boat. I was 15, she was 14 and her boyfriend Duane, sitting next to her, was 15½ and quiet. I, being an artisan of silly voices and stupid face-making, won her heart right on that bass boat. Duane probably thought this was the week that he would make his move on Tracie, perhaps behind a tool shed somewhere on bible-camp-island. Looking back, I feel horrible for Duane, considering that with a couple of silly faces, I stole from him the fair Tracie before he even got on the goddamn island from the boat ride.
So, there I was, living a week of Tracie and her giggling friend, Gina- who “hooked up” with my friend Josh who lent me $25 to buy Tracie some stupid present from the bible camp gift shop. Truth be told, I went to the bible camp with my best friend, Jim, but he was quarantined to a bunk in the infirmary because of some bad chicken he had eaten on our first night at the camp.
During the van ride home from NY to NC, Tracie and I sat in the back of the church van, holding hands. At some point during the ride, one of the other kids in the van made a racist comment, I can’t remember what the comment was- but I remember being mad. Being the little post-punk 15-year-old anarchist, I responded with “If Jesus was black, would you still love him? Huh?” You could have heard a pin drop. An awkward hush fell over the van. Apparently my outburst excited Tracie, and that’s when she grabbed my thigh. For the rest of the van ride I kept thinking “Man, everything’s gonna be alright.”
The bible camp was the first week of summer, so that meant Tracie and I had an entire summer ahead of us to enjoy the beginning of our life together. She lived in Wilmington; I lived 30 miles away in Hampstead. All things considered, we never let distance suppress our longing for each other. I made mix tapes and mailed them to her- she mailed me letters soaked in perfume. And, in between my daily summer lawn-mowing gigs, I’d rush to the phone to call her. We’d talk for hours about our fascinating adolescent lives.
Then came September and school. Summer lovin’ happens so fast. We vowed to maintain our bond across the miles, come what may. Although sporadic, we still called each other.
My best friend, Jim, had two cousins that lived in Wilmington and went to school with Tracie. One Saturday in early October of that year, I went with Jim to his cousins’ house for a summer lunch on their back lawn. We began to eat lunch, balancing paper plates of potato salad on our laps, when Jim’s cousins, both girls, spontaneously burst into laughter. I looked at Jim and he looked at me. I said, “What’s so funny?” Jim’s 16-year-old cousins said “nothing, nothing”. Jim said, “No, really, what is it?” One of Jim’s cousins said to me “You were with that Tracie girl, right?” I said, “Yeah, I was… I mean, I am” That’s when they started laughing harder. I said, “What’s going on?”
That’s when I found out that Tracie was a whore— the boy’s name was Andrew—Tracie and he had become quite an item during September. I ran to the phone when I got home that night, Tracie’s friend, Gina answered the phone-- they were having a sleepover. I said “Hi, Gina, this is William, is Tracie there?” And, I swear to God as I tell you this… Gina literally burst into laughter. I said, “What the hell is going on?” Then, In fragmented speech between laughter, Gina said “Don’t call Tracie any more... ha ha ha ha … CLICK”.
And that was it. The weird thing is that Tracie
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