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The Stories...
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Love Stinks. Sometimes we get dumped.
: submit your own
potato boy rejection
by -b.
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A friend of mine is in this superfun punkish funkish band which, for some reason, has a ungodly huge following of teen punksters and punkster wannabes. So this band plays a lot of all- ages shows, at bars and clubs that literally bus kids in from Westchester or Scarsdale or wherever youths spring up. (Now, just to clarify here -- it *is* a truly cool band -- at the time of publication I'm in my late twenties -- and really, I'm not a loser or anything. Well, it is possible I'm a loser. But it's an officially great band.)
So, last winter, a group of us twenty-somethings went to the show. It was a supersmall club, so the especially high population of youngsters was exaggerated by the lack of standing room. And once the youthful limbs started flailing in their mock mosh pit, us old folk found seats at the bar.
The great thing about sitting at the bar was that we could watch the kids go in and out of the club. It was pretty warm in there, the kids were getting overheated from their spastic dancing, and some of the boys took to heading out into the cold, shirtless.
One shirtless boy in particular caught my attention. I'm guessing he was 15. He had a deranged look about him -- manic from the joy of being a kid at a punk show in NYC, crazed by the fact he got his curfew extended until 11:30, high on Red Bulls, Mountain Dew, and bubble gum. Wild, curly black hair. And skinny as all get out. I mean SCRAWNY. If it weren't for his pasty-white surburban skin, he could have been something from Lord of the Flies. It practically hurt to look at him.
After about his sixth round trip in and out, I couldn't stand seeing his emaciated ribs and bony chest any more. So I grabbed his pencil-thin arm as he walked by, and said the only thing I could think of:
"Let me take you home and feed you potatoes."
He stared at me with his teenaged, insane black eyes. Blinked. And replied, "You're crazy lady."
Sometimes, I see my potato boy at shows. I look in his eyes -- there's no signs of recognition. But I know that I have a special place in his heart as the older woman who tried to seduce him with carbohydrates.
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