Bakaitis.com

What follows in this post is a story about growing up in Collinwood, a neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. These stories, unlike my other posts, may contain situations that are inappropriate for work and will almost certainly contain vulgar language. There won’t be anything completely explicit, such as detailed descriptions of intimate acts. Even so, some of these might only be borderline ‘workplace safe’ and you may want to wait until you get home before clicking the “More” button.

A month ago, I told the story of the Amigos in Love. I suggested, quite directly, that the Amigos were not suave.

A million times, DUH!
You may have noticed that, thus far, the stories here have been conspicuously free of feminine presence. Going to an all-boys school, hanging out in comic-book shops, and writing a journal about my crazy friends didn’t set up much opportunity to interact with girls. Thinking back on that time, all I can say is “ouch!”

Cigarette Girls
Around the corner from my parents’ home was Villa Angela (VA) high school. VA was a Catholic all-girls school. They threw a yearly summer fund-raiser that attracted tons of people from the neighborhood. The property was one of the few wooded lots in the neighborhood and bordered on the lake.

It was an all-girls school that had gathered together the girls, their families, and neighborhood supporters into one huge semi-wooded property.

A normal adolescent boy should have thought “bingo!” I went and figured out which games to play so that I’d win back as much money as possible.

Duh!

But that’s not all! As I wandered around the ‘fair’ with my winnings, two girls who I knew walked up to me.

“Hey, Matt! Do us a favor. If you’ll buy us cigarettes from the store across the street, we’ll go into the woods with you and smoke together. We can’t go in there any more because the owner knows us because we went in after school too many time. We’re really be grateful…”

“No, I’m trying to find my friends. Have you seen Jim or Joe around?”

Duh!

Sixteen years old: Come out and play!
There was a cute Irish girl around the block from me. She had red hair and freckles. She was in some Irish step-dancing group, so she’d practice on a big square of plywood in her backyard. I could see her from our backyard and she had nice legs…as you’d expect when you practice a dance that has you bouncing up and down, tap-step-stomp-ing around for hours at a time.

She started hanging out with us more often, even though she didn’t seem interested in our cheesy teenaged discussions of Nietzche or the stupid board games we’d play for hours on end.

One day, when nobody else was around, she came over and asked if I could “come out and play”. My mother had answered the door, so I suspect she got flustered as she probably never thought of that my mom might answer.

I came to the door and asked what she wanted to do. She didn’t really have an answer. “Do you want to play a game, like Axis & Allies?” I asked. She looked at me confused and embarrassed. “No, maybe something else or, nevermind…”

I went back inside thinking “crazy girl.”

Duh!

The next semester, we took the same bus home. We’d walk from the bus stop to our houses on the same route, talking. A month into the semester, I got a new video game that all my friends were playing. I told her a little about it, but she clearly wasn’t interested. I nearly jumped off the bus to get home. The next day, she asked me if I’d walk with her. As I did, all i did was talk about the game. The next day, same thing. She stopped asking, I kept playing and soon I was an elite wizard!

Fear my skills!

DUH!

No Date for the Prom
After I had a license and a car, I couldn’t simply drive to-and-from school alone. In order to pay for gas, I carpooled with a friend and took my sister and one or two other local girls to their school. (Yes, everybody went to a different school, it seemed…)

As we drove back-and-forth, we’d generally have to different conversations going: the boy conversation and the girl conversation.

One day, my friend and I were talking about the prom and how I didn’t think it was so important. I basically said it was just another dance. I also pointed out that I didn’t have a date, so the whole situation was somewhat pointless.

One of the girls in the back said “You aren’t going to the prom because you don’t have a date? I’d go with you.”

I looked in the rear view mirror at her. “Thanks for offering, but I just feel stupid that I don’t know anybody who would want to go. That’s OK.”

Duh!

So when I’m writing about the Amigos or any of the other people here, you should know that I’m not telling you these stories from some position of perfection. I was right there down in it with everybody else.