Young Love on Skates

Florida, 1975

I’m killing time on a two-lane blacktop in a yellow 1968 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and I’ve got ten empty frames on a roll of Kodachrome. A blue neon skate, bright in the night sky, directs me into a roller rink. It’s Saturday night and a pack of teenagers are rolling around looking for action. In the parking lot two girls are holding a guy like a wounded soldier. I tell them hey, let me take a picture.

“I’m drunker’n fuckin’ shit,” the guy says. “I chugged a pint of fuckin’ Jim Beam and I don’t give shit-fuck about fuckin’ anything.”

I point my Contax with an 85mm lens at the threesome. The girl on the right wearing a pop Zeitgeist teen idol t-shirt says, “I’m the Fonz.” The drunk kid points his thumbs up and says "Ay!" in tribute to Arthur Fonzarelli. “Hey man, I’m even more righteous than fuckin’ Fonzie,” he says. “He’s righteous and shit, but Fonzie never gets fucked-up drunk and I’m fuckin’ drunker’n shit.” I make an exposure, tell them thanks and go inside.

Organ music going round and round like a carny midway. Fuzzy red benches along the wall where boys and girls hold hands. A kid rolls by and says hey, take my picture. He pulls a goofy face and I hit the shutter.

Skaters are circling and shaking tail. The music stops and the lights go out and the teen twosomes on the sidelines get 30 seconds of covert kissin’ and huggin’. I see a guy and a girl snuggled together; young love on skates. I see a boy and a girl at opposite edges, teen angst and depression. I focus and frame a picture then fire off the flash and make a photograph I’ll value for the rest of my life.

I go outside and light a smoke and watch the cars go by. When I was in eighth grade, 1962, I used to go downtown to the Saturday afternoon movie to socialize and assimilate. I remember The Birdman of Alcatraz, starring Burt Lancaster. The real Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud, had been moved from Alcatraz to Springfield, Missouri, a couple of miles from my house at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, the joint where bad guys came to die. This was a movie I wanted to see but when my friend Porterhouse told me he located a couple of girls sitting alone, girls known for their sexual histories, I adjusted my priorities.

The girls were seated together with empty chairs on either side; I took the aisle seat. I’d seen her at school, she was blond with a bubble hairdo and pink lipstick. She wore a fuzzy-pink mohair sweater I wanted to bury my face in. She was perfumed with a scent I wanted to fall asleep in. Porterhouse told me she had fucked her step-brother and a bunch of his friends.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Scotty.”

“I know who you are,” she said. “I’m Karen. Looks like your friend is in a hurry.”

Porterhouse had bounded into the other open seat and already had the girl in a wrestling hold. “Yeah,” I said. “He’s my hero.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said. “I think you’re just trying to be funny. That’s what I heard about you at school—you’re always trying to be funny.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that’s OK.” I point up at the movie, Burt Lancaster moping around solitary confinement. “Did you know that guy, the Birdman of Alcatraz, is in prison here in Springfield?”

“Not anymore,” she said. “They let him out and he’s working the soda fountain at Crank’s drugstore. He gave me a free cherry phosphate last week.”

“They what? Who let him out?” I see she is bemused, almost smiling. “Now you’re the one trying to be funny.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what you heard about me, is it?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Uh-uh, I don’t kiss on the first date. Gimme your hand.” She took my left hand and pulled it over her shoulders and into her fuzzy sweater, into her loose bra. It was the first nipple I had ever felt. She looked up at the movie, emotionless. She draped her coat over her lap, took my other hand down below. I looked at her neck and her pretty face. She wore clip-on earrings made from dangling dimes. She watched Burt Lancaster as he encouraged an injured bird, “All right, come on, you little punk. Fly.”

After the movie Karen told me next time we can kiss. I told her thanks, I had a nice time, and then felt like an idiot. On Monday morning when I saw her at school I walked on by and pretended not to know her.

Scot's first book, Lowlife, was released last year, and his memoir, Curb Service, is out now. You can find more information on his website.