SARAH MILLIANO - 1978

One day in 1968, I went with my mom to pick up my brother from his visit with Sarah Milliano. This was in the age before play-dates…but it was, if there ever was, a play-date, because my brother was in love with Sarah Milliano and she was in love with him. They were five. I was seven.

The Millianos lived in the last house on the northwest end of the Bernley Homes Colony. We lived on the southeast end. Our homes, like all the homes in the colony, were identical three bedroom ranch houses. My family had two kids; the Millianos had seven, of which Sarah was the baby.

When we got to Sarah’s house, we found my brother in the backyard, where Sarah’s father had a pigeon coop. It was large as the house. Mr. Milliano told me that he drove the pigeons all over New Jersey and even into Upstate New York, released them and then waited for them to fly home. No matter what, they faithfully returned. I could not figure out the purpose of this exercise.

My brother fed pigeons with Sarah. They looked at me and whispered a secret to each other. Now, at that age, I had to admit, Sarah was cute, but she was also five…a mere child compared to my seven. I did not share my brother’s attraction for her. But, even then, I was jealous of the pigeon coop and I was jealous that my brother had a girlfriend, and I had to admit it was kind of fascinating to look at her because her eyes sparkled.

Ten years later, in 1978, I was the last 12th grader at Paramus Senior High still taking the school bus. Sarah Milliano, now a 10th grader, was on the same bus.

I couldn’t stop staring at the way her eyes sparkled.

How would you describe perfection? Was it in her golden white Joan Jett girl-mullet? Was it the two slightly bucked-teeth that appeared the moment she even thought about smiling? Was it the way her giggle felt like a tickle? Or, was it just that on the afternoon bus going home, she always sat next to me even when there were seats next to girls.

My brother, who wasn’t really sure if he should be mad at me (he’d stopped liking Sarah by first grade), still found it within himself to let me know that Sarah probably didn’t like me, she just found me really, really safe to sit next to (or so went his theory – but I found comfort knowing that he was also the same child who still believed that the song My Eyes Adored You really was Miles to Georgia).

One day I looked at Sarah’s textbooks and notebook through the side of my eye, and pieced together an accurate schedule of her day – specifically, what corridors she walked through between what periods. I made sure to pass her in the corridor between every class she had, because even though she didn’t quite look at me when she saw me, she would smile when she looked at the floor.

Between algebra and English, I only had to walk a hall out of my way, as she was in the 400 corridor and I was going from the 700 corridor to the 300. Other times, like between Power Mechanics and French, I had a three-quarter mile hike from the 100 corridor, to the 800 corridor, where I passed Sarah (who was always with Lori Israel at that point) and then had raced back down to the 200 corridor, where I was late for French.

After a month of this I got cocky. Sarah had shorthand in the 600 corridor when I had study hall in the 500. I figured that by going to the upstairs boys’ room, instead of the downstairs boys’ room, I could pass Sarah’s classroom and see her for another precious second. But, as I turned down the 600 corridor, Sarah Milliano came out of her classroom and headed my way, to the downstairs girls’ room.

We were both startled…and I realized that I had no choice. We were all alone. There was no place to hide. I had to do it. I took a choppy deep breath, and as I passed her, I nodded my head with a manly jerk, and I croaked, “Hey.” Although I had known her for ten years and she had been to my house for three of my brother’s birthdays, it was the first word I ever said to her.

She smiled. She croaked, “Hey,” but only got about half of the word out before her voice caught in her throat. She giggled and looked at the floor. And then she was gone, down the hall.

And I was screwed, because there was no way to walk back until she’d cleared the corridors…and I couldn’t figure out where to hide, so I went on to the upstairs boys’ room, where I stood by the sinks, looking in the mirror, until the bell rang. I sang, quietly, “My eyes adored you…though I never laid a hand on you…Miles to Georgia…”

I realized I was being a coward. I mean, she sat with me all the time. She almost said “hey” back. She giggled around me. Enough was enough…the next time she sat with me I decided, I was going to say something.

Sarah didn’t show for the afternoon bus that day. For the next two weeks, each day I saved her seat and each day she never appeared. Sure, I saw her on the morning bus, but she was picked up two stops before me…meaning that to sit with her on the morning bus, I would have to be the one with the guts to take the empty seat next to her.

Besides, we had never actually spoken again after that one corridor “hey,” and because she’d never sat next to me again, I didn’t know if maybe she’d realized that I was in fact stalking her and was frightened of me. The thought that with one stupid “he,”, I had managed to ruin months of preparation and planning towards maybe one day asking her out made me violently sick to my stomach. What was even more disturbing was that I did not know what she was doing instead of taking the afternoon bus home.

I set out in search of an answer. I skipped eighth period Comparative Religions, and I waited in the vestibule at the bottom of the 300 corridor. When the bell rang, the floor was flooded with students…but I caught a glimpse of Sarah as she headed off, not towards the exit, but towards the girls’ locker room. I went through the boys’ locker room into the gym and sat in the bleachers with a few other kids who were there waiting. I did not know what we were waiting for. Sarah appeared with other girls in basketball uniforms and drilled lay-ups. I was about to run, having my answer, when she saw me. She flushed pink and smiled and looked at the basketball in her hands. Throughout the next hour, she kept glancing up to make sure I was still there.

An announcement called that the late bus was leaving. The bleachers cleared. I stayed. All the mattered was watching Sarah. She looked up and saw me alone in the bleachers, and she turned and grinned a million dollar grin to the wall. My insides were spun into butter.

When practice finally ended, I climbed on the late, late bus, and took a three-seater. Sarah, showered and fresh, clambered onto the bus, walked past a dozen empty seats and sat next to me. Of course…we didn’t say anything to each other. But when she talked to other people on the bus, you could tell she was playing it up for me. And, when the bus dropped me off, I ran to my house singing as loud as humanly possible, “Miles to Georgia, like a million miles away from me, My eyes adored you…”

For the next two weeks, like a pigeon to its coop, I faithfully returned to every practice and I faithfully saved a seat for Sarah on every late, late bus. She always sat next to me. But we never did talk. And then one day…one day… she didn’t sit with me either. She sat with a boy with a round face full of acne. And he talked to her. And she talked to him. And she didn’t look my way once. And I realized that moment that for every question you don’t get around to asking, you turn the answer into a no.

When I think about it now, I realize that for those few months before acne boy appeared, Sarah truly, truly knew me. She knew that no matter where she went or where she left me, I would re-appear, finding my way home to her. And in the end, isn’t that what love really is? Knowing the one you are in love with better than you know yourself.

WORLD RECORD WEDGIE - 1975

I believe I am the world’s record holder for Receiving A Wedgie From The Largest Group Of Assailants. The incident occurred on the lower field of Eastbrook Junior High School, on Spring Valley Road, in Paramus, New Jersey. The lower field is down a slight hill, and although it is big enough to hold two baseball diamonds, it is low enough that it is not visible to the teachers and yard attendants up by the school building.

The lower field is a dangerous place for any child not in with the jocks, heads or girls-who-smoke and I had avoided it for not only all of my seventh grade, but for most of my eighth grade too. As spring came though, I had improved enough at baseball that I started to feel confident that I could at least watch the jocks’ lunch break pick-up baseball games on it. I was careful, mind you. I sat on the top of the hill itself, so that my head and body were still visible to the teachers and yard attendants back by the school. Below me, the games were amazing to watch. Somewhere between seventh and eighth grades, many of the boys had gone from okay to dazzling. Pitches sailed in at 80 miles an hour. Balls were cracked out by bats, and soared 250 feet easily.

One day while perched on the top of the hill, I caught the attention of Peter Emerson, an extraordinary third-baseman, who called out to me with a friendly, “Freericks, you fag, what are you doing on the lower field?”

“I’m not on the lower field,” I answered, pushing my rear-end to the top of the hill to make sure.

Now, at the bottom of the hill, along the first base line, sat the girls-who-smoke and the queen of the girls-who-smoke was Angela Fonti. This was a name to savor as it rolled off your tongue…Angela Fonti. Ask anyone from Paramus about Angela Fonti, and they will still get nervous and giddy at the thought of her.

On the first day of seventh grade, when we went around our class telling what we hoped to grow up to be, Angela said she was going be a Playboy centerfold.

Angela was olive skinned, had almond shaped eyes and was so hot that Mr. Van Pelt, our assistant principal, blushed whenever she went by him. One day, in seventh grade, Angela walked up to me and announced loudly, “I’m never going to sit on your lap, Chuck, so forget it, you fag.” I later discovered that Al DiMeo, as a goof, had told Angela that I said I dreamed of her sitting on my lap – but he’d made it up. I’d never told anyone that I liked Angela – still, everyone liked Angela and everyone knew that everyone else liked Angela.

One day in the eighth grade, Angela came to school wearing a tube top that was basically a colorful sock around her chest. She attracted some attention with the tube top and that day’s baseball game was short a few players, as slowly but surely, more and more of the jocks left to sit with Angela and the other girls-who-smoke, over on the first base line. They had a ghetto-blaster that someone had snuck onto the field and it was playing Paul McCartney and Wings “Band on the run. Band on the run….” I was in my place, up at the top of the hill playing Lindsey Nelson, the New York Mets announcer, in my mind, “Bench hits a long fly ball to Freericks…Freericks is going back, back, back to the warning track and he makes an incredible leaping ice cream cone catch against the wall. To those of you listening on your radios, you’re missing a great shot of Angela Freericks, crying in the stands with joy for her husband. You know, that is one nice tube top she has on.” My imagination was snapped when Jimmy Maplewood, the best pitcher at Eastbrook Junior High School, called up to me with a friendly, “Hey, Fag, put on a glove and get out here. We need a left fielder.”

This was a moment of decision. Why was I up here if I didn’t want to play? Why was I up here if not to play for Angela Fonti? The boys circling Angela looked up at me. Angela and the girls-who-smoke looked up at me. If I didn’t come off the top of the hill, I knew that any chance I had for Junior High happiness would be gone. So I got up and against every voice in my head, I walked down the hill onto the lower field.

Steve Cosenza threw me his glove. I snagged it and trotted out to the outfield to a supportive round of “Don’t fuck up, Fag.” It was a truly great moment in my life. The jocks needed me. They wanted me to play. I stood in left field and began to shag flies. To the amazement of every one there, I was catching them left and right and my throws back were on target and clean. Paul Scanno even yelled out, “Good arm, Freericks,” when I nailed a runner at second.

And that turned the tide for me. For the next fifteen minutes, I played baseball with the jocks on the lower field. I couldn’t see the school from where I was. It was fucking amazing. Not only that, but they stopped calling me fag. I was Freericks. I looked over to Angela Fonti and the girls-who-smoke. Angela Fonti was watching me play and I was playing well. The crowd of boys around her had grown bigger. The boys were all watching me too. That was odd. Maybe they were surprised how good I was.

Suddenly, for the first time since our misunderstanding in seventh grade, Angela Fonti spoke to me. She yelled to me actually. She screamed, “Run, Chuck,” and I thought it can’t be. Angela is calling my name. She screamed again, “Run…” How cool it was to hear her addressing me! Then all the boys around her got up. There were well over thirty of them. Another twenty from the baseball diamond joined them. And every single one of them ran towards me. Once again, Angela’s sweet and beautiful voice called out, “Chuck, run!”

So I ran. But there really was no place to go. The lower field ended at a chain link fence, and my passage back to the hill was blocked by fifty boys running at me.

I made it about fifteen feet before the first body landed on top of me. Within a second, there were more than a dozen hands and bodies all over me. One hand reached into my pants and pulled up the back of my underwear.

I tribal chant filled the air, as forty-nine voices all intoned, “Wedgie, wedgie, wedgie.” The fiftieth boy had climbed back up the hill to the upper field to let all the other kids who never came down to the lower field know that it would safe for them today, as long as they helped.

Within two or three boys, my underwear began ripping. By the sixth boy, the elastic band was over my head and around my neck, and they were now pulling on the torn fabric.

Now, you may think, what an awful, awful thing for a boy to go through. But at the time this was happening, I have to admit the biggest thought running through my head was that Angela Fonti had warned me. She liked me enough to try and help me. The second thought going through my head was, “Yeah, they’re giving me a wedgie, but they did let me play baseball with them too.” The third thought I had was, “this will be over soon, because the fabrics going to completely give and what will they yank on?”

Through seventy or eighty boys, the fabric tore here and there, but never completely gave. My you-know-whats were in my stomach. As the line to wedgie me finally began to thin, the musical theatre club kids, the school newspaper staff kids and other assorted upper field kids piled on top of me and continued the assault. I remember Eric Horawitz, who I could beat up 364 days out of the year, but this was the 365th, was one of the last attackers. By this time, the front elastic was being yanked out of the back of my pants and any actual delivery of pain was luckily just to my waist. The last boy to jump on was Al DiMeo, who had told Angela I wanted her to sit on my lap the year before. He actually punched me because, and I quote this, because I couldn’t make it up, “We were friends and I should have let him be one of the first ones to wedgie me, not made him wait.”

The bell rang signaling that we had to get back to class and I was left alone on the lower field with strings and scraps of underwear tethered to my legs and my neck. Slowly, I brushed myself off, stood up and hobbled back to B3-E9, my classroom, while stuffing the tattered fabric down the back of my pants.

When Angela saw me she said, “I tried to warn you. I hope they didn’t hurt you.”

And in that moment it became the best day of the year, the best day I’d had in a very long time. Angela Fonti cared about me. Angela Fonti wanted to protect me.

And then she finished her thought. “You should run faster, Fag,” she said before strutting away.