The Book of Joe

lightly brushing as we walked, and eventually I summoned up the courage to take her hand in mine. It didn’t t ake long for hand-holding to es calate into short, careful kisses and then much longer, deeper, open-mouthed kisses that ended only when we needed to come up for air, our inexperienced tongues hungrily tasting each other. By mid-October we were virtually inseparable, fused together in a perfect symbiosis of rampant hormones and deep passion, which can feed harmoniously on each other for that rare period of time between childhood and adulthood, before they reach cross-purposes and begin mercilessly devouring each other.
    Nineteen eighty-six was a fine time to be a teenager in love. Unemployment was down, the stock market was up, and people were generally optimistic. We listened to happy European synth pop: Depeche Mode, Erasure, A-Ha. The boys tucked the bottoms of their stonewashed Gap jeans into their high-top Nikes, gelled and cut wedges into their hair, and tried in vain to incorporate the moonwalk into their limited dance repertoires. The girls teased their hair high with mousse, wore iridescent skirts with matching eye shadow, fishnet shirts off one shoulder, and anything they saw in Madonna’s videos.
    Things were so peaceful, they had to send Rambo back to Vietnam to look for action. We had no Internet or grunge bands to dilute our innocence with irony, no glorified slackers or independent films to make darkness appealing. Happiness was still considered socially acceptable.
    Carly and I took long walks every day after school, stopped for pizza or ice cream on Stratfield Road, danced at parties on Friday night, and went to the movies on Saturday. We logged countless hours on the phone every night, lying in our respective beds, relishing the private universe that was expanding daily around us. Sometimes at night we lay on our backs in her yard, our fingertips touching as we watched for shooting stars. We fooled around in my father’s Pontiac parked down by the Bush River Falls, the source of the town’s name as well as its universal make-out spot, our impassioned kissing and petting progressing in tantalizing baby steps, each new plateau a delightfully sensual revelation making us feel that much more grown-up and that much more connected. As we lay together shirtless in the backseat of the car, the windows fogged, the leather upholstery sticking like cellophane to our sweating bodies, our groins conjoined, pressing and grinding through our jeans, kissing and tonguing each other with unrelenting urgency, it was easy to believe that what we had was all we’d ever need.
    Things weren’t going nearly as well for Sammy, who had inevitably caught the eye of the predatory duo of Sean Tallon and Dave “Mouse” Muser. Sean, with his patrician jaw, platinum crew cut, and dark, narrow eyes that glinted with just the faintest hint of malice, was a notorious bully who remained largely undisciplined either because of his status as a starting forward for the Cougars or because his father was rumored to work in some capacity for Frankie the Shoe, a local gangster of some repute. With Mouse’s status as starting point guard and son of the town sheriff, the two were virtually untouchable, roaming the halls of Bush Falls High with a rowdy elitism, like young nobility granted diplomatic immunity from the rules of conduct that governed the rest of our plebeian asses. Sean was clearly the leader, while Mouse, a fireplug with the face of Australopithecus and a wit that relied heavily on bodily fluids, hovered manically in the background, the remora swimming behind the shark, snacking on the floating debris from its carnage. Sammy, with his colorful wardrobe and penchant for singing aloud as he walked the halls, might as well have had a bull’s-eye tattooed to his forehead.
    Sean in particular had a finely honed sadistic streak when it came to his weaker peers, and he zeroed in on Sammy almost immediately. Less than a week after school had started, Sean and Mouse found Sammy in the boys’ room, fine-tuning his pompadour. “Look how pretty,” Mouse said. “Pretty as a picture,” Sean agreed. “Let’s hang him up.” They pulled on the rear waistband of Sammy’s underwear, tearing the elastic from the cotton and yanking it up over his head as he struggled in vain. Wedgies were a routine rite of initiation for entering freshmen, and one in which Sean conscientiously partook almost daily in the first month of a