Queen

That job raking leaves has taken on an exaggerated significance over the years. Not only did it mark my plunge into puberty, but it signaled a number of other portentous developments. I was poised on the brink between boy and man not only sexually, but socially as well. I was also about to be thrown to the junior high wolves and exchange my youthful confidence for a nervous, wary modesty and uncertainly that has largely dogged me to this day. While raking with Mel, I suddenly became aware of our differences. Not gender differences, which I had (obviously) known about for years, but class differences. Being spring in Michigan, there were lots of bugs around, and I asked her to pass me the insect repellant.

“Insect repellant?” she shrieked. “Insect repellant?”

“Yes,” I replied warily.

“Only you would call it ‘insect repellant’.”

“What am I supposed to call it?” I wondered.

“Bug spray!” she yelled at my stupidity.

“But,” I gestured to her, holding the can, “what does it say here?” I pointed to the label, where it clearly did not say bug spray.

“Yeah, I know what it says, “ she remarked, “but nobody actually calls it that. It’s bug spray, not insect repellant. What a dork.”

I pondered this. It was an insult that didn’t particularly sting. I had figured out long ago that being smart was not universally applauded, but I never cared about that. I was athletic enough to be accepted by the jocks for what I could do on the playground, and I was proud of being smart and didn’t try to hide it. My friends were all smart, so it wasn’t an issue between us. She wasn’t deriding me because I was smart, but because I didn’t mind showing it. Using the proper term when everyone else spoke colloquially was viewed with skepticism, evidence of the kind of “book-learning” that the mostly simple (that is to say, stupid) people around where I grew up reviled. Although I lived in rural Michigan, I inhabited the bubble world of the Interlochen Arts Academy. Mel, though living less than a mile away from me, inhabited an entirely different world. She had long ago learned to camouflage her intelligence and didn’t have the protection of a bunch of smart, creative people around her to cushion her from the local culture. She had once said that my house “reeked of culture”, and she spit out “culture” like it was a bug in her mouth (or, rather, like it was an insect in her oral cavity) – like Hans Johst’s chilling 1939 sentiment, “when I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun” – and we all know what was going on in Germany in 1939. Mel couldn’t afford to be cultured and smart, certainly couldn’t flaunt it, so she laughed at my insect repellant behind her wall of bug spray. At that point, our differences didn’t matter, but as soon as our paths separated and I went to the academy and she went to the local high school, our friendship quietly sputtered and died.

But the most significant aspect of raking that lawn occurred when we finally finished it. Mr. B begrudgingly gave us two $10 bills (we hadn’t done as pristine a job as he would’ve liked, but he was tired of us coming over), we thanked him profusely and jumped on our bikes and headed gleefully home. I had $10 in my pocket and felt like the richest man in the world. As to what I was going to do with my share, I already had it planned out, and on the way home, we stopped at the drug store and I bought my first 45 for a buck, leaving nine to put towards my college education. That 45 was the first record I ever bought, and it was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.