I built a street scooter from discarded orange crates and my worn metal skate wheels that I removed from my skates if my parents could afford to give me new wheels, which was not always the case. I painted the scoote and drew an insignia on it to set it apart from the others in my neighborhood. Building these took work. First, I had to find the crate, then a two-by-four, and the hammer and nails to put the contraption together so that it might last more than a few days. There were kids in my neighborhoodwho had battles with their scooters in which they ran into each other hoping to spill the other person to the ground or at least destroy his vehicle. I did that a few times, lost the battles and decided that building a scooter for war was not worth the trouble, so I used mine for fun until boredom set in.

I owned a Schwinn bike, a gift from my parents when I turned thirteen. It had big balloon tires and a heavy frame. I rode it with great difficulty but with joy around the streets where I lived. Painted black, my fat bike as I called it, made me tired thinking of riding it, but ride it I did everywhere in the neighborhood.

I smoked cigarettes from the time I was eleven. I lifted them from the open pack of Philip Morris my father left on his bureau. Cigarettes also came from my friend’s father’s candy store where he sold what we called “loosies.” These were individual cigarettes from an open package for those in the neighborhood who could not afford to buy a whole pack even though they cost only a few pennies. When my friend’s father was not looking, we took cigarettes from those open packs to smoke them as the adults did. There was no talk of cancer then. Parents and teachers told us cigarettes would stunt our growth. Some people said that cigarettes would destroy our lungs. We ignored what they said. Actors smoked in the movies. Athletes smoked in magazine ads. They were our role models. Cigarette ads extolled the virtues of smoking. Advertising about the virtues of smoking did not lie, so we thought. We were young. We knew everything. We smoked.

Girls were on my mind and not on my mind. Mainly girls confused me. I chased after girls because that is what my friends and I did. They were more of a curiosity than an object or an obsession. Girls were a mystery and we lusted after them without knowing why. Who were they? Why were they different? Why, even when we were young, did they seem different? My father told me before I reached puberty to “never force your intentions on a girl.” I understood him to mean that I must always be polite, but it took me many years to realize he really meant I should keep my hands to myself and not make sexual advances.

In grade school, we had inkwells on our desks, small jars filled with ink. We dipped our nib pens into these and then wrote our tests and practiced our penmanship on paper. The pen tore and ripped the page. Small dots of ink covered everything. We used green blotting paper to dry the ink on the page. I also used the inkwells for something else. I dipped the pigtails of the girl sitting in front of me into the inkwell so her hair and the ribbons she wore became wet with ink. The girl would scream. The teacher would then punish me by making me stand in the back of the room or in a far corner for the rest of the period. At the end of the session, the teacher gave me a note to take home for my parent’s signature. My parents rarely saw such a note because I learned to forge my father’s and my mother’s signature. I thought it a small transgression to save my backside from a spanking.

Girls were different in every way. They ran in their own manner, funny, not like a boy could run. They could not throw a baseball. They looked awkward on a playing field. They dressed differently. They wore their hair long in an era when no boy wore his hair beyond a crew cut or, at least, cut very close to his head. Boys were almost bald before bald became fashionable. Though we were children even when we reached our teen years, until girls started to change physically, we looked almost the same. Then girls foxed us and changed slyly before we knew what was happening. They grew breasts. Their bodies took on curves that boys did not have. They blushed. They became shy and secretive. When I could get close to them, I noticed they smelled differently than me. I could see and sense the changes, but I had no idea what they really were, what caused them, and what would be the result. Sex education hardly existed in grade or high school. I did not have the courage to get answers from my parents, possibly because I knew my parents would never give me the answers I wanted.

In my teen years, I started to understand that girls would be an essential part of my life. Street talk taught me what I did not learn in school. I did not trust what I learned on dark corners, but I had no choice. Most of it was erroneous. What I learned on the street made me hope that sex might come my way. It was not to be. In high school, my hormones virtually exploding, I went on occasional dates, and in that simpler time, usually a movie, perhaps a pizza, an ice cream soda, then the trip home by subway, trolley or bus. I went to parties. I held hands. I kissed flat on the lips and learned to soul kiss but with very few girls who were courageous enough to try something different. I even petted, but to no conclusion, which drove me crazy and caused me pain I did not want. I wanted sex, but it was not possible, at least in my neighborhood. I had no idea where to start, and if what I tried seemed to work, I did not know where to go next. That would come later in college and then after college. Burlesque and strip shows reigned, if we could get in to see them. Watching a stripper work, gave me a sense of what a woman’s body looked like. Pornography was underground and not readily available. TV in its infancy was simplistic about sex and its place in society. Movies were suggestive, but not instructive. Simply put, I was more chaste than carnal, but not for want of trying. Compared to what kids know today, what I knew could easily fit into a thimble.